Professor Marja Jylhä has been selected to join the Scientific Advisory Board of a Joint Planning Initiative on population change and ageing entitled More Years, Better Lives.  The purpose of the Joint Programming work initiated by the EU Commission is to increase collaboration in research and research funding in Europe on several key areas of societal significance.

The More Years, Better Lives initiative involves 13 European countries.  The Scientific Advisory Board will coordinate the preparatory work to be accomplished in the work groups and prepare a research programme based thereon. Read more »

Most international exchange students were satisfied with their overall exchange experience at the University of Tampere (UTA) last year;  64 per cent were reportedly very satisfied and 26 per cent satisfied. Ninety-six per cent would also recommend the University of Tampere as a host university.

A survey of the satisfaction of the international exchange students at the University of Tampere was conducted for the fifth time in autumn 2011. The study measured the opinions in various fields related to applying, arrival, studying, and student life in general. Read more »

The School of Information Sciences at the University of Tampere is the first approved member in Finland of the iSchools organization, which includes several top universities such as the Carnegie Mellon University and the University of California at Berkeley. Read more »

Inadequate eye contact is generally as major cause for concern when we begin to wonder if a small child’s developmental disorder is due to autism. However, the research literature evinces no precise conception as to what factors account for minimal eye contact in autism. It has been assumed among other things that avoidance of eye contact is due to the excessively powerful and unpleasant activation of the autonomic nervous system. On the other hand it has been proposed that an autistic child does not so much avoid eye contact but that such eye contact neither motivates nor rewards the child and his/her attention is not attracted by it.

A University of Tampere project implemented as multi-national co-operation set out to ascertain whether eye contact in autistic children occasions such changes in brain responses which are connected to avoidance. In the research school-aged children, both those with autistic behaviour and those with age-appropriate development watched images on a television screen of familiar (e.g. parents and teacher) and unfamiliar faces whose gaze was either direct or whose eyes were closed. The children’s frontal EEG (electroencephalography) and activation of the autonomic nervous system were measured.

The results showed that in the age-appropriately developed children seeing the direct gaze occasioned brain responses connected to approach behaviour. However, in the group of autistic children the direct gaze of another person did not occasion such brain response. Read more »

Anger is as common a feeling as depression and anxiety, but it is not treated so much. Martti Tuomisto says that anger has now become a subject of special attention in the training of psychotherapists

Anger has been neglected in psychiatry and is a poorly recognized problem which is a significant contributory factor to cardiovascular disease.  Most people suffering from it go untreated.

“Many anxiety disorders are connected to cardiovascular disease.  Anger is the most poisonous emotion connected to them,” says Martti Tuomisto, professor of psychology at the University of Tampere.

Professor Tuomisto has published together with Lauri Parkkinen a book on the treatment of anger  and its connection to health and well-being.

Only half the risks are traditional, well-known risk factors

The traditional risks, such as high blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking, account for only half of heart attacks.  The remainder is mostly attributable to behavioural factors such as emotions, of which anger is the most intense of all.

There is ample research evidence on the connection to cardiovascular diseases.  The first research subjects were medical students among whom those experiencing the greatest anger subsequently suffered considerably more infarcts than those experiencing less anger.

Professor Tuomisto notes that one cannot simply conclude automatically that infarct patients are angrier than others.  Anger is only one risk factor among others, and frequently it is the combined effect of risk factors which is decisive. Read more »

Operating principle of gesture control. Copyright Fastems Oy.

Gesture control could replace button pressing in industrial machinery.  Researchers at the TAUCHI Research Centre at the University of Tampere have developed gesture control which functions reliably and also with the help of a low-cost system.

“We started by looking for appropriate gestures.  These were defined at in a workshop, tested with the help of our prototype and further developed,” reports Professor of Interactive Technology Markku Turunen.

“The biggest challenge was to find the gestures which come most naturally to people and which the system can interpret most reliably,” he continues.

“We replaced the buttons on the machinery by creating a model in which the buttons are part of the person’s body, for example, the shoulder.” When the operator points with his shoulder, the device turns in the direction indicated by the operator’s shoulder.” Read more »

Kaisa Kurki

Ms. Kaisa Kurki (Master of Arts) was selected to be in charge of international affairs at the University of Tampere, beginning on 1 February 2012.

Ms. Kurki took a master’s degree at the University of Tampere majoring in translation studies (German) and has served as a coordinator of international education  at the University of Tampere since 2004. Before that she was a translator, an academic assistant in translation studies and acting coordinator at the University of Tampere.  She speaks English, German, Swedish and Spanish.

“I would hope to raise the profile of internationality in the University’s operations and improve everyone’s internationalization opportunities.  The University should be a genuinely international community as seen in its internal operating culture and external attractiveness,” she says.

There were 60 applicants for the post.

The annual application round for the Master’s Degree Programmes taught in English at the University of Tampere opened on 1 December. Applications for the programmes are to be submitted through the University Admissions Finland service (UAF).

Before sending the applications to the University for the selection of students, UAF evaluates the eligibility of applicants and the authenticity of educational certificates. The UAF process also includes verification of language test scores. A total of five programmes are open for applications for entry 2012:

• Master’s Degree Programme in Software Development
• Master’s Degree Programme in Human-Technology Interaction
• Master’s Degree Programme in Bioinformatics
• Master’s Degree Programme in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research
• Master’s Degree Programme in Comparative Social Policy and Welfare

The deadline for applications is 31 January, 15 February or 15 March 2012 depending on the programme, please see http://www.uta.fi/admissions/degreeprog/applying.html for detailed information. The selection of students will be made by mid-May, and the programmes start in August-September. Read more »

Most people like to look at pictures of nude or scantily clad human bodies. Looking at nude bodies is sexually arousing, and a nude human body is a classic subject in art. Advertising, too, has harnessed half-clothed models to evoke positive images about the products advertised. Brain imaging studies have localized areas in the brain which are specialized in detecting human bodies in the environment, but so far it has been unknown whether the brain processes nude and clothed bodies in different ways.

Researchers at the University of Tampere and the Aalto University, Finland, have now shown that the perception of nude bodies is boosted at an early stage of visual processing. Read more »