Traditional Accounting with Decentralised Ledger Technology

Distributed ledger technology is by some believe to be the accounting system of the future, replacing the centuries-old double-entry accounting paradigm, as it has desirable characteristics such as tamper-resistance. However, it might suffer from technology lock-in as double-entry bookkeeping, due to its long-standing history, has offered the conceptual foundations for many laws, regulations and business practices. While some of these laws, regulations and practices might become obsolete as a result of distributed ledger technology, some might still prove to be valuable in a new technological context. While aiming at unlocking the potential of distributed ledger technology in an accounting context, we also want to preserve the wisdom of accounting craftsman. For this reason, it is the aim of this paper to offer a bi-directional mapping between traditional double-entry bookkeeping and innovative paradigms that have proven their value in decentralised systems, of which distributed ledger technology is an exponent. This paper offers such a mapping for the Resource-Event-Agent paradigm

The Impact of Tax Policy on Economic Growth in Nigeria

In contemporary economic literatures, there exist, considerable disagreement about how tax policies influence economic growth and development. While the traditional schools of thought advocated the theory of low income tax rates as major factor influencing economic development, the modern schools propagated the theory of higher income tax rates that is capable of developing nations. Using time series data between 1990 and 2011, this study attempts to justify these lines of thinking by making Nigeria as a case study with the main objective of identifying the impact of tax policy on economic growth in the country. Applying the Granger – causality co integrations framework, this study finds statistical evidence that efficient tax reforms are necessary conditions for enhanced sustainable economic growth. On the basis of the findings, the study recommends among other issues that improvement in tax regimes, removal of distortions in taxation, discouragement of tax holidays to MNCs and diversification of revenue base as necessary catalysts for sustained economic growth and development

Employment – Real Wage Relationship and Economic Growth In Nigeria

One of the major socio-political and economic issues in a contemporary Nigeria is the creation of adequate employment opportunities for the growing numbers of unemployed people. While several factors including the demand – supply anomalies have been a major contributor to the phenomenon of rising unemployment, efforts by the government to tackle the problem have remained a mirage. This paper attempts an investigation of the relationship between real wage and employment and their effect on economic growth. The critical question being addressed in this study is whether Keynes was right in his proposition that wage reductions are necessary to induce employment in the short run. Using a Granger – causality cointegration framework, this study finds a statistical evidence for a long-run relationship between real wage and employment for the period 1990 – 2009 and firmly rejects the hypothesis that wages cause employment in the short-run. It supports the Keynesian view that real wage fall because employment increases probably due to an increase in demand. The result further reveals that real wage reduction is not sufficient to induce an expansion of output and employment and that unemployment can be fought through the demand – side intervention. It concludes that Keynes was right after all. KEY WORDS: Real Wage, Employment, Granger – causality

Generalized inverse mean curvature flows in spacetime

Motivated by the conjectured Penrose inequality and by the work of Hawking, Geroch, Huisken and Ilmanen in the null and the Riemannian case, we examine necessary conditions on flows of two-surfaces in spacetime under which the Hawking quasilocal mass is monotone. We focus on a subclass of such flows which we call uniformly expanding, which can be considered for null as well as for spacelike directions. In the null case, local existence of the flow is guaranteed. In the spacelike case, the uniformly expanding condition leaves a 1-parameter freedom, but for the whole family, the embedding functions satisfy a forward-backward parabolic system for which local existence does not hold in general. Nevertheless, we have obtained a generalization of the weak (distributional) formulation of this class of flows, generalizing the corresponding step of Huisken and Ilmanen's proof of the Riemannian Penrose inequality.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figur

Floc formation reduces the pH stress experienced by microorganisms living in alkaline environments

The survival of microorganisms within a cementitious geological disposal facility for radioactive wastes is heavily dependent on their ability to survive the calcium dominated, hyper-alkaline conditions resulting from the dissolution of the cementitious materials. The present study shows that the formation of flocs, composed of a complex mixture of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), provides protection against alkaline pH values up to pH 13.0. The flocs were dominated by Alishewanella and Dietzia sp, producing a mannose rich carbohydrate fraction incorporating extracellular DNA, resulting in Ca2+ sequestration. EPS provided a ~10 µm thick layer around the cells within the centre of the flocs, which were capable of growth at pH 11.0 and 11.5, maintaining internal pH values of pH 10.4 and 10.7 respectively. Survival was observed at pH 12.0, where an internal floc pH of 11.6 was observed alongside a reduced associated biomass. Limited floc survival (<2 weeks) was observed at pH 13.0.This study demonstrates that flocs are able to maintain a lower internal pH in response to the hyperalkaline conditions expected to occur within a cementitious, geological disposal facility for radioactive wastes and indicates that floc communities within such a facility would be capable of survival up to a pH of 12.0

Lattice Sigma Models with Exact Supersymmetry

We show how to construct lattice sigma models in one, two and four dimensions which exhibit an exact fermionic symmetry. These models are discretized and {\it twisted} versions of conventional supersymmetric sigma models with N=2 supersymmetry. The fermionic symmetry corresponds to a scalar BRST charge built from the original supercharges. The lattice theories possess local actions and in many cases admit a Wilson term to suppress doubles. In the two and four dimensional theorie s we show that these lattice theories are invariant under additional discrete symmetries. We argue that the presence of these exact symmetries ensures that no fine tuning is required to achieve N=2 supersymmetry in the continuum limit. As a concrete example we show preliminary numerical results from a simulation of the O(3) supersymmetric sigma model in two dimensions.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, formalism generalized to allow for explicit Wilson mass terms. New numerical results added. Version to be published in JHE

A Modular Toolkit for Distributed Interactions

We discuss the design, architecture, and implementation of a toolkit which supports some theories for distributed interactions. The main design principles of our architecture are flexibility and modularity. Our main goal is to provide an easily extensible workbench to encompass current algorithms and incorporate future developments of the theories. With the help of some examples, we illustrate the main features of our toolkit.Comment: In Proceedings PLACES 2010, arXiv:1110.385

Quantum Liouville theory in the background field formalism I. Compact Riemann surfaces

Using Polyakov's functional integral approach with the Liouville action functional defined in \cite{ZT2} and \cite{LTT}, we formulate quantum Liouville theory on a compact Riemann surface X of genus g > 1. For the partition function and for the correlation functions with the stress-energy tensor components $$, we describe Feynman rules in the background field formalism by expanding corresponding functional integrals around a classical solution - the hyperbolic metric on X. Extending analysis in \cite{LT1,LT2,LT-Varenna,LT3}, we define the regularization scheme for any choice of global coordinate on X, and for Schottky and quasi-Fuchsian global coordinates we rigorously prove that one- and two-point correlation functions satisfy conformal Ward identities in all orders of the perturbation theory. Obtained results are interpreted in terms of complex geometry of the projective line bundle \cE_{c}=\lambda_{H}^{c/2} over the moduli space $\mathfrak{M}_{g}$, where c is the central charge and $\lambda_{H}$ is the Hodge line bundle, and provide Friedan-Shenker \cite{FS} complex geometry approach to CFT with the first non-trivial example besides rational models.Comment: 67 pages, 4 figures (Typos corrected as in the published version