Näkökulmia ICT-sektorin kehitykseen Uudellamaalla

ICT-sektorilla on Uudenmaan ELY-keskuksen alueelle suuri taloudellinen merkitys. Sektori on kuitenkin viime aikoina ollut isojen rakenteellisten muutosten kourissa. Tässä raportissa tarkastellaan Uudenmaan ICT-sektorin kehitystä vuosien 2006-2011 aikana sekä sektorilla toimivien yritysten taloustilanteen että eri toimialojen työllisyystilanteen näkökulmista. ICT-sektori on raportissa jaettu koostumaan neljästä TOL2008-luokituksen mukaisesta toimialasta: (26.) Tietokoneiden sekä elektronisten ja optisten laitteiden valmistus, (61.) Televiestintä, (62.) Ohjelmistot, konsultointi ja siihen liittyvä toiminta sekä (63.) Tietopalvelutoiminta. Toimialoilla toimivien yritysten taloudellista tilannetta seurataan toimipaikkojen, henkilöstön ja liikevaihdon määrien sekä mm. nettotulos- ja omavaraisuusasteen kehityksen kautta. ICT-sektorin henkilöstömäärä ja liikevaihto ovat taantuman jälkeen tippuneet runsaasti. Erityisesti muutokset ovat koskettaneet elektroniikkateollisuuden toimialaa, joka muodostaa valtaosan koko Uudenmaan ICT-sektorin liikevaihdosta. Ohjelmistot, konsultointi ja siihen liittyvä toiminta –toimialalla henkilöstömäärä on sen sijaan taantumasta huolimatta kasvanut. Sektorin toimipaikkojen määrä on noussut taantumasta huolimatta. Myös tämä nousu on kohdistunut Ohjelmistot, konsultointi ja siihen liittyvä toiminta –toimialalle. Yritysten tilinpäätöstietojen valossa televiestintäalan näkymät näyttivät kaikkein positiivisimmilta. Yritysten keskimääräinen nettotulosaste oli hyvä ja omavaraisuusaste jopa erittäin hyvä. Vuoteen 2011 mennessä myös elektroniikkateollisuus oli alueella saanut nettotuloksensa jälleen positiiviseksi. Raportin toisessa osiossa tarkasteltiin Uudenmaan ICT-sektorin työvoimaa ja työllisyyttä mm. ikärakenteen, eri ammattiryhmien työllisyyskehityksen ja avointen työpaikkojen määrän avulla. Ikärakenteelta ICT-sektori oli selkeästi kaikkia toimialoja kuvaavaa jakaumaa nuorekkaampi. Ammattiryhmittäinen tarkastelu kohdistettiin IT-alan suunnittelijoihin ja insinööreihin. Työttömien määrä oli kummassakin ryhmässä nousussa

Flexibility of reinforcement biases and reaction times in competitive zero-sum games

In competitive zero-sum games with mixed equilibria, two rational players should make each of their game choices randomly, with no contingencies between their choices. However, people often deviate from this equilibrium by following a reinforcement heuristic of repeating moves that won on the previous round (win-stay) and avoiding the repetition of moves that did not win (lose-shift). In this thesis, I examine the flexibility of these reinforcement biases, and the speed of decision-making: under what circumstances do people make biased choices, and under what circumstances do people choose quickly or stop to deliberate? In Chapter 1, I review the current state of knowledge on how well people can produce or detect randomness, how reinforcement biases influence decision-making, and how processing speeds might differ between different game situations. In Chapters 2 and 3 I present four experiments where I examined performance in the games Rock, Paper & Scissors (RPS; Chapter 2, Experiments 1 and 2) and Matching Pennies (MP; Chapter 3, Experiments 3 and 4). Surprisingly, I found no reinforcement biases in RPS, but consistent reinforcement biases in MP. Additionally, participants made slower decisions after losses when they succeeded in the game due to finding an appropriate strategy to exploit an opponent’s pattern (Chapter 2), but not when they succeeded no matter what they did (Chapter 3). In Chapter 4, I present two experiments (Experiments 5 and 6) directly comparing performance in RPS and MP, designed to replicate the findings from Chapters 2 and 3, and examine why the previous studies only found reinforcement biases in MP. The results of these two last experiments suggest that reinforcement biases differ between RPS and MP due to different cognitive demands, and that there is considerable variability in reinforcement biases both between individuals and between the two types of bias. In Chapter 5, I discuss the contributions of the findings on the wider literature on bias and randomness detection, the generality of the reinforcement biases, and present some suggestions for future studies

Blood of the Iron Woods: A Graphic Novel Exploration of the Modern Gothic Horror Experience

“Blood of the Iron Woods” is a creative thesis in which I explore not only my own fascination with the horror genre, but to also address the difficulties of familial relationships, and how characters evolve in situations where there is no right choice. While this project initially began as a fantasy novel, I quickly changed over to horror, where I felt as though I would be able to contribute to the overall academic discussion on the genre. A lot of time, hard work, frustration, excitement, and lessons learnt went in to this project, and I am proud of what I have been able to accomplish despite the difficulties I have faced in these past two years. This project addresses the concept of visual communication within the Gothic horror genre as well as the deeper genre conventions and themes that make Gothic horror what it is. This research has resulted in a complete analysis of my creative inspirations, and full review of the current literature on this topic, a full narrative outline, and a partial storyboarding of the graphic novel over a two-year period. “Blood of the Iron Woods” is the tale of three sisters who travel into the woods to escape for a while after their father’s death. This thesis will address all the core components of the horror genre, how we experience and enjoy horror, and why Gothic horror is so relevant to today’s youth

Are Utilitarian/Deontological Preferences Unidimensional?

Utilitarian versus deontological inclinations have been studied extensively in the field of moral psychology. However, the field has been lacking a thorough psychometric evaluation of the most commonly used measures. In this paper, we examine the factorial structure of an often used set of 12 moral dilemmas purportedly measuring utilitarian/deontological moral inclinations. We ran three different studies (and a pilot) to investigate the issue. In Study 1, we used standard Exploratory Factor Analysis and Schmid-Leimann (g factor) analysis; results of which informed the a priori single-factor model for our second study. Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis in Study 2 were replicated in Study 3. Finally, we ran a weak invariance analysis between the models of Study 2 and 3, concluding that there is no significant difference between factor loading in these studies. We find reason to support a single-factor model of utilitarian/deontological inclinations. In addition, certain dilemmas have consistent error covariance, suggesting that this should be taken into consideration in future studies. In conclusion, three studies, pilot and an invariance analysis, systematically suggest the following. (1) No item needs to be dropped from the scale. (2) There is a unidimensional structure for utilitarian/deontological preferences behind the most often used dilemmas in moral psychology, suggesting a single latent cognitive mechanism. (3) The most common set of dilemmas in moral psychology can be successfully used as a unidimensional measure of utilitarian/deontological moral inclinations, but would benefit from using weighted averages over simple averages. (4) Consideration should be given to dilemmas describing infants.Peer reviewe

Breaking the bonds of reinforcement : Effects of trial outcome, rule consistency and rule complexity against exploitable and unexploitable opponents

In two experiments, we used the simple zero-sum game Rock, Paper and Scissors to study the common reinforcement-based rules of repeating choices after winning (win-stay) and shifting from previous choice options after losing (lose-shift). Participants played the game against both computer opponents who could not be exploited and computer opponents who could be exploited by making choices that would at times conflict with reinforcement. Against unexploitable opponents, participants achieved an approximation of random behavior, contrary to previous research commonly finding reinforcement biases. Against exploitable opponents, the participants learned to exploit the opponent regardless of whether optimal choices conflicted with reinforcement or not. The data suggest that learning a rule that allows one to exploit was largely determined by the outcome of the previous trial.Peer reviewe

Does the brain’s reward response occur even without actual reward? A response to Fielding et al. (2017)

A recent paper by Fielding, Fu & Franz (2017) argued that the brain’s reward response could occur without the presentation of actual reward. We suggest that since a) the event-related potentials reported in this paper are atypical of the previous literature, and, b) a simpler account of the data in terms of sensitivity to outcome frequency cannot be ruled out, the extent to which the brain’s reward response can occur without the presentation of actual reward should remain an open question

Urine culture doubtful in determining etiology of diffuse symptoms

Background: As many as half of elderly residents at nursing homes have asymptomatic bacteriuria. Thus it’s hard to know if a new symptom is related to findings of bacteria in urine or not. There are different opinions on the possible connection between different non-specific symptoms and urinary tract infections (UTI). Non-specific symptoms in combination with diagnostic uncertainty often lead to antibiotic treatments of uncertain value. Antibiotic overuse increases the prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Research question: What is the relationship between bacteria in the urine and new or increased fatigue, confusion, restlessness, aggressiveness, not being herself/himself, dysuria, urgency and fever. Methods: In this cross-sectional study symptoms were registered and voided urine specimens collected for urine cultures from 651 elderly residents in 32 nursing homes located in south-western Sweden. Correlation between bacteriuria and presence of a symptom at group level were determined using logistic regression. To estimate the clinical relevance of correlations at group level positive and negative etiological predictive values (EPV) were calculated. EPV takes into account the presence of asymptomatic bacteriuria. Results: In this study 207/651 (32%) of urine cultures were positive. Fatigue, restlessness and confusion were the most common symptoms. Logistic regression indicated some correlations at group level. Aside from Escherichia coli in the urine and not being herself/himself present for at least one month, but less than three months, EPV indicated no clinically useful correlation between any symptoms in this study and findings of bacteriuria. Conclusion: Urine cultures are insufficiently specific when evaluating elderly patients at nursing homes presenting with new or increased restlessness, fatigue, confusion, aggressiveness, dysuria or urgency

Individual Differences in Moral Disgust Do Not Predict Utilitarian Judgments, Sexual and Pathogen Disgust Do

The role of emotional disgust and disgust sensitivity in moral judgment and decision-making has been debated intensively for over 20 years. Until very recently, there were two main evolutionary narratives for this rather puzzling association. One of the models suggest that it was developed through some form of group selection mechanism, where the internal norms of the groups were acting as pathogen safety mechanisms. Another model suggested that these mechanisms were developed through hygiene norms, which were piggybacking on pathogen disgust mechanisms. In this study we present another alternative, namely that this mechanism might have evolved through sexual disgust sensitivity. We note that though the role of disgust in moral judgment has been questioned recently, few studies have taken disgust sensitivity to account. We present data from a large sample (N=1300) where we analyzed the associations between The Three Domain Disgust Scale and the most commonly used 12 moral dilemmas measuring utilitarian/deontological preferences with Structural Equation Modeling. Our results indicate that of the three domains of disgust, only sexual disgust is associated with more deontological moral preferences. We also found that pathogen disgust was associated with more utilitarian preferences. Implications of the findings are discussed.Peer reviewe

Urine culture doubtful in determining etiology of diffuse symptoms

Background: As many as half of elderly residents at nursing homes have asymptomatic bacteriuria. Thus it’s hard to know if a new symptom is related to findings of bacteria in urine or not. There are different opinions on the possible connection between different non-specific symptoms and urinary tract infections (UTI). Non-specific symptoms in combination with diagnostic uncertainty often lead to antibiotic treatments of uncertain value. Antibiotic overuse increases the prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Research question: What is the relationship between bacteria in the urine and new or increased fatigue, confusion, restlessness, aggressiveness, not being herself/himself, dysuria, urgency and fever. Methods: In this cross-sectional study symptoms were registered and voided urine specimens collected for urine cultures from 651 elderly residents in 32 nursing homes located in south-western Sweden. Correlation between bacteriuria and presence of a symptom at group level were determined using logistic regression. To estimate the clinical relevance of correlations at group level positive and negative etiological predictive values (EPV) were calculated. EPV takes into account the presence of asymptomatic bacteriuria. Results: In this study 207/651 (32%) of urine cultures were positive. Fatigue, restlessness and confusion were the most common symptoms. Logistic regression indicated some correlations at group level. Aside from Escherichia coli in the urine and not being herself/himself present for at least one month, but less than three months, EPV indicated no clinically useful correlation between any symptoms in this study and findings of bacteriuria. Conclusion: Urine cultures are insufficiently specific when evaluating elderly patients at nursing homes presenting with new or increased restlessness, fatigue, confusion, aggressiveness, dysuria or urgency