Quality management for vital forest tree seedlings : Final report, Project no: P33854-1

The work concerns development of a prototype molecular tests to identify vitality status of conifer seedlings. The work is done by NSure, Holland, Dalarna University and SUAS. In case for spruce, a successful validation experiment has been performed to validate the identified frost tolerance and vitality genes. Multiple indicators were identified that can be used to either reinforce the existing ColdnSure test, but also for development of a vitality test. The identified frost tolerance and vitality genes for pine still need to be validated. NSure together with Dalarna University aim to perform a validation next season. Multiple LN indicators were identified in spruce that can be used to determine the effectiveness of a LN treatment, but they are not yet validated. In spruce and pine hardly any scientific research is performed to study the effect of a LN treatment, particularly not at molecular level. Therefore NSure together with Dalarna Research Station want to apply for a project. Within this project, we would be able to develop the tests further.

Print quality study of a laboratory offset press

PAPRO operates within the Forest Research company and their mission is to develop value-addingindustry solutions. At present there are no good ways for mills to easily test the printing quality on newsprintpaper. There is a great need for a fast way to do this on different paper qualities; with a laboratory-offset press this can be both a time and money saving method. At PAPRO Forest Research, NewZealand, a laboratory offset press has been developed and designed, during the past seven years, concerningthis issue. Earlier projects were made concerning the press, e.g. to establish the optimal settings.The mission with this project was to partly determine the present variability of the print quality andto evaluate if the fountain solution, distilled water and 2% Diol green concentrate, used at the momentmixed with different percentages of Isopropanol could decrease the variability and contribute to morestabile results. Throughout the whole project the print quality showed a high variation and was evenmore variable when the Isopropanol was added. All in all 50 print rounds times twelve printed paperstrips was carried out through the project divided into three parts. To analyse the print quality, amicroscope with an image capture camera has been used. Data from the taken images was analysedand inserted into charts to see the variations.The conclusions of the whole project are not satisfying because no final evaluations were possible tomake. Main conclusions are that the additive of Isopropanol to the ordinary fountain solution, used atpresent, only contributed to more unstable results of the print quality. And it seems to be difficult toget some stable results from the lab press as long as the room where it is placed is not fully conditionedas required for the process of offset printing. And the fact that the airbrush which applies theamount of fountain solution is also variable, as shown in earlier projects, which contributes to unstableresults as well. For further work more exact parameters as a conditioned room are required and thepossibility to further design the laboratory press to use waterless offset printing instead.

Print quality study of newsprint : Further development of the laboratoryoffset press at PAPRO

A laboratory offset press has been developed over the last five years at PAPRO for testing print qualityon newsprint, as at present, there is no good way for the mills to test this issue. In this project a comparisonhas been made between a laboratory offset press and a commercial press to see if the laboratoryoffset press can be used as a reliable test method or if a further development is needed.To evaluate the method, similar papers have been printed in both presses and compared using imageanalysis techniques. All together eighteen samples were tested which is enough to give comparableresults. The print quality showed a high variation, the values from the laboratory offset press and thecommercial press were not following the same trends. At present time the laboratory offset press needsome further development before it can be used as a reliable test method for halftone prints. Even sosome conclusions were made.The newsprint that has been used came from Norske Skog Tasman Mill (Kawerau), since the otheraim of this project was to do a repeatability study of their three existing paper machines to distinguishpossible differences in the production. The paper samples were taken from each paper machine on sixdifferent dates to give a representative result. This also gave the opportunity to compare the machinesbetween themselves. Comparison between the machines shows that the wire side gives a better andmore even result than the topside on the prints from the laboratory offset press. According to the resultfrom the commercial press the wire side shows a higher degree of variability. Samples from papermachine 2 and 3 were less variable and had the lowest standard deviation of grey level for solid areas.This suggests that newsprints from PM 2 and PM 3 give a more even print quality with a better inkcoverage.

ANFIS BASED MODELS FOR ACCESSING QUALITY OF WIKIPEDIA ARTICLES

Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Due to the free nature of Wikipedia and allowing open access to everyone to edit articles the quality of articles may be affected. As all people don’t have equal level of knowledge and also different people have different opinions about a topic so there may be difference between the contributions made by different authors. To overcome this situation it is very important to classify the articles so that the articles of good quality can be separated from the poor quality articles and should be removed from the database. The aim of this study is to classify the articles of Wikipedia into two classes class 0 (poor quality) and class 1(good quality) using the Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) and data mining techniques. Two ANFIS are built using the Fuzzy Logic Toolbox [1] available in Matlab. The first ANFIS is based on the rules obtained from J48 classifier in WEKA while the other one was built by using the expert’s knowledge. The data used for this research work contains 226 article’s records taken from the German version of Wikipedia. The dataset consists of 19 inputs and one output. The data was preprocessed to remove any similar attributes. The input variables are related to the editors, contributors, length of articles and the lifecycle of articles. In the end analysis of different methods implemented in this research is made to analyze the performance of each classification method used.

Fan Culture as an Informal Learning Environment : Presentation of a NGL project

Fan culture is a subculture that has developed explosively on the internet over the last decades. Fans are creating their own films, translations, fiction, fan art, blogs, role play and also various forms that are all based on familiar popular culture creations like TV-series, bestsellers, anime, manga stories and games. In our project, we analyze two of these subculture genres, fan fiction and scanlation. Amateurs, and sometimes professional writers, create new stories by adapting and developing existing storylines and characters from the original. In this way, a "network" of texts occurs, and writers step into an intertextual dialogue with established writers such as JK Rowling (Harry Potter) and Stephanie Meyer (Twilight). Literary reception and creation then merge into a rich reciprocal creative activity which includes comments and feedback from the participators in the community. The critical attitude of the fans regarding quality and the frustration at waiting for the official translation of manga books led to the development of scanlation, which is an amateur translation of manga distributed on the internet.  Today, young internet users get involved in conceptual discussions of intertextuality and narrative structures through fan activity. In the case of scanlation, the scanlators practice the skills and techniques of translating in an informal environment. This phenomenon of participatory culture has been observed by scholars and it is concluded that they contribute to the development of a student’s literacy and foreign language skills. Furthermore, there is no doubt that the fandom related to Japanese cultural products such as manga, anime and videogames is one of the strong motives for foreign students to start learning Japanese. This is something to take into pedagogical consideration when we develop web-based courses. Fan fiction and fan culture make it ​​possible to have an intensive transcultural dialogue between participators throughout the world and is of great interest when studying the interaction between formal and informal learning that puts the student in focus

Depicting the interplay between organisational tiers in the use of a national quality registry to develop quality of care in Sweden

BACKGROUND: With a pending need to identify potential means to improved quality of care, national quality registries (NQRs) are identified as a promising route. Yet, there is limited evidence with regards to what hinders and facilitates the NQR innovation, what signifies the contexts in which NQRs are applied and drive quality improvement. Supposedly, barriers and facilitators to NQR-driven quality improvement may be found in the healthcare context, in the politico-administrative context, as well as with an NQR itself. In this study, we investigated the potential variation with regards to if and how an NQR was applied by decision-makers and users in regions and clinical settings. The aim was to depict the interplay between the clinical and the politico-administrative tiers in the use of NQRs to develop quality of care, examining an established registry on stroke care as a case study. METHODS: We interviewed 44 individuals representing the clinical and the politico-administrative settings of 4 out of 21 regions strategically chosen for including stroke units representing a variety of outcomes in the NQR on stroke (Riksstroke) and a variety of settings. The transcribed interviews were analysed by applying The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). RESULTS: In two regions, decision-makers and/or administrators had initiated healthcare process projects for stroke, engaging the health professionals in the local stroke units who contributed with, for example, local data from Riksstroke. The Riksstroke data was used for identifying improvement issues, for setting goals, and asserting that the stroke units achieved an equivalent standard of care and a certain level of quality of stroke care. Meanwhile, one region had more recently initiated such a project and the fourth region had no similar collaboration across tiers. Apart from these projects, there was limited joint communication across tiers and none that included all individuals and functions engaged in quality improvement with regards to stroke care. CONCLUSIONS: If NQRs are to provide for quality improvement and learning opportunities, advances must be made in the links between the structures and processes across all organisational tiers, including decision-makers, administrators and health professionals engaged in a particular healthcare process.