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To provide mutual anonymity over traditionally un‐anonymous Distributed Hash Tables (DHT) based Peer‐to‐Peer overlay networks, while maintaining the desired scalability and guaranteed lookup properties of the DHTs.

Agyaat uses a novel hybrid‐overlay design, a fully decentralized topology without any trusted proxies. It anonymizes both the querying and responding peers through the use of unstructured topologies, called clouds, which are added onto the structured overlays. In addition, it regulates the cloud topologies to ensure the guaranteed location of data and scalability of routing. A unique characteristic of the design is the ability of users to tradeoff between desired anonymity and performance. The paper presents a thorough performance and anonymity analysis of the system, and also analyzes few anonymity compromising attacks and countermeasures.

The results indicate that Agyaat is able to provide mutual anonymity while maintaining the scalability of lookups, affecting the costs only by a constant factor.

While Agyaat is able to meet its mutual anonymity and performance goals, there exist other security vulnerabilities like possible Denial‐of‐Service (DoS) attacks, both due to its design and the underlying DHT overlay. This is fertile ground for future work.

Agyaat uses a novel topology architecture and associated protocols that are conducive to providing mutually anonymous services.

We find evidence that the runs on banks and trust companies in the Panic of 1907 were linked to the Bank of England’s contractionary monetary policy actions taken in 1906 and 1907 through the medium of copper prices. Results from our vector autoregressive models and copper stockpile data support our argument that a copper commodity price channel may have been active in transmitting the Bank’s policy to the New York markets. Archival evidence suggests that the plunge in copper prices may have partially triggered both the initiation and the failure of an attempt to corner the shares of United Copper, and in turn, the bank and trust company runs related to that transaction’s failure. We suggest that the substantial short-term uncertainties accompanying the development of the copper-intensive electrical and telecommunications industries likely played a role in the plunge in copper prices. Additionally, we find evidence that the copper price transmission mechanism was also likely active in five other countries that year. While we do not argue that copper caused the 1907 crisis, we suggest that it was an active policy transmission channel amplifying the classic effect that was already spreading through the money market channel. If the bust in copper prices partially triggered the 1907 panic, then it provides additional evidence that contractionary monetary policy may have had an unintended, adverse consequence of contributing to a bank panic and, therefore, supports other recent findings that monetary policy deliberations might benefit from considering the policy impact on asset prices.

At the beginning of the 20th century, three intertwined ambitions drove federal legislation over wildlife and biodiversity: establishment of multiple-use federal lands, the economic development of natural resources, and the maintenance of option values. We examine this federal intervention in natural resource use by analyzing roll call votes over the past century with a Random Utility Model (Manski, 1977) and conclude that economics mattered. So did ideology, but not uniformly. After World War II, the pro-environment vote which had been conservative shifted to being liberal. All these votes involved decisions regarding public land that reallocated the returns to users by changing the asset’s physical character or its usage rights. We suggest that long-term consequences affecting current resource allocations arose from disparities between broadly dispersed benefits and locally concentrated socioeconomic and geophysical (spatial) costs. We show that a primary intent of public land management has become to preserve multiple-use option values and identify important factors in computing those option values. We do this by demonstrating how the willingness to forego current benefits for future ones depends on the community’s resource endowments. These endowments are defined not only in terms of users’ current wealth accumulation but also from their expected ability to extract utility from natural resources over time.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the antecedents of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) internationalization for a small set of Mexican ICT entrepreneurial firms, connected with subsectoral positions in a smile-shaped curve. Such antecedents constitute exploratory patterns related to simplified internationalization characteristics in terms of market choice, founder background and aspatial affiliations, providing a complementary technique to identify elements that shape SME internationalization in Latin America.

A value-added “smiling” curve is sketched according to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industry classification, mapping a non-probabilistic purposive sample of Mexican SMEs. The csQCA has been applied to the sample based on secondary data. Mexico’s ICT export behavior is also analyzed.

Internationalized SMEs in the sample tend to group in patterns that approach higher value-added positions in the “smiling” curve, exemplifying a type of non-geographic clustering. Particular groups seem to precede market selection (North America vs Latin America). The founder’s background does not determine internationalization choices. The sample included counterexamples (new entrants, limited cases involving research and development activities), which when analyzed suggest relevant literature validations.

This research contextualizes sectoral SME internationalization from a Latin American perspective, identifying simple patterns around particular ICT subsectors. It focuses on a type of international entrepreneurship that becomes exceptional in developing regions: technology-oriented. csQCA is presented as a preliminary (exploratory) technique to draw alternative theoretical frameworks for SME internationalization, specifically, market selection and aspatial cluster behavior around value-added chains, leading to new theoretical perspectives in SME internationalization.

Esta investigación persigue un entendimiento de los antecedentes en la internacionalización de la PyME para un pequeño conjunto de negocios mexicanos de TIC emprendedores, en conexión con posiciones subsectoriales en una curva con forma de sonrisa. Dichos antecedentes constituyen patrones exploratorios relacionados con características de internacionalización simplificadas, en función de la selección del mercado, los antecedentes del fundador, y las afiliaciones no espaciales, ofreciendo una técnica complementaria para la identificación de elementos que moldean la internacionalización de la PyME en América Latina.

Una curva de valor añadido en forma de “sonrisa” es delineada de acuerdo con la clasificación industrial SCIAN, mapeando una muestra deliberada no probabilística de PyMEs mexicanas. csQCA ha sido aplicado a la muestra con base en datos secundarios. El comportamiento exportador de México en TIC es analizado también.

Las PyMEs internacionalizadas en la muestra tienden a agruparse en patrones que se aproximan a las posiciones de mayor valor añadido dentro de la curva de la “sonrisa,” ejemplificando un tipo de conglomerado no geográfico. Ciertos agrupamientos parecen prevalecer respecto a la selección del mercado (América del norte vs. Latinoamérica). Los antecedentes del fundador no determinan las opciones de internacionalización. La muestra incluyó contraejemplos (nuevos participantes, casos limitados que involucran actividades de I+D), los cuales sugieren validaciones relevantes de la literatura una vez analizados.

Esta investigación contextualiza la internacionalización sectorial de la PyME desde una perspectiva latinoamericana, identificando patrones simples alrededor de subsectores particulares de TIC. Se enfoca en un tipo de emprendimiento internacional que llega a ser excepcional en regiones en desarrollo: orientado a la tecnología. csQCA se presenta como una técnica preliminar (exploratoria) para delinear marcos teóricos alternativos para la internacionalización de la PyME, específicamente, selección del mercado y comportamiento de conglomerados no espaciales alrededor de cadenas de valor añadido, llevando a nuevas perspectivas teóricas en la internacionalización de la PyME.

International competition is driving manufacturing executives to place an ever‐growing importance on the formulation of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) strategies as part of their corporate plans. Structured analysis and design techniques, in particular IDEF (Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing definition method), are becoming a vital tool in the analysis and implementation of such CIM strategies. This article positively demonstrates the technique and its ability to model the link between design and manufacture in a CIM environment. The approach relates interdependencies of planning for manufacture, design and process planning within a CIM strategy. In particular it establishes the position of computer aided process planning (CAPP) in CIM architecture and evaluates a CAPP package as a potential element of a CIM strategy. The application to which IDEFo, in particular, has been used clearly demonstrates its usefulness to manufacturers as a powerful aid to the development of detailed CIM strategies.

Injection drug use (IDU) and IDU‐related infectious diseases such as hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections are highly prevalent among prisoners worldwide. However, little is known about the prevalence of IDUs, HCV/HIV and the availability of respective treatment options in German prisons. Data provided by prison physicians of 31 prisons, representing 14,537 inmates, were included in this analysis. The proportion of IDUs among all prisoners was 21.9%. Substitution treatment was available in three out of four prisons (74.2%). Overall, 1137 substitution treatments were provided annually with a wide range of treatment aims. The prevalence rate was 14.3% for HCV and 1.2% for HIV. Around 5.5% of all HCV‐infected prisoners were in antiviral treatment annually, 86.5% of all HIV‐positive inmates in antiretroviral HIV‐treatment. Generally, substitution treatment, and HCV and HIV testing and treatment are available. However, due to abstinence‐orientated treatment aims, substitution treatment is rarely available as maintenance treatment, and HCV/HIV‐treatment is mainly provided for patients with an existing treatment before imprisonment. The inconsistent data quality necessitates changes in prison‐related policy to improve surveillance and to generate aggregated data in German prisons. The selection process in this analysis might lead to overestimating the provision of substitution and antiviral HCV‐treatment.

This research chapter focuses on gender issues and women’s health concerns relevant to leprosy disease and their implications for leprosy control program in Southeast Nigeria. Four research questions guided the study, two of which were to ascertain the ways in which gender affect both awareness of leprosy and community support and post-treatment reintegration of persons affected by leprosy (PAL) into their communities.

A sample size of 1,116 adults drawn through cluster and random sampling methods were the study participants from whom quantitative data were collected via questionnaire. Qualitative data were generated through focus group discussion (FGD) among PAL, and in-depth interview (IDI) of both leprosy control staff, and other stakeholders purposively drawn from the area. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software was employed to process data, while frequency tables, bar charts, and chi-square were used to present, analyze, and test the hypothesis.

The study found that level of awareness about leprosy (which has several local names in the area) was relatively high (89.6%). However, significant differences exist in levels of awareness on leprosy between males and females. Also, men were perceived as less likely to comply with treatment instructions due to their gender roles of family economic upkeep. Males affected by leprosy were also found to encounter severest forms of social discrimination and post-treatment reintegration challenges.

The study scope was limited to the examination of public perception of gender issues and women’s healthcare concerns related to leprosy and their implications for leprosy control program in Southeast Nigeria. Only PAL registered with Nigeria’s Leprosy Control Programme participated with other non-patient respondents. The study focused on social aspects of leprosy (other than its biophysical component).

The implication of the research outcome includes need for deliberate strategy by leprosy control team to improve the level of awareness/knowledge as well as treatment compliance across gender. Similarly, differential mode of social reaction (to male and female gender) affected by leprosy should be addressed. Above all, aggressive public enlightenment through public, private, and local media and prohibition of sociocultural practices that promote spread of leprosy were stressed as measures to enhance leprosy control in the area.

The study fills the knowledge gap with respect to gender issues and women’s healthcare concerns related to leprosy and their implications for leprosy control program in Southeast Nigeria. Findings from the concluded research set it apart and differed with earlier and similar studies elsewhere. For instance, men affected by leprosy in the area encounter severest forms of negative social reaction; are less compliant to treatment plans and less aware of leprosy when compared with females. All these affirm the position of the chapter that gender issues relevant to leprosy differ according to cultural setting, time, and place of inquiry and do not align to any universal scheme.

Sustainable features are gradually becoming important considerations by commercial real estate users. This is because of their considered impact in reducing operating costs and potential at reducing the negative impacts of buildings on human health and the natural environment. This chapter sought to examine the demands for sustainable features by users of commercial real estate like offices in Lagos State, Nigeria. It also evaluated the factors influencing demand for them to achieve value for money and enhance real estate investment decisions. The quantitative research methodology was adopted, and primary data were collected via questionnaires distributed to 134 purposively selected estate surveying firms in the study area. Ninety-five representing (70.9%) were returned and found useable and were analysed with the aid of descriptive statistics of percentages, mean and relative willingness index. The study found that power/energy-saving features are in high demand as alternatives to the epileptic nature of power supply in the country. The study recommended the need for the government to encourage the adoption and incorporation of locally made sustainable features in commercial real estate and to subsidise them for use in the Lagos commercial real estate market. Thus, it is concluded that with the right environment created by policy makers, sustainable features in buildings have huge potentials to contribute to prevent environmental problems in an emerging commercial real estate market like Nigeria.

Wrap fee programs are an increasingly popular product offered by broker‐dealers and investment managers to their clients. Wrap fee programs present unique issues under both the Investment Company Act of 1940 (“Investment Company Act”) and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (“Advisers Act”), the two primary bodies of law that govern the product and those who offer and manage it. The regulations and rules under those Acts applicable to wrap fee programs and related interpretive statements made by the SEC staff, however, are wide ranging and have not been provided in a single format. This article attempts to present a comprehensive discussion on the regulation of wrap fee programs, as well as the many compliance issues associated with these programs. The article is delivered in two parts. Part I, presented in this issue, addresses the regulation of wrap fee programs under the Investment Company Act. Part I also begins a review of unique issues arising under the Advisers Act, including registration requirements for wrap fee sponsors and other persons who manage or offer the product to their clients, as well as required contents for wrap fee brochures and related disclosure issues. Part II, which will be presented in the next issue, will discuss additional Advisers Act issues such as suitability, fees and advertising. It also will briefly review issues arising under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”).