Menestystarinoilla maailmalle : Music Export Finland musiikkialan yrittäjien tukena kansainvälistymisessä

Opinnäytetyö on kirjallinen selvitys, jossa kartoitetaan musiikkialan ammattilaisten näkemyksiä musiikkialan vientiorganisaatio Music Export Finlandin vienninedistämistyön palveluista. Työn tarkoituksena on selvittää, minkälaiseksi vientityötä jo jonkin aikaa tehneet yrittäjät kokevat ja määrittelevät yhdistyksen roolin sekä sen palveluiden tarpeellisuuden omassa käytännön vientityössään. Teoreettinen viitekehys muodostettiin vientitoiminnan käsikirjoista sekä asiantuntijaorganisaatio Finpron kansainvälistymisstrategian mallista, jonka pohjalta tehtiin myös kuuden asiantuntijan haastattelut. Musex tarjoaa palveluita lähinnä vientitoiminnan käytännön toteutusvaiheeseen. Musexin olemassaolo koetaan alalla yleisesti positiiviseksi asiaksi, vaikka vientityötä jo jonkin aikaa tehneet yrittäjät eivät välttämättä hyödykään yhdistyksen palveluista käytännön tasolla. Musex näyttäytyy heille lähinnä alan yleisen tiedottajan roolissa, musiikkialan yhteisenä äänitorvena, jonka tehtävä on ylläpitää toimivia suhteita valtiovaltaan, lisätä toimialan näkyvyyttä ja edesauttaa toimialan rakenteiden kehittämistä alan intressien mukaisesti. Heille on tärkeää, että musiikkitoimialan tunnettuus ja arvostus lisääntyvät julkisen vallan edustajien joukossa, mitä kautta tarvittavaa rakennemuutosta voidaan viedä konkreettisesti eteenpäin. Musiikkialalla menestyy se, joka hallitsee koko laajan liiketoiminnallisen paketin sekä pystyy tarjoamaan faneilleen jotain ainutlaatuista ja eksklusiivista. Musiikkialan yrityksissä harjoitetaan ammattimaista vientitoimintaa alalle ominaisilla tavoilla ja strategioilla, jotka useinkin poikkeavat monen muun alan menettelytavoista. Vientityön tekeminen edellyttää yrityksiltä halua ja kykyä ajatella liiketoiminnallisesti koko toimintaa, sekä paljon työtä. Yhteistyö koko alan kesken on kansainväliselle toiminnalle ehdotonta. Musiikkitoimialan suurin kompastuskivi yhä edelleen on yleisen arvostuksen ja uskottavuuden puute tai sen vähäisyys, sekä rahoitus. Opinnäytetyö on hankkeistettu sekä Musexin kanssa että Stadian t&k -hankkeeseen Suomalaisten musiikkialan pienyrittäjien vientivalmiuksien kehittäminen.

A Dynamic forecasting model for the Finnish pulp export price

Summary

Effects of group size and early handling on some behavioural and physiological welfare parameters in farmed blue foxes

Selostus: Ryhmäkoon ja varhaisen käsittelyn vaikutus tarhattujen sinikettujen hyvinvointiin

Export of dissolved organic carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus following clear-cutting of three Norway spruce forest growing on drained peatlands in southern Finland

Abstract

Container Handling Equipment Monitoring System, case: Steveco Oy

Container Handling Equipment Monitoring System (CHEMS) is a system developed by Savcor One Oy. CHEMS measures important information for container ports performance and produces performance indicators. The aim of this thesis was to clarify performance measurement contents to Savcor and to develop, as an example, performance measures to Steveco Oy's container operations. The theoretical part of the thesis clarifies performance measurement and which of its components are important to container port. Performance measurement and measures are presented from the operational level's point of view, in which CHEMS is planned to aim. The theory of development process of performance measures is introduced at the end of the theoretical part. To make sure that performance measures are efficiently used, Steveco Oy's performance measures are developed in cooperation with the users. The measurement in operational level is continuous and the results must be reacted asquickly as possible. CHEMS is very suitable to continuous measurement and to produce real time-measures of container operations which are hard to get any otherway.

Cultural differences affecting claim handling process and perceived quality in Finnish-Japanese paperboardbusiness

Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli selvittää Suomen ja Japanin välisten kulttuurierojen vaikutus valitustenkäsittelyprosessiin ja laatukäsityksiin case-yrityksen ja sen asiakkaiden välillä. Teoreettisen viitekehyksen muodostamisessa käytettiin näkemyksiä kulttuurista, kulttuurienvälisestä viestinnästä, valitustenkäsittelystä ja laatukäsityksistä. Kulttuurierojen tarkastelemiseksi esiteltiin kulttuurien ulottuvuuksia eritteleviä viitekehyksiä ja kulturaalisten tekijöiden vaikutusta viestintään. Suomen ja Japanin kulttuureja esiteltiin myös yksityiskohtaisemmin aikaisempien tutkimusten valossa. Työn empiirisessä osassa tutkittiin case-yrityksen sisäisiä sekä yrityksen ja sen asiakkaiden välisiä näkemyseroja. Tutkimus suoritettiin laadullisena case-tutkimuksena, jossa tarkasteltiin myös toimenpiteitä case-yrityksen liiketoimintaympäristön parantamiseksi. Tarvittava tieto kerättiin kirjallisuudesta, artikkeleista, taustahaastatteluilla sekä haastattelemalla yrityksen henkilöstöä Suomessa ja Japanissa samoin kuin sen japanilaisia asiakkaita. Japanilaiset asiakas/toimittaja-suhteet ovat ulkomaalaiselle yritykselle haastava liiketoimintaympäristö. Luottamuksen rakentaminen pitkällä tähtäimellä vaatii läheistä kommunikointia vastapuolen tuntemiseksi, jotta voidaan kehittää tuotteita paremmiksi ja vähentää valituskustannuksia. Laatuajattelua tulee myös yhdenmukaistaa tuotteiden ja palvelujen laadun parantamiseksi.

Handling of TDM Connections with Cello Media Gateway

UMTS is a 3rd generation telecommunication system, which introduces new network architecture. The change in the network architecture introduces new logical network nodes and changes the role of existing nodes in the network. This architecture changes the current vertically specialized network into a horizontally layered structure. In practice, the layering means that different levels in network hierarchy are separated, and they communicate over well-specified interfaces. The Connectivity Layer, at the bottom of the UMTS network architecture, contains Media Gateways (MGW). The GSM radio access network and UMTS access network are connected to the connectivity network via a MGW. External networks, e.g. ISDN networks, are accessed via other MGWs. The user plane is transported across the connectivity network between/via MGWs. ATM network is used as the backbone in Ericsson’s UMTS core network release 2.0. The main goal of this thesis is to study how the MGW is used to bridge ATM and TDM networks. The Circuit Emulation Service (CES) for ATM is studied, as the conversion from TDM to ATM is made according it. The transportation is made using AAL2 and the issues that it has with voice traffic are studied. The implementation and usage of TDM switching service in MGW are described in detail.

Managing the Pricing of Integrated Solutions in Export Partnerships

Little research has been conducted to guide the management of marketing variables, such as pricing, in systems business context. Furthermore, given that international partnering has become a popular mode of operation for SMEs, the objective of the current thesis was to explore the scantly researched topic of managing the pricing of integrated solutions in an export partnership. Specifically, the thesis synthesizes literature findings from the three areas of export pricing, systems business, and export partnerships. The empirical section of the study consists of a qualitative single-case study of a Finnish systems integrator that has recently launched its export operations. Primary data was collected by conducting four interviews of the case company’s managers and by organizing one group interview session. The study findings indicate that a systems integrator’s pricing strategy in an export partnership can be very multidimensional and dependant on international pricing environment and partner characteristics, that an export partnership appears to have unique implications on a systems integrator’s pricing process, and that customer value –based pricing strategies might be particularly suited to pricing integrated solutions.

Development of Russian Ports in The Gulf of Finland

Russia has been one of the fastest developing economic areas in the world. Based on the GDP, the Russian economy grew evenly since the crisis in 1998 up till 2008. The growth in the gross domestic product has annually been some 5–10%. In 2007, the growth reached 8.1%, which is the highest figure after the 10% growth in 2000. Due to the growth of the economy and wage levels, purchasing power and consumption have been strongly increasing. The growing consumption has especially increased the imports of durables, such as passenger cars, domestic appliances and electronics. The Russian ports and infrastructure have not been able to satisfy the growing needs of exports and imports, which is why quite a large share of Russian foreign trade is going through third countries as transit transports. Finnish ports play a major role in transit transports to and from Russia. About 15% of the total value of Russian imports was transported through Finland in 2008. The economic recession that started in autumn 2008 and continues to date has had an impact on the economic development of Russia. The export income has decreased, mainly due to the reduced world market prices of energy products (oil and gas) and raw minerals. Investments have been postponed, getting credit is more difficult than before, and the ruble has weakened in relation to the euro and the dollar. The imports are decreasing remarkably, and are not forecast to reach the 2008 volumes even in 2012. The economic crisis is reflected in Finland's transit traffic. The volume of goods transported through Finland to and from Russia has decreased almost in the same proportion as the imports of goods to Russia. The biggest risk threatening the development of the Russian economy over long term is its dependence on export income from oil, gas, metals, minerals and forest products, as well as the trends of the world market prices of these products. Nevertheless, it is expected that the GDP of Russia will start to grow again in the forthcoming years due to the increased demand for energy products and raw minerals in the world. At the same time, it is obvious that the world market prices of these products will go up with the increasing demand. The increased income from exports will lead to a growth of imports, especially those of consumer goods, as the living standard of Russian citizens rises. The forecasts produced by the Russian Government concerning the economic development of Russia up till 2030 also indicate a shift in exported goods from raw materials to processed products, which together with energy products will become the main export goods of Russia. As a consequence, Russia may need export routes through third countries, which can be seen as an opportunity for increased transit transports through the ports of Finland. The ports competing with the ports of Finland for Russian foreign trade traffic are the Russian Baltic Sea ports and the ports of the Baltic countries. The strongest competitors are the Baltic Sea ports handling containers. On the Russian Baltic Sea, these ports include Saint Petersburg, Kaliningrad and, in the near future, the ports of Ust-Luga and possibly Vyborg. There are plans to develop Ust-Luga and Vyborg as modern container ports, which would become serious competitors to the Finnish ports. Russia is aiming to redirect as large a share as possible of foreign trade traffic to its own ports. The ports of Russia and the infrastructure associated with them are under constant development. On the other hand, the logistic capacity of Russia is not able to satisfy the continually growing needs of the Russian foreign trade. The capacity problem is emphasized by a structural incompatibility between the exports and imports in the Russian foreign trade. Russian exports can only use a small part of the containers brought in with imports. Problems are also caused by the difficult ice conditions and narrow waterways leading to the ports. It is predicted that Finland will maintain its position as a transit route for the Russian foreign trade, at least in the near future. The Russian foreign trade is increasing, and Russia will not be able to develop its ports in proportion with the increasing foreign trade. With the development of port capacity, cargo flows through the ports of Russia will grow. Structural changes in transit traffic are already visible. Firms are more and more relocating their production to Russia, for example as regards the assembly of cars and warehousing services. Simultaneously, an increasing part of transit cargoes are sent directly to Russia without unloading and reloading in Finland. New product groups have nevertheless been transported through Finland (textile products and tools), replacing the lost cargos. The global recession that started in autumn 2008 has influenced the volume of Russian imports and, consequently, the transit volumes of Finland, but the recession is not expected to be of long duration, and will thus only have a short-term impact on transit volumes. The Finnish infrastructure and services offered by the logistic chain should also be ready to react to the changes in imported product groups as well as to the change in Russian export products in the future. If the development plans of the Russian economy are realized, export products will be more refined, and the share of energy and raw material products will decrease. The other notable factor to be taken into consideration is the extremely fast-changing business environment in Russia. Operators in the logistic chain should be flexible enough to adapt to all kinds of changes to capitalise on business opportunities offered by the Russian foreign trade for the companies and for the transit volumes of Finnish ports, also in the future.

Buying behavior of public organizations and its influence on export partner governance

Public organizations form a significant part of any economy, yet their buying behavior has received very little attention. Operating with complex public sector is further complicated when sales and marketing activities are done by foreign export partners. This thesis explores the buying behavior of public organizations and how partnership governance is influenced by it. The theoretical part focuses on two subjects. Firstly the strictly regulated purchase process, rigid decision making and other special characteristics of public organizations are examined. Secondly the thesis examines partnership governance forms and how coordination is arranged in the relationships. The empirical part investigates the subjects of public organization buying behavior and partnership governance using a case study of a Finnish SME and their two export partners. The findings suggest high degree of uniformity between public organizations enables the use of unilateral governance forms. By creating mutual dependence through training the possibility of adopting a purely bilateral governance form exists as well.

Certificate Handling Middleware for Mobile Devices

The purpose of this thesis was to study how certificates could be used to improve security of mobile devices. In the theoretical part the usage of certificates to improve security is explained. In the practical part a concept of certificate handling middleware is introduced and implemented. This is to demonstrate what kind of functionality is needed to provide an improvement over the current situation in security with mobile devices. The certificate handling middleware is a concept that would work better if implemented directly into mobile device's core functionality. Many of the mobile devices have a certificate store to some degree and often it is not used to store other people's certificates. A certificate store combined with address book and added with possibility to add attributes to the people such as group memberships would be sufficient to satisfy the needs of many emerging sharing and social applications.

Kropp, handling och ritual: hur förstå religion och personer med grava funktionshinder?

Arbetet som omsorgspräst sedan 1990 har väckt många frågor samband med mötet med personer som har grava funktionshinder. Det har skett framför allt i skriftskolor och konfirmationsundervisning från år 1984 framåt. Men speciellt samarbetet med fysioterapeut Karin Isaksson fick betydelse. Vi inbjöd personer med svåra spänningar och lite aktivitet att delta i en grupp med avslappning och kontemplativ sång. Gruppen (1997-2001)som höll på en timme gav uppmuntrande resultat. Men det var lättare för Isaksson att tänka på det i termer av avslappning och fysiskt välbefinnande då det för mig ingick sådant som helig närvaro och tystnad i mötet med deltagarna. Det resulterade så småningom i ett forskningsprojekt som jag kallar för Aaa-gruppen efter de kontemplativa intonationsövningar som ingår i ritualen. (AÅOM). Sex par (deltagare och handledare) anmälde sig till forskningsprojektet. Materialet samlades in åren 2002-2003. Aaa-gruppens ritual består av kontemplativ gregoriansk sång(intonationsövningar + antifoner som Kyrie eleison, Hosanna Filio David, Sanctus, Non i solo pane - Människan skall icke leva av bröd allenast och Fader Vår bönen.) Samarbetet i Aaa-gruppen mellan deltagare och handledare omfattade taktil stimulans (beröring enligt strykningar och ”Keep in Touch”) Materialet samlades in som observationsprotokoll, frågeformulär och intervjuer. Materialet har jag använt för att reflektera över hur vi kan förstå Aaa-gruppen och verklighet. I avhandlingen utgår jag från tankar om kontextens betydelse för en förståelse. Jag uppfattar att tre sammanhang är av betydelse för förståelsen. Dem har jag kallat för omsorgssammanhang, religiöst sammanhang och forskarsammanhang. I avhandlingen användes tre perspektiv som jag kallar för dialogfilosofi, neurofilosofi och livsformsfilosofi för att reflektera materialet. Den nära relationen mellan deltagare och handledare i Aaa-gruppen kan förstås ur olika sammanhang. Resultatet av den religionsfilosofiska reflektionen är att sammanhangen liksom de olika filosofiska perspektiven kompletterar och ger en mångsidig förståelse för religion och personer med grava funktionshinder. Reflektionen berör grundläggande frågeställningar kring kropp och medvetande och frågan om språk (nonverbalt och verbalt) och verklighet. En dualistisk uppfattning om jaget, som delbart i kropp och medvetande, avisas till förmån för ett så kallat ”kroppsjag”. Religion i Aaa-gruppen kan förstås som ett möte i en nära relation. Ett möte som är nonverbalt men inbegriper en mänskligt förhållningssätt som inom dialogfilosofin kan beskrivas med ordparet Jag-Du.

First dice your dill – new methods and techniques in sample handling

This book is dedicated to celebrate the 60th birthday of Professor Rainer Huopalahti. Professor Rainer “Repe” Huopalahti has had, and in fact is still enjoying a distinguished career in the analysis of food and food related flavor compounds. One will find it hard to make any progress in this particular field without a valid and innovative sample handling technique and this is a field in which Professor Huopalahti has made great contributions. The title and the front cover of this book honors Professor Huopahti’s early steps in science. His PhD thesis which was published on 1985 is entitled “Composition and content of aroma compounds in the dill herb, Anethum graveolens L., affected by different factors”. At that time, the thesis introduced new technology being applied to sample handling and analysis of flavoring compounds of dill. Sample handling is an essential task that in just about every analysis. If one is working with minor compounds in a sample or trying to detect trace levels of the analytes, one of the aims of sample handling may be to increase the sensitivity of the analytical method. On the other hand, if one is working with a challenging matrix such as the kind found in biological samples, one of the aims is to increase the selectivity. However, quite often the aim is to increase both the selectivity and the sensitivity. This book provides good and representative examples about the necessity of valid sample handling and the role of the sample handling in the analytical method. The contributors of the book are leading Finnish scientists on the field of organic instrumental analytical chemistry. Some of them are also Repe’ s personal friends and former students from the University of Turku, Department of Biochemistry and Food Chemistry. Importantly, the authors all know Repe in one way or another and are well aware of his achievements on the field of analytical chemistry. The editorial team had a great time during the planning phase and during the “hard work editorial phase” of the book. For example, we came up with many ideas on how to publish the book. After many long discussions, we decided to have a limited edition as an “old school hard cover book” – and to acknowledge more modern ways of disseminating knowledge by publishing an internet version of the book on the webpages of the University of Turku. Downloading the book from the webpage for personal use is free of charge. We believe and hope that the book will be read with great interest by scientists working in the fascinating field of organic instrumental analytical chemistry. We decided to publish our book in English for two main reasons. First, we believe that in the near future, more and more teaching in Finnish Universities will be delivered in English. To facilitate this process and encourage students to develop good language skills, it was decided to be published the book in English. Secondly, we believe that the book will also interest scientists outside Finland – particularly in the other member states of the European Union. The editorial team thanks all the authors for their willingness to contribute to this book – and to adhere to the very strict schedule. We also want to thank the various individuals and enterprises who financially supported the book project. Without that support, it would not have been possible to publish the hardcover book.

Proactive and Preventive Student Welfare Activities in Finnish Preschool and Elementary School: Handling of Transition to Formal Schooling and a National Anti-Bullying Program as Examples

Prerequisites and effects of proactive and preventive psycho-social student welfare activities in Finnish preschool and elementary school were of interest in the present thesis. So far, Finnish student welfare work has mainly focused on interventions and individuals, and the voluminous possibilities to enhance well-being of all students as a part of everyday school work have not been fully exploited. Consequently, in this thesis three goals were set: (1) To present concrete examples of proactive and preventive psycho-social student welfare activities in Finnish basic education; (2) To investigate measurable positive effects of proactive and preventive activities; and (3) To investigate implementation of proactive and preventive activities in ecological contexts. Two prominent phenomena in preschool and elementary school years—transition to formal schooling and school bullying—were chosen as examples of critical situations that are appropriate targets for proactive and preventive psycho-social student welfare activities. Until lately, the procedures concerning both school transitions and school bullying have been rather problem-focused and reactive in nature. Theoretically, we lean on the bioecological model of development by Bronfenbrenner and Morris with concentric micro-, meso-, exo- and macrosystems. Data were drawn from two large-scale research projects, the longitudinal First Steps Study: Interactive Learning in the Child–Parent– Teacher Triangle, and the Evaluation Study of the National Antibullying Program KiVa. In Study I, we found that the academic skills of children from preschool–elementary school pairs that implemented several supportive activities during the preschool year developed more quickly from preschool to Grade 1 compared with the skills of children from pairs that used fewer practices. In Study II, we focused on possible effects of proactive and preventive actions on teachers and found that participation in the KiVa antibullying program influenced teachers‘ self-evaluated competence to tackle bullying. In Studies III and IV, we investigated factors that affect implementation rate of these proactive and preventive actions. In Study III, we found that principal‘s commitment and support for antibullying work has a clear-cut positive effect on implementation adherence of student lessons of the KiVa antibullying program. The more teachers experience support for and commitment to anti-bullying work from their principal, the more they report having covered KiVa student lessons and topics. In Study IV, we wanted to find out why some schools implement several useful and inexpensive transition practices, whereas other schools use only a few of them. We were interested in broadening the scope and looking at local-level (exosystem) qualities, and, in fact, the local-level activities and guidelines, along with teacherreported importance of the transition practices, were the only factors significantly associated with the implementation rate of transition practices between elementary schools and partner preschools. Teacher- and school-level factors available in this study turned out to be mostly not significant. To summarize, the results confirm that school-based promotion and prevention activities may have beneficial effects not only on students but also on teachers. Second, various top-down processes, such as engagement at the level of elementary school principals or local administration may enhance implementation of these beneficial activities. The main message is that when aiming to support the lives of children the primary focus should be on adults. In future, promotion of psychosocial well-being and the intrinsic value of inter- and intrapersonal skills need to be strengthened in the Finnish educational systems. Future research efforts in student welfare and school psychology, as well as focused training for psychologists in educational contexts, should be encouraged in the departments of psychology and education in Finnish universities. Moreover, a specific research centre for school health and well-being should be established.