Music Piracy Neutralization and the Youth of the 2010\u27s

In this qualitative research, music piracy among the youth was studied by applying Sykes’ and Matza’s neutralization theory. The key objective of the study was to find out how youths view music piracy, and how they give accounts for it using techniques of neutralization. According to the conducted semi-structured interviews, youths do acknowledge the ethical and economic problems of music piracy. However, piracy is still exercised, and in order to justify this, multiple neutralization techniques are used. The most characteristic of the employed techniques was “claim of normalcy”, with “denial of victim” and “justification by comparison” also appearing frequently. In order to prevent piracy, these techniques need to be countered. The industry needs to effectively voice that “common” does not equal “right”. Recognized artists with reasonable “victim status” should relay the message

Sex-specific familial aggregation of cancers in Finland

Despite the fact that the effect of sex on the occurrence of cancers has been studied extensively, it remains unclear whether sex modifies familial aggregation of cancers. We explored sex-specific familial aggregation of cancers in a large population-based historical cohort study. We combined cancer and population registry data, inferring familial relationships from birth municipality-surname-sex (MNS) combinations. Our data consisted of 391,529 incident primary cancers in 377,210 individuals with 319,872 different MNS combinations. Cumulative sex-specific numbers of cancers were compared to expected cumulative incidence. Familial cancer risks were similar between the sexes in our population-wide analysis. Families with concordant cancer in both sexes exhibited similar sex-specific cancer risks. However, some families had exceptionally high sex-specific cumulative cancer incidence. We identified six families with exceptionally strong aggregation in males: three families with thyroid cancer (ratio between observed and expected incidence 184.6; 95% credible interval (95% CI) 33.1-1012.7, 173.4 (95% CI 65.4-374.3), and 161.4 (95% CI 29.6-785.7), one with stomach (ratio 14.4 (95% CI 6.9-37.2)), colon (ratio 15.5 (95% CI 5.7-56.3)) cancers and one with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (ratio 33.5 (95% CI 17.2-207.6)). Our results imply that familial aggregation of cancers shows no sex-specific preference. However, the atypical sex-specific aggregation of stomach cancer, colon cancer, thyroid cancer and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia in certain families is difficult to fully explain with present knowledge of possible causes, and could yield useful knowledge if explored further.Peer reviewe

Seasonal changes in canopy leaf area index and MODIS vegetation products for a boreal forest site in central Finland

Peer reviewe

Outlook for the forest-based bioeconomy

Non peer reviewe

Development of Introductory Course of Integrated Product Development and Production

Nykyaikainen tekniikan alan yliopisto-tasoinen opetus on etääntynyt kauas käytännöstä, mistä johtuen valmistuvilla opiskelijoilla ei ole kaikkia työelämässä tarvittavia taitoja. CDIO (Conceive – Design – Implement – Operate) –viitekehys on tarkoitettu teknillisen alan opetuksen kehittämiseen, ja sen tavoitteena on aktiivisen ja kokemusperäisen oppimisen avulla varmistua siitä, että opiskelijat saavuttavat työelämässä tarvittavat taidot. Tällä diplomityöllä on kaksi tavoitetta: I. Kartoittaa Tampereen teknillisen yliopiston Tuotantotekniikan laitoksen nykytila suhteessa CDIO –viitekehykseen ja esittää parannusehdotuksia, jotta siirtyminen CDIO –mallin mukaiseen opetukseen olisi mahdollista. II. Saada aikaan ehdotus CDIO –viitekehykseen olennaisesti kuuluvasta projektikurssista, jossa suunnitellaan tuote ja valmistetaan siitä toimiva prototyyppi. Tutkimusmenetelminä käytetään benchmarkkausta sekä kirjallisuus- ja haastattelututkimuksia. Benchmarkkauksen avulla selvitettiin projektikurssien toteutusta muissa yliopistoissa, sekä niiden vaatimia resursseja. Olennainen osa benchmarkkausta oli vierailu Göteborgissa, Chalmersin teknillisessä yliopistossa. Tuotantotekniikan laitoksen opetuksen nykytilaa selvitettiin opetushenkilökunnalle suunnatuilla kyselytutkimuksilla, ja tavoitetilaa professoreille suunnatuilla kyselyillä. Molempien kyselyiden vastauksia analysoitiin CDIO –viitekehyksen tarjoamien työkalujen avulla. Tavoitetilan määrittelyssä käytettiin lisäksi apuna laitoksen sidosryhmiltä aiemmin kerättyä tietoa. Kyselyiden tuloksista käy ilmi, että laitoksen opetuksen painopiste on ongelmien havainnoimisessa (Conceive) sekä tuotteiden ja järjestelmien suunnittelemisessa (Design), toteuttamisen (Implement) ja käyttämisen (Operate) jäädessä vähemmälle huomiolle. Ehdotuksessa projektikurssin tärkeimpänä tavoitteena on CDIO:n perusperiaatteen opettaminen, eli tuotekehitysprosessin läpivieminen hahmottelun, suunnittelun ja toteuttamisen kautta aina käyttöön asti. Tuotteen suunnittelussa otetaan huomioon eri tuotantotekniset näkökulmat, jotta opiskelija saa yleiskuvan myös muusta laitoksen opetuksesta. CDIO –viitekehyksen mukaiseen opetukseen siirtymisen suurimpana ongelmana nähdään tarvittavien työtilojen ja –koneiden puute. Puutteita on muillakin osa-alueilla, mutta niiden korjaamiseksi on jo tehty aloitteita, joten laitoksella on valmiudet siirtyä viitekehyksen täysimittaiseen käyttöön lyhyelläkin aikavälillä. /Kir1

The development of student teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom during teacher education

Teacher education needs to facilitate the development of student teachers’ capacity for active and skillful learning in classroom interaction, referred to as sense of professional agency in the classroom. It consists of motivation to learn, self-efficacy beliefs about learning, and strategies promoting one’s own and pupils’ learning in the classroom. However, not much is known about how student teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom develops during teacher education. This longitudinal study investigated the interrelations between the components of Finnish student teachers’ (N=268) sense of professional agency in the classroom during teacher education. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data that was collected annually during the bachelor’s degree phase of primary school teacher education. The results showed that the construction of student teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom was based on being able to interpret and analyze classroom interaction and became more strongly related to their abilities to use peers, more experienced teachers, and pupils as resources in constructing supportive collaborative learning environments and developing functional engaging teaching methods. The findings suggest that professional agency in the classroom is a functional integrative concept for investigating student teacher learning and developing teacher education.Teacher education needs to facilitate the development of student teachers’ capacity for active and skilful learning in classroom interaction, referred to as sense of professional agency in the classroom. It consists of motivation to learn, self-efficacy beliefs about learning, and strategies promoting one’s own and pupils’ learning in the classroom. However, not much is known about how student teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom develops during teacher education. This longitudinal study investigated the interrelations between the components of Finnish student teachers’ (N = 268) sense of professional agency in the classroom during teacher education. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data that was collected annually during the bachelor’s degree phase of primary school teacher education. The results showed that the construction of student teachers’ sense of professional agency in the classroom was based on being able to interpret and analyse classroom interaction and became more strongly related to their abilities to use peers, more experienced teachers, and pupils as resources in constructing supportive collaborative learning environments and developing functional engaging teaching methods. The findings suggest that professional agency in the classroom is a functional integrative concept for investigating student teacher learning and developing teacher education.Peer reviewe

Pseudo-Likelihood Learning of Gaussian Graphical Models

Multivariate Gaussian distribution is an often encountered continuous distribution in applied mathematics and statistics due to its well known properties and wide applicability. In the graphical models framework, we make use of graphs to compactly represent the conditional independences between a set of random variables. Combining these two together leads to the class of Gaussian graphical models. This thesis discusses learning of Gaussian graphical models from multivariate data. Given the data, our goal is to identify the graphical structure that specifies the conditional independence statements between the variables under consideration. Following the footsteps of Pensar et al [10], we adopt a Bayesian, score-based approach for learning graphical models. Using pseudo-likelihood to approximate the true likelihood allows us to apply results of Consonni et al [4] to compute marginal likelihood integrals in closed form. This results in a method that can be used to make objective comparisons among Gaussian graphical models. We test the method numerically and show that it can be readily applied in high-dimensional settings. According to our tests, the method presented here outperforms the widely used graphical LASSO method in accuracy. The structure of this thesis is as follows. The chapters 2-4 discuss graphical models, multivariate Normal distribution and Bayesian model comparison in general. The fifth chapter goes through the results derived by Consonni, which are utilised in the next chapter to develop a scoring function and a learning algorithm for Gaussian graphical model selection. In the sixth chapter, we test the method in practice and present the obtained numerical results. The last appendix chapter is dedicated to the consistency proof, which gives the theoretical justification for the presented method