Despite the relative successes of the post-apartheid South African Government, government’s failure to adequately deliver basic services has led to recent national public unrest over the problem of poor service delivery. The aim of this study was to investigate satisfaction level pertaining the service delivery in Matjhabeng Local Municipality. Municipalities are mandated by the Constitution to provide basic services to its community such as potable water supply, electricity, refuse collection roads and sanitation. The analysis is mainly on the basis of service delivery experienced in different areas such as formal and informal townships, study amongst municipal employees, as well as middle and high suburb areas within Matjhabeng LM. The realistic evidence has revealed that communities are unhappy because of, among other things, the cadre deployment to the municipality, the poor service delivery, corrupt councillors, uncommitted employees, communication between municipality and its residents and interference of politicians which have impacted negatively on service delivery. The results showed that although many respondents are unhappy with the basic services besides the municipality making an effort to provide basic services. Furthermore, it is evident from the results that while being unhappy with services more than residents who receive monthly bills are willing to pay for services rendered. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

We investigate using Human Interactive Security Protocols (HISPs) to secure payments. We start our research by conducting extensive investigations into the payment industry. After interacting with different payment companies and banks, we present two case studies: online payment and mobile payment. We show how to adapt HISPs for payments by establishing the reverse authentication method. In order to properly and thoroughly evaluate different payment examples, we establish two attack models which cover the most commonly seen attacks against payments. We then present our own payment solutions which aim at solving the most urgent security threats revealed in our case studies. Demonstration implementations are also made to show our advantages. In the end we show how to extend the use of HISPs into other domains.

Flexible compensation is a new concept in wage and salary administration which permits the employee to select from the various benefits, and cash, a plan tailored to meet his own needs, limited only by his total compensation and those statutory provisions pertaining to his wages. Within recent years, compensation practitioners have been urged in professional journals to adopt flexible compensation as a way to improve their compensation programs in order to attract, hold, and motivate employees. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, the results of this research will provide empirical data on the current status of flexible compensation for nonexempt employees in the United States. Second, the research will contribute toward the development of a set of comprehensive guidelines for implementing flexible compensation programs.

in english The purpose of this theses is to analyse the Bitcoin electronic peer-to-peer payment system, from the view of the legal, regulatory and also purely practical issues surrounding its use as a modern means of payment processing. The reason for choosing this topic is that I find the subject to be very interesting and possibly promising for the future of payments. Also, as the use of Bitcoin payment system spreads across the global population, we can see many of legal questions arising: Is the use of Bitcoin network legal? How is it regulated under existing legal system? Can it be subsumed under any existing legal categories? What are the risks of its misuse for criminal activities? Should new legal rules be enacted to regulate its use, and if so, what should these rules be like? My goal in this paper is to find these relevant questions, elaborate on them and provide as many answers as will be possible. We have to bear in mind the fact, that the technology, underlying the Bitcoin payment systém is very new and many ways path-breaking. As usual, the legal theory lags behing technology here, so many questions still have to be settled before we can give any straight answers. The work is divided into seven chapters, each dealing with different legal or practical aspects connected to the Bitcoin...

Redundancy payment and other forms of compensation in employment relations The diploma thesis deals with forms of compensation in employment relations in contemporary Czech labour law. Aside from the Introduction and Conclusion, the thesis consists of four chapters. The second chapter discusses the concept of compensations in labour law, and provides an analysis of the functions of labour law compensations, from the perspective of both the employee and employer. An overview of the different types of compensations is provided, including their categorization. Redundancy payment, the primary and most frequent type of labour law compensation in Czech law, forms the content of chapter three. The functions of redundancy payments are explained, and the terms and conditions which give rise to the right of employees to redundancy payment are analyzed. Further, the amounts of redundancy payments under different circumstances are dealt with in detail, including an explanation of the methods of their calculation; the author also focuses on the category of average monthly remuneration and its importance in this relation. Each of the manners of employment termination and their relevance for the right to redundancy payment are discussed, as well as the amounts of redundancy payments pertaining to each type of...

By applying the Kano Model on mobile payment, the paper aims at giving an overview on thebasic, performance and excitement requirements that affect customer satisfaction. In this paper,mobile payment customer requirements are compared to former research conducted onpayment methods in general. Furthermore, each requirement is divided into two parts focusingon Business-to-Customer and Business-to-Business aspects. The findings of the paper werethat while there is still some overlapping between general payment method and mobile paymentmethod requirements, some requirements such as security, fake-proof nature, reputation andreliability of the method has transformed and became more important. Furthermore, due totechnological advancements new customer requirements occur.

A new authentication mechanism for validating the source of messages over the Internet is designed and evaluated. This mechanism is applied to email and is called Email++. Email++ prevents identity forging (spoofing) and tampering of email contents. By preventing identity forging, Email++ can reduce the amount of spam received and limit the spread of viruses like Melissa, Love Bug, Bagle Worm, and Killer Resume. Email++ validates both the sender and the receiver of an email by confirming the senders identity with the domain mail server that delivered the email for the sender, and authenticates the receiver with hash value comparisons. Email++ enables payment mechanisms, including micro-cash, and challenge response schemes that use puzzle solving. MD5 hash signatures generated both at the sender and the receiver locations are used for validating the senders identity and for making email tamper resistant in the network. An out-of-band TCP connection established between the sender and the receiver is used as a communication channel for validating the sender as well as the senders email server. The information needed for establishing an out-of-band TCP connection is obtained by querying the DNS (Domain Naming System), instead of using email headers from the received mail, which are susceptible to spoofing. The Email++ technique is compared with existing anti spam and anti-spoof techniques like SPF, Yahoo Domain Keys, Microsoft Sender ID, TEOS and PGP. The Email++ specification is evaluated by developing both Email++ client and Email++ server programs in C language and using Sendmail 8.12 as the mail server. The performance of Email++ is compared with standard SMTP protocol implementation of Sendmail 8.12. Several factors are considered in evaluating the performance. CPU demand, memory demand, bandwidth demand, email latency, and extra DNS load are measured for both email sender and the receiver. The performance evaluation results show that Email++ adds an extra CPU demand of about 11%. The extra memory required by Email++ is nearly 3%. The bandwidth demand of Email++ is around 15% greater than the standard SMTP for sending 500 emails of 3.5KB each. Extra load on DNS increases by one connection for every incoming mail at the receiver.

This thesis deals with export payment. Different payment methods that can be used in order to receive and secure payment when conducting international trade are analysed, and relevant risks and problems are examined. Particular focus is given to export trade with China. International trade offers great possibilities for companies, but also risks. There are several risks that should be taken into consideration, for instance the political risk, the exchange risk and the commercial risk. The commercial risk is the seller’s risk of non-payment or late payment and the buyer’s risk of non-delivery or faulty delivery Over the last decades the Chinese market has gone through considerable changes and today it is one of the world’s most important markets. The commercial risk is sometimes feared when doing business in China. This is because statements have been made claiming that Chinese buyers are somewhat untrustworthy payers. Payment is an essential part of all trade transactions. There are a number of payment methods that can be used in order to receive and secure international payment. Which payment method that should be used depends on the circumstances of the transaction. The documentary credit is a frequently used payment method in interna-tional trade. It offers the exporter security of payment because at least one bank adds its promises to pay. / Denna uppsats behandlar betalning vid export. Olika betalningsmetoder som kan användas för att erhålla och säkerställa betalning analyseras, och relevanta risker och problem studeras. Uppsatsen är särskilt inriktad på Kina. Internationell handel medför många möjligheter för företag, men också en ökad risk. Hänsyn måste tas till bland annat den politiska risken, valutarisken och den kommersiella risken. Den kommersiella risken är risken att betalning eller leverans inte sker i enlighet med vad som har avtalats. Den kinesiska marknaden har under de senaste årtiondena genomgått en omfattande förändring, och idag är den en av världens viktigaste marknader. Den kommersiella risken är ibland befarad vid kinesisk handel. Detta beror på att det finns en uppfattning att kinesiska köpare ibland kan vara osäkra betalare. Betalning är en viktig del av alla handelstransaktioner. Det finns ett antal betalningsmetoder som kan användas för att erhålla och säkerställa internationell betalning. Vilken metod som bör användas beror på omständigheterna vid handelstransaktionen. Remburs är en betalningsmetod som är vanligt förekommande vid internationell handel. Metoden ger exportören betalningssäkerhet eftersom minst en bank garanterar betalningen.

A qualitative research study was conducted with people who had participated as healthy subjects in phase I drug trials at commercial research facilities, in order to develop a better understanding of their perspective regarding research participation. The participants were recruited using online advertisements posted on the University of Toronto student website (www.my.utoronto.ca) and NOW Magazine online. Thirty-one subjects were interviewed. The audiotaped interviews were transcribed and analyzed using grounded theory methods. A grounded theory was developed that describes the process of participation and the main factors affecting the experience of participation, from the perspective of healthy subjects. The theory, called Making Participation Work, explains how healthy subjects frame participation as an income earning opportunity, and how this framing shapes their behaviour with regard to participation. Participants expressed a range of attitudes about the experience of participation, from very positive to very negative. The main factor affecting the experience is the perceived net burden, which is in turn affected by the degree to which subjects find personal control over their participation. Net burden and finding personal control were both affected by the degree to which subjects felt valued by research staff, and by whether subjects had trust in the research enterprise. Although subjects framed participation as work, the relationship with the study doctors and nurses was viewed as clinical. Most subjects are generally trusting that participation in phase I drug trials is safe. These findings suggest that models of research participation assuming participation motivated by altruism or potential therapeutic benefit cannot accommodate the attitudes and behaviours of healthy subjects in phase I drug trials. New models must be developed which account for the framing of participation as work, while being sensitive to the trust that healthy subjects place in the research enterprise.

A qualitative research study was conducted with people who had participated as healthy subjects in phase I drug trials at commercial research facilities, in order to develop a better understanding of their perspective regarding research participation. The participants were recruited using online advertisements posted on the University of Toronto student website (www.my.utoronto.ca) and NOW Magazine online. Thirty-one subjects were interviewed. The audiotaped interviews were transcribed and analyzed using grounded theory methods. A grounded theory was developed that describes the process of participation and the main factors affecting the experience of participation, from the perspective of healthy subjects. The theory, called Making Participation Work, explains how healthy subjects frame participation as an income earning opportunity, and how this framing shapes their behaviour with regard to participation. Participants expressed a range of attitudes about the experience of participation, from very positive to very negative. The main factor affecting the experience is the perceived net burden, which is in turn affected by the degree to which subjects find personal control over their participation. Net burden and finding personal control were both affected by the degree to which subjects felt valued by research staff, and by whether subjects had trust in the research enterprise. Although subjects framed participation as work, the relationship with the study doctors and nurses was viewed as clinical. Most subjects are generally trusting that participation in phase I drug trials is safe. These findings suggest that models of research participation assuming participation motivated by altruism or potential therapeutic benefit cannot accommodate the attitudes and behaviours of healthy subjects in phase I drug trials. New models must be developed which account for the framing of participation as work, while being sensitive to the trust that healthy subjects place in the research enterprise.