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- Almgren Mason, Suzanne, 1963-
(author)
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Life in the labyrinth : a reflexive exploration of research and politics
- 2002
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis is about exploring the politics within and around research. The starting point is a European project which ran from late 1997 to the end of 2000. It was called "Self-employment activities concerning women and minorities: their success or failure in relation to social citizenship policies" and had as its objective to provide the EU-Commission with recommendations for improved self-employment policies. Background material was complemented by interviews with "experts", but the main source of information was in the form of biographical interviews with the self-employed, or formerly self-employed, themselves. The qualitative method was used as a way of researching how individuals' background and experiences influenced their decision to become self-employed as well as their tendency to use labour market policies available for starting businesses. It was also a way to find out how those policies impacted on the individuals' lives. The consequent recommendations included a suggestion for broadening existing policies to comprise social aspects as well as financial allowances, and also the caution that self-employment was perhaps not the best solution to labour market and social exclusion.This latter doubt arose during project work, as did questions about methodology, the role of the researcher, and eventually about the politics that inform research. Only briefly touched upon in the project reports, these issues instead became the basis for the thesis. A reflexive rereading of the Final Report led to a critical examination of the political uses of concepts and categories, of how stereotypes affect research, and of the embeddedness in ethnocentric discourses of both research and researcher. The use of postcolonial and feminist theory, discourse analysis and a social constructionist perspective broadened the analytical possibilities and furthered understanding of the connections between politics and research. A conclusion is that a comprehensive change in the social order as well as in people's conscience is required to stem ethnic discrimination in society and the perpetuation of stereotypes and preconstructed categories in research.
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| 3. |
- Arvidsson, Barbro, 1945-
(author)
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Group supervision in nursing care : a longitudinal study of psychiatric nurses' experiences and conceptions
- 2000
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Inom hälso- och sjukvården betonas att vården ska ges utifrån ett patientorienterat sätt. Om sjuksköterskor skall kunna ge patienten god omvårdnad, måste de själva ha en god arbetssituation. Det blir allt vanligare att sjuksköterskor i arbetet utsätts för en mängd negativa psykiska påfrestningar, såsom hot och våld, som kan leda till stress. Stress kan också relateras till att sjuksköterskorna i sitt arbete ställs inför komplicerade etiska övervägande. Det är viktigt att få möjligheter att reflektera över vilka etiska principer och ställningstagande arbetet baseras på. En metod som möjliggör reflektion är grupphandledning i omvårdnad. Deltagarna i grupphandledning bör ha samma yrkesbakgrund och ledas av en utbildad handledare, som också har samma yrkesbakgrund, som de som deltager i handledning. I handledning reflekteras över genomförda omvårdnadssituationer utifrån frågor som Vad hände? Vilka etiska aspekter förekommer? Vad kan sjuksköterskan göra annorlunda om det händer igen? Det handlar om att genom reflektion undersöka hur sjuksköterskan agerar, gör bedömningar, tänker och känner i olika omvårdnadssituationer. I detta sammanhang kan hon/han få emotionell och teoretisk återkoppling, ges möjlighet att kritiskt granska och diskutera svåra ställningstaganden samt få alternativa handlingsmöjligheter. Det övergripande syftet med föreliggande studie var att granska och undersöka hur psykiatrisjuksköterskors professionella kompetens över tid förändrades genom grupphandledning i omvårdnad. Tre delstudier genomfördes. Undersökningsgruppen bestod av tolv psykiatrisjuksköterskor, fördelade på två grupper som erhöll handledning i omvårdnad under två år. Inför den första delstudien konstruerades två frågeformulär för att undersöka om deltagarna i grupphandledning upplevde trygghet, tillit och lärande under handledningssammankomsterna. Resultatet från delstudie 1 visar att psykiatrisjuksköterskorna i hög grad upplevde att handledningssammankomsterna karakteriserades av ett humanistiskt synsätt. Deltagarna upplevde stöd, hjälp och att man lyssnade på varandra samt att alla hade en inlevelseförmåga. Efter varje handledningssession skrevs dagbok över vad som hänt. Avsikten med dagboksanteckningarna var att få material som beskrev handledningssituationerna. En allmän kunskapsutvecklande handledningsmodell skapades av de i resultatet framtagna orden och formuleringarna. Handledningsmodellen kan användas vid uppbyggnad och genomförande av handledning och undervisning inom olika yrkesområden för att stimulera till ökad yrkesmässig utveckling. Delstudie 2 och 3 utgjordes av svar från intervjuer med deltagarna efter ett år och två år, under pågående handledning, samt fyra år efter avslutad grupphandledning i omvårdnad. Resultatet visar att psykiatrisjuksköterskorna kände ökad arbetstillfredsställelse. De förvärvade ökad kunskap och kompetens och fick förstärkt säkerhet i omvårdnadssituationer. Vidare uppfattade de att deras självförtroende ökat. Vid fyra årsuppföljningen framkom att psykiatrisjuksköterskornas yrkesidentitet hade förstärkts. De hade integrerat omvårdnadsperspektivet i det dagliga arbetet. Grupphandledning i omvårdnad bidrog till att deltagarna vidmakthöll styrka och hade kraft att fortsätta att arbeta. Psykiatrisjuksköterskorna önskade att grupphandledning i omvårdnad skulle utgöra en integrerad del i deras yrkesverksamhet. Efter avslutad handledning kvarstod känslan av gemenskap bland de som deltagit i handledning. I Sverige är omvårdnadsforskning på frammarsch och ger sjuksköterskor en god möjlighet till uppdatering och att bli mer avancerade och skickliga i sina uppgifter. Presenterade studie visar att grupphandledning i omvårdnad är ett sätt att få ökad medvetenhet om hur omvårdnadsforskningens resultat kan förklaras, tydliggöras och tillämpas. Grupphandledning i omvårdnad bör vara en naturlig del i sjuksköterskeutbildningen.
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| 6. |
- Barth, Henrik, 1971-
(author)
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Barriers to growth and development in small firms
- 2004
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The purpose of the extended summary is to develop the understanding of the existence and reasons behind barriers to growth and development in small firms. More specifically, four questions are addressed: (1) What do we know about the term barrier, how can it be defined? (2) What types of barriers to growth and development have been identified? (3) How can barriers to growth and development be addressed in a framework? and (4) How do the results of the appended papers (Papers I-V) contribute to the research field of barriers to growth and development?A literature review was undertaken to answer the first two questions. The literature review was conducted in two phases. The conceptual and operational definition of barriers was addressed in the first phase. The results reveal diverse ways of focusing on barriers, which made it necessary to address similar terms, such as problem and causes of business failure in the second phase of the literature review. The different terms used in the papers of the literature review are discussed in order to determine whether or not the understanding of their content is coherent and conceptual. Based on the conceptual understanding and definition of barriers, the different aspects focused on in the literature were discussed, which led to the second question, What are the various aspects of barriers to growth and development?The knowledge gained from the literature review and the development of the understanding of the barrier concept led to the third question, Can barriers to growth and development be addressed in a framework? The discussion takes its starting point in the studies identified in the literature review and is related to some of the appended papers (Papers I and II). Similarities and differences between frameworks used in the papers identified in the literature review are discussed and, based on this knowledge, a framework for barriers to growth and development in small firms is presented. The framework distinguishes two types of barriers, namely internal/external barriers and tangible/intangible barriers.The knowledge available in the reviewed papers within the field of barriers to growth and development in small firms in combination with the results from the appended papers (Papers I-V) resulted in the fourth question. Part of the contribution of the appended papers concerns the operational definition, for example that barriers to innovation should be categorised as either occurring or preventing firms from innovating (Paper II), while other contributions concern specific types of barriers, for example the importance of managerial skills (Paper V). Overall, the contribution focuses on conditional factors, such as strategy and planning, organisation and management, and institution and policy factors, in relation to growth and development.
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| 8. |
- Bergenhem, Carl, et al.
(author)
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Analysis problems in a spatial reuse ring network with a simple clocking strategy
- 2002
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This technical report describes the problems associated with analysis of a spatial reuse ring network with a clock strategy also used in previously studied ring networks. The aim for the analysis was to find the worst case deterministic throughput. Some results are achieved and are presented. A worst case bound is found and this can be used for analysing feasibility of message connection sets. However, the bound is pessimistic and does not utilise the bandwidth reuse features of the network. This result does not meet the expectations that where foreseen because the medium access method inherently supports distributed global deadline scheduling. It is concluded that the current clock strategy of the network is the cause of the problems. It is also concluded that the analysis is complicated by the clocking strategy and that by introducing small changes in the network (will be presented in a separate paper), the analysis of the real-time performance will be much simpler. This will lead to a network with less pessimistic assumptions and hence better support for real-time traffic.
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| 9. |
- Bergenhem, Carl, et al.
(author)
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Heterogeneous real-time services in high-performance system area networks - application demands and case study definitions
- 2002
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- To be able to verify the feasibility of high-performance networks, it is essential to evaluate them according to specific application requirements. At the same time, specifications of quite general, or understandable, application requirements are needed for the ability to make repeated analyses on different networks. Especially, heterogeneous real-time requirements must be defined to be able to analyze networks to be used in future applications. In this report, we introduce two application fields where system area networks (SANs) supporting heterogeneous real-time services are highly desirable if not required: radar signal processing and large IP routers. For each application field, a case study with heterogeneous real-time communication requirements is defined. No case studies are presented in this report. Instead, they are defined for later evaluations to determine how suitable networks are for applications with heterogeneous real-time communication requirements.
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| 10. |
- Bergenhem, Carl
(author)
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Protocols with Heterogeneous Real-Time Services for High-Performance Embedded Networks
- 2002
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Network protocols for applications that demand high performance and heterogeneous real-time services are presented. These protocols control the medium access to the network and offer additional features to the user, both different user services for traffic and services for parallel and distributed real-time processing. The network architecture assumed is a unidirectional pipelined optical ring.Radar Signal Processing (RSP) is a typical application area. Such a system contains many computation nodes that are interconnected in order to co-operate and thereby achieve higher performance. The computing performance of the whole system is greatly affected by the choice of network. Computing nodes in a parallel computer for RSP should be tightly coupled, i.e., communications cost (e.g. latency) between nodes should be small, so that the whole system can be perceived as a single unit. This is possible if a suitable network with an efficient protocol is used.There is an industrial need for new high-performance networks with support for the, often heterogeneous, real-time requirements found in (often embedded) applications such as RSP and other areas such as multimedia. The traffic this kind of network can be classified according to its requirements. The proposed protocols partition the traffic into three classes with distinctly different qualities. These classes are traffic with hard real-time demands, such as mission critical commands, traffic with soft real-time demands, such as process data (a deadline miss here only leads to decreased performance) and, finally, traffic with no real-time constraints at all. The contributions of the present thesis are protocols that integrate heterogeneous real-time services for the three traffic classes.The performance of the proposed protocols is evaluated through simulations and analysis. It is shown that the protocol is an efficient choice for RSP systems. A brief survey of related technologies is included in the thesis. These are studied from the perspectives of application, architecture and user service.
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