The North in the Old English Orosius : A Geographical Narrative in Context

This doctoral dissertation examines the description of the North as it appears in the Old English Orosius (OE Or.) in the form of the travel accounts by Ohthere and Wulfstan and a catalogue of peoples of Germania. The description is discussed in the context of ancient and early medieval textual and cartographic descriptions of the North, with a special emphasis on Anglo-Saxon sources and the intellectual context of the reign of King Alfred (871-899). This is the first time that these sources, a multidisciplinary approach and secondary literature, also from Scandinavia and Finland, have been brought together. The discussion is source-based, and archaeological theories and geographical ideas are used to support the primary evidence. This study belongs to the disciplines of early medieval literature and (cultural) history, Anglo-Saxon studies, English philology, and historical geography. The OE Or. was probably part of Alfred s educational campaign, which conveyed royal ideology to the contemporary elite. The accounts and catalogue are original interpolations which represent a unique historical source for the Viking Age. They contain unparalleled information about peoples and places in Fennoscandia and the southern Baltic and sailing voyages to the White Sea, the Danish lands, and the Lower Vistula. The historical-philological analysis reveals an emphasis on wealth and property, rank, luxury goods, settlement patterns, and territorial divisions. Trade is strongly implied by the mentions of central places and northern products, such as walrus ivory. The references to such peoples as the Finnas, the Cwenas, and the Beormas appear in connection with information about geography and subsistence in the far North. Many of the topics in the accounts relate to Anglo-Saxon aristocratic culture and interests. The accounts focus on the areas associated with the Northmen, the Danes and the Este. These areas resonated in the Anglo-Saxon geographical imagination: they were curious about the northern margin of the world, their own continental ancestry and the geography of their homeland of Angeln, and they had an interest in the Goths and their connection with the southern Baltic in mythogeography. The non-judgemental representation of the North as generally peaceful and relatively normal place is related to Alfredian and Orosian ideas about the unity and spreading of Christendom, and to desires for unity among the Germani and for peace with the Vikings, who were settling in England. These intellectual contexts reflect the innovative and organizational forces of Alfred s reign. The description of the North in the OE Or. can be located in the context of the Anglo-Saxon worldview and geographical mindset. It mirrors the geographical curiosity expressed in other Anglo-Saxon sources, such as the poem Widsith and the Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi. The northern section of this early eleventh-century world map is analyzed in detail here for the first time. It is suggested that the section depicts the North Atlantic and the Scandinavian Peninsula. The survey of ancient and early medieval sources provides a comparative context for the OE Or. In this material, produced by such authors as Strabo, Pliny, Tacitus, Jordanes, and Rimbert, the significance of the North was related to the search for and definition of the northern edge of the world, universal accounts of the world, the northern homeland in the origin stories of the gentes, and Carolingian expansion and missionary activity. These frameworks were transmitted to Anglo-Saxon literary culture, where the North occurs in the context of the definition of Britain s place in the world.

Counter-figures : An Essay on Antimetaphoric Resistance: Paul Celan's Poetry and Poetics at the Limits of Figurality

Titled "An Essay on Antimetaphoric Resistance", the dissertation investigates what is here being called "Counter-figures": a term which has in this context a certain variety of applications. Any other-than-image or other-than-figure, anything that cannot be exhausted by figuration (and that is, more or less, anything at all, except perhaps the reproducible images and figures themselves) can be considered "counter-figurative" with regard to the formation of images and figures, ideas and schemas, "any graven image, or any likeness of any thing". Singularity and radical alterity, as well as temporality and its peculiar mode of uniqueness are key issues here, and an ethical dimension is implied by, or intertwined with, the aesthetic. In terms borrowed from Paul Celan's "Meridian" speech, poetry may "allow the most idiosyncratic quality of the Other, its time, to participate in the dialogue". This connection between singularity, alterity and temporality is one of the reasons why Celan so strongly objects to the application of the traditional concept of metaphor to poetry. As Celan says, "carrying over [übertragen]" by metaphor may imply an unwillingness to "bear with [mittragen]" and to "endure [ertragen]" the poem. The thesis is divided into two main parts. The first consists of five distinct prolegomena which all address the mentioned variety of applications of the term "counter-figures", and especially the rejection or critique of either metaphor (by Aristotle, for instance) or the concept of metaphor (defined by Aristotle, and sometimes deemed "anti-poetic" by both theorists and poets). Even if we restrict ourselves to the traditional rhetorico-poetical terms, we may see how, for instance, metonymy can be a counter-figure for metaphor, allegory for symbol, and irony for any single trope or for any piece of discourse at all. The limits of figurality may indeed be located at these points of intersection between different types of tropes or figures, and even between figures or tropes and the "non-figurative trope" or "pseudo-figure" called catachresis. The second part, following on from the open-ended prolegomena, concentrates on Paul Celan's poetry and poetics. According to Celan, true poetry is "essentially anti-metaphoric". I argue that inasmuch as we are willing to pay attention to the "will" of the poetic images themselves (the tropes and metaphors in a poem) to be "carried ad absurdum", as Celan invites us to do, we may find alternative ways of reading poetry and approaching its "secret of the encounter", precisely when the traditional rhetorical instruments, and especially the notion of metaphor, become inapplicable or suspicious — and even where they still seem to impose themselves.

Complicated Presence : The Unity of Being in Parmenides and Heidegger

The attempt to refer meaningful reality as a whole to a unifying ultimate principle - the quest for the unity of Being - was one of the basic tendencies of Western philosophy from its beginnings in ancient Greece up to Hegel's absolute idealism. However, the different trends of contemporary philosophy tend to regard such a speculative metaphysical quest for unity as obsolete. This study addresses this contemporary situation on the basis of the work of Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Its methodological framework is Heidegger's phenomenological and hermeneutical approach to the history of philosophy. It seeks to understand, in terms of the metaphysical quest for unity, Heidegger's contrast between the first (Greek) beginning or "onset" (Anfang) of philosophy and another onset of thinking. This other onset is a possibility inherent in the contemporary situation in which, according to Heidegger, the metaphysical tradition has developed to its utmost limits and thereby come to an end. Part I is a detailed interpretation of the surviving fragments of the Poem of Parmenides of Elea (fl. c. 500 BC), an outstanding representative of the first philosophical beginning in Heidegger's sense. It is argued that the Poem is not a simple denial of apparent plurality and difference ("mortal acceptances," doxai) in favor of an extreme monism. Parmenides' point is rather to show in what sense the different instances of Being can be reduced to an absolute level of truth or evidence (aletheia), which is the unity of Being as such (to eon). What in prephilosophical human experience is accepted as being is referred to the source of its acceptability: intelligibility as such, the simple and undifferentiated presence to thinking that ultimately excludes unpresence and otherness. Part II interprets selected key texts from different stages in Heidegger's thinking in terms of the unity of Being. It argues that one aspect of Heidegger's sustained and gradually deepening philosophical quest was to think the unity of Being as singularity, as the instantaneous, context-specific, and differential unity of a temporally meaningful situation. In Being and Time (1927) Heidegger articulates the temporal situatedness of the human awareness of meaningful presence. His later work moves on to study the situational correlation between presence and the human awareness. Heidegger's "postmetaphysical" articulation seeks to show how presence becomes meaningful precisely as situated, in an event of differentiation from a multidimensional context of unpresence. In resigning itself to this irreducibly complicated and singular character of meaningful presence, philosophy also faces its own historically situated finitude. This resignation is an essential feature of Heidegger's "other onset" of thinking.

Essays on corporate governance, stakeholders, and restructuring

This dissertation consists of an introductory section and three theoretical essays analyzing the interaction of corporate governance and restructuring. The essays adopt an incomplete contracts approach and analyze the role of different institutional designs to facilitate the alignment of the objectives of shareholders and management (or employees) over the magnitude of corporate restructuring. The first essay analyzes how a firm's choice of production technology affects the employees' human capital investment. In the essay, the owners of the firm can choose between a specific and a general technology that both require a costly human capital investment by the employees. The specific technology is initially superior in using the human capital of employees but, in contrast to the general technology, it is not compatible with future innovations. As a result, anticipated changes in the specific technology diminish the ex ante incentives of the employees to invest in human capital unless the shareholders grant the employees specific governance mechanisms (a right of veto, severance pay) so as to protect their investments. The results of the first essay indicate that the level of protection that the shareholders are willing to offer falls short of the socially desirable one. Furthermore, when restructuring opportunities become more abundant, it becomes more attractive both socially and from the viewpoint of the shareholders to initially adopt the general technology. The second essay analyzes how the allocation of authority within the firm interacts with the owners' choice of business strategy when the ability of the owners to monitor the project proposals of the management is biased in favor of the status quo strategy. The essay shows that a bias in the monitoring ability will affect not only the allocation of authority within the firm but also the choice of business strategy. Especially, when delegation has positive managerial incentive effects, delegation turns out to be more attractive under the new business strategy because the improved managerial incentives are a way for the owners to compensate their own reduced information gathering ability. This effect, however, simultaneously makes the owners hesitant to switch the strategy since it would involve a more frequent loss of control over the project choice. Consequently, the owners' lack of knowledge of the new business strategy may lead to a suboptimal choice of strategy. The third essay analyzes the implications of CEO succession process for the ideal board structure. In this essay, the presence of the departing CEO on the board facilitates the ability of the board to find a matching successor and to counsel him. However, the ex-CEO's presence may simultaneously also weaken the ability of the board to restructure since the predecessor may use the opportunity to distort the successor's project choice. The results of the essay suggest that the extent of restructuring gains, the firm's ability to hire good outside directors and the importance of board's advisory role affect at which point and for how long the shareholders may want to nominate the predecessor to the board.

Long-term Outcome of DSM-IV Major Depressive Disorder in Psychiatric Care

Much of what we know regarding the long-term course and outcome of major depressive disorder (MDD) is based on studies of mostly inpatient tertiary level cohorts and samples predating the era of the current antidepressants and the use of maintenance therapies. In addition, there is a lack of studies investigating the comprehensive significance of comorbid axis I and II disorders on the outcome of MDD. The present study forms a part of the Vantaa Depression Study (VDS), a regionally representative prospective and naturalistic cohort study of 269 secondary-level care psychiatric out- and inpatients (aged 20-59) with a new episode of DSM-IV MDD, and followed-up up to five years (n=182) with a life-chart and semistructured interviews. The aim was to investigate the long-term outcome of MDD and risk factors for poor recovery, recurrences, suicidal attempts and diagnostic switch to bipolar disorder, and the association of a family history of different psychiatric disorders on the outcome. The effects of comorbid disorders together with various other predictors from different domains on the outcome were comprehensively investigated. According to this study, the long-term outcome of MDD appears to be more variable when its outcome is investigated among modern, community-treated, secondary-care outpatients compared to previous mostly inpatient studies. MDD was also highly recurrent in these settings, but the recurrent episodes seemed shorter, and the outcome was unlikely to be uniformly chronic. Higher severity of MDD predicted significantly the number of recurrences and longer time spent ill. In addition, longer episode duration, comorbid dysthymic disorder, cluster C personality disorders and social phobia predicted a worse outcome. The incidence rate of suicide attempts varied robustly de¬pending on the level of depression, being 21-fold during major depressive episodes (MDEs), and 4-fold during partial remission compared to periods of full remission. Although a history of previous attempts and poor social support also indicated risk, time spent depressed was the central factor determining overall long-term risk. Switch to bipolar disorder occurred mainly to type II, earlier to type I, and more gradually over time to type II. Higher severity of MDD, comorbid social phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and cluster B personality disorder features predicted the diagnostic switch. The majority of patients were also likely to have positive family histories not exclusively of mood, but also of other mental disorders. Having a positive family history of severe mental disorders was likely to be clinically associated with a significantly more adverse outcome.

Quorum sensing in the plant pathogen Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora

Erwinia carotovora subsp. carotovora (Ecc) is a Gram-negative enterobacterium that causes soft-rot in potato and other crops. The main virulence determinants, the extracellular plant cell wall -degrading enzymes (PCWDEs), lead to plant tissue maceration. In order to establish a successful infection the production of PCWDEs are controlled by a complex regulatory network, including both specific and global activators and repressors. One of the most important virulence regulation systems in Ecc is mediated by quorum sensing (QS), which is a population density -dependent cell-to-cell communication mechanism used by many Gram-negative bacteria. In these bacteria N-acylhomoserine lactones (AHSL), act as diffusible signaling molecules enabling communication between bacterial cells. The AHSLs are structurally diverse and differ in their acyl chain length. This gives the bacteria signaling specificity and enables the recognition and communication within its own species. In order to detect and respond to the AHSLs the bacteria use QS regulators, LuxR-type proteins. The aim of this study was to get a deeper understanding of the Ecc QS system. In the first part of the study we showed that even different strains of Ecc use different dialects and of physiological concentrations, only the cognate AHSL with the correct acyl chain is recognized as a signal that can switch on virulence genes. The molecular basis of the substrate specificity of the AHSL synthase ExpI was investigated in order to recognize the acyl chain length specificity determinants of distinct AHSL synthases. Several critical residues that define the size of the substrate-binding pocket were identified. We demonstrated that in the ExpISCC1 mutations M127T and F69L are sufficient to change the N-3-oxohexanoyl-L-homoserine lactone producing ExpISCC1 to an N-3-oxooctanoyl-L-homoserine lactone (3-oxo-C8-HSL) producing enzyme. In the second study the means of sensing specificity and response to the AHSL signaling molecule were investigated. We demonstrated that the AHSL receptor ExpR1 of Ecc strain SCC3193 has strict specificity for the cognate AHSL 3-oxo-C8-HSL. In addition we identified a second AHSL receptor ExpR2 with a novel property to sense AHSLs with different acyl chain lengths. In the absence of AHSLs ExpR1 and ExpR2 were found to act synergistically to repress the virulence gene expression. This repression was shown to be released by addition of AHSLs and appears to be largely mediated by the global negative regulator RsmA. In the third study random transposon mutagenesis was used to widen the knowledge of the Ecc QS regulon. Two new QS-controlled target genes, encoding a DNA-binding regulator Hor and a plant ferredoxin-like protein FerE, were identified. The QS control of the identified genes was executed by the QS regulators ExpR1 and ExpR2 and as expression of PCWDE genes mediated by the RsmA repressor. Hor was shown to contribute to bacterial virulence at least partly through its control of PCWDE production, while FerE was shown to contribute to oxidative stress tolerance and in planta fitness of the bacteria. In addition our results suggest that QS is central to the control of oxidative stress tolerance in Ecc. In conclusion, these results indicate that Ecc strain SCC3193 is able to react and respond both to the cognate AHSL signal and the signals produced by other bacterial species, in order to control a wide variety of functions in the plant pathogen Ecc.

Bustle behind the scenes of action : nemosis as a model for fibroblast inflammatory activation

Wound healing is a complex process that requires an interplay between several cell types. Classically, fibroblasts have been viewed as producers of extracellular matrix, but more recently they have been recognized as orchestrators of the healing response, promoting and directing, inflammation and neovascularization processes. Compared to those from healthy tissue, inflammation-associated fibroblasts display a dramatically altered phenotype and have been described as sentinel cells, able to switch to an immunoregulatory profile on cue. However, the activation mechanism still remains largely uncharacterized. Nemosis is a model for stromal fibroblast activation. When normal human primary fibroblasts are deprived of growth support they cluster, forming multicellular spheroids. Clustering results in upregulation of proinflammatory markers such as cyclooxygenase-2 and secretion of prostaglandins, proteinases, cytokines, and growth factors. Fibroblasts in nemosis induce wound healing and tumorigenic responses in many cell types found in inflammatory and tumor microenvironments. This study investigated the effect of nemotic fibroblasts on two components of the vascular system, leukocytes and endothelium, and characterized the inflammation-promoting responses that arose in these cell types. Fibroblasts in nemosis were found to secrete an array of chemotactic cytokines and attract leukocytes, as well as promote their adhesion to the endothelium. Nuclear factor-kB, the master regulator of many inflammatory responses, is activated in nemotic fibroblasts. Nemotic fibroblasts are known to produce large amounts of hepatocyte growth factor, a motogenic and angiogenic factor. Also, as shown in this study, they produce vascular endothelial growth factor. These two factors induced migratory and sprouting responses in endothelial cells, both required for neovascularization. Nemotic fibroblasts also caused a decrease in the expression of adherens and tight junction components on the surface of endothelial cells. The results allow the conclusion that fibroblasts in nemosis share many similarities with inflammation-associated fibroblasts. Both inflammation and stromal fibroblasts are known to be involved in tumorigenesis and tumor progression. Nemosis may be viewed as a model for stromal fibroblast activation, or it may correlate with cell-cell interactions between adjacent fibroblasts in vivo. Nevertheless, due to nemosis-derived production of proinflammatory cytokines and growth factors, fibroblast nemosis may have therapeutic potential as an inducer of controlled tissue repair. Knowledge of stromal fibroblast activation gained through studies of nemosis, could provide new strategies to control unwanted inflammation and tumor progression.

Approaches for improving the safety and efficacy of adenoviral gene therapy

Cancer is a devastating disease with poor prognosis and no curative treatment, when widely metastatic. Conventional therapies, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, have efficacy but are not curative and systemic toxicity can be considerable. Almost all cancers are caused due to changes in the genetic material of the transformed cells. Cancer gene therapy has emerged as a new treatment option, and past decades brought new insights in developing new therapeutic drugs for curing cancer. Oncolytic viruses constitute a novel therapeutic approach given their capacity to replicate in and kill specifically tumor cells as well as reaching tumor distant metastasis. Adenoviral gene therapy has been suggested to cause liver toxicity. This study shows that new developed adenoviruses, in particular Ad5/19p-HIT, can be redirected towards kidney while adenovirus uptake by liver is minimal. Moreover, low liver transduction resulted in a favorable tumor to liver ratio of virus load. Further, we established a new immunocompetent animal model Syrian hamsters. Wild type adenovirus 5 was found to replicate in Hap-T1 hamster tumors and normal tissues. There are no antiviral drugs available to inhibit adenovirus replication. In our study, chlorpromazine and cidofovir efficiently abrogated virus replication in vitro and showed significant reduction in vivo in tumors and liver. Once safety concerns were addressed together with the new given antiviral treatment options, we further improved oncolytic adenoviruses for better tumor penetration, local amplification and host system modulation. Further, we created Ad5/3-9HIF-Δ24-VEGFR-1-Ig, oncolytic adenovirus for improved infectivity and antiangiogenic effect for treatment of renal cancer. This virus exhibited increased anti-tumor effect and specific replication in kidney cancer cells. The key player for good efficacy of oncolytic virotherapy is the host immune response. Thus, we engineered a triple targeted adenovirus Ad5/3-hTERT-E1A-hCD40L, which would lead to tumor elimination due to tumor-specific oncolysis and apoptosis together with an anti-tumor immune response prompted by the immunomodulatory molecule. In conclusion, the results presented in this thesis constitute advances in our understanding of oncolytic virotherapy by successful tumor targeting, antiviral treatment options as a safety switch in case of replication associated side-effects, and modulation of the host immune system towards tumor elimination.  

Understanding Customer Loyalty and Disloyalty The Effect of Loyalty-Supporting and -Repressing Factors (first edition sold out, 'print on demand' 60 €)

Customer loyalty has been a central topic of both marketing theory and practice for several decades. Customer disloyalty, or relationship ending, has received much less attention. Despite the close relation between customer loyalty and disloyalty, they have rarely been addressed in the same study. The thesis bridges this gap by focusing on both loyal and disloyal customers and the factors characterising them. Based on a qualitative study of loyal and disloyal bank customers in the Finnish retail banking market, both factors that are common to the groups and factors that differentiate between them are identified. A conceptual framework of factors that affect customer loyalty or disloyalty is developed and used to analyse the empirical data. According to the framework, customers’ loyalty status (behavioural and attitudinal loyalty) is influenced by positive, loyalty-supporting, and negative, loyalty-repressing factors. Loyalty-supporting factors either promote customer dedication, making the customer want to remain loyal, or act as constraints, hindering the customer from switching. Among the loyalty-repressing factors it is especially important to identify those that act as triggers of disloyal behaviour, making customers switch service providers. The framework further suggests that by identifying the sources of loyalty-supporting and -repressing factors (the environment, the provider, the customer, the provider-customer interaction, or the core service) one can determine which factors are within the control of the service provider. Attitudinal loyalty is approached through a customer’s “feeling of loyalty”, as described by customers both orally and graphically. By combining the graphs with behavioural loyalty, seven customer groups are identified: Stable Loyals, Rescued Loyals, Loyals at Risk, Positive Disloyals, Healing Disloyals, Fading Disloyals, and Abrupt Disloyals. The framework and models of the thesis can be used to analyse factors that affect customer loyalty and disloyalty in different service contexts. Since the empirical study was carried out in a retail bank setting, the thesis has managerial relevance especially for banks. Christina Nordman is associated with CERS, Center for Relationship Marketing and Service Management at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration. The doctoral thesis is part of the Göran Collert Research Project in Customer Relationships and Retail Banking and has been funded by The Göran Collert Foundation.

Investigating online reading with eye tracking and EEG : The influence of text format, reading task and parafoveal stimuli on reading processes

Research on reading has been successful in revealing how attention guides eye movements when people read single sentences or text paragraphs in simplified and strictly controlled experimental conditions. However, less is known about reading processes in more naturalistic and applied settings, such as reading Web pages. This thesis investigates online reading processes by recording participants eye movements. The thesis consists of four experimental studies that examine how location of stimuli presented outside the currently fixated region (Study I and III), text format (Study II), animation and abrupt onset of online advertisements (Study III), and phase of an online information search task (Study IV) affect written language processing. Furthermore, the studies investigate how the goal of the reading task affects attention allocation during reading by comparing reading for comprehension with free browsing, and by varying the difficulty of an information search task. The results show that text format affects the reading process, that is, vertical text (word/line) is read at a slower rate than a standard horizontal text, and the mean fixation durations are longer for vertical text than for horizontal text. Furthermore, animated online ads and abrupt ad onsets capture online readers attention and direct their gaze toward the ads, and distract the reading process. Compared to a reading-for-comprehension task, online ads are attended to more in a free browsing task. Moreover, in both tasks abrupt ad onsets result in rather immediate fixations toward the ads. This effect is enhanced when the ad is presented in the proximity of the text being read. In addition, the reading processes vary when Web users proceed in online information search tasks, for example when they are searching for a specific keyword, looking for an answer to a question, or trying to find a subjectively most interesting topic. A scanning type of behavior is typical at the beginning of the tasks, after which participants tend to switch to a more careful reading state before finishing the tasks in the states referred to as decision states. Furthermore, the results also provided evidence that left-to-right readers extract more parafoveal information to the right of the fixated word than to the left, suggesting that learning biases attentional orienting towards the reading direction.