Climate change and global responsibility - the role of energy consumption, GDP and CO2 emissions

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges faced by this generation. Despite being the single most important environmental challenge facing the planet and despite over two decades of international climate negotiations, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise. By the middle of this century, GHGs must be reduced by as much as 40-70% if dangerous climate change is to be avoided. In the Kyoto Protocol no quantitative emission limitation and reduction commitments were placed on the developing countries. For the planning of the future commitments period and possible participation of developing countries, information of the functioning of the energy systems, CO2 emissions development in different sectors, energy use and technological development in developing countries is essential. In addition to the per capita emissions, the efficiency of the energy system in relation to GHG emissions is crucial for the decision of future long-term burden sharing between countries. Country’s future development of CO2 emissions can be defined by the estimated CO2 intensity of the future and the estimated GDP growth. The changes in CO2 intensity depend on several factors, but generally developed countries’ intensity has been increasing in the industrialization phase and decreasing when their economy shifts more towards the system dominated by the service sector. The level of the CO2 intensity depends by a large extent on the production structure and the energy sources that are used. Currently one of the most urgent issues regarding global climate change is to decide the future of the Kyoto Protocol. Negotiations on this topic have already been initiated, with the aim of being finalised by the 2015. This thesis provides insights into the various approaches that can be used to characterise the concept of comparable efforts for developing countries in a future international climate agreement. The thesis examines the post-Kyoto burden sharing questions for developing countries using the contraction and convergence model, which is one approach that has been proposed to allocate commitments regarding future GHG emissions mitigation. This new approach is a practical tool for the evaluation of the Kyoto climate policy process and global climate change negotiations from the perspective of the developing countries.Siirretty Doriast

Modifiable arousal in ADHD and its etiological association with fluctuating reaction times

BACKGROUND: Cognitive theories of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) propose that high within-subject fluctuations of cognitive performance in ADHD, particularly reaction time (RT) variability (RTV), may reflect arousal dysregulation. Yet, direct evidence of arousal dysregulation and how it may account for fluctuating reaction times in ADHD is limited. We used skin conductance (SC) as a measure of peripheral arousal and aimed to investigate its phenotypic and familial association with RTV in a large sample of ADHD and control sibling pairs. METHODS: 292 adolescents and young adults, consisting of 73 participants with ADHD and their 75 siblings, as well as 72 controls and their 72 siblings, completed the baseline (slow, unrewarded) and fast-incentive conditions of a RT task, whilst SC was simultaneously recorded. RESULTS: A significant group by condition interaction emerged for SC level (SCL). Participants with ADHD had decreased SCL, compared to controls, in the baseline but not fast-incentive condition. Baseline SCL was negatively associated with RTV and multivariate model fitting demonstrated that the covariance of SCL with RTV, and of SCL with ADHD, was mostly explained by shared familial effects. CPNCLUSIONS: ADHD is associated with decreased, but modifiable, tonic peripheral arousal. A shared familial etiology underlies the relationship between arousal and RTV, and between arousal and ADHD. Given the malleability of SCL, if our findings are replicated, it warrants further exploration as a potential treatment target for ADHD

A muslimpupil in the Finnish comprehensive school : A case study about an adaptation of two muslimgirls to the Finnish class

Tutkielma on etnografisella tutkimusotteella toteutettu tapaustutkimus, jossa oli tutkimuskohteena yksi pääkaupunkiseudun peruskoulun neljäs luokka. Tutkimus suoritettiin kevätlukukaudella 1998. Luokalla oli 24 oppilasta, joista kaksi oli somalialaisia muslimityttöjä. Aineistonkeruumenetelmiä olivat osallistuva havainnointi, teemahaastattelut, keskustelut ja luokan oppilaiden kirjoittamat kirjoitelmat. Tutkimustehtävänä oli kuvata ja ymmärtää muslimityttöjen olemassaolon vaikutusta luokan arkipäivään luokan eri osapuolien kannalta. Kiinnostuksen kohteena oli, miten opettaja ja luokan muut oppilaat suhtautuivat muslimityttöihin ja millaisia olivat muslimityttöjen omat kokemukset luokan elämästä ja miten heidän uskontonsa, islam, näkyi koulupäivän aikana. Tutkimustuloksista: Islam näkyi koulupäivän aikana konkreettisimmin muslimityttöjen pukeutumisessa ja ruokailussa. He saivat myös islaminuskon opetusta, harjoittelivat paastoamista paastokuukauden aikana ja heillä oli lupa olla pois koulusta muslimien juhlapyhinä. Luokan muut oppilaat tiesivät, että muslimitytöillä oli eri uskonto kuin heillä, mutta he eivät uskoneet sen vaikuttavan muslimityttöjen koulupäivään kovinkaan paljon. Muslimitytöt olivat solmineet ystävyyssuhteita luokan suomalaisiin tyttöihin ja he viihtyivät hyvin heidän kanssaan. Muslimityttöjä oli kuitenkin kiusattu enemmän kuin luokan muita oppilaita, mutta kiusaaminen oli vähentynyt ajan kuluessa. Muutamilla luokan pojilla oli halveksiva tai vihamielinen suhtautuminen muslimityttöihin. Muslimityttöjen koulunkäyntiin liittyi joitakin vaikeuksia, kuten oppimisvaikeudet muutamissa aineissa ja vaikeudet sopeutua tiettyihin koulun sääntöihin. Luokanopettaja koki yhteistyön muslimityttöjen vanhempien kanssa vaikeaksi. Näistä ongelmista huolimatta muslimitytöillä oli myönteinen suhtautuminen koulunkäyntiin. Tässä tapauksessa muslimitytöt olivat saavuttaneet integraatio-vaiheen Berryn akkulturaatio teorian mukaan. Sopeutuminen peruskoululuokkaan oli onnistunut heiltä hyvin lähinnä luokanopettajan toiminnan johdosta. He puhuivat hyvin suomen kieltä ja olivat asuneet Suomessa jo usean vuoden ajan, mikä myös helpotti sopeutumista.This is a case study, which has been done by ethnographical research. The subject of this research was the fourth class in one comprehensive school in the area of the capital in Finland. The fieldwork was done in the spring term in 1998. There were 24 pupils in the research class and two of them were muslimgirls from Somalia. The methods were participating observation, interviews, discussions and essays, which were written by the pupils. The purpose was to describe and understand the affectness of muslimgirls to the everyday life of this class. I wanted to find out how the teacher and other pupils felt about muslimgirls and what were the experiences of the muslimgirls about their school life and how their religion affected to their schoolday. The main results: Islam affected to the muslimgirls’ clothing and eating. They had islam lessons, they practised about fast and they were allowed to be away from school when they had religious holidays. The other pupils knew that the muslimgirls had the other religion than they had, but they didn’t think that it would affect to muslimgirls’ schoolday. Muslimgirls had Finnish girlfriends in their class and they had a good time together. Earlier the pupils bothered muslimgirls, but not so much anymore. Some boys in the class looked down on muslimgirls or they were hostile towards them. Muslimgirls had some problems at school. They had difficulties with some subjects and they had problems to adapt some habits of the school. The teacher thought that the co-operation with the parents of the muslimgirls was difficult. Despite of these problems the muslimgirls had a positive attitude towards school. In this case the muslimgirls had reached the period of integration according the acculturation theory of Berry. They had adapted well to the class because of their teacher. They also spoke Finnish very well and they had lived in Finland many years, which also helped their adaptation

Fostering work engagement through dedication : case Ramboll

The present case study had two main objectives: the first objective was to determine what the prerequisites of work engagement are among the case company's consultants and the second objective was to determine how the supervisors of these consultants foster work engagement through their actions. The case company was Ramboll Finland Ltd. which is a part of an international corporation called Ramboll Group. The company offers engineering, design, and consultancy services relating to buildings, transport, environment, energy, oil, gas, and management consulting. Work engagement can be defined as a positive and fulfilling work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption. In this study, dedication was presumed to be the prerequisite of vigor and absorption and thus the main component of work engagement. A dedicated employee is strongly involved in his or her work and experiences a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge. The research data were collected through semi-structured interviews with five consultants and five supervisors working in the case company's office in Tampere. The case company's job satisfaction inquiry from the year 2012 was also utilized as an additional source of information. The research data were analyzed via content analysis and approached from a fact point of view. The findings of the study indicate that the case company's consultants are dedicated and thus engaged in their work. The dedication enhancing themes among the consultants are appreciation, supervisor's work support, social relationships and cooperation, supervisor's genuine interest and caring, innovative activities and thoughts, success, trust, content and quantity of tasks, consultant's personal characteristics, supervisor's own example, significance of tasks, challenging work, and employer. Altogether the findings are in line with previous work engagement studies and hence supported by them. In order to utilize the findings of this study, the case company should next disseminate them to all of its supervisors in Finland so that they are able to incorporate them into their actions. Although challenges and resources seem to be in good balance at the company, it is important that the supervisors try to identify those challenges that are disabling rather than enabling and buffer their subordinates from these job demands. Additionally, the supervisors should take care that no one ends up being "over-engaged" or "over-dedicated" because it may lead to an imbalance between professional and private life and thus cause detrimental consequences to the individual and company. Taking the different needs and personalities of the consultants into account along with the limited resources supervisors have at their command, this study finds that fostering work engagement through dedication is an ongoing process which requires constant balancing from the case company's supervisors

What would Karl Popper say? Are current psychological theories of ADHD falsifiable?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common and highly heritable neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorder. Here, we critically review four major psychological theories of ADHD – the Executive Dysfunction, the State Regulation, the Delay Aversion and the Dynamic Developmental – on their abilities to explain all the symptoms of ADHD, their testability and their openness to falsification. We conclude that theoreticians should focus, to a greater extent than currently practiced, on developing refutable theories of ADHD

Actigraph data are, reliable, with functional reliability increasing with aggregation

Motion sensor devices such as actigraphs are increasingly used in studies that seek to obtain an objective assessment of activity level. They have many advantages, and are useful additions to research in fields such as sleep assessment, drug efficacy, behavior genetics, and obesity. However, questions still remain over the reliability of data collected using actigraphic assessment. We aimed to apply generalizability theory to actigraph data collected on a large, general-population sample in middle childhood, during 8 cognitive tasks across two body loci, and to examine reliability coefficients on actigraph data aggregated across different numbers of tasks and different numbers of attachment loci. Our analyses show that aggregation greatly increases actigraph data reliability, with reliability coefficients on data collected at one body locus during 1 task (.29) being much lower than that aggregated across data collected on two body loci and during 8 tasks (.66). Further increases in reliability coefficients by aggregating across four loci and 12 tasks were estimated to be modest in prospective analyses, indicating an optimum trade-off between data collection and reliability estimates. We also examined possible instrumental effects on actigraph data and found these to be nonsignificant, further supporting the reliability and validity of actigraph data as a method of activity level assessment

Kokemuksia toiseudesta : psykiatrisen päiväsairaalan potilaat kertovat

Tämän tutkimuksen aihe on mielenterveyskuntoutujien kokemukset toiseudesta. Toiseudella tarkoitetaan tässä tutkimuksessa yksilön tai ryhmän kokemusta eriarvoisesta asemasta, joka syntyy ihmisten kategorisoinnista tiettyyn ryhmään jonkin ominaisuuden perusteella. Tutkielman tehtävänä on analysoida sitä, mitkä tekijät ovat vaikuttaneet mielenterveyskuntoutujien toiseuden kokemuksiin ja niiden vaikutuksista päivittäiseen elämään. Tutkmuskysymykset ovat: 1. Millä tavoin toiseus ilmenee ja mielenterveyskuntoutujien elämässä? 2. Miten toiseuden kokemukset vaikuttavat mielenterveyskuntoutujien kuntoutumiseen? 3. Mitkä tekijät purkavat toiseuden kokemuksia? Tutkimusaineisto koostuu kahdeksasta teemahaastattelusta. Haastattelut toteutettiin psykiatriseen avohoitoon kuuluvassa päiväsairaalassa. Tutkimuksen lähestymistapana on laadullinen tutkimus ja tutkimusfilosofiana toimii fenomenologinen lähestymistapa. Tutkimushaastatteluista litteroidut aineistot analysoitiin aineistolähtöisellä sisällönanalyysillä. Analyysissa aineistosta luotiin teemoja, jotka kuvasivat haastateltavien kokemuksia ja heidän kokemuksille antamia merkityksiä omassa elämässään. Tutkimuksen tuloksena voidaan todeta, että toiseus ilmenee mielenterveyskuntoutujien elämässä erityisesti siten, että henkilö kokee itsensä erilaiseksi tai eriarvoiseksi kuin muut ja se vaikuttaa muiden kanssa tapahtuvaan vuorovaikutukseen. Toiseuden tunnetta näyttää tulosten perusteella aiheuttavan toimintakyvyn rajoituksista seurannut sosiaalisten suhteiden vähyys ja työkyvyttömyyden aiheuttama työelämän ulkopuolisuus. Toiseutta voi syntyä myös muiden ihmisten määrittelemänä esimerkiksi terveys- ja kuntoutuspalveluista uloslyömisenä ja poiskäännyttämisenä, jota monet haastateltavista toivat esiin. Vuorovaikutuksessa muiden ihmisten kanssa toiseus ilmenee leimaamisen kokemuksina.Tutkimuksen perusteella vertaistuen mahdollistaminen mielenterveyskuntoutujille luo yhteenkuuluvuuden tunnetta ja luottamusta, jotka purkavat toiseutta ja toiseuden tunnetta.Lisäksi hyvät hoitokokemukset ja muiden ihmisten positiivinen suhtautuminen vähentävät mielenterveyskuntoutujien toiseuden kokemuksia. Tutkimuksen perusteella mielenterveyspalveluissa tulisi kiinnittää erityistä huomiota palveluiden saatavuuteen ja psykososiaalisten hoitomuotojen tarjontaan. Vertaistuen mahdollistavaa hoitoa- ja kuntoutusta tulisi kehittää niin, että vertaistukea olisi kaikkien mielenterveyskuntoutujien saatavilla. Lisäksi tietoa mielenterveysongelmista ja niiden hoidosta tulee edelleen lisätä, jotta negatiiviset asenteet ja ennakkoluulot mielenterveyskuntoutujia kohtaan vähenevät

Hyperactive-Impulsive Symptom Scores and Oppositional Behaviours Reflect Alternate Manifestations of a Single Liability

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and oppositional behaviours frequently co-occur, We aimed to study the etiology of this overlap in a general population–based twin sample, assessing the symptom domains of hyperactivity-impulsivity and inattentiveness separately for their overlap with oppositionality. We further aimed to investigate whether rater bias may contribute to the overlap in previous data which used one rater only. Using parent and teacher ratings on hyperactivity-impulsivity, inattentiveness and oppositionality, and actigraph measurements of activity level, for 668 7-9-year-old twin pairs, oppositionality showed a higher overlap with hyperactivity-impulsivity (r=.95) than with inattentiveness (r=.52) and all etiological influences on hyperactivity-impulsivity were shared with those on oppositionality, indicated by a genetic correlation of .95 and a child-specific environmental correlation of .94. Actigraph data did not show an overlap with ratings of oppositionality. In middle childhood, symptoms of hyperactivity-impulsivity and oppositional behaviour may represent the same underlying liability, whereas the inattentive domain is more distinct

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Recruiting an employee is a significant investment in an organization. The recruitment process consumes valuable resources such as time and money from the organization's key members. Due to this, the recruitment process outsourcing has been one of the most grown consulting services globally. However, over 80 percent of employees with recruitment responsibilities have faced problems during the recruitment process. Even recruitment consultants are not immune to challenges in the recruitment process. In the worst case, the problems lead to a hiring mistake, meaning an unsuitable applicant is hired for a job, the open position is not filled, or the employment agreement is terminated during the probationary period by the employer or the employee. The object of the study is to fill the research gap that exists. There is no detailed academic research regarding hiring mistakes and the critical stages of the recruitment process. The importance of correct staffing, the fact that the recruitment process is vulnerable to mistakes, and the increasing amount of recruitment process outsourcing is why these themes need to be studied, especially from the recruitment consultants' point of view. This study aims to help organizations, especially recruitment agencies, achieve successful recruitment by raising awareness of hiring mistakes. The research problem is to find the critical stages of the recruitment process by answering the research question about mistakes in the recruitment process that lead to hiring mistakes. The study is a qualitative interview study, and eight employees of a mid-size Finnish recruitment agency were interviewed. With thematic analysis, the data from interviews were formed into five themes that constructed the study's main findings. Based on the excessive literature review, the theoretical framework of mistakes in the recruitment process was made, and the findings of the study were compared to the framework. According to the findings of this study, the most critical stages of the recruitment process are the specifying and the orientation period of a new employee. Unsuccessful specifying leads to an unclear profile, creating problems later in the recruitment process. Similarly, a poor orientation period might cause a newly hired employee to leave the job during the probationary period. It should be noted that recruitment consultants state that clients are the most significant variable of the process and the reason for most hiring mistakes. Failing to manage applicants' or clients' expectations, making assumptions and generalizations in assessment, and being unable to figure out applicants' true motivation are the most crucial reasons for hiring mistakes that recruitment consultants mak

High Heritability for a Composite Index of Children’s Activity Level Measures

Despite the high heritability of children's activity level, which forms part of the core symptom domain of hyperactivity-impulsivity within attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), there has only been a limited success with identifying candidate genes involved in its etiology. This may reflect a lack of understanding about the different measures used to define activity level across studies. We aimed to study the genetic and environmental etiology across three measures of activity level: parent and teacher ratings of hyperactivity-impulsivity and actigraph measurements, within a population-based sample of 463 7-9 year old twin pairs. We further examined ways in which the three measures could be combined for future molecular studies. Phenotypic correlations across measures were modest, but a common underlying phenotypic factor was highly heritable (92%); as was a simple aggregation of all three measurements (77%). This suggests that distilling what is common to all three measures may be a good method for generating a quantitative trait suitable for molecular studies of activity level in children. The high heritabilities found are encouraging in this respect