published_or_final_version / Pharmacology / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

By the end of 20th century many industries including automotive supply industry have undergone significant merger and acquisition activity. Mergers and acquisitions have led to geographical expansions of OEM’s (Origininal Equipment Manufacturer) across country borders and across continents. This tendency can be explained by the pressure to manufacture better equipments and less expensive vehicles which lead to specialization and internationalization of the truck industry. Plus, these consolidation trends are still actual phenomena in truck industry and can bring structural and strategic changes in the supply chain. Apparently. these trends bring a challenge for automotive suppliers, which is how to sustain competitive market position after the merger of important customers. By using the example of Scania and MAN consolidation, this research adopts case-study method with qualitative approach. The intent is to clarify how the buyer–supplier re-lationship is influenced by post-merger sourcing strategy in the automotive industry, with the purpose to investigate and analyze supplier strategic response mechanisms against pos-sible impacts of post-merger sourcing strategy in truck industry. The findings emphasize the importance of sourcing strategy changes in achieving the motives of the merger. We also identify a set of specific supplier selection criteria that appear to cause changes in the sourcing strategy of merged OEMs which, ultimately, influ-ence their purchase decisions.Then it is observed that dimensions like interaction, power-balance, and collaboration in buyer-supplier relationships vary with regards to sourcing strategy changes. Together, the findings contribute to our understanding of the strategic reponse mechanisms like business reengineering and restructuring through which suppliers can improve their market-related performance and better postion themselves in front of the merging customers.

Since they appeared, wireless technologies have deeply transformed our society. Today, wireless internet access and other wireless applications demandincreasingly more traffic. However, the continuous traffic increase can be unbearableand requires rethinking and redesigning the wireless technologies inmany different aspects. Aiming to respond to the increasing needs of wirelesstraffic, we are witnessing a rapidly evolving wireless technology scenario.This thesis addresses various aspects of the transmitters used in wireless communications.Transmitters present several hardware (HW) impairments thatcreate distortions, polluting the radio spectrum and decreasing the achievabletraffic in the network. Digital platforms are now flexible, robust and cheapenough to enable compensation of HW impairments at the digital base-bandsignal. This has been coined as ’dirty radio’. Dirty radio is expected in future transmitters where HW impairments may arise to reduce transmitter cost or to enhance power efficiency. This thesis covers the software (SW) compensation schemes of dirty radio developed for wireless transmitters. As describedin the thesis, these schemes can be further enhanced with knowledge of thespecific signal transmission or scenarios, e.g., developing cognitive digital compensationschemes. This can be valuable in today’s rapidly evolving scenarioswhere multiple signals may co-exist, sharing the resources at the same radiofrequency (RF) front-end. In the first part, this thesis focuses on the instrumentation challenges andHWimpairments encountered at the transmitter. A synthetic instrument (SI)that performs network analysis is designed to suit the instrumentation needs.Furthermore, how to perform nonlinear network analysis using the developedinstrument is discussed. Two transmitter HW impairments are studied: themeasurement noise and the load impedance mismatch at the transmitter, asis their coupling with the state-of-the-art digital compensation techniques.These two studied impairments are inherent to measurement systems and areexpected in future wireless transmitters. In the second part, the thesis surveys the area of behavioral modeling and digital compensation techniques for wireless transmitters. Emphasis is placed on low computational complexity techniques. The low complexity is motivated by a predicted increase in the number of transmitters deployed in the network, from base stations (BS), access points and hand-held devices. A modeling methodology is developed that allows modeling transmitters to achieve both reduced computational complexity and low modeling error. Finally, the thesis discusses the emerging architectures of multi-channel transmittersand describes their digital compensation techniques. It revises the MIMOVolterra series formulation to address the general modeling problem anddrafts possible solutions to tackle its dimensionality. In the framework of multi-channel transmitters, a technique to compensate nonlinear multi-carrier satellite transponders is presented. This technique is cognitive because it uses the frequency link planning and the pulse-shaping filters of the individual carriers. This technique shows enhanced compensation ability at reduced computational complexity compared to the state-of-the-art techniques and enables the efficient operation of satellite transponders. / <p>QC 20150526</p>

This dissertation study examined the effect of country-of-origin (COO) fit on consumer brand attitude in cross-border strategic brand alliance (SBA). Also, this study investigated the effects of consumer product knowledge by dividing it into subjective and objective knowledge dimensions. It was found that cross-border SBA can be a viable market entry strategy for host and partner brands. Specifically, cross-border SBA creates positive synergistic effects when the COO fit is high. In addition, in a low COO fit situation, the partner brand suffering from less favorable country image would be able to benefit from the established brand equity of the host brand and thus gain favorable consumer product evaluation. Also, consumers with low and high product knowledge are more likely to be affected by COO fit information than those with moderate product knowledge. It was found that subjective knowledge is more related to consumer heuristics and decision making processes than objective knowledge. Implications and suggestions for future research in this area are provided. / text

To address potential selection and school quality effects in tests of the efficacy of single-sex schools, the achievement of girls attending a public single-sex magnet middle school (N = 122) was compared to that of two samples: (a) girls who applied to but were waitlisted at the single-sex school (N = 236) and (b) girls who applied to and attended a coeducational magnet school (N = 134). Once selection and school quality effects were taken into account, the students in the single-sex and coeducational schools performed equally well. Furthermore, results suggest that student achievement is more strongly influenced by the quality of the school than its gender composition. Implications for research and social policy are discussed. / text

This dissertation encourages adoption of a message-oriented receiver perspective when developing new instructional communication theories and proposes a causal-process model derived from Knowledge Acquisition Theory to demonstrate how this perspective can be used to predict student cognitive learning outcomes. Three hypotheses are generated to test the propositions of the derived model. The first hypothesis seeks to determine which dimensions of instructional message clarity and course content relevance best predict student interactions with instructional content. The second hypothesis predicts that student self-reported knowledge gains are a function of student interactions with content. The third hypothesis predicts that a significant proportion of the variance in knowledge gains can be explained by the combination of message characteristics with student content interactions both in and outside the classroom. A cross-sectional survey research design was used to collect responses from undergraduate students at a large southern public research university (n=333). The hypotheses were tested using linear and hierarchical regression and results demonstrated statistical support for all three hypotheses. The first hypothesis revealed the dimensions of instructional message clarity and course content relevance that significantly predicted student interactions with content inside and outside of class. Support for the second hypothesis illustrated that both in class and out of class content interactions significantly predicted student self-reports of knowledge gains. Finally, hypothesis 3 tested the comprehensive causalprocess model derived from Knowledge Acquisition Theory. The derived model received strong support and ultimately accounted for 65% of the variance in student perceptions of knowledge gains. Student perceptions of knowledge gains increased when students perceived textbook messages as clear, course goals and expectations as clear, content as relevant to their own lives, and when students enacted knowledge acquisition behaviors outside of class. Surprisingly, in class content interaction, presentation clarity, and procedural clarity dropped out of the model. Implications and limitations of the present study are discussed, directions for future research are suggested, and a persuasive argument is presented for why instructional communication researchers should continue to develop a message effects research agenda supporting the development of strong instructional communication theories that produce practical results to inform educational practices.

Side effects of seizure medications in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) may affect speech and language development for this population. Research information about these effects may be useful for speech-language pathologist practitioners, since they will most likely work in environments that involve assessing and treating individuals with ID. In this meta-analysis, a total of 19 articles were reviewed to examine the side effects of AEDs in individuals with ID and seizure disorders. Side effects from AEDs were found; however, research regarding how AEDs and seizure disorders affected speech and language development was not available. Based on the findings, participants on AEDs regimens experienced a variety of side effects that included behavioral side effects, adverse cognitive side effects, and non-behavioral side effects. However, information regarding AEDs side effects and speech and language development was nonexistent. Based on the findings, further research in this is much needed for practicing speech-language pathologists in this topic. / text

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<p>Genetically determined differences in drug metabolism and disposition and drug targets play a pivotal role in the interindividual variability in the clinical outcome of antipsychotic treatment. The aim of this thesis was to study the impact of polymorphisms in genes involved in the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of antipsychotics, with special focus on their extrapyramidal and metabolic adverse effects. </p><p>Polymorphisms in serotonin 2A and 2C receptor coding genes (<i>HTR2A</i> and <i>HTR2C</i>) were found to be associated with the risk to develop extrapyramidal side effects (EPS) in patients on short term perphenazine treatment. A further study in a larger group of patients on long term treatment with various classical antipsychotics confirmed the association between occurrence of EPS and <i>HTR2C</i> polymorphisms. In another study, dose corrected steady state serum clozapine and N-desmethylclozapine concentrations (C/D) and insulin elevation during clozapine therapy were found to correlate with <i>CYP1A2</i> but not with <i>CYP2D6</i> polymorphisms. Furthermore, <i>HTR2C</i> and <i>HTR2A</i> polymorphisms were found to have significant influences on BMI and C-peptide levels in patients treated with olanzapine and clozapine. Evaluation of the impact of polymorphisms in genes encoding CYP3A4, CYP3A5 and P-glycoprotein (<i>ABCB1</i>) in addition to CYP2D6 on the steady state plasma levels of risperidone, 9-hydroxyrisperidone and their active moiety revealed a significant influence of <i>ABCB1 </i>genotype on 9-hydroxyrisperidone and active moiety C/Ds, while <i>CYP2D6</i> genotype associated with risperidone C/Ds but not with 9-hydroxyrisperidone or active moiety C/D. </p><p>We have shown that polymorphisms in genes involved in the pharmacokinetics and the pharmacodynamics of antipsychotic drugs play a role in the occurrence of adverse effects, both EPS and metabolic disturbances, induced by antipsychotic treatment. Genotyping for <i>HTR2A</i>, <i>HTR2C</i>, <i>CYP1A2</i>, <i>CYP2D6</i> and <i>ABCB1</i> polymorphisms may therefore potentially provide useful information to identify patients at higher risk to develop EPS or metabolic adverse during schizophrenia treatment with antipsychotic drugs.</p>