A Compendium of Essays on Alternative Therapy


Book Description

A Compendium of Essays on Alternative Therapy is aimed at both conventional and alternate therapy practitioners, besides serving as an educational tool for students and lay persons on the progress made in the field. While this resource is not all-inclusive, it does reflect the current theories from different international experts in the field. This will hopefully stimulate more research initiatives, funding, and critical insight in the already increasing demand for alternate therapies that has been evidenced worldwide.




Compilation for Secure Multi-party Computation


Book Description

This book presents a holistic view on compiler assisted practical secure multi-party computation (MPC) over Boolean circuits. It discusses that two or more parties jointly evaluate a function over their inputs in such a way that each party keeps its input unknown to the other parties in MPC. MPC provides a generic way to construct Privacy-Enhancing Technologies, which protect sensitive data during processing steps in untrusted environments. A major obstacle in the past was to generate MPC applications by hand. Recently, special compilers have been developed to build all kinds of applications. This book also explains in detail how efficient MPC applications can be created automatically from ANSI-C, thus, bridging the areas of cryptography, compilation and hardware synthesis. It also gives an insight into the requirements for creating efficient applications for MPC and is hence of interest to not only researchers in the area of MPC but also developers realizing practical applications with MPC. For a better understanding of the complete compile chain from ANSI-C to circuits, which is the ‘machine code’ of MPC, the authors first give the necessary background information on MPC protocols, Boolean logic, and logic synthesis. Then the authors describe the various compilation steps required to translate any code into an adequate circuit description. Afterwards, the authors introduce a variety of optimization techniques for two classes of MPC protocols, namely techniques that improve the runtime of applications in constant- and multi-round MPC protocols. The authors also illustrate how efficient parallelization of MPC protocols can be achieved using the assistance of compilers. It presents the effectiveness of the proposed techniques by giving a detailed evaluation on benchmarking applications. Most of the aforementioned techniques are implemented in our open source compiler that is accompanying this book and allows to study compilation for MPC in practice.Researchers who are interested in practical secure multi-party computation (MPC), and developers who are interested in realizing MPC applications in practice will find this book useful as a reference, as well as advanced-level students in computer science.




Localisation and Interaction


Book Description

Localisation and Interaction covers the scaling theory of localization metal-insulator transitions, two-dimensional systems, interaction effects in impure metals, weak localization, critical point measurement, quantum wells, integer quantum Hall effects, magnetic field induced transitions, static and dynamic magnetic probes, band gap narrowing, and an experiment with the quantum Hall effects.







Open Government: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications


Book Description

Open government initiatives have become a defining goal for public administrators around the world. As technology and social media tools become more integrated into society, they provide important frameworks for online government and community collaboration. However, progress is still necessary to create a method of evaluation for online governing systems for effective political management worldwide. Open Government: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source that explores the use of open government initiatives and systems in the executive, legislative, and judiciary sectors. It also examines the use of technology in creating a more affordable, participatory, and transparent public-sector management models for greater citizen and community involvement in public affairs. Highlighting a range of topics such as data transparency, collaborative governance, and bureaucratic secrecy, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for government officials, leaders, practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and academicians seeking current research on open government initiatives.




Theoretical Foundations and Discussions on the Reformation Process in Local Governments


Book Description

Local government can be defined as a public entity acting as the sub-unit of a state or of a region, charged with the task of enforcing public policies. There have been many reforms of local government in recent years from the grassroots-led movement that took root in the 90’s to the overarching effects of globalization and decentralization. Local governments must adapt their practices in order to most effectively provide for their constituents. Theoretical Foundations and Discussions on the Reformation Process in Local Government addresses the effects of recent reforms in the political-administrative system of local governments and politics as well as future outlooks. It reviews the challenges, innovations, and lessons from local governments while providing theoretical perspectives on methods for positive reform. This book is a critical reference source for policy makers, government organizations, professionals, and actors in both local and international politics.




Pakistan's Counterterrorism Challenge


Book Description

Pakistan, which since 9/11 has come to be seen as one of the world’s most dangerous places and has been referred to as “the epicenter of international terrorism,� faces an acute counterterrorism (CT) challenge. The book focuses on violence being perpetrated against the Pakistani state by Islamist groups and how Pakistan can address these challenges, concentrating not only on military aspects but on the often-ignored political, legal, law enforcement, financial, and technological facets of the challenge. Edited by Moeed Yusuf of the US Institute of Peace, and featuring the contributions and insights of Pakistani policy practitioners and scholars as well as international specialists with deep expertise in the region, the volume explores the current debate surrounding Pakistan’s ability—and incentives—to crack down on Islamist terrorism and provides an in-depth examination of the multiple facets of this existential threat confronting the Pakistani state and people. The book pays special attention to the non-traditional functions of force that are central to Pakistan’s ability to subdue militancy but which have not received the deserved attention from the Pakistani state nor from western experts. In particular, this path-breaking volume, the first to explore these various facets holistically, focuses on the weakness of political institutions, the role of policing, criminal justice systems, choking financing for militancy, and regulating the use of media and technology by militants. Military force alone, also examined in this volume, will not solve Pakistan’s Islamist challenge. With original insights and attention to detail, the authors provide a roadmap for Western and Pakistani policymakers alike to address the weaknesses in Pakistan’s CT strategy.




Khyber Pakhtunkhwa food outlook report: Kharif crops 2021-22


Book Description

A food outlook report explains the past, current, and future situation of various crops in a specific geographical location. A food outlook report is useful in showing the trends and fluctuations in the cultivated area, production, yield, prices, and other variables. This information is helpful for relevant stakeholders in determining the possible impending shortages or gluts in the food market. A timely analysis on food output and prices can enable policymakers to make wellinformed decisions that can result in controlling market distortions. A major benefit of such reports is that it can predict any anticipated shock or guide about exploiting a growing opportunity. The forecasts conducted in this food outlook report can be helpful in determining the supply and prices of the crops at their harvesting time. To counter a foreseeable shortage or glut, governments can work with the relevant stakeholders to enable timely imports or exports of the crop. One of the main objectives of this paper is to make timely and evidence-based decisions to overcome gaps between food production and consumption growth, and to increase access of the growing population to affordable foods.




Corruption and Law in Indonesia


Book Description

Indonesia has transformed from one of South East Asia’s most repressive and centralised political systems to its most decentralised and democratic. Despite this, obstacles still remain that hinder Indonesia achieving the ‘rule of law’, and in particular, the country is consistently ranked as having one of the highest levels of corruption in the world. This book assesses Indonesia’s anti-corruption reforms over the past decade, focusing on the Anti-corruption Commission (KPK) and the Anti-corruption Court (ACC). The book discusses how both institutions have been largely successful since they began operating on 2004. Before 2008, the KPK and ACC largely focused on mid-senior level targets and faced resistance primarily in the form of constitutional challenges to their jurisdictions and powers. From 2008, however, the KPK began targeting politically-powerful figures, drawing resistance that now threatens the future efficacy of both institutions. It is largely in Indonesia’s courtrooms and lawmaking institutions that key battles between reformists and those preferring the status quo have played out. This book describes and analyses these judicial processes and legal changes. It shows that despite persistent claims that Indonesia’s legal system is dysfunctional, law is far from irrelevant in modern day Indonesia. The book is a useful contribution to South East Asian politics and Asian law.




Tourism Planning and Development in South Asia


Book Description

Tourism has huge significance as a global economic and social phenomenon, and given the growing reliance on the industry by service-dependent economies around the world, the lack of focus on tourism planning and development in South Asia is surprising. Current issues including social, environmental and cultural aspects underpinned by security challenges have defined the tourism development narratives in many South Asian countries over the last decades and lead to fluid demand and supply patterns. The appetite for and reliance on tourism growth is seen regardless of the numerous challenges faced by the region. Despite a rich and steady history of tourism and demand driven by numerous pull-destinations, most South Asian countries have not invested or benefitted from global tourism growth trends.