PayPal is the leader in the field of online payment platform. Their ability to prevent fraudulent activities and PayPal´s high safety is the main reason for its success. PayPal is mostly used in costumer to costumer market but their business market users are also rising. Users are secured with a buy and sell insurance when they use PayPal services. If someone has purchased something online that then are not delivered, or that deviates markedly from the seller's description, PayPal can reimburse the full amount of the goods. Other services such as transferring money between friends are also possible. PayPal´s buy and sell insurance is what online purchasers’ value the most when they are shopping online and PayPal is at the forefront of this. If this type of insurances that PayPal provides would not exist people would purchase online less than they do today. PayPal has revolutionized and ameliorate the entire online purchase market for everyone with their safe payment platform.

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of Virginia school divisions’ policy of paying the fee for students to take Advanced Placement exams on Advanced Placement course enrollment, the number of Advanced Placement exams taken by students, the average scores earned and the percent of students earning qualifying scores of 3, 4, or 5 on Advanced Placement exams. The hierarchical regression models utilized Advanced Placement scores and school demographic data provided by the Virginia Department of Education combined with survey data on Advanced Placement policies and the number years that exam fees had been paid collected from school principals, directors of counseling and division officials. School level demographics considered in the analyses included school size, socioeconomic status, ethnicity and school achievement. Advanced Placement enrollment and the number of exams taken increased significantly over the period of study while the average scores and number of qualifying scores earned by Virginia students remained unchanged. The payment of exam fees by Virginia school divisions had no impact on the change in Advanced Placement participation. Average scores and percent of qualifying scores earned on Advanced Placement science exams fell over the study period, though participation grew in line with the overall Advanced Placement participation. No significant differences in the change in Advanced Placement participation or scores were observed based on the underserved minority enrollment of schools, however both enrollment, average scores and qualifying scores on Advanced Placement exams fell significantly as the percent of students qualified that for free and reduced-lunch programs at a school increased.

There have been decades of attempts to evolve or revolutionise the traditional financial system, but not all such efforts have been transformative or even successful. From Chaum's proposals in the 1980s for private payment systems to micropayments, previous attempts failed to take off for a variety of reasons, including non-existing markets, or issues pertaining to usability, scalability and performance, resilience against failure, and complexity of protocols. Towards creating more resilient payment systems, we investigated issues related to security engineering in general, and payment systems in particular. We identified that network coverage, central points of failure, and attacks may cripple system performance. The premise of our research is that offline capabilities are required to produce resilience in critical systems. We focus on issues related to network problems and attacks, system resilience, and scalability by introducing the ability to process payments offline without relying on the availability of network coverage; a lack of network coverage renders some payment services unusable for their customers. Decentralising payment verification, and outsourcing some operations to users, alleviates the burden of contacting centralised systems to process every transaction. Our secondary goal is to minimise the cost of providing payment systems, so providers can cut transaction fees. Moreover, by decentralising payment verification that can be performed offline, we increase system resilience, and seamlessly maintain offline operations until a system is back online. We also use tamper-resistant hardware to tackle usability issues, by minimising cognitive overhead and helping users to correctly handle critical data, minimising the risks of data theft and tampering. We apply our research towards extending financial inclusion efforts, since the issues discussed above must be solved to extend mobile payments to the poorest demographics. More research is needed to integrate online payments, offline payments, and delay-tolerant networking. This research extends and enhances not only payment systems, but other electronically-enabled services from pay-as-you-go solar panels to agricultural subsidies and payments from aid donors. We hope that this thesis is helpful for researchers, protocol designers, and policy makers interested in creating resilient payment systems by assisting them in financial inclusion efforts.

ABSTRACT From August 1, 1999, ¡§Co-payment For the Frequent-Visit Outpatients¡¨ has gone into effect. Frequent visit outpatients have to pay more medical expenses out of their own pocket. How did the new co-payment scheme affect the medical expenditure and utilization of the outpatients, especially frequent-visit outpatients? Can this new co-payment scheme work efficiently and reach its goal: reduce the unnecessary waste of the medical resources? At Taiwan, Central Healthcare and Medical Service (CHMS) has a large outpatient database, which contains the basic information of the outpatients. This study chose the database about the ¡§Frequent Outpatients¡¨ from August-December 1998, and August-December, 1999 as population. Such data included the 157,613 cases from 1998 and 160,870 cases from 1999. By analyzing the 1998 and 1999 data provided by the Central Healthcare and Medical Service, this study found the followings have been changed since new scheme took effect: 1. Co-payment had broad and deep effect on the patients¡¦ medical care utilization. Due to the additional High Medical Utilization Co-payment Fee, NT 50 or NT 100, outpatients would be more cautious before they go to see the doctors. At the same time, trying to get more for what they pay, outpatients would rather go to the major regional hospitals or centers in the medical system than small hospitals or clinics. As for the prescribed drug, outpatients were inclined to ask doctors for prescription drugs that can be taken for more days, so they can reduce their visits and therefore save some co-payment fees. This study also found prescribed drug expenses per patient dramatically increase when the average drug expenses per day decrease. Apparently, the increased drug expenses were form the more prescribed-drug days per visit. With the drug expenditures going up, average outpatient expenses per visit increased and the detailed and combination of medical bill varies. 2. Male and female had different responses to this new co-payment scheme. The gender-oriental differences were found in the following areas: ¡]1¡^Regional hospitals (centers) or small clinics. ¡]2¡^The average prescribed-drug days for each visit. ¡]3¡^Drug expenditure per day per patient.¡]4¡^Total expenses per outpatient visit. ¡]5¡^The detailed breakdown of each outpatient visit¡¦s expenses. 3. No effect on the following outpatient age segments:¡¨ age 6-14 teenager¡¨,¡¨ age 15-24 young people¡¨, and ¡§age 25-44 adults¡¨. The new co-payment system had no effect on the above-mentioned age groups, but it did have big and deep influence on the ¡§age 45-64 mid-age adult¡¨ and ¡§age 65 + elderly¡¨, especially on the elderly. The elderly were the major medical service user, and a lot of them lived on their retire and lived on their pensions, so they got hit badly by the high co-payment. 4. In general the higher co-payment had big effect on following three groups: ¡]1¡^¡§Media-utilization Outpatient Group¡¨, ¡]2¡^¡§High- utilization Outpatient Group¡¨ ¡]3¡^¡§Extremely- utilization Outpatient Group¡¨ To save money, outpatients, whatever group they belong to, would reduce their doctor visit. After analyzing all of the above-mentioned aspects, impacts, differences, changes and effects this high co-payment have had on the different age and gender groups since August 1999, this study concluded that the new co-payment regulation had significantly reduced the medical service demands, especially from female or male age 45+.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 126 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-108).

Not available / text

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Göttingen.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Zürich, 1922. / "Curriculum vitae": p. [141]. Includes bibliographical references (p. [7]-10).

Diss.--Heidelberg. / Bibliography: p. [149]-150.

Diss.--Heidelberg. / Bibliography: p. [149]-150.