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This study aims to examine the political, economic, social and cultural characteristics of TED as alternative media. TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is a non-profit global conference media organizer that curates formatted brief speech called TED Talk and presents it in its offline conferences as well as publishes in online platform. TED has a global network that has spread rapidly through TEDx, a replication of TED-like conference by local communities worldwide. This social phenomenon makes TED as the contemporary illustration of the latest development of alternative media. Earlier literature studies on alternative media from Atton (2002) and Downing et al. (2001) focus on alternative media’s role as civil society that radically opposes the dominant power of the state, market and mainstream media. This civic role is important in providing alternative voices in democracy. Castells (2008) argues that the advancement of communication technology in globalization process has extended alternative media’s civic engagement to global level and empowered the community to higher access and participation in alternative media. Bailey et al. (2008) surmise these developments into four approaches that see alternative media: first, in serving the community; second, as an alternative to mainstream media; third, as part of civil society; and fourth, as a rhizome-like hybrid media. This study utilizes these literature references along with the four frameworks above to present holistic view in understanding TED as alternative media. By studying TED, I seek to expand these theoretical discussions by looking at how alternative media build sustainable civil society movement through dynamically incorporating dominant values in achieving its alternative media goals. This hybrid approach also affects alternative media’s ways in serving the community, promoting democracy and prompting social changes. The methodology of this study is ethnography. Since TED has two social settings of offline conference and online media platform, the ethnographic approach of this study is conducted in both setting. I gathered field data through participation and observation on TEDx Jakarta event and interview with the founders as well as online observation on TED.com, TED Talk videos, TED’s forums and third party documents on TED. I analyzed the data with the help of coding tools and discussed the findings within the framework of literature references. The key findings of this study show that TED’s political, economic, social and cultural characteristics are contingent, rhizome-like and transhegemonic. These characteristics project TED as alternative media that adopts dominant practices such as commercialism and controlled editorial system and maintaining elitism to reach paradoxically its civic goals of democratizing knowledge sharing and making social changes. TED also builds flexible partnership with the market and mainstream media and is not entirely counter-hegemonic. Although TED maintains a centralized authority in policy making, its relationship with its communities is based on rhizome-like network which strives towards semi-hierarchical access and participation, multiple replications by community and heterogeneity of its community across geographical and cultural borders. However this hybrid strategy of alternative media brings up threats of over-commercialization, elitism within the community, and ideological bias.

This study investigates the term authenticity and how it is used when applied to restaurants. In this thesis I explore the process of determining a restaurant’s authenticity and the numerous factors involved in defining whether or not a restaurant may be deemed authentic. Along with considering whether a restaurant can develop their authenticity using none-taste related elements, as well as what are the customer’s expectations for an authentic restaurant. The study observes the various interior modes (audible, visual and textual) of a selected restaurant from a major metropolitan area in the United States, as well as interviews with members of the restaurant’s staff. In order to offer the perspective of the customer and their understanding of authenticity reviews from the restaurant’s page on a popular travel website were collected and are discussed. Using a theoretical framework rooted in the concepts of multiculturalism, orientalism and place I explore the relationship of “us and them”, a common narrative in gastronomic discourse, and then discuss the concepts of ethnic food and authenticity. The selected restaurant weaves together different modes, identified in three separate modal categories, to create the overall visual look and feel of their restaurant. Often these modes result in the restaurant self-orientalizing or displaying general otherness in order to create a transportative experience for their diners. This study identifies that authenticity as a concept is multifaceted and its meaning is determined by both who is using the term and for what purpose they are identifying a restaurant as authentic.

Every childbirth is a unique experience for a mother and the whole family. While there is growing evidence that childbirth has long-term implications for a mother’s life, and that a personal childbirth experience is in a major role in determining those implications, personal birth experiences have not yet come to the centre of labour care in Finland. In this qualitative study I investigated the constitutive elements of personal childbirth experiences. The material consisted of 29 birth stories written by 20 mothers, collected as a part of a larger research project Battles over Birth – Finnish Birth Culture in Transition (2020-2023), funded by the Kone Foundation. I divided the stories into positive and negative experiences based on how mothers described the events and their implications. I analysed the role of pain management in all experiences, after which other elements were identified from each story and compared within category and finally between categories. In addition, I analysed the long-term implications of positive and negative experiences for mothers. Systematic content analysis suggested three elements as crucial in determining whether the experience was valued as positive or negative, and these were: 1) pain and pain management, 2) interaction with professionals, and 3) sense of control and self-determination. The birth experience had implications on the mother-infant bond, mental health, trust toward health care professionals, number of subsequent children, general well-being, and confidence in motherhood. The birth experience thus constitutes of several aspects and can have significant long-term implications. By considering mothers’ wishes and treating them respectfully, not only is their constitutional right for self-determination respected, but a safe and comfortable environment can be created for labour. The findings of this study can contribute to developing maternity and childbirth care toward patient-centred care, where personal birth experiences have more value and positive birth experiences can be ensured.

The goal of the thesis is to prove the Dold-Kan Correspondence, which is a theorem stating that the category of simplicial abelian groups sAb and the category of positively graded chain complexes Ch+ are equivalent. The thesis also goes through these concepts mentioned in the theorem, starting with categories and functors in the first section. In this section, the aim is to give enough information about category theory, so that the equivalence of categories can be understood. The second section uses these category theoretical concepts to define the simplex category, where the objects are ordered sets n = { 0 -> 1 -> ... -> n }, where n is a natural number, and the morphisms are order preserving maps between these sets. The idea is to define simplicial objects, which are contravariant functors from the simplex category to some other category. Here is also given the definition of coface and codegeneracy maps, which are special kind of morphisms in the simplex category. With these, the cosimplicial (and later simplicial) identities are defined. These identities are central in the calculations done later in the thesis. In fact, one can think of them as the basic tools for working with simplicial objects. In the third section, the thesis introduces chain complexes and chain maps, which together form the category of chain complexes. This lays the foundation for the fourth section, where the goal is to form three different chain complexes out of any given simplicial abelian group A. These chain complexes are the Moore complex A*, the chain complex generated by degeneracies DA* and the normalized chain complex NA*. The latter two of these are both subcomplexes of the Moore complex. In fact, it is later on shown that there exists an isomorphism An = NAn +DAn between the abelian groups forming these chain complexes. This connection between these chain complexes is an important one, and it is proved and used later on in the seventh section. At this point in the thesis, all the knowledge for understanding the Dold-Kan Correspondence has been presented. Thus begins the forming of the functors needed for the equivalence, which the theorem claims to exist. The functor from sAb to Ch+ maps a simplicial abelian group A to its normalized chain complex NA*, the definition of which was given earlier. This direction does not require that much additional work, since most of it was done in the sections dealing with chain complexes. However, defining the functor in the opposite direction does require some more thought. The idea is to map a chain complex K* to a simplicial abelian group, which is formed using direct sums and factorization. Forming it also requires the definition of another functor from a subcategory of the simplex category, where the objects are those of the simplex category but the morphisms are only the injections, to the category of abelian groups Ab. After these functors have been defined, the rest of the thesis is about showing that they truly do form an equivalence between the categories sAb and Ch+.

The increasing awareness of consumers on sustainability issues associated to meat consumption has led to the increased demand for plant-based meat alternatives. There has been little information on the effects of dietary fibres (DF) in the formulation of meat analogues, but they could be potential raw materials due to their high nutritional value and diverse functional properties. Therefore, the aims of the study were to understand the role of processing parameters on protein-DF interaction and structure formation during high moisture extrusion (HME). Depending on the type of DF, protein, and extrusion conditions, influences on the structure can be either advantageous or cause limitations. HME was used to produce meat analogues from pea protein isolate (PI) and concentrate (PC), and 18 different protein-bran formulations were prepared with inclusion of oat bran (OB), wheat bran (WB) or a combination of both in concentrations of 5, 10, and 15%. The proximate composition of raw materials and extrudates was determined. In order to understand the effect of DFs on the meat analogues, the produced extrudates were evaluated in terms of colour, textural properties, microstructure, and protein-protein interactions. OB and WB had an influence on the formulations by decreasing the protein content while increasing the DF and starch content which could be related to changes occurring during processing. Increased tensile strength and cutting strength were observed in one direction resembling meat fibres. However, meat analogues with brans exhibited weaker structures by increasing softness. The findings on protein solubility indicated both non-covalent and disulphide bonds having a role in the structural stabilisation and fibrillation of meat analogues. However, the inclusion of brans did not have a significant effect on protein-protein interactions. In conclusion, brans have potential as raw materials in meat analogues for texture improvement. Further studies on consumer acceptance and improving process optimisation are suggested.

Bioeconomy is a concept that aims to provide sustainable solutions for economic growth by utilizing renewable natural resources. In Finland, the forest-based bioeconomy forms the base for bioeconomy. The Finnish Bioeconomy Strategy by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy has set ambitious targets regarding employment, output and innovative products and services. However, to date these solutions still remain by large in the theoretical level and the overall sustainability of bioeconomy is questioned by stakeholders. Urbanization is a world-wide phenomenon and also in Finland the biggest cities are expected to grow whilst the country-side becomes less inhabited. Thus, the importance of urban citizens becomes increasingly important in the implementation of forest-based bioeconomy, as they are the future consumers of biobased products and practices. Thereby understanding urban citizens’ perceptions, level of knowledge and opinions regarding the emerging bioeconomy practices is of fundamental importance. This thesis aims to provide insights into the topic with the research questions “what are the worldviews through which urban citizens understand the forest-based bioeconomy?” Furthermore, this thesis aims to provide insights into the question, “how do these worldviews affect the urban citizens’ perceptions of the forest-based bioeconomy?” These worldviews are screened through the Integrative Worldview Framework (IWF) to explain and understand the underlying latent elements of perceptions and acceptance. Additionally, this thesis contributes to a European-wide research network aiming to understand the regional disparities of forest-based bioeconomy perceptions and policies. To answer these questions, a quantitative survey was conducted in Helsinki city center in December 2018 and January 2019. The survey included 34 claims regarding wooden multistory buildings, forest carbon storage and forest-based bioeconomy. With a randomized approach, 206 responses were gathered in total. The statistical methods include descriptive statistics, crosstabulations and exploratory factor analysis and were done using the SPSS 25 Programme. The results proved to be positive and encouraging for the Finnish forest-based bioeconomy. Four worldview factors were detected: Utilitarian, Biocentric, Anti-bioeconomy, and Anthropocentric. Nearly 59% of the respondents perceived to be familiar with the meaning of forest-based bioeconomy and even more with both wooden multistory buildings (WMC) and forest carbon storage. Additionally, forest-based bioeconomy was associated with positive attributes such as generating new jobs and wellbeing.

This thesis investigates the roots of Koryo-mar, an endangered language currently spoken by Korean diaspora communities (also called Koryo-saram, lit. ‘Koryo-people’) in post-Soviet countries, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, to which they had been deported in 1937 from the Russian Far East (RFE). By the end of the 19th century, the language of the first Korean immigrants to the RFE, for the most part peasants from the Northeastern province of Hamgyŏng, had already caught the interest of a few scholars, among which can be distinguished Mikhail P. Pucillo, the author of the first Russian-Korean dictionary. Such volume, the Opyt Russko-Korejskogo Slovarja (1874) was based on the speech of the Koreans he was in contact with, and represents one of the earliest sources for the study of Koryo-mar. On the other hand, the actual research on the Koryo-saram begun in earnest only in the second half of the 20th century, and the work of Songmoo Kho, Koreans in Soviet Central Asia (1987), is often considered one of the most complete surveys on the history and the culture of Central Asian Koreans. It also contains a chapter devoted to Koryo-mar, that includes several wordlists of both native items and loanwords from Russian and other local languages. By comparing the data extracted from the above-mentioned texts, on a lexical and orthographic level, and highlighting their similarities and variations, this research aims at illustrating the genetic ties between the dialects of Northern Hamgyŏng and Koryo-mar, as well as the relationship between the spoken and the written language. Additional information has also been drawn from secondary sources in Early Modern Korean, such as Hŏ Kyung’s Hong Kiltong Chŏn (16th-17th century), Chang Kyehyang’s Ŭmsik Timibang (1670s), and J. S. Gale’s translation of J. Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress (1895). The research concludes that the forty elements common to Pucillo (1874) and Kho (1987) can be framed into five different relationship scenarios, which describe not only the continuation of lexical and orthographic material between the two texts and their languages, but also assess the latter’s connection to Standard Korean and its historical variants. Moreover, the examination of Pucillo’s usage of Cyrillic in transcribing Korean provides relevant details concerning the articulatory habits of Northeastern Koreans in the late 1800s, which are contextualised within and in contrast to the writing practices of Early Modern Korean, that are known to be extremely inconsistent. This study, based on a philological approach, can aid in outlining a literary tradition that encompasses the historical development of Koryo-mar, which is still an unrecognised minority language, while the analysis of orthographic peculiarities can shed light on the chronology of the spread of certain phonological changes across the whole Korean peninsula.

MELAS syndrome is a multi-organ disorder with a wide range of clinical manifestations, including hearing loss, cardiomyopathy, retinopathy, and stroke-like events. It can also be associated with type 2 diabetes. Eighty per cent of MELAS Syndrome cases have a 3243A>G mutation in the MTTL1 gene, which codes for tRNA (Leu-UUR). Although the exact cause of MELAS syndrome remains unknown, microvascular angiopathy and endothelial dysfunction, which result in reduced microvascular perfusion, are assumed to have a role in the reported phenotype. Yet, it is unclear how important this depicted angiopathy is in general and how it relates to the disease-specific stroke-like episodes in particular. In this thesis, I employed MELAS-patient-derived human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived endothelial cells (EC) under flow as a disease model to investigate the possibility of an altered endothelial cell phenotype or function that could account for the disease phenotype. I used hiPSCs from healthy controls and patient-derived iPS-cell lines from MELAS patients with the 3243A>G mutation with different levels of heteroplasmy in all the experiments. Transcriptional patterns reflecting the flow response were observed, demonstrating that the MELAS hiPSC-EC cells respond to a flow stimulus. In the high-heteroplasmy cell lines, there was a significant downregulation of genes related to one carbon folate metabolism and serine biosynthesis, especially in response to flow, and these changes were also indicated in basal conditions. This is interesting as the same metabolic pathways have been shown dysregulated in other mitochondrial diseases. This study showed no appreciable difference in the mitochondrial oxygen respiration rate between MELAS-patient and control hiPSC-EC. These findings could link the disease phenotype to this web of pathways and explain the mechanism underlying the pathophysiology of MELAS syndrome.

Fungi play an important role, especially in boreal coniferous forests and peatlands. For example, they are responsible for the circulation of nutrients, and are an important part of forest vegetation, such as tree function and nutrient uptake. Drainage of peatlands for silvicultural purposes has increased over the years and forest management has been found to change the structure of fungal communities. In addition to clear-cutting (CC) as one of the forest management methods, the method of continuous cover forestry (CCF) has been proposed as one of the possible forest management methods, but its effects on the soil fungal community have not been extensively studied. The aims of this master's thesis were to study how the active soil fungal community and its structure vary between the different forest management methods (CC, CCF and uncut control forest) of the peatland forest in Janakkala and between the seasons (spring, summer and autumn). The active community was studied by taking RNA samples from the area in May, July, and September 2021. In addition, the goal was to examine how potential environmental factors such as soil temperature and groundwater variations affect the active fungal community. Overall, diversity was higher in the autumn in all samples. The most stable area was the control forest, where active community members varied between seasons, but where biodiversity was similar between samples in both spring and autumn. The results of the CCF site followed in many ways the uncut forest, but in the autumn, there were large differences in the biodiversity and community structure of the samples in the forest of the CCF site. The biodiversity of the CC area was high. This may be explained by the deforestation of young trees already formed at the time of sampling, which contributes to the return of for instance, mycorrhizal fungi to the area. It should also be noted that the full number of parallel samples from the CC site in the spring and the autumn were not successful. In addition, the summer samples failed completely and no results could be obtained from them. The failure of the samples may be explained by the long hot and dry period in the area in the summer of 2021.

Tutkimukseni tarkoituksena on kuvata, eritellä ja verrata, miten ruotsin ja norjan sanajärjestystä opetetaan alkeisoppikirjoissa. Perimmäinen tarkoitukseni on selvittää, mikä on tunnusomaista ruotsin sanajärjestyksen opetukselle Suomessa ja miten oppikirjoja voisi jatkossa kehittää. Aineistona olen käyttänyt kuuden eri kirjasarjan teksti- ja työkirjoja. Näistä kaksi kirjasarjaa on Suomessa käytössä olevia yläasteen B-ruotsin oppikirjoja ja loput Ruotsissa ja Norjassa käytössä olevia toisen kielen oppikirjoja. Tutkielmassa selvitän, mitä sanajärjestysrakenteita oppikirjat nostavat esille ja missä järjestyksessä ne esitellään. Näitä tuloksia vertaan kirjallisuudessa esiintyviin kuvauksiin oppijakielen kehityksestä. Lisäksi kuvaan ja vertailen sanajärjestyksen esittämistapoja ja harjoituksia kielididaktisesta näkökulmasta. Lopuksi tarkastelen oppikirjojen teksteissä esiintyviä sivulauseita sen perusteella, miten ne heijastavat oppikirjojen opetusjärjestystä ja toisaalta tutkimuksissa havaittuja oppijakielen piirteitä. Tulokset osoittavat, että molemmat tutkitut suomalaiset ruotsin oppikirjat käsittelevät lähes täysin samat sanajärjestyssäännöt peruskoulun kirjojen aikana ja lähes samassa järjestyksessä. Toisaalta ne eroavat skandinaavisista toisen kielen oppikirjoista useassa suhteessa. Suurin ero on, että skandinaavisissa oppikirjoissa painotetaan monien sellaisten rakenteiden funktioita, joita suomenkielisissä oppikirjoissa tarkastellaan yksinomaan sanajärjestyksen näkökulmasta. Lisäksi analyysi osoittaa, että suomalaisissa oppikirjateksteissä esiintyy vain vähän sivulauseita ja että ani harvassa näistä sanajärjestys eroaa näkyvästi päälauseen sanajärjestyksestä. Silti toinen oppikirjasarjoista näyttää välttelevän sivulauseiden käyttöä pitkään. Johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että suomalaisia ruotsin alkeisoppikirjoja voisi tulevaisuudessa kehittää funktionaalisempaan suuntaan. Sanajärjestyssääntöjen sijaan oppikirjat voisivat käsitellä lauseenalkuisia määreitä tekstin sidoskeinoina ja sivulauseita niiden käyttötarkoituksen kannalta. Näin myös toisen kielen tutkimuksen tulokset oppimisjärjestyksistä tulisivat paremmin huomioiduiksi. Jatkotutkimuksissa olisi hyvä tutkia empiirisesti, mitä sanajärjestyksen opetustapoja oppilaat ja opettajat pitävät mielekkäimpinä. Lisäksi olisi hyödyllistä tutkia myös useiden eri kielioppirakenteiden frekvenssejä oppikirjateksteissä.