Topic Distiller:distilling semantic topics from documents

Abstract. This thesis details the design and implementation of a system that can find relevant and latent semantic topics from textual documents. The design of this system, named Topic Distiller, is inspired by research conducted on automatic keyphrase extraction and automatic topic labeling, and it employs entity linking and knowledge bases to reduce text documents to their semantic topics. The Topic Distiller is evaluated using methods and datasets used in information retrieval and automatic keyphrase extraction. On top of the common datasets used in the literature three additional datasets are created to evaluate the system. The evaluation reveals that the Topic Distiller is able to find relevant and latent topics from textual documents, beating the state-of-the-art automatic keyphrase methods in performance when used on news articles and social media posts.Semanttisten aiheiden suodattaminen dokumenteista. Tiivistelmä. Tässä diplomityössä tarkastellaan järjestelmää, joka pystyy löytämään tekstistä relevantteja ja piileviä semanttisia aihealueita, sekä kyseisen järjestelmän suunnittelua ja implementaatiota. Tämän Topic Distiller -järjestelmän suunnittelu ammentaa inspiraatiota automaattisen termintunnistamisen ja automaattisen aiheiden nimeämisen tutkimuksesta sekä hyödyntää automaattista semanttista annotointia ja tietämyskantoja tekstin aihealueiden löytämisessä. Topic Distiller -järjestelmän suorituskykyä mitataan hyödyntämällä kirjallisuudessa paljon käytettyjä automaattisen termintunnistamisen evaluontimenetelmiä ja aineistoja. Näiden yleisten aineistojen lisäksi esittelemme kolme uutta aineistoa, jotka on luotu Topic Distiller -järjestelmän arviointia varten. Evaluointi tuo ilmi, että Topic Distiller kykenee löytämään relevantteja ja piileviä aiheita tekstistä. Se päihittää kirjallisuuden viimeisimmät automaattisen termintunnistamisen menetelmät suorituskyvyssä, kun sitä käytetään uutisartikkelien sekä sosiaalisen median julkaisujen analysointiin

Developing human-centred framework and guidelines for disc golf application design

Abstract. Disc golf is an increasingly popular sport, especially in Finland and the USA. The disc golf industry and Professional Disc Golf Association have proceeded in the digital transformation; therefore, disc golf applications have penetrated the markets. There is a need for evaluating and developing the current quality of disc golf application design and looking for general guidelines for designing comprehensive applications. This thesis aims to study what kind of framework is hidden behind the disc golf application design from a human-centred perspective when also several stakeholders are concerned. The study is based on theoretical and empirical research. Theoretical research is conducted by literary review of existing disc golf application design guidelines, together with human-centred design, user-centred design, and stakeholder-centred design theory and methodologies in general. Nevertheless, a research gap is found as far as disc golf, golf, and sports application design are concerned. Thus, the review expands to study field practitioners and mobile health context. The literary review also examines disc golf as a sport and in numbers, together with current disc golf applications. Empirical research adapts human-centred design methods by studying users’ expectations, needs, and wishes in the mean of questionnaires, and interviews. Also, the context of use is identified and visited, user requirements are mapped, disc golf personas are created, and the disc golf application’s stakeholders are identified. Then, the method adapted from service-dominant logic is used for preparing value proposals for all disc golf application users, and other stakeholders. By adapting the design guidelines from the literature and empirical findings, the human-centred guidelines for disc golf application design (HGDG) framework is presented as the first main finding of the thesis. The HGDG framework can be used for disc golf application design and ensuring the usage of the human-centred approach. The second main finding, 15 design guidelines and instructions for disc golf application design reinforces the HGDG framework. The third main finding suggests using 15 design guidelines as a metric for evaluating if the designed application achieves an ideal win-win-…-win situation between of application provider, users, and other stakeholders

Automatic detection of early repolarization in ECG signal

Abstract. The early repolarization is one form of heart’s electrical disorder. The scope of this thesis is to develop an algorithm, which detects the marks of the early repolarization from the electrocardiography data. The definition of the early repolarization was fine-tuned in 2015 and the updated definition is used in this thesis. The implementation of the algorithm is done with Matlab. The theory part of this work includes description of the heart’s structure, physiology and review of the most common heart diseases. The heart’s electrical functionality is explained in more detail and the principle of the electrocardiography is viewed, including the main precepts of the analysis of electrocardiography data. The definition of the early repolarization is presented in detail and the significance of this phenomenon is evaluated based on the research data. This work also includes short survey of some of the existing methods for detecting the early repolarization from the electrocardiography data. Thesis includes also the description of the algorithm developed in this work and the analysis of the results. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated with manually classified ECG test set. The sensitivity of the algorithm is 94.0% and the specificity is 92.2%. The correlation to mortality was also studied for few different versions of the algorithm with the Health 2000 data. The correlation to mortality is found with two algorithm versions. The algorithm version with slightly relaxed early repolarization definition shows increased risk for all-cause-mortality in inferior leads, when the slur detection is deactivated. The algorithm version with precise thresholds of the early repolarization definition shows increased risk for all-cause-mortality and for cardiac death in inferior leads, when the slur detection is deactivated.Tiivistelmä. Tämä diplomityö käsittelee sydämen sähköisen toiminnan häiriötilaa, jota kutsutaan aikaiseksi repolarisaatioksi. Työn tavoitteena on kehittää algoritmi havaitsemaan aikaisen repolarisaation merkit sydämen elektrokardiografia mittausdatasta. Tämä työ perustuu vuonna 2015 tarkennettuun aikaisen repolarisaation määritelmään. Työssä kehitetty algoritmi on toteutettu Matlabilla. Diplomityön teoriaosuudessa käydään läpi sydämen rakennetta, fysiologiaa ja yleisimpiä sydänsairauksia. Työssä tutustutaan tarkemmin sydämen sähköiseen toimintaan, elektrokardiografian tuottamaan dataan ja siihen, miten tätä dataa voidaan tulkita. Aikainen repolarisaatio käsitellään omana osionaan, jossa käydään läpi sen tarkka määritelmä, arvioidaan tutkimuksiin pohjautuen ilmiön merkitsevyyttä sekä esitellään muutamia olemassa olevia menetelmiä aikaisen repolarisaation havaitsemiseen elektrokardiografia datasta. Työ sisältää myös kehitetyn algoritmin esittelyn ja tulosten analysointia. Algoritmin suorituskyky todettiin testisetillä, joka sisältää manuaalisesti luokiteltuja elektrokardiografia signaaleita. Algoritmin sensitiivisyys on 94,0% ja spesifisyys 92,2%. Tämän lisäksi ajettiin testejä kuolleisuus korrelaation selvittämiseksi muutamalla algoritmin variaatiolla Terveys 2000 datalle. Korrelaatio kuolleisuuteen löytyi kahdella algoritmivariaatiolla. Algoritmiversio hieman väljennetyillä aikaisen repolarisaation kynnysarvoilla ennustaa kohonnutta riskiä kokonaiskuolleisuuteen inferiorisissa signaaleissa, slur-tunnistuksen ollessa pois käytöstä. Algoritmiversio aikaisen repolarisaation määritelmän mukaisilla tarkoilla kynnysarvoilla ennustaa kohonnutta riskiä sekä kokonaiskuolleisuuteen että sydänperäiseen kuolemaan inferiorisissa signaaleissa, slur-tunnistuksen ollessa pois käytöstä

Dexamethasone and RU24858 induce survival and growth factor receptor bound protein 2, leukotriene B4 receptor 1 and annexin-1 expression in primary human neutrophils

Glucocorticoids are widely used anti-inflammatory medication in diseases like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Glucocorticoids can either activate (transactivation) or inhibit (transrepression) transcription. RU24858 was introduced as a dissociated glucocorticoid and it has been reported to transrepress but not to transactivate. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of RU24858 and dexamethasone in human neutrophils. RU24858 delayed spontaneous neutrophil apoptosis and further enhanced GM-CSF- induced neutrophil survival to a similar extent as dexamethasone. Like dexamethasone RU24858 also reduced CXCL8 and MIP-1α. Unexpectedly however, RU24858 increased the expression of the glucocorticoid-inducible genes BLT-1, Annexin-1 and Grb-2 in neutrophils to a similar level as seen with dexamethasone. We have shown here that dexamethasone and RU24858 both increase Grb-2, BLT1 and Annexin-1 expression and inhibit CXCL8 and MIP-1α production. This suggests that RU24858 was not able to dissociate between transactivation and transrepression in human neutrophils but enhanced neutrophil survival. © the author(s), publisher and licensee Libertas Academica Ltd

Developing a scale : adolescents' health choices related rights, duties and responsibilities

Background: Adolescents´ health choices have been widely researched, but the ethical basis of these choices, namely their rights, duties and responsibilities, have been disregarded and scale is required to measure these. Objective: To describe the development of a scale that measures adolescents´ rights, duties and responsibilities in relation to health choices and document the preliminary scale testing. Research design: A multi-phase development method was used to construct the Health Rights Duties and Responsibilities (HealthRDR) scale. The concepts and content were defined through document analysis, a systematic literature review and focus groups. The content validity and clarity of the items were evaluated by expert panel of 23 adolescents, school nurses and researchers. We then calculated the content validity index and the content validity ratio at on item and scale levels. Preliminary testing was conducted with 200 adolescents aged 15-16 years. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach´s alpha correlation and statistics for the item-analysis were calculated. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval and permission were obtained according to national legislation and responsible research practice was followed. Informed consent was obtained from the participants and the parents were informed about the study. Findings: The HealthRDR scale comprises of four sub-scales with 148 items: 15 on health choices, 36 on rights, 47 on duties and 50 on responsibilities. The items had a 0.93 content validity index and a 0.85 content validity ratio. The Cronbach alpha correlation coefficient was 0.99 for the total scale and the individual sub-scales scores were: health choices (0.93), rights (0.97), responsibilities (0.99) and duties (0.98). Discussion: The findings are discussed in light of the ethical concepts and validity and reliability of the developed scale. Conclusion: The HealthRDR scale defines and understands adolescents´ rights, duties and responsibilities in relation to health choices and has good content validity. Further testing and refinement of the concepts are needed

A method for calculating minimum biodiversity offset multipliers accounting for time discounting, additionality and permanence

Peer reviewe

Maastopyörien runkogeometria

Tiivistelmä. Tämän työn tarkoituksena oli tutkia polkupyörien runkogeometriaa ja sen vaikutusta maastopyörien käyttäytymiseen. Työ on rajattu koskemaan rungon rakenteita, toiminnallisia mittoja ja niiden yhteyksiä. Työssä keskityttiin rungon mitoituksen terminologian määrittämiseen ja kuvaamaan eri suunnitteluratkaisujen hyötyjä ja erityispiirteitä. Työssä perehdyttiin myös maastopyörän geometrian vaikutukseen sen dynamiikkaan jousitusratkaisujen ja ohjausdynamiikan osalta. Työtä varten aiheeseen perehdyttiin alan kirjallisuuden sekä verkkolähteiden pohjalta. Työn perusteella voidaan todeta, että rungon suunnittelu on täynnä kompromisseja ja tasapainoilua eri ominaisuuksien välillä, ja että suunnittelijan tehtäväksi jää painottaa haluttuja ominaisuuksia saadakseen rungon, joka soveltuu käyttötarkoitukseensa mahdollisimman hyvin.Mountain bike frame geometry. Abstract. The aim of this bachelor’s thesis was to research bicycle frame geometry and the effect it has on mountain bikes. The scope of this study includes frame design regarding the key measurements of the frame and their relations to each other. This thesis focuses on defining the terminology of mountain bike frames and explaining the characteristics and advantages of different types of designs. This thesis also looks at suspension linkage design and steering dynamics specific to a mountain bike. Research for this thesis was conducted through literature and web sources. It was found that frame design is full of compromise and balancing between different features and that it is up to the designer to highlight these features to end up with a product that is most capable of fulfilling its purpose

Examining current or future trade-offs for biodiversity conservation in north-eastern Australia

With the high rate of ecosystem change already occurring and predicted to occur in the coming decades, long-term conservation has to account not only for current biodiversity but also for the biodiversity patterns anticipated for the future. The trade-offs between prioritising future biodiversity at the expense of current priorities must be understood to guide current conservation planning, but have been largely unexplored. To fill this gap, we compared the performance of four conservation planning solutions involving 662 vertebrate species in the Wet Tropics Natural Resource Management Cluster Region in north-eastern Australia. Input species data for the four planning solutions were: 1) current distributions; 2) projected distributions for 2055; 3) projected distributions for 2085; and 4) current, 2055 and 2085 projected distributions, and the connectivity between each of the three time periods for each species. The four planning solutions were remarkably similar (up to 85% overlap), suggesting that modelling for either current or future scenarios is sufficient for conversation planning for this region, with little obvious trade-off. Our analyses also revealed that overall, species with small ranges occurring across steep elevation gradients and at higher elevations were more likely to be better represented in all solutions. Given that species with these characteristics are of high conservation significance, our results provide confidence that conservation planning focused on either current, near-or distant-future biodiversity will account for these species.Peer reviewe