Information sharing in R&D collaboration - Context-dependency and means of governance

Tiedon jakaminen ja kommunikointi ovat tärkeitä toimintoja verkostoituneiden yritysten välillä ja ne käsitetäänkin yhteistyösuhteen yhtenä menestystekijänä ja kulmakivenä. Tiedon jakamiseen liittyviä haasteita ovat mm. yrityksen liiketoiminnalle kriittisen tiedon vuotaminen ja liiketoiminnan vaatima tiedon reaaliaikaisuus ja riittävä määrä. Tuotekehitysyhteistyössä haasteellista on tiedon jäsentymättömyys ja sitä kautta lisääntyvä tiedon jakamisen tarve, minkä lisäksi jaettava tieto on usein monimutkaista ja yksityiskohtaista. Lisäksi tuotteiden elinkaaret lyhenevät, ja ulkoistaminen ja yhteistyö ovat yhä kasvavia trendejä liiketoiminnassa. Yhdessä nämä tekijät johtavat siihen, että tiedon jakaminen on haastavaa eritoten verkostoituneiden yritysten välillä. Tässä tutkimuksessa tiedon jakamisen haasteisiin pyrittiin vastaamaan ottamalla lähtökohdaksi tiedon jakamisen tilanneriippuvuuden ymmärtäminen. Työssä vastattiin kahteen pääkysymykseen: Mikä on tiedon jakamisen tilanneriippuvuus ja miten sitä voidaan hallita? Tilanneriippuvuudella tarkoitetaan työssä niitä tekijöitä, jotka vaikuttavat siihen, miten yritys jakaa tietoa tuotekehityskumppaneidensa kanssa. Tiedon jakamisella puolestaan tarkoitetaan yrityksestä toiselle siirrettävää tietoa, jota tarvitaan tuotekehitysprojektin aikana. Työn empiirinen aineisto on kerätty laadullisella tutkimusotteella case- eli tapaustutkimuksena yhdessä telekommunikaatioalan yrityksessä jasen eri liiketoimintayksiköissä. Tutkimusjoukko käsitti 19 tuotekehitys- ja toimittajanhallintatehtävissä toimivaa johtajaa tai päällikköä. Työ nojaa pääasiassa hankintojen johtamisen tutkimuskenttään ja tilanneriippuvuuden selvittämiseksi paneuduttiin erityisesti verkostojen tutkimukseen. Työssä kuvattiin tiedon jakaminen yhtenä verkoston toimintona ja yhteistyöhön liittyvättiedon jakamisen hyödyt, haasteet ja riskit identifioitiin. Tämän lisäksi työssä kehitettiin verkoston tutkimismalleja ja yhdistettiin eri tasoilla tapahtuvaa verkoston tutkimusta. Työssä esitettiin malli verkoston toimintojen tutkimiseksija todettiin, että verkostotutkimusta pitäisi tehdä verkosto, ketju, yrityssuhde- ja yritystasolla. Malliin on myös hyvä yhdistää tuote- ja tehtäväkohtaiset ominaispiirteet. Kirjallisuuskatsauksen perusteella huomattiin, että tiedon jakamista on aiemmin tarkasteltu lähinnä tuote- ja yrityssuhteiden tasolla. Väitöskirjassa esitettiin lisää merkittäviä tekijöitä, jotka vaikuttavat tiedon jakamiseen. Näitä olivat mm. tuotekehitystehtävän luonne, teknologia-alueen kypsyys ja toimittajan kyvykkyys. Tiedon jakamisen luonnetta tarkasteltaessa erotettiin operatiivinen, projektin hallintaan ja tuotekehitykseen liittyvä tieto sekä yleinen, toimittajan hallintaan liittyvä strateginen tieto. Tulosten mukaan erityisesti tuotekehityksen määrittelyvaihe ja tapaamiset kasvotusten korostuivat yhteistyössä. Empirian avulla tutkittiin myös niitä tekijöitä, joilla tiedon jakamista voidaan hallita tilanneriippuvuuteen perustuen, koska aiemmin tiedon jakamisen hallintakeinoja tai menestystekijöitä ei ole liitetty suoranaisesti eri olosuhteisiin. Nämä hallintakeinot jaettiin yhteistyötason- ja tuotekehitysprojektitason tekijöihin. Yksi työn keskeisistä tuloksista on se, että huolimatta tiedon jakamisen haasteista, monet niistä voidaan eliminoida tunnistamalla vallitsevat olosuhteet ja panostamalla tiedon jakamisen hallintakeinoihin. Työn manageriaalinen hyöty koskee erityisesti yrityksiä, jotka suunnittelevat ja tekevät tuotekehitysyhteistyötä yrityskumppaniensa kanssa. Työssä esitellään keinoja tämän haasteellisen tehtäväkentän hallintaan ja todetaan, että yritysten pitäisikin kiinnittää entistä enemmän huomiota tiedon jakamisen ja kommunikaation hallintaan jo tuotekehitysyhteistyötä suunniteltaessa.

Involvement of family physicians in structured programs for chronic diseases or multi-morbidity in Switzerland.

The increasing prevalence of chronic diseases and multi-morbidity represents challenges for health systems worldwide. In that perspective, the current organization of healthcare delivery, fragmentation of care, limited use of evidence-based guidelines and patients'insufficient empowerment are some reasons explaining the current limited effectiveness of the management of chronically ill patients. Based on theoretical models such as the Chronic Care Model (CCM), initiatives targeting improvements in the care of patients with chronic diseases have been implemented worldwide since more than a decade. Their development in Switzerland, a health system where more than half of practices are still single handed [6], is only recent and infrequent. Structured programs for patients with chronic diseases or multimorbidity usually propose patient-centered interventions and consider an integrative multidisciplinary approach. Currently, little is known on the existence of such programs and on the role of family physicians (FPs)within these programs, in Switzerland. The objective of this study was to identify and describe current structured programs targeting chronic diseases or multi-morbidity in Switzerland. This may help in examining innovative approaches that are only developed locally but would deserve wider interest for further implementation. We conducted a telephone-based survey between June and November 2013 and contacted systematically key institutions, informants and stakeholders nationwide and in the 26 cantons...

The impact of balancing on problem hardness in a highly structured domain

Random problem distributions have played a key role in the study and design of algorithms for constraint satisfaction and Boolean satisfiability, as well as in ourunderstanding of problem hardness, beyond standard worst-case complexity. We consider random problem distributions from a highly structured problem domain that generalizes the Quasigroup Completion problem (QCP) and Quasigroup with Holes (QWH), a widely used domain that captures the structure underlying a range of real-world applications. Our problem domain is also a generalization of the well-known Sudoku puz- zle: we consider Sudoku instances of arbitrary order, with the additional generalization that the block regions can have rectangular shape, in addition to the standard square shape. We evaluate the computational hardness of Generalized Sudoku instances, for different parameter settings. Our experimental hardness results show that we can generate instances that are considerably harder than QCP/QWH instances of the same size. More interestingly, we show the impact of different balancing strategies on problem hardness. We also provide insights into backbone variables in Generalized Sudoku instances and how they correlate to problem hardness.

Measurement of a Structured Backflow in an Open Small Channel Induced by Surface-Tension Gradients

We present experiments in which the laterally confined flow of a surfactant film driven by controlled surface tension gradients causes the subtended liquid layer to self-organize into an inner upstream microduct surrounded by the downstream flow. The anomalous interfacial flow profiles and the concomitant backflow are a result of the feedback between two-dimensional and three-dimensional microfluidics realized during flow in open microchannels. Bulk and surface particle image velocimetry data combined with an interfacial hydrodynamics model explain the dependence of the observed phenomena on channel geometry.

Structured sparsity for spatially coherent fibre orientation estimation in diffusion MRI.

We propose a novel formulation to solve the problem of intra-voxel reconstruction of the fibre orientation distribution function (FOD) in each voxel of the white matter of the brain from diffusion MRI data. The majority of the state-of-the-art methods in the field perform the reconstruction on a voxel-by-voxel level, promoting sparsity of the orientation distribution. Recent methods have proposed a global denoising of the diffusion data using spatial information prior to reconstruction, while others promote spatial regularisation through an additional empirical prior on the diffusion image at each q-space point. Our approach reconciles voxelwise sparsity and spatial regularisation and defines a spatially structured FOD sparsity prior, where the structure originates from the spatial coherence of the fibre orientation between neighbour voxels. The method is shown, through both simulated and real data, to enable accurate FOD reconstruction from a much lower number of q-space samples than the state of the art, typically 15 samples, even for quite adverse noise conditions.

Evolutionary dynamics of collective action in spatially structured populations.

Many models proposed to study the evolution of collective action rely on a formalism that represents social interactions as n-player games between individuals adopting discrete actions such as cooperate and defect. Despite the importance of spatial structure in biological collective action, the analysis of n-player games games in spatially structured populations has so far proved elusive. We address this problem by considering mixed strategies and by integrating discrete-action n-player games into the direct fitness approach of social evolution theory. This allows to conveniently identify convergence stable strategies and to capture the effect of population structure by a single structure coefficient, namely, the pairwise (scaled) relatedness among interacting individuals. As an application, we use our mathematical framework to investigate collective action problems associated with the provision of three different kinds of collective goods, paradigmatic of a vast array of helping traits in nature: "public goods" (both providers and shirkers can use the good, e.g., alarm calls), "club goods" (only providers can use the good, e.g., participation in collective hunting), and "charity goods" (only shirkers can use the good, e.g., altruistic sacrifice). We show that relatedness promotes the evolution of collective action in different ways depending on the kind of collective good and its economies of scale. Our findings highlight the importance of explicitly accounting for relatedness, the kind of collective good, and the economies of scale in theoretical and empirical studies of the evolution of collective action.

Structured sparsity through reweighting and application to diffusion MRI

We consider the problem of multiple correlated sparse signals reconstruction and propose a new implementation of structured sparsity through a reweighting scheme. We present a particular application for diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging data and show how this procedure can be used for fibre orientation reconstruction in the white matter of the brain. In that framework, our structured sparsity prior can be used to exploit the fundamental coherence between fibre directions in neighbour voxels. Our method approaches the ℓ0 minimisation through a reweighted ℓ1-minimisation scheme. The weights are here defined in such a way to promote correlated sparsity between neighbour signals.

Bias in dissemination of clinical research findings: structured OPEN framework of what, who and why, based on literature review and expert consensus.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to review highly cited articles that focus on non-publication of studies, and to develop a consistent and comprehensive approach to defining (non-) dissemination of research findings. SETTING: We performed a scoping review of definitions of the term 'publication bias' in highly cited publications. PARTICIPANTS: Ideas and experiences of a core group of authors were collected in a draft document, which was complemented by the findings from our literature search. INTERVENTIONS: The draft document including findings from the literature search was circulated to an international group of experts and revised until no additional ideas emerged and consensus was reached. PRIMARY OUTCOMES: We propose a new approach to the comprehensive conceptualisation of (non-) dissemination of research. SECONDARY OUTCOMES: Our 'What, Who and Why?' approach includes issues that need to be considered when disseminating research findings (What?), the different players who should assume responsibility during the various stages of conducting a clinical trial and disseminating clinical trial documents (Who?), and motivations that might lead the various players to disseminate findings selectively, thereby introducing bias in the dissemination process (Why?). CONCLUSIONS: Our comprehensive framework of (non-) dissemination of research findings, based on the results of a scoping literature search and expert consensus will facilitate the development of future policies and guidelines regarding the multifaceted issue of selective publication, historically referred to as 'publication bias'.

Optimal latent period in a bacteriophage population model structured by infection-age

We study the lysis timing of a bacteriophage population by means of a continuously infection-age-structured population dynamics model. The features of the model are the infection process of bacteria, the death process, and the lysis process which means the replication of bacteriophage viruses inside bacteria and the destruction of them. The time till lysis (or latent period) is assumed to have an arbitrary distribution. We have carried out an optimization procedure, and we have found that the latent period corresponding to maximal fitness (i.e. maximal growth rate of the bacteriophage population) is of fixed length. We also study the dependence of the optimal latent period on the amount of susceptible bacteria and the number of virions released by a single infection. Finally, the evolutionarily stable strategy of the latent period is also determined as a fixed period taking into account that super-infections are not considered

Structured software development with the IPIDDDT method - A lean method for small agile organizations

A software development process is a predetermined sequence of steps to create a piece of software. A software development process is used, so that an implementing organization could gain significant benefits. The benefits for software development companies, that can be attributed to software process improvement efforts, are improved predictability in the development effort and improved quality software products. The implementation, maintenance, and management of a software process as well as the software process improvement efforts are expensive. Especially the implementation phase is expensive with a best case scenario of a slow return on investment. Software processes are rare in very small software development companies because of the cost of implementation and an improbable return on investment. This study presents a new method to enable benefits that are usually related to software process improvement to small companies with a low cost. The study presents reasons for the development of the method, a description of the method, and an implementation process for the method, as well as a theoretical case study of a method implementation. The study's focus is on describing the method. The theoretical use case is used to illustrate the theory of the method and the implementation process of the method. The study ends with a few conclusions on the method and on the method's implementation process. The main conclusion is that the method requires further study as well as implementation experiments to asses the value of the method.

The relation between the general maxim of causality and the principle of uniformity in hume's theory of knowledge

ABSTRACT When Hume, in the Treatise on Human Nature, began his examination of the relation of cause and effect, in particular, of the idea of necessary connection which is its essential constituent, he identified two preliminary questions that should guide his research: (1) For what reason we pronounce it necessary that every thing whose existence has a beginning should also have a cause and (2) Why we conclude that such particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects? (1.3.2, 14-15) Hume observes that our belief in these principles can result neither from an intuitive grasp of their truth nor from a reasoning that could establish them by demonstrative means. In particular, with respect to the first, Hume examines and rejects some arguments with which Locke, Hobbes and Clarke tried to demonstrate it, and suggests, by exclusion, that the belief that we place on it can only come from experience. Somewhat surprisingly, however, Hume does not proceed to show how that derivation of experience could be made, but proposes instead to move directly to an examination of the second principle, saying that, "perhaps, be found in the end, that the same answer will serve for both questions" (1.3.3, 9). Hume's answer to the second question is well known, but the first question is never answered in the rest of the Treatise, and it is even doubtful that it could be, which would explain why Hume has simply chosen to remove any mention of it when he recompiled his theses on causation in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Given this situation, an interesting question that naturally arises is to investigate the relations of logical or conceptual implication between these two principles. Hume seems to have thought that an answer to (2) would also be sufficient to provide an answer to (1). Henry Allison, in his turn, argued (in Custom and Reason in Hume, p. 94-97) that the two questions are logically independent. My proposal here is to try to show that there is indeed a logical dependency between them, but the implication is, rather, from (1) to (2). If accepted, this result may be particularly interesting for an interpretation of the scope of the so-called "Kant's reply to Hume" in the Second Analogy of Experience, which is structured as a proof of the a priori character of (1), but whose implications for (2) remain controversial.

Experiences in using a structured method in finding and defining new innovations: the strategic options approach

Investment decision-making on far-reaching innovation ideas is one of the key challenges practitioners and academics face in the field of innovation management. However, the management practices and theories strongly rely on evaluation systems that do not fit in well with this setting. These systems and practices normally cannot capture the value of future opportunities under high uncertainty because they ignore the firm’s potential for growth and flexibility. Real options theory and options-based methods have been offered as a solution to facilitate decision-making on highly uncertain investment objects. Much of the uncertainty inherent in these investment objects is attributable to unknown future events. In this setting, real options theory and methods have faced some challenges. First, the theory and its applications have largely been limited to market-priced real assets. Second, the options perspective has not proved as useful as anticipated because the tools it offers are perceived to be too complicated for managerial use. Third, there are challenges related to the type of uncertainty existing real options methods can handle: they are primarily limited to parametric uncertainty. Nevertheless, the theory is considered promising in the context of far-reaching and strategically important innovation ideas. The objective of this dissertation is to clarify the potential of options-based methodology in the identification of innovation opportunities. The constructive research approach gives new insights into the development potential of real options theory under non-parametric and closeto- radical uncertainty. The distinction between real options and strategic options is presented as an explanans for the discovered limitations of the theory. The findings offer managers a new means of assessing future innovation ideas based on the frameworks constructed during the course of the study.

Metsäsääntely Suomessa ja Venäjällä. Näkökulmia kestävään metsätalouteen

Sustainability is the aim of forest management and forest regulation in many countries. Accordingly, forest management has been steered towards more environmentally friendly methods and new regulatory instruments have been introduced. At the same time, wood trade and forest industry have become a global business. Even if the importance of national forest legislation has not decreased, it has been widely acknowledged that national regulation of forest management is no longer sufficient. The movement of goods does not acknowledge boundaries, even though most negative environmental and social consequences stay in the country of origin of wood and other raw materials. As a partial solution to this dilemma, different kinds of regulations have been developed. Various forest certification schemes and wood trade regulation in the EU (995/2010) are examples of efforts to prevent illegal logging and unsustainable forestry. The Finland-based forest industry is to a varying extent dependent on wood trade from Russia. Especially in the 1990‟s, ethical questions concerning import of wood from Russian old growth forests near the Finnish border were widely discussed. Consequently, forest industry enterprises have developed systems to trace the origin of wood and to buy certified wood from Russia. The aim of the research has been to evaluate Finnish and Russian forest regulations in order to investigate what kind of forest management these regulations enhance, and to what extent ecologically sustainable forest management has been integrated into different forms of regulation. I have examined Finnish and Russian forest regulation in four separate articles based on the topics of the Russian Forest Code, forest certification and other voluntary forest protection measures in Russia, Finnish forest certification and Finnish forest legislation. One objective has been to analyse the roles voluntary forest certification plays in promoting sustainable forest management in different countries. In my research, I have mainly concentrated on ecological sustainability and protection of biodiversity, although other aspects of sustainable forest management have been touched upon in different articles. In the following I shall conclude the findings of my research. When the current Russian Forest Code (2006) was being adopted, the main emphasis was not on ecological issues, but on reorganizing forest governance. The role of ecological requirements was even slightly diminished during the legislative reform. There are, nevertheless, still stipulations aiming at ecological sustainability, such as the division of forests into different forest management categories and various protection zones. In 2000, FSC forest certification arrived in Russia, at present covering already 28 million hectares of forests. The PEFC scheme is now in use as well, but to a much lesser extent. If properly implemented, Russian forest certification schemes clearly improve the level of ecological and social sustainability of forestry in Russia. Certification criteria, however, are partly in conflict with the Russian forest legislation and certified enterprises have been forced to pay fines or to negotiate with forest authorities. This clearly indicates that even if Russian forest legislation has otherwise been liberalized to a certain extent, some significant paternalism still exists. Voluntary, hands-on biodiversity protection measures are not valued, and they are not part of the official protection policies as in many other countries. However, there have been some regional solutions to this dilemma. In the Republic of Karelia forest authorities have approved a set of forest biodiversity protection rules created by a local NGO and a forest industry enterprise. By following these local rules, an enterprise can avoid fines for protection measures. The current Finnish Forest Act was adopted in 1996. It brought forest legislation into a new era as some ecological aspects were integrated into forest legislation. The various soft-law forest management recommendations further increased the level of biodiversity protection. My evaluation of the overall legitimacy of the Finnish forest legislation and forest management paradigm revealed, however, several problematic issues. As part of this study I analysed the history of the current forest management paradigm. This analysis revealed the path dependency which still hinders the protection of biodiversity and clearly decreases the general legitimacy of forest management. Due to several historical reasons only even-structured forest management based on clear cuts has for decades been officially approved in Finland. Due to increasing demands of forest owners the legislation is finally being revised. Yet, the official approval of uneven-structured forest management would not be enough to fully improve ecological, social and cultural legitimacy. The latest ecological theories and knowledge of endangered species should be taken into account in the on-going reform of forest legislation as well as the modernisation. Forest legislation is one of the very few spheres of Finnish environmental legislation where openness and participation are still considered a threat. The first Finnish forest certification scheme, PEFC, was established in 2000. It now covers more than 20 million hectares, about 95% of the forests in Finland. PEFC Finland does not require a higher level of biodiversity protection than the recommendations by Tapio (the Development Centre for Forestry), but certification has unified forest management practices and requires more protection measures than mere forest legislation. The study suggests that in Finland PEFC has not functioned as an instrument which would substantially improve the level of forest management. Rather it has supported the status quo of the forest sector. While the ecological and social responsibility of Finland-based forest corporations was one impetus for this research, I want to conclude that there are problems related to forest legislation and non-state regulation in both Finland and Russia. If an enterprise buying wood from Russia buys only certified wood, and carefully avoids wood coming from high conservation value forests that are either ecologically or socially valuable, it can be claimed to be as sustainably produced as in Finland. However, there must be continuous scrutiny of the circumstances. In Russia, the level of the compliance of certification criteria varies considerably, and there are vast unprotected invaluable forest areas. The utilisation of these areas should not be based on short-sighted decisions or lack of consensus among stakeholders.

Trustworthy context dependency in ubiquitous systems

The modern society is getting increasingly dependent on software applications. These run on processors, use memory and account for controlling functionalities that are often taken for granted. Typically, applications adjust the functionality in response to a certain context that is provided or derived from the informal environment with various qualities. To rigorously model the dependence of an application on a context, the details of the context are abstracted and the environment is assumed stable and fixed. However, in a context-aware ubiquitous computing environment populated by autonomous agents, a context and its quality parameters may change at any time. This raises the need to derive the current context and its qualities at runtime. It also implies that a context is never certain and may be subjective, issues captured by the context’s quality parameter of experience-based trustworthiness. Given this, the research question of this thesis is: In what logical topology and by what means may context provided by autonomous agents be derived and formally modelled to serve the context-awareness requirements of an application? This research question also stipulates that the context derivation needs to incorporate the quality of the context. In this thesis, we focus on the quality of context parameter of trustworthiness based on experiences having a level of certainty and referral experiences, thus making trustworthiness reputation based. Hence, in this thesis we seek a basis on which to reason and analyse the inherently inaccurate context derived by autonomous agents populating a ubiquitous computing environment in order to formally model context-awareness. More specifically, the contribution of this thesis is threefold: (i) we propose a logical topology of context derivation and a method of calculating its trustworthiness, (ii) we provide a general model for storing experiences and (iii) we formalise the dependence between the logical topology of context derivation and its experience-based trustworthiness. These contributions enable abstraction of a context and its quality parameters to a Boolean decision at runtime that may be formally reasoned with. We employ the Action Systems framework for modelling this. The thesis is a compendium of the author’s scientific papers, which are republished in Part II. Part I introduces the field of research by providing the mending elements for the thesis to be a coherent introduction for addressing the research question. In Part I we also review a significant body of related literature in order to better illustrate our contributions to the research field.