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.

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

This paper examines the efficiency of the Swedish stock market, by testing if it is possible to create an excess return by the use of technical trading rules. According to the efficient market hypothesis and the random walk theory, in an efficient market it is not possible to predict the future stock prices by analyzing historical stock prices. The profitability of tech-nical analysis and technical trading rules has been researched and debated extensively, but economists have yet to reach a consensus. Because of this we find it useful to continue to study technical trading rules, and in our case we will focus exclusively on the Swedish stock market. We have done this by applying the trading technique moving average on the Swe-dish stock exchange. We have used the OMX Stockholm 30 Index, OMXS30, the 30 most traded stocks on the Stockholm stock exchange. From Nasdaq OMX we have obtained the daily closing prices from 1986-09-30 - 2012-01-27. Our test shows support for technical trading rules. The best performing moving average is the (1,50,0), which substantially beats the buy-and-hold strategy while being statistically confident to 99%. We have also tested our data set for a unit root, if a unit root exists it implies that the data set is following a random walk. We cannot reject that there is a unit root with α = 0.10 in our data set, alt-hough it would be rejected with α = 0.11. Our result forces us to reject that the Swedish stock market is efficient which is consistent with previous research made one the Swedish stock market.

Background A common goal for many investors is to beat the market. However, only a few are able to do so consistently over a long time. The random walk theory and the efficient market hypothesis are two widely accepted theories that state that it should not be possible to consistently generate abnormal returns in an efficient market. There are though some contradicting results that argue against market efficiency and a lot of those studies have value investment in common. Joseph Piotroski was in 2000 able to generate a value investment model that consistently beat the market between the years 1976-1996. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test Piotroski’s model on stock markets with different size and maturity to evaluate if the model, as an investment strategy, can generate a better risk adjusted rate of return than a comparable market index. Unlike recent studies done on Piotroski’s value investing model, we will add a number of additional comparison portfolios and use two different valuation models to determine the source of return variation. Method This thesis employed a quantitative research method with a deductive approach. With data from four markets with different characteristics regarding efficiency and development, we performed an ex-ante test from 1995 to 2009. By employing Piotroski’s model, each stock on the four markets was given a score from 0-9; a portfolio for each market was created by the stocks that received a score of 8-9. They were then compared with portfolios from the same market based on the small firm- and book-to-market anomaly. We also performed a test between the markets to see if Piotroski’s model worked better in low efficiency or developed countries. All portfolios in this thesis were risk-adjusted with two different models, CAPM and the Fama & French three-factor model. Since these models use various factors to risk-adjust we have tested if they generate a different valuation of the same portfolio. Results Our study has shown that Piotroski’s model is not able to generate significant abnormal returns compared to our portfolios based on anomalies, our results also give an indication that by removing the anomaly premium the model might be destroying value instead of creating it. An explanation to why the model works in Piotroski’s study and not in ours could be the different method of risk adjustment. Piotroski uses a simple method by deducting the market return while we use two models that are taking additional factors into account. Our results are also able to show that choice of the valuation model does have a significant effect on the risk-adjusted return and could therefore affect the end-results of a study. Last of all our results do not give any support for the hypothesis that Piotroski’s model works better in countries with low efficiency compared to high efficiency or in countries that are developed compared to emerging.

<p><strong>Purpose</strong>- 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.</p><p><strong>Design/methodology/approach</strong>- 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.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Findings</strong>- 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.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Research limitations/implications</strong>- 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.</p><p>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.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Practical implication</strong>- 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.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Originality/value</strong>- 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.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Keywords </strong>Efficient road transport, Logistics operations, cost</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Economics." Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-140).

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone / This case study examines housing on the Hopi reservation, both traditional and contemporary and aims to create a future type of housing that will contribute to addressing the critical housing needs and alternative solutions addressing substandard housing on and for the Hopi people. Westernization has created a plague of substandard housing on the reservation that ignores pre-existing vernacular architecture and thus, the environment and the culture of the Hopi people. Rather, Westernization has created a move toward inexpensive, and quick but highly inefficient types of housing. The housing situation on Hopi presents a critical need for solution, an alternative to the substandard housing by creating a housing design that is sustainable, affordable and energy efficient. This solution can be found by (re)linking to cultural patterns of sustainability, essentially the history of a cultural people which includes traditional housing methods and materials. Traditional Hopi housing was studied and a list of common strategies was compiled from traditional houses on the reservation into a Basecase. Modern strategies were applied to the Basecase to create a Newcase. The percent savings in annual energy use and annual operation costs were compared between the two cases, however, it is important to note that the results were skewed due to a variety of factors that are discussed as limitations in the study. Nevertheless, the study offered an alternative housing solution, one that demonstrated significant savings in annual energy use and operation costs.

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone / This paper will look at the current information concerning sustainable strategies. It will look at the ones that have been used in the past as well as the strategies that are currently being used. After studying the existing material on sustainable practices and strategies the next step will be looking at three primary sources and determining strategies that will be most useful. The first source that will be used is a professional working in the field. Secondly buildings that are located in a cold arid climate will be studied and finally a program called climate consultant. The recommendations from all three sources will be compiled in a list, organized by how many sources recommended each strategy. The strategies that have the most recommendations will be implemented into a residential single family building design for cold arid climates.

No description available.

This thesis investigated a potential improvement to hydrogen storage for fuel cells using a thermally efficient hydrogen storage method. The efficiency of the storage system was improved using a metal hydride system to act as a thermal control unit for an exothermic chemical hydrogen storage system. A cylindrical shaped “hybrid” reactor was created to allow hydrogen production from a sodium borohydride packed bed reactor and the metal hydride. Additionally, a custom built pressure-composition-temperature apparatus was built to record the amount of hydrogen desorption from the metal hydride while isolating the metal from potential poisons such as oxygen. Before using the chemical hydride packed bed, heat transfer through the reactor was studied using circulating water. The water experiments showed that an increase in heat flux to the reactor led to a faster desorption rate of hydrogen from the metal hydride resulting in a larger temperature drop throughout the reactor. After the operating characteristics of the hybrid reactor were studied, a 10 wt% solution of sodium borohydride was created and pumped through the packed bed to produce enough hydrogen for a 300 W fuel cell. The amount of heat produced from the packed bed portion of the reactor was significant, but temperatures levelled to around 80 °C. As expected, temperature control was directly proportional to the rate of hydrogen release from the metal hydride. On average, approximately 10% of the available heat energy was transferred to the metal hydride, and the hybrid reactor operated with gravimetric and volumetric energy densities of 0.27 kWh·kg-1 and 1.29 kWh·L-1 respectively. If the hybrid reactor is used solely to control peak temperatures, the amount of metal hydride necessary for thermal control could be decreased. Additionally, improvements in heat transfer as well as the hydrogen storage materials themselves would increase the energy density values further. When compared to other energy storage devices, the hybrid reactor without improvements is competitive as a backup power generator due to its silent operation and large volumetric energy density. Since the hybrid reactor can provide quiet and cool energy storage in a relatively small volume, it may become an effective and efficient means for hydrogen storage with limited improvements. / Thesis (Master, Mining Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2007-12-06 14:45:56.551 / AUTO21