This spring, the most popular master’s programme was NordSecMob – the Master’s Degree Programme in Security and Mobile Computing. It received a total of 182 applications which was 26 more than last spring. NordSecMob focuses on the Internet of the future, wireless mobile technologies and information security.

On average, the number of applicants to the other master’s programmes in computer science also grew. The number of applicants to the programmes that participated in the tuition fee trial returned to the level of spring 2010. When the tuition fee trial was launched in autumn 2010, there was a drop in the number of applicants. “This is a general international trend when tuition fees are introduced,” says Karoliina Kekko from Aalto University Student Services.

Four new programmes

Four new master’s programmes are being introduced at the School of Science in autumn 2012. These programmes will focus on brain functions, the latest applications in mathematics, the physics of advanced materials and ICT innovation entrepreneurship. More information is available on the websites of the programmes:

• Master’s Degree Programme in Brain and Mind
• Master’s Programme in Physics of Advanced Materials
• Master’s Programme in Applied and Engineering Mathematics - N5Team
• Master’s Programme in ICT Innovations (EIT ICT Labs Master School)

Scholarships widely available

At the School of Science, ten master’s programmes offer scholarships or other forms of financial support to their best students. This year, scholarships have been offered to 53 students, which equals 26% of all those admitted to the school. In Erasmus Mundus programmes, the students receive a scholarship that covers tuition fees and living costs. The tuition fee trial programmes and the EIT ICT Labs Master School also grant scholarships for their best (non-EU) students. The Honours Programme of the Department of Information and Computer Science is an example of financial support provided at departmental level.

Read the latest news about the master’s programmes and follow the interaction with the new students in the Facebook group aimed at the international students of the School of Science.

For further information, please contact: Karoliina Kekko

– Pinpointing the effects of pay and incentives to work performances has proven to be difficult. The research so far has been inconclusive. According to my research the meanings are born from meanings attached to the incentives, sums up Hakonen the result of her study.

Pay evokes meanings when they reflect success in work, an employee’s position in the organisational hierarchy and respect from the management. The aspect of respect has mainly gone unnoticed up to now, according to Hakonen. She considers respect crucial for the functioning of the reward system in general.

– Respect is tied to the way the reward system is used in an organisation: to the justness, transparency and consistency of the management’s operation, says Hakonen.

– Of course a remarkably high pay is incitement enough in itself, but the strongest motivation is borne out of symbolic meanings. It pays off to motivate people not only with money.

Paid incentives can also induce negative symbolic meanings. For instance reducing the amount of the reward can be interpreted as a lack of respect. The reward system may also seem as means of control and intrusion.

Rewarding as a systematic strategic tool

 A well-functioning and motivational rewarding system has its roots in the organisation’s strategy.

– The reward system should be a means of communicating the goals of the organisation to the staff. Goals tied to the overall strategy are seen as sensible and one’s own work feels relevant and in accord to them. If the rewards encourage pointless operation, they may become insignificant, says Hakola.

When the staff knows the principles of the incentives and their connection to the work effort, positive meanings emerge: the compensation and the work done are in balance, and the rewards offer feedback from successful performances.

Haphazard or insufficient communication about the reward system can cause unawareness of and indifference towards pay and work assignments. Different groups inside an organisation should also be treated consistently and with open criteria. Doubts of unfair play in pay can easily make money redundant, eat away motivation and turn the meanings of the rewards from positive to negative.

– Supervisors can with their own activity increase effectiveness and meanings of paid incentives. It pays off to regularly remind the employees of their goals and give feedback when there is progress, points out Hakonen.

Motivational reward systems are usually a result of collaborative design between staff, supervisors and management. Hakonen emphasises the value of coherent and open actions of the management and active communication and feedback from supervisors.

– If the reward system is not regularly kept under check, it becomes hard to motivate with incentives. Perhaps the resources reserved for the reward system are then better spent on making the staff happy in some other way, suggests Hakonen.

Further information:

Aalto University School of Science

Department of Industrial Engineering and Management

Anu Hakonen

anu.hakonen@aalto.fi

tel. +35 850 376 1083

Come and meet the new professors that have joined Aalto during the last year and also your earlier colleagues. This time the event is hosted by SCI.

The event will be held on Tuesday, May 22nd at 16-18 o'clock in SAHA -building, Konemiehentie 2, Otaniemi.

Welcome!

Kimmo Kaski, Dean

Registration pirjo.peippo-lavikka@aalto.fi / 050 512 2496

Aalto University plugs electricity into traffic in a research project called eSINi, a sister project of the Electric Traffic in Metropolitan Helsinki venture. It will bring a flight of 500 electric cars to the streets of Helsinki to collect data for the research in eSINi.

The BIT Research Centre in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management coordinates the project. It aims to design the infrastructure for the future of urban mobility, not the vehicle technology as such.

– In addition to coordinating, BIT looks into the business models of electric traffic, the services and industrial value chains within it, and also the vast socio-technical change electric vehicles will bring about, describes Project Manager of eSINi Veikka Pirhonen.

Although the research in eSINi is wide in scope and multidisciplinary by nature, and the Electric Traffic in Metropolitan Helsinki venture comprises several partners from both the public and the private sector, Pirhonen is convinced that the collaboration will turn into solid results.

– Finland has the particular advantage of having a tight network of cooperation between companies, city councils and research centres and universities. Progress stems from constructive and simultaneous collaboration on many fronts, affirms Pirhonen.

From freeze-resistant batteries to an intelligent charging network

A durable battery is the dear heart of the electric car. The compatibility of different types of batteries with the systems and standards of service providers and energy companies is not certain. The Department of Chemistry in Aalto University is researching the differences between battery types and their safety in use.

– The system in lithium-ion batteries that prevents malfunctions such as overcharging, for instance, is not necessarily compatible with all the parties involved. Still the safe use of the battery must be guaranteed while charging and discharging, reminds Tanja Kallio, senior researcher at the Department of Chemistry.

Also the cold climate and long winters in Finland must be taken into account when designing the batteries. A vehicle manufactured in the warmth of southern Europe, for example, may not function in sub zero temperatures.

Fluent electric mobility requires an intelligent charging system, and the Department of Electrical Engineering is in charge of the research in that field. The heating posts in parking lots are a good starting point to construct a network for slow charging. The range of operation of current electric vehicle models is approximately 100 kilometres, so lots of fast charging stations are needed as well.

The locations of the charging stations in the whole country will be gathered into a single database, from which e-motorists can check the location of the stations using an online or a mobile service. This way, even long trips can be planned ahead.

– The reliability of the information is crucial, stresses Veikka Pirhonen. There are examples around the world of poor service maintenance. Users are bound to be disappointed when the charging posts are nowhere to be found in the promised locations.

The heating points of private parking spaces need some added intelligence so that they know how much and when to charge from the electricity transferred. Professor Matti Lehtonen from the Department of Electrical Engineering has a vision of electric vehicles as repositories of wind and solar energy. The owner of the car could sell the energy she has charged back to the power grid when the sun does not shine or there is not enough wind.

This is exactly the kind of legislative reform of the electrical market that the eSINi project strives to initiate.

– We study the current state of the legislation and its possible need to adapt. Preparedness for electric cars is fairly commendable already. On the other hand, there is a whole lot more to do by the state to promote the replacement of combustion engines with electrical ones, considers Veikka Pirhonen.

The aspects of transportation engineering are the responsibility of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Based on the data collected by the test flight of electric cars, the daily travelling behaviour and patterns of the users will be analysed and compared to those of regular motorists. Knowledge will be gained of the costs, savings of energy, time use and the effects of winter conditions on the use of electric vehicles. In addition, the effect of electric cars on traffic flows will be simulated

Professor Eero Miettinen leads a group in the Department of Industrial Design in the School of Arts, Design and Architecture, which studies the design required by a well-functioning charging infrastructure – the look and fit of the charging stations to the demands of e-motorists and its impacts on the urban streetscape. The time-span of the design will reach from the pilot stages all the way to the year 2050.

The website of the eSINi project: http://www.esini.fi

The website of the Electirc Traffic in Metropolitan Helsinki: http://electrictraffic.fi

Further information:

Aalto University School of Science

Department of Industrial Engineering and Management

BIT Research Centre

Project Manager

Veikka Pirhonen

veikka.pirhonen@aalto.fi

tel. +35 850 384 1504

– The book began as thoughts Rolf and I had about the future change of the possibility horizons of our thinking, and about how this change could be described, reveals Mika Aaltonen the inspiration behind the work at the release event of the book at the Otaniemi campus of Aalto University.

As the end result of a three years’ work, Mr & Mrs Future deals with, among an array of subjects, the progress of world economy, learning and education, new information systems and the change of global value systems. Directed for a wide readership and dramatised for general interest, the book aims to reach everyone willing to challenge herself to face the diversity of the future.

– We wanted to write a book that would be sold in big numbers and read by many, admits Aaltonen with gusto.

A complex world demands complex thinking

– Books in the business world tend to look at the world through only one lens at a time: they talk about an ’information society’ or a ’talent economy’. We believe that a single point of view does not suffice. Different and even contradictory perspectives push the world to their respective directions, thinks Aaltonen.

On their futurewalk all over the world in search of the 50 trends, Mr and Mrs Future’s map is being read by guides envisioned by Aaltonen and Jensen: ”Just Facts” who relies on statistics and rational thought, ”The Wise Lady” who digs deep for reasons and long term developments, and ”The Rebel” who questions and thinks against the grain. Through these archetypes Aaltonen and Jensen exemplify the, often conflicting, ways of seeing what matters in the world and how it should be acted on.

– We want to help people to see a diversity of solutions. We call our way of thinking ’ontological heterogeneity: in every situation and trend there is a singular seed for development, believes Aaltonen.

Renaissance into a flat society?

 – The West is plagued by ’short termness’. The popularity of policies is measured weekly, news is daily replaced, and stock markets go up and down in a matter of hours. Only when we begin to see the present extending 15 years further, the future and the dreams related to it become interesting, sums up Rolf Jensen the condition of the western world.

The West is currently in the middle of dreams. We have achieved material well-being, and our dreams deal with free time, life and spirituality. The rising economies in Asia are rapidly reaching their own material dream. Aaltonen and Jensen suggest that when the GNP of a country reaches approximately $ 30 000, people begin to dream about more than just accumulating material wealth.

The make-or-break trends of the future Aaltonen and Jensen name the softening of values and emotionalisation, the diversification of production and services in the wake of increasing individuality, and innovation growing ever more difficult as a result. Relationships, individuals in teams, become crucial in business. Hierarchies crumble, public administration and governance shrink, society begins to self-organise and flatten.

The East, on the other hand, chases not far behind to soon reach the current state of the West.

– In 30 years time, Europe, USA, China and India will be equally matched in terms of wealth. Global economics and competition will turn interesting indeed, predicts Jensen.

Mika Aaltonen is an internationally renowned researcher of decision-making, complexity and uncertainty and global business in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management in Aalto University and a senior researcher in the London School of Economics.

Rolf Jensen is the former Managing Director of the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies and the founder of the consulting agency Dream Company.

Mr & Mrs Future and the 5 Big Questions is already to be published in the USA, South Korea and Denmark.

A research paper soon to be published in Physical Review E explains the basic physics related to the phenomenon referred to as polymer translocation. Exploring this phenomenon could help to create third generation genome sequencing technologies. With the help of these technologies, sequencing a patient’s genome could become a routine health care procedure.

Full genome sequencing is one of the major accomplishments of humankind. The method for sequencing the millions of base pairs that make up the human DNA molecule chain was revealed in the 1970s, but the entire human genome was not sequenced until 2001. Sequencing the first human genome cost almost 3 billion dollars. The analysis is still extremely laborious: sequencing the genome of one person costs over 10,000 dollars.

The translocation phenomenon examined by Ikonen enables researchers to use a much simpler method for determining the base sequence of genes. As early as in the 1990s, researchers discovered that when a DNA chain is forced through a small nanopore with the help of an electric current, different types of bases can be identified by monitoring the changes occurring in the current. Experimental physicists hurried to find out whether the phenomenon could be applied to determining the base sequence of a genome. A small number of theorists began exploring what happened during the actual translocation process. The first translocation theory was presented by Professor Sung’s group in 1996. Sung is now Ikonen’s research partner.

The first DNA sequencer based on translocation will soon be on the market, but the theory itself has been controversial. Tests have revealed that when an electric current is used to drive a DNA chain through a pore that is only a couple of nanometres thick, the first monomers of the chain go through the pore very rapidly. Then the process slows down, but later on it speeds up again.

“The million dollar question has been why this happens,” researcher Timo Ikonen says.

In his article, Ikonen presents a mathematical model that explains the events of the translocation process. The researcher compares the DNA chain to a garden hose curled up on the ground.

“As the curled up hose gradually straightens and the length of the part being pulled grows, pulling the hose becomes harder,” Ikonen explains.

Finally the entire hose will be moving and this is when pulling it along will require the most effort. When more than half of the DNA strand has gone through the nanopore, the tail end of the base chain begins to shorten and the speed of the translocation process increases.

Ikonen realised how the translocation friction of a DNA strand was dependent of time during a research visit to South Korea in January 2011. Professor Sung’s doctoral candidate presented a research paper by Japanese professor Takahiro Sakaue in which the progression of translocation had been described in a similar manner. Ikonen corrected some of Sakaue’s hypotheses and soon the new model was producing results that were in almost perfect accordance with the molecular-level simulations. “It was unbelievable,” Ikonen describes his feelings after receiving the first results.

His first presentation on the subject attracted the deserved attention at a conference held by the American Physical Society (APS).

In the article to be published, titled “Unifying model of driven polymer translocation”, Ikonen also explains how the length of the molecule chain affects the translocation time. His model reveals why computer simulations and previous mathematical models have produced conflicting results.

“Previously, researchers have been comparing apples and oranges. The simulations have been performed using chains of no more than a thousand monomers, whereas the mathematical models have been designed for chains of infinite length.”

Ikonen noticed that the total length of a DNA chain does not cease to affect the progress of the translocation process until it is approximately 100,000 bases long. The new theory and simulations produce similar results for chains of all lengths.

“This proves that our idea about the force progressing through the chain is in line with what actually takes place during translocation.”

Ikonen’s model represents basic research and it can be applied in various fields. Understanding the basic physics of translocation is valuable to the developers of new gene sequencers. With third generation equipment, the price of full genome sequencing may drop to less than 100 dollars.

Translocation also occurs in many other biological processes, such as when viruses inject their genome through cell walls. The new model provides researchers with the information needed to understand how long polymer chains travel through nanometre-scale holes. Observing these nanoscale phenomena in nature is extremely difficult. Now researchers will be able to use regular desktop computers instead of the supercomputers normally used for simulations.

The “Unifying model of driven polymer translocation” research paper has been pre-published in the arXiv service and is available at http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.4782.

The Aalto University research group: the Multiscale Statistical Physics Group http://physics.aalto.fi/groups/comp/msp/

Further information: 

Researcher Timo Ikonen

Aalto University School of Science

Tel. +358 9 4702 5808

timo.ikonen@aalto.fi

Petja Partanen/Tarinatakomo

“Good visualizations can help people to make good decisions, such as selecting a suitable candidate in elections,” researcher Mikko Berg explains.

Berg’s dissertation belongs to the field of media technology and combines cognitive science, psychology and vision research. The dissertation explores how the brain uses visualization when it handles complex data. Berg examined how the use of visualization facilitates understanding by observing how people used the online vote matchers created for the EU and communal elections held in Finland in 2004.

Pictures have been used as a means to communicate since cave paintings. A classic example of well-visualized number data is this diagram presenting the causes of mortality in the Crimean War in 1855 drawn by nurse Florence Nightingale. The diagram that underlined the importance of good hygiene shows the viewer that it was seven times more likely for soldiers to die of diseases spreading in the hospitals than of gunshot wounds.

“Visualization provides viewers with an overview and helps people to understand complex data," Berg says.

He asks me to look around in the lobby of his workplace, Biomedicum. As I look at the lobby, I feel that I can see everything. In reality, all that I can remember is a rough overall image because the area of acute vision is very narrow. Our gaze quickly focuses on new details.

“The eye moves rapidly and focuses on new details three times per second. Our vision works a bit like the Internet – we get the feeling that all the data we need is immediately available, but actually it is not retrieved from the server until we need it,” Mikko Berg explains.

Numerical data in table format is difficult to process for a human brain. Each numerical value has to be looked at individually and it is not easy to get a general idea of the data.

“Our working memory can only store a couple of numbers or words at a time.”

A graph produced using the same data helps people to obtain a general idea of the situation. Graphs also give our peripheral vision valuable hints about the areas worth looking at.

Information technology has provided us with entirely new opportunities for visualizing data. For instance the 25 questions in the MTV3 online vote matcher form a 25-dimensional answer space. It is difficult to get an overall idea of the answers provided by hundreds of candidates. With the help of the self-organizing maps (SOM) developed at Aalto University, the candidates can be placed on a two-dimensional surface so that candidates with similar opinions are located close to each other on the map.

Based on Berg’s research results, those planning visualization for the Internet should take advantage of the opportunity to use interactive features. In interactive visualization, the user can select different variables and test what happens if he or she answers a vote matcher question differently. “We understand many things better if we get to test them ourselves,” Berg says.

According to the study, good visualization reduces the load on our working memory.

“Our working memory can be externalised to a visualization tool. If the brain registers the area from which a piece of information can quickly be found, it becomes unnecessary to memorize non-essential data. People do not want to remember how an individual candidate answered a certain question in a vote matcher,” Berg explains.

Creating good visualizations is difficult because the information being presented is complex.

“It is difficult to decide who to vote for. It is a project that requires a lot of work, but good visualization can provide the tools for it,” Berg says.

The doctoral dissertation of Mikko Berg, M.Sc. (Tech.), "Human abilities to perceive, understand, and manage multidimensional information with visualizations", was publicly examined at the Aalto University School of Science on 27 April. The dissertation belongs to the field of media technology. The opponent was Professor Erica de Vries from Université Pierre-Mendès-France.

The dissertation online http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2012/isbn9789526045498/isbn9789526045498.pdf

Further information:

Mikko Berg, Psychology Intern, Helsinki University Central Hospital, Neuropsychiatry Unit

Tel. +358 41 545 6545

mikko.j.berg@helsinki.fi

Petja Partanen/Tarinatakomo

Professor Tuomisto, 33, has a background in material physics and researching the structure of materials at their atomic level. As professor, one of his key areas of research will be examination and prediction of the resistance to radiation of the structural materials used at power stations.

“The purpose of this research is to facilitate development of new materials that are more resistant to radiation. However, no material can be made to last forever. Better predictions and models are needed for how long materials will remain resistant to radiation. This will help in knowing how often different components in power stations need to be changed,” said Professor Tuomisto.

From material physicist to Professor of Nuclear Engineering

Professor Tuomisto explains that he chose Nuclear Energy Technology as his major during his studies at the Department of Applied Physics.

“Energy and the issues surrounding it have always interested me. In twenty years, the world’s energy needs will be significantly larger than currently. We will need all possible forms of power production."

After working as a summer assistant in a research laboratory, Mr. Tuomisto decided to change his major to Applied Physics. Around this same time a future in the science world began to interest him. Mr. Tuomisto’s Master’s thesis as well as his Doctoral dissertation, which he completed in under 3 years, are both in the field of material physics, but his interest in energy persevered.

"As construction materials used at power stations are in contact with radiation and are under an immense mechanical load, stations need a multitude of information on the atomic structure and durability of materials.”

Responsibility for nuclear safety a part of education

According to Professor Tuomisto, it is of primary importance that education promotes responsibility in the use of nuclear technology.

“At Aalto University we teach students about radioactivity and radiation as well as how to operate when working with these. Not all forms of radiation are alike, and thus their effects on surrounding materials will vary."

Filip Tuomisto was appointed to the Tenure Track system as an Associate Professor for a fixed-term from 1 May 2012 to 30 April 2017. He is also the head of the Positron Physics research group. 

This spring, the most popular Master’s programme was NordSecMob – Master’s Degree Programme in Security and Mobile Computing. It received a total of 182 applications which was 26 more than last spring. NordSecMob focuses on the Future Internet, wireless mobile technologies and information security.

On average, the number of applicants to the other Master’s programmes in computer science also grew. The number of applicants to the programmes that participated in the tuition fee trial returned to the level of spring 2010. When the tuition fee trial was launched in autumn 2010, there was a drop in the number of applicants. “This is a general international trend when tuition fees are introduced,” says Karoliina Kekko from Aalto University School of Science Study and Student Services.

Four new programmes

Four new Master’s programmes are being introduced at the School of Science in autumn 2012. These programmes will focus on brain functions, the latest applications in mathematics, the physics of advanced materials and ICT innovation entrepreneurship. More information is available on the websites of the programmes:

• Master’s Degree Programme in Brain and Mind
• Master’s Programme in Physics of Advanced Materials
• Master’s Programme in Applied and Engineering Mathematics - N5TeAM
• Master’s Programme in ICT Innovations (EIT ICT Labs Master School)

Scholarships widely available

At the School of Science, ten international Master’s programmes offer scholarships or other forms of financial support to their best students. This year, scholarships have been offered to 53 students, which equals 26% of all those admitted to the school. In Erasmus Mundus programmes, the students receive a scholarship that covers tuition fees and living costs. The tuition fee trial programmes and the EIT ICT Labs Master School also grant scholarships and tuition fee waivers for their best students. The Honours Programme of the Department of Information and Computer Science is an example of financial support provided at departmental level.

Read the latest news about the Master’s programmes and follow the interaction with the new students in the Facebook group aimed at the international students of the School of Science.

For further information, please contact: Karoliina Kekko

Automatic video remixes valuable as memorabilia

Sami Vihavainen1, Sujeet Mate2, Lassi Liikkanen1, Igor D.D. Curcio2
1) Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT, Aalto University / 2 Nokia Research Center

Digital memorabilia, such as video remixes, can increase the value of attending music events. Remixes can be made using video clips recorded by attendees during the event; however, producing them is a laborious task. In this paper we study the prospects of automatic video remixing and present the results of a study on users' perceptions and attitudes towards collaborative automatic mobile video production.

The three findings are as follows:

People assess automatic video remix memorabilia as fairly equal to amateur-made manual ones, even if the manually-created video remixes are better in overall quality; as a remixing actor, a computer can be perceived to be more trustworthy than a human remixer; and, the quality of the video remix and the publication forum of the remix outcome plays a significant role when people are deciding whether or not they need public acknowledgement for their contribution. We conclude by discussing the design implications for collaborative automatic mobile video production.

For more information:
Sami Vihavainen
Researcher - Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT
www.hiit.fi/sami.vihavainen
gsm: +358 44 348 2517

Helping in the Legal Use of Creative Commons Image
Herkko Hietanen, Antti Salovaara, Kumaripaba Athukorala - Aalto University, Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), Finland Yefeng Liu - Waseda University, Japan

We present an Open Media Retrieval model for searching and using Creative Commons content. The design will reduce accidental copyright infringements and the time needed for searching open content.

The meanings of music sharing in tween life

Vilma Lehtinen, LAssi A Liikkanen, Aalto University, HIIT, Finalnd

Music Interaction Research - Let's Get the Band Back Together
Lassi A Liikkanen - Aalto University, HIIT, Finland

Christopher Amos - Carnegie Hall, USA
Sally Jo Cunningham - University of Waikato, New Zealand

J. Stephen Downie - University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA

David McDonald - University of Washington, Information School, USA

This panel discusses music interaction as a part of digital media research. We consider why music interaction research has become marginal in HCI and how to revive it.

Despite the hurry and the chronic deficiency in nurses, productivity of home care services is low; patients do not get adequate care. Still, what if the problem was not the assumed lack of resources but the ways home care services are designed and carried out?

Johan Groop shows in his dissertation for the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Aalto University that low productivity and the constant shortage of work force is caused by routinised procedures in the field falsely considered to be efficient. Following the management philosophy Theory of Constraints, Groop’s research has discovered three interconnected core problems, the resolving of which would radically improve the productivity of home care services.

The morning rush messes up the entire home care service

First of all, the work of home care nurses is currently designed so that the patients of one nurse live as close to each other as possible. This saves travel time and expenses, and thus the ensuing procedure is thought to be efficient. Groop’s research shows that this rather leads to an unreasonable demand for labour in the morning and to an excessive capacity later in the day.

– Mornings suffer from a rush peak because nurses are forced to mix tasks that are tied to a specific time of the day and tasks that can be taken care of any time, sums up Groop the root of the problem.

Secondly, the vacancies of nurses are tied to certain districts, and this prevents nurses from moving across districts according to the demand of labour.

– No one wants to waste the nurses’ work time in traffic, but the crucial thing would rather be to spread the work evenly throughout the day and to areas with the most demand, suggests Groop.

– Now some districts are compelled to buy extra work force from the private sector, even though there would be available nurses in the neighbouring areas.

The third problem stems from making use of every available nurse in every area regardless of whether everyone is needed or not. Even though in some areas there would be work for only a part of the nurses, the tasks are dealt between everyone. This promotes moving even more tasks and visits that are not tied to a certain time of day to the morning hours.

– Focusing on and making minute details more efficient often ends up only contributing to the actual problem. You wind up efficiently doing things that should not be done in the first place, argues Groop.

The dissertation concentrates on the home care services of the city of Espoo, but Groop believes the problems are similar nation-wide.

Nurses to meet the needs of patients, not districts

– The current mode of operation benefits neither the nurses, the health care system nor the people in need of home care.

Groop presents quite simple solutions. Instead of optimising the nurses’ work routes, the focus should be on providing the right kind of services to the right customers regardless of their location. Tasks that are time-critical should all be carried out in the morning; tasks that are not so tied to a certain time of day should be taken care of in the afternoon.

In addition, a ‘buffer group’ of nurses should be formed. This means that not all the nurses are sent out to the field every morning, but a buffer group is reserved to trump the rush peaks in areas with the most demand.

– By no means does all this entail letting anyone of the nursing staff go, but to strive to make the most of the current resources and alleviate the nurses’ workload, emphasises Groop.

– When the nurses are not in a constant hurry, and their schedules are planned to meet the needs of patients and not optimal routes, nurses will have time to really concentrate on improving the quality of life of their patients.

Further information:

Aalto University School of Science

Department of Industrial Engineering and Management

Johan Groop

johan.groop@aalto.fi

p. +35 850 301 6146

In their most complex form, statistical models are based up to many thousands of explanatory variables. The most important thing, therefore, is to find from the material the features that describe the target of investigation as precisely as possible. The task known as feature selection seems an obvious choice, but attempts have been made already over a half a century to solve this basic pattern recognition problem.

Juha Reunanen, in his doctoral dissertation, Overfitting in Feature Selection: Pitfalls and Solutions, at the Aalto University School of Science, shows that feature selection methods are often compared and evaluated on unjustified grounds. Generally, two wrong conclusions are made about pattern recognition: it is thought that computationally intensive and slow search algorithms as well as fine-grained feature selection will produce the most accurate results.

– Everyone wants to introduce a new, and the best, feature selection method. Nevertheless, comparisons and choice between these is not as easy as it is often believed during investigation, Reunanen summarizes a key problem in his field of science.

Results that are too good to be true and great little errors

According to Reunanen, the problem lies more on overfitting in models that use machine learning methods to classify statistical data than in simple algorithms or algorithms that have not been pruned.

A statistical model is overfitted when it is capable only for repeating information that has been fed to it but unable to describe and classify new data. The model learns about all the pikes swimming in the pond that the fish in question is a pike but not why it is a pike.

– This basic overfitting, of course, has been recognized and identified since the rudimentary statistical modelling, but it is less frequent that the "overfitting of the second kind" would become accounted for, Reunanen observes.

When it is believed that if a particular fish species swimming in a particular pond can be identified with 95 percent accuracy by a model having a certain variable set and that the model subsequently would perform just as well with different fish species, lakes, rivers and oceans, we come across with the interpretation error discovered by Reunanen. The mistake is not necessarily noted, because the results of overfitting models are often deceptively good.

– It is hard to draw any conclusions. It is far too easy to get excited over some good results obtained by statistical models and pattern recognition methods. The researcher should exercise self-criticism and take a hard look whenever a promising explanation emerges.

Thus, rather than having discovered an optimal set of variables or created a brilliant algorithm, we might fallen a victim of a statistical illusion.

– Accuracy and prediction capabilities of multiple variable models are especially important in fields where the difference between 85 and 95 percent probability matters. For example, if a model meant as a tool for a physician can diagnose a rare illness with 95 percent accuracy, it pays to use it.

However, we wouldn't like the tool to consist of variables that require biopsies, which are dangerous and painful to the patient, nor would we like exhausting wait for the results.

– To dramatize a bit, a model selected with correct methods should not need to include variables that require trepanation for the patient.

Picture: Numcore Oy

Additional information:

Juha Reunanen

juha.reunanen@iki.fi

tel. +358 50 375 4475

Researchers Vasyl Palchykov, FiDiPro Professor Janos Kertész and Dean Kimmo Kaski from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science in Aalto University headed the study. Members of the research group included internationally renowned network theorist and physicist Albert-László Barabási from Northeastern University in the USA and Professor Robin Dunbar of Oxford University in England.

By analysing nearly two billion mobile phone calls and a half a million text messages sent by over three million people, the group was able to define ‘a best friend’, a person who a user called and texted the most. The researchers focused on the top three best friends and discovered striking differences in the ways women and men of different ages maintain their closest relationships.

The results suggest that women between their early twenties and the age of 45 focus clearly on finding a potential mate, that is, their most intense and close contacts are with men. The tendency is less evident with men: their nearest friends are equally female and male, and although the ‘best friend’ is often a wife or a girlfriend, the level of contact is less intense than it is for women.

Daughters replace spouses as women’s ‘best friends’ when approaching middle age. More clearly than men, women also direct their attention more to their grandchildren than their spouses. Middle-aged men do not have the same gender bias in their nearest and dearest: although the spouse often notwithstanding, men divide their time equally to both genders. After the age of 60 women are more likely to be in closest contact with their daughters than their spouses or sons.

The researchers are convinced that for the first time they have captured pronounced differences between men and women in the behavioural patterns regarding reproductive strategies and interests. Gender biases in women’s relationships lead the researchers to assume that the intimate structure of social networks is notably more the result of action of and bonding between women than men.

Most research of large-scale social networks has tended to treat human relationships as static. This research shows on the other hand that the closest social relationships are dynamic and prone to change over a lifetime. Although the results have been previously anticipated, the study remarks that it has until now been difficult or impossible to test them.

The group trusts that there will be novel fields of application for the patterns discovered and the vast network datasets exploited. Provided that the right kinds of questions are asked.

The article ‘Sex differences in intimate relationships’ by Vasyl Palchykov, Kimmo Kaski, Janos Kertész, Albert-László Barabási & Robin I. M. Dunbar in Scientific Reports, issue 2/2012 (370).

Link to the article: http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120419/srep00370/full/srep00370.html

Further information:

Kimmo Kaski
Dean
kimmo.kaski@aalto.fi
Tel. +358 50 560 4825
Aalto University
School of Science

Vasyl Palchykov
Post doc -tutkija
vasyl.palchykov@aalto.fi
Tel. +358 50 344 6263
Aalto University
School of Science
Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science

The research field of computer games will inherently bring together the key areas of expertise of the two departments, from programming to visualisation of information and from user interface design to animation. During his time as Assistant Professor Hämäläinen aims to combine the strengths of the School of Science and the School of Art and Design and foster research of which game design companies can make use.

– By combining technology and design, one can be the first to discover completely new experiences, applications and emotions, summarises Hämäläinen his vision.

Programmers of embodied games: off to modern dance classes!

In both his research and in his job in the game design studio Virtual Air Guitar Company, Hämäläinen has specialised in embodied user interfaces between human and computer. In embodied games the player controls her character with the movements of her own body without any control devices. The movements are transferred into the game via camera. This computer vision Hämäläinen has been developing for the past years in fighting and action games.

– Now the improvement of computer vision is only a matter of maximising performance capacity. For my own research the most interesting thing is taking the interactivity in embodied games further, tells Hämäläinen.

Believable interaction is not only based on realistic modelling of the player’s movements or on the lifelike audiovisual clues constructing the game world. Hämäläinen is convinced that artificial intelligence and machine learning will soon revolutionise the game industry.

– Artificial intelligence is needed to make the interaction as authentic as possible. The characters in the game should know how to improvise, to act in ways that the designers could have not anticipated.

Game designers and programmers should also feel the movements they convert into code in their own bodies. At the same time they can also discover the limits of normal human beings and be able to transcend them in the virtual world.

– Just like actors need courses in gymnastics, programmers of embodied games should be made to practice modern dance, breakdance, yoga, Pilates – whatever that would deepen their bodily sensations, encourages Hämäläinen.

Hämäläinen himself has been active in several forms of marshal arts and has danced for years, and he believes the experiences can be seen and felt in the user interfaces he has created.

An animating programmer?

 There is an obvious bottleneck in the process of game development according to Hämäläinen: creating test versions of games takes a lot of time and work. For example character animation is arduous and while creating prototypes, new animations are required instantly, not with a days’ lag. Hämäläinen wants to come up with content production tools, which would enable programmers in design studios to create 3D animations of adequate quality for the test versions of games.

– Studying and researching 3D modelling in the Department of Media surely repeatedly raises the frustration of not being able to do things more easily. Recognising and knowing your way around the bugs in software should not be a part of the job prescriptions of animators and 3D modellers, says Hämäläinen.

Innovations in content production tools for games would tremendously cut down the amount of unnecessary work. The computer games education in Aalto University strives to achieve this by seating programmers, designers and artists at the same table and encouraging them to study and try each other’s work.

Companies necessarily still won’t see the benefits of strenuous basic research; ready-to-use products and marketing on the other hand are rarely the primary goals of academic research. Hämäläinen however believes that a common interest can be found.

– Through the years I have grown ever more critical when it comes to corporate collaboration. Researchers have to understand the underlying logic of the corporate world in order to make collaborations work. If scientific knowledge can be inserted into companies, for example as novel software products innovated by researchers, game design studios can achieve an unprecedented competitive edge, believes Hämäläinen.

Companies not always have the scientific know-how or the time to focus on developing single features that may demand, for instance, heavy computation.

– Creating new genres is the job of universities. Then again, games have to be made so that new research problems can emerge.

Further information:

Perttu Hämäläinen

perttu.hamalainen@aalto.fi

Text by Tapio Reinekoski

The application is ongoing in AlumniNET.

Mentoring highlights the induction of students into Finnish working life and development of prerequisites to working life. The heart of mentoring is in one-to-one meetings, however themed small group meetings and corporation visits play a strong role in the programme. The program lasts from September 2012 to May 2013.

International mentoring is open to foreign degree students in the MA stage. As a mentor both Finnish and international alumni of Aalto University are most welcome to apply for mentoring. Mentor applicants are expected to speak English fluently and have no less than five years of working life experience after graduation.

The application period is from 15 March to 15 May.

The multicore processors of new smartphones and computers can run several concurrent software processes. Multicore technology will only bring true benefits when software, too, can make use of concurrent processing. Bringing technology familiar from supercomputers to everyday IT is a great challenge for software designers.

– If a programme contains too many concurrent performance threads, writing code that does not produce unexpected errors becomes a lot harder, says researcher Jan Lönnberg.

In his doctoral dissertation, Jan Lönnberg created the Atropos visualisation tool that helps students of concurrent programming better understand the operation of the code they write. Atropos indicates the cause–effect relations between software events and helps analyse the way that error conditions arise. 

Traditional software troubleshooting, or debugging, proceeds one step at a time in the order of software performance, trying to reproduce the detected error. Lönnberg’s programme operates differently.

– Atropos starts with the detected error and searches for causes for the erroneous behaviour of the programme, from finish to start, Lönnberg explains.

Atropos detects unexpected errors, typical of concurrent programmes, a lot more efficiently than currently available debugging tools. 

– Unexpected errors come about when the performances of concurrent, interrelated programme processes proceed at their own pace. A small change in performance order creates an error, Lönnberg explains.

Lönnberg’s doctoral studies got started when he was working as an assistant on a concurrent programming course.

– Students yearned for support in getting to understand how concurrent programmes actually work. 

Lönnberg analysed hundreds of Java programmes created by students as their coursework. Errors occurring in them were usually related to the erroneous joint operation of concurrent threads.  Based on these experiences, Lönnberg wrote the illustrative tool Atropos, which helps students understand their own programming errors and fix them. 

The programme is now at its prototype phase, and it has been tested on a concurrency course. Experiences have been promising.

– The biggest challenge was how to motivate students to use the tool. We also found many ideas for improvement.

The development of the programme will continue. Lönnberg believes that minor further development will enable Atropos to help course students learn independently. The workload of assistants will also decrease: the causes of programme errors in coursework will be quickly detected. The new research plan also incorporates industrial applications. Atropos could be used to, for example, trace inexplicable failures in server programmes utilising concurrency. 

– Illustrative tools of this kind are useful in software industry, as concurrency is used to an increasing extent. They specifically help tackle problems that are difficult to detect.

The biggest development challenge is effective data saving. Saving a complex programme run takes up gigabytes of disk space. Memory simply tends to run out.

Lic. Sc. (Tech.) Jan Lönnberg’s dissertation "Understanding and Debugging Concurrent Programs through Visualisation" was examined in the Aalto University School of Science on Friday, 16 March 2012. The opponent was Docent Arnold Pears from Uppsala University.

Aalto University Department of Computer Science and Engineering http://cse.aalto.fi/fi/

More information:

Researcher Jan Lönnberg

Aalto University School of Science

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Tel. +358 50 562 8074

jlonnber@cs.hut.fi

One of the scientists involved in the study is Anton Kuzyk, a new postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Applied Physics at Aalto University, who worked at the Technische Universität München.

A few years ago, nano researchers turned their attention to a method called DNA origami, which allow for creation of nanostructures of almost arbitrary shape. The study reported in Nature demonstrates that DNA origami technique can be used to build  functional nanostructures which can modify the properties of light in a very precise manner.

According to the research group, combining nanostructures and light might facilitate the production of smaller and more sensitive sensors for medical and environmental applications. The conventional fabrication methods are limited in their ability to produce necessary three-dimensional structures with nanoscale precision.

– With DNA origami, we have now found a methodology, which makes it possible to define in advance, and with nanometer precision the three-dimensional shape of the object being created, Professor Friedrich Simmel from the Technische Universität München explains.

The group constructed helices – structures similar to the DNA molecule – of 57 nanometres in height and 34 nanometres in diameter with 10 nanometre gold attached at regular intervals. Electrons on the gold surfaces react with the electromagnetic field of light. When all the gold particles on a DNA origami react with light simultaneously, their interactions will be amplified many-fold.

Through theoretical calculations and experiments, it is now possible to produce nano-optical materials, with precisely specified properties.

– We will now investigate whether we can use this method to influence the refraction index of the materials we manufacture. Materials that can have a negative refractive index could be used to develop novel optical lens systems – so-called super lenses, Professor Tim Liedlfrom the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität explains the goals of the follow-up studies.

Original publication:
DNA-based Self-Assembly of Chiral Plasmonic Nanostructures with Tailored Optical Response. 
Anton Kuzyk, Robert Schreiber, Zhiyuan Fan, Günther Pardatscher, Eva-Maria Roller, Alexander Högele, Friedrich C. Simmel, Alexander O. Govorov ja Tim Liedl.

Further information:
Anton Kuzyk, Ph.D.
anton.kuzyk@aalto.fi
tel: +358 40 8728398
Aalto University School of Science
Department of Applied Physics

In her doctoral dissertation for the Aalto University School of Science, Taru Tukiainen, M.Sc. (Tech.), identified 11 novel genetic regions that regulate the blood levels of metabolites, such as cholesterol, that act as markers for several diseases. The identification of the genes may provide valuable information on biological processes leading to an actual illness.

Blood cholesterol and sugar levels are important indicators of our state of health. Human blood has thousands of similar metabolites, aberrant levels of which can help to diagnose illnesses and recognise disease risks.

Besides illnesses, genetic background influences the levels of metabolites. Genetic mutations, accumulated during generations, affect metabolism and predispose to diseases but research on the topic has been scarce because thousands of blood samples are required for statistical analyses.  Analysing samples manually is both time consuming and expensive.

Led by the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland FIMM, the research group investigated the impact of genetics on metabolism using a veritable Finnish treasure trove, biobanks. “There are excellent study materials available in Finland, with voluntary participants having given not only blood but also DNA and great quantities of other biological and clinical data”, Taru Tukiainen explains.

Automation and computational models were brought in to help. A new high-throughput screening method (metabolomics based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)) was used to measure the levels of over 200 metabolites from blood samples from 8,330 Finns at the same time. The robotic system made it possible to process more than a thousand samples a week.

Analysing the world’s largest study material was a challenging computational task. Altogether 7.7 million single nucleotide variations from the genomes of approximately 8,300 people were studied. The statistical analysis of the data helped to find out which of the variants affected the blood levels of the 216 studied metabolites.

“We are talking about trillions of comparisons here. There was a huge amount of data.”

In November 2010, Tukiainen and Johannes Kettunen, a postdoctoral researcher at FIMM, obtained the first results after a laborious computing stage. The very first finding was encouraging: they identified a genetic region in chromosome 4 of the human genome that affected blood albumin levels. In medicine, the albumin level is used to monitor the state of fluid balance, the liver and kidneys.

“Later on, we found that the same genetic variation also influences the blood cholesterol level.” Similar findings followed one after another. The researchers identified altogether 11 novel genetic regions with a notable impact on metabolism.

A research paper on the topic was accepted for publication in Nature Genetics, ranked as one of the world’s most influential science journals.

The researchers hope that, in the future, the identified genetic regions will be useful in the treatment of common diseases as well as in their more effective diagnosis.

Taru Tukiainen, M.Sc. (Tech.) defended her doctoral dissertation "Metabolomics meets genetics – from an NMR metabolomics platform to the genetic architecture of serum metabolites" in the field of the computational systems biology at the Aalto University School of Science on 2 March 2012. Professor Thomas Illig from the Hannover Medical School acted as the opponent.

Electronic dissertation: http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss

 Aalto University Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science

http://www.becs.tkk.fi/fi/

Further information:

Taru Tukiainen

tel. +358 400 911982

taru.tukiainen@aalto.fi

On the interactive wall made of eight MultiTaction® Cell 55” modular multi-user touch displays and four Microsoft Kinect® 3D motion sensing cameras, visitors can playfully learn about EIT ICT Labs activities using a user interface developed by EIT ICT Labs and Aalto University researchers.

“The wall is an example of how EIT ICT Labs boosts European competitiveness by bringing academic research, education and business together,” says Professor Marko Turpeinen, Node Director EIT ICT Labs Helsinki. “Cooperation with MultiTouch has brought added value to both parties.”

The goal of EIT ICT Labs researchers has been to learn more about and develop concepts for delivering information in public spaces using large interactive displays. MultiTouch Ltd. has provided researchers with support and information from real use cases from all around the globe. This cooperation enabled the scientific knowledge to be transferred immediately into this new business tool.

MultiTouch Ltd. was originally established by researchers from Aalto University, which is one of the core partners of EIT ICT Labs Helsinki. The company has already sold interactive displays in over 40 countries around the world and recently launched its third generation MultiTaction product line.

The Bubblescreen installation utilizes 8 MultiTaction Cell 55” Full HD LCD displays and 4 Microsoft Kinect motion sensing cameras to make an impressive five meter wide display with more than 15 million pixels. It is based on the Kupla user interface developed by Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT at Aalto University.

“The display array, made of stackable MultiTaction Cells, recognizes unlimited touch points which means we can accommodate a very large number of users. The Bubblescreen application using Kinect was developed by EIT ICT Labs with MultiTouch Cornerstone SDK. It is a fantastic example of how by merging technologies we can create new, innovative ways for human-computer interaction,” said Hannu Anttila, VP Sales of MultiTouch Ltd.

The installation can be found at EIT ICT Labs stand in Hall 26, Stand F50 at CeBIT from 6 to 10 March 2012.

For further information, please contact:

 Prof. Marko Turpeinen, Node Director EIT ICT Labs Helsinki on +358 50 597 0931 or email:  marko.turpeinen@ictlabs.eu

Hannu Anttila, VP Sales, MultiTouch Ltd. on +358 50 385 5515 or email: hannu.anttila@multitouch.fi

See video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksfr9Q1P738&feature=youtu.be