| 1961. |
- Törnberg, Petter, 1987
(författare)
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Innovation in Complex Adaptive Systems
- 2014
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Our society is increasingly beset by a range of interrelated crises - with the financial crisis, the energy crisis, and the global warming crisis as leading examples - forming a "meta-crisis" with its roots in processes deeply entrenched in society (Lane et al., 2011), and emanating from large-scale complex adaptive systems so strongly interlinked that they are hard to even define and delimit. This has made our lack of understanding of such systems simultaneously more obvious and threatening, an issue further amplified by empirical developments brought about by new information and communication technology. In response to this, a substrate of semi-congruent critiques and new ideas - the former generally more articulated than the latter - are emerging in a number of major disciplines facing similar challenges, but still without the theoretical foundation needed to align and direct this substrate across disciplinary boundaries. The first part of the thesis attempts to develop such an abstraction by departing from the nature of the large-scale complex systems, concluding that the theoretical crises are founded in common difficulties in approaching the complexity of the systems under study, and attempts to provide an understanding of the challenges related to these kind of complex systems: it may be uncontroversial to suggest that the systems are complex, but it remains unclear exactly what this entails. Based on this understanding, the second part aims to show how a synthesis approach to this type of systems could look by bringing together a number of different research strands facing challenges emanating from such systems, with the goal of forming an integrated, empirically grounded and complexity-informed perspective on change in large-scale complex systems.
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| 1962. |
- Törnvall, Maj
(författare)
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Uppfattningar och upplevelser av bedömning i grundskolan
- 2001
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Det centrala i föreliggande studie är att utröna lärares och elevers uppfattningar och upplevelser av bedömning i skolan. Lärare och elever är involverade i bedömning av kunskaper och kunskapsutveckling, varför det är av vikt att båda parters uppfattningar synliggörs, vilket i sin tur kan bidraga till en helhetsbild av bedömningsfenomenet. Genom enkät till lärare och intervjuer med 45 elever, representerande det vi fortfarande benämner låg-, mellan-, och högstadiet, vill jag utröna hur det ovan relaterade förhåller sig. Lärare motiverar olika bedömningsmetoder beroende på ändamålet, varvid skriftliga objektiva lätt mätbara prov används i stor utsträckning. De flesta elever accepterar skriftliga kunskapsprov, då de tror att denna bedömningsform sporrar dem att lära sig mera och i sin förlängning resulterar i betyg. Högstadieelever upplever det särskilt betungande när de periodvis har prov flera gånger i veckan. De hinner inte läsa på tillräckligt och känner prestationsängslan. Såväl hög- som lågpresterande elever upplever oro/nervositet och stress kring provsituationer. Lärares uppfattning är att svagpresterande elever är speciellt oroliga och tappar självkänslan, då de oftast misslyckas på skriftliga prov. Elever menar att de inte känner obehag vid lärares subjektiva bedömning och vid självbedömning. De vill visa och utveckla sitt kunnande genom egen redovisning.
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| 1963. |
- Uddenberg, Anders
(författare)
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Growth in established SMEs : Exploring the innovative and ambitious firm
- 2015
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The growth of firms is a complex but relevant subject for different stakeholders, such as owners, who want returns on their investment, and society, where firms are vessels for jobs and job creation. Despite the vast amount of research conducted on firm growth and factors associated with firm growth, there is no coherent body of knowledge, and the average firm is not growing. This research focuses on growth in established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), i.e. firms that have passed the startup phase and have established themselves on the market. The purpose is to investigate the characteristics of high-growth established SMEs with special focus on the entrepreneur’s growth ambitions and the role of innovation activities for firm growth.The data was collected from 88 established SMEs in which interviews were conducted with CEOs, owners, managers, and employees. A questionnaire was used which included questions regarding factors previously linked to firm growth such as resources, market factors, organizational factors, innovation, and attitude toward firm growth.The results show that growth ambitions have a limited impact on firm growth, and that growth ambitions alone are not a good predictor of firm growth. When high-growth firms were compared to the average established SME, there was no difference in the level the managers of the firms were seeking growth. Neither lack of growth, nor high growth, can be explained by the managers’ perception of the firm’s possibility to grow. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the difference in growth rates is attributed to different levels of growth opportunities.Instead, this research shows that what distinguishes high-growth firms from the average, non-growing firms are factors associated with innovation, the market, and customer knowledge. The high-growth firms were found to be significantly better at identifying and delivering on unfilled demands. However, no evidence suggests that the high-growth firms had exclusive access to new technology they could leverage as a means to grow faster, and both groups believed there to be plenty of market opportunities and possibilities to create growing niches.If the difference between high growth and no growth in established SMEs is associated with external factors related to innovation, market and customers, it is interesting that when growth ambitions increase, so does the internal focus on organizational structures and systems. Ambitious entrepreneurs who seek firm growth should therefore not lose sight of external factors, and strive to quickly deal with increased internal complexity that accompanies firm growth.
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| 1964. |
- Ulander, Anna
(författare)
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Optimization Based Decision Support Tools for Fire and Rescue Resource Planning
- 2015
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- When accidents occur, it is essential that fire and rescue service respond quickly and efficiently to the accident site to reduce suffering and save lives and property. Planning and coordinating of fire and rescue resources is therefore important in order to maintain a safe society. Firefighters in Sweden have by tradition worked in teams of five, and they have been allocated to fire stations strategically located in populated areas. However, this working approach has recently started to change and the fire and rescue services have started to deploy smaller groups of firefighters. These smaller units can be, for example, strategically located near high-risk areas or roads, or used for preventive work. The complexity of the resource planning process thus increases since the decision makers have to keep track of a large number of small units spread over the area. The new way of working has resulted in an increased need of support tools that can help the fire and rescue services in decisions regarding the resource management.In this thesis, optimization based decision support tools are developed in order to to support the fire and rescue service so they can efficiently manage, coordinate and dispatch fire and rescue resources with respect to the present demand for service.To find appropriate strategic and tactical locations for different types of response units, an optimization model that minimizes the response time to expected accidents is developed. The model considers both the response time for the first responding unit as well as the response time for the last responding unit. Furthermore, the model is flexible enough to incorporate any type of accidents or resources. The results show that the model can be used to produce practical support for various types of location decisions.To support the more complex operational planning, three optimization based decision support tools are developed. The tools can help the fire and rescue service to always maintain an adequate level of preparedness for handling accidents. To evaluate the preparedness, a quantitative measure has been defined and serves as the basis for the tools. The first tool can help illustrate the preparedness, the second tool to select appropriate vehicles and firefighters to dispatch to accidents, and the third tool to suggest how resources can be relocated to maintain an adequate preparedness for new accidents.The developed decision support tools are evaluated through tests and experiments with fire and rescue services in Sweden. Results from the experiments indicate that the three tools can support the fire and rescue service in operational decisions and in maintaining an adequate preparedness for handling accidents, but also that the planning time seems to increase when using the support tools. However, the participants’ experiences of the tools were in general positive, and they thought the tools were useful and that the tools could support their daily work. The perception of preparedness, which usually varies quite a bit among individuals, also seems to become more uniform with access to the tools.
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| 1965. |
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| 1966. |
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| 1967. |
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| 1968. |
- Unga, Johanna, 1973-
(författare)
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Det är en spricka i allt, det är så ljuset kommer in… : Matematik och förskolebarns experimenterande och potentialitet
- 2013
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In preschools it is common that mathematics mainly focuses on how children learn mathematics through everyday activities, or on children´s understanding of mathematical concepts. However, views on mathematics-learning are today deepened and extended, and embrace children’s own mathematical signs, visual representations and bodily experiences. The overall aim of this thesis is to experiment with how this extended view in which children´s engagement and creativity is affirmed, simultaneously as they are developing knowledge about the world of mathematics with its procedures and rules. With inspiration from the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze´s and Félix Guattari´s immanent ontology and transcendental empiricism, and from the pedagogical philosophy of the preschools in Reggio Emilia, I have experimented both with mathematics, and with toddlers’ explorations and potentiality. The research-material primarily consists of video observations and documentations, and it is taken from a project with a mathematical topic through a cooperative work by me, preschool teachers and children aged 1–3 years. Methodologically the work is based on one example from the project where some children explores and experiment on geometric objects. In relation to the example some concepts from Reggio Emilia’s pedagogical thinking and Deleuze´s and Guattari´s immanent ontology are put to work, by focusing on the connections that emerge. The study make visible that children explore and experiment with mathematics in what in the study has called “a relational field of potentiality”. In relation to preschool didactics the study stresses the importance of teachers paying attention to and “listening” to children’s experimentations and sign-making, in order not to interrupt what is emerging/becoming. This requires an environment that embraces “the hundred languages” and enables collective experimentation for thoughts and ideas to be shared in “togetherness”.
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| 1969. |
- Uvgaard, Paul, 1957-
(författare)
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Ideologiska sandslott på en tvetydig strand : En aktörs- och platsstudie av strandskyddspolitikoch handläggning i tre Blekingekommuner
- 2011
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Why do people transgress legal borders on beaches by the lakes and the coastline, despite thefact of a Swedish law defending the beach and a rigorous administration mirroring it? Nationalstudies show great differences in regional and local practice regarding the administration ofthe law of beach defense, Strandskyddslagen.This licentiate thesis explores the administration of Swedish beaches from both an actorand a structural point of view. It was carried out as a case study of three municipalities situatedby the southeast part of the Baltic and inland. The interviewed actors were regional andlocal civil servants including local politicians. The purpose of the thesis was to reveal whatimplications daily practice among civil servants and local politicians have on the forms ofhow beaches are appropriated and dominated. The thesis focus on the dualism of the privateand the public space. Drawing on structural and poststructural theory and qualitative methodologythe importance of methodology is argued. The author use a triangulation of differenttheories and methods. Grounded on interviews, five areas were thematized; ideology, power,professional cultures, communication and mirroring. The thesis reveals that chains of causesto the heterogeneity of the local and regional beach administration, can be investigated moreefficiently by using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology.The author found that the administrators personal ideology in relation to the ideology expressedby the law is of importance in the daily practice. He also show how the two mainparts of Strandskyddslagen contribute to the development of two identifiable approaches inthe civil servants practice. This finding he connects with the development of professional staffcultures. Eventually the thesis discuss the importance of interior communication betweendifferent levels of the administration and underpin the rising cost problem when municipalitiesare delegated the main responsibility for mirroring the beaches. This leading to a tendencyof a growing appearance of corporate influence on local public politics regarding exploitationof land close to beaches.The author propose a closer communication between regional and municipal environment-and building administrators. He emphasizes the importance of transparency, communicationand education at both the regional, local administrative and political level of the beachadministration.
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| 1970. |
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