Quantum computing

The aim of this thesis was to explain what quantum computing is. The information for the thesis was gathered from books, scientific publications, and news articles. The analysis of the information revealed that quantum computing can be broken down to three areas: theories behind quantum computing explaining the structure of a quantum computer, known quantum algorithms, and the actual physical realizations of a quantum computer. The thesis reveals that moving from classical memory bits to quantum bits obeying the laws of quantum mechanics allows more complicated operations to be performed. This leads to new algorithms that seem to outperform classical computing on some important problems. Quantum computers can search for information and calculate mathematical Fourier transforms much faster than classical computers, which allows them to break modern encryption techniques. The quantum mechanical nature of quantum bits also leads to new challenges. The quantum bits are very unstable and the complicated nature of quantum computing makes it very hard to figure out new quantum algorithms. Only very small quantum computers, consisting of a few quantum bits, have been built. Theories about large quantum computers and quantum programming languages are being studied, but it is not known whether or not it is possible to build a large quantum computer. Quantum phenomena tend to stay on microscopic distances and there might be physical barriers that prevent large quantum computers from being built.Tämän opinnäytetyön tavoite oli selittää, mitä on kvanttilaskenta. Informaatio työtä varten kerättiin kirjoista, tieteellisistä julkaisuista ja uutisartikkeleista. Informaation analysointi osoitti, että kvanttilaskenta voidaan jakaa kolmeen osa-alueeseen: kvanttitietokoneen rakenteen selittäviin teorioihin, tunnettuihin kvanttialgoritmeihin ja varsinaisiin kvanttitietokoneen fysikaalisiin toteutuksiin. Lopputyössä selviää, että siirtyminen klassisista muistibiteistä kvanttimekaniikkaa noudattaviin bitteihin, mahdollistaa monimutkaisempien operaatioiden suorittamisen. Niiden avulla voidaan muodostaa uusia algoritmeja, jotka näyttävät ratkaisevan eräitä tärkeitä ongelmia klassista laskentaa nopeammin. Kvanttitietokoneet osaavat etsiä tietoa ja ratkaista matemaattisia Fourier muunnoksia selvästi nopeammin kun klassiset tietokoneet, minkä takia ne pystyvät murtamaan moderneja salausjärjestelmiä. Kvanttibittien kvanttimekaaninen luonne johtaa myös uusiin ongelmiin. Kvanttibitit ovat hyvin epävakaita ja kvanttilaskennan monimutkainen luonne tekee uusien kvanttialgoritmien kehittämisen vaikeaksi. Vain hyvin pieniä muutaman kvanttibitin kokoisia kvanttitietokoneita on rakennettu. Teorioita suurista kvanttitietokoneista ja kvanttiohjelmoinnista on kehitetty, mutta ei tiedetä, onko suurten kvanttitietokoneen rakentaminen mahdollista. Kvantti-ilmiöt tapaavat pysytellä mikroskooppisilla etäisyyksillä ja saattaa olla fysikaalisia esteitä, jotka estävät suurten kvanttitietokoneiden rakentamisen

“It’s almost like official” - Children’s participation as a relational and spatial question

In recent years, more attention has been paid to the opportunities that children and young people have for participation in their communities. The present article explores children’s public participation in the Finnish town of Tampere. Tampere was the first town in Finland that had a municipal Children’s Parliament. The organisation of the Parliament is based on electoral and representative democratic principles. The key event in the organisation and action of the Parliament is the General Meeting (Suurkokous), an event organised twice every year in a council hall. Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, the paper concentrates on analysing the spatial and intergenerational arrangements of the General Meetings. The results of the study support the emerging body of research indicating that representative models provide possibilities primarily for those children who are already in an advantaged position and have many cultural and social resources

Adult readers evaluating the credibility of social media posts: Prior belief consistency and source's expertise matter most

The present study investigates the role of source characteristics, the quality of evidence, and prior beliefs of the topic in adult readers' credibility evaluations of short health-related social media posts. The researchers designed content for the posts concerning five health topics by manipulating the source characteristics (source's expertise, gender, and ethnicity), the accuracy of the claims, and the quality of evidence (research evidence, testimony, consensus, and personal experience) of the posts. After this, accurate and inaccurate social media posts varying in the other manipulated aspects were programmatically generated. The crowdworkers (N = 844) recruited from two platforms were asked to evaluate the credibility of up to ten social media posts, resulting in 8380 evaluations. Before credibility evaluation, participants' prior beliefs on the topics of the posts were assessed. The results showed that prior belief consistency and the source's expertise affected the perceived credibility of the accurate and inaccurate social media posts the most after controlling for the topic of the post and the crowdworking platform. In contrast, the quality of evidence supporting the health claim mattered relatively little. The source's gender and ethnicity did not have any effect. The results are discussed in terms of first- and second-hand evaluation strategies.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures including the appendix. Submitted to a journal for peer revie

Exerbraining for Schools: Combining Body and Brain Training

AbstractThe growing obesity problem has reinforced policymakers and educators to devise strategies that encourage introduction of novel and engaging physical activities in schools. At the same time, the gaming industry has introduced a game genre that requires the player to be physically involved in the game (e.g. Nintendo Wii, Kinect). In fact, exergames (physically activating games) is an emerging trend that may influence also the implementation of the physical education curriculum and classroom activities in the near future. In this paper we discuss the possibilities and limitations that exergames can provid e for schools. We review exergaming practices that have been introduced to schools and propose a new form of exergaming, exerbraining that combines both body and brain training and thus could fit well to school context. We report the results of the case study in which we tested an exerbraining game involving mathematical content. The results showed that students enjoyed playing the game a lot and exerbraining games can provide effective learning solutions for schools

In memoriam dr Maido Sikk

Eesti Arst 2013; 92(8):485 48

The design principles for flow experience in educational games

Educational games have to be well designed to incorporate learner engagement, an integral component of educational effectiveness. One foundation of designing educational engagement is flow theory. This article presents a flow framework that describes the building blocks of flow experience that can be used to design appealing and effective educational games for formal and informal learning contexts. The framework provides the principles for good educational game design, based upon associative, cognitive and situative learning theories, including engagement and pedagogic elements with a focus upon feedback and flow principles. Furthermore, the paper clarifies the relation between the flow experience and immersion. We tested the flow framework in the RealGame case study, which revealed that the RealGame business simulation game was well designed and effective at engaging student.We found tht the university student; flow experience in the game was high and the findings indicated that sense of control, clear goals and challenge-skill dimensions of flow scored the highest, but a rewarding experience and feedback dimensions also scored highly by the students. Overall, the results indicate that flow framework is a useful tool in studying game-based learning experiences

Exploring Patterns in Student Dialogue While Using a Digital Platform Designed to Support Online Inquiry

Online inquiry, or using the Internet to generate questions and then search for, analyse, and synthesise information about these questions, is an essential part of digital literacy. However, processes involved in online inquiry are substantially complex. Prior research suggests that digital platforms can scaffold online inquiry processes. Moreover, the value of scaffolding dialogue in collaborative activities has been shown to enhance critical thinking, an important part of online inquiry. This study investigates whether the use of digital platforms designed to scaffold online inquiry can support productive dialogue when used collaboratively. Data from four pairs of high school students was collected as they worked together using both the digital platform and multiple online sources outside the platform to complete an online inquiry task. Each pair’s interactions were analysed to investigate whether features of the digital platform prompted productive dialogue. In line with research suggesting the use of academic language influences content understanding, each pair’s use of certain academic terms related to the task and digital platform’s interface were also statistically examined. Results suggested that most productive dialogue occurred when using the digital platform. Additionally, two of the four academic terms investigated occurred more often in talk while interacting with the digital platform, compared to talk when on another website. A comparison of timelines associated with these terms offered examples of how initially they were said exclusively while on the tool, and then progressed towards independent use

Kansainvälinen verosuunnittelu ja moraali : Suomalaisten suuryritysten näkökulma

Verosuunnittelun tarkoitus on tukea yrityssuunnittelua ja suojella yritystä muun muassa kaksinkertaiselta verotukselta. Osa suurista monikansallisista suuryrityksistä on kuitenkin onnistunut saavuttamaan lähes nollaverotuksen käyttämällä hyväksi kansainvälisen verojärjestelmän epäyhteneväisyyksiä. Tapaukset ovat saaneet paljon huomiota julkisuudessa ja yritysten toimintaa on pidetty lähinnä moraalittomana. Samalla verosuunnittelun maine on kärsinyt. Tämä herättää kysymyksen mitä tapahtuu verosuunnittelijoiden mielissä. Toisaalta yritykset itse ovat olleet kovin vaitonaisia tavoitteistaan verosuunnittelun suhteen. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää miten suomalaisissa suuryrityksissä verosuunnittelun parissa työskentelevät ihmiset rakentavat moraaliaan ja missä he näkevät hyväksyttävän verosuunnittelun rajojen kulkevan. Tutkimus on luonteeltaan laadullinen, ja sen empiria perustuu neljään teemahaastatteluun, joissa haastateltavina olivat kolme verojohtajaa ja yksi konsernitason kontrolleri. Teoreettinen viitekehys muodostuu sekä laskentatoimen että moraalipsykologian teorioista. Tutkimusote on toiminta-analyyttinen, sillä tavoitteena on lisätä ymmärrystä verosuunnittelusta moraalisena ilmiönä. Tutkimuksessa kävi ilmi, että kun suuri yleisö arvioi verosuunnittelua oikeudenmukaisuuskysymyksenä, verosuunnittelijoiden työssä painottuvat ennen kaikkea lainmukaisuus ja oikeellisuusnäkökulmat. Vaikka verosuunnittelijatkin pitivät oikeudenmukaisuuden toteutumista tärkeänä, kuitenkin viimekädessä lainsäädäntö määrittelee toiminnan ja sen lopputuloksen verosuunnittelussa. Kansainvälisen verojärjestelmän epäyhteneväisyydet ja porsaanreiät eivät nousseet esiin keskeisinä verosuunnittelukeinoina tässä tutkimuksessa, vaan tärkeimpänä kriteerinä veroratkaisujen osalta pidettiin sitä, kuinka hyvin ne palvelevat liiketoimintaa kokonaisuutena. Tutkittavien halu noudattaa lakia osoittautui kuitenkin merkittäväksi tekijäksi moraalisen motivaation kannalta taloudellisten tekijöiden rinnalla