Saako terveysuskoja synninpäästön? : Naispappien käsityksiä laihdutus- ja terveyskulttuurista nykyisessä mediayhteiskunnassa

Background and aims. Fatness and dieting have been the object of interest between many fields for a long time. Home economics as a discipline enables a comprehensive inspection of fatness and dieting reviewing different disciplines. In addition to the aspect where the pursuit of dieting and health is seen from the perspective of medical and health science it is also been reviewd as a social and cultural phenomena. This study contemplates the influence of history, religion, medicalization and media on dieting and health culture. The objective is to find out if the modern dieting and health culture has gathered influences from centuries ago and absorbed religious features. The stress deriving from appereance has been discussed in the public and there are many solutions conserning weight issues. The purpose of this study is to find out what personal experiences and thoughts female pastors have conserning these questions. The media – which is one of the most influential systems nowadays – has undeniably a great effect on the consumer. The goal is furthermore to estimate the effect of the media on the changing of dieting and health culture. The three main research questions are: 1. What kind of conseptions do female pastors have of dieting and health culture and of its religious features? 2. What kind of personal experiences and conseptions do female pastors have of dieting and strivines of health? 3. How do female pastors regard the image the media has supplied of dieting and health culture? Material and methods. The qualitative data was gathered in year 2009 using the halfstructured theme interview -method. The data consists of interviews conducted with specialists of spiritual matters, i.e. ten female pastors who are between 35 and 60 years old and live in the metropolitan area. The analytical procedure used is called a theory based context analysis. Results and conclusions. Results of this study show that the idealization of slimness and healthiness is a matter discussed in the public on a daily basis. The problem faced was that the media provided contradictory information regarding fatness and dieting and the standard of slimness in commercials focused on females. The pursuit of dieting and healthiness was believed to include also religious elements. In the Middle Ages and the era after that the fatness, overeating and the pleasure one gets from eating was still seen as a condemnable matter in our culture. One could say this was like a sin. The respondents believed that healthiness, healthy living, optimal eating and good looks were a matter more or less equal than a religion. This was a derivative from the fact that treasuring health has become a life stearing value for many people. In the priest’s profession dieting and the pursuit of health was seen in the light of problems arising from weight issues. In ones profession for example the unhealthy eating in festive situations was seen as a matter that leads to unnecessary weight. Another aspect was the job circumstances that limited the degree of movement. The belief was that the female pastors would in a decreasing fashion confront stress deriving from appearence in their job. Keywords: dieting, fatness, healthiness, slimness, female pastors, religion, medicalization, media

Associations among Emdogain®, human oral carcinoma cells and oral proteolytic enzymes

The Enamel matrix derivative Emdogain® (EMD) is a commercially available tissue extract preparation of porcine enamel origin. Studies have shown EMD to be clinically useful in promoting periodontal regeneration. EMD has been widely used in periodontal therapy for over ten years, but the mechanism of its action and the exact composition are not completely clear. EMD is predominantly amelogenin (>90%). However, unlike amelogenin, EMD has a number of growth factor-like effects and it has been shown to enhance the proliferation, migration and other cellular functions of periodontal ligament fibroblasts and osteoblasts. In contrast, the effects of EMD on epithelial cell lines and in particular on oral malignant cells have not been adequately studied. In addition, EMD has effects on the production of cytokines by several oral cell lines and the product is in constant interaction with different oral enzymes. Regardless of the various unknown properties of EMD, it is said to be clinically safe in regenerative procedures, also in medically compromised patients. The aim of the study was to examine whether gingival crevicular fluid (GCF), which contains several different proteolysis enzymes, could degrade EMD and alter its biological functions. In addition, the objective was to study the effects of EMD on carcinogenesis-related factors, in particular MMPs, using in vitro and in vivo models. This study also aimed to contribute to the understanding of the composition of EMD. GCF was capable of degrading EMD, depending on the periodontal status, with markedly more degradation in all states of periodontal disease compared to healthy controls. EMD was observed to stimulate the migration of periodontal ligament fibroblasts (PLF), whereas EMD together with GCF could not stimulate this proliferation. In addition, recombinant amelogenin, the main component of EMD, decreased the migration of PLFs. A comparison of changes induced by EMD and TGF-β1 in the gene profiles of carcinoma cells showed TGF-β1 to regulate a greater number of genes than EMD. However, both of the study reagents enhanced the expression of MMP-10 and MMP-9. Furthermore, EMD was found to induce several factors closely related to carcinogenesis on gene, protein, cell and in vivo levels. EMD enhanced the production of MMP-2, MMP-9 and MMP-10 proteins by cultured carcinoma cells. In addition, EMD stimulated the migration and in vitro wound closure of carcinoma cells. EMD was also capable of promoting metastasis formation in mice. In conclusion, the diseased GCF, containing various proteases, causes degradation of EMD and decreased proliferation of PLFs. Thus, this in vitro study suggests that the regenerative effect of EMD may decrease due to proteases present in periodontal tissues during the inflammation and healing of the tissues in vivo. Furthermore, EMD was observed to enhance several carcinoma-related factors and in particular the production of MMPs by benign and malignant cell lines. These findings suggest that the clinical safety of EMD with regard to dysplastic mucosal lesions should be further investigated.

Microarrays in Molecular Profiling of Ewing Sarcoma Family of Tumors and CDKN2A Aberrations

Background: The Ewing sarcoma family of tumors (ESFT) are rare but highly malignant neoplasms that occur mainly in bone or but also in soft tissue. ESFT affects patients typically in their second decade of life, whereby children and adolescents bear the heaviest incidence burden. Despite recent advances in the clinical management of ESFT patients, their prognosis and survival are still disappointingly poor, especially in cases with metastasis. No targeted therapy for ESFT patients is currently available. Moreover, based merely on current clinical and biological characteristics, accurate classification of ESFT patients often fails at the time of diagnosis. Therefore, there is a constant need for novel molecular biomarkers to be applied in tandem with conventional parameters to further intensify ESFT risk-stratification and treatment selection, and ultimately to develop novel targeted therapies. In this context, a greater understanding of the genetics and immune characteristics of ESFT is needed. Aims: This study sought to open novel insights into gene copy number changes and gene expression in ESFT and, further, to enlighten the role of inflammation in ESFT. For this purpose, microarrays were used to provide gene-level information on a genomewide scale. In addition, this study focused on screening of 9p21.3 deletion sizes and frequencies in ESFT and, in another pediatric cancer, acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), in order to define more exact criteria for highrisk patient selection and to provide data for developing a more reliable diagnostic method to detect CDKN2A deletions. Results: In study I, 20 novel ESFT-associated suppressor genes and oncogenes were pinpointed using combined array CGH and expression analysis. In addition, interesting chromosomal rearrangements were identified: (1) Duplication of derivative chromosome der(22)(11;22) was detected in three ESFT patients. This duplication included the EWSR1-FLI1 fusion gene leading to increase in its copy number; (2) Cryptic amplifications on chromosomes 20 and 22 were detected, suggesting a novel translocation between chromosomes 20 and 22, which most probably produces a fusion between EWSR1 and NFATC2. In study II, bioinformatic analysis of ESFT expression profiles showed that inflammatory gene activation is detectable in ESFT patient samples and that the activation is characterized by macrophage gene expression. Most interestingly, ESFT patient samples were shown to express certain inflammatory genes that were prognostically significant. High local expression of C5 and JAK1 at the tumor site was shown to associate with favorable clinical outcome, whereas high local expression of IL8 was shown to be detrimental. Studies III and IV showed that the smallest overlapping region of deletion in 9p21.3 includes CDKN2A in all cases and that the length of this region is 12.2 kb in both Ewing sarcoma and ALL. Furthermore, our results showed that the most widely used commercial CDKN2A FISH probe creates false negative results in the narrowest microdeletion cases (<190 kb). Therefore, more accurate methods should be developed for the detection of deletions in the CDKN2A locus. Conclusions: This study provides novel insights into the genetic changes involved in the biology of ESFT, in the interaction between ESFT cells and immune system, and in the inactivation of CDKN2A. Novel ESFT biomarker genes identified in this study serve as a useful resource for future studies and in developing novel therapeutic strategies to improve the survival of patients with ESFT.

Novel prognostic factors in chronic myeloid leukemia

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a malignant clonal blood disease that originates from a pluripotent hematopoietic stem cell. The cytogenetic hallmark of CML, the Philadelphia chromosome (Ph), is formed as a result of reciprocal translocation between chromosomes 9 and 22, which leads to a formation of a chimeric BCR-ABL fusion gene. The BCR-ABL protein is a constitutively active tyrosine kinase that changes the adhesion properties of cells, constitutively activates mitogenic signaling, enhances cell proliferation and reduces apoptosis. This results in leukemic growth and the clinical disease, CML. With the advent of targeted therapies against the BCR-ABL fusion protein, the treatment of CML has changed considerably during the recent decade. In this thesis, the clinical significance of different diagnostic methods and new prognostic factors in CML have been assessed. First, the association between two different methods for measuring CML disease burden (the RQ-PCR and the high mitotic index metaphase FISH) was assessed in bone marrow and peripheral blood samples. The correlation between positive RQ-PCR and metaphase FISH samples was high. However, RQ-PCR was more sensitive and yielded measurable transcripts in 40% of the samples that were negative by metaphase FISH. The study established a laboratory-specific conversion factor for setting up the International Scale when standardizing RQ-PCR measurements. Secondly, the amount of minimal residual disease (MRD) after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (alloHSCT) was determined. For this, metaphase FISH was done for the bone marrow samples of 102 CML patients. Most (68%), had no residual cells during the entire follow-up time. Some (12 %) patients had minor (<1%) MRD which decreased even further with time, whereas 19% had a progressive rise in MRD that exceeded 1% or had more than 1% residual cells when first detected. Residual cells did not become eradicated spontaneously if the frequency of Ph+ cells exceeded 1% during follow-up. Next, the impact of deletions in the derivative chromosome 9, was examined. Deletions were observed in 15% of the CML patients who later received alloHSCT. After alloHSCT, there was no difference in the total relapse rate in patients with or without deletions. Nor did the estimates of overall survival, transplant-related mortality, leukemia-free survival and relapse-free time show any difference between these groups. When conventional treatment regimens are used, the der(9) status could be an important criterion, in conjunction with other prognostic factors, when allogeneic transplantation is considered. The significance of der(9) deletions for patients treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors is not clear and requires further investigation. In addition to the der(9) status of the patient, the significance of bone marrow lymphocytosis as a prognostic factor in CML was assessed. Bone marrow lymphocytosis during imatinib therapy was a positive predictive factor and heralded optimal response. When combined with major cytogenetic response at three months of treatment, bone marrow lymphocytosis predicted a prognostically important major molecular response at 18 months of imatinib treatment. Although the validation of these findings is warranted, the determination of the bone marrow lymphocyte count could be included in the evaluation of early response to imatinib treatment already now. Finally, BCR-ABL kinase domain mutations were studied in CML patients resistant against imatinib treatment. Point mutations detected in the kinase domain were the same as previously reported, but other sequence variants, e.g. deletions or exon splicing, were also found. The clinical significance of the other variations remains to be determined.

Stretching single DNA-molecules with temperature-stabilized optical tweezers

This thesis consists of two parts; in the first part we performed a single-molecule force extension measurement with 10kb long DNA-molecules from phage-λ to validate the calibration and single-molecule capability of our optical tweezers instrument. Fitting the worm-like chain interpolation formula to the data revealed that ca. 71% of the DNA tethers featured a contour length within ±15% of the expected value (3.38 µm). Only 25% of the found DNA had a persistence length between 30 and 60 nm. The correct value should be within 40 to 60 nm. In the second part we designed and built a precise temperature controller to remove thermal fluctuations that cause drifting of the optical trap. The controller uses feed-forward and PID (proportional-integral-derivative) feedback to achieve 1.58 mK precision and 0.3 K absolute accuracy. During a 5 min test run it reduced drifting of the trap from 1.4 nm/min in open-loop to 0.6 nm/min in closed-loop.

Antioxidative long chain alkylresorcinols. Synthesis and deuterium labelling of bioactive compounds present in whole grains

The first synthesis of long chain 5-n-alkylresorcinols (C15-C25) in whole grains and whole grain products by a novel modification of Wittig reaction is described. 5-n-Alkylresorcinols are phenolic lipids that have various effects on biological systems, such as antioxidant activity and interaction with biological membranes. These compounds are considered as biomarkers of whole grain intake, which is connected with reduced risk of cardiovascular diseases and certain cancers. Novel hapten derivatives of 5-n-alkylresorcinols, potential compounds for immunoanalytical techniques, are prepared by the same procedure utilizing microwave catalysed aqueous Wittig reaction as the key step. The synthesised analogues are required by various analytical, metabolism and bioactivity investigations. Four alternative strategies for producing deuterium polylabelled 5-n-alkylresorcinols are explored. Ring-labelled D3-alkylresorcinols were synthesized by acidic H/D exchange. Side chain -labelled D4-derivative was prepared by a total synthesis approach utilizing D2 deuterogenation of a D2-alkene derivative, and deuterogenation of alkynes was investigated in another total synthesis approach. An -D3-labelled alkylresorcinol is isotopically pure and completely stable under all relevant conditions encountered during analytical work. The labelling of another phenolic component of whole grains was explored. The preparation of D3-ferulic acid and related compounds by way of selective methylation of the precursors is described. The deuterated compounds are useful as standards in the quantification of these natural products in various substances, such as food and human fluids. The pure 5-n-alkylresorcinol analogues prepared were used in in vitro experiments on alkylresorcinol antioxidant activity and antigenotoxicity. The in vitro experiments show that alkylresorcinols act as antioxidants, especially when incorporated into biological systems, but possess lower activity in chemical tests (FRAP and DPPH assay). Whole grain alkylresorcinols are shown for the first time to have a protective effect against copper induced oxidation of LDL, and H2O2 or genotoxic faecal water induced damage on HT29 cells.

Synthesis of Isoflavone Conjugates

During this study different approaches were studied to obtain isoflavone sulphates, glucuronides and sulphoglucuronides. Three isoflavone disulphates (daidzein-di-O-sulphate, genistein-di-O-sulphate and glycitein-di-O-sulphate) and three isoflavonoid disulphates (dihydrodaidzein-di-O-sulphate, dihydrogenistein-di-O-sulphate and equol-di-O-sulphate) were synthesised in moderate yields by using in situ prepared pyridine sulphur trioxide complex, made from chlorosulphonic acid and pyridine. These disulphated compounds can be used to develop analytical procedures and study the biological activity of disulphated products. As the use of the HPLC-MS methods in the field of isoflavones has increased its popularity, deuterated isoflavone disulphates were synthesised. A new microwave assisted deuteration method, using CF3COOD, was developed for this purpose. Three polydeuterated isoflavone disulphates (daidzein-d6-di-O-sulphate, genistein-d4-di-O-sulphate and glycitein-d6-di-O-sulphate) were obtained in moderate yields with high isotopic purity. A synthetic method was developed for daidzein sulphoglucuronide (daidzein-7-O-b-D-glucuronide-4´-O-sulphate), which is a major metabolite in rat bile. By using protection/deprotection steps, the desired product was finally obtained in moderate yield. The method developed can be used in further studies of synthesis of isoflavonoid mixed conjugates. As a part of this study, the structure of naturally occurring daidzein-4´-O-b-glucoside was verified. Different glycosidation methods are reviewed and possible factors affecting the stereoselectivity are discussed. The study of the selective chlorination of isoflavones was a consequence of the observed unexpected chlorination during the synthesis of isoflavone acid chlorides by thionyl chloride. This fascinating phenomenon was investigated further with various isoflavones and as a result a method for producing isoflavone chlorides (8-chlorogenistein, 6,8-dichlorogenistein and 6,8-dichlorobiochanin A) was developed. Protecting groups played a great role during this study, which led to an intensive study on them. A regioselective protection method was developed by using direct introduction of the protecting group (Benzyl and Benzoyl) to positions 7-O or 4´-O in daidzein, genistein and glycitein with t-BuOK as a base in DMF in moderate yields. The possibility of exploiting the transesterification was also investigated. It was observed that by using K2CO3 as a base in DMF, daidzein, genistein and glycitein could be benzoylated at position 4´-O selectively, in the presence of the more acidic 7 hydroxy group. Transesterification also proved to be useful in the glycosidation of isoflavones at position 7-O, starting from 7-O-benzoylated isoflavones. Different carboxylic acid derivatives were synthesised for use either in the development of radioimmunoassay (7-O-carboxymethylglycitein and 4´-O-carboxymethylglycitein) or synthesis of daunorubicin isoflavone derivative for biological testing (7-O-carboxypropylbiochanin A and 7-O-carboxypropylgenistein).

Mathematical Aspects of Financial Markets with Frictions

Frictions are factors that hinder trading of securities in financial markets. Typical frictions include limited market depth, transaction costs, lack of infinite divisibility of securities, and taxes. Conventional models used in mathematical finance often gloss over these issues, which affect almost all financial markets, by arguing that the impact of frictions is negligible and, consequently, the frictionless models are valid approximations. This dissertation consists of three research papers, which are related to the study of the validity of such approximations in two distinct modeling problems. Models of price dynamics that are based on diffusion processes, i.e., continuous strong Markov processes, are widely used in the frictionless scenario. The first paper establishes that diffusion models can indeed be understood as approximations of price dynamics in markets with frictions. This is achieved by introducing an agent-based model of a financial market where finitely many agents trade a financial security, the price of which evolves according to price impacts generated by trades. It is shown that, if the number of agents is large, then under certain assumptions the price process of security, which is a pure-jump process, can be approximated by a one-dimensional diffusion process. In a slightly extended model, in which agents may exhibit herd behavior, the approximating diffusion model turns out to be a stochastic volatility model. Finally, it is shown that when agents' tendency to herd is strong, logarithmic returns in the approximating stochastic volatility model are heavy-tailed. The remaining papers are related to no-arbitrage criteria and superhedging in continuous-time option pricing models under small-transaction-cost asymptotics. Guasoni, Rásonyi, and Schachermayer have recently shown that, in such a setting, any financial security admits no arbitrage opportunities and there exist no feasible superhedging strategies for European call and put options written on it, as long as its price process is continuous and has the so-called conditional full support (CFS) property. Motivated by this result, CFS is established for certain stochastic integrals and a subclass of Brownian semistationary processes in the two papers. As a consequence, a wide range of possibly non-Markovian local and stochastic volatility models have the CFS property.

Adnominal Person in the Morphological System of Erzya : Adnominaalinen persoona ersän kielen morfologisessa järjestelmässä

This dissertation is a synchronic description of adnominal person in the highly synthetic morphological system of Erzya as attested in extensive Erzya-language written-text corpora consisting of nearly 140 publications with over 4.5 million words and over 285,000 unique lexical items. Insight for this description have been obtained from several source grammars in German, Russian, Erzya, Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, as well as bounteous discussions in the understanding of the language with native speakers and grammarians 1993 2010. Introductory information includes the discussion of the status of Erzya as a lan- guage, the enumeration of phonemes generally used in the transliteration of texts and an in-depth description of adnominal morphology. The reader is then made aware of typological and Erzya-specifc work in the study of adnominal-type person. Methods of description draw upon the prerequisite information required in the development of a two-level morphological analyzer, as can be obtained in the typological description of allomorphic variation in the target language. Indication of original author or dialect background is considered important in the attestation of linguistic phenomena, such that variation might be plotted for a synchronic description of the language. The phonological description includes the establishment of a 6-vowel, 29-consonant phoneme system for use in the transliteration of annotated texts, i.e. two phonemes more than are generally recognized, and numerous rules governing allophonic variation in the language. Erzya adnominal morphology is demonstrated to have a three-way split in stem types and a three-layer system of non-derivative affixation. The adnominal-affixation layers are broken into (a) declension (the categories of case, number and deictic marking); (b) nominal conjugation (non-verb grammatical and oblique-case items can be conjugated), and (c) clitic marking. Each layer is given statistical detail with regard to concatenability. Finally, individual subsections are dedicated to the matters of: possessive declension compatibility in the distinction of sublexica; genitive and dative-case paradigmatic defectivity in the possessive declension, where it is demonstrated to be parametrically diverse, and secondary declension, a proposed typology modifiers without nouns , as compatible with adnominal person.

Sterol-binding proteins in late endosomes : Regulation of endosome motility and lipid metabolism

Despite its bad reputation in the mass media, cholesterol is an indispensable constituent of cellular membranes and vertebrate life. It is, however, also potentially lethal as it may accumulate in the arterial intima causing atherosclerosis or elsewhere in the body due to inherited conditions. Studying cholesterol in cells, and research on how the cell biology of cholesterol affects on system level is essential for a better understanding of the disease states associated with cholesterol and for the development of new therapies for these conditions. On its way to the cell, exogenous cholesterol traverses through endosomes, transport vesicles involved in internalizing material to cells, and needs to be transported out of this compartment. This endosomal pool of cholesterol is important for understanding both the common disorders of metabolism and the more rare hereditary disorders of cholesterol metabolism. The study of cholesterol in cells has been hampered by the lack of bright fluorescent sterol analogs that would resemble cholesterol enough to be used in cellular studies. In the first study of my thesis, we present a new sterol analog, Boron-Dipyrromethene (BODIPY)-cholesterol for visualizing sterols in living cells and organism. This fluorescent cholesterol derivative is shown to behave similarly to cholesterol both by atomic scale computer simulations and biochemical experiments. We characterize its localization inside different types of living cells and show that it can be used to study sterol trafficking in living organisms. Two sterol binding proteins associated with the endosomal membrane; the Niemann-Pick type C disease protein 1 (NPC1) and the Oxysterol Binding Protein Related Protein 1 (ORP1) are the subjects of the rest of this study. Sensing cholesterol on endosomes, transporting lipids away from this compartment and the effects these lipids play on cellular metabolism are considered. In the second study we characterize how the NPC1 protein affects lipid metabolism. We show that this cholesterol binding protein affects synthesis of triglycerides and that genetic polymorphisms or a genetic defect in the NPC1 gene affect triglyceride on the whole body level. These effects take place via regulation of carbon fluxes to different lipid classes in cells. In the third part we characterize the effects of another endosomal sterol binding protein, ORP1L on the function and motility of endosomes. Specifically we elucidate how a mutation in the ability of ORP1L to bind sterols affects its behavior in cells, and how a change in ORP1L levels in cells affects the localization, degradative capacity and motility of endosomes. In addition we show that ORP1L manipulations affect cholesterol balance also in macrophages, a cell type important for the development of atherosclerosis.

Essays on Market Microstructure: Price Discovery and Informed Trading

Market microstructure is “the study of the trading mechanisms used for financial securities” (Hasbrouck (2007)). It seeks to understand the sources of value and reasons for trade, in a setting with different types of traders, and different private and public information sets. The actual mechanisms of trade are a continually changing object of study. These include continuous markets, auctions, limit order books, dealer markets, or combinations of these operating as a hybrid market. Microstructure also has to allow for the possibility of multiple prices. At any given time an investor may be faced with a multitude of different prices, depending on whether he or she is buying or selling, the quantity he or she wishes to trade, and the required speed for the trade. The price may also depend on the relationship that the trader has with potential counterparties. In this research, I touch upon all of the above issues. I do this by studying three specific areas, all of which have both practical and policy implications. First, I study the role of information in trading and pricing securities in markets with a heterogeneous population of traders, some of whom are informed and some not, and who trade for different private or public reasons. Second, I study the price discovery of stocks in a setting where they are simultaneously traded in more than one market. Third, I make a contribution to the ongoing discussion about market design, i.e. the question of which trading systems and ways of organizing trading are most efficient. A common characteristic throughout my thesis is the use of high frequency datasets, i.e. tick data. These datasets include all trades and quotes in a given security, rather than just the daily closing prices, as in traditional asset pricing literature. This thesis consists of four separate essays. In the first essay I study price discovery for European companies cross-listed in the United States. I also study explanatory variables for differences in price discovery. In my second essay I contribute to earlier research on two issues of broad interest in market microstructure: market transparency and informed trading. I examine the effects of a change to an anonymous market at the OMX Helsinki Stock Exchange. I broaden my focus slightly in the third essay, to include releases of macroeconomic data in the United States. I analyze the effect of these releases on European cross-listed stocks. The fourth and last essay examines the uses of standard methodologies of price discovery analysis in a novel way. Specifically, I study price discovery within one market, between local and foreign traders.

Essays on Financial Analyst Forecasts and Recommendations

The trade of the financial analyst is currently a much-debated issue in today’s media. As a large part of the investment analysis is conducted under the broker firms’ regime, the incentives of the financial analyst and the investor do not always align. The broker firm’s commercial incentives may be to maximise its commission from securities trading and underwriting fees. The purpose of this thesis is to extend our understanding of the work of a financial analyst, the incentives he faces and how these affect his actions. The first essay investigates how the economic significance of the coverage of a particular firm impacts the analysts’ accuracy of estimation. The hypothesis is that analysts put more effort in analysing firms with a relatively higher trading volume, as these firms usually yield higher commissions. The second essay investigates how analysts interpret new financial statement information. The essay shows that analysts underreact or overreact to prior reported earnings, depending on the short-term pattern in reported earnings. The third essay investigates the possible investment value in Finnish stock recommendations, issued by sell side analysts. It is established that consensus recommendations issued on Finnish stocks contain investment value. Further, the investment value in consensus recommendations improves significantly through the exclusion of recommendations issued by banks. The fourth essay investigates investors’ behaviour prior to financial analysts’ earnings forecast revisions. Lately, the financial press have reported cases were financial analysts warn their preferred clients of possible earnings forecast revisions. However, in the light of the empirical results, it appears that the problem of analysts leaking information to some selected customers does not appear systematically on the Finnish stock market.

The Relationship Between Liquidity, Trading Activity and Return - Studies of the Finnish and Swedish Stock Markets

Liquidity, or how easy an investment is to buy or sell, is becoming increasingly important for financial market participants. The objective of this dissertation is to contribute to the understanding of how liquidity affects financial markets. The first essays analyze the actions taken by underwriters immediately after listing to improve liquidity of IPO stock. To estimate the impact of underwriter activity on the pricing of the IPOs, the order book during the first weeks of trading in the IPO stock is studied. Evidence of stabilization and liquidity enhancing activities by underwriters is found. The second half of the dissertation is concerned with the daily trading of stocks where liquidity may be impacted by policy issues such as changes in taxes or exchange fees and by opening the access to the markets for foreign investors. The desirability of a transaction tax on securities trading is addressed. An increase in transaction tax is found to cause lower prices and higher volatility. In the last essay the objective is to determine if the liquidity of a security has an impact on the return investors require. The results support the notion that returns are negatively correlated to liquidity.

Bentsodiatsepiinien ja amfetamiinijohdannaisten seulonta virtsasta mikropilarisähkösumutusmassaspektrometrian avulla

Väärinkäytettyjen aineiden seulontaan käytetyn menetelmän tulee olla herkkä, selektiivinen, yksinkertainen, nopea ja toistettava. Työn tavoitteena oli kehittää yksinkertainen, mutta herkkä, esikäsittelymenetelmä bentsodiatsepiinien ja amfetamiinijohdannaisten kvalitatiiviseen seulomiseen virtsasta mikropilarisähkösumutussirun (μPESI) avulla, mikä tarjoaisi vaihtoehdon seulonnassa käytetyille immunologisille menetelmille, joiden herkkyys ja selektiivisyys ovat puutteellisia. Tavoitteena oli samalla tarkastella mikropilarisähkösumutussirun toimivuutta biologisten näytteiden analyysissa. Esikäsittely optimoitiin erikseen bentsodiatsepiineille ja amfetamiinijohdannaisille. Käytettyjä esikäsittelymenetelmiä olivat neste-nesteuutto, kiinteäfaasiuutto Oasis HLB-patruunalla ja ZipTip®-pipetinkärjellä sekä laimennus ja suodatus ilman uuttoa. Mittausten perusteella keskityttiin optimoimaan ZipTip®-uuttoa. Optimoinnissa tutkittavia yhdisteitä spiikattiin 0-virtsaan niiden ennaltamääritetyn raja-arvon verran, bentsodiatsepiineja 200 ng/ml ja amfetamiinijohdannaisia 300 ng/ml. Bentsodiatsepiinien kohdalla optimoitiin kutakin uuton vaihetta ja optimoinnin tuloksena näytteen pH säädettiin arvoon 5, faasi kunnostettiin asetonitriililla, tasapainotettiin ja pestiin veden (pH 5) ja asetonitriilin (10 % v/v) seoksella ja eluoitiin asetonitriilin, muurahaishapon ja veden (95:1:4 v/v/v) seoksella. Amfetamiinijohdannaisten uutossa optimoitiin näytteen ja liuottimien pH-arvoja ja tuloksena näytteen pH säädettiin arvoon 10, faasi kunnostettiin veden ja ammoniumvetykarbonaatin(pH 10, 1:1 v/v) seoksella, tasapainotettiin ja pestiin asetonitriilin ja veden (1:5 v/v) seoksella ja eluoitiin metanolilla. Optimoituja uuttoja testattiin Yhtyneet Medix Laboratorioista toimitetuilla autenttisilla virtsanäytteillä ja saatuja tuloksia verrattiin kvantitatiivisen GC/MS-analyysin tuloksiin. Bentsodiatsepiininäytteet hydrolysoitiin ennen uuttoa herkkyyden parantamiseksi. Autenttiset näytteet analysoitiin Q-TOF-laitteella Viikissä. Lisäksi hydrolysoidut bentsodiatsepiininäytteet mitattiin Yhtyneet Medix Laboratorioiden TOF-laitteella. Kehitetty menetelmä vaatii tulosten perusteella lisää optimointia toimiakseen. Ongelmana oli etenkin toistoissa ilmennyt tulosten hajonta. Manuaalista näytteensyöttöä tulisi kehittää toistettavammaksi. Autenttisten bentsodiatsepiininäytteiden analyysissa ongelmana olivat virheelliset negatiiviset tulokset ja amfetamiinijohdannaisten analyysissa virheelliset positiiviset tulokset. Virheellisiä negatiivisia tuloksia selittää menetelmän herkkyyden puute ja virheellisiä positiivisia tuloksia mittalaitteen, sirujen tai liuottimien likaantuminen.