Feasibility of Stellar as a Blockchain-based Micropayment System

The advent of Bitcoin was heralded as an innovation in the global monetary system, that could bring down transaction fees by circumventing the need for third parties and conduct transactions in real time. The divisibility of a blockchain cryptocurrency to even fractions of a cent, caused microtransactions to become feasible to formerly non-existent denominations. These microtransactions have spurred the development of novel ways of monetizing online resources and hold the potential to aid in alleviation of poverty. The paper conducts a feasibility study on Stellar as a blockchain-based micropayment system. It highlights the computational and other issues that impedes its progress and utilizes a characterization model for micropayment systems to evaluate the efficacy of the Stellar platform. The paper conducts a comparison with the micropayment solutions from Bitcoin, Ethereum and PayPal. The paper analyzes a subset of transactions from the Stellar blockchain to aid in drawing a conclusion on the undertaken study and elaborates on the mitigation tools to enable fraud prevention in online monetary transactions

A provider based accounting architecture

This paper presents a novel content accounting architecture. Content accounting is becoming increasingly important since it is anticipated that in the near future more billable content on the Internet will be published. The architecture presented in this paper has a distributed functionality and an innovative view with respect to the payment system that is incorporated. The architecture enables outsourcing of the accounting functions. In particular it is shown how Internet Service Providers can be involved in the billing function. The proposed payment system is worldwide applicable and allows online, instant and small payments to be made for a number of content types and units. An important characteristic of this payment system is that customers can always use the same payment mechanism regardless the expectations and requirements of the other (paid) party

Chloroethylclonidine: an irreversible agonist at prejunctional alpha 2-adrenoceptors in rat vas deferens.

1. The possibility that chloroethylclonidine (CEC) activates prejunctional alpha 2-adrenoceptors was studied in the isolated vas deferens of the rat. Tissues were stimulated electrically and both the stimulation-evoked overflow of tritium (after preincubation with [3H]-noradrenaline) and the purinergic contraction component (isolated by prazosin 0.3 microM) were measured. 2. CEC (0.1-3 microM) concentration-dependently reduced the overflow of tritium evoked by trains of 6 pulses/100 Hz. The inhibition by CEC was not altered by prazosin (0.3 microM) but was prevented by pre-exposure to rauwolscine (0.3 microM). The inhibition, once established, did not fade upon washout of CEC, even when the washout fluid contained rauwolscine (0.3 microM). 3. CEC (0.1-3 microM) concentration-dependently reduced the purinergic component of contractions elicited by single pulses. The inhibition, again, was prevented by pre-exposure to rauwolscine (0.3 microM) and once established, did not fade upon washout of CEC, even when the washout fluid contained rauwolscine (0.3 microM). 4. CEC (3 microM) reduced the overflow of tritium evoked by 20 pulses/10 Hz, did not alter the overflow evoked by 100 pulses/10 Hz and increased the overflow evoked by 500 pulses/10 Hz. 5. CEC (3 microM) reduced the early peak, but increased the late plateau phase, of purinergic contractions elicited by 100 pulses/10 Hz. 6. It is concluded that CEC reduces the release of noradrenaline and a purinergic co-transmitter by irreversible activation of prejunctional alpha 2-adrenoceptors. CEC seems to be a partial alpha 2-agonist with an efficacy lower than that of noradrenaline. The prejunctional inhibitory effect limits the suitability of CEC for the characterization of postjunctional alpha 1-adrenoceptors mediating responses to sympathetic nerve stimulation

An interconnection architecture for micropayment systems

In the next years the market for low value online content, like music and videos, is expected to grow substantially. To allow �pay-per-use� of such content, micropayment systems are expected to play an important role. Since there are already many competing micropayment systems on the market, customers and merchants are forced to use multiple systems. To overcome the problems associated with using multiple systems, the research presented in this paper builds upon the idea of payment gateways that interconnect these systems. We introduce a generally applicable interconnection method such that the interconnection of these systems can be easily realized in a systematic way. This approach consists of (de)enhancing the existing micropayment services towards a uniform service level before the interconnection takes place. This paper presents the main functional characteristics\ud of existing payment systems, and proposes modification strategies for existing micropayment systems to provide the uniform payment service. The modifications are required before the interconnection can take place