Using Personas to Guide Education Needs Analysis and Program Design

The undergraduate programs within electrical engineering, computer science and engineering and software engineering at Chalmers are currently under revision. Some notable problems for these programs are the long-term trends of diminishing number of applications and a low share of female students. This paper first describes the stakeholder’s needs analysis phases of the project, where current occupational roles for these types of engineers were mapped out in order to find out what knowledge skills and attributes that are necessary to work as an engineer in this field. These occupational roles were then used to guide the program concept design phase of the project. As the number of occupational roles is large, a persona methodology was used to gather all the necessary information into a graspable format. Personas have for a long time been used in e.g. software development for describing users/customers. We adapted this methodology to describe the future professional roles of engineering graduates. The personas were based on information gathered through workshops with Chalmers staff and representatives from the local business sector, alumni surveys and observational journals from working engineers as well as documentation from different organizations on the future demands on engineers. The paper then describes the program concept design phase of the project, where the personas were used as reminders for the design team that the roles for engineers at work are broad and contain many tasks and aspects that are traditionally not covered in engineering education. These many tasks need to be considered in the curriculum. In particular, the personas were helpful in the work of designing new and more diverse profiles at the bachelor level. In addition, the personas work, which was performed rather broadly across the departments involved in these five programs, has served as a basis for making the premises for the succeeding revision well known across the organization

Industry Trends to 2040

The engineering design community needs to development tools and methods now to support emerging technological and societal trends. While many forecasts exist for technological and societal changes, this paper reports on the findings of a workshop, which addressed trends in engineering design to 2040. The paper summarises the key findings from the six themes of the workshop: societal trends, ways of working, lifelong learning, technology, modelling and simulation and digitisation; and points to the challenge of understanding how these trends affect each othe

Gestational Diabetes and Preeclampsia in Association with Air Pollution at Levels below Current Air Quality Guidelines.

Background: Several studies have estimated associations between air pollution and birth outcomes, but few have evaluated potential effects on pregnancy complications.Objective: We investigated whether low-level exposure to air pollution is associated with gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.Methods: High-quality registry information on 81,110 singleton pregnancy outcomes in southern Sweden during 1999-2005 was linked to individual-level exposure estimates with high spatial resolution. Modeled exposure to nitrogen oxides (NOx), expressed as mean concentrations per trimester, and proximity to roads of different traffic densities were used as proxy indicators of exposure to combustion-related air pollution. The data were analyzed by logistic regression, with and without adjusting for potential confounders.Results: The prevalence of gestational diabetes increased with each NOx quartile, with an adjusted odds ratio (OR) of 1.69 (95% CI: 1.41, 2.03) for the highest (> 22.7 µg/m3) compared with the lowest quartile (2.5-8.9 µg/m3) of exposure during the second trimester. The adjusted OR for acquiring preeclampsia after exposure during the third trimester was 1.51 (1.32, 1.73) in the highest quartile of NOx compared with the lowest. Both outcomes were associated with high traffic density, but ORs were significant for gestational diabetes only.Conclusion: NOx exposure during pregnancy was associated with gestational diabetes and preeclampsia in an area with air pollution levels below current air quality guidelines

Slow Food - mer än bara mat. En studie i social distansering

ABSTRACT Titel: Slow Food – mer än bara mat. En studie i social distansering. Författare: Katarina Frennmark, Josefine Grahed och Anna Neckmar Nyckelord: Konsumtion, identitet, kapital, habitus, smak, Slow Food, prioritet, iögonfallande konsumtion och social distansering. Syfte: Vi vill ta reda på förhållanden kring konsumtion av mat och hur detta är kopplat till skapandet av identitet. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka huruvida konsumtion kan bidra till identitetsskapande, samt undersöka hur mat kan användas för att uttrycka identitet. Frågeställningar: Kan vi skapa eller nå viss identitet genom konsumtion av Slow Food? Kan vi socialt utmärka vår identitet och på så sätt distansera oss genom konsumtion av Slow Food? Vilka egenskaper utmärker en Slow Food konsument? Metod: Vi har gjort en litteratur- och dokumentstudie där vi har samlat in skriftligt material som grund för vår empiri samt redogörelse kring konsumtion av mat. Vi har i denna använt oss av vetenskapliga böcker, dokument, artiklar och Internetkällor. Vårt tillvägagångssätt har varit hypotetiskt-deduktivt, vilket betyder att vi från början vetat om vår hypotes och problemformulering och utefter denna letat material till empiri samt redogörelse kring konsumtion av mat. Slutsats: Det är våra aktiva val som visar vår identitet och genom att välja att konsumera Slow Food utmärker vi oss. Slow Food är mat som är tillagad från grunden av färska och fina råvaror för att maximera smakrikheten. Slow Food kräver att vi anstränger oss extra för att laga kulinariskt god mat, upplagt och serverat på ett vackert sätt. När maten är färdig ska den avnjutas länge och gärna i sällskap av andra. Vi anser att personer som konsumerar Slow Food besitter egenskaper av högt kulturellt kapital men varierande grad av ekonomiskt kapital som till viss del är kontrollerat genom habitus. De måste ha det kulturella intresset för mat och prioritera ekologiska varor samt den tid det tar att avnjuta en Slow Food middag. De distanserar sig gentemot de sociala grupper som inte väljer att prioritera en smakrik, vällagad måltid som avnjuts i sällskap. Slow Food blir av dessa faktorer märkvärdigt och har genom detta hög distinktionsfaktor. Slow Food är en livsstil som är gränsöverskridande i alla samhällskategorier och målgrupper, så länge de besitter kulturellt kapital och prioriterar allt vad Slow Food innebär

Program Leadership from a Nordic Perspective - Program Leaders' Power to Influence Their Program

Поточний інформаційний список містить перелік статей про Сумський державний університет з періодичних видань, які надійшли до бібліотеки за лютий

Program Leadership from a Nordic Perspective - Managing Education Development

Nordic Five Tech (N5T) is a strategic alliance between five technical universities in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The overall aim is to “utilize shared and complementary strengths and create synergy within education, research and innovation”. In this paper we focus on university educational development issues by investigating the program leadership at five Nordic technical universities. Specifically, the paper compares definitions, views and experiences of education leadership in the Nordic Five Tech (N5T) universities. The paper does this by, first, reviewing the definitions of roles and responsibilities for program directors at each university, and second, by presenting results from a survey carried out in March 2012 among program directors at the N5T universities. Based on this data, we analyze how program directors experience their role, their possibilities to lead, and their opportunities of learning to lead. How is time for reflection and development as leaders handled at the different universities? The paper goes on to consider what impact the mandate of the leadership role has on the possibilities for developing educational programs. For instance, how can program directors ensure that learning objectives concerning generic skills and abilities are reached? How can program directors drive implementation of integrative and value-oriented topics such as sustainable development, innovation and entrepreneurship

Maternal Exposure to Air Pollution and Birth Outcomes

Background: The knowledge about air pollution effects on birth weight, prematurity and small for gestational age [SGA] in low-exposure areas is insufficient. Objectives: The aim of this birth cohort study was to investigate if low-level exposure to air pollution was associated with prematurity and foetal growth and if there are gender specific effects. Method: We combined high quality registry information on 81110 births with individually modeled exposure data at residence for nitrogen oxides [NOx] and proximity to roads with differing traffic density. The data were analyzed by using logistic and linear regression with and without potential confounders. Results: An increased risk for babies being SGA was observed when highest and lowest NOx quartiles were compared, adjusting for maternal age, smoking, gender and year of birth. After additional adjustment for maternal country of origin and parity (which were highly intercorrelated), the increase was no longer statistically significant. However, in subgroup analysis when highest and lowest NOx quartiles were compared, there was still an increased risk for SGA for baby girls Odds Ratio [OR] 1.12 (95% Confidence Interval [CI] 1.01, 1.24), and also if mothers had not changed residency during pregnancy OR 1.09 (95% CI 1.01, 1.18). The confounders with the greatest impact on SGA were parity and country of origin. Concerning prematurity, the prevalence was lower in the three higher NOx exposure quartiles compared to the lowest category. Conclusion: For future studies on air pollution effects on birth outcomes careful control of confounding is crucial

Reply to: New Meta- and Mega-analyses of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings in Schizophrenia: Do They Really Increase Our Knowledge About the Nature of the Disease Process?

This work was supported by National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering Grant No. U54EB020403 (to the ENIGMA consortium)