Eucalypt Growth Submitted to Management of Urochloa spp.

The objective of this work was to evaluate the initial growth and the physiological characteristics of eucalypt submitted to different managements of signalgrass. The experiment was conducted in a protected environment, using a randomized blocks design with five repetitions. The treatments were arranged in a (5 x 2) + 1 factorial design, and the first factor corresponded to the types of weed management (no control; chemical control keeping the signalgrass shoot on the soil; chemical control with removal of the signalgrass shoot; mechanical control keeping the signalgrass shoot on the soil, and mechanical control with removal of the signalgrass shoot); the second factor corresponded to the two weeds species (U. brizantha and U. decumbens) and a control relative to the eucalypt in monoculture. The eucalypt growth was not affected by the presence of the Urochloa species until 50 days after treatments (DAT). However, the coexistence of these species with eucalypt for 107 DAT reduced the collar diameter, total dry matter, and the leaf area, but did not alter the characteristics related to photosynthesis and transpiration. The control method adopted, with removal or maintenance of the signalgrass shoot, regardless of species, did not change the initial eucalypt growth. It can be concluded that the coexistence of eucalypt with Urochloa decumbens or Urochloa brizantha for 105 days reduces the eucalypt growth. However, the use of chemical or mechanical control, with or without removal of signalgrass residue, were effective methods to prevent interference of these weeds.

Data Management [in eprints] for arts research: the experience at University of the Arts London

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

The Purdue University Research Repository (PURR): An institutional data management service with a virtual research environment, data publication, and archiving

Poster at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

From KAPTUR to VADS4R: Exploring Research Data Management in the Visual Arts

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

DSpace 2014: JSPUI reborn and research management

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Project Resource Management in R&D Public Sector Organization

In R&D organizations multiple projects are executed concurrently. Problems arises in managing shared resources since they are needed by multiple projects simultaneously. The objective of this thesis was to study how the project and resource management could be developed in a public sector R&D organization. The qualitative research was carried out in the Magnetic Measurements section at CERN where the section measures magnets for particle accelerators and builds state of the art measurement devices for various needs. Hence, the R&D and measurement projects are very time consuming and very complex. Based on the previous research and the requirements from the organization the best alter- native for resource management was to build a project management information system. A centralized database was constructed and on top of it was built an application for interacting and visualizing the project data. The application allows handling project data, which works as a basis for resource planning before and during the projects are executed. It is one way to standardize the work-flow of projects, which strengthens the project process. Additionally, it was noted that the inner customer’s database, the measurement system and the new application needed to be integrated. Further integration ensures that the project data is received efficiently from customers and available not only within the application but also during the concrete work. The research results introduced a new integrated application, which centralizes the project information flow with better visibility.

Operations management in courts of justice - outlining functions, challenges and development possibilities

Professional services are an increasingly important group of economy and related to them there has been identified a fairly new concept called professional service operations management. However professional service operations management is still quite under-researched area which needs further research especially in specific contexts. This study aims to respond to that need by examining courts as an environment for operations management. As a result there is a preliminary structured description of what operations management is and could be in courts. The study also aims to inspire and tentatively classify possible areas for future research. Courts are examined based on three common perspectives for typical characteristics of professional services which can be identified in literature: the nature of customer role, the nature of professional work and the nature of process and product. The examination is based on research data from several research projects conducted in Finland and other European countries. Based on the examination it can be said that the operational environment of courts is highly complex and demanding because the case as an object of operations management tasks is challenging, the process sets strict requirements to the handling of the cases and the workforce is hard to direct.

Virtual Runtime Application Partitions for Resource Management in Massively Parallel Architectures

This thesis presents a novel design paradigm, called Virtual Runtime Application Partitions (VRAP), to judiciously utilize the on-chip resources. As the dark silicon era approaches, where the power considerations will allow only a fraction chip to be powered on, judicious resource management will become a key consideration in future designs. Most of the works on resource management treat only the physical components (i.e. computation, communication, and memory blocks) as resources and manipulate the component to application mapping to optimize various parameters (e.g. energy efficiency). To further enhance the optimization potential, in addition to the physical resources we propose to manipulate abstract resources (i.e. voltage/frequency operating point, the fault-tolerance strength, the degree of parallelism, and the configuration architecture). The proposed framework (i.e. VRAP) encapsulates methods, algorithms, and hardware blocks to provide each application with the abstract resources tailored to its needs. To test the efficacy of this concept, we have developed three distinct self adaptive environments: (i) Private Operating Environment (POE), (ii) Private Reliability Environment (PRE), and (iii) Private Configuration Environment (PCE) that collectively ensure that each application meets its deadlines using minimal platform resources. In this work several novel architectural enhancements, algorithms and policies are presented to realize the virtual runtime application partitions efficiently. Considering the future design trends, we have chosen Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Architectures (CGRAs) and Network on Chips (NoCs) to test the feasibility of our approach. Specifically, we have chosen Dynamically Reconfigurable Resource Array (DRRA) and McNoC as the representative CGRA and NoC platforms. The proposed techniques are compared and evaluated using a variety of quantitative experiments. Synthesis and simulation results demonstrate VRAP significantly enhances the energy and power efficiency compared to state of the art.

Transition management in action within the context of nutrient economy

Tämä työ tutkii ja tarkastelee transitio-kokeilua ravinnetaloudessa. Transitio-kokeilu on toimintatutkimusprojekti, joka toteutetaan systeemisen muutoksen ajattelun mukaisesti alhaalta ylöspäin. Ravinnetalous määritetään tarkemmin työn kautta sekä analysoidaan monitaso-perspektiivin näkökulmasta. Ravinnetalous on terminä varsin tuntematon ja tarvitsee enemmän tunnettavuutta laajemman yleisön edessä. Transitio-areenan ja transitio-visioiden kehittäminen ovat työn keskipisteessä, koska ne ovat tärkeimpiä vaiheita transition alkuvaiheessa. Joukko sidosryhmätoimijoita osallistuu transitio areenaan sekä visioiden jatkokehittelyyn. Visio(t) luodaan ensisijaisesti backcasting-menetelmällä, jota myös täydennetään tavanomaisella ennustamisella. Backcasting- menetelmä on osin osallistava ja siinä käytetään ravinteiden planeettarajoja kvantitatiivisina pääperiaatteina, minkä tuloksena myös visiot ovat osin kvantitatiivisia. Transitio areenan kokoaminen ja fasilitointi aiheuttavat hankalia kysymyksiä, jotka tarvitsevat jatko-tutkimusta. Alhaalta-ylöspäin organisoitu transitio-arena houkuttelee niche-toimijoita, mutta epäonnistuu sitouttamaan julkisen vallan toimijoita. Toimintamallin voimasuhteet, politiikka ja transition vakiinnuttaminen tulisivat olla jatko-toimenpiteinä niin tutkimuksessa kuin toiminnassakin.

Informal learning and competence development during a management trainee program

The purpose of this research was to study how management trainee program participants experienced the program with respect to their learning and competence development. Additionally, the purpose was also to examine what the trainees learned and how the learning occurred. Furthermore, factors affecting learning in the workplace were examined. The theoretical framework of this research was formed utilizing individual competence and informal learning frameworks. Research was conducted as a single case study and data was gathered by thematic interviews. The results of this research indicate that the trainees experienced the program as a good method for learning the overall picture of the organization and its business. Regarding competence development, especially knowledge- and cognitive competence categories were developed during the program. The best learning outcomes were achieved through learning by doing, in co-operation with others, and learning from others. The results indicate that the planning of the program and its structure have a significant effect on learning. Furthermore, a sufficient level of challenge was experienced as being important for the quality of the learning as well.

Customer Experience Management – How to Improve the Customer Experience Management and its Measurement

The main goal of this master’s thesis was to find out, how to improve customer experience management and measurement. This study is a qualitative case study, in which the data collection method has been interviews. In addition, some of the company’s customer experience measurement methods have been analyzed. The theoretical background is applied in practice by interviewing 5 representatives from the case company. In the case company, the management has launched a customer experience focused program, and given guidelines for customer experience improvement. In the case company, customer experience is measured with different methods, one example is asking the recommendation readiness from a customer. In order to improve the customer experience management, the case company should define, what the company means with customer experience and what kind of customer experience the company is aiming to create. After the encounter, the customer should be left with feelings of satisfaction, positivity and trust. The company should focus on easiness in its processes, on top of which the processes should work fluently. The customer experience management should be improved through systematic planning, and by combining and standardizing different measures. In addition, some channel-based measures should be used. The measurement conducted should be more customer focused, and the case company should form an understanding, which touch points are the most relevant to measure.

Project Charter, Scope, and Time Management In the Movie Industry

This thesis explores how the project charter development, project scope management, and project time management are executed in a Finnish movie production. The deviations and analogies between a case movie production and best practices suggested in PMBOK are presented. Empirical material from the case is gathered with two semi-structured interviews with a producer and a line producer. The interview data is categorized according to PMBOK knowledge areas. The analysis is complemented with movie industry specific norms found in popular movie production guides. The described and observed methods are linked together and the relationship between them is discussed. The project charter development, which is referred as a green light process in the movie industry, is mostly analogous between all areas. The deviations are in the level of formality. The green lighting in the case movie was accomplished without bureaucratic reports described in movie production guides. The empirical material shows that project management conventions and movie industry employ similar methods especially in scope management. Project management practices introduce a work breakdown structure (WBS) method, and movie production accomplishes the same task by developing a shooting script. Time management of the case movie deviates on most parts from the methods suggested in PMBOK. The major deviation is resource management. PMBOK suggests creating a resource breakdown structure. The case movie production accomplished this through budgeting process. Furthermore the popular movie production guides also disregard resource management as sovereign process. However the activity listing is quite analogous between the case movie and PMBOK. The final key observation is that although there is a broad set of effective and detailed movie industry specific methods, a comprehensive methodology that would cover the whole production process, such as Prince2 or Scrum, seems to be missing from the movie industry.

Project charter, scope, and time management in the movie industry

This thesis explores how the project charter development, project scope management, and project time management are executed in a Finnish movie production. The deviations and analogies between a case movie production and best practices suggested in PMBOK are presented. Empirical material from the case is gathered with two semi-structured interviews with a producer and a line producer. The interview data is categorized according to PMBOK knowledge areas. The analysis is complemented with movie industry specific norms found in popular movie production guides. The described and observed methods are linked together and the relationship between them is discussed. The project charter development, which is referred as a green light process in the movie industry, is mostly analogous between all areas. The deviations are in the level of formality. The green lighting in the case movie was accomplished without bureaucratic reports described in movie production guides. The empirical material shows that project management conventions and movie industry employ similar methods especially in scope management. Project management practices introduce a work breakdown structure (WBS) method, and movie production accomplishes the same task by developing a shooting script. Time management of the case movie deviates on most parts from the methods suggested in PMBOK. The major deviation is resource management. PMBOK suggests creating a resource breakdown structure. The case movie production accomplished this through budgeting process. Furthermore the popular movie production guides also disregard resource management as sovereign process. However the activity listing is quite analogous between the case movie and PMBOK. The final key observation is that although there is a broad set of effective and detailed movie industry specific methods, a comprehensive methodology that would cover the whole production process, such as Prince2 or Scrum, seems to be missing from the movie industry.

Reputational Risk Management as a key element for business continuity and value maximization

This thesis reveals the topic of reputational risk management as a key element for business continuity and value maximization. The purpose of the work is to investigate reputational risk from the side of its definition, management (including legal requirements on this risk category) and measurement and to analyse reputational risk’s impact on business continuity and value maximization. To be able to do this, different respective articles, reports of financial institutions are gathered and constructive summaries and analysis are made. In order to deeply investigate the impact of reputational risk on business continuity and value maximization, it was chosen to study it from three aspects: 1) check the impact of stock valuation of 7 companies that experienced reputational catastrophe / risk, 2) analyse a case study on disagreements in management of reputational risk among case companies and impact on their respective performance, and 3) conduct a survey of financial sector companies in Liechtenstein to see how reputational risk management works in practice. The findings of the research showed a significant impact of reputation decadence on company’s value and trading volume, and showed crucial importance of post-crisis management for the company’s financial performance. The results of the qualitative research based on survey proved that companies consider reputational risk management as a one of the key elements for their business continuity and value maximization.

Sustainable sourcing in global supply network: assessment of geographic challenges and management methods Case: Stora Enso

The purpose of this work was to describe and compare sourcing practices and challenges in different geographies, to discuss possible options to advance sustainability of global sourcing, and to provide examples to answer why sourcing driven by sustainability principles is so challenging to implement. The focus was on comparison between Europe & Asia & South-America from the perspective of sustainability adoption. By analyzing sourcing practices of the case company it was possible to describe main differences and challenges of each continent, available sourcing options, supplier relationships and ways to foster positive chance. In this qualitative case study gathered theoretical material was compared to extensive sourcing practices of case company in a vast supplier network. Sourcing specialist were interviewed and information provided by them analyzed in order to see how different research results and theories are reflecting reality and to find answers to proposed research questions.