Vaikuttavuusyhteiskunta : Sosiaalisten olojen arvostelusta vaikutusten todentamiseen

Evaluation practices have pervaded the Finnish society and welfare state. At the same time the term effectiveness has become a powerful organising concept in welfare state activities. The aim of the study is to analyse how the outcome-oriented society came into being through historical processes, to answer the question of how social policy and welfare state practices were brought under the governance of the concept of effectiveness . Discussions about social imagination, Michel Foucault s conceptions of the history of the present and of governmentality, genealogy and archaeology, along with Ian Hacking s notions of dynamic nominalism and styles of reasoning, are used as the conceptual and methodological starting points for the study. In addition, Luc Boltanski s and Laurent Thévenot s ideas of orders of worth , regimes of evaluation in everyday life, are employed. Usually, evaluation is conceptualised as an autonomous epistemic culture and practice (evaluation as epistemic practice), but evaluation is here understood as knowledge-creation processes elementary to different epistemic practices (evaluation in epistemic practices). The emergence of epistemic cultures and styles of reasoning about the effectiveness or impacts of welfare state activities are analysed through Finnish social policy and social work research. The study uses case studies which represent debates and empirical research dealing with the effectiveness and quality of social services and social work. While uncertainty and doubts over the effects and consequences of welfare policies have always been present in discourses about social policy, the theme has not been acknowledged much in social policy research. To resolve these uncertainties, eight styles of reasoning about such effects have emerged over time. These are the statistical, goal-based, needs-based, experimental, interaction-based, performance measurement, auditing and evidence-based styles of reasoning. Social policy research has contributed in various ways to the creation of these epistemic practices. The transformation of the welfare state, starting at the end of 1980s, increased market-orientation and trimmed public welfare responsibilities, and led to the adoption of the New Public Management (NPM) style of leadership. Due to these developments the concept of effectiveness made a breakthrough, and new accountabilities with their knowledge tools for performance measurement and auditing and evidence-based styles of reasoning became more dominant in the ruling of the welfare state. Social sciences and evaluation have developed a heteronomous relation with each other, although there still remain divergent tendencies between them. Key words: evaluation, effectiveness, social policy, welfare state, public services, sociology of knowledge

Carbon dynamics in peatlands under changing hydrology : Effects of water level drawdown on litter quality, microbial enzyme activities and litter decomposition rates

Pristine peatlands are carbon (C) accumulating wetland ecosystems sustained by a high water level (WL) and consequent anoxia that slows down decomposition. Persistent WL drawdown as a response to climate and/or land-use change directly affects decomposition: increased oxygenation stimulates decomposition of the old C (peat) sequestered under prior anoxic conditions. Responses of the new C (plant litter) in terms of quality, production and decomposability, and the consequences for the whole C cycle of peatlands are not fully understood. WL drawdown induces changes in plant community resulting in shift in dominance from Sphagnum and graminoids to shrubs and trees. There is increasing evidence that the indirect effects of WL drawdown via the changes in plant communities will have more impact on the ecosystem C cycling than any direct effects. The aim of this study is to disentangle the direct and indirect effects of WL drawdown on the new C by measuring the relative importance of 1) environmental parameters (WL depth, temperature, soil chemistry) and 2) plant community composition on litter production, microbial activity, litter decomposition rates and, consequently, on the C accumulation. This information is crucial for modelling C cycle under changing climate and/or land-use. The effects of WL drawdown were tested in a large-scale experiment with manipulated WL at two time scales and three nutrient regimes. Furthermore, the effect of climate on litter decomposability was tested along a north-south gradient. Additionally, a novel method for estimating litter chemical quality and decomposability was explored by combining Near infrared spectroscopy with multivariate modelling. WL drawdown had direct effects on litter quality, microbial community composition and activity and litter decomposition rates. However, the direct effects of WL drawdown were overruled by the indirect effects via changes in litter type composition and production. Short-term (years) responses to WL drawdown were small. In long-term (decades), dramatically increased litter inputs resulted in large accumulation of organic matter in spite of increased decomposition rates. Further, the quality of the accumulated matter greatly changed from that accumulated in pristine conditions. The response of a peatland ecosystem to persistent WL drawdown was more pronounced at sites with more nutrients. The study demonstrates that the shift in vegetation composition as a response to climate and/or land-use change is the main factor affecting peatland ecosystem C cycle and thus dynamic vegetation is a necessity in any models applied for estimating responses of C fluxes to changes in the environment. The time scale for vegetation changes caused by hydrological changes needs to extend to decades. This study provides grouping of litter types (plant species and part) into functional types based on their chemical quality and/or decomposability that the models could utilize. Further, the results clearly show a drop in soil temperature as a response to WL drawdown when an initially open peatland converts into a forest ecosystem, which has not yet been considered in the existing models.

Free convection heat transfer from vertical cylinders part I: Power law surface temperature variation

This paper reports on the investigations of laminar free convection heat transfer from vertical cylinders and wires whose surface temperature varies along the height according to the relation TW - T∞ = Nxn. The set of boundary layer partial differential equations and the boundary conditions are transformed to a more amenable form and solved by the process of successive substitution. Numerical solutions of the first approximated equations (two-point nonlinear boundary value type of ordinary differential equations) bring about the major contribution to the problem (about 95%), as seen from the solutions of higher approximations. The results reduce to those for the isothermal case when n=0. Criteria for classifying the cylinders into three broad categories, viz., short cylinders, long cylinders and wires, have been developed. For all values of n the same criteria hold. Heat transfer correlations obtained for short cylinders (which coincide with those of flat plates) are checked with those available in the literature. Heat transfer and fluid flow correlations are developed for all the regimes.

Rough Justice or Zero Tolerance? - Reassessing the Nature of Copyright in Light of Collective Licensing (Part I)

Starting point in the European individualistic copyright ideology is that an individual author creates a work and controls the use of it. However, this paper argues that it is (and has always been) impossible to control the use of works after their publication. This has also been acknowledged by the legislator, who has introduced collective licensing agreements because of this impossibility. Since it is impossible to rigorously control the use of works this writing "Rough Justice or Zero Tolerance - Reassessing the Nature of Copyright in Light of Collective Licensing" examines what reality of copyright is actually about. Finding alternative (and hopefully more "true") ways to understand copyright helps us to create alternative solutions in order to solve possible problems we have as it comes e.g. to use of content in online environment. The paper makes a claim that copyright is actually about defining negotiation points for different stakeholders and that nothing in the copyright reality prevents us from defining e.g. a new negotiation point where representatives of consumers would meet representatives of right holders in order to agree on the terms of use for certain content types in online environment.

Somali State Failure: Players, Incentives and Institutions

In Somalia the central government collapsed in 1991 and since then state failure became a widespread phenomenon and one of the greatest political and humanitarian problems facing the world in this century. Thus, the main objective of this research is to answer the following question: What went wrong? Most of the existing literature on the political economy of conflict starts from the assumption that state in Africa is predatory by nature. Unlike these studies, the present research, although it uses predation theory, starts from the social contract approach of state definition. Therefore, rather than contemplating actions and policies of the rulers alone, this approach allows us to deliberately bring the role of the society – as citizens – and other players into the analyses. In Chapter 1, after introducing the study, a simple principal-agent model will be developed to check the logical consistence of the argument and to make the identification of causal mechanism easier. I also identify three main actors in the process of state failure in Somalia: the Somali state, Somali society and the superpowers. In Chapter 2, so as to understand the incentives, preferences and constraints of each player in the state failure game, I in some depth analyse the evolution and structure of three central informal institutions: identity based patronage system of leadership, political tribalism, and the Cold War. These three institutions are considered as the rules of the game in the Somali state failure. Chapter 3 summarises the successive civilian governments’ achievements and failures (1960-69) concerning the main national goals, national unification and socio-economic development. Chapter 4 shows that the military regime, although it assumed power through extralegal means, served to some extent the developmental interest of the citizens in the first five years of its rule. Chapter 5 shows the process, and the factors involved, of the military regime’s self-transformation from being an agent for the developmental interests of the society to a predatory state that not only undermines the interests of the society but that also destroys the state itself. Chapter 6 addresses the process of disintegration of the post-colonial state of Somalia. The chapter shows how the regime’s merciless reactions to political ventures by power-seeking opposition leaders shattered the entire country and wrecked the state institutions. Chapter 7 concludes the study by summarising the main findings: due to the incentive structures generated by the informal institutions, the formal state institutions fell apart.

Essays on Risk Modeling. Applications to Portfolio and Risk Management (summary section only)

In this thesis we deal with the concept of risk. The objective is to bring together and conclude on some normative information regarding quantitative portfolio management and risk assessment. The first essay concentrates on return dependency. We propose an algorithm for classifying markets into rising and falling. Given the algorithm, we derive a statistic: the Trend Switch Probability, for detection of long-term return dependency in the first moment. The empirical results suggest that the Trend Switch Probability is robust over various volatility specifications. The serial dependency in bear and bull markets behaves however differently. It is strongly positive in rising market whereas in bear markets it is closer to a random walk. Realized volatility, a technique for estimating volatility from high frequency data, is investigated in essays two and three. In the second essay we find, when measuring realized variance on a set of German stocks, that the second moment dependency structure is highly unstable and changes randomly. Results also suggest that volatility is non-stationary from time to time. In the third essay we examine the impact from market microstructure on the error between estimated realized volatility and the volatility of the underlying process. With simulation-based techniques we show that autocorrelation in returns leads to biased variance estimates and that lower sampling frequency and non-constant volatility increases the error variation between the estimated variance and the variance of the underlying process. From these essays we can conclude that volatility is not easily estimated, even from high frequency data. It is neither very well behaved in terms of stability nor dependency over time. Based on these observations, we would recommend the use of simple, transparent methods that are likely to be more robust over differing volatility regimes than models with a complex parameter universe. In analyzing long-term return dependency in the first moment we find that the Trend Switch Probability is a robust estimator. This is an interesting area for further research, with important implications for active asset allocation.

Plastic response of orthotropic spherical shells under blast loading

The plastic response of a segment of a simply supported orthotropic spherical shell under a uniform blast loading applied on the convex surface of the shell is presented. The blast is assumed to impart a uniform velocity to the shell surface initially. The material of the shell is orthotropic obeying a modified Tresca yield hypersurface conditions and the associated flow rules. The deformation of the shell is determined during all phases of its motion by considering the motion of plastic hinges in different regimes of flow. Numerical results presented include the permanent deformed configuration of the shell and the total time of shell response for different degrees of orthotropy. Conclusions regarding the plastic behaviour of spherical shells with circumferential and meridional stiffening under uniform blast load are presented.

Enhancement of workability in AZ31 alloy-processing maps: Part I,castmaterial

Processing maps developed on the basis of the Dynamic Materials Model provide valuable information that might help the metal working industry in solving problems related to workability and microstructural control in commercial alloys. In this research, the processing maps for an as-cast AZ31 magnesium alloy are presented. The results are validated via microstructural observations, clearly delineating safe and unsafe regimes for further process design of this alloy.

Structure and dynamics of benzene in one-dimensional channels

Molecular dynamics investigation of benzene in one-dimensional channel systems A1PO(4)-5, VPI-5, and carbon nanotube is reported. The results suggest that, in all the three host systems, the plane of benzene is almost perpendicular to the channel axis when the molecule is near the center of the channel and the plane of benzene is parallel to the channel axis when the molecule is near the wall of the channel. The density distribution of benzene as a function of channel length, z and the radial distance, r, from the channel axis is also different in the three host structures. Anisotropy in translational diffusion coefficient, calculated in body-fixed frame of benzene, suggests that benzene prefers to move with its plane parallel to the direction of motion in A1PO(4)-5 and VPI-5 whereas in carbon nanotube the motion occurs predominantly with the plane of the benzene perpendicular to the direction of motion.;Anisotropy associated with the rotational motion is seen to alter significantly in confinement as compared to liquid benzene. In A1PO(4)-5, the rotational anisotropy is reversed as compared to liquid benzene thereby suggesting that anisotropy arising out of molecular geometry can be reduced. Reorientational correlation times for C-6 and C-2 axes Of benzene are reported. Apart from the inertial decay of reorientational correlation function due to free, rotation, two other distinct regimes of decay are observed in narrower channels (AIPO(4)-5 and carbon nanotube): (i) an initial fast decay (0.5-2 ps) and (ii) a slower decay (>2 ps) of reorientational correlation function where C-6 decays slower than C-2 Similar to what is observed in liquid benzene. In the initial fast decay, it is seen that the decay for C-6 is faster than C-2 which is in contrast to what is observed in liquid benzene or for benzene confined in VPI-5.

Effect of natural ventilation on the boundary layer separation and near-wake vortex shedding characteristics of a sphere

Experiments were conducted in water and wind tunnels on spheres in the Reynolds number range 6 x 10(3) to 6.5 x 10(5) to study the effect of natural ventilation on the boundary layer separation and near-wake Vortex shedding characteristics. In the subcritical range of Re (<2 x 10(5)), ventilation caused a marginal downstream shift in the location of laminar boundary layer separation; there was only a small change in the vortex shedding frequency. In the supercritical range (Re > 4 x 10(5)), ventilation caused a downstream shift in the mean locations of boundary layer separation and reattachment; these lines showed significant axisymmetry in the presence of venting. No distinct vortex shedding frequency was found. Instead, a dramatic reduction occurred in the wake unsteadiness at all frequencies. The reduction of wake unsteadiness is consistent with the reduction in total drag already reported. Based on the present results and those reported earlier, the effects of natural ventilation on the flow past a sphere can be categorized in two broad regimes, viz., weak and strong interaction regimes. In the weak interaction regime (subcritical Re), the broad features of the basic sphere are largely unaltered despite the large addition of mass in the near wake. Strong interaction is promoted by the closer proximity of the inner and outer shear layers at supercritical Re. This results in a modified and steady near-wake flow, characterized by reduced unsteadiness and small drag.

Constraining uncertainty in regional hydrologic impacts of climate change: Nonstationarity in downscaling

Regional impacts of climate change remain subject to large uncertainties accumulating from various sources, including those due to choice of general circulation models (GCMs), scenarios, and downscaling methods. Objective constraints to reduce the uncertainty in regional predictions have proven elusive. In most studies to date the nature of the downscaling relationship (DSR) used for such regional predictions has been assumed to remain unchanged in a future climate. However,studies have shown that climate change may manifest in terms of changes in frequencies of occurrence of the leading modes of variability, and hence, stationarity of DSRs is not really a valid assumption in regional climate impact assessment. This work presents an uncertainty modeling framework where, in addition to GCM and scenario uncertainty, uncertainty in the nature of the DSR is explored by linking downscaling with changes in frequencies of such modes of natural variability. Future projections of the regional hydrologic variable obtained by training a conditional random field (CRF) model on each natural cluster are combined using the weighted Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory of evidence combination. Each projection is weighted with the future projected frequency of occurrence of that cluster (''cluster linking'') and scaled by the GCM performance with respect to the associated cluster for the present period (''frequency scaling''). The D-S theory was chosen for its ability to express beliefs in some hypotheses, describe uncertainty and ignorance in the system, and give a quantitative measurement of belief and plausibility in results. The methodology is tested for predicting monsoon streamflow of the Mahanadi River at Hirakud Reservoir in Orissa, India. The results show an increasing probability of extreme, severe, and moderate droughts due to limate change. Significantly improved agreement between GCM predictions owing to cluster linking and frequency scaling is seen, suggesting that by linking regional impacts to natural regime frequencies, uncertainty in regional predictions can be realistically quantified. Additionally, by using a measure of GCM performance in simulating natural regimes, this uncertainty can be effectively constrained.

Darcian mixed convection plumes along vertical adiabatic surfaces in a saturated porous medium

The mixed convection flow due to a line thermal source embedded at the leading edge of an adiabatic vertical plane surface immersed in a saturated porous medium has been studied. Both weakly and strongly buoyant plume regimes have been considered. The cases of buoyancy assisting and buoyancy opposing flow conditions have been incorporated in the analysis. The results are presented for the entire range of buoyancy parameter from the pure forced convection (xgr=0) to the pure free convection (xgr rarr infin@#@) regimes. For buoyancy-assisting flow, the wall temperature and the velocity at the wall increase as the plume strength increases. However, they all decrease as the free-stream velocity increases. For buoyancyopposing flow, the temperature at the wall increases as the strength of the plume increases but velocity at the wall decreases.

High temperature deformation processing maps for boron modified Ti-6Al-4V alloys

The alloy, Ti-6Al-4V is an alpha + beta Ti alloy that has large prior beta grain size (similar to 2 mm) in the as cast state. Minor addition of B (about 0.1 wt.%) to it refines the grain size significantly as well as produces in-situ TiB needles. The role played by these microstructural modifications on high temperature deformation processing maps of B-modified Ti64 alloys is examined in this paper.Power dissipation efficiency and instability maps have been generated within the temperature range of 750-1000 degrees C and strain rate range of 10(-3)-10(+1) s(-1). Various deformation mechanisms, which operate in different temperature-strain rate regimes, were identified with the aid of the maps and complementary microstructural analysis of the deformed specimens. Results indicate four distinct deformation domains within the range of experimental conditions examined, with the combination of 900-1000 degrees C and 10(-3)-10(-2) s(-1) being the optimum for hot working. In that zone, dynamic globularization of alpha laths is the principle deformation mechanism. The marked reduction in the prior beta grain size, achieved with the addition of B, does not appear to alter this domain markedly. The other domains, with negative values of instability parameter, show undesirable microstructural features such as extensive kinking/bending of alpha laths and breaking of beta laths for Ti64-0.0B as well as generation of voids and cracks in the matrix and TiB needles in the B-modified alloys. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Generalized asymptotic expansions for coupled wavenumbers in fluid-filled cylindrical shells

Analytical expressions are found for the coupled wavenumbers in an infinite fluid-filled cylindrical shell using the asymptotic methods. These expressions are valid for any general circumferential order (n).The shallow shell theory (which is more accurate at higher frequencies)is used to model the cylinder. Initially, the in vacua shell is dealt with and asymptotic expressions are derived for the shell wavenumbers in the high-and the low-frequency regimes. Next, the fluid-filled shell is considered. Defining a relevant fluid-loading parameter p, we find solutions for the limiting cases of small and large p. Wherever relevant, a frequency scaling parameter along with some ingenuity is used to arrive at an elegant asymptotic expression. In all cases.Poisson's ratio v is used as an expansion variable. The asymptotic results are compared with numerical solutions of the dispersion equation and the dispersion relation obtained by using the more general Donnell-Mushtari shell theory (in vacuo and fluid-filled). A good match is obtained. Hence, the contribution of this work lies in the extension of the existing literature to include arbitrary circumferential orders(n). (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Active and break spells of the Indian summer monsoon

In this paper, we suggest criteria for the identification of active and break events of the Indian summer monsoon on the basis of recently derived high resolution daily gridded rainfall dataset over India (1951-2007). Active and break events are defined as periods during the peak monsoon months of July and August, in which the normalized anomaly of the rainfall over a critical area, called the monsoon core zone exceeds 1 or is less than -1.0 respectively, provided the criterion is satisfied for at least three consecutive days. We elucidate the major features of these events. We consider very briefly the relationship of the intraseasonal fluctuations between these events and the interannual variation of the summer monsoon rainfall. We find that breaks tend to have a longer life-span than active spells.While, almost 80% of the active spells lasted 3-4 days, only 40% of the break spells were of such short duration. A small fraction (9%) of active spells and 32% of break spells lasted for a week or longer. While active events occurred almost every year, not a single break occurred in 26% of the years considered. On an average, there are 7 days of active and break events from July through August. There are no significant trends in either the days of active or break events. We have shown that there is a major difference between weak spells and long intense breaks. While weak spells are characterized by weak moist convective regimes, long intense break events have a heat trough type circulation which is similar to the circulation over the Indian subcontinent before the onset of the monsoon. The space-time evolution of the rainfall composite patterns suggests that the revival from breaks occurs primarily from northward propagations of the convective cloud zone. There are important differences between the spatial patterns of the active/break spells and those characteristic of interannual variation, particularly those associated with the link to ENSO. Hence, the interannual variation of the Indian monsoon cannot be considered as primarily arising from the interannual variation of intraseasonal variation. However, the signature over the eastern equatorial Indian Ocean on intraseasonal time scales is similar to that on the interannual time scales.