This qualitative research is a contribution to the ongoing debate among marketing researchers regarding if there is a dominant paradigm and viewpoint of marketing and which one is the most appropriate. In this study current views of marketing are identified and then compared against the older Goods-Dominant Logic of Marketing and Vargos’ and Luschs’ alternative Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing. The trends that have been observed are situated in the framework of Thomas S. Kuhn’s philosophy of science. The aim has been to make an analysis about which stage marketing is in its scientific revolution today. Kuhn’s philosophy has, as far as we know, never been examined with the chosen methodology. Further it has not been applied onto a social science either. The conclusion that has been drawn in the thesis is that marketing is dealing with anomalies at this moment. Therefore it is in a stage of crisis in its scientific revolution. Hence there is not a dominant paradigm in marketing currently. / Bakgrunden till uppsatsen är den debatt vilken pågått under snart 20 år fram till dags dato mellan marknadsföringsforskare gällande vilket grundläggande synsätt som vetenskapen bör ha. Forskning visar på att marknadsföringsdisciplinen under lång tid präglats av ett varucentrerat synsätt som har sitt ursprung i nationalekonomin. I debatten tydliggör forskarna för de brister som de finner med det varucentrerade synsättet och särskilt gällande det förhållningssätt synsättet har till service och tjänster. Undersökningen har sin utgångspunkt i den fråga några forskare ställer sig gällande om ett paradigmskifte kan vara på gång inom marknadsföringsdisciplinen. Frågan ställer vi mot det alternativa synsätt Stephen Vargo och Robert Lusch utvecklat. De är inte de enda forskare som utvecklat alternativa synsätt men deras utmärker sig på två sätt. Dels genom att service istället för varor är grundstenen i synsättet dels den aggregerade nivån på deras resonemang. Vi ställer oss frågan vilket som är det rådande paradigmet inom marknadsföringsdisciplinen idag. Är det Vargos och Luschs nya servicecentrerade synsätt Service-Dominant (S-D) Logic of Marketing, eller det äldre varucentrerade som de benämner Goods-Dominant (G-D) Logic of Marketing? Eller kanske något annat? Frågeställningen ställs utifrån Thomas S. Kuhns vetenskapsfilosofi vari paradigm är det mest centrala begreppet. Vidare syftar vi till att påvisa i vilken av faserna i den vetenskapliga revolution som marknadsföringsdisciplinen är i idag. Undersökningen har främst en deduktiv ansats, där grunden utgörs av en omfattande litteraturstudie. Kuhns vetenskapsfilosofi och alla de faser som ingår i den vetenskapliga utvecklingen som han kallar för vetenskapliga revolutioner fungerar som en metateori. Vidare redogörs det även för de karakteristiska dragen i G-D Logic och S-D Logic. Metodvalet är kvalitativt då vi syftar till att ge en ögonblicksbild av rådande synsätt vilket stämmer väl överens med kvalitativa metoders styrkor. Tio informanter inom urvalet intervjuades rörande deras synsätt kring områden som marknadsföringsämnet består av. Analysen byggs sedan upp i två steg. Informanternas svar analyseras utifrån G-D Logic och S-D Logic för att se om informanternas synsätt omfattas av dem eller om något annat synsätt är tydligt. De tendenser vi finner i informanternas synsätt analyserar vi sedan utifrån Kuhns vetenskapsfilosofi. Därefter var det möjligt att dra slutsatsen att marknadsföringsdisciplinen idag befinner sig i den vetenskapliga fasen kris som karakteriseras av anomalier. Vidare är inget synsätt dominant idag. Undersökningen har främst två målgrupper. Dels forskare inom marknadsföringsämnet där vi bidrar till den rådande debatten. Dels till andra samhällsvetenskapliga discipliner. Vi har inte kunnat finna att Kuhns filosofi har testas inom samhällsvetenskapen tidigare. Därigenom kommer undersökningen också med ett metodologiskt bidrag.

No description available.

The pharmaceutical market is a billon euro industry and the competition on the market is highly intensive. Primarily there are two competitors on the market, partly the originators which provide the market with new drugs, and partly the generics which produce copies of the originators‟ drugs. The originators are able to be granted patent protection of the drug under the European patent system, provided that the drug fulfils the requirements for patentability. During the period of patent protection the generics are not able to produce copies of the drug, but once the duration of the patent has expired the generics are able start the production. Thus, in order to hinder the generics to make copies of the drug, the originators apply various patent strategies. This has been noted by the European Commission, which conducted a sector inquiry of the pharmaceutical market in 2009. The presentation of the competition within the market focused on the applied strategies by the originator and concluded that all measures will be taken to hinder restrictions on the competition. In conjunction, the General Court judged in a recent case that the originator AstraZeneca constituted an infringement of the competition law when their strategies were applied. The complexity of determine whether a strategy is lawful or not, is due to the interface between the intellectual property law and the EC competition law. This implies that the strategy can be lawful under the IP law but unlawful under the competition law. The Court has established that any strategy, regardless of its legality under the IP law, constitutes an infringement of the competition law if it might restrict the competition. The Courts do not provide sufficient guidelines of the conditions that constitute the infringement. Consequently, the strategies‟ legality is at present time uncertain.

No description available.

To track evolution of autonomic responses during orthostasis in men and women, we used discrete pseudo-Wigner distribution based time-frequency analysis to compute dominant frequencies and spectral powers in RR intervals and Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP). Data were collected from 38 healthy volunteers (22 men, 16 women) during 10 min supine posture followed by 30 min of 700 head up tilt. The RR intervals were computed from ECG and systolic blood pressure was and spectral amplitudes of RR intervals were integrated in two regions viz., Low Frequency (LF) region defined between 0.05-0.15 Hz and High Frequency region (HF), sometimes referred to as respiratory frequency region, defined as mean breathing frequency of the individual +/- one standard deviation. Dominant frequencies of RR intervals in the LF region decreased in both men and women. There were no significant differences between men and women as far as the SBP data were concerned for the dominant frequencies, however women had higher values than men. Dominant frequencies of RR intervals in the HF region increased both in men and women from supine to tilt. No significant differences in dominant frequencies were found between men and women. Also there were no significant differences even for the SBP data, however men had higher values than women Integrated powers within the auto spectra of RR showed that in the HF region, power decreased significantly for both men (pandlt;0.005), and women (pandlt;0.001) during tilt compared to supine. However, the HF power in women was significantly higher for men during both supine (pandlt;0.001), and tilt (pandlt;0.005). In LF region integrated power spectrum showed no significant difference between men and women although women showed a slight increase from supine to tilt. These results suggest that men have a higher sympathetic control while women have greater para-sympathetic influence.

No description available.

Fierce competition in the market is driving software vendors to rely on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) strategies and to continuously match new software versions with customers’ needs and competitors’ moves. Although release management as a recurrent activity related to SaaS arguably shapes how a vendor services its customers, the literature is surprisingly limited on how software releases are managed to support SaaS strategies. Against this backdrop, we present a collaborative action-research study with Software Inc., a large multi-national software provider, focused on improving the release cycle management process for a complex security software service. The study is part of a comprehensive intervention into Software Inc. that combines a perspective rooted in software process improvement and engineering practices with one rooted in service delivery and customer interactions. The part that is reported in this dissertation draws on the service-dominant logic framework to analyze how the release cycle management process was organized to improve Software Inc.’s ongoing value co-creation with its customers. As a result, the study contributed to improving release cycle management at Software Inc. and it expands industry knowledge about the challenges and opportunities for software vendors to manage releases and improve the value delivered to and co-created with their customers. This added knowledge is of interest to both practitioners and researchers as SaaS strategies increasingly shape the industry with important implications for how software is released.

Research to date discovered two gaps restricts the existing service innovation theories from full support for SMEs - who also require good service innovation theory to innovate and to survive in the fast-pacing market - which are: goods-thinking-based service innovation logic and incomprehensible service innovation theory for SMEs. In this research, we share and enhance the vision of system thinking researchers - interaction plays the very basis and important role in service value creating and delivering - as our theory foundation. Founding on this interaction-centric notion, we propose an easy-to-adapt service innovation methodology which suggests that SMEs could do service innovation by adjusting business interactions, and justify it with a comprehensive model evaluated by simulation techniques and a prototype supporting information system mechanism to provide support for SME users. Last but not the least, at the end of this research, we re-examine the system thinking framework with our discoveries, and signaled a possible adjusting direction of the framework for more value-oriented purposes. From the practical view, we identify a way to extend the current system thinking theory to a practical model for real world SME’s service innovation purposes. For the academic research, our interaction-centric service innovation methodology is believed to enhance the to-date system thinking theories. In addition, we also identify several future possibilities for academic researchers in this field to discover.

Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit war es, die Quartärstruktur des Tumorsuppressors p53 an Mitochondrien zu untersuchen. In vorangegangenen Untersuchungen der Arbeitsgruppe konnte festgestellt werden, dass der transkriptionsunabhängige Apoptoseweg von p53 an den Mitochondrien resistent war gegenüber dominant-negativer Hemmung durch mutiertes p53. Dadurch stellte sich die Frage, welche Mechanismen für diese Resistenz verantwortlich sind. Unter den zahlreichen, denkbaren Möglichkeiten erschienen zwei als wahrscheinlich: a) Der Mechanismus, der p53 nach Stress an die Mitochondrien transloziert, ist spezifisch für Wildtyp-Homotetramer; b) mitochondriales p53 liegt als Monomer vor. Für das experimentelle Vorgehen wurden HCT116 Colon-Adenokarzinomzellen und MCF-7 Mamaadenokarzinomzellen verwendet, die beide einen intakten p53- Apoptoseweg besitzen. Zudem wurden HCT116R175HPuro und HCT116R273HPuro verwendet, um die Eigenschaften von mutiertem p53 an Mitochondrien untersuchen zu können. Aus den Zellen wurden die Mitochondrien isoliert, um dann die mitochondrialen Proteine durch die beiden Crosslinker Bismaleimidohexan (BMH) und Glutaraldehyd (GLD) zu vernetzen. Durch einen Western Blot wurden die Proteine voneinander getrennt und detektiert. In Voruntersuchungen konnte gezeigt werden, dass Wildtyp-p53 im Gesamtzellextrakt von HCT116 Zellen, ebenso wie die p53 Mutanten, sowohl als Monomer als auch als Oligomer vorkommt. Außerdem konnte eine Methode etabliert werden, mit der es möglich war, Oligomere durch eine Vernetzung mit BMH sichtbar zu machen. Um zeigen zu können, dass die Methode für Proteine an Mitochondrien geeignet war, wurden Bax-Oligomere an den Mitochondrien nachgewiesen. Mit der etablierten Methode konnten dann im Gesamtzellextrakt p53-Oligomere und –Monomere nachgewiesen werden, während p53 an den Mitochondrien unter gleichen Bedingungen nur als Monomer vorlag. Um die erhaltenen Ergebnisse zu bestätigen, wurden die Experimente mit einem weiteren Crosslinker (Glutaraldehyd) wiederholt. Auch in diesen Untersuchungen konnte p53 als Monomer an den Mitochondrien nachgewiesen werden. Um zeigen zu können, dass diese vorliegenden Ergebnisse nicht nur für HCT116 Zellen gültig sind, wurden die beschriebenen Untersuchungen in einer weiteren Zelllinie vorgenommen. Die Ergebnisse bewiesen, dass auch in MCF-7 Zellen p53 vorwiegend als Monomer an den Mitochondrien vorkommt.

In turbomachinery, extra excitation forces may result from non-idealised operation conditions and may sometime cause excessive vibrations and unsteady rotor motions. The goal of this thesis is to investigate the effects of such excitation forces. The extra excitation forces investigated here are the Thomas/Alford force due to the blade tip clearance change, the steam excitation force caused by the variation of inlet steam speed and state blade trailing wake and the dominant magnetic pull force due to dynamic eccentricity of the rotor. The main research results in this thesis include: (1) The modelling of the Jeffcott rotor and the 600MW steam-turbine generator. The used in-house ??transient?? program can only handle the circular short bearings with the modified short bearing method while the simulated steam-turbine should be supported by tilting pad bearings. The first critical speeds of systems supported by tilting pad bearings are more approaching to the lab data for all four rotor models while that of journal bearing supported systems are normally lower than the real operating critical speed. (2) Applying three sorts of excitation forces into the single-stage rotor-bearing system. The numerical simulation shows that for the model with each single excitation force, all of these three forces need to reach some limit to force the system into the unsteady state. For all the three forces, higher limits are needed if the machine runs at lower running speeds. Furthermore, unbalance loading also can influence the system behaviours. As the unbalance increases, the system will still stay steady while the spectra become noisier, though the amplitude still low comparing to harmonics. (3) Combing three types of excitation forces into the assembled rotor-bearing system. The numerical simulation shows that the assembled system presents similar vibration responses as the single stage rotor-bearing system. Furthermore, these three forces cannot cancel each other and the combination will unstabilise the system. Meanwhile, the influence of the dominant magnetic pull force is less than other two forces.