Changes in understorey biomass and species composition after water level drawdown on pine mires in southern Finland

Tiivistelmä: Vedenpinnan alenemisen vaikutus sararämeen pintakasvillisuuden biomassaan ja lajistoon

Impact of precipitation on the water table level of different ombrotrophic raised bog complexes, central Estonia

Sadannan vaikutus vedenpinnan tasoon kohosuolla

Highly Available Enterprise-level Application Server Architecture

Korkeasaatavuus on olennainen osa nykyaikaisissa, integroiduissa yritysjärjestelmissä. Yritysten kansainvälistyessä tiedon on oltava saatavissa ympärivuorokautisesti, mikä asettaa yhä kovempia vaatimuksia järjestelmän yksittäisten osien saatavuudelle. Kasvava tietojärjestelmäintegraatio puolestaan tekee järjestelmän solmukohdista kriittisiä liiketoiminnan kannalta. Tässä työssä perehdytään hajautettujen järjestelmien ominaisuuksiin ja niiden asettamiin haasteisiin. Esiteltyjä teknologioita ovat muun muassa väliohjelmistot, klusterit ja kuormantasaus. Yrityssovellusten pohjana käytetty Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) -teknologia käsitellään olennaisilta osiltaan. Työssä käytetään sovelluspalvelinalustana BEA WebLogic Server -ohjelmistoa, jonka ominaisuudet käydään läpi hajautuksen kannalta. Työn käytännön osuudessa toteutetaan kahdelle erilaiselle olemassa olevalle yrityssovellukselle korkean saatavuuden sovelluspalvelinympäristö, joissa sovellusten asettamat rajoitukset on otettu huomioon.

Typpeä sisältävien jätevesien käsittely 2-n-PRO menetelmällä

Työssä tutkittiin kaksivaiheisen typenpoistoprosessin (2-N-PRO) soveltuvuutta Joutsenon Kukkuroinmäen aluejätekeskuksen kompostointilaitoksen jätevesille pilot-kokein 12.1.- 5.4.2006. Kompostilaitoksella on jätevesien esikäsittelytarve korkeista ammoniumtyppipitoisuuksista johtuen. Pilot-laitteisto koostuu sekoitussäiliöstä, strippaustornista ja katalyyttipolttimesta. Käsiteltävän jäteveden pH nostetaan korkealle tasolle, jolloin ammoniumtyppi muuttuu ammoniakiksi. Vesi johdetaan strippaustorniin, jossa se sadetetaan tornin pohjalle. Ammoniakki erottuu sadetuksessa ilmaan, joka imetään katalyyttipolttimelle. Katalyyttinen poltin käsittelee ammoniakkia typpikaasuksi. Pilot-kokeet suoritettiin jatkuvatoimisesti. Laitteisto pystyy erottamaan jätevedestä ammoniumtyppeä ammoniakiksi ja käsittelemään ammoniakin pääosin typpikaasuksi. Lisäksi suoritettiin panoskoe, jonka tulokset tukevat jatkuvatoimisesta käytöstä saatuja tuloksia.

Value added logistics in supply and demand chain. Smile. Part 2. eBusiness in a service business. Case: A maintenance and operations network in forest industry

VVALOSADE is a research project of professor Anita Lukka's VALORE research team in the Lappeenranta University of Technology. The VALOSADE includes the ELO technology program of Tekes. SMILE is one of four subprojects of the VALOSADE. The SMILE study focuses on the case of the company network that is composed of small and micro-sized mechanical maintenance service providers and forest industry as large-scale customers. The basic principle of the SMILE study is the communication and ebusiness in supply and demand networks. The aim of the study is to develop ebusiness strategy, ebusiness model and e-processes among the SME local service providers, and onthe other hand, between the local service provider network and the forest industry customers in a maintenance and operations service business. A literature review, interviews and benchmarking are used as research methods in this qualitative case study. The first SMILE report, 'Ebusiness between Global Company and Its Local SME Supplier Network', concentrated on creating background for the SMILE study by studying general trends of ebusiness in supply chains and networks of different industries. This second phase of the study concentrates on case network background, such as business relationships, information systems and business objectives; core processes in maintenance and operations service network; development needs in communication among the network participants; and ICT solutions to respond needs in changing environment. In the theory part of the report, different ebusiness models and frameworks are introduced. Those models and frameworks are compared to empirical case data. From that analysis of the empirical data, therecommendations for the development of the network information system are derived. In process industry such as the forest industry, it is crucial to achieve a high level of operational efficiency and reliability, which sets up great requirements for maintenance and operations. Therefore, partnerships or strategic alliances are needed between the network participants. In partnerships and alliances, deep communication is important, and therefore the information systems in the network also are critical. Communication, coordination and collaboration will increase in the case network in the future, because network resources must be optimised to improve competitive capability of the forest industry customers and theefficiency of their service providers. At present, ebusiness systems are not usual in this maintenance network. A network information system among the forest industry customers and their local service providers actually is the only genuinenetwork information system in this total network. However, the utilisation of that system has been quite insignificant. The current system does not add value enough either to the customers or to the local service providers. At present, thenetwork information system is the infomediary that share static information forthe network partners. The network information system should be the transaction intermediary, which integrates internal processes of the network companies; the network information system, which provides common standardised processes for thelocal service providers; and the infomediary, which share static and dynamic information on right time, on right partner, on right costs, on right format and on right quality. This study provides recommendations how to develop this system in the future to add value to the network companies. Ebusiness scenarios, vision, objectives, strategies, application architecture, ebusiness model, core processes and development strategy must be considered when the network information system will be developed in the next development step. The core processes in the case network are demand/capacity management, customer/supplier relationship management, service delivery management, knowledge management and cash flow management. Most benefits from ebusiness solutions come from the electrifying of operational level processes, such as service delivery management and cash flow management.

Lappeenrannan teknillisen yliopiston sähkötekniikan osaston uuden kaksivaiheisen tutkintorakenteen kansainvälinen vertailu. Raportti vertailuhankkeen toisesta vaiheesta 15.2.2005

Raportti käsittelee Lappeenrannan teknillisen yliopiston sähkötekniikan uutta kaksivaiheista tutkintorakennetta suhteessa ulkomaisiin vastaaviin master-tasoisiin tutkintorakenteisiin. Tutkimusmenetelmänä käytetään benchmarking-menetelmää. Tutkimusainesto kerätttiin 52:n eurooppalaisen yliopiston www-sivuilta ja opinto-oppaista. Näistä yliopistoista valittiin tarkempaan vertailuun kolme mielenkiintoiseksi vertailukumppaniksi valittua sähkötekniikan koulutusyksikköä: TUL, Technical University of Lodz, Puolasta. TUM,Technical University of München, Saksasta. KTH, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Ruotsi. Toisen vaiheen vertailutulosten valossa näyttää siltä, että kaikkien vertailtujen yliopistojen tutkintojen sisällöt ja määrät ovat samankaltaisia, joten vertailukumppanit oletettavasti kykenevät ymmärtämään eri yliopistojen koulutusohjelmien toteutuksia. Toisaalta sähkötekniikan koulutuksen toteutukset näyttävät vertailuissa yliopistoissa sen verran erilaisilta, että vertailun avulla on mahdollista oppia eri toteutuksien taustalla olevista kulttuurieroista ja tavoitteista, sekä päästä hedelmälliseen yhteistyöhön vertailtavien yliopistojen sähkötekniikan osastojen kanssa.

Implementing IAS 2 and IAS 36. Case: Eimo Oyj

Tutkimuksen päätavoitteena oli tutkia IFRS -standardiston vaikutuksia esimerkkiyrityksessä. Tutkimuksen kohteena olivat varastot sekä omaisuuserien arvonalentuminen. Varastojen käsittelyn osalta työn tarkoituksena oli luoda malli valmistuksen yleismenojen aktivointia varten. Omaisuuserien arvonalentumista koskevassa osassa tarkoituksena oli selvittää arvonalentumistestauksen tärkeimmät vaiheet sekä ehdottaa rahavirtaa kerryttäviä yksiköitä esimerkkiyritykselle. Tutkimusmenetelmänä on laadullinen case-tutkimus. Empiiristä tutkimustietoa kerätään osallistuvan havainnoinnin, haastattelujen ja keskustelujen avulla. Tutkimuksen tuloksena todettiin, että IFRS -standardien vaikutukset ovat laajasti koko esimerkkiyritystä koskevia. Varastoja koskevassa osassa todettiin, että valmistuksen yleismenot tulee allokoida muovitehtaille ruiskupuristustuntien perusteella ja muottitehtaille miestyötuntien perusteella. Omaisuuserien arvonalentumista koskien todettiin liiketoiminnan nopeasti muuttuvan luonteen vaikeuttavan ennusteiden laatimista. Rahavirtaa kerryttäviksi yksiköiksi ehdotettiin tehdastasoa.

A System-Level Simulation Model for a Protocol Processor

As the development of integrated circuit technology continues to follow Moore’s law the complexity of circuits increases exponentially. Traditional hardware description languages such as VHDL and Verilog are no longer powerful enough to cope with this level of complexity and do not provide facilities for hardware/software codesign. Languages such as SystemC are intended to solve these problems by combining the powerful expression of high level programming languages and hardware oriented facilities of hardware description languages. To fully replace older languages in the desing flow of digital systems SystemC should also be synthesizable. The devices required by modern high speed networks often share the same tight constraints for e.g. size, power consumption and price with embedded systems but have also very demanding real time and quality of service requirements that are difficult to satisfy with general purpose processors. Dedicated hardware blocks of an application specific instruction set processor are one way to combine fast processing speed, energy efficiency, flexibility and relatively low time-to-market. Common features can be identified in the network processing domain making it possible to develop specialized but configurable processor architectures. One such architecture is the TACO which is based on transport triggered architecture. The architecture offers a high degree of parallelism and modularity and greatly simplified instruction decoding. For this M.Sc.(Tech) thesis, a simulation environment for the TACO architecture was developed with SystemC 2.2 using an old version written with SystemC 1.0 as a starting point. The environment enables rapid design space exploration by providing facilities for hw/sw codesign and simulation and an extendable library of automatically configured reusable hardware blocks. Other topics that are covered are the differences between SystemC 1.0 and 2.2 from the viewpoint of hardware modeling, and compilation of a SystemC model into synthesizable VHDL with Celoxica Agility SystemC Compiler. A simulation model for a processor for TCP/IP packet validation was designed and tested as a test case for the environment.

Tautomerism and Fragmentation of Biologically Active Hetero Atom (O, N)-Containing Acyclic and Cyclic Compounds Under Electron Ionization

In this thesis a total of 86 compounds containing the hetero atoms oxygen and nitrogen were studied under electron ionization mass spectrometry (EIMS). These compounds are biologically active and were synthesized by various research groups. The main attention of this study was paid on the fragmentations related to different tautomeric forms of 2- phenacylpyridines, 2-phenacylquinolines, 8-aryl-3,4-dioxo-2H,8H-6,7-dihydroimidazo- [2,1-c][1,2,4]triazines and aryl- and benzyl-substituted 2,3-dihydroimidazo[1,2-a]pyrimidine-5,7-(1H,6H)-diones. Also regio/stereospecific effects on fragmentations of pyrrolo- and isoindoloquinazolinones and naphthoxazine, naphthpyrrolo-oxazinone and naphthoxazino-benzoxazine derivatives were screened. Results were compared with NMR data, when available. The first part of thesis consists of theory and literature review of different types of tautomerism and fragmentation mechanisms in EIMS. The effects of tautomerism in biological systems are also briefly reviewed. In the second part of the thesis the own results of the author, based on six publications,are discussed. For 2-phenacylpyridines and 2-phenacylquinolines the correlation of different Hammett substituent constants to the relative abundances (RA) or total ion currents (% TIC) of selected ions were investigated. Although it was not possible to assign most of the ions formed unambiguously to the different tautomers, the linear fits of their RAs and % TICs can be related to changing contributions of different tautomeric forms. For dioxoimidazotriazines and imidazopyrimidinediones the effects of substituents were rather weak. The fragmentations were also found useful for obtaining structural information. Some stereoisomeric pairs of pyrrolo- and isoindoloquinazolines and regiomeric pairs of naphtoxazine derivatives showed clear differences in thir mass spectra. Some mechanisms are suggested for their fragmentations.

Neuropeptide Y at the cellular level – Studies on PreproNPY L7P Polymorphism and the Mitochondrial Form of NPY

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a widely expressed neurotransmitter in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Thymidine 1128 to cytocine substitution in the signal sequence of the preproNPY results in a single amino acid change where leucine is changed to proline. This L7P change leads to a conformational change of the signal sequence which can have an effect on the intracellular processing of NPY. The L7P polymorphism was originally associated with higher total and LDL cholesterol levels in obese subjects. It has also been associated with several other physiological and pathophysiological responses such as atherosclerosis and T2 diabetes. However, the changes on the cellular level due to the preproNPY signal sequence L7P polymorphism were not known. The aims of the current thesis were to study the effects of the [p.L7]+[p.L7] and the [p.L7]+[p.P7] genotypes in primary cultured and genotyped human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC), in neuroblastoma (SK-N-BE(2)) cells and in fibroblast (CHO-K1) cells. Also, the putative effects of the L7P polymorphism on proliferation, apoptosis and LDL and nitric oxide metabolism were investigated. In the course of the studies a fragment of NPY targeted to mitochondria was found. With the putative mitochondrial NPY fragment the aim was to study the translational preferences and the mobility of the protein. The intracellular distribution of NPY between the [p.L7]+[p.L7] and the [p.L7]+[p.P7] genotypes was found to be different. NPY immunoreactivity was prominent in the [p.L7]+[p.P7] cells while the proNPY immunoreactivity was prominent in the [p.L7]+[p.L7] genotype cells. In the proliferation experiments there was a difference in the [p.L7]+[p.L7] genotype cells between early and late passage (aged) cells; the proliferation was raised in the aged cells. NPY increased the growth of the cells with the [p.L7]+[p.P7] genotype. Apoptosis did not seem to differ between the genotypes, but in the aged cells with the [p.L7]+[p.L7] genotype, LDL uptake was found to be elevated. Furthermore, the genotype seemed to have a strong effect on the nitric oxide metabolism. The results indicated that the mobility of NPY protein inside the cells was increased within the P7 containing constructs. The existence of the mitochondria targeted NPY fragment was verified, and translational preferences were proved to be due to the origin of the cells. Cell of neuronal origin preferred the translation of mature NPY (NPY1-36) when compared to the non neuronal cells that translated both, NPY and the mitochondrial fragment of NPY. The mobility of the mitochondrial fragment was found to be minimal. The functionality of the mitochondrial NPY fragment remains to be investigated. L7P polymorphism in the preproNPY causes a series of intracellular changes. These changes may contribute to the state of cellular senescence, vascular tone and lead to endothelial dysfunction and even to increased susceptibility to diseases, like atherosclerosis and T2 diabetes.

Studies on the Multifaceted Interaction of Atoms and an Electromagnetic Field

In this Thesis the interaction of an electromagnetic field and matter is studied from various aspects in the general framework of cold atoms. Our subjects cover a wide spectrum of phenomena ranging from semiclassical few-level models to fully quantum mechanical interaction with structured reservoirs leading to non-Markovian open quantum system dynamics. Within closed quantum systems, we propose a selective method to manipulate the motional state of atoms in a time-dependent double-well potential and interpret the method in terms of adiabatic processes. Also, we derive a simple wave-packet model, based on distributions of generalized eigenstates, explaining the finite visibility of interference in overlapping continuous-wave atom lasers. In the context of open quantum systems, we develop an unraveling of non-Markovian dynamics in terms of piecewise deterministic quantum jump processes confined in the Hilbert space of the reduced system - the non-Markovian quantum jump method. As examples, we apply it for simple 2- and 3-level systems interacting with a structured reservoir. Also, in the context of ion-cavity QED we study the entanglement generation based on collective Dicke modes in experimentally realistic conditions including photonic losses and an atomic spontaneous decay.

Structural studies on enzymes of biotechnological and biomedical interest

Structural studies of proteins aim at elucidating the atomic details of molecular interactions in biological processes of living organisms. These studies are particularly important in understanding structure, function and evolution of proteins and in defining their roles in complex biological settings. Furthermore, structural studies can be used for the development of novel properties in biomolecules of environmental, industrial and medical importance. X-ray crystallography is an invaluable tool to obtain accurate and precise information about the structure of proteins at the atomic level. Glutathione transferases (GSTs) are amongst the most versatile enzymes in nature. They are able to catalyze a wide variety of conjugation reactions between glutathione (GSH) and non-polar components containing an electrophilic carbon, nitrogen or sulphur atom. Plant GSTs from the Tau class (a poorly characterized class) play an important role in the detoxification of xenobiotics and stress tolerance. Structural studies were performed on a Tau class fluorodifen-inducible glutathione transferase from Glycine max (GmGSTU4-4) complexed with GSH (2.7 Å) and a product analogue Nb-GSH (1.7 Å). The three-dimensional structure of the GmGSTU4-4-GSH complex revealed that GSH binds in different conformations in the two subunits of the dimer: in an ionized form in one subunit and a non-ionized form in the second subunit. Only the ionized form of the substrate may lead to the formation of a catalytically competent complex. Structural comparison between the GSH and Nb-GSH bound complexes revealed significant differences with respect to the hydrogen-bonding, electrostatic interaction pattern, the upper part of -helix H4 and the C-terminus of the enzyme. These differences indicate an intrasubunit modulation between the G-and Hsites suggesting an induced-fit mechanism of xenobiotic substrate binding. A novel binding site on the surface of the enzyme was also revealed. Bacterial type-II L-asparaginases are used in the treatment of haematopoietic diseases such as acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and lymphomas due to their ability to catalyze the conversion of L-asparagine to L-aspartate and ammonia. Escherichia coli and Erwinia chrysanthemi asparaginases are employed for the treatment of ALL for over 30 years. However, serious side-effects affecting the liver and pancreas have been observed due to the intrinsic glutaminase activity of the administered enzymes. Structural studies on Helicobacter pylori L-asparaginase (HpA) were carried out in an effort to discover novel L-asparaginases with potential chemotherapeutic utility in ALL treatment. Detailed analysis of the active site geometry revealed structurally significant differences between HpA and other Lasparaginases that may be important for the biological activities of the enzyme and could be further exploited in protein engineering efforts.