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Biological soil crust, biocrust, is a significant contributor to biogeochemical cycles through nitrogen and carbon cycling. Further, it stabilizes soil, facilitates water infiltration, and mitigates soil erosion. The global biocrust cover is believed to decrease by about 25-40% in the next 60 years due to climate change and intensification in land use. Research on biocrust in arctic and subarctic regions is limited, much of the knowledge comes from lower latitudes in arid and semiarid ecosystems. Cold-adapted biocrust might respond differently to increasing temperatures when compared with warm-adapted biocrust. Therefore, it is fundamental to research biocrust in arctic and subarctic regions when looking at how fast the climate is changing in the Northern hemisphere. Temporal variations of soil respiration in subarctic biocrust have not been studied systematically before. This research project focuses on the effects of warming on soil respiration in biocrust, on a diurnal and a seasonal scale. It also focuses on species composition changes of vascular plants in the warming experiment where warming was induced with open-top chambers (OTCs). Soil respiration, temperature, soil water content, as well as plant species composition changes were measured during three field trips that each lasted four days during the growing season of 2021. The results show that soil respiration was lower in September when compared with measurements done in June and July. The highest values of soil respiration were observed during mid-day and the lowest during evenings and nights. The temperatures of OTC plots were, on average, 1.16 °C higher than control plots, and OTC plots had significantly lower soil water content than control plots. During this research, the soil respiration increased with higher temperature but was not different between control and OTC plots during any time of day or month measured. Soil water content did not affect soil respiration significantly, while temperature did. These findings might be explained by less soil water content within warmer plots, but warmth and moisture have been shown to increase soil respiration. In other words, less soil water content might countereffect the increase of soil respiration due to warming. Some vascular plant species were more likely to be found within or outside the warming plots. Dwarf willow, Salix herbacea, decreased in cover within OTC plots. Previous research has shown that warming significantly reduces pollen shed and time of pollen shedding for S. herbacea, which might decrease its abundance within OTC plots. Alpine bistort, Bistorta vivipara, increased in cover within OTC plots compared to control plots. Warming experiments on B. vivipara have shown positive effects on reproductive parameters, which might increase its abundance within warmed OTC plots. Sheep also prefer grazing on B. vivipara. Therefore, it might have less cover in control plots, given that OTCs exclude grazing and that many sheep roam the studied site during the growing season. Vascular plant cover was greater within control plots when compared with warmed plots. Previous results at the same site after one year of warming, from summer 2019, showed more vascular plant cover within the OTC plots when compared with control plots. The results of this research might indicate that vascular plants are gradually affected by the warming and are transitioning towards a new equilibrium. The results of this research are ground for further studies on subarctic ecosystems dominated by biocrust. Many biotic and abiotic factors affect carbon cycles. For future modelling of predicted effects of climate change, having better knowledge on how subarctic ecosystems respond to warming is essential for a better understanding of the functions and feedbacks in a global context.

Tämä tutkimus käsittelee suosittujen suomalaisten äitiysblogien asiantuntijaretoriikkaa kaupallissa yhteistyöpostauksissa. Blogeja käsitellään tilana, jota sävyttää bloggaajien asiantuntijuuden ja kaupallisten tavoitteiden yhdistyminen. Tutkimuksessa kartoitetaan miten bloggaajat hyödyntävät asiantuntijuuttaan osana toimivaa kaupallista yhteistyötä. Bloggaajien asiantuntijuutta lähestytään realistisen asiantuntijuusteorian näkökulmasta. Bloggaajien asiantuntijuus nähdään aitona. Tämä mahdollistaa blogikirjoitusten tutkimisen relevantteina asiantuntijuuden näkökulmasta. Tutkimus sijoittuu blogimarkkinoinnin ja asiantuntijuuden tutkimuksen välimaastoon. Analysoitavat blogit ja kirjoitukset valittiin suosion perusteella. Suosion valinta ainoaksi kriteeriksi perustui kaupallisen viitekehyksen tärkeyteen. Mitä enemmän blogilla on lukijoita sitä todennäköisemmin kaupalliset viestit tavoittavat laajan yleisön. Äitiysblogien asiantuntijuutta tarkasteltiin retorisena ja kulloiseenkin yhteystyökontekstiin reagoivana. Aineisto koostui 60:stä erillisestä kaupallisesta yhteistyöpostauksesta, joista etsittiin yhdistäviä piirteitä. Asiantuntijuutta ilmaistaan aina suhteessa johonkin näkökulmaan. Bloggaajien käyttämät asiantuntijuuden näkökulmat ilmenivät tekstissä erilaisten positioiden aktivointina.Tyypillisimmät positiot perheblogeissa määrittyivät lapsi-aikuinen, lapsi-äiti, äiti-nainen ja mina-perhe dikotomioiden kautta. Posiot ilmentävät erilaisia tarvetiloja ja identiteettejä, jotka avaavat erilaisia asiantuntijuusretoriikan mahdollisuuksia. Suoraan postauksen aiheeseen, eli myytävään tuotteeseen tai tavaraan, liittyvät positiot nimettiin taitotasoiksi. Bloggaajat ilmensivät asiantuntijuutensa lähtökohtaa suhteessa omaan taitotasoonsa. Tasot ovat asianharrastaja, neutraali ja noviisi. Taitotasoja käytettiin ilmaisemaan myös tunnetilaa suhteessa mainostettuun asiaan. Tasomuutokset ilmensivät tuotteen aikaansaamaa muutosta. Asiantuntijuusretoriikkaan liittettyjä ekspertiisejä arvioitiin realistisen asiantuntijuusteorian käsitteistöllä. Keskeisiksi nousivat interaktiivinen ja reflektiivinen kyvykkyys, sekä perhe-elämään ja bloggaamiseen liittyvät taidot. Interaktiivinen ja reflektiivinen kyvykkyys viittaavat bloggaajan taitoon ilmaista ekspertiisiään ja kykyyn ajatella luovasti oman ekspertiisinsä puitteissa.

Aims. This qualitative study explored a phenomenon of epistemic communality around a Twitter hashtag. The primary aim of the study was to explore communal epistemic production on the Twitter platform, especially in the context of a mutually shared hashtag. The study explored the peer-production of knowledge and epistemic structures in the context of a specialist domain collaborating in the open Web. The secondary aim was to explore how Twitter functions as a platform for networked expertise and as a public agora for practitioners' expert discourse. This nascent mode of cultural production leads to the development of expert cultures on Twitter and in the open Web. This creates new contexts for informal collaborative learning and cultral production potentially answering some of the competence challenges presented by the 21st century. Methods. The hashtag #okfest was launched for the 'Open Knowledge Festival' conference held in Helsinki, Finland (17–22.9.2012). The participants of the study were open knowledge practitioners who participated in the hashtag discourse of #okfest on Twitter. All public tweets containing the string '#okfest' were collected as data. Tweets were analyzed with qualitative thematic analysis exploring the epistemic contributions either included in the tweets or as hyperlinked attachments. Results and conclusions. The analysis indicated how the hashtag was appropriated to serve as a node of communal knowledge sharing beyond mere reporting from the conference. The analysis observed six themes of communal knowledge building in the hashtag space. The communal epistemic activities in #okfest were likened to the properties of a community of practice (Wenger, 1998). A network of practitioners engaging in a mutual domain creates a dynamic 'social learning system' combining social interaction with the production and dissemination of knowledge. The study yielded a novel theoretical concept of 'expert microblogging', recognized as a significant genre of cultural production in a specialist domain on Twitter and in the open Web. Finally the Twitter platform was ascertained as a site for the manifestation of cultures of networked expertise.

System administration is a traditional and demanding profession in information technology that has gained little attention from human-computer interaction (HCI) research. System administrators operate in a highly complex environment to keep business applications running and data available and safe. In order to understand the essence of system administrators' skill, this thesis reports individual differences in 20 professional system administrators’ task performance, task solutions, verbal reports, and learning histories. A set of representative tasks were designed to measure individual differences, and structured interviews were used to collect retrospective information about system administrators’ skill acquisition and level of deliberate practice. Based on the measured performance, the participants were divided into three performance groups. A group of five system administrators stood out from the 20 participants. They completed more tasks successfully, they were faster, they predicted their success more accurately, and they expressed more confidence during performance and anticipation. Although they had extensive professional experience, the study found no relationship between duration of experience and level of expertise. The results are aligned with expert-performance research from other domains — the highest levels of performance in system administration are attained as a result of a systematic practice. This involves an investment of effort and makes the activity less enjoyable than competing activities. When studying the learning histories, the quantity and quality of the programming experience and other high-effort computer-related problem-solving activities were found to be the main differentiating factors between the 'expert' and less-accomplished participants.

Science plays an important role in determining factual issues. Science also has a link with public international law. Courts, whether national or international, rely on scientific facts, theories and expertise in their work. The United Nations’ principal judicial organ, the International Court of Justice, is not an exception and occasionally it has to rely on scientific expert evidence. This thesis studies the procedural rules related to scientific fact-finding in the International Court of Justice. The theoretical background of the thesis is based on the division of two important schools of thought when it comes to scientific fact-finding in international adjudication. The so-called nihilist school is rejected in the thesis but the emphasis is on a variation of the second school (Victorian engagement) called outsourcing school. The outsourcing school claims that international courts take scientific knowledge into account when solving disputes and they call experts to produce evidence. The thesis addresses the following research question: “Should scientific experts be heard before the International Court of Justice as counsels or as witnesses”. The research method is purely traditional doctrinal legal research. This method was chosen because of the sources of the study that mainly consist of provisions of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, the Rules of Court, other official documents and case-law of the International Court of Justice. The first part of the thesis, focusing on the Statute of the International Court of Justice and the Rules of Court, utilizes the standard interpretation methods of international treaties. When it comes to the second part of the study, the case-law, the method is to describe and critically analyse three cases of the International Court of Justice. In the thesis I have been able to confirm that pursuant to Article 43(5) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice together with Articles 54-72 of the Rules of Court, scientific experts should be heard before the Court as expert witnesses instead of counsels of the parties. This approach seems to be applied by the Court according to its latest case-law. The conclusion is confirmative interpretation applied by the Court in Whaling in the Antarctic case. The interpretation of the Statute of the International Court of Justice and the Rules of Court demonstrates that there are multiple provisions concerning experts in the oral proceedings. It is not mentioned in the rules that experts should be heard as counsels in the oral proceedings. Instead the rules concerning experts in the procedure all focus on the oral proceedings and assimilate experts with witnesses. This suggests that the correct position for scientific experts is as expert witnesses who make the solemn declaration before giving their evidence. The three cases assessed in the thesis are all related to international environmental law because it is a field of law with close connection to scientific knowledge. The first case, Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros, demonstrated that hearing the experts as counsels caused mostly a confusion and eventually the Court partly rejected the scientific evidence in the judgement. The second case, Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay, was a “game changer” in the sense that the members of the Court identified the problem of hearing scientific experts as counsels and expressed in the judgement and the dissenting opinions that hearing them as expert witnesses would have been much more reasonable. The last case, Whaling in the Antarctic, was basically the Court’s new interpretation put into practice. In this case the Court used the whole potential of Article 43 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice and Articles 54-72 of the Rules of Court and it proved to be beneficial to hear experts as expert witnesses instead of counsels. Hearing scientific experts as expert witnesses gives the parties the possibility to better actualize their procedural rights. They may both examine the expert evidence by presenting questions directly to the experts called by either of the parties. It increases the efficiency of the procedure because the experts do not engage in reviewing each other’s actions or rhetorical speeches but focus on the scientific issues. Additionally it makes the procedure more transparent because one may note the responses to questions presented by the members of the Court and observe what the judges are focusing on.

Aims: Reading ability is a fundamental skill in the modern society, yet some individuals have difficulties in learn-ing to read and write. There is a lot of variability in reading skills, and one reason that can cause reading difficulty is a neurodevelopmental disorder called dyslexia. It is the most common learning disability, and the core deficit in dyslexia lies in word decoding, which is the process of connecting letter combinations into their corresponding auditory representations. Dyslexia is familial and is recognized to have strong genetic background. A dozen dyslexia susceptibility genes have been suggested, but DYX1C1, DCDC2 and KIAA0319 have been associated with dyslexia most commonly. The function of these genes is however not yet fully understood. In previous studies variation in these genes have been linked to struc-tural brain alterations in left hemispheric regions where language is mostly processed. The aim of this study was to examine the connection between dyslexia susceptibility genes DCDC2, DYX1C1 and KI-AA0319 and variation in brain activity during reading tasks in the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), infe-rior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) and intraparietal sulcus (IPS), by combining functional magnetic resonance imag-ing data and genetic data in a neurotypical population. Previous studies have reported that weaker reading skills are associated with decreased brain activity in these regions, and reading incongruent sentences has been associated with increased brain activity in the left IFG and MTG. Methods: During fMRI, participants were presented with sentences with illogical and logical endings, and judged them as either congruent or incongruent, in distracted and undistracted conditions. Auditory speech stimuli were used as distractor. Regions of Interest analyses were conducted to examine brain activation in the aforementioned brain regions during distracted and non-distracted reading separately for different allelic groups in single nucleotide polymorphisms of the three genes. Results and Conclusions: DYX1C1 showed significant interaction with brain activation in the IPS. A significant interaction of DCDC2 with logic was found in the IFG and IPS showing that individuals carrying susceptibility alleles have reduced brain activation when reading incongruent sentences. Additionally, DCDC2 showed inter-action with distraction in the IFG, as individuals carrying susceptibility alleles had reduced brain activa-tion when a speech distractor was presented. In the MTG, there was a significant interaction of DCDC2 with logic and distractor showing that in different allelic groups, speech distractor modulated the activa-tion elicited by incongruent sentences in different ways. These results provide a link between variation in dyslexia susceptibility genes and brain activation during reading. Previous studies have mostly linked dyslexia susceptibility genes to structural brain alterations, and dyslexia and lower reading skills have been linked to variation in brain activity. The current study therefore expands the current understanding of genetic basis on reading and linguistic processing.

This Master's thesis deals with the use of block copolymers in capillary electromigration techniques (literature part) and both in material chemistry and capillary electrophoresis (experimental part). Amphiphilic block copolymers are an interesting research topic due to their specific molecular structure, which consists of at least two parts with different chemical natures. The great potential of block copolymers arises from their tunability of size, shape and composition. In recent years, numerous copolymer architectures have been developed and the demand to find new materials for biomolecule separations remains high. The literature part introduces rarely used coating materials, block copolymers, in capillary electromigration techniques. The two main electromigration techniques where block copolymers have been tested are capillary electrophoresis and capillary gel electrophoresis. Block copolymers have been attached to capillary inner surface permanently and dynamically. In capillary gel electrophoresis the micellization ability of block copolymers has been already well-known for many decades, and specific studies of copolymer phases have been published. In the experimental part of this M.Sc. thesis, double-hydrophilic poly(N-methyl-2-vinylpyridinium iodide- block –ethylene oxide) diblock copolymer was used in two very different applications to emphasize the potential of block copolymers in various fields. In both studies, the hydrophilicity of ethylene oxide block and polycationic nature of vinylpyridinium block were utilized. First poly(N-methyl-2-vinylpyridinium iodide- block –ethylene oxide) was used to mediate the self-assembly of ferritin protein cages. The aim of this research was to explore complexation of double-hydrophilic diblock copolymers with protein cages and to study the molecular morphology of the formed nanoparticle/copolymer assemblies. Complexation process was studied in aqueous solvent medium and formation of complexes was investigated with dynamic light scattering. Transmission electron microscopy and small-angle x-ray scattering technique were used to characterize the size and shape of the particles. In the second approach the double-hydrophilic block copolymer was used as capillary coating material in two different capillary electromigration techniques. The possibility to alter the electro-osmotic flow and to gain a new tool for biomolecule studies was explored. Our results indicated that poly(N-methyl-2-vinylpyridinium iodide- block- ethylene oxide) binds efficiently with oppositely charged objects and surfaces via electrostatic interactions, and the polyethylene oxide block gives good stability in aqueous medium. Nanoparticle co-assembly studies showed that the poly(N-methyl-2-vinylpyridinium iodide- block- ethylene oxide) complexes were approximately 200-400 nm in diameter. For capillary coating studies, the polymer suppressed electro-osmotic flow efficiently and showed good run-to-run stability with RSD values from 1.4 to 7.9 %. Coating was observed to be very stable at pH range from 4.5 to 8.5 with ultra-low mobilities. The results achieved prove the potential of double-hydrophilic block copolymers in different various fields in the future.

The search for a profound connection between gravity and quantum mechanics has been a longstanding goal in theoretical physics. One such connection is known as the holographic principle, which suggests that the dynamics within a given region of spacetime can be fully described on its boundary surface. This concept led to the realization that string theory provides a lower-dimensional description that encapsulates essential aspects of spacetime. While the "AdS/CFT correspondence" exemplifies the success of this holographic theory, it was discovered soon after that the Universe has a positive cosmological constant, Λ. This immediately sparked interest in a potential correspondence centered around de Sitter (dS) space, which is also characterized by a positive cosmological constant. This thesis comprehensively explores the de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (dS/CFT) correspondence from various perspectives, along with the unique challenges posed by the distinct nature of dS space. The original dS/CFT duality proposes that a two-dimensional Conformal Field Theory resides on the boundary of three-dimensional asymptotic dS space. However, the definition and interpretation of physical observables within the dS/CFT framework remain open questions. Therefore, the discussions in this thesis not only cover the original dS/CFT conjecture, but also extend into more recent advancements in the field. These advancements include a higher-spin dS/CFT duality, the relationship between string theory and dS space, and the intriguing proposal of an "elliptical" dS space. While the dS/CFT correspondence is still far from being well-defined, there have been extensive efforts devoted to shedding light on its intricate framework and exploring its potential applications. As the Universe may be evolving towards an approximately de Sitter phase, understanding the dS/CFT correspondence offers a unique opportunity for gaining fresh insights into the link between gravity and quantum field theory.

The concept of bioeconomy has been harnessed to support societies and their economies to produce value added products from renewable biological resources and to develop circular economy. Such systems require actions from a variety of actors from public and private sectors to consumers. As a heavily forested country Finland’s bioeconomy leans largely on the utilization of forests. Planned pulp and paper industry investments call for end-uses for logs to balance out the wood supply. Both forests and the construction sector are also focal areas in climate change mitigation. Wooden multistorey construction (WMC) and its capability to store carbon has been suggested as a partial solution to the aforementioned issues. The aim of this study is to investigate the relation of WMC and the bioeconomy and the role of end-users in WMC. This explorative study uses qualitative research methods to address its research ques-tions. The data consists of seven focus group interviews conducted in the metropolitan area of Helsinki between September 2017 and February 2019. The interviewed groups, with altogether 26 participants, included an academic expert group, three market actor groups (firm representatives, architects and property managers) and three wooden multistorey resident groups. The residents’ type of housing included rental, owner-occupancy and right-of-occupancy and the buildings were built between 2015 and 2017. Thematization was used for data analysis. Results of the study show that despite Finland’s close-knit relation to its forests and traditions in utiliz-ing wood, WMC is not currently perceived culturally embedded as part of the society nor the construc-tion industry. WMC is still a niche in the country and it also seems more connected to mechanical wood industry than the construction industry. WMC was associated with the bioeconomy by non-resident groups, although experts recognized also potential pitfalls in the current discourse. Percep-tions that were aligned with the general discourse of the bioeconomy are mainly related to material renewability, possibilities to recycle wooden construction material, wood products capabilities to store carbon, and Finland’s relatively abundant forest resources. Despite WMC’s publicly declared role in the bioeconomy programmes, some underlying features make its rationale challenging for consumers, which could turn out to be a hindrance for WMC growth in the future. Generally, experts, firm represent-atives and architects were pro-wood and considered that WMC is still being unjustly stigmatized by various actors. In accordance with previous studies, the interviewed WMC residents were satisfied with their apart-ments and the building as such. A wooden frame does not seem to surpass traditional housing prefer-ences of consumers, but it is perceived as a benefit when choosing housing. Results of this study are much in line with previous findings, which indicate that environmental aspects matter, but not as much as health or other more personal aspects of living. Wood can be sensed in the building and apart-ments, which is perceived positively. However, the prevailing fire safety legislation, which was consid-ered as too strict, constrains the use of wood on visible surfaces in interiors. WMC seems to have an environmentally friendly image among residents, which however calls for better communication.

With the fast growing number of scientific papers produced every year, browsing through scientific literature can be a difficult task: formulating a precise query is not often possible if one is a novice in a given research field or different terms are often used to describe the same concept. To tackle some of these issues, we build a system based on topic models for browsing the arXiv repository. Through visualizing the relationship between keyphrases, documents and authors, the system allows the user to better explore the document search space compared to traditional systems based solely on query search. In this paper, we describe the design principles and the functionality supported by this system as well as report on a short user study.