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Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All Through the Transformation of Food Systems
A Design Science Research Approach to Smart and Collaborative Urban Supply Networks
Urban supply networks are facing increasing demands and challenges and thus constitute a relevant field for research and practical development. Supply chain management holds enormous potential and relevance for society and everyday life as the flow of goods and information are important economic functions. Being a heterogeneous field, the literature base of supply chain management research is difficult to manage and navigate. Disruptive digital technologies and the implementation of cross-network information analysis and sharing drive the need for new organisational and technological approaches. Practical issues are manifold and include mega trends such as digital transformation, urbanisation, and environmental awareness.
A promising approach to solving these problems is the realisation of smart and collaborative supply networks. The growth of artificial intelligence applications in recent years has led to a wide range of applications in a variety of domains. However, the potential of artificial intelligence utilisation in supply chain management has not yet been fully exploited. Similarly, value creation increasingly takes place in networked value creation cycles that have become continuously more collaborative, complex, and dynamic as interactions in business processes involving information technologies have become more intense.
Following a design science research approach this cumulative thesis comprises the development and discussion of four artefacts for the analysis and advancement of smart and collaborative urban supply networks. This thesis aims to highlight the potential of artificial intelligence-based supply networks, to advance data-driven inter-organisational collaboration, and to improve last mile supply network sustainability. Based on thorough machine learning and systematic literature reviews, reference and system dynamics modelling, simulation, and qualitative empirical research, the artefacts provide a valuable contribution to research and practice
Examples of works to practice staccato technique in clarinet instrument
Klarnetin staccato tekniğini güçlendirme aşamaları eser çalışmalarıyla uygulanmıştır. Staccato
geçişlerini hızlandıracak ritim ve nüans çalışmalarına yer verilmiştir. Çalışmanın en önemli amacı
sadece staccato çalışması değil parmak-dilin eş zamanlı uyumunun hassasiyeti üzerinde de
durulmasıdır. Staccato çalışmalarını daha verimli hale getirmek için eser çalışmasının içinde etüt
çalışmasına da yer verilmiştir. Çalışmaların üzerinde titizlikle durulması staccato çalışmasının ilham
verici etkisi ile müzikal kimliğe yeni bir boyut kazandırmıştır. Sekiz özgün eser çalışmasının her
aşaması anlatılmıştır. Her aşamanın bir sonraki performans ve tekniği güçlendirmesi esas alınmıştır.
Bu çalışmada staccato tekniğinin hangi alanlarda kullanıldığı, nasıl sonuçlar elde edildiği bilgisine
yer verilmiştir. Notaların parmak ve dil uyumu ile nasıl şekilleneceği ve nasıl bir çalışma disiplini
içinde gerçekleşeceği planlanmıştır. Kamış-nota-diyafram-parmak-dil-nüans ve disiplin
kavramlarının staccato tekniğinde ayrılmaz bir bütün olduğu saptanmıştır. Araştırmada literatür
taraması yapılarak staccato ile ilgili çalışmalar taranmıştır. Tarama sonucunda klarnet tekniğin de
kullanılan staccato eser çalışmasının az olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Metot taramasında da etüt
çalışmasının daha çok olduğu saptanmıştır. Böylelikle klarnetin staccato tekniğini hızlandırma ve
güçlendirme çalışmaları sunulmuştur. Staccato etüt çalışmaları yapılırken, araya eser çalışmasının
girmesi beyni rahatlattığı ve istekliliği daha arttırdığı gözlemlenmiştir. Staccato çalışmasını yaparken
doğru bir kamış seçimi üzerinde de durulmuştur. Staccato tekniğini doğru çalışmak için doğru bir
kamışın dil hızını arttırdığı saptanmıştır. Doğru bir kamış seçimi kamıştan rahat ses çıkmasına
bağlıdır. Kamış, dil atma gücünü vermiyorsa daha doğru bir kamış seçiminin yapılması gerekliliği
vurgulanmıştır. Staccato çalışmalarında baştan sona bir eseri yorumlamak zor olabilir. Bu açıdan
çalışma, verilen müzikal nüanslara uymanın, dil atış performansını rahatlattığını ortaya koymuştur.
Gelecek nesillere edinilen bilgi ve birikimlerin aktarılması ve geliştirici olması teşvik edilmiştir.
Çıkacak eserlerin nasıl çözüleceği, staccato tekniğinin nasıl üstesinden gelinebileceği anlatılmıştır.
Staccato tekniğinin daha kısa sürede çözüme kavuşturulması amaç edinilmiştir. Parmakların
yerlerini öğrettiğimiz kadar belleğimize de çalışmaların kaydedilmesi önemlidir. Gösterilen azmin ve
sabrın sonucu olarak ortaya çıkan yapıt başarıyı daha da yukarı seviyelere çıkaracaktır
A Consideration of Cooperative Learning to Enhance Pre-service Teachers’ Achievement in Tertiary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Classrooms in Thailand
Cooperative learning has become a popular instructional practice around the world. It requires students working together in small groups to help support each other in maximising their own learning as well as that of others to accomplish a shared goal. A cooperative learning method, especially, Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) developed by Slavin (1982) was implemented in the study. The study investigated the effectiveness of cooperative learning to enhance the English achievement of EFL (English as a foreign language) students in tertiary teacher education in Thailand. It also examined participants’ attitudes towards cooperative learning.
The study began with a structured review of existing empirical studies to establish whether STAD could be a promising method to use in developing English proficiency in EFL and ESL (English as a second language) contexts. The review also helped identify the challenges and barriers to implementing the method and informed the primary research in terms of achievement tests, instructor training, time allowance for team study and material preparation. The review and synthesis of 28 studies revealed several beneficial suggestions regarding cooperative learning implementation in normal educational settings. However, the credibility of the overall evidence was weak, with most studies involving key methodological flaws.
To examine the effectiveness of the method, a cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) at the university level was used. The participants were 13 instructors and 614 students from 13 universities (forming 13 clusters). A total of eight universities that agreed to participate in the intervention were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups with four universities in each group. Another five universities agreed to complete the pre-test and post-test and are described in this thesis as an additional comparison group. The participating instructors were 13 Thai university instructors of English language from 13 Rajabhat Universities in Thailand. Their students were first-year pre-service teachers who were majoring in English in the Faculty of Education. The trial was carried out in one term consisting of 16 class sessions. The research instruments consisted of two parallel standardised English achievement tests, two attitude questionnaires (teacher and student) and classroom observations with ad hoc interviews.
The results showed that the use of cooperative learning in tertiary EFL classrooms in Thailand is feasible. In terms of attitudes, both instructors and students were generally positive towards cooperative learning and supported its activities.
Students in the treatment group did slightly better (ES = +0.09) when compared to all comparator groups. However, when considering the randomised experimental and control groups, the control group improved their post-test score (+0.26) while the experimental group declined (-0.20). Overall, cooperative learning showed no clear benefit for students’ English language achievement.
The process evaluation revealed the key factors that facilitated the implementation were teacher training and support, preparation and availability of teaching resources and materials, teachers’ positive attitudes and the duration of cooperative learning instruction. Some barriers were also found, including students’ negative attitudes, inappropriate classroom settings and facilities, and instructors’ workload.
Unfortunately, since the study was carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, none of the universities were able to complete the course of 16 classes as planned. The number of classes students could meet in their normal classroom conditions was approximately 8 to 12. Different modes of lesson delivery (face-to-face, online and hybrid) were also reported. A replication of the study is needed for a more accurate assessment of the STAD method.
Both the structured review and the cluster RCT suggest no strong evidence that the cooperative learning method, namely STAD, led to improved pre-service teachers’ English language achievement in Thailand. However, this does not necessarily mean the method does not work. The lack of impact might be due to the challenges faced in the delivery of the intervention during the pandemic. This was compounded by the lack of complete randomisation used in the study. It is, therefore, difficult to draw more definite conclusions about the effectiveness of STAD. It might be wise to conduct further robust evaluations involving a large number of educational institutions before any considerable investment can be made to introduce this method in higher education institutions in Thailand. In the meantime, there may be other approaches with a more promising evidence base which may enhance students’ English language achievement
Graphical scaffolding for the learning of data wrangling APIs
In order for students across the sciences to avail themselves of modern data streams, they must first know how to wrangle data: how to reshape ill-organised, tabular data into another format, and how to do this programmatically, in languages such as Python and R. Despite the cross-departmental demand and the ubiquity of data wrangling in analytical workflows, the research on how to optimise the instruction of it has been minimal. Although data wrangling as a programming domain presents distinctive challenges - characterised by on-the-fly syntax lookup and code example integration - it also presents opportunities. One such opportunity is how tabular data structures are easily visualised. To leverage the inherent visualisability of data wrangling, this dissertation evaluates three types of graphics that could be employed as scaffolding for novices: subgoal graphics, thumbnail graphics, and parameter graphics. Using a specially built e-learning platform, this dissertation documents a multi-institutional, randomised, and controlled experiment that investigates the pedagogical effects of these. Our results indicate that the graphics are well-received, that subgoal graphics boost the completion rate, and that thumbnail graphics improve navigability within a command menu. We also obtained several non-significant results, and indications that parameter graphics are counter-productive. We will discuss these findings in the context of general scaffolding dilemmas, and how they fit into a wider research programme on data wrangling instruction
B/order work: recomposing relations in the seamful carescapes of health and social care integration in Scotland
As people, ageing and living with disabilities, struggle with how care is enacted through their lives, integrated care has gained policy purchase in many places, especially in the United Kingdom. Accordingly, there have been various (re)forms of care configurations instigated, in particular, promoting partnership and service redesign. Despite integrations apparent popularity, its contribution to improved service delivery and outcomes for people has been questioned, exposing ongoing uncertainties about what it entails and its associated benefits. Nonetheless, over decades, a remarkably consistent approach to integrated care has advanced collaboration as a solution. Equally, any (re)configurations emerge through wider infrastructures of care, in what might be regarded as dis-integrated care, as complex carescapes attempt to hold and aporias remain.
In 2014, the Scottish Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act mandated Health and Social Care Integration (HSCI), as a means to mend fraying carescapes; a flagship policy epitomising public service reform in Scotland, in which normative aspirations of collaboration are central. What then are the accomplishments of this ambitious legislation? From the vantage point of 2021, HSCI has been assessed as slow and insubstantial, but this is not the complete picture. Narratives about failing to meet expectations obscure more complicated histories of cooperation and discord, successes and failures, and unintended consequences. Yet given collaborative ubiquity, if partnerships are contested how then are they practiced?
To answer this question, I embarked on an interorganisational ethnography of the enactment of a Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP), which went ‘live’ on April 1st, 2016; in a place I call ‘Kintra’. I interrogate what happened when several managers (from the NHS and Council) endeavoured to implement HSCI according to the precepts of the Act; working to both (re)configure and hold things together behind care frontiers; away from the bodywork of direct care, immersed in everyday arrangements in the spaces of governance and operations. I chart their efforts to comply with regulations, plan, and build governance apparatuses through documents. I explore through coalescent objects how distributed forms of governance, entwined in policy implementation, were subsequently both sustained, and challenged. I observed for seven months actors struggling to (re)configure care services embedded in a collaborative approach, as well as establish the legitimacy of the HSCP; exemplified through the fabrication of what was understood as a 'must-do' commissioning plan.
In tracing documents, I show the ways in which HSCI was simultaneously materialised and constituted through documentation. I reveal how, in the mundane mattering of document manufacturing, possibilities for (re)forming the carescape emerged. By delving into inconspicuous, ‘seamful’ b/order work that both sustained distinctions between the NHS and Council and enabled b/order crossings, I expose how actors were knotted, and how this shaped efforts to recompose the contours of the carescape.
While ‘Kintra’s story might be familiar, situated in concerns that may resonate across Scotland; I reveal how collaboration-as-practice is tangled in differing organisational practices, emerging from quotidian intra-actions in meeting rooms, offices, car parks and kitchenettes. I deploy a posthuman practice stance to show not only the way in which public administration ‘does’ care, but it’s world-making through a sociomaterial politics of anticipation.
I was told legislation was the only way to make HSCI in ‘Kintra’ happen, nevertheless, there was resistance to limit the breadth and depth of integrating. Consequently, I show how the (re)organising of b/orders was an always-ongoing act of maintenance and repair of a (dis)integrating carescape; as I learnt at the end of my fieldwork, ‘it’s ‘Kintra, ‘it’s aye been!
Internationalisation dynamics in contemporary South American life sciences: the case of zebrafish
We tend to assume that science is inherently international. Geographical boundaries
are not a matter of concern in science, and when they do – e.g. due to the rise of
nationalist or populist movements – they are thought to constitute a threat to the
essence of the scientific enterprise; namely, the global mobility of ideas, knowledge
and researchers. Quite recently, we also started to consider that research could
become ‘more international’ under the assumption that in doing so it becomes better,
i.e. more collaborative, innovative, dynamic, and of greater quality. Such a positive
conceptualisation of internationalisation, however, rests on interpretations coming
almost exclusively from the Global North that systematically ignore power dynamics
in scientific practice and that regard scientific internationalisation as an unproblematic
transformative process and as a desired outcome.
In Science and Technology Studies (STS), social research on model
organisms is perhaps the clearest example of the influence of the dominant vision of
internationalisation. This body of literature tends to describe model organism science
and their research communities as uniform and harmonious international ecosystems
governed by a strong collaborative ethos of sharing specimens, knowledge and
resources. But beyond these unproblematic descriptions, how does
internationalisation actually transform research on life? To what extent do the power
dynamics of internationalisation intervene in contemporary practices of knowledge
production and diffusion in this field of research?
This thesis revisits the dynamics and practices of scientific internationalisation
in contemporary science from the perspective of South American life sciences. It takes
the zebrafish (Danio rerio), a small tropic freshwater fish, originally from the Ganges
region in India and quite popular in pet shops, as a case study of how complex
dynamics of internationalisation intervene in science. While zebrafish research has
experienced a remarkable growth in recent years at the global scale, in South America
its growth has been unprecedented, allowing average laboratories, which often
operate with small budgets and with less well-developed science infrastructures, to
conduct world-class research.
My approach is based on a consideration of internationalisation as a
conceptual model of change. I consider internationalisation to be a process essentially
marked by tensions in the spatial, cognitive and evaluative dimensions of scientific
practice. These tensions, I claim, are not just a key feature of internationalisation, but
also aspects of a conceptual opposition that is geared towards explaining how change
comes about in science. By studying the dynamics of internationalisation, I seek to
understand various transformations of zebrafish research: from its construction as a
research artefact to its diffusion across geographical boundaries. My focus on South
America, on the other hand, helps me to understand the complexity of such dynamics
beyond the lenses of the dominant discourse of internationalisation that prevails in
the STS literature on model organisms. I use mixed-methods (i.e. semi-structured
interviews, document analysis, bibliometrics and social network analysis) to observe
and interpret transformations of internationalisation at different scales and levels.
My analysis suggests first, that internationalisation played an important role in
the construction of the zebrafish as a model organism and that, in the infrastructures
and practices of resource exchange that sustain the scientific value of the organism
internationally, dynamics of asymmetry and empowerment problematise the
collaborative ethos of this community. Second, I found that collaborative networks –
measured through co-authorships – also played an important role in the diffusion of
zebrafish as a model organism in South America. However, I did not find a clear
indication of international dependency in the diffusion of zebrafish, explained by a
geographical concentration of scientific expertise in the zebrafish collaboration
network. Rather than exposing peripheral researchers to novel ideas, networks of
international collaboration seem to be more related to access to privileged material
infrastructures resulting from the social organisation of scientific labour worldwide.
Lastly, by examining practices of biological data curation and researchers’
international mobility trajectories, I describe how dynamics of internationalisation
shape the notion of research excellence in model organism science. In this case, I
found mobility trajectories to play a key role in boosting researchers’ contributions to
the community’s database, especially among researchers from peripheral
communities like South America. Overall, while these findings show the value of
considering internationalisation as a conceptual model of change in science, more
research is needed on the intervention of complex dynamics of internationalisation in
other cases and fields of research
A Genealogy of Consumer Surveillance: From the First Public Market to Eatons Department Store to Amazon
Consumer surveillance has intensified over time and across differing forms of consumption space and spatial arrangement, which in turn raises the question of what explains the historical changes in the modalities of consumer surveillance. Contemporary surveillance literatures focus primarily on the current phenomenon with little consideration of the historical processes upon which the changes in the scope and intensity of the modalities of consumer surveillance were made possible. My study employs Foucauldian genealogical methodology as a system of inquiry to map the historical transformation in the modalities of consumer surveillance, by utilizing archival records, across three different consumption spaces in key stages of retail development: the first regulatory public market in the Town of York during the pre-industrial period, Eatons department store in the industrial economy, and Amazon that coincided with the rise of information economy. Conversely, contemporary theories of surveillance generally approach the intensification question by focusing on the surveillance-space axis or surveillance-consumption axis, and the spatiality of consumer surveillance is reduced to Foucauldian disciplinary panopticon. Utilizing Foucaults theories of power and governmentality and his intriguing account of the role of space in the exercise of power, my genealogical project examines the intersection of surveillance-space-consumption to understand the intensification of consumer surveillance over time across the three spaces under study. In my genealogical project, I identify five key moments pertaining to differing modalities of consumer surveillance: marketization of space, standardization of consuming bodies, statistification of consumers, virtualization of consumption, and AI inhabitation in consumer spaces. My genealogical project demonstrates that spatiality and spatialization are a recurring issue in differing modalities of consumer surveillance over time. Yet, the spatial techniques have changed and become more complex to augment the scope and intensity of monitoring and gaining of new knowledge about consumers and consumption, as part of long-standing efforts to manage the unpredictable dynamics of consumer behaviour by attaining control over all aspects of consumers life
The Evolution of Smart Buildings: An Industrial Perspective of the Development of Smart Buildings in the 2010s
Over the course of the 2010s, specialist research bodies have failed to provide a holistic view of the changes in the prominent reason (as driven by industry) for creating a smart building. Over the 2010s, research tended to focus on remaining deeply involved in only single issues or value drivers.
Through an analysis of the author’s peer reviewed and published works (book chapters, articles, essays and podcasts), supplemented with additional contextual academic literature, a model for how the key drivers for creating a smart building have evolved in industry during the 2010s is presented. The critical research commentary within this thesis, tracks the incremental advances of technology and their application to the built environment via academic movements, industrial shifts, or the author’s personal contributions.
This thesis has found that it is demonstrable, through the chronology and publication dates of the included research papers, that as the financial cost and complexity of sensors and cloud computing reduced, smart buildings became
increasingly prevalent. Initially, sustainability was the primary focus with the use of HVAC analytics and advanced metering in the early 2010s. The middle of the decade saw an economic transformation of the commercial office sector and the driver for creating a smart building was concerned with delivering flexible yet quantifiably used space. Driven by society’s emphasis on health, wellbeing and productivity, smart buildings pivoted their focus towards the end of the 2010s. Smart building technologies were required to demonstrate the impacts of architecture on the human. This research has evidenced that smart buildings use data to improve performance in sustainability, in space usage or for humancentric outcomes
Negative brand engagement in the online context
This thesis advances the understanding of negative online brand engagement. Previous studies mostly presume consumer brand engagement to be positive. However, many studies highlight the importance of negative online brand engagement and appreciate that it can be more common and potentially more impactful or detrimental to both brands and consumers, particularly in the online context, than positive online brand engagement. Negative online brand engagement is relatively new in the field of marketing and branding research, with no agreement on its conceptualisation and robustly developed measurement. The current thesis aims to address the gap in the conceptualisation and operationalisation and identify and test prominent drivers and outcomes of negative online brand engagement.
The theoretical development involves a systematic literature review of positive consumer engagement, reviews existing articles on negative consumer engagement and builds the foundation for conceptual model development. The empirical analysis adopts a sequential mixed-methods research design. The qualitative study (online observation, semi-structured interviews) was firstly conducted to identify dimensionality, antecedents and outcomes of negative online brand engagement, and develop the conceptual model. Survey data (N=431) were then used in the measurement development and hypotheses testing.
The findings show the multi-dimensional nature of negative online brand engagement, consisting of cognition, affection, online constructive and destructive behaviour. The quantitative results identify six drivers of the phenomenon, namely perceived brand quality, brand failure severity, unacceptable brand behaviour, anti-consumption in general, consumer brand disidentification and oppositional attitudinal loyalty. Finally, the same evidence supports five outcomes including consumers’ intention to participate in anti-brand communities, brand disloyalty, happiness, offline destructive and constructive behaviour.
The thesis offers theoretical and managerial implications. It provides an improved, innovative conceptualisation and a valid measurement of negative online brand engagement and identifies its key drivers and outcomes, none of which have been clearly identified in previous studies. These findings also provide strategic implications for managers to develop the appropriate marketing and branding strategies and avoid or manage the effects of negative online brand engagement
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