Highlights of the elder law masters

Meeting proceedings of a seminar by the same name, held September 9, 2020

Evaluation of the small business rates relief scheme in Wales

This document reports on the primary research undertaken by the Centre for Regional Economic Development (CRED) to evaluate the Small Business Rates Relief Scheme (SBRRS) in Wales. Specifically it will document the views of SME businesses supported by the SBRRS on the impact of the scheme on their business and on the business sector in general. The report draws final conclusions and recommendations for the consideration of the Welsh Assembly Government

Middleware support for non-repudiable business-to-business interactions

The wide variety of services and resources available over the Internet presents new opportunities for organisations to collaborate to reach common goals. For example, business partners wish to access each other’s services and share information along the supply chain in order to compete more successfully in the delivery of goods or services to the ultimate customer. This can lead to the investment of significant resources by business partners in the resulting collaboration. In the context of such high value business-to-business (B2B) interactions it is desirable to regulate (monitor and control) the behaviour of business partners to ensure that they comply with agreements that govern their interactions. Achieving this regulation is challenging because, while wishing to collaborate, organisations remain autonomous and may not unguardedly trust each other. Two aspects must be addressed: (i) the need for high-level mechanisms to encode agreements (contracts) between the interacting parties such that they can be used for run-time monitoring and enforcement, and (ii) systematic support to monitor a given interaction for conformance with contract and to ensure accountability. This dissertation concerns the latter aspect — the definition, design and implementation of underlying middleware support for the regulation of B2B interactions. To this end, two non-repudiation services are identified — non-repudiable service invocation and non-repudiable information sharing. A flexible nonrepudiation protocol execution framework supports the delivery of the identified services. It is shown how the services can be used to regulate B2B interactions. The non-repudiation services provide for the accountability of the actions of participants; including the acknowledgement of actions, their run-time validation with respect to application-level constraints and logging for audit. The framework is realised in the context of interactions with and between components of a J2EE application server platform. However, the design is sufficiently flexible to apply to other common middleware platforms.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Investigating failure to implement contactless payments: a case of Near Field Communication payment systems in South Africa

Near Field Communication (NFC) contactless payment systems are being touted as the future for retail payments and public transport fare-collection systems. Studies have shown that such initiatives require many organisations from different industries to work together for the goal to be realised. The effort and collaboration required to achieve this goal cannot be underestimated. The aim of this research is to explore the failure of NFC contactless payment system implementations. The Actor Network Theory (ANT) has been shown as appropriate for investigating IT implementation failures, and so serves as a study lens for this investigation. A case study research strategy was used in the research to gain an understanding of the as-lived experiences of the actors involved in an NFC payment system implementation. The data was collected using different methods such as interviews and review of project documents. Thematic analysis techniques were used to trace and unpack the interactions occurring around implementation of these NFC payment systems and the challenges encountered. The key factors identified as leading to the NFC payment system implementation failure are external dependencies, lack of required financial investments, interoperability issues due to new and legacy systems, and lack of clear governance structures and bodies. The results of the study suggest that, when there is external dependence, but the tasks, resources required, actors' capabilities, workloads and the duration for completing these tasks are not known, then there will be frequent conflicts, leading to NFC payment system implementation failure. Regulatory bodies and clear leadership structures in collaborative NFC payment system implementation were found to be crucial. The results of the study also propose that when new and legacy systems from multiple actors are to be integrated to develop an NFC payment platform, there is likely going to be system interoperability issues due to the numerous vendors involved, which lead to failure. In addition, unwillingness to commit to the required capital investments by stakeholders was identified as leading to the failure of the NFC payment system implementation. A prescriptive framework is developed based on these lessons that could aid in ensuring better outcomes in future NFC payment systems implementations

Enforcement of Pesticide Regulation in California: A Case Study of the Experience with Methyl Bromide

This article will attempt to provide an overview of the pesticide regulatory program ( the Program ) and its pitfalls, as well as the track record of the administration of California Governor Gray Davis ( the Davis Administration ) regarding pesticide issues. The first section will detail the regulatory agency structure of the Program, particularly the authority and duties of DPR and the CACs. The second section will discuss the pesticide permitting system, its requirements, and some anecdotes to illustrate the public participation process in this system. To present a case study of the Program\u27s implementation, the methyl bromide regulations will be discussed at length in the third section, including public participation, the progressive weakening of the regulatory language, DPR\u27s lack of compliance with various aspects of the rulemaking process, and why various environmental, farmworker advocacy, and legal assistance organizations are working so hard on the regulations. The article will then conclude with some final thoughts on pesticide regulation in California, and how the Program could be improved