Development a distributed simulation environment on a cluster of workstations

Simulation has traditionally been used for analyzing the behavior of complex real world problems. Even though only some features of the problems are considered, simulation time tends to become quite high even for common simulation problems. Parallel and distributed simulation is a viable technique for accelerating the simulations. The success of parallel simulation depends heavily on the combination of the simulation application, algorithm and message population in the simulation is sufficient, no additional delay is caused by this environment. In this thesis a conservative, parallel simulation algorithm is applied to the simulation of a cellular network application in a distributed workstation environment. This thesis presents a distributed simulation environment, Diworse, which is based on the use of networked workstations. The distributed environment is considered especially hard for conservative simulation algorithms due to the high cost of communication. In this thesis, however, the distributed environment is shown to be a viable alternative if the amount of communication is kept reasonable. Novel ideas of multiple message simulation and channel reduction enable efficient use of this environment for the simulation of a cellular network application. The distribution of the simulation is based on a modification of the well known Chandy-Misra deadlock avoidance algorithm with null messages. The basic Chandy Misra algorithm is modified by using the null message cancellation and multiple message simulation techniques. The modifications reduce the amount of null messages and the time required for their execution, thus reducing the simulation time required. The null message cancellation technique reduces the processing time of null messages as the arriving null message cancels other non processed null messages. The multiple message simulation forms groups of messages as it simulates several messages before it releases the new created messages. If the message population in the simulation is suffiecient, no additional delay is caused by this operation A new technique for considering the simulation application is also presented. The performance is improved by establishing a neighborhood for the simulation elements. The neighborhood concept is based on a channel reduction technique, where the properties of the application exclusively determine which connections are necessary when a certain accuracy for simulation results is required. Distributed simulation is also analyzed in order to find out the effect of the different elements in the implemented simulation environment. This analysis is performed by using critical path analysis. Critical path analysis allows determination of a lower bound for the simulation time. In this thesis critical times are computed for sequential and parallel traces. The analysis based on sequential traces reveals the parallel properties of the application whereas the analysis based on parallel traces reveals the properties of the environment and the distribution.

Program hosting in communications environment with Reactor and thread pool approach

In this thesis concurrent communication event handling is implemented using thread pool approach. Concurrent events are handled with a Reactor design pattern and multithreading is implemented using a Leader/Followers design pattern. Main focus is to evaluate behaviour of implemented model by different numbers of concurrent connections and amount of used threads. Furthermore, model feasibility in a PeerHood middleware is evaluated. Implemented model is evaluated with created test environment which enables concurrent message sending from multiple connections to the system under test. Messages round trip times are measured in the tester application. In the evaluation processing delay into system is simulated and influence of delay to the average round trip time is analysed.

Ikääntyvät työelämässä. Päihittääkö nuoruus ja koulutus aikuisuuden ja kokemuksen?

The Ageing in Working Life. Do Adolescence and Schooling Beat Adulthood and Experience? This study examines the changes in the work and the work organisations of employees in the fields of health care and retail trade who have turned 45 and their experience of change. In addition, the question of how ageing employees experience their status in post-modern working life is explored. Attention is also focused on the choices and decisions connected with staying at work and retiring. These views are examined in relation to professions and professional cultures. Thematic interviews (N=98) were used to gather the material. The effects of the market liberalistic turn in welfare policy are clearly seen in the everyday work of the health care professions. These changes were examined from the point of view of managing by outcomes and quality assurance, multi-professional cooperation, flexibility in the division of labour, and the spread of market-like procedures. The discourse of those in involved retail trade was dominated by extremely tight global market competition and control of outcomes, and by the structural changes taking place in the retail trade sector. This change discourse was to a large extent a reaction to those changes in the functional environment which were experienced as negative and to the conflict between their own professional identity and professional ethics on the one hand, and their functional environment on the other. There were also obstacles connected with professional culture: defending one's own station and power, guarding the 'frontier', showed up in attitudes towards new management and organisation models or towards structural and functional reforms. The deep structures of professional culture and the mindset of the actors change much more slowly than the functional practices of organisations. For those in a supervisory position, the loss of power due to becoming part of a chain or because of the introduction of a team organisation model was not an easy thing to accept. The nurses and others in related fields felt that they were forced to do work that was below their level of training and professional skill. For sales personnel and those who did assisting work in health care, power and the possibility of having an influence were not so important, as long as they were able to do their work in their own way and were trusted. This view is often completely forgotten, for example, in various organisation models in which power and the possibility of having an influence entwined with power are taken for granted as being clearly positive and desired aspects of job satisfaction. Up to date professional skills were experienced as being important from the point of view of professional identity and self-worth. Thus, training can be understood as a moral obligation, which in turn is intertwined with professional ideology. In the rhetoric of adult education, an adult is expected to be an active player who will seek training again and again if working life so requires. The dark side of this ideology, which leads to feelings of guilt, was apparent in the thoughts of the respondents. Am I never good enough at my job; why must I continually strive for better, additional qualifications? The majority of the respondents evaluated their expertise as being at quite a high level. This self-confidence did not extend to applying for a job. Job recruitment was seen as a situation in which age discrimination reached its peak. The interviewees were unanimous about the idea that society favours the young. Especially among those in the retail trade sector, there was a feeling that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a new job of the same level or a permanent post if they were made redundant. Age discrimination was also apparent in the retail trade field in the form of older employees being retired against their will or transferred to other tasks. It was felt that ruthless forced retirement of older workers was part of the personnel policy of some organisations. The importance of one's outward appearance was connected with the theme of discrimination. This phenomenon is described using the concept of the double standard of ageing in feminist research. An ageing woman is relegated to an inferior position due to both her age and her sex. A culture that would both make possible and allow various types of choices regardless of age, which is described as being characteristic of the post-modern era, does not seem to be very topical in the practice of working life. It is important for employees that the management and the personnel policy that is being implemented makes them feel like both their contribution and they as individuals are appreciated, that their opinions are listened to and that they are noticed as persons. The interviewees hoped for gratitude and a concern for the well-being of employees that shows in everyday life. They valued training and activities aimed at maintaining their work ability, but thought that better coping at work and a pleasant working environment cannot be achieved through such measures as along as the foundation is 'in a mess'. Development of the quality of working life is the only thing that can improve job satisfaction and get people to remain in the work force longer than at present. There should be a sufficient number of properly trained employees at the work place. It was important to the respondents that they be able to stay on their job to the end with honour, since compromising with their own quality standards or acting contrary to their ideal self-image in terms of professional ethics would strike a blow to their professional self-esteem. They called for the development of various types of workplace flexibility, and felt that they have the right to a lightened workload and to early retirement. Early retirement was even seen as an altruistic deed: it would free up a place for younger workers. Thoughts of retirements were explained by familiar factors such as health and finances, life situation, the enticement of free-time, as well as by various factors related to work. It is very important to ageing employees that their work has meaningful content. The values related to self-fulfilment are felt to be of great importance, and if they cannot be realised at work, the respondents wanted more free time, either through retirement or in the form of flexibility in working life.

Computational and Experimental Investigation of the Grooved Roll in Paper Machine Environment

In the paper machine, it is not a desired feature for the boundary layer flows in the fabric and the roll surfaces to travel into the closing nips, creating overpressure. In this thesis, the aerodynamic behavior of the grooved roll and smooth rolls is compared in order to understand the nip flow phenomena, which is the main reason why vacuum and grooved roll constructions are designed. A common method to remove the boundary layer flow from the closing nip is to use the vacuum roll construction. The downside of the use of vacuum rolls is high operational costs due to pressure losses in the vacuum roll shell. The deep grooved roll has the same goal, to create a pressure difference over the paper web and keep the paper attached to the roll or fabric surface in the drying pocket of the paper machine. A literature review revealed that the aerodynamic functionality of the grooved roll is not very well known. In this thesis, the aerodynamic functionality of the grooved roll in interaction with a permeable or impermeable wall is studied by varying the groove properties. Computational fluid dynamics simulations are utilized as the research tool. The simulations have been performed with commercial fluid dynamics software, ANSYS Fluent. Simulation results made with 3- and 2-dimensional fluid dynamics models are compared to laboratory scale measurements. The measurements have been made with a grooved roll simulator designed for the research. The variables in the comparison are the paper or fabric wrap angle, surface velocities, groove geometry and wall permeability. Present-day computational and modeling resources limit grooved roll fluid dynamics simulations in the paper machine scale. Based on the analysis of the aerodynamic functionality of the grooved roll, a grooved roll simulation tool is proposed. The smooth roll simulations show that the closing nip pressure does not depend on the length of boundary layer development. The surface velocity increase affects the pressure distribution in the closing and opening nips. The 3D grooved roll model reveals the aerodynamic functionality of the grooved roll. With the optimal groove size it is possible to avoid closing nip overpressure and keep the web attached to the fabric surface in the area of the wrap angle. The groove flow friction and minor losses play a different role when the wrap angle is changed. The proposed 2D grooved roll simulation tool is able to replicate the grooved aerodynamic behavior with reasonable accuracy. A small wrap angle predicts the pressure distribution correctly with the chosen approach for calculating the groove friction losses. With a large wrap angle, the groove friction loss shows too large pressure gradients, and the way of calculating the air flow friction losses in the groove has to be reconsidered. The aerodynamic functionality of the grooved roll is based on minor and viscous losses in the closing and opening nips as well as in the grooves. The proposed 2D grooved roll model is a simplification in order to reduce computational and modeling efforts. The simulation tool makes it possible to simulate complex paper machine constructions in the paper machine scale. In order to use the grooved roll as a replacement for the vacuum roll, the grooved roll properties have to be considered on the basis of the web handling application.

Branding and Marketing Communications of Lifestyle Prescription Drugs in a Strict Legislative Environment

This thesis discusses the different possibilities to brand and promote a patented prescription lifestyle drug through different marketing communications practices. This thesis aims in explaining how branding procedures can be built in circumstances, where the legislative environment is strickt and furthermore, the environment consists of both B-to-B and B-to-C market characteristics simultaneously.

Determining the location for a mobile device by utilization of local resources of the environment

The subject being analyzed of this Master’s Thesis is a development of a service that is used to define a current location of a mobile device. The service utilized data that is obtained from own GPS receiver in some possible cases and as well data from mobile devices which can be afforded for the current environment for acquisition of more precise position of the device. The computation environment is based on context of a mobile device. The service is implemented as an application for communicator series Nokia N8XX. The Master’s Thesis presents theoretical concept of the method and its practical implementation, architecture of the application, requirements and describes a process of its functionality. Also users’ work with application is presented and recommendations for possible future improvements are made.

Influence of Institutional Environment on Companies’ Innovation Activity

At the time of moving towards knowledge-based economy, countries pay much attention to innovations by making them a central issue in countries’ innovation policy development. Innovations are influenced much by the institutional environment, in which they are created. That is why exploration of National Innovation Systems, as an important part of such an environment, became central in works of different researchers all over the world.

Modeling and developing a customer-oriented configuration process in a mass customization environment

In this thesis the main objective is to examine and model configuration system and related processes. When and where configuration information is created in product development process and how it is utilized in order-delivery process? These two processes are the essential part of the whole configuration system from the information point of view. Empirical part of the work was done as a constructive research inside a company that follows a mass customization approach. Data models and documentation are created for different development stages of the configuration system. A base data model already existed for new structures and relations between these structures. This model was used as the basis for the later data modeling work. Data models include different data structures, their key objects and attributes, and relations between. Representation of configuration rules for the to-be configuration system was defined as one of the key focus point. Further, it is examined how the customer needs and requirements information can be integrated into the product development process. Requirements hierarchy and classification system is presented. It is shown how individual requirement specifications can be connected for physical design structure via features by developing the existing base data model further.

Spatial and Spectral Separability of Grasslands in the inner Turku Archipelago using Landsat Thematic Mapper Satellite Imagery

The present study investigates the spatial and spectral discrimination potential for grassland patches in the inner Turku Archipelago using Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite imagery. The spatial discrimination potential was computed through overlay analysis using official grassland parcel data and a hypothetical 30 m resolution satellite image capturing the site. It found that Landsat TM imagery’s ability to retrieve pure or near-pure pixels (90% purity or more) from grassland patches smaller than 1 hectare was limited to 13% success, compared to 52% success when upscaling the resolution to 10 x 10 m pixel size. Additionally, the perimeter/area patch metric is proposed as a predictor for the suitability of the spatial resolution of input imagery. Regression analysis showed that there is a strong negative correlation between a patch’s perimeter/area ratio and its pure pixel potential. The study goes on to characterise the spectral response and discrimination potential for the five main grassland types occurring in the study area: recreational grassland, traditional pasture, modern pasture, fodder production grassland and overgrown grassland. This was done through the construction of spectral response curves, a coincident spectral plot and a contingency matrix as well as by calculating the transformed divergence for the spectral signatures, all based on training samples from the TM imagery. Substantial differences in spectral discrimination potential between imagery from the beginning of the growing season and the middle of summer were found. This is because the spectral responses for these five grassland types converge as the peak of the growing season draws nearer. Recreational grassland shows a consistent discrimination advantage over other grassland types, whereas modern pasture is most easily confused. Traditional pasture land, perhaps the most biologically valuable grassland type, can be spectrally discriminated from other grassland types with satisfactory success rates provided early growing season imagery is used.

Distribution development in global business environment

The purpose of this master’s thesis was to analyze a case company’s distribution and its elements. With different distribution structure options a customer can be served with different ways. However, cost elements and service elements create different trade-offs. In this work the case company’s distribution’s present state was analyzed and conclusions were made. Based on these conclusions different alternatives for distribution were created. These different alternatives were analyzed through simulations and with more traditional calculations to compose the total operative costs of each alternative. Also other aspects were considered, such as required organizational changes and the possible better customer service. With the suggested 3-stock distribution structure shorter delivery times and possibly more punctual deliveries for products kept in stock could be achieved with the same operative costs as in current direct delivery model. Also, similar benefits could be achieved with other products with the 3-stock model.

Assessment of endocrine disrupting activities in the aquatic environment

Hormonstörande ämnen är syntetiska eller naturliga ämnen som stör organismers hormonsystem och bidrar till könsförvirring och sterilitet. Sådana ämnen kommer i ökande takt ut i vattenmiljön genom rester av läkemedel, bekämpningsmedel och industriprodukter. Eftersom det finns många likheter mellan hormonsystemen hos människan och övriga ryggradsdjur kan till exempel fiskar användas som modellsystem för att underöka detta problem. I tidigare undersökningar har man funnit hormonella störningar, bl.a. feminisering och maskulinisering hos fiskar som utsatts för avfallsvatten från kommunala reningsverk eller avfallsvatten från pappersindustrin. Målet med denna avhandling var att undersöka om renat avfallsvatten från kommunala reningsverk längs Finlands kust innehåller hormonstörande ämnen i sådana mängder att de kan försorsaka hormonstörande effekter på fisk. Målet i denna avhandling var också att utveckla cellulära testsystem baserade på fiskceller, eftersom behovet av tillförlitliga och kostnadseffektiva cellbaserade tester för att underlätta riskbedömningen av hormonstörande ämnen är mycket stort för tillfället. Som testsystem har storspiggen använts, som besitter flera användbara biomarkörer för att mäta hormonstörande ämnens påverkan. Resultaten tyder på att problemen med hormonstörande påverkan på fisk inte är lika utbredda i Finland som i många andra europeiska länder. Detta beror troligtvis på att finska reningsverk har effektiva reningstekniker som reducerar mängden hormonstörande ämnen, eller på att utspädningen av avloppen i recipienterna är större än i många andra länder. Dock kan problemen inte helt uteslutas eftersom vissa feminiserande (estrogena) effekter kunde observeras hos fisken i de undersökta recipienterna utanför kommunala reningsverk. I kontrollerade laboratorieförsök där storpsiggar exponerades för kommunalt avloppsvatten uppmättes även här effekter som tyder på förekomst av estrogener i avloppsvattnet. De cell-baserade testsystemen klarade av att förutspå hormonella effekter hos hel fisk och kan därför vara mycket användbara i fortsatta studier av hormonstörande ämnens verkningsmekanismer i preliminära toxicitetsbedömningar.

Development of research networks : the case of social capital

The aim of this study is to explore how a new concept appears inscientific discussion and research, how it diffuses to other fields and out of the scientific communities, and how the networks are formed around the concept. Text and terminology take the interest of a reader in the digital environment. Texts create networks where the terminology used is dependent on the ideas, viewsand paradigms of the field. This study is based mainly on bibliographic data. Materials for bibliometric studies have been collected from different databases. The databases are also evaluated and their quality and coverage are discussed. The thesauri of those databases that have been selected for a more in depth study have also been evaluated. The material selected has been used to study how long and in which ways an innovative publication, which can be seen as a milestone in a specific field, influences the research. The concept that has been chosen as a topic for this research is Social Capital, because it has been a popular concept in different scientific fields as well as in everyday speech and the media. It seemed to be a `fashion concept´ that appeared in different situations at the Millennium. The growth and diffusion of social capital publications has been studied. The terms connected with social capital in different fields and different stages of the development have also been analyzed. The methods that have been used in this study are growth and diffusion analysis, content analysis, citation analysis, coword analysis and cocitation analysis. One method that can be used tounderstand and to interpret results of these bibliometric studies is to interview some key persons, who are known to have a gatekeeper position in the diffusion of the concept. Thematic interviews with some Finnish researchers and specialists that have influenced the diffusion of social capital into Finnish scientificand social discussions provide background information. iv The Milestone Publications on social capital have been chosen and studied. They give answers to the question "What is Social Capital?" By comparing citations to Milestone Publications with the growth of all social capital publications in a database, we can drawconclusions about the point at which social capital became generally approved `tacit knowledge´. The contribution of the present study lies foremost in understanding the development of network structures around a new concept that has diffused in scientific communities and also outside them. The network means both networks of researchers, networks of publications and networks of concepts that describe the research field. The emphasis has been on the digital environment and onthe socalled information society that we are now living in, but in this transitional stage, the printed publications are still important and widely used in social sciences and humanities. The network formation is affected by social relations and informal contacts that push new ideas. This study also gives new information about using different research methods, like bibliometric methods supported by interviews and content analyses. It is evident that interpretation of bibliometric maps presupposes qualitative information and understanding of the phenomena under study.