Of milquetoasts and daredevils : personalities in female eiders

Traditionally biologists have often considered individual differences in behaviour or physiology as a nuisance when investigating a population of individuals. These differences have mostly been dismissed as measurement errors or as non-adaptive variation around an adaptive population mean. Recent research, however, challenges this view. While long acknowledged in human personality studies, the importance of individual variation has recently entered into ecological and evolutionary studies in the form of animal personality. The concept of animal personality focuses on consistent differences within and between individuals in behavioural and physiological traits across time and contexts and its ecological and evolutionary consequences. Nevertheless, a satisfactory explanation for the existence of personality is still lacking. Although there is a growing number of explanatory theoretical models, there is still a lack of empirical studies on wild populations showing how traditional life-history tradeoffs can explain the maintenance of variation in personality traits. In this thesis, I first investigate the validity of variation in allostatic load or baseline corticosterone (CORT) concentrations as a measure for differences in individual quality. The association between CORT and quality has recently been summarised under the “CORT-fitness hypothesis”, which states that a general negative relationship between baseline CORT and fitness exists. I then continue to apply the concept of animal personality to depict how the life-history trade-off between survival and fecundity is mediated in incubating female eiders (Somateria mollissima), thereby maintaining variation in behaviour and physiology. To this end, I investigated breeding female eiders from a wild population that breeds in the archipelago around Tvärminne Zoological Station, SW Finland. The field data used was collected from 2008 to 2012. The overall aim of the thesis was to show how differences in personality and stress responsiveness are linked to a life-history context. In the four chapters I examine how the life-history trade-off between survival and fecundity could be resolved depending on consistent individual differences in escape behaviour, stress physiology, individual quality and nest-site selection. First, I corroborated the validity of the “CORT-fitness hypothesis”, by showing that reproductive success is generally negatively correlated with serum and faecal baseline CORT levels. The association between individual quality and baseline CORT is, however, context dependent. Poor body condition was associated with elevated serum baseline CORT only in older breeders, while a larger reproductive investment (clutch mass) was associated with elevated serum baseline CORT among females breeding late in the season. Interestingly, good body condition was associated with elevated faecal baseline CORT levels in late breeders. High faecal baseline CORT levels were positively related to high baseline body temperature, and breeders in poor condition showed an elevated baseline body temperature, but only on open islands. The relationship between stress physiology and individual quality is modulated by breeding experience and breeding phenology. Consequently, the context dependency highlights that this relationship has to be interpreted cautiously. Additionally, I verified if stress responsiveness is related to risk-taking behaviour. Females who took fewer risks (longer flight initiation distance) showed a stronger stress response (measured as an increase in CORT concentration after capture and handling of the bird). However, this association was modulated by breeding experience and body condition, with young breeders and those in poor body condition showing the strongest relationship between risktaking and stress responsiveness. Shy females (longer flight initiation distance) also incubated their clutch for a shorter time. Additionally, I demonstrated that stress responsiveness and predation risk interact with maternal investment and reproductive success. Under high risk of predation, females that incubated a larger clutch showed a stronger stress response. Surprisingly, these females also exhibited higher reproductive success than females with a weaker stress response. Again, these context dependent results suggest that the relationship between stress responsiveness and risk-taking behaviour should not be studied in isolation from individual quality and that stress responsiveness may show adaptive plasticity when individuals are exposed to different predation regimes. Finally, female risk-taking behaviour and stress coping styles were also related to nest-site choice. Less stress responsive females more frequently occupied nests with greater coverage that were farther away from the shoreline. Females nesting in nests with medium cover and farther from the shoreline had higher reproductive success. These results suggest that different personality types are distributed non-randomly in space. In this thesis I was able to demonstrate that personalities and stress coping strategies are persistent individual characteristics, which express measurable effects on fitness. This suggests that those traits are exposed to natural selection and thereby can evolve. Furthermore, individual variation in personality and stress coping strategy is linked to the alternative ways in which animals resolve essential life-history trade-offs.

Characterization of Leaf-Type Ferredoxin-NADP+ Oxidoreductase (FNR) Isoforms in Arabidopsis thaliana

Life on earth is based on sunlight, which is captured in chemical form by photosynthetic reactions. In the chloroplasts of plants, light reactions of photosynthesis take place at thylakoid membranes, whereas carbon assimilation reactions occur in the soluble stroma. The products of linear electron transfer (LET), highly-energetic ATP molecules, and reducing power in the form of NADPH molecules, are further used in the fixation of inorganic CO2 molecules into organic sugars. Ferredoxin-NADP+ oxidoreductase (FNR) catalyzes the last of the light reactions by transferring electrons from ferredoxin (FD) to NADP+. In addition to LET, FNR has been suggested to play a role in cyclic electron transfer (CET), which produces ATP without the accumulation of reducing equivalents. CET is proposed to occur via two putative routes, the PGR5- route and the NDH-route. In this thesis, the leaf-type FNR (LFNR) isoforms LFNR1 and LFNR2 of a model organism, Arabidopsis thaliana, were characterized. The physiological roles of LFNRs were investigated using single and double mutant plants. The viability of the single mutants indicates functionality of both isoforms, with neither appearing to play a specific role in CET. The more severe phenotype of low-temperature adapted fnr2 plants compared to both wild-type (WT) and fnr1 plants suggests a specific role for LFNR2 under unfavorable growth conditions. The more severe phenotype of the fnr1 x fnr2 (F1 generation) plants compared to single mutants reflects down-regulated photosynthetic capacity, whereas slightly higher excitation pressure indicates mild over-excitation of electron transfer chain (ETC). However, induction of CET and various photoprotective mechanisms enable adaptation of fnr1 x fnr2 plants to scarcity of LFNR. The fnr1 fnr2 plants (F2 generation), without detectable levels of LFNR, were viable only under heterotrophic conditions. Moreover, drought stress induced acceleration of the rate of P700 + re-reduction in darkness was accompanied by a concomitant up-regulation of the PGR5-route specific components, PGR5 and PGRL1, demonstrating the induction of CET via the PGR5-route. The up-regulation of relative transcriptional expression of the FD1 gene indicates that the FD1 isoform may have a specific function in CET, while no such role could be defined for either of the LFNR isoforms. Both the membrane-bound and soluble LFNR1 and LFNR2 each appear as two distinct spots after 2D-PAGE with different isoelectric points (pIs), indicating the existence of post-translational modifications (PTMs) which do not determine the membrane attachment of LFNR. The possibility of phosphorylation and glycosylation PTMs were excluded, but all four LFNR forms were shown to contain acetylated lysine residues as well as alternative N-termini. N-terminal acetylation was shown to shift the pI of both LFNRs to be more acidic. In addition, all four LFNR forms were demonstrated to interact both with FD1 and FD2 in vitro

Power semiconductor nonlinearities in active du/dt output filtering

This doctoral thesis introduces an improved control principle for active du/dt output filtering in variable-speed AC drives, together with performance comparisons with previous filtering methods. The effects of power semiconductor nonlinearities on the output filtering performance are investigated. The nonlinearities include the timing deviation and the voltage pulse waveform distortion in the variable-speed AC drive output bridge. Active du/dt output filtering (ADUDT) is a method to mitigate motor overvoltages in variable-speed AC drives with long motor cables. It is a quite recent addition to the du/dt reduction methods available. This thesis improves on the existing control method for the filter, and concentrates on the lowvoltage (below 1 kV AC) two-level voltage-source inverter implementation of the method. The ADUDT uses narrow voltage pulses having a duration in the order of a microsecond from an IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) inverter to control the output voltage of a tuned LC filter circuit. The filter output voltage has thus increased slope transition times at the rising and falling edges, with an opportunity of no overshoot. The effect of the longer slope transition times is a reduction in the du/dt of the voltage fed to the motor cable. Lower du/dt values result in a reduction in the overvoltage effects on the motor terminals. Compared with traditional output filtering methods to accomplish this task, the active du/dt filtering provides lower inductance values and a smaller physical size of the filter itself. The filter circuit weight can also be reduced. However, the power semiconductor nonlinearities skew the filter control pulse pattern, resulting in control deviation. This deviation introduces unwanted overshoot and resonance in the filter. The controlmethod proposed in this thesis is able to directly compensate for the dead time-induced zero-current clamping (ZCC) effect in the pulse pattern. It gives more flexibility to the pattern structure, which could help in the timing deviation compensation design. Previous studies have shown that when a motor load current flows in the filter circuit and the inverter, the phase leg blanking times distort the voltage pulse sequence fed to the filter input. These blanking times are caused by excessively large dead time values between the IGBT control pulses. Moreover, the various switching timing distortions, present in realworld electronics when operating with a microsecond timescale, bring additional skew to the control. Left uncompensated, this results in distortion of the filter input voltage and a filter self-induced overvoltage in the form of an overshoot. This overshoot adds to the voltage appearing at the motor terminals, thus increasing the transient voltage amplitude at the motor. This doctoral thesis investigates the magnitude of such timing deviation effects. If the motor load current is left uncompensated in the control, the filter output voltage can overshoot up to double the input voltage amplitude. IGBT nonlinearities were observed to cause a smaller overshoot, in the order of 30%. This thesis introduces an improved ADUDT control method that is able to compensate for phase leg blanking times, giving flexibility to the pulse pattern structure and dead times. The control method is still sensitive to timing deviations, and their effect is investigated. A simple approach of using a fixed delay compensation value was tried in the test setup measurements. The ADUDT method with the new control algorithm was found to work in an actual motor drive application. Judging by the simulation results, with the delay compensation, the method should ultimately enable an output voltage performance and a du/dt reduction that are free from residual overshoot effects. The proposed control algorithm is not strictly required for successful ADUDT operation: It is possible to precalculate the pulse patterns by iteration and then for instance store them into a look-up table inside the control electronics. Rather, the newly developed control method is a mathematical tool for solving the ADUDT control pulses. It does not contain the timing deviation compensation (from the logic-level command to the phase leg output voltage), and as such is not able to remove the timing deviation effects that cause error and overshoot in the filter. When the timing deviation compensation has to be tuned-in in the control pattern, the precalculated iteration method could prove simpler and equally good (or even better) compared with the mathematical solution with a separate timing compensation module. One of the key findings in this thesis is the conclusion that the correctness of the pulse pattern structure, in the sense of ZCC and predicted pulse timings, cannot be separated from the timing deviations. The usefulness of the correctly calculated pattern is reduced by the voltage edge timing errors. The doctoral thesis provides an introductory background chapter on variable-speed AC drives and the problem of motor overvoltages and takes a look at traditional solutions for overvoltage mitigation. Previous results related to the active du/dt filtering are discussed. The basic operation principle and design of the filter have been studied previously. The effect of load current in the filter and the basic idea of compensation have been presented in the past. However, there was no direct way of including the dead time in the control (except for solving the pulse pattern manually by iteration), and the magnitude of nonlinearity effects had not been investigated. The enhanced control principle with the dead time handling capability and a case study of the test setup timing deviations are the main contributions of this doctoral thesis. The simulation and experimental setup results show that the proposed control method can be used in an actual drive. Loss measurements and a comparison of active du/dt output filtering with traditional output filtering methods are also presented in the work. Two different ADUDT filter designs are included, with ferrite core and air core inductors. Other filters included in the tests were a passive du/dtfilter and a passive sine filter. The loss measurements incorporated a silicon carbide diode-equipped IGBT module, and the results show lower losses with these new device technologies. The new control principle was measured in a 43 A load current motor drive system and was able to bring the filter output peak voltage from 980 V (the previous control principle) down to 680 V in a 540 V average DC link voltage variable-speed drive. A 200 m motor cable was used, and the filter losses for the active du/dt methods were 111W–126 W versus 184 W for the passive du/dt. In terms of inverter and filter losses, the active du/dt filtering method had a 1.82-fold increase in losses compared with an all-passive traditional du/dt output filter. The filter mass with the active du/dt method was 17% (2.4 kg, air-core inductors) compared with 14 kg of the passive du/dt method filter. Silicon carbide freewheeling diodes were found to reduce the inverter losses in the active du/dt filtering by 18% compared with the same IGBT module with silicon diodes. For a 200 m cable length, the average peak voltage at the motor terminals was 1050 V with no filter, 960 V for the all-passive du/dt filter, and 700 V for the active du/dt filtering applying the new control principle.

The Role of networks in the internationalization process of Finnish design companies

Finnish design has attracted global attention lately and companies within the industry have potential in international markets. Because networks have been found to be extremely helpful in a firm’s international business operations and usefulness of networks is not fully exploited, their role in Finnish design companies is investigated. Accordingly, this study concentrates on understanding the role of networks in the internationalization process of Finnish design companies. This was investigated through describing the internationalization process of Finnish design companies, analyzing what kind of networks are related to internationalization process of Finnish design companies, and analyzing how networks are utilized in the internationalization process of Finnish design companies. The theoretical framework explores the Finnish design industry, internationalization process and networks. The Finnish design industry is introduced in general and the concept of design is defined to refer to the industries of textiles, furniture, clothing, and lighting equipment in the research. The theories of internationalization process, the Uppsala model and Luostarinen’s operation modes, are explored in detail. The Born Global theory, which is a contrary view to stage models, is also discussed. The concept of network is investigated, networks are classified into business and social networks, and network approach to internationalization is discussed. The research is conducted empirically and the research method is a descriptive case study. In this study, four case companies are investigated: the interior decoration unit of L-Fashion Group, Globe Hope, Klo Design, and Melaja Ltd. Data is collected by semi-structured interviews and the analysis is done in the following way: the case companies are introduced, their internationalization processes and networks are described and, finally, the comparison of the case companies is done in a form of cross-case analysis. This research showed that cooperation with social networks, such as locals or employees who have experience from the target market can be extremely helpful in the beginning of a Finnish design company’s internationalization process. This study also indicated that public organizations do not necessarily enhance the internationalization process in a design company point-of-view. In addition, the research showed that there is cooperation between small Finnish design companies whereas large design companies are not as open to cooperation with competitors.

Supplier codes of conduct: Acting responsibly in global supply chains

Nowadays the Western companies are considered responsible for the social and environmental issues in their whole supply chains. To influence the practices of their suppliers the Western companies have created suppliers codes of conduct (SCCs) which express their requirements. Suppliers’ compliance with the SCCs is checked through audits. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze SCCs as a means for Western companies to ensure socially and environmentally responsible actions in their global supply chains, and the sub-objectives are to find out 1) how well do the SCCs and their auditing work at suppliers’ production sites and 2) how can possible problems related to SCCs and their auditing be solved. This is a qualitative research carried out in the form of a case study with two case companies. In this study both primary and secondary data is used. The primary data is collected in the form of interviews of the case company representatives and three external experts. Based on a theoretical framework of previous research in the fields of corporate social responsibility and supply chain management, a model with eleven factors, which influence the success of SCC implementation and the auditing of SCC –implementation, is drafted. Also several different best-practices to help to solve and avoid possible problems related to SCC -implementation and auditing have been identified from previous research. Based on the findings of this study the theoretical model has been updated adding two new influential factors. It seems that how well the SCC and its auditing work at suppliers’ production sites depends on the joint effect of thirteen influential factors: buyer’s purchasing policy, supplier’s motivation, buyer’s commitment, the solving of agency problems, the contents of the SCC, supplier’s role and the buyer-supplier –relationship, complexity of supply chain, the limitations of the smaller buyers, cooperation through a business association or multi-stakeholder system, the role of supplier’s employees, SCC –related communication and supplier’s understanding, cheating in audits and the auditors. The possible problems related to SCCs and their auditing can be solved by adopting best-practices. Nine of the theoretical best-practices stand out from the findings of this study: 1) two-way communication and collecting feedback from suppliers, 2) the philosophy of continuous improvement, 3) long-term business relationships with the supplier, 4) informing the supplier about the advantages of SCC –compliance, 5) rewarding code-compliant suppliers, 6) building collaborative, good buyer-supplier relationships, 7) supporting and advising the supplier, 8) joining a business association or multi-stakeholder system and 9) interviewing supplier’s employees as a part of the audits.

A Template for Cloud Technology Deployment in an Energy Trading Environment

Nykyaikaiset pilvipalvelut tarjoavat suurille yrityksille mahdollisuuden tehostaa laskennallista tietojenkäsittelyä. Pilvipalveluiden käyttöönotto tuo mukanaan kuitenkin esimerkiksi useita tietoturvakysymyksiä, joiden vuoksi käyttöönoton tulee olla tarkasti suunniteltua. Tämä tutkimus esittelee kirjallisuuskatsaukseen perustuvan, asteittaisen suunnitelman pilvipalveluiden käyttöönotolle energialiiketoimintaympäristössä. Kohdeyrityksen sisäiset haastattelut ja katsaus nykyisiin energiateollisuuden pilviratkaisuihin muodostavat kokonaiskuvan käyttöönoton haasteista ja mahdollisuuksista. Tutkimuksen päätavoitteena on esittää ratkaisut tyypillisiin pilvipalvelun käyttöönotossa esiintyviin ongelmiin käyttöönottomallin avulla. Tutkimuksessa rakennettu käyttöönottomalli testattiin esimerkkitapauksen avulla ja malli todettiin toimivaksi. Ulkoisten palveluiden herättämien tietoturvakysymysten takia käyttöönoton ensimmäiset osiot, kuten lopputuotteen määrittely ja huolellinen suunnittelu, ovat koko käyttöönottoprosessin ydin. Lisäksi pilvipalveluiden käyttöönotto vaatii nykyiseltä käyttöympäristöltä uusia teknisiä ja hallinnollisia taitoja. Tutkimuksen tulokset osoittavat pilvipalveluiden monipuolisen hyödyn erityisesti laskentatehon tarpeen vaihdellessa. Käyttöönottomallin rinnalle luotu kustannusvertailu tukee kirjallisuuskatsauksessa esille tuotuja hyötyjä ja tarjoaa kohdeyritykselle perusteen tutkimuksen eteenpäin viemiselle.

Semantic and fuzzy modelling for human behaviour recognition in smart spaces : a case study on ambient assisted living.

Human activity recognition in everyday environments is a critical, but challenging task in Ambient Intelligence applications to achieve proper Ambient Assisted Living, and key challenges still remain to be dealt with to realize robust methods. One of the major limitations of the Ambient Intelligence systems today is the lack of semantic models of those activities on the environment, so that the system can recognize the speci c activity being performed by the user(s) and act accordingly. In this context, this thesis addresses the general problem of knowledge representation in Smart Spaces. The main objective is to develop knowledge-based models, equipped with semantics to learn, infer and monitor human behaviours in Smart Spaces. Moreover, it is easy to recognize that some aspects of this problem have a high degree of uncertainty, and therefore, the developed models must be equipped with mechanisms to manage this type of information. A fuzzy ontology and a semantic hybrid system are presented to allow modelling and recognition of a set of complex real-life scenarios where vagueness and uncertainty are inherent to the human nature of the users that perform it. The handling of uncertain, incomplete and vague data (i.e., missing sensor readings and activity execution variations, since human behaviour is non-deterministic) is approached for the rst time through a fuzzy ontology validated on real-time settings within a hybrid data-driven and knowledgebased architecture. The semantics of activities, sub-activities and real-time object interaction are taken into consideration. The proposed framework consists of two main modules: the low-level sub-activity recognizer and the high-level activity recognizer. The rst module detects sub-activities (i.e., actions or basic activities) that take input data directly from a depth sensor (Kinect). The main contribution of this thesis tackles the second component of the hybrid system, which lays on top of the previous one, in a superior level of abstraction, and acquires the input data from the rst module's output, and executes ontological inference to provide users, activities and their in uence in the environment, with semantics. This component is thus knowledge-based, and a fuzzy ontology was designed to model the high-level activities. Since activity recognition requires context-awareness and the ability to discriminate among activities in di erent environments, the semantic framework allows for modelling common-sense knowledge in the form of a rule-based system that supports expressions close to natural language in the form of fuzzy linguistic labels. The framework advantages have been evaluated with a challenging and new public dataset, CAD-120, achieving an accuracy of 90.1% and 91.1% respectively for low and high-level activities. This entails an improvement over both, entirely data-driven approaches, and merely ontology-based approaches. As an added value, for the system to be su ciently simple and exible to be managed by non-expert users, and thus, facilitate the transfer of research to industry, a development framework composed by a programming toolbox, a hybrid crisp and fuzzy architecture, and graphical models to represent and con gure human behaviour in Smart Spaces, were developed in order to provide the framework with more usability in the nal application. As a result, human behaviour recognition can help assisting people with special needs such as in healthcare, independent elderly living, in remote rehabilitation monitoring, industrial process guideline control, and many other cases. This thesis shows use cases in these areas.

Maximizing of water recovery in nanofiltration of mine process waters by using antiscalants

Reverse osmosis and nanofiltration are among the most effective and widely used desalination and water softening technologies. They can also be used to treat mining wastewaters and are capable of producing water of extremely high purity, regardless of the high concentrations of toxic heavy metals and extreme pH and salinity. However, challenges with recovering the salts and metals from mining wastewaters in exploitable form, as well as problems with scaling still limit the process efficiency and the ratio of purified water recoverable from process waters. To address the problem of membrane scaling caused by calcium sulfate, batch filtration experiments with the Desal-5 DL nanofiltration membrane, three commercial antiscalants and actual mine process water from a copper mine were performed. The aim of these experiments was to find process conditions where maximum water recovery would be achieved before significant scaling or irreversible membrane fouling would occur and to further improve water recovery by addition of antiscalants. Water recovery of 70 % was reached with the experimental setups by optimizing process conditions. PC-504T antiscaling agent was determined to be the most effective of the three antiscalants used and the addition of 5 ppm of PC-504T allowed the water recovery to be further increased from 70 % to 85 % before major scaling was observed. In these conditions 92 % calcium rejection was achieved.

The role of network competence and international business competence in multinational corporations: Subsidiary perspective

On-going process of globalization makes companies all over the world to go beyond the national markets and internationalize. Organizational form of multinational corporation (MNC) has capabilities for establishing the affiliate companies in several countries. Thus, the relocation of resources occurs and particularly, the cross-border transfer of knowledge which possesses the competitive advantage. However, differences in countries` business environments and cultures may constrain this capability. The research aim of this thesis is to investigate the role of subsidiary’s network competence (ability to build and manage the relationships with other local business units) and international business competence in relation to the benefits that MNC receives from a subsidiary. Additionally, subsidiary’s business adaptation, partnerships and knowledge transfer mechanism with parent company and external partners are investigated. This research, conducted in the Finnish-Russian context, consists of theoretical and empirical parts. The qualitative approach in the form of multiple case studies is employed. The empirical data incorporated primary and secondary data in the form of interviews collected in 2013 and 2015 years. Interviews were collected from four Finnish case companies in Saint-Petersburg and Kaluga region and five Russian partner companies. Results are drawn from two cases from Saint-Petersburg. The abductive research approach for the results analysis is adopted. The results indicate that both competencies lead to the subsidiary’s local embeddedness in the form of mutual business activities with local business partners and product adaptation for the local market needs. In addition to the monetary benefits in form of payments or turnover share, local embeddedness brings the knowledge of the local environment which is utilized by an MNC in the long-term planning. Another found tacit benefit is the access to the national market. This is strategically useful benefit not only for parent MNC but also for the subsidiary’s partners, i.e. international suppliers.

The role of import intermediary companies in the Russian imports from the EU A case study of a Russian industrial company’s point of view on import intermediaries

The literature on agency suggests different implications for the use of export intermediaries. However, only few studies provide a view on import intermediaries. This thesis tries for its part to fill this research gap by studying the import intermediaries in the EU–Russia trade from a Russian industrial company’s point of view. The aim is to describe import intermediation and explain the need for import intermediary companies in the EU–Russia trade. The theoretical framework of this thesis originates from an article by Peng and York (2001), in which they study the performance of export intermediaries. This thesis applies resource-based theory, transaction cost theory and agency cost theory, following the idea of Peng and York. The resource-based theory approach is utilised for describing an ideal import intermediary company, and transaction cost theory provides a basis for understanding the benefits of using the services of import intermediary companies, while agency cost theory is applied in order to understand the risks the Russian industrial company faces when it decides to use the services of import intermediaries. The study is performed in the form of a case interview with a representative of a major Russian metallurgy company. The results of the study suggest that an ideal intermediary has the skills required specifically for the imports process, in order to save time and money of the principal company. The intermediary company helps reducing the amount of time the managers and the staff of the principal company use to make imports possible, thus reducing the salary costs and providing the possibility to concentrate on the company’s core competencies. The benefits of using the services of import intermediary companies are the reduced transaction costs, especially salary costs that are minimised because of the effectiveness and specialisation of import intermediaries. Intermediaries are specialised in the imports process and thus need less time and resources to organise the imports. They also help to reduce the fixed salary costs, because their services can be used only when needed. The risks of being misled by intermediaries are minimised by the competition on the import intermediary market. In case an intermediary attempts fraud, it gets replaced by its rival.

Product Assurance in Agile Space Systems Development

Product assurance is an essential part of product development process if developers want to ensure that final product is safe and reliable. Product assurance can be supported withrisk management and with different failure analysis methods. Product assurance is emphasized in system development process of mission critical systems. The product assurance process in systems of this kind requires extra attention. Inthis thesis, mission critical systems are space systems and the product assurance processof these systems is presented with help of space standards. The product assurance process can be supported with agile development because agile emphasizes transparency of the process and fast response to changes. Even if the development process of space systems is highly standardized and reminds waterfall model, it is still possible to adapt agile development in space systems development. This thesisaims to support the product assurance process of space systems with agile developmentso that the final product would be as safe and reliable as possible. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how well product assurance is performed in Finnish space organizations and how product assurance tasks and activities can besupported with agile development. The research part of this thesis is performed in survey form.

Product assurance in agile space systems development

Product assurance is an essential part of product development process if developers want to ensure that final product is safe and reliable. Product assurance can be supported with risk management and with different failure analysis methods. Product assurance is emphasized in system development process of mission critical systems. The product assurance process in systems of this kind requires extra attention. In this thesis, mission critical systems are space systems and the product assurance process of these systems is presented with help of space standards. The product assurance process can be supported with agile development because agile emphasizes transparency of the process and fast response to changes. Even if the development process of space systems is highly standardized and reminds waterfall model, it is still possible to adapt agile development in space systems development. This thesis aims to support the product assurance process of space systems with agile development so that the final product would be as safe and reliable as possible. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how well product assurance is performed in Finnish space organizations and how product assurance tasks and activities can be supported with agile development. The research part of this thesis is performed in survey form.

Foreign exchange exposure management in a fuel procurement company operating in the commodity markets

Fluctuating commodity prices, foreign exchange rates and interest rates are causing changes in cash flows, market value and the companies’ profit. Most of the commodities are quoted in US dollar. Companies with non-dollar accounting face a double risk in the form of the commodity price risk and foreign exchange risk. The objective of this Master’s thesis is to find out how companies under commodity should manage foreign exchange exposure. The theoretical literature is based on foreign exchange risk, commodity risk and foreign exchange exposure management. The empirical research is done by using constructive modelling of a case company in the oil industry. The exposure is model with foreign exchange net cash flow and net working capital. First, the factors affecting foreign exchange exposure in case company are analyzed, then a model of foreign exchange exposure is created. Finally, the models are compared and the most suitable method is defined. According to the literature, foreign exchange exposure is the foreign exchange net cash flow. However, the results of the study show that foreign exchange risk can be managed also with net working capital. When the purchases, sales and storage are under foreign exchange risk, the best way to manage foreign exchange exposure is with combined net cash flow and net working capital method. The foreign exchange risk policy of the company defines the appropriate way to manage foreign exchange risk.

Discerning Cultural Depictions and Mistakes in Kafe Piter, a Russian Language Textbook for Finnish Students

This thesis presents the results of an analysis of the content in the series of Russian textbooks Kafe Piter, which is widely used in Finnish educational institutions for adult learners at the time that the research is conducted. The purpose of this study is to determine and describe how a textbook may purvey an image of a foreign country (in this case, Russia). Mixed-methods research with a focus on the qualitative content analysis of Kafe Piter is performed. The guidelines for textbook evaluation of cultural content proposed by Byram (1993) are used in this study as the basis for creating a qualitative analysis checklist, which is adopted according to the needs of the current research. The selection of the categories in the checklist is based on major themes where direct statements about Russia, Russian people and culture appear in the textbook. The cultural content and the way in which it is presented in Kafe Piter are also compared to the intercultural competence objectives of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Because the textbook was not written by a native Russian speaker, it was also important to investigate the types of mistakes found in the books. A simple quantitative analysis in the form of descriptive statistics was done, which consisted of counting the mistakes and inaccuracies in Kafe Piter. The mistakes were categorized into several different groups: factual or cultural, lexicosemantic, grammatical, spelling and punctuation mistakes. Based on the results, the cultural content of Kafe Piter provides a rich variety of cultural information that allows for a good understanding of the Russian language and Russian culture. A sufficient number of cross-cultural elements also appear in the textbook, including cultural images and information describing and comparing Russian and Finnish ways of life. Based on the cultural topics covered in Kafe Piter, we conclude that the textbook is in line with the intercultural competence objectives set out in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The results of the study also make it clear that a thorough proofreading of Kafe Piter is needed in order to correct mistakes - more than 130 cultural and linguistic mistakes and inaccuracies appear in the textbook.

Implementation of educational change in Finland: The case of the undivided basic education reform

For the past decades, educational large-scale reforms have been elaborated and implemented in many countries and often resulted in partial or complete failure. These results brought researchers to study policy processes in order to address this particular challenge. Studies on implementation processes brought to light an existing causal relationship between the implementation process and the effectiveness of a reform. This study aims to describe the implementation process of educational change in Finland, who produced efficient educational reforms over the last 50 years. The case study used for the purpose of this study is the national reform of undivided basic education (yhtenäinen peruskoulu) implemented in the end of the 1990s. Therefore, this research aims to describe how the Finnish undivided basic education reform was implemented. This research was carried out using a pluralist and structuralist approach of policy process and was analyzed according to the hybrid model of implementation process. The data were collected using a triangulation of methods, i.e. documentary research, interviews and questionnaires. The data were qualitative and were analyzed using content analysis methods. This study concludes that the undivided basic education reform was applied in a very decentralized manner, which is a reflection of the decentralized system present in Finland. Central authorities provided a clear vision of the purpose of the reform, but did not control the implementation process. They rather provided extensive support in the form of transmission of information and development of collaborative networks. Local authorities had complete autonomy in terms of decision-making and implementation process. Discussions, debates and decisions regarding implementation processes took place at the local level and included the participation of all actors present on the field. Implementation methods differ from a region to another, with is the consequence of the variation of the level of commitment of local actors but also the diversity of local realities. The reform was implemented according to existing structures and values, which means that it was in cohesion with the context in which it was implemented. These results cannot be generalized to all implementation processes of educational change in Finland but give a great insight of what could be the model used in Finland. Future studies could intent to confirm the model described here by studying other reforms that took place in Finland.