The Silver Line: Tackling Loneliness in Older People : Evaluation Research Report

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Social impacts of climate change mitigation policies and their implications for inequality

The Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set ambitious targets for environmental, economic and social progress. Climate change mitigation policies play a central role in this process. To maximize the benefits and minimize the negative effects of climate change mitigation policies, policymakers need to be aware of the indirect and often complex social and inequality impacts that these policies may have and the pathways through which these impacts emerge. Better understanding of the distributional and inequality impacts is important to avoid negative social and distributional outcomes as countries ratchet up their climate policy ambition in the post-Paris context. This paper synthesizes evidence from the existing literature on social co-impacts of climate change mitigation policy and their implications for inequality. The analysis shows that most policies are linked to both co-benefits and adverse side-effects, and can compound or lessen inequalities depending on contextual factors, policy design and policy implementation. The risk of negative outcomes is greater in contexts characterized by high levels of poverty, corruption and economic and social inequalities, and where limited action is taken to identify and mitigate potentially adverse side-effects

Digital product passport : the ticket to achieving a climate neutral and circular European economy?

The introduction of a Digital Product Passport (DPP) is an opportunity to create a system that can store and share all relevant information throughout a product's life cycle. This would provide industry stakeholders, businesses, public authorities and consumers with a better understanding of the materials used in the product as well as their embodied environmental impact. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis, now is a critical moment to transform our economic and business models, while also addressing the huge scale of material emissions. DPPs can be a pivotal policy instrument in this goal. Furthermore, DPPs can accelerate the twin green and digital transitions as part of EU efforts to deliver positive climate action and sustainable economies. In 2020, the European Commission (EC) adopted a new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP), which emphasised the need for circular economy initiatives to consider the entire life cycle of products, from the production of basic materials to end-of-life disposal. The Circular Economy Package published in March 2022 includes a proposal for an Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which builds upon the Ecodesign Directive that covers energy-related products. A DPP will form a key regulatory element of the ESPR by enhancing the traceability of products and their components. This will provide consumers and manufacturers with the information needed to make better informed choices by taking their environmental impact into consideration. As discussed in the report, there is widespread agreement amongst business leaders that a well-designed DPP could have both short- and longer-term benefits, improving access to reliable and comparable product sustainability information for businesses, consumers and policymakers. A well-designed DPP can unify information, making it more readily accessible to all actors in the supply chain. This will support businesses to ensure an effective transformation towards a decarbonised industry. It could also create incentives for companies to make their products more sustainable, as improving access to reliable and consistent information across supply chains will make it easier for customers to make comparisons

Consistent estimates of gross primary production of Finnish forests : comparison of estimates of two process models

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Olfactory and gustatory functions after free flap reconstruction and radiotherapy for oral and pharyngeal cancer : a prospective follow-up study

The senses of smell and taste can be adversely affected by both tumour- and treatment-related factors amongst head and neck cancer patients. The consequences may negatively impact nutritional status as well as quality of life in this patient population. This prospective longitudinal follow-up study is consisted of 44 patients treated for oral cavity, oropharyngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer with tumour resection and microvascular free tissue transfer reconstruction at the Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland. Thirty-nine (89%) of them also received radiotherapy. The senses of smell (odour detection, identification and threshold test) and taste (electrogustometry) and quality of life (UW-QOL) were evaluated preoperatively, and at 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months and 12 months, postoperatively. There were higher scores in the odour detection values in the 6-week and 3-month tests compared with preoperative values for the tumour side. Other detection scores did not differ statistically from the preoperative values neither in the tumour nor the contralateral side. However, in the odour identification test, all posttreatment values were statistically significantly higher than pretreatment ones. In the olfactory threshold test, no statistically significant differences were found between pre- and posttreatment values. Electrogustometry values for the taste on the tumour side were statistically significantly impaired at 6 weeks (p <0.05) and at 3 months (p <0.01) compared with the pretreatment results. They were also impaired at 6 months and at 12 months, although the differences were not statistically significant. The quality of life was impaired after treatment in this patient series. However, the correlation between quality of life and sense of taste was found only at one time point (3 months) and only with contralateral side measurements. We conclude that in oral and pharyngeal cancer patients the postoperative taste problems are related to the impairment on the taste sensation in the tongue but not with the sense of smell. Moreover, the impairment in the quality of life is not clearly related to the impaired sense of taste.Peer reviewe

HIMMELI v1.0 : HelsinkI Model of MEthane buiLd-up and emIssion for peatlands

Wetlands are one of the most significant natural sources of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. They emit CH4 because decomposition of soil organic matter in waterlogged anoxic conditions produces CH4, in addition to carbon dioxide (CO2). Production of CH4 and how much of it escapes to the atmosphere depend on a multitude of environmental drivers. Models simulating the processes leading to CH4 emissions are thus needed for upscaling observations to estimate present CH4 emissions and for producing scenarios of future atmospheric CH4 concentrations. Aiming at a CH4 model that can be added to models describing peatland carbon cycling, we composed a model called HIMMELI that describes CH4 build-up in and emissions from peatland soils. It is not a full peatland carbon cycle model but it requires the rate of anoxic soil respiration as input. Driven by soil temperature, leaf area index (LAI) of aerenchymatous peat-land vegetation, and water table depth (WTD), it simulates the concentrations and transport of CH4, CO2, and oxygen (O-2) in a layered one-dimensional peat column. Here, we present the HIMMELI model structure and results of tests on the model sensitivity to the input data and to the description of the peat column (peat depth and layer thickness), and demonstrate that HIMMELI outputs realistic fluxes by comparing modeled and measured fluxes at two peatland sites. As HIMMELI describes only the CH4-related processes, not the full carbon cycle, our analysis revealed mechanisms and dependencies that may remain hidden when testing CH4 models connected to complete peatland carbon models, which is usually the case. Our results indicated that (1) the model is flexible and robust and thus suitable for different environments; (2) the simulated CH4 emissions largely depend on the prescribed rate of anoxic respiration; (3) the sensitivity of the total CH4 emission to other input variables is mainly mediated via the concentrations of dissolved gases, in particular, the O-2 concentrations that affect the CH4 production and oxidation rates; (4) with given input respiration, the peat column description does not significantly affect the simulated CH4 emissions in this model version.Peer reviewe

Preface to the special issue on Monitoring and Modelling of Carbon-Balance-, Water- and Snow-Related Phenomena at Northern Latitudes

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Integration or discrimination: opportunities and barriers to appropriate paid employment for healthcare professional refugees in Finland

This thesis looks at the opportunities and barriers to appropriate employment for healthcare professional refugees in Finland. Moving beyond a simplistic dichotomy between employment and unemployment, this study seeks to identify the factors that , may inhibit, or potentially enhance, healthcare professional refugees' ability. to reestablish their careers in Finland. This research is built' on a notion that a strategy enabling more effective integration of healthcare professional refugees'skills into the Finnish workforcecould benefit both refugees and Finnish society. Previous research suggests that a profession is often the main axi~ of highly educated refugees' ,identity, and being forced to abandon one's profession thus means a loss of identity as well as a loss of income and social statils. Although paid labour market participation is now widely recognised as one of the main factors _,hat facilitate , successful resettlement and social integration, the requirements set by the Finnish authorities make formal recognition ofoverseas qualifications difficult to achieve. In the case of refugees, this problem is exacerbated by the 'victimisation' of refugees and integration practices that do not meet the needs of highly educated refugees. Approaching the topic'from a constructivist standpoint, this thesis focuses on healthcare professional refugees' personal accounts of their experiences. In addition to 13 interviews with healthcare professional refugees, 10 interviews were conducted with key respondents from relevant professional associations and the institutional sector. The findings suggest that healthcare professional refugees' skills remain largely underutilised. An examination of the effects of different inhibiting and enhancing factors on healthcare professional refugees' career prospects in Finland indicates that the positive effects ofthe enhancing factors are effectively outweighed by the inhibiting factors. While an established qualification recognition procedure makes it possible for refugee doctors to obtain official recognition for their overseas qualifications, the training that is intended to prepare them for the examinations is inadequate. _In the absence of a suitable qualification recognition-procedure, refugee nurses are commonly advised to forget their aspirations of returning to nursing, and encouraged to fe-educate themselves for the loweer)-paid pr~fession ofa healthcare assistant.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo