Questions related to Bitcoin and other Informational Money

A collection of questions about Bitcoin and its hypothetical relatives Bitguilder and Bitpenny is formulated. These questions concern technical issues about protocols, security issues, issues about the formalizations of informational monies in various contexts, and issues about forms of use and misuse. Some questions are formulated in the more general setting of informational monies and near-monies. We also formulate questions about legal, psychological, and ethical aspects of informational money. Finally we formulate a number of questions concerning the economical merits of and outlooks for Bitcoin.Comment: 31 pages. In v2 the section on patterns for use and misuse has been improved and expanded with so-called contaminations. Other small improvements were made and 13 additional references have been include

The relevance of size, gender and ownership for performance-related pay schemes

With performance-related pay, the reward for an employee is partly dependent upon its own performance and/or on the performance of the organisation. In the Netherlands, performance-related pay is being implemented in SMEs an increasing scale. Currently, about 25% of Dutch SMEs make use of some kind of performance-related pay scheme, which may include profit sharing, bonuses, gratuities and stock options.� The aim of this study is to increase our understanding of the usage of performance-related pay schemes in Dutch small and medium-sized enterprises. In particular, we examine whether firm size, ownership structure, and gender of the entrepreneur and employees predict the presence of performance-related pay schemes. The results show that larger SMEs are more likely to use performance-related pay than smaller SMEs (as can be expected). We also find strong support for the presence of a gender effect. The results indicate that for male entrepreneurs, the use of performance-related pay is independent of the gender composition of the work force. For female entrepreneurs, we find that the usage of performance-related pay increases with the share of male employees. This relationship is such, that for firms where more than 70% of the workforce is male, female entrepreneurs are more likely to apply performance-related pay then male entrepreneurs. A possible explanation is that female entrepreneurs are more inclined to take the preferences of their employees into account when they determine the compensation scheme of their enterprise. Finally, the ownership structure also seems to matter. The results suggest that we should differentiate between (at least) three different ownership structures: single-owned and managed firms, family firms (firms with multiple owners that have family ties between them), and multiple-owned non-family firms. Once we do so, we find that single-owned and managed firms are just as likely to use performance-related pay schemes as family firms. Both types of firms use performance-related pay significantly less often than multiple-owned non-family firms. �

Pension fund sophistication and investment policy

This paper assesses the sophistication of pension funds' investment policies using data on 748 Dutch pension funds during the 1999.2006 period. We develop three indicators of sophistication: gross rounding of investment choices, investments in alternative sophisticated asset classes and 'home bias'. We find that pension funds' strategic portfolio choices are often based on coarse and possibly less sophisticated approaches. Most pension funds, particularly the medium-sized and smaller ones, round strategic asset allocations to the nearest multiple of 5%, similar to age heaping in demographic and historical studies. Second, many pension funds invest little or nothing in alternative asset classes besides equities and bonds, resulting in limited asset diversification. Third, medium-sized and smaller pension funds favor regional investments and as such not fully employ the opportunities of international diversification. Finally, we show that pension funds using less sophisticated asset allocation rules tend to opt for investment strategies with a lower risk-return profile.Pension funds, investment policy, portfolio choice, gross rounding, heaping, diversification, home bias, alternative investments, behavioral finance.

Tax Policy in a Model of Search with Training

This paper develops a model of search on the labour market with training. The model reveals how the tax system can restore the social optimum if the Hosio s condition is not satisfied in the private equilibrium. Furthermore, the effects are explored of a second-best reform from average to marginal taxes when a given amount of public revenue has to be raised. We find that (i) a marginal wage tax is less distortionary to raise revenue than is an average tax per job, provided that training is not distorted initially; (ii) this conclusion may reverse in the presence of training distortions; (iii) marginal wage taxes are less distortionary in economies characterized by commitment in wage bargaining, such as the European labour market. Hence, tax reforms that reduce the average tax per job and raise the marginal wage tax, such as an EITC or a negative income tax, are more attractive in Europe than in the US.

A Tutorial Introduction to Mosaic Pascal

In this report we describe a Pascal system that has been developed for programming Mosaic multi- computers. The system that we discuss runs on our Sun workstations, and we assume some familiarity with the use thereof. We assume the reader to be also familiar with programming in Pascal, and with message-passing programs. We describe how the Pascal language has been extended to perform message passing. We discuss a few implementation aspects that are relevant only to those users who have a need (or desire) to control some machine-specific aspects. The latter requires some detailed knowledge of the Mosaic system

Geometric Aspects of Holographic Bit Threads

We revisit the recent reformulation of the holographic prescription to compute entanglement entropy in terms of a convex optimization problem, introduced by Freedman and Headrick. According to it, the holographic entanglement entropy associated to a boundary region is given by the maximum flux of a bounded, divergenceless vector field, through the corresponding region. Our work leads to two main results: (i) We present a general algorithm that allows the construction of explicit thread configurations in cases where the minimal surface is known. We illustrate the method with simple examples: spheres and strips in vacuum AdS, and strips in a black brane geometry. Studying more generic bulk metrics, we uncover a sufficient set of conditions on the geometry and matter fields that must hold to be able to use our prescription. (ii) Based on the nesting property of holographic entanglement entropy, we develop a method to construct bit threads that maximize the flux through a given bulk region. As a byproduct, we are able to construct more general thread configurations by combining (i) and (ii) in multiple patches. We apply our methods to study bit threads which simultaneously compute the entanglement entropy and the entanglement of purification of mixed states and comment on their interpretation in terms of entanglement distillation. We also consider the case of disjoint regions for which we can explicitly construct the so-called multi-commodity flows and show that the monogamy property of mutual information can be easily illustrated from our constructions.Comment: 48 pages, multiple figures. v3: matches published versio

Weakest Preconditions for Progress

Predicate transformers that map the postcondition and all intermediate conditions of a command to a precondition are introduced. They can be used to specify certain progress properties of sequential programs

Influence of the bulk and surface morphology on adhesion of polystyrene-inter-poly-cross-2-ethylhexyl-methacrylate films and particles

The adhesion behavior of semi-interpenetrating polymer networks (semi-IPNs) of linear polystyrene (PS) in crosslinked poly-2-ethylhexylmethacrylate (EHMA) was studied by variation of the bulk and surface morphology, i.e., domain size, continuity, and concentration in the domains. Semi-IPNs were prepared by liquid-liquid demixing upon cooling of a homogeneous solution of PS in methacrylate monomer, followed by gelation of the PS-rich phase and UV polymerization of the methacrylate resin. Welding of films allowed the preparation of larger objects provided that (1) the samples were phase separated to a high degree and contained domains with a high PS concentration (>90%) and (2) polystyrene was present at the interface. For semi-IPN films, a linear dependence of the adhesion strength on the (crack healing time)1/4 was obtained. Based on these considerations, a process was developed to obtain melt-processable semi-IPN particles, by quenching droplets of the polymer solution into a cold liquid. These particles obtained a PS-rich skin layer and showed good adhesion after blending with a thermoplast