Genetic parameters for growth traits in pigs estimated using third degree polynomial functions

Selostus: Sian kasvuominaisuuksien perinnölliset tunnusluvut arvioituna kolmannen asteen polynomifunktion avulla

Comparing Basal Area Diameter Distributions Estimated by Tree Species and for the Entire Stock in a Mixed Stand

Summary

Functions for estimating stem diameter and tree age using tree height, crown width and existing stand database information

Abstract

Kunnan ympäristönsuojelumääräykset case Kotka

Ympäristönsuojelulain (86/2000) 19 §:n nojalla kunnilla voi olla ympäristönsuojelumääräykset. Määräysten antaminen on kunnille vapaaehtoista. Määräysten tulee olla ympäristönsuojelulain täytäntöönpanon kannalta tarpeellisia, kunnan paikallisista olosuhteista johtuvia kuntaa tai sen osaa koskevia yleisiä määräyksiä. Määräykset antaa kunnanvaltuusto. Ympäristönsuojelumääräyksillä on muuta lainsäädäntöä täydentävä, ei korvaava asema. Tämän työn tavoitteena oli laatia Kotkan kaupungille ehdotus kunnan ympäristönsuojelumääräyksiksi. Työn teoriaosassaon selvitetty kunnan ympäristönsuojelumääräysten oikeudelliset lähtökohdat ja suhde muuhun lainsäädäntöön. Tulososassa on selvitetty mitä toimintoja Kotkassa tulisi säännellä kunnan ympäristönsuojelumääräyksin. Työn toimeksiantajan kannalta oleellisimmat tulokset on esitetty työn liiteosassa. Ehdotuksen määräykset koskevat jätevesien käsittelyä, lumenkaatopaikkojen aiheuttamia ympäristöhaittoja, pölyn torjuntaa, tilapäisen melun torjuntaa, öljysäiliöiden tarkastamista ja käytöstä poistamista sekä hevosten pidon ympäristövaikutuksia. Ympäristönsuojelumääräysten voimaantulon myötä osa ympäristönsuojeluviranomaisen antamista suosituksista saa sitovan vaikutuksen. Ympäristönsuojelumääräykset osaltaan selventävät ympäristönsuojeluviranomaisen mahdollisuuksia puuttua eri toimintojen ympäristövaikutuksiin ennakolta.

Materiaalitarpeen suunnitteluprosessin kehittäminen ja varastonohjauksen parantaminen Elektroniikkalaitoksessa

Työ on tehty Puolustusvoimien Elektroniikkalaitoksella Riihimäellä. Elektroniikkalaitos toimii yhtenä vastuuvarikkona ja vastaa omalta osaltaan elektroniikka-alan järjestelmien kunnossapidosta. Työn tarkoituksena on selvittää materiaalitarpeen suunnitteluprosessi, kehittää varastonohjausta ja tutustua SAP-toiminnallisuuksien hyödyntämiseen. Materiaalitarpeen suunnittelemisella ja varastonohjauksen parantamisella pyritään kustannussäästöihin ja kunnossapitoprosessin kokonaisvaltaiseen tehostamiseen. Työssä käsitellään Elektroniikkalaitoksen materiaaliprosessia ja sen suhdetta kunnossapitoprosessiin sekä selvitetään materiaalitarpeen muodostumista ja kysynnän ennustamistarpeita. Samalla esitetään myös varastonohjauksen parantamiskohteita. Materiaalitarpeen suunnitteluprosessista on luotu toimintamalli, jota on testattu pilottiprojektin avulla. Työssätarkastellaan SAP-toiminnallisuuksien hyödyntämistä sekä materiaalitarpeen suunnittelussa, että varastonohjauksessa. Lisäksi esitellään kustannusarviolomake, joka on luotu osaksi materiaalitarpeen suunnitteluprosessia helpottamaan materiaalitäydennysten kustannusarviointia.

Modelling the Knowledge Interface between Sales and Production Functions of a Company. Case: New Service Development Process.

Yrityksen sisäisten rajapintojen tunteminen mahdollistaa tiedonvaihdon hallinnan läpi organisaation. Idean muokkaaminen kannattavaksi innovaatioksi edellyttää organisaation eri osien läpi kulkevaa saumatonta prosessiketjua sekä tietovirtaa. Tutkielman tavoitteena oli mallintaa organisaation kahden toiminnallisesti erilaisen osan välinen tiedon vaihto. Tiedon vaihto kuvattiin rajapintana, tietoliittymänä. Kolmiulotteinen organisaatiomalli muodosti tutkimuksen pääteorian. Se kytkettiin yrityksen tuotanto- ja myyntiosiin, kuten myös BestServ-projektin kehittämään uuteen palvelujen kehittämisen prosessiin. Uutta palvelujen kehittämisen prosessia laajennettiin ISO/IEC 15288 standardin kuvaamalla prosessimallilla. Yritysarkkitehtuurikehikoita käytettiin mallintamisen perustana. Tietoliittymä nimenä kuvastaa näkemystä siitä, että tieto [tietämys] on olemukseltaan yksilöiden tai ryhmien välistä. Mallinnusmenetelmät eivät kuitenkaan vielä mahdollista tietoon [tietämykseen] liittyvien kaikkien ominaisuuksien mallintamista. Tietoliittymän malli koostuu kolmesta osasta, joista kaksi esitetään graafisessa muodossa ja yksi taulukkona. Mallia voidaan käyttää itsenäisesti tai osana yritysarkkitehtuuria. Teollisessa palveluliiketoiminnassa sekä tietoliittymän mallinnusmenetelmä että sillä luotu malli voivat auttaa konepajateollisuuden yritystä ymmärtämään yrityksen kehittämistarpeet ja -kohteet, kun se haluaa palvelujen tuottamisella suuremman roolin asiakasyrityksen liiketoiminnassa. Tietoliittymän mallia voidaan käyttää apuna organisaation tietovarannon ja tietämyksen mallintamisessa sekä hallinnassa ja näin pyrkiä yhdistämään ne yrityksen strategiaa palvelevaksi kokonaisuudeksi. Tietoliittymän mallinnus tarjoaa tietojohtamisen kauppatieteelliselle tutkimukselle menetelmällisyyden tutkia innovaatioiden hallintaa sekä organisaation uudistumiskykyä. Kumpikin tutkimusalue tarvitsevat tarkempaa tietoa ja mahdollisuuksia hallita tietovirtoja, tiedon vaihtoa sekä organisaation tietovarannon käyttöä.

Oston ja ostovaraston raportoinnin ja mittariston kehittäminen toiminnanohjausjärjestelmän pohjalta

Työn tavoitteena oli kehittää Stora Enson Varkauden tehtaiden oston ja osto-varastojen raportointia ja toiminnan mittaamista toiminnanohjausjärjestelmän käyttöönottoprojektin yhteydessä. Työssä selvitettiin suorituskykymittareiden merkitystä yrityksen toiminnalle ja mittareista muodostettavalta mittaus-järjestelmältä vaadittavia ominaisuuksia. Lisäksi kartoitettiin materiaali-toimintojen yhteyttä koko yrityksen toimintaan. Työ painottuu SAP R/3:n materiaalihallinnon raporttien kartoittamiseen. Lisäksi työssä käsitellään Varenso Oy:n johtamisjärjestelmästä, Latukoneesta, saatavia mittareita. Mittariston kehittämisprosessi sisälsi käytössä olevien mittareiden arvioinnin, uusien mittareiden kartoittamisen sekä mittareiden karsinnan ja valinnan. Valituille mittareille luotiin raportointipohjat, joiden avulla niitä jatkossa seurataan. SAP R/3:n materiaalihallinnon raportointimahdollisuudet ovat laajat, mutta ne eivät kuitenkaan vielä kata kaikkia oston ja ostovarastojen raportointitarpeita. Mittaamisen ja raportoinnin kehittäminen edelleen vaatii SAP R/3:n raportointiominaisuuksien laajempaa käyttöönottoa tai muiden työkalujen hyödyntämistä raportoinnin tukena.

Phylogeography and population genetics of north European Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar L.)

Although abundant in the number of individuals, the Atlantic salmon may be considered as a threatened species in many areas of its native distribution range. Human activities such as building of power plant dams, offshore overfishing, pollution, clearing of riverbeds for timber floating and badly designed stocking regimes have diminished the distribution of Atlantic salmon. As a result of this, many of the historical populations both in Europe and northern America have gone extinct or are severely depressed. In fact, only 1% of Atlantic salmon existing today are of natural origin, the rest being farmed salmon. All of this has lead to a vast amount of research and many restoration programmes aiming to bring Atlantic salmon back to rivers from where it has vanished. However, many of the restoration programmes conducted thus far have been unsuccessful due to inadequate scientific research or lack of its implementation, highlighting the fact that more research is needed to fully understand the biology of this complex species. The White and Barents Seas in northwest Russia are among the last regions in Europe where Atlantic salmon populations are still stable, thus forming an important source of biodiversity for the entire European region. Salmon stocks from this area are also of immense economic and social importance for the local people in the form of fishing tourism. The main aim of this thesis was to elucidate the post-glacial history and population genetic structure of north European and particularly northwest Russian Atlantic salmon, both of which are aspects of great importance for the management and conservation of the species. Throughout the whole thesis, these populations were studied by utilizing microsatellites as the main molecular tool. One of the most important discoveries of the thesis was the division of Atlantic salmon from the White and Barents Seas into four separate clusters, which has not been observed in previous studies employing nuclear markers although is supported by mtDNA studies. Populations from the western Barents Sea clustered together with the northeast Atlantic populations into a clearly distinguishable group while populations from the White Sea and eastern Barents Sea were separated into three additional groups. This has important conservation implications as this thesis clearly indicates that conservation of populations from all of the observed clusters is warranted in order to conserve as much of the genetic diversity as possible in this area. The thesis also demonstrates how differences in population life histories within a species, migratory behaviour in this case, and in their phylogeographic origin affect the genetic characteristics of populations, namely diversity and divergence levels. The anadromous populations from the Atlantic Ocean, White Sea and Barents Sea possessed higher levels of genetic diversity than the anadromous populations form the Baltic Sea basin. Among the non-anadromous populations the result was the opposite: the Baltic freshwater populations were more variable. This emphasises the importance of taking the life history of a population into consideration when developing conservation strategies: due to the limited possibilities for new genetic diversity to be generated via gene flow, it is expected that freshwater Atlantic salmon populations would be more vulnerable to extinction following a population crash and thus deserve a high conservation status. In the last chapter of this thesis immune relevant marker loci were developed and screened for signatures of natural selection along with loci linked to genes with other functions or no function at all. Also, a novel landscape genomics method, which combines environmental information with molecular data, was employed to investigate whether immune relevant markers displayed significant correlations to various environmental variables more frequently than other loci. Indications of stronger selection pressure among immune-relevant loci compared to non-immune relevant EST-linked loci was found but further studies are needed to evaluate whether it is a common phenomenon in Atlantic salmon.

Implementing Role Based Access Control into the Enterprise Environment to Support Business and IT Functions

The thesis studies role based access control and its suitability in the enterprise environment. The aim is to research how extensively role based access control can be implemented in the case organization and how it support organization’s business and IT functions. This study points out the enterprise’s needs for access control, factors of access control in the enterprise environment and requirements for implementation and the benefits and challenges it brings along. To find the scope how extensively role based access control can be implemented into the case organization, firstly is examined the actual state of access control. Secondly is defined a rudimentary desired state (how things should be) and thirdly completed it by using the results of the implementation of role based access control application. The study results the role model for case organization unit, and the building blocks and the framework for the organization wide implementation. Ultimate value for organization is delivered by facilitating the normal operations of the organization whilst protecting its information assets.

New kernel functions and learning methods for text and data mining

Recent advances in machine learning methods enable increasingly the automatic construction of various types of computer assisted methods that have been difficult or laborious to program by human experts. The tasks for which this kind of tools are needed arise in many areas, here especially in the fields of bioinformatics and natural language processing. The machine learning methods may not work satisfactorily if they are not appropriately tailored to the task in question. However, their learning performance can often be improved by taking advantage of deeper insight of the application domain or the learning problem at hand. This thesis considers developing kernel-based learning algorithms incorporating this kind of prior knowledge of the task in question in an advantageous way. Moreover, computationally efficient algorithms for training the learning machines for specific tasks are presented. In the context of kernel-based learning methods, the incorporation of prior knowledge is often done by designing appropriate kernel functions. Another well-known way is to develop cost functions that fit to the task under consideration. For disambiguation tasks in natural language, we develop kernel functions that take account of the positional information and the mutual similarities of words. It is shown that the use of this information significantly improves the disambiguation performance of the learning machine. Further, we design a new cost function that is better suitable for the task of information retrieval and for more general ranking problems than the cost functions designed for regression and classification. We also consider other applications of the kernel-based learning algorithms such as text categorization, and pattern recognition in differential display. We develop computationally efficient algorithms for training the considered learning machines with the proposed kernel functions. We also design a fast cross-validation algorithm for regularized least-squares type of learning algorithm. Further, an efficient version of the regularized least-squares algorithm that can be used together with the new cost function for preference learning and ranking tasks is proposed. In summary, we demonstrate that the incorporation of prior knowledge is possible and beneficial, and novel advanced kernels and cost functions can be used in algorithms efficiently.

Probiotic lactobacilli and bifidobacteria in the mouth – in vitro studies on saliva-mediated functions and acid production

Probiotic lactobacilli and bifidobacteria in the mouth – in vitro studies on saliva-mediated functions and acid production Probiotics are viable bacteria which, when used in adequate amounts, are beneficial to the health of the host. Although most often related to intestinal health, probiotic bacteria can be found also in the mouth after consumption of products that contain them. This study aimed at evaluating the oral effects of probiotic bacteria already in commercial use. In a series of in vitro studies, the oral colonisation potential of different probiotic bacteria, their acid production and potential saliva-mediated effects on oral microbial ecology were investigated. The latter included effects on the salivary pellicle, the adhesion of other bacteria, and the activation of the peroxidase system. Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus gordonii, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans and Helicobacter pylori were used as bacterial indicators of the studied phenomena. There were significant differences between the probiotic strains in their colonisation potential. They all were acidogenic, although using different sugars and sugar alcohols. However, their acid production could be inhibited by the peroxidase system. Based on the results, it can be suggested that probiotic bacteria might influence the oral microbiota by different, partly species or strain-specific means. These include the inhibition of bacterial adhesion, modification of the enamel pellicle, antimicrobial activity, and activation of the peroxidase system. To conclude, probiotic strains differed from each other in their colonisation potential and other oral effects as evaluated in vitro. Both positive and potentially harmful effects were observed, but the significance of the perceived results needs to be further evaluated in vivo.

Analysis of electricity distribution network operation business models and capitalization of control room functions with DMS

Electricity distribution network operation (NO) models are challenged as they are expected to continue to undergo changes during the coming decades in the fairly developed and regulated Nordic electricity market. Network asset managers are to adapt to competitive technoeconomical business models regarding the operation of increasingly intelligent distribution networks. Factors driving the changes for new business models within network operation include: increased investments in distributed automation (DA), regulative frameworks for annual profit limits and quality through outage cost, increasing end-customer demands, climatic changes and increasing use of data system tools, such as Distribution Management System (DMS). The doctoral thesis addresses the questions a) whether there exist conditions and qualifications for competitive markets within electricity distribution network operation and b) if so, identification of limitations and required business mechanisms. This doctoral thesis aims to provide an analytical business framework, primarily for electric utilities, for evaluation and development purposes of dedicated network operation models to meet future market dynamics within network operation. In the thesis, the generic build-up of a business model has been addressed through the use of the strategicbusiness hierarchy levels of mission, vision and strategy for definition of the strategic direction of the business followed by the planning, management and process execution levels of enterprisestrategy execution. Research questions within electricity distribution network operation are addressed at the specified hierarchy levels. The results of the research represent interdisciplinary findings in the areas of electrical engineering and production economics. The main scientific contributions include further development of the extended transaction cost economics (TCE) for government decisions within electricity networks and validation of the usability of the methodology for the electricity distribution industry. Moreover, DMS benefit evaluations in the thesis based on the outage cost calculations propose theoretical maximum benefits of DMS applications equalling roughly 25% of the annual outage costs and 10% of the respective operative costs in the case electric utility. Hence, the annual measurable theoretical benefits from the use of DMS applications are considerable. The theoretical results in the thesis are generally validated by surveys and questionnaires.

On the development of object functions and restrictions for shapes made with a turret punch press

This study presents the information required to describe the machine and device resources in the turret punch press environment which are needed for the development of the analysing method for automated production. The description of product and device resources and their interconnectedness is the starting point for method comparison the development of expenses, production planning and the performance of optimisation. The manufacturing method cannot be optimized unless the variables and their interdependence are known. Sheet metal parts in particular may then become remarkably complex, and their automatic manufacture may be difficult or, with some automatic equipment, even impossible if not know manufacturing properties. This thesis consists of three main elements, which constitute the triangulation. In the first phase of triangulation, the manufacture occuring on a turret punch press is examined in order to find the factors that affect the efficiency of production. In the second phase of triangulation, the manufacturability of products on turret punch presses is examined through a set of laboratory tests. The third phase oftriangulation involves an examination of five industry parts. The main key findings of this study are: all possible efficiency in high automation level machining cannot be achieved unless the raw materials used in production and the dependencies of the machine and tools are well known. Machine-specific manufacturability factors for turret punch presses were not taken into account in the industrial case samples. On the grounds of the performed tests and industrial case samples, the designer of a sheet metal product can directly influence the machining time, material loss, energy consumption and the number of tools required on a turret punch press by making decisions in the way presented in the hypothesis of thisstudy. The sheet metal parts to be produced can be optimised to bemanufactured on a turret punch press when the material to be used and the kinds of machine and tool options available are known. This provides in-depth knowledge of the machine and tool properties machine and tool-specifically. None of the optimisation starting points described here is a separate entity; instead, they are all connected to each other.

Quasiconformal mappings and inequalities involving special functions

This PhD thesis in Mathematics belongs to the field of Geometric Function Theory. The thesis consists of four original papers. The topic studied deals with quasiconformal mappings and their distortion theory in Euclidean n-dimensional spaces. This theory has its roots in the pioneering papers of F. W. Gehring and J. Väisälä published in the early 1960’s and it has been studied by many mathematicians thereafter. In the first paper we refine the known bounds for the so-called Mori constant and also estimate the distortion in the hyperbolic metric. The second paper deals with radial functions which are simple examples of quasiconformal mappings. These radial functions lead us to the study of the so-called p-angular distance which has been studied recently e.g. by L. Maligranda and S. Dragomir. In the third paper we study a class of functions of a real variable studied by P. Lindqvist in an influential paper. This leads one to study parametrized analogues of classical trigonometric and hyperbolic functions which for the parameter value p = 2 coincide with the classical functions. Gaussian hypergeometric functions have an important role in the study of these special functions. Several new inequalities and identities involving p-analogues of these functions are also given. In the fourth paper we study the generalized complete elliptic integrals, modular functions and some related functions. We find the upper and lower bounds of these functions, and those bounds are given in a simple form. This theory has a long history which goes back two centuries and includes names such as A. M. Legendre, C. Jacobi, C. F. Gauss. Modular functions also occur in the study of quasiconformal mappings. Conformal invariants, such as the modulus of a curve family, are often applied in quasiconformal mapping theory. The invariants can be sometimes expressed in terms of special conformal mappings. This fact explains why special functions often occur in this theory.