Value in S-D logic and economics: Towards a common understanding

Traditionally, economics has had a strong influence on marketing theory. The emergence of service-dominant logic (S-D logic) has challenged this position, based on a seemingly fundamental disagreement about the determination and meaning of value. This paper questions the basis of this disagreement and concludes that it is possible to reconcile the meaning of value in S-D logic and economics under the condition of scarce resources

Implementation of landscape quality in Norwegian policy documents according to the Council of Europe Landscape Convention

Landskap som begrep rommer mye. Europarådets landskapskonvensjon tar sikte på å skape en felles enighet og forståelse om at landskap er et felles gode og en ressurs som må forvaltes. Konvensjonen understreker viktigheten av landskap – alle landskap – fra de sjeldne og fantastiske til hverdagslandskapene og de med stort potensiale for utvikling. Landene som har godkjent konvensjonen skal etter artikkel 6D sette «mål for landskapskvalitet», som innebærer at sektormyndighetene skal sette mål for utvikling av bestemte landskap med hensyn til befolkningens ønsker og preferanser. Innholdet i begrepet landskapskvalitet synes å være uklart, og det er å utforske begrepet som er målet med oppgaven. Hovedproblemstillingen for oppgaven har vært «Hvordan er begrepet landskapskvalitet anvendt i norsk samfunnsplanlegging?» med underproblemstillingen «Hvordan kan begrepet landskapskvalitet forstås i lys av Europarådets landskapskonvensjon?». Metoden som er benyttet i oppgaven er en kvalitativ innholdsanalyse. Det er valgt ut politiske og faglige dokumenter fra tre sektorer; transportsektoren, sektor for kommunal og regional planlegging og energisektoren. Sektorene er valgt ut fordi de jobber med saker som angår landskap. Analysen utforsker hvordan begrepet landskapskvalitet er anvendt i de ulike sektorene. Resultatene viser at landskapskvalitet i mange tilfeller må forstås gjennom andre begrep og uttrykk for at det skal ha et innhold eller en mening. I analysen er landskapskvalitet forstått som det som gir landskapet verdi, etter tolkningen min om at landskapet har en kvalitetsbasert verdi. Konklusjonen i oppgaven er at forvaltningen må jobbe mer målrettet med å oppfylle landskapskonvensjonen gjennom å gi begrepene tydeligere innhold. Dette er avgjørende for at konvensjonen skal kunne implementeres i sektorene som arbeider med landskap og på nasjonalt, regionalt og lokalt forvaltningsnivå. Felles forståelse av landskapskvalitet og fastsettelse av mål for landskapskvalitet kan dermed bidra til en mer integrert samfunnsplanlegging.Landscapes as a concept fathoms a lot. The Council of Europe's Landscape Convention aims to create a common ground and understanding that landscapes are a common good and a resource that must be managed. The convention emphasizes the importance of landscapes - all landscapes - from the rare and wonderful to the everyday landscapes and those with potential for development. The countries that have approved the convention must, in accordance with Article 6D, set "landscape quality objectives", which means that the sectoral authorities must set objectives for the development of specific landscapes with regard to the wishes and preferences of the population. The content of the concept of landscape quality seems to be unclear, and the goal of the thesis is to explore this. The main issue for the thesis has been «How is the concept of landscape quality used in Norwegian community planning?» with the sub-issue «How can the concept of landscape quality be understood in the light of the Council of Europe's landscape convention?». The method used in the thesis is a qualitative content analysis. Political and professional documents from three sectors have been selected; the transport sector, the municipal and regional planning sector and the energy sector. The sectors have been selected because they work with issues related to landscape. The analysis explores how the concept of landscape quality is applied in the various sectors. The results show that landscape quality in many cases must be understood through other concepts and expressions for it to have a content or a meaning. In the analysis, landscape quality is understood as what gives the landscape value, according to my interpretation that the landscape has a quality-based value. The conclusion of the thesis is that the planning administration must work targeted to fulfill the landscape convention by giving the concept landscape quality a more clear meaning. This is crucial for the convention to be implemented in the sectors that work with landscapes and at national, regional and local administrative level. Creating a common understanding of landscape quality and setting goals for landscape quality can thus contribute to a more integrated community planning.M-L

Liberating Structures as Pedagogical Innovation for Inclusive Learning: A Pilot Study in a Norwegian University

Liberating Structures (LSs) are simple and concrete tools that can enhance group performance in diverse organizational settings. They do so by organizing participants in different spatial arrangements and group configurations and by distributing participation and sequencing steps. In this article, we report on a pilot implementation of LS in several classrooms of a business school in a mid-sized Norwegian University. Our research is centred around four guiding research questions to gauge students’ experience of LS, including their sense of inclusion, engagement and LS’ pedagogical effectiveness. A mixed-methods approach was employed, including a quantitative survey, participant observation and debriefing conversations and informal interviews with instructors and students who experienced LS. An exploratory survey instrument was employed to measure the various attributes of LS, and four dimensions were identified and validated. Our findings suggest that LS are easy to implement, help increase participation, have the potential to enhance learning and can represent an effective pedagogical alternative to traditional lecture-centred classrooms. Our pilot study suggests that LS hold the creative potency to enhance both the instructor pedagogical experience and the student learning experience. By identifying the limitations of our pilot study, we call for more rigorous assessments of LS in the future.acceptedVersio

Do We Perform Systematic Literature Review Right? A Scientific Mapping and Methodological Assessment

Background: Systematic literature review (SLR) is increasingly utilized to maximize the element of rigor and minimize the individual bias of research synthesis. An analysis of the Web of Science (WoS) database indicates that 90% of the literature review studies using SLR have been published between 2012 and 2022. However, this progressive agenda is impaired by the lack of methodological consistency and rigorousness. To fill this gap, this paper aims at mapping the theoretical comprehension and practices of SLR and providing a stepwise approach to employing such a framework. Methods: A comprehensive narrative review is used in this paper to analyze the studies concerning the literature review typology and the structural assessment of the SLR. Furthermore, the methodological approach of the literature review studies that adopted the SLR and were published in the Logistics journal is assessed across a set of vital criteria associated with conducting an SLR. Results: There is a concrete link between the purpose of a review, i.e., to describe, test, extend, or critique, and the literature review type. There are 17 distinct literature review types, e.g., a narrative review, a bibliometric analysis, etc., which must be justified meticulously regardless of the SLR. The ambiguity in conceiving the SLR either as a toolkit or a review type, the lack of justification regarding the review purpose and type, and vague conceptual distinguishment between the bibliometric analysis, as a distinct review type, and the SLR framework, are only a few of the shortcomings observed in the analyzed papers. Conclusions: Given the significant role of SLR in elevating the element of rigor within the literature review studies, it is deemed essential to employ this framework by paying attention to two holistic factors: (1) theoretical distinction between the literature review purpose, the literature review type, and the SLR; (2) strict adherence to the SLR procedure with a high degree of accuracy and explicitness

Public-Private Partnership: A Bibliometric Analysis and Historical Evolution

The broad and extensive application of public-private partnership (PPP), as well as the divergent documented definitions and experiences, have led to a translucent perspective of PPP and strained academia and industry to reach a consensus on the major practice of this concept. Early contractor involvement (ECI), governance tools, and relational contracting are only a few of the frameworks attributed to PPP. This issue has received limited attention from researchers, despite the focus of review studies on different disciplines of PPP. Hence, this paper puts forward the idea of conducting a comprehensive review to not only shed light on the major practice of PPP but also provide a wider outlook on this concept based on the research carried out since 1979. A narrative review is initially accomplished to identify the major drivers and milestones that have contributed to the evolution of PPP. Employing bibliometric analysis in the following phase assists in conducting a multi-dimensional assessment of studies published within the last five decades. The economic and societal practices of PPP throughout its evolution path signified the dominant application of this concept as a business model. The bibliometric analysis revealed that PPP has contributed to various sectors, i.e., urban development, public infrastructure, transportation, health, and education, just to name a few. In addition, economic and organizational management of PPP was revealed as a major research stream that was accompanied by sustainable development. As a matter of fact, economic and environmental sustainability are the major cross-disciplinary elements that form an interplay between the drivers and attributes of PPP. Value for money (VfM), technology, and innovation, along with smart infrastructure (SI) and smart cities (SCs), are identified as the major directions for the future research agenda associated with PPP.Public-Private Partnership: A Bibliometric Analysis and Historical EvolutionpublishedVersio

Transport of <i>Sporosarcina pasteurii</i> in sandstone and its significance for subsurface engineering technologies

The development of microbially mediated technologies for subsurface remediation and rock engineering is steadily increasing; however, we are lacking experimental data and models to predict bacterial movement through rock matrices. Here, breakthrough curves (BTCs) were obtained to quantify the transport of the ureolytic bacterium, Sporosarcina pasteurii, through sandstone cores, as a function of core length (1.8–7.5 cm), bacterial density (4 × 10&lt;sup&gt;6&lt;/sup&gt; to 9 × 10&lt;sup&gt;7&lt;/sup&gt; cells/ml) and flow rate (5.8–17.5 m/s). &lt;i&gt;S. pasteurii&lt;/i&gt; was easily immobilised within the homogeneous sandstone matrix (&gt;80%) in comparison to a packed sand column (&lt;20%; under similar experimental conditions), and percentage recovery decreased almost linearly with increasing rock core length. Moreover, a decrease in bacterial density or flow rate enhanced bacterial retention. A numerical model based on 1D advection dispersion models used for unconsolidated sand was fitted to the BTC data obtained here for sandstone. Good agreement between data and model was obtained at shorter rock core lengths (&lt;4 cm), suggesting that physicochemical filtration processes are similar in homogeneous packed sand and sandstones at these lengths. Discrepancies were, however observed at longer core lengths and with varying flow rates, indicating that the attributes of consolidated rock might impact bacterial transport progressively more with increasing core length. Implications of these results on microbial mineralisation technologies currently being developed for sealing fluid paths in subsurface environment is discussed

Reconstructing historical patterns of primary production in Puget Sound using growth increment data from shells of long-lived geoducks (Panopea generosa)

Bottom-up hypotheses predict that changes in primary production affect marine survival of species like Pacific salmon. Long term records of primary production would provide important data to test these predictions. However, direct observations of primary production (in situ fluorometers, water chemistry, and satellite observations of color back-scatter) have relatively short time series (\u3c 30 years). We investigated whether growth increments of geoduck clams (Panopea generosa) are correlated with primary production in different sub-basins of greater Puget Sound. Geoduck are long-lived (older specimens live \u3e100 years), widely distributed throughout the Salish Sea, and deposit annual growth rings in their shells. Shell samples from aged geoducks were by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in four sub-basins within greater Puget Sound (Strait of Jan de Fuca, Southern Strait of Georgia, South Puget Sound, and Central Basin). Geoduck shells from Saratoga passage were provided by the Tulalip Tribe. Using growth indices, the known correlation of growth indices with sea surface temperature and other long-term measurements, and existing basin-level records of temperature and primary production, we modeled historical patterns of primary production in different regions of greater Puget Sound. Analyses show that the relationship between geoduck growth, temperature, and primary production varies between sub-basins, and stable isotope analysis suggests that geoducks may be more than just primary consumers. These issues make reconstruction of a historical record of primary production from growth increments challenging. Nevertheless, analyses suggest that residual growth (after accounting for temperature variation) can explain variation in annual marine survival of local coho and chinook salmon stocks. This indicates the method has promise for retrospective hypothesis testing

A comparative study using a fluorescence-based and a direct-count assay to determine cytotoxicity in Tetrahymena pyriformis

A novel cellular cytotoxicity assay using two fluorescent dyes was developed as an alternative method to the standard direct count of viable protozoa under light microscopy. The compound calcein AM is a non-fluorescent substance that diffuses passively across intact cell membranes and is converted by intracellular esterases to the green fluorescent calcein, which is retained in viable cells. The addition of EthD-1 that binds to DNA stained nuclei of dead cells red. The experiments were carried out in order to assess viability in the freshwater ciliate Tetrahymena pyriformis after exposure to eight surfactants, two of each representing one of four ionic class (non-ionic, anionic, cationic and amphoteric), and two heavy metals, copper and zinc, at several concentrations. In earlier time exposure, less than one hour of contact with surfactants at sublethal concentrations, the fluorescent method is more sensitive and provides more accurate results than direct counting under light microscopy. In contrast, with increasing time exposure, the results obtained by the two methods were similar. Calcein was shown to be a poor viability marker in the presence of zinc and copper since the fluorescence intensity was affected by the metal presence. However, the fluorescent method offers new opportunities to use advanced techniques, such as flow cytometry, to assess cytotoxicity in protozoa.Instituto de Biotecnologia e Química Fina (IBQF).Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia - PRAXIS XXI/BD/20328/99