Crowdsourcing as part of producing content for a critical reading comprehension game

Abstract. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how crowdsourcing can be used to create and validate data on a topic, misleading graphs, that are difficult for people to interpret. In crowdsourcing tasks, the worker is shown a graph that is intentionally designed to be misleading, from which the worker is supposed to create four headline options that are used as content of a critical reading comprehension game. To ensure the quality of the headlines, they are validated using crowdsourcing and two expert evaluators. As a result of the thesis, a graphical user interface was created from which crowdsourcing projects could be managed. The major challenge of crowdsourcing is quality control when unknown people from different backgrounds perform tasks on a different basis. The tasks were formed around a tricky topic, in which case it is difficult to keep the amount of usable data high in relation to the total amount of gathered data. The topics of the graphs and the task interface were intentionally designed to be simple so as not to take too much focus from the context of the misleading graph. The results show that there is a lot of variation in the quality of the responses although an effort was made to select the best among the workers. It was noticeable that misleading graphs or assignments were often misinterpreted in the task of creating headlines. A small part of the responses was completely in accordance with the assignment. In the task of validating headlines, the worker’s task was to choose one of the three options, which was used to determine how well the headline formed in the previous task corresponded to the assignment. The results show that it was too easy for the worker to click and move on to the next task without proper consideration

Ohjelmoinnin opettaminen lapsille

Tiivistelmä. Tämä kandidaatin tutkielma käsittelee ohjelmoinnin opettamista lapsille. Tutkielmassa perehdytään kysymyksiin miksi ja miten ohjelmointia tulisi opettaa. Lisäksi käsitellään lapsen kehityksen vaikutusta ohjelmoinnin opettamistavan valintaan. Valitsin tämän aiheen mielenkiinnon ja ajankohtaisuuden vuoksi. Ohjelmoinnin opettaminen on ajankohtaista, koska sitä tullaan opettamaan osana matematiikkaa syksyllä 2016 peruskoulun opetussuunnitelmassa. Tällä hetkellä on tärkeää pohtia keinoja, miten ohjelmoinnin opettamisen sisällyttäminen on järkevää ja kannattavaa. Tutkielma käsittelee vaihtoehtoja tavalliselle tekstipohjaiselle ohjelmoinnille, joiden tarkoituksena on helpottaa lasta oppimaan ohjelmointia. Näitä ovat ToonTalk, Scratch, ScratchJr, elektroniset palikat, Stagecast Creator, Blockly, LaPlaya, Logo, TangibleK ja Alice. Nämä kaikki käsitellään tutkielmassa pääpiirteittäin ja esitellään, minkä ikäisille ne ovat suunnattu. Ohjelmoinnin opettaminen on haastavaa, minkä vuoksi myös näitä haasteita on käsitelty tutkielmassa ja näihin on pyritty löytämään ratkaisuja ja apukeinoja. Tutkielmassa korostuu ohjelmoinnin opettamisen tärkeys muunkin kuin ohjelmointitaitojen kehittämismielessä. Opettamalla ohjelmointia opetetaan myös ajattelua, jolloin lasten ongelmanratkaisukyky ja luovuus kehittyvät. Ohjelmoinnin opettaminen auttaa myös muiden oppiaineiden opettelua ja sitä voidaankin käyttää osana muiden oppiaineiden opetusta

In Vitro Evolution of Allergy Vaccine Candidates, with Maintained Structure, but Reduced B Cell and T Cell Activation Capacity

Allergy and asthma to cat (Felis domesticus) affects about 10% of the population in affluent countries. Immediate allergic symptoms are primarily mediated via IgE antibodies binding to B cell epitopes, whereas late phase inflammatory reactions are mediated via activated T cell recognition of allergen-specific T cell epitopes. Allergen-specific immunotherapy relieves symptoms and is the only treatment inducing a long-lasting protection by induction of protective immune responses. The aim of this study was to produce an allergy vaccine designed with the combined features of attenuated T cell activation, reduced anaphylactic properties, retained molecular integrity and induction of efficient IgE blocking IgG antibodies for safer and efficacious treatment of patients with allergy and asthma to cat. The template gene coding for rFel d 1 was used to introduce random mutations, which was subsequently expressed in large phage libraries. Despite accumulated mutations by up to 7 rounds of iterative error-prone PCR and biopanning, surface topology and structure was essentially maintained using IgE-antibodies from cat allergic patients for phage enrichment. Four candidates were isolated, displaying similar or lower IgE binding, reduced anaphylactic activity as measured by their capacity to induce basophil degranulation and, importantly, a significantly lower T cell reactivity in lymphoproliferative assays compared to the original rFel d 1. In addition, all mutants showed ability to induce blocking antibodies in immunized mice.The approach presented here provides a straightforward procedure to generate a novel type of allergy vaccines for safer and efficacious treatment of allergic patients

Family Business Restructuring:A Review and Research Agenda

Although business restructuring occurs frequently and it is important for the prosperity of family firms across generations, research on family firms has largely evolved separately from research on business restructuring. This is a missed opportunity, since the two domains are complementary, and understanding the context, process, content, and outcome dimensions is relevant to both research streams. We address this by examining the intersection between research on business restructuring and family firms to improve our knowledge of each area and inform future research. To achieve this goal, we review and organize research across different dimensions to create an integrative framework. Building on current research, we focus on 88 studies at the intersection of family firm and business restructuring research to develop a model that identifies research needs and suggests directions for future research