One-dog policy

Opinnäytetyö One-Dog Policy koostuu taiteellisesta produktiosta ja kirjallisesta osasta. Opinnäytteen aihe on lemmikkikoirat ja niihin liittyvät sivuilmiöt kuten eläimen pukeminen ja värjääminen. Työ lähestyy koirien kuvia ihmisen muotokuvan lähtökohdista. Näkökulma on se, että eläintä katsotaan inhimillisenä, ihmisen kaltaisena olentona. Produktio-osuudessa on 32 valokuvaa erilaisista lemmikkikoirista Suomessa, Espanjassa ja Britanniassa. Kuvat ovat miljöö- ja studiomuotokuvia. Tekstiosuus tarkastelee sitä, miksi lemmikkejä pidetään, millaisia ilmiöitä lemmikin pitämiseen liittyy ja miten niiden inhimillistäminen vaikuttaa eläinsuhteeseemme ja koirien kuvaamiseen. Lisäksi teksti käsittelee esimerkkien avulla sitä, miten eläimen ja ihmisen samankaltaisuutta hyödynnetään taiteessa ja populaarikulttuurissa, sekä sitä, miten eläimen näkeminen inhimillisenä vaikuttaa kuvan katsomiseen. Kuinka kuvan katsominen muuttuu, kun kuvassa on eläin, joka kuitenkin nähdään ihmismäisenä hahmona? Opinnäytteen keskeinen teema on vallan eri muodot. Valokuvaaja käyttää valtaa muotokuvaustilanteessa kohdistaessaan kuvattavaan esineellistävän katseen. Lisäksi valokuvaajalla on valta esittää henkilö kuvassa haluamallaan tavalla. Valtaa käytetään myös eläimiin, kun niitä pidetään lemmikkeinä ja muokataan jalostamalla sekä koristelemalla. Lemmikki on ihmiselle viihdyke ja huvitusväline. Niitä kohdellaan kuin vauvoja, inhimillistetään ja ymmärretään väärin.  Toinen oleellinen teema opinnäytteessä on antropomorfismi, ihmisen tapa nähdä eläimet inhimillisinä olentoina. Koirien muotokuvia katsoessa muotokuvassa olevia koodeja luetaan inhimillistävän katseen kautta. Eläimistä tulee kuvitteellisia ihmisiä, mutta niiden erilainen katse kuitenkin erottaa ne ihmisestä.The thesis One-Dog Policy consists of production and written parts. The thesis discusses pet dogs and the side effects of dog keeping, like decorating and dyeing dogs. The principle idea is that the dog is seen as a human-like creature. The thesis approaches images of dogs on the basis of portrait. The production part consists of 32 photographs of different kind of pet dogs in Finland, Spain and the UK. The photographs are portraits shot on location and in a studio. The written part discusses why people keep pets, what kind of phenomena are related to pet keeping, and how the humanization of pets influences the human-animal relationship and photographing of dogs. In addition, the text deals with how the likeness of humans and animals is utilized in art and popular culture, and how seeing animals as humans affects looking at their pictures. How do we look at images of animals, when we see them as humanlike creatures? The essential theme in the thesis is power and dominance. A photographer uses power by directing an objectifying gaze upon the model. In addition, the photographer has power to show the person in the picture in a preferred way. Power and dominance is also used towards animals when they are kept as pets, selectively bred and decorated. Pets are pastime and means of entertainment. They are humanized, misunderstood and treated like babies. Another essential theme in the thesis is antropomorfism, attribution of human characteristics to animals. When looking at portraits of dogs, the codes of portrait are interpreted by an antropomorfic gaze. Animals become imaginary humans, but nevertheless, their distinct gaze tells them apart from humans

Terveyskeskussairaalan potilasvahinkotapahtumia : HaiPro-ilmoitusten analyysi eräässä Pohjois-Pohjanmaalaisessa terveyskeskussairaalassa

Potilasturvallisuus on kansainvälisesti ajankohtainen aihe, johon on alettu kiinnittää viime vuosina yhä enemmän huomiota. Potilasturvallisuus on keskeinen osa hoidon laatua, minkä vuoksi sitä tulisikin tarkastella ja kehittää jatkuvasti terveydenhuollon organisaatioissa. Tutkimuksesta saadulla tiedolla voidaan tukea potilasturvallisuuden kehittämistä. Tämän opinnäytetyön tilaajana toimi eräs Pohjois-Pohjanmaalainen terveyskeskussairaala. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli kuvailla, millaisia vaaratapahtumia erään Pohjois-Pohjanmaalaisen terveyskeskussairaalan vuodeosastolla tapahtuu. Tarkoituksena oli myös kartoittaa vaaratapahtumien taustalla olevia tekijöitä ja niistä aiheutuneita seurauksia. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli, että tutkimustulosten avulla vuodeosaston hoitohenkilökunta olisi tietoinen vaaratapahtumien riskeistä. Lisäksi tavoitteena oli, että tulosten avulla vuodeosastolla voitaisiin kiinnittää huomiota vaaratapahtumille altistaviin tekijöihin, jolloin vaaratapahtumien määrä vähenisi. Opinnäytetyö oli laadullisen ja määrällisen tutkimuksen yhdistelmä. Tutkimuksessa käytettiin valmista aineistoa, joka koostui 01/2014 – 06/2015 välisellä ajalla erään Pohjois-Pohjanmaalaisen terveyskeskussairaalan vuodeosastolla tehdyistä HaiPro-ilmoituksista. Ilmoituksia oli yhteensä 76 kappaletta, joista tutkimukseen otettiin mukaan 69 ilmoitusta. Laadullisen aineiston analyysimenetelmänä käytettiin aineistolähtöistä sisällönanalyysiä. Määrällistä osuutta käsiteltiin Webropol-työkalun avulla. Tulosten perusteella eniten ilmoituksia tehtiin potilaille tapahtuneista vaaratapahtumista (71 %). Eniten vaaratapahtumia tapahtui yöaikaan. Ilmoitetuista vaaratapahtumista suurin osa koski potilaiden kaatumis- ja putoamistapaturmia, jotka useimmiten liittyivät potilaiden wc-käynteihin. Terveyskeskussairaalan vuodeosaston henkilökunta voi hyödyntää tutkimuksesta saatuja tuloksia potilasturvallisuuden kehittämisessä. Tutkimus kehittää myös omaa ammattitaitoamme tulevina terveydenhuollon ammattilaisina, sillä saamme tutkimustyötä tehdessämme tietoa vaaratapahtumista ja niihin altistavista tekijöistä sekä tunnistamme potilasturvallisuuden kehittämiskohteita.Patient safety is an internationally relevant subject that has received a growing amount of attention over the past few years. In nursing, patient safety is an essential part of the quality of patient treatment and therefore should be examined and constantly developed in healthcare organisations. The data gathered for this thesis can be used to support the development of patient safety. This thesis was made for a healthcare centre in Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland. The purpose of the thesis was to describe the safety hazards occurring in the ward section of the healthcare centre in Northern Ostrobothnia, while also charting the consequences and factors behind the safety hazards. With the research results, the aim was to make the staff of the ward aware of the safety hazards and to draw attention to the factors behind them, which would decrease the number of hazardous events. The staff at the ward in the healthcare centre would thus be able to use the research results in developing the safety of patients. The thesis is a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. The material used in the making of this thesis were the healthcare centre’s HaiPro-reports (web-based patient safety report system), gathered between 01/2014 and 06/2015. Out of the 76 reports, a total of 69 were used in this thesis. The method of analysis of the material was inductive, and the quantitative part of the research was edited with Webropol survey tool. According to HaiPro-reports, majority (71 %) of the hazardous incidents that happened to patients were falling and slipping accidents, usually related to patients using the lavatories. Most of the accidents occurred at night time. The staff at the healthcare centre’s ward may use the results of this thesis to improve patient safety. The making of this thesis developed our skills as future healthcare professionals as we feel we gained knowledge of the possible safety hazards and the causes leading up to them. It also helps us to recognise aspects of patient safety, aspects that require development in the future

ASKELEITTAIN-OPETUSOHJELMA - TUNNE- JA SOSIAALISET TAIDOT ESIKOULUIKÄISILLÄ

Tutkimuksen tarkoitus oli selvittää lasten tunne- ja sosiaalisten taitojen esiintymistä Askeleittain opetustuokioiden aikana ja näiden taitojen opettamisen tärkeyttä varhais-kasvatuksessa perheiden ja päiväkodin näkökulmasta. Opinnäytetyön aihe nousi omasta mielenkiinnosta tunne- ja sosiaalisten taitojen opetusta kohtaan. Näitä taitoja ei voi koskaan harjoitella liikaa eivätkä ne tule koskaan valmiiksi. Opinnäytetyön taustateoria pohjautuu Askeleittain-opetusohjelman teorioihin. Opin-näytetyö on laadullinen tutkimus, jossa käytettiin kolmea eri menetelmää: havainnoin-tia, kyselyä ja ryhmähaastattelua. Tutkimushenkilöinä olivat kuusi erään kouvolalaisen päiväkodin esikouluryhmän lasta, joita havainnoitiin talvella ja keväällä 2011. Tutkimukseen osallistuivat myös lasten vanhemmat ja esikouluryhmän kolme työnte-kijää. Tutkimusaineistoa käsiteltiin ja analysoitiin sisällönanalyysin keinoin. Tutkimus tuotti vastauksia kolmesta näkökulmasta: lasten, vanhempien ja työntekijöi-den. Tuloksia tarkastellessa tulee muistaa lasten taitojen kehityksen yksilöllisyys, sekä erilaiset lähtötasot. Sekä työntekijät että vanhemmat kokivat tunne- ja sosiaalisten tai-tojen opetuksen päiväkodissa tärkeäksi osaksi esikouluvuotta. Tuloksista kävi ilmi vanhempien ja työntekijöiden erilainen näkemys lasten taitojen kehittymisestä ja harjoittelun tarpeesta. Erilaisissa ympäristöissä lasten taidot näkyvät eri tavalla. Havainnoinnin tulokset ja työntekijöiden näkemykset puolestaan kohtasi-vat. Päiväkodin työntekijät ovat olleet tyytyväisiä Askeleittain-opetusohjelmaan ja kertovat sen näkyvän vahvasti päiväkodin arjessa ja lasten toiminnassa.The lack of social and emotional skills among today’s children is causing more and more problems in early childhood education. The Second Step program has been cre-ated to help educators to teach such skills to children. The aim of this thesis was to discover how social and emotional skills are being prac-ticed in a preschool year by using the Second Step program. The goal was to find out how the social and emotional skills appear in children’s behaviour and everyday action in the day-care and in the Second Step lessons. One goal was to determine what the parent’s and day-care employees thought about the Second Step program, and how they consider the children have improved their skills. The theory of this thesis is based on the theories of the Second Step program. The re-search method used is qualitative case research, and it is conducted with three differ-ent research methods: observation, survey, and group interview. Content analysis was then applied to the collected research material. The results of this research were that the parents of the children and the employees both thought that practicing these kinds of skills in day-care is necessary. There were differences between the answers on how the children’s skills had improved. The re-sults of the observation and employees group interview were similar, the children had improved their skills. It’s important to remember the child’s individual development and that the surroundings affect behaviour. The employees of the day-care centre were very satisfied with the Second Step program and consider that it has helped their eve-ryday work with children

Effects of conversation content on viewing dyadic conversations

People typically follow conversations closely with their gaze. We asked whether this viewing is influenced by what is actually said in the conversation and by the viewer’s psychological condition. We recorded the eye movements of healthy (N = 16) and depressed (N = 25) participants while they were viewing video clips. Each video showed two people, each speaking one line of dialogue about socio-emotionally important (i.e., personal) or unimportant topics (matter-of-fact). Between the spoken lines, the viewers made more saccadic shifts between the discussants, and looked more at the second speaker, in personal vs. matter-of-fact conversations. Higher depression scores were correlated with less looking at the currently speaking discussant. We conclude that subtle social attention dynamics can be detected from eye movements and that these dynamics are sensitive to the observer’s psychological condition, such as depression

Passive exposure to speech sounds induces long-term memory representations in the auditory cortex of adult rats

Experience-induced changes in the functioning of the auditory cortex are prominent in early life, especially during a critical period. Although auditory perceptual learning takes place automatically during this critical period, it is thought to require active training in later life. Previous studies demonstrated rapid changes in single-cell responses of anesthetized adult animals while exposed to sounds presented in a statistical learning paradigm. However, whether passive exposure to sounds can form long-term memory representations remains to be demonstrated. To investigate this issue, we first exposed adult rats to human speech sounds for 3 consecutive days, 12 h/d. Two groups of rats exposed to either spectrotemporal or tonal changes in speech sounds served as controls for each other. Then, electrophysiological brain responses from the auditory cortex were recorded to the same stimuli. In both the exposure and test phase statistical learning paradigm, was applied. The exposure effect was found for the spectrotemporal sounds, but not for the tonal sounds. Only the animals exposed to spectrotemporal sounds differentiated subtle changes in these stimuli as indexed by the mismatch negativity response. The results point to the occurrence of long-term memory traces for the speech sounds due to passive exposure in adult animals.Peer reviewe

Social interactions through the eyes of macaques and humans

Group-living primates frequently interact with each other to maintain social bonds as well as to compete for valuable resources. Observing such social interactions between group members provides individuals with essential information (e.g. on the fighting ability or altruistic attitude of group companions) to guide their social tactics and choice of social partners. This process requires individuals to selectively attend to the most informative content within a social scene. It is unclear how non-human primates allocate attention to social interactions in different contexts, and whether they share similar patterns of social attention to humans. Here we compared the gaze behaviour of rhesus macaques and humans when free-viewing the same set of naturalistic images. The images contained positive or negative social interactions between two conspecifics of different phylogenetic distance from the observer; i.e. affiliation or aggression exchanged by two humans, rhesus macaques, Barbary macaques, baboons or lions. Monkeys directed a variable amount of gaze at the two conspecific individuals in the images according to their roles in the interaction (i.e. giver or receiver of affiliation/aggression). Their gaze distribution to non-conspecific individuals was systematically varied according to the viewed species and the nature of interactions, suggesting a contribution of both prior experience and innate bias in guiding social attention. Furthermore, the monkeys’ gaze behavior was qualitatively similar to that of humans, especially when viewing negative interactions. Detailed analysis revealed that both species directed more gaze at the face than the body region when inspecting individuals, and attended more to the body region in negative than in positive social interactions. Our study suggests that monkeys and humans share a similar pattern of role-sensitive, species- and context-dependent social attention, implying a homologous cognitive mechanism of social attention between rhesus macaques and humans

The visual mismatch negativity is sensitive to symmetry as perceptual category

We investigated the sensitivity of visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) to an abstract and non-semantic category, the vertical mirror symmetry. Event-related potentials were recorded to random and symmetric square patterns, delivered in passive oddball paradigm (participants played a video game). In one of the conditions, symmetric patterns were frequent (standard) stimuli and the random patterns were infrequent (deviant) stimuli, in the other condition the probabilities were reversed. We compared the ERPs to symmetric stimuli as deviants and as standards, and similarly, the ERPs to the random deviants and random standards. As the difference between the ERPs to random deviant and random standard stimuli a posterior negativity emerged in two latency ranges (112–120-ms and 284–292-ms). These negativities were considered as visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) components. We suggest the two vMMN components are organized in cascade error signals. However, there was no significant difference between the ERPs to the symmetric deviants and symmetric standards. Emergence of vMMN to the deviant random stimuli is considered as a deviation of a perceptual category (in the symmetric standard’s sequence presented). Accordingly, random stimuli acquired no perceptual category, for this reason the symmetric deviant (in the random standard’s sequence presented) elicited no vMMN. The results show that the memory system underlying visual mismatch negativity is capable of coding perceptual categories such as bilateral symmetry, even if the stimulus patterns are unrelated to the ongoing behavior

Resilience in sudden changes and crises related to micro-entrepreneurship

AbstractThe paper examines micro-entrepreneurs’ resilience to significant changes in a company. The focus of this research is on uncovering the kinds of changes and crises entrepreneurs met and on how to classify these changes and crises? The unexpected changes that entrepreneurs may face can have a significant impact on both their current and future activities and can be directed either at the individual or the business level. In micro-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs typically have to address changes and crises alone. To a micro-entrepreneur, a sudden change can be challenging because he/she does not necessarily have a support network to provide useful or sufficient help (Alonso et al., 2015). Managing such situations requires resilience and flexibility from entrepreneurs and companies alike. This empirical research was qualitative by nature and the research method was a retrospective multiple case study. The data collection method was based on semi-structured thematic interviews with 12 entrepreneurs and managers from the social and health care sector in Northern Finland. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were analysed by content analysis with an interpretative approach, each on a case-by-case basis. The data were processed using qualitative data analysis software. Preliminary results suggested that the challenges that micro-entrepreneurs considered the most serious related to internal and external interventions, such as problems with staff, management, management models, authorities, institutions and bureaucracy. In addition, emotional interventions like one’s own wellbeing and a lack of guidance and support related to real crises is a reality of a micro-entrepreneur’s life.Abstract The paper examines micro-entrepreneurs’ resilience to significant changes in a company. The focus of this research is on uncovering the kinds of changes and crises entrepreneurs met and on how to classify these changes and crises? The unexpected changes that entrepreneurs may face can have a significant impact on both their current and future activities and can be directed either at the individual or the business level. In micro-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs typically have to address changes and crises alone. To a micro-entrepreneur, a sudden change can be challenging because he/she does not necessarily have a support network to provide useful or sufficient help (Alonso et al., 2015). Managing such situations requires resilience and flexibility from entrepreneurs and companies alike. This empirical research was qualitative by nature and the research method was a retrospective multiple case study. The data collection method was based on semi-structured thematic interviews with 12 entrepreneurs and managers from the social and health care sector in Northern Finland. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. The transcriptions were analysed by content analysis with an interpretative approach, each on a case-by-case basis. The data were processed using qualitative data analysis software. Preliminary results suggested that the challenges that micro-entrepreneurs considered the most serious related to internal and external interventions, such as problems with staff, management, management models, authorities, institutions and bureaucracy. In addition, emotional interventions like one’s own wellbeing and a lack of guidance and support related to real crises is a reality of a micro-entrepreneur’s life

Emotion-Related Visual Mismatch Responses in Schizophrenia: Impairments and Correlations with Emotion Recognition.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:Mismatch negativity (MMN) is an event-related potential (ERP) measure of preattentional sensory processing. While deficits in the auditory MMN are robust electrophysiological findings in schizophrenia, little is known about visual mismatch response and its association with social cognitive functions such as emotion recognition in schizophrenia. Our aim was to study the potential deficit in the visual mismatch response to unexpected facial emotions in schizophrenia and its association with emotion recognition impairments, and to localize the sources of the mismatch signals. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN:The sample comprised 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 healthy control subjects. Controls were matched individually to patients by gender, age, and education. ERPs were recorded using a high-density 128-channel BioSemi amplifier. Mismatch responses to happy and fearful faces were determined in 2 time windows over six regions of interest (ROIs). Emotion recognition performance and its association with the mismatch response were also investigated. PRINCIPAL OBSERVATIONS:Mismatch signals to both emotional conditions were significantly attenuated in patients compared to controls in central and temporal ROIs. Controls recognized emotions significantly better than patients. The association between overall emotion recognition performance and mismatch response to the happy condition was significant in the 250-360 ms time window in the central ROI. The estimated sources of the mismatch responses for both emotional conditions were localized in frontal regions, where patients showed significantly lower activity. CONCLUSIONS:Impaired generation of mismatch signals indicate insufficient automatic processing of emotions in patients with schizophrenia, which correlates strongly with decreased emotion recognition

Event-related potentials to task-irrelevant changes in facial expressions

Abstract Background Numerous previous experiments have used oddball paradigm to study change detection. This paradigm is applied here to study change detection of facial expressions in a context which demands abstraction of the emotional expression-related facial features among other changing facial features. Methods Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in adult humans engaged in a demanding auditory task. In an oddball paradigm, repeated pictures of faces with a neutral expression ('standard', p = .9) were rarely replaced by pictures with a fearful ('fearful deviant', p = .05) or happy ('happy deviant', p = .05) expression. Importantly, facial identities changed from picture to picture. Thus, change detection required abstraction of facial expression from changes in several low-level visual features. Results ERPs to both types of deviants differed from those to standards. At occipital electrode sites, ERPs to deviants were more negative than ERPs to standards at 150–180 ms and 280–320 ms post-stimulus. A positive shift to deviants at fronto-central electrode sites in the analysis window of 130–170 ms post-stimulus was also found. Waveform analysis computed as point-wise comparisons between the amplitudes elicited by standards and deviants revealed that the occipital negativity emerged earlier to happy deviants than to fearful deviants (after 140 ms versus 160 ms post-stimulus, respectively). In turn, the anterior positivity was earlier to fearful deviants than to happy deviants (110 ms versus 120 ms post-stimulus, respectively). Conclusion ERP amplitude differences between emotional and neutral expressions indicated pre-attentive change detection of facial expressions among neutral faces. The posterior negative difference at 150–180 ms latency resembled visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) – an index of pre-attentive change detection previously studied only to changes in low-level features in vision. The positive anterior difference in ERPs at 130–170 ms post-stimulus probably indexed pre-attentive attention orienting towards emotionally significant changes. The results show that the human brain can abstract emotion related features of faces while engaged to a demanding task in another sensory modality.peerReviewe