Experimental evidence of the cavity theory of sorption-desorption hysteresis by a study of the effect of electric discharge on entrapped water in silica gel

With the use of the quartz fiber spring balance, sorptions and desorptions of water on silica gel at 30°C were studied and the permanent and reproducible hysteresis loop was obtained. At different points on the desorption curve forming the loop, the gel was subjected to high tension glow electric discharge. As a result of the electric discharge, the gel at any point on the desorption curve shifts to a corresponding point on the sorption curve. This is due to the release from the cavities of gel of the entrapped water held in a metastable state. The electric discharge has no effect on the gel at different points on portions of the desorption curve which coincide with the sorption curve and also on the sorption curve itself, indicating the absence of entrapped water in the gel in these regions. The results afford direct experimental evidence of the reality of the cavity theory of sorption-desorption hysteresis.

The Role of Abduction in Self-Similarity

Based on the Aristotelian criterion referred to as 'abductio', Peirce suggests a method of hypothetical inference, which operates in a different way than the deductive and inductive methods. “Abduction is nothing but guessing” (Peirce, 7.219). This principle is of extreme value for the study of our understanding of mathematical self-similarity in both of its typical presentations: relative or absolute. For the first case, abduction incarnates the quantitative/qualitative relationships of a self-similar object or process; for the second case, abduction makes understandable the statistical treatment of self-similarity, 'guessing' the continuity of geometric features to the infinity through the use of a systematic stereotype (for instance, the assumption that the general shape of the Sierpiński triangle continuates identically into its particular shapes). The metaphor coined by Peirce, of an exact map containig itself the same exact map (a map of itself), is not only the most important precedent of Mandelbrot’s problem of measuring the boundaries of a continuous irregular surface with a logarithmic ruler, but also still being a useful abstraction for the conceptualisation of relative and absolute self-similarity, and its mechanisms of implementation. It is useful, also, for explaining some of the most basic geometric ontologies as mental constructions: in the notion of infinite convergence of points in the corners of a triangle, or the intuition for defining two parallel straight lines as two lines in a plane that 'never' intersect.

Kokoomus ja kommunismin uhka. Puolueen antikommunismi vuoden 1929 eduskuntavaalitaistossa.

Tämän Pro gradu -tutkielman tarkoituksena on selventää Kansallisen Kokoomuspuolueen kommunisminvastaisuutta 1920-luvulla, tarkemmin ottaen vuoden 1929 eduskuntavaalikamppailussa. Tutkimuskysymykseni liittyvät puolueen identiteetin ja kommunisminvastaisuuden yhteyteen: miten kokoomuspuolueen suhtautuminen kommunismiin kytkeytyi, yhtäältä, oman porvarillisen poliittis-kansallisen identiteetin puolustamiseen, ja toisaalta, vuonna 1929 vallitseviin poliittisiin oloihin, jolloin muun muassa parlamentaarinen järjestelmä herätti laajaa epäluottamusta, kokoomus ajautui sisäiseen kriisiin ja kommunistien kumoustavoite korostui suomalaisessa julkisuudessa? Etsimällä vastauksia näihin kysymyksiin pyrin selittämään mistä osakokonaisuuksista antikommunismi koostui, miten uhkaa muokattiin ja perusteltiin. Mielestäni tärkeää ja mielenkiintoista on miettiä, kuinka kommunisminvastaisuus ilmeni ikään kuin vastauksena muihin yhteiskunnallis-poliittisiin ongelmiin ja turhautumiin. Tutkimukseni teoreettinen viitekehys perustuu toiseuden ja viholliskuvien tutkimukseen, koska toiseuden merkitys identiteetin kehittymiselle on kiistaton. Tähän liittyvän kirjallisuuden lisäksi olen käyttänyt lähteinäni tutkimuskirjallisuutta, sanomalehtiä ja julkaisemattomia arkistolähteitä. Tutkimukseni aatehistoriallisen luonteen vuoksi ensisijainen alkuperäislähteeni on julkaistu materiaali – vaalijulkaisut ja kokoomuslehdistö – jonka avulla olen pyrkinyt analysoimaan puolueen suhtautumista kommunismiin ja sen vaikutusta puolueen identiteetille. Metodini on historiallis-kvalitatiivinen, joka tarkoittaa sitä, että pyrin samaan aikaan huomioimaan sekä puolueen julkisuuskuvan että sen toiminnan kulisseissa. Tämä edellyttää huomion kohdistamista sekä julkaistuun että julkaisemattomaan lähdeaineistoon. Julkaistuun materiaaliin kohdistuneen analyysin pohjalta on mahdollista päätellä, että kokoomus halusi luoda itsestään kuvan jyrkästi kommunisminvastaisena puolueena. Toiseus-analyysin perusteella voidaan sanoa, että kommunismi oli puolueen selvä toinen. Julkisuuskuva ei kuitenkaan välttämättä vastannut puolueen todellisia käsityksiä kommunismista ja sen pohjalle muodostetusta viholliskuvasta. Antikommunismi ja viholliskuvan vahvistaminen palvelivat myös muita päämääriä, joista merkittävimmät liittyivät katkenneen kokoomuksen yhtenäisyyden pönkittämiseen ja huomion kääntämiseen pois muista vuonna 1929 esiin työntyneistä ongelmista. Kommunismin muodostamaa uhkaa Suomen kansalliselle olemassaololle pyrittiin perustelemaan monelta eri kantilta. Kommunismin nähtiin rapauttavan kristillisen moraalin ja siveellisyyden, lisäävän yhteiskunnallisia levottomuuksia, heikentävän parlamentarismia sekä vaarantavan Suomen sotilaallisen turvallisuuden ja pyhäksi koetun etuvartiotehtävän. Antikommunismi yhdistyi läheisesti myös ideologisen venäläisvastaisuuden ääri-ilmiöön, ryssävihaan. Näihin eri ilmiöihin liittyvä "antikommunistinen diskurssi" oli siis yksi niistä perustoista, jonka päällä kokoomuksen poliittis-kansallinen identiteetti kehittyi 1920-luvun mittaan. Kevätkesän 1929 tuomien, lähes ylitsepääsemättömien vaikeuksien myötä antikommunistisen diskurssin merkitys kasvoi entisestään ja loi pohjan puolueen suhtautumiselle lapualaisvuosiin.

Tyttöjen kesken : Monikulttuurisuus ja sukupuolten tasa-arvo nuorisotyössä.

Among Girls Youth Work, Multiculturalism and Gender Equality Finland s increasingly multicultural society concerns younger generations in a very particular manner. Starting already in pre-school kindergartens, children from different cultural backgrounds share their everyday existence. The focus of this study is Finland s increasingly multicultural society that has challenged youth work professionals in particular and made them rethink questions related to content, basic values and goals of youth work. These reconsiderations include the following essential questions: which of these pedagogic principles are defined as Finnish, and under what kinds of circumstances would the youth workers be ready to negotiate about them. These questions, which are related to multiculturalism, are then linked to the girls position, status and gender equality. The research examines how gender equality is articulated in relation to multiculturalism and vice versa, in what contexts youth work-related questions are negoatiated in, and how these negotiations then relate to gender issues. The present study combines theoretical concepts and debates from both post-colonial and youth research, and has benefited greatly from previous research which has examined the everyday lives of young people with multicultural backgrounds and conceptualised the different meanings of age, ethnicity, culture and gender. Neither multiculturalism nor gender equality is, however, taken as a given concept in this study; rather the research focuses on how youth workers understand and define these concepts and how they are used. The emphasis has been on monitoring the varying consequences of different understandings and definitions in terms of everyday work and practices. The goal of this study has been to find typical ways of conceptualising multiculturalism, gender equality and the role of girls in the context of youth work. The focus of the research is not just the youth workers different views but also the notions of the girls themselves. These are then further analysed by examining the ways the girls negotiate their agency. Examples of how the girls agency is defined and the different forms of agency that are offered to the girls within the context of leisure time activities and youth work have been sought. The kind of agency the girls then assume is also examined. The data in this research is comprised of interviews with young people with multicultural backgrounds (n=39), youth workers (n=42) and of ethnographic fieldwork (2003 2005). The fieldwork concentrated on following different types of youth work activities that were targeted at girls with migrant backgrounds. These were organized both by selected municipalities and NGOs. The research shows that various questions related to multicultural issues have enhanced the visibility of gender equality in the field of youth work. The identification of gender-based inequality is especially closely linked to the position of girls from migrant backgrounds. These girls are a source of particular worry and the aim of the many activity groups for migrant girls is to educate them so that they can become equal Finnish citizens . The youth work itself is seen as gender-neutral and equality based. Equality in this context is defined as a purely quantitative concept, and the solution to any possible inequalities is thus the exact same treatment for everyone . The girls themselves seem mainly confused by the role that is offered to them. They would need a voice and the possibility to have an impact on the planning of youth work activities. They want to have their views heard. The role of the victim assigned to them is very confining and makes it difficult to act. At the same time the research shows how gender-sensitive youth work is seen to mean youth work with girls. Gender-sensitive work with boys is not really done or is done very little, even if many of the interviewees are of the opinion that the true materialization of gender equality would require boys to be taken into account too. The principle of gender equality should be shared by the entire youth work profession. Keywords Youth work, equality, multiculturalism, gender sensitivity, agency, girls, young people, sexuality

A Comparison of Managers’ Perception of Short-Termism in Finland, Sweden and the U.S

Increased media exposure to layoffs and corporate quarterly financial reporting have created arguable a common perception – especially favored by the media itself – that the companies have been forced to improve their financial performance from quarter to quarter. Academically the relevant question is whether companies themselves feel that they are exposed to short-term pressure to perform even if it means that they have to compromise company’s long-term future. This paper studies this issue using results from a survey conducted among the 500 largest companies in Finland. The results show that companies in general feel moderate short-term pressure, with reasonable dispersion across firms. There seems to be a link between the degree of pressure felt, and the firm’s ownership structure, i.e. we find support for the existence of short-term versus long-term owners. We also find significant ownership related differences, in line with expectations, in how such short-term pressure is reflected in actual decision variables such as the investment criteria used.

Scientific Journal Publishing – Yearly Volume and Open Access Availability

Introduction. We estimate the total yearly volume of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles published world-wide as well as the share of these articles available openly on the Web either directly or as copies in e-print repositories. Method. We rely on data from two commercial databases (ISI and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory) supplemented by sampling and Google searches. Analysis. A central issue is the finding that ISI-indexed journals publish far more articles per year (111) than non ISI-indexed journals (26), which means that the total figure we obtain is much lower than many earlier estimates. Our method of analysing the number of repository copies (green open access) differs from several earlier studies which have studied the number of copies in identified repositories, since we start from a random sample of articles and then test if copies can be found by a Web search engine. Results. We estimate that in 2006 the total number of articles published was approximately 1,350,000. Of this number 4.6% became immediately openly available and an additional 3.5% after an embargo period of, typically, one year. Furthermore, usable copies of 11.3% could be found in subject-specific or institutional repositories or on the home pages of the authors. Conclusions. We believe our results are the most reliable so far published and, therefore, should be useful in the on-going debate about Open Access among both academics and science policy makers. The method is replicable and also lends itself to longitudinal studies in the future.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis UvrD1 and UvrA Proteins Suppress DNA Strand Exchange Promoted by Cognate and Noncognate RecA Proteins

DNA helicases are present in all kingdoms of life and play crucial roles in processes of DNA metabolism such as replication, repair, recombination, and transcription. To date, however, the role of DNA helicases during homologous recombination in mycobacteria remains unknown. In this study, we show that Mycobacterium tuberculosis UvrD1 more efficiently inhibited the strand exchange promoted by its cognate RecA, compared to noncognate Mycobacterium smegmatis or Escherichia coli RecA proteins. The M. tuberculosis UvrD1(Q276R) mutant lacking the helicase and ATPase activities was able to block strand exchange promoted by mycobacterial RecA proteins but not of E. coil RecA. We observed that M. tuberculosis UvrA by itself has no discernible effect on strand exchange promoted by E. coli RecA but impedes the reaction catalyzed by the mycobacterial RecA proteins. Our data also show that M. tuberculosis UvrA and UvrD1 can act together to inhibit strand exchange promoted by mycobacterial RecA proteins. Taken together, these findings raise the possibility that UvrD1 and UvrA might act together in vivo to counter the deleterious effects of RecA nucleoprotein filaments and/or facilitate the dissolution of recombination intermediates. Finally, we provide direct experimental evidence for a physical interaction between M. tuberculosis UvrD1 and RecA on one hand and RecA and UvrA on the other hand. These observations are consistent with a molecular mechanism, whereby M. tuberculosis UvrA and UvrD1, acting together, block DNA strand exchange promoted by cognate and noncognate RecA proteins.

Organizing (with) Thirdness. A Dialogic Understanding of Bicultural Interactions in Organizations

This conceptual paper examines bicultural interactions in organizations as they are experienced by the involved individuals. Notions from Bakhtinian dialogism are used in order to conceptualize the sensemaking opportunities provided by the encounter with a cultural otherness. It is argued that in such bicultural situations, because of the lack of intimate understanding of the other culture, the third element in the dialogic relation - ‘thirdness’, i.e. the relation itself, without which there would be no sensemaking potential - may be lacking as a result of the distorting combination of projected similarity and stereotyping, added to certain counterproductive organizational dynamics. Therefore, it is suggested that, to make the bicultural work interaction the rewarding relation it could be, thirdness should be coordinated by management in a way that can transcend the spontaneous negative dynamics of the confrontational situation. If management was to fail to organize (with) thirdness appropriately, bringing in a third party could be a possible alternative in order to initiate the necessary mutual understanding that should eventually lead to a fruitful work interaction.

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.

Flexible Budgeting under Uncertainty: A Real Options Perspective

This paper examines the relationships between uncertainty and the perceived usefulness of traditional annual budgets versus flexible budgets in 95 Swedish companies. We form hypotheses that the perceived usefulness of the annual budgets as well as the attitudes to more flexible budget alternatives are influenced by the uncertainty that the companies face. Our study distinguishes between two separate kinds of uncertainty: exogenous stochastic uncertainty (deriving from the firm’s environment) and endogenous deterministic uncertainty (caused by the strategic choices made by the firm itself). Based on a structural equations modelling analysis of data from a mail survey we found that the more accentuated exogenous uncertainty a company faces, the more accentuated is the expected trend towards flexibility in the budget system, and vice versa; the more endogenous uncertainty they face, the more negative are their attitudes towards budget flexibility. We also found that these relationships were not present with regard to the attitudes towards the usefulness of the annual budget. Noteworthy is, however, that there was a significant negative relationship between the perceived usefulness of the annual budget and budget flexibility. Thus, our results seem to indicate that the degree of flexibility in the budget system is influenced by both general attitudes towards the usefulness of traditional budgets and by the actual degree of exogenous uncertainty a company faces and by the strategy that it executes.

The Day of the Week Effect and Option Pricing - A Study of the German Option Market

The use of different time units in option pricing may lead to inconsistent estimates of time decay and spurious jumps in implied volatilities. Different time units in the pricing model leads to different implied volatilities although the option price itself is the same.The chosen time unit should make it necessary to adjust the volatility parameter only when there are some fundamental reasons for it and not due to wrong specifications of the model. This paper examined the effects of option pricing using different time hypotheses and empirically investigated which time frame the option markets in Germany employ over weekdays. The paper specifically tries to get a picture of how the market prices options. The results seem to verify that the German market behaves in a fashion that deviates from the most traditional time units in option pricing, calendar and trading days. The study also showed that the implied volatility of Thursdays was somewhat higher and thus differed from the pattern of other days of the week. Using a GARCH model to further investigate the effect showed that although a traditional tests, like the analysis of variance, indicated a negative return for Thursday during the same period as the implied volatilities used, this was not supported using a GARCH model.

Owners' Way or the Highway: Short-term Expectations and Owner Impatience

Increased media exposure to layoffs and corporate quarterly financial reporting have created arguable a common perception – especially favored by the media itself – that the companies have been forced to improve their financial performance from quarter to quarter. Academically the relevant question is whether the companies themselves feel that they are exposed to short-term pressure to perform even if it means that they have to compromise company’s long-term future. This paper studies this issue using results from a survey conducted among the 500 largest companies in Finland. The results show that companies in general feel moderate short-term pressure, with reasonable dispersion across firms. There seems to be a link between the degree of pressure felt, and the firm’s ownership structure, i.e. we find support for the existence of short-term versus long-term owners. We also find significant ownership related differences, in line with expectations, in how such short-term pressure is reflected in actual decision variables such as the investment criteria used.

Wavelet transform based error concealment approach for image denoising

Denoising of images in compressed wavelet domain has potential application in transmission technology such as mobile communication. In this paper, we present a new image denoising scheme based on restoration of bit-planes of wavelet coefficients in compressed domain. It exploits the fundamental property of wavelet transform - its ability to analyze the image at different resolution levels and the edge information associated with each band. The proposed scheme relies on the fact that noise commonly manifests itself as a fine-grained structure in image and wavelet transform allows the restoration strategy to adapt itself according to directional features of edges. The proposed approach shows promising results when compared with conventional unrestored scheme, in context of error reduction and has capability to adapt to situations where noise level in the image varies. The applicability of the proposed approach has implications in restoration of images due to noisy channels. This scheme, in addition, to being very flexible, tries to retain all the features, including edges of the image. The proposed scheme is computationally efficient.

Design and analysis of rate aware ad hoc 802.11 networks

802.11 WLANs are characterized by high bit error rate and frequent changes in network topology. The key feature that distinguishes WLANs from wired networks is the multi-rate transmission capability, which helps to accommodate a wide range of channel conditions. This has a significant impact on higher layers such as routing and transport levels. While many WLAN products provide rate control at the hardware level to adapt to the channel conditions, some chipsets like Atheros do not have support for automatic rate control. We first present a design and implementation of an FER-based automatic rate control state machine, which utilizes the statistics available at the device driver to find the optimal rate. The results show that the proposed rate switching mechanism adapts quite fast to the channel conditions. The hop count metric used by current routing protocols has proven itself for single rate networks. But it fails to take into account other important factors in a multi-rate network environment. We propose transmission time as a better path quality metric to guide routing decisions. It incorporates the effects of contention for the channel, the air time to send the data and the asymmetry of links. In this paper, we present a new design for a multi-rate mechanism as well as a new routing metric that is responsive to the rate. We address the issues involved in using transmission time as a metric and presents a comparison of the performance of different metrics for dynamic routing.

Can biological motion be a biometric?

Biological motion has successfully been used for analysis of a person's mood and other psychological traits. Efforts are made to use human gait as a non-invasive mode of biometric. In this reported work, we try to study the effectiveness of biological gait motion of people as a cue to biometric based person recognition. The data is 3D in nature and, hence, has more information with itself than the cues obtained from video-based gait patterns. The high accuracies of person recognition using a simple linear model of data representation and simple neighborhood based classfiers, suggest that it is the nature of the data which is more important than the recognition scheme employed.