Thesis (M.Com. (Accounting))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

In the emerging wireless Internet environment involving m-commerce and other mobile applications, an increasing number of users are likely to adopt mobile transactions. These transactions are likely to have very diverse requirements and some of them may require significant amount of network resources and/or bounded delays. Most quality-of-service research in wireless networks has hitherto focused on call or connection-level QoS. Many mobile transactions are expected to be distinct from the previously investigated applications in their criticality, level of resource required, and in their group characteristics. Examples of such transactions are ones involving a financial value. These unique requirements of mobile transactions necessitate introduction of new metrics for quality-of-service. To measure QoS effectiveness of mobile transactions, two new metrics, namely transaction completion probability and transaction response time are introduced in this research. Moreover, it is well known that wireless networks are constrained for bandwidth. Mobile transactions are expected to require varying degree of bandwidth which makes the resource allocation only at connection level very inefficient. This research proposes a new framework to support QoS requirements of mobile transactions by allocating bandwidth at connection and transaction levels. The proposed framework helps in achieving a balance between transaction completion probability and the response time. Simulation and analytical modeling are used to evaluate the QoS metrics under varying network and traffic scenarios and to validate the effectiveness of the new framework. The results show that the balanced transaction and connection level resource allocation can improve the probability of transactions completion and resource utilization but at the cost of slightly increased response time.

Due to the growing interest in electronic commerce, more and more transactions now happen online. Thus, fair transactions between customers and merchants are getting important. To gain the fairness of the exchange of digital items, fair exchange protocols have been proposed and well studied. Most of the traditional fair exchange protocols are concerned about the exchange of digital items, such as digital signatures, contracts, and documents. Recently, researchers pay attention to the exchange of digital goods along with electronic cash, and have proposed some fair transaction protocols based on electronic cash. To buy digital contents via electronic cash through network, the anonymity property as traditional cash possesses must be guaranteed. It means that the payment information of the customer cannot be revealed to anyone else including the trusted third party (TTP) who helps the customer and the merchant with resolving possible disputes in the protocol. Since the customer and the merchant may not trust each other in an electronic transaction. In a fair exchange protocol, a TTP is employed to achieve true fairness. An on-line TTP has to take part in all transactions while they are proceeding. Despite it can gain true fairness, it is inefficient due to on-line interaction with the TTP. On the other hand, an off-line TTP does not need to join in the transaction protocol in normal cases. Instead, it participates in the protocol only when disputes happen. It is efficient and fair, and more feasible in practical situations. In this thesis, we propose a fair transaction protocol based on electronic cash. With the extended research on electronic cash, we have designed a fair transaction protocol that is suitable for any electronic cash system. By using an off-line TTP, the protocol is more efficient and practical. Furthermore, payment information of the customer cannot be known to anyone else including the TTP, and thus, the anonymity of the customer is protected completely in our protocol.

Abstract After the ban against private-owned gas service stations was lifted in 1987, some domestic trading firms took advantage of the special feature of gasoline products as well as Taiwan¡¦s unique oil price structure to import low-quality oil products for blending into gasoline-equivalent products, which would then be sold to independent service station owners mushrooming in accordance with the oil market deregulation. According to the statistics of import/export at Taiwan customs and the comparison between supply and demand of relative industries, it is agreed that an annual total of approximate 400,000 kiloliters of various imported oil products would be blended into gasoline or diesels for sale. Moreover, as Taiwan government has been continuously providing a 14% oil price subsidy against a sluggish fishing industry caused by depleting fishing resources, the fishing fuels in glut, at an estimate of 410, 000 kiloliters a year, would be illegally sold as diesel in domestic gas service stations for higher profits. These practices have not only directly affected tax revenues of local governments, but also infringed upon the legal rights of petroleum refineries, putting the orderliness of petroleum production and sale in jeopardy. In addition, as such illicit practices are usually carried out near makeshift storage tanks with ineligible filling facilities, they have posed great threats to public safety and environment. As it is difficult to detect and thereby root out the underground transactions of such inferior gasoline and diesels, the police that was authorized insufficiently on legal aspects would carry out inspections at key roads and intersections only passively, which has posed but limited intimidation over illegal transactions of unqualified gasoline products. Realizing the facts, this survey takes the historical data on relative factors and market survey figures as basis for calculation and analysis, which is used then to assume the normal demand of gasoline and diesel markets and to establish a conclusive alarming model for flow direction. Besides, it obtains affecting variables such as market segmentation, channel characteristics, customer behaviors, price gap and business environments through interviews and questionnaires, to determine limits on the alarming model and the alarming value. Comparing with the actual consumption of gasoline and diesels, we can then judge if there remains any abnormality concerning the sales volume of gasoline and diesels. If any abnormal sign shown, we can check the alarming model item by item for timely management and control, so as to supervise and check the underground transactions of inferior gasoline and diesels. We also hope that the survey report on ¡§the Alarming Model over the Flow of Inferior Gasoline and Diesels and Its Application¡¨ could provide practical references for the detection and elimination of inferior gasoline and diesels so that the illicit and unsafe practice could be inhibited once and for all.

This dissertation presents the concurrent programming language Ora, an extension of the Orc orchestration language with the capability to execute transactions. A new formal definition of transactions is given, in terms of two complementary properties: atomicity and coatomicity. These properties are described in terms of a partial order of events, rather than as properties of a totally ordered program trace. Atomicity and coatomicity are ensured in Ora programs by a novel algorithm for multiversion concurrency control. / text

Sandorio, prieštaraujančio imperatyvioms įstatymo normoms, negaliojimas įtvirtinamas tiek Lietuvos, tiek užsienio valstybių nacionalinėje teisėje. Šis negaliojimo pagrindas valstybių nacionaliniuose teisės aktuose, o taip pat ir Europos sutarčių teisėje siejamas su itin svarbių teisės normų pažeidimu, kurių tikslas apsaugoti visos visuomenės mastu reikšmingas vertybes. Sandorio, prieštaraujančio imperatyvioms įstatymo normoms, negaliojimo pagrindas Lietuvos nacionalinėje teisėje įtvirtinamas CK 1.80 straipsnio 1 dalyje. Tai viena iš sutarties laisvės išimčių, nustatytų, siekiant užtikrinti teisėtumą civiliniuose santykiuose, apginti asmens teises ir teisėtus interesus. Sandorio negaliojimas minėtu pagrindu dažniausiai konstatuojamas, esant suinteresuoto asmens prašymui. Be teisės, suteikiamos suinteresuotiems asmenims, teisė ex officio konstatuoti sandorio negaliojimą įtvirtinama teismui, tačiau svarbu, tačiau turi būti nustatyta šio pagrindo taikymui būtina aplinkybių visuma: aplinkybė, kad teisės norma yra imperatyvi, kad ši teisės norma yra pažeista ir, kad pažeidimas lemia sandorio negaliojimą. Europos sutarčių teisėje taip pat atsižvelgiama į pažeidimo pasekmes, sandorio šalių tyčią, pažeidimo rimtumą ir kitas reikšmingas aplinkybes. Teismas, nustatęs šią aplinkybių visumą, t.y., kad sandoris prieštarauja imperatyvioms įstatymo normoms, gali ji pripažinti negaliojančiu ab initio, arba ex nunc, jeigu pagal bylos aplinkybes ab initio sandorio pripažinti negalima. Teismo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Invalidity of transactions contrary to mandatory rules is recognized in European Contract Law, also in national legal systems. Ground of invalidity of the contract contrary to the imperative rules is introduced at Civil code of the Republic of Lithuania paragraph 1.80. This is one of exceptions of contracts freedom set out in order to ensure the legitimacy of civil relations, to protect individual rights and legitimate interests. The mostly transactions contrary mandatory rules are invalidated as a consequence of being concerned person request. In addition despite of the rights granted to persons, the right to invalidate transaction ex officio is provided to court at paragraph 1.78. The using of the right ex-officio invalidate the transaction is based on the obvious invalidity of the transaction. Therefore, the court decision by its own initiative to invalidated contact contrary to the imperative norms can be made only when all the circumstances by which is based the invalidity of the transaction are investigated and determined. When the court finds existing all the circumstances that the transaction infringes the mandatory rules of the law, it may be declared that transaction is void ab initio or ex nunc. Application of court right ex officio invalidate transaction is especially needed when the transaction violated mandatory rules ensuring the needs of society and protecting the public interest. A lot of such rules regulate state-owned land purchase agreements. Infringement... [to full text]

L'objectif de ce mémoire est d'analyser les transactions d'initiés, effectuées sur la Bourse de Toronto, lors de la période 2008-2010. De façon plus spécifique, nous analysons les fréquences de transactions effectuées dans les jours entourant les annonces de surprise de bénéfice net trimestriel (BNT) et la profitabilité de celles-ci. Les études de Sivakumar et Waymire (1994) et Park et al. (1995) ont conclu que les fréquences moyennes quotidiennes des transactions d'initiés américains sont supérieures à la moyenne dans les premiers jours suivant la divulgation de rapports des résultats. L'hypothèse à vérifier, concernant les initiés canadiens, est de déterminer si leurs fréquences de transactions sont différentes de la moyenne lors des premiers jours suivant les surprises de bénéfice net trimestriel. Les résultats obtenus sont en accord avec cette hypothèse.- Selon Fama (1970), la forme forte d'efficience de marché implique que les initiés ne réalisent pas un rendement anormal moyen cumulé (RAMC) significativement différent de zéro. Les études de Basel et Stein (1979), Lee et Bishara (1989) et McNally et Smith (2003) ont tous rejeté l'efficience forte de la Bourse de Toronto. Cependant, Heinkel et Kraus (1987) ne rejettent pas l'efficience forte de la Bourse de Vancouver. L'hypothèse à vérifier concernant la profitabilité des transactions d'initiés est de déterminer si le marché canadien, représenté par la Bourse de Toronto, est efficient selon la forme forte. Pour ce faire, nous avons utilisé deux méthodologies pour calculer les RAMC, soit le modèle de marché utilisé par Basel et Stein (1979), Heinkel et Kraus (1987) et Lee et Bishara (1989), et le modèle simple utilisé par McNally et Smith (2003). Les résultats obtenus avec la méthode de marché nous permettent de rejeter cette hypothèse contrairement à ceux obtenus avec le modèle simple. Selon Park et. al. (1995), plusieurs études concluent que les surprises de BNT positives (négatives), sont suivies d'un RAMC positif (négatif). Grâce à leur connaissance, il est possible que les-initiés effectuent des transactions à des moments spécifiques entourant les surprises. L'hypothèse à vérifier est de déterminer si les transactions, effectuées à des moments précis relatifs aux surprises, obtiennent un RAMC différent que les transactions effectuées à d'autres moments. En général, les résultats obtenus rejettent cette hypothèse.

Les marchés financiers occupent une place prépondérante dans l'économie. La future évolution des législations dans le domaine de la finance mondiale va rendre inévitable l'introduction de frictions pour éviter les mouvements spéculatifs des capitaux, toujours menaçants d'une crise. C'est pourquoi nous nous intéressons principalement, ici, aux modèles de marchés financiers avec coûts de transaction.Cette thèse se compose de trois chapitres. Le premier établit un critère d'absence d'opportunité d'arbitrage donnant l'existence de systèmes de prix consistants, i.e. martingales évoluant dans le cône dual positif exprimé en unités physiques, pour une famille de modèles de marchés financiers en temps continu avec petits coûts de transaction.Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous montrons la convergence des ensembles de sur-réplication d'une option européenne dans le cadre de la convergence topologique des ensembles. Dans des modèles multidimensionnels avec coûts de transaction décroissants a l'ordre n−1/2, nous donnons une description de l'ensemble limite pour des modèles particuliers et en déduisons des inclusions pour les modèles généraux (modèles de KABANOV). Le troisième chapitre est dédié a l'approximation du prix d'options européennes pour des modèles avec diffusion très générale (sans coûts de transaction). Nous étudions les propriétés des pay-offs pour pouvoir utiliser au mieux l'approximation du processus de prix du sous-jacent par un processus intuitif défini par récurrence grâce aux itérations de PICARD

Viešojo ir privataus intereso derinimas žemės sandoriuose nėra sėkmingai įgyvendinamas dėl neaiškaus, deklaratyvaus teisės aktų, reguliuojančių žemės sandorius, reglamentavimo ir viešojo administravimo klaidų. / Public and private interests in land transactions laws have not been successfully implemented on an uncertain, declaratory legislation governing land transactions, regulatory and public administration errors.

The incorporation of a new technology, such as the Internet, into business processes can have an unexpected influence on those business processes. The study focused on the hypothesis that four entities (case studies) can account for their South African Internet-based sales transactions in a manner that complies with the requirements of GAAP. To address the hypotheses, the study was divided into the following research questions: • How do the four entities capture and record their South African Internet-based sales transactions? • Are these sales transactions accounted for in a manner that complies with the requirements of GAAP? To answer the first research question, data were collected from four entities. To answer the last research question, the data collected were compared with the requirements of GAAP to enable the study to conclude positively on the hypothesis. / Thesis (M.Com. (Accounting))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.