Due to the tough competitions that exist today, most pharmaceutical distribution companies are in a continuous effort to increase their profits and reduce their costs. Actually, both shortage and surplus of goods can lead to loss of income for these companies. One of the problems in pharmaceutical distribution organizations which deal with public health and pharmaceutical products is how to control inventory levels by means of accurate sales prediction in order to prevent costs of excessive inventory also prevent losing their customers because of drug shortage. Accurate sales prediction is certainly a valuable management tool to meet the mentioned goals since this leads to improved customer service, also, reduced lost sales and costs. However, most pharmaceutical distribution companies in Iran are still using heuristic or traditional statistical techniques to make sales prediction for their products. Thus, the purpose of this research is to apply an innovative and reliable sales prediction method for pharmaceutical distribution companies.To make sales prediction for a pharmaceutical distribution company, we needed to have past sales records of each drug. Accordingly, we gathered sales data of three years from Pakhsh Hejrat Co. which is one of the leading pharmaceutical distributors in Iran. We chose neural networks as our basic tools for sales prediction since most traditional methods like ARIMA are incapable of modeling nonlinearities that exist in most real data; also, they need forecaster’s supervision for the parameter estimation phase. In fact, neural networks are versatile tools for sale prediction since estimation with neural networks can be automatized, and they have proved very effective in order to make prediction by handling non-linear input and output variables Due to the fact that we did not have enough past sales records of drug items, we came up to a new idea of grouping drugs to find group members and make use of co-members’ sales data for each other. Thus, we did a comprehensive network based analysis in order to find clique-sets and group members. Afterwards, we built sales forecasting models with three different approaches: a) ARIMA methodology for time series forecasting, b) Hybrid neural network approach for time series forecasting by means of each drug’s past recodes, and c) Hybrid neural network approach for time series forecasting by means of each drug’s past records and its group members’ past records. Our evaluations and results indicated that our new methodology (number 3 above) was the best methodology, and the weakest one was ARIMA model. / <p>Validerat; 20130304 (marikav)</p>

The use of technology in business process is gaining much attention, and many businesses today rely on technology as an important part of an efficient and effective way of meeting customers’ satisfaction. This study deals with the adoption of a proper and electronic means of tracking counterfeit drugs in the supply chain (distribution network) through the use of RFID technology. The case of the Ghanaian pharmaceutical group KAMA is considered. The main objective consists in finding out how the adoption of RFID technology would help tracking counterfeit drugs in the supply chain of this company and which benefits this could generate. Three research questions are stated and a qualitative approach is adopted. Field observation, a series of interviews with management and field workers of Kama as well as a questionnaire allowed collecting the data. The analysis of the data showed that RFID technology should be adopted by Kama to replace the present costly and relatively inefficient way of tracking counterfeit drugs. The motivation of workers to be trained on RFID as well as the company readiness to train employees represent major factors for adoption and implementation of RFID to track counterfeit drugs and hence contribute to increase the profit margin and improve Kama’s image on the market. Recommendations are finally made on the methodology to be adopted by Kama to implement and use RFID technology to track counterfeit drugs. / <p>Validerat; 20111202 (anonymous)</p>

<p>Validerat; 20130215 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

<p>Validerat; 20101217 (root)</p>

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging paradigm focusing on the inter-connection of things or devices to each other and to the users. Over time, the most of connections in IoT are shifting from ‘Human to Thing’ to ‘Thing to Thing’. This technology is anticipated to become an essential milestone in the development of smart homes to bring convenience and efficiency into our lives and our homes. But, by bringing this IoT technology into our homes there will be important implications for security in these technologies. Connecting every smart objects inside the home to the internet and to each other results in new security and privacy problems, e.g., confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity of data sensed and exchanged by objects. These technologies are very much vulnerable to different security attacks that make an IoT-based smart home unsecure to live in and therefore it is necessary to evaluate the security risks to judge the situation of the smart homes. For any technology to be successful and achieve widespread use, it needs to gain the trust of users by providing sufficient security and privacy assurance. As in all sectors, maintaining security will be a critical challenge to overcome. As homes are increasingly computerized and filled with devices, potential computer security attacks and their impact on residents need to be investigated. This report uses OCTAVE Allegro Methodology which focuses mainly on information assets and considers containers (technical, physical and people) and conducts a security risk assessment with the goal of highlighting various security flaws in IoT-based smart home, impacts and proposing countermeasures to the identified issues satisfying most of security requirements. Finally, it comes up with some recommendations to the users. The research findings documented into a thesis paper for secure IoT-based smart home systems and the resulted list and recommendations will be some useful contribution which can be used as a foundation for the specification of security requirements. For future work, the assessment will be extended to include more types of smart home applications rather than just typical one. / <p>Validerat; 20160620 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

The film industry utilizes more and more computer generated visual effects and the visual effects industry and the surrounding community is continuously growing. It unlocks possibilities for the creative director that before was hard to achieve. And as technology advances, it does not only push the limit of the quality and complexity of the visual effects, but also allows ordinary people and amateurs with a tight budget to create stunning visuals as well.The report will cover render passes and the importance of a linear workflow. The report will determine common key material assets a compositor needs from rendering in order to have full control in post-production. Practical examples made with Maya and Nuke will be used. / <p>Validerat; 20120802 (anonymous)</p>

This thesis attempts to analyze the factors that affect the behavioral intentiontowards purchasing apparels through the Internet. A combination of TechnologyAcceptance Model and Theory of Planned Behavior along with constructs of Trustand Perceived Risk was chosen as the basis of framework for this study to explainhow online consumers behave while purchasing garments online and to illustrate thestrength of the relationship between consumers intention and constructs of attitude,Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Subjective Norms, PerceivedBehavioral Control, Perceived Risk, and Trust. A pilot study along with severalinterviews was conducted to create a basis for the final questionnaire, which led to thedata gathered from 347 people of Iranian society. The measures and hypotheses wereanalyzed using Multiple Regression analysis. Results demonstrated crucial effect ofvariables such as social factors, Perceived Behavioral Control, Attitude, PerceivedRisk, and Trust on people’s behavioral intention towards shopping garments online.Furthermore, the implications of the findings for theory and practice are discussed andrelevant conclusions have been mentioned. / <p>Validerat; 20150827 (marikav)</p>

Every day people are exposed to crimes in Sweden, which can lead to both emotional and practical difficulties. Having the opportunity to get support and help after a traumatic incident can reduce the negative consequences of a crime, such as posttraumatic stress disorder and secondary victimization. In many communities in Sweden there are local support services for the crime victims, but in the district of Östra Norrbotten there are no support activities that specifically address this issue. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if the police in Östra Norrbotten feel that they can offer the crime victim sufficient support or refer to such support. Eight police officers in the district were interviewed to learn about their experiences. The results show that the majority of respondents felt that there are gaps in the field they can´t provide the crime victims to a support that they deem as sufficient or refer to such support. The fact that crime victims do not receive support can lead to negative impact on the recovery from all events. / <p>Validerat; 20130317 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

The purpose of this paper is that through a rhetorical reception analysis to find out how young women interpret a specific content downloaded from Instagram in the form of four collage containing a total of 24 different images. The collages are based on four hashtags: #home, #breakfast, #happiness and #lifestyle. In this study individual interviews were conducted with five female respondents aged 20 to 24 who are active users of Instagram.The women's own presentation and identity has also been studied to see if the image and the identity that they show on Instagram consistent with the image and identity as they have in the reality.With the help of rhetorical tools and a fund theories of gender, identity , habitus and capital so , this study concluded that the respondents both consciously and unconsciously interpret the material chosen differently depending on which of collages that they have analyzed And that respondents in different ways, choose which side of themselves that they want to display on Instagram where some of the respondents admit that the picture they show of themselves on Instagram match the image they have of themselves everyday. While some of the respondents admit that they are more daring, and become more personal on Instagram than they are in real life. / <p>Validerat; 20160607 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>

Information Security nowadays is becoming a very popular subject of discussion among both academics and organizations. Proper Data Governance is the first step to an effective Information Security policy. As a consequence, more and more organizations are now switching their approach to data, considering them as assets, in order to get as much value as possible out of it. Living in an IT-driven world makes a lot of researchers to approach Data Governance by borrowing IT Governance frameworks.The aim of this thesis is to contribute to this research by doing an Action Research in a big Financial Institution in the Netherlands that is currently releasing a Data Lake where all the data will be gathered and stored in a secure way. During this research a framework on implementing a proper Data Governance into the Data Lake is introduced.The results were promising and indicate that under specific circumstances, this framework could be very beneficial not only for this specific institution, but for every organisation that would like to avoid confusions and apply Data Governance into their tasks. / <p>Validerat; 20151222 (global_studentproject_submitter)</p>