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(2020)Continuous thermal imaging is a way to measure psycho-physiological signals in humans. Psycho-physiological signals refer to physical signals caused by some psychological or mental situation or change. One of the technical challenges with the thermal psycho-physiological signal measurement is that the devices used to measure the temperature changes need to be sensitive and accurate enough to actually detect them. This is generally true for laboratory equipment, but the current relatively cheap and small mobile devices, including uncooled thermal cameras, could be used to make this kind of measurements cheaper, less intrusive and mobile. Currently the customer-priced mobile devices still tend to produce a lot of noise and other inaccuracies to measurements. The focus of this thesis is to evaluate the usefulness of the FLIR One thermal camera integrated in the Caterpillar Cat S60 phone for cognitive load measurement and the possibility to improve the measurement accuracy with additional calibration correction. We developed a deep learning based calibration correction method as an attempt to improve the quite noisy initial measurements of the thermal camera. Then an experiment measuring cognitive load was organised. The calibration correction method was used to reduce errors in the data from the cognitive load experiment to see if the performance of the thermal camera can be improved enough for accurate cognitive load detection. Our results show that while our calibration correction method does improve the measurement accuracy when compared to the ground truth, the fluctuations in the measurements do not decrease enough to improve the performance of the thermal camera with regards to the cognitive load sensing.
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Cognitive performance in adulthood : the roles of stress-related exhaustion and depressive symptoms (2021)Objective: Both stress-related exhaustion and depression have previously been associated with a decline in cognitive performance, but there is a lack of evidence on whether these conditions have different associations with different cognitive domains and whether they have additive effects on cognitive performance. Furthermore, very little is known about the cognitive effects of chronic stress-related exhaustion. Consequently, the aims of this study were to 1) examine the associations between current stress-related exhaustion and cognitive performance, 2) investigate whether different developmental trajectories of stress-related exhaustion are differently associated with cognitive performance, 3) compare the association between stress-related exhaustion and cognitive performance to the relationship between depressive symptoms and cognitive performance, 4) examine if individuals with comorbid stress-related exhaustion and depression have lower cognitive performance than individuals with at most one of these conditions (i.e., whether clinical stress-related exhaustion and clinical depression might have additive effects on cognitive performance). Methods: The data used in the study was a Finnish population-based sample of six cohorts born between 1962 and 1977 from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study. Stress-related exhaustion was assessed using the Maastricht Questionnaire, depressive symptoms with the Beck Depression Inventory, and cognitive performance with four subtests of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, measuring visuospatial associative learning, reaction time, sustained attention, and executive functions. Cognitive performance and depressive symptoms were assessed in 2012, and stress-related exhaustion in 2001, 2007, and 2012. Participants were 35 to 50 years old in 2012. Linear associations between stress-related exhaustion and cognitive performance (N = 905) and depressive symptoms and cognitive performance (N = 904) were examined by conducting multivariate regression analyses. Age, sex, socioeconomic status, and parents’ socioeconomic status were controlled in the regression models. Additionally, multivariate analyses of variance were performed to investigate the different developmental trajectories of stress-related exhaustion and their relation to cognitive performance (N = 541) and the associations of comorbid stress-related exhaustion and depression with cognitive performance (N = 1273). Results and conclusion: The main finding was that high stress-related exhaustion is associated with slower reaction times, but not with performance in spatial working memory, visuospatial associative learning, or executive functions. Ongoing, chronic stress-related exhaustion was more strongly associated with slower reaction times than short-term exhaustion experienced years ago. Compared to depressive symptoms, high stress-related exhaustion was associated with slower reaction times also when subclinical cases were included, whereas only clinical levels of depressive symptoms had an association with slower reaction times. There were no differences in cognitive performance between individuals with only stress-related exhaustion or depression and those with comorbid stress-related exhaustion and depression, which supports the notion that these conditions do not have additive effects on cognitive performance. These findings add to the existing evidence of the cognitive effects of stress-related exhaustion in the general population and have several practical implications. Further research is needed on the topic, preferably with longitudinal designs, more comprehensive cognitive measures, and clinical assessment of the psychiatric symptoms.
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(2020)Despite a stated commitment to the principle of policy coherence for development (PCD), which means taking development policy objectives into account in all policies likely to impact developing countries, the European Union (EU) has shown limited success in prioritising poverty reduction over other policy sectors’ objectives. Especially since the migration crisis in 2015-16, development cooperation appears to be increasingly used for migration management. This thesis examines how migration and development are linked in EU external policy, how the concept of PCD has been considered, and what coherence means, in the context of EU external policies on migration and development. The thesis analyses the concept of policy coherence and the interconnections between migration and development in the European Agenda on Migration (2015), the Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy (2016), and the New European Consensus on Development (2017) and their implementation reports and further communications about migration policy issued by the European Commission between the beginning of the refugee crisis in 2015 and the end of the Juncker administration in late 2019. The document data is triangulated with semi-structured expert interviews, and the data is analysed using qualitative content analysis. Based on the analysis, EU policy considers migration and development linked mainly through the root causes of migration being development problems, although there is also a recognition that migration can contribute to development. Adding to the literature on the securitisation of migration and development, the study finds that migration management is considered a priority for which development cooperation can be used as leverage. This conflicts with the principle of PCD, which the study finds to be largely absent from the policy documents, indicating it is not a priority for EU external policy. The conflict between the EU’s stated normative principles and the instrumentalisation of aid can be considered normative incoherence and organized hypocrisy, which can undermine the EU’s credibility as a global actor and supposedly normative power. Although PCD is not found to be prominent anymore, ‘coherence’ is used across the documents as something to be enhanced. Based on the analysis, ‘coherence’ ascribes effectiveness, unity and credibility to the EU’s holistic, integrated approach coordinating policies, instruments and actors in pursuit of the EU’s overall interests, although these are adapted to each country context. The study suggests coherence may be understood as emblematic of a holistic approach used to legitimise the instrumentalisation of development cooperation for the EU’s overall external policy objectives.
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Cohesin-dockerin interaction based method to facilitate fast domain shuffling of cellobiohydrolases (2018)Microbial cellulases, e.g. cellobiohydrolases, are able to degrade cellulose and lignocellulosic biomass to smaller glucose-containing monomers and oligomers. Cellulases are often multi-domain enzymes comprised of different protein domains (i.e. modules), which have different functions. The main two components, which often appear in cellulases, are the cellulose-binding module (CBM) and the catalytic domain. The CBMs bind to cellulose, bringing the catalytic domains close to their substrate and increasing the amount of enzymes on the substrate surface. The catalytic domain performs the cleavage of the substrate, e.g. in the case of cellobiohydrolases hydrolyses or “cuts” the crystalline cellulose chain into smaller soluble saccharides, mainly cellobiose. Unlike aerobic fungi, which utilize free extracellular enzymes to break down cellulose, anaerobic microbes often use a different kind of strategy. Their cellulases are organized and bound to the cell surface in a macromolecular protein complex, the cellulosome. The core of the cellulosome is formed of a scaffolding protein (the scaffoldin) consisting mainly of multiple consecutive cohesin domains, into which the catalytic subunits of enzymes attach via a dockerin domain. This creates a protein complex with multiple different catalytic domains and activities arranged in close proximity to each other. Dockerins and cohesins are known to bind each other with one of the strongest receptor-ligand -pair forces known to nature. Dockerin containing fusion proteins have also been successfully combined in vitro with proteins containing their natural counterparts, cohesins, to create functional multiprotein complexes. In this Master’s thesis work the goal was to 1) produce fusion proteins in which different CBMs were connected to dockerin domains, 2) combine these fusions with cohesin-catalytic domain fusion proteins to create stable CBM and catalytic domain containing enzyme complexes, 3) to characterize these enzyme complexes in respect of their thermostability and cellulose hydrolysis capacity and 4) to ultimately create a robust and fast domain shuffling method for multi-domain cellobiohydrolases (CBH) to facilitate their faster screening. The hypothesis of the experiments was that different CBMs fused with a dockerin domain and the cellobiohydrolase catalytic domain fused with a cohesin domain could be produced separately and then be combined to produce a functional two-domain enzyme with a dockerin-cohesin “linker” in between. In this way time and work could be saved because not every different CBM- catalytic domain -pair would have to be cloned and produced separately. Several CBM-dockerin fusion proteins (in which the CBM were of fungal or bacterial origin) were tested for expression in heterologous hosts, either in Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Escherichia coli. The purified proteins were combined with a fungal glycoside hydrolase family 7 (GH7) cellobiohydrolase-cohesin fusion protein produced in S. cerevisiae. The characterization of the catalytic domain-CBM -complexes formed through cohesin-dockerin interaction included thermostability measurements using circular dichroism and activity assays using soluble and insoluble cellulosic substrate. The results were compared to enzyme controls comprising of the same CBM and catalytic domain connected by a simple peptide linker. The results showed that the cohesin-dockerin –linked cellobiohydrolase complex performed in the cellulose hydrolysis studies in a similar manner as the directly linked enzyme controls at temperature of 50˚C and 60 ˚C. At temperatures of 70 ˚C the complex did not perform as well as the control enzymes, apparently due to the instability of the dockerin-cohesin interaction. The thermostability measurements of the enzymes, together with the previously published data supported the hydrolysis results and this hypothesis. The future work should be aimed at enhancing the thermostability of the cohesin-dockerin interaction as well as on verifying the results on different cellulase fusion complexes.
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(2020)Ohjelmointikielen valinta on tärkeä osa ohjelmistoprojektien toteutusta. Vaikka ohjelmointikielet uudistuvat nopeaan tahtiin, nykypäivänä on yhä tavallista valita ohjelmiston toteutukseen C-ohjelmointikieli, joka on standardoitu yli 30 vuotta sitten. Tutkielmassa tutkitaan syitä, miksi C on nykypäivänä vieläkin laajassa käytössä uudempien ohjelmointikielten sijaan. Tutkielmassa C:hen verrattaviksi ohjelmointikieliksi valitaan Ada, C++, D, Go sekä Rust. Kaikki viisi kieltä ovat tehokkaita. Tämän lisäksi jokaisen kielten historiassa on ollut tavoitteena korvata C:n käyttö. Ohjelmointikieliä verrataan C:hen suorituskyvyn, muistinkäytön sekä C-yhteensopivuuden osalta. Tämän lisäksi tutkielmassa selvitetään tärkeimpiä C:n ominaisuuksia sekä C:n kehitettävissä olevia ominaisuuksia. Tuloksia käytetään uuden Purkka-ohjelmointikielen suunnitteluun. Muut ohjelmointikielet todetaan suorituskykymittauksissa C:tä hitaammiksi. Tämän lisäksi muiden ohjelmointikielten ominaisuudet, kuten automaattisen muistinhallinnan, todetaan aiheuttavan ongelmia C-yhteensopivuudelle. C:n tärkeimmiksi ominaisuuksiksi nousevat esiin yksinkertaisuus, tehokkuus sekä alustariippumattomuus. Nämä ominaisuudet otetaan huomioon Purkka-kielen suunnittelussa, jossa painotetaan näiden lisäksi yhteensopivuutta C-ohjelmointikielen kanssa. Tutkielmaa varten kehitetty Purkka-kieli on suunniteltu C:n kaltaiseksi ohjelmointikieleksi, jossa on muutettu C:n syntaksia yksinkertaisemmaksi ja johdonmukaisemmaksi. Suorituskykymittauksissa todetaan, että Purkan muutokset C:hen eivät aiheuta suoritusaikaisia rasitteita. Koska Purkka-kieli käännetään C:ksi, se on mahdollisimman yhteensopiva nykyisten kääntäjien kanssa.
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(2020)Johdanto Ennen teho-osastolle saapumista aloitettu viilennyshoito kylmillä suonensisäisillä nesteillä ei vaikuta parantavan sairaalan ulkopuolella sydänpysähdyksen saaneiden potilaiden funktionaalista ennustetta. Hypoteesinamme oli, että tämä johtuu tehottomasta viilennyksestä ja hoidon sivuvaikutuksista. Aineisto ja menetelmät Post hoc-analyysi alijoukosta potilaita (n = 352), jotka olivat mukana TTH48-tutkimuksessa (NCT01689077) ja joko saivat kylmiä suonensisäisiä nesteitä ennen teholle saapumista, tai eivät saaneet. Tietoja kerättiin potilaiden lähtötilanteesta, sydänpysähdykseen liittyvistä tekijöistä, viilennysmenetelmistä, sivuvaikutuksista ja kehon lämpötilasta eri hoidon vaiheissa. Ensisijainen päätepiste oli kesto spontaanin verenkierron palautumisesta tavoitelämpötilaan (<34°C) ja toissiajiset päätepisteet olivat verenkiertoon liittyvät sivuvaikutukset, elektrolyyttihäiriöt ja hypoksia ensimmäisten 24 tunnin aikana tehohoidossa. Vähintään yhden tunnin ero ajassa tavoitelämpötilaan määriteltiin ennalta merkittäväksi. Tulokset Tutkimukseen mukaan otetuista 352 potilaasta 110 saivat kylmiä suonensisäisiä nesteitä ennen teho-osastolle saapumista. Mediaani aika spontaanin verenkierron palautumisen ja tavoitelämpötilan saavuttamisen välillä oli pidempi ryhmässä, joka sai kylmiä nesteitä verrattuna ryhmään, joka ei saanut (318 vs. 281 min, p < 0.01). Kylmien nesteiden käyttö ennen tehoosastolle saapumista ei assosioitunut tavoitelämpötilan saavuttamisen kestoon lineaariregressiomallissa sisältäen hoitokeskuksen, painoindeksin, sydämen vajaatoiminnan, diabeteksen ja sydänpysähdyksen keston (standardoitu beta vaikutuskerroin: 0.06, 95% luottamusvälit B:lle -49 ja 16, p = 0.32). Ryhmien välillä ei ollut eroa hypoksian yleisyydessä tehoosastolle saapuessa (1.8% ja 3.3%, p = 0.43) tai elektrolyyttitasapainon häiriöissä (hyponatremia: 1.8% ja 2.9% p = 0.54; hypokalaemia: 1.8% ja 4.5%, p = 0.20). Sairaalakuolleisuudessa ei ollut eroa ryhmien välillä. Johtopäätökset Tavoitteellisen lämpötilan hallinnan aloittaminen kylmillä suonensisäisillä nesteillä ennen tehoosastolle saapumista ei lyhentänyt kestoa spontaanin verenkierron palautumisesta tavoitelämpötilaan pääsemiseen. Emme löytäneet tilastollisesti merkitsevää eroa kuolleisuudessa tai sivuvaikutusten yleisyydessä ennen teho-osastolle saapumista kylmien nesteiden antamisen perustella jaotelluissa ryhmissä.
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(2022)We study a system of cold high-density matter consisting purely of quarks and gluons. The mathematical construction of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) introduces interactions between the fields, which modify the thermodynamic properties of the system. In the presence of interactions, we can not solve the thermodynamic properties of the system analytically. The method is to expand the result in a series in terms of the QCD coupling constant. This is referred to as the perturbation theory in the context of thermal field theory (TFT). The coupling constant describes the strength of the interaction. We introduce the basic calculation methods used in the QCD and the TFTs in general. We will also include the chemical potential associated with the number of quarks in the system in the calculation. In the case of zero temperature, quarks form a Fermi-sphere such that energy states lower than the chemical potential will be Pauli blocked. The resulting fermionic momentum integrals are modified as a consequence. We can split these integrals into two parts, referred to as the vacuum and matter parts. We can split the calculation of the pressure into two distinct contributions: one from skeleton diagrams and one from ring diagrams. The ring diagrams have unphysical IR divergences that we can not cancel using the counterterms. This is why hard thermal loop (HTL) effective field theory (EFT) is introduced. We will discuss this HTL framework, which requires the computation of the matter part of the gluon polarization tensor, which we will also evaluate in this thesis.
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(2021)Tämä tutkielma tarkastelee aistiverbien koleksifikaatiotyyppejä Itämeren kielialueen kielissä, eli miten tämän kielialueen kielet erottelevat aistiverbien perusmerkityksiä leksikaalisesti, ja toisaalta mitä perusmerkityksiä kielet ilmaisevat samalla lekseemillä, eli koleksifikoivat. Tutkielma edustaa sekä leksikaalista typologiaa että areaalista kielitiedettä. Aikaisemmassa tutkimuksessa on havaittu areaalisia koleksifikaatiotyyppejä, niin aistiverbien kuin muidenkin semanttisten kenttien kohdalla. Itämeren kielialueen kielet ovat olleet kontaktissa tuhansia vuosia ja niistä löytyy monia areaalisia piirteitä, ulottuen fonologiasta leksikkoon. On myös esitetty, että alueen uralilaiset kielet ovat indoeurooppalaistuneet kontaktin myötä, ja toisaalta alueen indoeurooppalaisista kielistä on löydetty uralilaisia piirteitä. Tämän tutkielman tarkoituksena on tarkastella, onko Itämeren kielialueen kielissä havaittavissa jaettuja aistiverbien koleksifikaatiotyyppejä, ja onko koleksifikaatioissa havaittavissa ns. indoeurooppalaistumista tai uralilaistumista. Tutkielmassa verrataan Itämeren kielialueen kieliä sekä keskenään että verrattuna sukukieliin, joita puhutaan alueen ulkopuolella. Tutkielman aineisto kerättiin kyselylomakkeella, jossa äidinkielisiä puhujia pyydettiin kääntämään omalle äidinkielelleen englanninkielisiä lyhyitä lauseita, joissa esiintyi aistiverbejä. Lopullinen aineisto sisältää 199 vastausta 40 kielellä, joista kahdeksan on uralilaisia kieliä ja 32 Euroopassa puhuttavia indoeurooppalaisia kieliä. Itämeren kielialueen kielistä tutkimuksessa on edustettuna 14 kieltä, jotka kuuluvat viiteen eri kielihaaraan. Itämeren kielialueen ulkopuoliset kielet aineistossa muodostavat kontrolliryhmän, jota vasten kielikontaktien mahdollisia vaikutuksia voidaan verrata. Analyysissä jokaisesta kielestä tunnistettiin mahdolliset koleksifikaatiot, ja kieltenvälinen vertailu tapahtui sekä kielihaaran että -kunnan tasolla. Itämeren kielialueen kieliä verrattiin sekä suhteessa toisiinsa että suhteessa alueen ulkopuolella puhuttuihin sukukieliin. Tutkimuksesta selviää, että Itämeren kielialueen kielet eivät jaa yhtä yhteistä aistiverbien koleksifikaatiotyyppiä, vaan kielistä löytyy useita erilaisia tyyppejä. Tulokset osoittavat myös, että koleksifikaatiotyypit ovat hyvin samanlaisia samaan kielihaaraan kuuluvien lähisukukielten kesken. Osa Itämeren kielialueen kielistä kuitenkin poikkeaa huomattavasti lähisukukielistään, ja koleksifikaatiotyypeistä löytyy yhtäläisyyksiä myös kielisukulaisuusrajojen yli. Sama koleksifikaatiotyyppi löytyy mm. ruotsista, virosta ja meänkielestä, jotka samalla poikkeavat lähisukukielistään. Myöskin latvia ja liettua poikkeavat toisistaan, ja liettuan koleksifikaatiotyyppi muistuttaa slaavilaisista kielistä löytyvää mallia. Osa tuloksista näyttää heijastelevan kielikontaktien vaikutusta. Tutkimuksesta selviää myös, että osa koleksifikaatiotyypeistä on hyvin yleisiä kielikunnasta ja -haarasta riippumatta, joten kielikontakti ei välttämättä ole ainoa yhtäläisyyksiä ja eroavaisuuksia selittävä tekijä.
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(2021)Sequence alignment by exact or approximate string matching is one of the fundamental problems in bioinformatics. As the volume of sequenced genomes grows rapidly, pairwise sequence alignment becomes inefficient for pan-genomic analyses involving multiple sequences. The graph representation of multiple genomes has been an increasingly useful tool in pan-genomics research. Therefore, sequence-to-graph alignment becomes an important and challenging problem. For pairwise approximate sequence alignment under Levenshtein (edit) distance, subquadratic algorithms for finding an optimal solution are unknown. As a result, aligning sequences of millions of characters optimally is too challenging and impractical. Thus, many heuristics and techniques are developed for possibly suboptimal alignments. Among them, co-linear chaining (CLC) is a powerful and popular technique that approximates the alignment by finding a chain of short aligned fragments that may come from exact matching. The optimal solution to CLC on sequences can be found efficiently in subquadratic time. For sequence-to-graph alignment, the CLC problem has been solved theoretically on a special class of graphs that are narrow and have no cycles, i.e. directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) with small width, by Mäkinen et al. (ACM Transactions on Algorithms, 2019). Pan-genome graphs such as variation graphs satisfy these restrictions but allowing cycles may enable more general applications of the algorithm. In this thesis, we introduce an efficient algorithm to solve the CLC problem on general graphs with small width that may have cycles, by reducing it to a slightly modified CLC problem on DAGs. We implemented an initial version of the new algorithm on DAGs as a sequence-to-graph aligner GraphChainer. The aligner is evaluated and compared to an existing state-of-the-art aligner GraphAligner (Genome Biology, 2020) in experiments using both simulated and real genome assembly data on variation graphs. Our method improves the quality of alignments significantly in the task of aligning real human PacBio data. GraphChainer is freely available as an open source tool at https://github.com/algbio/GraphChainer.
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(2022)Tämä tutkimus käsittelee San Francisco 48ers joukkueen pelaajan Colin Kaepernickin vuonna 2016 aloittamaa rauhanomaista protestia poliisin mustiin kohdistamaa väkivaltaa vastaan sekä mustien ja muiden vähemmistöjen huonompia sosioekonomisia olosuhteita vastaan. Tutkimuksessani selvitän, miten isänmaallisuutta käsitellään The New York Times -lehden artikkeleissa 1.8.2016–1.1.2017 välisenä aikana ja miten toimittajat tuovat ilmi yhteiskunnan eri osapuolten näkemyksiä Colin Kaepernickin protestin yhteydessä. Lisäksi tarkastelen, miten ja mitä osapuolia The New York Timesin artikkeleissa otetaan kontekstiin Kaepernickin protestointia käsiteltäessä. Vaikka Kaepernickin aloittamasta protestista on kulunut jo useita vuosia, on se edelleen ajankohtainen. Tutkimusten mukaan mustien sosioekonominen asema jää selvästi jälkeen valkoisista. Poliisin väkivallasta tehdyt tutkimukset antavat osittain ristiriitaisia tuloksia johtuen Yhdysvaltojen viranomaisten puutteellisesta tietojen tilastoinnista paikallistasolla. Tutkimusaineistoni käsittää 17 The New York Timesin artikkelia, joissa Kaepernickin protestia tarkastellaan syvällisemmin. Tutkielmani metodina käytän kvalitatiivista sisällönanalyysiä. Tutkimuskysymykseni ovat: 1) Miten The New York Timesin artikkeleissa käsiteltiin Colin Kaepernickin protestia suhteessa isänmaallisuuteen? 2) Miten The New York Timesin artikkeleissa käsiteltiin amerikkalaisen yhteiskunnan eri osapuolten suhtautumista Colin Kaepernickin protestiin? Tutkimuksen aikana selvisi, että molempien tutkimuskysymysten osalta löytyi selvästi erottuvat alateemat. Isänmaallisuuteen liittyvän kysymyksen yhteydessä toimittajat toivat esille kansallislaulun, kansallislipun ja armeijan merkityksen protestoinnin kannalta. Protestointiin liittyi artikkeleiden mukaan selvästi seuraavat amerikkalaisen yhteisön eri sidosryhmät: NFL ja muut urheiluliigat, muut urheilijat, kannattajat, mustat protestoijat sekä poliitikot ja Yhdysvaltojen korkeimman oikeuden tuomari Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Sisältöanalyysin tulokset vahvistivat käsityksiä, joiden mukaan The New York Timesia pidetään näkemyksiltään liberaalina Yhdysvaltojen poliittisella kartalla. Tutkimuskysymysteni aiheita käsiteltiin monipuolisesti, mutta artikkeleiden osittainen pinnallisuus viittaa siihen, että The New York Times, kuten moni muukin erehtyi Kaepernickin protestin merkityksestä. Yhden miehen protestista kehittyi yli maiden ja maanosien ulottuva kansanliike.
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(2019)Creating a user interface (UI) is often a part of software development. In the software industry designated UI designers work side by side with the developers in agile software development teams. While agile software processes have been researched, yet there is no general consensus on how UI designers should be integrated with the developing team. The existing research points towards the industry favoring tight collaboration between developers and UI designers by having them work together in the same team. The subject is gathering interest and different ways of integration is happening in the industry. In this thesis we researched the collaboration between developers and UI designers in agile software development. The goal was to understand the teamwork between the UI designers and developers working in the same agile software teams. The research was conducted by doing semi-structured theme interviews with UI designers and devel- opers individually. The interviewees were from consulting firms located in the Helsinki metropolitan are in Finland. The subjects reported about a recent project where they worked in an agile software team consisting of UI designers and developers. The data from the interviews was compared to the literature. Results of the interviews were similar to the findings from the literature for the most part. Finding a suitable process for the teamwork, co-location, good social relations and a an atmosphere of trust were factors present in the literature and the interviews. The importance of good software tools for communicating designs, and developers taking part in the UI designing process stood out from the interviews.
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(2018)Companies play a crucial role in transitions to more sustainable ways of production and consumption. There is a growing amount of startups globally that create radically new products, services, and business models related to issues such as energy efficiency, food waste or use of natural resources. Startups can be conceptualized as niche actors who are innovative and agile but do not have the resources for regime disruption. Incumbents on traditional fields such as construction, real estate or retail, on the other hand, tend to be path dependent, work under the rules of current regimes, and face difficulties in adopting sustainability-related innovations. However, when combining the innovation capacity of niche startups and the resources of large companies, both can achieve a larger impact. This thesis observes collaboration between startups and large companies through the framework of strategic niche management (SNM). According to SNM niche innovations can be empowered by three processes: articulation of expectations, network-building and learning on various dimensions. A multiple-case study is conducted based on interviews and observation with three large companies and three startups engaging in experimental collaboration processes facilitated by an intermediary organization. The large companies are in the field of retail and hospitality, housing development and facility management. The startups develop radically new services that reduce food waste, save energy or optimize the use of buildings. The findings of the descriptive case study depict challenges and opportunities of collaboration processes in all SNM dimensions. Theoretically, the study suggests one way of applying transition theory to the level of specific companies and their collaboration related to sustainability-related innovations. From a managerial perspective, the study offers practical insight to anyone engaging in startup–incumbent collaboration. As broad generalizations cannot be derived from a case study, more research on the role of companies in sustainability transitions is suggested.
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(2015)The AdS/CFT correspondence is the first realization of the holographic principle. The holographic principle makes the bold statement that in a theory of quantum gravity all information in a region of spacetime can be completely described by information on its boundary. This would make the universe in certain sense a hologram, as our spacetime and everything in it could be described by some fundamental degrees of freedom living on the boundary of spacetime. Gauge/gravity dualities realize the holographic principle by stating that string theory in ten-dimensional spacetime and certain gauge field theories living on its boundary can be equivalent descriptions of the same physics. The AdS/CFT correspondence was the first one of these dualities to be discovered. The correspondence equates type IIB string theory on AdS_5× S^5 with \mathcal{N}=4 super Yang-Mills theory living on four-dimensional Minkowski space, which is the boundary of five-dimensional anti-de Sitter space, AdS_5. In this thesis, we first briefly review the necessary theoretical components, which are combined in the correspondence. Then, the AdS/CFT correspondence is motivated by considering the low energy limit of string theory in a spacetime with a stack of coincident D3-branes. The third part of this work is dedicated to the study of the properties and dynamics of the anti-de Sitter bulk. A black hole solution with an asymptotically AdS background is discussed along with its thermodynamics, and the connection with the dual field theory is emphasized. Then we present a model for a collapsing shell in AdS space and solve its dynamics. The black hole state, which the collapsing shell approaches corresponds to thermal equilibrium in the dual field theory. Lastly, we consider our shell model in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence and present a method for computing two-point correlation functions on the field theory side. This method is then used to compute retarded correlators in a two-dimensional CFT in finite temperature. We are able to reproduce previous results obtained using different computational methods, following a seminal work of Son and Starinets.
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(2023)The social status of women has greatly improved in the past centuries due to massive worldwide collective efforts by women and their allies. In Finland, despite scoring high on gender equality indexes, women remain a target of gender inequality and patriarchal harm. Hence, this thesis aims to study factors that influence Finnish women’s participation in collective action for gender equality. Building on the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA), perceived injustice is hypothesized as a mediator for the relationship between gender identification and participating in collective action. Moreover, stigma consciousness is hypothesized to moderate the relationship between social identification and perceived injustice. Data was used from a previous cross-cultural project, during which university student participants (N= 250, all women) answered questionnaire items relevant to the hypotheses. The results showed no significant association between gender identification and collective action, nor any significant moderation power for stigma consciousness. Perceived injustice, however, was found to be a significant mediator for the relationship between gender identification and collective action. The rejection of two hypotheses could be explained by a series of limitations regarding the research methods, and the results call for an increase in public awareness of gender-based discrimination.
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(2020)Corporate communications and management have had for a long time the conviction that they could project a specific brand identity by communicating a strong vision. Today this view is being challenged, especially with the rise of social media, which has brought more visibility to customer communities and has enabled better tools for customers to communicate with each other instantly, anywhere in the world. People interacting with each other in their communities give an identity to the brands, a collective identity that can be different from the one that corporate communications try to project. It is, therefore, necessary for the brands to understand how customers collectively impact brand identity. The concepts of top-down brand identity models do not work very well in today’s interconnected world. With that in mind, this thesis looks at a bottom-up approach to the brand identity model. It aims to bring further attention to the impact that brand communities have on brand identity. Through a model for collective brand identity, the objective is to make it easier for brands to see their brand identity from a customers’ perspective and enable them to envision their future collective identities. This thesis is conducted as qualitative research including a model, case studies and interviews looking into the brand identity as a collective construction. It initially looks into existing research on collective identity in general as well as in brands. Then, it discusses existing models for brand identity and social movements. Based on the insight from the literature, this study attempts to formulate a model for collective brand identity. It uses the case studies as illustrations and proof of concept for the model. Lastly, four in-depth interviews are conducted to explore further how the model can be applied in real-life in order to study and categorise brands based on their collective identity. This research identifies four main types of collective identity in brands based on the community characteristics and personal sense of belonging, which is, how individual identities relate to that of the brand. These brand types are Influencer, Collaborative, Collective and Outlier. In general, the more collective the brand communities are, the more substantial impact they have on the band’s identity and the higher the sense of belonging to their communities, the more loyal customers they are.
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(2023)Sosiaalipsykologian tieteenalalla on pitkä sosiaalisen identiteetin tutkimusperinne eli keitä ovat me ja keitä ovat he, ja miten nämä sosiaaliset identiteetit vaikuttavat ryhmien välisiin suhteisiin. Kysymys siitä, mikä on meidän ja mikä on heidän, ja tämän kollektiivisen psykologisen omistajuuden vaikutus ryhmien välisiin suhteisiin on kuitenkin tieteenalalla vielä uusi tutkimusalue. Tässä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan kollektiivista psykologista omistajuutta vapaaehtoistyön kontekstissa. Teoreettisena viitekehyksenä tutkimuksessa käytetään sosiaalisen identiteetin lähestymistapaa, joka suhteutetaan aiempaan kollektiivista psykologista omistajuutta tarkastelevaan tutkimukseen. Lisäksi tutkielmassa tarjotaan tälle tutkimusalueelle uutta käsitettä: kollektiivista epistemologista omistajuutta, joka viittaa tiedon, narratiivien ja ideoiden omistamiseen. Tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan tilastollisesti kolmea hypoteesia: 1) Kollektiivinen psykologinen omistajuus ja kollektiivinen epistemologinen omistajuus ovat kaksi erillistä ilmiötä, 2) Sisällön tuottaminen ryhmässä on yhteydessä korkeampaan kollektiiviseen psykologiseen omistajuuteen ja voimakkaampaan epistemologiseen omistajuuteen, 3) Kollektiivinen psykologinen omistajuus on yhteydessä samaistumiseen omistuksen kohteeseen. Tutkimus on tehty Slush-tapahtuman vuoden 2022 vapaaehtoisilta kerätyn kyselyaineiston avulla. Kyselyssä vastaajat oli jaettu kolmeen eri koeryhmään: Ensimmäisessä ryhmässä vastaajat tuottivat sisältöä yhdessä ryhmässä, toisessa ryhmässä he tuottivat sisältöä yksin ja kolmannessa he vain lukivat sisältöä. Aineisto kerättiin joulu-tammikuussa 2021–2022 ja vastaajia oli 174, jolloin 11,8 % vapaaehtoispopulaatiosta vastasi kyselyyn. Puuttuvien vastausten vuoksi tarkastelussa pystytään kuitenkin käyttämään heistäkin vain 51 vastaajan vastauksia. Vastaajien pienen määrän vuoksi tutkimuksessa verrattiin ryhmässä sisältöä tuottaneita kahteen muuhun ryhmään. Tulosten perusteella kollektiivinen psykologinen omistajuus ja kollektiivinen epistemologinen omistajuus ovat empiirisesti erillisiä käsitteitä, tosin lisätutkimusta tarvitaan tuloksen vahvistamiseksi. Sisällön tuottaminen yhdessä vaikuttaa olevan yhteydessä voimakkaampaan kollektiiviseen psykologiseen omistajuuteen, mutta aineisto ei rajallisen kokonsa vuoksi antanut tilastollisesti merkitsevää tulosta, myöskään kollektiivisen epistemologisen omistajuuden osalta tutkimus ei antanut tilastollisesti merkitsevää tulosta. Kollektiivinen psykologinen omistajuus Slush-organisaatiota kohtaan osoittautui olevan yhteydessä voimakkaampaan samaistumiseen Slush-organisaation kanssa. Muiden kollektiivisen omistajuuden mittarien osalta (omistajuus vapaaehtoisten oppaasta ja kollektiivinen epistemologinen omistajuus) tilastollisesti merkitseviä tuloksia ei saatu. Tulokset ovat suuntaa antavia vastaajien pienen lukumäärän vuoksi. Yleisesti tutkielma kuitenkin osoitti, että kollektiivisen psykologisen omistajuuden teemat ovat relevantteja myös vapaaehtoistyön kontekstissa, ja että sosiaalipsykologista tutkimusta kollektiivisen omistajuuden teemoista tarvitaan enemmän.
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(2022)The subject of this master’s thesis is private collectors, their collections and the life of those collections, i.e. things. The main research question is why do we collect things? Through this question this study hopes to gain insight into our general relationship to things and the life of things, i.e., what is it to be human among things. The collectors in this study are ones who have established a private museum around their collections. Anthropological studies about collectors and private museums are relatively scarce, although the image of the collector and the question of the accumulation of possessions are both of great contemporary relevance. The museum as an institution fuses these two aspects into a formalized endeavor to collect, to save, to keep and accrue objects indefinitely and seemingly without limits. Museums are institutional collectors bound for limitless accumulation with taxonomy. All of this merits further anthropological scrutiny. The object of this study is to think with the collections, to learn from them, and attempt to discern from collectors and museum proprietors what purposes and needs things fulfill beyond their strictly utilitarian roles and the obvious meanings we give to them, and what sort of transformational potential is immanent in the museum, the collector and the collection, if any. The material for this study was collected in the form of semi-structured interviews and participant observation, where the “observing” and “participating” happened within and with the collections and museumscapes, often a very tactile dialectic through which the object and the subject are revealed as processes rather than strictly separate aspects, the lived world of things revealed as a state of becoming rather than being. These perspectives were opened up through a phenomenological approach to the study. The fieldwork was conducted during three months in the summer of 2019, as part of a larger project focused on so-called “micromuseums”. Sixty museums were visited around Finland from Lapland to the southern archipelago. Interviews were conducted with the proprietors of 37 museums. The locations and collections were also photographed extensively. The results of this study were that the reasons for collecting are an endeavor to grasp the past, to preserve things for others, to create a collection, an assemblage or coming-together of things that would outlast the collector. Collecting and the museum show themselves to be profoundly relational and collective. Being human among things is revealed as an ambivalent existence and our relationship to things challenging and contradictory.
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(2019)The design of college admissions has been a heatedly discussed topic in Finland, as recent government initiatives have led to a more centralized system. Some argue for letting colleges decide on their admissions procedures, while others believe that a centralized matchmaking procedure with priorities determined by the matriculation examination would be more cost-effective. This thesis aims to characterize various factors that the policy maker must take into account when designing a college admissions procedure, in light of existing theoretical research on both centralized and decentralized matching markets and empirical studies on social determinants of college choice and the capacity of entrance examinations to elicit information on student ability and motivation. The two-sided matching literature is discussed extensively because of its usefulness for designing centralized clearinghouses for matching markets. The student-proposing deferred acceptance algorithm emerges as the best choice for a policy maker who regards strategy-proofness and respecting of priorities as especially important, at least if manipulation by colleges is implausible. However, strategy-proofness is fragile in practical applications, applicants may try to manipulate also strategy-proof mechanisms and reporting the whole preference relation is still only weakly dominant. Consequently, satisfaction of reported preferences should not be taken as evidence of welfare properties of a matching without qualifications. The use of a common entrance examination may be more cost effective than a system based on college-specific entrance examinations, as colleges do not then need to spend resources on organizing the examinations. However, students have then stronger incentives to perform in the common entrance examination, and there is already evidence that more students retake the matriculation examination in Finland. The overall effect on the costs of organizing entrance examinations is an uncertain empirical matter. The importance of preparation courses is likely to decrease, which saves resources and contributes to socioeconomic equity. On the other hand, making students choose on their study paths earlier in life may erode socioeconomic equity. A larger role for the matriculation examination provides stronger incentives for showing effort in high school, which the policy maker may see as beneficial. While a system with a common entrance examination makes it possible for a student to get admitted to a second preference when she is rejected by her first preference, it remains an empirical question to what extent this reduces the propensity to apply again to competitive colleges. The excess demand for certain colleges is a result of student preferences and is not solvable by any mechanism that gives a strong priority to satisfying student preferences.
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(University of HelsinkiHelsingin yliopistoHelsingfors universitet, 2006)Collie eye anomalia eli CEA on lähinnä colliesukuisilla koirilla (pitkäkarvainen ja lyhytkarvainen collie, bordercollie, shetlanninlammaskoira, australianpaimenkoira, lancashire heeler) esiintyvä perinnöllinen, synnynnäinen, ei etenevä silmäsairaus. Mesodermaalisen eriytymisen häiriintyessä silmän sikiökautisessa kehityksessä syntyy muutoksia silmän posteriorisen osan sidekudos- ja verisuonikalvoille. Muutoksia havaitaan verkkokalvolla, kovakalvolla, suonikalvolla, tapetumissa, näköhermopään alueella ja verisuonissa. Muutokset ovat molemminpuoleisia, mutta ne voivat olla eriasteisia eri silmissä. Sairauden aiheuttama haitta vaihtelee huomaamattomasta näköhaitasta täydelliseen sokeuteen. Diagnostisia muutoksia CEA:lle ovat chorioretinaalinen dysplasia eli CRD ja posteriorinen polaarinen coloboma. Sekundaarisia muutoksia ovat retinan irtoaminen ja silmän sisäinen verenvuoto. Sairauden diagnostiikassa oleellisin on silmänpohjan oftalmoskooppinen tutkimus mustuaisten laajentamisen jälkeen suoralla tai epäsuoralla metodilla. Lisäksi diagnostiikan avuksi on tullut geenitestaus. Diagnostiikan ongelmia ovat suuri vaihtelu normaalissa silmänpohjassa koiralla ja mahdollisesti kehittyvän pigmentin alle peittyvät muutokset. Tällöin sairas koira voidaan tulkita terveeksi ja tätä kutsutaan go-normal-ilmiöksi. Go-normal ongelma pystytään välttämään, jos silmäpeilaus tehdään ennen pigmentoitumista eli viimeistään ennen 12 viikon ikää pennuilla. Geenitestauksella on tarkoitus pystyä tunnistamaan myös kantajat, mutta geenitestauksen ongelmia ovat edelleen käynnissä oleva kiistely CEA:n periytyvyydestä ja toistaiseksi testauksen epävarmuus. CEA:n periytyvyydestä on useita tutkimuksia, joista osa tukee resessiivistä eli väistyvää periytymismallia ja osa polygeenistä eli usean geenin vaikutuksesta tapahtuvaa periytymismallia. CEA:ta esiintyy eri tutkimusten mukaan pitkäkarvaisilla collieilla keskimäärin 50 % populaatiosta, Suomessa luku on noin 30% luokkaa. Lyhytkarvaisilla collieilla Suomessa esiintyvyys on 10 % luokkaa. Shetlanninlammaskoirilla ulkomailla 50 % luokkaa, Suomessa 20 % luokkaa ja Yhdysvalloissa vain muutaman prosentin. Bordercollieilla ja australianpaimenkoirilla sairautta esiintyy huomattavasti vähemmän, esiintyvyys on vain muutaman prosentin luokkaa rodussa. Lancashireheelereillä on raportoitu noin 14% esiintyvyys, vaikka kyseessä onkin hyvin pieni rotu. Sairauden perinnöllisen luonteen ja mahdollisesti vakavien silmämuutosten vuoksi jalostusvalinnoilla tulee vastustaa sairautta. Jalostuksessa paras mahdollinen tieto oikeita valintoja varten saadaan yhdistämällä silmäpeilaustulokset ja geenitestaustulokset pentueen vanhemmista.
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(2021)This thesis investigates the affective economies present in Danish-Greenlandic encounters when the Danish-Greenlandic relationship is discussed, in order to understand how certain feelings are constitutive of Danish colonial aphasia. Moreover, inspired by Indigenous research ethics and methodologies, the author employs a reflexive research approach to scrutinize her positionality and to start a discussion about epistemic injustice within Danish academia. In the study, colonial aphasia is theorized as an occlusion of knowledge and a conceptual dissociation with coloniality, which results in the inability of previous colonial powers to link present postcolonial issues with colonialism. The sources consist of namely a recorded conversation as well as autoethnography produced throughout the thesis process. By employing analytic autoethnography, the study shows how feelings of protectiveness, entitlement, shame and guilt are circulated by the author, a Dane, vis-à-vis Greenlandic people when discussing the Danish-Greenlandic relationship. The study concludes that feelings of protectiveness, entitlement and shame are present as coloniality, but that the Dane perceives coloniality as existing through the struggles of the Other, or as structural, but not as present within us as individuals. Consequently, these feelings are constitutive of colonial aphasia. Finally, the study suggests that the absence of researcher reflexivity in Danish research focusing on Danish-Greenlandic contexts is ultimately sustaining epistemic injustice. Concludingly, the study argues that employing reflexivity and introspection to investigate the particular is not only apt in understanding Danish colonial aphasia, but also in scrutinizing our own colonial complicity as Danish students and researchers investigating Greenlandic or Danish-Greenlandic contexts.
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