Management perspective of pig production in Lojsta

At the farm Fride, in Lojsta at the Southern part of Gotland, my family runs a pig production with 80 part-integrated sows in a "Familybox-system". The main parts of the facilities are from the early 90´s and have done their job. The production results have the last years decreased because of new infections so we have to do something before shifting ownership! This degree thesis is meant to answer the question about which the optimal extension would be today. By studying literature, use my own experience and make lots of calculations, I try to find out different opportunities. The word management is in the work title because I think it includes almost everything when we are talking planning of pig production. Studying the literature gave me background information about the different housing systems I discuss. It also gave me important numbers about the levels of straw, manure and feed. The most important material is the description over the farm, the expected production results from PIGWIN and at last the different planning opportunities. I choose to make calculation at four different planning alternatives, each with a three step development. All alternatives and steps are optimal against either using the existing buildings as good as possible or to produce 400 pigs per group for trading. All alternatives ends up with 36 sows in eleven groups, which in the last step after doubling will be 792 sows and farrowing every week. By using the material, I could give suggestion where the new buildings should be placed due to work order, protection against infections and the look of the whole farm. The product levels became after calculation lots of tables, which are mainly discussed in the discussion. Different systems and alternatives also give us different labour consumption which is shown in a few schedules. Apart from this, I also send a questionnaire to slaughterhouses because I wanted to investigate the opportunities to sell the produced pigs. The most important calculation, which is the ground for all calculations, is the tables over the adjusted numbers of animals. Due to that we will have problem to control when the gilts come in heat, we will have pigs born between the groups. These sows and pigs need to be counted in the final calculation to get corrected numbers of animals and product levels. After finding the results and starting the discussion, we can see that some alternatives are better than others. Alternative C, with 160 sows in "FTS-system", is nothing to go for when it needs bigger manure and grain storage, as well as a lot more area for spreading manure. Alternative D, with 48 sows in a modified "Familybox-system" can only be seen as a temporary solution while we are building something bigger. Left are alternative A and B, both with 7 groups in "Growthbox-system" but with different numbers of sows within the groups. My final decision is alternative B with 252 sows, rather than 168 sows, because it is easier to sell 400 growing pigs than 250. It has also a nice solution for the next extension, when we can rebuild the mating area to one farrowing section and one growth section. If we start to build tomorrow, it will be according to alternative B!På gården Fride, i Lojsta på södra Gotland, bedrivs idag produktion med 80 delintegrerade suggor i familjeboxsystem. Större delen av anläggningen är från början av 1990-talet och har sett sina bästa år. Produktionen har de senaste åren gått ner till följd av smittor och då gården står inför ett generationsskifte är det tydligt att någonting måste göras. Detta examensarbete syftar till att besvara frågeställningen om hur den optimala utbyggnaden av grisproduktionen skulle se ut i dagsläget. Genom att gräva i litteraturen, använda egna erfarenheter samt göra mängder av beräkningar försöker jag belysa olika utbyggnadsalternativ. Ordet management finns med i titeln på arbetet då min egen uppfattning är att det mesta som har att göra med planering av grisproduktion ryms i detta. Litteraturstudien syftade till att finna bakgrundsinformation om de olika system som lyfts fram som alternativ i arbetet. Vidare gav den viktiga värden på förväntade produktmängder såsom gödsel, halm och foder. Det bakgrundsmaterial som varit av störst vikt är gårdsbeskrivningen av Fride idag, de förväntade produktionsresultaten kopplade till PIGWIN, samt de olika planeringsalternativen. Jag valde att begränsa mig till att räkna på fyra alternativ i vardera tre steg, samtliga optimerade mot att antingen utnyttja befintliga byggnader till max eller mot att få fram 400 grisar till förmedling. Samtliga alternativ leder så småningom till 11 grupper á 36 suggor, som efter dubblering blir 792 suggor i produktion. Genom att använda materialet kunde jag arbeta fram förlag på var byggnader bör ligga med hänsyn till arbetsflöde, smittskydd och utseende. De ingående produktmängderna blev efter beräkningar till tabeller som i diskussionen stöttes och blöttes. De olika systemen och alternativen leder till olika många grisar, vilket redovisas i ett antal tabeller, samt olika arbetsbelastning, vilket redovisas i ett par olika schema. Dessutom skickades en enkät ut till slakterier för att undersöka möjligheterna att även i framtiden få avsättning för grisarna. Den kanske viktigaste beräkningen som ligger till grund för alla andra är tabellerna över det justerade antalet djur. Eftersom vi har svårt att styra brunsten på den egna rekryteringen så kommer vi att få ett antal kullar som föds mellan grupperna. Dessa suggor och grisar måste räknas in i sammanställningen för att alla värden skall bli korrekta till slut. Efterhand som resultaten redovisas och diskussionen avancerar framåt så utkristalliserar sig något system som bättre. Alternativ C med 160 suggor i FTS-system faller bort då det kräver ny gödselbrunn, utbyggd spannmålsanläggning samt kräver stor spridningsareal. Alternativ D med 48 suggor i ett modifierat familjeboxsystem kan bara ses som en tillfällig lösning i väntan på ett nytt stall. Kvar finns alternativ A och B, med 168 respektive 252 suggor i tillväxtboxsystem. Det som slutligen fäller avgörande och som gör att det senare alternativet rekommenderas är dels det faktum att 400 grisar är lättare att sälja än 250, men framför allt så finns det en smart lösning som underlättar vidare utbyggnad då betäckningsavdelningen lätt kan bli en grisnings- och en tillväxtavdelning. Sätter vi spaden i jorden inom det närmaste året så lär det bli ett bygge enligt alternativ B

News and Participation through and beyond Proprietary Platforms in an Age of Social Media

The link between journalism and participation has since long been envisioned and argued to be an important one. However, it is also a complex link. It encompasses how the news media and their social actors actively work towards enabling and engaging citizens as active participants through the digital infrastructures of their proprietary platforms, as well as the ways citizens potentially make use of such opportunities or not in their everyday lives, and how this affects epistemologies of news journalism. However, to date, journalism studies scholars have mostly focused on positive forms of participatory journalism via proprietary platforms, and thus fail to account for and problematize dark participation and participation taking place on social media platforms non-proprietary to the news media. This introduction, and the thematic issue as a whole, attempts to address this void. The introduction discusses three key aspects of journalism’s relationship with participation: 1) proprietary or non-proprietary platforms, 2) participants, and 3) positive or dark participation

The Dislocation of News Journalism: A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Epistemologies of Digital Journalism

This article focuses on news journalism, social media platforms and power, and key implications for epistemology. The conceptual framework presented is intended to inspire and guide future studies relating to the emerging sub-field of journalism research that we refer to as “Epistemologies of Digital Journalism”. The article discusses the dependencies between news media and social media platforms (non-proprietary to the news media). The authority and democratic role of news journalism pivot on claims that it regularly provides accurate and verified public knowledge. However, how are the epistemic claims of news journalism and the practices of justifications affected by news journalism’s increased dependency on social media platforms? This is the overall question discussed in this article. It focuses on the intricate power dependencies between news media and social media platforms and proceeds to discuss implications for epistemology. It presents a three-fold approach differentiating between (1) articulated knowledge and truth claims, (2) justification in the journalism practices and (3) the acceptance/rejections of knowledge claims in audience activities. This approach facilitates a systematic analysis of how diverse aspects of epistemology interrelate with, and are sometimes conditioned by, the transformations of news and social media

Conversation analysis and power: examining the descendants and antecedents of social action

Conversation Analysis (CA) tends to adopt an ambivalent attitude to the concept of power. The concept is fundamental in sociology but secondary or even disregarded in CA. A closer look at research and the conceptual foundations of CA however demonstrate significant contributions to theories of power. In this paper we aim to demonstrate and discuss these contributions, however, also arguing for an expansion of the CA approach in dialogue with sociological theories to engage in the sociological analysis of power as an essential feature of social relationships and social organization. Based on a general definition of power, as the transformative capacities of social agents in virtue of their social relationships, we discuss how power is interactionally achieved and negotiated, but also conditioned by social institutions and structures that extend beyond the contexts of situated encounters. The paper is divided into two main sections. The first section presents central contributions of CA in relation to the distinctions between power over and power to, authority as a legitimate form of power, and deontics as a key concept in the analysis of power. The second section critically considers the tendency in CA to localize power solely to actions in interaction, and to conflate structure and action, which constraints the analysis and explanations of power. We present examples of how analyses of power, grounded in CA, can be extended to account for the dynamics of social structures and realities beyond the interactional encounters

Comparing TanDEM-X InSAR Forest Stand Volume Prediction Models Trained Using Field and ALS Data

Remote sensing (RS) techniques have been used for mapping forest variables, such as stem volume (important for forest management activities associated with timber production), over large areas which can be updated more frequently than with field inventory (FI) data. In this study, wall-to-wall TanDEM-X synthetic aperture radar images were used as auxiliary RS data for model-based prediction of stand-level volumes for two models, trained using volumes computed from FI (A) and airborne laser scanning estimations (B), respectively. The models were validated with harvester data available for independent stands. It was observed that the performance of model B was slightly better compared to model A based on adjusted R 2 and root mean squared error values. Therefore, it can be concluded that a completely RS based approach for prediction and mapping of stand volumes would be as promising as a method based on FI data along with being cost- and labour-efficient

A Comparison of Model-Assisted Estimators, With and Without Data-Driven Transformations of Auxiliary Variables, With Application to Forest Inventory

Forest information is requested at many levels and for many purposes. Samplingbased national forest inventories (NFIs) can provide reliable estimates on national and regional levels. By combining expensive field plot data with different sources of remotely sensed information, from airplanes and/or satellite platforms, the precision in estimators of forest variables can be improved. This paper focuses on the design-based modelassisted approach to using NFI data together with remotely sensed data to estimate forest variables for small areas, where the variables studied are total growing stock volume, volume of Norway spruce (Picea abies), and volume of broad-leaved trees. Remote sensing variables may be highly correlated with one another and some may have poor predictive ability for target forest variables, and therefore model selection and/or coefficient shrinkage may be appropriate to improve the efficiency of modelassisted estimators of forest variables. For this purpose, one can use modern shrinkage estimators based on lasso, ridge, and elastic net regression methods. In a simulation study using real NFI data, Sentinel 2 remote-sensing data, and a national airborne laser scanning (ALS) campaign, we show that shrinkage estimators offer advantages over the (weighted) ordinary least-squares (OLS) estimator in a model-assisted setting. For example, for a sample size n of about 900 and with 72 auxiliary variables, the RMSE was up to 41% larger when based on OLS. We propose a data-driven method for finding suitable transformations of auxiliary variables, and show that it can improve estimators of forest variables. For example, when estimating volume of Norway spruce, using a smaller expert selection of auxiliary variables, transformations reduced the RMSE by up to 10%. The overall best results in terms of RMSE were obtained using shrinkage estimators and a larger set of 72 auxiliary variables. However, for this larger set of variables, the use of transformations yielded at most small improvements of RMSE, and at worst large increases of RMSE, except in combination with ridge and elastic net regression

Terminal Guidance using Explicit Model Predictive Control

Arbetet har utförts på Saab Bofors Dynamics AB i Linköping och dess syfte är att undersöka möjligheten att applicera teorin för prediktionsreglering, Model Predictive Control (MPC), på guidance systemet i en missil av typen Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (MRAAM). Även implementering via Explicit MPC har undersökts. I tidigare studier har det visat sig att den moderna slutfasstyrningsalgoritmen Linear Quadratic Augmented Proportional Navigation (LQAPN), som återkopplar missilens acceleration och rotation, uppvisar en bättre prestanda än de mer klassiska styrlagarna. Det främsta intresset med denna studie är därför att undersöka hur tillvida en styrlag baserad på MPC kan mäata sig med dessa resultat. Fördelen med att använda MPC är framförallt att man kan ta hänsyn till styrsignalbegränsningar på ett direkt och intuitivt sätt. En nackdel med MPC är beräkningstiden. På senare år har dock forskning bedrivits för att ta fram en variant av MPC som beräknar styrsignalen explicit som en affin funktion av det aktuella tillståndet. Denna metod kallas Explicit MPC och har betraktats som en separat metod i detta arbete. Styrlagen baserad på MPC kallas i detta arbete för Model Predictive Control Augmented Proportional Navigation (MPCAPN) och utmärker sig framförallt i två fall. Dels då så kallade händelsestyrda simuleringar studeras, då den uppvisar ett klart bättre resultat än vad som erhålls med en styrlag baserad på Linear Quadratic Augmented Proportional Navigation (LQAPN). Även vid beräkningar av skjutzoner blir resultaten ibland bättre. Framförallt förbättras den inre skjutgränsen för flygscenariet då målet utför en så kallad ”tunnelroll”

Debatt. Om den förmenta läsningen av ”Variabelanalysensgränser” - Svar till Olle Lundberg

Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv</p

Dagens värnpliktiga för framtida internationella insatser!? : en attitydundersökning bland värnpliktiga vid tre arméförband avseende viljan och de faktorer som kan påverka dagens värnpliktiga att söka internationell tjänst

Under senaste decenniet har Försvarsmakten omstrukturerats och allt färre ungdomar genomför värnplikt. Samtidigt har Sveriges internationella åtaganden ökat vilket fått konsekvenser för rekryteringsbasen och möjligheten till personalförsörjning av förband för internationella insatser. Enligt Målbild 2010 skall 30 % av en ålderskull värnpliktiga rekryteras för att klara av personalförsörjningen. Studien har genomförts som en kvantitativmetod. Arbetssättet har varit deduktivt där motivationsteorier har använts. Utifrån Herzbergs och McClellands motivationsteorier har ett analysverktyg skapats.  I studien deltar 752 värnpliktiga. Inhämtningen av empiri har skett genom gruppenkäter. Dagens värnpliktiga uppdelas i tre tydliga grupperingar varvid cirka 20 % är villiga, 40 % osäkra och 40 % ovilliga till att genomföra internationell tjänst efter genomförd grundutbildning. För att öka ett intresse för internationell tjänst är att de värnpliktiga trivs under grundutbildningen och att de får en bra information/ utbildning i ämnet. De främsta faktorerna som nämns som motiv för att genomföra internationell tjänst är i samtliga grupper ”altruistiska”, ”utmaning/ prestationer”, ”meriter” och ”lön”. Lönen får en tydligare roll som motivationsfaktor för den osäkra och den ovilliga gruppen. Undersökningen visar att det är lättare att rekrytera personal till uppdrag med mindre risker såsom humanitära insatser. Dessutom föredrar de värnpliktiga att uppdraget påbörjas snarast efter utryckning, med mer flexibel tjänstgöringstid. Stor del vill tjänstgöra under sommarhalvåret. En studie bör genomföras för att utröna möjligheten att hur bibehålla den villiga gruppens intresse och hur få den osäkra gruppen att ta ställning för internationell tjänst.During the last decade the Swedish Armed Forces has been reorganised and fewer young people fulfil military service. At the same time, international commitments for Sweden have increased and which have had repercussions on the recruitment system and the possibility of supplying personnel to the units for international missions. According to Vision 2010, 30 % of a year’s conscripts will be recruited so as to manage the supply of personnel. The investigation has been carried out using a quantitative method. The methodology has been deductive wherever motivation theory has been used. Based on Herzberg’s and McClelland’s motivation theories, a tool for analysis has been created. The investigation comprises 752 conscripts. The procurement of empiri has taken place by using group questionnaires. Today’s conscripts are divided into three separate groups where approx. 20% are willing, 40% uncertain and 40% unwilling to do international duty after completion of basic training. In order to increase the interest for international duty it should be ensured that conscripts enjoy their basic training and that they receive sound information/education in the subject. The main factors named by all three groups, as reasons for doing international duty are ”altruistic”, ”challenge/ performance”, ”merit” and ”salary”. “Salary” takes on a more obvious role as a motivation factor for the uncertain and unwilling groups. The investigation shows that it is easier to recruit personnel for missions involving smaller risks such as humanitarian ones. Furthermore, conscripts prefer the mission to commence as soon as possible after demobilisation and with more flexible times of duty. A majority would like to do duty during the period of April-September. An investigation ought to be carried out to establish the possibility of how to retain the interest of the willing group and how to make the uncertain group form an opinion about international duty.Avdelning: ALB - Slutet Mag 3 C-upps.Hylla: Upps. ChP 99-0