Rhetoric and public speech in English republicanism, 1642-1681

The study analyses the ambivalent relationship republicanism, as a form of self-government free from domination, had with the ideal of participatory oratory and non-dominated speech on the one hand, and with the danger of unhindered demagogy and its possibly fatal consequences to that form of government on the other. Although previous scholarship has delved deeply into republicanism as well as into rhetoric and public speech, the interplay between those aspects has only gathered scattered interest, and there has been no systematic study considering the variety of republican approaches to rhetoric and public speech in 17th-century England. The rare attempts to do so have been studies in English literature, and they have not analysed the political philosophy of republicanism, as the focus has been on republicanism as a literary culture. This study connects the fields of political theory, political history as well as literature in order to make a multidisciplinary contribution to intellectual history. The study shows that, within the tradition of classical republicanism, individual authors could make different choices when addressing the problematic topics of public speech and rhetoric, and the variety of their conclusions often set the authors against each other, resulting in the development of their theories through internal debates within the republican tradition. The authors under study were chosen to reflect this variety and the connections between them: the similarities between James Harrington and John Streater, and between John Milton and John Hall of Durham are shown, as well the controversies between Harrington and Milton, and Streater and Hall, respectively. In addition, by analysing the writings of Marchamont Nedham the study will show that the choices were not limited to more, or less, democratic brands of republicanism. Most significantly, the study provides a thorough analysis of the political philosophies behind the various brands of republicanism, in addition to describing them. By means of this analysis, the study shows that previous attempts to assess the role of free speech and public debate, through the lenses of modern, rights-based liberal political theory have resulted in an inappropriate framework for understanding early modern English republicanism. By approaching the topics through concepts used by the republicans legitimate authority, leadership by oratory, and republican freedom and through the frames of reference available and familiar to them roles of education and institutions the study presents a thorough and systematic analysis of the role and function of rhetoric and public speech in English republicanism. The findings of this analysis have significant consequences to our current understanding of the history and development of republican political theory, and, more generally, of the connections between democratic theory and free speech.

A Convex Optimization Framework for Almost Budget Balanced Allocation of a Divisible Good

We address the problem of allocating a single divisible good to a number of agents. The agents have concave valuation functions parameterized by a scalar type. The agents report only the type. The goal is to find allocatively efficient, strategy proof, nearly budget balanced mechanisms within the Groves class. Near budget balance is attained by returning as much of the received payments as rebates to agents. Two performance criteria are of interest: the maximum ratio of budget surplus to efficient surplus, and the expected budget surplus, within the class of linear rebate functions. The goal is to minimize them. Assuming that the valuation functions are known, we show that both problems reduce to convex optimization problems, where the convex constraint sets are characterized by a continuum of half-plane constraints parameterized by the vector of reported types. We then propose a randomized relaxation of these problems by sampling constraints. The relaxed problem is a linear programming problem (LP). We then identify the number of samples needed for ``near-feasibility'' of the relaxed constraint set. Under some conditions on the valuation function, we show that value of the approximate LP is close to the optimal value. Simulation results show significant improvements of our proposed method over the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves (VCG) mechanism without rebates. In the special case of indivisible goods, the mechanisms in this paper fall back to those proposed by Moulin, by Guo and Conitzer, and by Gujar and Narahari, without any need for randomization. Extension of the proposed mechanisms to situations when the valuation functions are not known to the central planner are also discussed. Note to Practitioners-Our results will be useful in all resource allocation problems that involve gathering of information privately held by strategic users, where the utilities are any concave function of the allocations, and where the resource planner is not interested in maximizing revenue, but in efficient sharing of the resource. Such situations arise quite often in fair sharing of internet resources, fair sharing of funds across departments within the same parent organization, auctioning of public goods, etc. We study methods to achieve near budget balance by first collecting payments according to the celebrated VCG mechanism, and then returning as much of the collected money as rebates. Our focus on linear rebate functions allows for easy implementation. The resulting convex optimization problem is solved via relaxation to a randomized linear programming problem, for which several efficient solvers exist. This relaxation is enabled by constraint sampling. Keeping practitioners in mind, we identify the number of samples that assures a desired level of ``near-feasibility'' with the desired confidence level. Our methodology will occasionally require subsidy from outside the system. We however demonstrate via simulation that, if the mechanism is repeated several times over independent instances, then past surplus can support the subsidy requirements. We also extend our results to situations where the strategic users' utility functions are not known to the allocating entity, a common situation in the context of internet users and other problems.

Certificate-less on-demand public key management (CLPKM) for self-organized MANETs

In this paper, we have proposed a novel certificate-less on-demand public key management (CLPKM) protocol for self-organized MANETs. The protocol works on flat network architecture, and distinguishes between authentication layer and routing layer of the network. We put an upper limit on the length of verification route and use the end-to-end trust value of a route to evaluate its strength. The end-to-end trust value is used by the protocol to select the most trusted verification route for accomplishing public key verification. Also, the protocol uses MAC function instead of RSA certificates to perform public key verification. By doing this, the protocol saves considerable computation power, bandwidth and storage space. The saved storage space is utilized by the protocol to keep a number of pre-established routes in the network nodes, which helps in reducing the average verification delay of the protocol. Analysis and simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed protocol.

Achieving universal rural energy access in india: A low carbon pathway

India's energy challenges are three pronged: presence of majority energy poor lacking access to modern energy; need for expanding energy system to bridge this access gap as well as to meet the requirements of fast-growing economy; and the desire to partner with global economies in mitigating the threat of climate change. The presence of 364 million people without access to electricity and 726 million relying on biomass for cooking out of a total rural population of 809 million indicate the seriousness of challenge. In this paper, we discuss an innovative approach to address this challenge, which intends to take advantage of recent global developments and untapped capabilities possessed by India. Intention is to use climate change mitigation imperative as a stimulus and adopt a public-private-partnership-driven ‘business model' with innovative institutional, regulatory, financing, and delivery mechanisms. Some of the innovations are: creation of rural energy access authorities within the government system as leadership institutions; establishment of energy access funds to enable transitions from the regime of "investment/fuel subsidies" to "incentive-linked" delivery of energy services; integration of business principles to facilitate affordable and equitable energy sales and carbon trade; and treatment of entrepreneurs as implementation targets. This proposal targets 100% access to modern energy carriers by 2030 through a judicious mix of conventional and biomass energy systems with an investment of US$35 billion over 20 years. The estimated annual cost of universal energy access is about US$9 billion for a GHG mitigation potential of 213Tg CO2e at an abatement cost of US$41/tCO2e. It is a win-win situation for all stakeholders. Households benefit from modern energy carriers at affordable cost; entrepreneurs run profitable energy enterprises; carbon markets have access to CERs; the government has the satisfaction of securing energy access to rural people; and globally, there is a benefit of climate change mitigation.

Self-organized public key management in MANETs with enhanced security and without certificate-chains

In the self-organized public key management approaches, public key verification is achieved through verification routes constituted by the transitive trust relationships among the network principals. Most of the existing approaches do not distinguish among different available verification routes. Moreover, to ensure stronger security, it is important to choose an appropriate metric to evaluate the strength of a route. Besides, all of the existing self-organized approaches use certificate-chains for achieving authentication, which are highly resource consuming. In this paper, we present a self-organized certificate-less on-demand public key management (CLPKM) protocol, which aims at providing the strongest verification routes for authentication purposes. It restricts the compromise probability for a verification route by restricting its length. Besides, we evaluate the strength of a verification route using its end-to-end trust value. The other important aspect of the protocol is that it uses a MAC function instead of RSA certificates to perform public key verifications. By doing this, the protocol saves considerable computation power, bandwidth and storage space. We have used an extended strand space model to analyze the correctness of the protocol. The analytical, simulation, and the testbed implementation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed protocol. (c) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Economic measurement in public welfare economics : practical experiences on the regional level in Germany

Resumen: ¿Cuál es el precio justo para la asistencia social? Este artículo muestra que la medición económica efectuada en mercados basados en el valor de los servicios prestados podría responder esta pregunta. La medición económica puede hacer lo mismo en distintos campos del trabajo social aplicando diferentes métodos, tales como ofertas públicas o negociaciones calificadas. Después de dar un breve panorama teórico, se presentan y analizan en detalle dos proyectos alemanes. El artículo muestra cómo la introducción de mecanismos de negociación en la asistencia social expresados en términos de resultados pueden traer efectos positivos para las finanzas públicas, así como también para el bien común.

Unraveling Public Good Games: The Role of Priors

This paper provides experimental evidence on how players predict end game effects in a linear public good game. Our regression analysis yields a measure of the relative importance of priors and signals on subjects\' beliefs on contributions and allow us to conclude that, firstly, the weight of the signal is relatively unimportant, while priors have a large weight and, secondly, priors are the same for all periods. Hence, subjects do not expect end game effects and there is very little updating of beliefs.

Public water supplies of selected municipalities in Florida, 1970

This report summarizes municipal use of water in 138 selected municipalities in Florida as of December 1970 and includes the following: 1) Tabulation of data on water-use for each listed municipality; 2) tabulation of chemical analyses of water for each listed municipality; and 3) graphs of pumpage, included when available. Also included are selected recent references relating to geology, hydrology, and water resources of those areas in which the municipalities are located. (218 page document)

Interim report on the progress of an inventory of artesian wells in Florida: leading to the enforcement of sections 370.051 - 370.54, Florida statues

One of the causes of lower artesian pressure, water waste and aquifer contamination is the misuse and insufficient care of artesian wells. In 1953, Senate Bill No. 57, entitled "An Act to Protect and Control the Artesian Waters of the State" (see Appendix) became a law. This law was passed through the efforts exerted by leading members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, who understood the need for a wise and controlled expenditure of our most valuable natural resource. The State Geologist and his authorized representatives were designated by this law to enforce this conservation measure; however, no financial provision was included for the 1953-55 biennium. The proposed program of the Florida Geological Survey for this biennium did not include the funds nor provide any full-time personnel for the enforcement of this statute. As a result, little actual work was accomplished during these two years, although much time was given to planning and discussion of the problem. Realizing that this program could provide additional basic data needed in the analysis of the water-supply problem, the State Geologist sought and was granted by the 1955 Legislature adequate funds with which to activate the first phase of the enforcement of Florida Statute No. 370.051-054. Enumerated below is a summary of the progress made on this investigation as outlined previously: 1. Data have been collected on 967 wildly flowing wells in 22 counties. 2. Chloride determinations have been run on 850 of the 967 wells. 3. Of the 967 wells, 554 have chlorides in excess of the 250 ppm, the upper limit assigned by the State Board of Health for public consumption. 4. Water escapes at the rate of 37, 762 gallons per minute from these 967 wells. This amounts to 54, 377, 280 gallons per day. The investigation is incomplete at this time; therefore, no final conclusions can be reached. However, from data already collected, the following recommendations are proposed: 1. That the present inventory of wildly flowing wells be completed for the entire State. 2. That the current inventory of wildly flowing wells be expanded at the conclusion of the present inventory to include all flowing wells. 3. That a complete statewide inventory program be established and conducted in cooperation with the Ground Water Branchof the U.S. Geological Survey. 4. That the enforcement functions as set down in Sections 370.051/.054, Florida Statutes, be separated from the program to collect water-resource data and that these functions be given to the Water Resources Department, if such is created (to be recommended by the Water Resources Study Commission in a water policy law presented to the 1957 Legislature). 5. That the research phase (well inventory) of the program remain under the direction of the Florida Geological Survey. (PDF contains 204 pages.)

Experiences of Public-Private Collaboration for Stimulating

For over a decade now, work has been ongoing on the professional organization and management of town centre retail spaces in Spain under what is known as the Open Shopping Centre model. Introducing this model has involved a process of public-private collaboration in several different phases, conditioned to a large extent by the specific context of each initiative. With a view to furthering the process of benchmarking developed out of the experiences of recent years, we shall use case analysis to explain trends in initiatives for retail regeneration and stimulation undertaken in the Basque Country (an autonomous community in the north of Spain) since 2000. We analyze the factors that have prompted these initiatives, assessing and comparing the landmarks and conditions that have marked, or are determining, progress in the dynamic of collaboration between municipal authorities and retailers for a competitive improvement both in the retail sector and in the environment in which it operates: the city. Finally we list witch are these key factors.

Redefining Stewardship: Public Lands and Rural Communities in the Pacific Northwest

pdf contains 24 pages

An Integrated Assessment of the Introduction of Lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles complex) to the Western Atlantic Ocean.

Lionfish (Pterois volitans/miles complex) are venomous coral reef fishes from the Indian and western Pacific oceans that are now found in the western Atlantic Ocean. Adult lionfish have been observed from Miami, Florida to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and juvenile lionfish have been observed off North Carolina, New York, and Bermuda. The large number of adults observed and the occurrence of juveniles indicate that lionfish are established and reproducing along the southeast United States coast. Introductions of marine species occur in many ways. Ballast water discharge, a very common method of introduction for marine invertebrates, is responsible for many freshwater fish introductions. In contrast, most marine fish introductions result from intentional stocking for fishery purposes. Lionfish, however, likely were introduced via unintentional or intentional aquarium releases, and the introduction of lionfish into United States waters should lead to an assessment of the threat posed by the aquarium trade as a vector for fish introductions. Currently, no management actions are being taken to limit the effect of lionfish on the southeast United States continental shelf ecosystem. Further, only limited funds have been made available for research. Nevertheless, the extent of the introduction has been documented and a forecast of the maximum potential spread of lionfish is being developed. Under a scenario of no management actions and limited research, three predictions are made: ● With no action, the lionfish population will continue to grow along the southeast United States shelf. ● Effects on the marine ecosystem of the southeast United States will become more noticeable as the lionfish population grows. ● There will be incidents of lionfish envenomations of divers and/or fishers along the east coast of the United States. Removing lionfish from the southeast United States continental shelf ecosystem would be expensive and likely impossible. A bounty could be established that would encourage the removal of fish and provide specimens for research. However, the bounty would need to be lower than the price of fish in the aquarium trade (~$25-$50 each) to ensure that captured specimens were from the wild. Such a low bounty may not provide enough incentive for capturing lionfish in the wild. Further, such action would only increase the interaction between the public and lionfish, increasing the risk of lionfish envenomations. As the introduction of lionfish is very likely irreversible, future actions should focus on five areas. 1) The population of lionfish should be tracked. 2) Research should be conducted so that scientists can make better predictions regarding the status of the invasion and the effects on native species, ecosystem function, and ecosystem services. 3) Outreach and education efforts must be increased, both specifically toward lionfish and more generally toward the aquarium trade as a method of fish introductions. 4) Additional regulation should be considered to reduce the frequency of marine fish introduction into U.S. waters. However, the issue is more complicated than simply limiting the import of non-native species, and these complexities need to be considered simultaneously. 5) Health care providers along the east coast of the United States need to be notified that a venomous fish is now resident along the southeast United States. The introduction and spread of lionfish illustrates the difficulty inherent in managing introduced species in marine systems. Introduced species often spread via natural mechanisms after the initial introduction. Efforts to control the introduction of marine fish will fail if managers do not consider the natural dispersal of a species following an introduction. Thus, management strategies limiting marine fish introductions need to be applied over the scale of natural ecological dispersal to be effective, pointing to the need for a regional management approach defined by natural processes not by political boundaries. The introduction and success of lionfish along the east coast should change the long-held perception that marine fish invasions are a minimal threat to marine ecosystems. Research is needed to determine the effects of specific invasive fish species in specific ecosystems. More broadly, a cohesive plan is needed to manage, mitigate and minimize the effects of marine invasive fish species on ecosystems that are already compromised by other human activities. Presently, the magnitude of marine fish introductions as a stressor on marine ecosystems cannot be quantified, but can no longer be dismissed as negligible. (PDF contains 31 pages)

Science-based restoration monitoring of coastal habitats, Volume One: A framework for monitoring plans under the Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000 (Public Law 160-457)

Executive Summary: The Estuary Restoration Act of 2000 (ERA), Title I of the Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000, was created to promote the restoration of habitats along the coast of the United States (including the US protectorates and the Great Lakes). The NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science was charged with the development of a guidance manual for monitoring plans under this Act. This guidance manual, titled Science-Based Restoration Monitoring of Coastal Habitats, is written in two volumes. It provides technical assistance, outlines necessary steps, and provides useful tools for the development and implementation of sound scientific monitoring of coastal restoration efforts. In addition, this manual offers a means to detect early warnings that the restoration is on track or not, to gauge how well a restoration site is functioning, to coordinate projects and efforts for consistent and successful restoration, and to evaluate the ecological health of specific coastal habitats both before and after project completion (Galatowitsch et al. 1998). The following habitats have been selected for discussion in this manual: water column, rock bottom, coral reefs, oyster reefs, soft bottom, kelp and other macroalgae, rocky shoreline, soft shoreline, submerged aquatic vegetation, marshes, mangrove swamps, deepwater swamps, and riverine forests. The classification of habitats used in this document is generally based on that of Cowardin et al. (1979) in their Classification of Wetlands and Deepwater Habitats of the United States, as called for in the ERA Estuary Habitat Restoration Strategy. This manual is not intended to be a restoration monitoring “cookbook” that provides templates of monitoring plans for specific habitats. The interdependence of a large number of site-specific factors causes habitat types to vary in physical and biological structure within and between regions and geographic locations (Kusler and Kentula 1990). Monitoring approaches used should be tailored to these differences. However, even with the diversity of habitats that may need to be restored and the extreme geographic range across which these habitats occur, there are consistent principles and approaches that form a common basis for effective monitoring. Volume One, titled A Framework for Monitoring Plans under the Estuaries and Clean Waters Act of 2000, begins with definitions and background information. Topics such as restoration, restoration monitoring, estuaries, and the role of socioeconomics in restoration are discussed. In addition, the habitats selected for discussion in this manual are briefly described. (PDF contains 116 pages)