State of Logistics and Operations Management in Finnish and Swedish Companies – Survey Research Findings

In this research we are examining what is the status of logistics and operations management in Finnish and Swedish companies. Empirical data is based on the web based questionnaire, which was completed in the end of 2007 and early 2008. Our examination consists of roughly 30 answers from largest manufacturing (highest representation in our sample), trade and logistics/distribution companies. Generally it could be argued that these companies operate in complex environment, where number of products, raw materials/components and suppliers is high. However, usually companies rely on small amount of suppliers per raw material/component (highest frequency is 2), and this was especially the case among Swedish companies, and among those companies, which favoured overseas sourcing. Sample consisted of companies which mostly are operating in an international environment, and are quite often multinationals. Our survey findings reveal that companies in general have taken logistics and information technology as part of their strategy process; utilization of performance measures as well as system implementations have followed the strategy decisions. In the transportation mode side we identify that road transports dominate all transport flow classes (inbound, internal and outbound), followed by sea and air. Surprisingly small amount of companies use railways, but in general we could argue that Swedish companies prefer this mode over Finnish counterparts. With respect of operations outsourcing, we found that more traditional areas of logistics outsourcing are driving factors in company's performance measurement priority. In contrary to previous research, our results indicate that the scope of outsourcing is not that wide in logistics/operations management area, and companies are not planning to outsource more in the near future. Some support is found for more international operations and increased outsourcing activity. From the increased time pressure of companies, we find evidence that local as well as overseas customers expect deliveries within days or weeks, but suppliers usually supply within weeks or months. So, basically this leads into considerable inventory holding. Interestingly local and overseas sourcing strategy does not have that great influence on lead time performance of these particular sourcing areas - local strategy is anyway considerably better in responding on market changes due to shorter supply lead times. In the end of our research work we have completed correlation analysis concerning items asked with Likert scale. Our analysis shows that seeing logistics more like a process rather than function, applying time based management, favouring partnerships and measuring logistics within different performance dimensions results on preferred features and performance found in logistics literature.

Undergraduate palliative care teaching in Swiss medical faculties: a nationwide survey and improved learning objectives.

BACKGROUND: In 2007, a first survey on undergraduate palliative care teaching in Switzerland has revealed major heterogeneity of palliative care content, allocation of hours and distribution throughout the 6 year curriculum in Swiss medical faculties. This second survey in 2012/13 has been initiated as part of the current Swiss national strategy in palliative care (2010 - 2015) to serve as a longitudinal monitoring instrument and as a basis for redefinition of palliative care learning objectives and curriculum planning in our country. METHODS: As in 2007, a questionnaire was sent to the deans of all five medical faculties in Switzerland in 2012. It consisted of eight sections: basic background information, current content and hours in dedicated palliative care blocks, current palliative care content in other courses, topics related to palliative care presented in other courses, recent attempts at improving palliative care content, palliative care content in examinations, challenges, and overall summary. Content analysis was performed and the results matched with recommendations from the EAPC for undergraduate training in palliative medicine as well as with recommendations from overseas countries. RESULTS: There is a considerable increase in palliative care content, academic teaching staff and hours in all medical faculties compared to 2007. No Swiss medical faculty reaches the range of 40 h dedicated specifically to palliative care as recommended by the EAPC. Topics, teaching methods, distribution throughout different years and compulsory attendance still differ widely. Based on these results, the official Swiss Catalogue of Learning Objectives (SCLO) was complemented with 12 new learning objectives for palliative and end of life care (2013), and a national basic script for palliative care was published (2015). CONCLUSION: Performing periodic surveys of palliative care teaching at national medical faculties has proven to be a useful tool to adapt the national teaching framework and to improve the recognition of palliative medicine as an integral part of medical training.

Définition et prise en charge de l'échec d'une première injection de toxine botulique Botox(®) 200 U pour hyperactivité détrusorienne neurogène : résultats de l'enquête DETOX [Definition of botulinum toxin failure in neurogenic detrusor overactivity: Preliminary results of the DETOX survey].

OBJECTIVE: There is currently no guideline regarding the management of neurogenic detrusor overactivity (NDO) refractory to intra-detrusor botulinum toxin injections. The primary objective of the present study was to find a consensus definition of failure of botulinum toxin intra-detrusor injections for NDO. The secondary objective was to report current trends in the managment of NDO refractory to botulinum toxin. METHODS: A survey was created, based on data drawn from current literature, and sent via e-mail to all the experts form the Group for research in neurourology in french language (GENULF) and from the comittee of neurourology of the French urological association (AFU). The experts who did not answer to the first e-mail were contacted again twice. Main results from the survey are presented and expressed as numbers and proportions. RESULTS: Out of the 42 experts contacted, 21 responded to the survey. Nineteen participants considered that the definition of failure should be a combination of clinical and urodynamics criteria. Among the urodynamics criteria, the persistence of a maximum detrusor pressure>40cm H2O was the most supported by the experts (18/21, 85%). According to the vast majority of participants (19/21, 90.5%), the impact of injections on urinary incontinence should be included in the definition of failure. Regarding the management, most experts considered that the first line treatment in case of failure of a first intra-detrusor injection of Botox(®) 200 U should be a repeat injection of Botox(®) at a higher dosage (300 U) (15/20, 75%), regardless of the presence or not of urodynamics risk factors of upper tract damage (16/20, 80%). CONCLUSION: This work has provided a first overview of the definition of failure of intra-detrusor injections of botulinum toxin in the management of NDO. For 90.5% of the experts involved, the definition of failure should be clinical and urodynamic and most participants (75%) considered that, in case of failure of a first injection of Botox(®) 200 U, repeat injection of Botox(®) 300 U should be the first line treatment. Level of proof 4.

A survey on coverage path planning for robotics

Coverage Path Planning (CPP) is the task of determining a path that passes over all points of an area or volume of interest while avoiding obstacles. This task is integral to many robotic applications, such as vacuum cleaning robots, painter robots, autonomous underwater vehicles creating image mosaics, demining robots, lawn mowers, automated harvesters, window cleaners and inspection of complex structures, just to name a few. A considerable body of research has addressed the CPP problem. However, no updated surveys on CPP reflecting recent advances in the field have been presented in the past ten years. In this paper, we present a review of the most successful CPP methods, focusing on the achievements made in the past decade. Furthermore, we discuss reported field applications of the described CPP methods. This work aims to become a starting point for researchers who are initiating their endeavors in CPP. Likewise, this work aims to present a comprehensive review of the recent breakthroughs in the field, providing links to the most interesting and successful works

ESTRO-HERO survey: Radiotherapy staffing in the European countries: Final results from the ESTRO-HERO survey

Background: The ESTRO Health Economics in Radiation Oncology (HERO) project has the overall aim to develop a knowledge base of the provision of radiotherapy in Europe and build a model for health economic evaluation of radiation treatments at the European level. The first milestone was to assess the availability of radiotherapy resources within Europe. This paper presents the personnel data collected in the ESTRO HERO database. Materials and methods: An 84-item questionnaire was sent out to European countries, through their national scientific and professional radiotherapy societies. The current report includes a detailed analysis of radiotherapy staffing (questionnaire items 4760), analysed in relation to the annual number of treatment courses and the socio-economic status of the countries. The analysis was conducted between February and July 2014, and is based on validated responses from 24 of the 40 European countries defined by the European Cancer Observatory (ECO). Results: A large variation between countries was found for most parameters studied. Averages and ranges for personnel numbers per million inhabitants are 12.8 (2.530.9) for radiation oncologists, 7.6 (019.7) for medical physicists, 3.5 (012.6) for dosimetrists, 26.6 (1.978) for RTTs and 14.8 (0.461.0) for radiotherapy nurses. The combined average for physicists and dosimetrists is 9.8 per million inhabitants and 36.9 for RTT and nurses. Radiation oncologists on average treat 208.9 courses per year (range: 99.9348.8), physicists and dosimetrists conjointly treat 303.3 courses (range: 85757.7) and RTT and nurses 76.8 (range: 25.7156.8). In countries with higher GNI per capita, all personnel categories treat fewer courses per annum than in less affluent countries. This relationship is most evident for RTTs and nurses. Different clusters of countries can be distinguished on the basis of available personnel resources and socio-economic status. Conclusions: The average personnel figures in Europe are now consistent with, or even more favourable than the QUARTS recommendations, probably reflecting a combination of better availability as such, in parallel with the current use of more complex treatments than a decade ago. A considerable variation in available personnel and delivered courses per year however persists among the highest and lowest staffing levels. This not only reflects the variation in cancer incidence and socio-economic determinants, but also the stage in technology adoption along with treatment complexity and the different professional roles and responsibilities within each country. Our data underpin the need for accurate prediction models and long-term education and training programmes

Limnological research in the Iberian Peninsula: a ten-year survey of published literature.

Research on limnology in southern Europe had achieved a notable presence in the international arena before the onset of the current dramatic cuts in public investment in science. We assessed the limnological research published in peer-reviewed journals by Spanish and Portuguese (i.e., Iberian) researchers during the decade prior to the economic recession (2000 to 2009). The Thompson Reuters Web of Knowledge database was used to retrieve all publications on limnology authored by researchers affiliated with Spanish or Portuguese institutions independently of the geographical setting of the study. The publishing pattern was characterised in terms of authors, journals, and citation statistics. In addition, a thematic characterisation of the research was performed by a manual assignation of several categorical descriptors combined with a blind word count analysis. Iberian researchers produced an annual mean of 278 papers on limnology. Papers were published in journals that had impact factors ranging from 0.1 to 31.4, with a mean of 2.0. Based on citations, the impact of the Iberian limnological research was not due to a few highly cited papers but rather to a wide number of publications; each paper received a mean of 8 citations. The Iberian limnological research involved up to 5460 researchers, with a mean of 4.3 authors per paper. The research largely focused on fluvial systems, with 47 % of total publications (2778) devoted to these ecosystems. There was a dominant focus on local, within-system aspects of study sites and the research was mostly restricted to the Iberian Peninsula; larger spatial scales of analysis (i.e., landscape, regional, or global) tended to be overlooked. Iberian research addressed fundamental (75 %) rather than applied (17 %) or methodological (5 %) questions and was vastly dominated by observational approaches (75 %). Interestingly, Iberian limnological research increased its scientific productivity during the analysed decade at a higher rate than its international counterpart (increase of 119 %). Overall, Iberian research on limnology appeared to be in good health during the analysed decade. Certain areas have been more studied than others, which opens opportunities to develop new research.

Eliminating Software Failures - A Literature Survey

Software faults are expensive and cause serious damage, particularly if discovered late or not at all. Some software faults tend to be hidden. One goal of the thesis is to figure out the status quo in the field of software fault elimination since there are no recent surveys of the whole area. Basis for a structural framework is proposed for this unstructured field, paying attention to compatibility and how to find studies. Bug elimination means are surveyed, including bug knowhow, defect prevention and prediction, analysis, testing, and fault tolerance. The most common research issues for each area are identified and discussed, along with issues that do not get enough attention. Recommendations are presented for software developers, researchers, and teachers. Only the main lines of research are figured out. The main emphasis is on technical aspects. The survey was done by performing searches in IEEE, ACM, Elsevier, and Inspect databases. In addition, a systematic search was done for a few well-known related journals from recent time intervals. Some other journals, some conference proceedings and a few books, reports, and Internet articles have been investigated, too. The following problems were found and solutions for them discussed. Quality assurance is testing only is a common misunderstanding, and many checks are done and some methods applied only in the late testing phase. Many types of static review are almost forgotten even though they reveal faults that are hard to be detected by other means. Other forgotten areas are knowledge of bugs, knowing continuously repeated bugs, and lightweight means to increase reliability. Compatibility between studies is not always good, which also makes documents harder to understand. Some means, methods, and problems are considered method- or domain-specific when they are not. The field lacks cross-field research.

Water transfer from São Francisco river to semiarid northeast of Brazil: technical data, environmental impacts, survey of opinion about the amount to be transferred

The transposition of the São Francisco River is considered one of the greatest engineering works in Brazil of all time since it will cross an extensive agricultural region of continental dimensions, involving environmental impacts, water, soil, irrigation, water payment and other multidisciplinary themes. Taking into account its importance, this subject was incorporated into a discipline of UFSCar (Federal University of São Carlos - Brazil) named "Pollution and Environmental Impacts". It was noted strong reaction against the project, even before the presentation. To allow a critical analysis, the first objective was to compile the main technical data and environmental impacts. The second objective was to detect the three most important aspects that cause reaction, concluding for the following reasons: assumption that the volume of water to be transferred was much greater than it actually is proposed in the project; lack of knowledge about similar project already done in Brazil; the idea that the artificial canal to be built was much broader than that proposed by the project. The participants' opinion about "volume to be transferred" was raised quantitatively four times: 2-undergraduate students; 1-graduate; 1-outside community. The average resulted 14 times larger than that proposed in the project, significant according to t-test. It was concluded that the reaction to water transfer project is due in part to the ignorance combined with a preconceived idea that tend to overestimate the magnitude of environmental impacts.

Health Related Quality of Life after Childhood Cancer - A Finnish Nationwide survey

The purpose of this Finnish epidemiological nationwide cross-sectional study was to evaluate the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQL) of young people that have survived childhood cancer at least four years after cancer diagnosis. The study aims were (1) to increase knowledge and understanding about the relationship between childhood cancer and its treatment and HRQL of childhood cancer survivors and (2) to identify survivors who need and could benefit from ongoing long-term follow-up, as well as (3) to identify what kind of aftercare the childhood cancer survivors will possibly need. HRQL and fatigue of currently still young survivors of extracranial childhood malignancies were evaluated with self-reports and parent proxy reports. HRQL was measured with age-appropriate generic instruments: PedsQL™, SF-36, 15D, 16D and 17D. Fatigue for children and adolescents aged below 18 years was measured with the PedsQL™ Multidimensional Fatigue Scale Finnish version. PedsQL™ parent-proxy and the PedsQL™ Multidimensional Fatigue Scale Parentproxy instruments were used to assess the perception of the parents on HRQL and fatigue of their children and adolescents. Postal-survey questionnaires were mailed to 852 childhood cancer survivors aged 11-27 years and their randomly selected gender-, age and living-place matched controls, as well as under 18-year-old children´s parents. A total of 474 survivors, 595 controls, 209 survivor’s parent and 253 control’s parent replied. The mean age of survivors at the time of the study was 18.4 years. The mean length of survival was 12.3 years, and the mean age at diagnosis 5.5 years. The most of the Finnish childhood cancer survivors evaluated that their HRQL as good. Survivors rated their HRQL equal or higher than their controls. The only dimension where the survivors scored poorer than the controls was the 15D mobility dimension. Survivors of childhood cancer did not suffer from significant fatigue. There were subgroups of childhood cancer survivors who had poorer level of HRQL, and suffered from fatigue more than the reference group. The demographic factors that associated with poorer HRQL were female gender, greater weight, living alone, need of remedial education, an additional non-cancer diagnosis, survivors with siblings, and self-reported unhappiness. Disease-related factors that associated with poorer HRQL were higher age at the time of diagnosis, the diagnosis of Wilms tumor, neuroblastoma, or osteosarcoma, and treatment with stem cell transplantation. The factors associated with more fatigue in survivors were male gender, older age at evaluation, the need of remedial education at school, lower overall average grade in the latest school marks report, length of survival more than 10 years, lower HRQL-scores, and a sarcoma diagnosis. However, all the used demographic and disease related factors explained only about one third of the variation in the HRQL scores. In open questions, the survivors were most worried about their physical health, but were also worried about their mental health, cancer inheritance, late-effects, and fertility and relapse issues. It seems that there are subgroups of survivors who need and could benefit from ongoing long-term follow-up. In the future, the survivors of childhood cancer need more information about their physical and mental health, as well as on their cancer inheritance, possible late-effects including fertility issues, and on the risk of relapse.

Survey of transportation of liquid bulk chemicals in the Baltic Sea

This study is made as a part of the Chembaltic (Risks of Maritime Transportation of Chemicals in Baltic Sea) project which gathers information on the chemicals transported in the Baltic Sea. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of handling volumes of liquid bulk chemicals (including liquefied gases) in the Baltic Sea ports and to find out what the most transported liquid bulk chemicals in the Baltic Sea are. Oil and oil products are also viewed in this study but only in a general level. Oils and oil products may also include chemical-related substances (e.g. certain bio-fuels which belong to MARPOL annex II category) in some cargo statistics. Chemicals in packaged form are excluded from the study. Most of the facts about the transport volumes of chemicals presented in this study are based on secondary written sources of Scandinavian, Russian, Baltic and international origin. Furthermore, statistical sources, academic journals, periodicals, newspapers and in later years also different homepages on the Internet have been used as sources of information. Chemical handling volumes in Finnish ports were examined in more detail by using a nationwide vessel traffic system called PortNet. Many previous studies have shown that the Baltic Sea ports are annually handling more than 11 million tonnes of liquid chemicals transported in bulk. Based on this study, it appears that the number may be even higher. The liquid bulk chemicals account for approximately 4 % of the total amount of liquid bulk cargoes handled in the Baltic Sea ports. Most of the liquid bulk chemicals are handled in Finnish and Swedish ports and their proportion of all liquid chemicals handled in the Baltic Sea is altogether over 50 %. The most handled chemicals in the Baltic Sea ports are methanol, sodium hydroxide solution, ammonia, sulphuric and phosphoric acid, pentanes, aromatic free solvents, xylenes, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and ethanol and ethanol solutions. All of these chemicals are handled at least hundred thousand tonnes or some of them even over 1 million tonnes per year, but since chemical-specific data from all the Baltic Sea countries is not available, the exact tonnages could not be calculated in this study. In addition to these above-mentioned chemicals, there are also other high volume chemicals handled in the Baltic Sea ports (e.g. ethylene, propane and butane) but exact tonnes are missing. Furthermore, high amounts of liquid fertilisers, such as solution of urea and ammonium nitrate in water, are transported in the Baltic Sea. The results of the study can be considered indicative. Updated information about transported chemicals in the Baltic Sea is the first step in the risk assessment of the chemicals. The chemical-specific transportation data help to target hazard or e.g. grounding/collision risk evaluations to chemicals that are handled most or have significant environmental hazard potential. Data gathered in this study will be used as background information in later stages of the Chembaltic project when the risks of the chemicals transported in the Baltic Sea are assessed to highlight the chemicals that require special attention from an environmental point of view in potential marine accident situations in the Baltic Sea area.

Statistical analysis of survey-based event history data with application to modeling of unemployment duration

Longitudinal surveys are increasingly used to collect event history data on person-specific processes such as transitions between labour market states. Surveybased event history data pose a number of challenges for statistical analysis. These challenges include survey errors due to sampling, non-response, attrition and measurement. This study deals with non-response, attrition and measurement errors in event history data and the bias caused by them in event history analysis. The study also discusses some choices faced by a researcher using longitudinal survey data for event history analysis and demonstrates their effects. These choices include, whether a design-based or a model-based approach is taken, which subset of data to use and, if a design-based approach is taken, which weights to use. The study takes advantage of the possibility to use combined longitudinal survey register data. The Finnish subset of European Community Household Panel (FI ECHP) survey for waves 1–5 were linked at person-level with longitudinal register data. Unemployment spells were used as study variables of interest. Lastly, a simulation study was conducted in order to assess the statistical properties of the Inverse Probability of Censoring Weighting (IPCW) method in a survey data context. The study shows how combined longitudinal survey register data can be used to analyse and compare the non-response and attrition processes, test the missingness mechanism type and estimate the size of bias due to non-response and attrition. In our empirical analysis, initial non-response turned out to be a more important source of bias than attrition. Reported unemployment spells were subject to seam effects, omissions, and, to a lesser extent, overreporting. The use of proxy interviews tended to cause spell omissions. An often-ignored phenomenon classification error in reported spell outcomes, was also found in the data. Neither the Missing At Random (MAR) assumption about non-response and attrition mechanisms, nor the classical assumptions about measurement errors, turned out to be valid. Both measurement errors in spell durations and spell outcomes were found to cause bias in estimates from event history models. Low measurement accuracy affected the estimates of baseline hazard most. The design-based estimates based on data from respondents to all waves of interest and weighted by the last wave weights displayed the largest bias. Using all the available data, including the spells by attriters until the time of attrition, helped to reduce attrition bias. Lastly, the simulation study showed that the IPCW correction to design weights reduces bias due to dependent censoring in design-based Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazard model estimators. The study discusses implications of the results for survey organisations collecting event history data, researchers using surveys for event history analysis, and researchers who develop methods to correct for non-sampling biases in event history data.

Weed Phytosociological and Floristic Survey in Agricultural Areas of Southwestern Goiás Region

The use of the Roundup Ready(r) technology and the cultivation of a second crop influence the floristic composition of weed communities in Brazilian Central-West region cropping systems. This study has aimed to diagnose the dominant weed species in southwestern Goiás in areas of genetically-modified and conventional soybeans, using phytosociological and floristic surveys. Weed sampling was obtained by collecting all the plants present within a 0.5 m hollow frame, randomly thrown 20 times in each of thirty-five agricultural areas in the 2012/2013 harvest. Field survey was carried out in three periods: before desiccation for soybean sowing, before postemergence herbicide in soybean first application and before postemergence herbicide application in late harvest. A total of 525 m2 was inventoried and 3,219 weeds were collected, which included 79 species, 58 genera and 28 families. Families Poaceae, Asteraceae, Euphorbiaceae, Fabaceae, Amaranthaceae, were the most representative in the survey. Species Cenchrus echinatus, Glycine max, Chamaesyce hirta, Commelina benghalensis, and Alternanthera tenella stood out in importance. The RR+millet soybean treatment had the highest number of species (44), while the conventional soybean + sorghum treatment had the lowest number of species (18). The highest number of species was recorded in first sampling period. Treatments conventional soybean + maize and conventional soybean + millet showed higher similarity (70%), while treatments RR soybean + millet and conventional soybean + sorghum showed the least (51%). Species of difficult control were recorded in all cultivation systems analyzed.

Survey of aflatoxins in tomato products

Tomatoes are highly susceptible to fungi contamination in the field, during transportation, processing, and storage. Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus have been isolated from tomatoes and tomato products, and both fungi species can produce aflatoxin, mycotoxin with hepatotoxic, carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic effects on all animal species tested so far. In order to verify a possible aflatoxin contamination of tomato products commercialized in Brazil, 63 samples of tomato products (pulp, paste, purée, ketchup, dehydrated tomatoes, and dried tomatoes preserved in oil) produced in 5 Brazilian states and 1 imported sample (ketchup), totalizing 29 brands, were analyzed by thin layer chromatography. The analytical method showed an average recovery of 86% for all aflatoxins at two spiking levels. The limits of detection for the aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, and G2 varied with the type of the product ranging from 2 to 7 µg/kg. Aflatoxins were not detected in any evaluated sample indicating that they did not pose a risk to human health since there was no invasion of raw materials by toxigenic fungi or no conditions for toxin production.

Survey, survival and control of Alternaria alternata in wheat seeds

The fungus Alternaria alternata was quantified in 75 wheat seed samples collected from three different regions of southern Brazil for Cropping and Use Value (CUV) I, II and III. Fungal presence was evaluated in two hundred disinfested seeds per sample before sowing in a potato-dextrose-agar medium + antibiotic (PDA+A). Fungus survival was evaluated every 45 days for 180 days for three seed batches from six wheat cultivars stored in propylene bags in a storehouse, with air temperature varying between 18 to 22 °C and relative air humidity around 60%. The efficacy of carboxin+thiram, difenoconazol, thiram, triadimenol, triticonazol and triticonazol + iprodione fungicides to control A. alternata was determined. A. alternata was detected in all the samples with an incidences of 39.6 %, 38.8% and 35.9% for the CUV I, CUV II and CUV III regions, respectively. The highest mean incidence of the fungus was found in the CUV I region, the coolest and most humid, and was significantly different from the other two regions. The average reduction in A. alternata viability in the wheat cultivar seeds was 49.5% during the 180 days of storage (inter-harvest period), demonstrating that infected seeds are the primary inoculum source for the fungus. The triticonazol + iprodione fungicide mixture efficiently controls A. alternata.

User Experience Patterns for/of Innovation by Design: A Survey on Design Practices in the Software Development and Innovation Lifecycle

The User Experience (UX) designers are undoubtedly aware of how many UX design methods currently exist and that sometimes it becomes a problem to choose an appropriate one. What are all of methods that designers have in their “arsenal”? When can they use them? This thesis presents the research on the design methods in the contemporary context of User Experience (UX) and Innovations by using a survey approach. The study is limited to cover the domain of consumer mobile services development and provider companies around the world. The study follows 2 clear objectives: (1) to understand what design methods are currently used in that context and to what extent they are used (2) to identify at what stage according to the UX design thinking process for creating innovations they are placed. The study contributes to the research in the field of UX design and Innovations and extends the knowledge in that field together with communities’ (UXPA, SIGCHI, SIGSOFT) members’ cooperation. The research is vital due to lack of information on design practices and their application in the chosen context.