Finnish Children Producing English Vowels — Studying in an English Immersion Class Affects Vowel Production

The aim of this study was to examine how earlier second language teaching affects Finnish school children’s pronunciation of British English vowels. Two groups of Finnish children between the ages of eleven and thirteen were tested. The early learners studied in an English immersion class in a Finnish elementary school while the control group attended a regular Finnish speaking class at the same school. The task consisted of twenty three English stimulus words which included the twelve monophthong English target vowels in voiced and voiceless environments. The words were repeated seven times during the task. The participants produced the words after a native model and the target vowel qualities were then acoustically analysed. Statistical analysis revealed a group main effect. More specifically the analysis showed that the groups differed significantly in the way they produced target vowel second formant (F2) values. The F2 difference was only significant in the voiced context. Closer examination of the groups’ vowel qualities revealed that the control group tended to produce the F2 values higher than the early learner group in most of the target vowels. The higher F2 values can be an indication of more frontal tongue position or less lip rounding during vowel production

Tietomallintaminen osana arkkitehdin työnkuvaa ja koulutusta:rakennusalan digitalisaation vaikutus arkkitehdin työhön

Tiivistelmä. Tämän diplomityön tavoitteena on tarkastella rakennusalan digitalisaatiota suomalaisesta näkökulmasta ja miten tietomallintamisen yleistyminen vaikuttaa arkkitehdin työnkuvaan ja koulutukseen. Työssä tehdään ensin katsaus tietomallintamisen historiaan ja nykytilanteeseen. Osio käy läpi mitä tietomallintaminen on ja minkälaisia vaikutuksia ja tulevaisuudenkuvia sillä on rakennushankkeen eri vaiheisiin. Samalla esitellään tietomallintamiseen liittyvät standardit ja yhteiset toimintatavat ja käydään läpi tietomallintamiseen käytettäviä työkaluja. Arkkitehdin koulutusta tarkastelevaa osiota varten on haastateltu Suomen arkkitehtikoulujen digitalisten työkalujen opetushenkilökuntaa ja kartoitettu opetuksen nykytilaa ja tavoitteita. Tarkoituksena on muodostaa käsitys tietomallintamisen asemasta osana arkkitehtikoulutusta ja millaisia taitoja arkkitehtiopiskelijoilla on opintojen aikana ja valmistuessa. Tietomallintaminen on Suomessa yleistyvä toimintatapa rakennusalalla. Tämä kasvattaa kysyntää arkkitehtien tietomalliosaamiselle. Oulun ja Tampereen arkkitehtuurin osastot ovat reagoineet alalla tapahtuvaan muutokseen ja sisällyttäneet tietomallintamista opetukseen.BIM as a part of the architectural profession and education : the effects of the digitalization of the construction industry on the architectural profession. Abstract. The purpose of this diploma thesis is to examine the digitalization of the construction industry from a Finnish point of view and how growing demand for building information modeling (BIM) is affecting the architectural profession. At first the study takes a look at the history and the current state of BIM. This part explains what BIM is and how it is affecting the construction industry and what to expect from it in the future. It also goes through the standards, workflows and tools related to creating and using BIM. The computer aided design teachers of all three architecture schools in Finland were interviewed for the portion that discusses the architectural education’s current situation and goals for computer aided design. The goal is to form a picture of how BIM is discussed as a part of the architectural studies and what type of skills can be expected from students during studies and after graduation. BIM is gaining popularity in the Finnish construction industry. This raises the demand for skills to work with BIM for architects. The architecture schools in Tampere and Oulu have reacted to the changes in the industry and have included BIM as a part of architectural studies

Finnish children producing English vowels - Studying in an English immersion class affects vowel production

The aim of this study was to examine how earlier second language teaching affects Finnish school children’s pronunciation of British English vowels. Two groups of Finnish children between the ages of eleven and thirteen were tested. The early learners studied in an English immersion class in a Finnish elementary school while the control group attended a regular Finnish speaking class at the same school. The task consisted of twenty three English stimulus words which included the twelve monophthong English target vowels in voiced and voiceless environments. The words were repeated seven times during the task. The participants produced the words after a native model and the target vowel qualities were then acoustically analysed. Statistical analysis revealed a group main effect. More specifically the analysis showed that the groups differed significantly in the way they produced target vowel second formant (F2) values. The F2 difference was only significant in the voiced context. Closer examination of the groups’ vowel qualities revealed that the control group tended to produce the F2 values higher than the early learner group in most of the target vowels. The higher F2 values can be an indication of more frontal tongue position or less lip rounding during vowel production.</p

Jäitä koppalakkiin

Kommentti kirja-arvosteluun: Taiteenfilosofian klassikko raakakäännöksenä / Pentti Määttänen (Tieteessä tapahtuu 1/2011)

Cognitively-inspired Agent-based Service Composition for Mobile & Pervasive Computing

Automatic service composition in mobile and pervasive computing faces many challenges due to the complex and highly dynamic nature of the environment. Common approaches consider service composition as a decision problem whose solution is usually addressed from optimization perspectives which are not feasible in practice due to the intractability of the problem, limited computational resources of smart devices, service host's mobility, and time constraints to tailor composition plans. Thus, our main contribution is the development of a cognitively-inspired agent-based service composition model focused on bounded rationality rather than optimality, which allows the system to compensate for limited resources by selectively filtering out continuous streams of data. Our approach exhibits features such as distributedness, modularity, emergent global functionality, and robustness, which endow it with capabilities to perform decentralized service composition by orchestrating manifold service providers and conflicting goals from multiple users. The evaluation of our approach shows promising results when compared against state-of-the-art service composition models.Comment: This paper will appear on AIMS'19 (International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Services) on June 2

Researching Cultural Objects and Manuscripts in a Small Country: The Finnish Experience of Raising Awareness of Art Crime

In this article we shed light on the position of Finland in conversations on the movement of unprovenanced cultural objects, within the national, the Nordic and the global contexts. Finland's geopolitical position, as a hard border of the European Union neighbouring the Russian Federation, and its current legislative provisions, which do not include import regulations, mean that it has the potential to be significant in understanding the movement of cultural property at transnational levels. In particular, we outline a recent initiative started at the University of Helsinki to kick-start a national debate on ethical working with cultural objects and manuscripts. We analyse exploratory research on current awareness and opinion within Finland, and summarize our current work to produce robust research ethics to guide scholars working in Finland. Although Finland has a small population and is usually absent from international discussions on the illicit movement of cultural property (save a few exceptions), we argue that it is still possibleand importantfor scholars and others in Finland to affect policy and attitudes concerning art crime, provenance, and the role of stakeholders such as decision-makers, traders and the academy

Does Studying in a Music-oriented Education Program Affect Non-native Sound Learning? — Effects of Passive Auditory Training on Children’s Vowel Production

Earlier studies have shown that children are efficient second language learners. Research has also shown that musical background might affect second language learning. A two-day auditory training paradigm was used to investigate whether studying in a music-oriented education program affects children’s sensitivity to acquire a non-native vowel contrast. Training effects were measured with listen-and-repeat production tests. Two groups of monolingual Finnish children (9–11 years, N=23) attending music-oriented and regular fourth grades were tested. The stimuli were two semisynthetic pseudo words /ty:ti/ and /tʉ:ti/ with the native vowel /y/ and the non-native vowel /ʉ/ embedded. Both groups changed their pronunciation after the first training. The change was reflected in the second formant values of /ʉ/, which lowered significantly after three trainings. The results show that 9–11-year-old children benefit from passive auditory training in second language production learning regardless of whether or not they attend a music-oriented education program.</p