Syfte: Det övergripande vetenskapliga syftet med denna avhandling att nå en ökad förståelse om samverkansprocesser. Ansats och metoder: Studien har bedrivitsgenom deltagarorienterad aktionsforskning inom hälso-och sjukvården i Hässleholm. Aktörer på verksamhetsfältet har strävatefter att utveckla samverkan för att tillsammans kunna utveckla närsjukvård. Forskningen hargenereratkunskap utifrån lokala omständigheteratttjäna som underlag för beslut om att genomföra praktiska förändringar i verksamheten. En kombination av olika metoder har använts för att generera empiriskt material, där den huvudsakliga metoden har varit deltagande observationer med dialog. Därutöver har intervjuer och granskning av dokument använts samt en forskningscirkel, som är en speciellmetod inom deltagarorienterad aktionsforskning. Studien har haft en hermeneutisk ansats och tolkningar har gjorts med stöd av olika teoretiska perspektiv och modeller. Kurt Lewins fältteori har utgjort en övergripande teoretisk ram för studien. Resultat: En ökad förståelseom den studerade samverkansprocessen kunde nås genom att beskriva och tolka skeenden som antogs ha påverkat utvecklingen av samverkan. Processen beskrevs både utifrån vertikal och horisontell integrering inom och mellan organisationer. Beskrivningen innefattade komponenter som fanns både inom arbetsprocesser och sociala processer. Den studerade samverkansprocessen delades in i delprocesser där var och en del innehöll en viss typ av aktivitet som genomfördes för att stödja utvecklingen av samverkan. Två olika strategier för utvecklingen av samverkan identifieradesoch illustrerades genom olika modeller: den linjära hierarkiska modellen respektive den dynamiska modellen. Den sistnämnda utveckladesgenom aktionsforskningen. Slutsatser: I ett första skede bedrevdeltagarna på fältet samverkan med stöd av den linjära hierarkiska modellen. Denna modell utgör ett tankeschema där samverkan utvecklas i en linjär hierarkisk process. Politiker fattar beslut, chefer planerar och professionella genomför aktiviteterna. Modellen utgår ifrån ett konsensusteoretiskt perspektiv där konflikter betraktas som störande element. Det innebar i detta fallatt aktörer inom olika domäner och organisationer undvek varandras olika föreställningsvärldar varpå samverkansprocessen stötte på hinder i utvecklingen. Aktionsforskningen intervenerade i processen genom arrangera kommunikationsarenor med deltagare från olika domäner och organisationer. Samverkan utvecklades på så sätt utifrån den dynamiska modellen. Denna modell innehåller antaganden om att samverkansprocesser är dynamiska och har sin utgångspunkt i ett konfliktteoretiskt perspektiv där konflikter betraktas som naturliga i processen. / Objective: The general scientific objective of this thesis is to reach a greater understanding of processes of collaboration. Design and methods: The study was conducted through participatory action research within the health services of Hässleholm, Sweden. The people involved, who were participants of different activities related to health care, aimed at developing their collaboration in a collective attempt to facilitate the development of an integrated local health care. Based on local circumstances and perspectives, the research has generated knowledge on which future decisions on how to implement practical changes can be made. A combination of various methods was used to generate empirical material, where the main method was participant observation withdialogue. In addition, interviews and document reviews were conducted as well as the use of collaborative inquiry,which is a specific method within participatory action research. The study was conducted according to a hermeneutic approach and interpretations were supported by various theoretical perspectives and models. Kurt Lewin's field theory constituted a general theoretical frame of reference for the study. Results: By describing and interpreting the course of events that were presumed to have an impact on the development of collaboration, a greater understanding of the observed collaboration process was achieved. The process was described in terms of vertical as well as horizontal integration within and between organisations. This description included components that were present in work processes as well as social processes. The observed collaboration process was divided into sub-processes, each of them containing a certain type of activity that was performed in support of the development of collaboration. Strategies for development of collaboration were identified and illustrated by different models: the linear hierarchical model and the dynamic model. The latter was developed through action research. Conclusions: At an initial stage, collaborationamong the participants in the field was supported by a linear hierarchical model, which constitutes a mind map where collaboration is developed in a linear hierarchical process. Politicians make decisions, managers make plans and professionals implement activities. The model emanates from a consensus theoretical perspective, where conflicts are regarded as disruptive elements. In this case, participants from various domains and organisations avoided the different conceptual worlds of one another, which ledto impediments in the developments of the collaboration process. The action research made it possible to intervene in the process by arranging communication arenas with and for participants from the different domains and organisations. Thus, collaborationcame to evolve from a dynamic model, which includes the assumption that collaboration processes are dynamic and is based on a conflict theoretical perspective, where conflicts are regarded as natural aspects of the processes

Nicotine, in the form of cigarette smoking, chewing tobacco, and most recently as vapor smoking, is one of the most heavily used addictive drugs in the world. Since smoking imposes a significant health-care and economic burden on the population, there have been sustained and significant efforts for the past several decades to control it. However, smoking epidemic is a complex and "policy-resistant" problem that has proven difficult to control. Despite the known importance of social networks in the smoking epidemic, there has been no network-centric intervention available for controlling the smoking epidemic yet. The long-term goal of this work is the development and implementation of an environment needed for developing network-centric interventions for controlling the smoking contagion. In order to develop such an environment we essentially need: an operationalized model of smoking that can be simulated, to determine the role of online social networks on smoking behavior, and actual methods to perform network-centric interventions. The objective of this thesis is to take first steps in all these categories. We perform Twitter-based surveillance of smoking-related tweets, and use mathematical modeling and simulation techniques to achieve our objective. Specifically, we use Twitter data to infer sentiments on smoking and electronic cigarettes, to estimate the proportion of user population that gets exposed to smoking-related messaging that is underage, and to identify statistically anomalous clusters of counties where people discuss about electronic cigarette a lot more than expected. In other work, we employ mathematical modeling and simulation approach to study how different factors such as addictiveness and peer-influence together contribute to smoking behavior diffusion, and also develop two methods to stymie social contagion. This lead to a total of four smoking contagion-related studies. These studies are just a first step towards the development of a network-centric intervention environment for controlling smoking contagion, and also to show that such an environment is realizable. / Ph. D.