Dynamic Capabilities and Real Options

Tutkielman tavoitteena oli selvittää dynaamisten kyvykkyyksien teorian kehittymistä ja nykytilaa. Työssä tarkastellaan myös mahdollisuuksia yhdistää reaalioptioajattelua ja dynaamisten kyvykkyyksien teoriaa. Tutkielma on toteutettu teoreettisena kirjallisuuskatsauksena. Dynaamisten kyvykkyyksien teorian mukaan muuttuvassa toimintaympäristössä yritysten kilpailuetu perustuu kykyyn rakentaa, yhdistää ja muokata resursseja ja kyvykkyyksiä. Yritysten täytyy pystyä löytämään, sulauttamaan ja muuntamaan tietoa voidakseen tunnistaa uusia mahdollisuuksia ja pystyäkseen reagoimaan niihin. Tutkielma tuo esille uusia yhteyksiä dynaamisten kyvykkyyksien teorian ja yritysten käyttäytymisen välillä. Reaalioptioajattelu auttaa tunnistamaan yrityksen rajojen määrittämiseen vaikuttavia tekijöitä. Työssä tehdään ehdotuksia dynaamisten kyvykkyyksien teorian jatkotutkimusta varten.

Real-time Linux in electric drive systems

Reaaliaikaisten käyttöjärjestelmien käyttö sulautetuissa järjestelmissä on kasvamassa koko ajan. Sulautettuja tietokoneita käytetään yhä useammassa kohteessa kuten sähkökäyttöjen ohjauksessa. Sähkökäyttöjen ohjaus hoidetaan nykyisin yleensä nopealla digitaalisella signaaliprosessorilla (DSP), jolloin ohjelmointi ja päivittäminen on hidasta ja vaikeaa johtuen käytettävästä matalan tason Assembler-kielestä. Ratkaisuna yleiskäyttöisten prosessorien ja reaaliaikakäyttöjärjestelmien käyttö. Kaupalliset reaaliaikakäyttöjärjestelmät ovat kalliita ja lähdekoodin saaminen omaan käyttöön jopa mahdotonta. Linux on ei-kaupallinen avoimen lähdekoodin käyttöjärjestelmä, joten sen käyttö on ilmaista ja sitä voi muokata vapaasti. Linux:iin on saatavana useita laajennuksia, jotka tekevät siitä reaaliaikaisen käyttöjärjestelmän. Vaihtoehtoina joko kova (hard) tai pehmeä (soft) reaaliaikaisuus. Linux:iin on olemassa valmiita kehitysympäristöjä mutta ne kaipaavat parannusta ennen kuin niitä voidaan käyttää suuressa mittakaavassa teollisuudessa. Reaaliaika Linux ei sovellus nopeisiin ohjauslooppeihin (<100 ms) koska nopeus ei riitä vielä mutta nopeus kasvaa samalla kun prosessorit kehittyvät. Linux soveltuu hyvin rajapinnaksi nopean ohjauksen ja käyttäjän välille ja hitaampaan ohjaukseen.

Playing to Learn: Business Simulation Games as Leadership Learning Environments

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate if participation in business simulation gaming sessions can make different leadership styles visible and provide students with experiences beneficial for the development of leadership skills. Particularly, the focus is to describe the development of leadership styles when leading virtual teams in computer-­supported collaborative game settings and to identify the outcomes of using computer simulation games as leadership training tools. To answer to the objectives of the study, three empirical experiments were conducted to explore if participation in business simulation gaming sessions (Study I and II), which integrate face-­to-­face and virtual communication (Study III and IV), can make different leadership styles visible and provide students with experiences beneficial for the development of leadership skills. In the first experiment, a group of multicultural graduate business students (N=41) participated in gaming sessions with a computerized business simulation game (Study III). In the second experiment, a group of graduate students (N=9) participated in the training with a ‘real estate’ computer game (Study I and II). In the third experiment, a business simulation gaming session was organized for graduate students group (N=26) and the participants played the simulation game in virtual teams, which were organizationally and geographically dispersed but connected via technology (Study IV). Each team in all experiments had three to four students and students were between 22 and 25 years old. The business computer games used for the empirical experiments presented an enormous number of complex operations in which a team leader needed to make the final decisions involved in leading the team to win the game. These gaming environments were interactive;; participants interacted by solving the given tasks in the game. Thus, strategy and appropriate leadership were needed to be successful. The training was competition-­based and required implementation of leadership skills. The data of these studies consist of observations, participants’ reflective essays written after the gaming sessions, pre-­ and post-­tests questionnaires and participants’ answers to open-­ ended questions. Participants’ interactions and collaboration were observed when they played the computer games. The transcripts of notes from observations and students dialogs were coded in terms of transactional, transformational, heroic and post-­heroic leadership styles. For the data analysis of the transcribed notes from observations, content analysis and discourse analysis was implemented. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was also utilized in the study to measure transformational and transactional leadership styles;; in addition, quantitative (one-­way repeated measures ANOVA) and qualitative data analyses have been performed. The results of this study indicate that in the business simulation gaming environment, certain leadership characteristics emerged spontaneously. Experiences about leadership varied between the teams and were dependent on the role individual students had in their team. These four studies showed that simulation gaming environment has the potential to be used in higher education to exercise the leadership styles relevant in real-­world work contexts. Further, the study indicated that given debriefing sessions, the simulation game context has much potential to benefit learning. The participants who showed interest in leadership roles were given the opportunity of developing leadership skills in practice. The study also provides evidence of unpredictable situations that participants can experience and learn from during the gaming sessions. The study illustrates the complex nature of experiences from the gaming environments and the need for the team leader and role divisions during the gaming sessions. It could be concluded that the experience of simulation game training illustrated the complexity of real life situations and provided participants with the challenges of virtual leadership experiences and the difficulties of using leadership styles in practice. As a result, the study offers playing computer simulation games in small teams as one way to exercise leadership styles in practice.

A Soft Contact Collision Method For Real-Time Simulation of Triangularized Geometries in Multibody Dynamics

When modeling machines in their natural working environment collisions become a very important feature in terms of simulation accuracy. By expanding the simulation to include the operation environment, the need for a general collision model that is able to handle a wide variety of cases has become central in the development of simulation environments. With the addition of the operating environment the challenges for the collision modeling method also change. More simultaneous contacts with more objects occur in more complicated situations. This means that the real-time requirement becomes more difficult to meet. Common problems in current collision modeling methods include for example dependency on the geometry shape or mesh density, calculation need increasing exponentially in respect to the number of contacts, the lack of a proper friction model and failures due to certain configurations like closed kinematic loops. All these problems mean that the current modeling methods will fail in certain situations. A method that would not fail in any situation is not very realistic but improvements can be made over the current methods.

Anti-predator adaptations in aquatic environments

Predation is an important selective force that has led to the evolution of a variety of fascinating anti-predator adaptations, such as many types of protective coloration and prey behaviours. Because the evolution of life has begun in the aquatic environment and many anti-predator adaptations are found already in relative primitive taxa, it is likely that many of these adaptations evolved initially in the aquatic environment. Yet, there has been surprisingly little research on the mechanisms and function of antipredator adaptations in aquatic systems. To understand the function of anti-predator adaptations and natural selection imposed on prey appearance and behaviour, I have investigated how protective coloration can be used, either as such or together with behavioural adaptations, to manipulate predator behaviour and decrease predation risk. To this end I conducted a series of behaviour ecological laboratory experiments in which I manipulated the visual appearance of artificial backgrounds and prey items. In paper I of this thesis, I investigated background choice as an anti-predator strategy, by observing the habitat choice of the least killifish (Heterandria formosa) between pairs of artificial backgrounds, both in the presence and absence of predation threat. It has been suggested that prey could decrease their risk of being detected by predators either by preferring backgrounds into which they blend or by preferring visually complex backgrounds. The least killifish preferred a background that matched their patterning to a background that mismatched it, showing that they are able to respond to cues of visual similarity between their colour pattern and the surrounding environment. Interestingly however, in female least killifish visual complexity of the background was a more important cue for habitat safety and may override or act together with background matching when searching for a safe habitat. It is possible that in females, preference for visually complex backgrounds is associated with lower opportunity costs than preference for matching backgrounds would be. Generally, the least killifish showed stronger preference while under predation threat, indicating that their background choice behaviour is an antipredator adaptation. Many aquatic prey species have eyespots, which are colour patterns that consist of roughly concentric rings and have received their name because they for humans often resemble the vertebrate eye. I investigated the anti-predator function of eyespots against predation by fish in papers II, III and IV. Some eyespots have been suggested to benefit prey by diverting the strikes of predators away from vital parts of the prey body or towards a direction that facilitates prey escape. Although proposed over a century ago, the divertive effect of eyespots has proven to be difficult to show experimentally. In papers II and III, I tested for divertive effect of eyespots towards attacking fish by presenting artificial prey with eyespots to laboratory reared three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus). I found that eyespots strongly influenced the behaviour of attacking sticklebacks and effectively drew their strikes towards the eyespots. To further investigate this divertive effect and whether the specific shape of eyespots is important for it, I tested in paper III the response of fish also to other markings than eyespots. I found that eyespots were generally more effective in diverting the first strikes of attacking fish compared to other prey markings. My findings suggest that the common occurrence of eyespots in aquatic prey species can at least partly be explained by the divertive effect of the eyespot shape, possibly together with the relative simple developmental mechanisms underlying circular colour patterns. An eyebar is a stripe that runs through the eye, and this pattern has been suggested to obscure the real eyes of the prey by visually blending parts of the eyes and head of the prey and by creating false edges. In paper III, I show that an eyebar effectively disrupts an eyelike shape. This suggests that eyebars provide an effective way to conceal the eyes and consequently obstruct detection and recognition of prey. This experiment also demonstrates that through concealment of the eyes, eyebars could be used to enhance the divertive effect of eyespots, which can explain the common occurrence of eyebars in many species of fish that have eyespots. Larger eyespots have been shown to intimidate some terrestrial predators, such as passerine birds, either because they resemble the eyes of the predator’s own enemy or because highly salient features may have an intimidating effect. In papers II and IV, I investigated whether the occurrence of eyespots in some aquatic prey could be explained by their intimidating effect predatory fish. In paper IV, I also investigated the reason for the intimidating effect of eyelike prey marks. In paper II, I found no clear intimidating effect of eyespots, whereas in paper IV, using a different approach, I found that sticklebacks hesitated to attack towards eyelike but not towards non-eyelike marks. Importantly, paper IV therefore presents the first rigorous evidence for the idea that eye mimicry, and not merely conspicuousness, underlies the intimidating effect. It also showed that the hesitation shown by fish towards eyelike marks is partly an innate response that is reinforced by encounters with predators. Collectively, this thesis shows that prey colour pattern and the visual appearance of the habitat influence the behaviour of fish. The results demonstrate that protective coloration provides numerous distinctive ways for aquatic prey to escape predation. Thus, visual perception and behaviour of fish are important factors shaping the appearance and behaviours of aquatic prey.

Novel virtual environment and real-time simulation based methods for improving life-cycle efficiency of non-road mobile machinery

Virtual environments and real-time simulators (VERS) are becoming more and more important tools in research and development (R&D) process of non-road mobile machinery (NRMM). The virtual prototyping techniques enable faster and more cost-efficient development of machines compared to use of real life prototypes. High energy efficiency has become an important topic in the world of NRMM because of environmental and economic demands. The objective of this thesis is to develop VERS based methods for research and development of NRMM. A process using VERS for assessing effects of human operators on the life-cycle efficiency of NRMM was developed. Human in the loop simulations are ran using an underground mining loader to study the developed process. The simulations were ran in the virtual environment of the Laboratory of Intelligent Machines of Lappeenranta University of Technology. A physically adequate real-time simulation model of NRMM was shown to be reliable and cost effective in testing of hardware components by the means of hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulations. A control interface connecting integrated electro-hydraulic energy converter (IEHEC) with virtual simulation model of log crane was developed. IEHEC consists of a hydraulic pump-motor and an integrated electrical permanent magnet synchronous motorgenerator. The results show that state of the art real-time NRMM simulators are capable to solve factors related to energy consumption and productivity of the NRMM. A significant variation between the test drivers is found. The results show that VERS can be used for assessing human effects on the life-cycle efficiency of NRMM. HIL simulation responses compared to that achieved with conventional simulation method demonstrate the advances and drawbacks of various possible interfaces between the simulator and hardware part of the system under study. Novel ideas for arranging the interface are successfully tested and compared with the more traditional one. The proposed process for assessing the effects of operators on the life-cycle efficiency will be applied for wider group of operators in the future. Driving styles of the operators can be analysed statistically from sufficient large result data. The statistical analysis can find the most life-cycle efficient driving style for the specific environment and machinery. The proposed control interface for HIL simulation need to be further studied. The robustness and the adaptation of the interface in different situations must be verified. The future work will also include studying the suitability of the IEHEC for different working machines using the proposed HIL simulation method.