Teachers Falling off the Cliff Affordances and Constraints of Social Media in School

In a digitalized society our work environment is highly integrated with our home environment making work boundless both in terms of time and space. The digital work environment risks increased stress. Based on a case study in Swedish schools we investigate how teachers experience the use of social media for work-related purposes. We do so by using the Technology Affordance and Constraints Theory to capture the affordances as well as constraints of this use. Findings show that affordances of social media in schools were increased opportunities for learning, transparency and community building. Constraints were distractions from learning, increased isolation, stress and, above all, lack of guidance in how and when to use social media. We end the paper arguing that lack of policies and guidelines governing the use of social media at work is risking an increase in boundary blurring and potentially more stress

Best practice of digital government in emerging democracies: Illustrations, challenges and reflections of state building processes

Digital government applications and models of-ten add layers to existing structures, organizations, and routines to facilitate public services. In most states digital government is thus added to established structures and organizations, but what hap-pens when e-government develop at as an integrated part of new state building? This is the overall question in this paper presenting an analysis of best practices of e-government in six countries in the Western Balkans – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. The cases of best practice have been identified through an interactive research process, and analyzed through a combined lens of eGovernment stage-models and core public values. The analysis shows how new digital government applications and innovations are designed and used in new democracies as part of new state building structures. The findings indicate a lack of new institutional arrangements for digital government. Taken together it shows that the development of e-government in the Western Balkans follows a path-dependence of other states, in spite of the opportunities for more innovative and sustainable e-government by continuing the institutional reformation

Technological and social adaptation to COVID-19 : Food for Vulnerable Urban Groups in Six Global Cities

This report outlines the results from the research project Food for Urban Life and Localities (FULL) funded by Formas (2020-02864). The research set out to learn how COVID-19 response strategies in six cities (Stockholm, London, Wuhan, Singapore, Sydney, and Seoul) have facilitated access to food for vulnerable groups and how new food supply solutions have emerged through social and technological innovations. This report presents the case of each city in turn and pauses on the role of community-based organisations, ad hoc community initiatives and municipalities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report provides a detailed discussion of local or community-level responses in cities that aim to provide access to food through social and/or technological innovations. The lessons learned are important for the Swedish context in the case of similar events that challenge local access to food. The research collected data through qualitative and quantitative methods and also made use of the breadth of online data sources in response to COVID-19 restrictions on free movement and travelling. The overall finding is that in situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic, local access to food is extremely challenging and cannot be addressed by existing welfare or state arrangements only; civil society organisations and voluntary community organizations (VCOs) step in to fill the gap in public provision; and the stricter the lockdown, the more dependent on civil society response urban areas and communities were

Residential air pollution does not modify the positive association between physical activity and lung function in current smokers in the ECRHS study

Background: Very few studies have examined whether a long-term beneficial effect of physical activity on lung function can be influenced by living in polluted urban areas. Objective: We assessed whether annual average residential concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter with aerodynamic diameters = 2 times and >= 1 h per week) and forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) were evaluated using adjusted mixed linear regression models. Models were conducted separately for never-and current smokers and stratified by residential long-term NO2, PM2.5 mass and PM10 mass concentrations ( 75th percentile (high)). Results: Among current smokers, physical activity and lung function were positively associated regardless of air pollution levels. Among never-smokers, physical activity was associated with lung function in areas with low/medium NO2, PM2.5 mass and PM10 mass concentrations (e.g. mean difference in FVC between active and non-active subjects was 43.0 mL (13.6, 72.5), 49.5 mL (20.1, 78.8) and 49.7 mL (18.6, 80.7), respectively), but these associations were attenuated in high air pollution areas. Only the interaction term of physical activity and PM10 mass for FEV1 among never-smokers was significant (p-value = 0.03). Conclusions: Physical activity has beneficial effects on adult lung function in current smokers, irrespective of residential air pollution levels in Western Europe. Trends among never-smokers living in high air pollution areas are less clear

Disentangling associations between multiple environmental exposures and all-cause mortality: an analysis of European administrative and traditional cohorts

BACKGROUND: We evaluated the independent and joint effects of air pollution, land/built environment characteristics, and ambient temperature on all-cause mortality as part of the EXPANSE project. METHODS: We collected data from six administrative cohorts covering Catalonia, Greece, the Netherlands, Rome, Sweden, and Switzerland and three traditional cohorts in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany. Participants were linked to spatial exposure estimates derived from hybrid land use regression models and satellite data for: air pollution [fine particulate matter (PM 2.5), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), black carbon (BC), warm season ozone (O 3)], land/built environment [normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), distance to water, impervious surfaces], and ambient temperature (the mean and standard deviation of warm and cool season temperature). We applied Cox proportional hazard models accounting for several cohort-specific individual and area-level variables. We evaluated the associations through single and multiexposure models, and interactions between exposures. The joint effects were estimated using the cumulative risk index (CRI). Cohort-specific hazard ratios (HR) were combined using random-effects meta-analyses. RESULTS: We observed over 3.1 million deaths out of approximately 204 million person-years. In administrative cohorts, increased exposure to PM 2.5, NO 2, and BC was significantly associated with all-cause mortality (pooled HRs: 1.054, 1.033, and 1.032, respectively). We observed an adverse effect of increased impervious surface and mean season-specific temperature, and a protective effect of increased O 3, NDVI, distance to water, and temperature variation on all-cause mortality. The effects of PM 2.5 were higher in areas with lower (10th percentile) compared to higher (90th percentile) NDVI levels [pooled HRs: 1.054 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.030-1.079) vs. 1.038 (95% CI 0.964-1.118)]. A similar pattern was observed for NO 2. The CRI of air pollutants (PM 2.5 or NO 2) plus NDVI and mean warm season temperature resulted in a stronger effect compared to single-exposure HRs: [PM 2.5 pooled HR: 1.061 (95% CI 1.021-1.102); NO 2 pooled HR: 1.041 (95% CI 1.025-1.057)]. Non-significant effects of similar patterns were observed in traditional cohorts. DISCUSSION: The findings of our study not only support the independent effects of long-term exposure to air pollution and greenness, but also highlight the increased effect when interplaying with other environmental exposures

Framing Wicked Problems : Case studies on sustainability in healthcare and during the pandemic

Everything should come together, and everything should permeate everything. Trends in governance and policy areas have come to encompass increasingly broader and more diverse issues. For example, sustainable development should guide all parts of government, but there is often little guidance on what this means in practice and how organizations should tackle the diverse issues and challenges of sustainability. Overall, much indicates that the challenges and problems faced by decision-makers in public administration have become increasingly difficult to manage. Some of these problems are particularly challenging and cannot be solved with a short term solution, by a single actor, or by an established method. These problems can only be managed and are referred to as "wicked problems" in the literature. The dissertation focuses on two wicked problems: sustainability and a pandemic. The analysis address how these wicked problems are handled by local public authorities in Sweden. Both problems have an unclear scope, a vague definition, and no definitive solution within reach. The overshadowing argument is that wicked problems need to be framed to be managed through policy mechanisms and implementation processes. The thesis argues that a frame determines and delimits the issue at hand, thus configuring what becomes manageable or not in practice. The dissertation is based on a selection of empirical case studies aimed at observing how governments translate the problems they face by handling both the need to become more sustainable and balancing the needs during a pandemic through changes and modifying the discourse. The study employs an interpretive and constructivist analysis of document studies and interviews with key stakeholders. The overarching conclusions indicate that framing is a central process necessary to move wicked problems forward on the political agenda and make them manageable. In this way, framing helps to delimit the problems; the framing becomes crucial for what becomes manageable and what is left out. Frames have different characteristics, which then influence how the problem is addressed. The conclusions suggest a continued need to make the wickedness of policy problems visible, to consider the larger and more complex aspects of certain political issues, and to strive to identify different mechanisms for managing them. We can see that framing is not just about coping with wicked issues but also about redefining the understanding of wicked problems to align more closely with an organization's limitations and possibilities. Framing offers the possibility to bridge, merge, or even transform our understanding of the wicked problem through the social reality of the organization.Allt ska gå ihop, och allt måste genomsyra allt. Styrtrender och politikområden har kommit att omfatta allt mer och allt bredare frågeställningar. Sammantaget pekar mycket på att de problem som beslutsfattare och verksamheter ställs inför har blivit svårare att hantera. Några av dessa problem är särskilt svåra för offentligheten, och de kan inte lösas på traditionella sätt. Dessa problem kan endast hanteras och kallas i litteraturen för lömska problem. Avhandlingen tar sig an hållbarhet som ett sådant lömskt problem, med fokus på hälso- och sjukvård samt COVID-19-pandemin. Båda fallen har en oklar omfattning, en vag innebörd och det finns heller inget definitivt slut som är nåbart inom en snar framtid. Det övergripande argumentet är att lömska problemen behöver ramas in för att kunna hanteras av organisationer. Ramen avgör och avgränsar sakfrågan, och vad som blir hanterbart eller inte. Analyserna utgår från och bygger på ett urval av empiriska studier om hållbar hälsa samt COVID-19-pandemin. Forskningsdesignen för att studera hanteringen av dessa två lömska problem bygger på en tolkande och konstruktivistisk analys av dokument och intervjuer med nyckelaktörer. De övergripande slutsatserna pekar på att inramning är en central process som gör lömska problem hanterbara. Genom inramning avgränsas problemen; inramningen blir avgörande för vad som blir hanterbart och vad som lämnas utanför. Resultaten visar att organisationer använder olika strategier för att rama in lömska problem. Strategierna bygger på befintliga institutioner och organisatoriska handlingsmönster, med följd att det ursprungliga lömska problemet antingen förbinds, förenas och/eller förändras. Slutsatserna understryker behovet av att fortsätta synliggöra lömska problem inom olika policyområden, att uppmärksamma de större och mer komplexa aspekterna av vissa politiska frågeställningar, samt att fortsätta identifiera olika hanteringsmekanismer

Potential Effects on Travelers’ Air Pollution Exposure and Associated Mortality Estimated for a Mode Shift from Car to Bicycle Commuting

This study aims to use dispersion-modeled concentrations of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and black carbon (BC) to estimate bicyclist exposures along a network of roads and bicycle paths. Such modeling was also performed in a scenario with increased bicycling. Accumulated concentrations between home and work were thereafter calculated for both bicyclists and drivers of cars. A transport model was used to estimate traffic volumes and current commuting preferences in Stockholm County. The study used individuals’ home and work addresses, their age, sex, and an empirical model estimate of their expected physical capacity in order to establish realistic bicycle travel distances. If car commuters with estimated physical capacity to bicycle to their workplace within 30 min changed their mode of transport to bicycle, >110,000 additional bicyclists would be achieved. Time-weighted mean concentrations along paths were, among current bicyclists, reduced from 25.8 to 24.2 μg/m3 for NOx and 1.14 to 1.08 μg/m3 for BC. Among the additional bicyclists, the yearly mean NOx dose from commuting increased from 0.08 to 1.03 μg/m3. This would be expected to yearly cause 0.10 fewer deaths for current bicycling levels and 1.7 more deaths for additional bicycling. This increased air pollution impact is much smaller than the decrease in the total population

Ett skepp kommer plastat : En fallstudie om logistik- och organisationsutveckling inom ett plastdistributionsföretag

Logistikutvecklingen har gått fort de senaste decennierna och det krävs allt större insatser för att hålla sig uppdaterad om de senaste trenderna. Det har visat sig att de flesta studier inom logistik handlar om problem och lösningar som de största företagen ställs inför, därför fokuserar den här studien istället på hur ett medelstort svenskt distributionsföretag arbetar med sin logistik och hur deras organisation är uppbyggd för att klara av att infria företagets högt uppsatta tillväxtmål. Till hjälp har en fallstudie utförts på företaget RBP i Göteborg. Fallstudien är av kvalitativ karaktär och syftet är att undersöka och kartlägga hur RBPs organisations- och kommunikationsstruktur är uppbyggd för att klara av att utveckla sitt logistikarbete. Med hjälp av ett antal semistrukturerade intervjuer med VD, Supply Chain Manager, platschef, inköpare och en säljare samt en grundlig genomgång av sekundärdata såsom årsredovisningar och vetenskapliga artiklar, samlades information om företaget in. En kartläggning av RBP samt en ekonomisk jämförelse med en av deras största konkurrenter gjordes för att utröna företagets plats på marknaden. Utifrån ett analytiskt ramverk som grundar sig i transaktionskostnadsteori men också organisation, kommunikation, information och logistik analyseras den empiri som framkommit genom datainsamling och intervjuer. Studien visar på att det är ett stort steg att ta klivet från ett litet till ett medelstort företag.Den organisatoriska förändring som är nödvändig när ett företag växer ur sin kostym kräver ett ledarskap där visionen tydligt förmedlas och genomsyrar hela organisationen. Det blir svårt att genomföra ett förändringsarbete om inte ledningen är överens om strategier och tillvägagångssätt.Logistics development has evolved over the past few decades, yet more efforts are required to keep up-to-date on the latest trends. Many logistics studies deal with problems and solutions facing the largest companies, whereas the challenges facing smaller companies are less well understood. Therefore, this study focuses on how a medium-sized Swedish distribution company handles its logistics and how the organization is structured to meet the company's goals and growth. A qualitative casestudy has been conducted at the company RBP in Gothenburg. The purpose is to explore and investigate how RBP's organization and communication structure is built to successfully develop its logistics work. Information about the company was collected through a number of five semi-structuredinterviews as well as a thorough review of secondary data such as annual reports andscientific articles. The collected empirical material was then analyzed within ananalytical framework based on transaction cost theory, as well as organization-,communication- and logistics theory. The study indicates a difficulty to expand from a small to a medium-sized company. Thenecessary organizational changes require a leadership that clearly conveys a vision thatpermeates the entire organization. Unless the management agrees on core strategiesand approaches, it will be difficult to implement organizational changes