Information exchange and disruption risk in multimodal maritime supply chains

Supply chains are becoming increasingly dependent on information ex-change in today’s world, and any disruption can cause severe repercus-sions to the flow of materials in the chain. The speed, accuracy and amount of information are key factors. The aim in this thesis is to address a gap in the research by focusing on information exchange and the risks related to it in a multimodal wood supply chain operating between the Baltic States and Finland. The study involved interviewing people engaged in logistics management in the supply chain in question. The main risk the interviewees identified arose from the sea logistics system, which held a lot of different kinds of information. The threat of breakdown in the Internet connection was also found to hinder the operations significantly. A vulnerability analysis was carried out in order to identify the main actors and channels of infor-mation flow in the supply chain. The analysis revealed that the most important and therefore most vulnerable information-exchange channels were those linking the terminal superintendent, the operative managers and the mill managers. The study gives a holistic picture of the investigated supply chain. Information-exchange-related risks varied greatly. One of the most frequently mentioned was the risk of information inaccuracy, which was usually due to the fact that those in charge of the various functions did not fully understand the consequences for the entire chain.

“IT’S ALL RIGHT”. Multimodal rightward spatial bias modified by age and praxis

The general goal of the present work was to study whether spatial perceptual asymmetry initially observed in linguistic dichotic listening studies is related to the linguistic nature of the stimuli and/or is modality-specific, as well as to investigate whether the spatial perceptual/attentional asymmetry changes as a function of age and sensory deficit via praxis. Several dichotic listening studies with linguistic stimuli have shown that the inherent perceptual right ear advantage (REA), which presumably results from the left lateralized linguistic functions (bottom-up processes), can be modified with executive functions (top-down control). Executive functions mature slowly during childhood, are well developed in adulthood, and decline as a function of ageing. In Study I, the purpose was to investigate with a cross-sectional experiment from a lifespan perspective the age-related changes in top-down control of REA for linguistic stimuli in dichotic listening with a forced-attention paradigm (DL). In Study II, the aim was to determine whether the REA is linguistic-stimulus-specific or not, and whether the lifespan changes in perceptual asymmetry observed in dichotic listening would exist also in auditory spatial attention tasks that put load on attentional control. In Study III, using visual spatial attention tasks, mimicking the auditory tasks applied in Study II, it was investigated whether or not the stimulus-non-specific rightward spatial bias found in auditory modality is a multimodal phenomenon. Finally, as it has been suggested that the absence of visual input in blind participants leads to improved auditory spatial perceptual and cognitive skills, the aim in Study IV was to determine, whether blindness modifies the ear advantage in DL. Altogether 180-190 right-handed participants between 5 and 79 years of age were studied in Studies I to III, and in Study IV the performance of 14 blind individuals was compared with that of 129 normally sighted individuals. The results showed that only rightward spatial bias was observed in tasks with intensive attentional load, independent of the type of stimuli (linguistic vs. non-linguistic) or the modality (auditory vs. visual). This multimodal rightward spatial bias probably results from a complex interaction of asymmetrical perceptual, attentional, and/or motor mechanisms. Most importantly, the strength of the rightward spatial bias changed as a function of age and augmented praxis due to sensory deficit. The efficiency of the performance in spatial attention tasks and the ability to overcome the rightward spatial bias increased during childhood, was at its best in young adulthood, and decreased as a function of ageing. Between the ages of 5 and 11 years probably at first develops movement and impulse control, followed by the gradual development of abilities to inhibit distractions and disengage attention. The errors especially in bilateral stimulus conditions suggest that a mild phenomenon resembling extinction can be observed throughout the lifespan, but especially the ability to distribute attention to multiple targets simultaneously decreases in the course of ageing. Blindness enhances the processing of auditory bilateral linguistic stimuli, the ability to overcome a stimulus-driven laterality effect related to speech sound perception, and the ability to direct attention to an appropriate spatial location. It was concluded that the ability to voluntarily suppress and inhibit the multimodal rightward spatial bias changes as a function of age and praxis due to sensory deficit and probably reflects the developmental level of executive functions.

Visuell läsning som kompetensområde : en pedagogisk studie i visuell grammatik inom multimodal digital kommunikation

Avhandlingens primära syfte är att upprätta en förståelse för visuell kompetens som en del av visuell litteracitet inom multimodal digital kommunikation i undervisningen. Avhandlingens sekundära syfte är att ur ett pedagogiskt perspektiv lyfta fram visuell litteracitet och visuell kompetens i multimodala diskussioner kring digital pedagogik. Forskningen är kvalitativ och har både teoretisk och empirisk förankring. Den empiriska studien har en fenomenologisk metodansats. Visuell kompetens innebär att visuell läsning behärskas, vilket förutsätter fungerande vokabulär, kritiskt förhållningssätt och kunskaper i läsning och tolkning och användning av bilder. Den visuella grammatikteorin innefattar bildens syntax och semantik. Bilden är ett kontextbundet fenomen, där kontexten berör sociala aspekter, bildens fysiska omgivning samt innehåll. Det empiriska resultatet är att visuell inverkan i undervisningen präglar förberedelser och lektionsmål, berör visuell kommunikationskompetens, inkluderar visuella element som verktyg, strävar involvera flera element i inlärningen och strävar efter att undvika passiva demonstrationer som undervisningsmetod. Bilder behövs som kommunikativt stöd, som inlärningsmetod och som en del i aktivitetspedagogisk undervisning. Genom stöd från läraren kan barnet nå visuell litteracitet som ett kompetensmål, vilket kan ske genom multimodal undervisning.

La explotación de las artes en la promoción de la Marca Finlandia: análisis crítico del discurso multimodal

En este trabajo de fin de máster se investiga qué impacto tuvo la Marca Finlandia en el uso de las artes finlandesas en Focus – economía y tecnología, una revista publicada por el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de Finlandia durante los años más profundos de la crisis económica 2008-2013. En 2008 el Ministro de Asuntos Exteriores de entonces, Alexander Stubb, designó una delegación para desarrollar la marca país de Finlandia, fruto de un proceso del que se presentó en 2010 un documento llamado Tehtävä Suomelle! (¡Misión para Finlandia!), cuyo objetivo fue concretar el diseño y las funciones de la Marca Finlandia. Este trabajo se enfoca en la utilización del arte y de artistas finlandeses en el material creado para apoyar la promoción de la imagen del país y, en última instancia, su competividad económica. Para tener en cuenta el contexto del material objeto de estudio, presentamos el concepto de la marca país y distintos planteamientos teóricos para su realización. Siendo una estrategia estatal polémica, recorremos los puntos de crítica más importantes sobre esta práctica promocional. También nos familiarizamos con la historia de la promoción nacional antes de introducir el presente proyecto, la Marca Finlandia, y sus objetivos. En la parte teórica se presentan los conceptos relevantes para el estudio: el discurso y su análisis crítico, enfatizando su capacidad ideológica para mantener y crear relaciones del poder muy a menudo desiguales. Ya que nuestro material de estudio empírico está compuesto de publicaciones físicas con dimensiones textuales, visuales y hápticas, nuestro método de investigación es observar críticamente estas relaciones desde la perspectiva multimodal. En la parte empírica del trabajo analizamos la composición de la comunicación multimodal del material imprimido, producido por el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores de Finlandia y sus socios de cooperación. Las revistas anuales Focus– Economía y tecnología se enfocan en noticias y artículos sobre los sectores de la economía y tecnología, pero también incluyen contenido sobre el diseño, la música, la moda, la arquitectura y la danza finlandeses. En nuestro análisis recorremos los campos verbales y visuales utilizados en las revistas para investigar de qué manera se presentaban las artes finlandesas en la operación de Marca Finlandia. Detectamos representaciones textuales, resaltaciones visuales y la combinación de ambos, lo que servía a las metas preterminadas y la imagen requerida por la delegación diseñadora de la marca país. Las revistas compartían el discurso en común que corría paralelo con los objetivos de la Marca Finlandia, que a su vez se puede ver como parte del discurso hegemónico neoliberal en general.

This Is a Gorgeous-looking Movie”: Multimodal Interplay between Commentary and Subject Materials in Movie Review Entertainment

The present thesis is a study of movie review entertainment (MRE) which is a contemporary Internet-based genre of texts. MRE are movie reviews in video form which are published online, usually as episodes of an MRE web show. Characteristic to MRE is combining humor and honest opinions in varying degrees as well as the use of subject materials, i.e. clips of the movies, as a part of the review. The study approached MRE from a linguistic perspective aiming to discover 1) whether MRE is primarily text- or image-based and what the primary functions of the modes are, 2) how a reviewer linguistically combines subject footage to her/his commentary?, 3) whether there is any internal variation in MRE regarding the aforementioned questions, and 4) how suitable the selected models and theories are in the analysis of this type of contemporary multimodal data. To answer the aforementioned questions, the multimodal system of image—text relations by Martinec and Salway (2005) in combination with categories of cohesion by Halliday and Hasan (1976) were applied to four full MRE videos which were transcribed in their entirety for the study. The primary data represent varying types of MRE: a current movie review, an analytic essay, a riff review, and a humorous essay. The results demonstrated that image vs. text prioritization can vary between reviews and also within a review. The current movie review and the two essays were primarily commentary-focused whereas the riff review was significantly more dependent on the use of imagery as the clips are a major source of humor which is a prominent value in that type of a review. In addition to humor, clips are used to exemplify the commentary. A reviewer also relates new information to the imagery as well as uses two modes to present the information in a review. Linguistically, the most frequent case was that the reviewer names participants and processes lexically in the commentary. Grammatical relations (reference items such as pronouns and adverbs and conjunctive items in the riff review) were also encountered. There was internal variation to a considerable degree. The methods chosen were deemed appropriate to answer the research questions. Further study could go beyond linguistics to include, for instance, genre and media studies.