Drug resistance in cancer cells is a serious complication that is always continuously evolving. Rather than just one or two factors, drug resistance is a combination of a handful of elusive mechanisms. Many of these mechanisms and factors have been studied in the past, however new methods of analysis and treatment are being developed and tested rigorously. Along with new progress and breakthroughs, the pharmaceutical industry must also recognize the increasing expensive cost factor and its burden on cancer patients of the future. Ultimately, new treatment methods accompanied by cost-efficient analysis will provide patients with the best cancer treatment possible.

Like many other transportation agencies, the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) is also using the same work zone closure strategies and standards that it has used for decades. However, the lane closure strategies should incorporate the impacts of construction duration and inconvenience to the road users and find the balance where users face minimal inconvenience while contractors have the appropriate amount of time to finish the work and produce a high quality product. In-order to evaluate and assess the appropriate time for lane closures, it is important to estimate the capacity of the lanes. The capacity estimates can help in determining the optimized time for lane closures to minimize the user delays while providing sufficient time for contractors to achieve the desired productivity and quality of work. There are different models, computer Software and wide variety of studies to evaluate and estimate the Workzone Capacity and associated User Delay Costs at workzones. These costs are primarily affected by traffic flows, vehicle speeds, and work zone capacities. In-view of the above, this study is designed to estimate freeway capacity of construction workzones and discuss the associated user delay costs and economic issues. For this study, the capacity at the work zones was measured as the mean queue discharge flow rate during forced-flow conditions. Forced-flow conditions were defined as congested conditions during which a sustained queue formed. There are several studies and approaches for collecting traffic volume data for estimating workzone capacity. For this study, it was decided to utilize a manual counting method for volume data. This would help provide the visual confirmation of queuing and intensity of work activity at workzones. Six sites located in Southern Ontario, were selected for this study. The data from these sites is used to develop a mathematical model for estimating workzone capacity for Ontario.

Purpose- The purpose of this research is to explore the role of road transport in logistics operations, and to investigate and analyze how IKEA China does operate on road transport in logistics operations. Design/methodology/approach- A single case study has been conducted at IKEA China, including semi-structured interviews and review of internal documents. Along with the case study, literature reviews have been conducted within the areas of efficient road transport in logistics operations.   Findings- The IKEA China case suggests that the logistics operations should have strong link to the efficient road transport in a manner optimized logistics operations can provide efficient road transport with less cost.   Research limitations/implications- This thesis is limited to one representative company, and the authors just focus on a study of efficient road transport in logistics operations for narrowing down the thesis. So the solutions and proposals about efficient road transport might not be adopted by other companies or be applied to other parts of the supply chain. Additionally, a study of efficient road transport can be discussed, analyzed and studied from a lot of different perspectives, even much better in a holistic viewpoint. Here, the authors just choose a few primary perspectives as research objectives to support this study, which concerns the data and information collected from IKEA China. Finally, because of the limitation of time and personal knowledge, the data collected from IKEA China may neither abundant enough nor deep enough in a manner without exploiting and expanding into all the issues and challenges refers to efficient road transport in logistics operations.   Practical implication- This research provides suitable solutions for a company towards efficient road transport in logistics operations. Consequently, it will facilitate companies to achieve the purpose of efficient road transport by optimizing their logistics operations in a manner improve the outcomes of insouring/outsourcing, merge-in-transit, consolidation point and packaging.   Originality/value- This research combines five theoretical fields in terms of sourcing strategy, merge-in-transit, consolidation point, packaging as well as economics scale of trucking cost to contribute proposals to efficient road transport in logistics operations.   Keywords Efficient road transport, Logistics operations, cost

The demand for energy is forever growing. The technology of extracting power from uranium through nuclear facilities is rather old. Core melting, nuclear bombs, uranium extraction costs and the question what to do with the wastes has hindered countries from exploiting this resource. The technology of extraction, containment and refinement has however come a far way since the beginning. There is a need of revaluing this method of generating power. What better way of doing this than making a cost and benefit analysis upon Nuclear Power. If the costs of overweight the benefits, the governments should dismount the reactors in the involved country. If it’s the other way around; benefits surpassing costs, there should be a development within this sector. In this thesis we will analyze a cost-benefit-analysis of new nuclear power generation in the UK. We will explain how a CBA is constructed, give some examples of cost and benefits of nuclear power and with this knowledge we will then critically look at the 2006 CBA of new nuclear power in UK (Kennedy) which compares costs and benefits of nuclear new build with conventional gas-fired generation and low carbon technologies.

Like many other transportation agencies, the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) is also using the same work zone closure strategies and standards that it has used for decades. However, the lane closure strategies should incorporate the impacts of construction duration and inconvenience to the road users and find the balance where users face minimal inconvenience while contractors have the appropriate amount of time to finish the work and produce a high quality product. In-order to evaluate and assess the appropriate time for lane closures, it is important to estimate the capacity of the lanes. The capacity estimates can help in determining the optimized time for lane closures to minimize the user delays while providing sufficient time for contractors to achieve the desired productivity and quality of work. There are different models, computer Software and wide variety of studies to evaluate and estimate the Workzone Capacity and associated User Delay Costs at workzones. These costs are primarily affected by traffic flows, vehicle speeds, and work zone capacities. In-view of the above, this study is designed to estimate freeway capacity of construction workzones and discuss the associated user delay costs and economic issues. For this study, the capacity at the work zones was measured as the mean queue discharge flow rate during forced-flow conditions. Forced-flow conditions were defined as congested conditions during which a sustained queue formed. There are several studies and approaches for collecting traffic volume data for estimating workzone capacity. For this study, it was decided to utilize a manual counting method for volume data. This would help provide the visual confirmation of queuing and intensity of work activity at workzones. Six sites located in Southern Ontario, were selected for this study. The data from these sites is used to develop a mathematical model for estimating workzone capacity for Ontario.

The paper provides a model that assesses the set of complementary components of varying compatibility and its effect towards consumer adoption decisions. The smartphone market is a system good which utilizes the device and a set of compatible applications (apps). The amount of switching costs may vary depending upon the consumer’s decision to switch devices or across platforms. Analyzing the Android ecosystem, the process of custom ROMs (and rooting) and the large set of games, news, etc. apps justify the existence of device-specific and platform-specific apps. The model reinforces the findings of a survey conducted by UBS suggesting the retention rate (i.e. level of switch costs) of Apple users is higher than Android users. The retention among Android devices is much lower in comparison as well. The model observes that the product fragmentation and the interdependence of apps lead to the noticeably lower retention rates across Android devices and platforms.

In recent years, the beef industry has been forced to examine improving supply chain coordination in order to respond to the declining consumer demand for beef. Exploring the different supply chain structures being used by beef industry participants to improve coordination and provide consumers with differentiated beef products is important. The problem is that it is not clear how the different attributes often included in branded beef programs affect transaction costs and result in the formation of particular supply chain structures. This thesis examines what makes a successful supply chain alliance in the beef industry. Essentially, this study examines the sustainability and effectiveness of different alliance types and their ability to coordinate various branded beef programs and the product attributes included under these programs. A predictive transaction cost model is developed, which examines how different product attributes result in the emergence of particular transaction characteristics. The model shows how the structure of the supply chain adapts in order to minimize the associated transaction costs. In order to better understand the relative importance of different transaction characteristics to supply chain participants, a two-part empirical study was conducted. In the first portion of the study the relative importance of key transaction characteristics to cow-calf operators was examined through the use of conjoint analysis. The results from the conjoint analysis indicate that certain transaction characteristics, namely asset specific investments, limit the willingness of cow-calf operators to participate in alliances due to the associated transaction costs. Cow-calf operators placed an emphasis on premiums, which shows that while they are willing to make trade-offs and accept increased costs, associated with asset specific investments and price uncertainty, they are only willing to do this when benefits are greater than costs. To further understand the importance of different transaction characteristics to supply chain participants, key managers and directors of different beef alliances throughout Canada and the United States were interviewed. Based on the interviews it appears that alliances have typically limited the level of asset specific investments required. Consequently, the degree of coordination is not affected to, any great extent, by the level of investments required. Instead, the degree of coordination appears to more a result of how an alliance is aligned with a particular brand name label. It appears that greater coordination occurs when an alliance owns a brand name label or is an exclusive supplier to a brand name label, as there is a higher risk of opportunistic behaviour and, as a result, higher transaction costs. The use of grid-based pricing systems and the number of buyers/sellers in the market did not appear to have a significant affect on the method of coordination chosen. Based on the results obtained from both the cow-calf operator conjoint-based analysis and interviews with alliance members this thesis identifies several critical success factors and challenges to improving coordination in the beef industry. Most significantly, when developing alliances it is necessary to understand the importance of different transaction characteristics to supply chain participants. This research demonstrates that supply chain participants in the beef industry are willing to make trade-offs between the benefits received from improved coordination and the transaction costs that arise, as long as the benefits exceeds the increase in costs.

Securities legislation in Canada and around the world does not mandate firms to fulfill announced share repurchase programs. As such, a firms repurchase program completion rate can be interpreted as a measure of the firms voluntary compliance, which communicates to investors the degree to which the firm is responsible, reliable and makes good faith efforts to fulfill its announced programs. We therefore expect that the voluntary compliance may reduce the riskiness of a firm and thus its cost of capital. In a sample of Canadian repurchase programs announced between 1995 and 2004, surprisingly, we find little evidence to suggest that a significant relationship exists between the firms repurchase program completion rate and the cost of equity. We present a number of explanations for this result.

Agency theory, proposed by previous studies such as Guidry, Leone, and Rock (1999) and Arya and Huey-Lian (2004), suggests that bonus and other accounting-metric-based compensation can motivate managers to perform well in the short horizon while equity-based compensation, such as restricted shares and stock options, can serve the purpose of aligning the long run interests of shareholders and managers. The empirical evidence, for example Jensen and Murphy (1990), Kaplan (1994), Hall and Liebman (1998), Murphy (1999), Zhou (2000), and Chowdhury and Wang (2009), confirms that incentive compensation is popular in many countries. However, recent studies suggest that the relation between performance and incentive compensation is weak. Shaw and Zhang (2010) find that CEO bonus compensation is less sensitive to poor earnings performance than it is to good earnings performance. Fahlenbrach and Stulz (2011) study the relation between bank performance during the 2008 bank crisis and the bonus and equity-based compensation of bank CEOs. They find that banks with CEOs whose incentives were better aligned with the interests of shareholders performed worse than other banks. This study examines whether ownership structure can explain the differences among compensation structures of chief executive officers (CEOs). In particular, we examine the compensation structure of three distinct groups: family-controlled, institution-controlled, and widely-held firms. We distinguish these three kinds of firms to represent different levels of market imperfection. Compared with family-controlled and institution-controlled firms, widely held firms have dispersed ownership. The most significant weakness of a widely-held ownership structure is the lack of shareholder monitoring due to the unmatched benefit and cost of monitoring for small shareholders. In contrast, a holder of a large block of shares will have the same monitoring costs but the benefits to this shareholder from monitoring management and reducing agency costs would be substantial and larger than the costs of monitoring. Thus the presence of a large shareholder will reduce the agency costs. In addition, large shareholders may be willing to spend time and effort continuously to collect more information on management performance or to estimate the firms investment projects. This behaviour will reduce the problems that arise from information asymmetry and will decrease the waste of free cash flows by managers. Both family-controlled firms and institution-controlled firms have large shareholders. However, whether or not the control shareholders are playing an active monitoring role is still an important issue. From the viewpoint of aligning the interests of managers and shareholders, the family-controlled group is superior to the institution-controlled group. First, institutions are more flexible in moving their ownership from one firm to another depending on performance. If the costs of monitoring are high in comparison to the costs of rebalancing portfolios, institutions will choose to rebalance instead of monitoring. In contrast, a family that controls a firm does not have this flexibility. Second, family-controlled firms generally assign influential positions to family members whose focus is in line with that of the family group. Even though a non family member may be appointed as the manager, the level of monitoring is significant given the high ownership concentration by the family. However, the level of monitoring by a family may not necessarily translate into a reduction of agency costs for minority shareholders. Indeed, previous studies suggest that significant family ownership may lead to agency costs of its own. The family may divert company resources for its own benefit despite the presence of a manager who may or may not be a family member. Essentially, the family and the manager can collude to spend on perks and personal benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. Chourou (2010) suggests that excessive compensation of chief executive officers at some family owned Canadian corporations may be viewed as expropriation of minority rights. Overall, the main objective of this study is to examine whether block-holder monitoring is a substitute to the incentive components of compensation. We propose that as we move from widely-held to institution-controlled the level of monitoring may or may not increase. However, as we move further into higher control, as may be suggested by family ownership, the level of monitoring will increase but this monitoring may not necessarily reduce agency costs. The results show that the institution-controlled firms pay significantly less bonus compensation per dollar of assets than widely-held firms but the differences in equity based compensation are not significant. In addition, the family-controlled corporations offer the lowest performance-based compensation, bonus per dollar of assets, in comparison to the institution-controlled and the widely-held groups. These results indicate that the family-controlled Canadian corporations rely more on monitoring managers than paying them incentive payments in the form of bonus payments. In addition, our results indicate that the institutions which control corporations may be monitoring the managers of these corporations but this monitoring does not significantly reduce the need for the long-term incentive components of compensation. This result suggests that institutions may monitor the short-term performance effectively but they may prefer rebalancing their portfolio rather than monitoring long term performance.

Purpose: Our purpose with this essay was to see how a health promotion initiative could be profitability and how human resource cost accounting could be used for decision making. Does it cost more than it taste? Method: We have been using qualitative interviews with politicians, human health developerand accountants in a municipality. We have also collected data from a university lecturer which shows numbers from the health promotion initiative and how it is been affecting the involved staff. Result: The result show us that the politicians, human health developer and accountants all want to introduce physical exercising at work. Although, different problems makes this hard to introduce one example is not enough money. The decision makers say that there are more important things to put the money on and therefore, health care is seldom prioritized. If we compare to earlier theory, we can see that the staff is a very important tool for organizations and that makes it important to focus on. Human resource accounting is a legitimate ground for certain decisions. Conclusion: The most important thing we learned and our biggest contribution is that human resource accounting can be used as a ground for decision making. If you can show with numbers that an investment is profitable, that shows that it is legitimate for the decision makers.