Opin vísindi
Opin vísindi er varðveislusafn vísindaefnis og doktorsritgerða í opnum aðgangi á vegum íslenskra háskóla og Landsbókasafns Íslands - Háskólabókasafns.
Opinn aðgangur að rannsóknaniðurstöðum er í samræmi við 10. gr. laga nr. 3/2003 um opinberan stuðning við vísindarannsóknir sem og kröfur innlendra og erlendra rannsóknasjóða. Markmiðið með opnum aðgangi er að niðurstöður rannsókna séu aðgengilegar sem flestum óhindrað og án endurgjalds á rafrænu formi. Vistun í varðveislusafninu er varanleg og ætlað að tryggja aðgang að vísindaefni íslenskra háskóla í opnum aðgangi um ókomna tíð. Varðveislusafnið Opin vísindi er tengt við rannsóknagáttina IRIS og rannsóknaniðurstöður í opnum aðgangi sem eru skráðar í IRIS eru um leið vistaðar og gerðar aðgengilegar til framtíðar í varðveislusafninu. Með því að safna þessu efni saman í eitt safn verður aðgangur að því einfaldur og þægilegur fyrir alla sem vilja kynna sér það og geta þannig notið þess öfluga vísindastarfs sem fram fer í háskólum landsins.
Varðveislusafnið er OpenAIRE / OpenAIREplus samhæft og samrýmist kröfum sem gerðar eru um birtingu rannsóknaniðurstaðna úr verkefnum sem styrkt eru úr evrópsku rannsóknaáætlununum FP7 og H2020.
Varðveislusafnið notar opna hugbúnaðinn DSpace.
Opinn aðgangur að rannsóknaniðurstöðum er í samræmi við 10. gr. laga nr. 3/2003 um opinberan stuðning við vísindarannsóknir sem og kröfur innlendra og erlendra rannsóknasjóða. Markmiðið með opnum aðgangi er að niðurstöður rannsókna séu aðgengilegar sem flestum óhindrað og án endurgjalds á rafrænu formi. Vistun í varðveislusafninu er varanleg og ætlað að tryggja aðgang að vísindaefni íslenskra háskóla í opnum aðgangi um ókomna tíð. Varðveislusafnið Opin vísindi er tengt við rannsóknagáttina IRIS og rannsóknaniðurstöður í opnum aðgangi sem eru skráðar í IRIS eru um leið vistaðar og gerðar aðgengilegar til framtíðar í varðveislusafninu. Með því að safna þessu efni saman í eitt safn verður aðgangur að því einfaldur og þægilegur fyrir alla sem vilja kynna sér það og geta þannig notið þess öfluga vísindastarfs sem fram fer í háskólum landsins.
Varðveislusafnið er OpenAIRE / OpenAIREplus samhæft og samrýmist kröfum sem gerðar eru um birtingu rannsóknaniðurstaðna úr verkefnum sem styrkt eru úr evrópsku rannsóknaáætlununum FP7 og H2020.
Varðveislusafnið notar opna hugbúnaðinn DSpace.
Nýlega bætt við
Cultural Sociology of Sport Success: The Case of Olympic Wrestling in Iran
(University of Iceland, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Sociology, Anthropology and Folkloristics, 2026-11-12) Shamshirian, Saeed; Vidar Halldorsson; Faculty of Sociology, Anthropology and Folkloristics (UI); Félagsfræði-, mannfræði- og þjóðfræðideild (HÍ); School of Social Sciences (UI); Félagsvísindasvið (HÍ)
How some athletes and teams achieve exceptional success remains one of the most enduring questions in the study of sport. For decades, this question was framed in terms of nature and nurture, and more recently through structural models of national sport systems. These approaches cast culture as a backdrop to elite sporting performance rather than a force that shapes it. This thesis brings culture into the foreground. It argues that sporting success is a meaning-making process and a collective cultural accomplishment that cannot be reduced to the sum of individual talent, training, and resources. Grounded in cultural sociology and Jeffrey Alexander’s strong program, the study treats culture as a relatively autonomous domain of symbols, rituals, narratives, and moral codes. It develops this argument through an in-depth case study of Olympic wrestling in Iran. The thesis comprises three analytically integrated papers that move from the individual to the cultural level, combining survey, ethnographic, and mixed-methods designs.
Assessing Neurophysiological States Through the BioVRsea Paradigm
(2026-10-14) Pescaglia, Federica; Gargiulo, Paolo; Department of Engineering
Introduction: Postural control is a complex sensorimotor function that de- pends on the integration of visual, vestibular, somatosensory, muscular, and cortical mechanisms. Impairments in this system are particularly relevant in Parkinson’s disease, where postural instability may emerge even in the early stages and contribute to reduced mobility, impaired adaptation, and increased fall risk. This doctoral thesis investigates postural control through the BioVRSea paradigm, an immersive virtual-reality and moving-platform protocol designed to elicit controlled sensory conflict while simultaneously recording neurophysiological and biomechanical responses. Results: The BioVRSea paradigm revealed distinct postural-control profiles across populations and experimental phases. In Parkinson’s disease, CoP results indicated a more constrained sway pattern, particularly after perturbation, suggesting reduced postural flexibility rather than improved stability. EMG findings showed muscle-specific alterations, with the gastrocnemius lateralis, tibialis anterior, and soleus contributing differently to postural regulation. EEG analyses revealed frequency-specific reorganization of brain dynamics, with alterations in alpha-band connectivity and distinct delta, theta, and beta Brain Network State patterns. These changes suggest that Parkinson’s disease affects both peripheral neuromuscular strategies and large-scale cortical network organization during postural control. In seafarers, BioVRSea further highlighted habituation and adaptation mechanisms related to repeated exposure to unstable environments. Conclusion: This thesis demonstrates that BioVRSea is a sensitive multimodal framework for investigating postural control under controlled sensory-conflict conditions. By integrating EEG, EMG, and CoP, the paradigm captures complementary aspects of balance regulation, from cortical network dynamics to muscular activation and sway behavior. The findings support the potential of BioVRSea as an advanced assessment tool for detecting altered postural strategies in Parkinson’s disease and for studying adaptive mechanisms in healthy and occupationally exposed populations.
Characterization of insomnia at home using digital tools and machine learning methods from the combination of objective and subjective criteria
(2026) Stefanos, Marie-Ange; Islind, Anna Sigríður; Geoffroy, Pierre A.; de Laboulaye, Guillaume; Department of Computer Science
Insomnia is one of the most common sleep disorders, degrading quality of life and raising the risk of accidents and of cardiovascular and metabolic disease. Its assessment is split between objective measures such as sleep latency, wake after sleep onset, and total sleep time, obtained from polysomnography (PSG) or actigraphy, and the subjective complaint captured by questionnaires such as the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). The two correlate poorly: many who report disturbed sleep meet no objective criteria, and some who sleep normally by self-report do. Insomnia is diagnosed from the subjective complaint, actigraphy tracking sleep-wake rhythms, with PSG reserved for detecting sleep abnormalities and comorbidities; this reference examination is costly, depends on scarce expert scorers, and covers one or two laboratory nights, so it reflects neither the home environment nor the night-to-night variability that characterizes the disorder. Connected sleep-tracking devices used at home offer a complementary route. The under-mattress Sleep Analyzer and the wrist-worn ScanWatch record activity and cardiorespiratory markers continuously over long periods and, when paired with questionnaires, support an assessment that integrates objective and subjective criteria. This thesis investigates how such tools, combined with machine learning, can characterize insomnia in ecological conditions and search for homogeneous subgroups of the disorder. The work comprises four contributions, each an independent publication. The first is a systematic review of digital tools for insomnia detection and characterization, which maps the signals, datasets, models, and validation practices in the literature and identifies recurrent weaknesses, including small datasets, poorly documented reference labels, and subject-level data leakage that inflates reported performance. The second evaluates the Sleep Analyzer sleep-stage algorithm against PSG in an at-home study. The third designs and runs the SLEEPI protocol, an ecological longitudinal study pairing objective device recordings with repeated questionnaires, among them the ISI, PHQ-9, and GAD-7, with labels from DSM-5 criteria. The fourth is a prospective analysis of the longitudinal device data that searches for insomnia subgroups in the objective sleep and activity features. Under unsupervised clustering these features form a single continuum rather than discrete subtypes, and the objective signal that tracks self-reported severity is weak, so the analysis reframes the objective phenotype as graded and points to within-person night-to-night variability as a dimension that longitudinal home monitoring can measure and that warrants dedicated future investigation. The thesis thus argues that longitudinal, at-home, multimodal monitoring is a practical path toward a more individualized characterization of insomnia than current assessment methods allow.
Policy and Financial Implications of Net Energy Metering in Arctic Power Systems : A Case Study of Alaska’s Railbelt
(2026-02-02) Peterson, Maren; De Witt, Magnus; Carlson, Ewa Lazarczyk; Stefánsson, Hlynur; Department of Engineering; Department of Business and Economics
The transition toward sustainable energy in Arctic and subarctic regions requires innovative approaches that account for both the unique geographical conditions and the economic and policy challenges associated with isolated power systems. This study examines how net energy metering (NEM) and net billing schemes influence distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption and financial performance among utilities in Alaska’s Railbelt. The Railbelt, which supplies power to three-quarters of the state’s population, remains heavily reliant on natural gas and exhibits limited renewable penetration compared to other arctic regions. Using a stochastic risk-based modeling framework with Monte Carlo simulations and the Bass diffusion model, the analysis estimates the 15-year financial impacts of different NEM adoption scenarios on utilities. Results show that while NEM drives PV adoption through higher compensation for exported generation, it also increases potential revenue losses for utilities compared to net billing. Policy innovations like those introduced in Alaska’s House Bill 164 (HB 164), which establishes a reimbursement fund to mitigate utility revenue losses, indicate that regulatory work is being designed to balance distributed generation incentives with economic sustainability. This work provides a baseline for understanding how a policy framework influences both utility and consumer economics in terms of NEM and solar PV adoption in Arctic and subarctic systems.
Knowledge creation in small construction firms
(2013-09-03) Durst, Susanne; Edvardsson, Ingi Runar; Bruns, Guido; Department of Business and Economics
Studies on knowledge creation are limited in general, and there is a particular shortage of research on the topic in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Given the importance of SMEs for the economy and the vital role of knowledge creation in innovation, this situation is unsatisfactory. Accordingly, the purpose of our study is to increase our understanding of how SMEs create new knowledge. Data are obtained through semi-structured interviews with ten managing directors of German SMEs operating in the construction industry. The findings demonstrate the influence of external knowledge sources on knowledge creation activities. Even though the managing directors take advantage of different external knowledge sources, they seem to put an emphasis on informed knowledge sources. The study´s findings advance the limited body of knowledge regarding knowledge creation in SMEs.
Flokkar í Opnum vísindum
Veldu flokk til að skoða.
- University of Iceland
- University of Akureyri
- Bifröst University
- Hólar University College
- IRIS
- Agricultural University of Iceland
- National and University Library of Iceland
- Iceland University of the Arts