| 1. |
- Tehler, Henrik, et al.
(author)
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Evidence-based disaster risk management : A scoping review focusing on risk, resilience and vulnerability assessment
- 2024
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In: Progress in Disaster Science. - : Elsevier. - 2590-0617. ; 23
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A plethora of methods exist to aid decision-making in mitigating disaster risk, many of which fall into the categories of risk, vulnerability and/or resilience assessment methods. The objective of the present study is to provide an overview of these methods, with a particular focus on evidence that supports their practical implementation. A scoping study of scientific literature reveal 97 distinct methods. Despite the growing interest in publishing new methods, there seems to be a lack of focus on demonstrating their effectiveness in practice. The few contributions that do include some forms of evaluation typically do so by comparing the method’s output with disaster data, by contrasting it with the output of other methods, by having experts evaluate the structure of the method, or by testing the method in practice and evaluating its usage. To further strengthen the relevance of research on this topic, increased attention should be paid to this matter. A good starting point would be to use the ways of evaluation identified in this study and systematically present evidence regarding the practical usefulness of methods for risk, vulnerability and/or resilience assessment.
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| 2. |
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Browser Chance Music
- 2021
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Artistic work (software/multimedia)abstract
- Browser Chance Music lets the audience experience the high-frequency, invisible software activity that occurs in our mobile devices when we browse the web. Billions of citizens browse the web every day, everywhere. This activity is powered by billions of software operations that take care of connecting devices to the web and transporting the information from one side of the world to another. Yet, this amazing software activity is invisible, intangible and unknown by most users.Browser Chance Music explores interactive, spatialized sonification to let users experience this software activity. Through sound, we embody the rich software execution, which is usually disembodied and invisible on a regular interaction with software applications. One challenge we face in this project relates to the significant gap of temporality between the two phenomena: the visible act of browsing is performed at the speed of humans clicking buttons or swiping screens; meanwhile, software that runs in the browser to let humans access the world wide web, operates at a radically different speed, up to thousands of operations per second.
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| 3. |
- Devarakonda, Sravani, et al.
(author)
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Low-grade intestinal inflammation two decades after pelvic radiotherapy.
- 2023
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In: EBioMedicine. - 2352-3964. ; 94
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Radiotherapy is effective in the treatment of cancer but also causes damage to non-cancerous tissue. Pelvic radiotherapy may produce chronic and debilitating bowel symptoms, yet the underlying pathophysiology is still undefined. Most notably, although pelvic radiotherapy causes an acute intestinal inflammation there is no consensus on whether the late-phase pathophysiology contains an inflammatory component or not. To address this knowledge gap, we examined the potential presence of a chronic inflammation in mucosal biopsies from irradiated pelvic cancer survivors.We biopsied 24 cancer survivors two to 20 years after pelvic radiotherapy, and four non-irradiated controls. Using tandem mass tag (TMT) mass spectrometry and mRNA sequencing (mRNA-seq), we charted proteomic and transcriptomic profiles of the mucosal tissue previously exposed to a high or a low/no dose of radiation. Changes in the immune cell populations were determined with flow cytometry. The integrity of the protective mucus layers were determined by permeability analysis and 16S rRNA bacterial detection.942 proteins were differentially expressed in mucosa previously exposed to a high radiation dose compared to a low radiation dose. The data suggested a chronic low-grade inflammation with neutrophil activity, which was confirmed by mRNA-seq and flow cytometry and further supported by findings of a weakened mucus barrier with bacterial infiltration.Our results challenge the idea that pelvic radiotherapy causes an acute intestinal inflammation that either heals or turns fibrotic without progression to chronic inflammation. This provides a rationale for exploring novel strategies to mitigate chronic bowel symptoms in pelvic cancer survivors.This study was supported by the King Gustav V Jubilee Clinic Cancer Foundation (CB), The Adlerbertska Research Foundation (CB), The Swedish Cancer Society (GS), The Swedish State under the ALF agreement (GS and CB), Mary von Sydow's foundation (MA and VP).
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| 4. |
- Gustavsson, Henrik, et al.
(author)
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Model-Based System Engineering Adoption in the Vehicular Systems Domain
- 2022
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In: 2022 17th Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems (FedCSIS). - : IEEE.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- As systems continue to increase in complexity, some companies have turned to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) to address different challenges such as requirement complexity, consistency, traceability, and quality assurance during system development. Consequently, to foster the adoption of MBSE, practitioners need to understand what factors are impeding or promoting success in applying such a method in their existing processes and infrastructure. While many of the existing studies on the adoption of MBSE in specific contexts focus on its applicability, it is unclear what attributes foster a successful adoption of MBSE and what targets the companies are setting. Consequently, practitioners need to understand what adoption strategies are applicable. To shed more light on this topic, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 professionals working in the vehicular domain with roles in several MBSE adoption projects. The aim is to investigate their experiences, reasons, targets, and promoting and impeding factors. The obtained data was synthesized using thematic analysis. This study suggests that the reasons for MBSE adoption relate to two main themes: better management of complex engineering tasks and communication between different actors. Furthermore, engagement, activeness and access to expert knowledge are indicated as factors promoting MBSE adoption success, while the lack of MBSE knowledge is an impeding factor for successful adoption.
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| 5. |
- Gustavsson, Henrik, et al.
(author)
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Success Factors in the Specification of Operational Scenarios - An Industrial Perspective
- 2024
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In: SysCon 2024 - 18th Annual IEEE International Systems Conference, Proceedings. - : IEEE. - 9798350358803
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Requirements elicitation has since long been recognized as critical to the success of requirements engineering, hence also to the success of systems engineering. Achieving sufficient scope and quality in the requirements elicitation process poses a great challenge, given the limited slices of budget and time available for this relatively sizeable activity. Among all predominant requirements elicitation techniques and approaches, operational scenarios development has a special standing and character. The set of operational scenarios is acknowledged as a constituent deliverable in the requirements engineering process, serving many purposes. Hence, ensuring success in the development of operational scenarios constitutes a consequential area of research. In this paper we present the results from an industrial survey on experienced and presumptive success factors in the development of operational scenarios. The survey was done using a strength-based approach, involving engineers and managers in two organizations developing cyber-physical systems in the transportation and construction equipment businesses. Our results suggest that operational scenarios reusability and a collaborative operational scenarios development environment are two prime areas for success. Our study provides two contributions. First, we provide an account of success factors in the view of practitioners. This is fundamental knowledge, since a successful deployment of any state-of-the-art approach and technology in a systems engineering organization needs to take the views of the practitioners into consideration. Second, the study adds input to the body of knowledge on requirements elicitation, and can thereby help generate suggestions on direction for future work by researchers and developers.
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| 6. |
- Gustavsson, Martin G. H., et al.
(author)
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SEEL – The New Test Centre for Research and Development on Electromobility
- 2022
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- SEEL Swedish Electric Transport Laboratory is being established as a new independent test centre for research and development in the field of electromobility including batteries. The aim is to enhance knowledge development and to improve collaboration between enterprises and researchers. Electrification of the transport sector is to be speeded up at SEEL’s facilities in Borås, Gothenburg and Nykvarn in Sweden. SEEL works together with companies from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Poland in an important project of common European interest for batteries, IPCEI Batteries.
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| 7. |
- Gustavsson, Nicklas, et al.
(author)
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Geotextiles and microplastics in Sweden - an assessment
- 2022
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In the EU, there are ongoing efforts that aim to reduce the presence of microplastic release to the environment. In addition to the proposed restriction under REACH of intentionally added microplastics in products, the strategy also includes measures directed towards the unintentional release of microplastics. In a public consultation, the European Commission included questions related to geotextiles and their release of microplastics. In order to map the situation in Sweden and improve knowledge on geotextiles, the Swedish Environmental protection Agency (Swedish EPA) has commissioned Ramboll to provide this information, to assess geotextiles as a source of microplastics in Sweden and to suggest further studies. The information will also provide input to the ongoing governmental assignment the Swedish EPA has on mapping and monitoring plastic flows towards the transition to a circular economy.Geotextiles are synthetic or natural polymeric textile materials used in contact with soil and/or other materials in geotechnical and civil engineering applications. Its use in Europe began in the 1950’s but accelerated during the 1980’s and -90’s. In Sweden, the use of geotextiles was approximately 14900 tonnes in 2021 and its major use was for separation and filtration applications. A vast majority (>95%) of the geotextiles used are made of nonwoven polypropylene (PP). Geotextiles are classified as construction products and fall under Regulation (EU) No 305/2011. To be placed on the EU market, geotextiles must conform with technical criteria, including durability requirements, in harmonised standards and be CE labelled. Since the service life of geotextiles in many applications is expected to be 100 years, not much of the geotextiles used to date have been recovered or treated as waste and very little experience of this therefore exists. Used geotextiles are sorted as either plastic waste or in fractions for combustible waste. Recycled content in geotextile manufacturing is very limited, partly due to limitations of use laid down in the harmonised standards.There is not much research on geotextiles and their release of microplastics. A previous estimation of global geotextile release of microplastics appears to have used flawed assumptions and exaggerates the release. It is known that geotextiles are exposed to several environmental factors that all can contribute to their degradation, of these, exposure to UV-light is arguably the most important. In this study, two cases are identified that could potentially lead to microplastic release. Hydraulic applications, where geotextiles are in contact with water and exposed to several degradation factors, is a higher risk application. The other identified risk is the use of geotextiles for soil applications that are not installed according to manufacturer’s instructions and left exposed to UV and other degradation factors.In this report, it is estimated that geotextiles currently release 2-32 tonnes of microplastics per year in Sweden. The estimation is based on several assumptions regarding release of microplastics due to lack of information. As a comparison, this is similar to other sources of unintentionally released microplastics such as fishing gear (4–46 tonnes/year) or industrial laundry (2–115 tonnes/year). The estimation also shows that the accumulation and ageing of geotextiles may cause this to become a major source of microplastics in the future. In the worst-case scenario, approximately up to 800 tonnes per year would be released by 2050 and in 100 years from now, the amount would be closer to 21 000 tonnes. The calculation includes several limitations and uncertainties and should be seen as an indication until further research is performed.Ramboll proposes to advance the understanding of microplastics release from geotextiles by performing actual measurements, such as leaching tests and to investigate whether also new unused geotextiles release fibres. It is equally important to develop an understanding of the relationship between degradation and microplastics, i.e., what kind of degradation (measured by e.g., strength retention tests) is required to cause microplastics emissions and at what rate.
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| 8. |
- Hartley, Philippa, et al.
(author)
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SKA Science Data Challenge 2: analysis and results
- 2023
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In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 523:2, s. 1967-1993
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) will explore the radio sky to new depths in order to conduct transformational science. SKAO data products made available to astronomers will be correspondingly large and complex, requiring the application of advanced analysis techniques to extract key science findings. To this end, SKAO is conducting a series of Science Data Challenges, each designed to familiarize the scientific community with SKAO data and to drive the development of new analysis techniques. We present the results from Science Data Challenge 2 (SDC2), which invited participants to find and characterize 233 245 neutral hydrogen (H i) sources in a simulated data product representing a 2000 h SKA-Mid spectral line observation from redshifts 0.25-0.5. Through the generous support of eight international supercomputing facilities, participants were able to undertake the Challenge using dedicated computational resources. Alongside the main challenge, 'reproducibility awards' were made in recognition of those pipelines which demonstrated Open Science best practice. The Challenge saw over 100 participants develop a range of new and existing techniques, with results that highlight the strengths of multidisciplinary and collaborative effort. The winning strategy - which combined predictions from two independent machine learning techniques to yield a 20 per cent improvement in overall performance - underscores one of the main Challenge outcomes: that of method complementarity. It is likely that the combination of methods in a so-called ensemble approach will be key to exploiting very large astronomical data sets.
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| 9. |
- Håkansson, Henrik, 1995, et al.
(author)
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Effects on district heating networks by introducing demand side economic model predictive control
- 2024
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In: Energy and Buildings. - 0378-7788. ; 309
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Using economic model predictive control in space heating systems, the heat demand can flexibly be adapted to varying scenarios of conflicting objectives such as thermal comfort, energy consumption, and peak demand. With a controller that minimizes the heating costs subject to thermal comfort constraints within occupancy hours, the resulting heat demand will depend on the cost mechanism. In the context of Swedish district heating networks, optimal demand side control is a multi-objective problem due to variable costs based on both energy consumption and peak demand. By simulating heat demand control using a gray-box model estimated from a Swedish space heating system, we investigate how the established price structures influence the heat load of a population of buildings with economic model predictive control. Our results suggest that by adjusting the incentives from the type of price structures commonly used today, the peak demand can often be reduced by 10-20% with a minor increase in consumption of 1-2%. We also show that by charging the peak demand for multiple buildings collectively, it is financially beneficial to cooperatively control buildings which can reduce the combined consumption and peak demand even further.
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| 10. |
- Håkansson, Henrik, et al.
(author)
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Utilization of convolutional neural networks for HI source finding: Team FORSKA-Sweden approach to SKA Data Challenge 2
- 2023
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In: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 671
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Context. The future deployment of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) will lead to a massive influx of astronomical data and the automatic detection and characterization of sources will therefore prove crucial in utilizing its full potential. Aims. We examine how existing astronomical knowledge and tools can be utilized in a machine learning-based pipeline to find 3D spectral line sources. Methods. We present a source-finding pipeline designed to detect 21-cm emission from galaxies that provides the second-best submission of SKA Science Data Challenge 2. The first pipeline step was galaxy segmentation, which consisted of a convolutional neural network (CNN) that took an HI cube as input and output a binary mask to separate galaxy and background voxels. The CNN was trained to output a target mask algorithmically constructed from the underlying source catalog of the simulation. For each source in the catalog, its listed properties were used to mask the voxels in its neighborhood that capture plausible signal distributions of the galaxy. To make the training more efficient, regions containing galaxies were oversampled compared to the background regions. In the subsequent source characterization step, the final source catalog was generated by the merging and dilation modules of the existing source-finding software SOFIA, and some complementary calculations, with the CNN-generated mask as input. To cope with the large size of HI cubes while also allowing for deployment on various computational resources, the pipeline was implemented with flexible and configurable memory usage. Results. We show that once the segmentation CNN has been trained, the performance can be fine-Tuned by adjusting the parameters involved in producing the catalog from the mask. Using different sets of parameter values offers a trade-off between completeness and reliability.
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