Internal communication and its effects on the environmental CSR commitments of organisations

Internal communication is conducted between employees when they interact and exchange information. The communication keeps an organization going and is able to produce an outcome. Therefore, internal communication is essential for any organization in order to be able to achieve their commitments. This study is aimed to describe how environmental CSR commitments are affected by the horizontal internal communication within an organization. In order to answer this has a qualitative research approach been used with semi-structured interviews. The horizontal internal communication is studied at an international consulting business where employees have participated in interviews. The study shows that environmental CSR commitments of the organization are affected by staff defined environmental aspects in different and sometimes contradicting terms. Different understanding and opinions within the organization have resulted in inefficient and restricted horizontal internal communication. Discordant staff has in turn also affected the priority of environmental aspects within team activities. Employees are not on the same side in how environment should be included in team activities which lead to situations where employees choose not to bring up environmental aspects because they know it’s going to cause resistance from other peers. Division and resistance also make the horizontal integration weak between units in the organization which aggravate cooperation in the horizontal internal communication. This is evident in different team activities team folder where names on documents and subfolders often are confusing and it takes time for employees to find information. Aggravation of cooperation also occurs in and around meetings when information doesn’t reach employees who need it. However, cooperation is facilitated in situations where employees help each other to find information. Relations are important for cooperation but today many employees in the organization communicate without any acquaintance. The cooperation would gain from having more diverse experiencies of communicating with each other, which also the interviewees agree on

Support for Technocratic Decision-Making in the OECD Countries: Attitudes toward Apolitical Politics

Treballs Finals de Grau de Ciència Política i de l'Administració, Facultat de Dret, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2013-2014 , Tutor: Joan-Josep VallbéWhy talk about technocracy in a time when democracies are consolidating all over the world? The term rings of something out-dated and archaic, more suited to the Cold War era, or a George Orwell novel. Out of all possible subjects, why dedicate hours of research to this phenomenon which in no way constitutes a threat to the hegemony of liberal democracies today? This paper will argue that technocracy is indeed a relevant concept in modern societies. Not only has the current financial crisis provoked the formation of temporary technocratic governments in certain European countries, but the technocratic framing of policy-questions and the use of expert knowledge to define political goals are characteristics of present-day policy making which have perhaps not received the full scholarly attention they deserve. This paper will insist that technocracy is not only a system of governance where experts rule by virtue of their knowledge; it is a decision-making paradigm functioning within contemporary democracies. The motivations for carrying out this study are both personal and academic. At a personal level, the chance to observe the Spanish government’s policy responses to combat the financial crisis during these past five years has served as a source of motivation for examining technocratic decision-making. Top-down policies have been implemented and justified in terms of efficiency and e↵ectiveness and what has been deemed good for the financial sector and the economic system has been presented as representing the ‘public interest’ without further debate. However, most policies have made “the burden of the mistakes of the rich fall on the poor”(Palat, 2012:1) by cutting public spending where it hurts the most and invariably favouring capital over labour. Unable to counter-argue what prestigious financial institutions claim to be true, citizens have become truly disenfranchised when it comes to influencing the choice of policies to combat the current financial situation. In spite of this, the support for technocratic decision-making is considerably high in Spain and in the countries of the OECD. Questions such as who supports technocratic decisionmaking and what might explain this support inspire further inquiry..

Sweden: Political Developments and Data in 2019

OA via Wiley Jisc agreementPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Crying and feeding problems in infancy and cognitive outcome in preschool children born at risk : a prospective population study

Objective: To investigate whether regulatory problems, i.e., crying and feeding problems in infants > 3 months of age, predict cognitive outcome in preschool children born at risk even when controlled for confounding factors. Methods: A prospective longitudinal study of children born in a geographically defined area in Germany. N = 4427 children of 6705 eligible survivors (66%) participated at all four assessment points (neonatal, 5, 20, and 56 months of age). Excessive crying and feeding problems were measured at 5 months. Mental development was assessed with the Griffiths Scale at 20 months, and cognitive assessments were conducted at 56 months. Neonatal complications, neurological, and psychosocial factors were controlled as confounders in structural equation modeling and analyses of variance. Results: One in five infants suffered from single crying or feeding problems, and 2% had multiple regulatory problems, i.e., combined crying and feeding problems at 5 months. In girls, regulatory problems were directly predictive of lower cognition at 56 months, even when controlled for confounders, whereas in boys, the influence on cognition at 56 months was mediated by low mental development at 20 months. Both in boys and girls, shortened gestational age, neonatal neurological complications, and poor parent-infant relationship were predictive of regulatory problems at 5 months and lower cognition at 56 months. Conclusion: Regulatory problems in infancy have a small but significant adverse effect on cognitive development

Ortnamnen i Göteborgs och Bohus län. 12 : Ortnamnen i Lane härad 1. Bäve och Lane-Ryrs socknar samt Uddevalla stad

Tryckt med anslag från Statens humanistiska forskningsråd.</p

Prosessin mallintaminen ja kehittäminen : Uuden tuotteen implementointi tilaus- toimitusprosessiin

Opinnäytetyön tarkoituksena oli tutkia, kehittää sekä tuottaa pidemmän tähtäimen kehitysideoita uuden tuotealueen valmistukseen Stalatube Oy:n käyttöön. Uusi tuotealue piti sisällään työvaiheita, joita yrityksessä ei aikaisemmin ollut ollut käytössä asiakkaalle myytävien tuotteiden valmistuksessa. Uusien tuotteiden osalta yrityksestä puuttui prosessit tilausten käsittelystä toimitukseen. Joiltain osin olemassa olevia prosesseja oli mahdollista hyödyntää uusien tuotteiden kanssa, mutta suurelta osin prosesseja ei ollut luotu. Tuotteiden myyminen ja valmistaminen oli aloitettu asiakkaan aikataulupaineen vuoksi jo ennen prosessien suunnittelua. Tämä johti tilanteeseen, jossa sekä informaatio- että materiaalivirrat olivat hallitsemattomat. Työssä kuvattiin prosessi Leanin VSM- työkalulla, jossa prosessin eri vaiheet saatiin arvotettua. Lisäksi työssä haastateltiin henkilöstöä heidän näkemyksistään prosessin tilasta sekä toivottavista kehityssuunnista. Lisäksi prosessille luotiin mittareita, joilla prosessin toimintaa on jatkossa mahdollista seurata. Prosessin tutkimisen sekä nopeiden kehitystoimenpiteiden jälkeen prosessin toimintavarmuutta saatiin parannettua. Tutkimuksen aikana prosessin toimitusvarmuus nousi 100%:iin, ja prosessista saatiin poistettua turhia työvaiheita.The subject of this thesis was to study, develop, and implement long-term development ideas for the production of a new product family production at Stalatube Oy. The new product family involved production phases that had not been used earlier in producing customer-related items. For these new products the company was missing all processes from order handling to delivery. It was possible to partly use existing processes with new products, but a majority of the required processes did not exist. Selling and producing the items was started before designing the processes because of schedule pressure of the customer. This led to a situation where both information and material flows were uncontrolled. During the thesis the whole order-delivery process was modeled with the VSM tool of the Lean toolbox. With this tool all process phases were set with values of interest. In addition, personnel related to the order-delivery process were interviewed regarding their visions of the current state of the process and how they think the process would need to develop. Also, metrics for this process was created for measuring and controlling the process in the future. By studying the process and implementing some quick developments, the reliability of the process was improved. During the research, delivery accuracy was improved to 100%, and some unnecessary operations were removed

New methods for protein structure threading and domain identification

The availability of three-dimensional structures of proteins has provided enormous insight into the detailed molecular machinery of the living cell. Since the late 1950s and early 1960s, experimental methods for deriving protein structures have contributed more than 30,000 entries to the Protein Data Bank, representing the collected knowledge of protein and other macromolecular structures. However, sequencing techniques developed since the 1970s have identified numbers of protein sequences that far exceed the current number of experimentally solved structures. Providing alternative methods for deducing structural information of proteins has been one of the goals in the field of structural bioinformatics, in an effort to relieve the pressure put upon experimentalists by using computational methods for protein structure prediction, functional annotation and classification. We have addressed some of these issues and present new methods used primarily for protein structure prediction via homology modelling. Current protein databases classify protein domains into groups based on similar structural features, but this work is manually intense and is not able to keep up with rapid growth in available structural data. Therefore, automated algorithms used to consistently define and systematically identify protein domains have been of increasing importance. Proteins domains are often preferred as templates over intact multi-domain proteins in fold recognition and in homology modelling calculations. A single protein can consist of several domains that may appear in a unique combination compared to proteins in the structure database, therefore sequence-based searches against individual domains more likely to be successful. Therefore we have developed a method of identifying protein domains DOMID. We have approached the structure modelling challenge by deriving a method to perform multiple-template sequence to structure alignment for proteins which is particularly effective for target proteins with low sequence identify to known structures using conserved structural features and sequences similarities

“Let’s all do our part and stream”: : Understanding authorship and agency in online constructions of K-pop stan identity

This thesis examines the role of authorship and agency in the construction of identity within online K-pop standoms. The construction of identity is understood as a continuous discursive and communicative process, in line with historical research on discourse and identity. During the 21st century, Korean pop music has become a worldwide phenomenon, culminating in the band BTS becoming the first South Korean group to top the US Singles chart. The success of K-pop is often attributed to fan-driven, coordinated campaigns on social media platforms. In a world where the self is increasingly constructed through media, and around media objects, it is important to continuously attempt to gain a better understanding of the implications thereof. To capture the deeply mediatised nature of K-pop communities, this study frames their online communicative practices as authorship, to make visible the relationship between authorship and discourse in expressions of identity on social media. A critical discourse analysis is conducted using the discourse-historical approach, exploring the interactive and discursive strategies of so-called BTS stans on Twitter. The combination of authorship and discourse analysis was chosen to capture the initiation and recontextualisation of discourse in the process of communicating via Twitter. The analysis indicates that K-pop stans construct their collective identity through a combination of strategic deployment of discursive strategies and authorial utilising of platform affordances. The construction of collective identity is not one process, but multiple networked and interdependent processes, including but not limited to tweeting and retweeting. Stans of BTS were found to not only construct their individual and collective identities, but the identity of BTS as well.

Djuretik i förskolan : Vilken vägledning ger läroplanen och hur arbetar förskollärare?

I syfte att undersöka om, och i så fall hur, förskollärare arbetar med djuretik som en värderingsfråga undersöks (1) förskollärares tolkning av läroplanens skrivning om ”respekt för allt levande”, (2) hur förskollärare arbetar med värderingsfrågan djuretik och (3) vilken hänsyn de tar till läroplanens krav på saklighet och allsidighet i detta arbete. Empirin bygger på kvalitativa intervjuer med sex förskollärare varav 3 är vegetarianer. Analysen baseras på poststrukturalistisk teori och teori om den dolda läroplanen. Informanterna anger att de arbetar med djuretik i ringa omfattning men visar också att förskollärarna förmedlar omedvetna budskap om djuretik. Hur dessa förskollärare arbetar med djuretik kännetecknas av en relativt stor heterogenitet som delvis är beroende av de intervjuades kostval. Mot bakgrund av att lärarna i denna studie tolkar in djur i läroplanens direktiv om att arbeta för att barn utvecklar ”respekt för allt levande”, dras en slutsats att den lärare som vill arbeta för att barn ska utveckla respekt för djur kan hänvisa till denna skrivning för att rättfärdiga sitt arbete. In order to examine whether and, if so, how preschool teachers work with animal ethics, I investigate (1) preschool teachers' interpretation of the the formulation of the Swedish curriculum about "respect for all living things", (2) how preschool teachers work with issues of animal ethics, and (3) which consideration they give in this work to the curriculum requirements of objectivity and comprehensiveness. The empirical data is based on qualitative interviews with six pre-school teachers whereof three are vegetarians. The analysis is based on poststructuralist theory and theory of the hidden curriculum. The informants tell that they are working with animal ethics to a small extent. However, the teachers do also mediate unconscious messages about animal ethics. How these preschool teachers work with animal ethics is characterized by a relatively high heterogeneity that partly depends on the food choice of the interviewees. Given that the teachers in this study do include the animals when they interpret the curriculum directives on working to ensure that children develop "respect for all living things", I conclude that the teachers who want to work for children to develop respect for animals may refer to this curriculum wording to justify their work.

Slakthusområdets Lärocenter

Byggnaden utgör resurs för ett kluster av gymnasieskolor i och omkring Slakthusområdet i södra Stockholm. Dess program innehåller relativt kontrasterande funktioner, från bibliotek och blackbox till grupprum och kontor. För att byggnaden ska kunna användas tryggt av olika grupper och samtidigt vara tillgänglig för allmänheten har den organiserats, både vertikalt och i plan, med glidande övergångar mellan exponerad offentlighet och slutet privat. I och med den aktuella tomtens djup och programmets ytkrav blir ljus en viktig parameter. Självstabiliserande glasprofilpartier används runtom, ömsom med isolerande, translucenta ilägg, och ömsom som klart glas. Decken runt kärnan utgör en visuellt stimulerande miljö med utsikt, alternativt filtrerat ljus och exponerade bjälklag. Holedeckelement möjliggör bärning i flera riktningar tillsammans med inpassning av installationer och god materialekonomi. De mindre rummen och vrårna som blir allt mer förekommande med byggnadens höjd erbjuder möjlighet för gymnasieelever och eventuella andra användare att hitta sina favoritplatser och göra byggnaden till sin egen.The building is a resource centre for a cluster of upper secondary schools in and around the Slaughterhouse area in southern Stockholm. Its program contains relatively contrasting features, from a library and blackbox to group rooms and offices. In order for the building to securely support different user groups while being accessible to the public, it has been organized, vertically and in plan, with gradual transitions between exposed public and private spaces. With the depth of the current plot and the surface area of ​​the application, light becomes an important parameter. Self-stabilizing glass profiles are used around the buildings perimeter, both with insulating, translucent inserts, and as clear glass. The decks around the core constitute a visually stimulating environment with views, alternatively filtered light and exposed waffle slabs. These Holedeck elements enables multi-directional loadbearing along with fitting of installations and good material economy. The smaller rooms and shelterd corners that become increasingly occuring with the buildings height, offer the opportunity for high school students, and other users, to find their favorite places and make the building their own