The interests of Ikkala's group focus on the self-assembled strong and light nanocomposite structures found in nature, such as the nacreous matter underneath seashells and biological fibres resembling silk and nanocellulose. Several strong natural materials are built from both strong parallel elements and softening and viscosifying macromolecules. All sizes of structures form to combine opposite properties: strength and viscosity.

In terms of materials science, it is intriguing to identify the physical causes of specific properties and to produce equivalent structures and functions. Natural materials have formed in the long course of evolution, and their production is both slow and extremely expensive. Biomimetics therefore studies ways of mimicking natural material formation.

– In nature, materials are often stiff, strong, viscous and light at the same time. Designing materials of this kind is extremely difficult, but we have made progress by studying nature, says Academy Professor Olli Ikkala.

The applications aim at technological production, but Ikkala notes that applications will only arise through a theoretical understanding of the nanostructures.

– Eventually, the aim is at designing new materials even better than the ones found in nature, with new combinations of properties, says Ikkala.

Ikkala's group has already succeeded in producing a variety of nanomaterials.

– We aim to mimic the properties of seashells and silk, for example. A little over a year ago, we were the first ones in the world to introduce a strong and lightweight nacre-mimetic material that is quite easy to produce. An important scientific dilemma is to find out how viscosifying polymers behave in nano size. We have also produced new kinds of flexible and functional, ultralight and porous materials, i.e., aerogels.

Material properties become gradually clearer

The research of the properties of biomimetic nanocomposites is based on finding out the initial materials of self-assembly. Initial material may include, for example, nano platelets, polymers, new forms of carbon, surfactants and nanocellulose.

– Cellulose is especially interesting, as it is the most common polymer in the world and it is produced in our renewable forests. In terms of strength, nano-sized cellulose fibres are comparable to metals, which was the very offset of interest in using nanocellulose in the design of strong self-assembled biomimetic materials, Ikkala says.

- Silk is a textbook example of a mechanically excellent fible, albeit expensive. We have the know-how for producing it through microbiological and genetic means, but the production costs still remain high.

The causes of the superb mechanical properties of silk are still not fully known, so we have barely made a start with its biomimetics.

We study the spinned biomimetic fibres and membranes that are based on the self-assembly of nanocellulose and macromolecules. We continuously combine cumulative knowledge on the structures that affect the properties of silk and other biological materials, Ikkala says.

With the funding granted by the European Research Council, the group will also be able to study how biomimetic materials can be steered by controlling them externally – from hard to soft, and back.

– Globally speaking, material haptics, i.e., the contact behaviour of materials is currently under intense research. The Laboratory of Molecular Materials studies how the mechanical properties of materials can be steered, Ikkala explains.

– Considering the heavy competition for the research funding of the European Research Council, applications must be outstanding both in terms of scientific content and the framework. I was able to concentrate on the scientific content with our application, as I received considerable support from Aalto University’s competent research funding application service, which began operation less than a year ago, Ikkala says. Also in general, it is essential that researchers be trained for the tricks related to applying EU funding.

More information:
Academy Professor Olli Ikkala, olli.ikkala@aalto.fi, +358 50 4100454

The results link, for the first time, a dyslexia-susceptibility gene to a specific sensory function of the human brain. This collaborative study between Aalto University and University of Helsinki in Finland and the Karolinska Insitutet in Sweden was published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

According to previous animal studies, dysfunction of the Robo1 gene prevents normal midline crossing of neurons during fetal development. Humans with totally dysfunctional ROBO1 gene have not been found. However, dyslexic individuals in a large Finnish family have inherited one poorly functioning copy of the ROBO1 gene. This association between ROBO1 and dyslexia was found already in 2005.

In the present study, the scientists quantified the functional crossing of auditory pathways in ten members of this family, applying a sensitive method based on the recording of weak magnetic fields of the brain (magnetoencephalo­graphy, MEG). The functional crossing of auditory pathways was significantly weakened in individuals who carried the dyslexia-linked version of the ROBO1 gene.

Dyslexia is the most common learning disability, affecting roughly 10% of the population in most countries.

Additional information:

Satu Lamminmäki, MD
Tel: +358-50-3442818
E-mail: satu.lamminmaki@aalto.fi

Riitta Hari, MD Ph.D, professor
E-mail: hari@neuro.hut.fi

Juha Kere, MD Ph.D, professor
E-mail: juha.kere@ki.se

Reference:

Satu Lamminmäki, Satu Massinen, Jaana Nopola-Hemmi, Juha Kere, and Riitta Hari: Human ROBO1 Regulates Interaural Interaction in Auditory Pathways. The Journal of Neuroscience, January 18, 2012, 32(3):966 –971.

During the last decade, the two carbon allotropes that we learnt at school, graphite and diamond, have been joined by several new carbon structures.
The football-shaped fullerene and graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, have even brought Nobel prizes to their discoverers.
Researcher Timo Vehviläinen from Aalto University discovered several new carbon structures during his doctoral dissertation project with the help of computational methods.

Vehviläinen was especially interested in the smallest possible fullerene molecule, the spherical C₂₀ composed of 20 carbon atoms. An important research question was whether structures based on this fullerene could be used for storing hydrogen.

- Some research papers suggest that as many as 60 hydrogen atoms could be stored inside a fullerene molecule, Vehviläinen says.

Hydrogen a possible replacement for fossil fuels

Carbon has a central role in the global energy supply since the majority of the world’s energy is produced by burning hydrocarbons. Hydrogen has been mentioned as a possible replacement for the diminishing supplies of fossil fuels, but producing and storing this explosive gas is a major problem.
- The safest option would be binding hydrogen to solids so that it could easily be released when necessary, Vehviläinen explains.
However, his simulations with fullerene and hydrogen revealed that fullerene binds hydrogen atoms slightly too tightly. Hydrogen atoms can be made to enter a fullerene sphere by exposing them to heat, but releasing the atoms from the fullerene molecule then becomes extremely difficult.

- If we had found a way of storing hydrogen, we would be very famous, Vehviläinen states realistically.
The researchers at Aalto University will continue their simulations, but instead of using hydrogen atoms, they will move on to using the hydrogen molecule H₂ that is naturally found in the environment.

Although a scientific breakthrough was not made, a lot of new knowledge on the atom-level physics of carbon compounds was acquired.
- When a hydrogen atom attaches itself to a fullerene molecule, the molecule in some cases becomes magnetic. Currently, we do not know why this is.

The new carbon structures predicted by Vehviläinen form one of the most important results of the dissertation. One of these structures is quasi-graphene, a hybrid between carbon nanotubes and graphite.
- Its mechanical properties are similar to those of carbon nanotubes and its tensile strength is much greater than that of steel. In one direction it is soft like graphite, Vehviläinen describes the miraculous material. The electrical properties of quasi-graphene are also a mix between the properties of nanotubes and graphite.
- Certain directions of the structure are semiconducting and others conducting.

"It can be done"

Another interesting point concerning quasi-graphene is that it only exists in supercomputer forecasts. This does not bother the computational physicist. He believes that in ten years’ time synthesizing the material will no longer be a problem. The development of the field has been overwhelming.
- When I began my doctoral research project, synthesizing C₂₀ fullerene was considered impossible. Now it can be done.

The tools of computational physicists consist of number-crunching supercomputers containing hundreds of processors. Everything starts with the basics of quantum mechanics, Schrödinger equation. Computer simulations show researchers what happens in matter on atom and electron level.
Among other things, Vehviläinen can predict the carbon atom to which a hydrogen atom will most likely attach itself in a fullerene molecule and what kind of a polymer structure will be formed when fullerene molecules are compressed under high pressure.
- We can also predict the properties of new carbon structures, such as how strong they are compared to diamond.

Currently, Vehviläinen is especially interested in three-dimensional fullerene polymers. He has a long list of possible applications:
- The storage of hydrogen, extremely durable materials, electronics components, quantum dots. Carbon is an extremely versatile material.

Timo Vehviläinen’s doctoral dissertation, "Hydrogen interaction with carbon nanostructures”, was presented for public examination and debate at the Aalto University School of Science on January 19, 2012.

The Aalto University Electronic Properties of Materials research group.

Further information:
Researcher Timo Vehviläinen
tel. +358 (0)40 753 8064
vehvilainen@iki.fi

Professor Pertti Hakonen, the director of the O.V. Lounasmaa Laboratory, says that the laboratory that was founded in 1965 as the Low Temperature Laboratory has a long tradition in two research fields: low temperature physics and brain research. The laboratory has broken the world record of low temperatures several times in experiments related to the nuclear magnetism of metals. In brain research, the laboratory was one of the first to develop equipment for measuring magnetic brain signals.

“There have constantly been significant research results that the laboratory can be proud of. The laboratory is very well-known around the world, as is its founder: O. V. Lounasmaa is often the Finnish physicist whom foreign physicists know.”

From the Low Temperature Laboratory to the O.V. Lounasmaa Laboratory

The Aalto University Low Temperature Laboratory was renamed at the beginning of 2012 and became the O.V. Lounasmaa Laboratory. The reason behind the new name is giving the two main research fields, low temperature physics and brain research, an equal standing.

“The name of the Low Temperature Laboratory dated back to the founding year 1965 when the laboratory focused on low temperature physics. At the beginning of the 1980s, brain research came into the picture and Academy Professor Lounasmaa became interested in it. Therefore the name of the founder of the laboratory was a natural choice for the new name,” Hakonen explains.

The Low Temperature Laboratory has not ceased to exist, but will continue as a research unit of the O.V. Lounasmaa Laboratory. Two research units operate within the O.V. Lounasmaa Laboratory of Aalto University: the Low Temperature Laboratory, LTL, focuses on the study of low temperatures and nanophysics and the Brain Research Unit, BRU, on systemic neuroscience and brain imaging.

Text: Tea Kalska

Teksti: Tea Kalska

Nanofibrillated cellulose typically binds high amounts of water and forms gels with only a few per cent dry matter content. This characteristic has been a bottleneck for industrial-scale manufacture.

In most cases, fibril cellulose films are manufactured through pressurised filtering but the gel-like nature of the material makes this route difficult. In addition, the wires and membranes used for filtering may leave a so-called “mark” on the film which has a negative impact on the evenness of the surface.

According to the method developed by Aalto University and VTT nanofibrillated cellulose films are manufactured by evenly coating fibril cellulose on plastic films so that the spreading and adhesion on the surface of the plastic can be controlled. The films are dried in a controlled manner by using a range of existing techniques.
Thanks to the management of spreading, adhesion and drying, the films do not shrink and are completely even. The more fibrillated cellulose material is used, the more transparent films can be manufactured.

Several metres of fibril cellulose film have been manufactured with VTT’s pilot-scale device in Espoo. All the phases in the method can be transferred to industrial production processes. The films can be manufactured using devices that already exist in the industry, without the need for any major additional investment. 

Aalto University and VTT are applying for a patent for the production technology of NFC film. Trial runs and the related development work are performed at VTT.

The invention was implemented in the Naseva – Tailoring of Nanocellulose Structures for Industrial Applications project by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes) that is included in the Finnish Centre for Nanocellulosic Technologies project entity formed by Aalto University, UPM and VTT.
Nanofibrillated cellulose grade used was UPM Fibrilcellulose supplied by UPM.

The findings also show that women leaders use gender as a strategy for image management.

As an investigation on communication, gender and leadership, Taija Townsend's study examines how women leaders operating in the political and business domains are characterized in public discourse.

The main argument of the doctoral dissertation is that the meaning of gender in relation to leadership is currently transforming and there are multiple understandings of gender competing for legitimacy in our global society.

Women exploit gender stereotypes in image management

The thesis focuses on the representation of two high-status women leaders, namely Hillary Clinton (U.S. Secretary of State) and Nicola Horlick (U.K. captain of industry). It looks at the manner in which they are portrayed in news reports as well as the manner in which they present themselves in autobiographies.

In the data, Hillary Clinton and Nicola Horlick are not consistently described in accordance with existing gender stereotypes. Rather, media characterizations of both women leaders depend on the situational context and especially on whether or not gender stereotypes make the overall news story more or less newsworthy.

In their autobiographies, Clinton and Horlick exploit existing gender stereotypes in order to create their own leadership images. This suggests that the meaning of gender can be changed and that new perceptions can be composed through old perceptions of women leaders.

The doctoral dissertation draws attention to linguistic communication processes and the idea that meanings of social phenomena are generated at all levels of language use.

Doctoral Dissertation

Taija Townsend (MA, University of Helsinki) will defend her dissertation Women as Leaders in Public Discourse in the subject area of International Business Communication on Friday, January 20, 2012 at 12.15 pm in the Chydenia Building, Stora Enso Hall (3rd floor), Aalto University School of Economics, Runeberginkatu 22-24.

Associate Professor Geert Jacobs (Ghent University) will act as opponent, and Professor Emerita Mirjaliisa Charles will act as custos.

Media representatives may request free copies of the dissertation from the Communications Unit of the Aalto University School of Economics at viestinta-econ@aalto.fi or tel. +358 50 566 5673.

Please order a copy of the dissertation at toolo@ayy.fi.

Further information:

Taija Townsend
taija.townsend@aalto.fi
tel. +358 (0)40 7275983

The invention was created by researchers Marianna Vehviläinen, Taina Kamppuri and Maija Järventausta and Professor Pertti Nousiainen from the Department of Material Science at TUT. The prize was awarded on January 13 during the Technology Days event at Dipoli in Espoo, Finland. The prize is 20,000 euros.

In the method developed by the researchers, cellulose is treated with enzymes and subsequently mixed with an alkali, frozen and then melted. The result is an alkali cellulose solution. The process is environmentally friendly and does not require hazardous chemicals, contrary to the viscose method in which cellulose is treated with carbon disulfide, among other things. The invention represents modern clean tech thinking. It is also simple, ingenious and potentially cost-effective. The invention may have a significant national impact as it has direct relevance to the forest industry. The invention can be applied in several different industries.

There have been preliminarily discussions with a Finnish company on the commercialization of the invention. The improvement of the quality of the fibers and the productivity to the required level are prerequisites for commercialization. The Award Committee, in its justification, concluded that the quality of the product needs further improvement for commercial use.

The objective of the prize is to support the development of valuable inventions from free university research

Aalto University grants the Material Technology Prize through an initiative of the UMK Center for New Materials. The objective of the prize is to support the development of valuable inventions for Finland that are the result of free university research. The prize covers only those inventions to which the inventors or the university had ownership when the first patent application was filed. Furthermore, national applications must have been filed in key countries to achieve international patent protection.

The most important evaluation criterion is how simple and ingenious the invention is.  Secondly, the national impact is assessed, along with how the invention can be realized and taken into use. The third criterion is the commercial potential of the invention.
The Centennial Foundation of Technology Industries of Finland is the main sponsor of the Prize. Other sponsors are companies Beneq, Okmetic, Patent Agency Papula-Nevinpat, Reddal, Spinverse and Patent Agency Seppo Laine, and the Aalto Center for Entrepreneurship (ACE) and the Center for New Materials (UMK) at Aalto University.

More information:
Professor Pertti Nousiainen
TUT, Department of Material Science
phone.  +358 400 632 051
pertti.nousiainen@tut.fi

Director Runar Törnqvist
Center for New Materials (UMK), Aalto University
phone. +358 50 380 0564
runar.tornqvist@aalto.fi

With the production technology developed in Aalto University and Nagoya University in Japan, a phone could become flexible enough to be wrapped around the wrist or folded like a sheet of paper.

"The production technology we have developed enables manufacturing such bendy touch screens on phones that you could even roll a phone up," says Esko I. Kauppinen, Professor of Applied Physics in Aalto University.

The new manufacturing technology resembles printing, and it is both inexpensive and fast. It also enables producing improved quality in electronics. A high-performance phone screen will reproduce video in good quality, for example.

Flexible electronics produced from carbon

Kauppinen explains that flexible electronics requires flexible production materials and technologies that allow easy and inexpensive production of electronics components. Such components include transistors and plastic substrates. When transistors and substrates bend, a mobile phone can also bend.

"Traditionally, electronics manufacture has made use of, e.g. silicon, which is an inflexible material. On a phone screen, silicon can be replaced with carbon nanotubes," which are flexible and tubular structures formed by carbon atoms.

The method developed in Aalto University and Nagoya University allows transferring carbon nanotubes onto a plastic substrate surface. This way, it is possible to use carbon nanotubes to manufacture flexible, high-performance thin-film transistors on plastic substrates in a matter of seconds.

Text: Tea Kalska

Professor Helena Hyvönen acts as Dean of the school. Hyvönen was Dean of Aalto University School of Art and Design.

A special jury consisting of the management of Aalto University and the new school, experts, students and a representative of the alumni decided on a new name for the school with the help of suggestions from a name competition organised in the autumn.

"The new school is a wonderful opportunity for Aalto University to strengthen its profile and international interest," states Dean Helena Hyvönen. "Combining teaching and research related to humanistic and cultural traditions and the environment in the same school is also important for society. At the same time, it will help to strengthen the status of architecture, art, media and design in the Finnish culture and economy and society at large," outlines Helena Hyvönen, Dean of Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture.

The website for the new school will be updated between January and February.

In their article, the researchers propose that the impact of urban structure, especially that of density, on greenhouse gas emissions caused by people is slight or nonexistent. According to the study, the carbon footprint of a person living on the countryside could well be significantly lower than that of a city dweller. The results of the study challenge the conclusions of many earlier studies according to which urban dwellers produce less carbon dioxide than countryside residents. Jukka Heinonen and Seppo Junnila point out that carbon dioxide emissions accelerating the climate change depend mostly on the amount of goods and services people consume and not on the place of residence.

Environmental Research Letters is a free open access journal. It publishes scientific articles in a relatively broad front and is among the best recognized environmental papers.

The selection criteria included novelty, scientific impact, readership, broad appeal and wide media coverage. A media release that Aalto University published concerning the research received a lot of media attention both in Finland as well as internationally.

Article: "Implications of urban structure on carbon consumption in metropolitan areas" (iopscience.iop.org)

Environmental Research Letters (iopscience.iop.org)

News: City dwellers produce as much CO2 as countryside people do

This ALD method for manufacturing fuel cells requires 60 per cent less of the costly catalyst than current methods.

− This is a significant discovery, because researchers have not been able to achieve savings of this magnitude before with materials that are commercially available, says Docent Tanja Kallio of Aalto University.

Fuel cells could replace polluting combustion engines that are presently in use. However, in a fuel cell, chemical processes must be sped up by using a catalyst. The high price of catalysts is one of the biggest hurdles to the wide adoption of fuel cells at the moment.

The most commonly used fuel cells cover anode with expensive noble metal powder which reacts well with the fuel. By using the Aalto University researchers' ALD method, this cover can be much thinner and more even than before which lowers costs and increases quality.

With this study, researchers are developing better alcohol fuel cells using methanol or ethanol as their fuel. It is easier to handle and store alcohols than commonly used hydrogen. In alcohol fuel cells, it is also possible to use palladium as a catalyst.

The most common catalyst for hydrogen fuel cells is platinum, which is twice as expensive as palladium. This means that alcohol fuel cells and palladium will bring a more economical product to the market.

Fuel cells can create electricity that produces very little or even no pollution. They are highly efficient, making more energy and requiring less fuel than other devices of equal size. They are also quiet and require low maintenance, because there are no moving parts.

In the future, when production costs can be lowered, fuel cells are expected to power electric vehicles and replace batteries, among other things. Despite their high price, fuel cells have already been used for a long time to produce energy in isolated environments, such as space crafts. These results are based on preliminary testing with fuel cell anodes using a palladium catalyst. Commercial production could start in 5-10 years.

For further information:

Docent Tanja Kallio
School of Chemical Technology, Aalto University
tanja.kallio@aalto.fi
tel. 09 470 225 83

This study was published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. The research has been funded by Aalto University's MIDE research program and the Academy of Finland.

Journal reference: Atomic Layer Deposition Preparation of Pd Nanoparticles on a Porous Carbon Support for Alcohol Oxidation. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2011, 115, 23067–23073. dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp2083659

In addition to technical system development, organisations have to focus more attention on the needs of the employees who actually use the systems.

Earlier research on the implementation of ICT systems has mainly dealt with the organisational viewpoint, but Eija Korpelainen's dissertation focuses on employee experiences. The research involved studying how employees at the University of Helsinki, Finnish Defence Forces and a global technology company adopted the use of ICT systems, how they learned to use the system and what problems they encountered during use.

- We have more systems and updates and more to learn all the time. This research showed that the organisations focused relatively little attention on supporting system users. The organisation should provide employees with opportunities and time to learn how to use the systems and teach others how to use them, states Korpelainen.

According to Korpelainen, the prevailing opinion has been that problems related to implementation will disappear if users are provided with enough training.

- However, the study showed that employees' lack of skills only accounts for a small part of the problems associated with system implementation.

The support of a more experienced peer is most useful

In her dissertation, Korpelainen presents eight enablers that promote adoption and learning of ICT systems. One key research finding was the fact that employees learn how to use a new ICT system when working with other people. Support staff and more experienced peers played a very important role in the adoption of a new system.

- According to system users, it was easiest to contact a familiar person who knows the organisation's working methods and what the system is being used for. In contrast, people were hesitant to ask the organisations' ICT support staff for help.

The study also clearly demonstrated that employees have to feel that using the system will be beneficial with regard to their own work.

- Busy employees are not interested in attending a course where someone explains the system on a general level. User training arranged by the organisations should be practical and linked to the work that people are doing.

The biggest single cause of problems in terms of system adoption was poorly functioning technology and poor usability – technical problems were considered to be extremely frustrating and they decreased the desire to learn. However, employees experienced the most problems in the organisation's social operating environment. Significant social operating environment problems were a lack of common rules and the fact that the user support provided by the organisation did not meet the employees' needs or expectations.

- For example, the intranet didn't provide information because there were no common rules concerning headings.

Eija Korpelainen interviewed a total of 50 employees who were ordinary users with an understanding of the basic principles of the systems. Her dissertation entitled "Information and Communication Technology at Work − Employees' Experiences of Adoption and Learning" was examined at the Aalto University School of Science's Department of Industrial Engineering and Management on 26 November 2011.

The dissertation is available online at:
http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2011/isbn9789526043869/

Further information:
Eija Korpelainen
Tel. +358 40 726 1251
eija.korpelainen@aalto.fi

A measurement using such a tiny device, resembling a miniaturized guitar string, can be performed with the least possible disturbance. The results were recently published in the most prestigious scientific arena, the British journal Nature.

The researchers cooled the nanomechanical oscillator, thousand times thinner than a human hair, down to a low temperature near the absolute zero at -273 centigrade.  Under such extreme conditions, even nearly macroscopic sized objects follow the laws of quantum physics which often contradict common sense. In the Low Temperature Laboratory experiments, the nearly billion atoms comprising the nanomechanical resonator were oscillating in pace in their shared quantum state.

The scientists had fabricated the device in contact with a superconducting cavity resonator, which exchanges energy with the nanomechanical resonator. This allowed amplification of their resonant motion. This is very similar to what happens in a guitar, where the string and the echo chamber resonate at the same frequency. Instead of the musician playing the guitar string, the energy source was provided by a microwave laser.

Microwaves get amplified by interaction of quantum oscillations

Researchers from the Low Temperature Laboratory, Aalto University, have shown how to detect and amplify electromagnetic signals almost noiselessly using a guitar-string like mechanical vibrating wire. In the ideal case the method adds only the minimum amount of noise required by quantum mechanics.

The presently used semiconductor transistor amplifiers are complicated and noisy devices, and operate far away from a fundamental disturbance limit set by quantum physics. The Low Temperature Laboratory scientists showed that by taking advantage of the quantum resonant motion, injected microwave radiation can be amplified with little disturbance. The principle hence allows for detecting much weaker signals than usually.

̶  Any measurement method or device always adds some disturbance. Ideally, all the noise is due vacuum fluctuations predicted by quantum mechanics. In theory, our principle reaches this fundamental limit. In the experiment, we got very close to this limit, says Dr. Francesco Massel.

̶  The discovery was actually quite unexpected. We were aiming to cool the nanomechanical resonator down to its quantum ground state. The cooling should manifest as a weakening of a probing signal, which we observed. But when we slightly changed the frequency of the microwave laser, we saw the probing signal to strengthen enormously. We had created a nearly quantum limited microwave amplifier, says Academy Research Fellow Mika Sillanpää who planned the project and made the measurements.

Certain real-life applications will benefit from the better amplifier based on the new Aalto method, but reaching this stage requires more research effort.  Most likely, the mechanical microwave amplifier will be first applied in related basic research, which will further expand our knowledge of the borderline between the everyday world and the quantum realm.

According to Academy Research Fellow Tero Heikkilä, the beauty of the amplifier is in its simplicity: it consists of two coupled oscillators. Therefore, the same method can be realized in basically any media. By using a different structure of the cavity, one could detect terahertz radiation which would also be a major application.

The research was carried out in the Low Temperature Laboratory, which belongs to the Aalto University School of Science, and is part of the Centre of Excellence in Low Temperature Quantum Phenomena and Devices of the Finnish Academy. The devices used in the measurements were fabricated by VTT Nanotechnologies and microsystems. The research was funded by the Finnish Academy, European Research Council ERC, and the European Union.

Further information

Mika Sillanpää
Aalto University School of Science
Mika.Sillanpaa@aalto.fi
tel. +358 9 470 24898

Tero Heikkilä
Aalto University School of Science
Tero.Heikkila@aalto.fi
tel.  +358 9 470 22396

Francesco Massel
Aalto University School of Science
Francesco.Massel@aalto.fi
puh. +358 50 3015566

Link to the Nature article:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v480/n7377/full/nature10628.html

Francesco Massel, T.T. Heikkilä, J.-M. Pirkkalainen, S.U. Cho, H. Saloniemi, P.J. Hakonen, and Mika A. Sillanpää: Microwave amplification with nanomechanical resonators, Nature

The Leiden Rankings record publications – such as articles, reviews and letters in scientific journals - made by researchers at universities around the world. It only uses publications in the sciences and social sciences. The Leiden team considers how significant these publications have been within their academic field e.g. Computer Science or Chemical Engineering, by using bibliometric analyses. Several different bibliometric methods are used as each provides a different insight in to the performance of a university.

"I am delighted to see our researchers perform so strongly in terms of publications”, says Tuula Teeri, President of Aalto University.

"This result illustrates that Aalto University is built on high quality research foundations that will ensure we continue to thrive over the coming decades."
   
Aalto University also performs solidly in terms of publication collaboration, this meaning publications that are written with scholars from other universities, either in Finland or internationally, however several Finnish universities are particularly strong in this category. Aalto’s best collaboration performance is with international partners and here Aalto University is ranked 119th in the world with 27.5% of papers being published with international partners.

The Leiden Rankings evaluate publications within the Thomson Reuters Web of Science database made between 2005-2009. Their methods consider citations up to the end of 2010. For further information on the different methodologies used go to: http://www.leidenranking.com/ranking.aspx



 

Practical guidance to clarify this process, in the form of a set of financing strategy dimensions, is provided in the study, ranging from alternative financing sources, e.g., internal to external, public to private, informal to formal capital. The study also provides suggestions of realistically available alternatives for the Born Global firm, including the founders’ own investments, public seed money, business angels’ support, venture capital, global partners’ contributions, and initial public offerings (IPOs).

The dissertation suggests to the entrepreneur/ manager as to the importance of the Internet in the rapid internationalization process of the Born Global firm. Two alternative Internet-based strategic approaches are outlined that firms can use in international marketing operations and sales. Appropriate strategies can reduce the level of resources required by sales and marketing subsidiaries in target markets.

Start-ups use multiple strategies simultaneously

The focus of this thesis is resource constraints and how they affect Born Global firms in various circumstances over time, in networks, in changing markets, and at the industry and country levels. Financing, networks and the Internet which are the key themes in the study relate to access to resources, and the findings show that the constraints and strategies differ at different stages of internationalization and globalization.

The findings deviate from earlier studies: in the start-up stage firms concentrate on multiple strategies simultaneously instead of a consecutive manner, the strategies include R&D, resource acquisition, distribution, sales and marketing.

This dissertation focuses on a relatively new organizational form: Born Globals, or small and medium sized firms that internationalize rapidly from the start. For Born Global firms, globalization at an early stage of business development and speed of internationalization are paramount, which is what distinguishes them from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that internationalize in a traditional manner, i.e. in a gradual step-by-step manner.

The Dissertation

Ms. Viveca Sasi (MSc., MBA) will defend her dissertation titled “Essays on Resource Scarcity, Early Rapid Internationalization and Born Global Firms” on Friday, December 9, 2011 at 12.00 in the Chydenia Building, Stora Enso Hall (3rd floor), Aalto University School of Economics, Runeberginkatu 22-24. Emeritus Professor Reijo Luostarinen acts as custos, and the opponents at the defense are Professor Kiyohiko Ito, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA and Professor Gary Knight, Florida State University, USA. Emeritus Professor Reijo Luostarinen and Professor Elizabeth Rose have supervised Viveca Sasi’s dissertation at the faculty of International Business, Aalto University School of Economics.

Media representatives may request free copies of the dissertation from the Communications Unit of the Aalto University School of Economics at viestinta-econ@aalto.fi or tel. +358 50 566 5673.

Copies of the dissertation are sold at the service point of the Aalto University Student Union in the main building of the School of Economics, Runeberginkatu 14−16, Helsinki.

Further information:
Viveca Sasi
Aalto University School of Economics
viveca.sasi @aalto.fi
tel. +358 50 543 1773.

Butanol is particularly suited as a transport fuel because it is not water soluble and has higher energy content than ethanol.

Most commonly used raw materials in butanol production have so far been starch and cane sugar. In contrast to this, the starting point in the Aalto University study was to use only lignocellulose, otherwise known as wood biomass, which does not compete with food production. 

Another new breakthrough in the study is to successfully combine modern pulp - and biotechnology. Finland’s advanced forest industry provides particularly good opportunities to develop this type of bioprocesses.

Wood biomass is made up of three primary substances: cellulose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Of these three, cellulose and hemicellulose can be used as a source of nutrition for microbes in bioprocesses. Along with cellulose, the Kraft process that is currently used in pulping produces black liquor, which can already be used as a source of energy.  It is not, however, suitable for microbes. In the study, the pulping process was altered so that, in addition to cellulose, the other sugars remain unharmed and can therefore be used as raw material for microbes.  

When wood biomass is boiled in a mixture of water, alcohol and sulphur dioxide, all parts of the wood – cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin – are separated into clean fractions. The cellulose can be used to make paper, nanocellulose or other products, while the hemicellulose is efficient microbe raw material for chemical production.  Thus, the advantage of this new process is that no parts of the wood sugar are wasted.

In accordance with EU requirements, all fuel must contain 10 per cent biofuel by 2020. A clear benefit of butanol is that a significantly large percentage – more than 20 per cent of butanol, can be added to fuel without having to make any changes to existing combustion engines. The nitrogen and carbon emissions from a fuel mix including more than 20 per cent butanol are significantly lower than with fossil fuels. For example, the incomplete combustion of ethanol in an engine produces volatile compounds that increase odour nuisances in the environment. Estimates indicate that combining a butanol and pulp plant into a modern biorefinery would provide significant synergy benefits in terms of energy use and biofuel production.

The project run by Aalto University is part of the Tekes’ BioRefine programme. Tekes is the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation.

The Biorefine programme is developing new competence based on national strengths and related to the refining of biomass. The overall aim of the project is to increase the refining value of forest residues that cannot be utilised in, for example, the pulp process. The research has been developed by Professor Aadrian van Heiningen and Tom Granström and a group of researchers at Aalto University.

Results of findings have been published in scientific journals such as Bioresource Technology. The developed technology has been patented.

Bibliographical details to the article:  Survase, S.,Sklavounos, E., Jurgens, G., van Heiningen, A., Granström, T., Continuous Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol fermentation using SO2-ethanol-water spent liquor from spruce, Bioresource Technology (2011) doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2011.09.034

Further information: Tom Granström, Aalto University School of Chemical Technology, Department of Biotechnology and Chemical Technology email, tom.granstrom@aalto.fi tel +358 50 512 42 32

The project provides a technical and scientific environment and expertise for the opening and utilisation of public datasets in Finland. The project has a budget of approx. one million euros, and it is supported by a multi-disciplinary consortium consisting of Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation –  as well as 22 companies and public sector institutions including, e.g., three Finnish ministries.

In the new project, the focus of research and development will be in the production, publication and intelligent web services of semantic open data and metadata. New technology will be developed through several case studies, including Finnish legal data as a semantic service, content management of a media company, data journalism, semantic National Biography of Finland, enrichment of corporate data with news materials, and a semantic map of services in the metropolitan area.

The new project utilises results from previous projects

“The project will receive a flying start on the basis of the long-running National Semantic Web Ontology Project in Finland (FinnONTO), 2003–2012, which includes a developer community of dozens of organisations, the national ontology infrastructure and ONKI services, tools, information resources and experiences from many pilot applications,” says the project director, Professor Eero Hyvönen from Aalto University and the University of Helsinki.

One of the latest megatrends of the World Wide Web is Linked (Open) Data, Web of Data, where web content is combined and utilised by intelligent web services with the help of extensive, open semantic datasets. At the core of the movement are, e.g., DBPedia, a semantic version of Wikipedia, Google’s encyclopaedic Freebase, and more than 200 other datasets linked to these and to each other in the so-called Linked Open Data cloud. The semantic web is a layer of metadata of the traditional web that can help web services “understand” and combine diverse content on the web and thus provide human users with more intelligent and comprehensive services than before.

Further information:

Linked Data Finland project: http://www.seco.tkk.fi/projects/ldf/

Linked Data community: http://linkeddata.org/

Eero Hyvönen, Professor, Research Director
Aalto University, Department of Media Technology; and the University of Helsinki, Department of Computer Science
Semantic Computing Research Group
eero.hyvonen@aalto.fi
tel. +358 50 384 1618

The use of electronics and sensors enables the creation of smart clothes that can generate light, sound or vibration, for example. They communicate with their user and react to changes in the environment. Wearable equipment may also be connected to a computer.

As can be expected, wearable electronics are in bodily contact with the user and move around with him or her. The idea of a functionality to be added to clothes and textiles is not a new one, but there have been huge strides in the area recently due to development of materials and cheaper electronics.

"So far, applications of wearable electronics have been seen mostly in the specialised fields of entertainment, sports, medicine and the military, and in fashion shows. The broad-based commercialisation of the field, however, is only just beginning," explains producer Markku Nousiainen of Aalto Media Factory.

The event held on 5 December showcased projects created in the Wearable Electronics course organised in the autumn. The functionality in the items of clothing presented in the event is based on the small Arduino micro controller, an electronic circuit the size of a box of matches that can be fully programmed by the user.

The course was organised as a cooperation between Aalto University School of Art and Design and Artists’ Association Muu. The participants came from different degree programmes, including New Media, Fashion and Clothing Design, Textile Art and Design, Fine Arts and performing arts. During the course, they have worked in multidisciplinary teams and taken their own vision to the prototype stage.

The starting point for the course was to develop artistic concepts that function to expand the concept of wearable electronics. Examples of the prototypes showcased in the event on 5 December are gloves that function as musical instruments and thinking cap that visualises the brain activity of its user.

Link: http://mediafactory.aalto.fi/wearablepresentation
Blog: http://wearable.mlog.taik.fi/

For more information please contact:

Producer Markku Nousiainen, course coordinator
Aalto Media Factory
markku.nousiainen@aalto.fi, tel. 050 569 2545

Professor Pirjo Kääriäinen, Textile Art and Design
The School of Art and design
pirjo.kaariainen@aalto.fi, tel. 050 381 0217

Video: "Physics of society" (youtube.com)

Santo Fortunato, Aalto University School of Science, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science

Santo Fortunato (born 1971, Italy) earned his Ph.D degree in Theoretical High Energy Physics at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, in 2000. There he developed a theoretical framework that maps the de-confinement transition of SU(2) lattice gauge theory to the percolation transition of special clusters of nearest neighboring like-signed spin variables.

Video: "Towards efficient use of radio spectrum" (youtube.com)

Riku Jäntti, Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering, Department of Communications and Networking

Riku Jäntti (born 1973, Finland) obtained the D.Sc. degree from the Helsinki University of Technology, in 2001. Prior to joining Aalto University, Dr Jäntti was a professor pro term at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Vaasa, where his task was to set up a degree programme in communications engineering.

Video: "Getting in touch with atoms and molecules" (youtube.com)

Peter Liljeroth, Aalto University School of Science, Department of Applied Physics

Peter Liljeroth (born 1975, Finland) received his Ph.D in physical chemistry and electrochemistry at the Helsinki University of Technology in 2002.  Before his present appointment at Aalto University, he was an assistant professor at Utrecht University (2007–2010).

Dr Liljeroth’s research is based on using low-temperature scanning probe methods to study physical phenomena on the atomic scale. These techniques make it possible structurally and electronically characterise and manipulate matter one atom at the time. His group is currently focusing on using atomically well-defined graphene nanostructures and molecular assemblies as novel nanoelectronic components.

Video: "Cognitive Microelectronics" (youtube.com)

Jussi Ryynänen, Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering, Department of Micro- and Nanosciences.

Jussi Ryynänen (born 1973, Finland) received the Master of Science and Doctor of Science degrees in electrical engineering from the Helsinki University of Technology, in 1998 and 2004. Prior to joining Aalto University he worked as research engineer and professor at Helsinki University of Tecnology’s Electronic Circuit Design Laboratory.

Dr Ryynänen’s main research interests are on integrated transceiver circuits for wireless applications. He has authored or co-authored over 90 refereed journals and conference papers in the areas of analog and RF circuit design. He holds six patents on RF circuits and is a member of IEEE

The model also helps outline why investors tend to move over to markets where returns have been high.

The doctoral dissertation comprises four separate essays. In the first two essays, Kokkonen discusses the effect that the primary choices and return expectations of investors have on investment decisions, and the formation of such expectations.

The first essay investigates how correlated crisis periods on the stock markets affect the optimum diversification of an international portfolio if investors try to avoid disappointment.

Financing professionals often over-optimistic about stock returns

The second essay discusses the return expectations of professionals engaged on the financial markets in Finland and Sweden. The results suggest that professionals are over-optimistic about stocks as compared with bonds.

Estimates about how likely it is that the return from stocks will exceed that from bonds over a 10 or 20 year investment horizon are not in line with the return expectations of the instruments. The financial market crisis of 2008 did not have any appreciable impact on medium-term return expectations.

The other two essays discuss short-term mispricing on the financial markets. The conclusion in the third essay is that the well-known ’value effect’, i.e. the relatively better historical return from stocks with high book value in relation to the market value is at least partly due to mispricing and cannot be considered compensation for higher risk.

The results also indicate that hedge funds know how to select underpriced stocks. In addition, the flow of investments in funds reduces mispricing and thereby improves the efficiency of the markets.

Lively acquisition markets reduce the premiums paid

The fourth essay discusses acquisition waves, i.e. periods when there are many acquisitions. The results suggest that the premiums paid in acquisitions during waves are smaller than those paid in quieter times.

Waves also lead to a rise in stock financing and a higher rise in the stock price of the acquired company before the acquisition.

Dissertation

The doctoral dissertation of Joni Kokkonen, M.Sc. (Econ.), ‘Essays on Asset Pricing, Portfolio Choice, and Investments’ in the subject area of financing will be examined at the Aalto University School of Economics, Chydenia Building, Auditorium H324. Address Runeberginkatu 22 - 24,  on Friday 2 December 2011 at 12 noon.

Professor Jan Ericsson (McGill University) will act as the opponent and Professor Matti Suominen as the custos.

Media representatives may request free copies of the dissertation from the Communications Unit of the Aalto University School of Economics at viestinta-econ@aalto.fi or tel. 050 566 5673.

Copies of the dissertation are sold at the service point of the Aalto University Student Union in the main building of the School of Economics, Runeberginkatu 14-16, Helsinki.

Further information:
Joni Kokkonen
Aalto University School of Economic
tel. +351 96 8473709
joni.kokkonen@ucp.pt

In Finnish waterways, for example, 67 percent of phosphorus load is derived from agriculture, and only 5 percent from the municipal wastewater.

Aalto University School of Engineering researcher Lassi Warsta built a computer model, which can be used to investigate carrier media of nutrients, i.e. water and suspended sediment in agricultural fields.

− Nutrients are transported from the fields either dissolved in water or adsorbed on sediment particles. Therefore, it is important to understand both water flow and soil erosion mechanisms in agricultural fields, says Lassi Warsta.

A three-dimensional model of a typical Finnish clayey, subsurface drained field is running on Lassi Warsta’s workstation. After six years of work, the FLUSH computer model is packed with wisdom. Mathematical formulas describing water flow were developed already in the beginning of 20^th century, but their application in practice is still difficult. Warsta’s 3D-model combines numerous mathematical formulas into one handy tool. It can be used to investigate how rainwater and suspended sediment travel through soil layers to the subsurface drains of a clay field. When runoff and sediment load are known, the result can be used to estimate the amount of nutrients lost from the field. 

University’s own three-hectare research field

Aalto water researchers have focused on computational modelling of water flow since 1990’s. Data for the Warsta’s model was collected in the 90's at the University’s own three-hectare research field. Located in Kirkkonummi, Southern Finland. This high-tech field had its own weather station, and real-time instruments continuously monitoring groundwater elevation, water flow in subsurface drains as well as the suspended solid and nutrient content of waters.

−An agricultural field is difficult thing to model: on undulating, clay fields flowing water collects into rills, increasing erosion, says Warsta.

What new information has the FLUSH model revealed? At the very early stage of research, Warsta is reluctant to generalize the results. The simulations have at least confirmed suspicions that the subsurface drains have a major role in transporting nutrients into watercourses.

− On clay fields, water and suspended sediment are transported quickly to subsurface drains through large macropores, ie. worm holes and shrinkage cracks,Warsta says.

It means that the nutrients adsorbed on sediment particles and dissolved in water have very little time to react with the soil before they pass to the drains. Another major factor affecting nutrient loads is the autumn tillage, which can notably increase soil erodibility.

These preliminary findings are now investigated using the new tool. FLUSH model may be used for example to test the effectiveness of protection measures set by EU legislation that strive to prevent fertilizers from ending up in waterways.

− The model suggests that actions should be targeted on undulating fields near water courses, Warsta says.

Descriptions for wintertime

The current version of the FLUSH model covers only the summer and autumn seasons, but the researchers are already building processes descriptions for wintertime. In the future, the model also covers runoff from the melting snow.

Warsta shows on the computer screen how a heavy rain shower covers the research field with water. If the fertilization had been done just before the rain, the benefits might have been small. Modern information technology can be a huge benefit to farmers.

− Savings are significant, when nutrients remain in the field, and are not lost with runoff, reminds Warsta.

Text: Petja Partanen/Tarinatakomo

Doctoral Dissertation

Lassi Warsta has his Doctorla dissertation for the degree of Doctoral Science "Modelling water flow and soil erosion in clayey, subsurface drained agricultural fields" at the Aalto University School of Engineering on 11th November, 2011.

Further information
Lassi Warsta, researcher
Aalto University School of Engineering
tel. +358 50 541 6581
lassi.warsta@aalto.fi

Aalto University School of Engineering water engineering group

Doctoral dissertation "Modelling water flow and soil erosion in clayey, subsurface drained agricultural fields"

This device enhances performance and significantly reduces power usage by serving as a middleman for mobile devices to connect to the Internet and handling the majority of the data transfer for the smart phone. Historically, the high energy requirements of mobile phones have slowed the adoption of mobile Internet services in developing countries.

"This new solution is particularly valuable in developing countries because it provides significantly more effective Internet access to a much larger number of people. At the moment, only a small percent can access the Internet from a wired connection, but 90 percent of the African population lives in areas with mobile phone network coverage"

"Mobile phone usage is increasing rapidly, however the use of mobile Internet services is hindered by users not having access to the power grid to recharge their phones", says Professor Jukka Manner.

The case study conducted at Aalto University examined Internet usage in three East African countries: Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya. Researchers developed energy-saving solutions for smart phones that could be easily deployed across a mobile network and in particular in areas without reliable sources of electricity. In addition to the new, optimized proxy solution, the researchers found that the power consumption of smart phones could also be significantly reduced by mobile optimized websites, HTTP compression and more efficient use of data caching.

The study is published today at the scientific conference Africomm 2011. The research began in the Future Internet research program of TIVIT and funded by Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation. The work has been continued in the ECEWA project funded by Tekes, with partners from European Communications Engineering Ltd, Efore Plc, Ericsson, Aalto University and Tampere University of Technology.

More information:

Professor Jukka Manner
Aalto University, Department of Communications and Networking (Comnet)
jukka.manner@aalto.fi
Mobile: +358 50 5112973

Her dissertation, which will be examined at Aalto University, states that the functioning of PEM fuel cells can be substantially improved through a very simple modelling exercise.

According to Karvonen, experimental research in many questions relevant to fuel cells is expensive and slow. Instead of manufacturing a number of cells and experimentally testing their functioning, different variations can be produced by modelling, which is much faster and less expensive. On the other hand, there are aspects that cannot be studied, not even by experimental methods.

̶  For example, owing to the practical limitations of temperature sensors and current measurements, it is simply not possible to measure current density or temperature everywhere inside the cell, says Karvonen.

Current density fluctuations may affect cell function negatively

The fuel cell modelling produced information on the distribution of cell compression pressure and its impact on cell function locally. The modelling results indicate that among others, transversal electric currents are generated locally in the cell. This phenomenon may have a negative impact on fuel cell function and life span.

According to Karvonen, an irregular current density distribution causes uneven ohmic heating in the cell. As a result the Nafion membrane, or the cell electrolyte, at the core of the cell may dry out and become damaged.

̶  In order for the cell to work, the Nafion membrane must be moist. Heating may dry out the membrane or burn a hole in it. In that case, the cell will leak fuel and oxygen through the hole and perish, or at least start working poorly, explains Karvonen.

A fuel cell for an electric car?

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices producing electricity to which the reactant is fed from outside. The cells can be used to replace batteries, and plenty of research has already been conducted on their suitability for such applications as electric cars. The fuel cell could extend the distance an electric car can travel.

̶  In a battery, all fuel must be contained inside the battery. In order for the car to travel a long distance, the batteries would need to be really large. This would make the car extremely heavy, and the batteries would not necessarily fit in the car. A fuel cell car, on the other hand, could go and fill up every now and then, as it is possible to feed more fuel into it, Karvonen illustrates.

According to Karvonen, however, the current problem is the availability of fuel. The most common fuel used for the cells is hydrogen, which does not occur freely on earth. Storing hydrogen is also difficult.

Suvi Karvonen’s doctoral dissertation ”Modelling approaches to mass transfer and compression effects in polymer electrolyte fuel cells” will be examined at 12 noon on 25 November at the Department of Applied Physics of the School of Science in room K216 at the address Otakaari 4, Espoo.

The dissertation is available online

Further information:
Suvi Karvonen
Aalto University School of Science
tel. +358 40 136 7774
suvi.karvonen@vtt.fi

The doctoral dissertation of Licentiate of Science (Technology) Antti Hyvärinen examines the solving of hard structured problems using cloud computing. According to Hyvärinen, cloud computing can significantly speed up problem solving and save energy. Cloud computing means decentralising IT services so that tens, hundreds or thousands of distributed computers can be used simultaneously. 

Hyvärinen says that solving practical problems often requires going through large amounts of data efficiently and performing automatic inference based on the material. For instance, when the link between certain genes and the onset of a disease is studied, the material from which correlations should be found can be extremely extensive. 

− Cloud computing speeds up solving a problem because it is possible to use thousands of computers instead of just one. Instead of spending ten years looking for a solution, the computers may solve the problem in a matter of hours.

Hyvärinen explains that decentralising computers also saves energy.

− Computers produce a lot of heat and there is a major demand for computing capacity in large cities in the south. Due to the warm climate in these areas, cooling the heat produced by the computers consumes a lot of electricity.

Speed requires parallel computing

Hyvärinen says that the speed of computer processors, which execute program commands, will no longer increase significantly. If we want faster results in the future, all computing should be performed in parallel by several computers.

However, parallel programming is difficult. The dissertation presents several analytical and experimental results that offer solutions to the problems related to parallel processes. These new methods can be used to solve several previously unsolved problems for the first time. In practice, certain algorithms have been developed so that they can more efficiently make use of several processors simultaneously, decreasing the computational time.

Hyvärinen uses a propositional logic to model structured problems. Due to its general nature, this logic enables the modelling of different types of problems from bioinformatics to artificial intelligence design.

DIssertation

The doctoral dissertation of Antti Hyvärinen, “Grid Based Propositional Satisfiability Solving”, will be examined at the School of Science Department of Information and Computer Science on 28 November 2011 at noon (lecture hall T2, Konemiehentie 2, Espoo).

The dissertation is available online

Further information:
Antti Hyvärinen,
Aalto University School of Science
Information and Computer Science
Tel. +358 9 470 24774
antti.hyvarinen@aalto.fi

− The field’s research has thus far focused on what is said, although it is often far more significant how it is said and how the listeners of the message feel, notes Timo Vuori, MSc, an Aalto University researcher who has written a dissertation on the topic.

Company strategy researchers have written numerous publications on how a company’s new strategy can be brought from words to actions. The key question is; how can we get the organisation’s members to think and act in a new way? Research efforts have yet to help company management. In practice, change communication to personnel is very rarely successful.

A video camera was most important tool in Mr. Vuori’s dissertation research. He analysed an experienced change coach, who had been assigned the task of getting employees to commit to a company’s new strategy that emphasised service quality. A total of 15 hours of footage showing both the speaker and the audience was filmed over the course of the three day coaching seminar. Mr. Vuori studied the material minute by minute, documenting the content of the coach’s speech, the emotional cues the coach conveyed and the reactions of the audience.

− Initially, the speaker aroused the audience’s emotions with a joke or a story about his mother. The video shows how the entire audience laughs at this. Once the audience’s emotions had been aroused and brought to the surface the speaker told his/her actual point. The emotions the listeners had felt were then associated with the work related issue. Finally, this point was reiterated, and the listeners were asked for confirmation, Mr. Vuori explains.  

The analysis revealed a method that the coach repeated in his presentation approximately every 5 minutes through the entire seminar. On the basis of the results of this analysis, Mr. Vuori developed a process model of the speaker’s manner of associating emotions with the message.

− This is the first model that has included emotions, Mr. Vuori explains.

The coach’s method proved to be an effective one. Participants recalled the content of the emotion filled seminar for a long time. Emotions clearly helped employees adopt the company’s new strategy. In his dissertation, Mr. Vuori recognised that arousal of emotional intensity played an important role in the process of creating meaning.

− When attempting to change people’s mental models, in addition to giving them the information content they should be driven to experience strong emotions that enforce the message. Gaining an understanding is not enough, information content must be felt.

Mr. Vuori’s dissertation often references Neurologist Antonio Damasio’s research in rational decision-making. In his non-fiction work Descartes’ Error, which rose to the top of the bestseller list, Dr. Damasio explains why a person is unable to make rational decisions without employing emotions. Mr. Vuori wants to initiate a similar change in the research of business management.

− I want to develop theories that take into account subconscious emotion processes. And I want to be one of the world's leading researchers in this."

The journey has already progressed to a good start. Timo Vuori’s wife Natalia Vuori is his colleague in research. This autumn, the research duo was granted a total of three postgraduate student awards at the Academy of Management Conference; the year’s most important management industry conference.

The process theory described in the dissertation can be applied to any form of change communication. The couple used it successfully at their own wedding. The emotions of guests were aroused with weighted music and lighting. The children in attendance cried a bit.

− After this, once the actual ceremony began everyone was very emotional. Even the adults cried, Timo Vuori recalls.

Further information:

Timo Vuori, researcher
Aalto University
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management
Tel. +358 50 4105 731
timo.vuori@aalto.fi

Timo Vuori’s Doctoral Dissertation “Emotional Sensegiving”: http://otalib.aalto.fi/en/collections/e-publications/dissertations/

Timo and Natalia Vuori’s research in strategy cognition: www.strategycognition.com