Problemformulering: Är informationen på prisjämförelsesidorna tillförlitlig samt oberoende av återförsäljare som kan ha intresse i att uppvisa partisk information? Syfte: Syftet är att, med hjälp av en explorativ undersökning samt användning av både kvantitativa och kvalitativa undersökningsmetoder, få klarhet i om informationen på prisjämförelsesidorna är tillförlitlig och därmed även oberoende av återförsäljare som kan ha intresse i att uppvisa partisk information. Metod: Vårt tillvägagångssätt har bestått av både en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ metod. Den kvantitativa metoden har grundats i två separata explorativa tvärsnittsstudier och den kvalitativa metoden har bestått av 7 strukturerade intervjuer. Vår ansats kan liknas vid en induktiv metod, då vi utgått från insamlad primärdata. Resultatet från dessa anknyts sedan till generella teorier. Undersökningsobjekt: Vi har valt att studera de tre prisjämförelsesidor som anser sig vara informationsoberoende: Compricer, Pricerunner och Prisjakt. Teori: Utifrån vår undersökning har vi valt teorier om marknadsföring på Internet, om e-handel, marknadsföringsmixen och slutligen Porters femkraftsmodell. Teorierna kommer ligga som en grund till vår analysdel Slutsatser:Vår slutsats visade att informationen på de 3 prisjämförelsesidorna inte är fullständigt tillförlitlig. Vi fann att pricerunner inte är oberoende och att Prisjakt är oberoende, medan undersökningen ej visade klarhet i Compricers situation. / Problem quest: Are the information on the price comparison sites reliable and independent from selling agents who can have interest in showing partial information. Purpose: The purpose is to investigate if the information on the Swedish Shopping agent sites are reliable, and even to investigate if unjust special treatment of the selling agents is common. Methodology: Our approach has comprehended both a quantitative and a qualitative method. The quantitative method is based on two separate explorative cross-section studies, and the qualitative method has implicated 7 structured interviews. Since we have started with the collection of data, and after that expounded it with the general theories, our thesis are much like a inductive method. Disquisition object: We have chosen to study the three Internet selling agents who consider themselves to apply independent information: Compricer, Pricerunner and Prisjakt. Theory: Because of our disquisition have we chosen theories about marketing on Internet, e-business, the marketing mix and Porters five force model. The theories act like a base to our analysis of the data. Conclusions: Our conclusion showed that the three selling agents aren’t reliable about the quotation of prices. Totally they had mistaken the price for 1/6 of the products. We found out that Pricerunner aren’t independent and that Prisjakt are relatively independent. The disquisition didn’t clarified Compricers grade of independents.

本研究將我國獨立專家可能發揮之功能分為能夠認證交易係公平且無弊端之「消極認證功能」及能積極預測綜效並為市場排除不具綜效交易之「積極認證功能」，並藉由分析代理成本與獨立專家選擇之關聯性，以及獨立專家自我選擇與併購後綜效之關聯性，實證探討我國獨立專家制度之運作概況及其功能。 研究結果發現，衡量代理成本之公司及交易特性變數中，負債比率較高、外部大股東持股比率較低、機構投資人持股比率較低、併購溢價較高、主併與被併公司相對規模較接近時，公司聘僱高聲譽獨立專家的可能性較高，支持我國獨立專家可能具有降低代理成本之消極認證功能之論點。積極認證功能方面，本研究發現，以併購金額市佔率衡量獨立專家聲譽時，高聲譽獨立專家簽發評價報告之併購案，併購後市場佔有率成長幅度較高，支持我國獨立專家可能具有積極認證功能之論點，但僅限於市場綜效部分。 / This study tests whether the negative certification function and positive certification function are important service performed by independent experts in the M&A transaction. It conducts an empirical investigation of the choice of independent experts and the synergy in the M&A transaction. The result demonstrates that when the debt ratio is high, the percentage of stock owned by institutional owners and external shareholders is low, the premium is high, and the size of acquirer and target is similar, acquirer tends to hire a more prestigious independent expert. It confirms that the negative certification function exists. In addition, we find that when the reputation (measured by market share) of independent experts is high, the market synergy in the M&A may be higher than others. It is because of that the independent experts tend to protect their reputation by choosing their clients rigorously. Therefore, the positive certification function is also confirmed.

This thesis focuses on the realist life mode analysis, especially the independent life mode, and the empirical field of entrepreneurship – running a small firm. The aim is to broaden the general understanding for entrepreneurship to include non-capitalistic rationality through application and development of realist life mode analysis. The application of the analysis is done by studying different social phenomena within the field of entrepreneurship. The two phenomena in question are expansion of small firms and trust between an entrepreneur and an employee, and flexibility in small firms. The problem concerning this theoretical application has to do with showing how life mode analysis can be used to explain that entrepreneurship does not have to be about capitalism. The problem concerning theoretical development has to do with identifying social relations and mechanisms that constitute the everyday life of entrepreneurs. The study has been carried out as a qualitative interview study and it is based on the methodology of critical realism. Concerning expansion and trust between an entrepreneur and an employee, my study shows that as an expression of an entrepreneur’s socio centric life mode specific way to interpret reality trust can be an obstacle for employing extra labour-force outside the own firm. Trust can also be an obstacle for an existing relationship to function smoothly if the entrepreneur and the employee live different life modes. However, my study shows that trust can also function as a possible incitement for employment. My conclusion concerning flexibility is that the concept of flexibility, defined with a starting point in the capitalist principles of the economic market, is occasionally misused in literature. My structural perspective shows that not all small firms are driven by these motives powers. Capitalistic small firms do exist and are to be described as flexible, but not all small firms. The size of the firm conditions entrepreneurship in many ways but it does not condition the rationality. My study also shows that the independent life mode as described in the theory so far characterizes simple commodity production and not production of services. Structural changes seem to have resulted in two different life modes for independent entrepreneurs; a commodity specific independent life mode and a service specific independent life mode.

Stimulus-driven changes in the gain of sensory neurons are well-documented, but relatively little is known about whether analogous gain-control can also be effected in a top-down manner. A recent psychophysical study demonstrated that sensitivity to luminance contrast can be modulated by a priori knowledge (de la Rosa et al., in press). In the present study, event-related potentials were used to resolve the stages of information processing that facilitate such knowledge-driven adjustments. Groupwise independent component analysis identified two robust spatiotemporal patterns of endogenous brain activity that captured experimental effects. The first pattern was associated with obligatory processing of contextual information, while the second pattern was associated with selective initiation of contrast gain adjustment. These data suggest that knowledge-driven contrast gain control is mediated by multiple independent electrogenic sources.

Independent documentary films in contemporary China articulate a vision of Chinese politics and society that deviates from official state discourse. This thesis explores how China’s New Documentary Movement (NDM) – a spontaneous, independent phenomenon in Chinese cinema – serves as an important arena to study state and society struggles in the aftermath of the post-Mao reforms. This study first explores the politicalization of Chinese national cinema to demonstrate how the degree of control exerted over filmmaking and the documentary genre functions as a useful indicator of Chinese state-society relations. Focusing on the contentious issue of land disputes and rural rightful resistance in two documentaries – Feng Yan’s "Bing Ai" as well as Zhang Ke and Dong Yu’s "Where is the Way" – it contrasts the lived reality of displaced peasants to the official rhetoric disseminated in the state media. Also discussed is the state’s response to the NDM and its implications for greater societal autonomy in contemporary China.

Independent documentary films in contemporary China articulate a vision of Chinese politics and society that deviates from official state discourse. This thesis explores how China’s New Documentary Movement (NDM) – a spontaneous, independent phenomenon in Chinese cinema – serves as an important arena to study state and society struggles in the aftermath of the post-Mao reforms. This study first explores the politicalization of Chinese national cinema to demonstrate how the degree of control exerted over filmmaking and the documentary genre functions as a useful indicator of Chinese state-society relations. Focusing on the contentious issue of land disputes and rural rightful resistance in two documentaries – Feng Yan’s "Bing Ai" as well as Zhang Ke and Dong Yu’s "Where is the Way" – it contrasts the lived reality of displaced peasants to the official rhetoric disseminated in the state media. Also discussed is the state’s response to the NDM and its implications for greater societal autonomy in contemporary China.

Stimulus-driven changes in the gain of sensory neurons are well-documented, but relatively little is known about whether analogous gain-control can also be effected in a top-down manner. A recent psychophysical study demonstrated that sensitivity to luminance contrast can be modulated by a priori knowledge (de la Rosa et al., in press). In the present study, event-related potentials were used to resolve the stages of information processing that facilitate such knowledge-driven adjustments. Groupwise independent component analysis identified two robust spatiotemporal patterns of endogenous brain activity that captured experimental effects. The first pattern was associated with obligatory processing of contextual information, while the second pattern was associated with selective initiation of contrast gain adjustment. These data suggest that knowledge-driven contrast gain control is mediated by multiple independent electrogenic sources.

La presente tesis doctoral aborda el primer periodo de la filmografía de Jim Jarmusch. La tesis principal es que su cine supone una respuesta cinematográfica al estado de las cosas durante el denominado "Periodo Reagan" y una relectura de la tradición fílmica anterior. / The present Ph.D. tackles the first period in Jim Jarmusch´s Filmography. The main Thesis is that his Cinema is a reaction to the Status Quo during the so-called "Reagan in-office Period" and a relecture of the previous Filmic Tradiction

Given a set of unit disks in the plane with union area A, what fraction of A can be covered by selecting a pairwise disjoint subset of the disks? Richard Rado conjectured 1/4 and proved 1/4.41. In this thesis, we consider a variant of this problem where the disjointness constraint is relaxed: selected disks must be k-colourable with disks of the same colour pairwise-disjoint. Rado's problem is then the case where k = 1, and we focus our investigations on what can be proven for k > 1. Motivated by the problem of channel-assignment for Wi-Fi wireless access points, in which the use of 3 or fewer channels is a standard practice, we show that for k = 3 we can cover at least 1/2.09 and for k = 2 we can cover at least 1/2.82. We present a randomized algorithm to select and colour a subset of n disks to achieve these bounds in O(n) expected time. To achieve the weaker bounds of 1/2.77 for k = 3 and 1/3.37 for k = 2 we present a deterministic O(n^2) time algorithm. We also look at what bounds can be proven for arbitrary k, presenting two different methods of deriving bounds for any given k and comparing their performance. One of our methods is an extension of the method used to prove bounds for k = 2 and k = 3 above, while the other method takes a novel approach. Rado's proof is constructive, and uses a regular lattice positioned over the given set of disks to guide disk selection. Our proofs are also constructive and extend this idea: we use a k-coloured regular lattice to guide both disk selection and colouring. The complexity of implementing many of the constructions used in our proofs is dominated by a lattice positioning step. As such, we discuss the algorithmic issues involved in positioning lattices as required by each of our proofs. In particular, we show that a required lattice positioning step used in the deterministic O(n^2) algorithm mentioned above is 3SUM-hard, providing evidence that this algorithm is optimal among algorithms employing such a lattice positioning approach. We also present evidence that a similar lattice positioning step used in the constructions for our better bounds for k = 2 and k = 3 may not have an efficient exact implementation.

The problems we study in this thesis arise in computer science, extremal set theory and quantum computing. The first common feature of these problems is that each can be reduced to characterizing the independent sets of maximum size in a suitable graph. A second common feature is that the size of these independent sets meets an eigenvalue bound due to Delsarte and Hoffman. Thirdly, the graphs that arise belong to association schemes that have already been studied in other contexts. Our first problem involves covering arrays on graphs, which arises in computer science. The goal is to find a smallest covering array on a given graph <i>G</i>. It is known that this is equivalent to determining whether <i>G</i> has a homomorphism into a <i>covering array graph</i>, <i>CAG(n,g)</i>. Thus our question: Are covering array graphs cores? A covering array graph has as vertex set the partitions of <i>{1,. . . ,n}</i> into <i>g</i> cells each of size at least <i>g</i>, with two vertices being adjacent if their meet has size <i>g²</i>. We determine that <i>CAG(9,3)</i> is a core. We also determine some partial results on the family of graphs <i>CAG(g²,g)</i>. The key to our method is characterizing the independent sets that meet the Delsarte-Hoffman bound---we call these sets <i>ratio-tight</i>. It turns out that <i>CAG(9,3)</i> sits inside an association scheme, which will be useful but apparently not essential. We then turn our attention to our next problem: the Erdos-Ko-Rado theorem and its <i>q</i>-analogue. We are motivated by a desire to find a unifying proof that will cover both versions. The EKR theorem gives the maximum number of pairwise disjoint <i>k</i>-sets of a fixed <i>v</i>-set, and characterizes the extremal cases. Its <i>q</i>-analogue does the same for <i>k</i>-dimensional subspaces of a fixed <i>v</i>-dimensional space over <i>GF(q)</i>. We find that the methods we developed for covering array graphs apply to the EKR theorem. Moreover, unlike most other proofs of EKR, our argument applies equally well to the <i>q</i>-analogue. We provide a proof of the characterization of the extremal cases for the <i>q</i>-analogue when <i>v=2k</i>; no such proof has appeared before. Again, the graphs we consider sit inside of well-known association schemes; this time the schemes play a more central role. Finally, we deal with the problem in quantum computing. There are tasks that can be performed using quantum entanglement yet apparently are beyond the reach of methods using classical physics only. One particular task can be solved classically if and only if the graph &Omega;(<i>n</i>) has chromatic number <i>n</i>. The graph &Omega;(<i>n</i>) has as vertex set the set of all <i>± 1</i> vectors of length <i>n</i>, with two vertices adjacent if they are orthogonal. We find that <i>n</i> is a trivial upper bound on the chromatic number, and that this bound holds with equality if and only if the Delsarte-Hoffman bound on independent sets does too. We are thus led to characterize the ratio-tight independent sets. We are then able to leverage our result using a recursive argument to show that <i>&chi;</i>(&Omega;(<i>n</i>)) > <i>n</i> for all <i>n</i> > 8. It is notable that the reduction to independent sets, the characterization of ratio-tight sets, and the recursive argument all follow from different proofs of the Delsarte-Hoffman bound. Furthermore, &Omega;(<i>n</i>) also sits inside a well-known association scheme, which again plays a central role in our approach.