arising of loss entitles the third party to the compensation. in this respect, more often than not, the entitlement of the third party finds its justification based on voluntary principles and sometimes based on involuntary ones. if the third party cannot find defense based on voluntary principles, he or she has to resort to involuntary ones. the possibility of multiple compensation methods cou...

Electronic institutions are software frameworks integrating normative environments where agents interact to create mutual commitments. Contracts are formalizations of business commitments among groups of agents, and comprise a set of applicable norms. An electronic institution acts as a trusted third-party that monitors contract compliance, by integrating in its normative environment the contra...

In this paper we define a property for multi-party protocols called exclusion-freeness. In multi-party protocols respecting the strongest definition of this property, participants are sure that they will not be excluded from a protocol’s execution and, consequently, they do not have to trust each other any more. We study this property on a wellknown multi-party fair exchange protocol with an on...

ASSERT4SOA project proposes machine readable certificates to be used to allow Web service requesters to automatically assess the security properties of Web services (and their providers) as certified by some trusted third party. This vision promises to open up an entire new market for certification services.

This paper explores the extent to which third-party reimbursement dictates occupational therapy practice. A literature review was used to examine the history and meaning of reimbursement in regard to occupational therapy. It was found that the profession has altered its definition, practice, management, ethics, and professional response as a result of changes in reimbursement. Reimbursement pol...

INTRODUCTION: Cost-analysis research can influence healthcare policies and practice patterns. There are three major perspectives in cost analysis research: the third-party payer, the hospital, and societal. Cost-analysis research has inherent bias depending on the chosen cost perspective. Subsequent conclusions based on cost-analysis research can change based on the perspective used.1 These per...

Increasing efficiency in hospitals is of particular importance. Studies that combine data from multiple hospitals/data holders can tremendously improve the statistical outcome and aid in identifying efficiency markers. However, combining data from multiple sources for analysis poses privacy risks. A number of protocols have been proposed in the literature to address the privacy concerns; howeve...