<p> </p><p>The European Union has lead to higher collaboration between the European countries, more exchange of information and a tendency to centralize more political decisions. There is also a tendency to try to create legislations that are more similar in each nation.</p><p> </p><p>This paper aims at giving an idea about the challenges that the nations might meet when working towards higher archival collaboration within the European Union. The report by the European Commission “<em>Report on archives in the enlarged European Union - Increased archival collaboration in Europe: action plan” </em>from 2005<em> </em>states that there is a need for higher European collaboration within the field of archives. The goal is to create a gateway for the citizens to have easy access to archival information from the different member states.</p><p> </p><p>There are some obstacles for this to easily work. To start with the member nations have different cultural traditions and legislations when it comes to freedom of information. It has also got to do with technical issues such as which computer systems, file types and structures et c that are allowed.</p><p> </p><p>This paper takes its starting point in the field of digital deliveries to the national archives of Sweden and The United Kingdom. A comparison has been made to show the difference of how these countries proceed with their archival work to give an idea about how these differences can affect the wish for higher collaboration within the European Union.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

The European Union has lead to higher collaboration between the European countries, more exchange of information and a tendency to centralize more political decisions. There is also a tendency to try to create legislations that are more similar in each nation.   This paper aims at giving an idea about the challenges that the nations might meet when working towards higher archival collaboration within the European Union. The report by the European Commission “Report on archives in the enlarged European Union - Increased archival collaboration in Europe: action plan” from 2005 states that there is a need for higher European collaboration within the field of archives. The goal is to create a gateway for the citizens to have easy access to archival information from the different member states.   There are some obstacles for this to easily work. To start with the member nations have different cultural traditions and legislations when it comes to freedom of information. It has also got to do with technical issues such as which computer systems, file types and structures et c that are allowed.   This paper takes its starting point in the field of digital deliveries to the national archives of Sweden and The United Kingdom. A comparison has been made to show the difference of how these countries proceed with their archival work to give an idea about how these differences can affect the wish for higher collaboration within the European Union.

INTRODUCTION: Improving maternal and child health care are two of the Millennium Development Goals of the World Health Organization. India is one of the countries worldwide most burdened by maternal and child deaths. The aim of the study was to describe how families participate in nurse-based antenatal and child health care, and the effect of this in relation to referrals to specialist care, institutional deliveries and mortality. METHODS: The intervention took place in a remote rural area in India and was influenced by Swedish nurse-based health care. A baseline survey was performed before the intervention commenced. The intervention included education program for staff members with a model called Training of Trainers and the establishment of clinics as both primary health centers and mobile clinics. Health records and manuals, and informational and educational materials were produced and the clinics were equipped with easily handled instruments. The study period was between 2006 and 2009. Data were collected from antenatal care and child healthcare records. The Chi-square test was used to analyze mortality differences between years. A focus group discussion and a content analysis were performed. RESULTS: Families' participation increased which led to more check-ups of pregnant women and small children. Antenatal visits before 16 weeks among pregnant women increased from 32 to 62% during the period. Women having at least three check-ups during pregnancy increased from 30 to 60%. Maternal mortality decreased from 478 to 121 per 100 000 live births. The total numbers of children examined in the project increased from approximately 6000 to 18 500 children. Infant mortality decreased from 80 to 43 per 1000 live births. Women and children referred to specialist care increased considerably and institutional deliveries increased from 47 to 74%. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that it is possible in a rural and remote area to influence peoples' awareness of the value of preventive health care. The results also indicate that this might decrease maternal and child mortality. The education led to a more patient-friendly encounter between health professionals and patients. / <p>Article No. 2140</p><p>Funding Agencies|Pravara Medical Trust, India||Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sweden||Linkoping University||County Council in Ostergotland, Sweden||</p>

The main objectives of this thesis are analysis of change in inventory management system in the selected company and propose measures to reduce the financial capital tied up in inventories and an increase of the service level. Several recommendations that could lead to optimization of inventory, while maintaining or even improving the service level were generated based on the analysis.

The increased demand for fast deliveries of goods have led to more costly and less environmentally friendly transports since many of the delivering trucks are not being fully loaded. The inefficiencies of deliveries have created a need for development of new freight systems. One alternative vehicle that has gained increasingly interest is usage of UAVs (unmanned arial vehicles), also known as drones. Several drones in varying sizes and configurations are being developed and applications within transports of both people and goods is seen as promising areas for the future. The study aims at investigating the performance of drone deliveries regarding time, cost, and environmental impact and to see what parameters are important for the performance. This have been made by comparing a UAV to two different vans (electric and HVO) for parcel deliveries in four chosen missions in both urban and rural settings. The evaluation takes a future perspective and are based on information received through both literature review and a market investigation.  The result from this study indicates that UAVs are likely to be a competitive future option for parcel deliveries regarding time and cost. This is concluded since the results shows significant savings in both costs and delivery time and these results are not changed by the sensitivity analyses. The result regarding environmental performance shows that the UAVs competitiveness depends on the vehicle of comparison. The drone has a better environmental performance than vans with fossil-based propellants but given the energy intensity of the UAV, it is not favourable compared to an electric van. The energy requirement of the drone is one of the most important factors affecting the performance. The energy requirements per km for the UAV increases when the routes become shorter since different phases of the flight have different energy intensity. The most demanding phase is lifting and when the distance between the stops is reduced this phase becomes more prominent. Another important factor is the possibility to reduce the travelled distance by taking the straight path with the UAV compared to being bound by the road infrastructure. The shorter distance for the UAV contributes both to reduced time but also reduced energy requirements which in its turn affect both environmental and economic performance. The distances and energy requirements are thus not the most important factor for the economic sustainability but rather the cost of staff. Since the drones are unmanned, several UAVs could be controlled by the same operator contributing to reduced cost of staff. The low energy requirements for the UAV in the longer and more rural cases makes this type of applications the most beneficial regarding environmental performance. Urban missions are instead the most preferable regarding cost and time, since a bigger share of the distance can be saved and the difference in speed between the UAV and the van is larger.

Background: The last-mile logistics of the supply chain is often the most expensive part for an e-commerce retailer. It is also according to Lim and Srai (2018) where the consumers are the most demanding. It is no longer exclusively the e-commerce retailers’ job to choose the delivery method of the parcel they are sending out to their customer. As a consumer in Sweden today, you will often get the option to choose how you want your online order to be delivered. The result of consumers wanting to have more of a say in how their parcel is delivered is that the carrier companies now compete for the opportunity to deliver parcels (Post- och telestyrelsen 2020).  Purpose: This master’s thesis has as a purpose to investigate what reasoning there is behindthe choices the actors in B2C last-mile delivery make when it comes to their offerings ofdelivery options, and their chosen strategy. As e-commerce retailing has grown in hugeproportions during the last decades, there will also be a focus on what the industry mightdevelop into, as this will have an impact on the actors in the industry. There is a lack of insightinto the subject of this study, i.e. how e-commerce retailers and parcel carriers tackle theconstantly changing world of last-mile logistics. To help answer the purpose of the master’sthesis, literature on last-mile parcel delivery was compiled together with theories such as agencytheory, co-opetition, dynamic capabilities, and transaction cost analysis. Research questions: What should the different actors in B2C last-mile delivery take intoaccount when developing their parcel delivery strategy? What will the future of B2C parceldeliveries look like according to the different actors in B2C last-mile delivery? Methodology: The study used a qualitative method with an abductive reasoning. Thequalitative method that was used for collecting the data was qualitative semi-structuredinterviews. As this master’s thesis has a focus on the actors in B2C last-mile delivery, theinterviews were conducted with professionals within the e-commerce retailing, parcel carrier,and last-mile logistics industry. Conclusion: The study then concludes that the e-commerce retailer will try to adapt theirdelivery offerings based on what the consumers wish, and to be able to do this, the e-commerceretailer need to be flexible in their offerings. The parcel carriers need to keep in mind that theyhave a dependency towards the e-commerce retailers. The option of co-opetition is alsosomething that they should consider. It is important for the last-mile logistics companies to beaware of all this as they are working with both e-commerce retailers and parcel carriers. Thefindings of the study show that many believe that the future of parcel delivery will be to useparcel lockers. What needs to be kept in mind is that it is important for the consumer to be ableto choose when, where, and how their parcel is delivered. This master’s thesis can be used bye-commerce retailers, parcel carriers, and last-mile logistics companies, to gain insight intowhat the parcel delivery market looks like today, and what is important for all actors on it.

A steady increase in parcel volume has put more pressure on the freight transportation industry and will only continue to do so in the future. The whole industry will continue to grow as the volume increases which in turn will put more pressure on the drivers responsible that the goods arrive safely to their destination. There are many reasons to try and facilitate their working environment. It is very common for delivery drivers nowadays to use different mapping services to help navigate. The maps have helped a lot since their arrival, but this does not mean that they are faultless, there is still room for improvement. This study examines how mapping services can be used and updated to help drivers save time while deliveries. It focuses on public, free-to-use maps. A survey was conducted where drivers in the industry were asked questions about their use of mapping services and where they got to give their opinion on possible improvements to these. Motivated by observations in the field and the literature, the survey presented two potential improvements to the maps to gather opinions from the drivers. The first one was a possible addition of loading zones and loading docks to the mapping services in order to help drivers find their destination’s drop-off area. Previous studies have shown that drivers lose time in the last mile of their trip. The second problem occurs when a map navigates so that you approach your destination from the wrong direction. The study showed that delivery drivers today use maps very frequently. All 33 respondents in the study use a mapping service for their work at least once a week, 29 of them using one at least once a day. The drivers were very positive about a possible addition of loading zones and docks to the maps, all of them thought it would facilitate their work. After analysing the data collected it could be seen that an average driver loses 20 minutes a day searching for a place to load. The drivers were overall frustrated with the maps despite using them very frequently. They agreed with the problems presented in the survey and gave further examples of how they are being held back by the maps.

This paper presents the results of a Berlin research project in which a low emission urban delivery system was designed and tested in collaboration with different urban logistics stakeholders. First, the paper shows the developed concept that includes a macro-hub and corresponding micro-hubs, while the vehicle fleet consists of electric cargo bikes as well as an electric van. Second, the key results of the corresponding 6-month field trial are discussed. Parcels have been delivered to B2B recipients. To investigate the feasibility, the ecological and the economic impact of the developed concept, transport data was constantly collected during the field trial. Based on the data, average costs and emissions per parcel were calculated and compared to a conventional delivery system. Furthermore, managerial implications were derived. Finally, the limitations of the study and further research are summarized.

The thesis focuses on evaluating and improving the transport efficiency of two types of logistics operations in the supply chain. One research area is the production of raw material in construction operations, specifically earthmoving operations. Methods and tools are developed to provide decision support in improving the transport efficiency of earthmoving at the vehicle and the systems levels. Using known road topography and a GPS unit, an optimal control problem is formulated and solved (Paper III) to determine the optimal gear shift sequence and timing in order to improve the transport efficiency at the vehicle level. For decision support at the systems level, a Fleet Performance Simulation (FPS) model is designed (Paper IV) to evaluate the transport efficiency for a given mix of construction vehicles in earthmoving. The FPS system is integrated with an optimization algorithm to solve the optimal fleet composition problem for earthmoving operations (Paper V &amp; VI). Construction operations are dynamic and the environment is changing constantly, which bring difficulties in decision-making. Using GPS data from construction vehicles, a map inference framework (Papers I &amp; II) is developed to automatically extract relevant input to decision support at the vehicle and the systems levels, which include the locations of various workstations, driving time distributions and road networks. The second research area is the transport efficiency of urban distribution system, which is in the final phase of the supply chain. An off-peak delivery pilot project in Stockholm is used as the background, designed to evaluate the potential for commercial vehicles to make use of off-peak hours for goods delivery. The thesis (Paper VII) evaluates the transport efficiency impacts of the off-peak pilot. An evaluation framework is defined where transport efficiency is studied in a number of dimensions. GPS data, fleet management data, and logistic information are used to assess the impacts. / <p>QC 20170323</p>

Automobiles can be today considered as cultural icons which indicate the level of develop- ment of a particular state. This thesis provides analysis of automotive industry in general from the point of view of globalization, linkages, value chains and macroeconomic envi- ronment. We will stress crucial challenges that face global original equipment manufac- turers, depict situations on most important emerging markets and forecast development that we can expect there. In the context of these information we will develop economet- ric analysis which will widen current findings from microeconomic and macroeconomic perspective of a car manufacturer. ŠKODA AUTO represents the most important en- terprise in the Czech Republic and at the same time is a part of the biggest automobile concern in the world. We will use internal data from the company for our research and give overall recommendations. Central questions in this study are the following: What are the forecasted needs of the customers on emerging markets? How sensitive are com- panys' costs on the output? And finally, which role do the macroeconomic indicators play in delivering of automobiles to end customers? 1