4,808 research outputs found
Separation of Circulating Tokens
Self-stabilizing distributed control is often modeled by token abstractions.
A system with a single token may implement mutual exclusion; a system with
multiple tokens may ensure that immediate neighbors do not simultaneously enjoy
a privilege. For a cyber-physical system, tokens may represent physical objects
whose movement is controlled. The problem studied in this paper is to ensure
that a synchronous system with m circulating tokens has at least d distance
between tokens. This problem is first considered in a ring where d is given
whilst m and the ring size n are unknown. The protocol solving this problem can
be uniform, with all processes running the same program, or it can be
non-uniform, with some processes acting only as token relays. The protocol for
this first problem is simple, and can be expressed with Petri net formalism. A
second problem is to maximize d when m is given, and n is unknown. For the
second problem, the paper presents a non-uniform protocol with a single
corrective process.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, epsf and pstricks in LaTe
Monetary theory and electronic money : reflections on the Kenyan experience
This article uses a class of models of money and the payments system to inform an analysis of "mobile banking" in the context of the rapid expansion of M-PESA, a new technology in Kenya that allows payments via mobile phones (even without any access to a bank account), and currently reaches close to 38 percent of Kenyan adults. The separation of households and firms in space and time suggests, in theory, from various separate models, a number of implications. These include (i) the potential gain, under some circumstances, from allowing net e-money credit creation, (ii) the impact that the associated enhancement of credit markets can have on monetary policy and on the real economy, (iii) the roles that e-money could play not only in credit but also in insurance, unrelated to its payment function, (iv) the potential role for an activist monetary policy and e-money management, (v) the role of e-money as a circulating private debt and as a store of value though with potential coordination problems associated with achieving balanced security transformation, (vi) the potential welfare losses from insisting on continuous net clearing of cash and e-money and the difficulty, in any event, of achieving this in practice, and (vii) the management of shortages in the context of fixed rates of exchange of e-money for cash. We provide some summary statistics from data collected on M-PESA agents and users that are reminiscent of the environments of the models and that support some of these implications. Other implications of the models suggest reforms to enhance the system's efficiency.Monetary policy ; Inflation (Finance) ; Financial institutions ; Payment systems
Lock-in Problem for Parallel Rotor-router Walks
The rotor-router model, also called the Propp machine, was introduced as a
deterministic alternative to the random walk. In this model, a group of
identical tokens are initially placed at nodes of the graph. Each node
maintains a cyclic ordering of the outgoing arcs, and during consecutive turns
the tokens are propagated along arcs chosen according to this ordering in
round-robin fashion. The behavior of the model is fully deterministic. Yanovski
et al.(2003) proved that a single rotor-router walk on any graph with m edges
and diameter stabilizes to a traversal of an Eulerian circuit on the set of
all 2m directed arcs on the edge set of the graph, and that such periodic
behaviour of the system is achieved after an initial transient phase of at most
2mD steps. The case of multiple parallel rotor-routers was studied
experimentally, leading Yanovski et al. to the conjecture that a system of k
\textgreater{} 1 parallel walks also stabilizes with a period of length at
most steps. In this work we disprove this conjecture, showing that the
period of parallel rotor-router walks can in fact, be superpolynomial in the
size of graph. On the positive side, we provide a characterization of the
periodic behavior of parallel router walks, in terms of a structural property
of stable states called a subcycle decomposition. This property provides us the
tools to efficiently detect whether a given system configuration corresponds to
the transient or to the limit behavior of the system. Moreover, we provide
polynomial upper bounds of and on the
number of steps it takes for the system to stabilize. Thus, we are able to
predict any future behavior of the system using an algorithm that takes
polynomial time and space. In addition, we show that there exists a separation
between the stabilization time of the single-walk and multiple-walk
rotor-router systems, and that for some graphs the latter can be asymptotically
larger even for the case of walks
Interpreting infrastructure: Defining user value for digital financial intermediaries.
The 3DaRoC project is exploring digital connectivity and peer-to-peer relationships in financial
services. In the light of the near collapse of the UK and world financial sector, understanding and
innovating new and more sustainable approaches to financial services is now a critical topic. At the
same time, the increasing penetration and take-up of robust high-speed networks, dependable peerto-
peer architectures and mobile multimedia technologies offer novel platforms for offering financial
services over the Internet. These new forms of digital connectivity give rise to opportunities in doing
financial transactions in different ways and with radically different business models that offer the
possibility of transforming the marketplace. One area in the digital economy that has had such an
effect is in the ways that users access and use digital banking and payment services.
The impact of the new economic models presented by these digital financial services is yet to be fully
determined, but they have huge potential as disruptive innovations, with a potentially transformative
effect on the way that services are offered to users. Little is understood about how technical
infrastructures impact on the ways that people make sense of the financial services that they use, or
on how these might be designed more effectively. 3DaRoC is exploring this space working with our
partners and end users to prototype and evaluate new online, mobile, ubiquitous and tangible
technologies, exploring how these services might be extended.Executive Summary: Drawing from Studies of Use - the value, use and interpretation of infrastructure in digital intermediaries to their users. The UK economy has a huge dependence on financial services, and this is increasingly based on digital platforms. Innovating new economic models around consumer financial services through the use of digital technologies is seen as increasingly important in developed economies. There are a number of drivers for this, ranging from national economic factors to the prosaic nature of enabling cheap, speedy and timely interactions for users. The potential for these new digital solutions is that they will allay an over-reliance on the traditional banking sector, which has proved itself to be unstable and risky, and we have seen a number of national policy moves to encourage growth in this sector. Partly as a result of the 2008 banking crisis, there has been an explosion in peer-to-peer financial services for non-professional consumers. These organisations act as intermediaries between users looking to trade goods or credit. However, building self-sustaining or profitable financial services within this novel space is itself fraught with commercial, regulatory, technical and social problems. This document reports on the value, use and interpretation of infrastructure in digital intermediaries to their users, describing analysis of contextual field studies carried out in two retail digital financial intermediary organisations: Zopa Limited and the Bristol Pound. It forms the second milestone document in the 3DaRoC project, developing patterns of use that have arisen on the back of the technical infrastructures in the two organisations that form cases for examination. Its purpose is to examine how the two different technical infrastructures that underpin the transactions that they supportâcomposed of the back-office hardware and software, data structures, the networking and communications technologies used, supported consumer devices, and the user interfaces and interaction designâhave provided opportunities for users to realise their financial and other needs. While we orient towards the issues of service use (and its problems), we also examine the activities and expectations of their various users. Our research has involved teams from Lancaster University examining Zopa and Brunel University focusing on the Bristol Pound over approximately a one-year period from October 2013 to October 2014. Extensive interviews, document analysis, observation of user interactions, and other methods have been employed to develop the process analyses of the firms presented here. This report comprises of three key sections: descriptions of the user demographics for Zopa and the Bristol Pound, a discussion about the user experience and its role in community, and an examination of the role of usage data in the development of these a products. We conclude with final analytical section drawing preliminary conclusions from the research presented.The 3DaRoC project is funded by the RCUK Digital Economy âResearch in the Wildâ theme (grant no.
EP/K012304/1)
Beyond the Competition Approach to Money: a Conceptual Framework applied to the Early Modern France
As other European countries of that time, Early modern France was characterized by its monetary plurality. The purpose of the text is to present this plurality and analyse the ways it was articulated. After a presentation of the intention of the paper, Section 2 presents the problem of monetary articulations, referring to existing literature: competition is too often the only articulation mode referred to by economists; however, an other one is increasingly analyzed, complementarity. We state that complementarity is too vague to be relevant enough and build a conceptual framework identifying four distinct articulation modes : competition, simultaneousness, supplementarity and autonomy. Section 3 presents a short overview of monetary plurality in the French early modern period and it applies the theoretical framework to it in order to stress the various possible combinations of articulation modes of money. It emphasizes the case of royal coins as being close to supplementarity, the case of gold coins as being close to competition, and the case of méreaux as being between supplementarity and autonomy. Section 4 addresses briefly the question as to whether the monetary complexity of that period means chaos. The role of social stratification and intermediates in reducing the complexity of monetary plurality is emphasized. Section 5 concludes.Monetary history;monetary plurality;competition;complementarity;Early modern France
British Imperialism and the Making of Colonial Currency Systems
Covering the colonial Empire (including The West Indies, India, Singapore, West Africa and East Africa), this book is a detailed revisionist history of the British imperial manipulations of colonial currency systems to facilitate the rise of sterling to world supremacy via the gold standard, and to slow its eventual decline after World War I. Official internal correspondence is used to show that Britain typically acted against the advice of colonial commmercial interests, colonial governments, and even officials in the Colonial Office, in order to replace international currencies (including gold and sterling itself), with localised silver currencies. The local currencies were backed by gold and sterling reserves in London, under the total control of the British Treasury and the Bank of England. In the process liquidity was provided to the London money market, and cheap finance to the British Government.
This book provides a new perspective on theories of imperialism, colonial money and colonial underdevelopment, with possible geostrategic historical lessons for the US dollar and emerging global currencies such as the Chinese renminbi and the euro
Accounting And Forms Of Accountability In Ancient Civilizations: Mesopotamia And Ancient Egypt
The aim of this paper is to identify the relevance and implications of ancient accounting practices to the contemporary theorizing of accounting. The paper provides a synthesis of the literature on ancient accounting particularly in relation to issues of human accountability, identifies its major achievements and outlines some of the key challenges facing researchers. We argue that far from being an idiosyncratic research field of marginal interest, research in ancient accounting is a rich and promising undertaking. The paper concludes by considering a number of implications of ancient accounting practices for the theorizing of accounting and identifies news avenues for future research.
Bless Your Heart: Constructing the âSouthern Belleâ in the Modern Southâ
Language and identity are intricately woven into the personal and public lives of social groups. Words and phrases may originate in a subculture morphing into mainstream culture on the comingled streams of interactions among the masses. These words and phrases have specific meanings within their original contexts in their home cultures, yet they vary and evolve as they travel on the above-mentioned comingled streams of interactions and conversations. In this paper, we explore the typified Southern expression, âbless your heart,â examining the ways in which this phrase is used, understood and reinterpreted as it circulates within the South and outside of it. We examine data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and substantiate those findings through sociolinguistic interviews focusing on individualsâ experiences with this phrase. We first note that when this phrase is used, it is capable of accomplishing a range of meanings, but positive and negative; however, when it gets spoken about, a singular, negative connotation of the phrase and those who use it emerges, conjuring images of the âsassy Southern belle.â Despite this dichotomy of how the phrase is used and spoken about, a third, and more nuanced, understanding of the phrase was often evoked by the interview participants. Our research highlights the complexity of this phrase for both cultural insiders (i.e. Southerners) and outsiders (i.e. non-Southerners) and the potential negative repercussions of the monolithic representation of white Southern women and the iconic link between this figure of personhood and the seemingly innocuous phrase, âbless your heart.
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