Constructions and situations : a constructivist reading of Hegel's System

The object of this work is Hegel's Logic, which comprises the first third of his philosophical System that also includes the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Spirit. The work is divided into two parts, where the first part investigates Hegel s Logic in itself or without an explicit reference to rest of Hegel's System. It is argued in the first part that Hegel's Logic contains a methodology for constructing examples of basic ontological categories. The starting point on which this construction is based is a structure Hegel calls Nothing, which I argue to be identical with an empty situation, that is, a situation with no objects in it. Examples of further categories are constructed, firstly, by making previous structures objects of new situations. This rule makes it possible for Hegel to introduce examples of ontological structures that contain objects as constituents. Secondly, Hegel takes also the very constructions he uses as constituents of further structures: thus, he is able to exemplify ontological categories involving causal relations. The final result of Hegel's Logic should then be a model of Hegel s Logic itself, or at least of its basic methods. The second part of the work focuses on the relation of Hegel's Logic to the other parts of Hegel's System. My interpretation tries to avoid, firstly, the extreme of taking Hegel's System as a grand metaphysical attempt to deduce what exists through abstract thinking, and secondly, the extreme of seeing Hegel's System as mere diluted Kantianism or a second-order investigation of theories concerning objects instead of actual objects. I suggest a third manner of reading Hegel's System, based on extending the constructivism of Hegel's Logic to the whole of his philosophical System. According to this interpretation, transitions between parts of Hegel's System should not be understood as proofs of any sort, but as constructions of one structure or its model from another structure. Hence, these transitions involve at least, and especially within the Philosophy of Nature, modelling of one type of object or phenomenon through characteristics of an object or phenomenon of another type, and in the best case, and especially within the Philosophy of Spirit, transformations of an object or phenomenon of one type into an object or phenomenon of another type. Thus, the transitions and descriptions within Hegel's System concern actual objects and not mere theories, but they still involve no fallacious deductions.

Mapinduzi Daima – Revolution Forever : Using the 1964 Revolution in Nationalistic Political Discourses in Zanzibar

This Master's thesis examines two opposite nationalistic discourses on the revolution of Zanzibar. Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), the party in power since the 1964 revolution defends its revolutionary and "African" heritage in the current multi-party system. New nationalists, including among others the main opposition party Civic United Front (CUF), question both the 1964 revolution and the post-revolution period and blame CCM for empty promises, corruption and ethnic discrimination. This study analyzes the role of a significant historical event in the creation of nationalistic ideology and national identity. The 1964 revolution forms the nucleus of various debates related to the history of Zanzibar: slavery, colonialism, racial discrimination and political violence. Representations of these Social constructivist principles form the basis of this study, and central concepts in the theoretical framework are nationalism, national identity, ethnicity and race. I use critical discourse analysis as my research method, lean on the work by Teun A. van Dijk and Norman Fairclough as the most significant researchers in this field. I examine particularly the ways in which linguistic methods, such as stereotypes and metaphors are used to form in- and out-groups ("us" vs. "others"). My material, both in Swahili and English, was collected mainly in Tanzania in the fall of 2007 and from online sources in the spring of 2009. It includes publications by the Zanzibari government between the years of 1964-2000 (12), official speeches for the Revolution Day or the Union Day (12), articles from Tanzanian newspapers from the 1990s until the year of 2009 (15), memoirs and political pamphlets (10), blog posts and opinion pieces from four different websites (8), and interviews or personal communication in Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam and Uppsala (8). Nationalistic rhetoric often creates enemy images by using binary good-bad oppositions. Both discourses in this study build identities on the basis of "otherness" and exclusion, with the intent of emphasizing the particularity of the own group and excluding "evilness" outside the own reference group. These opposite views on the 1964 revolution as the main axis of the history of Zanzibar build different portraits of the nation and Zanzibari-ness (Uzanzibari). CCM still relies on the pre-revolutionary enemy images of Arabs as selfish rulers and cruel slave traders. For CCM, Zanzibar is primarily an "African" nation and a part of Tanzania which is threatened by "Arabs", the outsiders. In contrast, the new nationalists stress the long history of Zanzibar as multi-racial, cosmopolitan and formerly independent country which has its own, separate culture and identity from mainland Tanzanians. Heshima, honour/respect, one of the basic values of Swahili culture, occupies a central role in both discourses: the main party emphasizes that the revolution returned "heshima" to the Zanzibari Africans after centuries of humiliation, whereas the new nationalists claim that ever since the revolution all "non-Africans" have been humiliated and lost their "heshima". According to the new nationalists, true Zanzibari values which include tolerance and harmony between different "races" were lost when the "foreign" revolutionaries arrived from the mainland. Consequently, they see the 1964 revolution as Tanganyikan colonialism which began with the help of Western countries, and maintain that this "colonialism" still continues in the violent multi-party elections.

Lionhearts of the Playworld : An ethnographic case study of the development of agency in play pedagogy

This is an ethnographic case study of the creation and emergence of a playworld – a pedagogical approach aimed at promoting children’s development and learning in early education settings through the use of play and drama. The data was collected in a Finnish experimental mixed-age elementary school classroom in the school year 2003-2004. In the playworld students and teachers explore different social and cultural phenomena through taking on the roles of characters from a story or a piece of literature and acting inside the frames of an improvised plot. The thesis takes under scrutiny the notion of agency in education. It produces theoretically grounded empirical knowledge of the ways in which children struggle to become recognized and agentive actors in early education settings and how their agency develops in their interaction with adults. The study builds on the activity theoretical and sociocultural tradition and develops a methodological framework called video-based narrative interaction analysis for studying student agency as developing over time but manifesting through the situational material and discursive local interactions. The research questions are: 1. What are the children’s ways of enacting their agency in the playworld? 2. How do the children’s agentive actions change and develop over the spring? 3. What are the potentials and challenges of the playworld for promoting student agency? 4. How do the teachers and the children deal with the contradiction between control and agency in the playworld? The study consists of a summary part and four empirical articles which each have a particular viewpoint. Articles I and II deal with individual students’ paths to agency. In Article I the focus is on the role of resistance and questioning in enabling important spaces for agency. Article II takes a critical gender perspective and analyzes how two girls struggled towards recognition in the playworld. It also illuminates the role of imagination in developing a sense of agency. Article III examines how the open-ended and improvisational nature of the playworld interaction provided experiences and a sense of ‘shared agency’ for the students and teachers in the class. Article IV turns the focus on the teachers and analyzes how their role actions in the playworld helped the children to enact agency. It also discusses the challenges that the teachers faced in this work and asks what makes the playworld activity sustainable in the class. The summary part provides a critical literature review on the concept of agency and argues that the inherently contradictory nature of the phenomenon of agency has not been sufficiently theorized. The summary part also locates the playworld intervention in a historical frame by discussing the changing conceptions of adulthood and childhood in the West. By focusing on the changing role of play and art in both adults’ and children’s contemporary lives, the thesis opens up an important but often neglected perspective on the problem of promoting student agency in education. The results illustrate how engaging in a collectively imagined and dramatized pretend play space together with the children enabled the teachers to momentarily put aside their “knower” positions in the classroom. The fictive roles and the narrative plot helped them to create a necessary incompleteness and open-endedness in the activity that stimulated the children’s initiatives. This meant that the children too could momentarily step out of their traditional classroom positions as pupils and initiate action to further the collective play. Engaging in this kind of unconventional activity and taking up and enacting agency was, however, very challenging for the participating children and teachers. It often contradicted the need to sustain control and order in the classroom. The study concludes that play- and drama-based pedagogies offer a unique but undeveloped potential for developing educational spaces that help teachers and children deal with the often contradictory requirements of schooling.

Datorstödda studier i hälso- och socialvård : MuPSiNet-projektet

The aim of the study was to explore why the MuPSiNet project - a computer and network supported learning environment for the field of health care and social work - did not develop as expected. To grasp the problem some hypotheses were formulated. The hypotheses regarded the teachers' skills in and attitudes towards computing and their attitudes towards constructivist study methods. An online survey containing 48 items was performed. The survey targeted all the teachers within the field of health care and social work in the country, and it produced 461 responses that were analysed against the hypotheses. The reliability of the variables was tested using the Cronbach alpha coefficient and t-tests. Poor basic computing skills among the teachers combined with a vulnerable technical solution, and inadequate project management combined with lack of administrative models for transforming economic resources into manpower were the factors that turned out to play a decisive role in the project. Other important findings were that the teachers had rather poor skills and knowledge in computing, computer safety and computer supported instruction, and that these skills were significantly poorer among female teachers who were in majority in the sample. The fraction of teachers who were familiar with software for electronic patient records (EPR) was low. The attitudes towards constructivist teaching methods were positive, and further education seemed to utterly increase the teachers' readiness to use alternative teaching methods. The most important conclusions were the following: In order to integrate EPR software as a natural tool in teaching planning and documenting health care, it is crucial that the teachers have sufficient basic skills in computing and that more teachers have personal experience of using EPR software. In order for computer supported teaching to become accepted it is necessary to arrange with extensive further education for the teachers presently working, and for that further education to succeed it should be backed up locally among other things by sufficient support in matters concerning computer supported teaching. The attitudes towards computing showed significant gender differences. Based on the findings it is suggested that basic skills in computing should also include an awareness of data safety in relation to work in different kinds of computer networks, and that projects of this kind should be built up around a proper project organisation with sufficient resources. Suggestions concerning curricular development and further education are also presented. Conclusions concerning the research method were that reminders have a better effect, and that respondents tend to answer open-ended questions more verbosely in electronically distributed online surveys compared to traditional surveys. A method of utilising randomized passwords to guarantee respondent anonymity while maintaining sample control is presented. Keywords: computer-assisted learning, computer-assisted instruction, health care, social work, vocational education, computerized patient record, online survey

Tarinakontekstin vaikutus sanojen muistamiseen kompleksisessa työmuistitehtävässä

Objectives. The sentence span task is a complex working memory span task used for estimating total working memory capacity for both processing (sentence comprehension) and storage (remembering a set of words). Several traditional models of working memory suggest that performance on these tasks relies on phonological short-term storage. However, long-term memory effects as well as the effects of expertise and strategies have challenged this view. This study uses a working memory task that aids the creation of retrieval structures in the form of stories, which have been shown to form integrated structures in longterm memory. The research question is whether sentence and story contexts boost memory performance in a complex working memory task. The hypothesis is that storage of the words in the task takes place in long-term memory. Evidence of this would be better recall for words as parts of sentences than for separate words, and, particularly, a beneficial effect for words as part of an organized story. Methods. Twenty stories consisting of five sentences each were constructed, and the stimuli in all experimental conditions were based on these sentences and sentence-final words, reordered and recombined for the other conditions. Participants read aloud sets of five sentences that either formed a story or not. In one condition they had to report all the last words at the end of the set, in another, they memorised an additional separate word with each sentence. The sentences were presented on the screen one word at a time (500 ms). After the presentation of each sentence, the participant verified a statement about the sentence. After five sentences, the participant repeated back the words in correct positions. Experiment 1 (n=16) used immediate recall, experiment 2 (n=21) both immediate recall and recall after a distraction interval (the operation span task). In experiment 2 a distracting mental arithmetic task was presented instead of recall in half of the trials, and an individual word was added before each sentence in the two experimental conditions when the participants were to memorize the sentence final words. Subjects also performed a listening span task (in exp.1) or an operation span task (exp.2) to allow comparison of the estimated span and performance in the story task. Results were analysed using correlations, repeated measures ANOVA and a chi-square goodness of fit test on the distribution of errors. Results and discussion. Both the relatedness of the sentences (the story condition) and the inclusion of the words into sentences helped memory. An interaction showed that the story condition had a greater effect on last words than separate words. The beneficial effect of the story was shown in all serial positions. The effects remained in delayed recall. When the sentences formed stories, performance in verification of the statements about sentence context was better. This, as well as the differing distributions of errors in different experimental conditions, suggest different levels of representation are in use in the different conditions. In the story condition, the nature of these representations could be in the form of an organized memory structure, a situation model. The other working memory tasks had only few week correlations to the story task. This could indicate that different processes are in use in the tasks. The results do not support short-term phonological storage, but instead are compatible with the words being encoded to LTM during the task.

"Kyllähän täällä tehdään kaikenlaista laidasta laitaan..." : Nuorten työpajatoiminta ja oppiminen työpajoilla työharjoittelijoiden kokemana

Workshops can be seen as a one kind of occupational model in the field of the social employing. The objective of social employing is to support the employment of those persons who are in a weak labour market position and to maintain their ability to function. The objectives of the workshops, which are offering work experience and learning of life management, maintain the same goal as social employment. Workshop services in Finland are relatively little scientifically studied in spite of their fairly long history. The workshop as a concept is still quite sparsely defined and also an unknown occupational model to the large part of people. The starting point for this study was to clarify what the workshops are like, what the services are like and how learning can be seen from the point of view of the workshop services. The objective of this study was to analyse how the apprentices experience the workshop services as well as learning in the workshops and thus describe how the workshops are shaped at the youth workshops. According to earlier studies the apprentices have experienced the workshops as useful periods in their lives and also they believe that other people in society appreciate the experience that apprentices have been received from the workshops. This study can be described as a qualitative study. Its methodological foundation is in phenomenology and especially in existential phenomenology. The research material consisted of seven individual interviews and two group interviews. In the group interviews five apprentices were those who had also participated in the individual interviews and one apprentice who did not participate. The interviewees' ages were between 17-22 years. The interviews were carried out as semi-structured interviews. The method which was utilised in the analysis of the research material is developed by Juha Perttula (2000). This analyse method is based on existential phenomenology. The apprentices considered that significant experiences in the workshop services were the entry to the workshop, the form of activity of the workshop, workshop community, the achieving of life management and work experience, the understanding of the significance of the education and the planning of the future. Regarding to learning the attitude, on-the-job learning, the importance of the mentors, the new information and new skills achieved were significant experiences at the workshop for the apprentices. The apprentices' experiences reflect well the achievement of the objectives which are set for the workshop services. Results of this study are also compatible to the results of earlier studies of apprentices' positive experience of the workshop services. The results can be utilised in developing the workshop services to offer more versatile experiences than before and to improve learning conditions on the workshops. The arranging of the on-the-job learning and the significance of the actions of mentors should also be noticed.

Representing the epistemic nature of teachers’ practical knowledge : The case of class teachers’ general pedagogy

The present study addressed the epistemology of teachers’ practical knowledge. Drawing from the literature, teachers’ practical knowledge is defined as all teachers’ cognitions (e.g., beliefs, values, motives, procedural knowing, and declarative knowledge) that guide their practice of teaching. The teachers’ reasoning that lies behind their practical knowledge is addressed to gain insight into its epistemic nature. I studied six class teachers’ practical knowledge; they teach in the metropolitan region of Helsinki. Relying on the assumptions of the phenomenographic inquiry, I collected and analyzed the data. I analyzed the data in two stages where the first stage involved an abductive procedure, and the second stage an inductive procedure for interpretation, and thus developed the system of categories. In the end, a quantitative analysis nested into the qualitative findings to study the patterns of the teachers’’ reasoning. The results indicated that teachers justified their practical knowledge based on morality and efficiency of action; efficiency of action was found to be presented in two different ways: authentic efficiency and naïve efficiency. The epistemic weight of morality was embedded in what I call “moral care”. The core intention of teachers in the moral care was the commitment that they felt about the “whole character” of students. From this perspective the “dignity” and the moral character of the students should not replaced for any other “instrumental price”. “Caring pedagogy” was the epistemic value of teachers’ reasoning in the authentic efficiency. The central idea in the caring pedagogy was teachers’ intentions to improve the “intellectual properties” of “all or most” of the students using “flexible” and “diverse” pedagogies. However, “regulating pedagogy” was the epistemic condition of practice in the cases corresponding to naïve efficiency. Teachers argued that an effective practical knowledge should regulate and manage the classroom activities, but the targets of the practical knowledge were mainly other “issues “or a certain percentage of the students. In these cases, the teachers’ arguments were mainly based on the notion of “what worked” regardless of reflecting on “what did not work”. Drawing from the theoretical background and the data, teachers’ practical knowledge calls for “praxial knowledge” when they used the epistemic conditions of “caring pedagogy” and “moral care”. It however calls for “practicable” epistemic status when teachers use the epistemic condition of regulating pedagogy. As such, praxial knowledge with the dimensions of caring pedagogy and moral care represents the “normative” perspective on teachers’ practical knowledge, and thus reflects a higher epistemic status in comparison to “practicable” knowledge, which represents a “descriptive” perception toward teachers’ practical knowledge and teaching.

Kinnasneulatekniikan verkko-oppimateriaalin kehittäminen ja neulalla neulomisen taidon kehittyminen

The purpose of the study was to develop a functional web-based learning material for the learning of the nålbinding technique. The study of the research topic was already begun in my pedagogical thesis in 2008 by considering the demands on pedagogic material for the teaching of the technique. This study falls into the field of qualitative design research which was carried out through three stages. In the study three methods of usability testing, i.e. expert analysis, the informants’ thinking aloud and interviews, were used as research methods. At the first stage of the study the first version of the learning material was created. This was done on the basis of theoretical knowledge, the demands set on learning materials as clarified in previous studies, on the basis of previously created learning materials for the learning of the nålbinding technique as well as with the help of two experts on the technique. At the second stage, the learning material was developed on the basis of expert analysis and another version of the material was created. At the third stage, usability testing was carried out on the material. At this stage two informants used the material, practiced stitching with the nålbinding needle and thought aloud while doing so. In the usability testing the Morae –programme was used to record the events on the screen, the actions of the informants and their spoken out thoughts. The Morae –programme was also used when analysing the recordings. After the testing, the informants practised stitching independently and in a few weeks time they were interviewed. The interviews were aimed at finding out the informants’ opinions on the future development of the material. On the basis of the informants’ independent attempts at using the nålbinding technique, the development of their skills after the testing was also discussed at the interviews. The development of the learning material will continue after this study on the basis of the usability testing and the interviews. The web-based learning material was created for the website Käspaikka in the address www.kaspaikka.fi/kinnasneula. By creating a multimodal learning material the dual-coding theory by Paivio was taken into consideration. According to the theory, several methods of presentation help a learner to restore information in his/her memory. The independent construction of the learner’s knowledge, i.e. learning according to the principles of the constructivist learning theory, was also supported by creating a logical navigation system, by linking interrelated topics to one another and by presenting the topics in several different forms. In the test situations the learning material was judged to work well when practising stitching with the nålbinding needle. Both informants learned the basics of the nålbinding technique even though their respective learning strategies were quite different. In the usability testing illogicalities and shortcomings were still noticed in the learning material which will still be further developed in the future.

Impact of Tobacco Control Policy on Smoking and Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke

The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of the Finnish tobacco control measures for reduction of smoking. First, the trends and patterns in ever smoking among adult Finns in 1978 2001 as well as the associations of trends with the Tobacco Control Act in 1976 were examined. Secondly, the impact of the 1976 TCA on the proportion of ever daily smokers in different socioeconomic groups was studied. Thirdly, the impact of the 1995 TCAA on recent trends in the prevalence of daily smoking was evaluated by gender and employment status. Fourthly, the trends of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) at workplaces and homes were investigated. The study is based on data of the Health Behaviour among the Finnish Adult Population surveys. Among Finnish men smoking initiation declined from earlier to later cohorts, whereas among women it increased in successive birth cohorts born before 1956. The lasting differences between birth cohorts as regards ever daily smoking reflected well the impact of measures to reduce smoking in Finland in 1976. Smoking initiation in the birth cohorts (born in 1961 or later) which were in critical age as regards the risk of smoking initiation when the TCA came into force was less common than could be expected according to the trends seen in the earlier birth cohorts. Marked socioeconomic differences were found in smoking in the different birth cohorts. Smoking was more prevalent in the lower socioeconomic groups than in the higher ones, and the differences were larger in the later birth cohorts compared to the earlier ones. The differences between the birth cohorts in ever daily smoking were compatible with the hypothetical impact of the TCA in almost all socioeconomic groups, except farmers. Among men the 1976 TCA appears to have had the greatest impact on white-collar employees. Among women the effect of the act was highly significant in all socioeconomic groups. However, female smoking prevalence continues to show wide socioeconomic disparities. Daily smoking decreased among employees after the 1995 TCAA, supporting the hypothesis of the lowering impact of the amendment on daily smoking due to increased smoking cessation. No parallel change in daily smoking was found in the population without direct expose to ETS legislation (farmers, students, housewives, pensioners or unemployed). Exposure to ETS decreased markedly among non-smokers at work after the 1995 TCAA. The 1976 TCA and the 1995 TCAA were useful in controlling smoking initiation and cessation, but their impact was not equal across the population groups. The results of this study strongly suggested that tobacco control policies markedly contribute to the decrease in smoking and in exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.

Fumarate Hydratase and Succinate Dehydrogenase in Neoplasia

Germline mutations in fumarate hydratase (FH) cause hereditary leiomyomatosis and renal cell cancer (HLRCC). FH is a nuclear encoded enzyme which functions in the Krebs tricarboxylic acid cycle, and homozygous mutation in FH lead to severe developmental defects. Both uterine and cutaneous leiomyomas are components of the HLRCC phenotype. Most of these tumours show loss of the wild-type allele and, also, the mutations reduce FH enzyme activity, which indicate that FH is a tumour suppressor gene. The renal cell cancers associated with HLRCC are of rare papillary type 2 histology. Other genes involved in the Krebs cycle, which are also implicated in neoplasia are 3 of the 4 subunits encoding succinate dehydrogenase (SDH); mutations in SHDB, SDHC, and SDHD predispose to paraganglioma and phaeochromocytoma. Although uterine leiomyomas (or fibroids) are very common, the estimations of affected women ranging from 25% to 77%, not much is known about their genetic background. Cytogenetic studies have revealed that rearrangements involving chromosomes 6, 7, 12 and 14 are most commonly seen in fibroids. Deletions on the long arm of chromosome 7 have been reported to be involved in about 17 to 34 % of leiomyomas and the small commonly deleted region on 7q22 suggests that there might be an underlying tumour suppressor gene in that region. The purpose of this study was to investigate the genetic mechanisms behind the development of tumours associated with HLRCC, both renal cell cancer and uterine fibroids. Firstly, a database search at the Finnish cancer registry was conducted in order to identify new families with early-onset RCC and to test if the family history was compatible with HLRCC. Secondly, sporadic uterine fibroids were tested for deletions on 7q in order to define the minimal deleted 7q-region, followed by mutation analysis of the candidate genes. Thirdly, oligonucleotide chips were utilised to study the global gene expression profiles of uterine fibroids in order to test whether 7q-deletions and FH mutations significantly affected fibroid biology. In the screen for early-onset RCC, 214 families were identified. Subsequently, the pedigrees were constructed and clinical data obtained. One of the index cases (RCC at the age of 28) had a mother who had been diagnosed with a heart tumour, which in further investigation turned out to be a paraganglioma. This lead to an alternative hypothesis that SDH, instead of FH, could be involved. SDHA, SDHB, SDHC and SDHD were sequenced from these individuals; a germline SDHB R27X mutation was detected with loss of the wild-type allele in both tumours. These results suggest that germline mutations in the SDHB gene predispose to early-onset RCC establishing a novel form of hereditary RCC. This has immediate clinical implications in the surveillance of patients suffering from early-onset RCC and phaeochromocytoma/paraganglioma. For the studies on sporadic uterine fibroids, a set of 166 fibroids from 51 individuals were collected. The 7q LOH mapping defined a commonly deleted region of about 3.2 mega bases in 11 of the 166 tumours. The deletion was consistent with previously reported allelotyping studies of leiomyomas and it therefore suggested the presence of a tumour suppressor gene in the deleted region. Furthermore, the high-resolution aCGH-chip analysis refined the deleted region to only 2.79Mb. When combined with previous data, the commonly deleted region was only 2.3Mb. The mutation screening of the known genes within the commonly deleted region did not reveal pathogenic mutations, however. The expression microarray analysis revealed that FH-deficient fibroids, both sporadic and familial, had their distinct gene expression profile as they formed their own group in the unsupervised clustering. On the other hand, the presence or absence of 7q-deletions did not significantly alter the global gene expression pattern of fibroids, suggesting that these two groups do not have different biological backgrounds. Multiple differentially expressed genes were identified between FH wild-type and FH-mutant fibroids, and the most significant increase was seen in the expression of carbohydrate metabolism-related and hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) target genes.

Modern techniques in detection, identification and quantification of bacteria and peptides from foods

Standards have been placed to regulate the microbial and preservative contents to assure that foods are safe to the consumer. In a case of a food-related disease outbreak, it is crucial to be able to detect and identify quickly and accurately the cause of the disease. In addition, for every day control of food microbial and preservative contents, the detection methods must be easily performed for numerous food samples. In this present study, quicker alternative methods were studied for identification of bacteria by DNA fingerprinting. A flow cytometry method was developed as an alternative to pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, the golden method . DNA fragment sizing by an ultrasensitive flow cytometer was able to discriminate species and strains in a reproducible and comparable manner to pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. This new method was hundreds times faster and 200,000 times more sensitive. Additionally, another DNA fingerprinting identification method was developed based on single-enzyme amplified fragment length polymorphism (SE-AFLP). This method allowed the differentiation of genera, species, and strains of pathogenic bacteria of Bacilli, Staphylococci, Yersinia, and Escherichia coli. These fingerprinting patterns obtained by SE-AFLP were simpler and easier to analyze than those by the traditional amplified fragment length polymorphism by double enzyme digestion. Nisin (E234) is added as a preservative to different types of foods, especially dairy products, around the world. Various detection methods exist for nisin, but they lack in sensitivity, speed or specificity. In this present study, a sensitive nisin-induced green fluorescent protein (GFPuv) bioassay was developed using the Lactococcus lactis two-component signal system NisRK and the nisin-inducible nisA promoter. The bioassay was extremely sensitive with detection limit of 10 pg/ml in culture supernatant. In addition, it was compatible for quantification from various food matrices, such as milk, salad dressings, processed cheese, liquid eggs, and canned tomatoes. Wine has good antimicrobial properties due to its alcohol concentration, low pH, and organic content and therefore often assumed to be microbially safe to consume. Another aim of this thesis was to study the microbiota of wines returned by customers complaining of food-poisoning symptoms. By partial 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, ribotyping, and boar spermatozoa motility assay, it was identified that one of the wines contained a Bacillus simplex BAC91, which produced a heat-stable substance toxic to the mitochondria of sperm cells. The antibacterial activity of wine was tested on the vegetative cells and spores of B. simplex BAC91, B. cereus type strain ATCC 14579 and cereulide-producing B. cereus F4810/72. Although the vegetative cells and spores of B. simplex BAC91 were sensitive to the antimicrobial effects of wine, the spores of B. cereus strains ATCC 14579 and F4810/72 stayed viable for at least 4 months. According to these results, Bacillus spp., more specifically spores, can be a possible risk to the wine consumer.

Noncommutative Gravitation as a Gauge Theory of Twisted Poincaré Symmetry

Gravitaation kvanttiteorian muotoilu on ollut teoreettisten fyysikkojen tavoitteena kvanttimekaniikan synnystä lähtien. Kvanttimekaniikan soveltaminen korkean energian ilmiöihin yleisen suhteellisuusteorian viitekehyksessä johtaa aika-avaruuden koordinaattien operatiiviseen ei-kommutoivuuteen. Ei-kommutoivia aika-avaruuden geometrioita tavataan myös avointen säikeiden säieteorioiden tietyillä matalan energian rajoilla. Ei-kommutoivan aika-avaruuden gravitaatioteoria voisi olla yhteensopiva kvanttimekaniikan kanssa ja se voisi mahdollistaa erittäin lyhyiden etäisyyksien ja korkeiden energioiden prosessien ei-lokaaliksi uskotun fysiikan kuvauksen, sekä tuottaa yleisen suhteellisuusteorian kanssa yhtenevän teorian pitkillä etäisyyksillä. Tässä työssä tarkastelen gravitaatiota Poincarén symmetrian mittakenttäteoriana ja pyrin yleistämään tämän näkemyksen ei-kommutoiviin aika-avaruuksiin. Ensin esittelen Poincarén symmetrian keskeisen roolin relativistisessa fysiikassa ja sen kuinka klassinen gravitaatioteoria johdetaan Poincarén symmetrian mittakenttäteoriana kommutoivassa aika-avaruudessa. Jatkan esittelemällä ei-kommutoivan aika-avaruuden ja kvanttikenttäteorian muotoilun ei-kommutoivassa aika-avaruudessa. Mittasymmetrioiden lokaalin luonteen vuoksi tarkastelen huolellisesti mittakenttäteorioiden muotoilua ei-kommutoivassa aika-avaruudessa. Erityistä huomiota kiinnitetään näiden teorioiden vääristyneeseen Poincarén symmetriaan, joka on ei-kommutoivan aika-avaruuden omaama uudentyyppinen kvanttisymmetria. Seuraavaksi tarkastelen ei-kommutoivan gravitaatioteorian muotoilun ongelmia ja niihin kirjallisuudessa esitettyjä ratkaisuehdotuksia. Selitän kuinka kaikissa tähänastisissa lähestymistavoissa epäonnistutaan muotoilla kovarianssi yleisten koordinaattimunnosten suhteen, joka on yleisen suhteellisuusteorian kulmakivi. Lopuksi tutkin mahdollisuutta yleistää vääristynyt Poincarén symmetria lokaaliksi mittasymmetriaksi --- gravitaation ei-kommutoivan mittakenttäteorian saavuttamisen toivossa. Osoitan, että tällaista yleistystä ei voida saavuttaa vääristämällä Poincarén symmetriaa kovariantilla twist-elementillä. Näin ollen ei-kommutoivan gravitaation ja vääristyneen Poincarén symmetrian tutkimuksessa tulee jatkossa keskittyä muihin lähestymistapoihin.

The Spin-Statistics Relation and Noncommutative Quantum Field Theory

The efforts of combining quantum theory with general relativity have been great and marked by several successes. One field where progress has lately been made is the study of noncommutative quantum field theories that arise as a low energy limit in certain string theories. The idea of noncommutativity comes naturally when combining these two extremes and has profound implications on results widely accepted in traditional, commutative, theories. In this work I review the status of one of the most important connections in physics, the spin-statistics relation. The relation is deeply ingrained in our reality in that it gives us the structure for the periodic table and is of crucial importance for the stability of all matter. The dramatic effects of noncommutativity of space-time coordinates, mainly the loss of Lorentz invariance, call the spin-statistics relation into question. The spin-statistics theorem is first presented in its traditional setting, giving a clarifying proof starting from minimal requirements. Next the notion of noncommutativity is introduced and its implications studied. The discussion is essentially based on twisted Poincaré symmetry, the space-time symmetry of noncommutative quantum field theory. The controversial issue of microcausality in noncommutative quantum field theory is settled by showing for the first time that the light wedge microcausality condition is compatible with the twisted Poincaré symmetry. The spin-statistics relation is considered both from the point of view of braided statistics, and in the traditional Lagrangian formulation of Pauli, with the conclusion that Pauli's age-old theorem stands even this test so dramatic for the whole structure of space-time.

Atomic Layer Deposition of Multicomponent Oxide Materials

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a method for thin film deposition which has been extensively studied for binary oxide thin film growth. Studies on multicomponent oxide growth by ALD remain relatively few owing to the increased number of factors that come into play when more than one metal is employed. More metal precursors are required, and the surface may change significantly during successive stages of the growth. Multicomponent oxide thin films can be prepared in a well-controlled way as long as the same principle that makes binary oxide ALD work so well is followed for each constituent element: in short, the film growth has to be self-limiting. ALD of various multicomponent oxides was studied. SrTiO3, BaTiO3, Ba(1-x)SrxTiO3 (BST), SrTa2O6, Bi4Ti3O12, BiTaO4 and SrBi2Ta2O9 (SBT) thin films were prepared, many of them for the first time by ALD. Chemistries of the binary oxides are shown to influence the processing of their multicomponent counterparts. The compatibility of precursor volatilities, thermal stabilities and reactivities is essential for multicomponent oxide ALD, but it should be noted that the main reactive species, the growing film itself, must also be compatible with self-limiting growth chemistry. In the cases of BaO and Bi2O3 the growth of the binary oxide was very difficult, but the presence of Ti or Ta in the growing film made self-limiting growth possible. The application of the deposited films as dielectric and ferroelectric materials was studied. Post-deposition annealing treatments in different atmospheres were used to achieve the desired crystalline phase or, more generally, to improve electrical properties. Electrode materials strongly influenced the leakage current densities in the prepared metal insulator metal (MIM) capacitors. Film permittivities above 100 and leakage current densities below 110-7 A/cm2 were achieved with several of the materials.