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The current increase in the number of large, open sets of unstructured textual data has created both opportunities and challenges for social scientists. Here, we explore if and how we can use such data by looking at a dataset of over 144,000 documents used by parliamentary committees in Sweden. Of these, we aim to understand: (a) the topical content of these motions, (b) how these topics have changed over time, and (c) how these topics differ across political parties. To do so, we use a Structural Topic Model, which allows us to not only find the topics using the textual data itself, but also to include the documents' metadata, such as authorship and date of publication. Doing so, we find 30 topics, which we combine into 9 broader themes. We find that these themes often rise and fall in popularity in line with historical events, and relate to the various political parties as we would expect. Throughout our analysis, we provide a step-by-step overview of how to use structural topic models in practice and also how to handle the type of dataset we use here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Drug shortages are a growing global problem, posing clinical and economic challenges. To understand them better, we conducted an inventory of national public drug shortage registers and their comparability in Europe and the USA.Methods: The study was based on openly accessible drug shortage notifications published by national drug authorities. These data were obtained from all national data sources mentioned on the European Medicines Agency's (EMA's) web page and FDA in the USA. After selection of the countries with comparable data, descriptive statistics were used to present characteristics of the shortages both across countries and within countries for 9 months (January-September) in 2020. We studied whether the shortages that occurred in these countries were the same, and how shortages were distributed by therapeutic uses and formulations. We also investigated price variation between the United States and Finland among drugs in shortage in one formulation category (creams and gels).Results: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Spain, and the United States had suitable registers and were included. Altogether 5132 shortage reports from Finland (n = 1522), Sweden (n = 890), Norway (n = 800), Spain (n = 814), and the United States (n = 1106) were published during the study period. Of active ingredient level shortages 54% occurred in only one country, and 1% occurred in all five. However, at the country level, where there was one or more shortage notifications in an ATC active ingredient category, 19-41% were in a single country. The distributions by ATC therapeutic class and drug formulation differed substantially between countries, particularly between the USA and European countries. Injectables had a high shortage risk in the USA (57% of all shortages versus 17-31% of all shortages in the European countries). By contrast, shortages in gels and creams occurred only in European data (4-6% of all shortages). In the price comparison, creams and gels in shortage in Finland were 160% more expensive in the USA where these shortages were not detected.Conclusions: Public drug shortage registers are vital data sources for proactively maintaining and managing a reliable drug supply. However, our study demonstrates that much work remains to standardize the contents and quality of public register data. Shortages may not be solely a consequence of manufacturing disruptions but may reflect other contributing factors in the international drug distribution and supply mechanisms, including price differences and profit margins between national pharmaceutical markets. Data to perform practical and useful international comparisons to understand these shortages are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developments toward Open Government Data (OGD) also affect the data from National Continuously Operating Reference Station (NCORS), an infrastructure supporting standard and precise positioning in spatial activities. The application of OD policies on NCORS data (OD-NCORS) varies per country. This article explores the approaches and impact of OD-NCORS in three European countries: Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. Understanding the differences in the implementations may benefit other countries in their strategies to implement OD for their NCORS. It may also provide insights for organisations considering OD for other data. The research found that the key factors affecting OD-NCORS implementation are the national governing nature and the existence of commercial CORS networks. There is no single approach for OD-NCORS implementation that fits every national context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy transition towards sustainable resources is more urgent than ever given the environmental and geopolitical challenges. Being one of the major energy users, cities need to understand their energy sector to accomplish its transition, by means of data. However, data are not easily accessible and have their own challenges. This paper presents a joint effort between researchers, city representatives and industry to provide an urban system service that supports research, accelerates urban innovation, and involves the community. An energy data portal, "NRGYHUB", has been developed, where hourly data from thousands of energy meters are available. These meters were collected from neighborhoods in the city of Västerås, Sweden, and they measure electrical and heating energy. In addition, the data are complemented by geometrical and non-geometrical information of the buildings, as well as demographic statistics of the areas. The paper describes the process of data collection, preprocessing, and visualization, in addition to the main challenges and limitations of the project. This dataset can be used for energy use benchmarking, prediction, and analysis. • The creation and implementation of an energy data portal is detailed and made available on nrgyhub.mdu.se. • Legal and licensing issues in data sharing are explored, offering insights for those interested in Sweden and beyond • By showcasing real-world problems, the impact and role of this data sharing initiative are demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores HacktheCrisis, the Swedish hackathon that was a response to the COVID-19 pandemic to address the challenges that it brought up. The main aims of the research were to explore the feasibility of the digital only COVID-19 hackathon as an open innovation method and to uncover the major issues that emerged during the HacktheCrisis hackathon in Sweden. The process and outcomes were assessed, leading to the lessons and development of recommendations for future health hackathons as an innovation in health care. We have found that conducting the virtual hackathon for COVID-19 resulted in significant growth in the digital health community in Sweden. Governments should be as fast as the private actors and citizens to address these challenges and to undertake organizational adaptations. Not only the hackathons, but the projects and processes after the hackathons should also be planned. Matchmaking between individuals and private and public actors should be facilitated throughout the year. Technology companies should provide platforms that facilitate flow of process with nice structures and user-friendly tools. Organizations were not ready to utilize the outcomes of these hackathons. Compared to public organizations, private organizations were faster to join hackathons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this exploratory study is to provide modern local governments with potential use cases for their open data, in order to help inform related future policies and decision-making. The concrete context was that of the Växjö municipality located in southeastern Sweden. The methodology was two-fold: 1) a survey of potential end users (n=151) from a local university; and, 2) analysis of survey results using a theoretical model regarding local strategies for implementing open government data. Most datasets predicted to be useful were on: sustainability and environment; preschool and school; municipality and politics. The use context given is primarily research and development, informing policies and decision making; but also education, informing personal choices, informing citizens and creating services based on open data. Not the least, the need for educating target user groups on data literacy emerged. A tentative pattern comprising a technical perspective on open data and a social perspective on open government was identified. In line with available funding, the nature of the study was exploratory and implemented as an anonymous web-based survey of employees and students at the local university. Further research involving (qualitative) surveys with all stakeholders would allow for creating a more complete picture of the matter. The study determines potential use cases and use contexts for open government data, in order to help inform related future policies and decision-making. Modern local governments, and especially in Sweden, are faced with a challenge of how to make their data open, how to learn about which types of data will be most relevant for their end users and what will be different societal purposes. The paper contributes to knowledge that modern local governments can resort to when it comes to attitudes of local citizens to open government data in the context of an open government data perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Good governance and inclusive development require governments to make their information flows accessible to all citizens. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 advocates the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies, with the emphasis being placed on access to government information. Apart from this Sustainable Development Goal, globally, several open-data initiatives and advocates of freedom of information are pushing governments to open up their data flows. Open data are seen as a driver of public service innovation that generates new knowledge and enables the creation of new electronic services. The narrative about open data assumes that the data are within reach of the citizens to explore and to develop new electronic services based on, for example, statistical, mobility, meteorological, judicial and court data to boost national innovation. However, research shows the contrary that open data are still concentrated in the hands of a few people such as politicians, journalists, system developers and data miners. This raises questions about the openness of the data. In Sweden, most of the interactions that citizens have are with the municipalities because they offer a broad range of public services. This is why the researcher argues that to promote awareness and open data usage by ordinary citizens, the Swedish government should work with the municipalities to create IT platforms for the exploitation of the data and to facilitate the development of technical expertise. If open data are to be inclusive, the data will require the involvement of citizens in the current open-data developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Swedish government has decided that all research results in the form of research data and scientific publications financed with public funds should be openly accessible as far as possible. The question is whether the responsible actors and if the universities are ready to implement the change. The significance of open access has amplified in Sweden. Earlier research has brought to light that the collection and preservation of research data are often surrounded by ambiguous rules and lack a comprehensive structure. For example, archiving is not given enough consideration in connection to research projects and researchers often tend to save their material on platforms that are not persistent over time. This article is based upon a qualitative research approach where 15 semi-structured interviews have been used as primarily data sources to investigate the implementation of open access of research data and scientific publications. The article investigated how Swedish universities and public authorities were working with archiving and implementation of open research data and their opinions on open access. The results displayed a lack of coordination, resources and infrastructure but also that common agreed nomenclature were missing. The management of research data was not part of an overall recordkeeping strategy. One explanation could be differences in the information culture among researchers and archivists. Social sciences theory has been combined with archival theory in order to explain the reasons to this. These have been put in relation to the principles of the open data directive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Alcohol is a major risk factor for liver cirrhosis. Recently, it was proposed that colder climate might causally lead to increased consumption of alcohol. Methods: We performed an ecologic study, using monthly updated data on mean temperature, sunlight hours and alcohol consumption from ten regions in Sweden, using publicly available data. A generalised additive model, adjusted for region, was applied to examine the association between mean temperature and mean sunlight hours with mean alcohol consumption. Results: We found a non-linear inverse association between mean monthly temperature and mean alcohol consumption, suggesting that warmer temperature was associated with increased alcohol consumption and colder temperature with a decreased consumption. We found no association between mean sunlight hours and alcohol consumption. Consumption was highest during public holidays. Conclusions: We found no association between a colder climate and increased alcohol consumption. Socio-economic factors are likely to explain the suggested association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors address the transformation of research data into open data. The article draws on the experience in four countries: Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Lithuania. The transformation process presents several challenges where legal, organizational and individual aspects influence the process. Research data often contain personal data. Research data could also be covered with intellectual property (IP) rights. This means that personal data and IP regulations should be integrated into the dissemination model. While there is a potential conflict between the policies for open data that aim to make data freely available and those of an entrepreneurial university that emphasize commercialization of research results, these policies need to be made compatible. Researchers producing data are vital for reconciling the two, but they currently lack the motivation to contribute towards the implementation of the open data policy due to missing career incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Big Data and Internet of Things will increase the amount of data on asset management exceedingly. Data sharing with an increased number of partners in the area of asset management is important when developing business opportunities and new ecosystems. An asset management ecosystem is a complex set of relationships between parties taking part in asset management actions. In this paper, the current barriers and benefits of data sharing are identified based on the results of an interview study. The main benefits are transparency, access to data and reuse of data. New services can be created by taking advantage of data sharing. The main barriers to sharing data are an unclear view of the data sharing process and difficulties to recognize the benefits of data sharing. For overcoming the barriers in data sharing, this paper applies the ecosystem perspective on asset management information. The approach is explained by using the Swedish railway industry as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The aim of the article is to investigate what characterizes the information constructs that the archival discourse and the open data discourse communicate in text, and what their similarities and differences are. This article proposes that it is possible to see the open data initiative and modern archival practice as two discourses that have used different terminology to express and communicate their messages in the literature. In this article, we have applied a hypothesis-like assumption that the information constructs used in open data are actually nothing other than records, as they are in the archival discourse. Design/methodology/approach – This article is based on a mixed method approach. A quantitative text analysis (word count) was carried out in a large set of documents representing the open data discourse and in the archival discourse. This was followed by a qualitative text analysis. Findings – It was found that both discourses did focus on records. However, the opendata discourse very seldom used the term record, but used information and data much more frequently. The archival discourse used the term information almost as often as record. A possible adaption of communication strategies can be identified, targeting a much wider audience through a user-centered approach. This could be an indication of a change in the archival discourse, which seems to be moving from a discourse that is very much regulated by law toward a discourse that is more focused on benefit and usability. Originality/value – This research indicates that it is possible to interpret both the open data and the archival discourse as one united discourse, an effect derived from working with e-government. There is an ongoing harmonization of the words used, and in the studied archival discourse, a more user- and business-oriented focus can be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]