Small business and entrepreneurship in northern Finland

High tech industries, small and medium sized enterprises and Nokia are almost synonymous with Northern Finland in that the past twenty five years have witnessed significant structural, economic and social changes in Finland's northernmost provinces of Ostrobothnia and Lapland. The traditional economy of the region was based on agriculture, forest based industries such as timber and paper and the exploitation of small mineral deposits. In the 1950s and 1960s it was evident that these were insufficient to sustain future economic growth as both provinces suffered from serious economic and social deprivation and outwards migration. Governmental responses to these problems were to tackle the basic infrastructural problems that existed, including the founding of a university in Oulu and later one in Rovaniemi. It was also clear that future growth would depend upon industries, based on 'knowledge,' rather than natural resources and so attempts were made to bring about a paradigm shift in the North's economic structure. This was effected jointly between the government, the local authorities, higher education and research institutions and local entrepreneurs. The aim of this paper is to explore how the economy was transformed through looking at the interplay between government, institutions and the entrepreneurs

Fate of Estrogens during the Biological Treatment of Synthetic Wastewater in a Nitrite-Accumulating Sequencing Batch Reactor

The fate of estrone (E1), 17β-estradiol (E2), and 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) was investigated in two nitrite-accumulating sequencing batch reactors operating under strictly aerobic (SBR1) conditions at different sludge ages (SRT, 1.7 to 17.1 d) and anoxic/anaerobic/aerobic (SBR2) conditions with different phases and durations of redox conditions, using a modified GC-MS analytical method for estrogen detection to ng/L concentrations. In SBR1, ≥98% of E2 was removed (specific E2 removal rate ranged from 0.375 (at SRT 17.1 d) to 2.625 (at SRT 1.7 d) μg E2·g MLVSS−1·d−1) regardless of SRT or DO (5.0 mg/L). Removal of E1 and, to a greater extent, EE2 was adversely affected when this reactor was operated at SRT shorter than 5.7 d. However, whereas E1 was removed efficiently as long as SRT was long enough for AOB to bring about nitritation, EE2 removal efficiency was significantly lower when SBR1 was operated at SRT longer than 7.5 d. This reduced removal of EE2 may have been caused by the inhibition and toxicity of nitrite, both to the ammonium monooxygenase (AMO) and to the microbial population generally. In SBR2, less removal of E2 was found at the lower MLVSS concentrations, and E1 was not removed by sludge with poor settling qualities. The removal of EE2 observed in SBR2 was considered to be mainly a result of sorption. However, the binding of estrogens to the sludge in this reactor was apparently not as strong as the binding observed in the sludge of the strictly aerobic SBR1, since desorption was observed during the aeration phase in SBR2

Sustainable water management - an approach

This paper sets out some of the main problems of water management in low & middle income countries and proposes a comprehensive decision support tool based on multi criteria analysis to cope with these problems. Further, this decision support tool will be discussed in the context of developing countries