Uuden robottisolun ohjelmointitavan mahdollisuudet pienille ja keskisuurille yrityksille

Robotin ohjelmointi on aikaa vievää ja tarvitsee robotin ohjelmoinnin tuntevan operaattorin toimimaan robotin opettajana. Saadakseen robottisolun kustannustehokkaaksi operaattorilla olisi hyvä olla useampi solu hoidettavanaan samaan aikaan. Tämä ei ole suuri ongelma suurille yrityksille, joissa voi olla kymmeniä robottisoluja. Jos kyseessä on pieni tai keskisuuri yritys, automatisointi-investointi voi jäädä tekemättä ohjelmoinnin vaikeuden aiheuttaman ongelman vuoksi. Diplomityössä keskityttiin tutkimaan robotisointia pienten ja keskisuurten yritysten kannalta. Teoriaosassa on keskitytty robottisolun suunnittelun kannalta tarvittaviin perustietoihin robotin rakenteesta, ohjausjärjestelmästä, ohjelmoinnista sekä turvallisuudesta. Näiden perustietojen lisäksi on huomioitu hitsauksen automatisointia sekä taluttamalla ohjelmoitavan robottisolun tekninen konsepti. Taluttamalla ohjelmoitavan robottisolun konseptin käsittelyosassa on myös perehdytty taluttamalla ohjelmoinnin vaatimiin komponentteihin kuten voima/vääntö-anturi. Robottisolun suunnittelu on tehtävä koneasetuksen vaatimusten mukaan. Turvallisuus osiossa on käsitelty koneasetuksen vaatimuksia koneensuunnittelulle ja käytännön osassa on käsitelty Winnovan taluttamalla ohjelmoitavan robottisolun suunnittelua koneasetuksen ohjeiden mukaan. Käytännön osassa on tutkittu taluttamalla ohjelmoinnin tuomia etuja muihin ohjelmointimenetelmiin nähden sekä suoritettu investointilaskelmat taluttamalla ohjelmoitavasta ja opettamalla ohjelmoitavasta robottisolusta. Koetuloksista nähdään taluttamalla ohjelmoinnin olevan nopeampi ja yksinkertaisempi tapa ohjelmoida robottia kuin opettamalla ohjelmointi. Investointilaskelmien vertailusta nähdään taluttamalla ohjelmoinnin tulevan opettamalla ohjelmointia edullisemmaksi vaihtoehdoksi käyttökustannusten edullisuuden ansiosta.

Teaching mathematics and programming : new approaches with empirical evaluation

Programming and mathematics are core areas of computer science (CS) and consequently also important parts of CS education. Introductory instruction in these two topics is, however, not without problems. Studies show that CS students find programming difficult to learn and that teaching mathematical topics to CS novices is challenging. One reason for the latter is the disconnection between mathematics and programming found in many CS curricula, which results in students not seeing the relevance of the subject for their studies. In addition, reports indicate that students' mathematical capability and maturity levels are dropping. The challenges faced when teaching mathematics and programming at CS departments can also be traced back to gaps in students' prior education. In Finland the high school curriculum does not include CS as a subject; instead, focus is on learning to use the computer and its applications as tools. Similarly, many of the mathematics courses emphasize application of formulas, while logic, formalisms and proofs, which are important in CS, are avoided. Consequently, high school graduates are not well prepared for studies in CS. Motivated by these challenges, the goal of the present work is to describe new approaches to teaching mathematics and programming aimed at addressing these issues: Structured derivations is a logic-based approach to teaching mathematics, where formalisms and justifications are made explicit. The aim is to help students become better at communicating their reasoning using mathematical language and logical notation at the same time as they become more confident with formalisms. The Python programming language was originally designed with education in mind, and has a simple syntax compared to many other popular languages. The aim of using it in instruction is to address algorithms and their implementation in a way that allows focus to be put on learning algorithmic thinking and programming instead of on learning a complex syntax. Invariant based programming is a diagrammatic approach to developing programs that are correct by construction. The approach is based on elementary propositional and predicate logic, and makes explicit the underlying mathematical foundations of programming. The aim is also to show how mathematics in general, and logic in particular, can be used to create better programs.

Hållpunkter för lärande : småbarns möten

Developed from human activities, mathematical knowledge is bound to the world and cultures that men and women experience. One can say that mathematics is rooted in humans’ everyday life, an environment where people reach agreement regarding certain “laws” and principles in mathematics. Through interaction with worldly phenomena and people, children will always gain experience that they can then in turn use to understand future situations. Consequently, the environment in which a child grows up plays an important role in what that child experiences and what possibilities for learning that child has. Variation theory, a branch of phenomenographical research, defines human learning as changes in understanding and acting towards a specific phenomenon. Variation theory implies a focus on that which it is possible to learn in a specific learning situation, since only a limited number of critical aspects of a phenomenon can be simultaneously discerned and focused on. The aim of this study is to discern how toddlers experience and learn mathematics in a daycare environment. The study focuses on what toddlers experience, how their learning experience is formed, and how toddlers use their understanding to master their environment. Twenty-three children were observed videographically during everyday activities. The videographic methodology aims to describe and interpret human actions in natural settings. The children are aged from 1 year, 1 month to 3 years, 9 months. Descriptions of the toddlers’ actions and communication with other children and adults are analyzed phenomenographically in order to discover how the children come to understand the different aspects of mathematics they encounter. The study’s analysis reveals that toddlers encounter various mathematical concepts, similarities and differences, and the relationship between parts and whole. Children form their understanding of such aspects in interaction with other children and adults in their everyday life. The results also show that for a certain type of learning to occur, some critical conditions must exist. Variation, simultaneity, reasonableness and fixed points are critical conditions of learning that appear to be important for toddlers’ learning. These four critical conditions are integral parts of the learning process. How children understand mathematics influences how they use mathematics as a tool to master their surrounding world. The results of the study’s analysis of how children use their understanding of mathematics shows that children use mathematics to uphold societal rules, to describe their surrounding world, and as a tool for problem solving. Accordingly, mathematics can be considered a very important phenomenon that children should come into contact with in different ways and which needs to be recognized as a necessary part of children’s everyday life. Adults working with young children play an important role in setting perimeters for children’s experiences and possibilities to explore mathematical concepts and phenomena. Therefore, this study is significant as regards understanding how children learn mathematics through everyday activities.

Weather based warning systems for bean angular-leaf-spot and anthracnose

Data available in the literature were used to develop a warning system for bean angular leaf spot and anthracnose, caused by Phaeoisariopsis griseola and Colletotrichum lindemuthianum, respectively. The model is based on favorable environmental conditions for the infectious process such as continuous leaf wetness duration and mean air temperature during this subphase of the pathogen-host relationship cycle. Equations published by DALLA PRIA (1977) showing the interactions of those two factors on the disease severity were used. Excell spreadsheet was used to calculate the leaf wetness period needed to cause different infection probabilities at different temperature ranges. These data were employed to elaborate critical period tables used to program a computerized electronic device that records leaf wetness duration and mean temperature and automatically shows the daily disease severity value (DDSV) for each disease. The model should be validated in field experiments under natural infection for which the daily disease severity sum (DDSS) should be identified as a criterion to indicate the beginning and the interval of fungicide applications to control both diseases.

Making Sense of Shared Leadership. A case study of leadership processes and practices without formal leadership structure in the team context

Leadership is essential for the effectiveness of the teams and organizations they are part of. The challenges facing organizations today require an exhaustive review of the strategic role of leadership. In this context, it is necessary to explore new types of leadership capable of providing an effective response to new needs. The presentday situations, characterized by complexity and ambiguity, make it difficult for an external leader to perform all leadership functions successfully. Likewise, knowledge-based work requires providing professional groups with sufficient autonomy to perform leadership functions. This study focuses on shared leadership in the team context. Shared leadership is seen as an emergent team property resulting from the distribution of leadership influence across multiple team members. Shared leadership entails sharing power and influence broadly among the team members rather than centralizing it in the hands of a single individual who acts in the clear role of a leader. By identifying the team itself as a key source of influence, this study points to the relational nature of leadership as a social construct where leadership is seen as social process of relating processes that are co-constructed by several team members. Based on recent theoretical developments concerned with relational, practice-based and constructionist approaches to the study of leadership processes, this thesis proposes the study of leadership interactions, working processes and practices to focus on the construction of direction, alignment and commitment. During the research process, critical events, activities, working processes and practices of a case team have been examined and analyzed with the grounded theory –approach in the terms of shared leadership. There are a variety of components to this complex process and a multitude of factors that may influence the development of shared leadership. The study suggests that the development process of shared leadership is a common sense -making process and consists of four overlapping dimensions (individual, social, structural, and developmental) to work with as a team. For shared leadership to emerge, the members of the team must offer leadership services, and the team as a whole must be willing to rely on leadership by multiple team members. For these individual and collective behaviors to occur, the team members must believe that offering influence to and accepting it from fellow team members are welcome and constructive actions. Leadership emerges when people with differing world views use dialogue and collaborative learning to create spaces where a shared common purpose can be achieved while a diversity of perspectives is preserved and valued. This study also suggests that this process can be supported by different kinds of meaning-making and process tools. Leadership, then, does not reside in a person or in a role, but in the social system. The built framework integrates the different dimensions of shared leadership and describes their relationships. This way, the findings of this study can be seen as a contribution to the understanding of what constitutes essential aspects of shared leadership in the team context that can be of theoretical value in terms of advancing the adoption and development process of shared leadership. In the real world, teams and organizations can create conditions to foster and facilitate the process. We should encourage leaders and team members to approach leadership as a collective effort that the team can be prepared for, so that the response is rapid and efficient.

Epälineaaristen regressiomenetelmien vertaaminen robottikäden otemallinnuksessa

Tässä työssä verrattiin monikerrosperseptronin, radiaalikantafunktioverkon, tukivektoriregression ja relevanssivektoriregression soveltuvuutta robottikäden otemallinnukseen. Menetelmille ohjelmoitiin koeympäristö Matlabiin, jossa mallit koestettiin kolmiulotteisella kappaledatalla. Koejärjestely sisälsi kaksi vaihetta. Kokeiden ensimmäisessä vaiheessa menetelmille haettiin sopivat parametrit ja toisessa vaiheessa menetelmät koestettiin. Kokeilla kerättiin dataa menetelmien keskinäiseen vertailuun. Vertailussa huomioitiin laskentanopeus, koulutusaika ja tarkkuus. Tukivektoriregressio löydettiin potentiaaliseksi vaihtoehdoksi mallintamiseen. Tukivektoriregression koetuloksia analysoitiin muita menetelmiä enemmän hyvien koetulosten takia.

Skill Development in Music Reading. The Eye-Movement Approach

This dissertation examined skill development in music reading by focusing on the visual processing of music notation in different music-reading tasks. Each of the three experiments of this dissertation addressed one of the three types of music reading: (i) sight-reading, i.e. reading and performing completely unknown music, (ii) rehearsed reading, during which the performer is already familiar with the music being played, and (iii) silent reading with no performance requirements. The use of the eye-tracking methodology allowed the recording of the readers’ eye movements from the time of music reading with extreme precision. Due to the lack of coherence in the smallish amount of prior studies on eye movements in music reading, the dissertation also had a heavy methodological emphasis. The present dissertation thus aimed to promote two major issues: (1) it investigated the eye-movement indicators of skill and skill development in sight-reading, rehearsed reading and silent reading, and (2) developed and tested suitable methods that can be used by future studies on the topic. Experiment I focused on the eye-movement behaviour of adults during their first steps of learning to read music notation. The longitudinal experiment spanned a nine-month long music-training period, during which 49 participants (university students taking part in a compulsory music course) sight-read and performed a series of simple melodies in three measurement sessions. Participants with no musical background were entitled as “novices”, whereas “amateurs” had had musical training prior to the experiment. The main issue of interest was the changes in the novices’ eye movements and performances across the measurements while the amateurs offered a point of reference for the assessment of the novices’ development. The experiment showed that the novices tended to sight-read in a more stepwise fashion than the amateurs, the latter group manifesting more back-and-forth eye movements. The novices’ skill development was reflected by the faster identification of note symbols involved in larger melodic intervals. Across the measurements, the novices also began to show sensitivity to the melodies’ metrical structure, which the amateurs demonstrated from the very beginning. The stimulus melodies consisted of quarter notes, making the effects of meter and larger melodic intervals distinguishable from effects caused by, say, different rhythmic patterns. Experiment II explored the eye movements of 40 experienced musicians (music education students and music performance students) during temporally controlled rehearsed reading. This cross-sectional experiment focused on the eye-movement effects of one-bar-long melodic alterations placed within a familiar melody. The synchronizing of the performance and eye-movement recordings enabled the investigation of the eye-hand span, i.e., the temporal gap between a performed note and the point of gaze. The eye-hand span was typically found to remain around one second. Music performance students demonstrated increased professing efficiency by their shorter average fixation durations as well as in the two examined eye-hand span measures: these participants used larger eye-hand spans more frequently and inspected more of the musical score during the performance of one metrical beat than students of music education. Although all participants produced performances almost indistinguishable in terms of their auditory characteristics, the altered bars indeed affected the reading of the score: the general effects of expertise in terms of the two eye- hand span measures, demonstrated by the music performance students, disappeared in the face of the melodic alterations. Experiment III was a longitudinal experiment designed to examine the differences between adult novice and amateur musicians’ silent reading of music notation, as well as the changes the 49 participants manifested during a nine-month long music course. From a methodological perspective, an opening to research on eye movements in music reading was the inclusion of a verbal protocol in the research design: after viewing the musical image, the readers were asked to describe what they had seen. A two-way categorization for verbal descriptions was developed in order to assess the quality of extracted musical information. More extensive musical background was related to shorter average fixation duration, more linear scanning of the musical image, and more sophisticated verbal descriptions of the music in question. No apparent effects of skill development were observed for the novice music readers alone, but all participants improved their verbal descriptions towards the last measurement. Apart from the background-related differences between groups of participants, combining verbal and eye-movement data in a cluster analysis identified three styles of silent reading. The finding demonstrated individual differences in how the freely defined silent-reading task was approached. This dissertation is among the first presentations of a series of experiments systematically addressing the visual processing of music notation in various types of music-reading tasks and focusing especially on the eye-movement indicators of developing music-reading skill. Overall, the experiments demonstrate that the music-reading processes are affected not only by “top-down” factors, such as musical background, but also by the “bottom-up” effects of specific features of music notation, such as pitch heights, metrical division, rhythmic patterns and unexpected melodic events. From a methodological perspective, the experiments emphasize the importance of systematic stimulus design, temporal control during performance tasks, and the development of complementary methods, for easing the interpretation of the eye-movement data. To conclude, this dissertation suggests that advances in comprehending the cognitive aspects of music reading, the nature of expertise in this musical task, and the development of educational tools can be attained through the systematic application of the eye-tracking methodology also in this specific domain.

Pre- and postnatal nutrition – target for allergy risk reduction

A rapid increase in allergic diseases in Western societies has led to the conclusion that our modern lifestyle is a risk factor for immune dysregulation. Potential culprits and benefactors are searched among early dietary and microbial exposures, which may act to program later allergic disease. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the role of early maternal and child nutrition in reducing the risk of child allergy. The study population comprised of 256 mother – child pairs from families with a history of allergy participating in a randomized controlled dietary counseling and probiotic intervention (Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and Bifidobacterium lactis Bb12) study from early pregnancy onwards. The dietary counseling aimed for a diet complying with dietary recommendations for pregnant and lactating women, with special attention to fat quality. Maternal dietary counseling was reflected in cord blood fatty acids suggesting better essential fatty acid status in infants in the counseling group. Dietary counseling with probiotics or placebo had no effect on child allergy risk, but associations between maternal diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding and child allergic outcomes were found in secondary analyses. During pregnancy, milk intake was related to decreased and cheese intake to increased risk of child atopic eczema. During breastfeeding, intake of vitamin C was related to increased risk of asthma and intake of egg was related to decreased risk of atopic eczema. The timing of introduction of complementary foods to infant’s diet was not associated with risk of atopic eczema, when adjusted with parental opinion of child allergic symptoms (i.e., potential reverse causality). In conclusion, the results demonstrate that infant fatty acid supply can be modified via maternal dietary changes. In addition, interesting associations of maternal diet with child allergy risk were discovered. However, no difference in the incidence of allergic diseases with dietary counseling was observed. This suggests that more potent dietary interventions might be necessitated to induce clinical risk reduction of allergy. Highrisk families can safely adhere to dietary recommendations for pregnant and lactating women, and the results support the current conception that no additional benefit is gained with delaying introduction of complementary feeding.

Language-specific aspects of reading acquisition: the case of Russian

We have investigated Russian children’s reading acquisition during an intermediate period in their development: after literacy onset, but before they have acquired well-developed decoding skills. The results of our study suggest that Russian first graders rely primarily on phonemes and syllables as reading grain-size units. Phonemic awareness seems to have reached the metalinguistic level more rapidly than syllabic awareness after the onset of reading instruction, the reversal which is typical for the initial stages of formal reading instruction creating external demand for phonemic awareness. Another reason might be the inherent instability of syllabic boundaries in Russian. We have shown that body-coda is a more natural representation of subsyllabic structure in Russian than onset-rime. We also found that Russian children displayed variability of syllable onset and offset decisions which can be attributed to the lack of congruence between syllabic and morphemic word division in Russian. We suggest that fuzziness of syllable boundary decisions is a sign of the transitional nature of this stage in the reading development and it indicates progress towards an awareness of morphologically determined closed syllables. Our study also showed that orthographic complexity exerts an influence on reading in Russian from the very start of reading acquisition. Besides, we found that Russian first graders experience fluency difficulties in reading orthographically simple words and nonwords of two and more syllables. The transition from monosyllabic to bisyllabic lexical items constitutes a certain threshold, for which the syllabic structure seemed to be of no difference. When we compared the outcomes of the Russian children with the ones produced by speakers of other languages, we discovered that in the tasks which could be performed with the help of alphabetic recoding Russian children’s accuracy was comparable to that of children learning to read in relatively shallow orthographies. In tasks where this approach works only partially, Russian children demonstrated accuracy results similar to those in deeper orthographies. This pattern of moderate results in accuracy and excellent performance in terms of reaction times is an indication that children apply phonological recoding as their dominant strategy to various reading tasks and are only beginning to develop suitable multiple strategies in dealing with orthographically complex material. The development of these strategies is not completed during Grade 1 and the shift towards diversification of strategies apparently continues in Grade 2.

Innovation Ecosystem Perspectives on Financial Services Innovation

The context of financial services has been characterised by changes in the regulatory, technological and societal landscape. Consumers are increasingly interested in mobile payments, crowdfunding and microfinance services, either for themselves or because collaborative consumption is viewed as a more sustainable. Retail branches are re-organised to further meet the expectations of customers, start-ups focusing on technology for financial services (i.e. Fintech) are ever growing and financial services companies reinforce their own innovation practices (e.g. creation of innovation labs or venture capital investment funds). The innovation ecosystem around financial services companies represents the many actors with whom they can co-create and co-produce innovative new services for their customers (or for themselves). The innovation process is no longer a closed internal effort but needs to include external actors from the innovation ecosystem. This topic is especially interesting in a small and open economy where the financial centre takes a prominent place in the economy. The research question is therefore “How does the innovation ecosystem influence the innovation process within financial services companies?”. The influence of the innovation ecosystem on the innovation process within financial service companies mainly comes from its social capital and value creation efforts. However learning to work and exchange in an innovation ecosystem is also expected to influence the innovation process in place. Realizing the potential of the innovation ecosystem requires sufficient capabilities to manage new information coming from the innovation ecosystem. The professional associations provide the necessary coordination among actors in the innovation ecosystem to co-create and appropriate value, while fostering co-evolution within the innovation ecosystem.

The impact of scheduling on the implementation of the new Ontario curriculum: teachers' perceptions /

This qualitative study explored secondary teachers' perceptions of scheduling in relation to pedagogy, curriculum, and observation of student learning. Its objective was to determine the best way to organize the scheduling for the delivery of Ontario's new 4-year curriculum. Six participants were chosen. Two were teaching in a semestered timetable, 1 in a traditional timetable, and 3 had experience in both schedules. Participants related a pressure cooker "lived experience" with weaker students in the semester system experiencing a particularly harsh environment. The inadequate amount of time for review in content-heavy courses, gap scheduling problems, catch-up difficulties for students missing classes, and the fast pace of semestering are identified as factors negatively impacting on these students. Government testing adds to the pressure by shifting teachers' time and attention in the classroom from deeper learning to a superficial coverage of material, from curriculum as lived to curriculum as text to be covered. Scheduling choice should be available in public education to accommodate the needs of all students. Curriculum guidelines need to be revamped to reflect the content that teachers believe is necessary for a successful course delivery. Applied level courses need to be developed for students who are not academically inferior but learn differently.

Towards automated derivation in the theory of allegories

We provide an algorithm that automatically derives many provable theorems in the equational theory of allegories. This was accomplished by noticing properties of an existing decision algorithm that could be extended to provide a derivation in addition to a decision certificate. We also suggest improvements and corrections to previous research in order to motivate further work on a complete derivation mechanism. The results presented here are significant for those interested in relational theories, since we essentially have a subtheory where automatic proof-generation is possible. This is also relevant to program verification since relations are well-suited to describe the behaviour of computer programs. It is likely that extensions of the theory of allegories are also decidable and possibly suitable for further expansions of the algorithm presented here.

The vocation of responsibility : a conceptual analysis of a modern idea

Please consult the paper edition of this thesis to read. It is available on the 5th Floor of the Library at Call Number: Z 9999 P55 N48 2004

Evaluation in Sport for Development: A Case Study of the Gansbaai Project, Football Foundation of South Africa, From A Critical Perspective

The purpose of this case study was to determine the effectiveness of sport for development (SDP) evaluation within one program in Gansbaai, South Africa through critical, independent participant inclusive program evaluation. Qualitative research was conducted on the Football Foundation of South Africa (FFSA), where semi-structured interview data were collected from administrators and participants, as were data from direct participant observations and organizational documents. Data analysis followed, according to Kvale and Brinkman’s (2008) methodology. FFSA goals were found, as were themes of social impact (i.e., regarding coach-player relationships, trust, and coaching impact on social integration). A further theme related to evaluation components and procedures. Further themes included life skill development, competition within programming, participants’ home life and social integration. Findings contribute to the SDP literature relating to program evaluation research and to FFSA administrators by providing an understanding of SDP program shortcomings, limitations, and suggested improvements.

Dorothy Rungeling fonds, 1887-2013, n.d.

Dorothy Rungeling was born in 1911 and raised in Fenwick, Ontario, by her adopted mother, Ethelwyn Wetherald. After graduating high school, she attended Fort Erie business College. She worked briefly in Toronto and then Hamilton, but eventually took a job with Brown Brothers’ Nursery in Pelham to be closer to home. Dorothy pursued many interests, learning to play the violin, saxophone and clarinet. She met her husband Charles at a local dance where she was playing. In 1939, they opened an automobile and farm machinery business in Welland. In their spare time, they were active in skeet and trap shooting, for which Dorothy won many trophies. In the early 1940s, Dorothy developed a passion for horses, training and showing them in addition to teaching riding at the Welland Riding Club, as well as judging at horse shows. By the late 1940s her interest in horses was waning, but she soon after discovered and pursued a new interest: flying. She joined the Welland Flying Club, obtained a flying licence, and in 1949 purchased her first plane. She proceeded to obtain a Commercial Pilot Licence in 1951, an Instructor’s Licence in 1953, and a Senior Commercial Licence in 1954. She participated in many air races in the 1950s, including the All Women’s International Air Races, the Women’s Transcontinental Air Races, and the Canadian Governor-General’s Cup Air Race. Some of the most notable races were the 1954 International Air Race, where Dorothy met with President Batista of Cuba, and the Governor-General’s Cup Air Race, where she won 1st place in 1953 and 1956 (and was the only woman competing). In 1958, she was also the first Canadian woman to solo pilot a helicopter. That same year she obtained her Airline Transport Licence. She also wrote several articles on aviation, contributing to publications such as Canadian Aviation and Air Facts, a U.S. aviation magazine. In addition to these articles, Dorothy authored several books about her life, as well as a selection of poems and articles by Ethelwyn Wetherald. As planes became more expensive, Dorothy spent less time flying, instead pursuing an interest in sailing. She and her husband bought a sailboat and became members of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Sailing Club. In 2003, Dorothy was awarded the Order of Canada for her accomplishments. She also wrote a regular column for the Voice of Pelham in 2012-2013, called A Century in Pelham. Dorothy celebrated her 100th birthday in 2011, and remains an active member of the community.