No description available.

<p>The aim of this thesis is, from a business perspective, to examine how the pharmacy chain Medstop is working with their positioning in order to achieve competitiveness in the re-regulated pharmacy market. This is studied through a theoretical framework that demonstrates five forces that affects the competitiveness in an industry, the five-force model by Michael Porter.</p><p>The thesis is a qualitative case study where data collection was done through interviews, literature, articles, websites and internal information from Medstop. The data was then complied into the theoretical perspective the authors have chosen for this paper, the five-force model by Michael Porter. This model was chosen because it gives a broad description of the competition a company faces by describing five different forces that affect the competition within a branch. The fact was collected on the basis of the marketing strategy positioning, and the essay is written from a business perspective.</p><p>Our cunclusions are that the pharmacy chain Medstop are in their initial positioning and has chosen to position itself on the basis of their core values; credibility, safety and security. The company believes that their customers will base their choice of pharmacy based on the geographical location and the customer experience. Customer experience is based on service and customer relations. Medstop also wants to be perceived as available to the customers and want to target customers who value a small pharmacy with good advice.</p>

No description available.

The aim of this thesis is, from a business perspective, to examine how the pharmacy chain Medstop is working with their positioning in order to achieve competitiveness in the re-regulated pharmacy market. This is studied through a theoretical framework that demonstrates five forces that affects the competitiveness in an industry, the five-force model by Michael Porter. The thesis is a qualitative case study where data collection was done through interviews, literature, articles, websites and internal information from Medstop. The data was then complied into the theoretical perspective the authors have chosen for this paper, the five-force model by Michael Porter. This model was chosen because it gives a broad description of the competition a company faces by describing five different forces that affect the competition within a branch. The fact was collected on the basis of the marketing strategy positioning, and the essay is written from a business perspective. Our cunclusions are that the pharmacy chain Medstop are in their initial positioning and has chosen to position itself on the basis of their core values; credibility, safety and security. The company believes that their customers will base their choice of pharmacy based on the geographical location and the customer experience. Customer experience is based on service and customer relations. Medstop also wants to be perceived as available to the customers and want to target customers who value a small pharmacy with good advice.

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

El presente trabajo constituye una investigación sobre las razones de la tendencia, existente en la actualidad, a una creciente regulación de carácter ético y deontológico en el campo particular de la medicina (a través de la proliferación de códigos éticos y deontológicos, creación de instituciones de control (bio)ético, procedimientos protocolizados de decisión en ética clínica, etc.), paralelamente a una creciente externalización por parte del Estado de las funciones normativas y potestades decisorias a sujetos, organismos y corporaciones privadas. Este análisis del auge de la bionomía ética, y de diferentes formas de codificación ética, centra su atención, por un lado, en la llamada «sociología del riesgo» -que estudia el fenómeno de los riesgos tecnológicos y, entre otros aspectos, las respuestas jurídico-políticas que se dan a ellos-, particularmente sobre los avances en medicina, biotecnología e investigación clínica y farmacéutica. Por otro lado, dicho análisis se centra en el fenómeno de la penetración, en el campo de autonomía de poder médico y tecno-científico, de la lógica del mercado y su sistema de poder decisorio. El presente trabajo concluye que ese fenómeno autorregulatorio ético de las profesiones y corporaciones médicas y tecno-científicas crece a costa de una creciente evasión de una regulación jurídico-pública de las actividades tecno-científicas en el campo de la medicina: un mínimo jurídico-público frente una máxima autorregulación ética con implicaciones en las garantías jurídico-públicas y en el proceso de democratización de los Estados. / ETHICS WITH CODES: A PHILOSOPHIC AND JURIDICAL ANALYSIS OF DEONTOLOGICAL RULES IN MEDICINE AND HIS RELATIONS WITH THE LEGAL SYSTEM AND THE STATE This work constitutes an investigation about the reasons of the current tendency to an increasing ethic and deontological regulation in the specific field of medicine (through the proliferation of ethical -deontological- codes, the creation of (bio)ethics institutions of control in medicine issues, protocolized proceedings of taking decisions in clinical ethics, etcetera), in the line with a growing externalization by the State of the regulation function and authority decisions to private subjects, organizations and corporations. This analysis about the growth of bioethic rules and different shapes of ethic codification, focuses, on one side, on the called «risk sociology» -that studies the technological risks phenomenon and, among other things, the legal and political answers to it-, especially about the medical and biotechnological advances and clinical and pharmacological investigations. On the other side, this analysis is centered on the phenomenon of the penetration of the market logic and its decision power system on the medical and on the scientific and technical autonomous field. This work concludes that this phenomenon of ethic self-regulation of the medical profession and medical, technical and scientific corporations, growths at expense of an increasing evasion of a legal and public regulation of the technical and scientific activities in the sphere of medicine: it produces a minimum of public law in front of a maximum of ethic self-regulation with implications in the legal and public guaranties and in the democratization process of the states.

This thesis comprises three papers examining the impact of competitive pricing or competition on participants in energy markets. The scope of each paper is narrow but focused, dealing with one particular aspect of competition in each market under study. It is hoped that results from these three studies could provide valuable policy lessons to public policy makers in their task to create or maintain competition in different energy markets, so as to improve efficiencies in these markets. The first and second papers examine the load shifting behavior of industrial customers in Ontario under real time pricing (RTP). Using Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) data from 2005 to 2008 and industry-level consumption data from all industrial customers directly connected to the transmission grid, the first paper adopts a Generalized Leontief specification to obtain elasticities of substitution estimates for various industry groups, while the second paper adopts a specification derived from standard consumer theory to obtain price elasticity estimates. The findings of both papers confirm that in some industries, industrial customers who are direct participants of the wholesale market tend to shift consumption from peak to off-peak periods in order to take advantage of lower off-peak prices. Furthermore, in the first paper, a demand model is estimated and there is evidence that the marginal effect of hourly load on hourly price during peak periods is larger than the marginal effect during off-peak periods. An important policy implication from the results of these papers is that while RTP is currently limited to industrial customers, it does have positive spillover effects on all consumers. The third paper uses a unique panel dataset of all retail gasoline stations across five Canadian cities from late-2006 to mid-2007 to examine the effect of local competition on market shares and sales of individual stations. The base empirical specification includes explanatory variables representing the number of same brand stations and the number of different brand stations within a 3km radius to identify brand affiliation effect. It is found that the number of local competitors is negatively correlated with market share and sales. More interestingly, a same brand competitor has a larger marginal impact on market share and sales than a competitor of a different brand. These findings suggest that additional local competition leads to cannibalization of market share among existing stations, rather than create new demand. Another implication is that relying only on the number of different brands operating within a geographic market could understate the competition intensity in the local market.

I början av 1990-talet så genomförde den borgerliga regeringen friskolereformen vilket in-nebar att det statliga monopolet upplöstes och att fristående skolor kunde konkurrera på samma villkor som kommunala skolor. Detta medförde att det ekonomiska ansvaret för gymnasieskolan övertogs av respektive kommun och att skolpengen infördes. Reformen har inneburit ökat antal skolor och hårdare konkurrens. Detta tillsammans med minskat elevan-tal har pressat skolorna till att optimera sin marknadsföring för att attrahera elever. Syftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva och analysera om det finns någon skillnad i hur kommunala respektive fristående gymnasieskolor arbetar med marknadsföring. Samt att undersöka hur deras syn på dagens skolmarknad ser ut. För att ta reda på detta har vi intervjuat företrädare för fyra stycken kommunala och fyra fristående skolor i Stockholms län. Vi har även valt att göra observationer på Gymnasiemässan 2010. Undersökningen har visat att Öppet hus och gymnasiemässan är viktiga mötesplatser för att skapa långsiktiga relationer till eleverna. Det har även visat sig att skillnaden mellan vad skolorna kommunicerar inte beror på vilken huvudman skolan tillhör. Två av de kommunala skolorna hade problem med att anpassa sig till nyare teknologi och nyare kommunikationskanaler jämfört med två av de fristående sko-lorna som var i framkant när det gäller kommunikationskanaler. De fristående skolorna var alla överens om att det var viktigt att skydda sig mot konkurrensen genom att differentiera sig på dagens marknad. / In the beginning of the 1990’s, the Swedish government changed the rules on the school mar-ket by implementing a school reform. The reform made it possible for private actors to com-pete on the market along with the municipal schools on equal terms. The economic responsi-bility for the schools was held by the county. The reform made entry to the market easy which has led to hardened competition. By present time it is clear that the number of pupils is de-creasing. As a result, this forces the schools into optimising their marketing to attract pupils. The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse whether there is any difference in how municipal schools and independent schools conduct their marketing, and how their perception of the schoolmarket is. To study this we have made four interviews with municipal schools and four interviews with independent schools in the county of Stockholm. We have also made an observation on Gymnasiemässan (high school fair at the event hall “Stockholmsmässan”). The conclusion of the study is that to create a long term relationship with the pupils it is nec-essary to use Öppet hus (when schools invite parents and pupils to experience the school) at the schools and to attend on the High school fair. The message communicated by the schools does not differentiate depending if the school is independent or municipal. Two of the munic-ipal schools were having a problem with adapting to newer technology and newer channels of communication, compared to two of the independent schools who were in a leading position in ways of channel communication. All of the independent schools did agree upon the neces-sity to differentiate on today’s market to be protected from the competition.

With the deregulation of power industry and the market competition, reliable power supply and secured system operation are major concerns of the independent system operator (ISO) or decision-maker (DM). Power dispatch under deregulated environment is complicated with various possibilities of decisions involved. Without the assistance of Energy Management System (EMS), it is not easy for ISO or DM to operate with pure experiences. To enhance the operational efficiency, EMS involves the state-of-the-art control technology, and the fast and effective computer assisted decision support system will help dispatch the power. A conventional EMS has a few major tasks, among them, the ¡§network analysis¡¨ task and the ¡§forecast and scheduling¡¨ task are the most important in assisting the on-line power dispatch. In dealing with the new deregulated environment, an ¡§operational planning¡¨ has to be added to aid the EMS for more security. There are significant changes on EMS after deregulation. This dissertation will focus on the changes and new functions, in the ¡§network analysis¡¨ and the ¡§forecast and scheduling¡¨ tasks of an EMS, which supports the operation in the competitive environment. In the ¡§network analysis¡¨ task, we discuss the real and reactive power dispatch and congestion management with AC optimal power flow (OPF). In this task, the formulation of AC OPF with deregulation issues and the effect of flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS) devices are presented. A predictor-corrector interior-point nonlinear-programming (PCIPNLP) algorithm has been developed to solve the problem. The model involves only slight modification to the present OPF for social welfare maximization to obtain the optimized bid-based dispatch and nodal spot prices. The incorporation of FACTS devices for system operations can ease the difficulties caused by transmission congestion. It is found that PCIPNLP technique is very effective for the modified OPF solution for congestion relief under deregulation. In the ¡§forecast and scheduling¡¨ task, we discuss the resource scheduling for bid-based dynamic economic dispatch and spot dispatch for power and reserve. They can be formulated for social welfare maximizing problem that is solved by using an efficient interior point method. And the optimal resource allocation and nodal spot price can be given from the various test results. We have also proposed a fuzzy based strategic gaming method to determine the GenCo¡¦s bidding strategy. Based on fuzzy set theory, a multi-criteria decision-making method is used to obtain the optimal strategy combination, bids and expected payoffs. Decision maker can find the optimal strategy combination by using weight vector to represent his subjective attitude about the structure of multi-objectives. The advantages have also been demonstrated through the numerical examples. Compared with the classical (¡§nonfuzzy¡¨) game theory, the proposed approach could help the decision maker to obtain higher expected payoffs, and make his choices easily. Possible applications of the proposed fuzzy method can be suggested for other decision-making problems in the power systems

As open access market principles are applied to power systems, significant changes are happening in their planning, operation and control. In the emerging marketplace, systems are operating under higher loading conditions as markets focus greater attention to operating costs than stability and security margins. Since operating stability is a basic requirement for any power system, there is need for newer tools to ensure stability and security margins being strictly enforced in the competitive marketplace. This dissertation investigates issues associated with incorporating voltage security into the unbundled operating environment of electricity markets. It includes addressing voltage security in the monitoring, operational and planning horizons of restructured power system. This dissertation presents a new decomposition procedure to estimate voltage security usage by transactions. The procedure follows physical law and uses an index that can be monitored knowing the state of the system. The expression derived is based on composite market coordination models that have both PoolCo and OpCo transactions, in a shared stressed transmission grid. Our procedure is able to equitably distinguish the impacts of individual transactions on voltage stability, at load buses, in a simple and fast manner. This dissertation formulates a new voltage stability constrained optimal power flow (VSCOPF) using a simple voltage security index. In modern planning, composite power system reliability analysis that encompasses both adequacy and security issues is being developed. We have illustrated the applicability of our VSCOPF into composite reliability analysis. This dissertation also delves into the various applications of voltage security index. Increasingly, FACT devices are being used in restructured markets to mitigate a variety of operational problems. Their control effects on voltage security would be demonstrated using our VSCOPF procedure. Further, this dissertation investigates the application of steady state voltage stability index to detect potential dynamic voltage collapse. Finally, this dissertation examines developments in representation, standardization, communication and exchange of power system data. Power system data is the key input to all analytical engines for system operation, monitoring and control. Data exchange and dissemination could impact voltage security evaluation and therefore needs to be critically examined.