Aspects of Inflationary Models at Low Energy Scales

Cosmological inflation is the dominant paradigm in explaining the origin of structure in the universe. According to the inflationary scenario, there has been a period of nearly exponential expansion in the very early universe, long before the nucleosynthesis. Inflation is commonly considered as a consequence of some scalar field or fields whose energy density starts to dominate the universe. The inflationary expansion converts the quantum fluctuations of the fields into classical perturbations on superhorizon scales and these primordial perturbations are the seeds of the structure in the universe. Moreover, inflation also naturally explains the high degree of homogeneity and spatial flatness of the early universe. The real challenge of the inflationary cosmology lies in trying to establish a connection between the fields driving inflation and theories of particle physics. In this thesis we concentrate on inflationary models at scales well below the Planck scale. The low scale allows us to seek for candidates for the inflationary matter within extensions of the Standard Model but typically also implies fine-tuning problems. We discuss a low scale model where inflation is driven by a flat direction of the Minimally Supersymmetric Standard Model. The relation between the potential along the flat direction and the underlying supergravity model is studied. The low inflationary scale requires an extremely flat potential but we find that in this particular model the associated fine-tuning problems can be solved in a rather natural fashion in a class of supergravity models. For this class of models, the flatness is a consequence of the structure of the supergravity model and is insensitive to the vacuum expectation values of the fields that break supersymmetry. Another low scale model considered in the thesis is the curvaton scenario where the primordial perturbations originate from quantum fluctuations of a curvaton field, which is different from the fields driving inflation. The curvaton gives a negligible contribution to the total energy density during inflation but its perturbations become significant in the post-inflationary epoch. The separation between the fields driving inflation and the fields giving rise to primordial perturbations opens up new possibilities to lower the inflationary scale without introducing fine-tuning problems. The curvaton model typically gives rise to relatively large level of non-gaussian features in the statistics of primordial perturbations. We find that the level of non-gaussian effects is heavily dependent on the form of the curvaton potential. Future observations that provide more accurate information of the non-gaussian statistics can therefore place constraining bounds on the curvaton interactions.

Pengarna eller livet? : En kvalitativ och longitudinell studie om långtidsarbetslösa unga i ett aktörsperspektiv

Your money or your life? A qualitative follow-up study of the young unemployed from an actor perspective is a qualitative and longitudinal study following 36 unemployed young people in Helsinki over a span of ten years. The purpose of the study is to shed light on how a few young people view employment/unemployment and their lives and future, how they as unemployed perceive their encounters with society, and how society supports them. Four so-called key informants were followed at a finer level of empirical detail. They were chosen for the thematic interviews because of their different personalities, starting points and preferences. Although some differences were expected, what the results show is quite striking. The individual stories raise a number of questions about differences between young people, about society s view of the young unemployed, and about the principles behind the so-called activation policy and how society s support is distributed. The key informants descriptions underline that the group young unemployed does not consist of individuals who are alike but that life is complex, that paid work and unemployment can be perceived very differently, and that background and unofficial support can have consequences for self-perception and for ways of looking at the future, vocational choices, paid work and activation policy. Margaret S. Archer s theory of Morphogenesis and Barbara Cruikshank s theory of constructing democracies compose the study s theoretical framework. The key informants stories give a picture of a formal support system that, even though it puts part of the responsibility for unemployment on the individuals themselves, in the name of fairness and equality, treats them in an impersonal way, not giving their personal situation and wishes much weight. As a consequence, those who share the dominant values of society do well, while others who do not are faced with difficulties. The bigger the gap between society s and the individual s values, the bigger the risk to be met by little understanding and by penalties. And vice versa: Those who initially have the right values and know how to deal with authorities get heard and their opinions get accepted. The informants ask for a more personal encounter, which could improve both the atmosphere and the clients experiences of being heard. Still the risk of having a more individualistic system should be addressed, as a new system might generate new winners, but just as well give new losers. Finally, we have to ask if the so-called activation policy is looking for answers primarily to a macro-level problem on the micro-level. If it does not produce more jobs, its support for the unemployed will be insignificant. It is not enough to think about what to do at the grassroots level to make the system more functional and support job-seeking. If the current rate of unemployment endures, the quality of life of the unemployed should be addressed. A first step could be taken by placing less guilt on the unemployed. Instead of talking about activating the unemployed, discussion should be targeted at removing structural impediments to employment. If we want to have less polarisation between the those with paid work and those without, who often struggle with low incomes, we need to include the macro-level in the discussion. What does high unemployment mean in a work-based society, where the individual s self-perception and important social forms of support are linked to labour income? And what can be done at the macro-level to change this undesirable condition at the micro-level? Keywords: Unemployment, Youth, Public interventions, Activation policy, Individual actors, Qualitative, Longitudinal, Holistic, Helsinki, Finland

Lähellä, mutta niin kaukana : Tutkimus naisten muuttoliikkeestä Suomen ja uudelleen itsenäistyneen Viron välillä

Immigration is one of the most topical international issues of our time. Worldwide, the number of immigrants has doubled over the last twenty years, and migration patterns have become so diversified that they now constitute a kind of “chaos”. The number and significance of women as migrants has also increased, which is earning women growing attention among scholars. This study looks at the migration of women, in particular mothers of small children, in both directions between Finland and Estonia, following the latter’s re- independence. The data consists of in-depth interviews conducted in 2005 with 24 Finnish and 24 Estonian immigrant women. The focus was on the women’s expectations and experiences of their new country of residence, acculturation – i.e. adjusting to a new environment, social networks in the country of origin and the new country, and models of motherhood following immigration. The primary research question was formulated as follows: Which factors have influenced the formation of female immigrants’ social ties, thus contributing to the formation of motherhood strategies and afecting internal family dynamics in the new country? The research consists of four previously published independent articles as well as a summary chapter. The study’s findings indicate that Finnish and Estonian women migrated for diferent reasons and at diferent times, and that their migration patterns also difered. Estonian migration occurred mainly in the 1990s, and most immigrants intended to return later to their country of origin. Regardless of the reason for migrating that they gave to immigration officials, other key reasons often included the desire for a more stable living environment and better income. Only four of the Estonian women had immigrated together with an Estonian husband, while two- thirds came because of marriage to a Finnish man. Most of the Finnish women, on the other hand, migrated after 2000 and either came with their family as a result of a spouse’s job transfer, or came by themselves to further their studies. In most cases, the migration was a temporary solution intended to promote one’s own or one’s spouse’s career advancement. Because the reasons for migrating were diferent between Finnish and Estonian women, their expectations of the new country and their status in it were also diferent. In terms of both social and economic standing, the position of Finnish immigrants was categorically better. The reason for migrating had an impact on one’s orientation toward the receiving society. Estonian women and Finns who migrated for marriage or edu cational reasons became immediately active in forming institutional and social ties in the new society. Conversely, the women had migrated because of work had little contact with Estonian society, and their social networks consisted of other Finnish immigrants. Furthermore, they maintained strong institutional and social ties to Finland and therefore felt no need to anchor themselves to Estonian society. The Finnish and Estonian women who were better integrated into the receiving country also maintained strong social ties to their country of origin. Women who became integrated into the receiving country as a result of giving birth to children utilized various services directed at families with children. In part, such services conveyed to the women the conceptions that were prevalent in the surrounding society concerning the treatment of children and the expectations on mothers, both of which difer to some extent in Finland and Estonia. had an impact on strategies of motherhood, internal family dynamics, and gender Regardless of the reason for migrating, or the country of origin, immigration equality. Most Estonian women had to do without the child-care help provided by relatives; before immigrating, some women had even had daily child-care assistance from family members. However, Estonian women who were married to Finns did receive help from the spouse and sometimes also the spouse’s relatives. Conversely, Finnish women who had immigrated because of a spouse’s job transfer were faced with the opposite situation, in which they bore the main responsibility for domestic work and child care. They were, however, in a position to pay for domestic help. Hence, the women who had integrated into a new society had to construct their own perceptions of motherhood by reconciling the motherhood models of both the cause of a spouse’s job transfer found that being a stay-at-home mother challenged previously self-evident behaviors. Receiving country and the country of origin, whereas women who had migrated because of a spouse’s job transfer found that being a stay-at-home mother challenged previously self-evident behaviors.

Pelon ja toivon välissä : Pätkätyöläisen urakerronta

This study analyzes the forming of the occupational identity of the well-educated fixed-term employees. Fixed-term employment contracts amongst the well-educated labour force are exceptionally common in Finland as compared to other European countries. Two groups of modern fixed-term employees are distinguished. The first comprises well-educated women employed in the public sector whose fixed-term employment often consists of successive periods as temporary substitutes. The other group comprises well-educated, upper white-collar men aged over 40, whose fixed-term employment careers often consist of jobs of project nature or posts that are filled for a fixed period only. Method of the study For the empirical data I interviewed 35 persons (26 women and 9 men) in 33 interviews, one of which was conducted by e-mail and one was a group interview. All the interviews were electronically recorded and coded. All the interviewees have two things in common: fixed-term employment and formal high education. Thirteen (13) of them are researchers, four nurses, four midwives, four journalists, and ten project experts. I used the snowball method to get in touch the interviewees. The first interviewees were those who were recommended by the trade unions and by my personal acquaintances. These interviewees, in turn, recommended other potential interviewees. In addition, announcements on the internet pages of the trade unions were used to reach other interviewees. In analysing process I read the research material several times to find the turning points in the narrative the interviewees told. I also searched for the most meaningful stories told and the meaning the interviewees gave to these stories and to the whole narrative. In addition to that I paid attention to co-production of the narrative with the interviewees and analyzed the narrative as performance to be able to search for the preferred identities the interviewees perform. (Riesman 2001, 698-701). I do not pay much attention to the question of truth of a narrative in the sense of its correspondence with facts; rather I think a working life narrative has two tasks: On the one hand one has to tell the facts and on the other hand, he/she has to describe the meaning of these facts to herself/himself. To emphasize the double nature of the narrative about one’s working life I analyzed the empirical data both by categorizing it according to the cultural models of storytelling (heroic story, comedy, irony and tragedy) and by studying the themes most of the interviewees talked about. Ethics of the study I chose to use narrative within qualitative interviews on the grounds that in my opinion is more ethical and more empowering than the more traditional structured interview methods. During the research process I carefully followed the ethical rules of a qualitative research. The purpose of the interviews and the research was told to the interviewees by giving them a written description of the study. Oral permission to use the interview in this research was obtained from the interviewees. The names and places, which are mentioned in the study, are changed to conceal the actual identity of the interviewees. I shared the analysis with the interviewees by sending each of them the first analysis of their personal interview. This way I asked them to make sure that the identity was hidden well enough and hoped to give interviewees a chance to look at their narratives, to instigate new actions and sustain the present one (Smith 2001, 721). Also I hoped to enjoy a new possibility of joint authorship. Main results As a result of the study I introduce six models of telling a story. The four typical western cultural models that guide the telling are: heroic story, comedy, tragedy and satirical story (Hänninen 1999). In addition to these models I found two ways of telling a career filled with fixed-term employments that differ significantly from traditional career story telling. However, the story models in which the interviewees pour their experience locates the fixed term employers work career in an imagined life trajectory and reveals the meaning they give to it. I analyze the many sided heroic story that Liisa tells as an example of the strength of the fear of failing or losing the job the fixed term employee feels. By this structure it is also possible to show that success is felt to be entirely a matter of chance. Tragedy, the failure in one’s trial to get something, is a model I introduce with the help of Vilppu’s story. This narrative gets its meaning both from the sorrow of the failure in the past and the rise of something new the teller has found. Aino tells her story as a comedy. By introducing her narrative, I suggest that the purpose of the comedy, a stronger social consensus, gets deeper and darker shade by fixed-term employment: one who works as a fixed term employee has to take his/her place in his/her work community by him/herself without the support the community gives to those in permanent position. By studying the satiric model Rauno uses, I argue that using irony both turns the power structures to a carnival and builds free space to the teller of the story and to the listener. Irony also helps in building a consensus, mutual understanding, between the teller and the listener and it shows the distance the teller tells to exist between him and others. Irony, however, demands some kind of success in one’s occupational career but also at least a minor disappointment in the progress of it. Helmi tells her story merely as a detective story. By introducing Helmi’s narrative, I argue that this story model strengthens the trust in fairness of the society the teller and the listener share. The analysis also emphasizes the central position of identity work, which is caused by fixed-term employment. Most of the interviewees talked about getting along in working life. I introduced Sari’s narrative as an example of this. In both of these latter narratives one’s personal character and habits are lifted as permanent parts of the actual professional expertise, which in turn varies according to different situations. By introducing these models, I reveal that the fixed-term employees have different strategies to cope with their job situations and these strategies vary according to their personal motives and situations and the actual purpose of the interview. However, I argue that they feel the space between their hopes and fears narrow and unsecure. In the research report I also introduce pieces of the stories – themes – that the interviewees use to build these survival strategies. They use their personal curriculum vitae or portfolio, their position in work community and their work morals to build their professional identity. Professional identity is flexible and varies in time and place, but even then it offers a tool to fix one’s identity work into something. It offers a viewpoint to society and a tool to measure one’s position in surrounding social nets. As one result of the study I analyze the position the fixed-term employees share on the edge of their job communities. I summarize the hopes and fears the interviewees have concerning employers, trade unions, educational institutions and the whole society. In their opinion, the solidarity between people has been weakened by the short-sighted power of the economy. The impact the fixed-term employment has on one’s professional identity and social capital is a many-sided and versatile process. Fixed-term employment both strengthens and weakens the professional identity, social capital and the building of trust. Fixed-term employment also affects one’s day-to-day life by excluding her/him from the norm and by one’s difficulty in making long-term plans (Jokinen 2005). Regardless of the nature of the job contract, the workers themselves are experts in making the best of their sometimes less than satisfying work life and they also build their professional identity by using creatively their education, work experiences and interpersonal relations. However, a long career of short fixed-term employments may seriously change the perception of employee about his/her role. He/she may start concentrating only in coping in his/her unsatisfactory situation and leaves the active improvement of the lousy working conditions to other people. Keywords: narrative, fixed-tem employment, occupational identity, work, story model, social capital, career  

Sinusta kiinni : Tutkimus puolisohoivan arjen toimijuuksista

Depending on you – A study of spousal care, everyday life and agency The present aim of the aging policy is to promote old peoples´ possibilities to live at their own home. It is also many elderly couples´ own wish. At home a persons spouse is the most natural care giver, if she or he is able to give care. Spousal care means living together, giving and receiving care and interdependency between the spouses. The aim of the policy is to support spousal care by paying financial support to a carer and arrang-ing formal home care services. The purpose of this research is to study the agency of care giving and receiving spouses as care givers and receivers and also as home care service users. The data of the study consist of the interviews of 21 elderly couples. Both spouses were interviewed seper-ately, with the exception of five couples who were interviewed together. In these inter-views a care receiver had difficulties in communicating by speaking and a spouse was her or his interpreter. The study is based on a social constructionistic and a discourse analytical view of con-struction of meanings in human communication. Talking is a social action: people achieve identities, realities, social order and social relationship through talking. In inter-pretating the spouses agency I have used of Harvey Sack´s method of Membership Categorization Device (MCD). The spouses construct social categories which made the meaning of their agency visible. Care changes the routines and actions of everyday life. The couples have to negotiate their duties and rights between each other. Care giving and receiving are both physical and emotional actions. In the end it becomes a part of the couples´ normal life. The pur-pose of couples´ action is to live together as long as possible. They want to strengthen both their own agency and their spouses´ agency. The living together depends on both of them. The spouses decided together what home care services they would like to use and on which conditions they have to use services. Spouses have different kind of agencies as service users which describe their relationship and confidency on formal home care support and services. Services must support the elderly couples´ shared life at home. They cannot be against the conditions on the spousal care. When you want to arrange services to elderly care giving and receiving couples, you have to consider their own wishes and the meanings of their own relationship and shared life.

Asiakassuunnitelma asiakaslähtöistä auttamista tavoitteellistamassa : Kohteen rakentumisen moniääninen menetelmä

The research focuses on client plan in the field of health care and social work on families with children. The purpose of the plan is to create objectives for helping the client and to assist in coordinating the ever-increasing multi-professional work. In general, the plan is understood in terms of assignments and as a contract specifying what to do in client cases. Taking this into consideration, the plan is outsourced into a written document. Instead of understanding the plan as a tool that stabilizes the objectives of action, documents it and facilitates evaluation, the client plan is conceptualized in this study as a practice. This kind of practice mediates client work as being itself also a process of action that focuses on an object whose gradual emergence and definition is the central question in multi-professional collaboration with a client. The plan is examined empirically in a non-stabilized state which leads to the research methodology being based on the dynamics between stabilization and emerging, non-stabilized entities the co-creation and formulation of practice and context. The theoretical approach of the research is the micro analytic approach of activity theory (Engeström R. 1999b). Grounding on this, the research develops a method of qualitative analysis which follows an emerging object with multiple voices. The research data is composed of the videotaped sessions from client meetings with three families, the interviews with the client and the workers as well as client documents that are used to follow up on client processes for at least one year. The research questions are as follows: 1) How is the client plan constructed between the client and different professional agents? 2) How are meanings constructed in a client-centred plan? 3) What are the elements of client-employee relationships that support the co-configuration necessitated by the changes in the client s everyday life? The study shows that the setting of objectives were limited by the palette of institutional services, which caused that the clients interpretations and acts of giving meaning to the kinds of help that was required were left out of the plan. Conceptually, the distinctions between client-centred and client-specific ways of working as well as an action-based working method are addressed. Central to this action-based approach is construing the everyday life of the client, recognizing different meanings and analyzing them together with the client as well as focusing attention on developing the prerequisites for social agency of the clients. The research portrays the elements for creating an action-based client plan. Key words: client plan, user perspective, multi-voiced meaning, multi-professional social work with children and families, agency

Conformal Field Theory Methods for Variants of Schramm-Loewner Evolutions

This thesis consists of an introduction, four research articles and an appendix. The thesis studies relations between two different approaches to continuum limit of models of two dimensional statistical mechanics at criticality. The approach of conformal field theory (CFT) could be thought of as the algebraic classification of some basic objects in these models. It has been succesfully used by physicists since 1980's. The other approach, Schramm-Loewner evolutions (SLEs), is a recently introduced set of mathematical methods to study random curves or interfaces occurring in the continuum limit of the models. The first and second included articles argue on basis of statistical mechanics what would be a plausible relation between SLEs and conformal field theory. The first article studies multiple SLEs, several random curves simultaneously in a domain. The proposed definition is compatible with a natural commutation requirement suggested by Dubédat. The curves of multiple SLE may form different topological configurations, ``pure geometries''. We conjecture a relation between the topological configurations and CFT concepts of conformal blocks and operator product expansions. Example applications of multiple SLEs include crossing probabilities for percolation and Ising model. The second article studies SLE variants that represent models with boundary conditions implemented by primary fields. The most well known of these, SLE(kappa, rho), is shown to be simple in terms of the Coulomb gas formalism of CFT. In the third article the space of local martingales for variants of SLE is shown to carry a representation of Virasoro algebra. Finding this structure is guided by the relation of SLEs and CFTs in general, but the result is established in a straightforward fashion. This article, too, emphasizes multiple SLEs and proposes a possible way of treating pure geometries in terms of Coulomb gas. The fourth article states results of applications of the Virasoro structure to the open questions of SLE reversibility and duality. Proofs of the stated results are provided in the appendix. The objective is an indirect computation of certain polynomial expected values. Provided that these expected values exist, in generic cases they are shown to possess the desired properties, thus giving support for both reversibility and duality.

Guided respiration mindfulness therapy: Development and evaluation of a brief therapist training program

The present paper describes the development and evaluation of a standardized multi-component therapist training program in guided respiration mindfulness therapy (GRMT). GMRT is a manual-based, experimental clinical intervention involving concentrated focus on sustained self-regulation of breathing, application of mindfulness to emergent somatic experience and relaxation. Therapists (n = 61) new to the approach attended a 2-day experiential workshop and were evaluated pre-post workshop for change in intervention knowledge, as well as change in mindfulness. These trainees also participated in post-workshop focus group sessions to explore perception of the intervention. A subset of 40 therapists participated in a second training component, and 14 of these were rated for competent delivery of the intervention during participation in a clinical trial. During training, therapists personally received the treatment giving the opportunity to assess treatment session (n = 283) impact on sense of wellbeing. Results indicated a brief focused training program can equip therapists with basic knowledge and skills required to deliver the standardized manual-based treatment. Qualitative analysis of focus group sessions showed that therapists endorsed the intervention for clinical use and found it personally beneficial. This research provides a foundation for further evaluation of clinical effectiveness of the intervention.

Safety of Repair, Maintenance, Minor Alteration, and Addition (RMAA) Works: A New Focus of Construction Safety

"Safety of RMAA works is an almost uncharted topic of rising importance internationally. Small construction contractors are particularly dependant on RMAA work, especially during times of recession, and they undertake more risks on these jobs than large companies do. This book is based on unique international research and consultancy projects which detail, investigate, and suggest solutions to the specific challenges of safety in RMAA works, based on case studies. Starting with an overview of safety in the wider construction industries of developed countries, the first half of this book also provides a comprehensive summary of relevant rules, regulations, and the resulting safety performances. The systems in the UK, US and Hong Kong are described and contrasted, giving the reader an understanding of how different regulatory approaches have yielded a variety of results. From this solid introduction, specific problems observed in RMAA work are examined through case studies, with reference to the underlying cultural and demographic factors, and a variety of practical engineering and management solutions are explored. This important and practical international work is essential reading for postgraduate students of health and safety in construction, construction project management, or construction in developing countries, as well as policy-makers and construction project managers."--Publisher website

Regulating Food Consumption : Studies of change and variation in Europe

The role of people as buyers and eaters of food has changed significantly. From being protected by a paternalistic welfare state, people appear to be accorded more freedom and responsibility as individuals, where attention is redirected from the state towards market relations. Many have asserted that these changes are accompanied by fragmentation, individualisation, and privatisation, leading to individual uncertainty and lack of confidence. But empirical observations do not always confirm this, distrust is not necessarily growing and while responsibilities may change, the state still plays an active role. This dissertation explores changing relationships between states and markets, on the one hand, and ordinary people in their capacities as consumers and citizens, on the other. Do we see the emergence of new forms of regulation of food consumption? If so, what is the scope and what are the characteristics? Theories of regulation addressing questions about individualisation and self-governance are combined with a conceptualisation of consumption as processes of institutionalisation, involving daily routines, the division of labour between production and consumption, and the institutional field in which consumption is embedded. The analyses focus on the involvement of the state, food producers and scientific, first of all nutritional, expertise in regulating consumption, and on popular responses. Two periods come out as important, first when the ideas of “designing the good life” emerged, giving the state a very particular role in regulating food consumption, and, second, when this “designing” is replaced by ideas of choice and individual responsibility. One might say that “consumer choice” has become a mode of regulation. I use mainly historical studies from Norway to analyse the shifting role of the state in regulating food consumption, complemented with population surveys from six European countries to study how modernisation processes are associated with trust. The studies find that changing regulation is not only a question of societal or state vs individual responsibilities. Degrees of organisation and formalisation are important as well. While increasing organisation may represent discipline and abuses of power (including exploitation of consumer loyalty), organisation can also, to the consumer, provide higher predictability, systems to deal with malfeasance, and efficiency which may provide conditions for acting. The welfare state and the neo-liberal state have very different types of solutions. The welfare state solution is based on (national) egalitarianism, paternalism and discipline (of the market as well as households). Such solutions are still prominent in Norway. Individualisation and self-regulation may represent a regulatory response not only to a declining legitimacy of this kind of interventionism, but also increasing organisational complexity. This is reflected in large-scale re-regulation of markets as well as in relationships with households and consumers. Individualisation of responsibility is to the consumer not a matter of the number of choices that are presented on the shelves, but how choice as a form of consumer based involvement is institutionalised. It is recognition of people as “end-consumers”, as social actors, with systems of empowerment politically as well as via the provisioning system. ‘Consumer choice’ as a regulatory strategy includes not only communicative efforts to make people into “choosing consumers”, but also the provision of institutions which recognise consumer interests and agency. When this is lacking we find distrust as representing powerlessness. Individual responsibility-taking represents agency and is not always a matter of loyal support to shared goals, but involves protest and creativity. More informal (‘communitarian’) innovations may be an indication of that, where self-realisation is intimately combined with responsibility for social problems. But as solutions to counteract existing imbalances of power in the food market the impacts of such initiatives are probably more as part of consumer mobilisation and politicisation than as alternative provisioning.

Photocytotoxic Lanthanum(III) and Gadolinium(III) Complexes of Phenanthroline Bases Showing Light-Induced DNA Cleavage Activity

Lanthanide complexes of formulation [La(B)(2)(NO3)(3)] (1-3) and [Gd(B)(2)(NO3)(3)] (4-6), where B is a N,N-donor phenanthroline base, namely, 1,10-phenanthroline (phen in 1, 4),dipyrido[3,2-d2',3'-f]quinoxaline (dpq in 2,5) and dipyrido[3,2-a2',3'-c]phenazine (dppz in 3, 6), have been prepared, characterized from physicochemical data, and their photoinduced DNA and protein cleavage activity studied The photocytotoxicity of the dppz complexes 3 and 6 has been studied using HeLa cancer cells. The complexes exhibitligand centered bands in the UV region The dppz complexes show thelowest energy band at 380 nm in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) The La(III)complexes are diamagnetic. The Gd(III) complexes (4-6) have magneticmoments that correspond to seven unpaired electrons The complexes are1(.)1 electrolytic in aqueous DMF The dpq and dppz complexes in DMFshow ligand-based reductions. The complexes display moderate binding propensity to calf thymus DNA giving binding constant values in the range of 5.7 x 10(4)-5.8 x 10(5) M-1 with a relative order. 3, 6 (dppz)> 2, 5 (dpq) > 1, 4 (phen) The binding data suggest DNA surface and/or groove binding nature of the complexes. The complexes do not show any hydrolytic cleavage of plasmid supercoiled pUC19 DNA. The dpq and dppz complexes efficiently cleave SC DNA to its nicked circular form onexposure to UV-A light of 365 nm at nanomolar complex concentration. Mechanistic studies reveal the involvement of singlet oxygen (O-1(2)) and hydroxyl radical (HO center dot) as the cleavage active species.The complexes show binding propensity to bovine serum albumin (BSA)protein giving K-BSA values of similar to 10(5) M-1. The dppz complexes 3 and 6 show BSA protein cleavage activity in UV-A light of 365 nm The dppz complexes 3 and 6 exhibit significant photocytotoxicity in HeLa cells giving respective IC50 values of 341 nM and 573 nM in UV-A light of 365 nm for an exposure time of 15 min (IC50 > 100 mu M in dark for both the complexes) Control experiments show significant dark and phototoxicity of the dppz base alone (IC50 = 413 nM in light with 4 h incubation in dark and 116 mu M in dark with 24 h incubation). A significant decrease in the dark toxicity of the dppz base is observedon binding to the lanthanide ions while retaining similar phototoxicity.

Coherent quasiparticle approximation cQPA and nonlocal coherence

We show that the dynamical Wigner functions for noninteracting fermions and bosons can have complex singularity structures with a number of new solutions accompanying the usual mass-shell dispersion relations. These new shell solutions are shown to encode the information of the quantum coherence between particles and antiparticles, left and right moving chiral states and/or between different flavour states. Analogously to the usual derivation of the Boltzmann equation, we impose this extended phase space structure on the full interacting theory. This extension of the quasiparticle approximation gives rise to a self-consistent equation of motion for a density matrix that combines the quantum mechanical coherence evolution with a well defined collision integral giving rise to decoherence. Several applications of the method are given, for example to the coherent particle production, electroweak baryogenesis and study of decoherence and thermalization.

Influence of the hydrogen bond on the N-H stretching frequencies in amino-acids

The spectra of glycine, its addition compounds and other amino-acids exhibit Raman lines in the region from 3250 cm.−1 to 2500 cm.−1 It has been shown that these lines cannot be assigned to N-H...O stretching vibrations, where the N atom has the covalency of three, but to N+-H...O stretching vibration where the N atom has the covalency of four. Using the data obtained with triglycine sulphate which has the largest number of N+-H...O bonds and whose H bond lengths are known, the correlation curve giving the relation between the N+-H...O stretching frequencies and the corresponding H bond lengths has been drawn. Using this correlation curve, the N+-H...O stretching frequencies appearing inα-glycine,γ-glycine, diglycine hydrochloride, diglycine hydrobromide,l-asparagine monohydrate anddl-alanine have been satisfactorily accounted for on the basis of the known hydrogen bond lengths in these substances.

Nainen, mies, rakkaus, seksi : Heterosuhteen kulku, kulttuurinen malli ja sitä selittävät diskurssit kahden omaelämäkerta-aineiston valossa

The subject matter of this study is the cultural knowledge concerning romantic male-female relationships in autobiographies written by so called ordinary Finnish men and women born between 1901 and 1965. The research data (98 autobiographies) is selected from two collections by the Finnish Literature Society s folklore archives in the early 1990 s. Autobiographies are cultural representations where negotiation of shared cultural models and personal meanings given to hetero-relationship is evident in an interesting manner. In this research I analyze autobiographies as a written folklore genre. Information concerning male-female relationships is being analyzed using theoretically informed close readings thematic analysis, intertextual reading and reflexive reading. Theoretical implications stem from cognitive anthropology (the idea of cultural models) and an adaptation of discourse theory inspired by Michel Foucault. The structure of the analysis follows the structure of the shared knowledge concerning romantic male-female relationship: the first phase of analysis presents the script of a hetero-relationship and then moves into the actual structure, the cultural model of a relationship. The components of the model of relationship are, as mentioned in the title of the research, woman, man, love and sex. The research shows that all the writers share this basic knowledge concerning a heterosexual relationship despite their age, background or gender. Also the conflicts described and experienced in the relationships of the writers were similar throughout the timespan of the early 1900 s to 1990 s: lack of love, inability to reconcile sexual desires, housework, sharing the responsibility of childcare and financial problems. The research claims that the conflicts in relationships are a major cause for the binary view on gender. When relationships are harmonious, there seems to be no need to see men and women as opposites. The research names five important discourses present in the meaning giving processes of autobiographers. In doing so, the stabile cultural model of male-female relationship widens to show the complexity and variation in data. In this way it is possible to detect some age and gender specific shifts and emphasis. The discourses give meaning to the components of the cultural model and determine the contents of womanhood, manhood, sexuality and love. The way these discourses are spread and their authority are different: the romantic discourse evident in the autobiographies appeal to the authority of love supreme love is the purpose of male-female relationship and it justifies sexuality. In this discourse sex can be the place for confluence of genders. The ideas of romantic love are widely spread in popular culture. Popular scientific discourse defines a relationship as a site to become a man and a woman either from a psychological or a biological point of view. Genders are seen as opposites. These ideas are often presented in media and their authority in science which is seen as infallible. The Christian discourse defines men and women: both should work for the benefit of the nuclear family under the undisputed authority of God. Marital love is based on Christian virtues and within marriage sexuality is acceptable. The discourse I ve named folk tradition defines women and men as guardians of home and offspring. The authority of folk tradition comes from universal truth based in experience and truths known to the mediators of this discourse grandparents, parents and other elders or peers. Societal discourse defines the hetero relationship as the mainstay of society. The authority in societal discourse stems from the laws and regulations that control relationship practices.

Search for Gluino-Mediated Bottom Squark Production in pp̅ Collisions at √s=1.96 TeV

We report on a search for the supersymmetric partner of the bottom quark produced from gluino decays in data from 2.5 fb-1 of integrated luminosity collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV. Candidate events are selected requiring two or more jets and large missing transverse energy. At least two of the jets are required to be tagged as originating from a b quark to enhance the sensitivity. The results are in good agreement with the prediction of the standard model processes, giving no evidence for gluino decay to sbottom quarks. This result constrains the gluino-pair-production cross section to be less than 40fb at 95% credibility level for a gluino mass of 350 GeV.