Territorial Cohesion in Europe: for the 70th Anniversary of Transdanubian Research Institute

Dagens standardiserade revisionsberättelse har kritiserats för att den innehåller alltför knapphändig information. Dessutom presenterar den enbart att revisorn tagit ett passivt ansvar i sitt granskningsarbete och ger inte revisorn möjlighet att ta ett aktivt ansvar vid författandet av revisionsberättelsen. För att förbättra detta har IAASB beslutat att införa ett nytt avsnitt, Key Audit Matters, där revisorn förväntas redogöra för väsentliga risker och svårigheter i revisionen. Genom att undersöka vilka områden som utgör Key Audit Matters idag och hur dessa kommuniceras bäst i revisionsberättelsen förväntas studien analysera relationen mellan revisorers ansvar och deras inställning till revisionsberättelsen. För att få en djupare förståelse för forskningsfrågan genomförs en kvalitativ studie där sju auktoriserade revisorer intervjuas från Sveriges fyra största revisionsbyråer. Studien visar att de områden som idag utgör Key Audit Matters framförallt består av bedömnings- och värderingsfrågor, väsentlighetsbedömningar och oegentligheter. Vidare anser inte revisorerna att det är viktigt att kommunicera i revisionsberättelsen och de har således en passiv inställning till denna. Detta indikerar till att KAM kommer bli standardiserad och att IAASB inte kommer få sina förväntningar uppfyllda

Geographies of the University

This open access volume raises awareness of the histories, geographies, and practices of universities and analyzes their role as key actors in today’s global knowledge economy. Universities are centers of research, teaching, and expertise with significant economic, social, and cultural impacts at different geographical scales. Scholars from a variety of disciplines and countries offer original analyses and discussions along five main themes: historical perspectives on the university as a site of knowledge production, cultural encounter, and political interest; institutional perspectives on university governance and the creation of innovative environments; relationships between universities and the city; the impact of universities on national and regional economies and cultures; and the processes of internationalization through student mobility, the creation of education hubs, and global regionalism in higher education

Beyond Participatory Design for Service Robotics

The spread of technologies as Cloud and Distributed Computing, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine Learning techniques comes with highly disruptive innovation potential and consequent design imperatives. High connectivity of devices and machines is shaping not only sensing and monitoring capabilities, but also describing ever more ubiquitous and diffuse computing capabilities, affecting decision-making with a wide range of assisting tools and methods. With the scaling potential of moving beyond its contemporary application such as industrial facilities monitoring, precision farming and agriculture, healthcare and risk management scenarios, RaaS is bound to involve an increasingly fluid and diverse range of users, shaping new socio-technical systems where practices, habits and relationships will evolve in respect to its adoption. On these premises, applied research at Polytechnic Interdepartmental Centre for Service Robotics in Turin, Italy, focuses on the development of a service robotics platform able to operate on the local scale and capable of adapting to evolving scenarios

Enhancing visibility and accessibility of public archives repositories in South Africa

Despite the importance of the visibility and accessibility of public archives repositories, various scholars agreed that these repositories in eastern and southern Africa are not known to and are accessed by few people. This study utilised the concept of soft power as a framework to examine the visibility and accessibility of public archives repositories in South Africa with the view to suggest ways to enhance it. A quantitative approach, informed by post-positivist paradigm was employed, using questionnaires, interviews, content analysis and observation of landmarks to collect data. Public archives repositories in South Africa, Friends of Archives, legislation, annual reports, and landmarks were the universe of analysis whereas archivists working in public programming sections, deputy director of Friends of archives, 2012 to 2016 annual reports, archival legislation, social media links and the public display signage of the Limpopo, Mpumalanga, National Archives and Records Services of South Africa (NARSSA), National Film, Video and Sound Archives (NFVSA), served as a unit of analysis or source of information. The study revealed that collaboration with a good partner, especially civil society, was a key for successful public programming at the lowest cost. Whereas the KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and Western Cape landmarks are visible, the study found that NARSSA, NFVSA, Free State, Limpopo, Northern Cape, North-West and Eastern Cape archives repositories could not easily draw potential users to archives. Furthermore, only Northern Cape and Western Cape provincial archive are active on social media through their departments. The study recommended a visibility and accessibility framework that will provide a foundation and insight on how best public archives could develop and implement integrated and yet impactful public programming activities with less expenses.Information ScienceM. Inf. (Information Science

Towards the collaborative museum? Social media, participation, disciplinary experts and the public in the contemporary museum

This thesis examines the use of social media by museums aiming to establish collaborative relationships with the public. Social media platforms have been widely espoused as transformative in allowing diverse, new or previously excluded audiences to enter into egalitarian, participatory relationships with museums. This thesis deconstructs the concepts of participation and collaboration and identifies the various factors that constrain the extent to which social media enables participatory relationships between previously unequal actors. These factors include the historical disciplinary aims and cultural authority of museums, persistent social inequalities, and the motivations of social media followers. It elucidates crucial questions such as, are various publics enabled to participate on an equal level with each other and with museums? Who benefits from collaborative projects in general and which parties benefit from the use of social media in particular? What are the factors that limit the establishment of collaborative practice? And, conversely, what are the factors that define truly collaborative practice? This research examines museums’ use of and discourses surrounding social media as well as social media followers’ motivations for engaging with museums online. A large body of quantitative and qualitative data gained through in-depth web-based surveys is analysed, primarily using critical discourse analysis, and informed by other critical orientations including media archaeology and the sociology of expertise. The analysis indicates that museums consider social media to be a transformative, democratising technology. However, museums’ acceptance of technologically determinist arguments significantly inhibits positive societal change and the extent to which collaborative relationships can be established with various publics. This research contributes significantly to the existing archaeological and museum studies literature by providing a theoretically and empirically informed critical analysis of the prevailing positive discourses surrounding social media and participation. It has important practical implications for museums in arguing that targeted, critically informed and ethically aware projects are necessary to achieve situations resembling ‘collaboration’. It provides a significant body of data that will inform the formulation and continuation of collaborative projects in museums. Furthermore, it informs broader archaeological debates on involving various publics in archaeological practice. This thesis also demonstrates the importance and effectiveness of critical discourse analysis and related critical approaches for analysing large bodies of qualitative data

The role of libraries in support of academic research: A study of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and the University of Bologna

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the position of communication and science academic libraries supporting chemistry and chemical engineering research at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) in South Africa, and the University of Bologna (UNIBO) in Italy. Structured interviews were conducted with a total of 42 participants which comprised of Chemistry researchers, Chemical Engineering researchers, PhD students and librarians supporting Chemistry and Chemical Engineering departments at CPUT and UNIBO. The main findings were: • ‘Library as space’ still remain an imperative at both institutions in the digital age. • There is a clash between the academic library promoting the Open Access movement and researchers being under pressure to publish in high impact factor journals. • Heavy workloads and staff capacity issues in both case studies was revealed as prohibiting factors among librarians and researchers to keep up with trends. • That the utilisation of social media and Web 2.0 tools for research is a direct result of researchers being prosumers, was found not to be the case. • The communication gap that exists came out strongly in both case studies. • There is a need for librarians to shift the focus more towards supporting postgraduate students with research. Therefore the research communication framework is recommended for both higher education institutions to create a better research environment. Overall the enthusiasm revealed by librarians to keep relevant to provide state of the art research support services which speaks to the trends show promise for the future role of the academic librarian. Further qualitative research in the area of research support services across all disciplines will make a stronger contribution in the field of Library and Information Science