| 1. |
- Nilsson, Jonas, 1978-, et al.
(author)
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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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Other publication (other academic/artistic)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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| 2. |
- Elmroth, Erik, 1964-, et al.
(author)
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A composable service-oriented architecture for middleware-independent and interoperable grid job management
- 2010
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)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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| 3. |
- Fahlén, Jessica, 1973-, et al.
(author)
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MicroRNA-microarray data analysis in the precence of FFPE storage time effects
- 2010
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)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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| 4. |
- Gu, Xiaolian, 1976-, et al.
(author)
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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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Other publication (other academic/artistic)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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| 5. |
- Isaksson, Elin, 1980-
(author)
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Fish scale keratocytes constitute a sensitive model system for YopE mediated phenotypes in Yersinia pseudotuberculosis infections
- 2010
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The bacterial pathogen Yersinia pseudotuberculosis employs a type 3 secretion system (T3SS) to deliver virulence associated effectors directly into the host cell. Four of the translocated effectors affect the actin cytoskeleton of the cell, demonstrating the importance of inducing actin rearrangements for the establishment of a successful Yersinia infection. To further examine the role of the effectors in actin targeting, we have established a novel model system using fish scale keratocytes. Fish scale keratocytes are rapidly migrating cells present on the surface of teleost skin. The keratocytes are part of the quick wound repair mechanism of fish and are also able to internalize bacteria. The cell consists of a large extended lamellipodium, a two-dimensional actin network regulated by RhoGTPases. By using live cell microscopy, we identified that wild-type Y. pseudotuberculosis caused a cytotoxic effect towards the keratocytes already within 10 minutes of infection. In contrast, a bacterial strain lacking the T3SS was rapidly internalized by the keratocytes. Further, YopE was found to be the sole effector responsible for this cytotoxic effect. YopE inactivates multiple small RhoGTPases via its GAP activity (GTPase activating protein) to induce cytotoxicity in a wide variety of cell types, including HeLa cells. Several domains of YopE are important for proper GAP function. When a number of earlier isolated point mutants of YopE were examined, none of the mutants could induce cytotoxicity towards keratocytes. Thus, this finding is in sharp contrast to earlier observations in HeLa cells, where all but one mutation caused cytotoxicity. In conclusion, the keratocytes appear to be more sensitive towards YopE mediated effects than HeLa cells and would therefore constitute a relevant model system for Yersinia infections for further studies.
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| 9. |
- Paulsson, Fredrik, 1970-
(author)
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Facilitating the access to digital learning resources : comparing different approaches to connecting learning object repositories
- 2010
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The rapid growth of digital learning resources has brought forward a number of issues concerning availability, distribution and use. Altogether, the issues are a mix of interplaited technological and pedagogical considerations. Some of those issues, mainly related to repositories and the distribution of digital learning resources, are examined and described in this article. A particular focus is put on how resources can be described and indexed using metadata, and on how access to digital learning resources can be improved and facilitated through federation and/or harvesting of metadata in order to tie several repositories together to provide a service that offers one single access point. The study also examined how this single point of access can be moved closer to the user (i.e. to the environment where digital learning resources are used) through simple federation of the service, enabling access to the network of repositories from any virtual learning environment. The study was carried out by experiments connected to a real-life case. The study concludes in several suggestions for how access to digital learning resources can be enhanced, as well as in the identifications of a couple of new issues that need to be addressed by future research.
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| 10. |
- Wilson, Timothy, 1938-, et al.
(author)
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Projects and profits
- 2010
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Multi-project firms exist to make a profit from their project activities. This article addresses issues associated with profits and projects, which we acknowledge is undoubtedly the 'primary' concern of multi-project organizations. Independent, academic studies in the area would be most welcome. The main reason they are probably not available is that standard accounting treatment does not capture information at the project level. Nevertheless, there are reasons to believe that profitability of projects would conform to an 80-20 rule, and longitudinal studies might show that firms become less, rather than more, profitable with age. Further, first time projects may be a nemesis for firms. Of course, empirial verification of these observations could lead to more effective management of multi-project firms.
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