Conflict management as a means to the sustainable use of natural resources

Abstract

Monitoring System Resources During Automated Testing in Symbian Operating System

Tässä diplomityössä esitellään ohjelmistotestauksen ja verifioinnin yleisiä periaatteita sekä käsitellään tarkemmin älypuhelinohjelmistojen verifiointia. Työssä esitellään myös älypuhelimissa käytettävä Symbian-käyttöjärjestelmä. Työn käytännön osuudessa suunniteltiin ja toteutettiin Symbian-käyttöjärjestelmässä toimiva palvelin, joka tarkkailee ja tallentaa järjestelmäresurssien käyttöä. Verifiointi on tärkeä ja kuluja aiheuttava tehtävä älypuhelinohjelmistojen kehityssyklissä. Kuluja voidaan vähentää automatisoimalla osa verifiointiprosessista. Toteutettu palvelin automatisoijärjestelmäresurssien tarkkailun tallentamalla tietoja niistä tiedostoon testien ajon aikana. Kun testit ajetaan uudestaan, uusia tuloksia vertaillaan lähdetallenteeseen. Jos tulokset eivät ole käyttäjän asettamien virherajojen sisällä, siitä ilmoitetaan käyttäjälle. Virherajojen ja lähdetallenteen määrittäminen saattaa osoittautua vaikeaksi. Kuitenkin, jos ne määritetään sopivasti, palvelin tuottaa hyödyllistä tietoa poikkeamista järjestelmäresurssien kulutuksessa testaajille.

The resource-based view of the firm - resources, capabilities and sustainable competitive advantage

The main objective of this research paper was to synthesize, integrate and analyze the theoretical foundation of the resource-based view of the firm on sustainable competitive advantage. Accordingly, this research was a literature research employing the methodology of interpretative study of concept and unobtrusive measures. The core and majority of the research data was gathered from the major online journal databases. Only peer-reviewed articles from highly-esteemed journals on the subject of competitive advantage were used. The theoretical core of the research paper was centred on resources, capabilities, and the sustainability dilemma of competitive advantage. Furthermore, other strategic management concepts relating to the resource-based view of the firm were used with reference to the research objectives. The resource-based view of the firm continues to be a controversial but important are of strategic management research on sustainable competitive advantage. Consequently, the theoretical foundation and the empirical testing of the framework needs further work. However, it is evident that internal organizational factors in the form of resources and capabilities are vital for the formation of sustainable competitive advantage. Resources and capabilities are not, however, valuable on their own - competitive advantage requires seamless interplay and complementarity between bundles of resources and capabilities.

Customer driven business model – connecting customer value to firm resources in ICT value networks

The objective of this thesis is to provide a business model framework that connects customer value to firm resources and explains the change logic of the business model. Strategic supply management and especially dynamic value network management as its scope, the dissertation is based on basic economic theories, transaction cost economics and the resource-based view. The main research question is how the changing customer values should be taken into account when planning business in a networked environment. The main question is divided into questions that form the basic research problems for the separate case studies presented in the five Publications. This research adopts the case study strategy, and the constructive research approach within it. The material consists of data from several Delphi panels and expert workshops, software pilot documents, company financial statements and information on investor relations on the companies’ web sites. The cases used in this study are a mobile multi-player game value network, smart phone and “Skype mobile” services, the business models of AOL, eBay, Google, Amazon and a telecom operator, a virtual city portal business system and a multi-play offering. The main contribution of this dissertation is bridging the gap between firm resources and customer value. This has been done by theorizing the business model concept and connecting it to both the resource-based view and customer value. This thesis contributes to the resource-based view, which deals with customer value and firm resources needed to deliver the value but has a gap in explaining how the customer value changes should be connected to the changes in key resources. This dissertation also provides tools and processes for analyzing the customer value preferences of ICT services, constructing and analyzing business models and business concept innovation and conducting resource analysis.

Competence Development and Capacity Building of Sawmill Enterprises in Kenya – A Human Resources Development Approach

The Kenyan forestry and sawmilling industry have been subject to a changing environment since 1999 when the industrial forest plantations were closed down. This has lowered raw material supply and it has affected and reduced the sawmill operations and the viability of the sawmill enterprises. The capacity of the 276 registered sawmills is not sufficient to fulfill sawn timber demand in Kenya. This is because of the technological degradation and lack of a qualified labor force, which were caused because of non-existent sawmilling education and further training in Kenya. Lack of competent sawmill workers has led to low raw material recovery, under utilization of resources and loss of employment. The objective of the work was to suggest models, methods and approaches for the competence and capacity development of the Kenyan sawmilling industry, sawmills and their workers. A nationwide field survey, interviews, questionnaire and literature review was used for data collection to find out the sawmills’ competence development areas and to suggest models and methods for their capacity building. The sampling frame included 22 sawmills that represented 72,5% of all the registered sawmills in Kenya. The results confirmed that the sawmills’ technological level was backwards, productivity low, raw material recovery unacceptable and workers’ professional education low. The future challenges will be how to establish the sawmills’ capacity building and workers’ competence development. Sawmilling industry development requires various actions through new development models and approaches. Activities should be started for technological development and workers’ competence development. This requires re-starting of vocational training in sawmilling and the establishment of more effective co-operation between the sawmills and their stakeholder groups. In competence development the Enterprise Competence Management Model of Nurminen (2007) can be used, whereas the best training model and approach would be a practically oriented learning at work model in which the short courses, technical assistance and extension services would be the key functions.

Multi-Eruption Solar Energetic Particle Events Observed by SOHO/ERNE

In the last two decades of studying the Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) phenomenon, intensive emphasis has been put on how and when and where these SEPs are injected into interplanetary space. It is well known that SEPs are related to solar flares and CMEs. However, the role of each in the acceleration of SEPs has been under debate since the major role was taken from flares ascribed to CMEs step by step after the skylab mission, which started the era of CME spaceborn observations. Since then, the shock wave generated by powerful CMEs in between 2-5 solar radii is considered the major accelerator. The current paradigm interprets the prolonged proton intensity-time profile in gradual SEP events as a direct effect of accelerated SEPs by shock wave propagating in the interplanetary medium. Thus the powerful CME is thought of as a starter for the acceleration and its shock wave as a continuing accelerator to result in such an intensity-time profile. Generally it is believed that a single powerful CME which might or might not be associated with a flare is always the reason behind such gradual events.

In this work we use the Energetic and Relativistic Nucleus and Electrons ERNE instrument on board Solar and Heliospheric Observatory SOHO to present an empirical study to show the possibility of multiple accelerations in SEP events. In the beginning we found 18 double-peaked SEP events by examining 88 SEP events. The peaks in the intensity-time profile were separated by 3-24 hours. We divided the SEP events according to possible multiple acceleration into four groups and in one of these groups we find evidence for multiple acceleration in velocity dispersion and change in the abundance ratio associated at transition to the second peak. Then we explored the intensity-time profiles of all SEP events during solar cycle 23 and found that most of the SEP events are associated with multiple eruptions at the Sun and we call those events as Multi-Eruption Solar Energetic Particles (MESEP) events. We use the data available by Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronograph LASCO on board SOHO to determine the CME associated with such events and YOHKOH and GOES satellites data to determine the flare associated with such events. We found four types of MESEP according to the appearance of the peaks in the intensity-time profile in large variation of energy levels. We found that it is not possible to determine whether the peaks are related to an eruption at the Sun or not, only by examining the anisotropy flux, He/p ratio and velocity dispersion. Then we chose a rare event in which there is evidence of SEP acceleration from behind previous CME. This work resulted in a conclusion which is inconsistent with the current SEP paradigm. Then we discovered through examining another MESEP event, that energetic particles accelerated by a second CME can penetrate a previous CME-driven decelerating shock. Finally, we report the previous two MESEP events with new two events and find a common basis for second CME SEPs penetrating previous decelerating shocks. This phenomenon is reported for the first time and expected to have significant impact on modification of the current paradigm of the solar energetic particle events.

Determining the location for a mobile device by utilization of local resources of the environment

The subject being analyzed of this Master’s Thesis is a development of a service that is used to define a current location of a mobile device. The service utilized data that is obtained from own GPS receiver in some possible cases and as well data from mobile devices which can be afforded for the current environment for acquisition of more precise position of the device. The computation environment is based on context of a mobile device. The service is implemented as an application for communicator series Nokia N8XX. The Master’s Thesis presents theoretical concept of the method and its practical implementation, architecture of the application, requirements and describes a process of its functionality. Also users’ work with application is presented and recommendations for possible future improvements are made.

Resources and capabilities approach to online strategy – Multiple-case study of Finnish magazines' online services

Most Finnish periodical magazines have a website, often an online service. The objective of this thesis is to understand the magazines’ resources and capabilities and match them with online strategies’ goals and objectives. The thesis’ theoretical part focuses on explaining and classifying resources, capabilities, goals and objectives, and applying everything into Finnish magazine publishing context. In the empirical part, there is a comparative case study of four magazines. The findings indicate that with cooperating, advertising and community hosting capabilities magazines may utilize their human, brand, content and customer base resources. The resources can be further addressed to reach profitability, customer-centricity and brand congruency goals.

Optimization of wind blade design including its energetic characteristics

The goal of the Master’s thesis is to develop and to analyze the optimization method for finding a geometry shape of classical horizontal wind turbine blades based on set of criteria. The thesis develops a technique that allows the designer to determine the weight of such factors as power coefficient, sound pressure level and the cost function in the overall process of blade shape optimization. The optimization technique applies the Desirability function. It was never used before in that kind of technical problems, and in this sense it can claim to originality of research. To do the analysis and the optimization processes more convenient the software application was developed.