One of the core complexities involved in evaluating decision alternatives in the area of public decision-making is to deal with conflicts. The stakeholders affected by and involved in the decision often have conflicting preferences regarding the actions under consideration. For an executive authority, these differences of opinion can be problematic, during both implementation and communication, even though the decision is rational with respect to an attribute set perceived to represent social welfare. It is therefore important to involve the stakeholders in the process and to get an understanding of their preferences. Otherwise, the stakeholder disagreement can lead to costly conflicts. One way of approaching this problem is to provide means for comprehensive, yet effective stakeholder preference elicitation methods, where the stakeholders can state their preferences with respect to actions part of the current agenda of a government. In this paper we contribute two supporting methods: (i) an application of the cardinal ranking (CAR) method for preference elicitation for conflict evaluations and (ii) two conflict indices for measuring stakeholder conflicts. The application of the CAR method utilizes a do nothing alternative to differentiate between positive and negative actions. The elicited preferences can then be used as input to the two conflict indices indicating the level of conflict within a stakeholder group or between two stakeholder groups. The contributed methods are demonstrated in a real-life example carried out in the municipality of Upplands Väsby, Sweden. We show how a questionnaire can be used to elicit preferences with CAR and how the indices can be used to semantically describe the level of consensus and conflict regarding a certain attribute. As such, we show how the methods can provide decision aid in the clarification of controversies.

The objective of this study has been to answer the question of finding ways to improve the quality of database. There exists a lot of problems of the data stored in the database, like missing or spelling errors. To deal with the dirty data in the database, this study adopts the conditional functional dependencies and regular expressions to detect and correct data. Based on the former studies of data cleaning methods, this study considers the more complex conditions of database and combines the efficient algorithms to deal with the data. The study shows that by using these methods, the database’s quality can be improved and considering the complexity of time and space, there still has a lot of things to do to make the data cleaning process more efficiency.

In the context of Internet of Things (IoT), groupcommunication is an efficient and fast way of broadcastinggroup messages. The message needs to be sent securely tomaintain confidentiality of data and privacy of users. Estab-lishing cryptographically secure communication links betweena group of transceivers requires the pre-agreement upon somekey, unknown to an external attacker. Complex and resource-intensive security schemes are infeasible for devices with limitedcomputational capabilities. In this paper, we implement alightweight and computationally secure group key establish-ment scheme suitable for resource constrained IoT networks.The proposed scheme is based on elliptic curve cryptographyand cryptographic one-way accumulators. We analyze its fea-sibility by implementing it in the Contiki operating system andsimulating it with the Cooja simulator. The simulation resultsdemonstrate the feasibility of the scheme and its computationaland communication costs are also comparable with otherexisting approaches, with an energy consumption of only 109mJ per node for group key establishment.

Internet of Things (IoT) aims at collecting data from billions of devices connected altogether. Despite there is no one technology able to cope with all possible scenarios, LPWAN solutions are emerging as viable technologies for implementing private, low-cost cellular like wireless networks. Distributed systems could leverage this approach as a driving technology for services as smart environment sensing, pervasive sensing and soon. In the considered scenario, the capacity of the network is of main importance; even if communication is sporadic for most of the time, an event observed by many nodes results in a huge amount of simultaneous transmissions. Are the IoT technologies usable to this end? In this paper LoRaWAN technology is investigated, with the aim of evaluating the orthogonality of virtual channels permitted by the LoRa physical layer. In particular, measurements demonstrated that overlapping transmissions having the same power at the receiver can be correctly decoded if occurring with different spreading factors, whereas co-spread messages require at least 4ms spacing.

The idea of Industry 4.0 includes the concept of Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) that is the possibility for industrial devices to have Internet connection and share data. Huge amount of data are stored and analyzed in the Cloud to extract meaningful information to be sold as 'services'. Today, many Industry 4.0 scenarios do not require a short latency between data collection and output reaction, but it is expected that short latency services would be seen by the market as a distinctive quality. This paper deals with the estimation of latency in transferring data from the field (where the production takes place) to the Cloud and then back to field. Since IIoT natively refers to worldwide applications, the paper analyzes some cases where interacting nodes are deployed in different continents. The experimental results show that simple solutions based on widely accepted lightweight protocols (e.g. MQTT) and inexpensive industrial grade IoT devices are feasible. From the performance point of view, when using free access Cloud servers, they can achieve round trip latency down to 300 ms with standard deviation of about 20 ms over one-week observation time. 

In this work we aim at providing an initial analysis of the IEEE802.11s amendment that introduced support for mesh networking to Wireless LAN specifications. Indeed, there has been an increasing interest in the adoption of IEEE 802.11-based wireless systems also in the field of Distributed Measurement Systems (DMSs). Nonetheless, in such a scenario it is necessary to investigate the obtainable performance, in terms of latency, reliability and throughput. Toward this goal, we firstly considered the public available ns-3 IEEE 802.11s model, highlighting some details of the implemented design and also showing some of the unsupported features and open issues. Subsequently, we also leveraged on the mac80211 network emulation features embedded within the Linux kernel to test the mesh extensions included in Linux systems. Finally, using low-cost COTS hardware, exploiting the same mesh stack, we developed a real-world test bench allowing an experimental performance assessment. Results obtained from the presented setups are thus compared, and some open issues are finally discussed.

We are currently living in the Internet of Things (IoT) era, which involves devices that are connected to Internet and are communicating with each other. Each year, the number of devices increases rapidly, which result in rapid growth of data that is generated. This large amount of data is sometimes titled as Big Data, which is generated from different sources, such as log data of user behavior. These log files can be collected and analyzed in different ways, such as creating product recommendations. Product recommendations have been around since the late 90s, when the amount of data collected were not at the same level as it is today. The aim of this thesis has been to investigating methods to process and create product recommendations to see how well they are adapted for Big Data. This has been accomplished by three theory studies on how to process user events, how to make the product recommendation algorithm called collaborative filtering scalable and finally how to convert implicit feedback to explicit feedback (ratings).

This resulted in a recommendation engine consisting of Apache Spark as the data processing system, which had three functions: read multiple log files and concatenate log files for each month, parsing the log files of the user events to create explicit ratings from the transactions and create four types of recommendations. The NoSQL database MongoDB was chosen as the database to store the different types of product recommendations that was created. To be able to get the recommendations from the recommendation engine and the database, a REST API was implemented which can be used by any third-party. What can be concluded from the results of this thesis work is that the system that was implemented is partial scalable. This means that Apache Spark was scalable for both concatenating files, parse and create ratings and also create the recommendations using the ALS method. However, MongoDB was shown to be not scalable when managing more than 100 concurrent requests. Future work involves making the recommendation engine distributed in a multi-node cluster to utilize the parallelization of Apache Spark. Other recommendations include considering other NoSQL databases that might be more scalable than MongoDB.

We see a shift from todays Internet-of-Things (IoT)to include more industrial equipment and metrology systems,forming the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). However, thisleads to many concerns related to confidentiality, integrity,availability, privacy and non-repudiation. Hence, there is a needto secure the IIoT in order to cater for a future with smart grids,smart metering, smart factories, smart cities, and smart manufacturing.It is therefore important to research IIoT technologiesand to create order in this chaos, especially when it comes tosecuring communication, resilient wireless networks, protectingindustrial data, and safely storing industrial intellectual propertyin cloud systems. This research therefore presents the challenges,needs, and requirements of industrial applications when it comesto securing IIoT systems.

The expected monetary costs and response time performance is important information to know before deploying an industrial Internet-of-Things system. The system investigated in this paper is built up by combining the Open Plant Communication Universal Architecture and the Microsoft Azure Internet-of-Things Hub. We consider a real life industrial scenario that remotely monitors a piece of industrial equipment consisting of 1500 sensors, of which 600 update their values every second. The measured results show that the response times for a fiber based Internet connection was on average 770 ms with a standard deviation of 330 ms and the same measurements on a mobile internet connection was on average 1150 ms with a standard deviation of 340 ms. Cost wise, the investigated scenario fits within the most expensive price plan for the IoT hub and ends in a total of just over \$5000 per month for the whole cloud service.

Research and industry invest time and resources in producing Internet of Things-based services, and the concept of Internet of Things platforms is climbing in the hype cycle for emerging technologies. Consequently, there is a vast number of enabling technologies, making it difficult to find the most suitable platform. The aim and goal of this article is to list and identify the currently available communication platforms for the Internet of Things. In this work, we surveyed the area and found over \numTot different platforms for communication of data between things and services, out of which \numProm fulfilled our listed basic requirements for being an IoT communication platform.

Due to their universal accessibility, interactivity and scaling ease, Web applications relying on client-side code execution are currently the most common form of delivering applications and it is likely that they will continue to enter into less common realms such as IoT-based applications. We reason that modern Web applications should be able to exhibit advanced security protection mechanisms and review the research literature that points to useful partial solutions. Then, we propose a framework to support such characteristics and the features needed to implement them, providing a roadmap for a comprehensive solution to support Web application integrity. 

Projektet som beskrivs i den följande rapporten har som mål att skapa en webbsida som på ett tydligt och vägledande sätt skall leda besökare till rätt val bland de olika digitala kalkyler och ansökningsformulär förknippade med bolån som finns på sbab.se. Webbsidan utvecklas som en del av ett datadrivet optimeringsinitiativ, där man önskar att verifiera en hypotes genom att A/B-testa den utvecklade sidan mot en befintlig för att avgöra om den resulterat i ökad kundnöjdhet och konvertering så som man i hypotesen antagit. Projektarbetet har fokuserat på att tillsammans med en projektgrupp bestämma hur sidans layout och innehåll bör designas för att vara tydlig, samt på implementera den design man tar fram genom en iterativ designprocess, där resultatet sedan successivt integrerats och anpassats i företagets CMS.

Creating an exam that ensures an even coverage over all the Intended Learning Outcomes and at the same time ensures that to pass, the student should have passed all the Intended Learning Outcomes can be a difficult task. After an exam have been graded, formative feedback should be given to the students, especially in those cases where they did not pass the exam. This can be a time consuming process, and because of this, it is not always possible to give as good feedback as one would otherwise like. In this project an exam tool was created, for assisting in creating exams and give individual formative feedback to the students after an exam. By storing all the questions in a database, where each question is connected to an Intended Learning Outcome, along with writing the questions in a standardised format, with regards to point representations, grading rubrics and references it becomes possible to automatically generate exams. Generated individual feedback is created by combining the information in the question together with the students result. The feedback provides motivation of given grade, which topics a student should read up on, along with recommended reading instructions. In those cases a student got a full mark, it is also possible to provide further study instructions, this can be anything from recommended articles and book chapter, to courses. Differential privacy have been used to anonymize the grade distribution to make it possible to show the students how the exam went, without risk exposing what grade a certain student got. The exam tool created achieves all of these goals, however there are still much room for improvement. The anonymisation function needs further development, since differential privacy is not suitable for small datasets. The usability of the interface and feedback reports needs more work. However in its current state it is fully functional and have been used in numerous courses.

Rapporten beskriver det projekt som låg bakom utvecklingen av Allt om Gårdens nya webbplats. Allt om Gården är en tidskrift som tillsammans med dess redaktion skapas och publiceras av Svenska Media Docu AB. Ett av de huvudsakliga målen med den nya webbplatsen var att öppna upp möjligheter för annonsering på webbplatsen, samt att ge webbplatsen funktion att automatiskt uppdatera sin webbplats med artiklar som publiceras från andra magazins webbplatser inom den gemensamma koncernen DOCUnordic. Projektet innefattade utvecklingsarbete med programmerings-språk såsom JavaScript, PHP och SQL, men även andra språk, däribland HTML, CSS och XML. Projektet utvecklades som ett Wordpress-tema som enkelt kunde installeras genom Wordpress egna administrations-gränssnitt. Det slutgiltiga resultatet går att betrakta på internet-adressen: www.alltomgarden.se

Young people have low influence on societal issues even though one of the general objectives of politics for youth is to give young people the opportunity to participate and influence. The municipalities of Sweden have an important role to increase the democratic participation of young people. In order to succeed, the municipalities need to get better knowledge about how they reach out to young people, how young people prefer to express their opinions and the requirements for participation. The purpose of the study is to investigate how digitalization can strengthen the democratic participation of young people. To find out what is needed for young people to become more involved and which digital channels that can be used to create better conditions for participation. To answer the problem of the study, triangulation is used between qualitative and quantitative approaches, and the research strategies are literature study, questionnaire and interviews. The results of the survey show that important conditions for participation are that young people have the resources, as platforms and knowledge, to participate in societal issues in an active way. In addition, it is a prerequisite for young people to feel that their opinions can make a difference. If these conditions are fulfilled, participation among young people may be increase. The digital channels that young people prefer to use to provide feedback and to receive information from the municipality are websites, applications and emails. Another digital channel that the municipality can use to reach out to young people with information is Facebook. Finally, it is important that municipalities are responsive and keep up to date with what young people ask for, as trends on digital channels changes continuously.

Today most computers have powerful multi core processors that can perform many calculations simultaneously. However writing programs that take full advan- tage of the processors in modern day computers can be a challenge. This is due to the challenge of managing shared resources between parallel processing threads. This report documents the development of the Majo language that aims to solve these problems by using abstractions to make parallel programming easier. The model for the abstractions is dividing the program in to what is called nodes. One node represents one thread of execution and nodes are connected to each other by thread safe communication channels. All communication channels are frst in frst out queues. The nodes communicate by pushing and popping values form these queues. The performance of the language was measured and compared to other languages such as Python, Ruby and JavaScript. The tests were based on timing how long it took to generate the Mandelbrot set as well as sorting a list of inte- gers. The language scalability was also tested by seeing how much the execution time decreased by adding more parallel threads. The results from these tests showed that the developed prototype of the language had some unforeseen bugs that slowed down the execution more then expected in some tests. However the scalability test gave encouraging results. For future development the language exe- cution time should be improved by fxing relevant bugs and a more generalized model for concurrency should be developed.

The aim of this study has been to create and compare different holiday planners. The comparison takes place between availapp, Excel spreadsheets and absence. Availapp is a tailor-made vacation planning application for CGI Sundsvall / Härnösand that is fully scalable with mobile and desktops devices. The applikation automatically retrieves personal information from windowsAD at first login. The web application also takes into account social ethical aspects where we use encryption to ensure that information does not reach the wrong people. Also taking into account with PUL and GDPR for storing user information. Excel spreadsheets is CGI's current vacation planner consisting of an excel sheet with macron to ease the vacation planning. Absence is a commercial holiday planner aimed at companies to replace excel vacation planners. The comparison between availapp, excel spreadsheets and absence is evaluated according to a few key criteria, which is access, readability, navigation, functionality and startup of applications. The result is then compiled in a table to get an easy overview of the criteria for each application. After the compilation, it is found that availapp is the most suitable holiday planner according to the chosen criteria.

New technologies arise everyday, but which ones are the best for your project? How do you store data in a safe manner that complies with the new European GDPR law? How do you plan, develop and complete a project? These are but a few formulations of questions that the study in this report will cover. 

The report is based around a business idea and vision for a company that offers advanced products built with modern technologies. The first step for the development of this company is to create a prototyp of its first product, a web platform. The prototyp will be formed after a projectplan with meetings with a supervisor and with the use of professional tools like Gantt, WBS and Trello.

First and foremost a study will be done behind the theory of different frameworks and technologies but also a reasearch about GDPR and data security. The design phase will be the first part in shaping the projekt where wireframes, sitemap and ERdiagram have been created and documented. The choice of frameworks, mainly Vue, Express and MongoDB and the data security standards JWT and Oauth will be explained and used in the prototype as a base for the technical aspects of the project.

Lastly the results och the finished prototype will be presented together with a discussion regarding problems that arose during the project, improvments that needs to be done and what the future holds for the complete web platform.

Group communication in the context of Internetof Things (IoT) is an efficient and fast way of broadcasting group messages. A message needs to be sent securely to maintain confidentiality of data and privacy of users. The main challenges in sharing group keys consist in designing and implementing a group key establishment scheme that is feasible for devices with limited computational capabilities. Existing group establishment schemes do not offer a good solution for resource-constrained IoTdevices, a solution that provides secure group key management procedures when new nodes join or leave the group without com-promising the security of the system. In this paper, we propose a light weight and computationally secure group key establishment scheme suitable for resource constrained IoT networks. The proposed scheme is based on elliptic curve cryptography and cryptographic one-way accumulators. We show how to combine the aforementioned concepts to design a group key establishment scheme that guarantees both forward and backward secrecy. Finally, we show how the established group key is updated when the group size dynamically changes and how the proposed solution can be used with block and stream ciphers.

With the growing interest in adoption of wireless technologies in industrial automation and the continuous search for new revenue streams new players are entering the arena in order to make their business grow further. One of the emerging wireless technologies aiming to support industrial automation applications is 5G, targeting anything from extreme throughput (>10 Gbit/s) to extreme low latency (< 1 ms) to ultra high reliability (>99.999%). In this article we intend to discuss the potential and challenges of adopting 5G in real industrial environments and give a more balanced picture compared to previous articles mainly written by telecom researchers and vendors as a way to promote their technology. Specifically, this article will discuss and provide some real industrial requirements, describe the main technical features of 5G and try to assess what applications it will support that are not by already supported by existing technologies. In the end, the success of 5G will depend on appealing business models and scalability, i.e., whether or not the same equipment can be deployed worldwide without any changes and spectrum rules, and the migration paths beyond 5G for reasonable business risks.

The impact of gravity on organic material such as the human body has been a growing research field ever since the dawn of space flight. The Random Positioning Machine (RPM) is used to simulate microgravity on organisms without the use of real microgravity that is both expensive and scarcely available. This enables in-depth studies on the effect of weightlessness on organic materials in a controlled environment with relatively small means. The RPM has not yet been commercialized to a broader market but the most recent improvements to the machine creates possibilities for a start-up business revolving around the RPM. A method including both qualitative and quantitative models based on a case study were used to capture both aspects and to understand both how far in development the technologies were and the potential in the different market segments. The TRL for the different UVP’s of the RPM were generally ranked high except for the modularity and the market segment ranking shows that, from the four chosen segments, the food fermentation and fat crystallization segments have the most potential. The watch industry showed a minimal amount of potential. The SWOT-analysis on the two segments shows that the biggest weakness is the inexperience with start-ups but that is countered by the possibility for support by the university. For the food fermentation, there is an opportunity for a partnership where the company Swiss Culture Collection has shown interest in cooperation but there is also the threat of end customers equating organisms produced in microgravity with GMO, and by that having a negative impact. For fat crystallization, there is an opportunity with improving the process for producing low-fat products if research shows that microgravity can affect the density of the product. On the other hand, there is a lot of research that needs to be done to get the results.

Arbetet med denna licentiatavhandling har skett inom ramarna för det Interregionalt finansierade projektet Gränslös samverkan för ökad säkerhet 2. Syftet med avhandlingen har varit att fördjupa kunskapen om kommunal krisledning genom att också inkludera materialitetens medverkan i krisledningen och vilka förutsättningarna är för att de ska brukas. Med perspektivet av hur analoga och digitala resurser används under krisledning och vilka förutsättningar som finns för att detta ska göras skapas insikter att ta i beaktande när övningar och IT-stöd för övningar. 

Studier har genomförts med en kvalitativ ansats med litteraturstudier, intervjuer och observationer som datainsamlingsmetoder. Det empiriska materialet har därefter betraktats med meningsgivande (sensemaking) och affordans (affordance) som teoretiska perspektiv för att förstå materialitetens roll och förutsättning i kommunal krisledning.

Avhandlingen visar att de förmågor som är återkommande under övningar är samverkan, kommunikation, informationsdelning och skapande av lägesbild. Ofta övas inte aktiviteterna i sin helhet då tekniska och analoga resurser inte innefattas i övningarna. Aktörerna övar därmed delar av görandet, att tänka kring exempelvis att skapa en lägesbild, och inte görandet som helhet som involverar materialitet.  Aktörernas egna reflektioner från utvärderingarna är att de själva önskar mer övning med de tekniska resurser som de har till sitt förfogande. Artikel II visar att materialiteten tar en stor plats i det arbete som sker i krisledningsrummet. Materialiteten kan ses anta roller som strukturgivande, meningsgivande, tidsöverbryggande och distansöverbryggande. Den tredje ingående artikeln visar att förutsättningar för att kunna bedriva krisledning är att kunna hantera materialitetens roller och att det krävs flexibilitet då krisledningsgruppens sammansättning är beroende av krisens art och omfattning. Ytterligare en förutsättning är trygghet i den egna organisationen, att känna sin egen roll i krisledningsgruppen och att kunna hantera de analoga och digitala resurser som finns tillgängliga är även det en förutsättning för arbetet. Avslutningsvis visar arbetet också att tid är viktig. Tid att kunna öva de personer som ska ingå i krisledningsgruppen för att därmed kunna skapa den trygghet som behövs. 

Sensemaking is the process to make sense of an unknown event. Research on the contribution of materiality in sensemaking is currently an area in need of further study. The Swedish system of crisis management puts the municipality in a key position when managing a crisis. Making the municipal situation room an interesting area for research. This study focuses on sensemaking in the municipal situation room during crisis management. The area of interest is when and why digital and/or non-digital resources are being used during sensemaking. The study contributes to an understanding of how sensemaking are performed in entanglement with the materiality provided. This is important for understanding needs of exercises and needs of resources in the situation room. The study was conducted as a qualitative study where interviews and observations were used to gather empirical evidence.

Cooperation and interaction demands digital skills. In an agile context, there is no time for learning while doing, implicating that many of the skills need to be practiced beforehand. Since exercises are one way of enhancing skills needed in crisis situations, it is important to know what skills are practiced during the exercises. This review aims to understand what skills have been practiced during exercises conducted in Sweden between 2010 and 2014. Data was obtained from 15 evaluations of exercises including multiple actors. Most exercises practiced collaboration, communication, information and shared situation awareness skills. Results showed that 4 out of 15 had a specific goal in terms of technology use. Exercises with explicit technology goals are effective as a way to change opinions about the tool in question. The participants requests additional exercises specifically targeting routines and the use of technological tools. 

This paper presents findings from ethnographic studies on situation rooms in municipalities. The purpose has been to visualize affordance for the practice pf crisis management. The study argues that organizational and material dimensions are affecting the perceived affordance. The organizational dimension needs to be have a good leadership in the situation room, be scalable, and well trained in order to infuse trust in the staff. From the dimension of materiality, it is also important with trust in the infrastructure and that they are able to handle the tools required in work. Furthermore, materiality needs to be editable, visible and scalable.

The thesis ”how does the security look like” was chosen on my own initiative, becasue there is a great need to engeage small bussnies in leraning more about how information and networks should handle safely. Through a quantitative survey among small businsses a survey could be made of how small businsses handle their information and network environment. Using the results of the survey and the collection of facts, customer facts about how security should look like can be created för small businesses. To present facts in the best way, a web application was created. Working with the web application meant that a server was installed. As well as a website with HTML and CSS code. Scripts were created to generate unique data for the user (small businesses) At the end of the project, third party programs were able to analyze the web application and a test group evaluate the information and web application to provide a basis for further development.

In recent years, the adoption of industrial wireless sensor and actuator networks (IWSANs) has greatly increased. However, the time-critical performance of IWSANs is considerably affected by external sources of interference. In particular, when an IEEE 802.11 network is coexisting in the same environment, a significant drop in communication reliability is observed. This, in turn, represents one of the main challenges for a wide-scale adoption of IWSAN. Interference classification through spectrum sensing is a possible step towards interference mitigation, but the long sampling window required by many of the approaches in the literature undermines their run-time applicability in time-slotted channel hopping (TSCH)-based IWSAN. Aiming at minimizing both the sensing time and the memory footprint of the collected samples, a centralized interference classifier based on support vector machines (SVMs) is introduced in this article. The proposed mechanism, tested with sample traces collected in industrial scenarios, enables the classification of interference from IEEE 802.11 networks and microwave ovens, while ensuring high classification accuracy with a sensing duration below 300 ms. In addition, the obtained results show that the fast classification together with a contained sampling frequency ensure the suitability of the method for TSCH-based IWSAN

This paper outlines a soft systems method approach to model a national preparedness planning procedure for the case of an electrical power shortage. Through the model, we provide a new perspective on enhancing and understanding the joint decision-making environment for the actors involved in the planning procedure, as well as its underlying power structure. By a process of abstraction from the current implementation, a core root definition is presented which provides a generic systems view that can be a useful concept for the study of similar contexts. An action model dedicated to determining meaningful and valid activities is derived, providing insights for the improvement of collaborative emergency response planning in general. The paper, thus, aims to contribute to the communication and cooperation between actors and stakeholders in the development of appropriate decision processes and decision support in the context of emergency preparedness.

Even beyond the context of critical infrastructure protection, complex planning situations involve several views on and interests in problems underlying the planning. These views are often interrelated with stakeholders bringing various concerns to both the planning itself and the plan’s future utilisation. Complex, real-world situations in particular challenge scholars in building appropriate research strategies and selecting adequate scientific approaches. Therefore, interdisciplinary research problems can require an adaption of traditional research paradigms to different facets of intricacy. However, debate on scientific approaches regarding how to gain knowledge has been perpetual. This paper contributes to this debate and provides a multi-perspective kaleidoscope for complex and interdisciplinary research. This kaleidoscope aims to support a selection of appropriate research strategies in accordance with a given research problem. For this purpose, the kaleidoscope helps gradually focus the problem. It begins with an assembling of research disciplines, continues with selecting adjacent research areas and completes the framework with applicable methods. As an example of implementation, the study further presents a concrete application and adapts the kaleidoscope to a complex research case. This case, called STYREL, represents Swedish response planning that is dedicated to ensuring swift response during a power shortage event. This planning process is concerned with anticipated decisions, which can quicken decision-making during emergencies, particularly during power shortages. This case can also serve as a metaphor, because designing a multi-perspective research strategy for interdisciplinary research may similarly require thorough consideration of possible alternatives and their complex combinations in advance. Both circumstances come furthermore with a constant need for argumentation and communication. For this, the paper contributes a flexible scientific frame of reference. This multi-perspective kaleidoscope, which is applicable to both theoretical and empirical complex research problems, facilitates communication about the selection process of a research methodology among the research community.

Large-scale and long-term planning imposes extensive requirements on governance efforts regardless of whether it involves public organisations, private organisations, or both. The proportions of such planning entangle many actors and stakeholders as system components within and around a complex system. These system components and conditions in a complex planning environment introduce a diverse variety of strategic objectives into the planning. This study investigates how strategic objectives can affect the governance of complex planning systems, particularly in the context of national critical infrastructure protection. For this purpose, this thesis concentrates on a national planning procedure, STYREL, which Sweden has recently implemented for the case of power shortages. This case involves various actors from the national, regional and local levels who act on behalf of both public and private organisations in a planning process with four-year intervals, and it thus constitutes a relevant subject for this study. The investigation entailed the collection of evidence from documents and interviews. First, publicly available Swedish documents regarding the case provided an understanding of the planning. Second, interviews with decision-makers who are entrusted with this planning at municipalities and county administrative boards as well as with a few planners from power grid providers offered a deeper comprehension of both the proceedings in practice and the strategic objectives involved in this complex system for planning of critical infrastructure protection. Particularly, the findings resulted in several conceptual models that demonstrate these understandings in more detail. A soft system model visualises the problem situation and contains several elements, such as the system components, interrelations and conditions. Moreover, a multi-level planning model specifies sources of uncertainty in the planning and decision-making process that are associated with an insufficient alignment of strategic objectives in the STYREL case. These decompositions of the Swedish planning environment – both horizontal and vertical – further enabled this study to identify significant parameters of the systemic conditions and strategic objectives involved in such complex planning environments that challenge their governance. The findings of this study suggest that the Swedish process is not yet fully developed. The investigation particularly indicates that a better alignment of strategic objectives is necessary to ensure a selection of adequate goals and means that advances the future usability of the produced plan, which in turn would legitimate and strengthen this complex planning process for critical infrastructure protection.

This paper develops a model for analysing systemic implications of strategic objectives in the context of national emergency response planning for the case of an electrical power shortage. Drawing on evidence from the Swedish approach, STYREL, the study emphasises the need for a thorough consideration of the various interests that are involved in such a complex system of national multi-level planning. This model provides a novel approach for analysing strategic objectives in complex planning environments, thereby offering a context for a constructive dialogue about strategic objectives, reachable goals and appropriate means among actors who are involved in such planning as well as the stakeholders it affects. Even beyond national critical infrastructure protection (CIP), the contribution of this paper is twofold: it outlines a complex problem for operations research in general and suggests a systematic approach for examining strategic objectives in complex planning environments in particular. Hence, this paper encourages a discussion of systemic implications of these various interests and an enhancement of collaboration and mutual understanding to facilitate decision-making in public and private strategic management. 

With its growing dependence on electricity, modern society faces the risk of cascading failureof interconnected societal functions. To protect societal functions during an event of power shortage,Sweden has implemented a multi-level planning process called STYREL, which involves national-, regional—and local-level actors. As part of the Swedish crisis management system, the regional body operatesas a co-ordinator that organises co-operation and interaction between private and public actors. Thisstudy examines the role of the regional hub in STYREL and the collaboration and co-operation betweenplanning levels. It focuses on the co-ordinator’s perspective and presents evidence from interviews and asurvey among planners at County Administrative Boards, entrusted with the supervision and executionof STYREL within their regional area of responsibility. This paper indicates that the regional co-ordinatorlacks the awareness, knowledge and resources to fulfil its core function in the national planning for criticalinfrastructure protection.

Electricity is a key resource for the majority of societal functions and constitutes an important sector in the critical infrastructure of modern societies. Disturbances in power supply can have cascading effects on interdependent public sectors and ordinary citizens. However, it seems nearly impossible to completely prevent the occurrence of power shortages. Strategies to address temporary power losses are therefore essential. This paper aims to increase the understanding of national policies to manage the early consequences of power outages. Therefore, we critically review the Swedish national policy called Styrel as part of Swedish Crisis Management System. In the scientific literature, there are few examples similar to Styrel for handling emergencies in the electricity system. Particularly, we seek to discover related risks and benefits, conditions and constraints, as well as effects for specific stakeholders. We argue that the approach cannot yet be considered as fully developed. Three areas requiring improvement are identified. First, the scope and terms of the process must be specified. Second, (better) quality management seems necessary. Third, people responsible for identifying and prioritizing power consumers critical to local society need better decision aid. Improvements could facilitate risk-communication and collaboration among actors as well as decision-making and organisational learning.

This paper highlights the difficulties in the studies of the crisis management system. Our focus is on the Swedish planning process in the case of power shortage, called Styrel. Our paper depart from a research project entitled From Authorities to Citizens and Back. The aim of the project is to increase the knowledge on the decision-making processes within Styrel with a focus on how the actors co-operate within the planning process, and what consequences the priorities of socially important objects have for society and its citizens. Methodologically, the project is based on document studies, interview with security officers in forty-seven municipalities, three coordinators at the County administrative board (CAB), and representatives for local power grid companies. Furthermore, a survey has been conducted with all coordinators at the CAB. The intended objective has also been to take part of the planning documents in order to investigate if there are any differences between how the objects were prioritized by the municipalities and how they were finally prioritized. Our experience from the study reviles problems with availability of relevant planning material, lack of knowledge due to deficient continuity at the local level regarding those responsible for Styrel, and finally difficulties in following individual objects during the planning process.

Knowledge Graph is a rising topic in the field of Artificial Intelligence. As the current trend of knowledge representation, Knowledge graph research is utilizing the large knowledge base freely available on the internet.

Knowledge graph also allows inspection, analysis, the reasoning of all knowledge in reality. To enable the ambitious idea of modeling the knowledge of the world, different theory and implementation emerges. Nowadays, we have the opportunity to use freely available information from Wikipedia and Wikidata. The thesis investigates and formulates a theory about learning from Knowledge Graph. The thesis researches probabilistic knowledge graph. It only focuses on a branch called latent feature models in learning probabilistic knowledge graph. These models aim to predict possible relationships of connected entities and relations. There are many models for such a task. The metrics and training process is detailed described and improved in the thesis work. The efficiency and correctness enable us to build a more complex model with confidence. The thesis also covers possible problems in finding and proposes future work.

Priority-oriented packet transmission (PPT) has been a promising solution for transmitting time-critical packets in timely manner during emergency scenarios in Internet ofThings (IoT). In this paper, we develop two associated discrete time Markov chain (DTMC) models to analyze performance of the PPT in an IoT network. Using the proposed DTMC models, we investigate the effect of traffic prioritization interms of average packet delay for a synchronous medium access control (MAC) protocol. Furthermore, the results obtained from analytical models are validated via discrete-event simulations. Numerical results prove the accuracy of the models and reveal the behavior of priority based packet transmissions.

In wake-up radio (WuR)-enabled wireless sensor networks, data communication among nodes is triggered in an on-demand manner, by either a sender or a receiver. For receiver-initiated WuR (RI-WuR), a~receiving node wakes up sending nodes through a wake-up call. Correspondingly sending nodes transmit packets in a traditional way by competing with one another multiple times in a single operational cycle. In~this paper, we propose a receiver-initiated consecutive packet transmission WuR (RI-CPT-WuR) medium access control (MAC) protocol, which eliminates multiple competitions to achieve higher energy efficiency. Furthermore, we develop two associated discrete time Markov chains (DTMCs) for evaluating the performance of RI-CPT-WuR and an existing RI-WuR MAC protocol. Using the solutions from the DTMC models, closed-form expressions for network throughput, average delay, packet reliability ratio, energy consumption and lifetime, and energy efficiency for both protocols are obtained. Numerical results demonstrate the superiority of the RI-CPT-WuR protocol.

Multiple packet transmissions (MPT) improve performance by transmitting multiple packets in a single operational cycle. Asynchronous duty cycling (DC) medium access control (MAC) protocols such as receiver initiated MAC protocol (RI-MAC) transmit multiple packets in one cycle. In this paper, we develop two associated discrete time Markov chain (DTMC) models to model MPT that can be achieved via multiple node competitions. Furthermore, we present the way of incorporating those developed models with each other for evaluating performance of RI-MAC with MPT. Using the solution of DTMC models, network throughput of MPT is calculated and compared with the one achieved by single packet transmission MAC (e.g., S-MAC) protocol. Validation of analytical results through discrete-event simulations confirms the accuracy of modeling and discloses the operation of MPT in RI-MAC protocol. 

Energy harvesting (EH) delivers a unique technique for replenishing batteries in Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Equipped with an energy harvesting accessory, EH-enabled sensor nodes/IoT devices extract energy from ambient resources such as solar or radio frequency (RF) signals. Relying on residual battery or/and harvested energy, sensor nodes in an IoT network perform data exchange activities. Otherwise, the delivery of sensed data would be delayed until sufficient energy is harvested. In this paper, we propose an on-demand energy requesting (OER) mechanism for improving the delay performance of a wireless EH-powered IoT network. The proposed scheme acquires energy when necessary from an energy transmitter that is capable of transmitting energy via directed RF signals. Furthermore we develop two associated discrete time Markov chain (DTMC) models to analyze the performance of the OER scheme, targeting at a generic synchronous medium access control (MAC) protocol. Using the proposed DTMC models, we evaluate OER with respect to average packet delay, network throughput, packet loss probability, and packet reliability ratio by employing a specific synchronous MAC protocol. Numerical results obtained from both analysis and discrete-event simulations coincide with each other, indicating the accuracy of the models and revealing the behavior of EH based packet transmissions.

Energy harvesting (EH) promises an extended lifetime for wireless sensor networks (WSNs), supplying sensor nodes with accumulated energy from natural sources. Different from battery powered sensors, nodes in EH-enabled WSNs are equipped with an energy harvesting accessory in order to extract energy from surrounding sources. Based upon the harvested energy, sensor nodes perform data exchange activities. In this paper, we develop two discrete time Markov chain (DTMC)models to analyze the performance of packet transmissionsin such a WSN while employing a generic medium access control (MAC) protocol. Using the proposed DTMC models, we investigate the effect of EH over a synchronous MAC protocol with respect to average packet delay and network throughput. Furthermore, the analytical results are validated via discrete event simulations. Numerical results indicate the accuracy of the models and reveal the behavior of packet transmissions relying on harvested energy.

Distancing contact centers from the customer is a highlighted strategic measure in call center industry, argued to reach higher efficiency and reduce operational costs. There is however a lack of empirical evidence about the side-effects of distancing, and academia has requested a mapping of the hidden costs accompanied with moving the operator from its customer. This study examines the relationship between service time and distance, by a designed quasi-distance scale between the customer and the operator. The result indicates a distance dependency, but the main effect is not due to the distance but rather due to characteristics of the office and caller origin independently. The study also stipulate a framework how big data can be converted into valuable information to call center managers, and provide insights of areas where further training and technological improvements should be focused.

A key task of managing an inbound call center is in estimating its performance and consequently plan its capacity, which can be considered a complex task since several system variables are stochastic. These issues are highly crucial for certain time-sensitive services, such as emergency call services. Waiting times affect the service quality of call centers in general, but various customers may place different waiting time expectancies depending on the need. Call center managers struggle to find the relationship between these expectations to their strategical, tactical and operational issues. They are assisted by queueing models that approximate the outcome. Simple setups use analytical approximations while a network of multi-skilled agents serving several customer classes is dependent on computer simulations. Regardless of simple or complex setups, models assume that the system components are homogenous, that the components have some parametric distribution, and that they remain the same regardless of the setup. Human resource and marketing research show that such status quo assumptions are not highly reliable. As an example, customer experience is often affected by the skill of the agent, and agents themselves are affected by their workload and duties, which inter alia affect their efficiency. This thesis aim to assist the Swedish emergency call center with a strategical issue, which require detection of some causalities in the set of system components. The overall aim is to design a simulation model, but such model requires a lot of detailed system knowledge, which itself adds to the knowledge gap in the research field. Findings that contribute to the scientific knowledge body include the burst model that addresses some of the non-stationarity of call arrivals, since some rapid rate increments derives from a latent emergency event. Other contributions are the introduction of stochastic agent behavior, which increases the uncertainty in queueing models; and the service time relationship to geographical distance. The latter may involve general evidence on how area-specific understanding and cultural differences affect the quality of service. This is important for organizations that consider off-shoring or outsourcing their call center service. These findings, along with several undiscovered and unknown influencers, are needed in order to design a reliable simulation model. However, the proposed model in this study cannot be rejected, in terms of waiting time replication. This robust model allowed traffic routing strategies to be evaluated and also assisted managers of the emergency call center into a strategical shift in the late 2015.

In telecommunication research, the assessment of strategic and operational performance has gained a lot of interest. So far, the variability within the operational research of telecommunication derives from the stochastic nature of call arrivals, call duration and abandonments. This study extends the stochastic drivers to capacity by incorporating agent behavior. In this study, we model a Discrete-Event-Simulation model of the Swedish emergency call service provider to assist the strategic issue of skills-based routing. Because of the pull system, we designed skills-based routing using an event-dependent overflow setting with a fixed waiting time threshold, where calls become visible to extended agent classes after a threshold value, providing an advantage to primary idle agents to answer before idle secondary agents. Our model mimics the tail of waiting times better than conventional methods. Because of the accompanied calculation opportunities, the model has assisted both strategic and operational issues in the organization. In addition to practical implications, the study proves that the stochastic nature of agent behavior is crucial. From a queueing theory perspective, the study provides interesting routing effects for an event-dependent overflow setting using a fixed waiting time threshold in a combined “X-N-design”, previously unexplored in research.

Multiple camera arrays are beginning to see more widespread use in a variety of different applications, be it for research purposes or for enhancing the view- ing experience in entertainment. However, when using multiple cameras the images produced are often not color consistent due to a variety of different rea- sons such as differences in lighting, chip-level differences e.t.c. To address this there exists a multitude of different color calibration algorithms. This paper ex- amines two different color calibration algorithms one targeted and one target- less. Both methods were implemented in Python using the libraries OpenCV, Matplotlib, and NumPy. Once the algorithms had been implemented, they were evaluated based on two metrics; color range homogeneity and color ac- curacy to target values. The targeted color calibration algorithm was more ef- fective improving the color accuracy to ground truth then the target-less color calibration algorithm, but the target-less algorithm deteriorated the color range homogeneity less than the targeted color calibration algorithm. After both methods where tested, an improvement of the targeted color calibration al- gorithm was attempted. The resulting images were then evaluated based on the same two criteria as before, the modified version of the targeted color cal- ibration algorithm performed better than the original targeted algorithm with respect to color range homogeneity while still maintaining a similar level of performance with respect to color accuracy to ground truth as before. Further- more, when the color range homogeneity of the modified targeted algorithm was compared with the color range homogeneity of the target-less algorithm. The performance of the modified targeted algorithm performed similarly to the target-less algorithm. Based on these results, it was concluded that the targeted color calibration was superior to the target-less algorithm.

Hardware and software developers rely on different tools for document management,

product data management (PDM) and software configuration management

(SCM). As more and more products include components of both types

there is a growing demand for one collaborative system. This becomes even

more critical in the medical sector, where a device is under regulatory demands

for document management to even be allowed in to the market. Combined systems

become more complex and are generally based on PDM-principles rather

than SCM. Current development of SCM tends instead towards simpler systems

focused on pure version control (VCS) that are easy to use and economically

available to small- and medium sized enterprises (SME), which is not the case

with generic PDM-systems or combined systems.

This study explored the possibility to extend the usage of such a VCS and include

hardware documentation as well as software. The aim was to further our

understanding of the SME perspective on product documentation for the medical

device field. The method was a case study, collaboration with a SME development

company. The scope was to explore possible usage of a chosen VCS

(GitLab) and to compare it with a generic PDM-system and with existing manual

system.

The results showed that for several of the hardware document types there are

special made Git-solutions to find within the open source community. However,

none of the ones tested in the study was deemed good enough with respect to

functionality and reliability. Instead the case study used direct storage of the

files in their binary format and focused on testing different VCS functions and

on how to organize in order to best gain the advantages of using the system.

The conclusions showed that hardware documents can be stored in the same

iterative manner as software but with limited Git functionality. Compared with

a PDM system GitLab can offer the same level of revision control and communication

around the specifications but lacks classification of parts and detailed

product structures. GitLab offers better iteration history than both a PDMsystem

and the existing manual system does. But not being able to use full Git

functionality the organization needs a collaboration strategy to handle the decentralized

storage. If the collaboration strategy matches the organization development

practices, GitLab is a useful alternative for medical device documentation.