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| 2. |
- Nilsson, Jonas, 1978-, et al.
(författare)
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Determinants of customer satisfaction with socially responsible investments : The influence of ethical quality perceptions and perceived financial return
- 2010
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The availability and marketing of products and services positioned as socially or environmentally responsible has grown significantly during the last few decades. Much of the previous research within this area has focused on what leads customers to purchase products and services that fill certain social, ethical and environmental (SEE) criteria. However, while research has focused on the initiation and the actual purchase of these products and services, literature on how satisfied customers are after the purchase has largely been neglected. To address this gap in the literature, this study examines how a set of technical and functional quality attributes contribute to customer satisfaction in a socially responsible investment (SRI) setting. The results indicate that perceived financial performance of the SRI profiled mutual fund is the most important predictor of customer satisfaction. However, perceived social, ethical, and environmental performance also had a positive impact on satisfaction for the SRI mutual fund. Based on these results, it is argued that, although SEE quality is important to customers, marketers of SEE profiled products are advised to focus on the conventional quality attributes such as financial performance, as a good SEE record alone is unlikely to generate customer satisfaction.
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| 3. |
- Abramowicz, Konrad, et al.
(författare)
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Multivariate piecewise linear interpolation of a random field
- 2011
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We consider a multivariate piecewise linear interpolation of a continuous random field on a-dimensional cube. The approximation performance is measured by the integrated mean square error. Multivariate piecewise linear interpolator is defined by N field observations on a locations grid (or design). We investigate the class of locally stationary random fields whose local behavior is like a fractional Brownian field in mean square sense and find the asymptotic approximation accuracy for a sequence of designs for large N. Moreover, for certain classes of continuous and continuously differentiable fields we provide the upper bound for the approximation accuracy in the uniform mean square norm.
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| 4. |
- Arvidsson, Viktor, 1984-
(författare)
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Towards efficient and effective E-Service Delivery : Addressing the matter of intricacy in service evaluation
- 2011
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The great promises of e-government have proven to be harder than expected to realise. Effective and efficient e-service delivery is dependent on making sound choices as to which e- services to implement; consequently, accountability in the use of ICT-resources have become of increasing importance. This generates a need to identify what constitutes a suitable e-service, and to devise models capable of evaluating available options. As public services reach beyond the business rationale of the private sector, such considerations must deal with the complexity of public value. Additionally, due to the heterogeneous nature of local government it is not feasible to evaluate every candidate in depth. For e-service delivery to reach beyond major services governments must lower their demands for accuracy and implement more cost- efficient ways of estimating public value. This paper investigates how this can be achieved while maintaining satisfactory results, and builds an understanding of the challenges that local governments face in doing so.
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| 5. |
- Breitgand, D., et al.
(författare)
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Policy-Driven Service Placement Optimization in Federated Clouds
- 2011
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Efficient provisioning of elastic services constitutes a significant management challenge for cloud computing providers. We consider a federated cloud paradigm, where one cloud can subcontract workloads to partnering clouds to meet peaks in demand without costly over-provisioning. We propose a model for service placement in federated clouds to maximize profit while protecting Quality of Service (QoS) as specified in the Service Level Agreements (SLA) of the workloads. Our contributions include an Integer Linear Program (ILP) formulation of the generalized federated placement problem and application of this problem to load balancing and consolidation within a cloud, as well as for cost minimization for remote placement in partnering clouds. We also provide a 2-approximation algorithm based on a greedy rounding of a Linear Program (LP) relaxation of the problem. We implement our proposed approach in the context of the RESERVOIR architecture.
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| 6. |
- Elmroth, Erik, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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A composable service-oriented architecture for middleware-independent and interoperable grid job management
- 2010
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We propose a composable, loosely coupled Service-Oriented Architecture for middleware-independent Grid job management. The architecture is designed for use in federated Grid environments and aims to decouple Grid appli- cations from Grid middlewares and other infrastructure components. The notion of an ecosystem of Grid infrastructure components is extended, and Grid job management software design is discussed in this context. Non- intrusive integration models and abstraction of Grid middleware function- ality through hierarchical aggregation of autonomous Grid job management services are emphasized, and service composition techniques facilitating this process are explored. Earlier efforts in Service-Oriented Architecture design are extended upon, and implications of these are discussed throughout the paper. A proof-of-concept implementation of the proposed architecture is presented along with a technical evaluation of the performance of the proto- type, and a details of architecture implementation are discussed along with trade-offs introduced by the service composition techniques used.
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| 7. |
- Fahlén, Jessica, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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MicroRNA-microarray data analysis in the precence of FFPE storage time effects
- 2010
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background: The standard method for preserving patient samples for diagnostic purposes is fixation in formalin followed by embedding in paraffin (FFPE). The use of FFPE blocks makes it possible to include a large number of patients in the experimental studies since millions of FFPE blocks are stored around the world. However, FFPE storage can cause degradation and modifications of nucleic acids. In order to draw reliable biological conclusions it is therefore important to know what effect FFPE-storage have on the tissues and to have procedures that normalize this effect. In this paper, we study the effect that FFPE-storage has on microRNA-microarray data from tongue-cancer patients and propose a novel procedure for normalizing the bias introduced by FFPE-storage.Results: MicroRNA-microarray data from 21 tongue-cancer patients and 8 control patients were used. The samples were stored in FFPE blocks and had been in storage for up to 11 years. The data contained a large amount of biological relevant variation, yet the largest variation was due to the samples storage times. The storage effect was shown to be significant and some results suggested that it may be causal. Moreover, the microRNAs were unequally affected by storage and this could partially be explained by sequence characteristics. The novel normalization procedure was shown to have a large impact in the analysis ability to identify differentially expressed microRNAs between young and old cancer patients as well as between cancer and control patients. The p-values for the top microRNAs candidates were much lower for the proposed novel normalization compared to a standard normalization procedure which suggested that the novel normalization made the analysis more efficient.Conclusions: MicroRNA-microarray data can be seriously affected by FFPE-storage and the introduced variation cannot be removed by standard normalizations. The proposed normalization removes the bias introduced by FFPE-storage and gives higher sensitivity than the standard normalization.
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| 8. |
- Gradmark, Anna, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Physical activity, sedentary behaviors, and estimated insulin sensitivity and secretion in pregnant and non-pregnant women
- 2011
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Aims Overweight and obesity during pregnancy raise the risk of gestational diabetes and birth complications. Lifestyle factors such as physical activity may decrease these risks through beneficial effects on systemic glucose homeostasis. Here we examined physical activity patterns and their relationships with measures of glucose homeostasis in late pregnancy compared to non-pregnant women. Methods Normal weight and overweight women without diabetes (N=108; aged 25-35 years) were studied; 35 were pregnant (in gestational weeks 28-32) and 73 were non-pregnant. An oral glucose tolerance test was conducted from which insulin sensitivity and β-cell response were estimated. Physical activity was measured during 10-days of free-living using a combined heart rate sensor and accelerometer. Total (TEE), resting (REE), and physical activity (PAEE) energy expenditure were measured using doubly-labeled water and expired gas indirect calorimetry. Results Total activity (counts/day) was associated with a reduced first-phase insulin response in both pregnant (r=-0.47; 95% CI: -0.70- to -0.15) and non-pregnant women (r=-0.36; 95% CI: -0.56- to -0.12). Pregnant women were estimated to have secreted more insulin (p=0.002) and had lower fasting glucose than non-pregnant women (p<0.0001). Measures of overall physical activity intensity were similar in both groups (p=0.547), but pregnant women spent more time sedentary (p<0.0001), less time in moderate-to-vigorous intensity activity (p<0.0001), had lower objectively measured total activity, and had lower physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE) than non-pregnant women (p=0.045). Conclusions Our findings suggest that physical activity conveys similar benefits on glucose homeostasis in pregnant and non-pregnant women, despite differences in subcomponents of physical activity.
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| 9. |
- Gu, Xiaolian, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Little effect on p63 but significant effect on miR-21 and miR-125b by NB-UVB phototherapy on psoriatic lesions
- 2010
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease in which dysregulation of p63, a member of the p53 family and crucial for skin development and maintenance, has been shown. Though currently incurable, many therapies are available including narrowband ultraviolet B (NB-UVB) phototherapy. To further elucidate the role of p63 in psoriasis and increase our understanding of the mechanisms of phototherapy, we studied the effects of NB-UVB treatment on p63 expression. Expression of p53 was also studied due to its functional role in the response of skin to UV. In addition, we investigated expression of miR-203, miR-125b and miR-21, as these microRNAs are p63 and/or p53 regulators and their involvement in psoriasis pathogenesis has previously been suggested. Skin biopsies from 12 psoriasis patients were collected before, during and at the final session of phototherapy. Real time RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry showed that epidermal p63 mRNA and protein levels were not significantly affected following phototherapy, whereas a significant increase in p53 mRNA expression and protein accumulation was found. NB-UVB treatment also significantly affected expression of miR-21 and miR-125b, whereas individual clinical improvement seemed related to p53 status only. Our results indicate that even though NB-UVB phototherapy causes diverse molecular changes, induction of p53 is pivotal for successful treatment of psoriasis, and unresolved p63 abnormality in the treated epidermis of psoriasis patients further indicate a role for p63 in psoriasis.
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