Ivanov-mistik : Okkul'tnye motivy v poèzii i proze Vjačeslava Ivanova (1907-1919)

The subject of this work is the mysticism of Russian poet, critic and philosopher Vjacheslav Ivanov (1866-1949). The approach adopted involves the textual and discourse analysis and findings of the history of ideas. The subject has been considered important because of Ivanov's visions of his dead wife, writer Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal, which were combined with audible messages ("automatic writings"). Several automatic writings and descriptions of the visions from Ivanov's archive collections in St.Petersburg and Moscow are presented in this work. Right after the beginning of his hallucinations in the autumn of 1907, Ivanov was totally captivated by the theosophical ideas of Anna Mintslova, the background figure for this work. Anna Mintslova, a disciple of Rudolf Steiner's Esoteric School, offered Ivanov the theosophical concept of initiation to interpret paranormal phenomena in his intimate life. The work is divided into three main chapters, an introduction and aconclusion. The first chapter is called The Mystical Person: Anthropology of Ivanov and describes the role of the inner "Higher Self" in Ivanov's views on the nature of human consciousness. The political implications of the concepts, "mystical anarchism" and "sobornost" (religious unity) are also examined. The acquaintance and contacts with Anna Mintslova during 1906-1907 gave a framework to Ivanov's search for an organic society and personal religious experience. The second part, Mystics of Initiation and Visionary Aesthetics describes the influence of the initiation concept on Ivanov's aesthetic views (mainly "realistic symbolism"). On the other hand, some connections between the imagery of his visions and symbols in his verses of that period are established. Since Mintslova represented the ideas of Rudolf Steiner in Russia, several symbols shared by Steiner and Ivanov ("rose", "rose and cross") have been another subject of investigation. The preference for strict verse form in the lyrics of Ivanov's visionary period is interpreted as an attempt to place his own poetic creation within two traditions, a mystical and literary one. The third part of this work, Mystics of Hope and Terror, examines Ivanov's conception of Russia in connection with Mintslova's ideas of occult danger from the East. Ivanov's view of the "Russian idea" and his nationalistic idea during World War I are considered as a representation of the fear of the danger. Ivanov's interpretation of the October revolution is influenced by the theosophical concept of the "keeper of the threshold" which occurs in the context of the discourse of occult danger.

Automatic Lameness Detection in a Milking Robot : Instrumentation, measurement software, algorithms for data analysis and a neural network model

The aim of this thesis is to develop a fully automatic lameness detection system that operates in a milking robot. The instrumentation, measurement software, algorithms for data analysis and a neural network model for lameness detection were developed. Automatic milking has become a common practice in dairy husbandry, and in the year 2006 about 4000 farms worldwide used over 6000 milking robots. There is a worldwide movement with the objective of fully automating every process from feeding to milking. Increase in automation is a consequence of increasing farm sizes, the demand for more efficient production and the growth of labour costs. As the level of automation increases, the time that the cattle keeper uses for monitoring animals often decreases. This has created a need for systems for automatically monitoring the health of farm animals. The popularity of milking robots also offers a new and unique possibility to monitor animals in a single confined space up to four times daily. Lameness is a crucial welfare issue in the modern dairy industry. Limb disorders cause serious welfare, health and economic problems especially in loose housing of cattle. Lameness causes losses in milk production and leads to early culling of animals. These costs could be reduced with early identification and treatment. At present, only a few methods for automatically detecting lameness have been developed, and the most common methods used for lameness detection and assessment are various visual locomotion scoring systems. The problem with locomotion scoring is that it needs experience to be conducted properly, it is labour intensive as an on-farm method and the results are subjective. A four balance system for measuring the leg load distribution of dairy cows during milking in order to detect lameness was developed and set up in the University of Helsinki Research farm Suitia. The leg weights of 73 cows were successfully recorded during almost 10,000 robotic milkings over a period of 5 months. The cows were locomotion scored weekly, and the lame cows were inspected clinically for hoof lesions. Unsuccessful measurements, caused by cows standing outside the balances, were removed from the data with a special algorithm, and the mean leg loads and the number of kicks during milking was calculated. In order to develop an expert system to automatically detect lameness cases, a model was needed. A probabilistic neural network (PNN) classifier model was chosen for the task. The data was divided in two parts and 5,074 measurements from 37 cows were used to train the model. The operation of the model was evaluated for its ability to detect lameness in the validating dataset, which had 4,868 measurements from 36 cows. The model was able to classify 96% of the measurements correctly as sound or lame cows, and 100% of the lameness cases in the validation data were identified. The number of measurements causing false alarms was 1.1%. The developed model has the potential to be used for on-farm decision support and can be used in a real-time lameness monitoring system.

Uloimmalla rannalla : Luotsi- ja majakkamiesperheet asemayhdyskunnissaan

The subject of the present research is historical lighthouse and maritime pilot stations in Finland. If one thinks of these now-abandoned sites as an empty stage, the dissertation aims to recreate the drama that once played out there. The research comprises three main themes. The first, the family problematic, focuses on the relationship between the family members concerned and the public service positions held, as well as the islands on which these people were stationed. The role of the male actors becomes apparent through an examination of the job descriptions of pilots and lighthouse keepers, but the role of the wives appears more problematic: running a household and the insularity of the community came with their own challenges, and the husbands were away for much of the time. In this context the children emerge as crucial. What was their role in the family of a public official? What were the effects of having to move to the mainland for school? The second theme is the station community. A socioecological examination is undertaken which defines the islands as plots allowing the researcher to study the social behaviours of the isolated communities in question. The development of this theme is based on interpretations of interviews revealing starkly opposed views on the existing neighbourly relations. The premise is that social friction is inevitable among people living within close proximity of each other, and the study proceeds to become an analysis that seeks to uncover the sociocultural strategies designed to control the risks of communal living either by creating distance between neighbours or by enhancing their mutual ties. In connection with this, the question of why some neighbourhoods were open and cooperative while others were restrained and quarrelsome is addressed. Finally, the third main theme discusses the changes in piloting and lighthouse keeping that took place increasingly numerous towards the end of the 20th century. How did individuals react to the central management s technocratic strivings and rationalisations, such as the automation of lighthouses and the intense downsizing of the network of pilot stations? How was piloting, previously very comprehensive work, splintered into specialisations, and how did the entire occupation of lighthouse keeping lose its status before completely disappearing, as the new technology took over?

Kirkkoon kuuluminen Helsingin osa-alueilla

In Helsinki's evangelical lutheran congregations, the share of the people being members of that church compared with all the people living in their specific geographical areas varies from 62,4 per cent in Paavali to 80,7 per cent in Munkkiniemi. The boundaries of the congregations are about to be redrawn to level the differences in the congregations. In this thesis, the reasons of the differences in Helsinki s districts were studied closer. The data consisted of statistical information gathered from the Population Information System of Finland. It included information by age groups about the population register keeper, marital status, native tongue, level of education and gender in the end of 2005. Additional data was gathered from Helsinki Region Statistics web service. It included information about the dwelling, level of income and main activities of the inhabitants in the districts. The main method was stepwise linear regression. Minor methods were crosstabulation and correlation matrixes. The result of the study was a statistical model that explains 72,2 per cent of the variation of the shares in the congregations. The dependent variable was the share of the people being members of evangelical lutheran church in the dirstricts. The independent variables were the share of the people having other than Finnish or Swedish as their native tongue, the share of rented apartments, the shares of apartments including four rooms and a kitchen, the share of detached houses in the districts and the shares of women and people with no income in the districts. The independent variables present in the model depict the amount of foreigners, dwellings, gender and the level of income of the population. The high share of foreigners, people with no income and rented apartments explain the low share of the people being members of evangelical lutheran church. On the contrary, the high share of the people being members of evangelical lutheran church in the district is explained by the large apartments, detached houses and amount of women living there.