As a result of the general improvement in living conditions in industrialised Western countries, people aged over 60 years usually reach the ‘third age’ in good mental and physical condition. Contemporary society has thus had to endeavour to offer the ‘new old’ not only social services but also pastimes, leisure, social, cultural and educational activities. Among the range of opportunities bein...

The contract is the bridge to transaction, as well as the core of business practice. Accompanying with the development of electronic commerce, contract negotiation under more complicated environment in advantage of internet is becoming increasingly urgent. This paper briefly introduces the status of electronic signature and electronic contract in China, then presents a reference architecture fo...

Cardiac I Kr is a critical repolarizing current in the heart and a target for inherited and acquired long-QT syndrome (LQTS). Biochemical and functional studies have demonstrated that I Kr channels are heteromers composed of both hERG 1a and 1b subunits, yet our current understanding of I Kr functional properties derives primarily from studies of homooligomers of the original hERG 1a isolate. H...

Trust building for consumers has been a main stream of research in e-commerce. However, little research pays attention to how consumers treat the revealed information about warranty, privacy statement, assurance, and related statements. Although this information is provided in real-world settings, their effectiveness has not been fully understood. This study attempts to look into this issue by ...

Traditional business practice depends on trust relations between the transacting parties. One of the most important aspects of this trust is the quality of the offered services or products. The Web currently constitutes an enabler for Electronic Commerce, providing a global transaction platform that does not require physical presence. However, transferring trust from the physical world to the e...

We present a series of protocols for authenticating an individual’s membership in a group without revealing that individual’s identity and without restricting how the membership of the group may be changed. In systems using these protocols a single message to the authenticator may be used by an individual to replace her lost key or by a trusted third party to add and remove members of the group...

Business to consumer (B2C) electronic commerce has led to new relationships connecting various supply chain partners via the Internet, significantly increasing the quantity and quality of inter-organizational information flows. Banks are traditionally partners in the information and financial flow elements in the supply chain, but other non-bank parties are also getting involved in these activi...

The omni-presence of the Internet in society today determined an explosive growth for online transactions. However, due to lack of security services such as data secrecy, authentication and integrity, Internet does not provide all the guarantees that a business communication tool should. In this context, protocols to facilitate secure and fair electronic exchange and certified electronic delive...