Hominins habitually moved across landscapes to forage for resources, which can be investigated by the probabilistic attribution of stone tools to raw material sources. The sources that were available to Pleistocene hominins at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Oldupai Gorge (Tanzania) have been studied for over a half-century. However, limited reference collections have prevented detailed investigations on the degree to which hominins transported stone tools. The primary goal of this dissertation was to identify the locations and distances over which Oldowan and Acheulean hominins transported raw materials at Oldupai Gorge and interpret the results in the context of the human evolutionary record. Fieldwork consisted of sampling metamorphic and volcanic outcrops to supplement an existing reference collection. An equally important fieldwork component consisted of conducting excavations at four occupation sites, including, from oldest to youngest, Ewass Oldupa (Oldowan), Elang’ata Oljurusi (Acheulean), Engaji Nanyori (Acheulean), and Emurutoto (Acheulean). Laboratory work consisted of studying artefact collections to obtain general information about toolmaking practices, and characterising geological samples and stone tools at the macroscopic and geochemical levels for comparative analyses using computational statistics. The overarching aim of this dissertation was to investigate whether the shift from Oldowan to Acheulean toolmaking was accompanied by equally more complex landuse strategies amidst progressive aridification. Informed by probabilistic sourcing results, the evidence presented herein indicates that the Oldowan to Acheulean transition in the Oldupai basin was accompanied by more focalised landuse. Yet, both Oldowan and Acheulean hominins altered their mobility to variable environments ranging from woodlands to steppe deserts. These behavioural responses represent possible explanations for the adaptive radiation of hominin populations across, and out of, Eastern Africa during the Early and Middle Pleistocene. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Hominins habitually moved across landscapes to forage for resources, which can be investigated by sourcing the raw materials that were fashioned into stone tools. The raw material sources at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Oldupai Gorge (Tanzania) have been studied for over a half-century. However, limited reference collections have prevented thorough investigations on the degree to which hominins transported tools during the Pleistocene. Informed by the systematic sampling of metamorphic and volcanic outcrops, macroscopic and geochemical data were used to source Oldowan and Acheulean artefacts excavated from four occupation sites across the Oldupai Gorge study area. The evidence presented herein indicates that the shift from Oldowan to Acheulean toolmaking was accompanied by more focalised landuse amidst growing aridity. Yet, both Oldowan and Acheulean hominins altered their mobility to variable environments. This represents a plausible explanation for the adaptive radiation of hominin populations into increasingly diverse biogeographic zones through time.

While many human computation (human-in-the-loop) systems exist in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve problems that can't be solved by computers alone, comparatively fewer platforms exist for collecting human knowledge, and evaluation of various techniques for harnessing human insights in improving forecasting models for infectious diseases, such as Influenza and Ebola. In this thesis, we present the design and implementation of My4Sight, a human computation system developed to harness human insights and intelligence to improve forecasting models. This web-accessible system simplifies the collection of human insights through the careful design of the following two tasks: (i) asking users to rank system-generated forecasts in order of likelihood; and (ii) allowing users to improve upon an existing system-generated prediction. The structured output collected from querying human computers can then be used in building better forecasting models. My4Sight is designed to be a complete end-to- end analytical platform, and provides access to data collection features and statistical tools that are applied to the collected data. The results are communicated to the user, wherever applicable, in the form of visualizations for easier data comprehension. With My4Sight, this thesis makes a valuable contribution to the field of epidemiology by providing the necessary data and infrastructure platform to improve forecasts in real time by harnessing the wisdom of the crowd. / Master of Science

In the past three decades China’s rapid transition from a closed economy to become the factory of the world has astonished economists all over the world. Surveys among sourcing practitioners show that China is the most interesting market for sourcing and research points to lower costs as the main reason.This dissertation is an exploratory study of the role of the intermediary for Swedish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that source from China. Three questions are discussed. The first question concerns why Swedish SMEs choose to source from China. Although costs are a major factor for the companies, it is usually other triggers that cause the change in strategy, such as management interest or pressure from a large customer. The second research question concerns how Swedish SMEs choose to source from China and how the role of the intermediary is related to this process. The study shows that finding a good supplier is not difficult. The companies use informal channels, references and sometimes unorthodox methods such as following the supplier of the raw material to find suppliers that deliver high quality goods. The problem is however to maintain a steady quality and on time delivery which is why intermediaries are introduced late in the relationship. The cases in this study show example of five different intermediated strategies; Direct, Service,Traditional, RepO and FICE/WFOE. The traditional intermediated strategy is the only strategy where there is little or no relation between buyer and supplier, whereas the other four strategies involve different degrees of interaction between all three actors in the dyad; the buyer, the supplier and the intermediary.The third research question concerned the role of the intermediary. The study shows that the respondents are influenced by their structural view on what role the different forms of intermediaries may take. Although the respondents discuss the importance of having a long-term view on the relationship with the supplier they continuously allow intermediaries to enter the relationship on a short-term basis for quality control. These quality control centers (QC) commonly work on a fixed commission based on services that has to be specified. When the buyers are trying to change their strategy to look for an intermediary with higher involvement they usually turn to internal intermediaries (i.e. subsidiaries). When deciding on a long term intermediary the buyer usually looks for competences that supplement their own knowledge – that is Chinese language, good knowledge of the Chinese market but also technological competence. What the western owned intermediaries in China stresses however is the need to find intermediaries to supplement the suppliers’ competences, so that they are able to translate the needs of the buyer’s customer and becomes a physical reminder that they are sent from the buyer. The case of QC, shows that if a company let the relationship with the intermediary develop through interaction they can become just as involved.The study is based on interviews with key informants at Swedish SMEs andat different types of intermediaries in China. The empirical data are presented infive themes developed through an iterative process of theoretical studies anddata collection. The first two themes are directly related to the first tworesearch questions. The third theme focuses on the sourcing process andactivities of four small Swedish design companies. The fourth theme displayshow the intermediaries in China discuss their role. Finally, the fifth theme pictures the supply chain of one focal company at five points in time when they are in the process of changing their supply chain to increase transparency. / Disputationen sker fredagen den 30 mars kl. 13.00 i sal B1014 på Internationella Handelshögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping

本研究主要是研究台灣廠商進行國際採購時，企業策略對零組件國際採購 策略之影響，進而探討國際採購策略對產品績效的影響，具言之，研究目 的分為下列七項：一．比較製鞋工業和資訊工業的零組件國際採購策略有 無明顯差異。二．探討公司特性對零組件國際採購策略的影響。三．探討 市場特性對零組件國際採購策略的影響。四．探討產業特性對零組件國際 採購策略的影響。五．探討附加價值鏈策略選擇對零組件國際採購策略的 影響。六．探討產品策略對零組件國際採購策略的影響。七．探討零組件 國際採購策略對產品績效的影響。本研究利用路徑分析得到以下結論：結 論一：對企業而言，國外市場的重要性將使得企業為因應國外市場需求而 增加對國外的採購，此外，製鞋業的外銷經驗亦對其 海外採購有 所幫助；企業在國內與外商合作，亦可經由該管 道協助進行國外 採購。結論二：不論是鞋類產品或是資訊產品，其產品生命週期愈長，則 產 品零組件變化程度較小，與供應商維持平均年限較長，且零 組件標準化程度較高。而產品本身改變程度較大，則易採取 零組件外包策略；對資訊業而言，製程改變所造成生產設備 的 改變程度較大，因此易使用海外外部供應商。結論三：資訊業進行國際採 購時並非以接近當地市場為目的，而是以 技術及生產方面為考量 ；製鞋業仍是以採購地點與價值活動 地點之地理距離為考量。結 論四：對資訊業而言，各地的採購比例大部分與採購關鍵零組 傢騿A製鞋 業亦同。 結論五：不論是資訊業 或是製鞋業，兩者創新程度高，則為了維持技 術優勢，將會與海 外供應商進行技術互惠合作；而產品標準 化程度增加，亦將會使 海外採購品的標準化程度增加；值得 注意的是，由於專業分工的 細密，外部海外專業供應商可提 供品質較好之零組件。結論六： 對製鞋業而言，海外採購對產品績效較有幫助。結論七：公司競爭能力及 規模，對於執行國際採購的能力確有幫助。

In this thesis, we address several generic problems concerned with procurement of tasks from a crowd that consists of strategic workers with uncertainty in their qualities. These problems assume importance as the quality of services in a service marketplace is known to degrade when there is (unchecked) information asymmetry pertaining to quality. Moreover, crowdsourcing is increasingly being used for a wide variety of tasks these days since it offers high levels of flexibility to workers as well as employers. We seek to address the issue of quality uncertainty in crowdsourcing through mechanism design and machine learning. As the interactions in web-based crowdsourcing platform are logged, the data captured could be used to learn unknown parameters such as qualities of individual crowd workers. Further, many of these platforms invite bids by crowd workers for available tasks but the strategic workers may not bid truthfully. This warrants the use of mechanism design to induce truthful bidding. There ensues a complex interplay between machine learning and mechanism design, leading to interesting technical challenges. We resolve some generic challenges in the context of the following problems. Design of a quality eliciting mechanism with interdependent values We consider an expert sourcing problem, where a planner seeks opinions from a pool of experts. Execution of the task at an assured quality level in a cost effective manner turns out to be a mechanism design problem when the individual qualities are private information of the experts. Also, the task execution problem involves interdependent values, where truthfulness and efficiency cannot be achieved in an unrestricted setting due to an impossibility result. We propose a novel mechanism that exploits the special structure of the problem and guarantees allocative efficiency, ex-post incentive compatibility and strict budget balance for the mechanism, and ex-post individual rationality for the experts. Design of an optimal dimensional crowdsourcing auction We study the problem faced by an auctioneer who gains stochastic rewards by procuring multiple units of a service from a pool of heterogeneous strategic workers. The reward obtained depends on the inherent quality of the worker; the worker’s quality is fixed but unknown. The costs and capacities are private information of the workers. The auctioneer is required to elicit costs and capacities (making the mechanism design dimensional) and further, has to learn the qualities of the workers as well, to enable utility maximization. To solve this problem, we design a dimensional multi-armed bandit auction that maximizes the expected utility of the auctioneer subject to incentive compatibility and individual rationality while simultaneously learning the unknown qualities of the agents. Design of a multi-parameter learning mechanism for crowdsourcing We investigate the problem of allocating divisible jobs, arriving online, to workers in a crowd-sourcing platform. Each job is split into a certain number of tasks that are then allocated to workers. These tasks have to meet several constraints that depend on the worker performance. The performance of each worker in turn is characterized by several intrinsic stochastic parameters. In particular, we study a problem where each arriving job has to be completed within a deadline and each task has to be completed, honouring a lower bound on quality. The job completion time and quality of each worker are stochastic with fixed but unknown means. We propose a learning mechanism to elicit the costs truthfully while simultaneously learning the stochastic parameters. Our proposed mechanism is dominant strategy incentive compatible and ex-post individually rational with asymptotically optimal regret performance.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore green sourcing in supply chain management by the example of two large organisations. Design/methodology/approach – This study followed an iterative cycle of reviewing literature and empirics as well as conducting analysis and discussion. The literature gathered for this thesis was collected by reviewing ten academic journals as well as publications found through database search. Empirical data was collected from two case organisations, ABB Robotics and Vattenfall, through interviews, internal documents and public statements. The empirical data was analysed separately for each case organisation by use of an analytical model constructed from the literature findings. Thereafter, similarities and differences between the organisations were discussed as well as the thesis’ contributions to green sourcing literature. Findings – We found that although both ABB Robotics and Vattenfall incorporate environmental sustainability to some degree in their respective sourcing processes, their individual performance differed. The main difference between the organisations was found to be the visibility and managerial drive towards the realisation of environmental goals within the sourcing department. From our observations, it was found that Vattenfall to a large extent embraced their environmental goals and that these trickled down to the sourcing department. ABB Robotics on the other hand had numerous environmental goals on corporate level but these lacked visibility in the sourcing department. In comparison to our literature findings is was found that for environmental goals, Vattenfall was in more alignment with the suggestions by the scholars. For the other identified areas important for green sourcing, that being supplier assessment, supplier performance evaluation and supplier collaboration, both organisations were more aligned with our literature findings. Practical implications – In this thesis, four primary elements of green sourcing have been identified: environmental goals, supplier assessment, supplier performance evaluation, and supplier collaborations. Out of these, we found that the first element, environmental goals, is an enabler for the other elements of green sourcing to further evolve and is therefore essential for green sourcing. Originality/value – By looking beyond public statements and policies of environmental sustainability, this thesis has provided a unique insight in how two large organisations have implemented environmental sustainability in practice, from a sourcing perspective.

Companies have limited human, financial and technical resources, which makes it crucial toallocate them in an efficient way in order to stay competitive in today's market. One way of doing this is to classify a company's suppliers into different categories, and differentiate the management of each supplier category. Previous studies within the field mostly focus on larger, manufacturing companies, and there is a lack of segmentation models suitable for retail firms. Further, existing literature on supplier relationship management fail on giving concrete actions on how to manage different types of suppliers. This study addresses this by extending the literature on supplier segmentation and supplier relationship management in the context of a medium sized retail company offering a diversified product portfolio. The study was performed as a case study on a Nordic retail company that produced both private label products and brand named products, where this study focused on its private label suppliers. The purpose of the study was to develop a supplier segmentation model for guidance in managing supplier relationships for retail companies with diversified product portfolios, and this was met by collecting both qualitative and quantitative data through interviews, workshops, structured questions and archival data. The main findings were a number of identified characteristics of the supplier base of the case company and the determination of different types of buyer-supplier relationships. This ultimately culminated into the empirical contributions of 1) a developed supplier segmentation model suitable for medium sized retail companies offering a diversified product portfolio, and 2) recommended actions on how to manage suppliers, corresponding to each segment in the model. / Företag har begränsade resurser vad gäller finansiellt, tekniskt och humant kapital, vilket gör det ytterst viktigt att fördela sina resurser på ett så effektivt sätt som möjligt för att hålla sig konkurrenskraftiga. Ett sätt att göra detta är att klassificera sina leverantörer i olika kategorier, samt differentiera hur varje kategori ska hanteras. Tidigare studier inom ämnet har mestadels fokuserat på större tillverkningsindustriföretag, och det saknas segmenteringsmodeller som är anpassade för retailföretag. Vidare är befintlig litteratur på supplier relationship management knapphändig i att ge konkreta rekommendationer för hur olika typer av leverantörer ska hanteras. Den här studien adresserar detta genom att utvidga litteraturen på supplier segmentation och supplier relationship management i kontexten av ett mellanstort retailföretag med en diversifierad produktportfölj. Studien genomfördes som en case-studie på ett nordiskt retailföretag som sålde både märkesprodukter och egna märkesvaror, där den här studien endast berörde leverantörer för egna märkesvaror. Syftet med studien var att utveckla ett övergripande ramverk för guidning av hur leverantörsrelationer i retailföretag med diversifierade produktportföljer ska hanteras, och detta uppfylldes genom att samla både kvalitativ och kvantitativ data genom intervjuer, strukturerade frågor, workshops samt arkivdata. De huvudsakliga resultaten var ett antal identifierade egenskaper hos leverantörsbasen av caseföretaget och en bestämd uppdelning av olika leverantörsrelationer. Detta mynnade tillslut ut i två empiriska bidrag i form av 1) en utvecklad leverantörssegmenteringsmodell för medelstora retailföretag som erbjuder en diversifierad produktportfölj, samt 2) rekommenderade handlingar för hur olika leverantörer ska hanteras, som svarar till varje segment i modellen.

Vertikale Kooperationen gelten seit Anfang der 90er Jahre als zentraler Erfolgsfaktor in der Automobilindustrie. Die Gestaltung der Arbeitsteilung nimmt infolge wiederkehrender Diskussionen über Einkaufs- und Entwicklungskooperationen zwischen einzelnen konkurrierenden Automobilherstellern und der damit verbundenen Ausweitung der unternehmensübergreifenden Zusammenarbeit auf horizontale Kooperationen eine weitere Dimension an. Johannes Reindl geht in einem komplexen Beschaffungsumfeld der Frage nach, wie die Beziehungen in horizontalen Kooperationen ausgestaltet werden sollten. Ausgerichtet an den Unternehmenszielen des Abnehmers wird hierzu mit einem starken Objektbezug auf die interdisziplinären Bereiche Entwicklung, Qualität, Einkauf und Logistik eingegangen. Das Buch enthält eine detaillierte und differenzierte Betrachtung relevanter Problemstellungen aus theoretischer und praktischer Perspektive. Damit ist es für Wissenschaftler und Praktiker im strategischen Beschaffungsmanagement von Interesse. Trotz der starken Affinität zur Automobilindustrie bietet sich diese Arbeit auch für andere Industriezweige (z.B. Maschinenbau oder Elektroindustrie) an. / Since the beginning of the 90s vertical cooperations have become a key factor for leading automotive OEMs in order to be successful. Of particular interest is that some competing automotive manufacturers begin to cooperate when it comes to development and purchasing, i.e. horizontal collaborations. Johannes Reindl focuses on how vertical relationships ought to be extended, to the respective manufacturers, into horizontal cooperations. The business objectives of an individual OEM take centre. He therefore concentrates on the multidisciplinarity of development, quality, purchasing/procurement and logistics. The present thesis gives a very detailed and differentiated way of looking at different issues from a theoretical as well as practical point of view. Hence it is of relevance for both, academics and senior managers working in strategic procurement. Despite its focus on the automotive industry its content is also relevant within respectively for other industries, e.g. mechanical engineering or electrical industry, just to name a few.

Vertikale Kooperationen gelten seit Anfang der 90er Jahre als zentraler Erfolgsfaktor in der Automobilindustrie. Die Gestaltung der Arbeitsteilung nimmt infolge wiederkehrender Diskussionen über Einkaufs- und Entwicklungskooperationen zwischen einzelnen konkurrierenden Automobilherstellern und der damit verbundenen Ausweitung der unternehmensübergreifenden Zusammenarbeit auf horizontale Kooperationen eine weitere Dimension an. Johannes Reindl geht in einem komplexen Beschaffungsumfeld der Frage nach, wie die Beziehungen in horizontalen Kooperationen ausgestaltet werden sollten. Ausgerichtet an den Unternehmenszielen des Abnehmers wird hierzu mit einem starken Objektbezug auf die interdisziplinären Bereiche Entwicklung, Qualität, Einkauf und Logistik eingegangen. Das Buch enthält eine detaillierte und differenzierte Betrachtung relevanter Problemstellungen aus theoretischer und praktischer Perspektive. Damit ist es für Wissenschaftler und Praktiker im strategischen Beschaffungsmanagement von Interesse. Trotz der starken Affinität zur Automobilindustrie bietet sich diese Arbeit auch für andere Industriezweige (z.B. Maschinenbau oder Elektroindustrie) an. / Since the beginning of the 90s vertical cooperations have become a key factor for leading automotive OEMs in order to be successful. Of particular interest is that some competing automotive manufacturers begin to cooperate when it comes to development and purchasing, i.e. horizontal collaborations. Johannes Reindl focuses on how vertical relationships ought to be extended, to the respective manufacturers, into horizontal cooperations. The business objectives of an individual OEM take centre. He therefore concentrates on the multidisciplinarity of development, quality, purchasing/procurement and logistics. The present thesis gives a very detailed and differentiated way of looking at different issues from a theoretical as well as practical point of view. Hence it is of relevance for both, academics and senior managers working in strategic procurement. Despite its focus on the automotive industry its content is also relevant within respectively for other industries, e.g. mechanical engineering or electrical industry, just to name a few.

Problembakgrund: Mellan år 1970-2009 utgjordes apoteksmarknaden i Sverige av ett statligt monopol, där Apoteket AB hanterade läkemedelsförsörjning för samtliga landsting i Sverige. År 2009 privatiserades däremot apoteksmarknaden, och landstingen fick nu välja om det skulle hantera läkemedelsförsörjningen i egen regi eller fortsätta upphandla tjänsten till en extern aktör. Åren efter avregleringen har landstingen valt att gå olika vägar, där några valt att fortsätta outsourca denna tjänst och andra har tagit hem tjänsten och hanterar den i egen regi. Med kostnadsbesparingar och vårdkvalitet i fokus för landstingen, är det därför intressant att undersöka varför de hanterar tjänsten olika. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att först kartlägga hur landstingen i Sverige hanterar läkemedelsförsörjningen och därefter undersöka och identifiera vilka kritiska faktorer som finns gällande valet av hanteringssätt. Vidare avser studien att analysera hur valet av hanteringsätt påverkas av dessa kritiska faktorer. Utifrån denna analys är det sedan möjligt att utarbeta en modell för sourcingbeslut gällande läkemedelsförsörjning i svensk hälso- och sjukvård. Metod: I studien genomfördes en surveyundersökning, där avsikten var att utföra strukturerade telefonintervjuer på samtliga landsting i Sverige. Studien utgick ifrån en kvantitativ forskningsstrategi med inslag av kvalitativa delar. Detta för att kartlägga landstingens hanteringssätt av läkemedelsförsörjning, samt undersöka drivkrafter och kritiska faktorer vid valet av hanteringssätt. Slutsats: En beslutsmodell i form av ett beslutsträd utformades för sourcingbeslut gällande läkemedelsförsörjningen för svenska landsting. Beslutsmodellen utgick ifrån tre huvudområden som var kritiska vid valet av hanteringssätt gällande läkemedelsförsörjning – fokus på kärnverksamhet, kostnadsbesparingar och vårdkvalitet. Dessa utgjorde grunden i beslutsmodellen, och var avgörande vid beslutsfattandet gällande hanteringssättet. / Background: During the years of 1970-2009 the pharmacy market In Sweden was run by the government, where Apoteket AB managed drug supply for all counties in Sweden. In 2009, however, the pharmacy market was privatized and the county councils, which are responsible for the Swedish health care, now had to choose whether it would manage the drug supply in-house, or continue to procure the service from an external player. The years after deregulation county councils decided to go different ways with this, where some chose to continue to outsourcing this service and other decided to manage it in-house. With cost savings and quality of care as the main focus of the county councils, it is interesting to examine why they handle this service differently. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to first identify how the county councils in Sweden handle their drug supply, and then examine and identify the critical factors by outsourcing this service or by managing it in-house. Furthermore, the study will analyze how the choice of managing this service in-house or outsource it is affected by these critical factors. Based on this analysis, it is then possible to develop a model for sourcing decisions regarding drug supply in the Swedish health care. Method: The study was conducted using a survey study, where structured telephone interviews were used as a data collection method on the county councils in Sweden. The study was based on a quantitative research strategy, with some qualitative elements. This was considered necessary to map out how the county councils managed their drug supplying, and to examine the driving forces and critical factors in choosing between outsourcing or in-house. Conclusion: A decision model in the form of a decision tree was designed for sourcing decisions regarding drug supply for the Swedish county councils. The decision model was based on three main areas that were established as critical in the selection of management methods regarding the drug supplying – focus on core activities, cost savings and quality of care. These areas formed the basis of the decision model, and were established instrumental in sourcing decisions regarding drug supplying in Swedish health care.