The Presence of English as a Lingua Franca in Finnish Lower Secondary School Teaching Materials : Content Analysis of English Textbooks and Author Interviews

This joint thesis studies the role of English as a lingua franca in the Finnish National Core Curriculum for basic education and its presence in English language teaching materials. We conducted a qualitative analysis of four Finnish textbooks of English used in the 9th grade. The books were chosen from two popular publishing companies in Finland. The aim of the study was to bring attention to the link between the Finnish National Core Curriculum and English teaching materials by analyzing textbooks and conducting interviews for five of their authors in order to learn more about the integration of the curriculum and the textbooks. In the content analysis of the textbooks, we created categories into which we divided the units of analysis. The categories sought to establish how the concept of English as a lingua franca was discussed and presented, which areas were used as the settings, and who were the interlocutors in the books. The interviews were semi-structured, and the answers were analyzed qualitatively. The textbook analyses showed that the presence of English as a lingua franca was rather weak. There was some variation between the analyzed books: some mentioned the phenomenon explicitly and some discussed it implicitly. The interviewees highlighted the importance of the curriculum in creating teaching materials and presented positive views on including ELF in them. Comparing the textbook analyses and interview results showed that even if a textbook did not seem to have a strong presence of ELF-aware content according to our analysis, the phenomenon was still considered to at least some extent in the making of the textbook. The results suggest that the English teaching materials in Finland do not fully meet the guidelines of the National Core Curriculum, even though there have been efforts to include the phenomenon in lower secondary school textbooks of English

The Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) in 2016-2017

This report summarizes the activities and achievements of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) from mid-2016 through to the end of 2017. During this period, the 13th Eurasian Grassland Conference took place in Sighişoara, Romania, and the 14th conference was held in Riga, Latvia. The 10th EDGG Field Workshop on Biodiversity patterns across a precipitation gradient in the Central Apennine mountains was conducted in the Central Apennines, Italy, this time in addition to multi-scale sampling of vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens, also including one animal group (leaf hoppers). Apart from the quarterly issues of its own electronic journal (Bulletin of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group), EDGG also finalised five grassland-related Special Features/Issues during the past 1.5 years in the following international journals: Applied Vegetation Science, Biodiversity and Conservation, Phytocoenologia, Tuexenia and Hacquetia. Beyond that, EDGG facilitated various national and supra-national vegetationplot databases of grasslands and established its own specialised database for standardised multi-scale plot data of Palaearctic grasslands (GrassPlot). © by Stephen Venn 2018.Peer reviewe

The Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) in 2016-2017

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Timed Automata for Mobile Ransomware Detection

Considering the plethora of private and sensitive information stored in smartphone and tablets, it is easy to understand the reason why attackers develop everyday more and more aggressive malicious payloads with the aim to exfiltrate our data. One of the last trend in mobile malware landascape is represented by the so-called ransomware, a threat capable to lock the user interface and to cipher the data of the mobile device under attack. In this paper we propose an approach to model an Android application in terms of timed automaton by considering system call traces i.e., performing a dynamic analysis. We obtain encouraging results in the experimental analysis we performed exploiting real-world  (ransomware and legitimate) Android applications

Noise sensitivity in the function and structure of the brain

Exposure to noise has a negative influence on human health, including an increased occurrence of cardiovascular diseases. Susceptibility to the harmful effects of noise can be further moderated by a personal trait called noise sensitivity (NS). It is not understood what makes some individuals more sensitive to noise than others. So far, the research on this topic has been largely limited to perceptual and population studies. The aim of this thesis was to broaden the understanding of NS by addressing its biological mechanisms. Thus, this thesis investigated the neuroanatomical correlates of NS and its effects on auditory processing. The thesis consists of three studies. The first study examines whether NS can be developed as the result of musical training (Study I). The other two studies investigate whether NS is reflected in the functioning of the central auditory system (Study II) and whether it is related to the morphology of cortical and subcortical brain structures (Study III). The research was conducted using questionnaires, combined magneto- and electroencephalography (MEG/EEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The findings of this thesis suggest that NS moderates how and why individuals listen to music. However, NS is not associated with musical training and thus does not seem to relate to fine perceptual skills (Study I). An investigation of the central auditory processing in Study II, however, revealed compromised sound feature encoding and automatic discrimination skills in noise-sensitive individuals. Study III showed that NS is also associated with the structural organization of the brain. Noise-sensitive individuals were found to have enlarged volumes of the auditory cortical areas and hippocampus as well as thicker right anterior insular cortex. These results suggest that NS is related to the structures involved with auditory perceptual, emotional, and interoceptive processing. Overall, this thesis proposes that NS is not merely an attitudinal phenomenon but instead has underlying neuronal mechanisms.Altistuminen melulle vaikuttaa negatiivisesti ihmisten terveyteen, muun muassa kohonneena riskinä sydän- ja verisuonitaudeille. Meluherkkyys on persoonallisuuden piirre, joka voi vaikuttaa alttiuteen melusta koituville haitoille. Syytä sille, mikä tekee toisista herkempiä melulle, ei tiedetä. Tähän mennessä asiaa on selvitetty lähinnä melun havaintokykyä ja sen esiintymistä väestössä kartoittavien tutkimusten avulla. Tämän väitöskirjan tavoitteena oli lisätä tietoa meluherkkyyden biologisista mekanismeista. Väitöskirjassa tutkittiin meluherkkyyteen liittyviä aivojen rakenteita sekä meluherkkyyden vaikutusta kuulotiedon käsittelyyn. Väitöskirja koostuu kolmesta osatutkimuksesta. Ensimmäisessä tutkimuksessa selvitettiin, voiko meluherkkyys kehittyä musiikin harjoittelun seurauksena (Tutkimus I). Kahdessa muussa osatutkimuksessa selvitettiin, heijastuuko meluherkkyys aivojen kuulojärjestelmän toimintaan (Tutkimus II), ja liittyykö se aivokuoren ja sen alaisiin rakenteisiin (Tutkimus III). Tutkimukset suoritettiin käyttämällä kyselytutkimuksia, yhdistettyä aivosähkökäyrää ja sen magneettista vastinetta, eli elektro- ja magnetoenkefalografiaa (EEG/MEG), sekä aivojen magneettikuvausta (MRI). Tämän väitöskirjan tulosten mukaan meluherkkyys vaikuttaa siihen, miten ja miksi ihmiset kuuntelevat musiikkia. Meluherkkyys ei kuitenkaan liity musiikin harjoitteluun eikä täten liene yhteydessä hienovaraiseen kuulohavaintokykyyn (Tutkimus I). Tutkimus II kuitenkin paljasti, että äänten erottelukyky ja äänipiirteiden koodaus aivoissa on heikentynyttä meluherkillä yksilöillä. Tutkimuksessa III osoitettiin, että meluherkkyys on myös yhteydessä aivorakenteiden järjestäytymiseen. Meluherkillä löydettiin suurentunut kuuloaivokuoren ja hippokampuksen tilavuus sekä paksumpi oikean etuaivopuoliskon aivosaari. Näiden tulosten mukaan meluherkkyys on yhteydessä rakenteisiin, jotka osallistuvat äänten havaitsemiseen sekä niiden tunneperäistä ja elimellistä tietoa välittävään tiedonkäsittelyyn. Kaiken kaikkiaan tässä väitöskirjassa esitetään, että meluherkkyydellä on hermostollista taustaa eikä se ole pelkästään negatiivinen asenne melua kohtaan

Investigating the influence of special on-off attacks on challenge-based collaborative intrusion detection networks

Intrusions are becoming more complicated with the recent development of adversarial techniques. To boost the detection accuracy of a separate intrusion detector, the collaborative intrusion detection network (CIDN) has thus been developed by allowing intrusion detection system (IDS) nodes to exchange data with each other. Insider attacks are a great threat for such types of collaborative networks, where an attacker has the authorized access within the network. In literature, a challenge-based trust mechanism is effective at identifying malicious nodes by sending challenges. However, such mechanisms are heavily dependent on two assumptions, which would cause CIDNs to be vulnerable to advanced insider attacks in practice. In this work, we investigate the influence of advanced on–off attacks on challenge-based CIDNs, which can respond truthfully to one IDS node but behave maliciously to another IDS node. To evaluate the attack performance, we have conducted two experiments under a simulated and a real CIDN environment. The obtained results demonstrate that our designed attack is able to compromise the robustness of challenge-based CIDNs in practice; that is, some malicious nodes can behave untruthfully without a timely detection

Evaluation of In-Service Vocational Teacher Training Program: A Blend of Face-to-Face, Online and Offline Learning Approaches

Teacher education has a large and favorable impact on a teacher’s performance. Effective training brings improvement in the productivity and performance of employees due to the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. The National Vocational and Technical Training Commission organized an in-service vocational teachers’ training program through blended learning approaches in Pakistan. This study aimed at finding out the effectiveness of that in-service vocational teachers’ training program. The four levels of the Kirkpatrick model were used as the theoretical framework. A survey approach was used to collect data from 629 in-service vocational teachers who took part in the training program through blended learning approaches. Partial least square structural equation modeling was applied to find the hierarchal relationship among the four levels of the Kirkpatrick model. The results of the current research revealed that trainees were satisfied at all four levels of the Kirkpatrick model, including the reaction, learning, behavior and results. A hierarchal relationship between the four levels of the Kirkpatrick model was also found for the evaluation of the training program. The direct effect of the reaction had a positive and significant relationship with learning, learning with behavior and behavior with the results. The results of the specific indirect relationship among the four levels clearly depicted that behavior was mediated through learning and the results, learning was mediated through the reaction and behavior and behavior was mediated through the reaction and results. This study is useful for vocational education institutions and skill development policymakers to design in-service training programs for in-service teachers. Future studies can be conducted about the adaptation of instructions for the in-service vocational teachers’ training program through blended learning approaches

Pedagogical Implications of ELF : Comparing Research Literature with Finnish Curricula

English as a lingua franca (ELF) has become one of the central interests in the field of applied linguistics. The implications of ELF research are particularly relevant for English language teaching (ELT) because learners are more likely to use the language in ELF contexts, rather than in native English contexts. This study, therefore, investigates the research on English as a lingua franca and the implications thereof for ELT. The results are then compared with the national core curricula in Finland to understand how ELF is understood in the curricula. The methodology for investigating ELF research literature is content analysis. The results display how the literature offers contradictive advice on how to make use of ELF in the classroom, but they also provide insights into how the contradiction between Standard English and the inherent nonstandardness and flexibility of ELF can be connected. By means of a tolerant and reflective approach, the teacher should incorporate ELF into the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom, without forgetting that English is still English. Comparing the results with the national core curricula in Finland, the study explains how the curricula do promote many suitable ELF features to the Finnish English language classroom. However, it is evident that the teacher’s understanding of the concept of ELF and its implications for ELT is crucial in determining how ELF is incorporated to teaching. As a conclusion, the study highlights the importance of knowing how English language teachers understand and utilise ELF related aspects of the curricula and research. Without proper understanding, the curricula do not serve the purpose for ELT

On the Analogical Comparison of Performance Environments : Lament Poetry's Soundscape as a Case Study

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PassWalk: Spatial Authentication Leveraging Lateral Shift and Gaze on Mobile Headsets

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