The Joint Commission reported that communication failures in United States hospitals contribute to 30% of all malpractice claims, and in 2008, The Joint Commission listed the improvement of effective communication among healthcare providers as a National Patient Safety Goal. The purpose of this practice-focused project was to develop a scenario-based communication simulation for implementation approval by a panel of experts. The approved curriculum was designed to integrate a communication-based simulation scenario into the nurse residency program of a large, urban medical center to improve new graduate nurse communication skills, increase nurse communication competency and self-efficacy, and decrease communication errors. Kolb's experiential learning theory guided the simulation-based educational project. The Delphi technique was used to achieve consensus, which was achieved with 1 Delphi round. The education curriculum was presented to a 5-member expert panel that included chief nursing officers and the staff development directors. The curriculum received panel feedback and approval for implementation in the 2019 nurse residency program. Key comments from the expert panel indicated that the curriculum was approved without major changes. A simulation communication curriculum integrated into the nurse residency program may effect positive social change by decreasing errors and improving patient outcomes.

There are numerous numerical and experimental studies to find correlations of octane rating with fuel properties. This thesis was based on the hypothesis that quenching characteristics at ignition locations impact the flame development. Conversely, determination of quenching characteristics might serve as an effective measure to determine the fuel mixture octane number. This hypothesis was tested with premixed flame experiments using primary reference fuels (iso-octane and n-heptane) and commercial grade gasoline. Premixed flame experiments were conducted on a flat flame burner. Primary reference fuels of different ratios were taken and correlated to their respective thermal quenching condition by introducing co-flowing inert gasses at room temperature with fuel-air mixture. The inert gasses that were used in the experiment are nitrogen and helium and the results are analyzed using a camera and an imaging spectrometer. The experimental results support the hypothesis that flame quenching can be correlated to fuel mixture octane number, and holds potential as an alternative method to determine the octane number.

In today’s society signatures are the most accepted form of identity verification. However, they have the unfortunate side-effect of being easily abused by those who would feign the identification or intent of an individual. This thesis implements and tests current approaches to off-line signature verification with the goal of determining the most beneficial techniques that are available. This investigation will also introduce novel techniques that are shown to significantly boost the achieved classification accuracy for both person-dependent (one-class training) and person-independent (two-class training) signature verification learning strategies. The findings presented in this thesis show that many common techniques do not always give any significant advantage and in some cases they actually detract from the classification accuracy. Using the techniques that are proven to be most beneficial, an effective approach to signature verification is constructed, which achieves approximately 90% and 91% on the standard CEDAR and GPDS signature datasets respectively. These results are significantly better than the majority of results that have been previously published. Additionally, this approach is shown to remain relatively stable when a minimal number of training signatures are used, representing feasibility for real-world situations.

<p>Sweden is one of five nations in the world manufacturing fighter aircrafts. Highly advanced technology is needed in order to develop a fighter aircraft. When developing advanced technology, new applications, other than those initially intended occur, spin-off. Some of Sweden’s largest companies are spin-offs from the fighter aircraft industry. Saab Automobile is an example of this. Spin-off as a concept appears in different contexts, from television series to audit terms but foremost in connection with splitting of companies. In the initial phase of our study we came across numerous definitions and concepts as explanation of spin-off and we therefore choose to adopt our own definition. </p><p>Our study defines civil spin-offs from military aircraft projects. The Swedish aircraft industry consists of three large companies, Saab, Volvo Aero and Ericsson Microwave and we have for our case studies chosen spin-off processes within those companies. We interviewed persons well familiar with the above mentioned process in the respective companies, individually. The answers from the interviews, which we have analysed based on theory and literature, have enabled us to identify, describe and analyse factors promoting as well as counteracting spin-offs arising from military aircraft projects.</p><p>From our study we have drawn the conclusion that all companies want to achieve spin-offs. One important way of creating opportunities for spin-offs is organising in cross functional groups, one of many internally acting factors that we have tried in our study. A factor that strongly counteracts the development of a spin-off is a strict focus on the core business of the company. This comes as a result of demand for saving measures, which has also led to much less time or no time at all for reflecting on new ideas.</p><p>The historic role of the Swedish Government as a long term and demanding customer of military aircraft systems has over the last years shown less significance. The Government now has to play the role of co-operative link between the industry and the university in what is called a Triple Helix. The role of the Government is thus to support new enterprising as spin-off through technique parks, incubators and VINNOVA.</p><p>Another significant factor supporting the development of spin-offs is co-operation in networks and clusters. In the spring of 2005 SwedCat was founded, a cluster between Saab, Volvo Aero and Ericsson microwave with the aim to take advantage of spin-offs from the respective companies and to support each other in developing them. We are of the opinion that this collaboration sets an excellent example for the industry, irrespective of line of business.</p>

<p>Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att jämföra och analysera valet av finansieringsform och påverkande faktorer av kapitalstruktur inom respektive bransch. Vidare kommer detta att ställas och beprövas mot de teoretiska modellerna.</p><p>Metod: Uppsatsen utgår från en kvantitativ ansats. Internetenkätundersökningar inom respektive bransch samt en räkenskapsanalys utifrån årsredovisningar.</p><p>Teoretiskt perspektiv: Teorin ger en ingående kunskap om MM: s proposition I och II, samt teorierna trade-off och pecking order. Vidare behandlas en del relevanta begrepp.</p><p>Empiri och analys: Sammanställning av information ur enkätundersökningar och årsredovisningar. Vidare har empirin analyserats och kopplats till teorierna.</p><p>Slutsatser: Pecking order teorin stämmer bra in som tillämpning på finansieringsform för tjänstebranschen, dock inte på fastighetsbranschen. Variabeln lönsamhet har en negativ korrelation med skuldsättning i båda branscherna. Omsättningstillväxten har en negativ korrelation med skuldsättning för tjänstebranschen, och en positiv korrelation inom fastighetsbranschen. Skattefördelarna har inte någon signifikant betydelse.</p>

<p> </p><h2><strong>Problem</strong></h2><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Are there any abnormal changes in the parent company's share price at the news of a spin‐off.</p><h2><strong>Objective</strong></h2><p>The main purpose of the study is to investigate how the news of a spin-off affects the parent company's share price. In other words if the news of the Spin-off gives an abnormal return on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during the specific period of 1998‐2008. In addressing this, the paper will also investigate the following sub sections: are there any differences in the abnormal returns in various sectors and what the reasons to perform a spin‐off in the Swedish market are.</p><h2><strong>Method</strong></h2><p>An event study in which market data is used to measure specific events’ impact on the value of the company and on the effects on the stock market. Secondary data used were taken from the OMX Nordic Exchange database and from SIXTRUST. The total population chosen for this study consists of 33 companies and the event window extends over 11 days: five days before, the day of the news and five days after.</p><h2><strong>Results</strong></h2><p>The results of the study show that there are differences in how the share price reacts in different sectors at the news spin‐off. The highest CAAR in the event window for the total number of spin‐offs examined in the study amounted to 2.76%.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

<p>Denna studie är genomförd på en bultsvetsstation med fyra bultsvetsrobotar från ABB som används i den dagliga produktionen i karossfabriken på Saab Automobile i Trollhättan. I dagsläget används off-lineprogrammerade robotprogram från IGRIP i flera robotceller på karossfabriken. IGRIP har under flera år används utan att man har någon metod för att utvärdera för hur kapaciteten i robotcellerna utnyttjas. Begränsningarna hos IGRIP är att det inte automatiskt kan beräkna och generera kollisionsfria banor vilket är mycket tidskrävande. Programmeringen av via-punkterna sker via manuell inmatning i programmet vilket medför att de inte utnyttjar maximal kapacitet i robotcellen. Dessa problem har lett till att Saab ville undersöka potentialen för att frigöra kapacitet i en robotcell med hjälp av en programvara under utveckling, IPS 2.0. Den nyare programvaran utvecklas av FCC och besitter optimerings- och balanseringsfunktioner samt genererar kollisions fria rörelsebanor för robotarna i robotcellen. En optimerad bana och en referensbana har skapats för att kunna utvärdera en procentuell förändring av tiden. Det visade sig att det finns stor potential att frigöra kapacitet i den undersökta cellen med hjälp av IPS 2.0.</p> / <p>This study has been performed on a stud weld station consisting of four stud weld robots from ABB which are used in the daily production at the body plant of Saab Automobile in Trollhättan. Currently, off-line programmed robot programs from IGRIP are used in several robot cells in the body plant. IGRIP has been used for several years without having any evaluation method for how the capacity has been used in the robot cells. The limitations of IGRIP are that it cannot automatically generate collision free paths, which is very time consuming. The input of the via-points is done manually by the programmer which results in less than maximum capacity in the robot cell. These problems have triggered Saab to investigate the potential for making capacity available by using a software under development, IPS 2.0. The software is developed by FCC and has optimization and balancing functions. It can also generate collision free paths for the robots in a robot cell. One optimized path and one reference path have been created in order to evaluate the time reduction in percent. It was shown that there was potential to free up capacity in the robot cell by using IPS 2.0.Date:</p>

National innovative performance is a key driver for sustainable growth (Pavitt, 1980). National innovative capacity may be improved by fostering industrial Research and Development (R&D), by funding academic research and by effectively supporting university-industry interactions in order to strengthen the linkage between R&D and product development. In a context of growing relevance of external sources of innovation, where the industry, rather than relying on internal R&D, increasingly engages in ‘open innovation’ (Chesbrough, 2006), the role played by universities is crucial. The essays presented in this thesis focus mainly on academic R&D and knowledge transfer mechanisms from the university viewpoint, as opposed to government or industry perspectives. These essays contribute to our understanding of how universities organise themselves to adapt to this changing context. In other words, the thesis looks at the ‘reflexivity’ norm of the system associated with the entrepreneurial university, as established by Etzkowitz (2004); or “a continuing renovation of the internal structure of the university as its relation to industry and government changes, and of industry and government as their relationship to the university is revised”. Universities play a major role in the national innovative capacity of a country as producers and transmitters of new knowledge (see for instance, Adams, 1990; Mansfield, 1991; Klevorick et al., 1995; Zucker et al., 1998; Cohen et al., 2002; Arundel and Geuna, 2004; Guellec and van Pottelsberghe, 2004). While European countries play a leading global role in terms of scientific output, they lag behind in the ability to convert this strength into wealth-generating innovations (this is known as the ‘European paradox’, see for instance Tijssen and van Wijk, 1999; and Dosi et al., 2005). This level of innovation may be improved by different factors; for instance, by fostering an entrepreneurial culture, or by increasing industry’s willingness to develop new products, new processes. One of these factors relies on the notion of an ‘entrepreneurial university’. Universities, in addition to the two traditional missions of research and teaching, foster their third mission of contribution to society, by improving the transfer of knowledge to the industry. New tools and regulations have been established to support universities in this process. Since the early 80’s, academic technology transfer offices (TTOs) have been created, dedicated employees have been trained and hired, incubators for the launch of new academic ventures have been set up, academic or independent pre-seed investment funds have been founded and laws related to the ownerships by university of their invented-patents have been promulgated. But what exactly stands behind the notion of ‘entrepreneurial university’? There exist more different descriptions of a similar concept or of a similar evolution than a general agreed definition. Indeed, "(…) There is high heterogeneity, there is no such thing as a typical university, and there is no typical way to be or become an entrepreneurial university" (Martinelli et al., 2008, p.260). However some similar patterns of what is or should be an entrepreneurial university may be identified. First, there is this notion of a revolution experienced by universities that now have to integrate a third mission of contributing to economic development aside of their traditional academic missions. “(…) But in the most advanced segments of the worldwide university system, a ‘second revolution’ takes off. The entrepreneurial university integrates economic development into the university as an academic function along with teaching and research. It is this ‘capitalisation of knowledge’ that is the heart of a new mission for the university, linking universities to users of knowledge more tightly and establishing the university as an economic actor in its own right” (Etzkowitz, 1998, p.833). This revolution finds its origin in a necessary adaptation of universities to an external changing environment where modern societies put a strong emphasis on knowledge. “The concept of the entrepreneurial university envisions an academic structure and function that is revised through the alignment of economic development with research and teaching as academic missions. The transformation of academia from a ‘secondary’ to a ‘primary’ institution is a heretofore unexpected outcome of the institutional development of modern society (Mills, 1958). In consequence, the knowledge industry in modern societies is no longer a minor affair run by an intellectual elite, an activity that might be considered by pragmatic leaders as expendable; it is a mammoth enterprise on a par with heavy industry, and just as necessary to the country in which it is situated (Graham, 1998, p.129)”, quoted by Etzkowitz et al. (2000, p.329). The notion of an ‘entrepreneurial university’ also exceeds the simple idea of the protection of academic intellectual property by patents owned by universities and their out-licensing as well as the launch of new ventures. It encompasses an overall change of how the university is organised. “In the gruesome and heady world of changing external environments, organizations – including universities – will need to seek opportunities beyond their existing competences (Hamel and Prahalad, 1989, 1994), which suggests the need for an entrepreneurial orientation (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996)”, quoted by Glassman et al. (2003, p.356). This entrepreneurial orientation will only be possible if the overall organisation of the university changes. “An entrepreneurial university, on its own, actively seeks to innovate how it goes about its business. It seeks to work out a substantial shift in organizational character so as to arrive at a more promising posture for the future. Entrepreneurial universities seek to become 'stand-up' universities that are significant actors on their own terms” (Clark, 1998, p.4). The notion of entrepreneurial university also encompasses the concept of academic entrepreneurship in its broad sense. For a university to become entrepreneurial, individual academics also have to adapt and to behave in an entrepreneurial way. This concept is not solely conceived here as the launching of new ventures by academics (a view embraced by Shane, 2004, for instance). It relates more to the view of Stevenson, Roberts and Grousbeck (1989), referenced by Glassman et al. (2003, p.354) or “the process of creating and seizing an opportunity and pursuing it to create something of value regardless of current available resources.” The difficulty facing universities is then to adapt to their external environment while preserving the integrity of their two traditional academic missions. However, some conceive this challenge as precisely an ability that characterise the very intrinsic university’s nature. "The uniqueness of the university,(…) lies in its protean capacity to change its shape and function to suit its temporal and sociopolitical environment while retaining enough continuity to deserve its unchanging name” (Perkin, 1984, p.18). Furthermore, others perceive this challenge as a tension that has always been at the root of the university’s character. “The cherished view of some academics that higher education started out on the Acropolis of scholarship and was desecrated by descent into the Agora of materialistic pursuit led by ungodly commercial interests and scheming public officials and venal academic leaders is just not true for the university systems that have developed at least since 1200 A.D. If anything, higher education started in the Agora, the market place, at the bottom of the hill and ascended to the Acropolis on the top of the hill… Mostly it has lived in tension, at one and the same time at the bottom of the hill, at the top of the hill, and on many paths in between” (Kerr, 1988, p.4; quoted by Glassman, 2003, p.353). Nevertheless, it appears that some institutions, the ones integrating the best their different missions and being the most ‘complete’ in terms of the activities they perform, will be better positioned to overcome this second revolution than other institutions. “Since science-based innovations increasingly have a multidisciplinary character and build on "difficult-to-codify" people-centred interactions, university-based systems of industry science links, which combine basic and applied research with a broader education mission, are seen as enjoying a comparative advantage relative to research institutes” (OECD, 2001 quoted by Debackere and Veugeleers, 2005, p.324). Or as stated by Geuna (1998, p.266), in his analysis of the way the different historical trajectories of European universities are influencing their ability to adapt to the current changing environment, “ (…) the renowned institutions of Cluster IV (pre-war institutions, large in size, with high research output and productivity) are in a strong position both scientifically and politically, and can exercise bargaining power in their relations with government and industry. (…) On the other side, universities in the other two clusters (new postwar universities, characterised by small size, low research output and low research orientation and productivity, whether involved in technological research or in teaching), with very low research grants from government, are pushed to rely more heavily on industrial funding. Being in a weak financial position, they may find themselves in an asymmetric bargaining relationship with industry that they may be unable to manage effectively.” To summarize, one could attempt to define the broad notion of an ‘entrepreneurial university’ as follows. An entrepreneurial university is a university that adapts to the current changing environment that puts a stronger emphasis on knowledge, by properly integrating the third mission or the capitalisation of knowledge aside of its two traditional missions. This adaptation requires a radical change in the way the university is organised. It will require important strategic reorientation from the top but also, and mainly, it will require from the individual academics to better seize new opportunities to generate value (not only financial but also scientific or academic) given scarcer resources. Renowned and complete universities (with teaching, basic and applied research) have an edge over other institutions to overcome this second revolution. This notion of ‘entrepreneurial university’ has drawn criticisms. For example, academics’ interactions with industry could impact negatively on research activities by reorienting fundamental research towards more applied research projects (Cohen and Randazzese, 1996; David, 2000), by restricting academic freedom (Cohen et al., 1994; Blumenthal et al., 1996; Blumenthal et al., 1997), or by potentially reducing scientific productivity (see for instance van Zeebroeck et al., 2008 for a review on this issue). The present work does not address the issue of the impact of increased interactions with the business sector on traditional academic missions nor the question of whether universities should become entrepreneurial or not. Instead, the essays start from the idea that the ‘entrepreneurial university’ notion is part of the intrinsic nature of modern universities, or at least, is a part of its evolution. Industry-university relationships are not a new phenomenon; it can be traced at least to the mid- to late-1800s in Europe and to at least the industrial revolution in the USA (Hall et al., 2001). What is evolving is the nature of such relationships that become more formal. The present analysis starts then from the general observation that some universities (and researchers) are more entrepreneurially-oriented and better accept this mission than others. From that stems the primary research question addressed in this thesis: are there characteristics or conditions leading to a smooth coexistence of traditional and new academic missions inside an entrepreneurial university? And if so, what are they? Existing work on the entrepreneurial university is a nascent but already well developed field of research. The aimed contribution of this thesis is to analyse the topic under three specific but complementary angles. These three perspectives are explored into the four main chapters of this work, structured as follows. Chapter 1 is titled “Turning science into business: A case study of a traditional European research university”. It introduces the topic by investigating the dynamics at play that may explain the propensity of a traditional, research-oriented university to start generate entrepreneurial outputs, while being not full-fledge entrepreneurially organised. Exploring the importance of “new” entrepreneurial outputs, as defined as patents and spin-off companies, compared to other ways of transferring new knowledge to the industry, Chapter 2 reviews the literature on the variety of knowledge transfer mechanisms (KTMs) used in university-industry interactions. It is titled “University-Industry interactions and knowledge transfer mechanisms: a critical survey”. Given scarcer structural funds for academic research and increasing pressure on academics to diversify their activities in terms of being involved in patenting or spin-off launching, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 investigate the role played by individual characteristics of researchers in attracting competitive, external funding. Chapter 3 presents stylised facts related to external fundraising at ULB and characteristics of researchers who attracted these funds over the period 1998-2008. The empirical analysis on associations between individual characteristics of researchers (intrinsic, scientific and entrepreneurial) and the extent of funds attracted from different sources (national, regional and business) is presented in Chapter 4, titled “The determinants of academic fundraising.” Chapter 5 concludes and suggests ideas for future investigation on this topic. Chapter 6, in appendix of the present work, titled “A note on the drivers of R&D intensity”, is not directly linked to the issue of the entrepreneurial university. It has been included to complement the studied topic and to put in perspective the present work. Academic research and university-industry interactions constitute important drivers of a national R&D and innovation system. Other factors are at play as well. Looking at this issue at the macroeconomic level, Chapter 6 investigates to what extent the industrial structure of a country influences the observed R&D intensity, and hence would bias the well-known country rankings based on aggregate R&D intensity.

High levels of accuracy in transcription, aminoacylation of tRNA, and mRNA translation are essential for all life forms. However, high accuracy also necessarily means large energy dissipation and slow kinetics. Therefore, in vivo there is a fine tuned balance between rate and accuracy of key chemical reactions. We have shown that in our optimized in vitro bacterial protein synthesis system we have in vivo compatible rate and accuracy of ribosomal protein elongation. Our measurements of the temperature and the pH dependence of peptide bond formation with native substrates also suggest that the chemical step of peptidyl transfer, rather than tRNA accommodation, limits the rate of peptide bond formation. This work has made it possible to study ribosomal peptidyl transfer with native substrates. Furthermore, we have developed a general theoretical model for the rate-accuracy trade-off in enzymatic reactions. When considering this trade-off for protein synthesis in the context of the living bacterial cell, where cognate aa-tRNAs compete for ribosome binding with an excess of non-cognate aa-tRNAs, the model predicts an accuracy optimum where the inhibitory effect of non-cognate substrate binding and the efficiency loss due to high discard rate of cognate aa-tRNAs are minimized. However, these results also show that commonly used biochemical systems for protein synthesis studies operate at exceptionally suboptimal conditions. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, to relate the biochemical data to protein synthesis in the living cell. To validate our theoretical model we developed a method, based on variation of the concentration of Mg2+ ions in the buffer, to study the rate-accuracy trade-off of bacterial protein synthesis in vitro. We found a linear trade-off between rate and accuracy of tRNA selection on the ribosome, from which we could estimate the maximal accuracy. Exploiting this method for a complete set of single-mismatch readings by one tRNA species, we found simple patterns of genetic code reading, where the accuracy was highest for the second and lowest for the third codon position. The results bridge the gap between in vivo and in vitro protein synthesis and allow calibration of our test tube conditions to those of the living cell.

Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att jämföra och analysera valet av finansieringsform och påverkande faktorer av kapitalstruktur inom respektive bransch. Vidare kommer detta att ställas och beprövas mot de teoretiska modellerna. Metod: Uppsatsen utgår från en kvantitativ ansats. Internetenkätundersökningar inom respektive bransch samt en räkenskapsanalys utifrån årsredovisningar. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Teorin ger en ingående kunskap om MM: s proposition I och II, samt teorierna trade-off och pecking order. Vidare behandlas en del relevanta begrepp. Empiri och analys: Sammanställning av information ur enkätundersökningar och årsredovisningar. Vidare har empirin analyserats och kopplats till teorierna. Slutsatser: Pecking order teorin stämmer bra in som tillämpning på finansieringsform för tjänstebranschen, dock inte på fastighetsbranschen. Variabeln lönsamhet har en negativ korrelation med skuldsättning i båda branscherna. Omsättningstillväxten har en negativ korrelation med skuldsättning för tjänstebranschen, och en positiv korrelation inom fastighetsbranschen. Skattefördelarna har inte någon signifikant betydelse.