Background: Due to the dynamic business environment and acceleration of technological renewal the need to pursue newest knowledge becomes crucial and more and more challenging for companies. Traditionally firms tended to keep R&D in-house but now they have to search for alternative approach to innovation, namely open innovation. Science parks are claimed to facilitate the process of inter-organizational collaboration and open innovation, in particular due to geographic proximity of on-park actors. Aim: This research is aimed to investigate the influence of geographic proximity of companies situated within a science park on collaboration and open innovation initiatives. Apart from this, other factors in a science park environment that can have an effect on open innovation are studied as well. In particular, these issues are analyzed from the perspective of on-park small and medium enterprises. Completion and results: This study revealed that geographic proximity of firms within one science park can influence open innovation to some extent. In particular, effects of certain mechanisms of geographic proximity were observed. However, all in all, geographic proximity does not have a decisive influence on inter-firm collaboration in Swedish science parks. Besides geographic proximity, other factors that may stimulate open innovation process for SMEs were analyzed.

Though the Aerospace industry is moving towards small satellites and smaller sensor technologies, sensors used for close-proximity operations are generally cost (and often size and power) prohibitive for University-class satellites. Given the need for low-cost, low-mass solutions for close-proximity relative navigation sensors, this research analyzed the expected errors due to near-field effects using a coarse sun sensor as part of a 6-degree-of-freedom (6-dof) solution. To characterize these near-field effects, a test bed (Characterization Test Apparatus or CTA) was proposed, its design presented, and the design stage uncertainty analysis of the CTA performed. A candidate coarse sun sensor (NorthStarTM) was chosen for testing, and a mathematical model of the sensor’s functionality was derived. Using a Gaussian Least Squares Differential Correction (GLSDC) algorithm, the model parameters were estimated and a comparison between simulated NorthStarTM measurements and model estimates was performed. Results indicate the CTA is capable of resolving the near-field errors. Additionally, this research found no apparent show stoppers for using coarse sun sensors for 6-dof solutions.

Observing the relative state of two space vehicles has been an active field of research since the earliest attempts at space rendezvous and docking during the 1960's. Several techniques have successfully been employed by several space agencies and the importance of these systems has been repeatedly demonstrated during the on-orbit assembly and continuous re-supply of the International Space Station. More recent efforts are focused on technologies that can enable fully automated navigation and control of space vehicles. Technologies which have previously been investigated or are actively researched include Video Guidance Systems (VGS), Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR), RADAR, Differential GPS (DGPS) and Visual Navigation Systems. The proposed system leverages the theoretical foundation which has been advanced in the development of VisNav, invented at Texas A & M University, and the miniaturized commercially available Northstar sensor from Evolution Robotics. The dissertation first surveys contemporary technology, followed by an analytical investigation of the coarse sun sensor and errors associated with utilizing it in the near-field. Next, the commercial Northstar sensor is investigated, utilizing fundamentals to generate a theoretical model of its behavior, followed by the development of an experiment for the purpose of investigating and characterizing the sensor's performance. Experimental results are then presented and compared with a numerical simulation of a single-sensor system performance. A case study evaluating a two sensor implementation is presented evaluating the proposed system's performance in a multisensor configuration. The initial theoretical analysis relied on use of the cosine model, which proved inadequate in fully capturing the response of the coarse sun sensor. Fresenel effects were identified as a significant source of unmodeled sensor behavior and subsequently incorporated into the model. Additionally, near-field effects were studied and modeled. The near-field effects of significance include: unequal incidence angle, unequal incidence power, and non-uniform radiated power. It was found that the sensor displayed inherent instabilities in the 0.3 degree range. However, it was also shown that the sensor could be calibrated to this level. Methods for accomplishing calibration of the sensor in the near-field were introduced and feasibility of achieving better than 1 cm and 1 degree relative position and attitude accuracy in close proximity, even on a small satellite platform, was determined.

1 x N optical power splitters using hybrid sol-gel glasses based on buried waveguide structure on silicon substrate were fabricated. The advantage over conventional ridge structures is the fact that Y branch of the splitters can be easily obtained with the buried structure using standard photo lithography processes. Now we can successfully make the width of Y branch of less of 1um. Proximity printing was used to define the waveguide trench on sol-gel films. Then burying the sol-gel glass into the trench to define waveguide core. Finally the waveguide was packaged for measurement after coating a sol-gel top cladding layer onto the guiding layer. The propagation losses of this waveguide device are 0.69 dB/cm and 0.70 dB/cm for TE and TM polarized lights. The coupling losses are 1.57 dB and 1.89 dB for TE and TM lights with a index contrast of 0.66 %. The insertion loss and the branching loss of the 1¡Ñ2 splitter are 5.7 dB and 0.3 dB¡Arespectively.

Regardless all the advantages of MPs, it has not reach the sizable customer base. In this paper, we examined the core drivers of using mobile payments (MPs) in restaurant industry from the consumers' perspective. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), we developed a six factor model to reveal the determinants of consumers' intention to use MPs in restaurant. Security, subjective norm, compatibility with lifestyle, and previous experience with MPs were added to the traditional two factor TAM model (usefulness and ease of use). 300 respondents were recruited from an online survey agency and 258 valid responses were included in the data analysis. The regression results suggested that consumers' intention to use MPs in restaurants is influences by compatibility with lifestyle, usefulness, subjective norm, security, and previous experience in MPs. Lifestyle compatibility was found as the strongest determinant of consumers' acceptance of MPs in restaurants. However, ease of use was not a significant predictor of MPs usage in restaurant. Based on the findings, the study provided several implications to the restaurant industry. Five factors (compatibility with lifestyle, usefulness, subjective norm, security, and previous experience in MPs) can serve as a guideline to encourage consumers' adoption of MPs in restaurant industry. Industry practitioners can develop advertisement catered to a trendy, innovative, tech-friendly generation who desires the flexibility that MPs give and is willing to have everything in one device. MPs should be developed to provide an added value to the user. It is also important to increase the source credibility of social information to improve communication campaigns. Finally, restaurant staff could be trained in guiding and assisting consumers in their first experience with MPs.

ProxStor is a cloud-based human proximity storage and query informational system taking advantage of both the near ubiquity of mobile devices and the growing digital infrastructure in our everyday physical world, commonly referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). The combination provides the opportunity for mobile devices to identify when entering and leaving the proximity of a space based upon this unique identifying infrastructure information. ProxStor provides a low-overhead interface for storing these proximity events while additionally offering search and query capabilities to enable a richer class of location aware applications. ProxStor scales up to store and manage more than one billion objects, while enabling future horizontal scaling to expand to multiple systems working together supporting even more objects. A single seamless web interface is presented to clients system.. More than 18 popular graph database systems are supported behind ProxStor. Performance benchmarks while running on Neo4j and OrientDB graph database systems are compared to determine feasibility of the design. / text

As the Internet is becoming information-centric, network services increasingly demand scalable and efficient communication of information between a multitude of information producers and large groups of interested information consumers. Such information-centric services are growing rapidly in use and deployment. Examples of deployed services that are information-centric include: IPTV, MMORPG, VoD, video conferencing, file sharing, software updates, RSS dissemination, online markets, and grid computing. To effectively support future information-centric services, the network infrastructure for multi-point communication has to address a number of significant challenges: (i) how to understand massive information-centric groups in a scalable manner, (ii) how to analyze and predict the evolution of those groups in an accurate and efficient way, and (iii) how to disseminate content from information producers to a vast number of groups with potentially long-lived membership and highly diverse, dynamic group activity levels? This dissertation proposes novel architecture and protocols that effectively address the above challenges in supporting multi-point communication for future information-centric network services. In doing so, we make the following three major contributions: (1) We develop a novel technique called Proximity Embedding (PE) that can approximate a family of path-ensembled based proximity measures for information-centric groups. We develop Clustered Spectral Graph Embedding (SCGE) that captures the essential structure of large graphs in a highly efficient and scalable manner. Our techniques help to explain the proximity (closeness) of users in information-centric groups, and can be applied to a variety of analysis tasks of complex network structures. (2) Based on SCGE, we develop new supervision based link prediction techniques called Clustered Spectral Learning and Clustered Polynomial Learning that enable us to predict the evolution of massive and complex network structures in an accurate and efficient way. By exploiting supervised information from past snapshots of network structures, our methods yield up to 20% improvement in link prediction accuracy when compared to existing state-of-the-art methods. (3) Finally, we develop a novel multicast infrastructure called Multicast with Adaptive Dual-state (MAD). MAD supports large number of group and group membership, and efficient content dissemination in a presence of dynamic group activity. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in extensive simulation, analysis, and emulation through the real system implementation. / text

Protein biomarkers circulating in blood hold the promise of improved diagnosis, prognosis and follow-up of treatment of disease via minimally invasive procedures. For the discovery and validation of such biomarkers, methods are needed that can facilitate parallel, highly specific and in-depth analysis of the blood proteome. The work presented in this thesis intends to develop and apply such assays, building on the concept of the proximity ligation assay (PLA). In paper I, I present an easy and non-expensive alternative for the conjugation of oligonucleotides to antibodies via biotin-streptavidin-biotin interaction. This approach can be used when large sets of antibodies and/or oligos need to be validated for their performance as probes in PLA reactions. In paper II, a solid-phase variant of PLA (SP-PLA) for the detection and quantification of proteins in blood is presented. SP-PLA exhibited an improved limit of detection compared to commercial ELISA assays by two orders of magnitude. In addition SP-PLA exhibited a broader dynamic range by at least one order of magnitude and required only 5 μl of sample, rendering the method very well suited for analyses of precious bio-banked material. Last but not least, SP-PLA was used to validate the diagnostic potential of GDF-15 as a biomarker for cardiovascular disease in a set of cardiovascular disease patients and healthy controls. Paper III discusses the development of a multiplex SP-PLA (MultiPLAy) for the simultaneous detection of 36 proteins in just 5 μl of sample. MultiPLAy exhibited an improved LOD when compared to state-of-the-art bead-based sandwich assays. Most importantly, we observed only a minimal tendency to increased background with multiplexing, compared to a sandwich assay, suggesting that much higher levels of multiplexing will be possible. The assay was used to identify putative biomarkers in sample cohorts of colorectal cancer (CRC) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Subsequent multivariate analysis revealed previously known diagnostic biomarkers. Furthermore, we successfully applied next-generation sequencing as a readout for the protein assays, allowing for the first time digital recording of protein profiles in blood. In paper IV, we investigated the suitability of prostasomes as blood biomarkers in patients with prostate cancer using a newly developed PLA assay (4PLA) that utilizes five binders for the detection of complex target molecules. The assay successfully detected significantly elevated levels of prostasomes in blood samples from prostate cancer patients prior to radical prostatectomy, compared to controls and men with benign biopsy results.

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A partly new train of thought has emerged during the last few years, which claims that national conditions are of importance for company strength in relation to international competitors. National competition has stood out as one of the most important explanatory factors, and is seen as the catalyst or motor in dynamic industrial environments. The demands and pressures that evolve from competition between geographically proximate companies stimulate the innovativeness within the industry. Thus, the question about why and how dynamics of competition develop and function has not been answered in existing research. The main purpose of this study is therefore to analyse the process of competition in industries with a high degree of geographical proximity between competitors, in order to improve the understanding of the character and dynamics of competition. A general review of literature dealing with competition at industry, strategic group, and organisation level was compiled. The review gave two dimensions by which four types of competition were possible to distinguish, degree of symmetry between competitores and degree of activity in competition. To obtain an understanding for the character and dynamics of competition, it is not enough to identify different types of competition. The process through which competition is formed over time also needs to be studied. Other theoretical approaches are therefore necessary. First, the companies' competitive actions should be understood from their experience and expectations of competition. Second, the specific competitive moves that are taken by individual companies are of importance for the competition. Third, competition has to be described as a process of interaction over time. A case-study approach has been used for the gathering of data. Case-studies have been conducted within three industries that differ from each other with regard to competition. Competition in the Frontloader industry has been driven by two companies equal in both size and relative strength. The competitors in the Lining industry are,on the other hand, dissimilar, both in respect to relative strength and to the orientation of their business. The third industry, that of Hoisters, is characterised by the domination by one company. Two major results have been reached in this study. First the concept climate of competition has been coined to analyse and describe the character of the four types of competition. The following four climates of competition emerge from the analysis; climate of rivalling competion, of co-existing competition, of evolutionary competition and climate of revolutionary competition. The climates of competition differ with regard to the functional and psychological distance between competitors, the possibility to survey competition, and the actors' acceptance of current rules-of-play and role distribution. The second result of the study is a greater understanding for the dynamics within competition. By analysing the character of and change in competition over time two partly different, but interwined forces, have been detected. Competition gives rise on the one hand to different kinds of learning processes, and on the other forces competitors to innovative and creative measures. / digitalisering@umu