Factors Affecting Consumer’s Illicit Purchase of Copyrighted Digital Work

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology has revolutionized file exchange activities besides enhancing processing power distribution. As such, this technology which is nowadays made freely available to all internet users also imposes a threat as it enables the illegal distribution of copyrighted digital work. P2P technology continuously evolves in a greater pace than copyright legislation, leading to compatibility gaps between the applicability of copyright law and the illicit file sharing and downloading. Such issues give high incentives to consumers to practise piracy using P2P systems with a low perception of risk towards prosecution, leading to substantial losses for copyright owners. This study focuses on developing insights for content owners on consumer behaviour towards piracy in Finland, where quantitative analyses are assessed using a data set based on a survey conducted by the Helsinki Institute for IT. The research approach investigates the significance of three fundamental areas in relation to evaluate consumer behaviour as: environmental-related factors, innovation-related factors and consumer-related. each of these are integrates concepts derived in previous theoretical models such as the technology acceptance model, theory of reasoned action, theory of planned behaviour, the issue-risk-judgement model and the Hunt & Vitell’s model.

Determining risk potential through accidents and near-accidents: an empirical study in a steel factory

Fatal and permanently disabling accidents form only one per I cent of all occupational accidents but in many branches of industry they account for more than half the accident costs. Furthermore the human suffering of the victim and his family is greater in severe accidents than in slight ones. For both human and economic reasons the severe accident risks should be identified befor injuries occur. It is for this purpose that different safety analysis methods have been developed . This study shows two new possible approaches to the problem.. The first is the hypothesis that it is possible to estimate the potential severity of accidents independent of the actual severity. The second is the hypothesis that when workers are also asked to report near accidents, they are particularly prone to report potentially severe near accidents on the basis of their own subjective risk assessment. A field study was carried out in a steel factory. The results supported both the hypotheses. The reliability and the validity of post incident estimates of an accident's potential severity were reasonable. About 10 % of accidents were estimated to be potentially critical; they could have led to death or very severe permanent disability. Reported near accidents were significantly more severe, about 60 $ of them were estimated to be critical. Furthermore the validity of workers subjective risk assessment, manifested in the near accident reports, proved to be reasonable. The studied new methods require further development and testing. They could be used both in routine usage in work places and in research for identifying and setting the priorities of accident risks.

The Digital Book as a Disruptive Innovation

Whether digital book will become the dominant design of books and be a widely accepted format for reading is a question that is currently asked by every e-publisher, publishing industry worker and many book consumers. This study is the first to holistically approach Christensen’s disruptive innovation theory for an instrument of measuring the phenomenon of the digital book. The disruptiveness of an innovation could be measured by it’s disruptive potential and the disruption process it passes. The empirical part of the thesis is designed so to investigate the digital book‘s features as an innovation for disruptive potential and then the current digital book market, monitoring it for disruption processes. Proving that the digital book is a disruptive innovation may allow understanding it’s prospects and even help in making a pattern of the innovation’s market infiltration in the future. The framework created for answering the research question could also be used in a similar way to analyze other E-publishing products (e.g. e-newspapers, emagazines).

Tuotantofilosofiat

Työssä esitellään käytetyimpiä tuotantofilosofioita. Tuotantofilosofia on hyvin laaja käsite ja sen vuoksi myös jotkin esiteltävistä menetelmistä ovat hyvin kaukana toisistaan. Työ koostuu teoriaosiosta, jossa on esitelty kukin tuotantofilosofia ja lopuksi johtopäätöksiä-osiossa käsitellään sitä, kuinka menetelmät liittyvät toisiinsa. Työssä esitellään JIT/JOT-tuotanto, Lean-tuotanto, Monozukuri, Modulointi, Standardointi, Strategiatyö, Six Sigma, TQM, TPM, QFD, MFD, Simulointi, Digitaalinen valmistus, DFX ja ns. uudet tuotantofilosofiat. Eri menetelmistä löytyvää lähdemateriaalia on tarjolla monipuolisesti, josta johtuen menetelmistä on voitu esitellä vain pääpiirteet. Tuotantofilosofioiden avulla voidaan saavuttaa monia eri asioita. Osa menetelmistä on luotu tuotannon tehostamiseksi ja yksinkertaistamiseksi, osa puolestaan lisää tuotannon tai koko yrityksen laatutasoa ja osa puolestaan helpottaa tuotteiden suunnittelu-työtä. Moni esiteltävistä filosofioista ei istu yksinomaan yhteen edellä mainituista kategorioista vaan kattaa laajempia alueita pitäen sisällään jopa kaikkia kolmea mainittua tulosta. Näiden lisäksi työssä on esitelty lyhyesti uusia tuotantofilosofioita, jotka ovat hieman irrallisia kokonaisuuksia verrattuna muihin työssä esiteltäviin filosofioihin. Työn tarkoituksena on auttaa hahmottamaan suurta kokonaisuutta jonka tuotantofilosofiat tuottavat. On tärkeää osata hahmottaa filosofioiden riippuvuus toisistaan ja se, että otettaessa käyttöön jotain tuotantofilosofiaa, tarkoittaa se myös mahdollisesti monen muunkin asian huomioonottamista. Tätä näkökantaa selvennetään johtopäätöksissä.

Customer consciousness in the production process of a steel factory

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the level of customer consciousness of the production process employees in a steel factory and to investigate the methods of internal marketing in order to propose development practices to enhance the customer consciousness of the case company employees. The significance of the level of customer consciousness is discussed and practices already implemented affecting the level of customer consciousness in the company are examined. The literature review gives an insight to the role of customer consciousness in the CRM philosophy of a manufacturing company and examines the means of internal marketing in enhancing customer consciousness. In the empirical part of the study, the level and significance of customer consciousness is determined by conducting individual and focus group interviews. The interviews are also used to examine the practices that could function in enhancing the customer consciousness of the employees. Development suggestions to improve the level of customer consciousness in the production process are given based on the results. The level of customer consciousness is at a poor level in the production process and influences above all on work motivation and job satisfaction, but possibly on customer satisfaction as well. The enhancement of customer consciousness in the production process should be done e.g. by ensuring the distribution of right knowledge coherently to all of the employees, gathering large customer reference database to exploit in work and in training, using visual illustration in presenting the customer information, training proactively and letting the employees to participate in the customer oriented development activities. Customer satisfaction focused reward system can be considered.

Consistency and change in Finnish broadcasting policy : the implementation of digital television and lessons from the Canadian experience

Konsistens och förändring i finländsk etermediapolitik. Implementering av digital television och en jämförelse med Kanada Avhandlingen handlar om hur det finländska televisionssystemet förändrades i slutet av 1990-talet från en nationell institution till ett dualistiskt system som präglas av stark marknadsorientering. Syftet med avhandlingen är att förstå på vilket sätt en så snabb förändring kunde ske och analysera de institutionella faktorerna bakom utvecklingen. På teoretisk nivå diskuteras tesen om det nära sambandet mellan statliga politiska institutioner och rundradioverksamhetens institutioner. Avhandlingen består av två fallstudier. Den första sätter fokus på de första åren av den finländska televisionens digitaliseringsprocess som startade med starka industriell-nationalistiska motiveringar. Analysen, som baserar på offentliga dokument, sträcker sig framtill hösten 2001 då de digitala televisionssändningarna startade och regeringspropositionen om den nya kommunikationsmarknadslagen lämnades till riksdagen. Dessa policy-processer analyseras som en ”marknadisering” av de traditionella styrningsprinciper och idéer gällande finländsk rundradioverksamheten. En jämförelse mellan Finlands och Kanadas nationella rundradiopolitik gör att man kan koppla slutsatserna till den internationella utvecklingen. Jämförelsen visar hur kommunikationspolitiska linjen i de två länderna har kommit att likna varandra trots att ländernas tv-system och deras styrordningar är mycket olika. Exemplet med Kanada visar att den särskilda teknologin inte är viktig utan snarare de kommersiella intressen som står bakom och som beslutsfattare gärna döljer i en nationalistisk retorik. Studien visar att det är viktigt att beakta vilken tyngd man i politiken ger de två sidor som rundradioverksamheten består av: sändningsteknologin och verksamheten som en speciell kulturform. Nationalstatens handlingsutrymme minskar inom fältet om målet är att vara framgångsrik i konkurrensen i den nya internationella ekonomin. Enligt de nyliberalistiska principer som det politiska systemet överlag har tillägnat sig det är önskvärd men också helt inhemska institutionella traditioner och praxis som följdes i den finländska digitaliseringsprocessen främjade utvecklingen som ledde till att nästan alla ursprungliga nationella syften föll sönder.

Costs and Benefits of a Shared Digital Long-Term Preservation System

Paper presented at the 40th Annual Conference of LIBER (Ligue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche - Association of European Research Libraries) on July 1st, 2011; with the slides used at the presentation.

A Technique for Digital Color Image Watermarking Using ICA

With the increase of use of digital media the need for the methods of multimedia protection becomes extremely important. The number of the solutions to the problem from encryption to watermarking is large and is growing every year. In this work digital image watermarking is considered, specifically a novel method of digital watermarking of color and spectral images. An overview of existing methods watermarking of color and grayscale images is given in the paper. Methods using independent component analysis (ICA) for detection and the ones using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and discrete cosine transform (DCT) are considered in more detail. A novel method of watermarking proposed in this paper allows embedding of a color or spectral watermark image into color or spectral image consequently and successful extraction of the watermark out of the resultant watermarked image. A number of experiments have been performed on the quality of extraction depending on the parameters of the embedding procedure. Another set of experiments included the test of the robustness of the algorithm proposed. Three techniques have been chosen for that purpose: median filter, low-pass filter (LPF) and discrete cosine transform (DCT), which are a part of a widely known StirMark - Image Watermarking Robustness Test. The study shows that the proposed watermarking technique is fragile, i.e. watermark is altered by simple image processing operations. Moreover, we have found that the contents of the image to be watermarked do not affect the quality of the extraction. Mixing coefficients, that determine the amount of the key and watermark image in the result, should not exceed 1% of the original. The algorithm proposed has proven to be successful in the task of watermark embedding and extraction.

Future revenue models: Transformation from textbooks to digital solutions in the educational publishing industry, Case Sanoma Learning

This study was conducted in order to learn how companies’ revenue models will be transformed due to the digitalisation of its products and processes. Because there is still only a limited number of researches focusing solely on revenue models, and particularly on the revenue model change caused by the changes at the business environment, the topic was initially approached through the business model concept, which organises the different value creating operations and resources at a company in order to create profitable revenue streams. This was used as the base for constructing the theoretical framework for this study, used to collect and analyse the information. The empirical section is based on a qualitative study approach and multiple-case analysis of companies operating in learning materials publishing industry. Their operations are compared with companies operating in other industries, which have undergone comparable transformation, in order to recognise either similarities or contrasts between the cases. The sources of evidence are a literature review to find the essential dimensions researched earlier, and interviews 29 of managers and executives at 17 organisations representing six industries. Based onto the earlier literature and the empirical findings of this study, the change of the revenue model is linked with the change of the other dimen-sions of the business model. When one dimension will be altered, as well the other should be adjusted accordingly. At the case companies the transformation is observed as the utilisation of several revenue models simultaneously and the revenue creation processes becoming more complex.

Costs and Benefits of a Shared Digital Long-Term Preservation System

This paper describes the cost-benefit analysis of digital long-term preservation (LTP) that was carried out in the context of the Finnish National Digital Library Project (NDL) in 2010. The analysis was based on the assumption that as many as 200 archives, libraries, and museums will share an LTP system. The term ‘system’ shall be understood as encompassing not only information technology, but also human resources, organizational structures, policies and funding mechanisms. The cost analysis shows that an LTP system will incur, over the first 12 years, cumulative costs of €42 million, i.e. an average of €3.5 million per annum. Human resources and investments in information technology are the major cost factors. After the initial stages, the analysis predicts annual costs of circa €4 million. The analysis compared scenarios with and without a shared LTP system. The results indicate that a shared system will have remarkable benefits. At the development and implementation stages, a shared system shows an advantage of €30 million against the alternative scenario consisting of five independent LTP solutions. During the later stages, the advantage is estimated at €10 million per annum. The cumulative cost benefit over the first 12 years would amount to circa €100 million.

Digitisation at NLF and the National Digital Library

Esitys Bulgarian kirjastoseuran seminaarissa 15.3.2012

Positron measurements in Mg-doped GaN and development of digital Doppler broadening spectroscopy

In this work parameters of Mg-doped GaN samples were studied using positron annihilation spectroscopy and analyzed. It is shown that gallium vacancies exist in an unintentionally doped sample. Next, the sample with higher concentration of Mg and low growth temperature contains vacancy clusters. In case of low concentration of Mg the growth temperature does not affect the formation of defects. Analog electronics can be replaced by a modern digital device. While promising a high quantity of benefits, the performance of these digitizers requires thorough adjustment. A 14-bit two channel digitizer has been tested in order to achieve better performance than the one of a traditional analog setup, and the adjustment process is described. It has been shown that the digital device is unable to achieve better energy resolution, but it is quite close to the corresponding attribute of the available analog system, which had been used for measurements in Mg-doped GaN.

Mobile learning and video experience in delivering digital content

In recent years, the worldwide distribution of smartphone devices has been growing rapidly. Mobile technologies are evolving fast, a situation which provides new possibilities for mobile learning applications. Along with new delivery methods, this development enables new concepts for learning. This study focuses on the effectiveness and experience of a mobile learning video promoting the key features of a specific device. Through relevant learning theories, mobile technologies and empirical findings, the thesis presents the key elements for a mobile learning video that are essential for effective learning. This study also explores how previous experience with mobile services and knowledge of a mobile handset relate to final learning results. Moreover, this study discusses the optimal delivery mechanisms for a mobile video. The target group for the study consists of twenty employees of a Sanoma Company. The main findings show that the individual experience of learning and the actual learning results may differ and that the design for certain video elements, such as sound and the presentation of technical features, can have an impact on the experience and effectiveness of a mobile learning video. Moreover, a video delivery method based on cloud technologies and HTML5 is suggested to be used in parallel with standalone applications.