Ancillary services market and potential profit for generators in Russia

Reformation of electricity markets has initiated creation of ancillary services markets all over the world. The Russian electricity market reform is in transition period, that is why the problem of ancillary services market has just arisen. Since the model of market rules was created, ancillary services market became a topical question for generating companies. This master’s thesis is focused on the describing the possible ancillary services around the world and in Russia specifically. Moreover, the physical interpretation of ancillary services is defined. In addition, possibility of generation company to participate in the ancillary services market was considered. Calculations were made for primary frequency regulation service, where necessary level of price bids and payback period were evaluated.

Sosiaalisen oppimisympäristön tasa-arvoisuus Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulussa

Suomalaista siviiliyhteiskuntaa pidetään kansainvälisesti tasa-arvoisena. Naiset ovat entistä korkeammin koulutettuja ja vaativat tasa-arvoisia opiskelu- ja työmahdollisuuksia miesten rinnalla. Lisäksi opiskelu- ja työolosuhteisiin on alettu kiinnittää entistä enemmän huomiota. Tämä on luonut tarpeen tutkia eri aloilla opiskelevien ja työskentelevien naisten sosiaalista oppimisympäristöä ja sen ohella tasa-arvon toteutumista. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli tutkia naisten sosiaalista oppimisympäristöä Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulussa selvittäen, toimitaanko Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulussa syvän johtamisen mallin mukaan naisten opiskellessa ja valmistuessa sotilasammattiin. Tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulussa kadettikurssilla ja Maanpuolustusopistossa peruskurssilla opiskelleiden naisten opiskelua edistäviä ja heikentäviä asioita. Samalla tutkittiin, onko naisten opiskelu ollut tasa-arvoista esimerkiksi kouluttajien ja kurssitovereiden taholta. Arvostelun tasa-arvoisuus ja oikeudenmukaisuus oli yksi tarkastelun kohde. Myös häirinnän eri muodot, kuten henkinen, seksuaalinen ja sukupuolinen häirintä olivat omalta osaltaan tutkittavana. Tutkimuksella pyrittiin selvittämään mahdolliset epäkohdat ja etsimään oppimisympäristön ongelmat. Esiin tulleisiin epäkohtiin ei esitetä yksityiskohtaisia ratkaisumalleja. Tutkimuksessa haastateltiin Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulussa kadettikurssilla ja Maasotakoulussa peruskurssilla opiskelevia naisia sekä jo valmistuneita että keskeyttäneitä naisia. Mahdollisimman realistisen kuvan saamiseksi haastateltiin myös heidän esimiehiään sekä vertaisiaan eri kadettikursseilta. Tutkimuksessa todettiin, että pääsääntöisesti Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulussa toimitaan syvän johtamisen mallin mukaisesti. Epäkohtia kuitenkin löytyy, joihin organisaation täytyisi puuttua. Tärkeimpinä mainittakoon sukupuoleen kohdistuva häirintä, vertaisarvioinnin heikentävä vaikutus naisopiskelijoiden johtajana kehittymiseen ja sijoittumiseen kurssilla sekä käyttäytymismallien sopimattomuus nyky-yhteiskunnan tasa-arvoisen ajattelun sekä organisaation omien ohjeiden kanssa.

Interdependence of Emerging Eastern European stock markets

One of the main developments in the global economy during the past decades has been the growth of emerging economies. Projections for their long-term growth, changes in the investment climate, corporate transparency and demography point to an increasing role for these emerging economies in the global economy. Today, emerging economies are usually considered as financial markets offering opportunities for high returns, good risk diversification and improved return-to-risk ratios. However, researchers have noted that these advantages may be in decline because of the increasing market integration. Nevertheless, it is likely that certain financial markets and specific sectors will remain partially segmented and somewhat insulated from the global economy for the year to come. This doctoral dissertation investigates several stock markets in Emerging Eastern Europe (EEE), including the ones in Russia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovenia. The objective is to analyze the returns and financial risks in these emerging markets from international investor’s point of view. This study also examines the segmentation/integration of these financial markets and the possibilities to diversify and hedge financial risk. The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first includes a review of the theoretical background for the articles and a review of the literature on EEE stock markets. It includes an overview of the methodology and research design applied in the analysis and a summary of articles from the second part of this dissertation and their main findings. The second part consists of four research publications. This work contributes to studies on emerging stock markets in four ways. First, it adds to the body of research on the pricing of risk, providing new empirical evidence about partial stock market segmentation in EEE. The results suggest that the aggregate emerging market risk is a relevant driver for stock market returns and that this market risk can be used to price financial instruments and forecast their performance. Second, it contributes to the empirical research on the integration of stock markets, asset prices and exchange rates by identifying the relationships between these markets through volatility and asset pricing. The results show that certain sectors of stock markets in EEE are not as integrated as others. For example, the Polish consumer goods sector, the Hungarian telecommunications sector, and the Czech financial sector are somewhat isolated from their counterparts elsewhere in Europe. Nevertheless, an analysis of the impact of EU accession in 2004 on stock markets suggests that most of the EEE markets are becoming increasingly integrated with the global markets. Third, this thesis complements the scientific literature in the field of shock and volatility spillovers by examining the mechanism of spillover distribution among the EU and EEE countries. The results illustrate that spillovers in emerging markets are mostly from a foreign exchange to the stock markets. Moreover, the results show that the effects of external shocks on stock markets have increased after the enlargement of the EU in 2004. Finally, this study is unique because it analyzes the effects of foreign macroeconomic news on geographically closely related countries. The results suggest that the effects of macroeconomic announcements on volatility are significant and have effect that varies across markets and their sectors. Moreover, the results show that the foreign macroeconomic news releases, somewhat surprisingly, have a greater effect on the EEE markets than the local macroeconomic news. This dissertation has a number of implications for the industry and for practitioners. It analyses financial risk associated with investing in Emerging Eastern Europe. Investors may use this information to construct and optimize investment portfolios. Moreover, this dissertation provides insights for investors and portfolio managers considering asset allocation to protect value or obtain higher returns. The results have also implications for asset pricing and portfolio selection in light of macroeconomic news releases.

Towards novel biogas upgrading processes

Biogas production has considerable development possibilities not only in Finland but all over the world since it is the easiest way of creating value out of various waste fractions and represents an alternative source of renewable energy. Development of efficient biogas upgrading technology has become an important issue since it improves the quality of biogas and for example facilitating its injection into the natural gas pipelines. Moreover, such upgrading contributes to resolving the issue of increasing CO2 emissions and addresses the increasing climate change concerns. Together with traditional CO2 capturing technologies a new class of recently emerged sorbents such as ionic liquids is claimed as promising media for gas separations. In this thesis, an extensive comparison of the performance of different solvents in terms of CO2 capture has been performed. The focus of the present study was on aqueous amine solutions and their mixtures, traditional ionic liquids, ‘switchable’ ionic liquids and poly(ionic liquid)s in order to reveal the best option for biogas upgrading. The CO2 capturing efficiency for the most promising solvents achieved values around 50 - 60 L CO2 / L absorbent. These values are superior to currently widely applied water wash biogas upgrading system. Regeneration of the solvent mixtures appeared to be challenging since the loss of initial efficiency upon CO2 release was in excess of 20 - 40 vol %, especially in the case of aqueous amine solutions. In contrast, some of the ionic liquids displayed reversible behavior. Thus, for selected “switchable” ionic and poly(ionic liquid)s the CO2 absorption/regeneration cycles were performed 3 - 4 times without any notable efficiency decrease. The viscosity issue, typical for ionic liquids upon CO2 saturation, was addressed and the information obtained was evaluated and related to the ionic interactions. The occurrence of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) before and after biogas upgrading was studied for biogas produced through anaerobic digestion of waste waters sludge. The ionic liquid [C4mim][OAc] demonstrated its feasibility as a promising scrubbing media and exhibited high efficiency in terms of the removal of VOCs. Upon application of this ionic liquid, the amount of identified VOCs was diminished by around 65 wt %, while the samples treated with the aqueous mixture of 15 wt % N-methyldiethanolamine with addition of 5 wt % piperazine resulted in 32 wt % reduction in the amounts of volatile organic compounds only.

Effects of obtained benefits on willingness to pay and word-of-mouth behavior in newspaper industry

The purpose of this master’s thesis was to investigate the effects which benefits obtained from reading a newspaper and using its website have on behavioral outcomes such as word-of-mouth behavior and willingness to pay. Several other antecedents of willingness to pay have been used as the control variables. However, their interrelations haven’t been hypothesized. The empirical part focused on a case company – Finnish regional newspaper. Empirical research has been conducted using a quantitative method and data was collected via online survey placed on newspaper’s website during 2010. 1001 responses have been collected. The results showed that benefits obtained both from traditional printed newspaper and from online one have positive effects on the word-of-mouth about this newspaper and its website. However, it has been revealed that benefits obtained from reading the newspaper don’t have effect on the willingness to pay for this newspaper. Additionally, only interpersonal and convenience benefits obtained from using the newspaper’s website influence on the willingness to pay for it. Finally, willingness to pay for the bundle of printed newspaper and its website access is affected positively only by the information/learning benefits obtained from reading the newspaper and by the interpersonal benefits obtained from using the newspaper’s website.

Entrepreneurship Education in Basic and Upper Secondary Education – Measurement and Empirical Evidence

The starting point of this study is to direct more attention to the teacher and those entrepreneurship education practices taking place in formal school to find out solutions for more effective promotion of entrepreneurship education. For this objective, the strategy-level aims of entrepreneurship education need to be operationalised into measurable and understandable teacher-level practices. Furthermore, to enable the effective development of entrepreneurship education in basic and upper secondary level education, more knowledge is needed of the state of affairs of entrepreneurship education in teaching. The purpose of the study is to increase the level of understanding of teachers’ entrepreneurship education practices, and through this to develop entrepreneurship education. This study builds on the literature on entrepreneurship education and especially those elements referring to the aims, resources, benefits, methods, and practises of entrepreneurship education. The study comprises five articles highlighting teachers’ role in entrepreneurship education. In the first article the concept of entrepreneurship and the teachers role in reflection upon his/hers approaches to entrepreneurship education are considered. The second article provides a detailed analysis of the process of developing a measurement tool to depict the teachers’ activities in entrepreneurship education. The next three articles highlight the teachers’ role in directing the entrepreneurship education in basic and upper secondary level education. Furthermore, they analyse the relationship between the entrepreneurship education practises and the teachers’ background characteristics. The results of the study suggest a wide range of conclusions and implications. First, in spite of many outspoken aims connected to entrepreneurship education, teachers have not set any aims for themselves. Additionally, aims and results seem to mix. However, it is possible to develop teachers’ target orientation by supporting their reflection skills, and through measurement and evaluation increase their understanding of their own practices. Second, applying a participatory action process it is possible to operationalise teachers’entrepreneurship education practices. It is central to include the practitioners’ perspective in the development of measures to make sure that the concepts and aims of entrepreneurship education are understood. Third, teachers’ demographic or tenure-related background characteristics do not affect their entrepreneurship education practices, but their training related to entrepreneurship education, participation in different school-level or regional planning, and their own capabilities support entrepreneurship education. Fourth, a large number of methods are applied to entrepreneurship education, and the most often used methods were different kinds of discussions, which seem to be an easy, low-threshold way for teachers to include entrepreneurship education regularly in their teaching. Field trips to business enterprises or inviting entrepreneurs to present their work in schools are used fairly seldom. Interestingly, visits outside the school are more common than visitors invited to the school. In line, most of the entrepreneurship education practices take place in a classroom. Therefore it seems to be useful to create and encourage teachers towards more in-depth cooperation with companies (e.g. via joint projects) and to network systematically. Finally, there are plenty of resources available for entrepreneurship education, such as ready-made materials, external stakeholders, support organisations, and learning games, but teachers have utilized them only marginally.

KERÄÄJÄKASVIT - hyötyä viljelijälle ja ympäristölle

Tässä julkaisussa käsitellään kerääjäkasvien toimivuutta typen huuhtoutumisen vähentäjänä ja soveltuvuutta käytännön viljelyyn. Ensimmäisessä osassa käsitellään kerääjäkasvien mahdollisuuksia vähentää typen huuhtoutumista tieteelliseltä tutkimuspohjalta ja toisessa osassa paneudutaan viljelijöiden tilakohtaisiin kerääjäkasvikokemuksiin. Tutkimusten ja tilakohtaisten kokeilujen pohjalta kerääjäkasvit estävät typen huuhtoutumista. Kerääjäkasveilla on myös suotuisa vaikutus maan rakenteeseen ja se vähentää eroosiota ja rikkakasvien määrää kasvustoissa. Julkaisu on suunniteltu auttamaan viljelijöitä, jotka harkitsevat aloittavansa kerääjäkasvien viljelyä. Tämä opas on osa TEHO Plus -hankkeen tuottamaa materiaalia viljelijöiden ja neuvojien käyttöön, mikä täydentää hankkeen laatimaa Maatilan ympäristökäsikirjaa.

FÅNGGRÖDOR – nytta för odlaren och miljön

Den här publikationen går in på hur fånggrödorna minskar kväveurlakningen och hur de lämpar sig för odling i praktiken. I första delen behandlar vi fånggrödornas möjligheter att minska urlakningen av kväve på en vetenskaplig forskningsgrund och i andra delen går vi in på jordbrukarnas erfarenheter av fånggrödor gårdsvis. Forskningen och de gårdsvisa försöken visar att fånggrödorna hindrar kväveurlakningen. Fånggrödorna har också en gynnsam verkan på markstrukturen och den minskar erosionen och mängden ogräs i växtligheten. Publikationen är avsedd att vara till hjälp för de jordbrukare som planerar att börja odla fånggrödor. Denna guide ingår i det material som producerats inom TEHO Plus-projektet för jordbrukare och rådgivare. Den kompletterar Gårdens miljöhandbok, som också sammanställts inom projektet.

Inductance Calculation of Tooth-Coil Permanent-Magnet Synchronous Machines

Analytical calculation methods for all the major components of the synchronous inductance of tooth-coil permanentmagnet synchronous machines are reevaluated in this paper. The inductance estimation is different in the tooth-coil machine compared with the one in the traditional rotating field winding machine. The accuracy of the analytical torque calculation highly depends on the estimated synchronous inductance. Despite powerful finite element method (FEM) tools, an accurate and fast analytical method is required at an early design stage to find an initialmachine design structure with the desired performance. The results of the analytical inductance calculation are verified and assessed in terms of accuracy with the FEM simulation results and with the prototype measurement results.

Developing correlative Optical-Photoacustic microscopy for high-resolution in vivo imaging

PhotoAcoustic Imaging (PAI) is a branch in clinical and pre-clinical imaging, that refers to the techniques mapping acoustic signals caused by the absorption of the short laser pulse. This conversion of electromagnetic energy of the light to the mechanical (acoustic) energy is usually called photoacoustic effect. PAI, by combining optical excitation with acoustical detection, is able to preserve the diffraction limited spatial resolution. At the same time, the penetration depth is extended beyond the diffusive limit. The Laser-Scanning PhotoAcoustic Microscope system (LS-PAM) has been developed, that offers the axial resolution of 7.75 µm with the lateral resolution better than 10 µm. The first in vivo imaging experiments were carried out. Thus, in vivo label-free imaging of the mouse ear was performed. The principle possibility to image vessels located in deep layers of the mouse skin was shown. As well as that, a gold printing sample, vasculature of the Chick Chorioallantoic Membrane Assay, Drosophila larvae were imaged by PAI. During the experimental work, a totally new application of PAM was found, in which the acoustic waves, generated by incident light can be used for further imaging of another sample. In order to enhance the performance of the presented system two main recommendation can be offered. First, the current system should be transformed into reflection-mode setup system. Second, a more powerful source of light with the sufficient repetition rate should be introduced into the system.