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Biståndspolitikens motsägelser om kunskap och tekniköverföring - från konkret praktik till abstrakt policy
No full textI denna avhandling analyseras hur kunskaps- och teknikfrågor diskuterats i den
svenska riksdagens biståndspolitiska debatt. I denna debatt låg frågor om
kunskap och teknik högt på dagordningen, när biståndets mål under 1970- och
80-talen var att stödja fattiga länders politiska och ekonomiska oberoende, så
att de kunde förbättra befolkningens levnadsvillkor socialt, ekonomiskt och
politiskt. Skuldkrisen och det kalla krigets slut ändrade de biståndspolitiska
målen från stöd till fattiga länders politiska och ekonomiska oberoende till
fattiga människors rättigheter. I biståndspolitiken från 1990-talet till våra
dagar blev politiska villkor och statliga ekonomiska reformer viktigare än de
fattiga ländernas möjlighet att bygga upp egen kunskap och teknik för att lösa
sina problem. Det policybistånd, som växte fram, ändrade också biståndets
arbetssätt.
I det svenska biståndets början var kunskapsöverföring genom yrkesutbildning en
självklarhet. Kort därefter svarade Sverige på FN:s vädjan att bistå
utvecklingsländerna att bygga upp sina egna forskningsinstitutioner. De
borgerliga politikerna i riksdagen drev på för att svensk industri skulle få
möjligheter att delta i biståndet med sin kunskap och erfarenhet. Med dessa
biståndspolitiska schackdrag från 1970- och 1980-tal gav Sverige utrymme åt
företags- och forskarvärlden att delta aktivt i biståndet med element, som rätt
hanterade kanske kunnat hjälpa även de fattigaste länderna att grundlägga sina
egna innovationssystem. Policybiståndet flyttade biståndet till en arena, där
istället politiker och byråkrater var experterna. Det blev då deras kunskaper,
som skulle överföras för att bygga liberal demokrati, marknadsekonomi och god
statsförvaltning.
I samband med klimatförhandlingarna har den svenska, biståndspolitiska debatten
på nytt uppmärksammat tekniköverföringen. Svårigheten är nu att bidra till att
alla världens människor får tillgång till energi, samtidigt som
koldioxidutsläppen måste minska. Tekniköverföring från de rika länderna till de
fattiga ska lösa problemet, säger debattörerna, men de är oense, om det är
biståndet, som ska betala. Det är inte bara bristen på finansiering, som
hindrar denna lösning. Tekniköverföringens möjligheter har problematiserats i
teorier om nationella innovationssystem, som pekar på en bredd av
förutsättningar, som måste finnas på plats för framgångsrikt tekniskt lärande.
Riksdagsledamöterna har inte tagit med denna problematisering till debatten. De
har inte heller dragit erfarenheter från den biståndspolitiska debattens drygt
50-åriga historia. I den finns lärdomar att dra av politikernas motsägelsefulla
tal om att stödja utvecklingsländers strävan att bygga upp förmågan att lära
sig om, anpassa och utveckla sin egen teknik
Quantitative Assessment of Intelligent Transport Systems for Road Freight Transport
No full textIn this thesis, methods for using computer-based models as support tools for
assessing Transport Telematic Services (TTSs) are studied. Such assessments
provide one way to understand how TTSs can address problems caused by
transportation, such as accidents, emissions, and energy
consumption. TTSs are services based on telematic systems which are Intelligent
Transport Systems (ITS) involving the integrated use of information and
communication technologies
in transport. The focus is on TTSs that are relevant for road freight
transport, even though the suggested methods can easily be adapted for TTSs in
other areas. We characterize TTSs, e.g., in terms of their functionalities, and
apply computer-based modeling for pre-deployment assessment of various TTSs
(from an ex-ante perspective). By analyzing information provided by the
suggested computer-based models, it is possible to make an informed decision
whether to
(or not to) deploy a given TTS.
A review of previous studies reveals information about relevant TTSs for
freight transport in areas such as driver support, administration, safety,
traffic management, parking, and goods handling. A hierarchical clustering
algorithm and a k-minimum spanning tree algorithm were employed to analyze
synergies of TTSs. Synergies can enable identification of sets of TTSs that can
lead to cost savings if deployed on a common platform (cf. Multi-Service
Architectures). An analytical model inspired by the net present value concept
is used to estimate quantified societal benefits of TTSs. An optimization model
is formulated and solved using a branch and bound method to determine an
optimal combination of TTSs taking into consideration societal benefits, costs,
dependencies, and synergies. The optimization model also addresses possible
system architectures for achieving multiple TTSs. Dominance rough set approach
is used to assess and compare benefit areas for TTSs specific to truck parking.
The benefit areas are suggested with the help of conceptual modeling, which
describes functional models of a system in terms of states, transitions among
states, and actions performed in states.
The main scientific contributions of the thesis are in suggesting new
quantitative models, extending and applying existing models in the assessments
of TTSs, and obtaining results that can help decision-makers select TTSs for
medium-to long-term investments. Researchers can
employ and build on the proposed methods when addressing different scenarios
(geographic or organizational) involving similar TTSs. By studying a range of
TTSs and possible Multi-Service Architecture concepts for such TTSs, the thesis
contributes to achieving convergence of TTSs in a Multi-Service Architecture
environment that will improve cost efficiency, minimize redundancies, and
encourage the establishment of standards in the deployment of TTSs in road
freight transport. TTSs implemented in such an environment can contribute to
optimizing available capacity, accuracy, speed, and efficiency of road freight
transport systems
Health communication in primary health care -A case study of ICT development for health promotion
No full textBackground
Developing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) supported health
communication in PHC could contribute to increased health literacy and
empowerment, which are foundations for enabling people to increase control over
their health, as a way to reduce increasing lifestyle related ill health.
However, to increase the likelihood of success of implementing ICT supported
health communication, it is essential to conduct a detailed analysis of the
setting and context prior to the intervention. The aim of this study was to
gain a better understanding of health communication for health promotion in PHC
with emphasis on the implications for a planned ICT supported interactive
health channel.
Methods
A qualitative case study, with a multi-methods approach was applied. Field
notes, document study and focus groups were used for data collection. Data was
then analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
Results
Health communication is an integral part of health promotion practice in PHC in
this case study. However, there was a lack of consensus among health
professionals on what a health promotion approach was, causing discrepancy in
approaches and practices of health communication. Two themes emerged from the
data analysis: Communicating health and environment for health communication.
The themes represented individual and organizational factors that affected
health communication practice in PHC and thus need to be taken into
consideration in the development of the planned health channel.
Conclusions
Health communication practiced in PHC is individual based, preventive and
reactive in nature, as opposed to population based, promotive and proactive in
line with a health promotion approach. The most significant challenge in
developing an ICT supported health communication channel for health promotion
identified in this study, is profiling a health promotion approach in PHC.
Addressing health promotion values and principles in the design of ICT
supported health communication channel could facilitate health communication
for promoting health, i.e. ‘health promoting communication’
Perspectives on Productivity and Delays in Large-Scale Agile Projects
No full textMany large and distributed companies run agile projects in development
environments that are inconsistent with the original agile ideas. Problems that
result from these inconsistencies can affect the productivity of development
projects and the timeliness of releases. To be effective in such contexts, the
agile ideas need to be adapted. We take an inductive approach for reaching this
aim by basing the design of the development process on observations of how
context, practices, challenges, and impacts interact. This paper reports the
results of an interview study of five agile development projects in an
environment that was unfavorable for agile principles. Grounded theory was used
to identify the challenges of these projects and how these challenges affected
productivity and delays according to the involved project roles. Productivity
and delay-influencing factors were discovered that related to requirements
creation and use, collaboration, knowledge management, and the application
domain. The practitioners’ explanations about the factors' impacts are, on one
hand, a rich empirical source for avoiding and mitigating productivity and
delay problems and, on the other hand, a good starting point for further
research on flexible large-scale development
Identification and evaluation of security activities in agile projects
No full textWe compare four high-profile waterfall security-engineering processes (CLASP,
Microsoft SDL, Cigital Touchpoints and Common Criteria) with the available
preconditions within agile processes. Then, using a survey study, agile
security activities are identified and evaluated by practitioners from large
companies, e.g. software and telecommunication companies. Those activities are
compared and a specific security engineering process is suggested for an agile
process setting that can provide high benefit with low integration cost
A synergy based method for designing ITS services
No full textIn this paper, we propose a method for supporting the process of designing
Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) services, which utilizes on primarily
functional synergies with already existing services. Using synergies between
services will enable sharing of resources, such as, information entities,
functions and technical resources, which in turn may lead to reduced costs for
implementing services. The method is built around an existing service
description framework, which is used to describe both existing services and the
service to be designed. In order to illustrate the usage of the suggested
method, we have applied it for designing a new ITS service, i.e., the Liability
Intelligent Transport System (LITS) service. The purpose of the LITS service is
to support the process of identifying when, where and why freight has been
damaged, and which actor was responsible when the freight was damaged. The LITS
service may lead to better quality control of consignments and may also
facilitate the identification of which actor was responsible for the freight
damage, which is of particular interest in multi-modal transport. By applying
our service design method we were able to identify that three out of four
functions of the LITS service already exist in other existing ITS services.
Therefore, the LITS service can be designed based on synergies with these
services
Impact of Primary Networks on the Performance of Secondary Networks
No full textIn this paper, we investigate the performance of a single-input and
multiple-output cognitive radio network over Rayleigh fading. In particular, we
assume that secondary transmitter (SU-Tx) and primary transmitter (PU-Tx) are
equipped with a single antenna while secondary receiver (SU-Rx) and primary
receiver (PU-Rx) have multiple antennas. Additionally, the SU-Tx transmit power
is subject to outage constraint of the primary network and peak transmit power
of the secondary network. Given these settings, an adaptive transmit power
allocation policy for the SU-Tx, a closed-form expression for outage
probability, and an approximation for ergodic capacity are obtained. These
formulas will be used to examine the impact of the PU-Tx transmit power, the
number of antennas at receivers, and channel mean powers on the performance of
the secondary network. More importantly, our results reveal that the SU-Tx
using the power allocation policy can obtain optimal performance
Performance analysis for multiple-input multiple output- maximum ratio transmission systems with channel estimation error, feedback delay and co-channel interference
No full textIn this study, the authors analyse the impact of channel estimation error
(CEE), feedback delay (FD), and co-channel
interference (CCI) on the performance of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)
systems deploying maximum ratio transmission (MRT). In particular, the authors
derive closed-form expressions for the ergodic capacity and the symbol error
rate (SER) as well as the outage probability (OP). In addition, to reveal the
effect of CEE, FD and CCI on the MIMO-MRT system, the authors adopt more
simplified and tractable formulas in terms of asymptotic expressions for the
ergodic capacity, SER and OP. The analysis shows that the system performance is
degraded considerably under imperfect transmission conditions such as CEE, FD
and
CCI. However, the authors can compensate part of this degradation by deploying
MRT transmission with a large number of antennas at the transmitter and
receiver. Finally, the selected examples exhibit consistency between analytical
results and Monte Carlo simulations
Introductory Approach to Business Model Design for Strategic Sustainable Development
No full textThe interrelated challenges of systematic degradation of ecosystems, social
inequalities, financial instability and resource constraints are redefining the
overall conditions for business in the twenty-first century. Addressing these
challenges both demands and brings great opportunity for innovation. An
important but sometimes neglected aspect of innovation is the design or
redesign of business models. This has been identified as a greater source of
lasting competitive advantage than new products and services per se. The
majority of managers among those who say that their company´s sustainability
activities have added to profits also say that these activities have led to
business model changes. However, integrating business model design and
sustainable innovation practices is a relatively underexplored area of
research. The aim of this work is to develop an approach to business model
design that supports the realization of sustainability-driven strategies.
In this thesis, it is argued that a major barrier to sustainable innovation is
the usual unawareness of an operational definition of sustainability and of
guidelines for how an organization can support sustainable development while
strengthening its own competitiveness. Therefore, a Framework for Strategic
Sustainable Development (FSSD), which includes such an operational definition
of sustainability and such strategic guidelines, is used as an overarching
methodology for this work. Specific research methods include literature
reviews, data collection, data and document analysis, explorative workshops and
action research, mainly with partners in the district heating sector.
To be able to design a business model that supports a sustainability-driven
strategy, it is necessary to have, or to be able to develop, such a strategy.
The literature review revealed that there is currently no business model design
tool that in itself includes support for developing sustainability-driven
strategies. However, as regards business model design as such, a tool known as
the Business Model Canvas (BMC) is frequently referenced and by many seen as a
kind of de-facto standard support tool for business model design. A combination
of the FSSD (bringing the sustainability perspective) and the BMC (bringing the
generic building blocks of business models) is therefore explored. Depending on
the context it is necessary to also combine this with other methods and tools;
in this work specifically with methods and tools for energy systems modeling
and simulation.
Both as a way to develop a combined approach and as a way to start validating
it, a prototype of a handbook for sustainable innovation in the district
heating sector was developed and tested iteratively. The use of early versions
of this handbook preliminary indicates that the combined approach helps
organizations to, e.g., self-assess their maturity in terms of strategic
sustainability work, clarify strengths and weaknesses of current business
models from a strategic sustainability perspective and generate of new
solutions, including mutually supportive actions and business models within
their wider value network
Performance analysis of an RFID-based 3D indoor positioning system combining scene analysis and neural network methods
No full textThe main purpose of this research is to improve localization accuracy of an
active Radio Frequency Identification, RFID tag, in 3D indoor space. The paper
presents a new RFID based 3D Indoor Positioning System which shows performance
improvement. The proposed positioning system combines two methods: the Scene
Analysis technique and Artificial Neural Network. The results of both
simulation using Log-Distance Path Loss Model and physical experiments validate
that the proposed positioning system improves the localization accuracy of an
RFID tag compared with well-known Scene Analysis technique solution