The sources of complementary competitive advantages for systems’ manufacturers in the aircraft modernization market

Being a top of high technology industries, the aerospace represents one of the most complex fields of study. While the competitiveness of aircraft systems’ manufacturers attracts a significant number of researchers, some of the issues remain to be a blank spot. One of those is the after-sale modernization. The master thesis investigates how this concept is related to the theory of competitive advantages. Finding the routes in the framework of complex technological systems’ lifecycle, the key drivers of the aircraft modernization market are revealed. The competitive positioning of players is defined through multiple case studies in a form of several in-depth interviews. The key result of the research is the conclusion that modernization should be considered as an inherent component of strategy of any aircraft systems’ manufacturer, while the master thesis aims to support managerial decision making.

Innovation in a Non-Formal Adult Education Organisation – Multi-Case Study in Four Adult Education Centres

More than ever, education organisations are experiencing the need to develop new services and processes to satisfy expanding and changing customer needs and to adapt to the environmental changes and continually tightening economic situation. Innovation has been found in many studies to have a crucial role in the success of an organisation, both in the private and public sectors, in formal education and in manufacturing and services alike. However, studies concerning innovation in non-formal adult education organisations, such as adult education centres (AECs) in Finland, are still lacking. This study investigates innovation in the non-formal adult education organisation context from the perspective of organisational culture types and social networks. The objective is to determine the significant characteristics of an innovative non-formal adult education organisation. The analysis is based on data from interviews with the principals and fulltime staff of four case AECs. Before the case study, a pre-study phase is accomplished in order to obtain a preliminary understanding of innovation at AECs. The research found strong support for the need of innovation in AECs. Innovation is basically needed to accomplish the AEC system’s primary mission mentioned in the ACT on Liberal Adult Education. In addition, innovation is regarded vital to institutes and may prevent their decline. It helps the institutes to be more attractive, to enter new market, to increase customer satisfaction and to be on the cutting edge. Innovation is also seen as a solution to the shortage of resources. Innovative AECs search actively for additional resources for development work through project funding and subsidies, cooperation networks and creating a conversational and joyful atmosphere in the institute. The findings also suggest that the culture type that supports innovation at AECs is multidimensional, with an emphasis on the clan and adhocratic culture types and such values as: dynamism, future orientation, acquiring new resources, mistake tolerance, openness, flexibility, customer orientation, a risk-taking attitude, and community spirit. Active and creative internal and external cooperation also promote innovation at AECs. This study also suggests that the behaviour of a principal is crucial. The way he or she shows appreciation the staff, encouragement and support to the staff and his or her approachability and concrete participation in innovation activities have a strong effect on innovation attitudes and activities in AECs.

The Role of Universities in the Triple Helix model of innovation management within the biotechnology industry, Case example: Turku Science Park Network

Biotechnology has been recognized as the key strategic technology for industrial growth. The industry is heavily dependent on basic research. Finland continues to rank in the top 10 of Europe's most innovative countries in terms of tax-policy, education system, infrastructure and the number of patents issued. Regardless of the excellent statistical results, the output of this innovativeness is below acceptable. Research on the issues hindering the output creation has already been done and the identifiable weaknesses in the Finland's National Innovation system are the non-existent growth of entrepreneurship and the missing internationalization. Finland is proven to have all the enablers of the innovation policy tools, but is lacking the incentives and rewards to push the enablers, such as knowledge and human capital, forward. Science Parks are the biggest operator in research institutes in the Finnish Science and Technology system. They exist with the purpose of speeding up the commercialization process of biotechnology innovations which usually include technological uncertainty, technical inexperience, business inexperience and high technology cost. Innovation management only internally is a rather historic approach, current trend drives towards open innovation model with strong triple helix linkages. The evident problems in the innovation management within the biotechnology industry are examined through a case study approach including analysis of the semi-structured interviews which included biotechnology and business expertise from Turku School of Economics. The results from the interviews supported the theoretical implications as well as conclusions derived from the pilot survey, which focused on the companies inside Turku Science Park network. One major issue that the Finland's National innovation system is struggling with is the fact that it is technology driven, not business pulled. Another problem is the university evaluation scale which focuses more on number of graduates and short-term factors, when it should put more emphasis on the cooperation success in the long-term, such as the triple helix connections with interaction and knowledge distribution. The results of this thesis indicated that there is indeed requirement for some structural changes in the Finland's National innovation system and innovation policy in order to generate successful biotechnology companies and innovation output. There is lack of joint output and scales of success, lack of people with experience, lack of language skills, lack of business knowledge and lack of growth companies.

Thermal-Aware Networked Many-Core Systems

Advancements in IC processing technology has led to the innovation and growth happening in the consumer electronics sector and the evolution of the IT infrastructure supporting this exponential growth. One of the most difficult obstacles to this growth is the removal of large amount of heatgenerated by the processing and communicating nodes on the system. The scaling down of technology and the increase in power density is posing a direct and consequential effect on the rise in temperature. This has resulted in the increase in cooling budgets, and affects both the life-time reliability and performance of the system. Hence, reducing on-chip temperatures has become a major design concern for modern microprocessors. This dissertation addresses the thermal challenges at different levels for both 2D planer and 3D stacked systems. It proposes a self-timed thermal monitoring strategy based on the liberal use of on-chip thermal sensors. This makes use of noise variation tolerant and leakage current based thermal sensing for monitoring purposes. In order to study thermal management issues from early design stages, accurate thermal modeling and analysis at design time is essential. In this regard, spatial temperature profile of the global Cu nanowire for on-chip interconnects has been analyzed. It presents a 3D thermal model of a multicore system in order to investigate the effects of hotspots and the placement of silicon die layers, on the thermal performance of a modern ip-chip package. For a 3D stacked system, the primary design goal is to maximise the performance within the given power and thermal envelopes. Hence, a thermally efficient routing strategy for 3D NoC-Bus hybrid architectures has been proposed to mitigate on-chip temperatures by herding most of the switching activity to the die which is closer to heat sink. Finally, an exploration of various thermal-aware placement approaches for both the 2D and 3D stacked systems has been presented. Various thermal models have been developed and thermal control metrics have been extracted. An efficient thermal-aware application mapping algorithm for a 2D NoC has been presented. It has been shown that the proposed mapping algorithm reduces the effective area reeling under high temperatures when compared to the state of the art.

Achieving EU energy targets – Impacts of evolutionary and revolutionary transition paths on power systems

Ambitious energy targets set by EU put pressures to increase share of renewable electricity supply in this and next decades and therefore, some EU member countries have boosted increasing renewable energy generation capacity by implementing subsidy schemes on national level. In this study, two different change approaches to increase renewable energy supply and increase self-sufficiency of supply are assessed with respect to their impacts on power system, electricity market and electricity generation costs in Finland. It is obtained that the current electricity generation costs are high compared to opportunities of earnings from present-day investor’s perspective. In addition, the growth expectations of consumptions and the price forecasts do not stimulate investing in new generation capacity. Revolutionary transition path is driven by administrative and political interventions to achieve the energy targets. Evolutionary transition path is driven by market-based mechanisms, such as market itself and emission trading scheme. It is obtained in this study that in the revolutionary transition path operation of market-based mechanisms is distorted to some extent and it is likely that this path requires providing more public financial resources compared to evolutionary transition path. In the evolutionary transition path the energy targets are not achieved as quickly but market-based mechanisms function better and investment environment endures more stable compared to revolutionary transition path.

Gearing Towards Omnichannel Grocery Retail Through Business Model Innovation

Technological innovations and the advent of digitalization have led retail business into one of its biggest transformations of all time. Consumer behaviour has changed rapidly and the customers are ever more powerful, demanding, tech-savvy and moving on various plat-forms. These attributes will continue to drive the development and robustly restructure the architecture of value creation in the retail business. The largest retail category, grocery yet awaits for a real disruption, but the signals for major change are already on the horizon. The first wave of online grocery retail was introduced in the mid 1990’s and it throve until millennium. Many overreactions, heavy investments and the burst IT-bubble almost stag-nated the whole industry for a long period of time. The second wave started with a venge-ance around 2010. Some research was carried out during the first wave from a single-viewpoint of online grocery retail, but without a comprehensive approach to online-offline business model integration. Now the accelerating growth of e-business has initiated an increased interest to examine the transformation from traditional business models towards e-business models and their integration on the companies’ traditional business models. This research strove to examine how can we recognize and analyze how digitalization and online channels are affecting the business models of grocery retail, by using business mod-el canvas as an analysis tool. Furthermore business model innovation and omnichannel retail were presented and suggested as potential solutions for these changes. 21 experts in online grocery industry were being interviewed. The thoughts of the informants were being qualitatively analysed by using an analysis tool called the business model canvas. The aim of this research was to portray a holistic view on the Omnichannel grocery retail business model, and the value chain, in which the case company Arina along with its partners are operating. The key conclusions exhibited that online grocery retail business model is not an alterna-tive model nor a substitute for the traditional grocery retail business model, though all of the business model elements are to some extent affected by it, but rather a complementary business model that should be integrated into the prevailing, conventional grocery retail business model. A set of business model elements, such as value proposition and distribu-tion channels were recognized as the most important ones and sources of innovation within these components were being illustrated. Segments for online grocery retail were empiri-cally established as polarized niche markets in contrast of the segmented mass-market of the conventional grocery retail. Business model innovation was proven to be a considera-ble method and a conceptual framework, by which to come across with new value proposi-tions that create competitive advantage for the company in the contemporary, changing business environment. Arina as a retailer can be considered as a industry model innovator, since it has initiated an entire industry in its market area, where other players have later on embarked on, and in which the contributors of the value chain, such as Posti depend on it to a great extent. Consumer behaviour clearly affects and appears everywhere in the digi-talized grocery trade and it drives customers to multiple platforms where retailers need to be present. Omnichannel retail business model was suggested to be the solution, in which the new technologies are being utilized, contemporary consumer behaviour is embedded in decision-making and all of the segments and their value propositions are being served seamlessly across the channels.

Development of Measurement Systems in Scientific Research: Case Study

In recent years, technological advancements in microelectronics and sensor technologies have revolutionized the field of electrical engineering. New manufacturing techniques have enabled a higher level of integration that has combined sensors and electronics into compact and inexpensive systems. Previously, the challenge in measurements was to understand the operation of the electronics and sensors, but this has now changed. Nowadays, the challenge in measurement instrumentation lies in mastering the whole system, not just the electronics. To address this issue, this doctoral dissertation studies whether it would be beneficial to consider a measurement system as a whole from the physical phenomena to the digital recording device, where each piece of the measurement system affects the system performance, rather than as a system consisting of small independent parts such as a sensor or an amplifier that could be designed separately. The objective of this doctoral dissertation is to describe in depth the development of the measurement system taking into account the challenges caused by the electrical and mechanical requirements and the measurement environment. The work is done as an empirical case study in two example applications that are both intended for scientific studies. The cases are a light sensitive biological sensor used in imaging and a gas electron multiplier detector for particle physics. The study showed that in these two cases there were a number of different parts of the measurement system that interacted with each other. Without considering these interactions, the reliability of the measurement may be compromised, which may lead to wrong conclusions about the measurement. For this reason it is beneficial to conceptualize the measurement system as a whole from the physical phenomena to the digital recording device where each piece of the measurement system affects the system performance. The results work as examples of how a measurement system can be successfully constructed to support a study of sensors and electronics.

Physical, chemical, technological and sensory characteristics of Frankfurter type sausage containing okara flour

The addition of okara flour to an emulsified meat product (Frankfurter type sausage) was evaluated based on the physical, chemical, technological, and sensory characteristics of the final product. Okara, residue from soymilk production, was provided by two soymilk producing companies whose production systems were based on the hot disintegration of the decorticated (company B) or undecorticated (company A) soybeans. The okara was dehydrated using a flash dryer and then ground into flour (>420 µm). However, The okara flours A and B showed approximately the same amount of protein (35 and 40 g.100 g-1 dwb). However, the okara flour A presented higher values (p < 0.05) for all technological functional properties studied (emulsification capacity, emulsion stability, protein solubility, and water hold capacity) than those of okara flour B. The A and B okara flours were used in a frankfurter sausage formulation as substitution of 1.5% and 4% of meat. The results showed that the sausages containing okara flours A and B, as well as the control sausage, were accepted by the sensory panel. Moreover, there were no significant differences (p < 0.05) in the physical (color, objective texture, and emulsion stability) and chemical (pH and proximate composition) measurements of the sausages with and without the okara flour.

Dependency of military capabilities on technological development

Our goal is to get better understanding of different kind of dependencies behind the high-level capability areas. The models are suitable for investigating present state capabilities or future developments of capabilities in the context of technology forecasting. Three levels are necessary for a model describing effects of technologies on military capabilities. These levels are capability areas, systems and technologies. The contribution of this paper is to present one possible model for interdependencies between technologies. Modelling interdependencies between technologies is the last building block in constructing a quantitative model for technological forecasting including necessary levels of abstraction. This study supplements our previous research and as a result we present a model for the whole process of capability modelling. As in our earlier studies, capability is defined as the probability of a successful task or operation or proper functioning of a system. In order to obtain numerical data to demonstrate our model, we conducted a questionnaire to a group of defence technology researchers where interdependencies between seven representative technologies were inquired. Because of a small number of participants in questionnaires and general uncertainties concerning subjective evaluations, only rough conclusions can be made from the numerical results

Innovation Ecosystem Perspectives on Financial Services Innovation

The context of financial services has been characterised by changes in the regulatory, technological and societal landscape. Consumers are increasingly interested in mobile payments, crowdfunding and microfinance services, either for themselves or because collaborative consumption is viewed as a more sustainable. Retail branches are re-organised to further meet the expectations of customers, start-ups focusing on technology for financial services (i.e. Fintech) are ever growing and financial services companies reinforce their own innovation practices (e.g. creation of innovation labs or venture capital investment funds). The innovation ecosystem around financial services companies represents the many actors with whom they can co-create and co-produce innovative new services for their customers (or for themselves). The innovation process is no longer a closed internal effort but needs to include external actors from the innovation ecosystem. This topic is especially interesting in a small and open economy where the financial centre takes a prominent place in the economy. The research question is therefore “How does the innovation ecosystem influence the innovation process within financial services companies?”. The influence of the innovation ecosystem on the innovation process within financial service companies mainly comes from its social capital and value creation efforts. However learning to work and exchange in an innovation ecosystem is also expected to influence the innovation process in place. Realizing the potential of the innovation ecosystem requires sufficient capabilities to manage new information coming from the innovation ecosystem. The professional associations provide the necessary coordination among actors in the innovation ecosystem to co-create and appropriate value, while fostering co-evolution within the innovation ecosystem.

Public management, policy capacity, innovation and development

In this paper we discuss the question of what factors in development policy create specific forms of policy capacity and under what circumstances developmentoriented complementarities or mismatches between the public and private sectors emerge. We argue that specific forms of policy capacity emerge from three interlinked policy choices, each fundamentally evolutionary in nature: policy choices on understanding the nature and sources of technical change and innovation; on the ways of financing economic growth, in particular technical change; and on the nature of public management to deliver and implement both previous sets of policy choices. Thus, policy capacity is not so much a continuum of abilities (from less to more), but rather a variety of modes of making policy that originate from co-evolutionary processes in capitalist development. To illustrate, we briefly reflect upon how the East Asian developmental states of the 1960s-1980s and Eastern European transition policies since the 1990s led to almost opposite institutional systems for financing, designing and managing development strategies, and how this led, through co-evolutionary processes, to different forms of policy capacity.

Design thinking framework of experience innovation

Innovation remains one of the key drivers of sustainable and successful business. The variety of innovation approaches such as open models, intersectional thinking and co-creation tackles the challenge of viable novel offerings across the world. These approaches have certain similarities and their elements constitute design thinking. Recent market and society trends such as technological advances and globalization have intensify companies’ interaction with customers. Emotional engagement, pleasing communication and delight have gained equal to functionality importance. The complex of these components constitutes consumer experience. Academic research conceptualizes these changes by introducing customer-centered innovation, which replaces product-oriented approaches. However, both methods omit experience concept and provide fragmented explanation of experience innovation. Experience is an essential process of offering perception, which drives customer decisions. Therefore, an agenda of experience innovation development can systemize and explain the mechanisms of experience innovation. The purpose of this study is to create and explain the stage process framework of experience innovation by the means of design thinking approach. The research proceeds in accordance with the following sub-objectives: 1. Conceptualization of consumer experience through customer value. 2. Creation of experience innovation framework by the means of design thinking. This study is conducted by the means of conceptual research methods. The main theoretical contribution of the study is creation of the integrated framework of consumer experience innovation. The elaboration of design thinking agenda and methods applied to experience design builds the guidelines of experience innovation development. This research synthesizes the conceptual elements of the framework that resolves inconsistencies and duplications of theories. This essential clarification simplifies application of the experience innovation agenda, which can be useful for the wide range of specialists, from marketing to strategists, and from managers to entrepreneurs, willing to offer compelling experience to customers. The study highlights the crucial role of consumer experience in maintaining customer loyalty and designs the roadmap of innovating experience through the communication with customers.

Viologen based electroactive polymers and composites for durable electrochromic systems

Electrochromism, the phenomenon of reversible color change induced by a small electric charge, forms the basis for operation of several devices including mirrors, displays and smart windows. Although, the history of electrochromism dates back to the 19th century, only the last quarter of the 20th century has its considerable scientific and technological impact. The commercial applications of electrochromics (ECs) are rather limited, besides top selling EC anti-glare mirrors by Gentex Corporation and airplane windows by Boeing, which made a huge commercial success and exposed the potential of EC materials for future glass industry. It is evident from their patents that viologens (salts of 4,4ʹ-bipyridilium) were the major active EC component for most of these marketed devices, signifying the motivation of this thesis focusing on EC viologens. Among the family of electrochromes, viologens have been utilized in electrochromic devices (ECDs) for a while, due to its intensely colored radical cation formation induced by applying a small cathodic potential. Viologens can be synthesized as oligomer or in the polymeric form or as functionality to conjugated polymers. In this thesis, polyviologens (PVs) were synthesized starting from cyanopyridinium (CNP) based monomer precursors. Reductive coupling of cross-connected cyano groups yields viologen and polyviologen under successive electropolymerization using for example the cyclic voltammetry (CV) technique. For further development, a polyviologen-graphene composite system was fabricated, focusing at the stability of the PV electrochrome without sacrificing its excellent EC properties. High electrical conductivity, high surface area offered by graphene sheets together with its non-covalent interactions and synergism with PV significantly improved the electrochrome durability in the composite matrix. The work thereby continued in developing a CNP functionalized thiophene derivative and its copolymer for possible utilization of viologen in the copolymer blend. Furthermore, the viologen functionalized thiophene derivative was synthesized and electropolymerized in order to explore enhancement in the EC contrast and overall EC performance. The findings suggest that such electroactive viologen/polyviologen systems and their nanostructured composite films as well as viologen functionalized conjugated polymers, can be potentially applied as an active EC material in future ECDs aiming at durable device performances.

Mass transfer and reaction kinetics in single droplet systems

As reactive extraction grown more and more popular in a variety of technological applications, optimizing its performance becomes more and more important. The process of complex formation is affected by a great number of both physical and chemical properties of all the components involved, and sometimes their interference with one another makes improving the effectiveness of such processes very difficult. In this Master’s Theses, the processes of complex formation between the aqueous phase - represented by copper sulfate water solution, and organic phase – represented by Acorga M5640 solvent extractor, were studied in order to establish the effect these components have on reactive extraction performance and to determine which step is bottlenecking the process the most.

Interoperability for IoT Health Systems Using HL7 Standard

Internet of Things or IoT is revolutionizing the world we are living in, similarly the way Internet and the web did few decades ago. It is changing how we interact with the things surrounding us. Electronic health and remote patient monitoring are the ways of utilizing these technological improvements towards the healthcare. There are many applications of IoT in eHealth such as, it will open the gate to provide healthcare to the remote areas of the world, where healthcare through traditional hospital systems cannot be provided. To connect these new eHealth IoT systems with the existing healthcare information systems, we can use the existing interoperability standards commonly used in healthcare information systems. In this thesis we implemented an eHealth IoT system based on Health Level 7 interoperability standard for continuous data transmission. There is not much previous work done in implementing the HL7 for continuous sensor data transmission. Some of the previous work was limited to sensors which are not continuous in nature and some of it is only theatrical architecture. This thesis aims to prove that it is possible to implement an eHealth IoT system by using sensors which require continues data transmission, such as respiratory sensors, and to connect it with the existing eHealth information system semantically by using HL7 interoperability standard. This system will be beneficial in implementing eHealth IoT systems for those patients, who requires continuous healthcare personal monitoring. This includes elderly people and patients, whose health need to be monitored constantly. To implement the architecture, HL7 v2.5 is selected due to its ease of implementation and low size. We selected some open source technologies because of their open licenses and large developer community. We will also review the most efficient technology available in every layer of eHealth IoT system and will propose an efficient system.