| 1. |
- Bergkvist, Linda, 1979-
(författare)
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Towards a Framework for Relational-Oriented Management of Information Systems Outsourcing : Key Conditions Connected to Actors, Relationships and Process
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Currently, client and supplier firms are struggling with how they can make their information systems (IS) outsourcing engagements more valuable. This research points to the importance of successful practice and outcome in IS outsourcing for achieving engagements of value. To enhance the understanding of IS outsourcing over time, a process perspective is applied. Further, this research is based on the contention that IS outsourcing is more likely to be successful if challenges are managed in a proactive manner and with a relationship perspective. Thus, understanding challenges in IS outsourcing requires a symmetric view on client and supplier.The thesis is based on two studies presented as three steps of research: development, validation and reconsideration of a conceptual framework. The licentiate study centred on the step of development whereas the present doctoral study has a focus on the steps of validation and reconsideration. The purpose of this study includes investigating how the management of successful practice and outcome in IS outsourcing can be enabled. To address the purpose, the IS outsourcing process is studied in a client–supplier relationship. This includes that different actor perspectives, including strategic, operative, and systems, are considered for a better understanding of the practice of IS outsourcing, the challenges, and how different actors convey successful IS outsourcing.The thesis contributes a framework for relational-oriented management of IS outsourcing, which provides the structure for understanding what needs to be managed in terms of key conditions, when and how in connection to actors, relationships, and process. Theoretical propositions, enhancing the understanding of the complexity of IS outsourcing as well as the number of challenges involved, are also presented. In brief, these propositions relate to the circumstance that IS outsourcing requires management on different levels and with different kinds of results in mind.
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| 2. |
- Birdsong, Björn K.
(författare)
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Flexible hybrid organic/inorganic SiOx aerogels via in situ template condensation
- 2024
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Modern insulation materials such as mineral wool are common but have known health risks. Cellulose-based insulation is an improvement regarding health but is flammable by itself and can settle. Aerogels are an attractive insulation material due to their incredible insulation while also very light, they are made from an abundant non-toxic material (silicon oxide). Several challenges need to be overcome to be viable for common use. Critical point drying is often used which is slow and has a high risk of failure. Further aerogels are brittle where even small deformations result in breaking, limiting their use.This work focused on using graphene oxide, mycelium, or cellulose as organic templates to make organic/inorganic hybrid aerogels by controlled silane condensation.Using graphene oxide (GO) showed that both APTES and TEOS were able to form uniform, smooth silane layers on an organic GO template. It was also possible to remove the GO template without changing the formed silicon oxide material using high temperature. With similar developed condensation conditions, it was possible to form SiOx coatings on bacterial cellulose nanofibrils (bCNF), the choice of silane allowed control over the formed coating morphology, and the modified bCNF dispersion could be freeze-dried into aerogels. To explore the developed coating methodology, another promising insulation material (mycelium) was used as a template. The mimicking of the mycelium hyphae was shown possible, enabling silicon oxide nanofibers after the removal of the mycelium template. Lastly, sol-gel formed organic/inorganic aerogels were developed, using bCNF as a toughening matrix, enabling high flexibility without crack formation or shattering even after significant deformation. The aerogels were thermally stable, flexibile, and avoided critical point drying allowing for large-scale aerogel production.
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| 3. |
- Blomqvist, Niklas, 1987-
(författare)
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Essays on Labor Economics : The Role of Government in Labor Supply Choices
- 2020
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- "Right to Work Full-time" Policies and Involuntary Part-time EmploymentThis paper investigates the effect of right to full-time policies implemented to decrease involuntary part-time work for public care workers employed by Swedish municipalities. Taking advantage of a staggered decision process, these policies are evaluated using a difference-in-differences approach. Results show that involuntary part-time employment is real and significant, with 10% of part-time employed workers choosing full-time when given the opportunity. The effect mainly comes from a decrease in contracts of <75% of full-time and an increase in contracts of 80% of full-time and above. Further results from the full-time policies show that being more flexible in the choice of hours worked is popular among workers, indicated by an increase in tenure and reduced turnover in municipalities that offer more flexibility in the choice of hours worked.Hours Constraints and Tax Elasticity Estimates - Evidence from Swedish Public Care WorkersThere is a concern that tax elasticity estimates may be downward biased in the presence of optimization frictions for workers. So far, there is limited evidence on the nature of these optimization frictions. This paper provides new insight into one part of the optimization frictions black box, namely hours constraints. Using unique and newly collected data, I exploit a staggered implementation of a policy that gave some public care workers the opportunity to choose their preferred hours of work. Taking advantage of this policy, I estimate differences in tax elasticities between constrained and unconstrained public care workers by comparing bunching at a large tax kink in the Swedish tax system. The empirical evidence points to the conclusion that hours constraints do not affect tax elasticity estimates.Restricting Residence Permits - Short-Run Evidence from a Swedish ReformIn June 2016, the Swedish parliament decided to restrict the granting of permanent residence permits for asylum seekers in Sweden. The new status quo for a refugee is a temporary rather than a permanent residence permit. In a first evaluation of this reform we use a Regression discontinuity analysis in which we follow refugees, aged 25-65, over their first years after arrival. Our main results show that a temporary residence permit increases the probability of working and enrolling in regular education.Mom and Dad Got Jobs: Natural Resources, Economic Activity, and Infant HealthThe impact of local economic shocks, such as the discovery and exploitation of natural resources, on labor markets and health is not well understood. Both positive and negative effects have been documented in the literature. In this paper, we show that the phase before active resource extraction begins directly affects the local economy. This implies that previous estimates – typically based on designs exploiting differences before and after the active phase of extraction begins - may have understated the actual effect of natural resource extraction on outcomes of interest. Using rich data from Sweden combined with differences in the timing and location of mineral exploitation permits, we find a positive impact on female and male employment and earnings and a negative effect on housing prices. Children’s health outcomes are also negatively affected, an effect likely driven by the increase in local economic activity rather than extraction-related externalities.
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| 4. |
- Carlsson, Jessica, 1984-
(författare)
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Identification of miRNA expression profiles for diagnosis and prognosis of prostate cancer
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cancer of the prostate (CaP) is the most common malignancy diagnosed in men in the Western society. During the last years, prostate specific antigen (PSA) has been used as a biomarker for CaP, although a high PSA value is not specific for CaP. Thus, there is an urgent need for new and improved diagnostic markers for CaP.In this thesis, the aim was to find a miRNA signature for diagnosis of CaP and to elucidate if differences in behavior between transition zone and peripheral zone tumors are reflected in miRNA expression. One of the major findings is anexpression signature based on nine miRNAs that with high accuracy (85%) could classify normal and malignant tissues from the transition zone of the prostate. The results furthermore show that the major differences in miRNA expression are found between normal and malignant tissues, rather than between the different zones. In addition, tumors arising in the peripheral zone have fewer changes in miRNA expression compared to tumors in the transition zone, indicating that the peripheral zone is more prone to tumor development compared to the transition zone of the prostate.A crucial step in pre-processing of expression data, in order to differentiate true biological changes, is the normalization step. Therefore, an additional aim of this thesis was to compare different normalization methods for qPCR array data in miRNA expression experiments. The results show that data-driven methods based on quantile normalization performs the best. The results also show that in smaller miRNA expression studies, only investigating a few miRNAs, RNU24 is the most suitable endogenous control gene for normalization.Taken together, the results in this thesis show the importance of miRNAs and the possibility of their future use as biomarkers in the field of prostate cancer.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Holmberg, Linnéa, 1983-
(författare)
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Konsten att producera lärande demokrater
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation builds on the basic question of how individuals are formed and created as citizens in society today, and how individuals construct themselves as citizens in this society. It takes interest in how they are managed to govern themselves through specific constructions of citizenship, and looks at how the exercise of power establishes certain knowledge that affects their view of themselves and generates truths about how they are expected to live their lives. Simultaneously, the dissertation deals with the concept of freedom: what does it mean in contemporary society, how can one be free today, and what dangers might this liberty involve?In a broad sense, the analysis centres on the relationship between education and society; more specifically, it engages with the Swedish education system and its construction and production of desirable citizen subjects. The concrete example deals with the institution called leisure-time centre, with a purpose to investigate and problematise how institutionalised leisure-time is staged and legitimised in Sweden today. The studies take as a common starting point the following research question: how are children and personnel governed discursively in and through leisure-time centres?The first empirical contribution provides historical context for the study. In this, the `problematic leisure-time´ of today is outlined based on education policy documents relevant for children aged 6–13 years. These texts are discussed together with similar texts gathered from two other periods in history in order to give perspective on aspects of the leisure-time centre that may seem obvious in our own time.The first separate article investigates how talk about activities in leisure-time centres is couched in terms of meaningfulness and consists of an analysis of the ideological tension between democracy and authority, which the governmental authority, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (Skolinspektionen), must address in its discursive work. The second article explores how the production of systematic reporting and documentation by personnel in leisure-time centres works through specific self-technologies in the form of confessional practices and which can be said to be primarily about constructing a free but loyal collective subject.The third article problematises the use of democracy as a method to produce specific citizen subjects in leisure-time centres. Children’s councils are analysed, focusing on how different nuances of influence are staged discursively by participating children and personnel. The article highlights how democracy – through pastoral care and in the name of children’s influence – becomes a governmentalising technology that produces an active, responsible and learning citizen.In summary, this dissertation highlights how leisure-time centres are staged and legitimised in Sweden today. The analysis shows how an administration of children and control of the development of society through the autonomous, competent, and voluntarily active individual is apparent; power operates through a perceived freedom in a way that makes the free choice the `right´ choice. With political ideas about forming a forward-looking mentality, children – and personnel – are constructed as a project of learning and improvement.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Karlsson, Björn
(författare)
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A Toolbox for Sensor Data Fusion in Industrial Automation
- 1999
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The work is focused on measurement for support in industrial automation and especially around industrial robots. The main thread in the work is the combination (fusion) of information from different sensors. The applications are disassembly of electrical motors, sensor fusion in industrial safety applications and a new method for calibration of industrial robots.When working with worn out products e.g. electrical motors, there are many different sources of uncertainty. To be able to perform operations on the products a method that can work under uncertainty are needed. It can be hard to decide which method works best in a specific situation. To make it easier a sensor fusion toolbox including different methods can be used. Typical data are tested by the toolbox and the method giving the best result is then used in the specific situation. One possible method is fuzzy measures: statistics and operator knowledge are combined forming possibility measures. These are then fused to give a decision regarding which operation to perform.In the work with disassembly of electrical motors we have studied both commercial sensors, such as vision, accelerometers, current probes and speed counters, and sensors developed at the department, i.e. eddy current probes. One part of the work has been to make the different sensors co-operate, both with each other and with the rest of the system.Safety is important when working with industrial automation. However, a problem with the safety systems of today is that they reduce the flexibility in the work cell. To avoid that we use new sensing methods, which can monitor the critical area and combine their output by sensor fusion. When an intruder is entering the working area, the speed of the equipment is reduced and when the intruder is close to the equipment it will stop.To make general off-line programming of industrial robots possible there is a need of high absolute accuracy. Absolute accuracy here means that different robots reach the same position with sufficient precision when the same robot program controls them. The industrial robots of today have a good relative accuracy, in the sense that a specific robot always reaches the same position as before when controlled by the same program. However, the absolute accuracy is not so high due to insufficient robot mechanics. ABB Robotics has, in co-operation with the division of measurement technology, worked with a concept based on a calibration stick equipped within clinometers and a LVDT. The stick measures, from a carefully determined point in the floor and to different robot positions, the distance using a LVDT, and the angle of inclination using inclinometers.
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| 9. |
- Larsson, Anders, 1977-
(författare)
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Androgen receptors and endocrine disrupting substances
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Throughout the animal kingdom, organisms are dependent on substances such as steroid hormones to help them maintain internal balances. Examples of important tasks that are under regulation of steroid hormones are somatic and gonadal development, sexual performance and behavior (both social and sexual) as well as sex differentiation. Balance in the biology of reproduction is important for all organisms, and is sensitive to alterations and disturbances. If the environment is altered in a manner that lead to higher estrogenic or androgenic levels, the sex ratio of organisms that do not rely on genetic differences in the sex differentiation, will be biased towards more females or males in the population. It has been known for some time that there are pollutants in the environment that affect steroid pathways, such as the estrogenic and thyroid systems, but not much has been known about the androgenic systems. Examples of populations being masculinized have been recorded, and estrogenic compounds have been known to act as antiandrogens, but not until recently the first androgen agonist was identified. We used a combination of in vitro and computational modeling to identify the brominated flame retardant, 1,2-dibromo-4-(1,2-dibromoethyl)cyclohexane, as a potent androgen agonist to the human androgen receptor.In addition to this we cloned and characterized the androgen receptor from, a frequently used model organism, zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a receptor primarily activated by 11-ketotestosterone. This is a feature the zebrafish share with several other teleost fishes, such as the three-spined stickleback. Thus fish androgen receptors differ from most mammalian androgen receptors, where dihydrotestosterone is the most potent activator.
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| 10. |
- Lönngren, Ann-Sofie, 1974-
(författare)
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Att röra en värld : en queerteoretisk analys av erotiska trianglar i sex verk av August Strindberg
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The subject of this dissertation is a queertheoretical analysis of erotic triangles with two men and one woman, in six texts by August Strindberg (1849–1912). The material consists of the novel A Madman’s Defence (1887–88) and the plays Creditors (1888), Playing with Fire (1892), Crime and Crime (1899), Dance of Death I (1901) and To Damascus I–III (1898–1901). Employing a queer understanding of the history of sexuality and a theoretical frame provided mainly by Judith Butler, I interpret the manifestation of “sex” within the above-mentioned texts as constructed by performative means, in particular those intimately linked to expressions of same-sex and different-sex erotic desires. With Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s term “homosocial desire” I direct the attention of the analysis primarily to the dynamic relationship between the male rivals within the erotic triangle. What consequences do the erotic desires have for the gender-categories in the triangular formation, and do they change over a longer time-span in Strindberg’s writings? The result of the study is that the sexual desires of the literary characters within the erotic triangle is of crucial importance for their status as legitimately gendered subjects, and ultimately as acceptable human beings, within the heteronormative context. Moreover, the triangular formation does not alter particularly over time, and the same elements keep occurring with only minor differences between the texts. This process I interpret, within the context of Jacques Derrida’s term “reiteration”, as a means to construct gendered characters that is at one and the same time normative and understandable, as well as dynamic and with a potential for change. In this construction the simultaneous threat and potential of same-sex erotic desires is of crucial importance as it enables new ways to move, create and touch a world.
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