Finnish University Research Articles

Educating Cybersecurity Experts: Analysis of Cybersecurity Education in Finnish Universities

Cybersecurity is no longer just a technical discipline but a strategic concept. Nowadays, cybersecurity has become an essential part of national security strategies. The European Union and European countries have established cybersecurity strategies to strengthen European and national resilience against cyber threats and ensure that citizens and businesses can take full advantage of reliable services and digital tools. A wide range of actors in society, from both government and non-government sectors, are already involved in cybersecurity work. However, there is a constant need to increase the workforce of cybersecurity specialists to manage cybersecurity risks. Finland's cybersecurity strategy emphasizes the importance of developing cybersecurity education to address the cybersecurity risks the country faces. For the nation to achieve cyber self-sufficiency, the pool of cybersecurity specialists should include experts in every knowledge area relevant to various aspects of cybersecurity. Universities have a role in training cybersecurity specialists through their education programs. Consequently, universities should offer comprehensive education encompassing all cybersecurity knowledge areas. This paper aims to overview the state of cybersecurity education in Finland's universities by focusing on cybersecurity education content. By analysing the content of the universities' cybersecurity education, the aim was to understand how current education in Finland meets the cybersecurity knowledge areas of the European Cybersecurity Taxonomy. In spring 2023, data on cybersecurity degree programs and courses were collected through surveys from nine Finnish universities providing cybersecurity education. As a result, we gained an understanding of the capability of Finnish university-level cybersecurity education to offer specialists in different domain areas of cybersecurity.

Дослідження взаємозв'язку між схильністю до критичного мислення та міжкультурною конфліктологічною компетентністю українських і фінських майбутніх учителів

The present research studied critical thinking dispositions (CTDs) and their relationship towards intercultural conflict competence (ICC) in a sample of 58 students, 34 students of the Ukrainian University and 24 students of the Finnish University. The target population was the first-year pre-service teachers of bachelor level. The study was conducted using convenience sampling method. The main analyses carried out are descriptive in nature, non-parametric tests were used to analyse the differences and similarities between the variables of students’ CTDs and ICC. Main findings demonstrated the lack of significant differences in the levels of CTDs towards the levels of ICC among the students of each group, alongside the insufficiency of significant differences in the levels of CTDs towards the levels of ICC between the groups. The scores obtained for the dimensions of CTDs, namely, the dispositions towards argumentation and truth-seeking were less manifested, both within and between the groups. The outcomes obtained for ICC indicated the low levels of proficiency in communicative and behavioural components, particularly, the dimensions concerning situations of face-to-face intercultural interactions and intercultural communication, both within and between the groups. Slight difference was found among conflict resolution styles, i.e., 92% of Finnish students and more than a half of Ukrainian students preferred mutual-face concern style, while about one third of Ukrainian students were inclined to self-face concern style. Among the main limitations of the study were such as, a small sample population size; heterogeneous character of the target groups, while the participants were mainly prospective teachers of English, some pre-service teachers specialized in other educational fields. To summarise, with the growing number of intercultural interactions in school settings due to cultural diversity in both countries, it is crucial to enhance CTDs as well as ICC in the academic context.

Comparing Student Performance in Multiple Enrollments and Single Enrollments: Possible Target Groups for University Management

Austria's university system has no tuition fees and allows students to enroll in an unlimited program number. Public university funding and students’ enrollment validity are dependent on workload per program. This study aimed to compare the workload of students in multiple programs and their status (dropout, graduation) as basis for further research. The European Credit Transfer System credits and contact hours from course appointments were the major workload measures. Outcome status and enrollment type (one vs. multiple programs) were grouping variables. The sample consisted of 58,282 students in 93,705 programs with 23,526,625 single-course appointments between 2010/11 and 2022/23. Analysis of variance models showed that workload becomes higher as more programs are finished, with graduation as the outcome. On every degree level, students in multiple programs have higher workload measures than students in one program. Both dropouts and graduates accomplish higher workloads compared to single-enrollment students. Future research can build upon this study.

Practice and Reflection on the Transformation of Performance-Oriented Higher Education Financial Digitization Platform

The realization of performance-oriented transformation of financial intelligence in universities is an inevitable choice for universities to achieve high-quality education in the new era. How to achieve deep integration of university finance and intelligence transformation based on performance, and how to optimize the allocation of university resources based on the construction of intelligent platforms, are issues that need to be studied at the current stage. This paper first introduces the background of performance-oriented transformation of financial intelligence in universities, revealing the practical background of this research. Then, it starts with the connotation and significance of performance-oriented financial intelligence transformation, focusing on the system architecture of financial intelligence transformation in universities. It elaborates on the system architecture of financial intelligence transformation from four aspects: budgeting, execution, monitoring, and evaluation. Furthermore, platform design is conducted based on this, specifically introducing the construction of three major modules of the university intelligence platform: financial service system, financial data exchange center, and financial decision system. Finally, this paper puts forward some suggestions for the intelligent transformation of university finance.

Agricultural Innovation and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa in Nigeria

Purpose: The aim of the study was to analyze the agricultural innovation and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa in Nigeria. Methodology: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries. Findings: In Nigeria, agricultural innovation is vital for improving food security. Research suggests that adopting innovative farming methods and technologies can boost productivity, resilience to climate change, and livelihoods for smallholder farmers. Overcoming challenges like limited access to finance and inadequate infrastructure is essential to fully harnessing the benefits of agricultural innovation for food security in Nigeria. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Diffusion of innovations theory, social capital theory & political economy theory may be used to anchor future studies on agricultural innovation and food security in Sub-Saharan Africa in Nigeria. Promote farmer-centered innovation platforms - establishing can facilitate knowledge sharing, collaboration, and co-creation of agricultural innovations. Adequate funding for research institutions, agricultural universities, and extension agencies is essential to conduct applied research, develop appropriate technologies, and provide technical assistance to farmers.

대학 중도탈락이 대학재정에 미치는 영향 : 국고보조금의 매개효과 검증

대학 중도탈락이 대학재정에 미치는 영향 : 국고보조금의 매개효과 검증

Empirical Study on National Identity of Chinese Overseas Students: A Case Study of Nanjing University of Finance and Economics

Empirical Study on National Identity of Chinese Overseas Students: A Case Study of Nanjing University of Finance and Economics

Investor-Paid Credit Ratings and Managerial Information Disclosure

Unlike issuer-paid credit rating agencies (CRAs), investor-paid CRAs are compensated by investors for providing rating services. Exploiting the staggered timing of rating initiation by an investor-paid rating agency (the Egan Jones Ratings (EJR)), I document that the coverage by EJR increases rated firm managers’ voluntary disclosure of negative news. Consistent with EJR’s rating coverage deterring managerial bad news hoarding by informing investors of downside risks, I find that the effect of EJR coverage is more pronounced when issuer-paid CRAs tend to assign inflated ratings and when rated firms’ managers have a stronger incentive to conceal bad news. I also document that firms unwind upward earnings management after being covered by EJR. In contrast, coverage by an issuer-paid CRA (Standard & Poor’s) is not associated with changes in managerial information disclosure. I conclude that investor-paid CRAs function as a type of effective information intermediary to discipline firm managers and improve corporate transparency. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting. Funding: The author acknowledge financial support from the MOE Project of the Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Science in University [Grants 22JJD790093 and 22JJD790094], the Program for Innovative Research Team of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and the 111 Project [Grant B18033]. Supplemental Material: The data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2021.01914 .

Equity and Social Inclusion in Higher Education: The Funding Dilemma in Public Universities in Kenya

Equity and social inclusion in education are core to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4. This goal recognizes that education is a human right that should be accessible to all, irrespective of socioeconomic status. Universities are uniquely placed to contribute to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda by guaranteeing inclusive and equitable education. As citadels of research, knowledge production, and innovation, these institutions are rationally obligated to steer the 2030 Agenda. Indeed, the growth of university education has contributed enormously to Kenya's economic development. Yet, to continue contributing to inclusive and equitable education, universities require finances to reorient, repurpose and refocus. Unfortunately, public universities in Kenya are presently experiencing challenges that threaten their contribution to sustainable development through SDG 4. Therefore, this paper sought to enquire whether funding is a dilemma to universities achievement of equity and social inclusion goals. Besides, the paper considered strategies to address access, quality, and management barriers to inclusive and equitable education in higher education. The paper used the argumentative approach to conclude that inclusive and equitable education in higher education is at the most risk due to the diminishing funding of public universities and the unilateral push by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to overhaul some of these public universities. However, these institutions have the capacity to conduct research towards viable programs. Since funding does not appear as a dilemma to achieving equity and social inclusion in these institutions, this study recommends that the government should rethink the funding strategy in public universities by looking at other strategies like financial exposure awareness, development of principles, and change preparedness in order to enhance these institutions' potential to achieve SDG 4.

Digital Reform of International Business Majors in the Context of the Digital Economy in Higher Education Institutions

With the development of the digital economy, the global demand for international business professionals with digital skills is also increasing, which poses new requirements for the education of international business majors in higher education institutions. This paper summarizes the main models and existing problems of international business education in China at present. Taking the digital reform of the International Business major at Anhui University of Finance and Economics as an example, the new model of digital education is discussed from the perspectives of training objectives, practical teaching, and faculty team, and suggestions are put forward.

NIRis: A low-cost, versatile imaging system for near-infrared fluorescence detection of phototrophic cell colonies used in research and education.

A variety of costly research-grade imaging devices are available for the detection of spectroscopic features. Here we present an affordable, open-source and versatile device, suitable for a range of applications. We provide the files to print the imaging chamber with commonly available 3D printers and instructions to assemble it with easily available hardware. The imager is suitable for rapid sample screening in research, as well as for educational purposes. We provide details and results for an already proven set-up which suits the needs of a research group and students interested in UV-induced near-infrared fluorescence detection of microbial colonies grown on Petri dishes. The fluorescence signal confirms the presence of bacteriochlorophyll a in aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria (AAPB). The imager allows for the rapid detection and subsequent isolation of AAPB colonies on Petri dishes with diverse environmental samples. To this date, 15 devices have been build and more than 7000 Petri dishes have been analyzed for AAPB, leading to over 1000 new AAPB isolates. Parts can be modified depending on needs and budget. The latest version with automated switches and double band pass filters costs around 350€ in materials and resolves bacterial colonies with diameters of 0.5 mm and larger. The low cost and modular build allow for the integration in high school classes to educate students on light properties, fluorescence and microbiology. Computer-aided design of 3D-printed parts and programming of the employed Raspberry Pi computer could be incorporated in computer sciences classes. Students have been also inspired to do agar art with microbes. The device is currently used in seven different high schools in Finland. Additionally, a science education network of Finnish universities has incorporated it in its program for high school students. Video guides have been produced to facilitate easy operation and accessibility of the device.

“Whose Union?” Federalism, Funding, and the Ideal Citizen-Student in Indian University Education (1950–1960)

ABSTRACT Through an analysis of Allahabad University’s functioning, this article argues that independent India’s ideas of federalism reimagined university education. New visions of the educated person – linked to ideas about the ideal citizen – changed the kinds of disciplines and universities being funded. With support from industrial elites to buttress the new nation-state’s development plans, the state prioritised technical education over arts and humanities to serve a unified economic policy. This change manifested through increased scrutiny over university functioning and crackdowns on student protests. The Indian postcolonial state’s “centralised” federalism to manage the national economy and promote national integration impacted university funding. Ultimately, decisions about university funding were tied to the state’s vision of the ideal apolitical citizen student, who would contribute to national development. This article highlights the complicated relationship between capital, the postcolonial nation-state, and university autonomy.

Robust Parallel Pursuit for Large-Scale Association Network Learning

Sparse reduced-rank regression is an important tool to uncover the large-scale response-predictor association network, as exemplified by modern applications such as the diffusion networks, and recommendation systems. However, the association networks recovered by existing methods are either sensitive to outliers or not scalable under the big data setup. In this paper, we propose a new statistical learning method called robust parallel pursuit (ROP) for joint estimation and outlier detection in large-scale response-predictor association network analysis. The proposed method is scalable in that it transforms the original large-scale network learning problem into a set of sparse unit-rank estimations via factor analysis, thus facilitating an effective parallel pursuit algorithm. Furthermore, we provide comprehensive theoretical guarantees including consistency in parameter estimation, rank selection, and outlier detection, and we conduct an inference procedure to quantify the uncertainty of existence of outliers. Extensive simulation studies and two real-data analyses demonstrate the effectiveness and the scalability of the suggested approach. History: Accepted by Ram Ramesh, Area Editor/Data Science & Machine Learning. Funding: This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China [Grant 2022YFA1008000], Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 72071187, 72091212, 71731010, and 71921001], China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [Grant 2023M733402], and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [Grants WK3470000017, WK2040000027, and WK2040000079]. Supplemental Material: The software that supports the findings of this study is available within the paper and its Supplemental Information ( https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/suppl/10.1287/ijoc.2022.0181 ) as well as from the IJOC GitHub software repository ( https://github.com/INFORMSJoC/2022.0181 ). The complete IJOC Software and Data Repository is available at https://informsjoc.github.io/ .

Reporting Conflicts of Interest and Funding in Health Care Guidelines: The RIGHT-COI&F Checklist.

Conflicts of interest (COIs) of contributors to a guideline project and the funding of that project can influence the development of the guideline. Comprehensive reporting of information on COIs and funding is essential for the transparency and credibility of guidelines. To develop an extension of the Reporting Items for practice Guidelines in HealThcare (RIGHT) statement for the reporting of COIs and funding in policy documents of guideline organizations and in guidelines: the RIGHT-COI&F checklist. The recommendations of the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research (EQUATOR) network were followed. The process consisted of registration of the project and setting up working groups, generation of the initial list of items, achieving consensus on the items, and formulating and testing the final checklist. International collaboration. 44 experts. Consensus on checklist items. The checklist contains 27 items: 18 about the COIs of contributors and 9 about the funding of the guideline project. Of the 27 items, 16 are labeled as policy related because they address the reporting of COI and funding policies that apply across an organization's guideline projects. These items should be described ideally in the organization's policy documents, otherwise in the specific guideline. The remaining 11 items are labeled as implementation related and they address the reporting of COIs and funding of the specific guideline. The RIGHT-COI&F checklist requires testing in real-life use. The RIGHT-COI&F checklist can be used to guide the reporting of COIs and funding in guideline development and to assess the completeness of reporting in published guidelines and policy documents. The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China.

“An island on the edge of Europe”: A study on academic air travel in Finland through a combined model of practice

Although evidence about the environmental harm of air travel is growing, the goal of internationalization remains firmly built into academia. The aim of this article is to study this dilemma from both the institutional and individual levels. We seek to determine the elements of academic air travel from an online survey conducted at a Finnish research university. We utilize a combined model of practice, which merges the three-element model of practice theory and the levels of society approach. We also reflect upon the travel policies of all 14 Finnish research universities against the needs and wants of the individual academic.Our findings highlight that the core elements of academic air travel in the institution we studied are physical events, social interaction, technologies, and environmental values. Although virtual alternatives and slow travel are gaining momentum, more support is needed to replace the informal interactions associated with physical presence. In addition, the external pressure to travel, e.g., to undertake fieldwork or attend conferences, is limiting efforts toward low-carbon travel. We hypothesize that change is particularly difficult to induce with linkages between various levels of society. Our combined model of practice provides a tool to identify the elements of practice that can be influenced by the individual or require changes at the institutional or even the national levels. Finally, we note a mismatch between some forms of policy support between individuals and institutions, showing a need for more practical rather than theoretical support, especially with lowering academic expectations on the need to travel.

Generalized Riskiness Index in Vehicle Routing Under Uncertain Travel Times: Formulations, Properties, and Exact Solution Framework

We consider a vehicle routing problem with time windows under uncertain travel times where the goal is to determine routes for a fleet of homogeneous vehicles to arrive at the locations of customers within their stipulated time windows to the maximum extent while ensuring that the total travel cost does not exceed a prescribed budget. Specifically, a novel performance measure that accounts for the riskiness associated with late arrivals at the customers, called the generalized riskiness index (GRI), is optimized. The GRI covers several existing riskiness indices as special cases and generates new ones. We demonstrate its salient managerial and computational properties to motivate it better. We propose alternative set partitioning-based models of the problem. To obtain the optimal solution, we develop an exact solution framework combining route enumeration and branch-price-and-cut algorithms, in which the GRI is dealt with in route enumeration and column generation subproblems. We mainly reduce the solution space by exploiting the GRI and budget constraints’ properties without losing optimality. The proposed method is tested on a collection of instances derived from the literature. The results show that a new instance of the GRI outperforms several existing riskiness indices in mitigating lateness. The exact method can solve instances with up to 100 nodes to optimality. It can consistently solve instances involving up to 50 nodes, outperforming state-of-the-art methods by more than doubling the manageable instance size. Funding: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 72101187, 72371204, 72021002, and 71901180], the Qatar National Research Fund [Grant ARG01-0430-230029], Natural Science Foundation of Sichuan Province [24NSFSC6232], and Guanghua Talent Project of the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/trsc.2023.0345 .

Navigating neoliberal waters: Building capacities and skills for effective instructional leadership in higher education.

In the current era, leadership in higher education faces unprecedented challenges as a result of neoliberalism's influence. To effectively provide instructional leadership, higher education leaders and administrators need to acquire new skills and strategies. The issues of inadequate funding, increased workload, massification, and marketization in universities necessitate skillful navigation to uphold educational quality. This integrated literature review examines the impact of neoliberalism on teaching and learning and explores the specific skills and capacities required by university leaders to deliver effective instructional leadership. Through a comprehensive review, we shed light on the essential leadership skills necessary within the context of neoliberalism. By addressing these challenges head-on, leaders can navigate the neoliberal waters and build the capacities needed for successful instructional leadership in higher education.

Some Positive Trends in the Development of University Science in Russia at the Present Time

The development of university science is one of the state policy priorities in Russia today. To determine this process prospects, it is important to identify positive trends and best practices of leading Russian universities scientific activity. For this purpose, the article considers the organizational features and sources of university science funding, analyzes the main indicators of research performance and practices of research policy implementation, summarizes the scientific achievements of leading Russian universities. The article uses the methods of universities monitoring activities statistical analysis and substantive analysis of information about the universities` scientific activities posted in open sources. The conclusions are drawn about the formation in Russia leading universities group with a stable priority of research activities, the core of which is formed by leading technical sectoral universities and regional polytechnic universities, the practices of science organization and the main scientific achievements of which can significantly influence the further development of domestic university science, as well as the world scientific knowledge expansion and Russian society socio-economic development issues solution.

Nurturing systems thinking among young people by developing business ideas on sustainable AI

The complexity of sustainability challenges has exposed the limitations of solutions relying on atomistic disciplinary knowledge and linear thinking, evidencing the need for embracing holistic and transdisciplinary mindsets. This paper builds on the assumption that systems thinking can contribute to approaching sustainability issues. In this study we investigate how to nurture systems thinking among young people in and through developing socially sustainable business ideas that utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. To this end, we analyze 21 9th grade students' contributions during a work practice week at a Finnish university, during which they were introduced to AI, sustainability, and business thinking and invited to generate business ideas for sustainable innovations that use AI. Our multimodal analysis examines students’ business ideation process and outputs to identify various elements present in the working process that contribute to the development of sustainable AI from a systemic perspective. Based on our findings, we propose combining business innovation with sustainability as a strategy to develop learners' systems thinking.

Patterns and trends of university-industry research collaboration in Ghana between 2011 and 2020

Purpose The ranking of universities and other research-intensive institutions in global ranking systems is based on numerous indicators, including number of articles with external collaboration, number of articles with international collaboration, number of articles with industry collaboration as well as co-patents with industry. The purpose of this paper is to examine university–industry research collaboration in Ghana, with the aim of exploring the relationship between the research output collaborations in the top four universities in Ghana and industry across different geographical scales. Design/methodology/approach This study’s data was obtained from the SciVal database, which drawn its data from the Scopus bibliographic and citation database. The bibliographic and citation data were extracted using a search of the publications affiliated to the University of Ghana, for the period 2011–2020. Findings Key findings demonstrate a constant rise in the number of research publications by the selected universities over time. Research collaboration intensity in the selected universities in terms of co-authored publications was higher as compared to single-authored publications. University–industry research co-authorships were, however, lower when compared to university–university research co-authorships. The university–industry research co-authorships occurred mostly with Europe, Asia-Pacific and North American-based institutions as opposed to African-based institutions. In Ghana, four industry-based institutions were engaged in intensive research with the selected universities. Originality/value This study demonstrates that, for each selected university, it is possible to measure the performance of individual universities in both intra-regional and international collaboration. Such results may be useful in informing policy as well as merit-based public funding of universities in Ghana.