by Wong Ha Yin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-74). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Traditional Payment Systems --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Electronic Payment System --- p.2 / Chapter 1.3 --- Thesis Organization --- p.4 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Cryptographic Techniques --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Encryption and Decryption --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Symmetric Encryption --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Asymmetric or Public-Key Encryption --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- RSA --- p.7 / Chapter 2.3 --- Blind Signatures --- p.8 / Chapter 2.4 --- General Computation Protocols --- p.8 / Chapter 2.5 --- Cut-and-Choose Method --- p.9 / Chapter 2.6 --- Hash Functions --- p.9 / Chapter 2.7 --- Secret Sharing --- p.10 / Chapter 2.8 --- Zero-Knowledge Proofs --- p.11 / Chapter 2.9 --- Timestamps --- p.12 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Overview of Electronic Payment Systems --- p.13 / Chapter 3.1 --- Life Cycle --- p.13 / Chapter 3.2 --- Six Basic Requirements --- p.15 / Chapter 3.3 --- Efficiency --- p.16 / Chapter 3.4 --- History --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Ferguson's Single-term Off-Line Coins --- p.19 / Chapter 4.1 --- Basic Assumption and Tools --- p.19 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- Secure Hash Function --- p.19 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- Polynomial Secret Sharing Scheme --- p.20 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- Randomized Blind Signature --- p.21 / Chapter 4.2 --- The Basic Signal-term Cash System --- p.23 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- The Withdrawal Protocol --- p.24 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- The Payment Protocol --- p.26 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- The Deposit Protocol --- p.27 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Cash with Different Denominations --- p.28 / Chapter 5.1 --- Denomination Bundling --- p.28 / Chapter 5.2 --- Coin Storage --- p.29 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- An Off-Line Transferable E-coin System --- p.32 / Chapter 6.1 --- Introduction --- p.32 / Chapter 6.2 --- The Withdrawal Protocol --- p.34 / Chapter 6.3 --- The Transfer / Payment Protocol --- p.36 / Chapter 6.4 --- The Deposit Protocol --- p.40 / Chapter 6.5 --- Expansion of Coins --- p.42 / Chapter 6.6 --- Security and privacy Analysis --- p.43 / Chapter 6.7 --- Complexity Analysis --- p.47 / Chapter 6.8 --- Conclusion --- p.49 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- A New Off-line E-check System --- p.50 / Chapter 7.1 --- Introduction --- p.50 / Chapter 7.2 --- E-checks Models --- p.51 / Chapter 7.3 --- E-Check System with Partial Privacy --- p.52 / Chapter 7.3.1 --- The Withdrawal Protocol --- p.52 / Chapter 7.3.2 --- The Payment Protocol --- p.55 / Chapter 7.3.3 --- The Deposit Protocol --- p.56 / Chapter 7.3.4 --- The Refund Protocol --- p.57 / Chapter 7.3.5 --- Protocol Discussion --- p.58 / Chapter 7.4 --- E-Check System with Unconditional Privacy --- p.59 / Chapter 7.4.1 --- The Withdrawal Protocol --- p.59 / Chapter 7.4.2 --- The Payment Protocol --- p.63 / Chapter 7.4.3 --- The Deposit Protocol --- p.64 / Chapter 7.4.4 --- The Refund Protocol --- p.65 / Chapter 7.4.5 --- Protocol Discussion --- p.67 / Chapter 7.5 --- Conclusion --- p.68 / Chapter Chapter 8 --- Conclusion --- p.69 / Reference --- p.71

Thesis. 1977. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. / Bibliography : leaves 170-174. / by Dale Craig Edmunds and Barbara Dalton Fishman and Mitchell Warren Hedstrom. / M.S.

Thesis. 1977. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alfred P. Sloan School of Management. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. / Bibliography : leaves 63-67. / by Richard Louis Carrioń and Robert Alan Smith. / M.S.

In the arid western United States (U.S.), population expansion is dependent on water supply. With the majority of the water being consumed in agriculture, municipalities often obtain water supply needed for growth from agriculture. Water supply reallocation generally occurs through agricultural-to-urban water right transfers. This trend in agricultural-to-urban water transfers drives the question of how to strike a balance between agricultural and urban water needs in rapidly growing arid regions. In the Intermountain West region of the United States, Utah is a state with a rapidly growing population and limited water supply. This study occurred between 2015 and 2016, using a multi-method approach to understand agricultural-to-urban water transfers in Utah. Inperson interviews, participant observation, and secondary data collection methods focused on existing challenges and opportunities for striking a balance between these water interests. Data revealed that water transfers out of agriculture and into municipalities are more significant to areas of Utah experiencing rapid population growth. Policy challenges arise as water is seen as a monetary asset, incentivizing the reintroduction of old water rights into an established water priority system. Further challenges occur as municipal uses are given preference in state development strategies over agricultural uses. This preference can incentivize both the selling of water to municipalities and the gathering of large municipal water right portfolios. Balancing growth and water interests in transitioning landscapes is suggested through the use of agreements, as well as regional planning and collaboration. This transition, if not properly planned and accounted for in the water budget, can create dilemmas with water availability, delivery, and use as separate water providers prepare for growth within their own geographic boundaries. The Mt. Nebo Water Agency provides the opportunity for stakeholder involvement and boundary-spanning to occur between regional municipal and agricultural interests. Stakeholder involvement and boundary-spanning solutions are considered crucial factors for regional planning, particularly with resources like water that traverse political boundaries.

While the major goal of intergovernmental equalization transfers is the pursuit of equity, there are also a number of unintended consequences produced by equalization programs. In this dissertation we analyze the negative effect of equalization on the size of factors that are either used to measure the equalized jurisdictions' fiscal capacity in gap-filling equalization programs or are taxed with the purpose of further redistribution among jurisdictions in tax base sharing programs. We propose a theoretical framework in which the comparative statics analysis shows how equalization programs can induce substitution effect in the representative individual's consumption bundle via changes in the perceived price of the good that is associated with the size of the factor used to measure the equalized jurisdictions' fiscal capacity or taxed with the purpose of further redistribution among the jurisdictions. As the representative individual changes consumption of this good, the size of the factor also changes, resulting either in a reduction of the budget revenue collections or in the size of tax bases in the equalized jurisdictions. In the empirical part of this dissertation we examine the existence and economic significance of these effects using two cases of equalization programs. First, we examine the adverse effect of the equalization programs on revenue collections in Russia's regions where regional governments redistributed resources among their constituent municipalities based on the size of their actual revenue collections. Second, we examine the adverse effect of the tax base sharing program in the Twin Cities Metropolitan area of Minnesota on the size of commercial and industrial property where this property is taxed at a uniform rate and then reassigned to the municipalities in the inverse proportion to the size of their per capita real property. In both cases our empirical results support the hypothesis that the equalization programs adversely affect the size of the factors that are used to measure the equalized jurisdictions' fiscal capacity or that are taxed with the purpose of further redistribution among jurisdictions in tax base sharing programs.

The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area faces numerous transportation challenges now and in the future: congestion, population growth, and an inadequate public transit network. The metropolitan region has also changed in form in past decades, shifting from a monocentric to a polycentric region, further compounding the challenges. Currently, the public transit service is delivered by 9 different agencies comprised of 6 municipal providers, 2 sub-regional providers, and 1 regional provider. A region possessing a multiplicity of agencies suggests an overabundance of jurisdictional borders - borders that can potentially restrict travel across them. This thesis seeks to determine the impact of the presence or the omission of jurisdictional borders on transit patrons. A comparative approach is employed to investigate the benefits and costs to patrons and agencies through greater integration of specific origin-destination (OD) pairs. The chosen methods selects OD pairs that are known to be transit competitive, possess a high travel demand, and cross a transit-jurisdictional border. The relationship between transportation and land-use is relied upon to select clusters of dense employment or population, called activity centres, where public transit is known to compete well with the private auto. The travel demand between these centres is obtained using the 2006 Transportation Tomorrow Survey and the current optimal transit routing is determined using Google Trip Planner. Three OD pairs are selected that possess the most onerous transfers, a proxy for poor integration. Another three OD pairs are selected that possess seamless or no transfers using a variety of modes. In both cases, the existing transit routing is compared to an alternate routing to understand the benefits achieved through inter-jurisdictional integration; the first compares existing trips to improved inter-jurisdictional routes while the second compares existing trips to exclusively intra-jurisdictional routes. Through identification of 40 employment and 29 population activity centres in the region, and the acquiring of travel demand between them, the six case study OD pairs are selected. The three OD pairs investigated, with onerous transfers, are comprised of trips between Brampton-Mississauga, Hamilton-Burlington, and Brampton-Toronto. The remaining inter-jurisdictional case study OD pairs are made up of three different modes: conventional bus, express bus, and regional rail. They comprise trips between Toronto-York Region, Brampton-Mississauga, and Mississauga-Toronto respectively. This study finds that in all cases, the routes with greater integration reduce total travel time and the generalized cost to patrons. Additionally, the penalty due to transferring is reduced through integration implying a current barrier existing at some jurisdictional borders. For the agencies, the cost of delivering the suggested inter-jurisdictional service varies dramatically. The costs are translated into a quantity of additional patrons necessary to justify the operation investment while maintaining the current revenue/cost ratio. These findings provide insight into the current transit network. Promoting integration throughout the network will help attract new riders as the generalized cost of travel is reduced. Also, when inter-jurisdictional connections are made, such as in the case of the Brampton-Mississauga Zum service, the beneficiaries of that service are widespread and not limited to the corridor in which the service operates.

Darbe pateiktas sluoksniuotų erdvių normalizacijos modelis, tiriama normalizuotų erdvių geometrija, randami gaunamos geometrijos vidinių siečių konstravimo metodai. Šiuo tikslu nagrinėjamos neholonominės sietys Lie sluoksniuotėse, išskiriamas vertikalų Lie sluoksniuočių ir vertikalių siečių atvejis. Nustatomi ryšiai tarp neholonominių siečių. Normalizuotų erdvių vidinių neholonominių siečių teorija yra pradedama struktūrinių modulių ir konstravimu, leidžiančiu vidines , ir - sietis apibrėžti reikalavimais , ir . Sietys, gaunamos normalizuojančioje Lie sluoksniuotoje vadinamos normalinėmis sietimis. Normalinės sietys, suderintos su vidinėmis sietimis, yra vidinėmis normalinėmis sietimis. / This paper deals with the normalization model of the fiber spaces . The geometry of normalized space is researched. The methods of derivable geometric intrinsic transfer construction are discovered. For this purpose non-holonomy transfers in Lie fibers are analyzed, the case of vertical Lie fibres and vertical transfer is distinguished. The links among non-holonomy transfers are established. The proposed model of the fiber space is distinguished for the rich geometry of normal spaces, allowing to anticipate its further developmental possibilities.

The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area faces numerous transportation challenges now and in the future: congestion, population growth, and an inadequate public transit network. The metropolitan region has also changed in form in past decades, shifting from a monocentric to a polycentric region, further compounding the challenges. Currently, the public transit service is delivered by 9 different agencies comprised of 6 municipal providers, 2 sub-regional providers, and 1 regional provider. A region possessing a multiplicity of agencies suggests an overabundance of jurisdictional borders - borders that can potentially restrict travel across them. This thesis seeks to determine the impact of the presence or the omission of jurisdictional borders on transit patrons. A comparative approach is employed to investigate the benefits and costs to patrons and agencies through greater integration of specific origin-destination (OD) pairs. The chosen methods selects OD pairs that are known to be transit competitive, possess a high travel demand, and cross a transit-jurisdictional border. The relationship between transportation and land-use is relied upon to select clusters of dense employment or population, called activity centres, where public transit is known to compete well with the private auto. The travel demand between these centres is obtained using the 2006 Transportation Tomorrow Survey and the current optimal transit routing is determined using Google Trip Planner. Three OD pairs are selected that possess the most onerous transfers, a proxy for poor integration. Another three OD pairs are selected that possess seamless or no transfers using a variety of modes. In both cases, the existing transit routing is compared to an alternate routing to understand the benefits achieved through inter-jurisdictional integration; the first compares existing trips to improved inter-jurisdictional routes while the second compares existing trips to exclusively intra-jurisdictional routes. Through identification of 40 employment and 29 population activity centres in the region, and the acquiring of travel demand between them, the six case study OD pairs are selected. The three OD pairs investigated, with onerous transfers, are comprised of trips between Brampton-Mississauga, Hamilton-Burlington, and Brampton-Toronto. The remaining inter-jurisdictional case study OD pairs are made up of three different modes: conventional bus, express bus, and regional rail. They comprise trips between Toronto-York Region, Brampton-Mississauga, and Mississauga-Toronto respectively. This study finds that in all cases, the routes with greater integration reduce total travel time and the generalized cost to patrons. Additionally, the penalty due to transferring is reduced through integration implying a current barrier existing at some jurisdictional borders. For the agencies, the cost of delivering the suggested inter-jurisdictional service varies dramatically. The costs are translated into a quantity of additional patrons necessary to justify the operation investment while maintaining the current revenue/cost ratio. These findings provide insight into the current transit network. Promoting integration throughout the network will help attract new riders as the generalized cost of travel is reduced. Also, when inter-jurisdictional connections are made, such as in the case of the Brampton-Mississauga Zum service, the beneficiaries of that service are widespread and not limited to the corridor in which the service operates.

This thesis examines the impact of farm level cost efficiency on quota trading in a supply regulated industry. Comparative statics illustrate the role of cost efficiency in quota transfers. For estimation purposes, the dependent variable; net quota purchases is specified both quantitatively and qualitatively and modelled by a linear regression model and multinomial logit model, respectively. Empirical results indicate that variation in cost efficiency does not have a significant effect on the sample producers’ decision to purchase quota. Meanwhile, quota purchasers are younger producers, with large herds, underutilized barn space, and had purchase quota in the previous year. / OMAFRA funding code: 200222

This thesis examines the impact of illegal U.S. arms transfers upon recipient nations' war fighting capabilities and upon the American national security. Data were gathered primarily from U.S. District Court records and interviews with U.S. governmental officials from intelligence services and the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State. An investigation of the illicit arms transfers to Iran formed the basis of conclusions reached. Additionally, policy recommendations are provided to enhance the governmental detection and investigation of illegal export violations. The viability of utilizing court documents as intelligence tools for measuring military capabilities is assessed.