| 18161. |
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| 18162. |
- Nilsson, David, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Research Aid Revisited : a historically grounded analysis of future prospects and policy options
- 2017
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This report examines the historical path as well as current tendencies of the Swedish government’s support to development research and research capacity building in low-income countries, or simply “research aid”. It also presents some ideas for future policy options.Research aid was institutionalised in the 1970s as part of Sweden’s growing ambitions on the international development aid scene. This ambition was driven by several motives, such as international solidarity but also economic and foreign policy motives, and can be understood as part of a movement to find, and strengthen, Sweden’s geopolitical niche in the Cold War landscape. It also tapped into longer global political movements on civilisation, decolonisation and development, as well as international scientific discourses on economic growth, over-population and environmentalism. The process which led up to the establishment of SAREC (Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries ) in 1975 echoed many of the ideas and initiatives at international level in the 1960s, mainly within the sphere of the United Nations, that underscored the importance of science and technology for development. In short, science and research capacity was needed to meet challenges in the South, which was seen as lagging behind in terms economic and social development level.A Swedish framework for research aid developed in the formative period of the 1970s and early 1980s, which after that has largely persisted:bilateral cooperation for capacity building based on partnerships with Swedish universities, PhD and Master education through sandwich-programmes, and infrastructure support;support to global and regional research organisations, with a handful of organisations getting the bulk of the funding;research in Sweden of relevance to developing countries through a science council function, where a handful of universities attract most of the funding;a relatively stable funding regime with 3-4 % of government aid allocations going to research, divided into streams of 25-30% to bilateral support, 50-60% to global and regional organisations, and 10-15% to Swedish university research. In relative terms, a downward funding trend is noted over the past decade.Right from the beginning, the outspoken aim was to take a point of departure in the needs and demands of developing countries, and to give priority to developing research capacity. Supporting political and economic independence in the South had become one of the key objectives of Swedish aid, and increasing the research capacity was well in line with this. From around 1985 the framework was largely in place, and SAREC entered a pragmatic growth phase which seems to have lasted well into the 2000s. The main framework, and the underlying thinking, in Sweden’s research aid model have since then not been substantially altered. Within the framework certain changes, adaptations and initiatives have been made to improve performance over time. Several organisational changes have taken place, notably the merging of SAREC and SIDA in 1995 and the transfer of responsibility for grants to Swedish universities from Sida to Swedish Research Council VR in 2013. Both SAREC’s and Sida’s research aid activities have enjoyed a good reputation and from what we have seen, many evaluations have been positive.Our historical analysis exposes some contradictions in the early Swedish research aid. First: research aid was not in demand from Sweden’s partner countries in the 1970s. As Sweden’s policy of country-programming dictated that aid should only be given where there was an expressed demand for it, SAREC was formed as an independent agency in order to bypass this policy. Second: while the focus on capacity building in the South has been strong, less than 30% of the spending has gone to the bilateral programmes which make up the main platform for capacity building. And third: the impact on the Swedish research arena at large appears to have been small despite the fact that a re-orientation of research capacity in Sweden was a stated objective early on. At policy level, over the years we have seen very few attempts for a closer alignment and coordination between Sweden’s research aid and national research policy. This third contradiction has continued to be visible even after the adoption of the Policy for Global Development (PGU) in 2003, although we note some moves towards increased integration in the past few years, notably the closer involvement of VR and the recent revitalisation of the PGU.The key questions we raise in this report are not just about why and how SAREC and Sida worked the way they did until now. They also concern how the mission of research aid can be conceived from now on. In our study, one can fairly easy discern that the Swedish model for research aid was formed to respond to certain human, developmental, scientific and political needs of the 1970s. It is also quite clear that since then, the geopolitical map as well as the global problem catalogue has changed dramatically. Essentially, the problem at hand is not any longer, at least not only, about poor countries “catching up” with the rich countries. We argue that as humankind’s challenges have become increasingly of shared and international character (climate change, global flows of refugees, security, shared natural resources etc) we need a shared regime of knowledge production, one which does not presuppose a one-way transmission of knowledge or academic know-how from Swedish or international research organisations to the poor countries.A new model for international research collaboration is needed which goes far beyond the current scope and volume of research aid. Such collaboration, we have good reasons to believe, will benefit the global South, the entire Swedish research and innovation arena as well as the wider society, and may hold potential for increasing Sweden’s competitiveness in the - more sustainable - future. We propose that such a new and wider model for collaboration is built on the understanding of a world where problems and challenges are shared, although unevenly and unpredictably distributed. In this world, the production and distribution of wealth and its environmental, health and social consequences is rapidly becoming a more critical and pervasive concern than the remaining and clearly deeply distressing cases of poverty. Building capacity in the global South will for the foreseeable future continue to be an important task. But in this current world the research agenda should be increasingly shaped by managing and mitigating the risks following from wealth creation and how it affects the very idea of development in the twenty-first century. The question of wealth is rather unconventional for development aid, but it must be asked seriously in a world where economic growth is spreading and technology-driven on a pace that seems to continue unabated. How can global wealth become sustainable and at the same time be promoted and grow in low-income countries? Taking this question seriously and carving out a responsible way forward would imply an increased attention on a new set of issues. We suggest that it is high time for a revitalised and bold discussion regarding Sweden’s future role in knowledge development in the global South, which could take its point of departure in the following propositions:Challenges and problems are shared. Moving away from the notion of ‘development’ as an issue for the global South, today’s and tomorrow’s global problems affect also the global North. As we now increasingly take stock of a supercomplex world, the idea of research aid will have to change.Global challenges are local. In dealing with local and regional manifestations of the broader, often global challenges, it may be called for research aid to take a different form, engaging researchers and institutions in the developing world in broader constellations.Wealth is becoming a greater problem than poverty. While the 2030 agenda to eliminate poverty must continue, the questions of transgression of planetary boundaries, environmental justice, wealth and welfare distribution open up vast new fields of global enquiry. Future research aid would take as its cue the challenges rising in a world with much less poverty and much more wealth.Research agendas should be formed in dialogue. Common agendas need to be reconsidered in a South-North dialogue supported by new alliances of change agents in universities, funding agencies, the business community, recipient countries, international fora, in civil society, and the EU. The knowledge base is widening. Integrative and challenge-driven approaches bridging multiple disciplines, including the social sciences and humanities, that have hitherto played marginal roles in research aid, are needed to deal with the supercomplexity challenges of the emerging world order.Institutions remain essential. The research capacity of institutional actors such as universities is set to be a critical lever for low-income countries to participate in, and benefit from, the massively expanding global knowledge production. Sweden can here build upon its sustained track record of supporting institution building in the South.Change of scale is required. The massive challenges we are facing at combined planetary, regional and local scales require responses of a completely different scale and character than what aid has been able to muster within the - predominantly nation-based – paradigm of development aid.Research aid should be linked closer to knowledge and research policy at large. Research aid can just be one small part of a wider agenda to address global challenges, implying a much closer alignment between research policy and research aid. History demonstrates the difficulties of effecting this alignment, which now prompts an organized re-thinking, a re-structuring of funding
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| 18163. |
- Nilsson, David, 1968-, et al.
(författare)
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Schizotopia: on small islands and sustainability : Reflections from the two collaborative projects Circular Water Challenge and Pelago
- 2024
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Coastal areas in many high-income countries face complex challenges of de-population, geographic conditions, and sensitive ecosystems. At the same time, they offer attractive leisure activities and nature for summer residents and visitors. This report summarizes experiences and observations from action-oriented collaboration in island communities of the Baltic Sea specifically focused on sustainable water and sanitation. A co-productive approach was employed where researchers and students collaborated with residents, municipal and regional authorities, conservation organisations, landowners, and private sector actors. Our findings indicate that co-productive approaches are beneficial and can complement formal structures, although we note several challenges to efficient collaboration. Most importantly, we identify an uneven temporal distribution of population that conflicts with the natural fluctuation of water availability as a key factor that affects, and in some cases blocks, positive outcomes. We propose the concept of schizotope (split landscape) to describe this seasonal variation. We argue that schizotopes pose serious challenges to co-production and sustainable development of islands in general, which need much more attention in regional policy and in research.
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| 18164. |
- Nilsson, David, 1968-
(författare)
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Vems är den hjälpande handen? : Om infrasystem och förtroende
- 2015
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Ingår i: Med varm hand. - Stockholm : KTH Royal Institute of Technology. ; , s. 87-104
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Hur stora tekniska system griper in i samhällets utveckling är något som teknikhistoriker ägnat stor uppmärksamhet. Städernas nätverk för gas och vatten, nationella och transnationella infrasystem för transporter, eller globala luftföroreningar; vi talar här om tekniska system som gemensamma nyttigheter. Till stor del kan dessa systems utveckling också förstås utifrån de institutionella spelregler som samhället upprättar. På det institutionella planet återkopplar samhället sin idé om vad som är rätt och vad som är möjligt till det tekniska. Men var kommer dessa institutioner ifrån? Hur skapar vi tillsammans gemensamma nyttigheter och varför är det så svårt? I den här essän tar jag upp tankar och idéer om hur vi skapar gemensamma nyttigheter när vi står inför en kollektiv utmaning. Essän diskuterar problematiken i dagens utvecklingsländer där det i dag pågår innovationsverksamhet för att hitta lösningar på kollektiva problem och återknyter till de resonemang Arne Kaijser och jag förde i ett paper publicerat 2009. Här utvecklas sedan resonemangen om institutioner och förtroende som socialt kapital utifrån Elinor Ostroms och Niklas Luhmanns arbeten. För att kunna investera i ett infrasystem för gemensamma nyttigheter räcker det inte med kunskap och fysiskt kapital eftersom tillgången till information och kontrollen över tänkbara utfall alltid kommer vara ojämnt fördelad. Därför är det också nödvändigt att över tid bygga upp förtroende mellan aktörerna, oavsett om det rör sig om vattenförsörjning i ett slumområde eller globala utsläpp av växthusgaser.
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| 18165. |
- Nilsson, David, 1968-
(författare)
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Water for a few : a history of urban water and sanitation in East Africa
- 2006
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This licentiate thesis describes and analyses the modern history of the socio-technical systems for urban water supply and sanitation in East Africa with focus on Uganda and Kenya. The key objective of the thesis is to evaluate to what extent the historic processes frame and influence the water and sanitation services sectors in these countries today. The theoretical approach combines the Large Technical Systems approach from the discipline of History of Technology with New Institutional Economics. Throughout, urban water and sanitation service systems are regarded as socio-technical systems, where institutions, organisation and technology all interact. The thesis consists of three separate articles and a synthesis in the form of a framework narrative. The first article provides a discussion of the theoretical framework with special focus on the application of Public Goods theory to urban water and sanitation. The second article describes the establishment of the large-scale systems for water supply and sanitation in Kampala, Uganda in the period 1920-1950. The third article focuses on the politics of urban water supply in Kenya with emphasis on the period 1900-1990.The main findings in this thesis are that the socio-technical systems for urban water and sanitation evolve over long periods of time and are associated with inertia that makes these systems change slowly. The systems were established in the colonial period to mainly respond to the needs and preferences of a wealthy minority and a technological paradigm evolved based on capital-intensive and large-scale technology. Attempts to expand services to all citizens in the post-colonial period under this paradigm were not sustainable due to changes in the social, political and economic environment while incentives for technological change were largely absent. History thus frames decisions in the public sphere even today, through technological and institutional inertia. Knowing the history of these socio-technical systems is therefore important, in order to understand key sector constraints, and for developing more sustainable service provision.
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| 18166. |
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| 18167. |
- Nilsson, Daniel, 1985-
(författare)
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Zone Plates for Hard X-Ray Free-Electron Lasers
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Hard x-ray free-electron lasers are novel sources of coherent x-rays with unprecedented brightness and very short pulses. The radiation from these sources enables a wide range of new experiments that were not possible with previous x-ray sources. Many of these experiments require the possibility to focus the intense x-ray beam onto small samples. This Thesis investigates the possibility to use diffractive zone plate optics to focus the radiation from hard x-ray free-electron lasers.The challenge for any optical element at free-electron laser sources is that the intensity in a single short pulses is high enough to potentially damage the optics. This is especially troublesome for zone plates, which are typically made of high Z elements that absorb a large part of the incident radiation. The first part of the Thesis is dedicated to simulations, where the temperature behavior of zone plates exposed to hard x-ray free-electron laser radiation is investigated. It is found that the temperature increase in a single pulse is several hundred Kelvin but still below the melting point of classical zone plate materials, such as gold, tungsten, and iridium.Even though the temperature increases are not high enough to melt a zone plate it is possible that stresses and strains caused by thermal expansion can damage the zone plate. This is first investigated in an experiment where tungsten gratings on diamond substrates are heated to high temperatures by a pulsed visible laser. It is found that the gratings are not damaged by the expected temperature fluctuations at free-electron lasers. Finally, a set of tungsten zone plates are tested at the Linac Coherent Light Source where they are exposed to a large number of pulses at varying fluence levels in a prefocused beam. Damage is only observed at fluence levels above those typically found in an unfocused x-ray free-electron laser beam. At higher fluences an alternative is to use a diamond zone plate, which has significantly less absorption and should be able to survive much higher fluence. Damage in diamond structures is investigated during the same experiment, but due to a remaining tungsten etch mask on top of the diamond the results are difficult to interpret.Additionally, we also demonstrate how the classical Ronchi test can be used to measure aberrations in focusing optics at an x-ray free-electron laser in a single pulse.The main result of this Thesis is that tungsten zone plates on diamond substrates can be used at hard x-ray free-electron laser sources.
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| 18168. |
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| 18169. |
- Nilsson, Erland, 1977-
(författare)
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Exploring trade-offs between Latency and Throughput in the Nostrum Network on Chip
- 2006
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- During the past years has the Nostrum Network on Chip (NoC) been developed to become a competitive platform for network based on-chip communication. The Nostrum NoC provides a versatile communication platform to connect a large number of intellectual properties (IP) on a single chip. The communication is based on a packet switched network which aims for a small physical footprint while still providing a low communication overhead. To reduce the communication network size, a queue-less network has been the research focus. This network uses de ective hot-potato routing which is implemented to perform routing decisions in a single clock cycle. Using a platform like this results in increased design reusability, validated signal integrity, and well developed test strategies, in contrast to a fully customised designs which can have a more optimal communication structure but has a significantly longer development cycle to verify the new design accordingly. Several factors are considered when designing a communication platform. The goal is to create a platform which provides low communication latency, high throughput, low power consumption, small footprint, and low design, verification, and test overhead. Proximity Congestion Awareness is one technique that serves to reduce the network load. This leads to that the latency is reduced which also increases the network throughput. Another technique is to implement low latency paths called Data Motorways achieved through a clocking method called Globally Pseudochronous Locally Synchronous clocking. Furthermore, virtual circuits can be used to provide guarantees on latency and throughput. Such guarantees are dificult in hot-potato networks since network access has to be ensured. A technique that implements virtual circuits use looped containers that are circulating on a predefined circuit. Several overlapping virtual circuits are possible by allocating the virtual circuits in different Temporally Disjoint Networks. This thesis summarise the impact the presented techniques and methods have on the characteristics on the Nostrum model. It is possible to reduce the network load by a factor of 20 which reduces the communication latency. This is done by distributing load information between the Switches in the network. Data Motorways can reduce the communication latency with up to 50% in heavily loaded networks. Such latency reduction results in freed buffer space in the Switch registers which allows the traffic rate to be increased with about 30%.
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| 18170. |
- Nilsson, Eva
(författare)
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Modelling of the electrochemial treatment of tumours
- 2001
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The electrochemical treatment (EChT) of tumours entails thattumour tissue is treated with a continuous direct currentthrough two or more electrodes placed in or near the tumour.Promising results have been reported from clinical trials inChina, where more than ten thousand patients have been treatedwith EChT during the past ten years. Before clinical trials canbe conducted outside of China, the underlying destructionmechanism behind EChT must be clarified and a reliabledose-planning strategy has to be developed. One approach inachieving this is through mathematical modelling.Mathematical models, describing the physicochemical reactionand transport processes of species dissolved in tissuesurrounding platinum anodes and cathodes, during EChT, aredeveloped and visualised in this thesis. The consideredelectrochemical reactions are oxygen and chlorine evolution, atthe anode, and hydrogen evolution at the cathode. Concentrationprofiles of substances dissolved in tissue, and the potentialprofile within the tissue itself, are simulated as functions oftime. In addition to the modelling work, the thesis includes anexperimental EChT study on healthy mammary tissue in rats. Theresults from the experimental study enable an investigation ofthe validity of the mathematical models, as well as of theirapplicability for dose planning.The studies presented in this thesis have given a strongindication of the destruction mechanism involved in EChT. It isshown by the modelling work, in combination with theexperiments, that the most probable cause of tissue destructionis acidification at the anode and alkalisation at the cathode.The pH profiles obtained from the theoretical models have showngood correlation with the experimentally measured destructionzones, assuming that a pH above and below certain values causetissue destruction. This implies that the models presented inthis thesis could be of use in predicting the tumourdestruction produced through EChT, and thereby provide a basisfor a systematic dose planning of clinical treatments.Moreover, the models can serve as valuable tools in optimisingthe operating conditions of EChT.Modelling work of theanode processes has explained the roleof chlorine in the underlying destruction mechanism behindEChT. It is found that the reactions of chlorine with tissueplay important roles as generators of hydrogen ions. Thecontribution of these reactions to the acidification of tissue,surrounding the anode, is strongly dependent on the appliedcurrent density and increases with decreasing currentdensity.Keywords:cancer, direct current, dose planning,electrochemical treatment (EChT), electrotherapy, mathematicalmodelling, tumour.
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