Perceived Barriers to Consumer Acceptance of Smart Homes in The Finnish Market

The objectives of this thesis are to discover the Finnish consumers’ perception of smart homes, the predictors of use intention of smart homes and the acceptance barriers of smart homes among all participants and different subgroups. Finland was discovered to be lagging behind in smart home adoption compared to other Nordic countries, and this thesis aimed to investigate which perceptions may be holding back Finnish consumers from adopting smart homes. The objectives are reached with a factor analysis, reliability and validity analysis and regression analyses. This study is conducted as a replication study of the research by Park et al. (2018) with the same hypotheses to be tested. There are three main findings in this thesis. First, smart homes are perceived as easy to use, enjoyable and useful, but expensive, insecure as well as moderately unreliable and incompatible with people’s lifestyles. Second, use intention is strongly impacted by attitude, perceived usefulness and compatibility, of which attitude is highly motivated by perceived usefulness and ease of use while perceived usefulness is motivated mainly by compatibility and perceived system reliability. Third, acceptance barriers for all participants comprise of perceived unreliability and insecurity, while the older, female, less knowledgeable and less experienced groups introduced more barriers (incompatibility, lack of enjoyment, perceived difficulty of use, perceived high cost and perceived uselessness). The acceptance barriers are suggested as points of improvement in order to accelerate smart home adoption in the Finnish market

Bayesian chronological modelling of the Early Iron Age in Southern Jutland, Denmark

The dissertation investigates temporal processes of change in Early Iron Age material culture from Southern Jutland, Denmark (c.500-200 BC). The chronological framework of the period is mainly based on typo-chronological analyses of metalwork, and to a lesser degree of pottery, from large urnfield cemeteries. The chronological framework is unconstrained by scientific dating, which makes it difficult to correlate metalwork and pottery that appear disproportionate in funerary and settlement contexts. The dissertation continues a long tradition of chronological research using artefact assemblages from the urnfields, but it also presents the first large-scale 14C dataset in support of an absolute chronological framework. The majority of datable material from the urnfields is cremated bone and because 14C dating cremated bone is a relatively new method, it is necessary to investigate methodological aspects relating to laboratory techniques. A laboratory intercomparison demonstrates that differences in pretreatment do not affect the radiocarbon results and that results are reproducible between laboratories (Rose et al. 2019). Another important aspect when dating cremated bone is that it will be affected by wood-age offsets through carbon substitution, effectively causing cause calendar date offsets between the real cremation events and the radiocarbon dates. The dissertation explores statistical modelling of offsets through additional case studies (Rose et al. 2018; Kristiansen et al. forthcoming), before proposing a new statistical model aimed at wood-age offsets in cremated bone (Rose 2020). The new statistical model is based on the empirical distribution of wood-age offset in an experimental dataset and on archaeological combinations of cremated bone and archaeobotanical remains. The statistical model is applied to all dates on cremated bone from 95 burials from three urnfields, Aarupgaard, Aarre and Søhale, in order to take account of their inherent wood-age offsets. The corrected dates provide indirect dates on the associated artefacts of metalwork and pottery and together with prior information on artefact typology and site formation processes (e.g. how the urnfields developed spatially over time) this is combined in a Bayesian framework aimed at modelling temporal processes of change in the material culture. 24 artefact types are modelled and out of these, nine metalwork and five pottery currencies have sufficient dates to be modelled independently. The models support an existing typological sequence of metalwork, but it also suggests that the ceramic sequence needs to be revised. The models suggest discrepancies in existing ceramic sequences (Jensen 2005), and in contrast to earlier works (Becker 1961; Jensen 2005), it is proposed that pins with circular head is treated as a single type regardless of head size. It is also proposed to divide the different types of belt equipment into an early group and a late group to minimize misclassification. The currency models provide a necessary correlation of metalwork and pottery, but they also offer independent evidence of the temporal processes of change in material culture by demonstrating periods with particularly rapid and slower change of the Early Iron Age material culture. The currency models have inhomogeneous temporal structures, with most metalwork being in use for shorter periods than pottery, but how quickly or slowly a type was introduced, and later abandoned, is very individual. Overall metalwork is found to be chronological sensitive, whereas pottery appears to be more conservative in relation to change. The dissertation evaluates the chronological framework based on the new 14C evidence and the transitional from Bronze to Iron Age in Southern Jutland is estimated as a period starting in the early 7th century BC. The Bronze-Iron Age transformation is traditionally considered to occur c.500 BC and to coincide with the introduction of the urnfield phenomenon, but the urnfields are now estimated to start already in the early 6th century BC. The urnfields are abandoned in the last half of the 3rd century BC, which coincides with the traditional transformation from Early to Late Pre-Roman Iron Age c.250-200 BC

I en medarbejders fodspor. Poul Rovsing Olsens samling i Dansk Folkemindesamling

Komponist – jurist – etnolog; en sjælden kombination, der gav sig udslag i en sjælden karriere – gerne med mikrofon i hånd, parat til at dokumentere de mange musikalske universer, der trives udenfor Europa.Komponist – jurist – etnolog; en sjælden kombination, der gav sig udslag i en sjælden karriere – gerne med mikrofon i hånd, parat til at dokumentere de mange musikalske universer, der trives udenfor Europa

Klar! Parat! Arbejdsløs... En antropologisk undersøgelse af dansk arbejdsløshedspolicy og unge, arbejdsløse danskere uden uddannelse

This present study is a qualitative examination of government policy regarding Danish, unemployed and uneducated youths. The empirical basis for the study consists of fieldwork, in the form of participant observation and qualitative interviews. The physical field of study consisted of the municipality of Uddannelsesby. Within the study informants, such as the aforementioned youths, but also municipally hired people, whose jobs consist of actually managing these youths in compliance with government policy, are observed and interviewed. Actual policy demands that people under the age of 30 have to make efforts, in a direction of education, if they want to be eligible for financial support from the state in case of unemployment. Policy in this regard takes the appearance of care and worry, and claims to be developed in the best interest of the youths, which is why one could be puzzled by the occasional objection to this policy. This puzzle is also what inspired this study to delve further into the structures of policy, and investigate its relationship to and effects on the people it governs. The study shows, that neoliberal presentation of social norms, such as the expectancy of obtaining an education as a youth, creates a series of social events, both structurally and individually. Through certain forms of government, such as “friendly power application” and not only sheer force, it is possible to generate circumstances, which make the youths act in accordance to actual policy. Not only do they act in accordance, though. The actual understanding of right and wrong, inherent in individuals, is altered through what Foucault notes as “technologies of the self”. These are in part triggered by the presentation of social norms in government policy. The study also shows that such normalizing methods of government, is not without consequences. Youths do not just assimilate, but seem to develop mentally distorted images of themselves, as they are exposed to what others deem appropriate behavior. This happens as the youths try to stay true to themselves regarding other aspects of life, not necessarily associated with education

ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR BLOCKCHAIN SYSTEMS

Today, enterprise architects and IT systems developers must decide ad hoc how to identify, assess and mitigate ethical issues of autonomous, rule-based systems based on blockchain technology. As blockchain systems are decentralized and immutable, developers must assess ethical risks, not only on an individual and context-based level but on a network level and for all life-cycle stages of a blockchain system. Furthermore, these ethical issues should be addressed in a context of clearly defined values, as the developer otherwise risks encoding their own worldviews and values in the system. We have chosen the European Union as a use case for analysing the identified ethical risks of blockchain systems. This empirical work presents a top-down approach that establishes ethical guidelines for blockchain systems based on ethical issues mapped against European values

Frivillige Samfund: Problemer og Konflikter

Denne opgave handler om frivillige samfund, hvilke problemer og konflikter medlemmerne af sådanne oplever og hvorfor