This paper has four chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction. The second chapter studies the transaction fees in the bitcoin system. The transaction fees and transaction volume in the bitcoin system increase whenever the network is congested and results from a simple VAR show that it is indeed the case. To account for the empirical findings, we build a model where users and miners together determine the transaction fee and transaction volume endogenously. Even though the fluctuating transaction fee mechanism in bitcoin introduces the extra cost of uncertainty to users, a back-of-envelope calculation shows that the cost of using the bitcoin network for transactions is still smaller than the cost of using the current conventional payment system with a fix transaction fee rate. The second chapter studies the time-varying price dispersion among different bitcoin exchanges. We identify the sources of price dispersion using a standard time-varying vector autoregression model with stochastic volatility. The results show that shocks to transaction fees and bitcoin price growth explain on average 20%, and sometimes more than 60%, of the variation of price dispersion. The third chapter studies the relationship between connections and returns in the bitcoin investor network. Using transaction data from the bitcoin blockchain, we reach three conclusions. First, on average, the annualized returns of connected addresses in the network are 20.75% above those of their unconnected peers. Second, returns also differ among those connected addresses. By dividing the connected ad- dresses into ten deciles based on their centrality, we find that addresses in the two most-connected deciles earn higher returns than the other connected addresses. Third, eigenvector centrality is more related than degree centrality to higher returns, implying that quality of connections matters. / Doctor of Philosophy / This paper has four chapters. The first chapter serves as an introduction. The second chapter studies the transaction fees in the bitcoin system. The transaction fees in the bitcoin system can fluctuate given the amount of unconfirmed transactions in the bitcoin network. Our results show that the transaction fees and transaction volume in the bitcoin system increase whenever the network is congested. To account for this findings, we build a model and show that users and miners together can determine the transaction fee and transaction volume. Even though the fluctuating transaction fee mechanism in bitcoin introduces the extra cost of uncertainty to users, a back-of- envelope calculation shows that the cost of using the bitcoin network for transactions is still smaller than the cost of using the current conventional payment system with a fix transaction fee rate. The second chapter studies the price dispersion among different bitcoin exchanges. Our results show that transaction fees and bitcoin price growth can be important explanatory factors for the price dispersion among different bitcoin exchanges. The third chapter studies the relationship between connections and returns in the bitcoin investor network. Using transaction data from the bitcoin blockchain, we reach three conclusions. First, on average, those connected addresses in the network earn higher returns than their unconnected peers. Second, returns also differ among those connected addresses. By dividing the connected addresses into ten groups based on their centrality, we find that addresses in the two most-connected groups earn higher returns than the other connected addresses. Third, eigenvector centrality, which measures the quality of connections, is more related than degree centrality, which measures the quantity of connections, to higher returns, implying that quality of connections matters.

The electric power grid forms the foundation for several other critical infrastructures of national importance such as public health, transportation and telecommunication systems, to thrive. The current power grid runs on the century-old technology and faces serious challenges of the 21st century - Ever-increasing demand and the need to provide a sustainable way to meet the growing demand, increased requirement of resilience against man-made and natural disasters, ability to defend against cyber attacks, increasing demand for reliable power, requirement to integrate with alternate energy generation and storage technologies. Several countries, including the United States, have realized the immediate need to modernize the grid and to pursue the goal of a smart grid. Majority of recent grid modernization efforts are directed towards the distribution systems to be able to meet these new challenges. One of the key enablers of a fully functional Smart Grid are microgrids — subsystems of the grid, utilizing small generation capacities at the distribution system level to increase the overall reliability and power quality of the local grid. It is one of the key directions recommended by national electric delivery technologies roadmap in United States as well as policy makers for electricity delivery in many countries. Microgrids have witnessed serious research activity in the past few years, especially in areas such as multi-agent system (MAS) architectures for microgrid control and auction algorithms for microgrid electricity transaction. However, most of the prior research on electricity transaction in microgrids fails to recognize and represent the true nature of the microgrid electricity market. In this research, a comprehensive microgrid electricity market has been designed, taking into account several unique characteristics of this new market place. This thesis establishes an economic rationale to the vision of wide-scale deployment of microgrids serving residential communities in near future and develops a comprehensive understanding of microgrid electricity market. A novel concept of Community Microgrids is introduced and the market and business models for electricity transaction are proposed and validated based on economic forecasts of key drivers of distributed generation. The most important contribution of this research deals with establishing a need for a trustworthy model framework for microgrid market and introducing the concept of reputation score to market participants. A framework of day-ahead energy market (DAEM) for electricity transaction, incorporating an approach of using the reputation score to incentivize the sellers in the market to be trustworthy, has been designed and implemented in MATLAB with a graphical user interface (GUI). Current implementation demonstrates a market place with two sellers and nine buyers and is easily scalable to support multiple market participants. The proposed microgrid electricity market may spur the deployment of residential microgrids, incorporating distributed generation, thereby making significant contribution to increase the overall reliability and power quality of the local grid. / Master of Science

Šiame magistro baigiamajame darbe atskleidžiama ofertos ir akcepto, kaip asmens valios išraiškos aktų, teisinė prigimtis. Kadangi teisės doktrinoje ir teismų praktikoje oferta ir akceptas yra prilyginami vienašaliams sandoriams, darbe oferta ir akceptas yra analizuojami sandorių ir vienos iš jų rūšies, t. y. vienašalių sandorių, atžvilgiu. Pirmajame darbo skyriuje analizuojama asmens valia ir jos išraiška bei prieinama išvados, jog bendrąja prasme, nevertinant ofertos ir akcepto teisinės prigimties, oferta ir akceptas yra laikytini sąmoninga į konkretų tikslą nukreipta asmens valios išraiška. Be to, yra prieinama išvados, jog sandoriais yra tikslingiau laikyti ne asmens veiksmus, tačiau asmens valios išraišką, kuria yra siekiama sukurti, pakeisti arba panaikinti civilines teises ir pareigas. Antrajame ir trečiajame darbo skyriuose yra tiriama ir analizuojama ofertos ir akcepto samprata, šiems asmens valios išraiškos aktam būdingos savybės bei jų veikimo specifika. Kartu pastarieji aspektai yra vertinami sandoriams būdingų savybių kontekste, o padarytų išvadų pagrindu formuojama pozicija dėl teisinės ofertos ir akcepto prigimties. Atlikto tyrimo pagrindu darbe iškelta hipotezė, remiantis kuria oferta ir akceptas nelaikytini vienašaliais sandoriais, pasitvirtino. Savo teisine prigimtimi oferta ir akceptas – tai išskirtinai su sutarties sudarymu susiję asmens valios išraiškos aktai, tarp jų šalių sukuriantys procedūrinius teisinius santykius, ir savo prigimtimi esantys... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The research object of this paper is the legal nature offer and acceptance, as an expression of will of a person. Since the legal doctrine and judicial practice treat offer and acceptance as an unilateral transaction, offer and acceptance are analyzed with regard to the transactions and one of their kind – unilateral transactions. The first chapter analyses the person's will and its expression, and concludes that in the common sense, regardless of the legal nature of the offer and acceptance, offer and acceptance are to be regarded as a conscious expression of the will aimed at a specific legal consequence. Furthermore, it is concluded that it is not appropriate to treat the transaction as an action of a person. Contrarily transaction should be regarded as the expression of the will, intended to create, modify or repeal civil rights and obligations. The second and third sections analyze the concept of offer and acceptance, their individual characteristics and functional performance. At the same time the latter aspects are assessed with the characteristics inherent to the transactions. On the basis of the analysis made conclusions are used to form position regarding the legal nature of the offer and acceptance. The hypothesis of the master thesis regarding which the offer and acceptance can not be considered as a unilateral transaction, has been confirmed. By its legal nature, the offer and acceptance are unique will expression acts coherent with the contract formation... [to full text]

本論文的目的，在探討我國自願性財務預測公告與證券信用交易之間的關係。信用交易的增減代表使用信用交易的投資者對某特定資訊的瞭解與使用，因此實證檢視財務預測的修正行為與信用交易增減的關係，可以敏銳地瞭解，是種特定投資者在哪個時點對財務預測修正進行理性預期，並予使用且做了較實際的交易行為。因此，本研究的測試可以瞭解使用信用交易的投資者如何使用財務預測等相關資訊。據此，本研究的結果有助於了解使用信用交易的投資者如何運用自願性財務預測資訊來做投資決策。 　　研究期問是以民國八十四年至八十六年的資料為分析的對象，研究的結果顯示： 　　一、在季報（半年報、年報）公告前公佈的財務預測，好消息會引起融資顯著增加，融券增加幅度雖不如融資大，但結果亦為顯著；壞消息會使融資及融券同樣顯著增加，但融資增加幅度亦較融券顯著。 　　二、在季報（半年報、年報）公告後公佈的財務預測，好消息會引起融資顯著增加，融券增加幅度雖不如融黃大，但結果亦為顯著；壞消息會使融資及融券同樣顯著增加，但融資增加幅度亦較融券顯著。 / This study aims to examine the relationship between an announcement of voluntary forecasts and credit transactions, including margin and short transactions. In general, an announcement of good news would attract investor to employ margin for a long position, and vice versa. Since only noisy trader can employ credit transaction in Taiwan, this study hypothesizes that investors would follow the announcement for making rational expectation. The results of this study could help understand how noisy traders use a financial forecast. This study selects the samples occurred between 1995 and 1997 to test the established hypotheses. 　　The empirical results can be summarized as follows. 　　●If the announcement of voluntary forecast occurred prior to the release of quarterly, semiannual, and annual reports, both good and bad news simultaneously cause an increase of margin and short transactions during this period. However, the magnitude of margin transactions is significantly higher than that of short transactions. 　　●If the announcement of voluntary forecast occurred subsequent to the release of quarterly, semiannual, and annual reports, both good and bad news simultaneously cause an increase of margin and short transactions during this period; however, the magnitude of margin transaction is significantly higher than that of short transaction. 　　Since noisy traders are essentially information followers, their judgement significantly relates to functional efficiency of informational intermediaries. These empirical results imply the function of informational intermediaries requires further improvement.

Recently, every main country in the world has implemented transfer pricing system in order to ensure every multinational enterprise would also be able to pay their taxes equitably and reasonably to the countries which they established their multinational enterprises, and has requested the prices of business transaction between every related party have to be set up and adjusted by arm¡¦s length principle. Moreover, in order to follow the initiative of OECD, adopt the current world trend, and avoid the higher inspection risk for our enterprises, Taiwan has established the method of regulation on December twenty- eighth, 2004 by consulting OECD guidelines and tax law of every country in the world, and has started to implement transfer pricing system. The Taiwanese transfer pricing system has integrated in many ways and in many-sided. It also has extended globally. If everyone could cooperate with mutual benefit, the transfer pricing system would be able to maintain the right of native taxation and effectively protect the right of multinational enterprises; hence it is not only a tax system, but art. Therefore, the checking model of transfer pricing system is very different from the case of normal profit-seeking enterprises. The checking model of the current tax authority mainly focuses on their jurisdiction and formal conditions, so it is interesting to see if our tax authority has capability of doing transfer pricing case which emphasizes on the point of taxation principles in substance or not. In addition, because our profit-seeking enterprises are mainly small or middle size corporations, there is a challenge to them to meet their duty and to provide all the requested certificates under the request of the new system, so it is also a point to discuss with. In this research, I tried to establish an evaluation standard by consulting policy estimated theory, and designed a survey which has collected all of recently related books, articles, references, and practiced thoughts in order to have an objective investigation. Also, in the survey, I would like to look into the situations of the following three points after practice of transfer pricing system. First, I would like to find out the thoughts of related interested parties after practice of this policy. Finally, what satisfactions of appropriateness, neutrality, efficiency, responsiveness, and side-effects externalities would be in this policy efficiency analysis? In addition, the collected data were analyzed with Chi-Square test, cross analysis, one-way ANOVA, multiple comparison analysis, and correlation analysis. In my major research findings, transfer pricing system has been known in the certain level by every related interested party. Moreover, this policy is in the high appropriate level and efficient level. However, this policy is in the low neutral level of land tax and other levies, and in the low responsive level. Therefore, there are other side effects in this policy as well, such us: increasing tax misgiving from every enterprise, increasing taxation, and checking cost, etc,. Also, in the result of this research paper, there are twelve suggestions that have collected from the responses of the survey, the problem finding, and some practical difficulties from the study of research institute and some other comments. These twelve suggestions could provide to related government organization as reference material in order to revise the law and advance tax system and tax policy.

Abstract The goals of this study are threefold: first of all, cross-country data for 1997 and 2000, extracted from¡§2002 World Development Indicator¡¨ the World Bank, are utilized to estimate transaction efficiency indicators (TEIs) for various countries. Second, this study further examines the influences of transaction efficiency on the various economic developments, including per capita real income, foreign capital inflow, and infant mortality rate. Finally, this study applies questionnaire survey approach to carry out comparison between Taiwan, China and Hong Kong in terms of transaction costs and the institutional performances. Utilizing ¡§factor analysis¡¨ to measure cross-country TEIs, this study argues that countries with better TEIs generally have higher per capita incomes and FDI net inflows, but lower infant mortality rates. And, we may suggest that Taiwan¡¦s transaction efficiency is superior to the average level of APEC memberships, East Asia and Pacific countries. China is inferior to APEC memberships East Asia, and Pacific countries in terms of degrees of transaction efficiency. The evidence from the study indicates that Hong Kong¡¦s the transaction efficiency is better and equal to developed countries¡¦ and G8 memberships¡¦ ones. In adddition, Taiwan is better than that of China but inferior to that of Hong Kong in terms of transaction efficiency. In comparison to the statistical outcomes, the empirical results of questionnaire survey also confirm that Taiwan is much better than China, but worse than Hong Kong in their stitutional performances.

In changing world of computerized information systems modeling of business transactions plays an important role. Business transaction can be defined as extended communicative action loop. Using such approach, business processes and new functional requirements may be represented as choreographed sets of extended communicative action loops with established pragmatic and semantic dependencies. In general case, a computerized information system may be of hybrid nature, that is, it may consist of different versions and types of databases. XML streams’ formatting in hybrid information system is discussed in this paper.

Šiame magistro baigiamajame darbe analizuojamas vienašalis sandoris kaip prievolinių santykių atsiradimo prielaida. Darbas pradedamas vienašalio sandorio sąvokos analize, bendrųjų bruožų atskleidimu ir jo reikšmingumo pagrindimu. Nuosekliai nagrinėjami būtini sandorio elementai: subjektai, valia, valios išraiška, turinys ir forma. Išskiriami, būtent, vienašalio sandorio elementams būdingi ypatumai. Taip pat autorė atskleidžia, kad vienašalis sandoris gali būti pirminiu prievolinių santykių atsiradimo pagrindu arba tik papildomu juridiniu faktu jau esamuose teisiniuose santykiuose. Antrame skyriuje autorė nagrinėja prievolinių santykių kilimo sąlygas pagal tokį sandorį. Šiame skyriuje išskiriamos dvi vienašalių sandorių grupės: vienašaliai sandoriai, kurie skirti juos sudarantiems asmenims ir tie, kurie adresuojami kitiems asmenims. Autorė analizuoja kiekvieno jų ypatumus ir prievolinių santykių kilimo sąlygas. Taip pat nagrinėjamas įstatyme numatytas teisinių padarinių kilimas pagal vienašalį sandorį ir privalomas vienašalio sandorio sudarymas. Trečiasis šio magistro baigiamojo darbo skyrius yra skirtas vienašalio sandorio įtakos apimties analizei. Išskiriami sandoriai, kurie įtakoja tik vieną sandorio šalį ir tie, kurie įtakoja abi šalis. Taip pat analizuojama, kaip teisių ir pareigų pagal tokius sandorius atsiranda tretiesiems asmenims. Šiame skyriuje aptariama vienašalio sandorio atsisakymo teisė ir jos įgyvendinimo sudėtingumas, priklausantis nuo jo įtakos apimties... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Authoress of this master‘s final thesis analyse unilateral legal transaction as the cause of the obligations. The thesis begins with analysis of the concept, common features and substantiation of the importance. Authoress coherently analyse essential elements of the legal transaction: subjects, will, expression of will, content and legal form. The elements of unilateral legal transaction are emphasized. Authoress reveals that unilateral legal transaction can be the prime assumption of the obligations or it can be only collateral fact in the legal relations. The conditions of occurrence of the obligations under unilateral legal transaction are researched in the second chapter. Two groups of legal transactions are separated: unilateral legal transactions that are intended to the formers and those, which are addressed to the other persons. The occurrence of the obligations indicated in the legal acts and obligatory formation of the unilateral legal transaction are analyzed as well. The third chapter is about the size of influence of the unilateral legal transaction. There are contracts which bring influence only to the one part of the contract and those, which bring influence to the both sides. Authoress analyse how rights and obligations can arise to the third persons under unilateral legal transaction. The right of rejection of the unilateral legal transaction is disputed as well. The implementation of this right depends on the size of influence to the sides of the contract... [to full text]

The purpose of this study is to reveal the matter of legal practice of institutes of transactions accomplished under influence of error and performance of contractual obligations in a case of change of circumstances. In the first chapter author provides the conception of contracts accomplished under influence of error, classification into mutual and unilateral mistakes, separate bases that misleads a person, also legal consequences of anullement of such a transactions. In the second chapter author provides the conception of performance of contractual obligations in a case of change of circumstances, analyses connection between aforementioned institute and frustration and legal consequences of anullement or modifying of contract in a case of change of circumstances. The last chapter compares institutes of anullement of transactions accomplished under influence of error and performance of contractual obligations in a case of change of circumstances.

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