Culture and consumer response on advertising; Comparison of Finnish and Italian consumers

This study takes a look at consumer response on advertising. More importantly it focuses on how culture affects the way consumers respond to advertising. Culture’s effect is studied through advertising standardization and adaptation. The theoretical part of the study presents theories on international advertising from the point of view of standardization and adaptation, and takes a look at the meaning-based models of consumer response. Based on theory, a framework is developed which presents the interaction between the consumer and the advertisement. Cultural theories from Hofstede, Schwartz and GLOBE are presented in order to identify the different dimensions of national culture. Based on the discussion a framework is again presented, and Finnish and Italian cultures are described. The theoretical frameworks of international advertising and national culture form the basis of the empirical part of the study. The study is qualitative in its nature and focus groups are used as the main source of data. The empirical part of the study looks at the consumer responses from two different cultures, Finnish and Italian. Two focus group interviews are organized, one for each culture. Television commercials are shown to the participants and the commercials are discussed in groups. Both standardized and adapted commercials are shown in order to see the differences in responses. The findings of this study show that culture is present in consumer response to advertising. They also confirm that consumers are active when reading the advertisements and a process of interaction is created between the consumer and the advertisement. Culture in addition, determines the level of effectiveness the advertising has on a consumer. Consumers responded for both standardized and adapted advertising. However, adapted advertisements clearly reached a more profound level of interaction. The managerial implications of the study suggest that advertisements should be adapted when the advertiser aims to create a deeper relationship with the consumer. Standardized advertising can also be used but the values that the advertisements present should be carefully planned. The findings also highlight the importance of implementation in advertisement creation.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

C. elegans odour detection in the diagnosis of prostate cancer

There are about 200 distinct forms of cancer, each of which is diagnosed and treated differently. Early identification and treatment of cancer is especially important as the population ages and cases become more frequent. In Finland prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer in men with approximately 5000 new cases and 900 deaths yearly. There are nearly 1,3 million cases globally every year. Despite advances in recent years, prostate cancer continues to be a significant medical issue for afflicted men, with overtreatment of benign illness and lack of effective medicines for metastatic prostate cancer. Prostate cancer rarely displays symptoms until it is incurable. Present technologies are unable to reliably identify between those tumours that will advance so slowly that they will not generate symptoms and those that are likely to cause death. As there is no sure way to prevent prostate cancer, the only way to reduce suffering and mortality is via early identification and competent patient care. Early detection followed by appropriate treatment plays a big role in the recovery while economical and accessible diagnosis methods are of vital importance. Presently prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening is frequently employed for detecting prostate cancer in its early state. However, it is considered a controversial method, since around 67% of men with an elevated PSA level obtain a false positive result and are not diagnosed with prostate cancer, whereas 15% of men with a negative result will develop cancer. The Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes are widely used in research as a model organism since they are easy to maintain and possess many well-defined features. These include an efficient chemosensory system, which allows C. elegans to distinguish between substances in its surroundings and move towards or away from them. The chemosensory neurons in the head of C. elegans express around 700 distinct G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) that are able to recognize soluble or volatile compounds (VOCs) from the urine and exhaled air of cancer patients. It is thought that cancer metabolism generates particular odorants that could be useful in the early detection of the disease. The goal of this study was to determine how well the C. elegans nematodes can detect prostate cancer from human urine samples. Chemotaxis assays were performed with urine samples of men with either benign hyperplasia of the prostate or malignant prostate cancer. Results obtained during this study were fairly variable and not reliable enough to recommend the method for clinical use. However, several factors may have influenced the results that were not in line with previously published data. Thus, further studies on this topic are definitely needed

Utterance fluency in Finnish Sign Language L1 and L2 signing

This paper explores the fluency of first language (L1) and second language (L2) signers of Finnish Sign Language. The phenomenon was approached by measuring utterance fluency using speed and breakdown parameters. The findings revealed clear differences between L1 and L2 signers regarding the measured fluency parameters. On average, L1 signers produced more signs and had fewer breakdowns per minute than L2 signers. However, the slowest L1 signer and the fastest L2 signer were more similar to each other than the averages of the L1 group’s (129.3) and the L2 group’s (71.4) signs per minute might suggest. The number of breakdowns per minute differed between the groups, with L2 signers breaking down on average over three times more often than L1 signers. The relative proportion of breakdown types also varied. These findings support the concept of fluency as rather a multidimensional continuum of features than a categorical phenomenon

”Does your elven mind give you a different viewpoint?”:rotu, valtarakenteet ja kertomus videopelissä Dragon Age: Origins

Tiivistelmä. Pro gradu -tutkielmassani käsittelen rotua, valtarakenteita ja kertomusta videopelissä Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age: Origins on vuonna 2009 ilmestynyt fantasiaroolipeli, joka on ensimmäinen osa pelitalo Biowaren kehittämästä Dragon Age -pelisarjasta. Analysoin ja pohdin tutkielmassani, miten pelaajan luoman päähahmon rotu vaikuttaa kerrontaan ja miten nämä päähahmon ominaisuudet vaikuttavat hahmojen välisin suhteisiin. Tarkastelen myös, miten päähahmon rotu ja identiteetti tulevat pelissä ilmi ja millaisia valta-asetelmia se tuo esille. Rodulla viittaan tässä fantasiarotuihin. Tutkimukseni teoriapohja koostuu rodun, etnisyyden ja rasismin määrittelemisestä sekä identiteetin ja kulttuuri-identiteetin hahmottamisesta. Käsittelen teoriaosuudessa myös rotua ja rasismia fantasiagenressä sekä videopeleissä ja pelitutkimuksessa. Tutkimukseni yhdistelee kirjallisuudentutkimusta ja pelitutkimusta. Tutkimusprosessissani pelasin Dragon Age: Originsin läpi kolmella hahmolla. Yksi hahmoista oli ihminen ja kaksi hahmoista haltioita, joista toinen oli taustaltaan dalish-haltia ja toinen kaupunkihaltia. Tallensin peliprosessin videoille. Analyysissa vertailin näitä kolmea hahmoa toisiinsa. Tutkimuksessani tuli esille, että päähahmon tausta ja rotu vaikuttivat kerrontaan erityisesti yksittäisissä keskusteluissa. Tausta ja rotu korostavat päähahmon toimintaa ja motiivia saavuttaa pelin päätavoite sekä muokkaavat pelistä yksilöllisen kokemuksen. Hahmon tausta painottaa tarinassa tiettyjä piirteitä: Ihmisellä pääpaino on pelimaailman poliittisessa tilanteessa ja haltioilla maailmaa uhkaavassa vitsauksessa. Päähahmon rotu ja identiteetti näkyvät rasismissa, joka kohdistui haltiahahmoihin. Haltiat kohtaavat avointa rasismia erilaisissa keskustelutilanteissa esimerkiksi pilkkaavina nimityksinä tai asemansa kyseenalaistamisena. Rasismi tuo esille hahmojen ja rotuja välistä hierarkiaa, jossa ihminen on kaikista ylempiarvoisin ja haltiat ihmisiä alempiarvoisia. Tutkimuksessani tulee esille myös pelin kahden haltiakulttuurin erot, joita pohdin identiteetin ja kulttuuri-identiteetin kautta. Haltioiden välilläkin on nähtävissä rasistisia piirteitä: Dalish-haltiat halveksuvat kaupunkihaltioita ja pitävät itseään kaupunkihaltioita kunniakkaampina ja arvokkaampina. Dalish-haltioiden rasismi kohdistuu erityisesti kaupunkihaltioiden etniseen taustaan, kun taas ihmisten harjoittama rasismi haltioita kohtaan kohdistuu rodullisiin piirteisiin

Requirements for innovation policy in emerging high-tech industries

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Different aspects of open science

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