FASTIGHETSNÄRA INSAMLING (FNI) I MÖLNDAL Ett elektoralt förankrat beslut?

För att ställa om till ett hållbart samhälle krävs det stora åtgärder. Ett stort problem står dock i vägen för denna omställning: få personer är beredda att frivilligt ändra sina vanor och beteenden för att leva ett hållbart liv med minsta möjliga miljöpåverkan. Forskning kring demokratiers förmåga att bedriva effektiv miljöpolitik visar på svårigheterna att genomföra kostsamma, styrande miljöpolicys då dessa oftast inte stöds av majoriteten av medborgarna. Ändå införs det miljöpolicys som påverkar människors beteende i en mer miljövänlig riktning i demokratier. Hur går detta till? Denna uppsats syftar till att utreda om denna styrning av medborgarnas beteende sker inom ramarna för valdemokratins kärnmekanismer. Kärnmekanismerna är Mansbridges (2003) normativa teorier om hur valdemokratier bör fungera: antingen berättar politikerna vilka beslut de tänker genomföra innan valet eller så genomför politikerna sina beslut, och kommunicerar ut detta efteråt och inför nästkommande val. För att pröva dessa teorier undersöks införandet av ”Fastighetsnära insamling” (FNI), en beteendestyrande policy som syftar till att få medborgarna i Mölndals stad att källsortera sitt avfall. Det empiriska materialet i form av valmanifest, tidningsartiklar och partiernas hemsidor analyseras med hjälp av ett analysverktyg baserat på kriterier för valdemokratins kärnmekanismer. Resultatet visar att FNI inte var ett vallöfte innan det infördes men att det kommunicerats ut av partierna i samband med beslutet och inför nästkommande kommunalval. Studiens slutsatser är att den offentliga styrning som Fastighetsnära insamling innebär kan anses ha införts inom ramarna för valdemokratins mekanismer men visar också stöd för konflikten mellan demokrati och miljö

How Organisational Support Facilitates the Relationship Between Expatriate Adjustment and Commitment: A Case Study on Finnish Expatriate Managers in China

This Master’s thesis researches key factors which impact expatriate adjustment in expatriate managers. Furthermore, the research aims to find a linkage between successful adjustment and affective expatriate commitment. Due to the highly globalised business world of today, expatriation has become a norm in the workplace, however companies still struggle with maintaining the commitment of the expatriate managers, leading to loss of significant skill and investment. Thus, the end-target of the research study is to provide recommendations for multinational companies sending expatriates on foreign assignments. The key objectives of this study are threefold. Firstly, the study aims to examine which factors influence adjustment in expatriate managers. Secondly, it aims to examine the linkage between expatriate adjustment and commitment. Thirdly, the study examines the role of organisational support in facilitating the relationship between expatriate adjustment and commitment. The research is approached with a qualitative tradition. The data collection is conducted with semi-structured interviews with past expatriate managers. The research study is approached from a case study perspective, focusing on Finnish expatriate managers who have completed assignments in China. Six past expatriate managers were interviewed for the sake of the research. The sample used was relatively homogenous, as all the expatriate managers had somewhat similar demographic backgrounds. All the collected data was transcribed and coded using thematic analysis. The research study has three main findings. Firstly, it concludes that the expatriate adjustment process is a highly complex one and is impacted by myriad factors. Furthermore, the research observes that adjustment is subjective in nature, therefore effects each expatriate in an individual manner. Secondly, the research study identifies a two-directional connection between expatriate adjustment and commitment and notes that ensuring affective commitment in expatriate managers is a highly beneficial long-term investment. Thirdly, the study observes that multinational companies need to find a balance between organisational support and trust. The thesis identifies four recommendations for multinational companies: time, trust, train and tailor. Firstly, companies need to give expatriate managers enough time to prepare for their assignments, so they can acquire any needed country-specific skills. Secondly, expatriate managers should be trusted with relatively loose reins in their professional lives, as they will be more likely to have strong workplace morale and strive for high performance. Thirdly, companies should offer expatriate managers both pre-departure and in-country training to enhance their adjustment and satisfaction. The extent and type of training required is determined by the host country in question. Lastly, expatriate training should be tailored to the specific needs of the expatriate manager

Talking About Sustainability in Teacher Preparation in Finland and the United States

This article reports on empirical research findings from a case study of teacher education in Finland and the United States. A sociological perspective was deployed for investigating how the concept of sustainability was addressed in two teacher education programs. One of the programs was located in Finland and the other in the US. The study was carried out in 2015 and 2016. Seventeen semi-structured, open-ended, audio-recorded interviews form the core of the research materials. A thematic analysis of interviews was conducted for identifying articulations related to sustainability in subject-matter specialized teacher preparation. Findings from this study contribute to research on teacher preparation. Notably, by articulating how context-specific culture and social norms contribute to local models of teacher education. Findings from this study indicate that teacher training practices in Finland have encouraged students to articulate sustainability in relation to critical thinking, whereas in the US, sustainability has been articulated in relation to social justice. The key point supported by the evidence is that sustainability was by teachers and teacher educators conceptualized as being about the popularization of knowledge about ecology and biodiversity. The kind of communication that was by teachers and teacher educators described as effective for popularizing knowledge about scientific phenomena were forms of teaching that expanded on content-specific knowledge by connecting it to ethical and civic frameworks of the societies in which students live

A Critically Informed Teacher Education Curriculum in Global Citizenship Education: Training Teachers as Field Experts and Contributors to Assessment and Monitoring of Goals

A global market of education development has grown since the 1990s. As the circumstances and contexts of education change globally, there is both a need for shared references in teacher education as well as good reasons for contesting unitary efforts to implement policy goals. Specifically, shared global references for teacher education that can be used by teacher education programs, NGOs and civil society for responding to target 4c. of SDG 4.7 are needed. Accordingly, this article proposes guiding principles and outlines a teacher education curriculum for Global Citizenship Education (GCED) that can be adapted to low-income country contexts as well as high-income contexts. Some of the challenges, possibilities and limitations in the preparation of teachers with the skills needed for supporting the development of the next generation of global citizens are described. The analysis presented draws on data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, the OECD teacher survey, indicators developed by the World Bank, and policy efforts to develop a definition of global competence, among other sources. The concluding discussion proposes that an important possibility presents itself in efforts to involve teachers in the monitoring and evaluation of education development goals.The paper draws in part on research conducted during a two-month consultancy in 2019 for the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL)

Extensions and applications of generalized linear mixed models for network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Network meta-analyses of published clinical trials has received increased attention over the past years with some meta-analytic publications having had a big impact on the cost-benefit assessment of important drugs. Much of the research has been based on Bayesian analysis using so called base-line contrast model. The research in network meta-analysis methodology has in parts been isolated from other fields of mathematical statistics and is lacking an integrative framework clearly separating statistical models and assumptions, inferential principles, and computational algorithms. The very extensive past research on ANOVA and MANOVA of un- balanced designs, variance component models, generalised linear models with fixed and/or random effects, provides a wealth of useful approaches and insights. These models are especially common in agricultural statistics and this thesis extended the use of the general statistical methods mainly applied in agricultural statistics to applications of network meta-analysis of clinical trials. The methods were applied to four different research problems in separate manuscripts. The first manuscript was based on a simulated case (based on real example) where some of the trials provided individual patient data and some only aggregated data. The outcome type considered was continuous normally distributed data. This manuscript provides models for jointly model the individual patient data and aggregated data. It was also explored how much information is lost if data is aggregated and how to quantify the amount of lost information. The second manuscript was based a real life dataset with pain medications used in acute postoperative pain. The outcome of interest was binomial, whether a subject experienced pain relief or not. The dataset used for NMA included 261 trials with 52 different treatment and dose combinations, making it extraordinarily rich and large network. The third manuscript developed methods for a case of time-to-event-outcome extracted from published Kaplan-Meier curves of survival analyses. This re-generated individual patient data was then used to model and compare the Kaplan-Meier curves and hazards of different treatments. The fourth manuscript of the thesis was tackling the problem of between-trial variance estimation for a specific method of Hartung-Knapp in classical two-treatment meta-analysis. The main finding of the paper was that in some cases random effect meta-analysis using Hartung-Knapp method may yield shorter confidence intervals for combined treatment effect than fixed effect meta-analysis and therefore the recommendation is to always compare results from Hartung-Knapp method with fixed effect meta-analysis. This thesis explored and developed the use of generalized linear mixed models in a setting of network meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials. In practice the most popular analysis method in the field of network meta-analysis has been the baseline contrast model which is usually fitted in a Bayesian framework. The baseline contrast model and Bayesian estimation provides great flexibility, but also come with some unnecessary complications for certain types of analyses. This thesis showed how methods originally developed and extensively used in agricultural research can be used in other field providing efficient calculation, estimation, and inference. Some of the examples used in this thesis arose from analyses needed for real applications in drug development and were directly used in medical research.  In den letzten Jahren haben Netzwerk-Meta-Analysen von publizierten Ergebnissen klinischer Studien viel Aufmerksamkeit erhalten und die Kosten-Nutzen-Einschätzung wichtiger pharmazeutischer Präparate in erheblichem Umfang beeinflusst. Ein Großteil der methodischen Forschung zur Meta-Analyse konzentrierte sich dabei auf Bayessche Methoden im sogenannten Baseline-Contrast-Modell. Diese methodischen Untersuchungen haben z.T. losgelöst von anderen Bereichen der mathematischen Statistik stattgefunden. Daher fehlte ein integrativer Rahmen, welcher mathematische Modelle und Annahmen, Prinzipien der Inferenz und Algorithmen zur Ermittlung von Effektschätzungen klar voneinander trennte. Die sehr umfangreichen Erkenntnisse zur Varianzanalyse (ANOVA und MANOVA) unbalanzierter Versuchsanordnungen, Varianzkomponentenmodellen sowie generalisierten linearen Modellen mit festen und zufälligen Effekten, welche in der Vergangenheit, nicht zuletzt im Bereich der Agrarwissenschaften, erlangt wurden, sind auch für die Methodik der Meta-Analyse sehr nützlich. Diese Arbeit erweitert die Nutzung solcher Methoden auf die Netzwerk-Meta-Analyse klinischer Studien. Die Anwendung dieser Methoden wird in vier Manuskripten dieser kumulativen Thesis dargestellt. Im ersten Manuskript wird eine Situation untersucht, bei der für einen Teil der untersuchten klinischen Studien individuelle Patientendaten (IPD) vorliegen, für einen anderen Teil indes nur aggregierte Daten (AD). Das Manuskript stellt Modelle vor, welche sich für die gemeinsame Analyse solcher Daten eignen. Es wird angenommen, dass die Daten Normalverteilungen entstammen. Die Daten wurden basierend auf realen Studiendaten simuliert. Das Manuskript untersucht, wieviel Information durch die Datenaggregation verloren geht und wie dieser Informationsverlust quantifiziert werden kann. Das zweite Manuskript untersucht einen Datensatz aus 261 klinischen Studien, in denen insgesamt 52 verschiedene Behandlungen gegen akute postoperative Schmerzen geprüft wurden. Die Zielgröße ist binär und hält fest, ob Schmerzlinderung erzielt wurde oder nicht. Aufgrund der vielen Studien und Behandlungen liegt hier ein aussergewöhnlich umfangreiches und komplexes Netzwerk vor. Im dritten Manuskript werden Methoden zur Analyse von Überlebenszeitdaten vorgestellt. Die Daten wurden mithilfe von Softwaretools aus publizierten Kaplan-Meier-Kurven extrahiert. Die so gewonnenen individuellen Patientendaten wurden benutzt, um die Überlebenskurven zu modellieren und die Hazardraten verschiedener Behandlungen zu vergleichen. Das vierte Manuskript betrachtet einen speziellen Aspekt der Inter-Studien-Varianzschätzung in der klassischen Meta-Analyse mit zwei Behandlungsarmen. Das Hauptergebnis dieser Untersuchung ist, dass die sogenannte Hartung-Knapp-Methode in Modellen mit zufälligen Effekten in bestimmten Fällen zu kürzeren Konfidenzintervallen für die kombinierte Behandlungseffektschätzung führen kann als die entsprechende Schätzung in einem Modell mit festen Effekten. Daher wird empfohlen, in konkreten Analysen beide Methoden zu verwenden und die Ergebnisse zu vergleichen. Übergreifendes Thema dieser Thesis ist die Untersuchung generalisierter linearer gemischter Modelle für Netzwerk-Meta-Analysen klinischer Studien. In der Praxis ist in diesem Bereich das Baseline-Kontrast-Modell mit Bayesschen Effektschätzungen das populärste Modell. Dieses Modell und die Methode der Bayes-Schätzung erlauben hohe Flexibilität, aber in manchen Fällen verkomplizieren sie die Analyse auf unnötige Weise. Diese Arbeit zeigt, wie Methoden, die ursprünglich in den Agrarwissenschaften entwickelt wurden und ausgiebig genutzt werden, auch für die Meta-Analyse klinischer Studien effiziente Schätz- und Inferenzmethoden zur Verfügung stellen. Einige der Beispiele in dieser Arbeit sind durch Anwendungen in der Medikamentenentwicklung motiviert und wurden bereits in konkreten medizinischen Forschungsvorhaben eingesetzt

Climate impact from HVAC systems in the production and construction phase: A case study of two university buildings in Sweden

As of today, the magnitude of the climate impact of the HVAC systems is currently uncertain as few detailed studies have been made on the subject. This study therefore intends to increase the knowledge regarding the climate impact of HVAC systems by calculating the climate impact of two university buildings in Sweden for life cycle phases A1-A5.1 and comparing the results to existing reference values. The results of the climate impact calculations are that the climate impact of Umeå Building is 30 kgCO2e/m2 Atemp, and Nya Konst is 31 kgCO2e/m2 Atemp. The result of the calculation of Umeå Building is based on Construction documents which makes for a sturdier foundation of the results while the result of Nya Konst is based on Project planning documents, that had less information available in them which makes the result more uncertain. The results also show that without a reference building to draw assumptions from when calculating the HVAC system with Project planning documents, it can be hard to achieve a high enough coverage rate to have a solid result. A hotspot analysis shows that by only calculating the six product groups with the largest climate impact for Umeå Building it would correspond to 81% of the total impact from the HVAC system and the calculations would be much quicker. The product groups not calculated could for example be accounted for with an add-on or by coverage rate. Several issues with performing this type of calculations are identified, such as the current lack of EPD´s, difficulties in processing the data provided through BIM-models and the time-consuming work of locating weights and material content for the products. It is therefore suggested that it would be preferable to update the BIM-models to include weight and material content of the HVAC products. This would make the calculations easier and faster to carry out. If also the availability of EPD´s increased, it would also be possible to increase the certainty of the results

Dynamic Environment of the Ranger Spacecraft I Through IX (Final Report)

The dynamic environment of the Ranger spacecraft (I through IX)during the launch portion of flight is defined in this Report. Flight data from each of nine spacecraft launches have been reviewed and are included. The environments receiving emphasis herein include liftoff acoustics, liftoff and transonic vibration, and the transient vibrations of the various pyrotechnic and staging events in the launch sequence. The systems for data acquisition and analysis are briefly described. In addition, post-flight comparison of flight data and ground test specification levels is made, and the dynamic test program is briefly discussed

Linguistic features and their function in different mathematical content areas in TIMSS 2011

This study investigates how written language is used as a resource to express meaning in different mathematical content areas; algebra, geometry, statistics and arithmetic, in the Swedish version of TIMSS 2011. Based on previous research we identify linguistic features that fulfill the function of expressing four central meaning dimensions of written academic language in general and in language used in school mathematics in particular; Packing, Precision, Personification and Presentation of information. These four meaning dimensions constitute the foundation for the analysis. The results show differences in how the language is used within the different mathematical content areas in TIMSS 2011. These differences consist primarily of to what extent the language is subject specific and used to express the specific mathematics in each of the four content areas. In this way the notion of a single mathematical language is also challenged