Cultural Project Blog Post #2

3.Please tell us your opinion about automation in the manufacturing sector and the use of robots in the ABB factories in Finland.

The level of automation present in the low voltage and medium voltage parts of the ABB factory really impressed me. This was my first time experiencing any kind of manufacturing automation in this format. During our tour with the ABB engineer in the medium voltage factory, he presented us with some specific figures about the robots for packaging and sorting. Given the task of packaging, it took a 1 human worker 3 minutes to package a relay. The packaging robot took 54 seconds to perform the same task. With its €200,000 price tag compared against the salaries of the 3 equivalent workers the machine was replacing, the cost of introducing the robot was paid back in full within 1 year. In conjunction, the sorting robot most prominently performed its main function overnight between the main shifts.By sorting the packaged relays for shipping throughout the night, productivity was able to be maintained without the need to pay for overtime, shortening work order timelines and allowing their products to be shipped out first thing in the morning.

I really appreciated the route ABB took in introducing the robots to their work force. Instead of relieving workers of their posts entirely, ABB reallocated them to different positions to preserve the same size work force. In doing so, the company as found and established an ethical way of redistributing labor with the introduction of automation, thus providing a model for other such companies to follow. With the oncoming perceived threat of automation taking over greater amounts of the labor force in other areas of work, ABB is at the forefront of ethical redistribution of labor to maintain the size of their work force.

Satellite Transmission Characteristics in Finland. By Luke Kindelin

1.What have you learned about telecommunications in Finland? Which wireless technologies do they use to connect the whole country? 

To answer this prompt, I was planning on writing about wireless telephony and Finland’s high coverage area per capita versus the United States. Upon further investigation and asking the natives in casual conversation, it soon became clear that this was an unfair comparison because of how far behind Europe the United States are because of land mass and regulatory style.

My cursory look at Finnish antenna systems in real life led me to an accidental discovery that I hadn’t thought about; Satellite television. This came about when I traveled to Vaasa in the middle of Finland and happened to stumble across a satellite tv antenna that was pointed very near horizontal with the ground. This peaked my interest, and led me to look further into satellite tv coverage in far northern Europe.

Three main providers of satellite television are present in the Finnish market, Sky TV (which also covers the rest of Europe), Canal Digital and ViaSat. The latter two of which are Finnish programming only via leased space on existing Europe-only satellites. Because of the extreme northern-ness of Finland, especially Finnish Lapland, this makes it an attractive environment for studying path loss because of the additional distance required for transmission. The low angle off the horizon that these satellites are parked at in equatorial orbit are yet another factor that comes into play during power measurements as the signal must propagate through a larger “slice” of the atmosphere (think of slicing an orange in half, vs cutting the just the skin off the top; you’ll get a lot more skin to bite through the second way).

Like most satellite tv broadcasters, the transmitting antennas are parked 35000km high in geosynchronous equatorial orbit, directly above the equator in a fixed position. This is so customers can point their dish once, and stay in contact without any further effort. A key downside to these satellite downlinks are their restricted power characteristics based on their power supplies – solar panels that have relatively long on-off time.

Based on the satellite system Astra 3A, currently in use by both Canal Digital and ViaSat and designed for European usage, the mean distance to ground is 44644km in Helsinki, Finland, 34.6° above the horizon and 45455km in Kaamanen, in the Finnish Lapland, 26.8° above the horizon. The satellite transmission characteristics are as follows: 11.75GHz transmission frequency, 36MHz of bandwidth, a 30-watt transmitter Pt, and EIRP of 52dBw.

Three locations for free space path loss are laid out below. With a nominal receiver gain of 37.50 dB(typical for this market), calculations were made for three locations, the Equator, Helsinki, and Kaamanen:

Pr(distance) =PtGtGrλ^2/(4π)d^2

Pr(Equator) = (52dBw)+(37.5dB)+20Log₁₀(0.025531m/((4π)(35000000m)))

Pr(Equator) = -115.22dBw

Pr(Helsinki) = (52dBw)+(37.5dB)+20Log₁₀(0.025531m/((4π)(44644000m)))

Pr(Helsinki) = -117.34dBw

Pr(Lapland) = (52dBw)+(37.5dB)+20Log₁₀(0.025531m/((4π)(45455000m))) 

Pr(Lapland) = -117.49dBw

As we can easily see from these results, the power is nearly half that which is present at the equator, and unless this is considered when choosing an appropriate ground based satellite dish, low power values will be seen. Conversely, the difference from the edges of the south to north of Finland are actually quite near, and so a standardized dish will give nearly the same result no matter where in the country it is placed. This is the case for both Finnish providers, Canal Digital and ViaSat. Sky TV, which is present in the rest of Europe, has a larger diameter dish specifically tuned for countries this far north. 

The Finns

      4. From your conversations with Finnish people, what have you learned about the Finnish culture? How do you compare the things you learned from the way things are in the American culture?

The Finnish people are a spectacle to behold. They are a shy, introverted people, yet have a vibrant social scene. They value a person’s privacy and don’t appreciate pointless conversations, yet crave a good friend and conversation. They respect a persons’ right to an education, yet drink more beer per capita than Americans do. Overall, the Finnish people are a private yet respectful people and have made this trip one of the best I’ve ever had.

I am sure that there are some people in Finland who don’t say a word to anyone for an entire week on a regular basis. As an American, I am used to asking a question about where a certain restaurant is located, talking to a cashier about how slow the work day is, or simply saying hello to someone as I walk past them. In Finland, however, it is highly unlikely that anyone will talk to you about anything other than something of great importance. Americans must use specific looks or voice inflections to denote a serious conversation rather than an unimportant one simply because we talk all the time about everything. When asked a question, a Finnish person won’t deny your request and will indeed answer, but will not continue to chat if there is no need to do so. This creates very efficient and sincere conversations, something that I have been very grateful to engage in during this trip.

The Finnish people are very intelligent and promote education for all people. According to many articles and papers, Finland ranks close to first in graduation rates, academic scores, and overall education, whereas the United States ranks closer to 20^th in the world. Even though America has free public education up through high school and Finland has public education that has small costs for the students, Finland boasts a 97% high school graduation rate. While both countries churn out amazing technologies and brilliant minds, the American people don’t seem to value education nearly as much as Finnish culture does.

One standout cultural point of the Finnish people is their sense of equality. The Finnish language lacks specific words for “he” or “she” and instead has a gender-neutral word “hän”. To put it simply, there is no gender in Finnish. Also, there is little to no traces of social classes; where in America, a lawyer would be thought of more highly than a farmer, all people are of equal status in Finland. Between these two factors, the identity Finland is very egalitarian. This is a fresh and interesting school of thought compared to America and I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere this created for my encounters with the Finnish people.

The people of Finland have learned and adapted to the rough northern environment and the continually changing world. Because of this, they understand the need for smart, technologically advanced citizens which are all equal and are all self-sufficient. The belief that higher education is the future for employment in today’s rapidly evolving world makes Finnish culture much more appealing than some aspects of American culture. I would gladly live in Finland; with its down-to-earth, sincere people and its rough, beautiful environment, the country appeals to me in a way I would not have expected. Now to send that application to Nokia…

Industrial Automation in Finland

      3. Please tell us your opinion about automation in the manufacturing sector and the use of robots in the ABB factories in Finland.

The use of automation in the manufacturing sector has been steadily growing in the last decade. More and more operations have been changed to include industrial automation to increase speed or efficiency. While touring the ABB factories, we could see some of the ways that robots are used in the process of creating small electronics.

               Automation in the manufacturing sector is the replacing of human decisions and manual control of an action using mechanical and logical programmed equipment. These machines can be used to provide benefits to a company looking to remove human error or speed up a process. Automation replaces the physical monotony from human workers, allows faster production, can perform tasks beyond human capabilities and can perform some dangerous tasks that humans could not even perform. However, automation has its limitations, most of those revolving around intelligence and costs. A robot is expensive to create and to maintain, faults and failures cause losses in end products, and some tasks are too complex to be automated. These factors combined make it so that the ideal scenario for industrial automation is simple, repetitive actions such as handling, welding, and assembling materials. These systems are beneficial to society, creating opportunity for refinement of the manufacturing process, as well as creating different jobs to maintain the robots or enhance a simple created goods.

               At ABB, there were many robots used all throughout the manufacturing process. The focus of the robots in these factories was precise repetition. One robot that stood out to me was a machine that took completed medium-voltage circuit breakers, registered them, and packed them in boxes. This task could have easily been completed by a human, but by using a robot to perform this monotonous and repetitive task, a human worker could be performing a more demanding task such as moving this completed box to its intended destination.

               Overall, industrial robotics will be a highly important topic in the coming decade as increasingly more tasks are completable using automation. ABB factories are already implementing these robots into their manufacturing process where a simple, cyclical task can be performed much faster and easier for all parties involved.

Finnish Culture, by Luke Kindelin

4.            From your conversations with Finnish people, what have you learned about the Finnish culture? How do you compare the things you learned from the way things are in the American culture?

So many things, slightly different.

There are so many differences between Finnish culture and American culture, that it was really easy to see the differences nearly as soon as I walked off the plane. At the baggage terminal, it was easy to spot the Finns, quiet and respectful, but really ready to help a foreigner find a bus stop after a long flight. This feeling of personal respect is a typical Finnish attribute, yes, of course there are outliers, but as a whole, nearly every interaction I’ve had here has been really genuine.

Nation of introverts

This is one of the first things I learned about Finland before visiting here on my educational tour, that it was, “A nation of introverts”. This couldn’t be more true, and one of the major themes that seem to drive the culture. Everything that I’ve seen personally, and every little detail that I can compare as different reaffirms this bias. People here seem to be extremely polite, and even when a group of loud Americans invade their morning bus, don’t roll their eyes or something. They just carry on as if nothing ever happened, even though its highly intrusive in reality.

Unassuming

Every interpersonal interaction I’ve had with professionals here in Finland was overwhelmingly positive and straightforward. Finns are unassuming, in that their country is so small, people know each other well enough that they don’t need to be bragging all the time. When I was talking to engineers at ABB, they said that nobodyy uses their professional title on even their business cards. This is so different to me, In the US, it is expected that you’re constantly self-promoting your personal brand to get ahead and stay completive, here, you’re judged on your competence, not your confidence. The conversation structure was also extremely important, nobody here talks over each other, when it’s your time to talk, you talk. When it’s the other person’s time to talk, they talk. It sounds so simple, but so often goes wrong back in America.

Straightforward

Everything here is straightforward and seems well reasoned out. From the practice of putting the price of an item directly on the tag, tax included. To the high social supports for things like education and healthcare. Everyone here has at least a competitive opportunity for a free education as high as they’d like. The higher someone is educated, the better the country does. Everyone needs health care, so just skip the middle man and use it like a utility. In the US we save and save our whole lives because we don’t want to starve when we’re old, here, the elderly don’t have to worry about paying for that expensive surgery, or required pill regimen. So they’re free to save less, which drives the economy and makes it really financially stable.

Integration

Honestly, I could live here. Maybe that’s the honeymoon stage talking, but I really feel at home here. This may be due in part because of the amazing time I’ve had, or the excellent people that smoothed things out even before we got here, making it a somewhat sheltered experience. But really, What I’ll take away from this is the overwhelming politeness and down to earth nature of the Finnish. Besides everything being in a different language at the grocery store, leading to predictable results, it’s like a nicer version of America.

Rural Broadband - US & Finland

Note: I began my cultural project before the blog format and topics were introduced using the prompt in the syllabus. I have reformatted that project to be viewed in blog form and incorporated elements of topics 1 & 4. I am sorry this is only one post.

Introduction

     Pre-departure we were required to read the Wall Street Journal article Rural America Is Stranded in the Dial-Up Age. Summarily, the article describes the struggles of rural communities due to the lack of access to the internet. Rural communities are more likely to have slower speeds and with inconsistent coverage areas. The article points to several factors that contribute to this issue, most notably the lack of infrastructure and the economic feasibility of providing that infrastructure.


     We are now toward the conclusion of our studies in Finland and the issue the article brought up has stayed with me. The entire time we have been in Finland I have probably never been more than 50m away from broadband internet access, even on the train to Vaasa. Now, compare that to Zephyr, Texas, the town where my grandfather lives and where there is no wireless coverage at all. This ostensible technological discrepancy is the issue I would like to examine for my cultural project. In this post, I will comparatively examine the cultural and technological factors that affect internet access in the US and Finland.

The Internet in US & Finland – An Overview

     Anecdotal evidence suggests Finnish citizens are extremely satisfied with their level of coverage. Multiple employees at both ABB, in Vaasa, and Nokia, in Espoo, have stated they have strong, 4G-LTE connections, even in remote parts of the country. Almost 91% of Finnish people have some form of access to the internet, ranking 7th in the world. In the US, the percentage of people with internet access is 80.3%, ranking 28th in the world. The table below contains several basic statistics regarding internet/ mobile cellular access in the two countries

Country	Internet Access (%)	Internet Access Rank	Broadband Subscriptions (%)	Broadband Subscriptions Rank	Mobile Subscriptions (per 100)
USA	80.30%	28	28.20%	22	119
Finland	90.90%	7	30.38%	21	135

     It can be noted that, though Finland has a 10% higher internet access rate, the number of fixed broadband subscriptions is only 2% higher. This may be explained by the higher mobile subscription rate; there are 1.35 cell phone subscriptions per person in Finland. It could also be due to more access to free public internet or the country’s ‘Right to Access’ law (more on that later).To draw more accurate conclusions, more context is needed.

Cultural & Technological Comparison

     Technologically, Finland and the US do not differ much. They are both, at least for the most part, very developed countries. As shown above, the vast majority of both countries’ populations have access to the internet. 4G-LTE mobile data coverage is widespread. Despite this, a digital divide of information still exists in US rural communities.


     Finland is definitely not a small country, especially by European standards. It has a land area of over 338,000 sq. km. The US, however, is very, very big:

     The area of the US is 9.83 million sq. km; 32 times the size of Finland. To better frame it for y’all, Finland could fit into Texas twice. This size difference is important to keep in mind when comparing internet access in the two countries, from both a cultural and technological standpoint.

     Population and population density contribute as much to internet access as geographic size. The graph below gives a comparison of the population of the two countries and Texas.

     In population and in size, the US is much larger than Finland. The population density and related information is summarized in the following table.

Country	Population	Pop. Density	Rural Population	Rural population (%)
USA	316670000	32.21	46200000	14.59%
Finland	5270000	17.33	864600	16.41%

     Though the population density of the US is almost twice that of Finland, the rural population over the total population is roughly the same. The non-rural areas of the US have a much larger population density than the non-rural areas of Finland, therefore the rural population density of the US is much lower than that of Finland. In other words, the US has a lot more people spread out much further.

     This demonstrates a major issue for internet access reaching US rural communities. The WSJ article says it costs $30,000/mile ($18,750/km) to lay fiber optic line. The same amount fiber optic line is going reach more people in Finland, especially when considering the existing infrastructure already reaches a higher percentage of the population than the US. In the US, some companies try to make up for that cost inefficiency by raising the prices for rural consumer, whom may be unable to afford or refuse to pay that price. The ‘$99/month for unlimited data broadband internet’ figure mentioned in the article would be unheard of in Finland.

     Finland also has a Right to Access law, which, according to the Finnish Communications Regulatory Agency, says “everyone is entitled to obtain a reasonably priced and functioning telephone connection and at least 2 Mbps broadband to their permanent place of residence or place of business.” This is any easier guarantee to make in Finland than in the US, but this regulatory force does help deliver internet to the people of Finland.

Conclusion

     After critical examination, I discussed what I believe to be the most significant causes of the ‘digital divide’ in the US by comparing the US and Finland. The overwhelming size of the US and sparseness of rural US populations make it much less economically feasible to provide internet to those rural populations than in Finland. While existing solutions might have been successful in reaching the rural Finnish population, they have and will struggle to reach rural Americans. New solutions must be developed for the US. Innovation will be the key to providing internet access to all Americans.

Sources

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html

http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Finland/United-States/Media

Right to a telephone and broadband subscription

Viestintävirasto - https://www.viestintavirasto.fi/en/internettelephone/righttoatelephoneandbroadbandsubscrip

Rural America Is Stranded in the Dial-Up Age

Jennifer Levitz-Valerie Bauerlein - https://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-america-is-stranded-in-the-dial-up-age-149753584

Cultural Blog Post #2

4. From your conversations with Finnish people, what have you learned about the Finnish culture? How do you compare the things you learned from the way things are in the American culture?

One of the first things I noticed about the Finnish culture is that everyone likes to keep to themselves. As loud and proud Americans, we're no stranger to small talk and friendly conversation. Here, it feels like the only time you speak to someone else is to ask them a question or two, and that's it. Whether it's about what stops the tram will take or what time it is, it always seems to start and finish within 2 or 3 exchanges. This all seemed very out of place for me, because as Luke Kindelin so accurately stated, "It's like a country full of introverts". There were no normal day-to-day interactions, exchange of pleasantries, it's just a very quiet day at the bus stop.

Something else I noticed the other day was the shockingly low crime rate. Typically, when I travel, I constantly have my hands in my pockets to protect myself against pickpocketers. I'll usually be in a crowded place with people constantly bumping into me and pushing past me, so naturally I'd be on the defense. In Finland, however, when I went to the fish market, I felt as if it were totally unnecessary to keep my hands in my pockets. Everyone kept within their own personal bubble, nobody came remotely near my pockets, and there weren't any shady looking people in the crowd. Also, when I went to Aalto University to see the Aurora Borealis last night, I didn't see a single blue light phone for emergencies. Meanwhile, Texas A&M makes sure that not only do we have these safety precautions, but you can see ~2-3 other blue light phones from any given post. This leads me to believe one of two things: Either the crime rate is so staggeringly low that the kinds of problems that require these safety poles don't exist in Finland (or rarely happen at all), or Aalto University doesn't take the necessary precautions of keeping it's students safe. Unsurprisingly, I'm going to go with the first option. 

The foods that I've been exposed to have been things along the lines of berries, milk, Sahtis, kebab, and reindeer. The reindeer has historical significance, since up in the Laplands, this was their main source of food to survive through winter. The kebab was adopted from the Middle-East and flourished in Finland as an inexpensive and rich meat, and can be found around nearly every corner. The Finnish cuisine tends to be fresh and healthy, which is where the berries and milk come into the equation. Lastly, Sahti is a type of Finnish beer that's brewed with Juniper berries, which give it a foresty, almost medicinal taste, and is one of the most popular homebrews in the country.

Public transportation seems to be a big thing in Finland, most likely because everything is very close together, so a personal vehicle may not be needed. Everything is within reasonable walking distance, the buses and trams are always on-schedule, and the use of a pass that lets you on any public transportation in Finland is remarkable. Compared to the United States, public transportation doesn't seem to be as common, and more people own their own methods of transportation.

If you compared all of this to American culture, I think Finland would come out on top in each category, with the exception of food. I prefer Finland's way of communicating with one another over America's any day, because personally, I like to consider myself an introvert. I don't talk to people, and I prefer it when people don't talk to me. If something needs to be asked or needs an answer, only then should it be appropriate to engage in conversation. I definitely choose Finland's crime rate over America's, because I think the lower the crime rate, the better the stance of the country and it's people. However, I would've preferred if the Finnish campuses took a page out of the US University books and constructed emergency poles for people to use, just in case. In regards to food, I'd have to choose America over Finland, mainly due to the fact that America has a lot more diversity and freedom in what we eat. In Finland, you'll find the same pizza/kebab/falafel/reindeer place anywhere you go. But, in their defense, since they have such a specific food preference, they've pretty much mastered the art of cooking any dish dealing with them, and they are incredible. Lastly, for public transportation, I think Finland does a better job of providing it compared to America. Even though America has more people using personal vehicles, Finland is very compact and it's possible to walk from place to place, yet the buses and trams are very easily accessible for the general public to use.

I think this study abroad really helped open my eyes to see how other parts of the world function. This was something I had never experienced before, and I know that once I return home, the differences in the atmosphere will be much clearer. Finland has definitely been one of my favorite countries to visit, and I truly hope to return some day in the future. In the mean time, I'm just glad I won't have to hear "Kiitos" or "sina olet kaunis" every ten seconds anymore.

Also, on a side note, I'd like to thank the people of Finland for learning the English language, since us Americans are pretty much incapable of learning any language other than our own, and sometimes even that's a challenge for us.