In the Procedural Surroundings of Consumer Protection: Online Dispute Resolution, the Adversarial Principle, and Tendencies toward Settlement

The article builds on a pluralistic perspective on law and the understanding that legal research must take into account the procedural and institutional landscape where legal rights are enforced. In relation to online dispute resolution (ODR), two procedural mechanisms, namely the adversarial principle and the tendency toward settlements, are studied and discussed. The adversarial principle (argued to be integral to most ODR procedures) and tendencies toward settlements (also argued to be integral to most ODR procedures) are considered in relation to the overarching (and possibly contradictory) objectives of protecting individual consumer rights and the interest of increasing economic efficiency within the EU’s internal market

Maintenance Knowledge Management with Fusion of CMMS and CM

Abstract- Maintenance can be considered as an information, knowledge processing and management system. The management of knowledge resources in maintenance is a relatively new issue compared to Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) and Condition Monitoring (CM) approaches and systems. Information Communication technologies (ICT) systems including CMMS, CM and enterprise administrative systems amongst others are effective in supplying data and in some cases information. In order to be effective the availability of high-quality knowledge, skills and expertise are needed for effective analysis and decision-making based on the supplied information and data. Information and data are not by themselves enough, knowledge, experience and skills are the key factors when maximizing the usability of the collected data and information. Thus, effective knowledge management (KM) is growing in importance, especially in advanced processes and management of advanced and expensive assets. Therefore efforts to successfully integrate maintenance knowledge management processes with accurate information from CMMSs and CM systems will be vital due to the increasing complexities of the overall systems. Low maintenance effectiveness costs money and resources since normal and stable production cannot be upheld and maintained over time, lowered maintenance effectiveness can have a substantial impact on the organizations ability to obtain stable flows of income and control costs in the overall process. Ineffective maintenance is often dependent on faulty decisions, mistakes due to lack of experience and lack of functional systems for effective information exchange [10]. Thus, access to knowledge, experience and skills resources in combination with functional collaboration structures can be regarded as vital components for a high maintenance effectiveness solution. Maintenance effectiveness depends in part on the quality, timeliness, accuracy and completeness of information related to machine degradation state, based on which decisions are made. Maintenance effectiveness, to a large extent, also depends on the quality of the knowledge of the managers and maintenance operators and the effectiveness of the internal & external collaborative environments. With emergence of intelligent sensors to measure and monitor the health state of the component and gradual implementation of ICT) in organizations, the conceptualization and implementation of E-Maintenance is turning into a reality. Unfortunately, even though knowledge management aspects are important in maintenance, the integration of KM aspects has still to find its place in E-Maintenance and in the overall information flows of larger-scale maintenance solutions. Nowadays, two main systems are implemented in most maintenance departments: Firstly, Computer Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS), the core of traditional maintenance record-keeping practices that often facilitate the usage of textual descriptions of faults and actions performed on an asset. Secondly, condition monitoring systems (CMS). Recently developed (CMS) are capable of directly monitoring asset components parameters; however, attempts to link observed CMMS events to CM sensor measurements have been limited in their approach and scalability. In this article we present one approach for addressing this challenge. We argue that understanding the requirements and constraints in conjunction - from maintenance, knowledge management and ICT perspectives - is necessary. We identify the issues that need be addressed for achieving successful integration of such disparate data types and processes (also integrating knowledge management into the “data types” and processes)

Dimensioneringsmetoder för minskad kapitalbindning i säkerhetslager - Utvärdering av dimensioneringsmetoder och förbättring av praktisk användbarhet

Stock binds capital and this should be of highest concern for companies to minimize. Therefore it is important to design their reorder points in such way that service levels are met while keeping as low capital as possible. How well do the most common dimensioning methods perform with respect to the capital in safety stock and how the parameter is set in the best-of-breed methods to meet a given service? Objectives The project aims to evaluate different design methods of safety stock in terms of capital tied up in safety stock and make the results practically useful. Methods Stock dimensioning methods performance and outcomes evaluated by using a simulation model, where real data from five companies has been used. Conclusions When comparing different dimensioning methods for reorder points is the result that it differs quite a lot in how much capital is tied up in safety stock and the number of units needed in safety stock to obtain desired service capabilities. The best method from the study, in keeping a high order line service with a minimum tied up capital is the shortage cost per order line. When comparing which parameter value that corresponds to a given order line service the methods differs. The lack of correlation between obtained service level and parameter value is especially apparent for time and cost methods. The only method that is fairly consistent in all simulation cases is fill rate (Serv2) whose parameter value is relatively close to the required service level. Since Serv2 is the method that gives the best match between the parameter value and required service level, it can be used to dimension the other methods more accurate. By using Serv2 based methods opens the possibility of dimensioning safety stock in advance with general safety time or shortage cost methods. The study also shows that the best and most accurate method to dimension security layer to achieve a required level of service, given that the demand follows the same pattern, is simulation of demand history

A global view of protein expression in human cells, tissues, and organs

Defining the protein profiles of tissues and organs is critical to understanding the unique characteristics of the various cell types in the human body. In this study, we report on an anatomically comprehensive analysis of 4842 protein profiles in 48 human tissues and 45 human cell lines. A detailed analysis of over 2 million manually annotated, high-resolution, immunohistochemistry-based images showed a high fraction (>65%) of expressed proteins in most cells and tissues, with very few proteins (<2%) detected in any single cell type. Similarly, confocal microscopy in three human cell lines detected expression of more than 70% of the analyzed proteins. Despite this ubiquitous expression, hierarchical clustering analysis, based on global protein expression patterns, shows that the analyzed cells can be still subdivided into groups according to the current concepts of histology and cellular differentiation. This study suggests that tissue specificity is achieved by precise regulation of protein levels in space and time, and that different tissues in the body acquire their unique characteristics by controlling not which proteins are expressed but how much of each is produced

MyEcoCost - forming the nucleus of a novel environmental accounting system: vision, prototype and way forward

The innovative software system "myEcoCost" enables to gather and communicate resource and environmental data for products and services in global value chains. The system has been developed in the consortium of the European research project myEcoCost and forms a basis of a new, highly automated environmental accounting system für companies and consumers. The prototype of the system, linked to financial accounting of companies, was developed and tested in close collaboration with large and small companies. This brochure gives a brief introduction to the vision linked to myEcoCost: a network formed by collaborative environmental accounting nodes collecting environmental data at each step in a product's value chains. It shows why better life cycle data are needed and how myEcoCost addresses and solves this problem. Furthermore, it presents options for a future upscaling of highly automated environmenal accounting for prodcuts and services

Hjälpvetenskap eller vetenskaplig hjälp? Domarens roll i en polycentrisk rättsordning

Abstract Vad ger ett argument mandatet att kallas rättsligt? Uppsatsen söker svara på frågan om hur icke-formella argument ska hanteras, särskilt med fokus på ett domarperspektiv. Som teore-tiskt avstamp jämförs ett polycentriskt synsätt på rättsordningen med en mer traditionell syn på rättskällorna. Den teoretiska grunden används sedan för att jämföra vilka konsekvenser de olika perspektiven får i en konkret hantering av icke-formella juridiska argument, medvetna och omedvetna. För att göra diskussionen mer gripbar används, i del tre, den tvärvetenskapli-ga inriktningen terapeutisk juridik för att exemplifiera argumentationen. Tre nyckelaspekter genomsyrar arbetet. För det första kommer domarrollen att stå som representant för de principiella frågor som behandlas. Anledningen är att domarens beslutstvång och skyldighet att finna välbalanserade och legitima lösningar leder till att de rättsteoretiska frågorna ställs på sin spets. Den andra aspekten diskuterar vilken referens som domaren bör använda sig av för att finna just legitima lösningar. I frånvaron av en formell hierarki måste något annat ta plats, hur bör i så fall en sådan referens se ut? Den sista aspekten berör den demokratiska förankringen. När den formella länken till rättsliga argument upphör, hur kan då en legitim och demokratisk rättstillämpning garanteras? I arbetets slutsats, som till stor del är normativ, föreslås att ett polycentriskt perspektiv innebär ett realistiskt sätt att se på rätten där aspekter som tidigare definierats som utomrättsliga nu, med en polycentrisk metodologi, upptäcks som betydande påverkansfaktorer även ur en intern synvinkel. Domaren ges ett verktyg att på egen hand förstå de normerande processer som konstruerar rätten. De ’metanormer’, dvs. de principer som hjälper domaren att väga andra principer, får större betydelse och de måste därmed synliggöras. Ett medvetet dolt dekonstruerande skulle ge utrymme för illegitima normerande processer. Sökandet efter enhetliga förklaringar, i betydelsen kollektivt accepterade lösningar, måste även fortsättningsvis vara ett ideal. Det kan dock inte fortsätta att vara en förutsatt utgångspunkt. I sökandet efter de rättssäkra, effektiva och legitima lösningarna är externa referenser nödvändiga. Andra vetenskaper än den rättsvetenskapliga bör därmed finnas som ett aktivt moment i domarens arbete

Databases for antibody-based proteomics

Humans are believed to have ~20,500 protein-coding genes andmuch effort has over the last years been put into the characterizationand localization of the encoded proteins in order to understand theirfunctions. One such effort is the Human Proteome Resource (HPR)project, started in Sweden 2003 with the aim to generate specificantibodies to each human protein and to use those antibodies toanalyze the human proteome by screening human tissues and cells.The work reported in this thesis deals with structuring of data fromantibody-based proteomics assays, with focus on the importance ofaggregating and presenting data in a way that is easy to apprehend.The goals were to model and build databases for collecting, searchingand analyzing data coming out of the large-scale HPR project and tomake all collected data publicly available. A public website, theHuman Protein Atlas, was developed giving all end-users in thescientific community access to the HPR database with proteinexpression data. In 2008, the Human Protein Atlas was released in its4th version containing more than 6000 antibodies, covering more than25% of the human proteins. All the collected protein expression datais searchable on the public website. End-users can query for proteinsthat show high expression in one tissue and no expression in anotherand possibly find tissue specific biomarkers. Queries can also beconstructed to find proteins with different expression levels in normalvs. cancer tissues. The proteins found by such a query could identifypotential biomarkers for cancer that could be used as diagnosticmarkers and maybe even be involved in cancer therapy in the future.Validation of antibodies is important in order to get reliable resultsfrom different assays. It has been noted that some antibodies arereliable in certain assays but not in others and therefore anotherpublicly available database, the Antibodypedia, has been createdwhere any antibody producer can submit their binders together withthe validation data in order for end users to purchase the bestantibody for their protein target and their intended assay.QC 2010070

Integration of knowledge management systems and end-user interfaces for MPMM

Maintenance can be considered as a combined information and knowledge processing and management system. Effective knowledge, practices and experiences management is growing in importance, especially in advanced processes and management of advanced and expensive assets. Efforts of integrating maintenance knowledge management (MKM) processes with MKMM will be increasingly more important due to the increasing complexities of these overall systems – the context in which the performance measurements has been performed is also important input in the performance analysis. Integration of MKM in MPMM can result in higher quality of the decisions and actions in the maintenance processes and in the overall work to increase efficiency and decreasing costs in the organizations.Integration of MKM (Maintenance Knowledge Management – knowledge, experiences and practices management) with collaborative structures and interfacing abilities with qualified services for simulation, modeling and computations can be regarded as Intelligence-based Maintenance (iMaintenance).These infrastructures present in iMaintenance can further improve MPMM efforts due to possible utilization of more accurate property and context information and services – changes in installations, environmental factors etc. not easily integrated in current MPMM implementations.Integration of MPMM with iMaintenance solutions can also improve the interaction between management and the maintenance operators and also allow improved interaction and integration with production operators in the organization. MPMM can with this approach be integrated as a natural component in the overall ICT-based maintenance and collaboration solutions – the performance status reporting will be seen as a natural extension to the normal routines. In this context the usability of the end-user environments will be very important – especially when designing systems for mobile use by maintenance operators in the field.Godkänd; 2011; 20120110 (ysko)</p

En utvärdering av en systemförvaltningsmodell

This master thesis was performed in cooperation with SchlumbergerSema. During the project we identified several maintenance methodologies and studied the characteristics of both the ISO and IEEE standard. The base for our evaluation of the CURE maintenance model (developed by SchlumbergerSema) were both the result of our case study that comprised interviews from five maintenance projects as well as maintenance literature available. Both the interviews and the literature studies resulted in lists of requirements that each area make on a maintenance model. We compare the CURE model to the requirements found within these two areas. Based on the result of the comparison we give our recommendations for maintenance in general, maintenance within SchlumbergerSema as well as specific recommendations for the CURE development team. Our conclusions drawn from our work were mostly positive about CURE. However we have suggested several issues for further development such as e.g. certification to a standard. Other conclusions are that no matter what model you choose as a maintenance model, make sure that you implement the model fully. A major pitfall is to allow it to become &quot;just a fancy book on the shelf&quot;.Erik Björling - [email protected] Anna Hoff - [email protected]

En utvärdering av en systemförvaltningsmodell

This master thesis was performed in cooperation with SchlumbergerSema. During the project we identified several maintenance methodologies and studied the characteristics of both the ISO and IEEE standard. The base for our evaluation of the CURE maintenance model (developed by SchlumbergerSema) were both the result of our case study that comprised interviews from five maintenance projects as well as maintenance literature available. Both the interviews and the literature studies resulted in lists of requirements that each area make on a maintenance model. We compare the CURE model to the requirements found within these two areas. Based on the result of the comparison we give our recommendations for maintenance in general, maintenance within SchlumbergerSema as well as specific recommendations for the CURE development team. Our conclusions drawn from our work were mostly positive about CURE. However we have suggested several issues for further development such as e.g. certification to a standard. Other conclusions are that no matter what model you choose as a maintenance model, make sure that you implement the model fully. A major pitfall is to allow it to become &quot;just a fancy book on the shelf&quot;.Erik Björling - [email protected] Anna Hoff - [email protected]