Researchers who focus on strategic management and event management have used stakeholder theory to understand the relationships between a focal organization and its stakeholder. Nevertheless, achieving collaborative solutions can be difficult due to the widely varying values among actors as well as the influence of institutional forces such as legal or social norms. Furthermore, organizational, industrial, and national cultures in which these norms, values, morals, and ethics are embedded vary enormously. What varies culturally, however, is the perception of stakeholders and how a focal organization interacts with its stakeholders. What has yet to be examined in depth, however, is the relevance of national culture on stakeholder theory and factors that facilitate or impede networking and alliance formation for and through events in different cultural setting. The main research objective of the study is therefore to re-examine the relationship and interactions between a sports event organization and its stakeholders in Chinese culture. By conducting an ethnography study on a sport event company in Taiwan, this study attempted to perform a cultural configuration on the Western-developed stakeholder theory. The methods of data collection in this ethnographic study include participant observation, interviews, field notes, event analysis, and document analysis. Thick descriptions with detail the patterns of culture and social relationships in this specific cultural context are generated. A thematic was performed and thirteen themes emerge. Eleven of them are related to guanxi and concepts of stakeholder theory. The other two are not directly related but unique to the context of this study, i.e., the sport industry in Chinese society. Themes related to guanxi and concepts of stakeholder theory fall broadly into four categories: managerial level, organizational level, inter-organizational level, and macro level. The results suggest that Chinese culture does indeed have, at various levels, a profound influence on stakeholder theory. The finding of this study also indicates that the guanxi, renqing, and mianzi that embedded in Chinese culture could have a substantial influence on legitimacy, trust, and reciprocity that determine the way CEOs recognize and interact with their stakeholders. In conclusion, this study, coming from such an interpretivist viewpoint, uses an ethnographic approach to seek alternative and narrative accounts in a different national culture for stakeholder theory development. Lastly, limitations and recommendations for future studies are provided. / text

Performing simulations of large-scale bio-molecular systems has long been one of the great challenges of molecular biophysics. Phenomena, such as the folding and conformational rearrangement of proteins, often takes place over the course milliseconds-to-seconds. The methods of traditional molecular dynamics used to simulate such systems are on the other hand typically limited to giving trajectories of nanosecond-to-microsecond duration. The failure of traditional methods has thus motivated the development of many special purpose techniques that propose to capture the essential characteristics of systems over conventionally inaccessible timescales. This dissertation first focuses on presenting a set of advances made on one such technique, Milestoning. Milestoning gives a statistical procedure for recovering long trajectories of the system based on observations of many short trajectories that start and end on hypersurfaces in the system’s phase space. Justification of the method’s validity typically relies on the assumption that trajectories of the system lose all memory between crossing successive milestones. We start by giving a modified milestoning procedure in which both the memory loss assumption is relaxed and reaction mechanisms are more easily extracted. We follow with numerical examples illustrating the success of new procedure. Then we show how milestoning may be used to compute an experimentally relevant timescale known as the transit time (also known as the reaction path time). Finally, we discuss how time reversal symmetry may be exploited to improve sampling of the trajectory fragments that connect milestones. After discussing milestoning, the dissertation shifts focus to a different way of approaching the problem of simulating long timescales. We consider two polymers models that are sufficiently simple to permit numerical integration of the desired long trajectories of the system. In some limiting cases, we see their simplicity even permits some questions about the dynamcis to be answered analytically. Using these models, we make a series of experimentally verifiable predictions about the dynamics of unfolded polymers. / text

Estimates of the economic impact generated by tourism events can vary greatly depending on the methodologies used to conduct an analysis. This professional report will attempt to establish a standardized methodology for estimating the economic impact created by demand shocks to the economy resulting from event generated tourism visitation and spending with the final deliverable being a state-level input-output model for Texas. A review of state-level input-output models created for Michigan and Georgia in addition to a hypothetical scenario based on the 1996 Atlanta Olympics will illustrate the importance of assumptions in input-output analysis and lead to a discussion regarding some elements of hosting an event and increasing tourism that cannot be captured through this method. The report concludes by briefly examining considerations that should be made before applying the Texas model, the potential for future improvements, and finally the viability of recruiting events as an economic development strategy. / text

Denna kandidatuppsats inom företagsekonomi behandlar ämnet eventmarknadsföring och merinriktat hur mätning och utvärdering går till hos företag och organisationer samt vilkakomplikationer som finns kring detta. Studien är gjord med kvalitativ metod och har baseratspå teorier samt praktiska exempel som samlats in via en intervjumetod hos företag ochorganisationer.Uppsatsens huvudfokus är ämnet eventmarknadsföring, och den inriktas främst på hurmätning och utvärdering av marknadsföringsmetoden går till. Just mätning och utvärdering aveventmarknadsföring är sparsamt beforskat och det finns en avsaknad av kunskap om hur manpraktiskt tillämpar detta i organisationer och företag. Dock kan man se att den traditionellamarknadsföringens plats håller på att minska och eventmarknadsföring går stadigt uppåt.Exakt vad eventmarknadsföring innebär är aningen diffust då alla verkar ha sin egendefinition på ämnet men man kan kortfattat förklara det som att det handlar om att användasig av event av olika slag för att kommunicera ut en produkt eller ett budskap. Trots att mångaanvänder sig av denna metod är det ofta som man inte genomför någon utvärdering avresultatet och tidigare var detta inget problem men nu efterfrågas det mer och mer av företagoch i organisationer. På grund av detta är det av mångas intresse att lära sig mer kringmätning och utvärdering av eventmarknadsföring.Under våra intervjuer använde vi oss av en intervjuguide för att lämpliga frågor skulle ställastill respondenterna samt för att säkerställa att vi fick in samma information från de olikaintervjuerna. Intervjuguiden utformades utifrån den teori vi hittade och användes till de femintervjuer som genomfördes på fem olika företag. Respondenterna verkar inom flera olikabranscher och på så vis har vi fått inblick från olika branscher till uppsatsen.Teori och empiri indikerar att det är ett ytterst komplext ämne vi har undersökt och därför hardet varit svårt att dra några klara slutsatser. Det vi har kunnat konstatera är att det inte finnsnågon samordnad sanning kring hur mätning och utvärdering går till eftersom det är olikaberoende på vilken bransch du tillhör och vad du har för mål med eventet. Det finns hellerinte något standardiserat utvärderingsverktyg, men det efterfrågas delvis av både forskare ochvåra respondenter. Dessutom har vi konstaterat att man måste sätta mål redan under planeringför att man ska kunna mäta och utvärdera i efterhand. Undersökningen visar även atteventmarknadsföring är en lämplig metod att använda sig av då man lätt kan få en dialogmellan företag och konsumenten där man kan förändra attityd- och köpbeteendet. / This business bachelor thesis deals with the subject event marketing and more focused onhow to measure and evaluate this subject within companies and organisations and whatcomplications that surround this. The study is made with a qualitative method and is based ontheories and practical examples, which are gathered through interviews at companies andorganisations.Measurement and evaluation of event marketing is sparingly researched and there is a lack ofknowledge on how to practically use this in companies and organisations. However, one cansee that the traditional marketing space is shrinking and event marketing is rising. What eventmarketing means exactly is somewhat diffuse since everyone seems to have their owndefinition of the topic - but one can briefly explain that it is about making use of events ofvarious kinds to communicate a product or a message. Even though this is a method that isoften used the result is rarely evaluated. This was not a problem a few years back but nowcompanies and organisations demand this more and more. Because of this, there is a lot ofinterest in learning more about the measurement and evaluation of event marketing.During our interviews we used an interview guide to make sure we used appropriate questionsto our respondents and to make sure we got the same information from the differentinterviews. The interview guide was created from the theory we found and was used in thefive interviews conducted at five different companies. Our respondents operate in variousindustries and thus we have gained insight from various sectors of the paper.Theory and empirical evidence indicates that there is an extremely complex topic, we haveinvestigated and therefore it has been difficult to draw any clear conclusions. What we haveobserved is that there is no coordinated truths about how measurement and evaluation is donebecause it is different depending on what industry you belong to and what your goals are withthe event. Nor are there any standardized evaluation tools, but are partly requested by bothscientists and our respondents. Moreover, we have noted that you have to set goals alreadyduring planning in order to be able to measure and evaluate afterwards. The survey alsoshows that event marketing is an appropriate method to use because you can easily get adialogue between companies and consumers where they can change attitudes and purchasingbehaviour.

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Titel: Konsten att bygga ett varumärke – vet experter bäst? Inlämningsdatum: 080519 Kurs: Kandidatuppsats 15 hp Författare: Pernilla Enqvist; 830720 Maria Lindroth; 850802 Handledare: Ulf Ågerup Problem: Hur har kommunikations- och eventbyråer arbetat med uppbyggnaden av företagets varumärke? Syfte: Vår uppsats syftar till att undersöka hur företag, kommunikations- och eventbyråer, som hjälper andra företag att bygga upp sina egna varumärken själva har hanterat sin egen varumärkesuppbyggande process. Genom varumärkesuppbyggande teorier ska vi undersöka om kommunikations- och eventbyråers arbetssätt kan härledas till dessa. Metod: I denna undersökning tillämpas en kvalitativ metod. Den data som insamlats är av deduktiv karaktär samt av både sekundär och primär art. Sekundärdata genom en litteraturstudie och primärdata genom intervjuer. Slutsatser: Genom engagerad och kunnig personal som levererar hög kvalitet på tjänsterna som kommunikation- och eventbyråerna tillhandahåller har de fått rekommendationer som lett till vidare uppdrag och ett gediget nätverk.

Patent trolls have changed the innovation and patent policy landscape. This thesis is an empirical event study that focuses on two landmark cases of patent troll litigation, RIM v. NTP and eBay v. Mercexchange, to determine whether pro-troll litigation outcomes significantly impact the market values of the firms in the high-tech industries they target. I find that the Supreme Court ruling in eBay v. Mercexchange did seem to significantly impact a proportion of firms in the market. The decisive factors in distinguishing affected vs. unaffected firms include a firm's R&D to Sales ratio, market value, and NAICS code specification.

Wireless networked control systems use shared wireless links to communicate between sensors and controllers, and require a channel access policy to arbitrate access to the links. Existing multiple access protocols perform this role in an agnostic manner, by remaining insular to the applications that run over the network. This approach does not give satisfactory control performance guarantees. To enable the use of wireless networks in emerging industrial applications, we must be able to systematically design wireless networked control systems that provide guaranteed performances in resource-constrained networks. In this thesis, we advocate the use of state-based channel access policies. A state-based policy uses the state of the controlled plant to influence access to the network. The state contains information about not only the plant, but also the network, due to the feedback in the system. Thus, by using the state to decide when and how frequently to transmit, a control system can adapt its contribution to the network traffic, and enable the network to adapt access to the plant state. We show that such an approach can provide better performance than existing methods. We examine two different state-based approaches that are distributed and easy to implement on wireless devices: event-based scheduling and adaptive prioritization. Our first approach uses events to reduce the traffic in the network. We use a state-based scheduler in every plant sensor to generate non-coordinated channel access requests by selecting a few critical data packets, or events, for transmission. The network uses a contention resolution mechanism to deal with simultaneous channel access requests. We present three main contributions for this formulation. The first contribution is a structural analysis of stochastic event-based systems, where we identify a dual predictor architecture that results in separation in design of the state-based scheduler, observer and controller. The second contribution is a Markov model that describes the interactions in a network of event-based systems. The third contribution is an analysis of the stability of event-based systems, leading to a stabilizing design of event-based policies. Our second approach uses state-based priorities to determine access to the network. We use a dominance protocol to evaluate priorities in a contention-based setting, and characterize the resulting control performance. An implementation and evaluation of this channel access mechanism on sensor nodes is also presented. The thesis finally examines the general networked control problem of jointly optimizing measurement and control policies, when a nonlinear measurement policy is used to perform quantization, event-triggering or companding. This contribution focuses on some of the fundamental aspects of analyzing and synthesizing control systems with state-based measurement policies in a more generalized setting. We comment on the dual effect, certainty equivalence and separation properties for this problem. In particular, we show that it is optimal to apply separation and certainty equivalence to a design problem that permits a dynamic choice of the measurement and control policies. / <p>QC 20140408</p>

Comparison of Post-licensure safety surveillance of 13-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate vaccine and 7-Valent Pneumococcal Conjugate vaccine: Data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). Background: On February 24, 2010, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed a 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (Prevnar 13®, [PCV13]) for use among children aged 6 weeks--71 months. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended PCV13 routine vaccination of all children aged 2--59 months, children aged 60--71 months with underlying medical conditions, with PCV13 replacing PCV7 for all doses. Methods: We searched case reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a US passive surveillance system, for adverse events (AEs) reported after immunization with PCV13 vaccine from February 24, 2010 through February 24, 2011 for persons vaccinated from February 24, 2010 through December 31, 2010 and compared them with AEs reported by persons who were vaccinated with PCV7. Results: VAERS received 1503 reports of AEs after PCV13; multiple vaccines were given in 79.0% of reports. One hundred eighty (11.9%) were coded as serious, including nineteen reports of death. The most frequently reported symptoms were injection site reactions, fever, irritability and vomiting. Seven hundred fifty-eight (50.4%) reports comprised males. Most reports (37.7%) were from children 1-2 years. Total number of reports received for PCV13 was very similar to those received after vaccination with PCV7. Conclusions: AEs reported to VAERS following 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine were consistent with AEs previously observed in pre-licensure trials. We did not identify any major safety concerns or outcomes.

Throughout the last glacial period, massive volumes of icebergs were discharged periodically from the Hudson Strait region during so-called Heinrich (H) events depositing sediments in distinct layers across the North Atlantic as they melted. The objective of this research was to measure and describe sedimentation associated with a meltwater plume discharged during the H1 ice-rafting event (14–19 ka) by examining sediment texture. The H1 layer was sampled in 11 piston cores that cover about 4000 km of the slope between Hudson Strait and the Bay of Fundy and range in water depth from 818–2740 m. Disaggregated inorganic grain size (DIGS) distributions were determined using a Coulter Counter. Additionally, carbonate content and the coarse fraction were measured and DIGS spectra were parameterized using an inverse ?oc model and sorted using entropy analysis. Results suggest that H1 layer sediments were mainly delivered by plume, ice-rafting and turbidity currents. In general, plume deposition was only significant proximally and distal sediments were mainly delivered by ice-rafting. However, the lack of plume deposited sediments distally does not necessarily imply the absence of a plume.