1. Introduction We consider the problem of building middleware that facilitates service replication over a wide area network (e.g., the Internet) where service replicas are typically placed in different, geographically wide-apart locations. Several group communication protocols have been proposed in the literature, some have even been implemented ([C98, DM96, Moser96, VKM96]). However, many of ...

Corruption in public administration is a cause for continuing concern, particularly in the developing world. Although optimism regarding the ability of e-government to reduce or eliminate corruption is widespread, neutral impact assessment reports however continue to expose cases where corruption persists even after the introduction of e-government. Clearly, there is a need for strengthening re...

We study bureaucratic corruption in a model in which a constituency sets required levels for a given set of activities. Each activity is carried out by an external provider, and its realization is supervised by a bureaucrat. While bureaucrats are supposed to act on behalf of the constituency, they can decide to be corrupt and allow providers to deliver lower activity levels than contracted in e...

Corruption is a worldwide phenomenon, particularly in many developing countries, which contain a large proportion of global biodiversity. Most alarming, from a biodiversity-conservation perspective, is the frequent corruption of government officials who manage valuable natural resources, such as timber, oil and precious minerals. A recent study by Joyotee Smith and colleagues describes rampant ...

We examine a hierarchical model where a principal hires a risk averse supervisor to monitor the effort exerted by a productive agent. We assume that the supervisor can misreport the collected evidence without incurring any cost. We develop a corruption-proof contract which makes it sequentially rational for the supervisor to report truthfully. Crucial features of our contract are the timing at ...

BACKGROUND Decisions by dentists to administer antibiotic prophylaxis to prevent infectious complications in patients involves professional risk assessment. While recommendations for rational use have been published, several studies have shown that dentists have low adherence to these recommendations. OBJECTIVE To examine general dental practitioners' (GDPs') assessments of the risk of compli...