Communities of Practice: Perspectives from Pre-service Teachers

This paper will report on the conduct of an undergraduate course where pre-service teachers participate in and develop or modify an online learning environment. The course has as its main focus, the notion of online virtual communities, and explores students’ current trends and practices with communication tools and networked communities with those currently being offered in a variety of educational contexts. During the course participants implement their new or modified online learning environment while undertaking professional experience in a school of their choice. The paper further describes the students’ experiences throughout the course and presents recommendations, for educators wishing to espouse a sense of community within online learning environments

The Effects of Displacement on Self-employment Survival

A large literature has studied the effect of displacement on labor market outcomes in general, but none has evaluated how the displaced manage as self-employed. This paper studies how the survival of the business is affected by displacement in connection to entry, using a discrete-time proportional hazard model on a matched sample of displaced and non-displaced individuals. The main result of the paper is that, as a consequence of previous displacement, the probability of switching from self-employment to paid employment decreases and the probability of switching to unemployment is unaffected.Self-employment; Survival; Displacement

Do students and lecturers actively use collaboration tools in learning management systems?

In recent years there has been a large emphasis placed on the need to use Learning Management Systems (LMS) in the field of higher education, with many universities mandating their use. An important aspect of these systems is their ability to offer collaboration tools to build a community of learners. This paper reports on a study of the effectiveness of an LMS (Blackboard©) in a higher education setting and whether both lecturers and students voluntarily use collaborative tools for teaching and learning. Interviews were conducted with participants (N=67) from the faculties of Science and Technology, Business, Health and Law. Results from this study indicated that participants often use Blackboard© as an online repository of learning materials and that the collaboration tools of Blackboard© are often not utilised. The study also found that several factors have inhibited the use and uptake of the collaboration tools within Blackboard©. These have included structure and user experience, pedagogical practice, response time and a preference for other tools

Utvärdering av metod för att morfologiskt särskilja björkarterna Betula pendula och Betula pubescens

Birch is the third most common tree species in Sweden and has previously been seen as a weed in the forests. In the last 20 years, birch has had a clearly increasing trend in Swedens growing timber stock, but there are still many knowledge gaps regarding management, regeneration, processing, and its impact on the environment. In the national forest assessment's inventories, the two birch species silver birch (Betula pendula) and downy birch (Betula pubescens) are not separated from each other, and are only registered as birch. The two birch species have some morphological differences that allow them to be separated from each other, but these differences are not always distinct, which creates uncertainty in species identification. The purpose of this work is to validate the morphological separation method for the two birch species by using a proven chemical method. This is to estimate the possible margin of error over how safe the morphological method is. Having a reliable species determination method is necessary as the birch species can be used for different end products and have different preferences regarding plant habitat. The data for the study were collected through a transect inventory at three different premises in northern Sweden. Bark samples were collected at each site from three fellings, all of which were felled in 2014, a total of 90 bark samples were collected from each birch species. The result from the chemical separation method was 100% consistent with the morphological one. This means that the morphological separation method seems to be highly reliable for younger birches. In addition, the benefits of a greater involvement of birch in terms of biodiversity and risk reduction are discussed, as well as why it is justified to distinguish the two birch species.Björk är det tredje vanligaste trädslaget i Sverige och har tidigare setts som ett ogräs i skogen. De senaste 20 åren har björken haft en tydligt ökande trend gällande virkesförråd, trots detta finns det fortfarande många kunskapsluckor gällande bl.a. skötsel, föryngring, förädling och dess påverkan på omgivningen. I riksskogstaxeringens inventeringar är de två björkarterna vårtbjörk (Betula pendula) och glasbjörk (Betula pubescens) inte separerade från varandra, utan de noteras båda som björk. De två björkarterna har vissa morfologiska skillnader som gör att de kan separeras från varandra, men dessa skillnader är inte alltid tydliga vilket skapar osäkerhet vid artbestämning. Syftet med detta arbete är att validera den morfologiska separationsmetoden för de två björkarterna med hjälp av en beprövad kemisk metod. Detta för att skatta den eventuella felmarginalen över hur säker den morfologiska metoden är. Att ha en pålitlig artbestämningsmetod är nödvändigt då björkarterna kan användas till olika slutprodukter och har olika preferenser gällande växtlokal. Datat till studien insamlades genom transektinventering på tre olika lokaler i norra Sverige. På varje lokal insamlades barkprov från tre hyggen som samtliga avverkats 2014, totalt togs 90 barkprover från vardera björkart. Resultatet från den kemiska separationsmetoden stämde överens med den morfologiska till 100%. Detta innebär att den morfologiska separationsmetoden verkar vara högst tillförlitlig för yngre björkar. Därtill diskuterades vilka fördelar en större inblandning av björk kan tillföra i det svenska skogsbruket gällande biodiversitet och riskreducering, samt varför det är motiverat att särskilja de två björkarterna

Heat demand in the Swedish residential building stock - pathways on demand reduction potential based on socio-technical analysis

A transition to a more efficient heat energy system requires the consideration of drivers covering behavioural change, upgrades of the building stock and substitution or improvements in technologies in use. Sweden has set the target to reduce total energy demand per heated area in buildings by 50% by 2050 compared to 1995. This study aims to estimate the potential for reducing heat energy demand in the Swedish residential building stock taking into account behavioural, structural and technological categories of drivers. A combination of bottom-up energy modelling with scenario methodology informed by socio-technical analysis of barriers was used. Our results show that the target can be achieved by combining at least two of the categories of drivers. However, it is noteworthy that the technological category, which has by far the lowest level of barriers, almost reaches the target largely owing to the high impact for single-family houses, showing the crucial role of changes in the technology mix. However, as the same drivers have different demand reduction potential in the two main building types in Sweden, single and multi-family houses, this calls for policymakers to lead on initiatives that foster a combination of technological, behavioural and structural improvements for the latter

From investigative to critical local journalism: A quantitative content analysis of critical reporting in local Swedish newspapers with a new analytical focus

Journalism is considered to fulfil a societal watchdog role. However, research indicates that local news rarely lives up to established state-of-the-art definitions of investigative journalism. Therefore, this article argues that the assessment of local accountability journalism must include research on the extent to which it assumes a societal watchdog role in a more basic sense, namely by being critical of events and conditions in the local society in some way. A content analysis of approximately 1600 articles in three local Swedish newspapers shows that criticism, even in its mildest form, constitutes less than a fifth of the overall output, and that journalists themselves are the agents of criticism in less than 15 % of the critical articles, disregarding editorials, and that they more often criticize national than local power. In news articles, journalists are less often agents of criticism than both politicians, the public, and representatives of organizations. Actors in the public sphere are targets of criticism in 75 % of the critical articles, whereas those articles rarely target the private sector or civil society

Lynx impact on forest grouse : a study on the indirect effects of lynx on forest grouse through red fox

Lodjursstammen i Sverige har gått från att i princip vara helt utrotad 1920, till en livskraftig population nu 100 år senare. Att toppredatorer har en betydande roll i ekosystem och näringskedjor har bevisats flertalet gånger i olika studier. I denna rapport undersöks det ifall det finns ett indirekt positivt samband mellan lodjur och skogshöns. Detta undersöks med avseende på att lodjur dödar rödräv som står för en stor del av bortgången i skogshönspopulationer. De data som används för skogshöns och rödräv kommer från jägareförbundets viltdata.se och är den avskjutningsdata som finns för Västerbottens län. Datat över lodjur kommer från Västerbottens länsstyrelse där de sammanställt alla lodjursföryngringar som finns i länet. Datan för de olika arterna jämförs mot varandra med hjälp av beräkningar av korrelationskoefficienten samt linjär regression. Utifrån det tillgängliga datamaterialet gavs följande korrelationsvärden och R2-värden (för linjära samband): mellan lodjur och rödräv -0,11 respektive 1,8 % R2, rödräv och skogshöns -0,78 respektive 62 % R2 och lodjur och skogshöns 0,55 respektive 29 % R2. Resultatet visar att det finns ett positivt samband mellan skogshöns och lodjur samt ett negativt samband mellan skogshöns och rödräv. Det går dock inte att påvisa något statistiskt samband mellan lodjur och rödräv utifrån det nyttjade datamaterialet. Detta medför att det är svårt att avgöra ifall lodjur har en positiv inverkan på skogshönsen då rävstammen troligtvis regleras av något annat än lo.The lynx population in Sweden has increased to stable levels since 1920 when it almost went extinct. The importance of apex predators is widely known and has been proven to play an important role in both food chains and ecosystems. This report investigates if lynx have an indirect positive effect on forest grouse, in consideration of lynx predation on red fox and predation of red foxes on forest grouse. The Swedish hunting association (Jägareförbundet) provides the data that are used which covers all felled prey of forest grouse and red fox due to hunting in Västerbotten County in Sweden. The data for lynx are inventoried by the county administrative board (Länsstyrelsen) and is supposed to cover the whole county of Västerbotten. The given data sets were compared against each other with correlation coefficient and linear regression (R2-values). When comparing lynx and red fox the result is a correlation coefficient of -0,11 and R2 = 1,8 %. The same comparison with red fox and forest grouse, as well as lynx and forest grouse, results in correlation coefficients of -0,78 and 0,55 respectively R2-values of 62 % and 29 %. These results indicate that there exists a positive connection between lynx and forest grouse, as well as a negative connection between forest grouse and red fox. However, with the given data it is not possible to make any statistical conclusions concerning the connection between lynx and red fox. It is therefore uncertain whether lynx have any positive effect on forest grouse since there is some other factor that regulates the fox population

A Comparison of Visualisation Methods for Disambiguating Verbal Requests in Human-Robot Interaction

Picking up objects requested by a human user is a common task in human-robot interaction. When multiple objects match the user's verbal description, the robot needs to clarify which object the user is referring to before executing the action. Previous research has focused on perceiving user's multimodal behaviour to complement verbal commands or minimising the number of follow up questions to reduce task time. In this paper, we propose a system for reference disambiguation based on visualisation and compare three methods to disambiguate natural language instructions. In a controlled experiment with a YuMi robot, we investigated real-time augmentations of the workspace in three conditions -- mixed reality, augmented reality, and a monitor as the baseline -- using objective measures such as time and accuracy, and subjective measures like engagement, immersion, and display interference. Significant differences were found in accuracy and engagement between the conditions, but no differences were found in task time. Despite the higher error rates in the mixed reality condition, participants found that modality more engaging than the other two, but overall showed preference for the augmented reality condition over the monitor and mixed reality conditions