<p>To accurately estimate the potential recovery of metals from electronic devices, various tools such as mass flow analysis, dynamic models, and forecasting models have been employed. However, the reliability of the model-generated outputs hinges on the accuracy of the input data. To ensure accurate data collection, it is imperative to examine and compare different methodologies. Although surveys have conventionally been used in information and telecommunications technologies to gather consumer information, their validity is seldom contrasted with alternative methods due to the lack thereof. In response, a new mixed methodology has been developed to obtain primary consumer data through tangible information, offering new avenues for data acquisition. The methodology involves quantitative and qualitative approaches taking direct physical measurements (dimensions, weight, and quantity) of devices and including a ten question semi-structured interview to discussed consumer devices use, stock and transfer patterns, composition changes of the electronic devices, and disposal behavior. As a result, it was found new methodology measured 79% of the devices directly at laboratories and 21% of the remaining devices were self-reported by the participant. The devices on consumer stage frequently have the same type and number of components as fabric and a positive difference of about 17.99 g compared with the mass reported by fabricants or literature. The sequential steps undertaken by participants in the new methodology to acquire consumer-stage data offer distinct advantages over surveys, particularly in capturing a more comprehensive inventory of devices in storage.</p><p>Additional results indicate that the proposed methodology can provide valuable insights into the stock of electronic devices. Nevertheless, further research is required to understand the implications of surveys versus direct measurements in accurately representing mass flows during the user stage. Additionally, the relevance of external power supply or charging systems on storage will be explored as part of the supplementary findings. By improving the accuracy of metal recovery estimation and exploring more effective data collection methods, we can optimize closed-loop projects and contribute to sustainable resource management.</p>

博士(工学) / Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

Denna uppsats fokuserar på att undersöka vilken påverkan digitaliseringen har på servicemöten inom turismrelaterade verksamheter och vilken betydelse eventuella förändringar av digitalisering har för besökares upplevelser av service. Studien ämnar också att få svar på hur servicemöten har förändrats i takt med digitaliseringen, vilka digitala verktyg som används inom turismverksamheter samt hur förändringar som en följd av digitaliseringen har påverkat besökares upplevelser av servicemöten. En tematik har byggts upp i problemformulering, syfte och frågeställningar som sedan följer samma riktning i det teoretiska ramverket. Temana är digitaliseringens utveckling, digitala verktyg  och  servicemöten. Med utgångspunkt i teorin och dessa teman förklaras digitaliseringens framväxt, hur digitala verktyg används inom turismverksamheter, hur besökare blir medskapare av upplevelser samt ges en förklaring av huvudämnet servicemöte.  Avsikten är att skapa en uppfattning om upplevelsen av servicemöten och hur de har förändrats i och med den digitala utvecklingen, som nämnts ovan. För att undersöka detta har kvalitativa intervjuer  använts  som  datainsamling  för  studien.  Studien  tar  utgångspunkt  i  ett konsumentperspektiv, men delvis också ett producentperspektiv där intervjuer med både turister och hotellaktörer har genomförts. Genom intervjuer har intervjupersonerna tillhandahållit sina upplevelser av digitalisering inom turismverksamheter  och dess inverkan på servicemöten. Empirin som sedan har analyserats visar att utvecklingen av digitaliseringen har medfört att digitala verktyg införts på de intervjuade hotellverksamheterna och hur turister bokar vistelser och tar del av recensioner online. Vidare indikerar empirin att turisters upplevelser av hur digitala förändringar har påverkat besökares upplevelser av servicemöten och betydelsen av det fysiska mötet. Sammandraget visar denna studie på att digitala verktyg har implementerats till viss del på turismverksamheter, men de digitala verktygen har inte orsakat några större förändringar för själva servicemötet. Mänskliga servicemöten har en betydande roll för turisters upplevelser och är något som önskas kvarstå. / This following essay addresses the digitization and its impact on service encounters that occur at various touristic facilities. In addition, the importance any possible digital changes have for tourists’ experiences of service is also emphasized. The aim is to obtain an idea about experiences of service encounters, how they change as a result of the digital development in society, and what kind of digital tools are used by tourism organizations. Consequently, the way the potential digital changes have affected tourists’ experiences of service encounters is furthermore studied. A thematization has been defined in relation to the problem statement, purpose of the study, and research questions, which follow the same direction into the theoretical background. The themes are the development of digitization, digital tools, and the service encounter. With the theory and these themes as a starting point, the digital development, along with the usage of digital tools within tourism organizations and how visitors become co-creators of experiences, explain the main subject service encounter.  The intention is to attain comprehension about experiences of service encounters, as stated above. In order to examine this, qualitative interviews have been applied as a method. This essay studies the phenomena from a consumer perspective, as well as a producer perspective. By interviewing both tourists and hotel businesses, the informants have shared their experiences of, and views on, digitization at touristic facilities, as well as how it impacts service encounters. The analyzed results from the collected data indicate that the development of the digitization has resulted in adopted digital tools at the interviewed hotel businesses, and that tourists book and engage in reviews online. Moreover, the empirical results highlight the interviewed tourists’ perceptions of how digital changes have affected visitors’ experiences of service encounters, and the significance of the physical encounter. In conclusion, this study suggests that digital tools have been partially implemented at touristic facilities, however, the digital tools have not caused any major changes for the  service encounter.  Human service encounters have a remarkable role for tourists’ experiences and is something they wish would remain.

The aim of this thesis is to assess potential environmental impacts of electronic media distribution and consumption—from a life cycle perspective—as compared to those of print media. The thesis consists of a cover essay and two papers appended at the end of the thesis. The cover essay summarizes the papers and puts them in context. The main objectives of the thesis are twofold: to assess potential environmental impacts of production and consumption of tablet editions of magazines from a life cycle perspective (Paper I), and to compare potential environmental impacts of a magazine’s print edition with that of its tablet edition (Paper II). The thesis examines the following specific research questions: (1) What are the main environmental impacts of print and tablet editions? (2) Which activities are giving rise to the main environmental impacts of the print and tablet editions? (3) What are the key factors influencing these impacts? (4) What are major data gaps and uncertainties? Based on the present assessment, it is clear that for the print magazine, pulp and paper production is the principal cause of most of the potential environmental impacts. For this reason, the use of recycled paper, rather than virgin fiber, in newsprint production may considerably offset environmental impacts. For the tablet edition, the content production dominates the potential environmental impacts when readers are few. This appears to be the case in an emerging state of the magazine, but with distribution of more media products to smaller groups of people, this may persist for “mature” products as well. As the number of tablet readers grows, more of the environmental impact of the is due to manufacturing of the device and electronic distribution. However, content production may still be a major factor, depending on the specific environmental impacts studied. / <p>QC 20130306</p>

Traditional retail with personal service is becoming scarce. The personal interaction is replaced with self service alternatives, and the consumer is now seen as a co-service producer. What is the general attitude towards the service provided within these automated experiences? Is the automated experience of service comparable to the traditional service that is expected from the customer, or is the industry moving too fast, risking the exclusion of certain consumer groups in the quest for automation? This study conducted semi-structured interviews with a broad range of consumers and used thematic analysis in an effort to discover consumers' unique motivations in regards to self service alternatives in physical stores. The result showed that most consumers are satisfied as long as the service works as intended. But when problems arise, many of the respondents point out the lack of standardization, human support, long waiting times, and control within the user interface. Findings in this study contribute to the industry by identifying traits within the technology viewed by the consumer as enablers or disablers.

The use of external providers for the provision of information and communication technology (ICT) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is expected to increase. At the end of the 1990s the concept of Application Service Provision (ASP) and Application Service Providers (ASPs) was introduced. This is described as one way for SMEs to provide themselves with software applications. However, it can be stated that the concept has not taken off. This study examines what reasons influence the decision-making when deciding to use or not use ASP. The research question is: How do SMEs decide on using an Application Service Provider for the provision and maintenance of ICT? In order to answer the question decision-making processes in SMEs have been investigated in an interpretive case study. This study consisted of mainly semi-structured interviews that were done with three different ASPs and customers related to them. It also consisted of a questionnaire to the customers of one of the service providers. The analysis was then made as a withincase analysis, consisting of detailed write-ups for each site. The interviews and a literature survey of the ASP concept and theories that have been used to explain the ASP decision-making process generated seven constructs. From the presented and discussed theories, models and proposed constructs seven propositions were formulated. These propositions were used for the analysis and presentation of the findings in the study. The main conclusion of the study is the disparate view of what affects the adoption or non-adoption of the ASP concept. The service providers express the decision as a wish from the prospective customer to decrease costs and increase the predictability of costs. The customers on the other hand express it as a wish to increase accessibility; the cost perspective is found to be secondary.

M. Tech. (Department of Information and Communications Technology, Faculty of Applied and Computer Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Global companies tend to have problems in knowing the systems, assets and resources they have within their global footprint. This tends to be costly to the company as there tends to be purchases of the same systems, assets and resources that are already available in another business unit or department within the company. This leads to money being wasted on research, procurement and/or training, to name a few. You can't manage what you don't know about. This thesis will show how the visualisation of corporate data is possible and has sustainable benefit to a company. Knowing the status of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) environment in a company at some point in time is crucial in planning and implementing strategies with the future in mind. Global View, which will be explained in this thesis, is key in facilitating the extracting of information from all the sites globally and presenting the information in a logical and structured way. Information gathering from these sites using Global View needs to be done in an auditing fashion with the focus on accurate and precise information with an option which would allow the audit to be a continuous and automatic process. Global View is a tool to facilitate the implementation of ICT Industrialization through a process of gathering the relevant ICT information worldwide with specific reference to each site. Global View displays the relevant information from systems, assets, resources and environments in an easily accessible format. The functionality that is built into the concept in this thesis is the geographical and geospatial orientation which is linked to the relevant sites as well as time references related to Greenwich Mean Time to make users aware of differences in time when communicating with people in other countries either individually or multiple sites simultaneously.

El contexto por la pandemia del COVID 19 ha originado un cambio en la educación, en todos los niveles fue necesario pasar de una propuesta formativa presencial a una remota, y con ello se pusieron en práctica el uso y desarrollo de innumerables recursos TIC. Por ello se realizó una investigación con el objetivo de demostrar el impacto del uso del Turnitin y del Mendeley para potenciar la redacción académica de textos originales en los estudiantes de un Instituto Pedagógico Público. Se utilizó el diseño preexperimental con pre y pos prueba, a una muestra de 30 estudiantes seleccionados de manera no probabilística. Para ello se empleó un cuestionario, como pretest y postest, obteniendo coeficientes de V de Aiken de 0,789 y Alfa de Cronbach de 0,743 que garantizaron su aplicabilidad. Para efectuar la propuesta se aplicó una estrategia que comprendió dos momentos: Uso de Mendeley y Uso del turnitin, en ambos casos fue necesario de un monitoreo constante de parte del profesor a partir del planteamiento de retos secuenciales. Los resultados obtenidos indican que el 85% de los estudiantes logran mejorar el nivel de originalidad de sus textos académicos. Superando hasta en 50 puntos el nivel inicial o diagnóstico. En tal sentido, la estrategia basada en el uso del Turnitin y el Mendeley demostró su eficacia a lo largo de la investigación, lo que pone de manifiesto la importancia del uso de estrategias y herramientas con apoyo de las tecnologías de la información, en especial en la producción académica de textos originales y por tanto la necesidad de utilizarlas para potenciar procesos indagativos en contextos de educación presencial, remota o a distancia. / The context of the COVID 19 pandemic has caused a change in education, at all levels it was necessary to go from a face-to-face training proposal to a remote one, and with this the use and development of innumerable ICT resources was put into practice. For this reason, an investigation was carried out with the objective of demonstrating the impact of the use of Turnitin and Mendeley to promote the academic writing of original texts in the students of a Public Pedagogical Institute. The pre-experimental design with pre and post test was used, to a sample of 30 students selected in a non-probabilistic way. For this, a questionnaire was used, as pretest and posttest, obtaining Aiken's V coefficients of 0.789 and Cronbach's Alpha of 0.743 that guaranteed its applicability. To carry out the proposal, a strategy was applied that included two moments: Use of Mendeley and Use of turnitin, in both cases it was necessary a constant monitoring by the teacher from the approach of sequential challenges. The results obtained indicate that 85% of the students manage to improve the level of originality of their academic texts. Exceeding the initial or diagnostic level by up to 50 points. In this sense, the strategy based on the use of Turnitin and Mendeley demonstrated its effectiveness throughout the investigation, which shows the importance of the use of strategies and tools with the support of information technologies, especially in the academic production of original texts and therefore the need to use them to enhance investigative processes in face-to-face, remote or distance education contexts.

[pt] Os principais problemas enfrentados hoje pelas cidades estão relacionados ao crescimento da população urbana e ao desenvolvimento sustentável. Deste contexto emerge o importante debate mundial sobre as formas de planejamento mais adequadas ao atual momento. Ao mesmo tempo em que estamos diante dos maiores desafios da história das cidades, o avanço tecnológico se mostra exponencial, direcionando não só a solução para os problemas, mas promovendo também uma série de mudanças de paradigmas em relação à forma como vivemos, nos relacionamos e trabalhamos. A Cidade Inteligente – termo conhecido mundialmente, mas com significado ainda pouco preciso – surge nesse contexto, em que a tecnologia é usada para resolver problemas urbanos, garantir o desenvolvimento sustentável e a qualidade de vida das pessoas. Esse trabalho tem como objetivo definir, a partir da revisão da literatura, o conceito de Smart City e relatar o movimento das Human Smart Cities, contextualizando o cenário brasileiro e as diferentes abordagens existentes. A partir da análise das iniciativas voltadas para o mercado de Smart Cities no Brasil, foi possível perceber a necessidade de um equilíbrio entre as abordagens top-down e bottom-up nos projetos existentes e futuros. É relevante sublinhar a importância do aspecto humano na definição de Smart City, valorizando a participação da sociedade através de ecossistemas de inovação que incentivem a co-criação das soluções, em conjunto com a esfera pública, empresarial e acadêmica. A descentralização das tomadas de decisão, juntamente com a integração dos sistemas inteligentes da cidade que definem a verdadeira Smart City. / [en] The majority of modern cities reflect old urban models and specific historical contexts and need to deal with global and local issues never dealt with before. One example is the significant increase of urban population and objectives to reach sustainable development. There are many challenges to be faced: demographical, environmental, economic and institutional. At the same time we are facing one of the biggest challenges in the history of urban life, technological development grows at an exponential rate, providing not only solutions, but also promoting a series of shifts in paradigms in relation to our way of life, in how we relate and work. Due to technology – especially Information and Communications Technology (ICT) –, today society can communicate more easily, which allows them to consolidate and grow in networks, collaborate among themselves and obtain knowledge – an abundant and intangible resource that can change the current economic logic. Economy based of mass production of homogeneous products – one that exploits the environment without considering its consequences – is increasingly losing ground to new economies such as creative, collaborative, and knowledge-based economies where product and service productions are decentralized and diversified. The concept of Smart City arises from that context of technological evolution, increase in data generation, knowledge and consequently, of innovation. It is a challenging historical moment, but it also offers a variety of technological opportunities.

Facing increasingly complex policy issues and diminishing citizen satisfaction with government and service performance, managing the quality of citizen relationship management has become a main challenge for public managers. Solutions to complex policy problems of service performance and low level of citizen participation often must be developed by encouraging citizens to make their voices heard through the various participation mechanisms. Reflecting on this need, the municipal governments in the U.S. have developed centralized customer systems for citizen relationship management. 311 centralized customer system (named 311 in this study) has the functions of citizen-initiated contact, service-coproduction, and transaction, and many local governments launch 311 to maintain or enhance their relationship with the public. Using 311 is an easy and free technically for citizens, but ensuring some degree of citizen engagement and citizens’ 311 use has been challenging for local public managers of municipalities. Despite calls for the importance of 311 in the service and information delivery process, fair treatment and access to use of governmental information, citizen participation, government responsiveness, and citizen satisfaction, to the best of our understanding, no empirical studies explore citizens’ 311 behaviors in the micro and individual level in the field of public administration. This dissertation provides a comprehensive understanding of the 311 centralized customer system, helps local public managers know citizens’ perceived perspectives toward the operation of 311, and assists these managers to develop an effective 311 system in municipalities. The dissertation’s main purpose is to clarify the importance of 311 to citizen relationship management and provide insights into citizens’ 311 use behaviors. More specifically, this dissertation tries to answers the following questions: a. Why do citizens use 311? Do the various groups of the population access and use 311 in San Francisco equally? If not, what factors influence the citizens’ 311 citizen-initiated contact behaviors? b. Why do citizens choose the 311 digital channel to contact with local governments? c. Why do citizens use 311 frequently? This dissertation will address these questions and draws on data from the 2011 citizen survey of City of San Francisco to explore citizens’ 311 use behaviors by examining them from citizens’ perspectives. The main arguments of each question listed above are: 1. 311 citizen-initiated contact is different from traditional citizen-initiated contact, and exposure to governmental-ICT environment, gender, income, and race are the factors influencing 311 citizen-initiated contact. 2. The digital divide, including the social side of the digital divide and access-side of the digital divide, influences citizens’ 311 channel choice. 3. Citizens’ technology acceptance, citizen satisfaction, and frequent use of public services influence the frequency of citizens’ 311 use.