Eigennamen in Pressetexten : Ein Vergleich zweier Online-Zeitungen

Tämä pro gradu -tutkielma vertailee korpuksen avulla erisnimien kvantitatiivista jakautumista luokkiin kahdessa saksalaisessa verkkolehdessä. Työn tavoitteena on selvittää, kuinka erisnimiä voidaan luokitella ja mitä eroja niiden avulla on havaittavissa lehtien raportoinnissa. Laajempana kehyksenä toimii kysymys siitä, voidaanko erisnimiä hyödyntäen hahmottaa lehtien sisältöjä. Korpus on kerätty Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungin ja Süddeutsche Zeitungin verkkolehtien http: //www.faz.net (FAZ) ja http://www.sueddeutsche.de (SZ) artikkeleista ajalta 2.11.2004-8.11.2004. Valitut sivustot edustavat Saksan arvostetuimpien päivittäisten, koko maan kattavien sanomaleh- tien verkkojulkaisuja. Näistä FAZ:ia pidetään konservatiivisena ja SZ:ia liberaalina lehtenä. Kumpikin korpus käsittelee USA:n presidentinvaaleja syksyllä 2004 ja sisältää hieman alle 30 000 sanaa noin 40 lehtiartikkelista. Aihesidonnaisen korpuksen valinta perustuu erityisesti siihen, että tutkimuksen päämääränä on saada erisnimien avulla selville, miltä osin FAZ ja SZ eroavat toisistaan käsitellessään samaa aihetta. Teoriaosassa käydään läpi saksalaisten verkkolehtien taustaa, työhön liittyviä tekstilingvistisiä teo- rioita sekä erisnimien erikoispiirteitä. Siinä käsitellään myös kolmea aiempaa, saksankielisen eris- nimitutkimuksen luokittelua ja yhtä englanninkielistä, kieliteknologian luokittelua. Näissä havaitut puutteet motivoivat yhdistelemään ja muuttamaan olemassa olevia luokitteluja tätä työtä varten. Uusi luokittelu sisältää neljä yläluokkaa (olentojen, maantieteelliset, instituutioden ja asioiden ni- met), jotka kaikki kattavat kahdesta yhdeksään alaluokkaa. Kummankin korpuksen erisnimet luo- kitellaan tämän perusteella. Kvantitatiivinen analyysi keskittyy ylä- ja alaluokkien vertailuun lehtien välillä. Lisäksi se kattaa sekä kummankin aineiston että pääluokkien frekventimpien sanojen tarkastelun. Vaikka FAZ ja SZ käyttivätkin pääosin samoja erisnimiä raportoinnissaan, voidaan lehtien välillä osoittaa selkeitä eroja alaluokkien kohdalla ja vähäisiä eroja erisnimien jakautumisessa yläluokkiin. chi2 -testin näytti kuitenkin, että erisnimien jakautuminen yläluokkiin on lehtisidonnaista. Siksi voidaan väittää, että muun muassa valittu media vaikuttaa erisnimivalintoihin. Erisnimien frekvenssit antavat ymmärtää, että SZ raportoisi monipuolisemmin kuin FAZ, joka käyttää erisnimiä keskitetymmin. SZ:in aineiston erisnimiä yhdistää eurooppalainen näkökulma vaaleihin, kun taas FAZ pyrkii tuomaan esille tapahtumia USA:n eri osavaltioissa. Niin lehdissä mainitut henkilöiden kuin instituutioden nimet tukevat tätä väitetettä. SZ korostaa maantieteellisesti kaupunkien merkitystä, FAZ osavaltioiden. Saadut tulokset osoittavat, että tämänkaltaisen erisnimitutkimuksen soveltaminen lehtiteksteihin on mahdollista. Luokitellut erisnimet heijastavat osittain käsiteltyjen aineistojen sisältöä ja paljastavat raportoinnin painopisteistä.

Clustering Users of Online Content Service

Online content services can greatly benefit from personalisation features that enable delivery of content that is suited to each user's specific interests. This thesis presents a system that applies text analysis and user modeling techniques in an online news service for the purpose of personalisation and user interest analysis. The system creates a detailed thematic profile for each content item and observes user's actions towards content items to learn user's preferences. A handcrafted taxonomy of concepts, or ontology, is used in profile formation to extract relevant concepts from the text. User preference learning is automatic and there is no need for explicit preference settings or ratings from the user. Learned user profiles are segmented into interest groups using clustering techniques with the objective of providing a source of information for the service provider. Some theoretical background for chosen techniques is presented while the main focus is in finding practical solutions to some of the current information needs, which are not optimally served with traditional techniques.

Verkkomedian käyttö ja tutkiminen : Iltalehti Online 1995-2001

Marja Heinonen s dissertation Verkkomedian käyttö ja tutkiminen. Iltalehti Online 1995-2001 describes the usage of new internet based news service Iltalehti Online during its first years of existence, 1995-2001. The study focuses on the content of the service and users attitudes towards the new media and its contents. Heinonen has also analyzed and described the research methods that can be used in the research of any new media phenomenon when there is no historical perspective to do the research. Heinonen has created a process model for the research of net medium, which is based on a multidimensional approach. She has chosen an iterative research method inspired by Sudweeks and Simoff s CEDA-methodology in which qualitative and quantitative methods take turns both creating results and new research questions. The dissertation discusses and describes the possibilities of combining several research methods in the study of online news media. On general level it discusses the methodological possibilities of researching a completely new media form when there is no historical perspective. The result of these discussions is in favour for the multidimensional methods. The empiric research was built around three cases of Iltalehti Online among its users: log analysis 1996-1999, interviews 1999 and clustering 2000-2001. Even though the results of different cases were somewhat conflicting here are the central results from the analysis of Iltalehti Online 1995-2001: - Reading was strongly determined by the gender. - The structure of Iltalehti Online guided the reading strongly. - People did not make a clear distinction in content between news and entertainment. - Users created new habits in their everyday life during the first years of using Iltalehti Online. These habits were categorized as follows: - break between everyday routines - established habit - new practice within the rhythm of the day - In the clustering of the users sports, culture and celebrities were the most distinguishing contents. Users did not move across these borders as much as within them. The dissertation gives contribution to the development of multidimensional research methods in the field of emerging phenomena in media field. It is also a unique description of a phase of development in media history through an unique research material. There is no such information (logs + demographics) available of any other Finnish online news media. Either from the first years or today.

Three-year-olds are sensitive to semantic prominence during online language comprehension

Recent evidence from adult pronoun comprehension suggests that semantic factors such as verb transitivity affect referent salience and thereby anap- hora resolution. We tested whether the same semantic factors influence pronoun comprehension in young children. In a visual world study, 3-year- olds heard stories that began with a sentence containing either a high or a low transitivity verb. Looking behaviour to pictures depicting the subject and object of this sentence was recorded as children listened to a subsequent sentence containing a pronoun. Children showed a stronger preference to look to the subject as opposed to the object antecedent in the low transitivity condition. In addition there were general preferences (1) to look to the subject in both conditions and (2) to look more at both potential antecedents in the high transitivity condition. This suggests that children, like adults, are affected by semantic factors, specifically semantic prominence, when interpreting anaphoric pronouns.

Doing marriage and parenthood: The division of household labour across two life course events

The current study is a longitudinal investigation into changes in the division of household labour across transitions to marriage and parenthood in the UK. Previous research has noted a more traditional division of household labour, with women performing the majority of housework, amongst spouses and couples with children. However, the bulk of this work has been cross-sectional in nature. The few longitudinal studies that have been carried out have been rather ambiguous about the effect of marriage and parenthood on the division of housework. Theoretically, this study draws on gender construction theory. The key premise of this theory is that gender is something that is performed and created in interaction, and, as a result, something fluid and flexible rather than fixed and stable. The idea that couples ‘do gender’ through housework has been a major theoretical breakthrough. Gender-neutral explanations of the division of household labour, positing rational acting individuals, have failed to explicate why women continue to perform an unequal share of housework, regardless of socio-economic status. Contrastingly, gender construction theory situates gender as the key process in dividing household labour. By performing and avoiding certain housework chores, couples fulfill social norms of what it means to be a man and a woman although, given the emphasis on human agency in producing and contesting gender, couples are able to negotiate alternative gender roles which, in turn, feed back into the structure of social norms in an ever-changing societal landscape. This study adds extra depth to the doing gender approach by testing whether or not couples negotiate specific conjugal and parent roles in terms of the division of household labour. Both transitions hypothesise a more traditional division of household labour. Data comes from the British Household Panel Survey, a large, nationally representative quantitative survey that has been carried out annually since 1991. Here, data tracks the same 776 couples at two separate time points – 1996 and 2005. OLS regression is used to test whether or not transitions to marriage and parenthood have a significant impact on the division of household labour whilst controlling for host of relevant socio-economic factors. Results indicate that marriage has no significant effect on how couples partition housework. Those couples making the transition from cohabitation to marriage do not show significant changes in housework arrangements from those couples who remain cohabiting in both waves. On the other hand, becoming parents does lead to a more traditional division of household labour whilst controlling for socio-economic factors which accompany the move to parenthood. There is then some evidence that couples use the site of household labour to ‘do parenthood’ and generate identities which both use and inform socially prescribed notions of what it means to be a mother and a father. Support for socio-economic explanations of the division of household labour was mixed although it remains clear that they, alone, cannot explain how households divide housework.

Depression and Cognition in Type 2 Diabetes from a Life Course Perspective

Background: Type 2 diabetes is linked to several complications which add to both physical and mental distress. Depression is a common co-morbidity of diabetes which can occur both as a cause and a consequence of type 2 diabetes. Depression has been shown to correlate with glucose regulation and treating depression might prove beneficial for glucose regulation as well as for mental well being. Another complication which might affect diabetes management is cognitive decline. Several risk factors and complications of diabetes might modify the risk for developing cognitive impairment, which is increased 1.5 times among subjects with type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, depression and impaired cognitive performance have all been linked to low birth weight. This thesis aimed to explore the effects and interactions of birth weight, depression and cognitive ability in relation to type 2 diabetes from a life course perspective. Subjects and methods: Studies I, II and V were part of the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study. 2003 subjects participated in an extensive clinical examination at an average age of 61 years. A standard glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was performed and depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). In addition data was obtained from child welfare clinics and national registers. A subset of the cohort (n=1247) also performed a test on cognitive performance (CogState ®) at the average age of 64. Studies III and IV were randomised clinical trials where mildly depressed diabetic subjects were treated with paroxetine or placebo and the effect on metabolic parameters and quality of life was assessed. The first trial included 14 women and lasted 10 weeks, while the second trial included 43 subjects, both men and women, and lasted 6 months. Results: Type 2 diabetes was positively associated with the occurrence of depressive symptoms. Among diabetic subjects 23.6% had depressive symptoms, compared to 16.7% of subjects with normal glucose tolerance (OR = 1.77, p<0.001). Formal mediation analysis revealed that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is likely to act as a mediator in the association. Furthermore, low birth weight was found to modify the association between type 2 diabetes, CVD and depression. The association between BDI score and having type 2 diabetes or CVD was twice as strong in the subgroup with low birth weight (≤ 2500g) compared with the group with birth weight > 2500g (p for interaction 0.058). In the six months long randomised clinical trial (study IV) paroxetine had a transient beneficial effect on glycosylated haemoglobin A1c (GHbA1c) and quality of life when compared to placebo after three months of treatment. In study V we found that subjects with known diabetes had a consistently poorer level of cognitive performance than subjects with normal glucose tolerance in most of the tested cognitive domains. This effect was further amplified among those born with a small birth weight (p for interaction 0.002). Conclusions: Type 2 diabetes is associated with a higher occurrence of depressive symptoms compared to subjects with normal glucose tolerance. This association is especially strong among subjects with CVD and those born with a low birth weight. Treating depressed diabetic subjects with paroxetine has no long term effect on glucose regulation. Physicians should be aware of depression as an important co-morbidity of type 2 diabetes. Both depression and the cognitive decline often seen among diabetic subjects are increased if the subject is born with a low birth weight. Physicians should recognise low birth weight as an additional risk factor and modifier of diabetic complications.

Boost Customer Loyalty with Online Support. The Case of Mobile Telecoms Providers.

The paper explores the effect of customer satisfaction with online supporting services on loyalty to providers of an offline core service. Supporting services are provided to customers before, during, or after the purchase of a tangible or intangible core product, and have the purpose of enhancing or facilitating the use of this product. The internet has the potential to dominate all other marketing channels when it comes to the interactive and personalised communication that is considered quintessential for supporting services. Our study shows that the quality of online supporting services powerfully affects satisfaction with the provider and customer loyalty through its effect on online value and enjoyment. Managerial implications are provided.