Arbitraasi

Tiivistelmä. Tämä kandidaatintutkielma on seikkailu arbitraasin ympärillä. Lähden etsimään mahdollisuuksia varmaa voittoa, kunnes nopeasti huomaan, että juuri arbitraasin mahdottomuus tekee siitä niin merkityksellisen. Aluksi tutustun arbitraasin käsitteeseen ja merkitykseen. Tutustun perusteellisesti hinnan muodostumiseen ja täydellisen markkinan perusteisiin. Arrow-Debreu-arvopaperien ja arbitraasin mahdottomuuden käsitteen kautta saan ensimmäisen kosketuksen aika-tila avaruuteen. Arbitraasiin käytännössä tutustun option hinnoittelun mallin, yleisen tasapainotilan analyysin ja markkinoiden täydellisyyden avulla. Arbitraasin merkitys yritysten arvostamisessa, varallisuusesineiden hinnoittelussa ja rahoitusmarkkinoiden tutkimuksessa selviää

Liikuntaharrastuksen merkitys sijaishuollossa olevilla nuorilla

Tiivistelmä. Tämä pro gradu -tutkielma käsittelee liikuntaharrastuksen merkitystä sijaishuollossa olevilla nuorilla. Tutkielmassamme käsiteltävät aiheet ovat ajankohtaisia ja erityisesti nuoria koskevaa syrjäytymiskeskustelua on käyty runsaasti viime vuosina. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää millainen merkitys liikunnalla on sijaishuollossa oleville nuorille. Tutkimuskysymyksiä oli kaksi: 1) Millainen merkitys ohjatun liikunnan harrastamisella on sijaishuollon piirissä olevalle nuorelle? 2) Miksi nuori harrastaa liikuntaa? Tutkimuskysymyksiin pyrittiin saamaan vastauksia tutkimalla ilmiöitä monipuolisesti. Tästä johtuen tutkimusaihetta lähestyttiin nuorten, nuorten sijaishuollon ohjaajien ja sosiaalialan asiantuntijoiden näkökulmista. Tutkimus rakentui kolmen pääteeman ympärille, joita olivat liikuntaharrastus, syrjäytyminen ja sijaishuolto. Tutkimus toteutettiin fenomenografisena tapaustutkimuksena. Tutkimuksessa käytetty aineisto kerättiin haastattelemalla sijaishuollossa olevia, liikuntaharrastuksen omaavia alle 18-vuotiaita nuoria, nuorten omaohjaajia sekä asiantuntijoita. Nuorilta tutkimusaiheeseen liittyen kerättiin myös vapaamuotoinen kirjoitelma. Kaiken kaikkiaan tutkimusaineisto sisälsi 11 haastattelua sekä nuorten tuottamat kirjoitelmat. Aineiston analyysi suoritettiin kahdessa osassa pääpainon ollessa nuorten näkemyksissä ja kokemuksissa. Tästä johtuen nuorten ja aikuisten aineistot analysoitiin erikseen. Aikuisten aineisto oli tutkimuksessa toissijainen ja toimi nuorten aineistoa tukevana vertailupohjana. Analyysin tuloksena nuorten aineistosta muodostettiin tulosavaruus, jossa oli kolme liikunnan ulottuvuutta kuvaavaa kuvauskategoriaa ja niiden alla 16 liikunnan merkityksiä ja syitä kuvaavaa merkityskategoriaa. Aikuisten aineiston osalta analyysi tehtiin ainoastaan merkityskategoriatasolla tasolla. Aikuisten aineistosta merkityskategorioita muodostettiin kuusi kappaletta. Tulosten pohjalta pystyimme muodostamaan kaksi selkeää johtopäätöstä. Ensimmäinen johtopäätös oli se, että liikunnalla on merkittävä rooli nuorten minäkuvan kehittäjänä. Toiseksi johtopäätökseksi muodostui liikunnan suuri merkitys nuorten elämänhallinnan vahvistajana. Molempien johtopäätösten kannalta oli kuitenkin huomattava, että valmentajilla, sijaishuollolla ja erityisesti nuoren omaohjaajalla oli tärkeä rooli liikuntaharrastuksen ohjaajana sekä tukijana. Näitä johtopäätöksiä tukivat niin aikuisilta kuin nuorilta kerätyt aineistot.Abstract. The goal of the research was to find out what kind of meaning doing sports has for adolescents in foster care. There were two research questions: 1) What is the meaning of participation in physical exercise for an adolescent in foster care? 2) Why does an adolescent take part in sports? For answers to the research questions, the phenomenon was studied from any different angles. The research topic was therefore approached from the perspectives of the adolescents, foster care instructors and social work experts. The study was built on three major themes: sports participation, social exclusion and foster care. The research was implemented as a phenomenographic case study. The data used in the study was collected by interviewing foster care adolescents aged 18 who participated in sports activities, their personal foster care instructors and social work experts. Each adolescent was also invited to write an informal essay on the research topic. All in all, the research data included 11 interviews and the essays produced by the adolescents. The data analysis was performed in two parts, with the primary focus on the views and experiences of the adolescents. The data provided by the ado- lescents and adults was therefore analysed separately. In this study the data supplied by the adults was used as a secondary data source to provide a comparative basis to support the data collected from the adolescents. As a result of the analysis, an outcome space was formed from the adolescents’ data including three different description categories that represented the different dimensions of sports: physical, mental and social. 16 categories were constructed under the description categories to illustrate the meanings and reasons for doing sports. In the case of the adult data set, the analysis was only carried out at the level of the categories of meaning. Six different categories were formed on the basis of this secondary source of data. Two obvious conclusions could be drawn from the results: firstly, participation in sports has a significant role as a developer of the adolescents’ self-image. Secondly, sports participation has a great impact in strengthening their life skills. Considering both of these conclusions, it needs to be noted, however, that the coaches, foster care and especially the personal foster care instructors had a crucial role in guiding and supporting the adolescents in their physical pursuits

Gender has to be taken into account in diagnosing adult growth hormone deficiency by the GHRH plus arginine test

Objective: Data on the effect of gender on the interpretation of the GHRH plus arginine stimulation test (GHRH + ARG test) is controversial. We validated the GHRH + ARG stimulation test in control subjects and patients with organic or idiopathic pituitary disease and a suspicion of adult growth hormone deficiency (AGHD) using the Immulite 2000 XPi GH assay. Design: We studied 126 apparently healthy adults (median age 38.8 years) and 34 patients with a suspicion of AGHD (median age 42.2 years). Identification of AGHD with the GHRH + ARG test was investigated with commonly accepted BMI-related consensus cut-off limits for peak GH concentrations. Serum samples collected during the GHRH + ARG test were analysed for GH in 2014-2015. Serum IGF-1 concentrations were studied as a reference. Results: In 14 of 65 (22%) control males the GH peak value was below the BMI-related cut-off limits for GH sufficiency indicating a false diagnosis of AGHD. All control females had a normal GHRH + ARG response. Median peak GH response was significantly (p <0.001) higher in female (39.3 mu g/L) than in male controls (21 mu g/L). According to consensus cut-offs all but one young female patient had a deficient response compatible with a diagnosis of AGHD. Conclusions: The GH response to stimulation by GHRH + ARG is gender-dependent, being lower in healthy males than in females. Gender should be considered when defining cut-off limits for peak GH concentrations in the GHRH + ARG test. The presently used BMI-related cut-off levels will lead to a significant misclassification of males as GH deficient.Peer reviewe

Symptoms and diagnostic delays in bladder cancer with high risk of recurrence : results from a prospective FinnBladder 9 trial

Purpose To investigate the symptoms and delays in the clinical pathway of bladder cancer (BC). Methods This is a substudy of a prospective, randomized, multicenter phase III study (FinnBladder 9, NCT01675219) where the efficacy of photodynamic diagnosis and 6 weekly optimized mitomycin C instillations are studied in pTa bladder cancer with high risk for recurrence. The data of presenting symptoms and critical time points were prospectively collected, and the effect of factors on delays was analyzed. Results At the time of analysis, 245 patients were randomized. Analysis included 131 patients with primary bladder cancer and their complete data. Sixty-nine percent had smoking history and 67% presented with macroscopic hematuria. Median patient delay (from symptoms to health-care contact) was 7 days. The median general practice delay (from health-care contact to urology referral) was 8 days. Median time from urology referral to cystoscopy was 23 days and from cystoscopy to TUR-BT 21 days. Total time used in the clinical pathway (from symptom to TUR-BT) was 78 days. Current and former smokers had non-significantly shorter patient-related and general practice delays compared to never smokers. TUR-BT delay was significantly shorter in patients with malignant cytology (16 days) compared to patients with benign cytology (21 days, p = 0.03). Conclusions Patient-derived delay was short and most of the delay occurred in the referral centers. The majority had macroscopic hematuria as the initial symptom. Surprisingly, current and past smokers were more prone to contact the health-care system compared to never smokers.Peer reviewe

Educational effects of early or later secondary school tracking in Germany

This paper examines educational outcomes of pupils selected to secondary school types by different tracking regimes in a German state: Pupils are alternatively streamed after fourth grade or after sixth grade. Regression results indicate that, estimated on the mean, there are no negative effects of later tracking on educational outcomes in the middle of secondary school. Positive effects are observed for pupils with a less favorable family background. Quantile regressions reveal that the estimated effects of later tracking are positive for the lower quantiles but decrease monotonically over the conditional distribution of test scores

Genes Suggest Ancestral Colour Polymorphisms Are Shared across Morphologically Cryptic Species in Arctic Bumblebees

email Suzanne orcd idCopyright: © 2015 Williams et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

The care unit in nursing home research: Evidence in support of a definition

Abstract Background Defining what constitutes a resident care unit in nursing home research is both a conceptual and practical challenge. The aim of this paper is to provide evidence in support of a definition of care unit in nursing homes by demonstrating: (1) its feasibility for use in data collection, (2) the acceptability of aggregating individual responses to the unit level, and (3) the benefit of including unit level data in explanatory models. Methods An observational study design was used. Research (project) managers, healthcare aides, care managers, nursing home administrators and directors of care from thirty-six nursing homes in the Canadian prairie provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba provided data for the study. A definition of care unit was developed and applied in data collection and analyses. A debriefing session was held with research managers to investigate their experiences with using the care unit definition. In addition, survey responses from 1258 healthcare aides in 25 of the 36 nursing homes in the study, that had more than one care unit, were analyzed using a multi-level modeling approach. Trained field workers administered the Alberta Context Tool (ACT), a 58-item self-report survey reflecting 10 organizational context concepts, to healthcare aides using computer assisted personal interviews. To assess the appropriateness of obtaining unit level scores, we assessed aggregation statistics (ICC(1), ICC(2), η2, and ω2), and to assess the value of using the definition of unit in explanatory models, we performed multi-level modeling. Results In 10 of the 36 nursing homes, the care unit definition developed was used to align the survey data (for analytic purposes) to specific care units as designated by our definition, from that reported by the facility administrator. The aggregation statistics supported aggregating the healthcare aide responses on the ACT to the realigned unit level. Findings from the multi-level modeling further supported unit level aggregation. A significantly higher percentage of variance was explained in the ACT concepts at the unit level compared to the individual and/or nursing home levels. Conclusions The statistical results support the use of our definition of care unit in nursing home research in the Canadian prairie provinces. Beyond research convenience however, the results also support the resident unit as an important Clinical Microsystem to which future interventions designed to improve resident quality of care and staff (healthcare aide) worklife should be targeted