Robotisering i UAV-systemer: Hvordan oppnå forbedret situasjonsbevissthet i NBF?

Denne oppgaven utforsker hvordan robotisering i UAV-systemer kan utnyttes til bedret situasjonsbevissthet i Nettverksbasert Forsvar (NBF). For å finne svar på dette er oppgaven organisert i tre hoveddeler: Første del tydeliggjør definisjoner, konsepter og forutsetninger som står sentralt i oppgavens problemstilling. Denne gjennomgangen viser at evne til situasjonsbevissthet påvirkes av en rekke faktorer, både eksterne og situasjonsbetingede, men framfor alt individets kognitive egenskaper. Tilsvarende påvirkes evne til felles situasjonsbevissthet i NBF av modenhetsfaktorene informasjonsdeling, samhandling og delegering av beslutningsmyndighet. Den første delen avsluttes med en kort forklaring av UAV-systemers oppbygging og en redegjørelse som viser hvilke rammefaktorer og forhold som påvirker hvordan robotisering kan utnyttes. Andre del redegjør for hvordan Norge benytter UAV-systemer i dag, hvordan situasjonsbevissthet dannes i dem, hvilke faktorer som påvirker dette arbeidet og hvilke utfordringer som er forbundet med dette. Denne delen baseres på data fra intervjuer med personell tilknyttet det norske UAV-miljøet. Norge besitter i dag kun stridstaktiske UAV-systemer. Tilbakemeldingene viser at det er krevende å utvikle evne til situasjonsbevissthet i disse systemene da dette avhenger av en rekke kontekstuelle faktorer. Resultatene viser også svekket evne til å etablere felles situasjonsbevissthet i NBF. Oppgavens tredje del analyserer innsamlede data for å avdekke hvilke utfordringer operatører og analytikere må håndtere, og hvilke egenskaper de må ha, for å kunne danne situasjonsbevissthet i UAV-systemer som samhandler nettverksbasert. Resultatene benyttes som utgangspunkt for å drøfte hvordan robotisering i UAV-systemer kan utnyttes til forbedret situasjonsbevissthet i NBF. På kort sikt peker oppgaven på tre bruksområder som er automatisert navigasjon, tracking-teknologi og løsninger for automatisert «tagging» av video med metadata. Oppgavens hovedfunn er imidlertid at utnyttelse av robotisering til forbedret situasjonsbevissthet først og fremst krever en ny og langt mer strukturert tilnærming til lagring og forvaltning av sensordataene som samles inn. Dette må styres av et kompetent fagmiljø som kan forvalte informasjonen og kontinuerlig vurdere hvordan økt bruk av robotisering i UAV-systemer kan supplere den menneskelige kompetansen og bidra til bedret felles situasjonsbevissthet

Legitimacy gaps, taxpayer conflict, and the politics of austerity in the UK

Following the 2008 financial crisis, fiscal deficit reduction has become the name of the game for many Western states. This article uses focus group data to explore the legitimation of austerity in the United Kingdom. It is argued that fiscal consolidation speaks to real concerns citizens have over unfair redistribution to supposed ‘undeserving’ groups. The undeserving rich and poor are stigmatised during times of austerity since they are assumed to take more than they give from the public purse—leaving taxpayers, the assumption goes, to pick up the bill. By speaking to this legitimacy gap between prudent normative expectations and the lived experiences of state profligacy, fiscal consolidation can appear to speak to the interests of ‘the taxpayer’—a group conceptualised as a sense of group position that arises from collective sense-making rather than a pre-given constituency

Power, norms and institutional change in the European Union: the protection of the free movement of goods

How do institutions of the European Union change? Using an institutionalist approach, this article highlights the interplay between power, cognitive limits, and the normative order that underpins institutional settings and assesses their impact upon the process of institutional change. Empirical evidence from recent attempts to reinforce the protection of the free movement of goods in the EU suggests that, under conditions of uncertainty, actors with ambiguous preferences assess attempts at institutional change on the basis of the historically defined normative order which holds a given institutional structure together. Hence, path dependent and incremental change occurs even when more ambitious and functionally superior proposals are on offer

A comparative framework: how broadly applicable is a 'rigorous' critical junctures framework?

The paper tests Hogan and Doyle's (2007, 2008) framework for examining critical junctures. This framework sought to incorporate the concept of ideational change in understanding critical junctures. Until its development, frameworks utilized in identifying critical junctures were subjective, seeking only to identify crisis, and subsequent policy changes, arguing that one invariably led to the other, as both occurred around the same time. Hogan and Doyle (2007, 2008) hypothesized ideational change as an intermediating variable in their framework, determining if, and when, a crisis leads to radical policy change. Here we test this framework on cases similar to, but different from, those employed in developing the exemplar. This will enable us determine whether the framework's relegation of ideational change to a condition of crisis holds, or, if ideational change has more importance than is ascribed to it by this framework. This will also enable us determined if the framework itself is robust, and fit for the purposes it was designed to perform — identifying the nature of policy change

Taxes and Fiscal Sociology

This article reviews recent research in fiscal sociology. We specifically examine contributions to the study of taxation that illuminate core issues in the sociology of contemporary capitalism, including the causes of poverty and inequality in rich countries and of inequality between rich and poor countries. Research on developed countries suggests that tax policy changes are important for explaining rising income inequality, tax policies may structure durable inequalities of race and gender, and earnings-conditional tax subsidies may alleviate poverty more effectively and with less stigma than means-tested social spending. Scholars also find the most generous welfare states rely the most heavily on regressive taxes, although there is disagreement over how this association arises. Comparative research on developing countries shows consumption taxes are more conducive to growth than taxes on income, tax-financed spending benefits growth if it is spent on productive investments, and taxation strengthened democracy and state building in medieval and early modern Europe. However, there is disagreement as to whether taxation contributes to state building in contemporary developing countries and whether foreign aid undermines democracy by undermining taxation. These questions are the focus of considerable current research

Historical institutionalism and the politics of sustainable energy transitions: a research agenda

Improving the understanding of the politics of sustainable energy transitions has become a major focus for research. This paper builds on recent interest in institutionalist approaches to consider in some depth the agenda arising from a historical institutionalist perspective on such transitions. It is argued that historical institutionalism is a valuable complement to socio-technical systems approaches, offering tools for the explicit analysis of institutional dynamics that are present but implicit in the latter framework, opening up new questions and providing useful empirical material relevant for the study of the wider political contexts within which transitions are emerging. Deploying a number of core concepts including veto players, power, unintended consequences, and positive and negative feedback in a variety of ways, the paper explores research agendas in two broad areas: understanding diversity in transition outcomes in terms of the effects of different institutional arrangements, and the understanding of transitions in terms of institutional development and change. A range of issues are explored, including: the roles of electoral and political institutions, regulatory agencies, the creation of politically credible commitment to transition policies, power and incumbency, institutional systems and varieties of capitalism, sources of regime stability and instability, policy feedback effects, and types of gradual institutional change. The paper concludes with some observations on the potential and limitations of historical institutionalism, and briefly considers the question of whether there may be specific institutional configurations that would facilitate more rapid sustainable energy transitions

The Political Economy of Tax Reform in Bangladesh: Political Settlements, Informal Institutions and the Negotiation of Reform

political economy, tax reform, political settlementsThis paper explores the political economy of tax reform in Bangladesh over several decades, shedding light on the complex factors that account for unusually effective and sustained resistance to significant reform. We contend that it is necessary to understand both deep-seated formal and informal institutions and the micro-level incentives that shape the negotiation of short-term reform in order to comprehend tax outcomes. We describe a tax system that is highly informal, largely manual and characterised by high levels of discretion and corruption. However, despite appearing highly dysfunctional on the surface, this system serves the core interests of powerful political, economic and administrative actors. Underpinned by robust informal institutions, the current system delivers low and predictable tax rates to businesses, provides extensive discretion and opportunities for corruption to the tax administration, and acts as an important vehicle for political elites to raise funds and distribute patronage and economic rents. While the tax system has not been without reform, individual reform efforts have been constrained by the parameters of this broader settlement, leaving competing interest groups to pursue strategic gains at the margins while seeking to satisfy external reform demands. This tax bargain reflects Bangladesh’s broader political economy, which is characterised by entrenched informal institutions underpinning the combination of generally weak governance and high levels of economic growth – the so-called ‘paradox of Bangladesh’.DfID, NORA

A guide to using the Theoretical Domains Framework of behaviour change to investigate implementation problems

Background: Implementing new practices requires changes in the behaviour of relevant actors, and this is facilitated by understanding of the determinants of current and desired behaviours. The Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) was developed by a collaboration of behavioural scientists and implementation researchers who identified theories relevant to implementation and grouped constructs from these theories into domains. The collaboration aimed to provide a comprehensive, theory-informed approach to identify determinants of behaviour. The first version was published in 2005, and a subsequent version following a validation exercise was published in 2012. This guide offers practical guidance for those who wish to apply the TDF to assess implementation problems and support intervention design. It presents a brief rationale for using a theoretical approach to investigate and address implementation problems, summarises the TDF and its development, and describes how to apply the TDF to achieve implementation objectives. Examples from the implementation research literature are presented to illustrate relevant methods and practical considerations. Methods: Researchers from Canada, the UK and Australia attended a 3-day meeting in December 2012 to build an international collaboration among researchers and decision-makers interested in the advancing use of the TDF. The participants were experienced in using the TDF to assess implementation problems, design interventions, and/or understand change processes. This guide is an output of the meeting and also draws on the a uthors' collective experience. Examples from the implementation research literature judged by authors to be representative of specific applications of the TDF are included in this guide. Results: We explain and illustrate methods, with a focus on qualitative approaches, for selecting and specifying target behaviours key to implementation, selecting the study design, deciding the sampling strategy, developing study materials, collecting and analysing data, and reporting findings of TDF-based studies. Areas for development include methods for triangulating data, e.g. from interviews, questionnaires and observation and methods for designing interventions based on TDF-based problem analysis. Conclusions: We offer this guide to the implementation community to assist in the application of the TDF to achieve implementation objectives. Benefits of using the TDF include the provision of a theoretical basis for implementation studies, good coverage of potential reasons for slow diffusion of evidence into practice and a method for progressing from theory-based investigation to intervention

Implementation of a Practice Development Model to Reduce the Wait for Autism Spectrum Diagnosis in Adults

This study examined waiting times for diagnostic assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorder in 11 adult services, prior to and following the implementation of a 12 month change program. Methods to support change are reported and a multi-level modelling approach determined the effect of the change program on overall wait times. Results were statistically significant (b = − 0.25, t(136) = − 2.88, p = 0.005). The average time individuals waited for diagnosis across all services reduced from 149.4 days prior to the change program and 119.5 days after it, with an average reduction of 29.9 days overall. This innovative intervention provides a promising framework for service improvement to reduce the wait for diagnostic assessment of ASD in adults across the range of spectrum presentations