| 1. |
- Mishra, A, et al.
(författare)
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Diminishing benefits of urban living for children and adolescents' growth and development
- 2023
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Ingår i: Nature. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1476-4687 .- 0028-0836. ; 615:7954, s. 874-883
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Optimal growth and development in childhood and adolescence is crucial for lifelong health and well-being1–6. Here we used data from 2,325 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight from 71 million participants, to report the height and body-mass index (BMI) of children and adolescents aged 5–19 years on the basis of rural and urban place of residence in 200 countries and territories from 1990 to 2020. In 1990, children and adolescents residing in cities were taller than their rural counterparts in all but a few high-income countries. By 2020, the urban height advantage became smaller in most countries, and in many high-income western countries it reversed into a small urban-based disadvantage. The exception was for boys in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in some countries in Oceania, south Asia and the region of central Asia, Middle East and north Africa. In these countries, successive cohorts of boys from rural places either did not gain height or possibly became shorter, and hence fell further behind their urban peers. The difference between the age-standardized mean BMI of children in urban and rural areas was <1.1 kg m–2 in the vast majority of countries. Within this small range, BMI increased slightly more in cities than in rural areas, except in south Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and some countries in central and eastern Europe. Our results show that in much of the world, the growth and developmental advantages of living in cities have diminished in the twenty-first century, whereas in much of sub-Saharan Africa they have amplified.
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| 2. |
- Aramo-Immonen, Heli, 1964-
(författare)
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Project management ontology : the organizational learning perspective
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In a recent interview with the Financial Times, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, Mr. Jeroen van der Veer, said he “keeps faith in ‘elephant’ projects” referring to the Russian gas mega-project that Shell had fallen eight months behind schedule with and had cost overruns twice the original estimate. Mr. van der Veer partially blamed industry-wide factors for this such as an increase in raw material prices, more expensive contractors and exchange rate pressure. But he also implied that the original assessment of the project in 2003 had been too optimistic and that the scope of the mega-project had to be revised. The wisdom he said was that scope changes are basically because you didn’t do enough homework in advance. Even though it is rather easy to feel miserable after such a statement, there is faith left as the chief executive says - if only we had been able to do our homework. This gives me reason enough to concentrate in this research on the construction of a proactive qualitative decision support aid for mega-project management. The main research topic of the dissertation is organizational learning in the field of project management (PM). This study explores project management by providing a PM ontology for managers. The managerial value of the ontology is, for example, lower potential for time and cost overruns and poor project quality, and higher potential for effective and efficient execution of complex projects. Project management essentially aims to combine learning and performance within the project organization to serve the project owners’ strategy. Therefore a proactive vision and co-evolutionary touch is needed to evolve project processes. Project management under high pressure often means utilizing explicit quantitative methods, usually based on reactive calculations. However, the management of uncertainties and risks demands a versatile, qualitative point of view. With quantitative methods we can “price” the risks. With qualitative methods we are able to realize and shape the risks in advance. Therefore project management is the challenge to move the organization towards the common qualitative and quantitative goals during a project lifecycle, i.e. to support organizational learning throughout a long-lasting project. This study introduces a project management ontology – a classification of management disciplines for project managers and a project learning model. Knowledge management theory, activity theory, systems theory and various management practices are discussed in the conceptual part of this thesis. The empirical part of the research concerns a multiple-case study conducted in ten project organizations participating in two large mega-projects. The mega-projects were in the offshore industry and shipbuilding industry. Altogether more than fifty project managers and project team members participated in this research. The empirical results are presented at the end of the introductory essay and in the original publications enclosed in this thesis. Appendixes available from: heli.aramo-immonen@tut.fi
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| 3. |
- Aramo-Immonen, Heli, 1964-, et al.
(författare)
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The significance of formal training in project-based companies
- 2011
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Ingår i: International Journal of Managing Projects in Business/Emerald. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 1753-8378 .- 1753-8386. ; 4:2, s. 257-273
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the significance of formal training in project‐based companies.Design/methodology/approach: First the discussion deals with the concepts of learning, the learning environment, and the motivation to learn in a way in which special focus is on the project team members' motivation to learn. The hypothesis, “People working for project‐based companies are not interested in formal training” is tested by an empirical study, which was conducted on ten Finnish marine and offshore industry companies. Altogether, 54 project team members and project managers attended the multiple‐case study.Findings: According to the results of the study, formal training is not seen as a necessity among the people working for project‐based companies. This seems to mean that nowadays formal training does not play a significant role in the development of project‐based companies. Further, the people do not necessarily have time to reflect because they are being bombarded by urgent problems and pressing deadlines. A lack of time and a feeling of heavy work load seem to be a normal practise.Originality/value: Based upon the paper's findings, further research is suggested that would be focussed first on designing integrated learning environments in project‐based companies' processes, and/or second on the training methods utilized, interaction between trainers and project people, and relevancy and efficiency of formal training offered by training organizations to the project‐based companies.
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