Mainiemen päihdekuntoutumiskeskuksen palveluiden laadun arviointi : Tutkimus terapeuttisten yhteisöjen palvelustandardien ja Maxwell Jonesin periaatteiden toteutumisesta yhteisöllisessä päihdekuntoutuksessa

Tämän opinnäytetyön tilasi Mainiemen päihdekuntoutumiskeskuksessa toimiva päihdetyön kehittämisyksikkö. Opinnäytetyön tarkoituksena oli lomaketutkimuksen avulla kartoittaa Mainiemen päihdekuntoutumiskeskuksen palveluiden laatua. Laadunmittareina käytettiin terapeuttisten yhteisöjen palvelustandardeja sekä Maxwell Jonesin keskeisiä periaatteita. Laatua ja sen merkitystä sosiaalialalla käsitellään teoriaosuudessa. Lisäksi teoria koostuu yhteisökuntoutuksesta sekä Jonesin terapeuttisesta demokraattisesta yhteisöstä. Tärkeä osa työtä on myös terapeuttisten yhteisöjen palvelustandardit. Tutkimus on kvantitatiivinen. Tutkimusaineisto on kerätty strukturoidun kyselylomakkeen avulla. Lomakekysely toteutettiin maaliskuussa 2009 kaikille Mainiemen päihdekuntoutumiskeskuksen asiakkaille ja työntekijöille. Aineiston analysointiin on käytetty SPSS-ohjelmaa. Analyysissa vertaillaan henkilökunnan ja asiakkaiden vastauksia. Saamiemme tulosten mukaan Mainiemen päihdekuntoutumiskeskus tarjoaa laadukkaita päihdepalveluita terapeuttisten yhteisöjen palvelustandardeilla mitattuna. Myös Mainiemen päihdekuntoutumiskeskuksessa käytössä oleva Maxwell Jonesin kuntoutusideologia toteutuu saamiemme tulosten mukaan hyvin. Erityisen hyvin toteutuu toiminnallisen rakenteen osalta säännölliset yhteisökokoukset ja ilmapiirin osalta turvallinen ympäristö kuntoutua. Sen sijaan asiakkaiden osallisuuden lisääminen päätöksentekoprosesseissa voisi olla joiltain osin kehitettävä osa-alue.This thesis was commissioned by the development unit for substance misuse care at Mainiemi rehabilitation centre. The aim of the thesis was to examine the quality of services provided by Mainiemi Rehabilitation Centre. The assessment was implemented according to the community ideology of Maxwell Jones, and using the Service Standards for Therapeutic Communities. The thesis discusses quality and its significance in the social field. In addition, the theoretical background deals with community rehabilitation, Jones’s democratic therapeutic communities, as well as service standards for therapeutic communities. The research was quantitative. The data were collected in March 2009 by using a structured questionnaire. The target group in this survey consisted of clients and personnel of Mainiemi Rehabilitation Centre. The data were analyzed by using the SPSS-computer programme. The results proved that Mainiemi Rehabilitation Centre provides high quality services measured by the Service Standards for Therapeutic Communities. The rehabilitation centre has also succeeded in applying the community ideology of Maxwell Jones. Especially questions dealing with a safe atmosphere for rehabilitation and regular community meetings gave positive results. The area that needs most improvement is democracy and participation in decision-making, although the results even in this area were mainly positive

Root-Applied Glycinebetaine Decreases Nitrate Accumulation and Improves Quality in Hydroponically Grown Lettuce

Leafy vegetables like lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) naturally have high nitrate content and the European Commission has set maximum level for nitrate in lettuce. Glycinebetaine is an organic osmolyte alleviating plant stress, but its role in leaf nitrate accumulation remains unknown. The uptake of glycinebetaine by lettuce roots, and its potential to regulate lettuce nitrate content and improve plant quality were investigated. Two hydroponic lettuce experiments were conducted with different glycinebetaine application rates (Exp1 : 0, 1, 7.5, and 15 mM; Exp2: 0, 1 + 1 + 1, 1 + 10, and 4 mM). Plants were analyzed at varying time points. Root application resulted in glycinebetaine uptake and translocation to the leaves. Glycinebetaine concentrations > 7.5 mM reduced leaf nitrate up to 40% and increased leaf dry matter content. Glycinebetaine showed a positive effect on leaf mineral and amino acid composition. Thus, glycinebetaine could be a novel strategy to reduce the nitrate content in hydroponic lettuce.Peer reviewe

A mobile diary method for studying children’s and adolescents’ emotions: a pilot study

Researching children’s and adolescents’ emotions from their own perspectives possesses special requirements for the data collection tools used. In this study, children’s and early adolescents’ emotions were investigated using a mobile diary method. The article describes and evaluates this data collection method and presents empirical results on fluctuation in the emotions of children and adolescents (n = 60, aged 7–14 years). The data, in the form of short text messages, were collected over one week. Every evening, children received seven questions on their emotions. Multilevel modeling was used to analyze the data. The results illustrate the potential of the mobile diary method with children and early adolescents. The data showed a two-factor structure, indicating that the mobile diary method was able to reveal the underlying dimensions of positive and negative emotions. The study also showed that daily variation in emotions along with systematic differences between participants in their emotional experiences (related to, e.g., the form of the family) can be captured using the method

Predicting the Properties of Industrially Produced Oat Flours by the Characteristics of Native Oat Grains or Non-Heat-Treated Groats

The aim of this study was to determine whether the properties of the native oat grain or non-heat-treated groats (laboratory-scale dehulling) can be used to predict the quality of the industrially produced oat flour produced from heat-treated groats. Quality properties such as the color, hectoliter weight, thousand seed weight and hull content of Finnish native grains (n = 30) were determined. Furthermore, the relationship between the properties of the native grains and the chemical composition of the raw oat materials before and after the milling process were studied. A significant relationship (p < 0.01) was observed between the thousand seed weight of the native oat groats and the chemical composition of the industrially produced oat flour. Furthermore, the protein content of the native grains measured by NIT correlated with the chemical composition of the oat flours. These results suggest that the properties of oat flour produced on an industrial scale, including heat treatment, could be predicted based on the properties of native oat grains

Predicting the Properties of Industrially Produced Oat Flours by the Characteristics of Native Oat Grains or Non-Heat-Treated Groats

The aim of this study was to determine whether the properties of the native oat grain or non-heat-treated groats (laboratory-scale dehulling) can be used to predict the quality of the industrially produced oat flour produced from heat-treated groats. Quality properties such as the color, hectoliter weight, thousand seed weight and hull content of Finnish native grains (n = 30) were determined. Furthermore, the relationship between the properties of the native grains and the chemical composition of the raw oat materials before and after the milling process were studied. A significant relationship (p < 0.01) was observed between the thousand seed weight of the native oat groats and the chemical composition of the industrially produced oat flour. Furthermore, the protein content of the native grains measured by NIT correlated with the chemical composition of the oat flours. These results suggest that the properties of oat flour produced on an industrial scale, including heat treatment, could be predicted based on the properties of native oat grains

Altered Basal Autophagy Affects Extracellular Vesicle Release in Cells of Lagotto Romagnolo Dogs With a Variant ATG4D

Lagotto Romagnolo breed dogs develop a progressive neurological disease with intracellular vacuolar storage when homozygous for a variant in the autophagy-related gene 4D (ATG4D). A lysosomal enzyme deficiency has not been proven in this disease, despite its overlapping morphology with lysosomal storage diseases. Instead, basal autophagy was altered in fibroblasts from affected dogs. The aim of this study was to clarify the origin of the limiting membrane of the accumulating vacuoles and determine whether altered basal autophagy affects the extracellular release of vesicles in cells from diseased dogs. When assessed by immunoelectron microscopy, the membrane of the cytoplasmic vacuoles in affected tissues contained ATG4D, markers for autolysosomes (microtubule-associated protein 1A/B light chain 3 and lysosome-associated membrane protein 2) and for recycling endosomes (transferrin receptor 2), indicating that the vacuoles are hybrid organelles between endocytic and autophagic pathways. Ultracentrifugation, nanoparticle tracking analysis, and mass spectrometry were used to analyze the vesicles released from cultured fibroblasts of affected and control dogs. The amount of extracellular vesicles (EVs) released from affected fibroblasts was significantly increased during basal conditions in comparison to controls. This difference disappeared during starvation. The basal EV proteome of affected cells was enriched with cytosolic, endoplasmic reticulum, and mitochondrial proteins. Heat shock proteins and chaperones, some of which are known substrates of basal autophagy, were identified among the proteins unique to EVs of affected cells. An increased release of extracellular vesicles may serve as a compensatory mechanism in disposal of intracellular proteins during dysfunctional basal autophagy in this spontaneous disease.Peer reviewe

Education for optimized Life Cycle Management : The Project e-CIRP and its insights into embedding circular economy aspects to product design via teaching

Publisher Copyright: © The Authors, published by EDP Sciences.The integration of circular economy-based life cycle management (LCM) into product design and optimisation is essential for the transformation towards a circular economy (CE). However, companies often lack the expertise to adapt life-cycle design (LCD) thinking in their business operations and are in need of respective capacity building. To close this apparent gap is the aim of the project e-CirP (Embedding Circular Economy into Product Design and Optimization) where LUT University, Fraunhofer, Technical University of Denmark, University of Padova, Delft University of Technology, University of Helsinki and Metso Outotec have worked together to develop a program that allows Master students across Europe to learn how to integrate CE and Life Cycle Thinking principles into product design by analysing real industrial cases. In the project, modern pedagogical approaches have been applied. A modular training package covering general circular economy aspects, as well as detailed value chain perspectives, has been created. Next to the content-related aspects, a great focus was also on the support of so-called soft-skills development, e.g. through international student cooperation on case studies. The paper presents the perspective of participating students as well as the cooperating companies that supplied the industry cases to allow an overview of opportunities and challenges.Peer reviewe

Compartmentalized organ-on-a-chip structure for spatiotemporal control of oxygen microenvironments

Hypoxia is a condition where tissue oxygen levels fall below normal levels. In locally induced hypoxia due to blood vessel blockage, oxygen delivery becomes compromised. The site where blood flow is diminished the most forms a zero-oxygen core, and different oxygenation zones form around this core with varying oxygen concentrations. Naturally, these differing oxygen microenvironments drive cells to respond according to their oxygenation status. To study these cellular processes in laboratory settings, the cellular gas microenvironments should be controlled rapidly and precisely. In this study, we propose an organ-on-a-chip device that provides control over the oxygen environments in three separate compartments as well as the possibility of rapidly changing the corresponding oxygen concentrations. The proposed device includes a microfluidic channel structure with three separate arrays of narrow microchannels that guide gas mixtures with desired oxygen concentrations to diffuse through a thin gas-permeable membrane into cell culture areas. The proposed microfluidic channel structure is characterized using a 2D ratiometric oxygen imaging system, and the measurements confirm that the oxygen concentrations at the cell culture surface can be modulated in a few minutes. The structure is capable of creating hypoxic oxygen tension, and distinct oxygen environments can be generated simultaneously in the three compartments. By combining the microfluidic channel structure with an open-well coculture device, multicellular cultures can be established together with compartmentalized oxygen environment modulation. We demonstrate that the proposed compartmentalized organ-on-a-chip structure is suitable for cell culture.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

A novel CT‑based automated analysis method provides comparable results with MRI in measuring brain atrophy and white matter lesions

Purpose Automated analysis of neuroimaging data is commonly based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but sometimes the availability is limited or a patient might have contradictions to MRI. Therefore, automated analyses of computed tomography (CT) images would be beneficial. Methods We developed an automated method to evaluate medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA), global cortical atrophy (GCA), and the severity of white matter lesions (WMLs) from a CT scan and compared the results to those obtained from MRI in a cohort of 214 subjects gathered from Kuopio and Helsinki University Hospital registers from 2005 - 2016. Results The correlation coefficients of computational measures between CT and MRI were 0.9 (MTA), 0.82 (GCA), and 0.86 (Fazekas). CT-based measures were identical to MRI-based measures in 60% (MTA), 62% (GCA) and 60% (Fazekas) of cases when the measures were rounded to the nearest full grade variable. However, the difference in measures was 1 or less in 97-98% of cases. Similar results were obtained for cortical atrophy ratings, especially in the frontal and temporal lobes, when assessing the brain lobes separately. Bland-Altman plots and weighted kappa values demonstrated high agreement regarding measures based on CT and MRI. Conclusions MTA, GCA, and Fazekas grades can also be assessed reliably from a CT scan with our method. Even though the measures obtained with the different imaging modalities were not identical in a relatively extensive cohort, the differences were minor. This expands the possibility of using this automated analysis method when MRI is inaccessible or contraindicated.Peer reviewe

COOLEST STUDENT PAPERS AT FINLAND FUTURES RESEARCH CENTRE 2021–2022: Tulevaisuuden tutkimuskeskuksen valittuja opiskelijatöitä 2021–2022

Tärkeä osa maisteriopintojen oppimistavoitteita on osoittaa, että opiskelija pystyy itsenäiseen tutkimustyöhön ja tuottamaan tieteellistä tekstiä artikkeleiden ja muiden julkaisutapojen muodossa. Akateeminen kirjoittaminen on oma osaamisalueensa, ja vaikka sosiaalinen media ja tieteen popularisaatio asettavat erilaisia haasteita ja kanavia tutkimustulosten levittämiseen kuin perinteinen akateeminen julkaiseminen, tiedeyhteisössä vallinnee konsensus siitä, että tutkijoiden on osattava tuottaa akateemista tekstiä. Opintojen on tuettava tämän taidon kehittymistä. Tulevaisuuden tutkimuskeskus on julkaissut vuodesta 2016 lähtien koosteita ansiokkaista opiskelijoiden opintojensa aikana kirjoittamista esseistä, harjoitustöistä ja muista kirjallisista opintosuoritteista. Haluamme tarjota opiskelijoille oikean julkaisukanavan ja auttaa heitä saamaan vaikka sen ensimmäisen julkaisutiedon ansioluetteloon. Tämänvuotinen julkaisumme osoittaa, että pelko opiskelijoiden kirjallisten kykyjen huonontumisesta tai taantumisesta on turhaa. Samalla se todistaa myös opettajiemme onnistuneen opiskelijoiden akateemisen kirjoittamisen taitojen harjaannuttamisessa. Julkaisumme koostuu tulevaisuudentutkimuksen kansainvälisen maisteriohjelman, Turun yliopiston kestävän kehityksen opintokokonaisuuden (KEKO) ja Tulevaisuudentutkimuksen Verkostoakatemian (TVA) opiskelijoiden kirjoituksista. Koska opiskelijatyöt on tehty englanniksi maisteriohjelmassa ja suomeksi KEKO- ja TVA-opinnoissa, julkaisemme työt alkuperäisellä kielellä. Sisällöllisesti aiheet vaihtelevat suuresti, mutta niitä yhdistävä tekijä on tulevaisuussuuntautuneisuus. Samalla ne kertovat tulevaisuuksien moninaisuudesta sekä mahdollisista tavoista ja keinosta ymmärtää tulevaisuuksia. Toivotan mukavia lukuhetkiä!---- An important part of the study goals of master’s studies is that students show that they are able to make works of independent research and produce scientific texts in different forms, like articles and other publication formats. Academic writing is a skill of its own and even if social media and popularisation of science have changed the criteria of dissemination of research results compared to traditional academic publication forums, I believe that the scientific community still would agree that researchers must be able to produce scientific text. Studies have to support the development of writing skills. Finland Futures Research Centre has published since 2016 a collection of the most prominent student papers written during their studies. FFRC wants to offer a real publication forum for students and perhaps help them to get their first publication marked on their list of publications. This year’s collection of papers shows that any fear of declining or worsening academic writing skills of students is groundless. At the same time, it shows that our teachers are succeeding in training of these skills. Our publication consists of writings by students from our Masters Degree Programme in Futures Studies, Sustainable Development Studies at the University of Turku and Finland Futures Academy. These study programs are coordinated by FFRC. Because student papers are originally written in Finnish or English, we publish them in their original language. The contents and context of the papers vary a lot, but the common feature is futures orientation. All of them tell a story of multiple futures and of possible ways and means to understand futures. I hope You enjoy reading our book