Confidence building communication in timber purchases : a case study within Sveaskog

Som ett komplement till råvaruanskaffningen från företagets egen skog anskaffar Sveaskog råvara externt genom virkesköp från privata skogsägare. På senare år har dock konkurrensen på köpmarknaden hårdnat. Därför vill Sveaskog förbättra sin kundorientering och bli det bästa samarbetsalternativet för privata skogsägare på marknaden. Föreliggande examensarbete undersöker hur företaget kan förbättra kommunikationen med de privata skogsägarna, samt vilken roll en eventuell webbportal kan fylla. Studien har genomförts i tre steg: En litteraturgenomgång i syfte att skapa en analysmodell, följt av en fördjupad analys av ett befintligt enkätmaterial i form av Sveaskogs NLI-undersökning samt en intervjustudie med Sveaskogs virkesköpare. Studien visar att förmågan till förtroendeskapande kommunikation är den enskilt viktigaste parametern för en virkesköpande organisation. För att uppnå ett högt förtroende krävs emellertid bra skoglig service, vilket i sig underhålls genom god kommunikation mellan kontraktstillfällena. Enklaste vägen till att snabbt förbättra skogsägarnas upplevda kommunikation är att i ökad utsträckning bjuda in skogsägarna till skogskvällar, skogsdagar och liknande aktiviteter. Vidare visar studien att långsiktiga relationer mellan skogsägarna och virkesköparna bör eftersträvas, då de bidrar till lägre transaktionskostnader för båda parter. För att uppnå de långsiktiga relationerna krävs att den virkesköpande organisationen förstår och uppfyller varje specifik skogsägares behov, samt infriar och helst överträffar deras förväntningar. I takt med att skogsägarnas behov tillfredsställs och deras förväntningar infrias eller överträffas växer sedan skogsägarnas förtroende gentemot företaget och dess virkesköpare. Slutligen anses en framtida webbportal kunna bära delar av den kommunikation som skogsägarkåren efterfrågar med avseende på virkespris och generell skoglig rådgivning.As a complement to the raw materials from the company's own forests Sveaskog acquires raw materials through external timber purchases from private forest owners. In recent years, however, competition on the private market has increased. Therefore Sveaskog wishes to improve its customer orientation and become the best cooperation alternative for private forest owners on the market. This thesis examines how the company can improve communication with private forest owners, and what role a possible web portal can fill. The survey was conducted in three stages: A literature review in order to create an analytical model, followed by a detailed analysis of an existing questionnaire in form of Sveaskogs NLI-survey as well as an interview study with Sveaskogs timber purchasers. The study shows that the capability to confidence-building communication is the single most important parameter for a wood purchasing organization. To achieve a high level of confidence requires, however good forest service, which in itself is maintained by good communication between the contract opportunities. The easiest way to quickly improve forest owners perceived communication is to increasingly invite forest owners to forest evenings, forest days and similar activities. Furthermore, the study shows that long-term relationships between forest owners and timber purchasers should be sought, since they contribute to lower transaction costs for both parties. To achieve long-term relationships requires that the timber buying organization understands and meets every specific forest owners needs and exceed their expectations. As the forest owners needs are satisfied and their expectations are met or exceeded, the trust will grow towards the company and its timber purchasers. Finally, the adoption of a future web portal assumes to be able to bear a part of the communication that the forest owner union demands, regarding to timber price and general forest advisory

Costs for nature conservation, even-flow restriction in harvesting and storage building restriction : strategic analysis with Heureka PlanWise

Norra Skogsägarna äger två fastigheter i Skellefteåtrakten som innehåller skyddsvärda biotoper. Ägaren för diskussioner med skogsstyrelsen och länsstyrelsen om vilken hänsyn som ska tas och om hur det virkesproducerande skogsbruket ska bedrivas. I föreliggande kandidatuppsats redogörs för hur skogsskötseln och den ekonomiska avkastningen påverkas av några olika strategier för naturvårdsavsättning och skogsbruk. Med hjälp av planeringsverktyget Heureka PlanVis visas hur de olika avsättningsstrategierna Originalplan, Lagen och Länsstyrelsen påverkar nuvärdet av skogsbruket. Dessutom visas nettointäkten över en kommande 100 årsperiod, och vad restriktioner för jämnhetskrav och krav på ökat virkesförråd får för påverkan på fastigheternas nuvärde. Analyserna har utförts med stöd av det forskningsbaserade planeringssystemet Heureka PlanVis version 2.0, och baseras på ajourhållna data från de skogsbruksplaner som upprättades 2013. Resultaten visar att nuvärdet på fastigheterna sjunker om andelen naturvårdsavsättningar ökar. Utfallet av nuvärdesminskningen blir dock mindre om fastigheterna samplaneras och brukas som en enhet. Det uppstår alltså samordningsfördelar, och effekterna av samordningen blir tydligare då andelen naturvårdsavsättningar ökar. Vidare visar analysen av samordningen att upprättandet av Originalplanen minskar fastighetens nuvärde med cirka 11 procent och att Länsstyrelsens alternativ sänker nuvärdet med ytterligare cirka 6 procent. Ett intensivare skogsbruk på fastigheterna med användande av främmande trädslag, gödsling och förädlat material ökar nuvärdet med 4,3 procent. Jämnhet i avverkningsvolym mellan perioder påverkar inte nuvärdet i någon väsentlig grad. Däremot är det dyrt att bygga upp ett stort virkesförråd på fastigheterna.Norra Skogsägarna owns two properties in the Skellefteå area which contains habitats with high nature conservation value. The owner are conducting discussions with the Swedish Forest Agency and the provincial government about what kind of nature considerations to be taken and how the timber -producing should be managed in the forest. This bachelor thesis analyses how forest management and economic performance is effected by different strategies for nature conservation provision and forestry. The effects that the different deposition strategies Originalplan, Lagen and Länsstyrelsen have on the present value of the forestry analysed by using the planning tool Heureka PlanWise. The analysis calculates the net income of an upcoming 100 -year period, and what even-flow restrictions and the storage building of standing volume might have for impact on the properties' value. The analysis were performed with support of the research-based planning system Heureka PlanWise version 2.0, and is based on adjourned maintained data from the forestry plans made in 2013. The results show that the present value of the properties will decrease if the proportion of conservation reserves increases. The outcome of the present value reduction will be smaller if the properties are planned together and operated as one unit. Thus, there are synergy benefits, and the effect of coordination becomes clearer when the proportion of conservation reserves increases. Furthermore the analysis shows that the establishment of the coordination for the Originalplan reduces the property's current value with about 11 percent and that the alternative Länsstyrelsen lowers the present value by another 6 percent. A more intensive forestry on the properties using foreign tree species, fertilization and improved material increases the present value of 1 414 260 SEK. Even-flow restriction of the felling volume between periods does not affect the present value to any significant degree. However it is expensive to build up the growing stock on the properties

A novel spatio-temporal scheme for reducing the rate of false positives in bloom filter based URL-caching

Masteroppgave i informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi 2010 – Universitetet i Agder, GrimstadAchieving efficient use of available resources is an important problem in the field of web mining. Monitoring and analyzing the web is extremely resource demanding, and therefore, more efficient use of resources often translates directly into improved web monitoring coverage and accuracy. One important sub problem is to reduce the memory consumption of the URL cache in a web crawler system. Utilizing the space efficient data structure Bloom filter as URL cache, will reduce the memory consumption. However, the Bloom filter introduces false positives, leading to loss of valuable web content when the filter are utilized as a URL cache in a web crawler system. Based on the latter problems of false positives, this thesis propose three novel strategies, namely a temporal, a spatial and a spatio-temporal strategy, each aiming to reduce the false positive rate introduced by the Bloom filter. During testing and evaluation of the strategies, we discovered both the spatial and temporal strategy is able to reduce the false positive in the Bloom filter. The two former strategies was then combined to test if it is possible to further decrease the false positive probability. Testing and evaluation of the combined strategies shows that it does yield a reduction in the false positive probability

Use of 3D-printed mixers in laboratory reactor design for modelling of heterogeneous catalytic converters

A method for identifying radial concentration maldistribution in synthetic catalyst activity test (SCAT) benches, is presented, where spatially resolved concentration measurements are not available. The developed methodology was successfully tested for an injection-based SCAT. To resolve the radial concentration maldistribution a static mixer was designed, 3D-printed and inserted upstream the test sample. The methodology could also prove the effectiveness of the mixer, which did not only resolve the concentration maldistribution but also avoided causing reaction disturbances. The resulting increased axial dispersion from the turbulence created by the static mixer was evaluated using a 3D CFD model in Ansys Fluent 19. The axial dispersion of the injection-based SCAT bench was compared to a premixed SCAT bench through classical Aris-Taylor calculations. The results from the axial dispersion calculations show that the injection-based design with the use of a static mixer is far superior to the premixed design – both with regards to pulse broadening but also time delay. This is highly desirable for modelling studies towards zero emission exhaust aftertreatment

Deep Visual Proteomics defines single-cell identity and heterogeneity

Peer reviewe

Interaction Between Solid Copper Jets and Powerful Electrical Current Pulses

The interaction between a solid copper jet and an electric current pulse is studied. Coppe

Comprehensive Antigen Screening Identifies Moraxella catarrhalis Proteins That Induce Protection in a Mouse Pulmonary Clearance Model

Moraxella catarrhalis is one of the three most common causative bacterial pathogens of otitis media, however no effective vaccine against M. catarrhalis has been developed so far. To identify M. catarrhalis vaccine candidate antigens, we used carefully selected sera from children with otitis media and healthy individuals to screen small-fragment genomic libraries that are expressed to display frame-selected peptides on a bacterial cell surface. This ANTIGENome technology led to the identification of 214 antigens, 23 of which were selected by in vitro or in vivo studies for additional characterization. Eight of the 23 candidates were tested in a Moraxella mouse pulmonary clearance model, and 3 of these antigens induced significantly faster bacterial clearance compared to adjuvant or to the previously characterized antigen OmpCD. The most significant protection data were obtained with the antigen MCR_1416 (Msp22), which was further investigated for its biological function by in vitro studies suggesting that Msp22 is a heme binding protein. This study comprises one of the most exhaustive studies to identify potential vaccine candidate antigens against the bacterial pathogen M. catarrhalis

Discovery of a novel class of highly conserved vaccine antigens using genomic scale antigenic fingerprinting of pneumococcus with human antibodies

Pneumococcus is one of the most important human pathogens that causes life-threatening invasive diseases, especially at the extremities of age. Capsular polysaccharides (CPSs) are known to induce protective antibodies; however, it is not feasible to develop CPS-based vaccines that cover all of the 90 disease-causing serotypes. We applied a genomic approach and described the antibody repertoire for pneumococcal proteins using display libraries expressing 15–150 amino acid fragments of the pathogen's proteome. Serum antibodies of exposed, but not infected, individuals and convalescing patients identified the ANTIGENome of pneumococcus consisting of ∼140 antigens, many of them surface exposed. Based on several in vitro assays, 18 novel candidates were preselected for animal studies, and 4 of them showed significant protection against lethal sepsis. Two lead vaccine candidates, protein required for cell wall separation of group B streptococcus (PcsB) and serine/threonine protein kinase (StkP), were found to be exceptionally conserved among clinical isolates (>99.5% identity) and cross-protective against four different serotypes in lethal sepsis and pneumonia models, and have important nonredundant functions in bacterial multiplication based on gene deletion studies. We describe for the first time opsonophagocytic killing activity for pneumococcal protein antigens. A vaccine containing PcsB and StkP is intended for the prevention of infections caused by all serotypes of pneumococcus in the elderly and in children