NATURAL DURABILITY OF Eucalyptus dunnii Maiden, Eucalyptus robusta Sm., Eucalyptus tereticornis Sm. AND Hovenia dulcis Thunb. WOOD IN FIELD AND FOREST ENVIRONMENT

AB STRACT This study aimed at evaluating the natural durability of Eucalyptus dunnii, Eucalyptus robusta, Eucalyptus tereticornis and Hovenia dulcis woods submitted to a deterioration test in two environments, field and forest. The test samples were buried until half of their length (150 mm). Evaluations were carried out each 45 days, totalizing a 405-day period, with three-repetition withdrawal of each species for environment, totalizing nine samples from each environment, making up 24 test samples for evaluation. After percentage calculations of mass loss and resistance degree classification, the deterioration index was adopted for decomposition evaluation and fungal decay potential determination of test samples. The study has been carried out in completely randomized design (CRD), evaluated through analysis of variance (ANOVA) with subsequent comparison of means by Turkey' s test, in a 5%-level of probability of error, along with regression analysis. Eucalyptus tereticornis wood presented lesser mass loss in both environments. Hovenia dulcis presented lesser deterioration probability in both environments. Forest environment test samples presented greater mass loss percentages and lesser deterioration index.

Role of Capabilities in Purchasing and Supply Management Performance

The objective of this thesis was to study the role of capabilities in purchasing and supply management. For the pre-understanding of the research topic, purchasing and supply management development and the multidimensional, unstructured and complex nature of purchasing and supply management performance was studied in literature review. In addition, a capability-based purchasing and supply management performance framework were researched and structured for the empirical research. Due to the unstructured nature of the research topic, the empirical research is three-pronged in this study including three different research methods: the Delphi method, semi-structured interview, and case research. As a result, the purchasing and supply management capability assessment tool was structured to measure current level of capabilities and impact of capabilities on purchasing and supply management performance. The final results indicate that capabilities are enablers of purchasing and supply management performance, and therefore critical to purchasing and supply performance.

DIGITAL BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS IN EMERGING MARKETS – Developing Business Marketing in Russia

The core idea of this Master's Thesis was that five key characteristics – market heterogeneity, sociopolitical governance, chronic shortage of resources, unbranded competition, and inadequate infrastructure – of emerging markets are radically different from the traditional industrialized capitalist society and they will require us to rethink the core assumptions of business-to-business marketing, such as business relationships, marketing communication elements, and digitalization. In this research, Russia is considered to be an emerging market that reflects the aforementioned theoretical characteristics. The research was a qualitative case study and furthermore a collective case study. In the beginning three digital marketing professionals were interviewed to better understand digital B2B marketing. The actual research data was collected through seven structured theme interviews with representatives of the case companies operating in Russia. The selection of case companies included three business consulting companies and four industrial companies. The aim of this qualitative study was to understand and clarify how business marketing exploits digital marketing methods as a part of the chosen business marketing strategy under emerging markets’ special conditions. This objective was divided in three research questions: 1) How the chosen marketing strategy reflects in the business marketing process? 2) How digital marketing communication contributes to business marketing? 3) How are the emerging markets’ characteristics reflected in the business marketing process? The main research findings indicate that digital business-to-business marketing communications can be useful and effective. Moreover, business DMC can be defined and structured in a reasonable way. The company's prevalent marketing paradigm and the chosen marketing strategy reflect in the business marketing process, and in utilizing digital marketing communications. The assumption that emerging markets set an environment with special characteristics for business marketing was supported by the study. However, the business environmental aspects were not considerably disturbing digital B2B marketing, but making it even more reasonable to harness in Russia.

A new concept in prophylaxis and therapy: paramunization by poxvirus inducers

The so-called primitive, innate or paraspecific immune system is the phylogenetically older part of the complex immune system. It enables the organism to immediately attack various foreign substances, infectious pathogens, toxins and transformed cells of the organism itself. ,,Paramunity" is defined as an optimal regulated and activated, antigen-nonspecific defence, acquired through continuous active and succesful confrontation with endogenous and exogenous noxes or by means of ,,paramunization" with so called ,,paramunity inducers". Paramunity inducers based on different pox virus species (e.g. Baypamun®, Duphapind®, Conpind) have turned out to be effective and safe when applied with human beings as well as with animals. Pox virus inducers activate phagocytosis and NK-cells in addition to regulation of various cytokines, notably interferon a and g, IL 1, 2, CSF and TNF which comprise the network of the complex paraspecific immune system. The results of experimental work as well as practical use in veterinary medicine have shown that paramunization by pox inducers goes far beyond the common understanding of so-called ,,immuno-therapy". They are ,,bioregulators", because they have 1. a regulatory effect on a disturbed immune system in the sense of an optimal homoeostasis, and 2. simultaneously a regulatory effect between the immune, nervous, circulatory and hormone system. Therefore, the use of paramunization by pox inducers opens a new way of prophylaxis and therapy, not only with regard to infections, but also with regard to different other indications.

Trust in inter-organisational dyadic relationships

Understanding the trust in organisations and the business relationships have been an emerging trend in past years. Researchers and executives and subject matter experts in companies have recognised the importance of managing the trust in inter-organisational relationships. Further, the interest both in academia and in business has raised an interest to under-stand dyadic relationships. The objective of this thesis was to examine trust in inter-organisational and inter-personal dyadic relationships. Trust and the dyadic relationships were analysed in information technolo-gy services and outsourcing industry. Dyads were established between the supplier company operating in the industry and its customers. The empiric part of the study was carried out by an email survey that was sent to 331 respondents resulting with effective response rate of 48.7 per cent. Statistical analyses were applied to analyse the data sample. In general, results indicated reputation, trustworthiness, capability and collaboration in dyadic trust relationships. Experience grown in duration of the relationship affected the trust positively. No drastic differences in trust were recognised when comparing supplier and customer responses.

Improving customer service by identifying critical success factors and utilizing business process outsourcing

Consumers increasingly demand convenience when dealing with companies and therefore it is important to provide professional, diverse and speedy service via customer’s preferred communication channel. These interactions between the customer service and customer have a critical role in customer’s future purchasing decisions. Those customers who don't receive satisfactory customer service are willing to do business with another company that charges more but offers better customer service. This study identifies the critical success factors for the customer service in order to improve the customer service according to the company’s mission and meet customer expectations. Case study is used as a research method and data is collected via observation, archival records and interviews during a time span of fourteen months. The analysis suggests three critical success factors: voice support, scalable and flexible customer service and customer service champions. The study further analyzes the improvement measures according to the critical success factors concluding the Business Process Outsourcing to be the most proper to proceed with. As a conclusion of the study, critical success factors enable achieving the goals of the customer service and align operations according to the company’s mission. Business Process Outsourcing plays important role in improving the customer service by allowing fast expansion of new service offering and obtaining specialized workforce.

Biodegradable packaging materials in 2013 and their feasibility in chocolate industry

The development of biopolymers has been rapid in recent years and the range of available bioplastics is increasing continuously, driven by a growing demand for sustainable solutions. There are several key drivers behind this growth. The oil reservoirs are decreasing which is causing a price increase for the traditional plastic materials and therefore the gap to bioplastics’ price is getting smaller. In addition, other environmental topics, such as waste disposal and green production, have become more and more important factors for institutes, companies and consumers. Legislation and directives have to be taken into account as well in decision making concerning different packaging materials. The new environmental law with waste disposal responsibility will also have an effect on the packaging business. Therefore a need has risen to study closer the current offering closer of bio-based materials that could be used in chocolate packaging. In this Master’s Thesis the bioplastics’, and especially biodegradable materials’ technical properties and their development, availability, possible existing products in the markets, waste disposal possibilities and consumers attitude towards environmental friendly packaging is studied. This is a case study where the offering of biodegradable materials was investigated during March 2013 for Fazer Confectionary.

Biomolecular screening for inhibitors of butyrylcholinesterase : identification and characterization using in vitro and in silico tools

Drug discovery is a continuous process where researchers are constantly trying to find new and better drugs for the treatment of various conditions. Alzheimer’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease mostly affecting the elderly, has a complex etiology with several possible drug targets. Some of these targets have been known for years while other new targets and theories have emerged more recently. Cholinesterase inhibitors are the major class of drugs currently used for the symptomatic treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. In the Alzheimer’s disease brain there is a deficit of acetylcholine and an impairment in signal transmission. Acetylcholinesterase has therefore been the main target as this is the main enzyme hydrolysing acetylcholine and ending neurotransmission. It is believed that by inhibiting acetylcholinesterase the cholinergic signalling can be enhanced and the cognitive symptoms that arise in Alzheimer’s disease can be improved. Butyrylcholinesterase, the second enzyme of the cholinesterase family, has more recently attracted interest among researchers. Its function is still not fully known, but it is believed to play a role in several diseases, one of them being Alzheimer’s disease. In this contribution the aim has primarily been to identify butyrylcholinesterase inhibitors to be used as drug molecules or molecular probes in the future. Both synthetic and natural compounds in diverse and targeted screening libraries have been used for this purpose. The active compounds have been further characterized regarding their potencies, cytotoxicity, and furthermore, in two of the publications, the inhibitors ability to also inhibit Aβ aggregation in an attempt to discover bifunctional compounds. Further, in silico methods were used to evaluate the binding position of the active compounds with the enzyme targets. Mostly to differentiate between the selectivity towards acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase, but also to assess the structural features required for enzyme inhibition. We also evaluated the compounds, active and non-active, in chemical space using the web-based tool ChemGPS-NP to try and determine the relevant chemical space occupied by cholinesterase inhibitors. In this study, we have succeeded in finding potent butyrylcholinesterase inhibitors with a diverse set of structures, nine chemical classes in total. In addition, some of the compounds are bifunctional as they also inhibit Aβ aggregation. The data gathered from all publications regarding the chemical space occupied by butyrylcholinesterase inhibitors we believe will give an insight into the chemically active space occupied by this type of inhibitors and will hopefully facilitate future screening and result in an even deeper knowledge of butyrylcholinesterase inhibitors.

Finnish SMEs and Russian Business Environment: Challenges and Support Activities

The purpose of this study is based on the need of finding what kind of problems Finnish SMEs face in Russian market and how they could be supported. Used support activities in certain levels of internationalization and internationalization patterns are evaluated, international experience of entrepreneur is compared to used support activities and the most challenging pillars in Russia from the Institutional Theory are defined. The empirical part of the study is a semi structured qualitative analysis of ten case companies that represent different industry fields. All of them are SMEs and they represent different levels of internationalization and internationalization patterns. The results of this study indicated that usefulness of support activities have to be evaluated case by case. All the companies are individual organizations and usefulness of support activities have to be evaluated according to the actual situation of the company. International experience of manager has effect on the use of support activities. SMEs identified many problems related to pillars of Institutional theory and regulative environment seems to be the most challenging one.

INFLUENCE OF PRECIPITATION AND SUGARCANE STRAW IN AMINOCYCLOPYRACHLOR AND INDAZIFLAM CONTROL EFFICIENCY

ABSTRACTThe raw sugarcane harvesting system has changed the dynamics of weed tillage for this crop, changing the predominant weed species and providing a barrier between the herbicide and the soil. Thus, this study has aimed to assess the influence of precipitation and sugarcane straw in the aminocyclopyrachlor and indaziflam herbicides control efficiency for the species Ipomoea trilobaand Euphorbia heterophylla. There were two trials, one for aminocyclopyrachlor and one for the indaziflam, both in the greenhouse at the campus of Faculdade Integrado in the Brazilian city of Campo Mourão, PR. Each experiment consisted of eight treatments with four replications. The treatments consisted of the combination of the presence of straw (10 t ha-1), capillary irrigation and rainfall simulation (20 mm). Assessments of control percentage of I.triloba and E.heterophylla were carried out, as well as the number of plants per pot. The aminocyclopyrachlor and indaziflam herbicides applied directly to the soil were efficient in controlling these species. The 20 mm rainfall simulation or daily irrigation on the straw are indispensable to promote the removal of aminocyclopyrachlor and indaziflam from the straw and provide satisfactory control of I.triloba and E.heterophylla.

Integrating CRIS and repository – an overview of the situation in Finland and in three other Nordic countries

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Entrepreneurship Education in Basic and Upper Secondary Education – Measurement and Empirical Evidence

The starting point of this study is to direct more attention to the teacher and those entrepreneurship education practices taking place in formal school to find out solutions for more effective promotion of entrepreneurship education. For this objective, the strategy-level aims of entrepreneurship education need to be operationalised into measurable and understandable teacher-level practices. Furthermore, to enable the effective development of entrepreneurship education in basic and upper secondary level education, more knowledge is needed of the state of affairs of entrepreneurship education in teaching. The purpose of the study is to increase the level of understanding of teachers’ entrepreneurship education practices, and through this to develop entrepreneurship education. This study builds on the literature on entrepreneurship education and especially those elements referring to the aims, resources, benefits, methods, and practises of entrepreneurship education. The study comprises five articles highlighting teachers’ role in entrepreneurship education. In the first article the concept of entrepreneurship and the teachers role in reflection upon his/hers approaches to entrepreneurship education are considered. The second article provides a detailed analysis of the process of developing a measurement tool to depict the teachers’ activities in entrepreneurship education. The next three articles highlight the teachers’ role in directing the entrepreneurship education in basic and upper secondary level education. Furthermore, they analyse the relationship between the entrepreneurship education practises and the teachers’ background characteristics. The results of the study suggest a wide range of conclusions and implications. First, in spite of many outspoken aims connected to entrepreneurship education, teachers have not set any aims for themselves. Additionally, aims and results seem to mix. However, it is possible to develop teachers’ target orientation by supporting their reflection skills, and through measurement and evaluation increase their understanding of their own practices. Second, applying a participatory action process it is possible to operationalise teachers’entrepreneurship education practices. It is central to include the practitioners’ perspective in the development of measures to make sure that the concepts and aims of entrepreneurship education are understood. Third, teachers’ demographic or tenure-related background characteristics do not affect their entrepreneurship education practices, but their training related to entrepreneurship education, participation in different school-level or regional planning, and their own capabilities support entrepreneurship education. Fourth, a large number of methods are applied to entrepreneurship education, and the most often used methods were different kinds of discussions, which seem to be an easy, low-threshold way for teachers to include entrepreneurship education regularly in their teaching. Field trips to business enterprises or inviting entrepreneurs to present their work in schools are used fairly seldom. Interestingly, visits outside the school are more common than visitors invited to the school. In line, most of the entrepreneurship education practices take place in a classroom. Therefore it seems to be useful to create and encourage teachers towards more in-depth cooperation with companies (e.g. via joint projects) and to network systematically. Finally, there are plenty of resources available for entrepreneurship education, such as ready-made materials, external stakeholders, support organisations, and learning games, but teachers have utilized them only marginally.

Potential and Challenges of Analog Reconfigurable Computation in Modern and Future CMOS

In this work, the feasibility of the floating-gate technology in analog computing platforms in a scaled down general-purpose CMOS technology is considered. When the technology is scaled down the performance of analog circuits tends to get worse because the process parameters are optimized for digital transistors and the scaling involves the reduction of supply voltages. Generally, the challenge in analog circuit design is that all salient design metrics such as power, area, bandwidth and accuracy are interrelated. Furthermore, poor flexibility, i.e. lack of reconfigurability, the reuse of IP etc., can be considered the most severe weakness of analog hardware. On this account, digital calibration schemes are often required for improved performance or yield enhancement, whereas high flexibility/reconfigurability can not be easily achieved. Here, it is discussed whether it is possible to work around these obstacles by using floating-gate transistors (FGTs), and analyze problems associated with the practical implementation. FGT technology is attractive because it is electrically programmable and also features a charge-based built-in non-volatile memory. Apart from being ideal for canceling the circuit non-idealities due to process variations, the FGTs can also be used as computational or adaptive elements in analog circuits. The nominal gate oxide thickness in the deep sub-micron (DSM) processes is too thin to support robust charge retention and consequently the FGT becomes leaky. In principle, non-leaky FGTs can be implemented in a scaled down process without any special masks by using “double”-oxide transistors intended for providing devices that operate with higher supply voltages than general purpose devices. However, in practice the technology scaling poses several challenges which are addressed in this thesis. To provide a sufficiently wide-ranging survey, six prototype chips with varying complexity were implemented in four different DSM process nodes and investigated from this perspective. The focus is on non-leaky FGTs, but the presented autozeroing floating-gate amplifier (AFGA) demonstrates that leaky FGTs may also find a use. The simplest test structures contain only a few transistors, whereas the most complex experimental chip is an implementation of a spiking neural network (SNN) which comprises thousands of active and passive devices. More precisely, it is a fully connected (256 FGT synapses) two-layer spiking neural network (SNN), where the adaptive properties of FGT are taken advantage of. A compact realization of Spike Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP) within the SNN is one of the key contributions of this thesis. Finally, the considerations in this thesis extend beyond CMOS to emerging nanodevices. To this end, one promising emerging nanoscale circuit element - memristor - is reviewed and its applicability for analog processing is considered. Furthermore, it is discussed how the FGT technology can be used to prototype computation paradigms compatible with these emerging two-terminal nanoscale devices in a mature and widely available CMOS technology.

The Brazilian investment in science and technology

An analysis of Brazilian federal expenditures in science and technology is presented is this study. The 1990-1999 data were compiled from records provided by two federal agencies (MCT and CNPq) responsible for managing most of the national budget related to these activities. The results indicate that the federal investments in Brazilian science and technology stagnated during the last decade (US$ 2.32 billion in 1990, US$ 2.39 billion in 1996, and US$ 2.36 billion in 1999). In contrast, a great increase in private investments in research was acknowledged both by industry and by the government during the same period, from US$ 2.12 to US$ 4.64 billion. However, this investment did not result in an increase in invention patents granted to residents (492 in 1990 and only 232 in 1997) or in a reduction of patent costs. Despite this unfavorable scenario, the number of graduate programs in the country has increased two-fold in the last decade and the contribution of Brazilians to the database of the Institute for Scientific Information has increased 4.7-fold from 1990 (2,725 scientific publications) to 2000 (12,686 scientific publications). Unstable federal resources for science, together with the poor returns of private resources in terms of developing new technologies, may jeopardize the future of Brazilian technological development.

Comparison of Pavlovian serial conditional discrimination in rats and hamsters in the same experimental situation

The present study compares behavioral changes between two distinct rodent groups, hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) and Wistar rats, when submitted in the same homogeneous experimental situations to a serial conditional discrimination procedure which involves water deprivation and the processing of temporal variables. Both hamsters and rats acquired serial positive conditional discrimination as indicated by higher frequencies of magazine-oriented behavior during the tone followed by reinforcement (T+) and preceded by the feature stimulus light (L) and during the empty interval, than during the tone alone not followed by reinforcement (T-). Rats' frequencies of magazine-oriented behavior were high during T+ and T-, initially during training, and decreased during T- as the training progressed. However, the hamsters' frequencies of magazine-oriented behavior started very low and increased only during T+ as the training progressed. Comparison of the frequencies of magazine-oriented behavior during the empty interval in relation to the frequencies during the preceding L period showed that rats' frequencies remained very high and hamsters' frequencies increased during training. These results suggest that rats and hamsters have different behavioral strategies for the acquisition of a conditional discrimination. The results of the comparisons made in these experiments support the view of the importance of an ecological psychology approach to the understanding of complex learning in animals.