Searching electronic marketplaces

The main objective of this thesis was to analyze the usability of registers and indexes of electronic marketplaces. The work is focused on UDDI-based electronic marketplaces, which are standardized by the W3C. UDDI-registers are usable in intranets, extranets and in Internet. Using UDDI-registers Web-services can be searched in many ways, including alphabetical and domain specific searches. Humans and machines can use the features UDDI-registers. The thesis deals the design principles, architectures and specifications of UDDI-registers. In addition, the thesis includes the design and the specifications of an electronic marketplace developed for supporting electronic logistics services.

Software process improvement using an electronic process guide

Kasvava kiinnostus ohjelmistojen laatua kohtaan on herättänyt ohjelmistoprosesseihin ja niiden kehittämiseen kohdistuvaa huomiota viime vuosina. Ohjelmistoyritykset ympäri maailmaa ovat ottaneet käyttöön ohjelmistoprosessin kehittämismalleja, kuten CMM ja SPICE, pyrkiessään kohti parempilaatuisia ohjelmistotuotteita. Samalla on huomattu, että tehokas prosessien parantaminen ja suorittaminen tarvitsee tuekseen kuvauksen prosessista, jotta prosessin perusteellinen ymmärtäminen ja kommunikointi olisi mahdollista. Ohjelmistoprosesseja voidaan kuvata monilla eri tavoilla. Prosessiopas on prosessin esitysmuoto, jonka päätarkoituksena on helpottaa prosessin ymmärtämistä ja kommunikointia. Elektroninen prosessiopas on Web-teknologiaa hyödyntävä prosessiopas. Tässä työssä luodaan kehitysympäristö elektronisille prosessioppaille, joiden tarkoituksena on tukea ohjelmistoprosessin kehittämistä ja suorittamista. Ympäristö mahdollistaa ohjelmistoprosessinmallintamisen sekä yksilöllisten oppaiden luomisen ja muokkaamisen. Kehitysympäristöä käytetään mallintamaan tietoliikenneohjelmistoja valmistavan yrityksen ohjelmistoprosessia sekä luomaan elektronisia prosessioppaita tukemaan prosessin kehitystä ja suorittamista. Lopuksi pohditaan prosessioppaiden tarjoamaa tukea sekä mahdollisuuksia kohdeyrityksessä.

Electronic Data Interchange in Logistics Processes

Tämän diplomityön tarkoituksena oli tehdä selvitys EDI:in liittyvistä vaikutuksista, tarpeista ja eduista sekä valmistella Oracle Applications- toiminnanohjausjärjestelmän EDI Gateway- modulin ottamista tuotantokäyttöön. Tietoa tarvekartoitukseen saatiin keskustelujen avulla. Uusia kaupallisista lähtökohdista johdettuja, yritysten väliseen kaupankäyntiin ja internet-teknologian hyödyntämiseen kehitettyjä aloitteita käsiteltiin EDI-näkökulmasta tulevaisuutta varten. Ajankohtaisinta tietoa tätä diplomityötä varten löydettiin myös internetistä. Tämän jälkeen oli mahdollista toteuttaa sopivan laaja mutta rajattu EDI pilottiprojekti EDI-konseptin luomista varten. EDI:n vaikutuksiin ostossa keskityttiin tässä diplomityössä enemmän ja EDI:ä päätettiin soveltaa aluksi ostotilauksissa. EDI:n hyötyjä on vaikea mitata numeerisesti. Suurta määrää rahaa tai tuoteyksiköitä on käsiteltävä EDI-partnerin kanssa riittävän usein. EDI:n käyttöönottovaiheessa pääongelmat ovat sovelluksiin liittyviä tietotekniikkaongelmia. Selvityksistä ja EDI-projektista saatu tieto on mahdollista hyödyntää jatkokehityksessä. Lisätoimenpiteitä tarvitaan kokonaan toimivan järjestelmän luomiseksi.

Pairs Trading -strategia Suomen osakemarkkinoilla

Tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää soveltuvatko suomalaiset osakkeet parikaupankäyntiin ja voidaanko niillä luoda tuottavia kaupankäyntistrategioita. Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan pystytäänkö suomalaisista osakkeista muodostamaan parikaupankäynnin kannalta toimivia osakepareja. Aineisto koostuu kaikkiaan 53 tutkitusta yrityksestä, joiden joukosta valitaan paras osakepari kultakin viideltä toimialalta. Tutkimusperiodi käsittää vuodet 2004–2007, eli se sisältää noin 1000 kaupankäyntipäivää per osa-ke. Viittä valittua osakeparia tutkitaan tarkemmin tilastollisilla ja teknisillä analyysimenetelmillä. Empiiristen tulosten perusteella suomalaiset osakkeet soveltuvat hyvin parikaupankäyntiin. Jokaisella viidellä tutkitulla osakeparilla ilmeni selvää hintojen erkaantumista ja konvergoitumista, joten niillä olisi tutkimuspe-riodin aikana pystynyt käymään menestyksekästä parikauppaa.

Optimization of short term power trading between Russia, Finland and Baltic countries

Russian and Baltic electricity markets are in the process of reformation and development on the way for competitive and transparent market. Nordic market also undergoes some changes on the way to market integration. Old structure and practices have been expired whereas new laws and rules come into force. The master thesis describes structure and functioning of wholesale electricity markets, cross-border connections between different countries. Additionally methods of cross-border trading using different methods of capacity allocation are disclosed. The main goal of present thesis is to study current situation at different electricity markets and observe changes coming into force as well as the capacity and electricity balances forecast in order to optimize short term power trading between countries and estimate the possible profit for the company.

Small scale energy production in Helsinki Metropolitan area in emission trading point of view

Emission trading with greenhouse gases and green certificates are part if the climate policy the main target of which is reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon dioxide and fine particle emissions of energy production in Helsinki Metropolitan area are calculated in this study. The analysis is made mainly by district heating point of view and the changes of the district heating network are assessed. Carbon dioxide emissions would be a bit higher, if the district heating network is expanded, but then the fine particle emissions would be much lower. Carbon dioxide emissions are roughly 10 % higher, if the district heating network is expanded at same rate as it has in past five years in the year 2030. The expansion of district heating network would decrease the fine particle emissions about 40 %. The cost of the expansion is allocated to be reduction cost of the fine particle emissions, which is considerably higher than the traditional reduction methods costs. The possible new nuclear plant would reduce the emissions considerably and the costs of the nuclear plant would be relatively low comparing the other energy production methods.

Hybrid LC Filter for Power Electronic Drives: Theory and Implementation

Power electronic converter drives use, for the sake of high efficiency, pulse-width modulation that results in sequences of high-voltage high-frequency steep-edged pulses. Such a signal contains a set of high harmonics not required for control purposes. Harmonics cause reflections in the cable between the motor and the inverter leading to faster winding insulation ageing. Bearing failures and problems with electromagnetic compatibility may also result. Electrical du/dt filters provide an effective solution to problems caused by pulse-width modulation, thereby increasing the performance and service life of the electrical machines. It is shown that RLC filters effectively decrease the reflection phenomena in the cable. Improved (simple, but effective) solutions are found for both differential- and common-mode signals; these solutions use a galvanic connection between the RLC filter star point and the converter DC link. Foil chokes and film capacitors are among the most widely used components in high-power applications. In actual applications they can be placed in different parts of the cabinet. This fact complicates the arrangement of the cabinet and decreases the reliability of the system. In addition, the inductances of connection wires may prevent filtration at high frequencies. This thesis introduces a new hybrid LC filter that uses a natural capacitance between the turns of the foil choke based on integration of an auxiliary layer into it. The main idea of the hybrid LC filter results from the fact that both the foil choke and the film capacitors have the same roll structure. Moreover, the capacitance between the turns (“intra capacitance”) of the foil inductors is the reason for the deterioration of their properties at high frequencies. It is shown that the proposed filter has a natural cancellation of the intra capacitance. A hybrid LC filter may contain two or more foil layers isolated from each other and coiled on a core. The core material can be iron or even air as in the filter considered in this work. One of the foils, called the main foil, can be placed between the inverter and the motor cable. Other ones, called auxiliary foils, may be connected in star to create differential-mode noise paths, and then coupled to the DC link midpoint to guarantee a traveling path, especially for the common-mode currents. This way, there is a remarkable capacitance between the main foil and the auxiliary foil. Investigations showed that such a system can be described by a simple equivalent LC filter in a wide range of frequencies. Because of its simple hybrid construction, the proposed LC filter can be a cost-effective and competitive solution for modern power drives. In the thesis, the application field of the proposed filter is considered and determined. The basics of hybrid LC filter design are developed further. High-frequency behaviour of the proposed filter is analysed by simulations. Finally, the thesis presents experimental data proving that the hybrid LC filter can be used for du/dt of PWM pulses and reduction of common-mode currents.

Software Licensing: Implementing Electronic Licensing in Medical Technology Company

The purpose of this thesis is to examine software licensing, how a software developer can benefit from it and to define specifications for licensing system of software based medical technology product. The thesis has been divided into theoretical and empirical parts. In the theoretical part the concept of software licensing and different aspects that are connected to it are examined with a help of research material. On the ground of this research, in the empirical part, a licensing system for a medical software product called iCentral is designed. The empirical part is based on interviews, questionnaire and on authors own experience gained while working for the case-company.The thesis has great practical importance for the case-company by proposing both an ideal, and more importantly, practical implementation for a licensing system of a product. Thesis shows that electronic licensing is a viable option to sell medical technology products without a need to revise existing procedures or the enterprise resource system in the case company.

Is it possible to utilize VIX for a profitable trading strategy of S&P 500 Index?

The goal of this research was to make an overall sight to VIX® and how it can be used as a stock market indicator. Volatility index often referred as the fear index, measures how much it costs for investor to protect his/her S&P 500 position from fluctuations with options. Over the relatively short history of VIX it has been a successful timing coordinator and it has given incremental information about the market state adding its own psychological view of the amount of fear and greed. Correctly utilized VIX information gives a considerable advantage in timing market actions. In this paper we test how VIX works as a leading indicator of broad stock market index such as S&P 500 (SPX). The purpose of this paper is to find a working way to interpret VIX. The various tests are made on time series data ranging from the year 1990 to the year 2010. The 10-day simple moving average strategy gave significant profits from the whole time when VIX data is available. Strategy was able to utilize the increases of SPX in example portfolio value and was able to step aside when SPX was declining. At the times when portfolio was aside of S it was on safety fund like on treasury bills getting an annual yield of 3 percent. On the other side just a static number’s of VIX did not work as indicators in a profit making way.

Licensing of eResources - views from Denmark's Electronic Research Library (DEFF)

Bo Öhrströmin esitys Kirjastoverkkopäivillä 27.10.2011 Helsingissä.

Optimal trading of wind power in the short term market

The energy reform, which is happening all over the world, is caused by the common concern of the future of the humankind in our shared planet. In order to keep the effects of the global warming inside of a certain limit, the use of fossil fuels must be reduced. The marginal costs of the renewable sources, RES are quite high, since they are new technology. In order to induce the implementation of RES to the power grid and lower the marginal costs, subsidies were developed in order to make the use of RES more profitable. From the RES perspective the current market is developed to favor conventional generation, which mainly uses fossil fuels. Intermittent generation, like wind power, is penalized in the electricity market since it is intermittent and thus diffi-cult to control. Therefore, the need of regulation and thus the regulation costs to the producer differ, depending on what kind of generation market participant owns. In this thesis it is studied if there is a way for market participant, who has wind power to use the special characteristics of electricity market Nord Pool and thus reach the gap between conventional generation and the intermittent generation only by placing bids to the market. Thus, an optimal bid is introduced, which purpose is to minimize the regulation costs and thus lower the marginal costs of wind power. In order to make real life simulations in Nord Pool, a wind power forecast model was created. The simulations were done in years 2009 and 2010 by using a real wind power data provided by Hyötytuuli, market data from Nord Pool and wind forecast data provided by Finnish Meteorological Institute. The optimal bid needs probability intervals and therefore the methodology to create probability distributions is introduced in this thesis. In the end of the thesis it is shown that the optimal bidding improves the position of wind power producer in the electricity market.

Usable Privacy Preservation in Mobile Electronic Personality

Personalised ubiquitous services have rapidly proliferated due technological advancements in sensing, ubiquitous and mobile computing. Evolving societal trends, business and the economic potential of Personal Information (PI) have overlapped the service niches. At the same time, the societal thirst for more personalised services has increased and are met by soliciting deeper and more privacy invasive PI from customers. Consequentially, reinforcing traditional privacy challenges and unearthed new risks that render classical safeguards ine ective. The absence of solutions to criticise personalised ubiquitous services from privacy perspectives, aggravates the situation. This thesis presents a solution permitting users' PI, stored in their mobile terminals to be disclosed to services in privacy preserving manner for personalisation needs. The approach termed, Mobile Electronic Personality Version 2 (ME2.0), is compared to alternative mechanisms. Within ME2.0, PI handling vulnerabilities of ubiquitous services are identi ed and sensitised on their practices and privacy implications. Vulnerability where PI may leak through covert solicits, excessive acquisitions and legitimate data re-purposing to erode users privacy are also considered. In this thesis, the design, components, internal structures, architectures, scenarios and evaluations of ME2.0 are detailed. The design addresses implications and challenges leveraged by mobile terminals. ME2.0 components and internal structures discusses the functions related to how PI pieces are stored and handled by terminals and services. The architecture focusses on di erent components and their exchanges with services. Scenarios where ME2.0 is used are presented from di erent environment views, before evaluating for performance, privacy and usability.

Candace Bushnellin Trading Up Edith Whartonin romaanin The Custom of the Country uudelleenkirjoituksena

Candace Bushnellin (1958–) vuonna 2003 julkaistu romaani Trading Up kuvaa nuoren naispäähenkilön määrätietoista pyrkimystä rikkauteen, maineeseen ja New Yorkin suihkuseurapiireihin. Se on uudelleenkirjoitus Edith Whartonin romaanista The Custom of the Country (1913). Wharton (1862–1937) käsitteli tuotannossaan New Yorkin vanhaa yläluokkaa ja kuvasi usein liikettä yhteiskuntaluokassa ylös tai alas. 1990-luvulta alkaen Bushnell on käsitellyt teoksissaan samankaltaisia aiheita, joskin oman aikansa kontekstissa. Hän on itse todennut Whartonin teosten olevan merkittäviä esikuvia omalle tuotannolleen. Pro gradu -tutkielmassani tarkastelen Bushnellin romaania Trading Up Whartonin The Custom of the Country -teoksen uudelleenkirjoituksena. Analysoimalla teoksia rinnakkain selvitän, millaisia keinoja Bushnell käyttää uudelleenkirjoituksessaan ja mikä merkitys Whartonin romaanin uudelleenkirjoituksella on. Tutkimusnäkökulmani on feministinen, ja keskityn valtasuhteisiin liittyviin kysymyksiin. Tarkastelen etenkin yhteiskuntaluokkaan, sukupuoleen ja seksuaalisuuteen liittyviä valtasuhteita ja sitä, miten valtasuhteet Bushnellin uudelleenkirjoituksessa eroavat Whartonin romaanissa esiintyvistä. Tarkastelen tutkimiani romaaneja myös genren näkökulmasta, Trading Up -romaania osana chick lit -genreä ja The Custom of the Country -teosta taparomaanina. Chick lit on 1990- luvulla syntynyt viihteellinen naisten kirjallisuuden genre, joka kuvaa nuoria naisia ja käsittelee esimerkiksi ihmissuhteita ja perheeseen, työelämään tai ulkonäköön liittyviä kysymyksiä. Kulutuskulttuuri ja uusliberalistinen yksilöllisyys kuuluvat chick lit -genreen. Se on kytketty myös postfeminismiin: chick litissä feminismistä joko vaietaan, tai se esitetään pikemminkin yksittäisten naisten elämäntapavalintoina kuin poliittisena liikkeenä. Bushnellin lisäksi myös muut chick lit -kirjailijat ovat teoksissaan viitanneet taparomaaneihin. Tutkielmassani totean Bushnellin uudelleenkirjoittavan The Custom of the Country -romaania paikoitellen hyvin suoraan. Vaikka teosten ajallisen etäisyyden ja yhteiskunnallisten muutosten takia esimerkiksi yhteiskuntaluokkaan liittyvissä valtasuhteissa on tapahtunut muutoksia, esitetään monet asiat muuttumattomina. Etenkin sukupuolen kuvaus ja sukupuoltenväliset valtasuhteet näyttäytyvät samankaltaisina kummassakin teoksessa. Postfeminismissä ja uusliberalismissa yksilön mahdollisuutta tehdä valintoja korostetaan. Bushnellin romaanin naishenkilöhahmoilla pitäisi olla enemmän valinnan mahdollisuuksia kuin Whartonin sankarittarilla, mutta näiden tekemät ratkaisut ovat lopulta hyvin samankaltaisia. Vaikka Trading Up toistaa Whartonin teoksen tarinaa melko tarkasti, ei siitä välity Whartonin romaanissa merkittävää yhteiskuntakriittisyyttä.

Performance characteristic of moving average trading rules in the Finnish stock market

The thesis examines the profitability of DMAC trading rules in the Finnish stock market over the 1996-2012 period. It contributes to the existing technical analysis literature by comparing for the first time the performance of DMAC strategies based on individual stock trading portfolios to the performance of index trading strategies based on the trading on the index (OMX Helsinki 25) that consists of the same stocks. Besides, the market frictions including transaction costs and taxes are taken into account, and the results are reported from both institutional and individual investor’s perspective. Performance characteristic of DMAC rules are evaluated by simulating 19,900 different trading strategies in total for two non- overlapping 8-year sub-periods, and decomposing the full-sample-period performance of DMAC trading strategies into distinct bullish- and bearish-period performances. The results show that the best DMAC rules have predictive power on future price trends, and these rules are able to outperform buy-and-hold strategy. Although the performance of the DMAC strategies is highly dependent on the combination of moving average lengths, the best DMAC rules of the first sub-period have also performed well during the latter sub-period in the case of individual stock trading strategies. According to the results, the outperformance of DMAC trading rules over buy-and-hold strategy is mostly attributed to their superiority during the bearish periods, and particularly, during stock market crashes.