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Lake Ecological Compensation (LEC) mechanism is a localized approach of payment for ecosystem services to address the conflict between economic development and ecological conservation. However, how to motivate regional stakeholders to participate in water quality protection is a challenge. Based on the traditional Coase Theorem, vertical eco-compensation mechanism has been proposed to solve pollution of lake basin. The quan-tification of LEC is characterized by key water quality indicators (NH3-N and COD) in this paper. Integrating LEC mechanism with the ecological-economic model, this paper proposes a bi-level optimization framework for the conservation of the lake water environment. Referring to Coase's theory, the leader's goal is to distribute waste load permits equally to sub-regions while followers aim to minimize environmental costs. The appropriate application of this method to Taihu Basin demonstrates its efficiency and practicality. The LEC mechanism with different scenarios is analyzed and suggestions for lake water quality are made. The results show that: (1) Considering equitable principle, the new COD allocation scheme has reduced the total amount of emissions by 17% compared to the data in 2020, and the total amount of NH3-N has decreased by 16%. (2) With the coop-eration of lake basin institutions, the LEC mechanism is proved to be an effective measure in promoting the conservation of the lake water environment. (3) The spillover effect of environmental and ecological policies in lake water indicates the need to upgrade industrial structure. This paper proposes to provide a more reliable the conservation of the lake water environment paradigm.

This paper quantifies the potential reduction in the number of required transceivers that the use of probabilistic constellation shaping (PCS) can bring to Flex-Grid over multicore fiber (MCF) optical backbone networks, which can directly lead to a reduction in network capital expenditure (CAPEX). Results from two different backbone networks illustrate that PCS can significantly decrease the number of required transceivers compared to using traditional modulation formats, thanks to the finer granularity in spectral efficiency. The observed reduction becomes more prominent (up to 22.3%) as the traffic profile bit-rates and the network physical distances increase., This publication is part of the Spanish I+D+i projects TRAINER-A and TRAINER-B (refs. PID2020-118011GB-C21 and PID2020-118011GB-C22), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

Evidence on the cost of acute malnutrition treatment, particularly with regards to simplified approaches, is limited. The objective of this study was to determine the cost of acute malnutrition treatment and how it is influenced by treatment protocol and programme size. We conducted a costing study in Kabléwa and N’Guigmi, Diffa region, where children with acute malnutrition aged 6–59 months were treated either with a standard or simplified protocol, respectively. Cost data were collected from accountancy records and through key informant interviews. Programme data were extracted from health centre records. In Kabléwa, where 355 children were treated, the cost per child treated was USD 187.3 (95% CI: USD 171.4; USD 203.2). In N’Guigmi, where 889 children were treated, the cost per child treated was USD 110.2 (95% CI: USD 100.0; USD 120.3). Treatment of moderate acute malnutrition was cheaper than treatment of severe acute malnutrition. In a modelled scenario sensitivity analysis with an equal number of children in both areas, the difference in costs between the two locations was reduced from USD 77 to USD 11. Our study highlighted the significant impact of programme size and coverage on treatment costs, that cost can differ significantly between neighbouring locations, and that it can be reduced by using a simplified protocol., The United States Agency for International Development, Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises, Depto. de Biodiversidad, Ecología y Evolución, Fac. de Ciencias Biológicas, TRUE, pub

Purpose: This study aims to explore how to apply and integrate the performance management (PM) process in humanitarian supply chains (HSCs) among and between humanitarian organizations (HOs) and donors so as to improve cost-efficiency (CE) and lead-time effectiveness (LTE) in the stage of natural disaster preparedness. Design/methodology/approach: This study adapts and operationalizes a framework for the PM process used in commercial supply chains to assess HSCs. A multiple-case study with two types of actors – six HOs and three donors—is used to describe the applications of the PM process and analyze the level of integration between the actors. Findings: The activities in the PM process could sometimes be only vaguely described. Both actors emphasized improving CE, with less emphasis on LTE. Both actors have a low level of integration in each PM process activity, decreasing the CE and LTE. Therefore, guidelines for improving the level of PM process integration are provided. Research limitations/implications: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to combine literature on HSCs and PM process integration, thereby contributing to both literature fields. The concrete contribution of this study is a framework for PM process application and integration among and between HOs and donors. Practical implications: The PM process framework can be used to assess PM process application, as well as current and increased level of integration, to improve CE and LTE. The current applications can also inspire other HOs and donors. Originality/value: Previous studies indicate the lack of frameworks in the PM domain of HSCs, especially in the stage of natural disaster preparedness.

Collaborative contracting between public transport authorities (PTAs) and bus operators has been presented as a successful method for reaching public transport policy goals. This paper examines management processes and outcome data, asking whether this management approach, incorporating more far-reaching collaborative elements, is associated with higher goal achievement in two Swedish regions and two contracts. Stated regional policy goals are ridership growth, reaching set levels of customer satisfaction, and some cost-efficiency. This management approach suggests that PTAs should delegate more planning responsibility to operators. PTA management assessed the approach to be valid but, to our surprise, also said that they frequently reclaimed previously abandoned control to secure desired outcomes. This indicates that more delegation may not necessarily have led to increased goal achievement. Without making claims as to causality, we note that ridership increased in both regions and individual contracts, while customer satisfaction stagnated and costs increased steeply in both regions, but not in one contract. The paper questions whether collaborative contracting, on average, has contributed to ridership increases generally, although it may have in some instances.

Purpose: This study aims to explore how to apply and integrate the performance management (PM) process in humanitarian supply chains (HSCs) among and between humanitarian organizations (HOs) and donors so as to improve cost-efficiency (CE) and lead-time effectiveness (LTE) in the stage of natural disaster preparedness. Design/methodology/approach: This study adapts and operationalizes a framework for the PM process used in commercial supply chains to assess HSCs. A multiple-case study with two types of actors – six HOs and three donors—is used to describe the applications of the PM process and analyze the level of integration between the actors. Findings: The activities in the PM process could sometimes be only vaguely described. Both actors emphasized improving CE, with less emphasis on LTE. Both actors have a low level of integration in each PM process activity, decreasing the CE and LTE. Therefore, guidelines for improving the level of PM process integration are provided. Research limitations/implications: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to combine literature on HSCs and PM process integration, thereby contributing to both literature fields. The concrete contribution of this study is a framework for PM process application and integration among and between HOs and donors. Practical implications: The PM process framework can be used to assess PM process application, as well as current and increased level of integration, to improve CE and LTE. The current applications can also inspire other HOs and donors. Originality/value: Previous studies indicate the lack of frameworks in the PM domain of HSCs, especially in the stage of natural disaster preparedness.

Purpose: This study aims to explore how to apply and integrate the performance management (PM) process in humanitarian supply chains (HSCs) among and between humanitarian organizations (HOs) and donors so as to improve cost-efficiency (CE) and lead-time effectiveness (LTE) in the stage of natural disaster preparedness. Design/methodology/approach: This study adapts and operationalizes a framework for the PM process used in commercial supply chains to assess HSCs. A multiple-case study with two types of actors – six HOs and three donors—is used to describe the applications of the PM process and analyze the level of integration between the actors. Findings: The activities in the PM process could sometimes be only vaguely described. Both actors emphasized improving CE, with less emphasis on LTE. Both actors have a low level of integration in each PM process activity, decreasing the CE and LTE. Therefore, guidelines for improving the level of PM process integration are provided. Research limitations/implications: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to combine literature on HSCs and PM process integration, thereby contributing to both literature fields. The concrete contribution of this study is a framework for PM process application and integration among and between HOs and donors. Practical implications: The PM process framework can be used to assess PM process application, as well as current and increased level of integration, to improve CE and LTE. The current applications can also inspire other HOs and donors. Originality/value: Previous studies indicate the lack of frameworks in the PM domain of HSCs, especially in the stage of natural disaster preparedness.

Collaborative contracting between public transport authorities (PTAs) and bus operators has been presented as a successful method for reaching public transport policy goals. This paper examines management processes and outcome data, asking whether this management approach, incorporating more far-reaching collaborative elements, is associated with higher goal achievement in two Swedish regions and two contracts. Stated regional policy goals are ridership growth, reaching set levels of customer satisfaction, and some cost-efficiency. This management approach suggests that PTAs should delegate more planning responsibility to operators. PTA management assessed the approach to be valid but, to our surprise, also said that they frequently reclaimed previously abandoned control to secure desired outcomes. This indicates that more delegation may not necessarily have led to increased goal achievement. Without making claims as to causality, we note that ridership increased in both regions and individual contracts, while customer satisfaction stagnated and costs increased steeply in both regions, but not in one contract. The paper questions whether collaborative contracting, on average, has contributed to ridership increases generally, although it may have in some instances.

The non-uniform improvement of computer hardware performance poses a significant challenge for contemporary data processing in managing the growing volume of data. General-purpose systems encounter obstacles such as design, power, and heat management that hinder their computing power improvement. As data processing becomes more expensive and the increasing performance demands from applications, academia and industry are evincing interest in offloading data services to embedded systems (i.e., system software that runs on peripherals such as storage or network devices) to improve data processing efficiency. Given the domain-specific nature of embedded systems, this approach opens up abundant research opportunities, particularly as more applications rely on big data analysis for insights.Efficiently leveraging embedded systems for data services requires answering three critical questions concerning why, what, and how. The ``why'' question pertains to the potential benefits of offloading a data service to an embedded system. Answering this question requires developing a methodology that can accurately quantify the benefits by taking into account the embedded system's domain nature and the data service workload. The ``what'' question pertains to what data services to offload to an embedded system. Answering this question requires a comprehensive understanding of the intended system and function to identify potential matches for successful offloading. In this thesis, I focus specifically on composable data services, not only because they serve as fundamental building blocks in applications, but also because their composability allows for more convenient migration to diverse systems. The ``how'' question pertains to determining the strategies to use for offloading. Given that embedded systems are designed to operate within a constrained environment, effective offloading strategies are required to prevent suboptimal performance resulting from incapable or overloaded embedde

Lake Ecological Compensation (LEC) mechanism is a localized approach of payment for ecosystem services to address the conflict between economic development and ecological conservation. However, how to motivate regional stakeholders to participate in water quality protection is a challenge. Based on the traditional Coase Theorem, vertical eco-compensation mechanism has been proposed to solve pollution of lake basin. The quan-tification of LEC is characterized by key water quality indicators (NH3-N and COD) in this paper. Integrating LEC mechanism with the ecological-economic model, this paper proposes a bi-level optimization framework for the conservation of the lake water environment. Referring to Coase's theory, the leader's goal is to distribute waste load permits equally to sub-regions while followers aim to minimize environmental costs. The appropriate application of this method to Taihu Basin demonstrates its efficiency and practicality. The LEC mechanism with different scenarios is analyzed and suggestions for lake water quality are made. The results show that: (1) Considering equitable principle, the new COD allocation scheme has reduced the total amount of emissions by 17% compared to the data in 2020, and the total amount of NH3-N has decreased by 16%. (2) With the coop-eration of lake basin institutions, the LEC mechanism is proved to be an effective measure in promoting the conservation of the lake water environment. (3) The spillover effect of environmental and ecological policies in lake water indicates the need to upgrade industrial structure. This paper proposes to provide a more reliable the conservation of the lake water environment paradigm.

Purpose: This study aims to explore how to apply and integrate the performance management (PM) process in humanitarian supply chains (HSCs) among and between humanitarian organizations (HOs) and donors so as to improve cost-efficiency (CE) and lead-time effectiveness (LTE) in the stage of natural disaster preparedness. Design/methodology/approach: This study adapts and operationalizes a framework for the PM process used in commercial supply chains to assess HSCs. A multiple-case study with two types of actors – six HOs and three donors—is used to describe the applications of the PM process and analyze the level of integration between the actors. Findings: The activities in the PM process could sometimes be only vaguely described. Both actors emphasized improving CE, with less emphasis on LTE. Both actors have a low level of integration in each PM process activity, decreasing the CE and LTE. Therefore, guidelines for improving the level of PM process integration are provided. Research limitations/implications: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to combine literature on HSCs and PM process integration, thereby contributing to both literature fields. The concrete contribution of this study is a framework for PM process application and integration among and between HOs and donors. Practical implications: The PM process framework can be used to assess PM process application, as well as current and increased level of integration, to improve CE and LTE. The current applications can also inspire other HOs and donors. Originality/value: Previous studies indicate the lack of frameworks in the PM domain of HSCs, especially in the stage of natural disaster preparedness.

Context: Wildfires have severe impacts on landscapes’ hydrological and sediment processes. They are linked to events such as flash floods and droughts, and high erosion rates which lead to loss of soil organic matter and detachment of seeds and seedlings. Mulching is an effective measure implemented directly after a fire to reduce soil erosion and increase soil water retention. However, its implementation has proved a challenge, mainly due to factors such as cost and public acceptance. Objectives: This research aims to optimize the application of post-fire mulching by using decision-making criteria to select “how” and “where” the technique should be used. The specific objectives were to: (i) investigate the decision-making criteria on “how” to apply mulch by interviewing experts; (ii) define the cost-effectiveness relations of erosion modelling scenarios. Methods: The Monchique 2003 wildfire in Southern Portugal was used as a case study Experts’ interviews and literature review were used to construct prioritization scenarios. Post-fire soil erosion was then modelled with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model and the Sediment Connectivity Index for the three resulting scenarios (the “Soil” scenario, considering the net potential erosion; the “Water” scenario, focusing on th1e protection of water bodies from sedimentation; and the “Road” scenario, focusing on road protection); and at two erosion thresholds (1 and 10 Mg ha−1 year−1). Results: The interviews and the literature review highlighted the importance of socio-economic parameters when it comes to mulch application. Moreover, models showed that small interventions, aimed at areas nearby water bodies and road networks can be more cost-effective than large interventions. Conclusions: Models helped to create a hierarchy of scenarios, enabling land managers to assess decision making tools at the landscape level, linking their priorities with practical issues of emergency stabilization practices.

Purpose: This study aims to explore how to apply and integrate the performance management (PM) process in humanitarian supply chains (HSCs) among and between humanitarian organizations (HOs) and donors so as to improve cost-efficiency (CE) and lead-time effectiveness (LTE) in the stage of natural disaster preparedness. Design/methodology/approach: This study adapts and operationalizes a framework for the PM process used in commercial supply chains to assess HSCs. A multiple-case study with two types of actors – six HOs and three donors—is used to describe the applications of the PM process and analyze the level of integration between the actors. Findings: The activities in the PM process could sometimes be only vaguely described. Both actors emphasized improving CE, with less emphasis on LTE. Both actors have a low level of integration in each PM process activity, decreasing the CE and LTE. Therefore, guidelines for improving the level of PM process integration are provided. Research limitations/implications: To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to combine literature on HSCs and PM process integration, thereby contributing to both literature fields. The concrete contribution of this study is a framework for PM process application and integration among and between HOs and donors. Practical implications: The PM process framework can be used to assess PM process application, as well as current and increased level of integration, to improve CE and LTE. The current applications can also inspire other HOs and donors. Originality/value: Previous studies indicate the lack of frameworks in the PM domain of HSCs, especially in the stage of natural disaster preparedness.

This article assesses the constitutionalising of the right to health and its regulation by Law n. 8.080/90, highlighting the need to analyse the law and the costs it implies in light of the scarcity of resources. It highlights the role of the National Commission for the Incorporation of Technologies in the Unified Health System in the activity of analysing the incorporation of medicines in the list of drugs financed by the public health policy. The research is based upon a methodology of critic analysis of the decisions of the above mentioned commission as well of those issued by courts regarding the same subject. It addresses the need, for the evolution and qualification of health services by federative entities, of compliance with the competences established by law and the legal criteria for the analysis of requests for the inclusion of new health technologies, pointing them out as necessary to the composition of the motivation of the decision-making act regarding inclusion or non-inclusion of drugs. The article draws attention to the need for didactic evolution and better publicizing the understanding of the analysis carried out by the Ministry of Health, in order to allow for better qualification of the judiciary in view of the demands that are presented to it on the subject of the supply of non-agreed medicines within the scope of public policy, including with regard to the need to consider the institutional capacities of the entities legitimated for health services., O presente artigo analisa a constitucionalização do direito à saúde e sua regulamentação pela Lei n. 8.080/90, destacando a necessidade de considerar o direito e seu custo diante da escassez de recursos. Ressalta a atuação da Comissão Nacional de Incorporação de Tecnologias no Sistema Único de Saúde na atividade de análise de incorporação de medicamentos na lista de fármacos custeados pela política pública de saúde. Adota uma metodologia crítica a partir da análise da atuação de referida comissão e de decisões judiciais. Aborda a necessidade, para evolução e qualificação dos serviços de saúde pelos entes federativos, de observância das competências estabelecidas em lei e dos critérios legais de análise dos pedidos de inclusão de novas tecnologias em saúde, apontando-os como necessários à composição da motivação do ato decisório de inclusão ou não inclusão de fármacos. O artigo chama atenção para a necessidade de evolução didática e melhor publicização sobre a compreensão da análise realizada pelo Ministério da Saúde, de forma a permitir a melhor qualificação do poder judiciário diante das demandas que lhe são apresentadas sobre o tema do fornecimento de medicamentos não pactuados no âmbito da política pública, inclusive no que se refere à necessidade de considerações sobre as capacidades institucionais dos entes legitimados para efetuar as prestações de saúde.

Agents who pursue optimal portfolio choice by optimizing a univariate objective (e.g., an expected utility) obtain optimal payoffs that are increasing with each other (situation of no diversification). This situation may lead to an undesirable level of systemic risk for society. A regulator may consider a global perspective and aim to enforce diversification among the various portfolios by optimizing a suitable multivariate objective. We explain that optimal solutions satisfy a notion of multivariate cost-efficiency and provide an algorithm to obtain multivariate cost-efficient payoffs. We also assess the cost of diversification and provide the strategy that the regulator should pursue for obtaining the desired level of diversification.

The supply chain is multilateral concept, involving all actors partaking in fulfilling customer requests. Within the supply chain, the outbound distribution network is key for achieving profitability as it has a direct effect on supply chain costs and on customer value. Assessing the cost-efficiency of the distribution network is thus of great importance to keep track of overall profitability. However, the layout of the distribution network often differs between different regions, where one of the major differences is the level of centralization, i.e. whether or not local distribution facilities are at place or if shipments are sent directly from a central warehouse. This complicates the evaluation of cost-efficiency, as different costs levels are to be expected from different levels of centralization. Therefore, this study aims at investigating how to evaluate the cost-efficiency while taking into consideration different levels of centralization in the regions being evaluated. To achieve the research aim, a case study was conducted at pharmaceutical company Swedish Orphan Biovitrum, as a real life setting is deemed to aid the credibility of the study. The research question was formulated as “How should companies evaluate the cost-efficiency of a distribution network with different levels of centralization?”. Additionally two sub-questions have been formulated, considering how internal data from the company ERP system, as well as data from external sources, can be utilized when performing such an evaluation. A deductive approach has been deployed, where qualitative data was used to understand the company’s distribution network, while quantitative data was analyzed to answer the research question. The quantitative data categories were in turn included based in factors identified in literature to be affecting distribution costs. The results indicated that the cost per sold product is significantly lower for countries with local distribution, possibly providing guideli, Försörjningskedjan är ett brett koncept som involverar alla aktörer som deltar i att skapa kundvärde. Inom försörjningskedjan är distributionsnätverket avgörande för att uppnå lönsamhet, då det direkt påverkar kostnader såväl som kundvärde. Att utvärdera distributionsnätverkets kostnadseffektivitet är således av stor vikt för att säkerställa lönsamhet. Distributionsnätverkets utformning skiljer sig dock ofta åt mellan olika regioner, där en av de största skillnaderna är graden av centralisering, det vill säga om lokala distributionsfaciliteter finns på plats eller om försändelser skickas direkt från ett centrallager. Detta försvårar utvärderingen av kostnadseffektivitet då olika kostnadsnivåer kan förväntas med olika grader av centralisering. Därför syftar denna studie till att undersöka hur kostnadseffektivitet kan utvärderas samtidigt hänsyn tas till olika grader av centralisering i de regioner som utvärderas. För att uppnå detta syfte har en fallstudie genomförts på läkemedelsföretaget Swedish Orphan Biovitrum, då en verklig miljö bedöms bidra till studiens trovärdighet. Forskningsfrågan formulerades som ”Hur borde företag utvärdera kostnadseffektiviteten i ett distributionsnät med olika grader av centralisering?”. Dessutom har två delfrågor formulerats för att undersöka hur intern data från företagets affärssystem, samt data från externa källor, kan nyttjas vid en sådan utvärdering. Ett deduktivt tillvägagångssätt har använts, där kvalitativ data använts för att förstå företagets distributionsnätverk, medan kvantitativ data analyserats för att besvara forskningsfrågan. De kvantitativa datakategorierna inkluderades i sin tur baserat på faktorer som utifrån studerad litteratur bedöms kunna påverka distributionskostnader. Resultaten visade att kostnaden per såld produkt är betydligt lägre för länder med lokal distribution, vilket möjligen ger riktlinjer för vilka kostnadsnivåer som kan förväntas för lokal respektive central distribution. Kostnader som procent av fö

The supply chain is multilateral concept, involving all actors partaking in fulfilling customer requests. Within the supply chain, the outbound distribution network is key for achieving profitability as it has a direct effect on supply chain costs and on customer value. Assessing the cost-efficiency of the distribution network is thus of great importance to keep track of overall profitability. However, the layout of the distribution network often differs between different regions, where one of the major differences is the level of centralization, i.e. whether or not local distribution facilities are at place or if shipments are sent directly from a central warehouse. This complicates the evaluation of cost-efficiency, as different costs levels are to be expected from different levels of centralization. Therefore, this study aims at investigating how to evaluate the cost-efficiency while taking into consideration different levels of centralization in the regions being evaluated. To achieve the research aim, a case study was conducted at pharmaceutical company Swedish Orphan Biovitrum, as a real life setting is deemed to aid the credibility of the study. The research question was formulated as “How should companies evaluate the cost-efficiency of a distribution network with different levels of centralization?”. Additionally two sub-questions have been formulated, considering how internal data from the company ERP system, as well as data from external sources, can be utilized when performing such an evaluation. A deductive approach has been deployed, where qualitative data was used to understand the company’s distribution network, while quantitative data was analyzed to answer the research question. The quantitative data categories were in turn included based in factors identified in literature to be affecting distribution costs. The results indicated that the cost per sold product is significantly lower for countries with local distribution, possibly providing guideli, Försörjningskedjan är ett brett koncept som involverar alla aktörer som deltar i att skapa kundvärde. Inom försörjningskedjan är distributionsnätverket avgörande för att uppnå lönsamhet, då det direkt påverkar kostnader såväl som kundvärde. Att utvärdera distributionsnätverkets kostnadseffektivitet är således av stor vikt för att säkerställa lönsamhet. Distributionsnätverkets utformning skiljer sig dock ofta åt mellan olika regioner, där en av de största skillnaderna är graden av centralisering, det vill säga om lokala distributionsfaciliteter finns på plats eller om försändelser skickas direkt från ett centrallager. Detta försvårar utvärderingen av kostnadseffektivitet då olika kostnadsnivåer kan förväntas med olika grader av centralisering. Därför syftar denna studie till att undersöka hur kostnadseffektivitet kan utvärderas samtidigt hänsyn tas till olika grader av centralisering i de regioner som utvärderas. För att uppnå detta syfte har en fallstudie genomförts på läkemedelsföretaget Swedish Orphan Biovitrum, då en verklig miljö bedöms bidra till studiens trovärdighet. Forskningsfrågan formulerades som ”Hur borde företag utvärdera kostnadseffektiviteten i ett distributionsnät med olika grader av centralisering?”. Dessutom har två delfrågor formulerats för att undersöka hur intern data från företagets affärssystem, samt data från externa källor, kan nyttjas vid en sådan utvärdering. Ett deduktivt tillvägagångssätt har använts, där kvalitativ data använts för att förstå företagets distributionsnätverk, medan kvantitativ data analyserats för att besvara forskningsfrågan. De kvantitativa datakategorierna inkluderades i sin tur baserat på faktorer som utifrån studerad litteratur bedöms kunna påverka distributionskostnader. Resultaten visade att kostnaden per såld produkt är betydligt lägre för länder med lokal distribution, vilket möjligen ger riktlinjer för vilka kostnadsnivåer som kan förväntas för lokal respektive central distribution. Kostnader som procent av fö

Autonomous and Semi-Autonomous Machines (ASAMs) provide several benefits and have already emerged in mining environments. However, for cost-efficiency reasons and for ASAMs to reach their full potential, they should be capable of operating seamlessly with manually operated machines. Establishing the requirements for sufficient safety for such integration is a non-Trivial task. This paper proposes a methodology for safely integrating ASAMs in underground mining environments. First, we describe the purpose of the integration and define the constituent components. Second, we identify the conditions that ASAMs will likely encounter using ODD-UM, an operational design domain specification for underground mining. Third, we derive high-level requirements for individual components based on ODD-UM attributes. Such requirements are allocated into the constituent components and considered as assumptions for the safety analysis. Fourth, we perform STPA (System-Theoretic Process Analysis) to analyze safety-related control requirements for the integrated system. Our methodology could help the system integrator to systematically identify integration requirements to be enforced in constituent components and safety control systems. Index Terms-Underground Autonomous Mining, Integration Requirements, ODD-UM, STPA, Safety-guided Design.

Yaari's dual theory of choice under risk is the natural counterpart of expected utility theory. While optimal payoff choice for an expected utility maximizer is well studied in the literature, less is known about the optimal payoff for a Yaari investor. We perform a fairly general analysis and derive optimal payoffs in a variety of relevant cases. As a main contribution, we provide the optimal payoff for a Yaari investor under a variance constraint; thus, extending mean–variance optimization to distorted expectation–variance optimization. We also derive the optimal payoff for an investor who aims to outperform an external benchmark under the requirement that the payoff stays in the neighbourhood of this benchmark.

The accurate operation of a Food Supply Chain (FSC) is a critical issue as it directly interfaces with health and safety matters. This study addresses coordination and conflict management in a three-level FSC that embraces a new inventory type known as growing items like poultry and livestock. The chain involves a rearing farm as the supplier, a processed food producer as the manufacturer, and multiple processed food retailers. Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) is applied by the manufacturer to handle the retailers' systems and prevent replenishment mismatches and thereby food waste. To increase its market coverage, the manufacturer needs to provide the retailers with enough incentives to enter this setting. So, a cost-sharing contract is designed under which the manufacturer undertakes a fraction of the retailers’ holding costs. Accordingly, the manufacturer faces two contradictory targets, increasing its market coverage by convincing the retailers to enter the system on the one hand and managing its costs efficiently on the other hand. An analytic solution approach with a game-theoretic perspective is developed to solve the model. Extensive numerical experiments and a case study are provided, presenting fruitful managerial insights that can be utilized by the policymakers and chain members under different settings. The results highlight the efficiency of our VMI and cost-sharing collaboration scheme in enhancing the performance of the chain., Transport and Logistics

The accurate operation of a Food Supply Chain (FSC) is a critical issue as it directly interfaces with health and safety matters. This study addresses coordination and conflict management in a three-level FSC that embraces a new inventory type known as growing items like poultry and livestock. The chain involves a rearing farm as the supplier, a processed food producer as the manufacturer, and multiple processed food retailers. Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) is applied by the manufacturer to handle the retailers' systems and prevent replenishment mismatches and thereby food waste. To increase its market coverage, the manufacturer needs to provide the retailers with enough incentives to enter this setting. So, a cost-sharing contract is designed under which the manufacturer undertakes a fraction of the retailers’ holding costs. Accordingly, the manufacturer faces two contradictory targets, increasing its market coverage by convincing the retailers to enter the system on the one hand and managing its costs efficiently on the other hand. An analytic solution approach with a game-theoretic perspective is developed to solve the model. Extensive numerical experiments and a case study are provided, presenting fruitful managerial insights that can be utilized by the policymakers and chain members under different settings. The results highlight the efficiency of our VMI and cost-sharing collaboration scheme in enhancing the performance of the chain., Transport and Logistics

Many manufacturing companies are being challenged by the trend that their products need to be produced in lower volumes and in customized forms. Having transferred this challenge into the production system, a natural consequence would be its collision with cost efficiency and high productivity. From a global perspective, competitiveness is also progressively becoming tied to the understanding of automation in production systems that can handle low product volumes with high variety among them. This is especially true for high wage countries that must find ways to become more competitive against low wage countries. This paper is an analytic effort and the first step to investigate key characteristics of production systems that utilize automation in production of customized products that run for short interval before being switched to the next one in line. The main arguments revolve around the idea that automated solutions need to be designed and implemented with flexibility and reconfigurability in mind to assure changing from one product variant to another would not disturb the entire production system. It is anticipated that these arguments would further advocate and empower the topic of sustainable automation within manufacturing companies and consequently, pave the way for increasing competitiveness at global scale.

Freelance, part-time, work-at-home, and other flexible jobs are changing the concept of workplace, and bringing information and content exchange problems to companies. Geographically spread corporations may use remote distribution of software and data to attend employees' demands, by exploiting emerging delivery technologies. In this context, cost-efficient software distribution is crucial to allow business evolution and make IT infrastructures more agile. On the other hand, container based virtualization technology is shaping the new trends of software deployment and infrastructure design. We envision current and future enterprise IT management trends evolving towards container based software delivery over Hybrid CDNs. This paper presents a novel cost-efficient QoS aware analytical model and a Hybrid CDN-P2P architecture for enterprise software distribution. The model would allow delivery cost minimization for a wide range of companies, from big multinationals to SMEs, using CDN-P2P distribution under various industrial hypothetical scenarios. Model constraints guarantee acceptable deployment times and keep interchanged content amounts below the bandwidth and storage network limits in our scenarios. Indeed, key model parameters account for network bandwidth, storage limits and rental prices, which are empirically determined from their offered values by the commercial delivery networks KeyCDN, MaxCDN, CDN77 and BunnyCDN. This preliminary study indicates that MaxCDN offers the best cost-QoS trade-off. The model is implemented in the network simulation tool PeerSim, and then applied to diverse testing scenarios by varying company types, number and profile (either, technical or administrative) of employees and the number and size of content requests. Hybrid simulation results show overall economic savings between 5\% and 20\%, compared to just hiring resources from a commercial CDN, while guaranteeing satisfactory QoS levels in terms of deployment times and number of s, This work was partially supported by Generalitat de Catalunya under the SGR Program (2017-SGR-962) and the RIS3CAT DRAC Project (001-P-001723). We have also received funding from Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain) under the project EQC2019-005653-P., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

We use visual working memory (VWM) to maintain the visual features of objects in our world. Although the capacity of VWM is limited, it is unlikely that this limit will pose a problem in daily life, as visual information can be supplemented with input from our external visual world by using eye movements. In the current study, we influenced the trade-off between eye movements and VWM utilization by introducing a cost to a saccade. Higher costs were created by adding a delay in stimulus availability to a copying task. We show that increased saccade cost results in less saccades towards the model and an increased dwell time on the model. These results suggest a shift from making eye movements towards taxing internal VWM. Our findings reveal that the trade-off between executing eye-movements and building an internal representation of our world is based on an adaptive mechanism, governed by cost-efficiency.

PocketQubes are a form factor of highly miniaturized satellites with a body of one or more cubic units of 5 cm. In this paper, the characteristics of PocketQubes in terms of their constraints and their (potential) utility are treated. To avoid space debris and limit collision risk, the orbits of PocketQubes need to be constraint. An analysis of orbital decay characteristics has been carried out which, considering existing space regulations and a pro-active attitude, PocketQubes should preferably be launched in low Earth orbits below 400 km altitude. Due to technical constraints, such as form factor, power and attitude control, the domain of applications for single PocketQube missions is limited. Still, they can act as low-cost training and technology demonstration platforms. To make PocketQubes an attractive platform for other types of missions, not only the launch cost, but also the development, production and operations cost should be significantly lower than CubeSats. When the PocketQube platform matures and produced in high numbers, networks of PocketQubes can enable new applications. Applications considered feasible are in the field of (but not limited to) continuous surveillance using optical instruments, gravity field monitoring using precise orbit determination, in-situ measurements of the space environment, low data rate or bandwidth communication services and inexpensive probes around other celestial bodies., Space Systems Egineering, Clean Room

Analyzing a vast amount of business and user data on big data analytics frameworks is becoming a common practice in organizations to get a competitive advantage. These frameworks are usually deployed in a computing cluster to meet the analytics demands in every major domain, including business, government, financial markets, and health care. However, buying and maintaining a massive amount of on-premise resources is costly and difficult, especially for start-ups and small business organizations. Cloud computing provides infrastructure, platform, and software systems for storing and processing data. Thus, Cloud resources can be utilized to set up a cluster with a required big data processing framework. However, several challenges need to be addressed for Cloud-based big data processing which includes: deciding how much Cloud resources are needed for each application, how to maximize the utilization of these resources to improve applications' performance, and how to reduce the monetary cost of resource usages. In this thesis, we focus on a user-centric view, where a user can be either an individual or a small/medium business organization who want to deploy a big data processing framework on the Cloud. We explore how resource management techniques can be tailored to various user-demands such as performance improvement, and deadline guarantee for the applications; all while reducing the monetary cost of using the cluster. In particular, we propose efficient resource allocation and scheduling mechanisms for Cloud-deployed Apache Spark clusters.

PocketQubes are a form factor of highly miniaturized satellites with a body of one or more cubic units of 5 cm. In this paper, the characteristics of PocketQubes in terms of their constraints and their (potential) utility are treated. To avoid space debris and limit collision risk, the orbits of PocketQubes need to be constraint. An analysis of orbital decay characteristics has been carried out which, considering existing space regulations and a pro-active attitude, PocketQubes should preferably be launched in low Earth orbits below 400 km altitude. Due to technical constraints, such as form factor, power and attitude control, the domain of applications for single PocketQube missions is limited. Still, they can act as low-cost training and technology demonstration platforms. To make PocketQubes an attractive platform for other types of missions, not only the launch cost, but also the development, production and operations cost should be significantly lower than CubeSats. When the PocketQube platform matures and produced in high numbers, networks of PocketQubes can enable new applications. Applications considered feasible are in the field of (but not limited to) continuous surveillance using optical instruments, gravity field monitoring using precise orbit determination, in-situ measurements of the space environment, low data rate or bandwidth communication services and inexpensive probes around other celestial bodies., Space Systems Egineering, Clean Room

Eutrophication is an environmental issue that causes deterioration of inland waters and oceans. It is induced by leaching of nutrients from different sources. One such source that has been getting attention lately is the leaching of nutrients from horse pastures. This thesis investigates if reducing the number of horses and mucking pastures is a cost-efficient measure to reduce the leaching of phosphorus. A minimization model was developed where the costs of reducing horses and removing dung were minimized for different levels of reduction of phosphorus runoff. The costs of reducing horses were estimated as the loss in consumer surplus, and the cost of removing manure was calculated based on the cost of labor. The results indicate that the measure is not cost-effective, with a marginal cost at 281 559 710 SEK and a total cost at 259 034 933 SEK for a reduction level at 10% of the leaching caused by the horses. Compared with other studies the marginal cost was significantly larger, hence the conclusion is that the measure cannot be considered cost-efficient.

Introduction More than 70% of world mortality is due to chronic conditions. Furthermore, it has been proven that social determinants have an enormous impact on both health-related behaviour and on the received attention from healthcare services. These determinants cause health inequalities. The objective of this study is to reduce the burden of chronic diseases in five European regions, hereby focusing on vulnerable populations, and to increase the sustainability of health systems by implementing a chronic disease self-management programme (CDSMP). Methods and analysis 2000 people with chronic conditions or informal caregivers belonging to vulnerable populations, will be enrolled in the CDSMP in Spain, Italy, the UK, France and the Netherlands. Inclusion of patients will be based on geographical, socioeconomic and clinical stratification processes. The programme will be evaluated in terms of self-efficacy, quality of life and cost-effectiveness using a combination of validated questionnaires at baseline and 6 months from baseline. Ethics and dissemination This study will follow the directives of the Helsinki Declaration and will adhere to the European Union General Data Protection Regulation. The project's activities, progress and outcomes will be disseminated via promotional materials, the use of mass media, online activities, presentations at events and scientific publications.

Policy efforts to improve Baltic Sea water quality will be expensive if the ambitious targets agreed are to be achieved. The aim of this study is to evaluate the ex-post cost-effectiveness of nitrogen load reductions to the Baltic Sea made between 1996 and 2010. We first calculate the counterfactual change in nitrogen load to the Baltic Sea and compare to observed loads. The costs of the net reductions are evaluated using a Baltic-wide cost-effectiveness model, which includes a wide set of nitrogen abatement measures in the littoral countries. Results show that the net nitrogen reductions achieved through environmental policy, about 145,000 tons total nitrogen, could have been obtained at 12% of the realized cost, through reallocation of abatement between countries. The total budget spent on abatement could, if used in a cost-effective manner, be sufficient for a doubling of the net nitrogen load reduction. Milestone targets, in combination with a compensation scheme between countries, could help to reduce policy costs., Go4Baltic

In the 2000s, the idea of a so-called middle-segment arose in North-West Europe to address the criticism on intensive broiler production systems. Middle-segment systems being indoor housing of slower-growing broiler strains at a stocking density ≤38 kg/m2. Previous literature showed that Dutch middle-segment systems entail a relatively large gain in animal welfare at a relatively low increase in costs, i.e., have a high cost-efficiency. The question is to what extent these findings are applicable to other countries. Therefore, the aim of this study is to gain insight in the global prospects of middle-segment systems by exploring the cost-efficiency of these systems in other parts of the world. A set of representative countries, containing the Netherlands, United States and Brazil were selected. Cost-efficiency was defined as the ratio of the change in the level of animal welfare and the change in production costs. The level of animal welfare was measured by the Welfare Quality (WQ) index score. Data was collected from literature and consulting experts. Results show that in the Netherlands, United States and Brazil a change from conventional towards a middle-segment system improves animal welfare in a cost-efficient manner (the Netherlands 9.1, United States 24.2 and Brazil 12.1). Overall, it can be concluded that in general middle-segment production systems provide a considerable increase in animal welfare at a relatively small increase in production costs and therefore offer good prospects for a cost-efficient improvement of broiler welfare.

The following report consists of a master thesis (30 credits) within product development. The thesis is written by Philip Ragnartz and Axel Staffanson, both studying mechanical engineering at Mälardalens University. Developing new components for a production line is costly and time consuming as they must be made from manual measurements and must go through all the conventional manufacturing (CM) steps. Eventual design mistakes will be discovered after the component have been manufactured and tested. To fix the design a completely new component must be designed and therefore double the overall lead time. The purpose of this thesis is to establish how additive manufacturing (AM) can best be used to minimize the cost and lead time in the development of new components. The study was performed by looking at the current product development process in the automotive industry at a large company, here by referred to as company A. 56 components already manufactured at company A´s own tools department was examined and compared to different AM methods. The aim of this was to get a larger pool of data to get an average on production time and cost and see how this differ to the different AM methods. Additionally, two work holders were more closely examined in a case study. Work holder one is a component in the production line that occasionally must be remanufactured. It was examined if this problem could be solved with a desktop plastic printer to hold up for a production batch. Work holder two was the development of a new component, this was to examine the use of printing the component in an early stage impact the development process. The findings from this study is that AM can today not be used in a cost efficient way in manufacturing or development of simple components. This is due to the cost of a metal 3D-printer is still very high, and the building material even higher. This results in components that gets very expensive to make compared to producing them with CM. For desig

A large amount of data that is being generated on Internet every day is in the form of graphs. Many services and applications namely as social networks, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile applications, business applications, etc. in which every data entity can be considered as a vertex and the relationships between entities shape the edges of a graph, are in this category. Since 2010, exclusive large-scale graph processing frameworks are being developed to overcome the inefficiency of traditional processing solutions such as MapReduce. However, most frameworks are designed to be employed on high performance computing (HPC) clusters which are only available to whom can afford such infrastructure. Cloud computing is a new computing paradigm that offers unprecedented features such as scalability, elasticity and pay-as-you-go billing model and is accessible to everyone. Nevertheless, the advantages that cloud computing can bring to the architecture of large-scale graph processing systems are less studied. Resource provisioning and management is a critical part of any processing system in cloud environments. To provide the optimized amount of resources for a particular operation, several factors such as monetary cost, throughput, scalability, network performance, etc. can be taken into consideration. In this thesis, we investigate and propose novel solutions and algorithms for cost-efficient resource provisioning for large-scale graph processing systems. The outcome is a series of research works that increase the performance of such processing by making it aware of the operating environment while decreasing the dollar cost significantly. We have particularly made the following contributions: 1. We introduced iGiraph, a cost-efficient framework for processing large-scale graphs on public clouds. iGiraph also provides a new graph algorithm categorization and processes the graph accordingly. 2. To demonstrate the impact of network on the processing in cloud environment, we de

The following report consists of a master thesis (30 credits) within product development. The thesis is written by Philip Ragnartz and Axel Staffanson, both studying mechanical engineering at Mälardalens University. Developing new components for a production line is costly and time consuming as they must be made from manual measurements and must go through all the conventional manufacturing (CM) steps. Eventual design mistakes will be discovered after the component have been manufactured and tested. To fix the design a completely new component must be designed and therefore double the overall lead time. The purpose of this thesis is to establish how additive manufacturing (AM) can best be used to minimize the cost and lead time in the development of new components. The study was performed by looking at the current product development process in the automotive industry at a large company, here by referred to as company A. 56 components already manufactured at company A´s own tools department was examined and compared to different AM methods. The aim of this was to get a larger pool of data to get an average on production time and cost and see how this differ to the different AM methods. Additionally, two work holders were more closely examined in a case study. Work holder one is a component in the production line that occasionally must be remanufactured. It was examined if this problem could be solved with a desktop plastic printer to hold up for a production batch. Work holder two was the development of a new component, this was to examine the use of printing the component in an early stage impact the development process. The findings from this study is that AM can today not be used in a cost efficient way in manufacturing or development of simple components. This is due to the cost of a metal 3D-printer is still very high, and the building material even higher. This results in components that gets very expensive to make compared to producing them with CM. For desig

The most significant difference between industrialization-driven product marketing and digitalization-driven service marketing can be seen in the definition of value creation, and the exchange (integration) of resources. Industrialization created efficiency in scale, whereas digitalization requires customer-oriented business models and value co-creational service processes. This research follows the value co-creational and system integrational views of service-dominant logic. We have explored how relative profitability can be increased through efficient service productization. Our approach is twofold, we have explored the commercialization of co-created services (the servitization of product-service systems) and the enhancement of service production by service processes. We have created service management framework for modular service delivery where company resources be linked to cost-efficient co-creation services.

Crossover designs are well-known to have major advantages when comparing the effects of various non-curative treatments. We compare efficiencies of several crossover designs along with the Balaam’s design with that of a parallel group design pertaining to longitudinal studies where event time can only be measured in discrete time intervals. With equally sized sequences, the parallel group design results in the greater efficiency if the number of time periods is small. However, the crossover and Balaam’s designs tend to be more efficient as the study duration increases. The degree to which these designs add efficiency depends on the baseline hazard function and effect size. Additionally, we incorporate different cost considerations at the subject level when comparing the designs to determine the most cost-efficient design. Researchers might consider the crossover or Balaam’s design more efficient if the duration of the study is long enough, especially if the costs of applying the baseline treatment are higher.

1. Active engagement with practitioners is a crucial component of model-based decision-making in conservation management; it can assist with data acquisition, improve models and help narrow the 'knowing-doing' gap. 2. We worked with practitioners of one of the worst invasive species in Australia, the cane toad Rhinella marina, to revise a model that estimates the effectiveness of landscape barriers to contain spread. The original model predicted that the invasion could be contained by managing artificial watering points on pastoral properties, but was initially met with scepticism by practitioners, in part due to a lack of engagement during model development. 3. We held a workshop with practitioners and experts in cane toad biology. Using structured decision-making, we elicited concerns about the original model, revised its structure, updated relevant input data, added an economic component and found the most cost-effective location for a barrier across a range of fixed budgets and management scenarios. We then conducted scenario analyses to test the sensitivity of management decisions to model revisions. 4. We found that toad spread could be contained for all of the scenarios tested. Our modelling suggests a barrier could cost $4·5 M (2015 AUD) over 50 years for the most likely landscape scenario. The incorporation of practitioner knowledge into the model was crucial. As well as improving engagement, when we incorporated practitioner concerns (particularly regarding the effects of irrigation and dwellings on toad spread), we found a different location for the optimal barrier compared to a previously published study (Tingley et al. 2013). 5. Synthesis and applications. Through engagement with practitioners, we turned an academic modelling exercise into a decision-support tool that integrated local information, and considered more realistic scenarios and constraints. Active engagement with practitioners led to productive revisions of a model that estimates the

Active engagement with practitioners is a crucial component of model-based decision-making in conservation management; it can assist with data acquisition, improve models and help narrow the knowing-doing' gap. We worked with practitioners of one of the worst invasive species in Australia, the cane toad Rhinella marina, to revise a model that estimates the effectiveness of landscape barriers to contain spread. The original model predicted that the invasion could be contained by managing artificial watering points on pastoral properties, but was initially met with scepticism by practitioners, in part due to a lack of engagement during model development. We held a workshop with practitioners and experts in cane toad biology. Using structured decision-making, we elicited concerns about the original model, revised its structure, updated relevant input data, added an economic component and found the most cost-effective location for a barrier across a range of fixed budgets and management scenarios. We then conducted scenario analyses to test the sensitivity of management decisions to model revisions. We found that toad spread could be contained for all of the scenarios tested. Our modelling suggests a barrier could cost $45M (2015 AUD) over 50years for the most likely landscape scenario. The incorporation of practitioner knowledge into the model was crucial. As well as improving engagement, when we incorporated practitioner concerns (particularly regarding the effects of irrigation and dwellings on toad spread), we found a different location for the optimal barrier compared to a previously published study (Tingley etal. 2013).Synthesis and applications. Through engagement with practitioners, we turned an academic modelling exercise into a decision-support tool that integrated local information, and considered more realistic scenarios and constraints. Active engagement with practitioners led to productive revisions of a model that estimates the effectiveness of a landscap

Bridge edge beam replacements in Sweden imply high life-cycle measure costs during the bridge's life span. Moreover, the long duration of roadworks with a partial or full closure of the bridge causes significant user costs. The Swedish Transport Administration presented new edge beam solutions that could be better for the society in terms of cost. The purpose of this paper is to present the development and implementation processes of a new steel edge beam in a bridge project and evaluate its cost-efficiency. The design and planning phase is described addressing the challenges encountered and explaining the execution of the works. A life-cycle cost analysis is performed to compare with the standard concrete integrated edge beam. The steel edge beam results in a cost-efficient alternative for an edge beam replacement because of the lower life-cycle costs due to a faster execution of works and good working conditions., Conference code: 127207; Export Date: 24 October 2017; Conference Paper; Correspondence Address: Veganzones, J.J.; KTH Royal Institute of TechnologySweden; email: jjvm@kth.se. QC 20171128

Bridge edge beams may take up to 60% of the life-cycle measure costs of a bridge and cause considerable user costs because of roadworks. The Swedish Transport Administration presented new edge beam solutions that could become better for the society in terms of cost. Stainless steel has been considered for enhanced durability, preventing expensive maintenance. The purpose of this paper is to motivate the use of stainless steel in the solutions proposed. A life-cycle cost analysis is carried out to evaluate the cost-efficiency of a concrete integrated edge beam with stainless and carbon steel reinforcement in a bridge project. The influence of the discount rate is addressed by a sensitivity analysis. Stainless steel is shown to lead to cost-efficient edge beam solutions. Low discount rates encourage using better quality designs with higher investment costs but lower lifecycle measure costs and user costs, which supports the use of stainless steel., Conference code: 127207; Export Date: 24 October 2017; Conference Paper; Correspondence Address: Veganzones, J.J.; KTH Royal Institute of TechnologySweden; email: jjvm@kth.se. QC 20171128

Problem -­‐‑ Promotions are the main reason for a majority of stock out situations and increases the amount of waste for perishable items, and strong competition within grocery retail has led to a significant increase in frequency and depth of promotions since the late 20th century. Lantmännen Cerealia has identified problems with low customer service levels (CSL) during promotions and lack of long term planning in general. This has thus lead to the conclusion of the need for looking further into the problem regarding how Cerealia can handle promotions better. Purpose -­‐‑ The purpose is to help Lantmännen Cerealia achieve and secure a better match between demand and supply for promotions through increased understanding for promotional causes and effects as well as better planning processes. Research Questions 1. What are the causes within Cerealia for low CSL during promotions? 2. What can Cerealia do, and how can the Sales and Supply Planning units work together, to improve the promotion planning process? Method -­‐‑ This study is based on a single case study with the unit of analysis being promotions. Further, the method for gathering information to the Frame of Reference and Empirics chapters are mainly qualitative, with occasional quantifications, further implying a more inductive approach. Trustworthiness and credibility is mainly ensured through gathering information from many different sources, both within written theory and qualitative interviews, implying a high construct validity. The project execution follows the two research questions: 1. Understand causes for low CSL during promotions in Cerealia a. Identify root causes through Five Why and Ishikawa analyses b. Choose a path to pursue 2. How to improve the promotion planning process ‑ Gap Analysis a. Identify current state of promotional planning process b. Derive an optimal future state from theory and empirics i. Develop a tool for collaborative promotion planning ii. Develop process routines and pro, Previous theory on supply chain configuration and promotions has been clear on the fact that cost- efficient companies should not participate in promotions. However, on the Swedish grocery retail market, where the retailers use promotions to e.g. lure people into the store, and have a large dominance over their suppliers, the suppliers simply must participate. So how should they cope with this if they have a cost-efficient strategy? Lantmännen Cerealia, a supplier to the Swedish grocery retail market, has identified problems with low customer service levels during promotions. This thesis aims to first identify why this is, and then present a solution to one of the causes found. The study concludes that the problem with low customer service levels mainly derives from unaligned strategies within the organization, which have implied contradictory ways of working, as well as a low level of understanding between the different units. The strategy of Cerealia’s Supply Chain function is to be cost-efficient, whereas the Sales function strives towards selling as much as possible and are awarded more if they sell more. In addition to this, product category strategies have increased the complexity of the organization and what to work towards in each function. Since promotions are hard to forecast and yield irregular demand patterns it is important to have a clear strategy for all to work towards and a supply chain configured for this. The recommendation is thus to remove functional strategies and choose one category strategy to align throughout the units. After this is in place, a decision regarding promotions can be made in addition to the chosen strategy. If promotions are chosen, the supply chain for promotion products should be more agile/responsive, and separated from products not sold on promotion. This would help Cerealia meet their customers’ demand of a quicker response better, and as a result increase their customer service levels. Since these two long-term recommend

Forest management affects the quantity of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere through carbon sequestration in standing biomass, carbon storage in forest products and production of bioenergy. The main question studied in this paper is whether forest carbon sequestration is worth increasing at the expense of bioenergy and forest products to achieve the EU emissions reduction target for 2050 in a cost-efficient manner. A dynamic cost minimisation model is used to find the optimal combination of carbon abatement strategies to meet annual emissions targets between 2010 and 2050. The results indicate that forest carbon sequestration is a low-cost abatement method. With sequestration, the net present costs of meeting EU carbon targets can be reduced by 23%.

Biodiversity conservation efforts in Europe have traditionally focused on farmland and open nature areas such as grasslands, heathlands and meadows, while little attention has been devoted to conservation actions in forest. Using detailed information on the geographical distribution of about 900 terrestrial species in Denmark we apply systematic conservation planning techniques to identify how to protect biodiversity at the lowest cost to society. The results suggest that conservation actions in forest should be given a higher priority. Thus, three to four times the number of forest species are protected per million € compared with species living in open land natural areas. Furthermore, a gap analysis finds the current designation of Natura 2000 and other protected areas is skewed toward open land natural areas, and insufficient to meet the conservation targets on forest species.

In this paper we present a novel method for the generation of doubly-curved, architectural design surfaces using swept Euler elastica and cubic splines. The method enables a direct design to production workflow with robotic hot-blade cutting, a novel robotic fabrication method under development by authors of the paper, which facilitates high-speed production of doubly-curved foam moulds. Complementary to design rationalisation, in which arbitrary surfaces are translated to hot-blade-cuttable geometries, the presented method enables architects and designers to design directly with the non-trivial constraints of blade-cutting in a bottom-up fashion, enabling an exploration of the unique architectural potential of this fabrication approach. The method is implemented as prototype design tools in MatLAB, C++, GhPython, and Python and demonstrated through cutting of expanded polystyrene foam design examples.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse costs and benefits from new collaborations in daily emergency response and to demonstrate how cost-benefit analysis (CBA) can be used for evaluating effects from these kinds of collaborations. Design/methodology/approach – CBA is used to evaluate two collaborations. The cases are: security officers that respond to fire and rescue service (FRS) calls; and home care nurses that assist the FRSs when they respond to urgent medical calls. Interviews, public documents and incident reports have been used as sources of data. Findings – Most costs are relatively straightforward to estimate. More difficult to estimate are the turn-out costs, including the services that cannot be performed when the new actors take on new assignments. One important benefit from these kinds of collaborations is reduced response time. Other benefits include increased situational awareness and improved preventive work in Case 1, as well as improved working conditions for the traditional resources and increased medical competence in Case 2. The analysis indicate that the case with the security officers most likely was socially beneficial, while the case with the home care nurses at the time of the study was not. Originality/value – The authors provide a thorough description and analysis of two interesting new ways of performing daily emergency response. Furthermore, the authors depict how CBA can be used to structure the analysis and evaluation of new initiatives in emergence services and how it can be used for identifying improvement potential. The authors also identify and discuss what is needed in terms of documentation as well as research, for it to be possible to improve the quantitative analysis of these kinds of initiatives, The status of this article was previously Manuscript.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse costs and benefits from new collaborations in daily emergency response and to demonstrate how cost-benefit analysis (CBA) can be used for evaluating effects from these kinds of collaborations. Design/methodology/approach – CBA is used to evaluate two collaborations. The cases are: security officers that respond to fire and rescue service (FRS) calls; and home care nurses that assist the FRSs when they respond to urgent medical calls. Interviews, public documents and incident reports have been used as sources of data. Findings – Most costs are relatively straightforward to estimate. More difficult to estimate are the turn-out costs, including the services that cannot be performed when the new actors take on new assignments. One important benefit from these kinds of collaborations is reduced response time. Other benefits include increased situational awareness and improved preventive work in Case 1, as well as improved working conditions for the traditional resources and increased medical competence in Case 2. The analysis indicate that the case with the security officers most likely was socially beneficial, while the case with the home care nurses at the time of the study was not. Originality/value – The authors provide a thorough description and analysis of two interesting new ways of performing daily emergency response. Furthermore, the authors depict how CBA can be used to structure the analysis and evaluation of new initiatives in emergence services and how it can be used for identifying improvement potential. The authors also identify and discuss what is needed in terms of documentation as well as research, for it to be possible to improve the quantitative analysis of these kinds of initiatives, The status of this article was previously Manuscript.

This report summarizes activities in TRUST WP4 addressing optimum operation performance of water supply systems with respect to safety, environmental impacts and cost-efficiency. Optimization of water treatment plant and distribution system has to rely on selected optimization criteria that are site and system-specific in order to cope with challenges posed by e.g. stringent regulations, consumer feedback, climate change, etc. Comprehensive knowledge of the specific characteristics, limitations and challenges of a water supply system is required in order to define available alternatives and to design and perform full-scale optimization studies and trials. The proposed optimization framework includes:(i) Mapping operational performance status that includes initial performance evaluation and comparison to model predictions, (ii)Utilizing diagnostic tools, e.g. for water quality characterization that also helps identification of variations in the performance, (iii) Utilizing curative tools that includes performing experiments and optimization trials without compromising the water quality produced, (iv) Utilizing decision support systems to highlight some other aspects e.g. economic and environmental issues that are not covered by the diagnostic and curative tools, (v) Identifying performance optimization potentials and possible benefits, (vi) Implementing selected operation conditions based on overall assessments of potential advantages and disadvantages for both treatment and distribution systems. The framework has been successfully implemented in case studies in UK, The Netherlands and Norway in order to support decision for sustainable optimization of full-scale water treatment plants in the respective locations.

This report summarizes activities in TRUST WP4 addressing optimum operation performance of water supply systems with respect to safety, environmental impacts and cost-efficiency. Optimization of water treatment plant and distribution system has to rely on selected optimization criteria that are site and system-specific in order to cope with challenges posed by e.g. stringent regulations, consumer feedback, climate change, etc. Comprehensive knowledge of the specific characteristics, limitations and challenges of a water supply system is required in order to define available alternatives and to design and perform full-scale optimization studies and trials. The proposed optimization framework includes:(i) Mapping operational performance status that includes initial performance evaluation and comparison to model predictions, (ii)Utilizing diagnostic tools, e.g. for water quality characterization that also helps identification of variations in the performance, (iii) Utilizing curative tools that includes performing experiments and optimization trials without compromising the water quality produced, (iv) Utilizing decision support systems to highlight some other aspects e.g. economic and environmental issues that are not covered by the diagnostic and curative tools, (v) Identifying performance optimization potentials and possible benefits, (vi) Implementing selected operation conditions based on overall assessments of potential advantages and disadvantages for both treatment and distribution systems. The framework has been successfully implemented in case studies in UK, The Netherlands and Norway in order to support decision for sustainable optimization of full-scale water treatment plants in the respective locations.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse costs and benefits from new collaborations in daily emergency response and to demonstrate how cost-benefit analysis (CBA) can be used for evaluating effects from these kinds of collaborations. Design/methodology/approach – CBA is used to evaluate two collaborations. The cases are: security officers that respond to fire and rescue service (FRS) calls; and home care nurses that assist the FRSs when they respond to urgent medical calls. Interviews, public documents and incident reports have been used as sources of data. Findings – Most costs are relatively straightforward to estimate. More difficult to estimate are the turn-out costs, including the services that cannot be performed when the new actors take on new assignments. One important benefit from these kinds of collaborations is reduced response time. Other benefits include increased situational awareness and improved preventive work in Case 1, as well as improved working conditions for the traditional resources and increased medical competence in Case 2. The analysis indicate that the case with the security officers most likely was socially beneficial, while the case with the home care nurses at the time of the study was not. Originality/value – The authors provide a thorough description and analysis of two interesting new ways of performing daily emergency response. Furthermore, the authors depict how CBA can be used to structure the analysis and evaluation of new initiatives in emergence services and how it can be used for identifying improvement potential. The authors also identify and discuss what is needed in terms of documentation as well as research, for it to be possible to improve the quantitative analysis of these kinds of initiatives, The status of this article was previously Manuscript.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse costs and benefits from new collaborations in daily emergency response and to demonstrate how cost-benefit analysis (CBA) can be used for evaluating effects from these kinds of collaborations. Design/methodology/approach – CBA is used to evaluate two collaborations. The cases are: security officers that respond to fire and rescue service (FRS) calls; and home care nurses that assist the FRSs when they respond to urgent medical calls. Interviews, public documents and incident reports have been used as sources of data. Findings – Most costs are relatively straightforward to estimate. More difficult to estimate are the turn-out costs, including the services that cannot be performed when the new actors take on new assignments. One important benefit from these kinds of collaborations is reduced response time. Other benefits include increased situational awareness and improved preventive work in Case 1, as well as improved working conditions for the traditional resources and increased medical competence in Case 2. The analysis indicate that the case with the security officers most likely was socially beneficial, while the case with the home care nurses at the time of the study was not. Originality/value – The authors provide a thorough description and analysis of two interesting new ways of performing daily emergency response. Furthermore, the authors depict how CBA can be used to structure the analysis and evaluation of new initiatives in emergence services and how it can be used for identifying improvement potential. The authors also identify and discuss what is needed in terms of documentation as well as research, for it to be possible to improve the quantitative analysis of these kinds of initiatives, The status of this article was previously Manuscript.