Cultural differences in web-based health information seeking of Finnish and Japanese students

Abstrakti

”Varjele taivas – itsemurhanko hän tekisi?” Naisten itsemurhiin suhtautuminen Suomessa vuosina 1880–1900

Tutkielmassani käsittelen naisten itsemurhiin suhtautumista Suomessa vuosina 1880–1900. Tutkimuskysymystä lähestyn kaunokirjallisen päälähdeaineiston, Minna Canthin Epäluuloon (1891), Ompelijan (1894) ja Anna Liisan (1895), kautta. Tutkimuskohteena ei kuitenkaan ole Minna Canth eikä hänen tuotantonsa sinällään, vaan hänen teoksistaan välittyvät asenteet. Canthin teosten ohella käytän lähteinä 1800-luvun itsemurhatutkimuksia, Canthin kirjeitä, lehtikirjoituksia ja hänen teoksistaan kirjoitettuja kirja- ja teatteriarvosteluita. Itsemurha asettuu tutkielmassani tieteen, maallikoiden ja kristinuskon näkemysten kontekstiin. Käsittelen itsemurhaa työssäni sukupuolittuneena, naiserityisenä, ilmiönä. Naista ja naiseutta koskeneet oletukset, odotukset ja kuvitelmat sekä naisihanteet ovat työni keskiössä. Luen itsemurhaa näitä mielikuvia vasten ja kysyn, miten ne suhteutuvat toisiinsa. Itsemurha piirtyy siten tutkielmassani teoksi, jossa naisihanteet ja tosielämän naiset törmäävät toisiinsa. Sukupuolen, naiseuden, ymmärrän diskursiivisena, sosio-kulttuurisena ja historiallisena konstruktiona, joka todentuu ja saa ilmauksensa naiseuden omaksi ottavassa yksilössä. Tutkimuksellisena työkaluna käytän feministitutkija Teresa de Lauretiksen teoriaa, jossa sukupuolen yhdeksi rakentumisen alueeksi nähdään kulttuuriset tekstit, kuten näytelmät ja novellit. Naisen itsemurha näyttäytyi tutkielmassani monitahoisena ilmiönä, joka herätti henkiin ihmistunteiden laajan kirjon. Suhtautuminen vaihteli tuomitsemisesta, säälistä, kauhusta, pelosta ja inhosta aina ymmärrykseen ja jopa nauruun saakka. Itsemurhaajan sukupuoli, naiseus, vaikutti siihen, että teko tuomittiin jyrkemmin kuin miehen vastaava. Ajan käsitysten mukaan itsemurha soti ”naisen ominaisluontoa” ja ylipäätään kaikkea naisellisena pidettyä vastaan. Itsemurha hahmottuikin tutkielmassani naiseuden vastustamisen paikaksi, teoksi, joka horjutti naista ja naiseutta koskeneita käsityksiä. Kirjallisuudessa ja huumorissa itsemurhaa puolestaan käytettiin tehokeinona, jonka tarkoituksena oli kiinnittää huomio yhteiskunnallisiin epäkohtiin. Huumori osoittautui myös keinoksi, jolla käsiteltiin kipeitä, pelottavia ja ahdistavia asioita, kuten itsemurhia.

Es war ein alter König

Myös Gramophone GC-2-42786.

Exiles and Constituents: Baltic Refugees and American Cold War Politics, 1948- 1960

This dissertation explores the complicated relations between Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian postwar refugees and American foreign policymakers between 1948 and 1960. There were seemingly shared interests between the parties during the first decade of the Cold War. Generally, Eastern European refugees refused to recognize Soviet hegemony in their homelands, and American policy towards the Soviet bloc during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations sought to undermine the Kremlin’s standing in the region. More specifically, Baltic refugees and State Department officials sought to preserve the 1940 non-recognition policy towards the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States. I propose that despite the seemingly natural convergence of interests, the American experiment of constructing a State-Private network revolving around fostering relations with exile groups was fraught with difficulties. These difficulties ultimately undermined any ability that the United States might have had to liberate the Baltic States from the Soviet Union. As this dissertation demonstrates, Baltic exiles were primarily concerned with preserving a high level of political continuity to the interwar republics under the assumption that they would be able to regain their positions in liberated, democratic societies. American policymakers, however, were primarily concerned with maintaining the non-recognition policy, the framework in which all policy considerations were analyzed. I argue that these two motivating factors created unnecessary tensions in American policy towards the Baltic republics in the spheres of psychological warfare as well as exile unity in the United States and Europe. Despite these shortcomings, I argue that out of the exiles’ failings was born a generation of Baltic constituents that blurred the political legitimacy line between exiles who sought to return home and ethnic Americans who were loyal to the United States. These Baltic constituents played an important role in garnering the support of the United States Congress, starting in the 1950s, but became increasingly influential after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, despite the seemingly less important role Eastern Europe played in the Cold War. The actions of the Baltic constituents not only prevented the Baltic question from being forever lost in the memory hole of history, but actually created enough political pressure on the State Department that it was impossible to alter the long-standing policy of not recognizing the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States.

Uusien uhkakuvien luominen: tapaus 'kiinalaiset kybersoturit' : lingvistinen uhka-analyysi kyberdiskurssista

Since his inauguration, President Barack Obama has emphasized the need for a new cybersecurity policy, pledging to make it a "national security priority". This is a significant change in security discourse after an eight-year war on terror – a term Obama announced to be no longer in use. After several white papers, reports and the release of the so-called 60-day Cybersecurity Review, Obama announced the creation of a "cyber czar" position and a new military cyber command to coordinate American cyber defence and warfare. China, as an alleged cyber rival, has played an important role in the discourse that introduced the need for the new office and the proposals for changes in legislation. Research conducted before this study suggest the dominance of state-centric enemy descriptions paused briefly after 9/11, but returned soon into threat discourse. The focus on China's cyber activities fits this trend. The aim of this study is to analyze the type of modern threat scenarios through a linguistic case study on the reporting on Chinese hackers. The methodology of this threat analysis is based on the systemic functional language theory, and realizes as an analysis of action and being descriptions (verbs) used by the American authorities. The main sources of data include the Cybersecurity Act 2009, Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency, and 2008 Report to Congress of the U.S. - China Economic and Security Review Commission. Contrary to the prevailing and popularized terrorism discourse, the results show the comeback of Cold War rhetoric as well as the establishment of a state-centric threat perception in cyber discourse. Cyber adversaries are referred to with descriptions of capacity, technological superiority and untrustworthiness, whereas the ‘self’ is described as vulnerable and weak. The threat of cyber attacks is compared to physical attacks on critical military and civilian infrastructure. The authorities and the media form a cycle, in which both sides quote each other and foster each other’s distrust and rhetoric. The white papers present China's cyber army as an existential threat. This leads to cyber discourse turning into a school-book example of a securitization process. The need for security demands action descriptions, which makes new rules and regulations acceptable. Cyber discourse has motives and agendas that are separate from real security discourse: the arms race of the 21st century is about unmanned war.

Animal Lovers, Bridge-Builders, and Supervising Watchdogs: Framing and Civil Society Construction by Japanese Pro-Animal Organizations in the Kansai and Tokyo Areas

Unlike their counterparts in Europe and America, the citizen organizations acting for the well-being of animals in Japan have not received scholarly attention. In this research, I explore the activities of twelve Japanese pro-animal organizations in Tokyo and Kansai area from the perspective of social movement and civil society studies. The concept of a ‘pro-animal organization’ is used to refer generally to the collectives promoting animal well-being. By using the collective action frame analysis and the three core framing tasks – diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational – as the primarily analytical tools, I explore the grievances, tactics, motivational means, constructions of agency and identity as well as framing of civil society articulated in the newsletters and the interviews of the twelve organizations I interviewed in Japan in 2010. As the frame construction is always done in relation to the social and political context, I study how the organizations construct their roles as civil society actors in relation to other actors, such as the state, and the idea of citizen activism. The deficiencies in the animal welfare law and lack of knowledge among the public are identified as the main grievances. The primary tactic to overcome these problems was to educate and inform the citizens and authorities, because most organizations lack the channels to influence politically. The audiences were mostly portrayed as either ignorant bystanders or potential adherents. In order to motivate people to join their cause and to enforce the motivation within the organization, the organizations emphasized their uniqueness, proved their efficiency, claimed credit and celebrated even small improvements. The organizations tended to create three different roles for citizen pro-organizations in civil society: reactive, apolitical and emphatic animal lovers concentrating on saving individual animals, proactive, educative bridge-builders seeking to establish equal collaborative relations with authorities, and corrective, supervising watchdogs demanding change in delinquencies offending animal rights. Based on the results of this research, I suggest that by studying how and why the different relations between civil society and the governing actors of the state are constructed, a more versatile approach to citizens’ activism in its context can be achieved.

Effects of water deficit in two phenological stages on production of japanese cucumber cultived in greenhouse

The experiment was performed in the experimental area of the Engineering Department Federal University of Lavras, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. It aimed at identifying the adequate irrigation management of the greenhouse-cultivated Japanese cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.). complete randomized design, with four levels of soil water potential (15; 30; 60 e 120 kPa) at two phenological phases (vegetative and reproductive), and 5 replications. Overall, the results showed decrease of yield according to increase of soil water potentials. During the reproductive stage, Japanese cucumber plants were more sensitive to water deficit, resulting in further decrease in yield compared to applied water deficit during the vegetative stage of the culture.

Research on Latvian Herrnhutism in the inter-war period

Kirjallisuusarvostelu

Association between peripheral arterial disease and creactive protein in the japanese-brazilian population

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relationship between peripheral arterial disease and elevated levels of C-reactive protein in the Japanese-Brazilian population of high cardiovascular risk.METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study derived from a population-based study on the prevalence of diabetes and associated diseases in the Japanese-Brazilian population. One thousand, three hundred and thirty individuals aged e" 30 underwent clinical and laboratory examination, including measurement of ultrasensitive C-reactive protein. The diagnosis of peripheral arterial disease was performed by calculating the ankle-brachial index. We considered with peripheral arterial disease patients who had ankle-brachial index d" 0.9. After applying the exclusion criteria, 1,038 subjects completed the study.RESULTS: The mean age of the population was 56.8 years; 46% were male. The prevalence of peripheral arterial disease was 21%, with no difference between genders. Data analysis showed no association between peripheral arterial disease and ultrasensitive C-reactive protein. Patients with ankle-brachial index d" 0.70 showed higher values of ultrasensitive C-reactive protein and worse cardiometabolic profile. We found a positive independent association of peripheral arterial disease with hypertension and smoking.CONCLUSION: The association between low levels of ankle-brachial index and elevated levels of ultrasensitive C-reactive protein may suggest a relationship of gravity, aiding in the mapping of high-risk patients.