The ELY Centre for Southwest Finland is involved in everyday life

The ELY Centre for Southwest Finland is a diverse and broad-ranging development and service centre. Our goal is to strengthen wellbeing in Southwest Finland and Satakunta. The aim of our operations is to ensure sustainable wellbeing, a vibrant business community, attractive municipalities and the wider environment, and a satisfied population through clustered collaboration.

Interpersonal understanding and theory of mind

En populär idé inom dagens filosofiska och psykologiska forskning om interpersonlig förståelse, är idén att vi använder en kognitiv funktion (eller metod) för att förstå andra människor, en så kallad ”theory of mind” funktion. Denna idé förekommer inom ett brett vetenskapligt fält så som inom evolutionspsykologi, inom teorier om barns utveckling, inom teorier om autism, samt inom emotionsfilosofi och moralfilosofi. Avsikten i denna studie är att se närmare på vissa inflytelserika filosofiska och psykologiska teorier om interpersonlig förståelse, teorier som också har en stark koppling till empirisk forskning. I arbetet hävdar Gustafsson att teorierna ifråga avspeglar vissa klassiska, filosofiskt problematiska, antaganden. Dessa antaganden präglar teorierna ifråga samt påverkar hur de empiriska undersökningarna byggs upp och hur resultat tolkas.

A substantive theory of the realization of stroke patients’ dignity in hospital care

Dignity is seen important in health care context but considered as a controversial and complex concept. In health care context, it is described as being influenced by for example autonomy, respect, communication, privacy and hospital environment. Patient dignity is related to satisfaction with care, reduced stress, better confidence in health services, enhanced patient outcomes and shorter stay in a hospital. Stroke patients may struggle for dignity as being dependent on other people has impact on the patients’ self-image. In all, stroke patients are very specific patient group and considered vulnerable from emotional aspect. Therefore study findings from other patient groups in the area of ethical problems cannot be transferred to the stroke patients. This master’s thesis consists of two parts. The first part is the literature review of patients’ dignity in hospital care. The literature defined dignity and described factors promoting and reducing it. The results were ambiguous and thus a clear understanding was not able to create. That was the basis for the second part of the master’s thesis, the empirical study. This part aimed to develop theoretical construction to explore the realization of stroke patients’ dignity in hospital care. The data of the second part was collected by interviewing 16 stroke patients and analyzed using the constant comparison of Grounded Theory. The result was ‘The Theory of Realization of Stroke Patients’ Dignity in Hospital Care’ which is described not only in this master’s thesis but also as a scientific article. The theory consists of the core category, four generic elements and five specific types on realization. The core category emerged as ‘dignity in a new situation’. After a stroke, dignity is defined in a new way which is influenced by the generic elements: life history, health history, individuality and a stroke. Stroke patient’s dignity is realized through five specific types on realization: person related dignity type, control related dignity type, independence related dignity type, social related dignity type and care related dignity type. The theory points out possible special characteristics of stroke patients’ dignity in control related dignity type and independence related dignity type. Before implementing the theory, the relation between the core category, generic elements and specific types on realization needs to be studied further.

Cyber foraging for green computing, improving performance and prolonging battery life of mobile devices

The increasing dependency of everyday life on mobile devices also increases the number and complexity of computing tasks to be supported by these devices. However, the inherent requirement of mobility restricts them from being resources rich both in terms of energy (battery capacity) and other computing resources such as processing capacity, memory and other resources. This thesis looks into cyber foraging technique of offloading computing tasks. Various experiments on android mobile devices are carried out to evaluate offloading benefits in terms of sustainability advantage, prolonging battery life and augmenting the performance of mobile devices. This thesis considers two scenarios of cyber foraging namely opportunistic offloading and competitive offloading. These results show that the offloading scenarios are important for both green computing and resource augmentation of mobile devices. A significant advantage in battery life gain and performance enhancement is obtained. Moreover, cyber foraging is proved to be efficient in minimizing energy consumption per computing tasks. The work is based on scavenger cyber foraging system. In addition, the work can be used as a basis for studying cyber foraging and other similar approaches such as mobile cloud/edge computing for internet of things devices and improving the user experiences of applications by minimizing latencies through the use of potential nearby surrogates.

Consumers' use of nutrition-related endorsement symbol to help their purchase decisions: An extension of the theory of planned behaviour

Tutkimuksessa haluttiin selvittää, mitkä tekijät vaikuttavat ravintoon liittyvän suositusmerkin käyttöön kuluttajan ostopäätöksen apuna. Tutkimuksen viitekehyksen pohjaksi valittiin suunnitellun toiminnan teoria, joka on osoittautunut selittämään hyvin useaa ravintoon- ja terveyteen liittyvää käyttäytymistä. Tutkimustoteutettiin kyselytutkimuksella, jonka aineisto kerättiin Internetissä julkaistulla kyselylomakkeella. Tulokset osoittivat, että kuluttajan aikomus käyttää suositusmerkkiä oli mallin vahvin selittäjä. Lisäksi merkin käyttöä selitti kuluttajan kokema sisäinen kontrolli, johon ulkoinen kontrolli vahvasti vaikuttaa. Ostopäätössitoutumisen havaittiin vaikuttavan aikomuksen ja todellisen merkin käytön väliseen yhteyteen. Yleisesti tulokset osoittivat, että kuluttajilla on aikomusta käyttää merkkiä, mutta todellinen käyttö on huomattavasti vähäisempää.

Concepts and Reference. Defending a Dual Theory of Natural Kind Concepts

In this thesis I argue that the psychological study of concepts and categorisation, and the philosophical study of reference are deeply intertwined. I propose that semantic intuitions are a variety of categorisation judgements, determined by concepts, and that because of this, concepts determine reference. I defend a dual theory of natural kind concepts, according to which natural kind concepts have distinct semantic cores and non-semantic identification procedures. Drawing on psychological essentialism, I suggest that the cores consist of externalistic placeholder essence beliefs. The identification procedures, in turn, consist of prototypes, sets of exemplars, or possibly also theory-structured beliefs. I argue that the dual theory is motivated both by experimental data and theoretical considerations. The thesis consists of three interrelated articles. Article I examines philosophical causal and description theories of natural kind term reference, and argues that they involve, or need to involve, certain psychological elements. I propose a unified theory of natural kind term reference, built on the psychology of concepts. Article II presents two semantic adaptations of psychological essentialism, one of which is a strict externalistic Kripkean-Putnamian theory, while the other is a hybrid account, according to which natural kind terms are ambiguous between internalistic and externalistic senses. We present two experiments, the results of which support the strict externalistic theory. Article III examines Fodor’s influential atomistic theory of concepts, according to which no psychological capacities associated with concepts constitute them, or are necessary for reference. I argue, contra Fodor, that the psychological mechanisms are necessary for reference.

The theory of classical Greek music

Luettelointi kesken

Rebuilding Defenses: Explorations in Norman Fairclough’s Theory of Critical Discourse Analysis

Tutkielmassa eritellään Norman Faircloughin kriittisen diskurssianalyysin teoriaa ja siihen kohdistettua kritiikkiä. Pyrkimyksenä on sovittaa näitä erilaisia näkemyksiä keskenään ja tarjota ratkaisuja yhteen kiriittisen diskurssianalyysin keskeiseen ongelmaan eli emansipaation (sosiaalisten epäkohtien tunnistamisen ja ratkaisemisen) puutteellisuuteen. Teoriaosuudesta esiin nousevia mahdollisuuksia sovelletaan tekstianalyysiin. Tutkimuksen kohteena on teksti Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century ja jossain määrin sen tuottanut järjestö Project for the New American Century. Näitä tarkastellaan ennen kaikkea sosiaalisina ilmiöinä ja suhteessa toisiinsa. Faircloughin mallin suurimmiksi ongelmiksi muodostuvat perinteinen käsitys kielestä, jonka mukaan kielen järjestelmän abstraktit ja sisäiset suhteet ovat tärkeimpiä, sekä ideologinen vastakkainasettelu kritiikin lähtökohtana. Ensimmäinen johtaa kielellisten tutkimustulosten epätyydyttävään kykyyn selittää sosiaalisia havaintoja ja jälkimmäinen poliittiseen tai maailmankatsomukselliseen väittelyyn, joka ei mahdollista uusia näkemyksiä. Tutkielman lopputulema on, että keskittymällä asiasisältöön kielen rakenteen sijasta ja ymmärtämällä tekstin tuottaja yksittäisenä, rajattuna sosiaalisena toimijana voidaan analyysiin saada avoimuutta ja täsmällisyyttä. Kriittiinen diskurssianalyysi kaipaa tällaista näkemystä kielellisten analyysien tueksi ja uudenlaisen relevanssin löytääkseen.

Reagan's mythical America : towards a narrative theory of prophetic politics

Lectio praecursoria Tampereen yliopistossa 17.8.2010.