Suchergebnisse

The European Union Water Framework Directive (WFD), with initiatives to manage surface water resources, has increased the need for fast and inexpensive methods for monitoring conditions in streams. The objective of this thesis is to assess the potential of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) of epilithic material to become such method. NIRS, which is a technique that is commonly used in industry for process monitoring and quality control of products, registers the chemical properties of organic material on a molecular level. Epilithic material, i.e. the layer of dead and alive material that covers stone surfaces in streams, is continuously influenced by the stream water that flows over it, and it has the potential to integrate chemical and biological conditions over time. The temporal integration is a significant factor, since conditions in streams can change within hours or days. The thesis consists of two published papers. In the first paper a new sampler for epilithic material, the Stone Brusher, was described and the performance evaluated. The Stone Brusher is designed to take qualitative or semi-quantitative samples of epilithic material from stones at 7–50 cm water depth. The epilithic material is dislodged from the stone surface with a rotating brush enclosed in a chamber, and the material is drawn up directly into the sample bottle with an air-cylinder. The operator takes a sample quickly and without putting hands into the water. The sampler is made of plastic, stainless steel and aluminium and weighs 3.1 kg. It is designed to meet the demand for standardized sampling for research and environmental monitoring and to improve working conditions for sampling personnel. The equipment allows sampling from surfaces of bedrock and large stones that cannot be lifted from the bottom. Using data of near-infrared spectroscopy and diatom analyses, this new sampler was evaluated in comparison to the toothbrush method, a primitive method which is the current standard in EU. The results indicate that the Stone Brusher reduces sampling variability compared with the toothbrush method. In the second paper, the Stone Brusher was used to collect epilithic material from 65 sites (42 uncontaminated and 23 contaminated) from streams in the widespread mining area called the Skellefte-district in Västerbotten, northern Sweden, in order to test the hypothesis that impact on the epilithic material caused by emissions from mining and mining-related industries can be detected using NIRS. The epilithic material was filtered onto glass fibre filters, measured by NIRS, and the results were modelled using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The NIRS approach was evaluated by comparing it with the results of chemical and diatom analyses of the same samples. Based on PCA, the NIRS data distinguished contaminated from uncontaminated sites and performed slightly better than chemical analyses and clearly better than diatom analyses. Of the streams designated a priori as contaminated, 74 % were identified as contaminated by NIRS, 65 % by chemical analysis and 26 % by diatom analysis. Unlike chemical analyses of water or of epilithic material samples, NIRS data reflect biological impacts in the streams. Given that, and the simplicity of NIRS-analyses, further studies to assess the use of NIRS of epilithic material are justified. NIRS has the potential to become a fast method for screening in regions where large numbers of streams occur to find impacted streams or as a routine method for temporal monitoring in selected streams for early detection of environmental impact, similar to process monitoring in industry.

Det här är berättelsen om det som händer bakom rubrikerna, men samtidigt överallt runtomkring oss. Om bankinfiltration och korruption, om bedrägerier och utpressning. Och om en organisationsform som visat sig vara extremt livskraftig i den kriminella miljön: Klanen.[Bokinfo]

Transport telematic systems, also known as intelligent transportation systems, can be expensive to implement but the services they provide may offer substantial benefits. However, what services the system can provide depends on the architectural choices made, which also affects the cost of the system. We propose an optimization model to support a more informed decision before investing in a multiple service transport telematic system. The model evaluates the possible choices of services and architectures, and aims to maximize the total net societal benefit. We argue that the optimization model can provide support for strategic decisions by highlighting the consequences of adopting different system architectures, including both societal value and cost. This can be useful for decision makers, such as governments, road transport telematic service providers, and commercial road freight transport operators.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss the problem of management systems in human services dealing with children and young people not supporting efficient resource utilization, as well as how to deal with this problem.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on six years (2002‐2007) of research into human service organizations with regard to social activities focusing on children and adolescents. The authors conducted this research in collaboration with representatives of social services, health services, schools and pre‐schools in three municipalities in southern Sweden (2002‐2005) and four municipalities and two county councils (2005‐2007) in different parts of Sweden. The researchers met these representatives at seminars held every month. The seminars primarily served the purpose of discussing problems and opportunities, as well as allowing experiences to be exchanged between the representatives.FindingsThe circumstances of dependency between social services, schools and pre‐schools are obviously given in their inter‐relationships. Efficient resource utilization thus presupposes resources being distributed on the basis of transverse dialogues held between different actors. The organisational structure and management control systems should therefore be designed so that they support meetings and dialogues between actors involved in different activities and on different levels in social services, schools and pre‐schools.Originality/valueThis paper shows that dialogue across boundaries will provide the prerequisites for the knowledge‐ and experience‐sharing that is necessary to bring about efficient resource utilization in human services directed towards children and young people. Some proposals regarding a more effective and ethically legitimate utilization of resources are also made.

This project investigates how the actors in a transportation chain are expected to act when different types of governmental control policies are applied. A simulation-based tool is being developed for use in analyzing the effects of different control policies. The simulator is based on agent technology and include some intelligence with respect to how the transport operators act in different situations. The simulator will be used for analyzing the total costs and environmental effects and in this way provide guidance in decision making regarding control policies. Also, cost-effective strategies for companies can be determined with the simulator.

In this work, we investigate how visualization techniques could address the challenges of transportation simulation data analysis in order to facilitate the decision-making process for transportation simulation users. For this purpose, we have applied the visualization methods in a real implemented agent-based transportation simulator called TAPAS as a case. We have analyzed the visualization related requirements of users using a user-centric approach and an interactive visualization toolkit has been designed and developed based on the identified requirements. This paper presents a description of the visualization toolkit which will be used to investigate how the actors in a transport chain are expected to act when different types of governmental control policies are applied, such as, fuel taxes, road tolls, vehicle taxes and requirements on vehicles.

An agent-based tool for micro-level simulation of transport chains (TAPAS) is described. It is more powerful than traditional approaches as it is able to capture the interactions between individual actors of a transport chain, as well as their heterogeneity and decision making processes. Whereas traditional approaches rely on assumed statistical correlation between different parameters, TAPAS relies on causality, i.e., the decisions and negotiations that lead to the transports being performed. An additional advantage is that TAPAS is able to capture time aspects, such as, the influence of timetables, arrival times, and time-differentiated taxes and fees. TAPAS is composed of two layers, one layer simulating the physical activities taking place in the transport chain, e.g., production, storage, and transports of goods, and another layer simulating the different actors' decision making processes and interaction. The decision layer is implemented as a multi-agent system using the JADE platform, where each agent corresponds to a particular actor. We demonstrate the use of TAPAS by investigating how the actors in a transport chain are expected to act when different types of governmental control policies are applied, such as, fuel taxes, road tolls, and vehicle taxes. By analyzing the costs and environmental effects, TAPAS provides guidance in decision making regarding such control policies. We argue that TAPAS may also complement existing approaches in different ways, for instance by generating input data such as transport demand. Since TAPAS models a larger part of the supply chain, the transport demand is a natural part of the output. Studies may concern operational decisions like choice of consignment size and frequency of deliveries, as well as strategic decisions like where to locate storages, terminals, etc., choice of producer, and adaptation of vehicle fleets.

A simulation-based tool is described which will be used to investigate how the actors in a transport chain are expected to act when different types of governmental control policies are applied, such as, fuel taxes, road tolls, vehicle taxes and requirements on vehicles. The simulator is composed of two layers, one layer simulating the physical activities taking place in the transport chain, e.g., production, storage, and transports of goods, and another layer simulating the different actors' decision-making processes. The decision layer is implemented by a multi-agent system where each agent corresponds to a particular actor and models the way it acts in different situations. The simulator will be used for analyzing the costs and environmental effects, and will in this way provide guidance in decision making regarding control policies. In addition, it will be possible for companies to use the simulator in order to determine cost-effective strategies given different (future) scenarios.