Towards sustainable transport: A comparison of demographic and behavioural characteristics of Finnish and international car sharing users

SStrong evidence suggests that the climate is changing and that these changes are largely caused by human activities. A consensus exists among researchers that human activity is causing global warming and that actions to mitigate global warming need to be taken swiftly. The transportation sector, which relies heavily on fossil fuel burning and primarily oil, is one of the big contributors to air pollution problems at local, regional and global levels. It is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and is estimated to be responsible for nearly a quarter of global energyrelated carbon dioxide emissions. Car sharing is a mobility solution encouraging its users to decrease private car usage in favour of communal transit and environmental goals. The idea of car sharing originates from the aspiration to decrease personal car ownership and to reduce vehicle distance travelled. This thesis seeks to complement the understanding of Finnish car sharing users and their usage through better categorization. Through better categorization and segmentation of Finnish car sharing users the thesis seeks to provide information for improved marketing insight. Research is done on the demographic and behavioural characteristics of Finnish car sharing users and they are compared with international findings about the characteristics of International car sharing users. The main research problem is Are Finnish car sharing users similar to international ones? A theoretical research framework on the determinants of individual car sharing usage is built based on international research about demographic and behaviouristic characteristics. After this a quantitative survey is performed to the customers of a Finnish car sharing organization. The data analysed in the thesis consist out of 532 answers received from the car sharing organizations customers. The data is analysed with descriptive and other exploratory methods, which create an understanding of Finnish car sharing users. At the end of the analysis the demographic and behavioural characteristics of Finnish car sharing users are compared with international ones. The research findings of the thesis indicate that the demographic and behavioural characteristics of Finnish car sharing usage largely follow those of their international counterparts. Thanks to the thesis results the car sharing organization is able to better target their customers through improved marketing insight.

Weld joint characteristics by nano-materials addition

The need for industries to remain competitive in the welding business, has created necessity to develop innovative processes that can exceed customer’s demand. Significant development in improving weld efficiency, during the past decades, still have their drawbacks, specifically in the weld strength properties. The recent innovative technologies have created smallest possible solid material known as nanomaterial and their introduction in welding production has improved the weld strength properties and to overcome unstable microstructures in the weld. This study utilizes a qualitative research method, to elaborate the methods of introducing nanomaterial to the weldments and the characteristic of the welds produced by different welding processes. The study mainly focuses on changes in the microstructural formation and strength properties on the welded joint and also discusses those factors influencing such improvements, due to the addition of nanomaterials. The effect of nanomaterial addition in welding process modifies the physics of joining region, thereby, resulting in significant improvement in the strength properties, with stable microstructure in the weld. The addition of nanomaterials in the welding processes are, through coating on base metal, addition in filler metal and utilizing nanostructured base metal. However, due to its insignificant size, the addition of nanomaterials directly to the weld, would poses complications. The factors having major influence on the joint integrity are dispersion of nanomaterials, characteristics of the nanomaterials, quantity of nanomaterials and selection of nanomaterials. The addition of nanomaterials does not affect the fundamental properties and characteristics of base metals and the filler metal. However, in some cases, the addition of nanomaterials lead to the deterioration of the joint properties by unstable microstructural formations. Still research are ongoing to achieve high joint integrity, in various materials through different welding processes and also on other factors that influence the joint strength.

Identification of characteristics for successful university-company partnership development

The importance of university-company collaboration has increased during the last decades. The drivers for that are, on the one hand, changes in business logic of companies and on the other hand the decreased state funding of universities. Many companies emphasize joint research with universities as an enabling input to their development processes, which aim at creating new innovations, products and wealth. These factors have changed universities’ operations and they have adopted several practices of dynamic business organizations, such as strategic planning, monitoring and controlling methods of internal processes etc. The objective of this thesis is to combine different characteristics of successful university-company partnership and its development. The development process starts with identifying potential partners in the university’s interest group, which requires understanding the role of different partners in the innovation system. Next, in order to find a common development basis, matching the policy and strategy between partners is needed. The third phase is to combine the academic and industrial objectives of a joint project, which is a typical form of university-company collaboration. The optimum is a win-win situation where both partners, universities and companies, can get addedvalue. For the companies added value typically means access to new research results before their competitors. For the universities added value offers a possibility to carry on high level scientific work. The research output in the form of published scientific articles is evaluated by the international science community. Because the university-company partnership is often executed by joint projects, the different forms of this kind of projects is discussed in this study. The most challenging form of collaboration is a semi-open project model, which is not based on bilateral activities between universities and companies but on a consortium of several universities, research institutes and companies. The universities and companies are core actors in the innovation system. Thus the discussion of their roles and relations to public operators like publicly funded financiers is important. In the Finnish innovation system there are at least the following doers executing strategies and policies: EU, Academy of Finland and TEKES. In addition to these, Strategic Centres for Science, Technology and Innovation which are owned jointly by companies, universities and research organizations have a very important role in their fields of business. They transfer research results into commercial actions to generate wealth. The thesis comprises two parts. The first part consists of an overview of the study including introduction, literature review, research design, synthesis of findings and conclusions. The second part introduces four original research publications.

Spectral characteristics of bacteriorhodopsin water solution

The object of the study is bacteriorhodopsin. This light-sensitive protein have been selected as perspective substance for optical and optoelectronic applications. Bacteriorhodopsin carries out pumping protons through the cell membrane. Biomolecule converts light into an electric signal when sandwiched between electrodes. These properties were utilized in this research to implement photosensors on the basis of BR layers. These properties were utilized in this research to the bR water solution. According to the absorption spectra and using Kramers – Kronig relation the extinction coefficient has been calculated, as well as the related change of the refractive index value.

A performance analysis of conventional and fundamental exchange traded funds: ETFs and their risk-return characteristics in relation to building institutional investor’s passive portfolio

An exchange traded fund (ETF) is a financial instrument that tracks some predetermined index. Since their initial establishment in 1993, ETFs have grown in importance in the field of passive investing. The main reason for the growth of the ETF industry is that ETFs combine benefits of stock investing and mutual fund investing. Although ETFs resemble mutual funds in many ways, also many differences occur. In addition, ETFs not only differ from mutual funds but also differ among each other. ETFs can be divided into two categories, i.e. market capitalisation ETFs and fundamental (or strategic) ETFs, and further into subcategories depending on their fundament basis. ETFs are a useful tool for diversification especially for a long-term investor. Although the economic importance of ETFs has risen drastically during the past 25 years, the differences and risk-return characteristics of fundamental ETFs have yet been rather unstudied area. In effect, no previous research on market capitalisation and fundamental ETFs was found during the research process. For its part, this thesis seeks to fill this research gap. The studied data consist of 50 market capitalisation ETFs and 50 fundamental ETFs. The fundaments, on which the indices that the fundamental ETFs track, were not limited nor segregated into subsections. The two types of ETFs were studied at an aggregate level as two different research groups. The dataset ranges from June 2006 to December 2014 with 103 monthly observations. The data was gathered using Bloomberg Terminal. The analysis was conducted as an econometric performance analysis. In addition to other econometric measures, the methods that were used in the performance analysis included modified Value-at-Risk, modified Sharpe ratio and Treynor ratio. The results supported the hypothesis that passive market capitalisation ETFs outperform active fundamental ETFs in terms of risk-adjusted returns, though the difference is rather small. Nevertheless, when taking into account the higher overall trading costs of the fundamental ETFs, the underperformance gap widens. According to the research results, market capitalisation ETFs are a recommendable diversification instrument for a long-term investor. In addition to better risk-adjusted returns, passive ETFs are more transparent and the bases of their underlying indices are simpler than those of fundamental ETFs. ETFs are still a young financial innovation and hence data is scarcely available. On future research, it would be valuable to research the differences in risk-adjusted returns also between the subsections of fundamental ETFs.

Personal branding on social media - The characteristics of strong personal brands in Finland

The purpose of the study is to define the characteristics of strong personal brands on social media in Finland. Personal branding as a phenomenon is no longer limited to celebrities and political leaders. The digital revolution and the change in online behavior have created the need for a deeper investigation of the characteristics of strong personal brands on social media. The work of different academics on personal branding are examined to gain a comprehensive understanding on this research topic that has gone through a revolution during the last decade. Early impression management theory is refined to include elements from more modern literature related to personal branding, brand identity management and social media to create a theoretical framework that simplifies the process of personal brand building on social media. The framework consisting of three phases clarifies the process of modern personal branding. The results of the study are presented in line with three research themes derived from the theoretical framework: the background of the brand, the brand identity management and the social media behavior and activities. Mixed methods are used in the research as means to broaden perception on the subject. The quantitative part of the study defines general characteristics concerning the most follower personal brands in Finland in three social media channels – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The other part of the research was conducted by single case study including two Finnish personal brands cases to provide a deeper understanding of personal branding practices of strong social media personal brands. The results of the study show that the most used social media channels differ in terms of the personal brand characteristics and personal branding activities. Due to the characteristics of the channels also the post activities of the personal brands differ quite significantly. It can be also inferred that there is a difference between brands with an existing offline awareness and the brands with no awareness before joining the social media. In order to reduce the gap between the ideal brand image and the current image, the brand should have a clear vision as well as a good understanding of the target group and the value it creates for its target audience. The brand identity needs to be managed by communicating with the target audience authentically in the right channels, with relevant content. The dedication, the target group’s behavior and the ability to create valuable and relevant content determines the right tactics for social media personal branding.