Access Rules Research Articles

Cagliari’s urban landscape: a commons?

Cities are the mirror of globalization; they reproduce and anticipate the same trends and contradictions from the inside. The controversial notion of urban landscape is here explored in connection with the commons paradigm, those resources which have been studied by Elinor Ostrom, Nobel prize for economic sciences in 2009 and Author of Governing the Commons, the fundamental text for the study of collective institutions and the governance processes of natural and artificial resources. In the text the landscape is excluded from the list of commons because these identify self-governed microsystems of local-territorial resources, that is to say, a set of practices and rules of access and fruition that are the exclusive pertinence of the users of local communities. The landscape is perhaps more similar to public goods, with one condition: that its fruition from a specific point of view does not impede the aesthetic, affective, patrimonial and identity appropriation of others, nor compromises its own existence. Nevertheless, apart from this, the “health” of urban landscape is given by the simultaneity and compresence of different spaces, as is shown by the “fight” against the commercialization of public spaces of the inhabitants of the Marina neighbourhood in Cagliari.

What Shareholder Proposals on Proxy Access Tell Us about Its Value

For many years, the default rules of corporate and securities law have provided the board of directors (Board) with exclusive authority to decide whether shareholder proposals on proxy access, the ability of certain privileged shareholders to have their own slate of director nominees included in a public company's proxy solicitation materials for purposes of voting at the annual meeting, are to be included in a public company’s proxy solicitation materials. However, five years ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) amended its rules to allow such proposals to be included whether or not the Board approves. The proposals usually limit the availability of proxy access to large institutional shareholders who have held at least three percent of company shares, individually or as an aggregation of 20 to 25 investors, for at least three years. Roughly 200 companies received proxy-access proposals in 2016. Shareholders need to be informed about the value of proxy access prior to voting on such proposals. Boards also need to be informed about its value prior to deciding whether it should amend its governing documents to include proxy access, either for purposes of preempting a shareholder vote or considering its implementation subsequent to such a vote at the annual meeting. The SEC needs to be informed about this value prior to making any changes to its proxy access rules, including revisiting the idea of mandatory proxy access for all public companies. One way to understand the value of proxy access is through empirical analysis of the shareholder proposals on proxy access that have already been submitted for inclusion in the proxy materials of public companies. Unfortunately, the empirical evidence so far tells us very little about this value. This is a critical point that shareholders, board members and the SEC need to understand when empirical evidence is provided as support for or against proxy access.

New NHS access rules could penalise foreign staff.

The RCN has criticised a proposal in the Queen's Speech that could lead to foreign nurses who work in the NHS being charged to use its services.

Neither bust nor boom: Institutional robustness in the beach seine fishery of southern Sri Lanka

Many fisheries authorities in the world have been compelled to accept community-based management as an invaluable means to formulate fisheries management due to failures of small-scale fisheries exclusively managed by centralized units. Beach seine fishing practices in Sri Lanka are known to be institutionalized by traditional community-based coastal fisheries management systems. Eight beach seine fisher communities in southern Sri Lanka were studied, using standard ethnographic methods, to ascertain and document the rules and norms that are in general not formerly codified in writing, and evaluate empirically the compliance of institutional arrangements with Ostrom's modified design principles for long enduring common pool resources (CPR) management systems. Fishing rights were vested to the villagers as a residential proximity right. Due to this tradition, ownership of a beach seine and fishing rights at fishing territory vested them as; exclusive, primary or secondary rights. The sole authority for governing CPR was vested to community organization termed “madel samithi” (beach seine society), which can be treated as the local administrative unit. Institutions governing the CPR addressed the excludability problem by defining fishing territory, eligibility rules and intercommunity access rule, while subtractability problem was addressed by gear rules, temporal allocation rules, first comer rules, fishing behaviour rules, conservation rules, and rules for distribution of benefits. The study highlighted that institutional architecture of beach seine fishery of southern Sri Lanka comprised all modified design principles and, 90.9% of those exhibited higher compliance (54.5% – high compliance and 36.4% – very high compliance) with modified design principles. Higher compliance of institutional arrangements with modified design principles indicates robust and stable self-governing institutions. Beach seine fishing in southern Sri Lanka is therefore an example for community-based coastal fisheries management system that relies on strong, locally crafted rules as well as evolved norms, where institutional and governance mechanisms have essentially averted the tragedy, providing significant contribution to coastal economy. Study provides the starkness to the notion that local actors in tropical community-based marine resource systems overcome the CPR dilemmas through robust self-governing institutions.

Dynamiques Sociales Et Gestion Fonciere En Zone Cotonniere Du Mali

In Mali the management of rural area in the cotton belt has become more complex. It presents social, economic, ecological and cultural issues. Indeed, the increasing numbers of actors due to migration and population growth, as well as the emergence of new agricultural systems have created new dynamics in terms of companies and natural resources management. This work aimed at analysing the functioning of territories and actors through their social organisation and resource management strategies in the villages of Nafègué, Benguéné and Ziguéna. The methodology used was based on direct observation and qualitative surveys with several categories of actors identified using a diagnostic tools. The results show that the management of associations and cooperatives is identical in all the three villages. They are in principle independent from each other and have a freedom of action. However, there are mutual aid relations between the different associations. At village scale, land management follows similar principles. The land is under the responsibility of the village head, but there are often land owners. Nowadays, because of land pressure resulting from population growth and agricultural activities, land issue has become one of the biggest concern land access rules more complex. These facts require new collective processes for natural resource management.

Talking text: Exploring SMS and e-mail use by Australian talkback radio listeners

Abstract Research into talkback radio has provided a great deal of information about shock jocks and their interactions with audiences, their political power and the power of radio to mobilize its audiences in negative ways. Talkback radio has been traditionally perceived as a participatory form of media, albeit limited by various gatekeeping and rules of access. However, the nature of talkback with its traditional reliance on voice and performance is changing as programmes are increasingly offering audience members the opportunity to contribute to programmes via e-mail, Short Messaging Service (SMS) and, more recently, websites and social media. This article contributes to an under-explored area of talkback radio studies by examining audience ‘participation’ in talkback programmes via SMS and e-mail. It draws data from focus groups with audiences of twelve Australian commercial and non-commercial talkback radio programmes to discover why some study participants use SMS and e-mail and why some do not contribute via these technologies. The article also examines, in what circumstances and for what purposes these talkback radio listeners use these technologies. Inductive coding was used to analyse the data through the computer program NVivo. We conclude that while study participants strongly associated talkback with phone calls, e-mail and SMS are largely accepted as regular methods of contributing to and communicating with talkback radio programmes. There is much more work to be undertaken on the topic of non-verbal contributions to talkback radio, particularly with the increasing use of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, which this article has not explored.

An Incremental B-Model for RBAC-Controlled Electronic Marking System

The incremental development of software through the addition of new features and the insertion of new access rules potentially renders the access control models inconsistent and creates security flaws. This paper proposes modeling Role Based Access Control (RBAC) models of these software using the B language and re-evaluating the consistency of the models following model changes. It shows the mechanism of formalizing RBAC policies of an Electronic Marking System (EMS) using B specifications and illustrates the verification of the consistency of the RBAC specification, using model checking and proof obligations. In addition, it shows how to address inconsistencies that result from incremental specification of system' architectures.

Probabilistic Reasoning for Secondary Spectrum Sharing: A Mechanism for Increasing Spectrum Access Efficiency and Assessing Alternative Secondary Sharing Models

Uncertainties regarding wireless propagation environments pose challenges for spectrum management in general and specifically hinder the implementation of dynamic spectrum sharing systems. Spectrum management mechanisms must balance increases in spectrum access efficiencies with risks of harmful interference among spectrum users. Without the ability to reliably assess the local propagation environment and spectrum usage in real time, secondary sharing systems have limited ability to evaluate interference risks. As a result, spectrum regulators specify spectrum access behaviors such as exclusion zones and maximum transmit powers based on risk thresholds applied to statistical results from propagation models and measurements. Because the models can contain significant levels of uncertainty, establishing behavior limits for low interference risk necessarily results in significant spectrum access inefficiencies. It is only by reducing the degree of uncertainty that risk thresholds can be maintained while increasing spectrum access efficiency. Probabilistic reasoning provides significant potential to increase spectrum access efficiency in dynamic spectrum sharing systems. Probabilistic reasoning approaches enable risk-constrained spectrum access, a concept in which regulators and spectrum users establish spectrum access rules defining acceptable levels of interference and spectrum access risks while potentially optimizing their decisions relative to sets of decision criteria. The theoretical foundations are established, and the concept is demonstrated through the development of a probabilistic reasoning model using Functional Causal Model Theory. The probabilistic reasoning model is coupled with multi-attribute decision theory to enable assessments of user decision-making subject to risk attitudes, levels of situational uncertainty, and alternative spectrum sharing models. Simulations demonstrate several significant capabilities associated with a probabilistic reasoning approach. First, risk-constrained access mechanisms inherently regulate spectrum access behaviors in accordance with the degree of situational uncertainty; greater situational uncertainty results in lower spectrum access performance (e.g., reduced transmit power levels) while maintaining the requisite level of risk. Second, current regulatory approaches based on spectrum models and surveys define the minimum performance level; additional information gained through local situational awareness mechanisms lead to increased performance. Third, probabilistic reasoning combined with situation-specific awareness potentially enables greater spectrum access by reducing requisite exclusion zone size and increasing user density. Finally, probabilistic reasoning combined with decision modeling enables assessment of alternative spectrum access regulations and models based on user behavior and risk attitudes.

The Impact of EU Law on a National Competition Authority's Leniency Programme the Case of Poland

This paper is devoted to the impact of EU law on national leniency programmes, especially the Polish one. It analyses the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice in Pfleiderer, Donau Chemie and Schenker and identifies three specific areas of potential EU influence on national leniency programmes. The impact of EU law on the rules of access to leniency documents is analysed in detail on the basis of both EU and Polish law and taking into account the Draft Directive on Antitrust Damages Actions. The paper covers also the extent to which the principle of effectiveness of EU law limits the procedural autonomy of Member States in regard to their leniency programmes. This analysis covers both “negative conditions”, that is, elements of national leniency programmes which are incompatible with EU law, and “positive conditions”, in order words, those elements of domestic leniency programmes which are seen as necessary for securing their effectiveness.

A fine-grained context-aware access control model for health care and life science linked data

Health Care and Life Sciences (HCLS) have long been a test-bed for the standards proposed by the W3C to build the Semantic Web. One of the challenges to HCLS Linked Data is access control. In this paper, we present a fine-grained context-aware access model for HCLS Linked Data based on Semantic Web tools. The model consists of two basic components: ontology base and access policy. Ontology base refers to a set of ontologies that include subject ontology, resource ontology, environment ontology, and action ontology. In the access policy module, we describe the access policy with eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) model, which allows users to achieve access rule reproduction by defining the semantic scope and inference rules among different entities. Results of the analysis indicate that indicates that our model expands the scopes of authorization rules for users. Inference of semantic authorization rules is also realized. These rules enable fine-grained access to data and meet the need for dynamic change of HCLS Linked Data. Finally, we show the process of authorization and present a system framework. Simulation experiments verify the acceptability of our model in protecting secured data.

Prefetching Scheme for Massive Spatiotemporal Data in a Smart City

Employing user access patterns to develop a prefetching scheme can effectively improve system I/O performance and reduce user access latency. For massive spatiotemporal data, traditional pattern mining methods fail to directly reflect the spatiotemporal correlation and transition rules of user access, resulting in poor prefetching performance. This paper proposed a prefetching scheme based on spatial-temporal attribute prediction, named STAP. It maps the history of user access requests to the spatiotemporal attribute domain by analyzing the characteristics of spatiotemporal data in a smart city. According to the spatial locality and time stationarity of user access, correlation analysis is performed and variation rules are identified for the history of user access requests. Further, the STAP scheme mines the user access patterns and constructs a predictive function to predict the user's next access request. Experimental results show that the prefetching scheme is simple yet effective; it achieves a prediction accuracy of 84.3% for access requests and reduces the average data access response time by 44.71% compared with the nonprefetching scheme.

El Perú en el Tratado de Asociación Transpacífico (TPP): beneficios y mitos

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is the first mega-regional trade agreement of the XXI century. It is composed of twelve economies of three continents, all members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).Peru’s participation in this exceptional agreement means winning five new markets in a single trade agreement: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, New Zealand, Malaysia and Vietnam. The potential increase in non-traditional Peruvian exports to those markets by the entry into force of the TPP Agreement is estimated in US$ 2,250 million. The country also gains by improving in TPP the conditions of access and trade rules of previous bilateral agreements.One of the biggest gains from TPP for developing economies like Peru is the access to global value chains, as a result of the application of a mechanism known as «origin accumulation». This mechanism will particularly benefit SMEs, as inputs they export can be introduced in a value chain of the TPP trading bloc.Regarding myths about negative impacts of the TPP, specifically about a supposed rise in prices of medicines, alleged millionaire losses in Investor-State Dispute Settlement arbitrations, and alleged restrictions on freedoms in the Internet, it is not true that the TPP Agreement generates adverse effects in these areas The same myths were spread during of the US-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement negotiations, and none of it happened in reality.

The Mixed Blessing in Subsidized Internet Access

This paper will offer an unsponsored examination of current disputes whether national regulatory authorities (“NRAs”) should permit broadband carriers and content providers, such as Facebook, to subsidize broadband access to a limited, “walled garden” of content. The subsidy makes it possible for sponsored data access without debiting a monthly data allowance. Wireless subscribers, with service caps typically set at 1-5 Gigabytes allowed per month, can quickly exhaust allotment when streaming video content. The paper concludes that even though carriers and content providers serve profit maximizing goals in zero rating arrangements, the practice can have positive spillover effects including more access by impoverished users, stimulated interest in diversifying uses of wireless handsets and possible migration to broadband access options that equally support content consumption and creation. While carriers and content providers can “groom” tentative, subsidized users into paying ones, zero rating also provides first time access opportunities, particularly for individuals least able to afford even extremely low cost access options available in many lesser developed countries. Additionally zero rating can stimulate interest by consumers financially able to afford unsubsidized access, but heretofore uninterested in, or uninformed about the benefits.The paper examines zero rating without the inclination to pass judgment using an absolute either/or basis, as often occurs on issues collectively framed as network neutrality, or open Internet. A more nuanced view identifies both costs and benefits in allowing zero rating. On balance, welfare enhancing benefits appear to exceed costs, including harm to competition and some consumers. This finding grows more conclusive for developing countries where access of any type provides benefits that well exceed the costs to consumers and competition. The paper identifies ways for carriers and NRAs to limit subsidies in ways that accrue social benefits without creating an unlimited “free rider” opportunity for all wireless subscribers, regardless of ability to pay for service. The paper suggests that carriers should offer zero rating opportunities on a conditional and promotional basis thereby making it more difficult for existing subscribers simply to use zero rating access as a way to avoid paying surcharges for exceeding data caps. While NRAs should not micro-manage carriers’ service pricing, establishing qualification rules for access to zero rating fits with other universal service initiatives that rely on well calibrated and targeted subsidies to simulate broadband service demand and supply.

Own Account Logistics – Reinvented Business Strategy for Transportation in Industry and Trade

The European transport market has been under re gulation for dec- ades until the 1980 th when the European Union started a comprehensive deregu- lation process. The deregulation was focused on the commercial transport mar- ket and led to a profound change of the freight market situat ion esp. on road transport. Foremost countries like Germany with an unti l then tightly regulated marked tumbled into harmful market adjustments caused by the suspension of licenses, allocation quotas and tariffication. The mar ket change went along with the business trend of outsourcing for transportation and other logistics services based on beneficial business model theories e.g. economies of sc ale etc. Ever since the alternative model of own account transportation became an unremark- able presence in the market and lost almost any attenti on in scientific discussion. Nevertheless, transport for company purposes only is still par t of EU regulations as common rules for access to the international road haul age market. 2 Critical discussion about advantages of outsourcing, quality concerns a nd rising aware- ness towards transaction cost economics was the inducement for an appraisal on the actual situation and business relevance of today’s own a ccount transporta- tion. The research is based on a survey with consignors in production industry and trade, in cooperation with the German Federal Association of Private Transport and Logistics (BWVL) .

Grey Nuances in the Black and White Debate Over Subsidized Internet Access

This paper will offer an unsponsored examination of current disputes whether national regulatory authorities (“NRAs”) should permit broadband carriers and content providers, such as Facebook, to subsidize broadband access to a limited, “walled garden” of content. The subsidy makes it possible for sponsored data access without debiting a monthly data allowance. Wireless subscribers, with service caps typically set at 1-5 Gigabytes allowed per month, can quickly exhaust allotments when streaming video content. The paper concludes that even though carriers and content providers serve profit maximizing goals in zero rating arrangements, the practice can have positive spillover effects. Benefits include more access by impoverished users, stimulated interest in diversifying uses of wireless handsets and possible migration to broadband access options that equally support downstream content consumption and upstream dissemination. While carriers and content providers can “groom” some subsidized users into paying ones, zero rating also provides first time access opportunities, particularly for individuals least able to afford even extremely low cost access options available in many lesser developed countries. Additionally zero rating can stimulate interest by consumers financially able to afford unsubsidized access, but heretofore uninterested in, or uninformed about the benefits. The paper examines zero rating without the inclination to pass judgment using an absolute either/or basis, as often occurs on issues collectively framed as network neutrality, or open Internet. A more nuanced view identifies both costs and benefits in allowing zero rating. On balance, welfare enhancing benefits appear to exceed costs, including harm to competition and some consumers. This finding grows more conclusive for developing countries where access of any type provides benefits that well exceed the costs to consumers and competition. The paper identifies ways for carriers and NRAs to limit subsidies in ways that accrue social benefits without creating an unlimited “free rider” opportunity for all wireless subscribers, regardless of ability to pay for service. The paper suggests that carriers should offer zero rating opportunities on a conditional and promotional basis thereby making it more difficult for existing subscribers simply to use zero rating access as a way to avoid paying surcharges for exceeding data caps. While NRAs should not micro-manage carriers’ service pricing, establishing qualification rules for access to zero rating fits with other universal service initiatives that rely on well calibrated and targeted subsidies to simulate broadband service demand and supply.

Conflicts over farmland and its socioeconomic effects on rural residents of Southwestern Nigeria

Land is increasingly becoming a source of conflicts in Nigeria and Africa at large where land access had traditionally been characterised as relatively unrestricted. This paper examined conflicts over farmland and its socio economic effects on the rural residents of southwestern Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 160 respondents for the study. Data were collected through a structured questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics. Findings revealed that the major causes of conflict over farmland in the area were failure to respect boundary 1.66), contesting for the inheritance of land boundary 1.65) and abandonment of the previously accepted rules of access to and use of land 1.09). Farmland conflicts terminates the social interaction and peaceful co-existence of people 1.65), causing mistrust among members 1.61), destruction of goods and property 1.57) and loss of life 1.55). It was concluded based on the findings that conflict over farmland had negative effects on the socio-economic activities of the rural residents. Consequently, the study recommends that individual and community farm boundaries must be respected.There must be an effective system of land administration of management to reduce frequent challenges of land ownership. Inheritors should be loyal to the agreement made with their progenitors on the use of land and public education/enlightenment programmes must be strengthening to reduce the adverse effect of conflicts over farmland.

Use of the EFSA Standard Sample Description ver. 2.0 (SSD2) for the reporting of data on the control of pesticide residues in food and feed according to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005

EFSA Supporting PublicationsVolume 12, Issue 12 918E External scientific reportOpen Access Use of the EFSA Standard Sample Description ver. 2.0 (SSD2) for the reporting of data on the control of pesticide residues in food and feed according to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 National Sanitary Veterinary and for Food Safety Authority of Romania (ANSVSA), National Sanitary Veterinary and for Food Safety Authority of Romania (ANSVSA) National Sanitary Veterinary and for Food Safety Authority of Romania (ANSVSA)Search for more papers by this author National Sanitary Veterinary and for Food Safety Authority of Romania (ANSVSA), National Sanitary Veterinary and for Food Safety Authority of Romania (ANSVSA) National Sanitary Veterinary and for Food Safety Authority of Romania (ANSVSA)Search for more papers by this author First published: 17 December 2015 https://doi.org/10.2903/sp.efsa.2015.EN-918 The present document has been produced and adopted by the bodies identified above as author(s). This task has been carried out exclusively by the author(s) in the context of a contract between the European Food Safety Authority and the author(s), awarded following a tender procedure. The present document is published complying with the transparency principle to which the Authority is subject. It may not be considered as an output adopted by the Authority. The European Food Safety Authority reserves its rights, view and position as regards the issues addressed and the conclusions reached in the present document, without prejudice to the rights of the authors. Published date: 17 December 2015 Question number: EFSA-Q-2014-00487 AboutReferencesRelatedInformationPDFPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessClose modalShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL References EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), 2010. Standard sample description for food and feed. EFSA Journal 2010; 8(1):1457, 54 pp. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2010.1457 EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), 2014a. Use of the EFSA Standard Sample Description for the reporting of data on the control of pesticide residues in food and feed according to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 (2013 Data Collection). EFSA Journal 2014; 12(1):3545 60 pp. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2014.3545 EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), 2014b. Guidance on the data exchange version 2.0. EFSA Journal 2014; 12(12):3945, 173 pp. doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2014.3945 EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), 2015a. The EFSA Data Warehouse access rules. EFSA supporting publication 2015:EN-76, 18 pp. EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), 2015b. The 2013 European Union report on pesticide residues in food. EFSA Journal 2015; 13(3):4038, 169 pp, doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2015.4105 EFSA (European Food Safety Authority), 2015c. Guidelines for reporting data on residues of veterinary medicinal products. EFSA supporting publication 2015:EN-783. 77 pp. European Commission, 2013. Guidance document on analytical quality control and validation procedures for pesticide residues analysis in food and feed. SANCO/12571/2013. Volume12, Issue12December 2015918E ReferencesRelatedInformation RecommendedUse of the EFSA Standard Sample Description for the reporting of data on the control of pesticide residues in food and feed according to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005European Food Safety Authority, EFSA JournalUse of the EFSA Standard Sample Description for the reporting of data on the control of pesticide residues in food and feed according to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 (revision 1)European Food Safety Authority, EFSA JournalUse of the EFSA Standard Sample Description (SSD) for the reporting of data on the control of pesticide residues in food and feed according to Regulation (EC) No 396/2005 (Version: 2013 Data Collection)European Food Safety Authority, EFSA JournalStandard Sample Description ver. 2.0European Food Safety Authority, EFSA JournalEFSA Catalogue browser User GuideEuropean Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Sofia Ioannidou, EFSA Supporting Publications

Book Review: An Open Internet for All: Free Speech and Network Neutrality, by Dana D. Bagwell

An Open Internet for All: Free Speech and Network Neutrality. Dana D. Bagwell. El Paso, Texas: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2012. 162 pp. $20 pbk.Net has once again been all over the news in the past year. Between a controversial opinion by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in the Verizon v. FCC case in 2014 and the equally controversial standards propagated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in March 2015, something or somebody must bring order to the topic and its scholarship.The concept of net neutrality is both simple and extremely complicated. Dana D. Bagwell's book helps put the complex topic into perspective, especially incorporating the Internet into a discussion of free speech principles and the marketplace of ideas. The book does a solid job of tracing the legal and policy aspects of Internet regulation and the public policies behind attempts to control the Internet. The book goes back to the origins of the FCC and its role in developing laws and policies relating to an ever-changing world of communications.The author thoroughly explains such potentially abstract policy topics as dial-up modem regulations, broadband policy, and the difference between information services, telecommunications, and telecommunications services under Titles I and II of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. These regulatory schemes and controversies and the accompanying legal battles set the foundation for today's net neutrality rules-and the debate surrounding them.The book also painstakingly summarizes reams of FCC policies and federal laws on communications and dozens of court decisions. This is a unique topic that envelops all three branches of government.Bagwell writes,Since network neutrality rules have become the framework by which the FCC will regulate the Internet, it is imperative that the debate move from questioning whether network neutrality is good policy to whether network neutrality is good communication policy. In other words, what values does network neutrality guarantee from the perspective of free speech and expression?The author defers to, if not reveres, the work of several earlier scholars, principally Professor Tim Wu, who is credited with coining the term net neutrality in a 2003 article, and Lawrence Lessig, a prolific legal scholar on intellectual property matters. However, the author is most deferential to Jerome Barron, the eminent First Amendment scholar whose writings are repeatedly cited throughout the book and honored in the book's concluding sentence: that the rules of access discussed throughout the book could finally fulfill Barron's vision of a right of access to the media.As a conduit for content and access to and for media, Bagwell reiterates other scholars' arguments that the Internet is perhaps the most powerful communications tool ever created. …

Decentralisation of Health Services in Fiji: A Decision Space Analysis.

Decentralisation aims to bring services closer to the community and has been advocated in the health sector to improve quality, access and equity, and to empower local agencies, increase innovation and efficiency and bring healthcare and decision-making as close as possible to where people live and work. Fiji has attempted two approaches to decentralisation. The current approach reflects a model of deconcentration of outpatient services from the tertiary level hospital to the peripheral health centres in the Suva subdivision. Using a modified decision space approach developed by Bossert, this study measures decision space created in five broad categories (finance, service organisation, human resources, access rules, and governance rules) within the decentralised services. Fiji's centrally managed historical-based allocation of financial resources and management of human resources resulted in no decision space for decentralised agents. Narrow decision space was created in the service organisation category where, with limited decision space created over access rules, Fiji has seen greater usage of its decentralised health centres. There remains limited decision space in governance. The current wave of decentralisation reveals that, whilst the workload has shifted from the tertiary hospital to the peripheral health centres, it has been accompanied by limited transfer of administrative authority, suggesting that Fiji's deconcentration reflects the transfer of workload only with decision-making in the five functional areas remaining largely centralised. As such, the benefits of decentralisation for users and providers are likely to be limited.

Research of Social Network Log Analysis System Based on MongoDB

This paper mainly studies the design of an efficient social network log analysis program based on the distribut- ed database, MongoDB. The so-called social network log analysis is to gather and store the log information generated when users access the social network pages, and then transform, clean and excavate. This article compares MongoDB da- tabase with traditional relational database, analyzes its advantages and application scenarios. Its anti-paradigm design due to the nest avoids the association, making queries and storage of the large data efficiently by: storing social network logs in the MongoDB; directly analyzing the logs with its built-in MapReduce programming model, and saving the results of the analysis as files for business people to use. Our study aims to discover the hidden users' access rules and patterns in the log data by effective data mining of the social network log data, thereby providing helpful information for optimizing website structure and business model. With the growth and expansion of the Internet enterprise scale, social network log information also grew step by step. In order to provide better services, it is necessary to under- stand the features and needs of the user's access, by analyz- ing and studying the user's behavior, so analysis of the Social network logs was suggested. It combined the traditional data mining and social network logs, by getting the useful infor- mation from a large number of social network logs data, counting and analyzing the users' behavior and page view, to finally infer the user's access modes. (1) It can play a role in many situations, such as network security, build the social network site and perform the market analysis of the e- commerce. It is a new research direction for data mining. NoSQL is the general name of the non-relational data- bases, which is a new data storage technology to meet the needs of the rapid growth of the Internet applications. Since it is easy to extend, has high write and read performance even for the large amount of data, and has flexible data mod- els, it have been well developed in some application scenari- os. MongoDB is a representative of NoSQL databases, the document-oriented data model it used, can automatically split the data and store them on different machines. This au- tomatic slicing mechanism achieves a distributed extension, the collections and documents in the database can be stored in many database nodes. The applications of MongoDB are very wide because of its good horizontal scalability: it is suitable for storing low-value and large-sized files; offers a data management technology which satisfies the high con- currency and the magnanimous data processing from the Internet development to cloud computing. Internet provides