This dissertation focuses on how to use prototyping as a method for developing models in Management Accounting and Control Systems, a field in Business Administration. It combines three emerging theories: prototyping, Activity Based Costing (ABC) and the Balanced Scorecard (BSc). Prototyping is an alternative to the traditional systems development method. In prototyping end-users play an important role in being a part of the development team in the design of models for ABC and BSc. The study is conducted as action research projects. Together with controllers and their co-workers, in three organisations, I am engaged in four prototyping projects between 1988 and 2003. The cases are Gunnebo Fastening, Kinnarps Office Furniture and the local community organisation for Childcare & School in Västervik. The main result is that we can show that it is possible to develop models for ABC and BSc with prototyping. It is also possible to develop models for the different versions of ABC and BSc that Cooper & Kaplan and Kaplan & Norton suggest. We learn that prototyping is a process in loops consisting of four phases: exploration, experimentation, evaluation and evolution. This type of prototyping is labelled Experience based Prototyping, E-Prototyping. The contributions from the study are of two kinds. The major contribution is that with the E-Prototyping process we can see a further development of the knowledge of prototyping. In E-Prototyping I have put together various theories on prototyping into one process and identified the four phases of exploration, experimentation, evaluation and evolution. The second kind of contribution is found in models for ABC and BSc, developed with prototyping. Both ABC and BSc theories continue to be developed and I have followed that development for almost 15 years. We have been able to show, both theoretically and practically, that prototyping is an alternative to the stepwise system development method that Cooper & Kaplan and Kaplan & Norton suggest. It is a method that allows us to follow the various versions of the theory of ABC and BSc with our prototypes. We are also extending BSc theory when we use the BSc prototype Cockpit as a model for quality control and when we introduce the combination of ABC and BSc as a basis for what the C and S label value for money.

Rhomboids are unique membrane proteins that use a serine protease hydrolysis mechanism to cleave a transmembrane substrate within the lipid bilayer. This remarkable proteolytic activity is achieved by a core domain comprised of 6 transmembrane segments that form a hydrophilic cavity submerged in the membrane. In addition to this core domain, many rhomboids also possess aqueous domains of varying sizes at the N- and/or C-terminus, the sequences of which tend to be rhomboid-type specific. The functional role of these extramembranous domains is generally not well understood, although it is thought that they may be involved in regulation of rhomboid activity and specificity. While extramembranous domains may be important for rhomboid activity, they are absent in all x-ray crystal structures available. For this reason, we have focused on uncovering the structural and functional relationship between the rhomboid cytoplasmic domain and its catalytic transmembrane core. To investigate the structure and function of the bacterial rhomboid cytoplasmic domain, full-length rhomboids from Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were studied using solution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, mutation and activity assays. The P. aeruginosa rhomboid was purified in a range of membrane-mimetic media, evaluated for its functional status in vitro and investigated for its NMR spectroscopic properties. Results from this study suggested that an activity-modulating interaction might occur between the catalytic core transmembrane domain and the cytoplasmic domain. Further investigation of this hypothesis with the E. coli rhomboid revealed that protease activity relies on a short but critical sequence N-terminal to the first transmembrane segment. This sequence was found to have a direct impact on the rhomboid active site, and should be included in future structural studies of this catalytic domain. The structure of the cytoplasmic domain from the E. coli rhomboid was also determined by solution NMR. We found that it forms slowly-exchanging dimers through an exchange of secondary structure elements between subunits, commonly known as three-dimensional domain swapping. Beyond this rare example of domain swapping in a membrane protein extramembranous domain, we found that the rate of exchange between monomeric and dimeric states could be accelerated by transient interactions with large detergent micelles with a phosphocholine headgroup, but not by exposure to other weakly denaturing conditions. This novel example of micelle-catalyzed domain swapping interactions raises the possibility that domain swapping interactions might be induced by similar interactions in vivo. Overall, the results of this thesis have identified detergent conditions that preserve the highest level of activity for bacterial rhomboids, defined the minimal functional unit beyond what had been identified in available x-ray crystal structures, and characterized a novel micelle-catalyzed domain-swapping interaction by the cytoplasmic domain.

Rhomboids are unique membrane proteins that use a serine protease hydrolysis mechanism to cleave a transmembrane substrate within the lipid bilayer. This remarkable proteolytic activity is achieved by a core domain comprised of 6 transmembrane segments that form a hydrophilic cavity submerged in the membrane. In addition to this core domain, many rhomboids also possess aqueous domains of varying sizes at the N- and/or C-terminus, the sequences of which tend to be rhomboid-type specific. The functional role of these extramembranous domains is generally not well understood, although it is thought that they may be involved in regulation of rhomboid activity and specificity. While extramembranous domains may be important for rhomboid activity, they are absent in all x-ray crystal structures available. For this reason, we have focused on uncovering the structural and functional relationship between the rhomboid cytoplasmic domain and its catalytic transmembrane core. To investigate the structure and function of the bacterial rhomboid cytoplasmic domain, full-length rhomboids from Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were studied using solution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, mutation and activity assays. The P. aeruginosa rhomboid was purified in a range of membrane-mimetic media, evaluated for its functional status in vitro and investigated for its NMR spectroscopic properties. Results from this study suggested that an activity-modulating interaction might occur between the catalytic core transmembrane domain and the cytoplasmic domain. Further investigation of this hypothesis with the E. coli rhomboid revealed that protease activity relies on a short but critical sequence N-terminal to the first transmembrane segment. This sequence was found to have a direct impact on the rhomboid active site, and should be included in future structural studies of this catalytic domain. The structure of the cytoplasmic domain from the E. coli rhomboid was also determined by solution NMR. We found that it forms slowly-exchanging dimers through an exchange of secondary structure elements between subunits, commonly known as three-dimensional domain swapping. Beyond this rare example of domain swapping in a membrane protein extramembranous domain, we found that the rate of exchange between monomeric and dimeric states could be accelerated by transient interactions with large detergent micelles with a phosphocholine headgroup, but not by exposure to other weakly denaturing conditions. This novel example of micelle-catalyzed domain swapping interactions raises the possibility that domain swapping interactions might be induced by similar interactions in vivo. Overall, the results of this thesis have identified detergent conditions that preserve the highest level of activity for bacterial rhomboids, defined the minimal functional unit beyond what had been identified in available x-ray crystal structures, and characterized a novel micelle-catalyzed domain-swapping interaction by the cytoplasmic domain.

Packaging has a major impact on the activities performed in a logistical value chain. Packaging can improve or decrease the efficiency of the outbound logistics process. It is therefore important to consider the activities and the value that they add to the overall process. ROL International is a Swedish store interior manufacturer that design, produce and distribute their products on a global basis. One of their basic products is the shelf concept. ROL wants to improve their efficiency and consider a change in the packaging method for the shelf concept. Two alternative packaging methods have been suggested and ROL want to know if either of the two alternatives would result in increased efficiency. The purpose of this report is to evaluate the two packaging alternatives and their impact on the activities connected to the outbound logistics at ROL International. Since the study was conducted at request from ROL International, it is considered as a qualitative single case study. Observations, mainly at ROL’s warehouse but also through an observation at one customer’s premises, were used for determination of the activities included throughout the studied process. In addition to the observations, interviews were conducted with key persons concerned with the effects of a change in packaging method. Secondary data in form of order and shelf statistics were important for the study due to its impact on the frequency in which the studied activities are performed. The study found that neither of the two suggested packaging alternatives are suitable for implementation in the present situation. This is mainly because of the increase in activities needed to perform the packaging of shelves, which would result in increased cost that cannot be justified through enhanced customer service and higher quality. More-over, the study also found that the current process for picking customer orders are ineffi-cient and might require a restructuring of the warehouse operation in order to become more efficient.

<p>Packaging has a major impact on the activities performed in a logistical value chain. Packaging can improve or decrease the efficiency of the outbound logistics process. It is therefore important to consider the activities and the value that they add to the overall process. ROL International is a Swedish store interior manufacturer that design, produce and distribute their products on a global basis. One of their basic products is the shelf concept. ROL wants to improve their efficiency and consider a change in the packaging method for the shelf concept. Two alternative packaging methods have been suggested and ROL want to know if either of the two alternatives would result in increased efficiency.</p><p>The purpose of this report is to evaluate the two packaging alternatives and their impact on the activities connected to the outbound logistics at ROL International.</p><p>Since the study was conducted at request from ROL International, it is considered as a qualitative single case study. Observations, mainly at ROL’s warehouse but also through an observation at one customer’s premises, were used for determination of the activities included throughout the studied process. In addition to the observations, interviews were conducted with key persons concerned with the effects of a change in packaging method. Secondary data in form of order and shelf statistics were important for the study due to its impact on the frequency in which the studied activities are performed.</p><p>The study found that neither of the two suggested packaging alternatives are suitable for implementation in the present situation. This is mainly because of the increase in activities needed to perform the packaging of shelves, which would result in increased cost that cannot be justified through enhanced customer service and higher quality. More-over, the study also found that the current process for picking customer orders are ineffi-cient and might require a restructuring of the warehouse operation in order to become more efficient.</p>

This study presents an analytical model of the interaction between urban form and the demand for transit travel, in which residential location, transit demand, and the spatial dispersion of non-work activities are endogenously determined. In this model, travel demand is considered a derived demand brought about by the necessity to engage in out-ofhome activities whose geographical extent is affected by urban form. In a departure from the urban monocentric model, residential location is defined as a job-residence pair in an urban area in which jobs, residences, and non-work activities are dispersed. Transit demand is then determined by residential location, work trips, non-work trip chains, and goods consumption. Theoretically derived hypotheses are empirically tested using a dataset that integrates travel and land-use data. There is evidence of a significant influence of land-use patterns on transit patronage. In turn, transit demand affects consumption and non-work travel. Although much reliance has been placed on population density as a determinant of transit demand, it is found here that population density does not have a large impact on transit demand and, moreover, that the effect decreases when residential location is endogenous. To increase transit use, urban planners have advocated a mix of residential and commercial uses in proximity to transit stations. In this study, it is found that the importance of transit-station proximity is weakened by idiosyncratic preferences for residential location. In addition, when population density and residential location are jointly endogenous, the elasticity of transit demand with respect to walking distance to a transit station decreases by about 33 percent over the case in which these variables are treated an exogenous. The research reported here is the first empirical work that explicitly relates residential location to trip chaining in a context in which individuals jointly decide residential location and the trip chain. If is found that households living farther from work use less transit and that trip-chaining behavior explains this finding. Households living far from work engage in complex trip chains and have, on average, a more dispersed activity space, which requires reliance on more flexible modes of transportation. Therefore, reducing the spatial allocation of non-work activities and improving transit accessibility at and around subcenters would increase transit demand. Similar effects can be obtained by increasing the presence of retail locations in proximity to transit-oriented households. Although focused on transit demand, the framework can be easily generalized to study other forms of travel.

The main approach to studying the proteome is a technique called data dependent acquisition (DDA). In DDA, peptides are analyzed by mass spectrometry to determine the protein composition of a biological isolate. However, DDA is limited in its ability to analyze the proteome, in that it only selects the most abundant ions for analysis, and different protein identifications can result even if the same sample is analyzed multiple times in succession. Data independent acquisition (DIA) is a newly developed method that should be able to solve these limitations and improve our ability to analyze the proteome. We used an implementation of DIA (SWATH) to perform relative protein quantitation in the model bacterial system, Clostridium stercorarium, using two different carbohydrate sources, and found that it was able to provide precise quantitation of proteins and was overall more consistent in its ability to identify components of the proteome than DDA. Relative quantitation of proteins is an important method that can determine which proteins are important to a biochemical process of interest. How we determine which proteins are differentially regulated between different conditions is an important question in proteomic analysis. We developed a new approach to analyzing differential protein expression using variation between biological replicates to determine which proteins are being differentially regulated between two conditions. This analysis showed that a large proportion of proteins identified by quantitative proteomic analysis can be differentially regulated and that these proteins are in fact related to biological processes. Analyzing changes in protein expression is a useful tool that can pinpoint many key processes in biological systems. However, these techniques fail to take into account that enzyme activity is regulated by other factors than controlling their level of expression. Activity based protein profiling (ABPP) is a method that can determine the activity state of an enzyme in whole cell proteomes. We found that enzyme activity can change in response to a number of different conditions and that these changes do not always correspond with compositional changes. Mass spectrometry techniques were also used to identify serine hydrolases and characterize their expression in this organism. / February 2016

Activity-based travel demand model systems are increasingly being deployed to microsimulate daily activity-travel patterns of individuals. However, a critical dimension that is often missed in these models is that of vehicle type choice. The current dissertation addresses this issue head-on and contributes to the field of transportation planning in three major ways. First, this research develops a comprehensive vehicle micro-simulation framework that incorporates state-of-the-art household vehicle type choice, usage, and evolution models. The novelty of the framework developed is that it accommodates all the dimensions characterizing vehicle fleet/usage decisions, as well as accommodates all dimensions of vehicle transactions (i.e., fleet evolution) over time. The models estimated are multiple discrete-continuous models (vehicle type being the discrete component and vehicle mileage being the continuous component) and spatial discrete choice models that explicitly accommodate for multiple vehicle ownership and spatial interactions among households. More importantly, the vehicle fleet simulator developed in this study can be easily integrated within an activity-based microsimulation framework. Second, the vehicle fleet evolution and composition models developed in this dissertation are used to predict the vehicle fleet characteristics, annual mileage, and the associated fuel consumption and green-house gas (GHG) emissions for future years as a function of the built environment, demographics, fuel and related technology, and policy scenarios. This exercise contributes in substantial ways to the identification of promising strategies to increase the penetration of alternative-fuel vehicles and fuel-efficient vehicles, reduce energy consumption, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Lastly, this research captures several complex interactions between vehicle ownership, location, and activity-travel decisions of individuals by estimating 1) a joint tour-based model of tour complexity, passenger accompaniment, vehicle type choice, and tour length, and 2) an integrated model of residential location, work location, vehicle ownership, and commute tour characteristics. The methodology used for estimating these models allows the specification and estimation of multi-dimensional choice model systems covering a wide spectrum of dependent variable types (including multinomial, ordinal, count, and continuous) and may be viewed as a major advance with the potential to lead to redefine the way activity-based travel model systems are structured and implemented. / text

M.Tech. Business Administration. Business School. / Despite the growing concern of environmental issues including climate change and green house gas emissions as demonstrated in a number of global conventions such as the recently concluded climate change conference in Copenhagen Denmark in December 2009, little attention has been paid to how the service sector impacts the environment and how related environmental costs are accounted for. Conversely, there is a general lack of consideration given to environmental impacts, environmental responsibility, accountability, environmental costs and potential cost savings within university settings. The overall objective of the study is to assess the application of environmental management accounting (EMA) at Tshwane University of Technology (TUT). This was achieved by investigating the environmental impacts associated with the operations of TUT as a service organization and examine how the institution manages, account and report environmental cost. The study employed a case study and data was collected by means of exploratory and explanatory research techniques using two data sets; documentary and in-depth individual face-to-face interviews employing a semi-structured questionnaire with closed and open ended questions to collect primary data. Fourteen interviews were conducted with personnel of two main divisions involved with EMA related information Building and Estate and Finance. Documentary and interview data was transcribed and reduced through descriptive statistics and a process of selection, focusing, simplification, abstraction and transformation of the data enabling categories, themes and patterns to be identified. vi The results indicate that; the implementation of EMA and general governance for environmental responsibility and accountability is extremely weak. The potential use of EMA is neglected and, as such, EMA implementation is not considered a priority. Three barriers to the adoption of EMA within TUT were identified as: institutional pressures, a low profile of accounting for the environment, and management’s attitudes. There is a need to improve the quality of information by restructuring the classification in the income and expenditure report and introducing further classifications. Such classifications should relate to responsibility centres. There is further need to create incentives geared to promote environmental awareness and behavior change and to monitor non-financial information on resources used especially electricity, water, fuel and paper to facilitate the implementation of EMA at TUT. A general ledger model and action plan for the implementation of EMA at TUT utilizing the use of activity based costing has been suggested.

Dagens föränderliga samhälle ställer höga krav på organisationers anpassningsförmåga vilket i sin tur kräver att utformningen av arbetsplatser ska kunna möta denna föränderlighet. Ett kontorskoncept som vinner mark på alltfler svenska företag är det aktivitetsbaserade konceptet. På en aktivitetsbaserad arbetsplats, som är uppbyggd efter olika zoner, ska medarbetarna kunna välja plats som stödjer den arbetsuppgift som för tillfället utförs. Fördelarna med dessa arbetsplatser framförs vara minskad lokalyta, ökad kommunikation samt större produktivitet. Syftet med denna uppsats är att få en förståelse för hur medarbetarna i en offentlig organisation upplever den aktivitetsbaserade arbetsplatsen. Vidare vill vi undersöka om avsikten med införandet av det nya kontorskonceptet har infriats i medarbetarnas upplevelser. Undersökningen genomfördes på Kungälvs stadshus som nyligen har börjat arbeta aktivitetsbaserat. Undersökningen har en kvalitativ ansats där intervjuer och observationer har genomförts. De framträdande slutsatserna i undersökningen visar att respondenternas upplevelser av arbetsplatsen, i de flesta fall, inte var kopplade till det aktivitetsbaserade kontorskonceptet som sådant, utan istället till den fysiska miljön. Flertalet upplevde att arbetsplatsen fungerade bra i förhållande till deras arbete. Däremot framkom att upplevelsen av arbetsplatsen skiljde sig något åt beroende på respondenternas uppdrag. Det framkom även att medarbetarna inte utnyttjade arbetsplatsens alla resurser och var begränsade i sin rörlighet. Vidare infriades vissa av avsikterna med införandet av kontorskonceptet i respondenternas upplevelser, medan vissa inte gjorde det. Denna undersöknings värde ligger i att det forskningsaktuella läget är begränsat och att de flesta studier som gjorts på området är kvantitativt riktade. Vidare belyser undersökningen, det allt för sällan undersökta, medarbetarperspektivet. / Today’s changeable society requires a great deal of organizations adaptability which in turn puts high demands on the office design to meet this changeability. An office concept that is attaining more attention from Swedish organizations is the activity-based concept. At an activity-based workplace, which is made up by different activity-areas, the employee can choose a workstation that best supports the activity at hand. Some of the uttered pros of activity-based workplaces are the decrease in use of office space as well as the increase in communication and productivity. The purpose of this research is to receive an understanding for the employee’s experience of the activity-based workplace, in a public organization. We will furthermore view if the intentions with the implementation, of the office concept, are shown in the employees’ experiences. The research was carried out at Kungälvs stadshus who just recently started working activity-based. Interviews and observations, with a qualitative approach, were carried out. The major findings of this research was that the respondents experiences of the workplace, in most cases, weren’t connected to the activity-based concept as such. Instead it was connected to the physical environment. The majority of the respondents experienced that the workplace supported them in their work. However, the experiences differed some, due to the employee’s assignment. Another finding was that the employees didn’t use all the resources in the workplace and was restricted in their mobility. Further the research shows that some of the intentions, with the implementation of the office concept, are shown in the employees’ experiences and some of the intentions are not shown. The value of this research lies in the fact that the research in this area is limited and the research that exists is done with a quantitative approach. Furthermore, the research illuminates the, all too rarely researched employee-perspective.