The Affordances of the Digital Medium : Users’ perceptions of digitalization

The aim of this administrative research is to identify the opportunities and obstacles associated with the exploitation of digitalization and digital services. The objective of the study is viewed from a user perspective, undertaken using a co-creation approach. The research material was collected in group discussions between participants in rural areas in Finland, as well as from the organizational environment of Finnish health care. Affordance theory, together with the concepts of the digital medium, and the co-creation of digitalization provide a theoretical framework for the research. The affordance approach provides a perspective to interpret the relationship between the user and the environment, where the aspects of the digital medium and the forming of the collective perception are also considered. By the theoretical framework, this doctoral dissertation responds to the following research question: what is the meaning of affordance theory for the utilization of the digital medium? The results of my study reflect citizens' views on digitalization and e-services. The participants’ attitude towards digitalization is described from the perspective of users, the environment, and digital applications. The model of participatory-deliberative design presented in the study enabled the multidimensional views of the topic. In conclusion, the perspective derived from affordance theory helps us to understand the factors that enable or prevent the utilization of the digital medium. However, the description also opens the cognitive process to the observer itself and to the development community. The increased self-awareness about one’s insights enables the user to be more flexible in controlling how to utilize the opportunities in the environment. Overall, increased awareness of the potential of the environment offers an opportunity to understand the views of others on the subject under consideration and to explain the underlying perception. The additional aspects of design and co-creation of the digital affordances support the successful discovery and implementation of the possibilities. The contribution of this research becomes apparent in unexpected events, as the increased digital transformation during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates. The results also contribute to much more common surroundings and situations, as in the case of digitalization of welfare services.Tämän hallintotieteellisen tutkimuksen tavoitteena on digitalisaation ja digitaalisten palvelujen hyödyntämiseen liittyvien mahdollisuuksien ja estävien tekijöiden tunnistaminen. Käsiteltävän aiheen tarkastelu noudattaa käyttäjälähtöistä lähestymistapaa, joka toteutettiin yhteiskehittämisen menetelmää hyödyntämällä. Tutkimuksen aineisto kerättiin Suomen maaseutupaikkakunnilta sekä terveydenhuollon organisaatioympäristöstä osallistujien välisistä ryhmäkeskusteluista. Affordanssiteoria yhdessä digitalisaatiotematiikan sekä yhteiskehittämisen lähestymistavan kanssa muodostavat tutkimuksen teoreettisen viitekehyksen, joka tarjoaa tarkastelunäkökulman käyttäjän ja ympäristön välisen vuorovaikutussuhteen tulkitsemiseksi. Tutkimuksen teoreettisen viitekehyksen kautta väitöskirja vastaa tutkimuskysymykseen, mikä merkitys affordanssiteorialla on digitalisaation hyödyntämiselle. Tutkimuksen tulokset ilmentävät kansalaisten näkemyksiä digitalisaatiosta ja sähköisistä palveluista. Osallistujien suhtautuminen digitalisaatiota kohtaan kuvataan käyttäjien, ympäristön ja digitaalisten sovellusten näkökulmista. Tutkimuksessa esiteltävä osallistavan deliberatiivisen suunnittelun (participatory-deliberative design) malli mahdollistaa aiheeseen sisältyvien moniulotteisten näkemysten esiin nostamisen. Johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että affordanssiteorian näkökulma auttaa ymmärtämään niitä tekijöitä, jotka mahdollistavat tai estävät digitalisaatioon liittyvät oivallukset. Affordanssien, eli ns. tarjoumien muodostumista kuvaava kognitiivinen prosessi tarjoaa lisääntyneen oivaltamisen mahdollisuuden sekä havainnoijalle itselleen, mutta myös kehittämisyhteisön hyödynnettäväksi. Kaiken kaikkiaan lisääntynyt tietoisuus ympäristön mahdollisuuksista tarjoaa mahdollisuuden ymmärtää muiden näkökulmia tarkasteltavaan aiheeseen ja selittää ajattelun taustalla vaikuttavia syitä. Tutkimuksen vaikutukset ovat hyödynnettävissä niin odottamattomissa tapahtumissa, kuten COVID-19 pandemian myötä tapahtunut ”digiloikka” osoittaa. Tutkimuksen näkökulma on myös sovellettavissa paljon yleisempiin tilanteisiin, kuten esimerkiksi hyvinvointipalvelujen digitalisoinnin tarkasteluun.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Epilepsy

Epilepsy is the most common neurological disorder globally, affecting approximately 50 million people of all ages. It is one of the oldest diseases described in literature from remote ancient civilizations 2000-3000 years ago. Despite its long history and wide spread, epilepsy is still surrounded by myth and prejudice, which can only be overcome with great difficulty. The term epilepsy is derived from the Greek verb epilambanein, which by itself means to be seized and to be overwhelmed by surprise or attack. Therefore, epilepsy is a condition of getting over, seized, or attacked. The twelve very interesting chapters of this book cover various aspects of epileptology from the history and milestones of epilepsy as a disease entity, to the most recent advances in understanding and diagnosing epilepsy

Modeling Deception for Cyber Security

In the era of software-intensive, smart and connected systems, the growing power and so- phistication of cyber attacks poses increasing challenges to software security. The reactive posture of traditional security mechanisms, such as anti-virus and intrusion detection systems, has not been sufficient to combat a wide range of advanced persistent threats that currently jeopardize systems operation. To mitigate these extant threats, more ac- tive defensive approaches are necessary. Such approaches rely on the concept of actively hindering and deceiving attackers. Deceptive techniques allow for additional defense by thwarting attackers’ advances through the manipulation of their perceptions. Manipu- lation is achieved through the use of deceitful responses, feints, misdirection, and other falsehoods in a system. Of course, such deception mechanisms may result in side-effects that must be handled. Current methods for planning deception chiefly portray attempts to bridge military deception to cyber deception, providing only high-level instructions that largely ignore deception as part of the software security development life cycle. Con- sequently, little practical guidance is provided on how to engineering deception-based techniques for defense. This PhD thesis contributes with a systematic approach to specify and design cyber deception requirements, tactics, and strategies. This deception approach consists of (i) a multi-paradigm modeling for representing deception requirements, tac- tics, and strategies, (ii) a reference architecture to support the integration of deception strategies into system operation, and (iii) a method to guide engineers in deception mod- eling. A tool prototype, a case study, and an experimental evaluation show encouraging results for the application of the approach in practice. Finally, a conceptual coverage map- ping was developed to assess the expressivity of the deception modeling language created.Na era digital o crescente poder e sofisticação dos ataques cibernéticos apresenta constan- tes desafios para a segurança do software. A postura reativa dos mecanismos tradicionais de segurança, como os sistemas antivírus e de detecção de intrusão, não têm sido suficien- tes para combater a ampla gama de ameaças que comprometem a operação dos sistemas de software actuais. Para mitigar estas ameaças são necessárias abordagens ativas de defesa. Tais abordagens baseiam-se na ideia de adicionar mecanismos para enganar os adversários (do inglês deception). As técnicas de enganação (em português, "ato ou efeito de enganar, de induzir em erro; artimanha usada para iludir") contribuem para a defesa frustrando o avanço dos atacantes por manipulação das suas perceções. A manipula- ção é conseguida através de respostas enganadoras, de "fintas", ou indicações erróneas e outras falsidades adicionadas intencionalmente num sistema. É claro que esses meca- nismos de enganação podem resultar em efeitos colaterais que devem ser tratados. Os métodos atuais usados para enganar um atacante inspiram-se fundamentalmente nas técnicas da área militar, fornecendo apenas instruções de alto nível que ignoram, em grande parte, a enganação como parte do ciclo de vida do desenvolvimento de software seguro. Consequentemente, há poucas referências práticas em como gerar técnicas de defesa baseadas em enganação. Esta tese de doutoramento contribui com uma aborda- gem sistemática para especificar e desenhar requisitos, táticas e estratégias de enganação cibernéticas. Esta abordagem é composta por (i) uma modelação multi-paradigma para re- presentar requisitos, táticas e estratégias de enganação, (ii) uma arquitetura de referência para apoiar a integração de estratégias de enganação na operação dum sistema, e (iii) um método para orientar os engenheiros na modelação de enganação. Uma ferramenta protó- tipo, um estudo de caso e uma avaliação experimental mostram resultados encorajadores para a aplicação da abordagem na prática. Finalmente, a expressividade da linguagem de modelação de enganação é avaliada por um mapeamento de cobertura de conceitos

Dependencies in language: On the causal ontology of linguistic systems

Dependency is a fundamental concept in the analysis of linguistic systems. The many if-then statements offered in typology and grammar-writing imply a causally real notion of dependency that is central to the claim being made—usually with reference to widely varying timescales and types of processes. But despite the importance of the concept of dependency in our work, its nature is seldom defined or made explicit. This book brings together experts on language, representing descriptive linguistics, language typology, functional/cognitive linguistics, cognitive science, research on gesture and other semiotic systems, developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, and linguistic anthropology to address the following question: What kinds of dependencies exist among language-related systems, and how do we define and explain them in natural, causal terms

Dependencies in language: On the causal ontology of linguistic systems

Dependency is a fundamental concept in the analysis of linguistic systems. The many if-then statements offered in typology and grammar-writing imply a causally real notion of dependency that is central to the claim being made—usually with reference to widely varying timescales and types of processes. But despite the importance of the concept of dependency in our work, its nature is seldom defined or made explicit. This book brings together experts on language, representing descriptive linguistics, language typology, functional/cognitive linguistics, cognitive science, research on gesture and other semiotic systems, developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, and linguistic anthropology to address the following question: What kinds of dependencies exist among language-related systems, and how do we define and explain them in natural, causal terms

Dependencies in language: On the causal ontology of linguistic systems

Dependency is a fundamental concept in the analysis of linguistic systems. The many if-then statements offered in typology and grammar-writing imply a causally real notion of dependency that is central to the claim being made—usually with reference to widely varying timescales and types of processes. But despite the importance of the concept of dependency in our work, its nature is seldom defined or made explicit. This book brings together experts on language, representing descriptive linguistics, language typology, functional/cognitive linguistics, cognitive science, research on gesture and other semiotic systems, developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, and linguistic anthropology to address the following question: What kinds of dependencies exist among language-related systems, and how do we define and explain them in natural, causal terms

Data synthesis and adversarial networks: A review and meta-analysis in cancer imaging

Despite technological and medical advances, the detection, interpretation, and treatment of cancer based on imaging data continue to pose significant challenges. These include inter-observer variability, class imbalance, dataset shifts, inter- and intra-tumour heterogeneity, malignancy determination, and treatment effect uncertainty. Given the recent advancements in image synthesis, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), and adversarial training, we assess the potential of these technologies to address a number of key challenges of cancer imaging. We categorise these challenges into (a) data scarcity and imbalance, (b) data access and privacy, (c) data annotation and segmentation, (d) cancer detection and diagnosis, and (e) tumour profiling, treatment planning and monitoring. Based on our analysis of 164 publications that apply adversarial training techniques in the context of cancer imaging, we highlight multiple underexplored solutions with research potential. We further contribute the Synthesis Study Trustworthiness Test (SynTRUST), a meta-analysis framework for assessing the validation rigour of medical image synthesis studies. SynTRUST is based on 26 concrete measures of thoroughness, reproducibility, usefulness, scalability, and tenability. Based on SynTRUST, we analyse 16 of the most promising cancer imaging challenge solutions and observe a high validation rigour in general, but also several desirable improvements. With this work, we strive to bridge the gap between the needs of the clinical cancer imaging community and the current and prospective research on data synthesis and adversarial networks in the artificial intelligence community

Dependencies in language: On the causal ontology of linguistic systems

Dependency is a fundamental concept in the analysis of linguistic systems. The many if-then statements offered in typology and grammar-writing imply a causally real notion of dependency that is central to the claim being made—usually with reference to widely varying timescales and types of processes. But despite the importance of the concept of dependency in our work, its nature is seldom defined or made explicit. This book brings together experts on language, representing descriptive linguistics, language typology, functional/cognitive linguistics, cognitive science, research on gesture and other semiotic systems, developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, and linguistic anthropology to address the following question: What kinds of dependencies exist among language-related systems, and how do we define and explain them in natural, causal terms

Dependencies in language: On the causal ontology of linguistic systems

Dependency is a fundamental concept in the analysis of linguistic systems. The many if-then statements offered in typology and grammar-writing imply a causally real notion of dependency that is central to the claim being made—usually with reference to widely varying timescales and types of processes. But despite the importance of the concept of dependency in our work, its nature is seldom defined or made explicit. This book brings together experts on language, representing descriptive linguistics, language typology, functional/cognitive linguistics, cognitive science, research on gesture and other semiotic systems, developmental psychology, psycholinguistics, and linguistic anthropology to address the following question: What kinds of dependencies exist among language-related systems, and how do we define and explain them in natural, causal terms