Den talande bokens poetik : en studie med fokus på olika unga vuxnas reception av tre fiktiva texter inlästa på band

The purpose of the research project The poetics of the talking book is to contribute to the knowledge about patterns of understanding in young adults’ reception of fiction, which they listened to through audio books. The problem explored was: How do different groups of listeners receive fictive text presented as a talking book with variations regarding use of voice, engagement and sound effects? The problem formulation rendered four specific research questions: 1. What patterns can be identified in the listeners’ answers regarding story structure and cognitive content in a comparative perspective comprising different reading styles in the taped versions of the text? 2. What patterns of understanding in interpretative reading can be identified in different listeners? 3. Which thoughts do the listeners have about what the talking book should sound like? 4. What affordances for young adults with the functional disability of mild mental retardation can be made visible through guided literature conversations? The theoretical frame of reference was formed by text–reader-oriented literary theory, psychological schema theory, and research regarding voice quality and communication. The project was carried out in two steps. The first phase was to produce the audio books with two variations of reading practice of three short stories with an existential theme in each text. The second step comprised interviewing of 32 young adults (a special group with a reading handicap in form of mild mental retardation, and a reference group with no handicap). The interviews formed as literary conversation were carried out three times during one year. The phenomenological-hermeneutic approach focused on the life worlds of the participants as meaning seeking beings. The analysis was carried out using method triangulation, mainly using phenomenological meaning concentration. The double hermeneutics in use when interpreting the interpretations of the participants revealed a capacity for aesthetic reading of fiction in the special group as well as in the reference group. The aesthetic qualities were found sufficient in all variations of reading by the professional readers of the audio book they listened to. The young adults also could describe how they wanted the audio book to sound: just as if you were reading yourself. A model describing the analytical steps and concepts in use was a result that can serve as an outline of a poetics for the talking book. Unexpected research results were how important the guided literary conversation turned out to be in order to realise the affordances given by the texts regarding exploration of existential themes in the young adults’ life worlds. Thus the result of the research project can be positioned as a piece of emancipatory research stressing the importance of including this group of young adults in the society’s conversation about culture and meaning.

Alueellistettavien virastojen toimitilojen hankinta

Tutkimus käsittelee julkisia toimitilahankintoja, alueellistamistoimia sekä päätöksentekoprosessia. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on tutkia julkisiin toimitilahankintoihin liittyvää lainsäädäntöä, toimintamalleja ja määritellä analyyttistä hierarkiaprosessia apuna käyttäen yhdelle valtion virastolle kokonaistaloudellisesti paras mahdollinen toimitila Lappeenrannasta. Tutkimuskohteena on Liikennevirasto, joka osittain alueellistetaan Lappeenrantaan. Kirjallisuuden pohjalta muodostetaan työn laaja teoriapohja, empiirinen aineisto puolestaan koostuu asiantuntija- ja yrityshaastatteluista. Työssä on esitelty lopuksi myös muutama mielenkiintoinen jatkotutkimuksen arvoinen aihe.

Karneval i klassrum – kunskap på hjul : en studie av elevers möten med clown analyserade med narrativ metod och poetisk etnografi

The aim of this study is to contribute to the knowledge about learning in and through art related to pupils’ study processes developing clown characters in secondary school. The pre understanding of this qualitative piece of micro ethnographic research is that the elaboration of clown has openness to play, creative activity and imagination. The art form clown inspires and motivates. The clown character creates a kind and friendly atmosphere, calls upon smile, which promotes learning. It is an art form promoting deep and personal reflection and evoking questions regarding identity formation. The pre understanding finally is that existential themes are brought to articulation in the art form clown. The problem formulation for the hermeneutic phenomenological study is an exploration of the meaning potential of an arts educational work with clown from the pupils’ as well as the teacher’s perspective. The study elaborates the following research questions: 1.) How are the pupils staging themselves in the work with clown? a) How are they constructing the clown character? b) How do they reflect upon their construction? c) What are the characteristics of the working process in the elaboration of clown? 2.) What is characteristic of the teacher’s contribution to the arts educational work? 3.) What is characteristic of the meaning making in the elaboration of clown? One group of 21 pupils and their drama teacher in a Swedish secondary school in six workshops (each one 90 minutes) elaborating the clown theme is the group under study through video observation, interviews, students’ logs and drawings, teacher log and researcher’s field notes. The theoretical framework comprises three perspectives on clown: a perspective on the culture of carnival, a drama education perspective and a performance perspective. Through a content analysis of texts about clown a set of characteristics for the clown is used as analytical concepts in the subsequent analysis of the pupils’ working process when they create three clown characters: August, the white clown and the bag lady. The results are presented as fictive narratives built on the video observations and the interviews. The presentation is brought to even more condensation through poetic ethnographic writing of haiku poems by the researcher. This ethnographic writing is idiomatic to the art form under study, and can be seen as a metaphorical meta commentary to the narratives. As a main result the researcher has developed a model describing the different aspects of the clown characters and the meaning potential of the clown as learning regarding exploration of identity and elaboration of existential questions regarding life, loneliness, love, religion and death.

Qualitative Characteristics and Quantitative Measures of Solution's Reliability in Discrete Optimization: Traditional Analytical Approaches, Innovative Computational Methods and Applicability

The purpose of this thesis is twofold. The first and major part is devoted to sensitivity analysis of various discrete optimization problems while the second part addresses methods applied for calculating measures of solution stability and solving multicriteria discrete optimization problems. Despite numerous approaches to stability analysis of discrete optimization problems two major directions can be single out: quantitative and qualitative. Qualitative sensitivity analysis is conducted for multicriteria discrete optimization problems with minisum, minimax and minimin partial criteria. The main results obtained here are necessary and sufficient conditions for different stability types of optimal solutions (or a set of optimal solutions) of the considered problems. Within the framework of quantitative direction various measures of solution stability are investigated. A formula for a quantitative characteristic called stability radius is obtained for the generalized equilibrium situation invariant to changes of game parameters in the case of the H¨older metric. Quality of the problem solution can also be described in terms of robustness analysis. In this work the concepts of accuracy and robustness tolerances are presented for a strategic game with a finite number of players where initial coefficients (costs) of linear payoff functions are subject to perturbations. Investigation of stability radius also aims to devise methods for its calculation. A new metaheuristic approach is derived for calculation of stability radius of an optimal solution to the shortest path problem. The main advantage of the developed method is that it can be potentially applicable for calculating stability radii of NP-hard problems. The last chapter of the thesis focuses on deriving innovative methods based on interactive optimization approach for solving multicriteria combinatorial optimization problems. The key idea of the proposed approach is to utilize a parameterized achievement scalarizing function for solution calculation and to direct interactive procedure by changing weighting coefficients of this function. In order to illustrate the introduced ideas a decision making process is simulated for three objective median location problem. The concepts, models, and ideas collected and analyzed in this thesis create a good and relevant grounds for developing more complicated and integrated models of postoptimal analysis and solving the most computationally challenging problems related to it.

Analytical methods for analyzing organic peroxides

Työn tarkoituksena oli kehittää analyyttinen erotusmenetelmä eräässä valmistusprosessissa käytettävän hapettavan aineen ja liuottimen välillä syntyvien reaktiotuotteiden tutkimiseen ja analysoimiseen. Lisäksi tarkoituksena oli tutkia prosessiolosuhteiden turvallisuutta. Kirjallisuusosassa käsitellään erilaisia orgaanisia peroksideja, niiden käyttötarkoituksia ja niiden käyttöön liittyviä huomioitavia asioita. Lisäksi tarkastellaan yleisimpiä analyysimenetelmiä, joita on käytetty erilaisten peroksidien analysoinnissa. Näitä analyysimenetelmiä on useimmiten käytetty nestemäisten näytteiden tutkimuksissa. Harvemmin on analysoitu kaasu- ja kiintoainenäytteitä. Kokeellisessa osassa kehitettiin kirjallisuuden perusteella peroksidiyhdisteille identifiointimenetelmä ja tutkittiin prosessin näytteet. Analyysimenetelmiksi valittiin iodometrinen titraus ja HPLC-UV-MS-menetelmä. Lisäksi käytettiin peroksidimittaukseen soveltuvia testiliuskoja. Tutkimus osoitti, että iodometrisen titrauksen ja testiliuskojen perusteella näytteissä oli vähäisiä määriä peroksideja viikon jälkeen peroksidilisäyksestä. HPLC-UV-MS-analyysien perusteella näytteiden analysointia häiritsi selluloosa, jota löytyi jokaisesta näytteestä.

Printed platforms for paper-based analytical applications

Paper-based analytical technologies enable quantitative and rapid analysis of analytes from various application areas including healthcare, environmental monitoring and food safety. Because paper is a planar, flexible and light weight substrate, the devices can be transported and disposed easily. Diagnostic devices are especially valuable in resourcelimited environments where diagnosis as well as monitoring of therapy can be made even without electricity by using e.g. colorimetric assays. On the other hand, platforms including printed electrodes can be coupled with hand-held readers. They enable electrochemical detection with improved reliability, sensitivity and selectivity compared with colorimetric assays. In this thesis, different roll-to-roll compatible printing technologies were utilized for the fabrication of low-cost paper-based sensor platforms. The platforms intended for colorimetric assays and microfluidics were fabricated by patterning the paper substrates with hydrophobic vinyl substituted polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) -based ink. Depending on the barrier properties of the substrate, the ink either penetrates into the paper structure creating e.g. microfluidic channel structures or remains on the surface creating a 2D analog of a microplate. The printed PDMS can be cured by a roll-ro-roll compatible infrared (IR) sintering method. The performance of these platforms was studied by printing glucose oxidase-based ink on the PDMS-free reaction areas. The subsequent application of the glucose analyte changed the colour of the white reaction area to purple with the colour density and intensity depending on the concentration of the glucose solution. Printed electrochemical cell platforms were fabricated on paper substrates with appropriate barrier properties by inkjet-printing metal nanoparticle based inks and by IR sintering them into conducting electrodes. Printed PDMS arrays were used for directing the liquid analyte onto the predetermined spots on the electrodes. Various electrochemical measurements were carried out both with the bare electrodes and electrodes functionalized with e.g. self assembled monolayers. Electrochemical glucose sensor was selected as a proof-of-concept device to demonstrate the potential of the printed electronic platforms.

Cardiac Troponin Specific Autoantibodies: Analytical Tools for Exploring Their Impact on Cardiac Troponin I Testing

Cardiac troponin (cTn) I and T are the recommended biomarkers for the diagnosis and risk stratification of patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS), a major cause of cardiovascular death and disability worldwide. It has recently been demonstrated that cTn-specific autoantibodies (cTnAAb) can negatively interfere with cTnI detection by immunoassays to the extent that cTnAAb-positive patients may be falsely designated as cTnI-negative. The aim of this thesis was to develop and optimize immunoassays for the detection of both cTnI and cTnAAb, which would eventually enable exploring the clinical impact of these autoantibodies on cTnI testing and subsequent patient management. The extent of cTnAAb interference in different cTnI assay configurations and the molecular characteristics of cTnAAbs were investigated in publications I and II, respectively. The findings showed that cTnI midfragment targeting immunoassays used predominantly in clinical practice are affected by cTnAAb interference which can be circumvented by using a novel 3+1-type assay design with three capture antibodies against the N-terminus, midfragment and C-terminus and one tracer antibody against the C-terminus. The use of this assay configuration was further supported by the epitope specificity study, which showed that although the midfragment is most commonly targeted by cTnAAbs, the interference basically encompasses the whole molecule, and there may be remarkable individual variation at the affected sites. In publications III and IV, all the data obtained in previous studies were utilized to develop an improved version of an existing cTnAAb assay and a sensitive cTnI assay free of this specific analytical interference. The results of the thesis showed that approximately one in 10 patients with suspected ACS have detectable amounts of cTnAAbs in their circulation and that cTnAAbs can inhibit cTnI determination when targeted against the binding sites of assay antibodies used in its immunological detection. In the light of these observations, the risk of clinical misclassification caused by the presence of cTnAAbs remains a valid and reasonable concern. Because the titers, affinities and epitope specificities of cTnAAbs and the concentration of endogenous cTnI determine the final effect of circulating cTnAAbs, appropriately sized studies on their clinical significance are warranted. The new cTnI and cTnAAb assays could serve as analytical tools for establishing the impact of cTnAAbs on cTnI testing and also for unraveling the etiology of cTn-related autoimmune responses.

The European Union and Assembling Biofuel Development – topological investigations concerning the associations between law, policy and space

Biofuels for transport are a renewable source of energy that were once heralded as a solution to multiple problems associated with poor urban air quality, the overproduction of agricultural commodities, the energy security of the European Union (EU) and climate change. It was only after the Union had implemented an incentivizing framework of legal and political instruments for the production, trade and consumption of biofuels that the problems of weakening food security, environmental degradation and increasing greenhouse gases through land-use changes began to unfold. In other words, the difference between political aims for why biofuels are promoted and their consequences has grown – which is also recognized by the EU policy-makers. Therefore, the global networks of producing, trading and consuming biofuels may face a complete restructure if the European Commission accomplishes its pursuit to sideline crop-based biofuels after 2020. My aim with this dissertation is not only to trace the manifold evolutions of the instruments used by the Union to govern biofuels but also to reveal how this evolution has influenced the dynamics of biofuel development. Therefore, I study the ways the EU’s legal and political instruments of steering biofuels are coconstitutive with the globalized spaces of biofuel development. My analytical strategy can be outlined through three concepts. I use the term ‘assemblage’ to approach the operations of the loose entity of actors and non-human elements that are the constituents of multi-scalar and -sectorial biofuel development. ‘Topology’ refers to the spatiality of this European biofuel assemblage and its parts whose evolving relations are treated as the active constituents of space, instead of simply being located in space. I apply the concept of ‘nomosphere’ to characterize the framework of policies, laws and other instruments that the EU applies and construes while attempting to govern biofuels. Even though both the materials and methods vary in the independent articles, these three concepts characterize my analytical strategy that allows me to study law, policy and space associated with each other. The results of my examinations underscore the importance of the instruments of governance of the EU constituting and stabilizing the spaces of producing and, on the other hand, how topological ruptures in biofuel development have enforced the need to reform policies. This analysis maps the vast scope of actors that are influenced by the mechanism of EU biofuel governance and, what is more, shows how they are actively engaging in the Union’s institutional policy formulation. By examining the consequences of fast biofuel development that are spatially dislocated from the established spaces of producing, trading and consuming biofuels such as indirect land use changes, I unfold the processes not tackled by the instruments of the EU. Indeed, it is these spatially dislocated processes that have pushed the Commission construing a new type of governing biofuels: transferring the instruments of climate change mitigation to land-use policies. Although efficient in mitigating these dislocated consequences, these instruments have also created peculiar ontological scaffolding for governing biofuels. According to this mode of governance, the spatiality of biofuel development appears to be already determined and the agency that could dampen the negative consequences originating from land-use practices is treated as irrelevant.

VVER-440 Thermal Hydraulics as a Computer Code Validation Challenge

This thesis concentrates on the validation of a generic thermal hydraulic computer code TRACE under the challenges of the VVER-440 reactor type. The code capability to model the VVER-440 geometry and thermal hydraulic phenomena specific to this reactor design has been examined and demonstrated acceptable. The main challenge in VVER-440 thermal hydraulics appeared in the modelling of the horizontal steam generator. The major challenge here is not in the code physics or numerics but in the formulation of a representative nodalization structure. Another VVER-440 specialty, the hot leg loop seals, challenges the system codes functionally in general, but proved readily representable. Computer code models have to be validated against experiments to achieve confidence in code models. When new computer code is to be used for nuclear power plant safety analysis, it must first be validated against a large variety of different experiments. The validation process has to cover both the code itself and the code input. Uncertainties of different nature are identified in the different phases of the validation procedure and can even be quantified. This thesis presents a novel approach to the input model validation and uncertainty evaluation in the different stages of the computer code validation procedure. This thesis also demonstrates that in the safety analysis, there are inevitably significant uncertainties that are not statistically quantifiable; they need to be and can be addressed by other, less simplistic means, ultimately relying on the competence of the analysts and the capability of the community to support the experimental verification of analytical assumptions. This method completes essentially the commonly used uncertainty assessment methods, which are usually conducted using only statistical methods.

Blue and Uv-Emitting Upconversion Nanoparticles: Synthesis and (Bio) Analytical Applications.

Rare-earth based upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) have attracted much attention due to their unique luminescent properties. The ability to convert multiple photons of lower energy to ones with higher energy through an upconversion (UC) process offers a wide range of applications for UCNPs. The emission intensities and wavelengths of UCNPs are important performance characteristics, which determine the appropriate applications. However, insufficient intensities still limit the use of UCNPs; especially the efficient emission of blue and ultraviolet (UV) light via upconversion remains challenging, as these events require three or more near-infrared (NIR) photons. The aim of the study was to enhance the blue and UV upconversion emission intensities of Tm3+ doped NaYF4 nanoparticles and to demonstrate their utility in in vitro diagnostics. As the distance between the sensitizer and the activator significantly affect the energy transfer efficiency, different strategies were explored to change the local symmetry around the doped lanthanides. One important strategy is the intentional co-doping of active (participate in energy transfer) or passive (do not participate in energy transfer) impurities into the host matrix. The roles of doped passive impurities (K+ and Sc3+) in enhancing the blue and UV upconversions, as well as in influencing the intense UV upconversion emission through excess sensitization (active impurity) were studied. Additionally, the effects of both active and passive impurity doping on the morphological and optical performance of UCNPs were investigated. The applicability of UV emitting UCNPs as an internal light source for glucose sensing in a dry chemistry test strip was demonstrated. The measurements were in agreement with the traditional method based on reflectance measurements using an external UV light source. The use of UCNPs in the glucose test strip offers an alternative detection method with advantages such as control signals for minimizing errors and high penetration of the NIR excitation through the blood sample, which gives more freedom for designing the optical setup. In bioimaging, the excitation of the UCNPs in the transparent IR region of the tissue permits measurements, which are free of background fluorescence and have a high signal-to-background ratio. In addition, the narrow emission bandwidth of the UCNPs enables multiplexed detections. An array-in-well immunoassay was developed using two different UC emission colours. The differentiation between different viral infections and the classification of antibody responses were achieved based on both the position and colour of the signal. The study demonstrates the potential of spectral and spatial multiplexing in the imaging based array-in-well assays.