Maaseutuverkoston arviointi 2017

Maaseutuverkosto on osa Manner-Suomen ja Ahvenanmaan maaseudun kehittämisohjelmien 2014–2020 toteutusta. Tässä arviointiraportissa käydään läpi, miten maaseutuverkosto ja sen toimintaa koordinoiva verkostopalvelut-yksikkö on onnistunut saavuttamaan toiminnalle asetetut tavoitteet vuosina 2015 ja 2016. Raportissa esitetään myös arviointihavaintoihin perustuvia kehittämisehdotuksia. Maaseutuverkoston arviointi on toteutettu aikavälillä kesällä 2017 ja toetutuksesta on vastannut Ramboll Management Consulting Oy. Arviointi on tehty asiakirja-aineiston, tunnettavuutta koskevien erillisselvitysten, asiantuntijahaastattelujen ja sähköisen kyselyn avulla. Kyselyyn vastasivat erityisesti maaseutuverkostoa hyvin tuntevat henkilöt, joiden työhön toiminnan voi ajatella suoraan vaikuttavan. Maaseutuverkoston tarkoitus on tukea maaseudun kehittämisohjelman toimeenpanoa ja sen tuloksista tiedottamista. Verkosto kokoaa yhteen kehittämisohjelman hallinnosta ja toteutuksesta vastaavia henkilöitä, esimerkiksi ELY-keskusten ja Leader-ryhmien edustajia, ja tarjoaa mahdollisuuden heidän osaamisensa ja yhteistyön kehittämiseen. Verkoston puitteissa järjestettävien tilaisuuksien ja kehittämisohjelmaa käsittelevän viestinnän toivotaan aktivoivan monipuolisesti maaseudun elinvoimaisuuden kannalta keskeisiä toimijoita ja parantavan suuren yleisön mielikuvaa maaseudusta. Maaseutuverkosto edistää maaseudun kehittämisohjelman vaikuttavuutta. Verkostopalvelut -yksikön toimintaa on ohjannut tavoite sidosryhmien osallistumisen lisäämisestä maaseudun kehittämisessä. Laajemman ja monipuolisemman toimijajoukon uskotaan levittävän kehittämisohjelman hyötyjä tehokkaammin. Verkostopalvelut-yksikkö on arvioinnin perusteella onnistunut kehittämään toimintatapoja, jotka ovat tuoneet uusia toimijoita osaksi aktiivisempaa verkostotyöt

Experimenting with Model Solutions as a Support Mechanism

We describe an experiment from an introductory programming course where we provided students an opportunity to access model solutions of programming assignments they have not yet completed. Access to model solutions was controlled with coins, which students collected by completing programming assignments. The quantity of coins was limited so that students could buy solutions to at most one tenth of the course assignments. When compared to the traditional approach where access to model solutions is limited to only after the assignment is completed or the assignment deadline has passed, students seemed to enjoy the opportunity more and collecting coins motivated some students to complete more assignments. Collected coins were mostly used close to deadlines and on more difficult assignments. Overall, the use of coins and model solutions may be a viable option to providing students additional support. Data from the use of coins and model solutions could also be used to identify students who could benefit from additional guidance.Peer reviewe

Cognitive ability and risk for substance misuse in men : genetic and environmental correlations in a longitudinal nation-wide family study.

Aims. To investigate the association between cognitive ability in late adolescence and subsequent substance misuse-related events in men, and to study the underlying genetic and environmental correlations. Design. A population-based longitudinal study with three different family-based designs. Cox proportional hazards models were conducted to investigate the association at the individual level. Bivariate quantitative genetic modeling in (1) full brothers and maternal half-brothers, (2) full brothers reared together and apart, and (3) monozygotic and dizygotic twin brothers was used to estimate genetic and environmental correlations. Setting. Register-based study in Sweden. Participants. The full sample included 1,402,333 Swedish men born 1958-1991 and conscripted at mean age 18.2 (SD=0.5) years. 1,361,066 men who had no substance misuse events before cognitive assessment at mandatory military conscription were included in the Cox regression models with a follow-up time of up to 35.6 years. Measures. Cognitive ability was assessed at conscription with the Swedish Enlistment Battery. Substance misuse events included alcohol and drug related court convictions, medical treatments, and deaths, available from governmental registries Findings. Lower cognitive ability in late adolescence predicted an increased risk for substance misuse events (hazard ratio [HR] for a 1-stanine unit decrease in cognitive ability: 1.29, 95% CI: 1.29-1.30). The association was somewhat attenuated within clusters of full brothers (HR=1.21, 95% CI: 1.20-1.23). Quantitative genetic analyses indicated that the association was primarily due to genetic influences; the genetic correlations ranged between -.39 (95% CI: -.45, -.34) and -.52 (-.55, -.48) in the three different designs. Conclusions. Our findings from different family designs indicate that shared genetic influences underlie the association between low cognitive ability and subsequent risk for substance misuse events.The Academy of FinlandThe Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare.The Swedish Research CouncilThe Swedish Research Council through the Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social And Medical Sciences (SIMSAM)Manuscrip

Reduced Cost Fixing for Maximum Satisfiability

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Classification of DNA nucleotides with transverse tunneling currents

It has been theoretically suggested and experimentally demonstrated that fast and low-cost sequencing of DNA, RNA, and peptide molecules might be achieved by passing such molecules between electrodes embedded in a nanochannel. The experimental realization of this scheme faces major challenges, however. In realistic liquid environments, typical currents in tunnelling devices are of the order of picoamps. This corresponds to only six electrons per microsecond, and this number affects the integration time required to do current measurements in real experiments. This limits the speed of sequencing, though current fluctuations due to Brownian motion of the molecule average out during the required integration time. Moreover, data acquisition equipment introduces noise, and electronic filters create correlations in time-series data. We discuss how these effects must be included in the analysis of, e.g., the assignment of specific nucleobases to current signals. As the signals from different molecules overlap, unambiguous classification is impossible with a single measurement. We argue that the assignment of molecules to a signal is a standard pattern classification problem and calculation of the error rates is straightforward. The ideas presented here can be extended to other sequencing approaches of current interest

Do psychopathic personality traits in childhood predict subsequent criminality and psychiatric outcomes over and above childhood behavioral problems?

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Longitudinal Validity and Minimal Important Change for the Modified Lower Extremity Functional Scale (LEFS) in Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Patients

The lower extremity functional scale (LEFS) is a patient-reported outcome measure for lower extremity disorders. Aim of this study was to assess the longitudinal validity including responsiveness and test-retest reliability of the revised 15-item version, and to define the minimal important change (MIC) of the modified LEFS in a generic sample of orthopedic foot and ankle patients who underwent surgery. Responsiveness, effect size, and standardized response mean were measured by determining the score change between the baseline and 6 months administration of the LEFS from 156 patients. There was no significant difference between preoperative (median 78, interquartile range [IQR] 64.2-90.3) and postoperative (median 75.0, IQR 61.7-95.0) scores. Both effect size and standardized response mean were low (0.06 and 0.06, respectively). Test-retest reliability of the LEFS was satisfactory. Intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.85 (95% confidence interval 0.81-0.88). MIC value could not be estimated due to the lack of significant score change. The modified LEFS presented with relatively low longitudinal validity in a cohort of generic orthopedic foot and ankle patients. The findings of this study indicate that the modified LEFS might not be the optimal instrument in assessing the clinical change over time for these patients. (c) 2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Peer reviewe