Many big organizations including Government agencies have what can be called a "multi-technological" chaos. They have in many cases hundreds of IT-applications badly coordinated and integrated. A proposed cure for this is often procurement of big and comprehensive software packages like Enterprise Systems. We argue that the procurement of this applications often are done in an old fashion way influenced by old behavior and outdated roles. This paper analyses two Swedish Government cases based on three complementary perspectives that can help the buyer and the seller to better understand the complex solutions of which the software should be a part.
Only one fifth of children aged 11–17 years are physically active for 60 min (min)/day. As physical activity (PA) levels track from childhood to adulthood, it is important to establish healthy PA behavior early in life. This study aims to evaluate whether daily school PA is associated with objectively measured PA independently of other socioecological factors. This study includes 209 children (120 boys) aged 9.8 ± 0.6 (mean ± SD) years from four government-funded schools in Sweden. One school including 113 children (70 boys) had 40 min of daily school PA (intervention) and three schools including 96 children (50 boys) had 60 min of school PA/week (control). PA was measured during four serial days with accelerometers. General PA (GPA) was defined as mean counts per minute (cpm). Socioecological factors were collected by questionnaires, and anthropometric traits by measurements. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test whether sex, age, relative age, body height, fat mass, lean mass, screen time activity, parental educational level, parental attitude towards PA, parental PA, sibling(s)' PA, living in a house or apartment, and whether the child was allocated to 40 min daily school PA or 60 min school PA/week, was independently associated with GPA. Daily GPA was found to be 686.9 ± 211.9 cpm. Independently of the other included factors, daily school PA was associated with +81.8 (15.7, 147.8) cpm compared with 60 min PA/week. This study infers that daily school PA is an appropriate strategy to promote PA in 10-year-old children, independently of different socioecological factors.
Only one fifth of children aged 11–17 years are physically active for 60 min (min)/day. As physical activity (PA) levels track from childhood to adulthood, it is important to establish healthy PA behavior early in life. This study aims to evaluate whether daily school PA is associated with objectively measured PA independently of other socioecological factors. This study includes 209 children (120 boys) aged 9.8 ± 0.6 (mean ± SD) years from four government-funded schools in Sweden. One school including 113 children (70 boys) had 40 min of daily school PA (intervention) and three schools including 96 children (50 boys) had 60 min of school PA/week (control). PA was measured during four serial days with accelerometers. General PA (GPA) was defined as mean counts per minute (cpm). Socioecological factors were collected by questionnaires, and anthropometric traits by measurements. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to test whether sex, age, relative age, body height, fat mass, lean mass, screen time activity, parental educational level, parental attitude towards PA, parental PA, sibling(s)' PA, living in a house or apartment, and whether the child was allocated to 40 min daily school PA or 60 min school PA/week, was independently associated with GPA. Daily GPA was found to be 686.9 ± 211.9 cpm. Independently of the other included factors, daily school PA was associated with +81.8 (15.7, 147.8) cpm compared with 60 min PA/week. This study infers that daily school PA is an appropriate strategy to promote PA in 10-year-old children, independently of different socioecological factors.
Physical activity (PA) may improve brain development, cognition, concentration and academic performance. In this prospective controlled intervention study, we increased the level of PA in 338 children aged 6–8 years at study start, from the Swedish standard of 60 min per week to 200 min per week (40 min daily). The intervention continued in all nine compulsory school years until the students graduated between 2007–2012. All other 689,881 Swedish children who graduated the same years were included as a control group. We registered at graduation eligibility rate for upper secondary school and the final grade score (from 0 to 320 grade points). We also registered the same end points in the 295 students in the index school and in all other 471,926 Swedish students who graduated in 2003–2006, that is, those who graduated before the intervention study started. Before the intervention, academic performance was similar among children in the index school as for all other Swedish boys and girls. With the intervention, the eligibility rate increased for boys in the index school by 7.3 percentage points and the mean grade scores by 13.3 points. This should be compared with a decrease of 0.8 percentage points in eligibility rate and an increase by 2.7 points in grade score in other Swedish boys. No changes were seen for intervention girls, neither in eligibility rates or grade scores. By introducing daily school-based PA in compulsory school, more boys would probably reach the eligibility rate for higher education.
This 7.5-year prospective controlled exercise intervention study assessed if daily school physical activity (PA), from before to after puberty, improved musculoskeletal traits. There were 63 boys and 34 girls in the intervention group (40 min PA/day), and 26 boys and 17 girls in the control group (60 min PA/week). We measured musculoskeletal traits at the start and end of the study. The overall musculoskeletal effect of PA was also estimated by a composite score (mean Z-score of the lumbar spine bone mineral content (BMC), bone area (BA), total body lean mass (TBLM), calcaneal ultrasound (speed of sound (SOS)), and muscle strength (knee flexion peak torque)). We used analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) for group comparisons. Compared to the gender-matched control group, intervention boys reached higher gains in BMC, BA, muscle strength, as well as in the composite score, and intervention girls higher gains in BMC, BA, SOS, as well as in the composite score (all p < 0.05, respectively). Our small sample study indicates that a daily school-based PA intervention program from Tanner stage 1 to 5 in both sexes is associated with greater bone mineral accrual, greater gain in bone size, and a greater gain in a musculoskeletal composite score for fractures.
