abstract: Identifying factors associated with service infusion success has become an important issue in theory and practice, as manufacturers turn to services to advance performance. The goals of this dissertation are to identify the key factors associated with service infusion success and develop an integrative framework and associated research propositions to isolate the underlying determinants of successful hybrid solution strategies for business customers. This dissertation is comprised of two phases. The first phase taps into the experience and learning gained by executives from Fortune-100 manufacturing firms who are managing the transition from goods to hybrid offerings for their customers. A discovery-oriented, theory-in-use approach is adopted to glean insights concerning the factors that facilitate and hinder those service transition strategies. Twenty-eight interviews were conducted with key executives, transcripts were analyzed and key themes were identified with special attention directed to the particular capabilities that managers consider crucial for successful service-growth strategies. One such capability centers on the ability of a firm to successfully transfer newly-developed hybrid solutions from one customer engagement to another. Building on this foundation, phase two involves a case study that provides an in-depth examination of the hybrid offering replication process in a business-to-business firm attempting to replicate four strategic hybrid offerings. Emergent themes, based on 13 manager interviews, reveal factors that promote or impede successful hybrid offering transfer. Among the factors that underlie successful hybrid offering transfers across customer engagements are close customer relationships, a clear value proposition embraced by organizational numbers, an accurate forecast of market potential, and collaborative working relationships across units. The findings from the field studies provided a catalyst for a deeper examination of existing literature and formed the building blocks for the conceptual model and several key research propositions related to the successful transfer of hybrid offerings. The model isolates five sets of factors that influence the hybrid offering transfer process, including the characteristics of (1) the source project team, (2) the seeking project team, (3) the hybrid offering, (4) the relationship exchange, and (5) the customer. The conceptualization isolates the critical role that the customer assumes in service infusion strategy implementation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Business Administration 2013

No description available.

Το κάτωθι κείμενο πραγματεύεται το φαινόμενο της εξάπλωσης αυτοαναπαραγόμενων αυτομάτων σε δίκτυα. Αρχικά προβαίνουμε σε μια εισαγωγή στα αυτοαναπαραγόμενα προγράμματα και στο περιβάλλον στο οποίο εξαπλώνονται και εν συνεχεία εμβαθύνουμε στον τρόπο με τον οποίο προσεγγίζουμε το φαινόμενο. Μελετάμε μεθόδους ανίχνευσης με χρήση φίλτρων Kalman και εντροπίας. Τέλος, ασχολούμαστε με μια σειρά παιγνίων και σεναρίων με σκοπό την ανάδειξη συγκεκριμένων πλευρών του όλου προβλήματος και την τροπή που παίρνει στις μέρες μας. Εν κατακλείδι, η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία τονίζει βασικές ιδιότητες που χαρακτηρίζουν την διάδοση και εισάγει νέες βοηθητικές έννοιες και μοντέλα, με στόχο την κατανόηση και τον ενστερνισμό του πνεύματος των εξελίξεων στα σύγχρονα worms και viruses. / The text below considers the phenomenon of propagation of self replicating automata. We begin with an introduction to self replicating programs and to the environment in which they propagate and then we delve and explain the ways of approaching the phenomenon. We study detection methods via the use of Kalman filters and estimation of entropy. Finally, a series of games and scenarios are introduced and studied, in order to enlighten certain aspects of the problem and its current direction. In conclusion, this diploma thesis marks basic properties of the propagation and introduces auxiliary concepts and new models, having as a goal the comprehension and the adoption of the spirit of evolution of modern worms and viruses.

Adaptive phenotypic plasticity, the ability of a genotype to give rise to different phenotypes in different environments, evolves to allow organisms to fine-tune their life-history traits according to the varying conditions they encounter during their lives. Reproductive investment - the manner in which organisms divide their resources between survival and reproduction - is well studied in evolutionary ecology because it is a key determinant of fitness. However, whilst plasticity in reproductive effort is well understood for free-living multicellular taxa (such as insects, birds, and mammals), the application of evolutionary theory for plasticity and life history strategies to unicellular parasites and pathogens is lacking. In this thesis, I use empirical and theoretical approaches to uncover how differential resource allocation to non-replicating, sexual stages (gametocytes) versus asexually replicating stages can be harnessed by the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium chabaudi to maximise its fitness across the often very variable conditions it encounters during infections. Differential allocation between those stages is equivalent to the fundamental life-history trade-off between survival and reproduction because gametocytes are responsible for between-host transmission (i.e. reproduction of the infection) whereas asexual parasites mediate host exploitation and within-host survival. A suite of within-host models reveal that malaria parasites could gain considerable fitness benefits in the face of low levels of drug treatment if they reduce their investment into gametocyte production ("reproductive restraint"), thereby assuring the continuity of the infection and capitalising on opportunities for future transmission. In contrast, high levels of drug treatment typically select parasites to commit all of their resources to gametocyte production ("terminal investment"), to escape a host that does not offer much opportunity for future transmission. My experiments reveal that P. chabaudi increases both its reproductive investment and its asexual replication rate in anaemic hosts (i.e. host that have a low density of red blood cells), suggesting that parasites profit from host anaemia and can afford high investment in gametocytes ("affluent investment"). I also uncover plasticity in a number of traits that underpin asexual replication rate, including invasion preference for different ages of red blood cells, but it is plasticity in the number of progeny (merozoites) per infected cell that is the main contributor to asexual replication rate. My experiments also reveal genetic variance in plasticity of the life-history traits investigated, which has profound implications for their evolution. Furthermore, plastic modification of these traits is associated with minimal costs or constraints, so that parasites can rapidly match life-history traits appropriately to the within-host environment. Severe anaemia is one of the deadliest symptoms of malaria, so observing that virulence and infectiousness increases in anaemic hosts has also fundamental clinical implications. Finally, the empirical and theoretical observations of affluent investment, reproductive restraint and terminal investment match theoretical predictions of how organisms should behave in varying environments, confirming P. chabaudi as a useful model system to test life-history theory.

In this study, the geometric Additive market models are considered. In general, these market models are incomplete, that means: the perfect replication of derivatives, in the usual sense, is not possible. In this study, it is shown that the market can be completed by new artificial assets which are called &ldquo / power-jump assets&rdquo / based on the power-jump processes of the underlying Additive process. Then, the hedging portfolio for claims whose payoff function depends on the prices of the stock and the power-jump assets at maturity is derived. In addition to the previous completion strategy, it is also shown that, using a static hedging formula, the market can also be completed by considering portfolios with a continuum of call options with different strikes and the same maturity. What is more, the portfolio optimization problem is considered in the enlarged market. The optimization problem consists of choosing an optimal portfolio in such a way that the largest expected utility of the terminal wealth is obtained. For particular choices of the equivalent martingale measure, it is shown that the optimal portfolio consists only of bonds and stocks.

An installment option is a European option in which the premium, instead of being paid up-front, is paid in a series of installments. If all installments are paid the holder receives the exercise value, but the holder has the right to terminate payments on any payment date, in which case the option lapses with no further payments on either side. We discuss pricing and risk management for these options, in particular the use of static hedges, and also study a continuous-time limit in which premium is paid at a certain rate per unit time. (author's abstract) / Series: Report Series SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"

The exploration of chemical space in search of molecules that perturb or mimic biological systems is essential to understanding human biology. The first part of this dissertation (Chapters 1-4) describes efforts to aid in the exploration of biologically relevant space through the invention of new π-cyclization methodologies. This strategy can be viewed as part of a “top-down” approach to investigating biology: the construction of small molecule drugs or probes which modify the behavior of the existing system. The second part of this dissertation (Chapter 5) describes preliminary efforts to expand life-like chemical space beyond the nucleic acids of DNA and RNA. This can be viewed as a “bottom-up” approach to biology: the construction of systems which mimic the features of biochemical processes. In part one, cyclizations of nitrogen tethered 1,6-diynes were developed as a means to new heterocyclic scaffolds. A GaX3 promoted halocyclization transformed the acyclic diynes into tetrahydropyridine rings with exocyclic vinyl halides. In the presence of strong acid, the tetrahydropyridine products were further cyclized to tetrahydroindenopyridine scaffolds. These scaffolds were then diversified through Pd(0)-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions of the vinyl halide, and modifications to the tethering amino nitrogen. Subsequently, a Brønsted acid-catalyzed cyclization was developed, transforming N-sufonyl tethered bis-aryl 1,6-diynes to dihydroindenopyridines. Using unsymmetric bis-aryl diynes, the regio- and chemoselectivity of this Brønsted acid-catalyzed cyclization was investigated, and compared to the GaX3 Lewis acid promoted cyclization developed previously. The regiochemical preference of the initial cyclization step was found to be reversed under the two different conditions. In part two, a means to sequence-defined synthetic polymers which emulate the information storage and self-replication abilities of nucleic acid-based biopolymers was designed. Information was encoded in two dimers as a specific sequence of aniline and benzaldehyde subunits, which were linked together by a diethynyl benzene backbone. These dimers functioned as a template for the synthesis of new dimers with a complementary sequence. Unpolymerized ethynylaniline and ethynylbenzaldehyde monomers, associated to a polymer template by reversible imine bonds, were polymerized via Sonogashira cross coupling with diiodobenzene. Under the same set of conditions, the sequence of two parent dimers was transferred to the daughters.

Market-consistent actuarial valuation of insurance liabilities is important approach not only for regulatory framework Solvency II but also generally for financial and actuarial modeling in insurance companies. It is the reason why we will focus on derivation of basic theory for valuation of cash flow from insurance liabilities by real world probability measure with deflators and risk neutral measure with bank account numeraire (also called equivalent martingale measure). We will show on illustrative examples ekvivalence of both approaches. Further, we will focus on spot rate modeling using discrete time Vasicek model. We use discrete time Vasicek model in Valuation Portfolio theory, where we are trying to replicate insurance liabilities by financial instruments. In theory and also example we use important assumption about independent decoupling of financial events and insurance technical events for theirs modeling.

<p>Normal healthy people are not susceptible to tuberculosis (TB) but immunocompromised and HIV positive patients are at high risk of TB. The treatment regimen (rifampin, isoniazid and amikacin) for TB patients is 6-9 months for normal patients but if <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> (Mtb) becomes multidrug resistant, it takes 20-30 months to treat. According to the World Health Organization in 2018, there were about half a million new cases among which 78% were multidrug resistant TB. This antibiotic resistance is due in part to its ability to survive in the macrophage in our body by entering a non-replicating persistent state. Mtb also contains efflux pumps that increase antibiotic tolerance by pumping out the drugs. Therefore, if the efflux pump activity can be blocked by using efflux pump inhibitors, then it might increase antibiotic susceptibility of the pathogen. In our study, we used <i>Mycobacterium smegmatis</i> (Msm) as a model organism for Mtb and subjected it to a combination of three stresses (low oxygen, low pH and low nutrients) that mimic the physiological stresses in the human body and report that these conditions produced a non-replicating state in Msm. This is the first report of the use of this combination of stresses to produce a non-replicating state in Msm. Our results show that non-replicating Msm became completely tolerant to isoniazid and displayed increased tolerance to rifampin and clarithromycin by nearly 2-fold when compared to log-phase cells. Moreover, the efflux pump inhibitor verapamil decreased the antibiotic tolerance of the nonreplicating Msm to the antibiotics by 6-10 fold and the efflux pump inhibitor piperine decreased tolerance to the antibiotics by 2-4 fold. Also, in this study we attempted to construct a gene knockout mutant lacking two potential ATP-binding cassette transporters to study their functions as drug exporters. However, we were unable to obtain homologous recombination mutants. Further studies on efflux pump inhibitors could potentially enable greater understanding of antibiotic tolerance mechanisms in non-replicating, drug tolerant Mtb and enable the development of novel therapies that shorten treatment time for tuberculosis.</p>

Previous research conducted on the US markets has found that retailers' trading imbalances can contribute to excess return opportunities, especially on Small Cap stocks. Therefore, we argue that this can be seen as an anomaly. However, anomalies that are found historically may not tell the whole truth. This is because these anomalies have been established on respective studies' specific markets and time periods. Researchers that have investigated the issue argue that it is essential to further challenge anomalies by replicating them in other settings to see if the evidence still holds. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine if the retailers' trading imbalance anomaly can be replicated on Swedish Small Cap listed firms. We have examined this by using cross-sectional regressions in the spirit of Fama and MacBeth. This thesis concludes that the retailers’ trading imbalances cannot be replicated when applied to the chosen setting. We argue that the reasons for this are that retailers’ trading imbalances are not persistent, are not compensated when providing liquidity into the markets, and that it does not contain useful information about future stock returns. In addition, we also argue that inherent differences in the US markets compared to the Swedish Small Cap listed firms are affecting our possibility to successfully replicate the anomaly.