abstract: Blockchain technology enables peer-to-peer transactions through the elimination of the need for a centralized entity governing consensus. Rather than having a centralized database, the data is distributed across multiple computers which enables crash fault tolerance as well as makes the system difficult to tamper with due to a distributed consensus algorithm. In this research, the potential of blockchain technology to manage energy transactions is examined. The energy production landscape is being reshaped by distributed energy resources (DERs): photo-voltaic panels, electric vehicles, smart appliances, and battery storage. Distributed energy sources such as microgrids, household solar installations, community solar installations, and plug-in hybrid vehicles enable energy consumers to act as providers of energy themselves, hence acting as 'prosumers' of energy. Blockchain Technology facilitates managing the transactions between involved prosumers using 'Smart Contracts' by tokenizing energy into assets. Better utilization of grid assets lowers costs and also presents the opportunity to buy energy at a reasonable price while staying connected with the utility company. This technology acts as a backbone for 2 models applicable to transactional energy marketplace viz. 'Real-Time Energy Marketplace' and 'Energy Futures'. In the first model, the prosumers are given a choice to bid for a price for energy within a stipulated period of time, while the Utility Company acts as an operating entity. In the second model, the marketplace is more liberal, where the utility company is not involved as an operator. The Utility company facilitates infrastructure and manages accounts for all users, but does not endorse or govern transactions related to energy bidding. These smart contracts are not time bounded and can be suspended by the utility during periods of network instability. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2019

Nowadays, in Sweden there are several models for recruiting job seekers suchas recruiting campaigns, paid memberships at one or more job platforms,utilizing job APIs and others. New technologies are constantly being developedto meet both job seekers' and job providers' increasing demands. The majorityof jobseekers use the internet to find suitable jobs. Job seekers look for jobs inindividual companies' websites and through job marketplaces platforms wherejob advertisements are published. The majority of existing job marketplacesrequire companies to manually register their jobs. Consequently, this incurscosts and efforts on the companies. To address this challenge, in this thesis,we present an approach that comprises an architecture and a process whichserve as a foundation for the design of an automated job marketplace. Tovalidate the feasibility of our approach, we developed a prototype andconducted experiments to evaluate the performance and scalability of theapproach.

The development of AI application on the edge devices require integrated data, algorithms, and tools. Big companies like Google and Apple have integrated data, algorithms, and tools for building end to end systems with optimized and dedicated hardware for deep learning applications. The Bonseyes [2] EU H2020 collaborative project is an open and expandable AI platform. Bonsey's provides access to advanced tools and services that can be obtained from the data market place and eco-system of collaborative leading academic and industrial partners for adding AI to embedded products. Bonseyes AI Marketplace proposed an end to end AI pipeline to overcome these requirements for the development and deployment of AI solutions on edge devices. In Bonseyes, a Secure virtual premise (SVP) is a secure and protected area for the collaborative and systematic development of AI using Machine Learning AI Pipelines. The centralized SVP has limitations like scalability, reliability, and load balancing. This thesis work focuses on the enhancement of SVP and its mechanisms to adopt a distributed and federated architecture for better performance and fast development of AI applications. It investigates various federation mechanisms and implements a distributed and federated SVP. A Marketplace rendezvous host is designed and implemented from where multiple distributed compute resources can be started, controlled, and stopped by a user. Users and distributed locations related data are stored in an SQLite relational database. Communication between entities of distributed and federated SVP is enabled using HTTPs protocol and PKI Infrastructure is used for authentication and authorization of users. We evaluate the performance of our implementation by calculating the start-up time of multiple resources until a user can perform AI Engineering. The results show that time is directly proportional to the number of nodes started.

Young people, born in the 1990s, are pictured by the society as individuals who are connected and who tend to put their physical moments besides. Only a few studies have been carried out to understand how they feel and why they act as they do. The purpose of this study was to understand the consumption behaviour and the characteristics of a new generation: Generation D, in order to reach them efficiently with fairer market alternatives. This research seeks to address the following questions: 1.Who are the people representing Generation D? 2.What is sustainable, what is fair? 3.How should the relationship between the generation and fair-trade brands look like? We found out, with the help of the empirical findings and the analysis, that a company needs to take into account two main characteristics to target this generation. We noticed that social media have a real impact on the people from this generation. This generation grew up with the development of the technological world; the internet is part of their life. We noticed that social media might influence the self-esteem of this individuals, they tend to compare their life to others. However, social media are one of their main channels of communication. We also found out that the individuals who are part of this generation are looking for meaningful actions. They want to be useful and help our society by protecting the environment or social rights. To be able to reach the people from this generation, companies need to use social media to communicate with them and focus on the understanding of the true feelings of these individuals. They need to establish an honest relationship. This thesis might be valuable for companies who want to target young generations and reach them efficiently. They need to understand the true feelings of their target group and rethink marketing strategies to differentiate themselves from the jungle of competitors. Marketers can also use our synthesis of the theoretical framework and apply it to their segment. Lastly, this study helps in raising awareness regarding the effects of using the internet and regarding the expression of oneself.

Despite the importance of pets in people’s lives and the possible emotional value of purchasing a pet, there is a lack of niche pet marketplaces. There is also a gap in research regarding the design of online marketplaces for finding pets and how users experience them. With this thesis project, I aim to touch upon that gap and provide insights to build upon in future research. This is achieved by providing recommendations of features that can enhance the user experience by addressing existing needs and concerns. To answer the research questions, interviews and a workshop were conducted followed by an analysis. Based on the findings, prototypes were designed and evaluated. Finally, the results of the study are discussed from a user experience perspective. / Trots betydelsen som husdjur kan ha i människors liv och det möjliga känslomässiga värdet av att köpa ett husdjur så finns det brist på nischade marknadsplatser där man kan köpa djur. Det saknas även forskning kring utformningen av digitala marknadsplatser för djur och hur användare upplever dessa. Med denna studie strävar jag efter att beröra detta ämne och bidra med insikter att bygga vidare på i framtida forskning. Detta uppnås genom att tillhandahålla rekommendationer om funktioner som kan förbättra användarupplevelsen genom att ta hänsyn till befintliga behov och problem. För att svara på forskningsfrågorna genomfördes intervjuer och en workshop följt av en analys. Baserat på resultaten utvecklades prototyper som sedan även utvärderades. Slutligen diskuteras studiens resultat ur perspektivet för användarupplevelse.

Отечественные промышленные предприятия столкнулись с серьезными ограничениями в своей деятельности, связанными с введением санкций зарубежными экономиками. С одной стороны, это безусловно ведет к снижению текущих финансово-экономических показателей компаний. Однако, с другой стороны, подобные внешние вызовы представляют собой стимул не только для освоения новых рынков, но и эффективной интеграции современных цифровых инструментов в бизнес-процессы промышленных предприятий. Достигнутый мировой опыт развития сегмента e-commerce показывает, что подобные цифровые инструменты положительно влияют на результативность деятельности промышленных предприятий, способствуя упрощению производственных процессов, сокращению операционных затрат, а также росту объемов продаж. Цель - разработка проекта маркетплейса, позволяющего повысить эффективность деятельности промышленного предприятия. Объект - АО «Сталепромышленная компания», занимающаяся торговлей черного металлопроката. Научная новизна: разработка теоретических основ проекта внедрения маркетплейса для промышленного предприятия, учитывающего отраслевые особенности металлоторгующей отрасли, потребности контрагентов и клиентов компаний сектора, что позволяет повысить экономическую эффективность деятельности компании. Практическая значимость: возможность применения разработанного проекта маркетплейса в практике других промышленных предприятий для расширения рынка сбыта товаров и повышения рентабельности бизнеса. / Domestic industrial enterprises have faced serious restrictions in their activities related to the imposition of sanctions by foreign economies. On the one hand, this certainly leads to a decrease in the current financial and economic indicators of companies. However, on the other hand, such external challenges are an incentive not only for the development of new markets, but also for the effective integration of modern digital tools into the business processes of industrial enterprises. The achieved global experience in the development of the e-commerce segment shows that such digital tools have a positive impact on the performance of industrial enterprises, contributing to the simplification of production processes, reduction of operating costs, as well as sales growth. The aim is to develop a marketplace project that will improve the efficiency of an industrial enterprise. The object is JSC “Stalepromyshlennaya kompaniya” engaged in the trade of ferrous metal products. Scientific novelty: development of the theoretical foundations of the project for the introduction of a marketplace for an industrial enterprise, taking into account the industry features of the metal trading industry, the needs of contractors and customers of companies in the sector, which allows to increase the economic efficiency of the company. Practical significance: the possibility of using the developed marketplace project in the practice of other industrial enterprises to expand the market for goods and increase business profitability.

Background: Digital platforms include various business models and represent a large and growing part of the economy empowered by digitalization. The added value of platforms depends crucially on their user interactions, which is why adopting new users is crucial. In the internationalization process, digital platforms differ from traditional companies because it is not their own presence that matters, but the users’ location.   Problem: To join a digital platform, the size of the existing user base has been discussed as a decisive feature by the literature. This assumption is based on the concept of network effects. However, these can lose their effect when national borders are crossed and/or digital platforms are location-bound. In the overall discussion about digital platforms, the relevant sub-category of digital marketplaces, especially in the B2B area, has not yet been taken into account and no alternatives for the size of the existing user base have been discussed.   Purpose: This study aims to investigate the attractiveness of digital platform attributes for potential international users of digital B2B marketplaces when the latter enter a foreign market.   Research Question: Which attributes and which of their levels do potential users prefer in a cross-border digital B2B marketplace?   Method: The study is a quantitative, inductive research with an exploratory purpose. An internal realist ontology and a positivist epistemology are applied. Data are collected and analyzed by using the traditional rating-based conjoint analysis. Four attributes with two times two and two times three levels are queried in nine company profiles using an Internet survey questionnaire with n = 159.    Conclusion: This study extends the existing literature on digital platforms by capturing identifying characteristics of digital B2B marketplaces and exploring potential users' preferences for such platforms. We conclude a high importance of distance to users who are already active on the platform, as well as the language of the platform. This is followed by the location of active users and rounded off with a lower importance of user verification.

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