Do we really need to catch them all? A new User-guided Social Media Crawling method

With the growing use of popular social media services like Facebook and Twitter it is challenging to collect all content from the networks without access to the core infrastructure or paying for it. Thus, if all content cannot be collected one must consider which data are of most importance. In this work we present a novel User-guided Social Media Crawling method (USMC) that is able to collect data from social media, utilizing the wisdom of the crowd to decide the order in which user generated content should be collected to cover as many user interactions as possible. USMC is validated by crawling 160 public Facebook pages, containing content from 368 million users including 1.3 billion interactions, and it is compared with two other crawling methods. The results show that it is possible to cover approximately 75% of the interactions on a Facebook page by sampling just 20% of its posts, and at the same time reduce the crawling time by 53%. In addition, the social network constructed from the 20% sample contains more than 75% of the users and edges compared to the social network created from all posts, and it has similar degree distribution

Environmental Evaluation of Building - A Survey of Possibilities and Problems

There are different ways to assess environmental impacts caused by the building market and there are also different users of assessment methods. This article suggests how different concepts can be developed and applied to evaluate building products and constructions from an environmental point of view. Some crucial issues regarding different life cycle phases are also discussed

Species richness and functional attributes of fish assemblages across a large-scale salinity gradient in shallow coastal areas

Coastal ecosystems are biologically productive, and their diversity underlies various ecosystem services to humans. However, large-scale species richness (SR) and its regulating factors remain uncertain for many organism groups, owing not least to the fact that observed SR (SRobs) depends on sample size and inventory completeness (IC). We estimated changes in SR across a natural geographical gradient using statistical rarefaction and extrapolation methods, based on a large fish species incidence dataset compiled for shallow coastal areas (<30 m depth) from Swedish fish survey databases. The data covered a ca. 1300 km north-south distance and a 12-fold salinity gradient along sub-basins of the Baltic Sea plus the Skagerrak and, depending on the sub-basin, 4 to 47 years of samplings during 1975-2021. Total fish SRobs was 144, and the observed fish species were of 74 % marine and 26 % freshwater origin. In the 10 sub-basins with sufficient data for further analysis, IC ranged from 77 % to 98 %, implying that ca. 2 %-23 % of likely existing fish species had remained undetected. Sample coverage exceeded 98.5 %, suggesting that undetected species represented <1.5 % of incidences across the sub-basins, i.e. highly rare species. To compare sub-basins, we calculated standardized SR (SRstd) and estimated SR (SRest). Sub-basin-specific SRest varied between 35 +/- 7 (SE) and 109 +/- 6 fish species, being ca. 3 times higher in the most saline (salinity 29-32) compared to the least saline sub-basins (salinity < 3). Analysis of functional attributes showed that differences with decreasing salinity particularly reflected a decreasing SR of benthic and demersal fish, of piscivores and invertivores, and of marine migratory species. We conclude that, if climate change continues causing an upper-layer freshening of the Baltic Sea, this may influence the SR, community composition and functional characteristics of fish, which in turn may affect ecosystem processes such as benthic-pelagic coupling and connectivity between coastal and open-sea areas

Achieving net-zero carbon emissions in construction supply chains - A multidimensional analysis of residential building systems

The construction sector accounts for approximately 25% of global CO2 emissions. In this paper, we provide a multidimensional assessment of the potential for greenhouse gas emissions abatement in relation to the construction of multi-family residential buildings. Different building designs are compared, whereby the study analyzes the potential reductions in greenhouse gas emissions when combining abatement measures with a perspective of the technologies and practices available now, and those that are likely to become available on a timescale up to Year 2045. Further, the assessment analyzes the potential for emissions reductions when applying abatement measures at different points in the supply chain, from primary material production via material composition to the final building structure. The results indicate that the greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by up to 40% with currently available technologies and practices, with even greater potential reductions of 80% to Year 2030 and 93% to Year 2045

A Conceptual Landscape-Level Approach to Assess the Impacts of Forestry on Biodiversity

In this study, we propose a conceptual approach to assessing biodiversity impacts in the life-cycle assessments (LCAs) of forest wood production with a focus on Nordic managed forests at the landscape level. As a basis for our methodology, we suggest assessing the proportion of the total land area of productive forest under the control of a forest owner that fulfils certain criteria that can be regarded as having a positive impact on the development of forest biodiversity. A similar assessment of the forest management performed on the surrounding land is used to define a site-specific reference situation. In the context of an attributional LCA, the suggested method for the specification of business-as-usual (BAU) or environmental quality objectives (EQO) baselines encourages forest owners to choose forest management options that increase the proportion of productive forest land with properties that are more favorable to biodiversity over time. We illustrate the BAU baseline approach with two examples in Sweden to calculate the biodiversity impact from wood production for individual forest owners using four biodiversity indicators from the Swedish national Environmental Quality Objectives (EQOS)-'Living Forests'. The approach defined in this study is at this stage only applicable to forestry assessments. Using a BAU baseline approach similar to that used for international climate reporting is a simple but novel approach that makes use of consensuses that have already been drawn and approaches that have already been established

BIM och samarbete – En studie över användandet av BIM i mer integrerat projekteringsarbete

Syftet är att undersöka om projektformer med större grad av integrering mellan olika aktörer stödjer BIM bättre än mer traditionella byggprocesse

Expertis, välvilja och integritet. Kontextens inverkan på hur förtroende uppfattas vid köp av konsulttjänster.

SAMMANFATTNING Examensarbetets titel: Expertis, välvilja och integritet. Kontextens inverkan på hur förtroende uppfattas vid köp av konsulttjänster Seminariedatum: 2013-01-17 Ämne/kurs: FEKH29, Examensarbete i Marknadsföring på Kandidatnivå, 15 högskolepoäng Författare: Fredrik Svensson, Martin Erlandsson, Patrik Johansson Handledare: Lars Carlman Fem nyckelord: Förtroende, konsulttjänster, inköpare, Business-to-Business (B2B), kontextberoende. Syfte: Identifiera indikatorer på förtroende ur inköparens perspektiv utifrån Mayer et als. (1995)definition av begreppet för att undersöka hur kontexten påverkar det uppfattade förtroendet. Metod: En kvalitativ forskningsmetod har tillämpats där kvalitativa intervjuer genomförts. För att på så sätt kunna få en mer ingående uppfattning om hur inköpare, utifrån kontexten vid inköp av konsulttjänster, bedömer förtroende utifrån Mayer et als. (1995) tre byggstenar expertis, välvilja och integritet. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Relationsmodellen förklaras först, följt av inköpsprocessen vid köp av tjänster för att få en god inblick i hur inköparens bedömning går till vid köp av konsulttjänster. Därefter presenteras tjänsters komplexitet som följs upp med att behandla de tre olika teoretiska infallsvinklarna inom förtroendeforskningen. Det teoretiska avsnittet belyser sedan Mayer et als. (1995) artikel om de tre byggstenarna. Teorin avslutas med att beskriva de risker som är påtagliga och centrala vid köp av konsulttjänster. Empiri: Semi-strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med sex stycken företag för att svara på studiens syfte och frågeställningar. Tre typer av konsulttjänster har undersökts; städkonsulttjänster, IT-konsulttjänster och tekniska konsulttjänster, varav två intervjuer inom vardera segment genomförts. Resultat: Bedömningen av expertisen görs i stor utsträckning genom referenser där inköparens magkänsla till slut blir avgörande, varför inköparens roll snarare bör belysas ytterligare. Välviljan är kontextberoende och uppfattas på olika sätt beroende på bransch och kundens behov. Integriteten i form av gemensamma värderingar angående etik- och moral ökar i betydelse när konsultföretaget har högre kontakt med inköpsföretagets slutkunder. Vid mindre komplexa tjänster spelar byggstenen välvilja en större roll vid bedömning av förtroendet medan expertisen istället blir avgörande vid högre komplexitet. Bedömningen görs även på samma sätt när risken ökar.ABSTRACT Title: Ability, benevolence and integrity. Contextual impact on how trust is perceived in the purchase of consulting services. Seminar date: 2013-01-17 Course: FEKH29, Degree Project Undergraduate level, Business Administration, Undergraduate level, 15 University Credits Points (UPC) or ECTS‐cr) Authors: Fredrik Svensson, Martin Erlandsson, Patrik Johansson Advisor: Lars Carlman Key words: Trust, consulting services, buyer, Business-to-Business (B2B), contextual dependence Purpose: Identify indicators of trust from the buyer's perspective based on Mayer et als., (1995) definition of the concept in order to explore how context affects how trust is perceived. Methodology: A qualitative research method has been applied where qualitative interviews has been conducted. This in order to obtain a more thorough understanding of the contextual impact in how buyers of consulting services, evaluate trust, according to Mayer et als., (1995) three building blocks ability, benevolence and integrity. Theoretical perspectives: We first illustrate the relationship model and the buying process of services, thereupon we present the overall complexity of services, which is followed up by treating the three different theoretical approaches in trust research. The theoretical section then highlights Mayer et als.,(1995) the three building blocks. In conclusion, we describe the risks that are significant when purchasing consulting services. Empirical foundation: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six companies in order to respond to the purpose of the paper. Three types of consulting services has been investigated; cleaning, IT-services and engineering services, including two interviews within each segment completed. Conclusions: The assessment of ability is largely based on references where the buyer's gut feeling eventually becomes crucial. In the case of benevolence, this notion is largely context dependent and understood in different ways, depending on the industry and the customers needs. Shared values regarding ethics and morality, i.e. integrity, are increasing in importance when the consultancy firm has higher degree of contact with the purchasing company's end customers. In less complex services, benevolence plays a major role in the assessment of trust, while ability instead becomes crucial at higher complexity. The assessment is also made in the same way when the overall risk increases

Catchment export of base cations: improved mineral dissolution kinetics influence the role of water transit time

Soil mineral weathering is one of the major sources of base cations (BC), which play a dual role in forest ecosystems: they function as plant nutrients and buffer against the acidification of catchment runoff. On a long-term basis, soil weathering rates determine the highest sustainable forest productivity that does not cause acidification. It is believed that the hydrologic residence time plays a key role in determining the weathering rates at the landscape scale.The PROFILE weathering model has been used for almost 30 years to calculate weathering rates in the rooting zone of forest soils. However, the mineral dissolution equations in PROFILE are not adapted for the saturated zone, and employing these equations at the catchment scale results in a significant overprediction of base cation release rates to surface waters. In this study, we use a revised set of PROFILE equations which, among other features, include retardation due to silica concentrations. Relationships between the water transit time (WTT) and soil water concentrations were derived for each base cation, by simulating the soil water chemistry along a one-dimensional flow path, using the mineralogy from a glacial till soil. We show how the revised PROFILE equations are able to reproduce patterns in BC and silica concentrations as well as BC ratios (Ca2+/BC, Mg2+/BC and Na+/BC) that are observed in the soil water profiles and catchment runoff. In contrast to the original set of PROFILE equations, the revised set of equations could reproduce the fact that increasing WTT led to a decreasing Na+/BC ratio and increasing Ca2+/BC and Mg2+/BC ratios. Furthermore, the total release of base cations from a hillslope was calculated using a mixing model, where water with different WTTs was mixed according to an externally modeled WTT distribution. The revised set of equations gave a 50% lower base cation release (0.23 eqm 2 yr 1) than the original PROFILE equations and are in better agreement with mass balance calculations of weathering rates. Thus, the results from this study demonstrate that the revised mineral dissolution equations for PROFILE are a major step forward in modeling weathering rates at the catchment scale