No description available.

Customer-orientation is a strategy that has been adopted by many organizations. This strategy refers to the ability to assess the customer's perception of the service quality, for instance through customer feedback. Customer feedback can be acquired through surveys or given to the frontline employees. The processes for acquiring customer feedback for customer-oriented firms are generally well-developed. However, research shows that utilizing this valuable information is not conducted in a systematic matter. In this thesis, we investigate how a Swedish DSO can transfer knowledge from customer feedback internally to facilitate organizational learning. The primary empirical data in this qualitative research is gathered through interviews from the empirical context as well as with management consultants with organizational learning as their expertise. Findings from this thesis show that there is no panacea regarding how customer feedback should be presented and communicated in order to enable the organization to act on it. However, the findings indicate that an unsupportive organizational culture inhibits customer feedback to be shared effectively. Knowledge from customers must be equally valued as technical knowledge. Furthermore, it became evident that the organization endeavor a codification strategy. While this strategy is suitable for solicited feedback, this thesis argues that a personalization strategy might be more adequate for unsolicited feedback since it is difficult to express in a codified form. Our thesis is a small contribution to the limited research done on how to act on customer feedback and bring knowledge from customersto organizational learning. In addition, this thesis also contributes to existing research by investigating barriers that a regulated monopoly encounters when trying to become customer-oriented. / Kund-orientering är en strategi som många organisationer använder sig av. Denna strategi refererar till organisationens förmåga att förstå kundernas upplevelse av den service som organisationen erbjuder. Detta kan ske genom att t.ex. samla in kundfeedback. Kundfeedback kan samlas in genom enkäter eller ges direkt till de anställda som möter kunderna. Processer för att samla in kundfeedback för kund-orienterade företag är generellt sätt välutvecklade. Tidigare forskning visar dock att processer för att användandet av denna värdefulla information inte sker på ett systematiskt sätt. I den här uppsatsen, undersöker vi hur ett svenskt elnätsbolag kan överföra kundfeedback internt för att möjliggöra organisationsinlärning. Den primära datainsamlingen i den här kvalitativa undersökningen erhålls i form av intervjuer från den empiriska kontexten samt från managementkonsulter med organisationsinlärning som deras expertområde. Resultaten från denna studie visar att det inte finns något universalmedel för hur kundfeedback ska presenteras och kommuniceras för att organisationen ska agera på det. Resultaten visar dock att en organisationskultur som inte stöttar de anställda till att dela sin kunskap hindrar kundfeedback från att effektivt spridas i organisationen. Kunskap från kunder måste värderas lika mycket som teknisk kunskap. Vidare visar undersökningen tydligt att en “codification-strategy” föredras. Denna strategi är passande för kundfeedback som erhålls direkt via enkäter, dock argumenterar vi i denna uppsats att en “personalization strategy” är mer adekvat för att kommunicerar indirekt feedback eftersom att denna feedback är svår att uttrycka i en kodad form. Denna uppsats är ett litet bidrag till den begränsade forskning som gjorts gällande hur en organisation ska agera på kundfeedback och överföra kunskap till den resterande organisationen för att gynna utveckling. Utöver detta bidrar denna uppsats till förståelse gällande utmaningar som ett reglerat monopol möter då de går mot en kundorienterad strategi.

Cellular senescence is a distinct cell state, characteristic by cessation of cell proliferation and it is accompanied by specific morphological and biochemical alterations. Increasing and persisting incidence of senescence cells has been shown to have detrimental effect on an organism largely contributing to its ageing. Senescent cells also positively support tumour growth and can even stimulate carcinogenic transformation of surrounding cells. Moreover, senescence can be induced even in tumour cells spontaneously or by chemotherapy. Regardless of an initial stimuli and type of cells, there are two main senescence inducing pathways p16/pRb and p53/p21. Both senescent cells as well as senescent cancer cells seems to have modified apoptotic signalling at the level of mitochondria and Bcl-2 family proteins. In this study, we aimed to analyse effect of senescent state as well as pre-senescent (growth arrested state) induced by p16/pRb and p53/p21 signalling pathways on the response of H28 mesothelioma cancer cells-derived clonal cultures to various cell death-inducing stimuli. By inducible expression of p16 and p21 proteins in doxycycline-dependent manner, we forced cells to acquire senescent-like phenotype, which we detailly characterised. Our results showed that senescent-like phenotype, manifests...

No description available.

Nutrient sensing kinases sense available nutrients and regulate cell activity accordingly. Three of these enzymes are AMP regulated kinase (AMPK, or Snf1 in yeast), PAS kinase, and target of rapamycin (TOR), are conserved from yeast to man and have overlapping function. AMPK and Snf1 are important in sensing when nutrient status in the cell is low and down regulating energy consuming pathways. PAS kinase is required for glucose homeostasis in the cell, and responds to glucose levels. TOR senses nutrients such as amino acids and upregulates cell growth pathways primarily through protein synthesis. Due to the varying nature of these enzymes, cross talk is expected in order for the cell to properly regulate cellular metabolism and growth in response to energy and nutrient availability. Previous studies have shown that activation of yeast PAS kinase under nutrient stress conditions requires the presence of Snf1. The aim of this thesis is to determine whether Snf1 directly phosphorylates and activates PAS kinase through both in vivo and in vitro approaches. PAS kinase was found to require Snf1 for both activation and phosphorylation in vivo. In vitro kinase assays were also performed to confirm a direct phosphorylation event. The results from this study support the direct phosphorylation and activation of PAS kinase by Snf1, linking cellular energy status to glucose allocation.

Det svenska skolsystemet genomgår en digitaliseringsprocess. I och med digitaliseringen har ett starkt intresse av att utforska olika typer av lärodata via olika läroplattformar utvecklats. För att analysera sådan data kan man ta hjälp av Learning Analytics (LA). LA är när man samlar, analyserar och rapporterar lärodata från diverse lärandeaktiviteter. För att analysera datan mer effektivt kan man ta hjälp av visualisering. Denna studie presenterar ett visualiseringsverktyg riktat till lärare. Det har utvecklats för att stödja lärare i deras förståelse av hur valda självreglerat lärande (SRL)strategier har utvärderats av studenter. Att kunna applicera SRL-strategier är av stor vikt eftersom studenter som lär sig att applicera dessa kommer att ha fördelar båda vid framtida studier och framtida arbete. Syftet med denna studie var att se hur lärodata kan visualiseras för att förstå studenters användning av lärostrategier och hur bra visualiseringsverktyget var ur ett användbarhetsperspektiv. Användbarheten av verktyget testades genom ett experiment där ett antal frågor ställdes. Svaren gick att finna i visualiseringen. Deltagarna i studien fick sedan svara på ett System Usabilityformulär. Resultaten visar att det utvecklade verktyget är användbart och att olika användare använder sig av, om möjligt, olika metoder för att komma fram till ett svar. Denna uppsats presenterar riktlinjer att ha i beaktande när ett visualiseringsverktyg som ska stödja lärare i att förstå studenters användning av SRL-strategier ska designas. / The Swedish school system is going through a digitalization process. With digitalization, a strong interest in exploring learner data available through various digital platforms has emerged. In order to analyse the data, one can take help of learning analytics (LA) which relates to collect, report and analyse data from learners or learning activities. To be able to analyse it in a more efficient way, one can take help from visualization. This study presents a visualisation tool aimed at teachers. It has in particular been developed to support teachers in their understanding of how chosen self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies were evaluated by students. SRL strategies are important to be able to apply since students who can learn to apply SRL strategies have an advantage during both future studies and work compared to those who cannot. The aim with this study was to see how learner data can be visualized in order to understand students' use of learning strategies and how good the developed visualization tool is from a usability perspective. The perceived usability of this tool was tested by means of interviews where a series of questions was asked where the answers could be found in the visualization tool. The participants also answered a System Usability Questionnaire. The results showed that the tool developed is usable and that different users of the tool tend to, if possible, use different methods to reach the answer. This thesis presents design guidelines to have in consideration when designing a visualization tool in order to aid teachers in analysing students' use of SRL strategies.

Water management is facing a growing number of challenges in many river basins worldwide, as the equal distribution of the available water resources is increasingly influenced by several, uncertain climatic and anthropic pressures. Within the current and projected water scarcity and drought scenario, such issue represents even a greater challenge in those basins that have been massively regulated in the XX century, as water managers are asked to find balanced policies to stay ahead with multiple, interdependent and ever-increasing water-related requirements. In this context, water conflict has become a recurring problem, with the freshwater ecosystems becoming the sole providers of unbearable human water needs and experiencing a severe alteration of their natural renewability and ecological integrity. In fact, the concern of sustaining the freshwater ecosystems has evolved throughout the years, coming to the fore since the 1990s under the concept of "ecosystem services", defined as the multiple benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. With a high number of challenges still ahead for implementing such paradigm in real-world water management practices, few investigations inspect the long-term evolution of highly regulated basins, being vulnerable freshwater systems characterized by a profusion of ecosystem services in a context of complex management policies and changing anthropic and climatic pressures. We focus our attention on the highly interconnected Garda-Mincio system (Northern Italy), further broadening the results to the regulated basins of the European perialpine region. First, to examine the modification of the freshwater systems from their pristine to their regulated conditions, we carried out an extensive collection of daily hydro-meteorological data by consulting public online sources as well as digitizing historical data contained in hand-written documents. The resulting database, which represents a valuable source of long-term daily hydro-meteorological data for the Garda-Mincio system, additionally underscored the complexity of constructing and maintaining a consistent and up-to-date database within an inter-regional context. The collected data were then adopted to investigate the climatic and anthropogenic drivers that have progressively influenced water availability, the provision of the changing water demands and the trade-offs with the existing water ecosystem services over the last two centuries. Statistical analyses were performed to outline the evolution of the annual and seasonal trends of Lake Garda water levels and outflows over the period 1888-2020, discussing the role of the Salionze Dam operational rules (completed in 1951) as well as the influence of the main water needs of the downstream Mincio River basin (i.e. hydropower production, irrigation and fluvial ecosystem sustenance). The role of hydro-meteorological factors was assessed by implementing a water balance model for Lake Garda, the largest lake in Italy, over the period 1928-2020, performing uncertainty and sensitivity analyses on specific water balance components (i.e. over-lake evaporation and basin evapotranspiration). We then focus our analyses on the management of the hydraulic infrastructures that regulate the first and highly water-stressed stretch of the Mincio River downstream Lake Garda, i.e. the Salionze Dam and the Pozzolo-Marenghello infrastructures, where both high and low flow conditions reveal the inability of the current operational rules to support the new variety of water abstractions while maintaining appropriate environmental flow conditions and flood protection. These analyses were carried out through in-situ measurements and numerical simulations, updating the aging rating curves of the existing hydraulic infrastructures. Drawing on the Garda-Mincio system, we inspected the evolution of the freshwater regimes within the European perialpine lakes framework, discussing the outcomes to describe which common factors drove management policies in the area. Eventually, we discuss our outcomes recommending future sustainable and adaptive water management policies in the area.

Shifting from traditional face-to-face education to online mode of education (or online learning)  presents several challenges, such as increased difficulty for students to get immediate feedback and  lack of social interaction. To tackle these challenges, supporting learners' self-reflection process is  seen to be crucial to help students achieve academic success. Students in higher academic institutions  are generally not exposed during their education to self-reflection, and it is a skill that teachers  consider many students lack. However, there is a lack of studies that focus on self-reflection in online  environments. In this paper we aim to investigate in what ways can online learning platforms support  university students’ self-reflection. In this study a self-reflection tool was developed for an online  environment and evaluated through a set of iterations in a mixed method approach. A total of three  iterations were conducted, with their respective evaluations. Results show that participants perceived a  clear improvement of their learning process through self-reflection. Findings also show that there are  a few requirements not present in traditional self-reflection tools, which suggest a clear need for  self-reflective methods tailored to learners' needs. / Skiftet från traditionell salsundervisning till nätbaserad kunskapsförmedling innebär många  utmaningar, t.ex. det är svårare för elever att få omedelbar feedback och de saknar socialt utbyte. För  att komma tillrätta med de här utmaningarna anses det viktigt att den som studerar får stöd genom  självskattning, för att målen för studierna ska kunna uppnås. Den som studerar på högre nivå får sällan  tillfälle till kunskapssjälvskattning under sin utbildning och lärare anser att det är kunskaper som  många studenter inte besitter. Samtidigt saknas det studier som fokuserar på självskattning i en  nätbaserad studiemiljö. I den här uppsatsen så undersöks hur utbildningsplattformar online kan främja  universitetsstuderandes självskattning. För undersökningen har ett verktyg för självskattning inom  nätbaserad undervisning utvecklats, ett verktyg som utvärderats genom en serie iterationer och  tillämpning av mixad metod. Totalt har tre olika iterationer genomförts med respektive utvärdering.  Resultaten visar att deltagarna upplevde att deras inlärningsprocess tydligt förbättrades med hjälp av  självskattningen. Svaren visar också att vissa förutsättningar saknas i traditionella  självskattningsverktyg och det i sin tur pekar tydligt på att det behövs metoder för självskattning som  är anpassade efter elevernas behov.

No description available.

No description available.