Where is the Action?

Taking a set of studies about business action as the empirical starting-point, this paper looks at the various ways in which action is represented. The overall research question can be stated as follows: how is business action reconstructed in our narratives? The texts analysed are collected from research on exchange relationships in the field of marketing. To analyse how these texts depict business action, four narrative constructions are focused: space, time, actors, and plots. The categorisation and analysis are summarised and followed by a set of concluding implications and suggestions for the use of narratives aiming to reconstruct business action in the making.Marketing; narrative; plot; marketing methodology; business action; industrial marketing research

Tiltaksorientert overvåking av vann og vassdrag i Gjøvik kommune. Årsrapport for 2000

Gjøvik kommune har f.o.m. 2000 startet opp et overvåkingsprogram for sine vassdrag. I 2000 ble det foretatt generelle biologiske befaringer i Bjørnstadelva, Kalverudelva og Vismunda. Kalverudelva og Vismunda. Hovedløpene i disse elvene var lite påvirket av forurensning og flora og fauna var i samsvar med forventet naturtilstand. Den økologiske status i hovedløpene ble derfor vurdert som god og i samsvar med fastsatte kommunale miljøkvalitetsmål. fastsatte kommunale miljøkvalitetsmål. Enkelte av de sidebekker som renner gjennom jordbruksområder var moderat til markert påvirket av næringssalter og lettnedbrytbart organisk stoff. Videre var samtlige av disse bekker mer eller mindre tilslammet av jordpartikler og sand som blir utvasket fra dyrket mark og veier. og veier. Grøfting av store myrområder har medført at flere av bekkene som renner til Bjørnstadelva, Kalverudelva og Vismunda har blitt svært utsatt for tørke og de har mistet sine ørretbestander. sine ørretbestander. Lange strekninger av Vismunda er kanalisert. Dette har gjort til at elva har blitt en dårligere og mindre brukt fiskeelv. Sannsynligvis har også fiskeproduksjon blitt redusert. Det har også blitt foretatt noe kanalisering i Skulhuselva. Skulhuselva. Dersom fastsatte miljøkvalitetsmål skal opprettholdes eller nås er det viktig at de forurensningsbegrensende tiltak som er satt i verk i nedbørfeltene til Bjørnstadelva, Kalverudelva og Vismunda fortsetter. Dvs. at det er nødvendig med kontroll (bl.a. av kommunale avløpsanlegg, separatanlegg i spredt bebyggelse, gjødselkjellere, melkerom og siloanlegg), vedlikeholdsarbeider og om mulig forbedringstiltak. Det siste gjelder særlig de separate avløpsanlegg og tiltak som kan begrense jorderosjon. Videre bør en utføre biotopforbedrende tiltak særlig i Vismunda, men også i de nederste deler av Kalverudelva og Bjørnstadelva

Industrial Relations Foresight 2025 for Sweden: Presentation of Results and Comments

This report presents and comments on the Swedish part of a survey made in autumn 2007 to obtain expert opinions on industrial relations in the EU25 and G7 countries in the year 2025. The survey was carried out by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound). One of the basic questions was about how the process of globalisation will influence future industrial relations in each of the EU27 member states (EU15 “old members states” and EU12 “new member states”) and in Global 7 countries (Australia, Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Africa, and the USA). The questionnaire contained 16 questions about the future development of actors, processes, outcomes and general trends in industrial relations and their environment. The respondents were representatives of trade unions, employers’ organisations, governments and academic experts. From Sweden 13 respondents participated, four of them trade union representatives, another four representatives of employer organisations, two government representatives and three academic experts in the industrial relations field. The report focuses on the Swedish survey results, but also contains international comparisons. First some trends and features of Swedish industrial relations are presented. As regards union density the survey started from a series that includes full-time students working part-time. With a union density of 77% (2004) in their heads the Swedish respondents in average foresaw a density of 61% in 2025 (corresponding to 79% in 2004 and about 63% in 2025 excluding full-time students working part-time). The fall in the rate of unionization in 2007 probably influenced the foresight although the exact size of the decline was not yet known. An average union density of 61% corresponds to about 55% unionized workers in the private sector. That is substantially lower than in 2004, but a relatively small decline compared to the private sector union density in 2008 (65%, excluding full-time students). Between 2006 and 2008 density in this sector declined from 71% to 65%, that is by six percentage points in two years (excluding full-time students). A ten percentage points decline remains between 2008 and 2025, which means in average just 0.6 points per year. Collective bargaining coverage is expected to remain at a high level in 2025 (81%) but nonetheless 11 percentage points less than in 2004 (92%). By that the share of workers outside the collective bargaining system would more than double up to the year 2025. The declining union density could be expected to have a negative influence on bargaining coverage. If the average coverage fell to 81% in 2025, then the private sector collective bargaining coverage would probably be about 75%. If neither extension mechanisms nor legislation on minimum wages are introduced, as much as every fourth worker in the private sector could be outside the collective bargaining system. Long before such a situation occurs demands on legislation would probably appear. Almost 40% of Swedish respondents think that legislation on minimum wages will be introduced in the period up to 2025. As regards wages more than four out of five Swedish respondents think that collective agreements will still be the main way of regulation in the year 2025. Unions are expected to have the same impact as today at both industry and workplace level, but a considerable insecurity is indicated by the large variation in assessments, in particular regarding the impact of unions at workplace/enterprise level. This large variation probably reflects divergent views among respondents on the desirable future development. It might be called into question if the impact of Swedish trade unions were unchanged if union density declined to 61% in 2025 (about 55% in private sector) and collective bargaining coverage decreased by more than 10 percentage points. Bargaining at sector/industry level seems to continue to dominate the collective bargaining system as 10 of the 13 Swedish respondents think that the sector/branch will remain the dominant level of collective bargaining even in 2025. At the same time decentralisation is indicated as almost every second respondent thinks that either individual contracts (15%) or workplace/enterprise collective agreements (31%) will be the main way of regulating wages. Secondly, more than 60% of respondents think that the workplace/enterprise will be a more important bargaining level than today. The Swedish model of self-regulation (regulation by the labour market parties themselves) will survive, but the decreasing coverage of collective agreements might be followed by legislation on minimum wages and/or on extension of collective agreements. Most respondents, however, think that the role of the government as legislator in industrial relations will remain the same. The Swedish national arena will still be the dominant one in industrial relations in 2025, although the role of the international level and the EU level will increase, thus a certain centralisation (to the EU level) in addition to the decentralisation tendency mentioned above. A slight majority thinks that the regulating role of the EU Commission will increase in working life. Most respondents think that the impact of unions will decrease at the national level (54%), increase at the international level (69%) and remain about the same at sector/industry and workplace/enterprise levels (in the latter cases when the considerably diverging replies are weighted together). A slight majority think that social security and the degree of liberalism in economic policy will be unchanged. On the other hand, large minorities (46%) think that liberalism in economic policy will increase and social security decrease. Large majorities expect that individualism (69%), flexibility in working life (92%), self-employment (69%) and inequality in incomes (85%) will increase, while job security (80%), the wage gap between men and women (77%) and public support to unions (61.5%) will decrease

Enabling Civil Society to Empower Women against HIV/AIDS - A Minor Field Study on Malawi

Malawi is an illustrating case of how gender inequalities exacerbate the spread of HIV/AIDS, and particularly undermines womens chance to protect themselves from getting infected. Further, a strong civil society has, e.g. by the Malawian state, been recognised as a crucial feature in fighting HIV/AIDS. On this background, this thesis attempt to understand to what extent the Malawian civil society actually holds the enabling conditions in order to empower women against HIV/AIDS. The thesis is based on empirical material collected during a Minor Field Study in Malawi, consisting of interviews mainly with representatives of civil society organisations involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS. By taking a starting-point in the concept of empowerment and exploring civil society theories, it analyses a number of conditions that have been identified to pose a challenge to the potential role of civil society. Among those are the lack of sufficient coordination, the conforming donor influence and inadequate technical skills in addressing the gender dimension, which all brings out the issue of autonomy. Overall, the conditions to a large extent derives from the paradox between the state to regulate - in terms of coordination, providing a sufficient gender-responsive legal framework, and adequate technical support - and at the same time to give civil society space to act - in terms of agenda-setting and being able to confront the state

Tracking the Motion of Box Jellyfish

This master’s thesis investigates the possibilities of detecting the rhopalia of box jellyfishes, i.e. the eyes of the box jellyfish. Each box jellyfish has four rhopalia and each of the rhopalium consists of six light sensing eyes which they use to interpret the surroundings. In this project we have worked with fifteen film sequences all consisting of different box jellyfishes and recorded under different light settings. The framework for detecting the rhopalia is divided into three parts, in order; detection, clustering and tracking. The input in the detection step is the grayscale image of the box jellyfish and in the output possible rhopalia are marked as detections. These detections are then sent into the clustering step which filters out the noise in the picture and saves clusters of detections. The reason for saving these clusters is because a rhopalium appears as a dark disc with a radius of around 13 pixels and thus should produce many detections. In the final step, four clusters are selected from all clusters as the correct rhopalia. The choice has been made to focus on the detection step in this thesis, leaving the cluster and tracking step with only one algorithm each. A combination of a detection method, a clustering- and a tracking algorithm is called a system. To be able to detect a rhopalium, a set of data points, a pattern, is used to compare values (light intensity) in order to capture the appearance of a rhopalium. The more data points the longer the execution time so this needs to be done with minimal amount of data points but still enough to capture the visual aspect of the rhopalium. The best performing systems have patterns of a small disc inside the rhopalium and a larger circle just outside. The values of the pixels outside should be greater (brighter) than the ones inside. But because of some artefacts and noise in the pictures not all need to be darker, instead, a threshold is used, e.g 78 % of the pixel values outside should be greater than the ones inside. This results in a accuracy of 98 %