International comparison of Russian food processing industry -Finnish perspective

Työn päätavoitteena on kartoittaa Venäjän elintarviketeollisuutta ulkomaisen investoijan näkökulmasta. Tutkimus arvioi liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia ja kilpailutilannetta Venäjän elintarviketeollisuudessa ja auttaa ulkomaisia yrityksiä toteuttamaan liiketoimintastrategioitaan Venäjällä. Venäjän ja muiden siirtymätalousmaiden markkinatilannevertailujen lisäksi Venäjän alueita verrataan keskenään. Myös mahdollisen WTO jäsenyyden vaikutuksia arvioidaan. Kommunismin perintö vaikuttaa edelleen Venäjän elintarviketeollisuuteen ja maatalouteen. Maatalouden tuottavuus on kaukana länsimaisesta tasosta ja maatiloilta puuttuu rahoitusta. Etenkin maidon- ja lihanjalostajat kärsivät raaka-ainepulasta. Venäjän kriisi vuonna 1998 vahvisti paikallista teollisuustuotantoa mutta aiheutti ongelmia ulkomaisille investoijille ja yrityksille, jotka vievät tuotteitaan Venäjälle. Edut, joita mahdollinen maailmankauppajärjestö WTO:n jäsenyys tuo, ovat merkittävämpiä Venäjälle kuin sen kauppakumppaneille. Venäjän alueet eivät ole yhtäläisesti kehittyneitä ja kuluttajien ostovoima vaihtelee paljon. Itsestään selvin ja houkuttelevin vaihtoehto menestyvien elintarvikeyritysten laajentumiselle löytyy alueilta, joilla ostovoima on suurin. Tähän asti kansainväliset elintarvikeyritykset ovat olleet enemmän kiinnostuneita Itä- ja Keski-Euroopan maista. Käytettävissä olevat tulot ovat Itä- ja Keski-Euroopan maissa suurempia kuin Venäjällä, joten tuottajat pystyvät myymään myös kalliimpia tuotteita. Työvoimakustannukset Venäjällä tulevat olemaan suotuisia vielä muutaman vuosikymmenen ja markkinoiden koko on merkittävä. Siksi kansainvälisillä elintarvikeyrityksillä riittää kiinnostusta tulevaisuudessa investoida myös Venäjälle.

Investigation of business models of free zones and possible implications in South East Finland

Tutkielma tarkastelee vapaa alue konseptia osana yritysten kansainvälistä toimitusketjua. Tarkoituksena on löytää keinoja, millä tavoin vapaa alueen houkuttelevuutta voidaan lisätä yritysten näkökulmasta ja millaista liiketoimintaa yritysten on vapaa alueella mahdollista harjoittaa. Tutkielmassa etsitään tekijöitä, jotka vaikuttavat vapaa alueen menestykseen ja jotka voisivat olla sovellettavissa Kaakkois-Suomen ja Venäjän raja-alueelle ottaen huomioon vallitsevat olosuhteet ja lainsäädäntö rajoittavina tekijöinä. Menestystekijöitä ja liiketoimintamalleja haetaan tutkimalla ja analysoimalla lyhyesti muutamia olemassa olevia ja toimivia vapaa alueita. EU tullilain harmonisointi ja kansainvälisen kaupan vapautuminen vähentää vapaa alueen perinteistä merkitystä tullivapaana alueena. Sen sijaan vapaa alueet toimivat yhä enenevissä määrin logistisina keskuksina kansainvälisessä kaupassa ja tarjoavat palveluita, joiden avulla yritykset voivat parantaa logistista kilpailukykyään. Verkostoituminen, satelliitti-ratkaisut ja yhteistoiminta ovat keinoja, millä Kaakkois-Suomen alueen eri logistiikkapalvelujen tarjoajat voivat parantaa suorituskykyään ja joustavuutta kansainvälisessä toimitusketjussa.

The Importance of Semantics: Visual World Studies on Drawing Inferences and Resolving Anaphors

The present thesis investigated the importance of semantics in generating inferences during discourse processing. Three aspects of semantics, gender stereotypes, implicit causality information and proto-role properties, were used to investigate whether semantics is activated elaboratively during discourse comprehension and what its relative importance is in backward inferencing compared to discourse/structural cues. Visual world eye-tracking studies revealed that semantics plays an important role in both backward and forward inferencing: Gender stereotypes and implicit causality information is activated elaboratively during online discourse comprehension. Moreover, gender stereotypes, implicit causality and proto-role properties of verbs are all used in backward inferencing. Importantly, the studies demonstrated that semantic cues are weighed against discourse/structural cues. When the structural cues consist of a combination of cues that have been independently shown to be important in backward inferencing, semantic effects may be masked, whereas when the structural cues consist of a combination of fewer prominent cues, semantics can have an earlier effect than structural factors in pronoun resolution. In addition, the type of inference matters, too: During anaphoric inferencing semantics has a prominent role, while discourse/structural salience attains more prominence during non-anaphoric inferencing. Finally, semantics exhibits a strong role in inviting new inferences to revise earlier made inferences even in the case the additional inference is not needed to establish coherence in discourse. The findings are generally in line with the Mental Model approaches. Two extended model versions are presented that incorporate the current findings into the earlier literature. These models allow both forward and backward inferencing to occur at any given moment during the course of processing; they also allow semantic and discourse/structural cues to contribute to both of these processes. However, while the Mental Model 1 does not assume interactions between semantic and discourse/structural factors in forward inferencing, the Mental Model 2 does assume such a link.

Kroppen som bärare av hälsa och lidande

The overall aim of this study is to seek new knowledge and deeper understanding of the body as a phenomenon from a caring science point of view. By means of a hermeneutic definition, the body is studied on a contextual as well as an ontological level in order to create a deeper understanding for human beings in relation to health and suffering. The study focuses of the body as a perspective of human beings. It is important for the knowledge growth in caring science to create a deeper understanding for the body, thus making it possible to understand patients in nursing care. The overall methodology is a hermeneutic definition which covers a contextual and an ontological concept definition. In the three empirical studies, Giorgi’s phenomenological method was used. The first empirical study comprises twelve students’ statements about experiences of their body in different situatons in life. The second study is composed of interviews with fifteen patients who had been afflicted by illness and been subjected to surgical treatment. In the third empirical study, ten patients who had been cared for in perioperative nursing care were interviewed. In the data analysis, the essential meaning of the body as a phenomenon is described, along with its variations and nuances. In the ontological determination of the body, an etymologic and semantic analysis is carried out, as well as a qualitative analysis of ideas, where the material is comprised of chosen texts on the body from different perspectives. In the concluding analysis the results were synthesized. The result of the first empirical study shows that a body is expressive and manifests movement in its striving for dignity. The body harbours language and inherent powers to cope with the unexpected, as well as feelings of anxiety, fear and powerlessness. The second study shows that the body is experienced as mysterious when it is afflicted by illness, but it is also found mysterious as an opponent to man and life. A battle is fought between the illness that breaks down the body, and human beings fighting to keep their unity whole. The body appears as a prison and a host for a threatening illness. The body bears a feeling of powerlessness when it is changed by illness and suffering. In a care and treatment context, the body is objectified by the patient and the caregiver. It is the illness that forces the patient to sacrifice parts of the body in order to once again become whole in the unity. The third study shows that the patient in a perioperative nursing context delivers him-/herself over to the hands of the caregiver, who defends and protects body and life. The patient experiences a sense of well-being when the caretaker receives him/her and protects the body from dangers. Suffering is alleviated when the patients are allowed to talk about what has happened in their body. The result of the semantic analysis shows that the body as a concept is described as bending around the human soul and spirit. Linguistically, dimensions like corporeal, shape, totality, unity and mortal clay, are described. Different ideas about the body described it as: a material animate part of man, active and demanding, something that perceives its surrounding world and as a subjective body of senses, thoughts and language. Ideas about the body also describe it as a biological and physiological, living organism, submitted to the laws of nature, a passive apparatus and a socially constructed gender. The results of the different studies were synthesized and reflected against a caring science perspective. The research has created a deeper understanding for the body as a material abode and as an entity of body, soul and spirit.

The Nature of Object of Perception and Its Role in the Knowledge Concerning the External World

Questions concerning perception are as old as the field of philosophy itself. Using the first-person perspective as a starting point and philosophical documents, the study examines the relationship between knowledge and perception. The problem is that of how one knows what one immediately perceives. The everyday belief that an object of perception is known to be a material object on grounds of perception is demonstrated as unreliable. It is possible that directly perceived sensible particulars are mind-internal images, shapes, sounds, touches, tastes and smells. According to the appearance/reality distinction, the world of perception is the apparent realm, not the real external world. However, the distinction does not necessarily refute the existence of the external world. We have a causal connection with the external world via mind-internal particulars, and therefore we have indirect knowledge about the external world through perceptual experience. The research especially concerns the reasons for George Berkeley’s claim that material things are mind-dependent ideas that really are perceived. The necessity of a perceiver’s own qualities for perceptual experience, such as mind, consciousness, and the brain, supports the causal theory of perception. Finally, it is asked why mind-internal entities are present when perceiving an object. Perception would not directly discern material objects without the presupposition of extra entities located between a perceiver and the external world. Nevertheless, the results show that perception is not sufficient to know what a perceptual object is, and that the existence of appearances is necessary to know that the external world is being perceived. However, the impossibility of matter does not follow from Berkeley’s theory. The main result of the research is that singular knowledge claims about the external world never refer directly and immediately to the objects of the external world. A perceiver’s own qualities affect how perceptual objects appear in a perceptual situation.

The flow of reality’s development: from postmodernism to post-postmodernism in John Irving’s The World According to Garp and Last Night in Twisted River

In this master’s thesis, I examine the development of writer-characters and metafiction from John Irving’s The World According to Garp to Last Night in Twisted River and how this development relates to the development of late twentieth century postmodern literary theory to twenty-first century post-postmodern literary theory. The purpose of my study is to determine how the prominently postmodern feature metafiction, created through the writer-character’s stories-within-stories, has changed in form and function in the two novels published thirty years apart from one another, and what possible features this indicates for future post-postmodern theory. I establish my theoretical framework on the development of metafiction largely on late twentieth-century models of author and authorship as discussed by Roland Barthes, Wayne Booth and Michel Foucault. I base my close analysis of metafiction mostly on Linda Hutcheon’s model of overt and covert metafiction. At the end of my study, I examine Irving’s later novel through Suzanne Rohr’s models of reality constitution and fictional reality. The analysis of the two novels focuses on excerpts that feature the writer-characters, their stories-within-stories and the novels’ other characters and the narrators’ evaluations of these two. I draw examples from both novels, but I illustrate my choice of focus on the novels at the beginning of each section. Through this, I establish a method of analysis that best illustrates the development as a continuum from pre-existing postmodern models and theories to the formation of new post-postmodern theory. Based on my findings, the thesis argues that twenty-first century literary theory has moved away from postmodern overt deconstruction of the narrative and its meaning. New post-postmodern literary theory reacquires the previously deconstructed boundaries that define reality and truth and re-establishes them as having intrinsic value that cannot be disputed. In establishing fictional reality as self-governing and non-intrudable, post-postmodern theory takes a stance against postmodern nihilism, which indicates the re-founded, non-questionable value of the text’s reality. To continue mapping other possible features of future post-postmodern theory, I recommend further analysis solely on John Irving’s novels’ published in the twenty-first century.

Learning English is Fun! Incidental vocabulary acquisition of music and traditional class ninth graders via listening to pop songs

Finnish youth are constantly exposed to music and lyrics in English in their free time. It is likely that this has a positive effect on vocabulary learning. Learning vocabulary while simultaneously accompanied with melodies is likely to result in better learning outcomes. The present thesis covers a study on the vocabulary learning of traditional and music class ninth graders in a south-western upper comprehensive school in Finland, mainly concentrating on vocabulary learning as a by-product of listening to pop music and learning vocabulary through semantic priming. The theoretical background presents viable linguistic arguments and theories, which provide clarity for why it would be possible to learn English vocabulary via listening to pop songs. There is conflicting evidence on the benefits of music on vocabulary learning, and this thesis sets out to shed light on the situation. Additionally, incorporating pop music in English classes could assist in decreasing the gap between real world English and school English. The thesis is a mixed method research study consisting of both quantitative and qualitative research materials. The methodology comprises vocabulary tests both before and after pop music samples and a background questionnaire filled by students. According to the results, all students reported liking listening to music and they clearly listened to English pop music the most. A statistically significant difference was found when analysing the results of the differences in pre- and post-vocabulary tests. However, the traditional class appeared to listen to mainstream pop music more than the students in the music class, and thus it seems likely that the traditional class benefited more from vocabulary learning occurring via listening to pop songs. In conclusion, it can be established that it is possible to learn English vocabulary via listening to pop songs and that students wish their English lectures would involve more music-related vocabulary exercises in the future. Thus, when it comes to school learning, pop songs should be utilised in vocabulary learning, which could also in turn result in more diverse learning and the students could, more easily than before, relate to the themes and topics of the lectures. Furthermore, with the help of pop songs it would be possible to decrease the gap between school English and real-world English.