Multimodaalinen analyysi osallistumiskehikon rakentumisesta monikielisessä videoblogissa

Tiivistelmä. Pro gradu -tutkielmassani tarkastelen keskustelunanalyysin keinoin osallistumiskehikon rakentumista monikielisissä videoblogeissa eli vlogeissa. Informantteinani ovat suomenruotsalainen videobloggaaja Cat Peterson, joka on asunut 10 vuotta Isossa-Britanniassa, ja hänen brittiläinen puolisonsa Dave Cad, joka vaimonsa tavoin julkaisee videoita omalla YouTube-kanavallaan. Aineistona tutkielmassani käytän Catin suomenkielisiä videoita, joissa Catin puheen pää- eli matriisikielenä on suomi ja upotettuina kielinä ovat englanti ja ruotsi. Daven matriisikieli kyseisillä videoilla on hänen äidinkielensä englanti, ja hänellä upotettuina kielinä ovat puolestaan suomi ja ruotsi. Suomenkielisistä videoista tutkimusaineistokseni olen rajannut vlogien koodinvaihtokohdat ja niiden ympäristön, sillä koodinvaihto on aineistoni informanteilla tiuhaan käytössä oleva monikielisen vuorovaikutuksen resurssi. Tutkin analyysiluvuissani sitä, miten videoblogin osallistujat suuntaavat puheensa tietylle vastaanottajalle ja mitä vuorovaikutusresursseja he käyttävät puhuteltavan valinnassa. Analyysini etenee seuraavassa järjestyksessä: Aluksi tarkastelen sitä, miten koodinvaihdon avulla keskustelun vuoro voidaan osoittaa tietylle vastaanottajalle. Koodinvaihtoon keskittymisen jälkeen tutkin, miten erilaisten kehollisten resurssien, eli katseen suuntaamisen, osoittamiseleiden ja kehon asentojen muutosten avulla vaikutetaan puhuteltavan valintaan ja siten osallistumiskehikon roolijakoon. Viimeisessä analyysiluvussa tutkin suoran puhuttelun vaikutusta osallistumiskehikon luomiseen. Tarkastelen resursseja osittain päällekkäisinä analyysiluvuissa, sillä vuorovaikutuksessa on käytössä useita eri resursseja samanaikaisesti, ja ne on otettava kokonaisuutena huomioon. Tutkimukseni on tarkoitus antaa yleiskuva videoblogeissa muodostuvien osallistumiskehikkojen rakenteesta ja siitä, millä eri tavoilla puhuteltava vlogeissa valitaan. Keskeisimpänä tuloksena tutkimuksessani on se, että katseen suuntaamisella ja suoralla puhuttelulla voidaan vaikuttaa videoblogimateriaalissa tehokkaimmin osallistumiskehikon muodostumiseen. Aineistossani pelkällä koodinvaihdolla puhuteltavaa ei valita, vaan osallistumiskehikon rakentumisessa mukana on myös kehollisia vuorovaikutusresursseja. Vlogien katsojille osoitetut koodinvaihdot ovat usein korkeintaan muutaman sanan mittaisia vaihtoja, kun taas Catin Davelle osoittamat koodinvaihdot ovat jopa kokonaisten vuorojen mittaisia. Havaitsin tutkimukseni edetessä, että luomani analyysin kolmijako on jokseenkin keinotekoinen, sillä vuorovaikutuksen osallistujat hyödyntävät useita resursseja samanaikaisesti osallistumiskehikon luomisessa. Tämän vuoksi käsittelen analyysiluvuissani eri resursseja osittain päällekkäisinä. Tutkimukseni on kuitenkin tarkoituskin olla luonteeltaan yleiskatsauksen antava, sillä vlogiaineistoa on tutkittu vasta hyvin vähän monikielisestä ja multimodaalisesta näkökulmasta.Abstract. In this master’s thesis I use conversation analysis to examine the participation framework in multilingual video blogs. The informants are bilingual, Finnish-Swedish video blogger Cat Peterson who has lived in Great Britain for 10 years and her British partner Dave Cad. They both have their own YouTube channels, in which they publish video material. Data for the current study was collected from Finnish videos on Cat’s YouTube channels. In them, the main or matrix language Cat uses is Finnish and embedded languages are English and Swedish. In the same videos, Dave’s matrix language is his mother tongue English, and he uses Finnish and Swedish as embedded languages. I have selected data only from parts of the video blogs that include code-switching, because it is a frequently used resource in multilingual conversation. I analyze the ways participants address their talk to a designated recipient and examine which interactional resources they use to do so. The analysis proceeds in the following order: At first I analyze how code-switching can be used as a way to address certain turns to a specified participant. After that I examine the effect different non-linguistic resources, such as gaze shifting, pointing gestures and body movements have on the participation framework of the interactions. In the last chapter of analysis I examine what is the role of direct addressing on creating a participation framework. My aim is to give an overview of the structure of participation framework in the video blogs. The main results of the study are that gaze shifting and direct addressing are the most effective ways of forming a participation framework in video blogs. Participants in the data do not create a participation framework with only code-switching. Instead, they use non-linguistic resources together with code-switching to show who the addressed participant is. Another result was that when code-switching is addressed to vlog viewers, only single words or short phrases are switched in Cat’s turns. When, however, Cat addresses her speech to Dave, even entire turns can be switched from the matrix language to an embedded language. I found out that division into three separate sections in the analysis to be somewhat artificial because participants use different interactional resources at the same time to create participation framework. That’s why different resources are analyzed in the three main chapters. Nevertheless, this study gives a good overview of the topic, taking into account that video blogs have not been previously studied from a multilingual and multimodal perspective

Treatment of alcohol dependence in patients with co-morbid major depressive disorder – predictors for the outcomes with memantine and escitalopram medication

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alcohol dependence comorbid with major depressive disorder poses a major challenge in the clinical setting. The results in the treatment with selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors have been conflicting. Thus, we compared in alcohol-dependent patients with co-morbid major depressive disorder the selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor escitalopram to a compound that acts on different transporter system and may reduce craving, the glutamate receptor antagonist memantine.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eighty alcohol-dependent patients comorbid with major depressive disorder in municipal alcohol clinics were randomized 1:1 to receive memantine 20 mg or escitalopram 20 mg in a double-blind manner. During the 26-week study period patients continued their routine treatment at the clinics. Abstinence was not required but encouraged. The patients attended visits weekly during the first month, and then at 3 and at 6 months. Outcome measures were Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT), Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (OCDS) and Drinking Diary.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The completion rate was high in both groups, especially among the patients who had been abstinent at the beginning of the study. However, among those patients who were not abstinent at baseline, 47% in both groups discontinued the study. Numbers of abstinent days were high in both groups throughout the study. Alcohol consumption measured by the AUDIT QF (quantity-frequency) score was significantly reduced in both groups, as was the craving for alcohol measured by the OCDS. Early age at first alcohol intoxication predicted poor treatment outcomes in patients treated with escitalopram, and the same was seen with the early onset of the first depressive episode. The same predictive effects were not found in patients treated with memantine.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our results indicate that both memantine and escitalopram are useful adjunct medications for the treatment of alcohol dependence co-morbid with major depression. Memantine was at least as effective with regard to drinking as escitalopram. We believe that a direct comparison of memantine, with the commonly used escitalopram, can provide useful information for clinicians on the treatment of alcohol dependency co-morbid with MDD.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier # NCT00368862</p

Analysis by siRNA_profile program displays novel thermodynamic characteristics of highly functional siRNA molecules

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>Here we report the improved results of a new siRNA design program and analysis tool called <b><it>siRNA_profile </it></b>that reveals an additional criterion for bioinformatic search of highly functional siRNA sequences.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We retrospectively analysed over 2400 siRNA sequences from 34 genes and with known efficacies to categorize factors that differentiate highly, moderately and non-functional siRNA sequences in more detail. We tested the biological relevance of <b><it>siRNA_profile </it></b>in CHO cells stably expressing human TRACP.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The highly functional siRNA molecules exhibited lower overall stabilities than non-functional siRNAs after taking into consideration all the nucleotides from 5'-terminus to the 3'-terminus along the siRNA molecule, in addition to the 5'-section of the antisense strand and the region between 9–14 nucleotides as previously has been acknowledged. Comparison of the <b><it>siRNA_profile </it></b>program to five other programs resulted in a wide range of selected siRNA sequences with diverse gene silencing capacities, even when the target was only 197 nucleotides long. Six siRNA design programs selected 24 different siRNA sequences, and only 6 of them were selected by two or more programs. The other 18 sequences were individually selected by these six programs.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Low general stability of dsRNA plays a significant role in the RNAi pathway and is a recommended criterion to consider, in addition to 5'-instability, internal instability, nucleotide preferences and target mRNA position, when designing highly efficient siRNAs.</p

Enzymatic assay for urine lactose in the assessment of recent intravenous abuse of buprenorphine

Urine samples were analyzed for lactose to investigate if elevated lactose concentrations indicate recent (<48 hours) intravenous abuse of substances containing lactose as an excipient. Elevated lactose levels were found in samples given by patients who had recently injected substances intravenously, verified by fresh injection marks. Urine lactose assay can support clinical and toxicological findings when assessing substance abuse.Peer reviewe

Trapping hot quasi-particles in a high-power superconducting electronic cooler

The performance of hybrid superconducting electronic coolers is usually limited by the accumulation of hot quasi-particles in their superconducting leads. This issue is all the more stringent in large-scale and high-power devices, as required by the applications. Introducing a metallic drain connected to the superconducting electrodes via a fine-tuned tunnel barrier, we efficiently remove quasi-particles and obtain electronic cooling from 300 mK down to 130 mK with a 400 pW cooling power. A simple thermal model accounts for the experimental observations.Peer reviewe

An addressable quantum dot qubit with fault-tolerant control fidelity

Exciting progress towards spin-based quantum computing has recently been made with qubits realized using nitrogen-vacancy (N-V) centers in diamond and phosphorus atoms in silicon, including the demonstration of long coherence times made possible by the presence of spin-free isotopes of carbon and silicon. However, despite promising single-atom nanotechnologies, there remain substantial challenges in coupling such qubits and addressing them individually. Conversely, lithographically defined quantum dots have an exchange coupling that can be precisely engineered, but strong coupling to noise has severely limited their dephasing times and control fidelities. Here we combine the best aspects of both spin qubit schemes and demonstrate a gate-addressable quantum dot qubit in isotopically engineered silicon with a control fidelity of 99.6%, obtained via Clifford based randomized benchmarking and consistent with that required for fault-tolerant quantum computing. This qubit has orders of magnitude improved coherence times compared with other quantum dot qubits, with T_2* = 120 mus and T_2 = 28 ms. By gate-voltage tuning of the electron g*-factor, we can Stark shift the electron spin resonance (ESR) frequency by more than 3000 times the 2.4 kHz ESR linewidth, providing a direct path to large-scale arrays of addressable high-fidelity qubits that are compatible with existing manufacturing technologies

Radio frequency measurements of tunnel couplings and singlet–triplet spin states in Si:P quantum dots

Spin states of the electrons and nuclei of phosphorus donors in silicon are strong candidates for quantum information processing applications given their excellent coherence times. Designing a scalable donor-based quantum computer will require both knowledge of the relationship between device geometry and electron tunnel couplings, and a spin readout strategy that uses minimal physical space in the device. Here we use radio frequency reflectometry to measure singlet–triplet states of a few-donor Si:P double quantum dot and demonstrate that the exchange energy can be tuned by at least two orders of magnitude, from 20 μeV to 8 meV. We measure dot–lead tunnel rates by analysis of the reflected signal and show that they change from 100 MHz to 22 GHz as the number of electrons on a quantum dot is increased from 1 to 4. These techniques present an approach for characterizing, operating and engineering scalable qubit devices based on donors in silicon