How Emotions Unfold in Online Discussions After a Terror Attack

In the wake of a terror attack, social media is used for sharing thoughts and emotions, accessing and distributing information, and memorializing victims. Emotions are a big part of this, but there is a gap in our understanding on how those emotions evolve and what kinds of social media uses they are related to. Better understanding of the emotional and topical developments of online discussions can serve not only to fill the aforementioned gap, but also assist in developing better collective coping strategies for recovering from terror attacks. We examine what types of conversations unfolded online after the Boston Marathon Bombing and what kinds of emotions were associated with them, accounting for regional differences, and present a process model covering the general trends of such conversations. Although the phases apply to reactions to terror attacks on a general level, there are proximity-based differences to the location of the terror attack

From neural PCA to deep unsupervised learning

A network supporting deep unsupervised learning is presented. The network is an autoencoder with lateral shortcut connections from the encoder to decoder at each level of the hierarchy. The lateral shortcut connections allow the higher levels of the hierarchy to focus on abstract invariant features. While standard autoencoders are analogous to latent variable models with a single layer of stochastic variables, the proposed network is analogous to hierarchical latent variables models. Learning combines denoising autoencoder and denoising sources separation frameworks. Each layer of the network contributes to the cost function a term which measures the distance of the representations produced by the encoder and the decoder. Since training signals originate from all levels of the network, all layers can learn efficiently even in deep networks. The speedup offered by cost terms from higher levels of the hierarchy and the ability to learn invariant features are demonstrated in experiments.Comment: A revised version of an article that has been accepted for publication in Advances in Independent Component Analysis and Learning Machines (2015), edited by Ella Bingham, Samuel Kaski, Jorma Laaksonen and Jouko Lampine

Diesel engine fuel injection monitoring using acoustic measurements and independent component analysis

Air-borne acoustic based condition monitoring is a promising technique because of its intrusive nature and the rich information contained within the acoustic signals including all sources. However, the back ground noise contamination, interferences and the number of Internal Combustion Engine ICE vibro-acoustic sources preclude the extraction of condition information using this technique. Therefore, lower energy events; such as fuel injection, are buried within higher energy events and/or corrupted by background noise. This work firstly investigates diesel engine air-borne acoustic signals characteristics and the benefits of joint time-frequency domain analysis. Secondly, the air-borne acoustic signals in the vicinity of injector head were recorded using three microphones around the fuel injector (120° apart from each other) and an Independent Component Analysis (ICA) based scheme was developed to decompose these acoustic signals. The fuel injection process characteristics were thus revealed in the time-frequency domain using Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD) technique. Consequently the energy levels around the injection process period between 11 and 5 degrees before the top dead center and of frequency band 9 to 15 kHz are calculated. The developed technique was validated by simulated signals and empirical measurements at different injection pressure levels from 250 to 210 bars in steps of 10 bars. The recovered energy levels in the tested conditions were found to be affected by the injector pressure settings

River discharge in Finland

Virtaamaolot Suomess

Utilization of the chirp stimulus in auditory brainstem response measurements

Välittömästi äänistimulusta seuraavaa, aivorungosta lähtöisin olevaa sähköistä aktiviteettia kutsutaan auditoriseksi aivorunkovasteeksi (ABR, auditory brainstem response). ABR:ää käytetään laajalti kuulon objektiiviseen testaamiseen. Siinä missä perinteisessä äänesaudiometriassa koehenkilön tulee vastata testiääniin ennalta määrätyllä tavalla, ABR voidaan mitata ilman koehenkilön aktiivista osallistumista. Hiljattain ABR-mittauksia varten on kehitetty uudenlainen stimulus: chirp. Chirpin tarkoituksena on tuottaa suurempi ABR-amplitudi lisäämällä sisäkorvan karvasolujen aktiviteetin yhtäaikaisuutta. 1,5 - 2-kertaisia parannuksia onkin raportoitu verrattuna perinteisiin stimuluksiin. Tässä työssä perinteisiä click- ja tone burst -stimuluksia on vertailtu vastaaviin laajakaistaiseen chirpiin ja taajuusspesifeihin kapeakaistaisiin chirpeihin. ABR-kynnystasoja vertailtiin myös toisella objektiivisella metodilla, ASSR:llä saatuihin kynnystasoihin. Vasteet mitattiin kuudelta normaalikuuloiselta ja viideltä huonokuuloiselta koehenkilöltä Interacousticsin Eclipse-järjestelmällä. Perinteisten ja chirp-stimulusten eroja tutkittiin vertailemalla normaalikuuloisilta mitattujen vasteiden amplitudeja. Myös kaikilta koehenkilöiltä mitattuja kynnysarvoja verrattiin äänesaudiometrialla määriteltyihin kuulokynnyksiin. Tulosten perusteella perinteisten stimulusten ja vastaavien chirp stimulusten välillä ei löytynyt tilastollisesti merkitseviä eroja. ASSR- ja ABR-kynnysarvojen luotettava vertailu ei myöskään ollut mahdollista johtuen saatujen kynnysarvojen pienestä määrästä. Johtopäätöksissä todettiin, että tuloksiin on todennäköisesti vaikuttanut tutkimuksessa käytettyjen kuulokkeiden tyyppi. Aiemmissa, chirpin paremmuuden kannalla olleissa tutkimuksissa, mittaukset tehtiin käyttäen toista kuulokemallia. Myös kuulonaleneman vaikutukset chirp stimuluksella suoritettuihin ABR-mittauksiin ovat huonosti tunnettuja, antaen aihetta jatkotutkimuksille.The electrical activity originating from the auditory structures of the brainstem is called the auditory brainstem response (ABR). The ABR is used widely for objective assessment of the hearing system. Whereas traditional pure tone audiometry requires the test subject to respond to probe tones in a predefined manner, the ABR can be recorded without any active participation of the subject. Recently, a new kind of stimulus has been developed for ABR measurements. This stimulus, called chirp, aims at increasing the ABR amplitude by promoting synchronous firing of the hair cells in the inner ear. 1,5 - 2 times higher ABR amplitudes have indeed been recorded using the chirp when compared to traditional stimuli. In this thesis, traditional click and tone burst stimuli were compared to corresponding chirp variants; the broadband chirp and frequency-specific narrowband chirps. Also, the ABR results were compared to those obtained by another objective method, the auditory steady-state response (ASSR). Responses were obtained from six normal-hearing subjects and five hard-of-hearing subjects using the Eclipse platform from Interacoustics. In normal-hearing subjects, the ABR amplitudes were compared between traditional and chirp stimuli. In all subjects, ABR and ASSR thresholds were compared to the behavioral thresholds. Results failed to show significant differences between traditional stimuli and corresponding chirp variants. Also, comparison of and ASSR thresholds could not be done reliably because of the small number of obtained thresholds. It was concluded that the results were influenced by the type of the insert earphones used in this study. Previous results in favour of the chirp have been obtained using a different type of earphones. Also, it was suggested that the influence of hearing loss on chirp-elicited ABRs be investigated in the future

Tietomallintamisen hyödyntäminen betonielementtitoimitusten projektinhallinnassa

Tietomallintaminen on viime vuosina tuonut uudenlaisen lähestymistavan betonielementtien suunnitteluun ja valmistustyöhön. Rakennusprojektien eri osapuolet niin suunnittelijat, työmaahenkilöstö kuin elementtituotannossa työskentelevät ovat kiinnostuneita tietomallintamisen käytön tuomista hyödyistä ja haasteista betonielementtitoimitusten projektinhallinnassa. Tietomallipohjaisen projektinhallinnan kaikkia hyötyjä toimitusprosessille ei vielä tunneta. Tämän opinnäytetyön tavoitteena oli tutkia tietomallintamisen hyödyntämisen tuomia hyötyjä ja ongelmia tapauskohteiden projektinhallinnassa. Tapauskohteita oli kolme: Kauppakeskus Porin Puuvilla, Tampereen Tornihotelli ja Kone High Rise laboratory, Tytyri. Työn tilaajana toimi Parma Oy. Tietoa kerättiin tapauskohteista aktiivisesti omakohtaisten havaintojen avulla sekä haastattelemalla hankkeiden eri osapuolia projektin eri vaiheissa kaupanteon jälkeen. Lisäksi työssä käsitellään LEAN-toimintatapaa ja tulevaisuuden mahdollisia tietomallinnuksen sovelluskohteita betonielementtitoimittajalle. Näiden haastattelujen perusteella voitiin todeta, että tietomallintamisen hyödyntämisen etuja ovat muun muassa parantuneet status- ja aikatauluseuranta, tuotelaatu, työturvallisuus sekä onnistunut tiedonkulku. Tulosten perusteella tietomallintaminen luo osaltaan sujuvamman ja tehokkaamman toimitusprosessin ´ja antaa muita hyötyjä betonielementtitoimittajille. Opinnäytetyössä tehtyihin havaintoihin vedoten tietomallipohjainen betonielementtitoimitusten projektinhallinta luo lukemattomia mahdollisuuksia tulevaisuuden betonivalmisosarakentamiseen.In recent years, BIM has created a new approach to designing and manufacturing of precast concrete elements. The various participants such as design, work site and production of concrete elements. are interested in BIM-based project managements benefits and challenges, whom all benefits are unknown. The purpose of this thesis was to gather information about the benefits and challenges of BIM based-project management in different cases. There were three different cases Shopping Mall Porin Puuvilla, Hotel Tampereen Tornihotelli and Kone High Rise laboratory, Tytyri. The work was ordered by Parma Oy. Information was collected by interviewing the different agents at the various stages of the projects after the contracts ofsales were signed. In addition, this thesis is also examined LEAN-management and new customs to use BIM in the project management of concrete elements in the future. Based on these studies it can be concluded, that the benefits of utilisation of BIM-based project management are improved status and schedule control, product quality, work safety and succeeded exchange of information. The BIM-based project management brings more fluent and efficient supply chain of concrete elements, as well as others significant benefits to the suppliers and many possibilities for building industry, in generally