Pornaisten liikenneturvallisuussuunnitelma

Pornaisten liikenneturvallisuussuunnitelma on laadittu Pornaisten kunnan, Uudenmaan ELY-keskuksen, Liikenneturvan ja poliisin yhteistyönä. Suunnitelma sisältää katsauksen Pornaisten liikenneturvallisuustilanteeseen, Pornaisiin määritellyt liikenneturvallisuustavoitteet, liikenneturvallisuustyön organisoinnin kunnassa sekä poikkihallinnollisen kehittämissuunnitelman liikenneturvallisuustilanteen parantamiseksi. Liikenneturvallisuustyön päätavoite on onnettomuuksien määrän vähentäminen ja että kenenkään ei tarvitse kuolla tai loukkaantua vakavasti liikenteessä. Lisäksi on esitetty liikenneturvallisuustyön eri muotoja tarkentavia tavoitteita, kuten elinympäristön parantaminen ja osaamisen kehittäminen. Työn yksi merkittävimpiä tavoitteita ja saavutuksia oli liikenneturvallisuustyöryhmän perustaminen kuntaan. Kunnan eri toimialojen edustajista koostuva ryhmä koordinoi ja ideoi liikenneturvallisuutta parantavia toimia sekä edistää ja seuraa tämän suunnitelman sisällön toteutumista. Kunnan edustajien lisäksi myös Liikenneturva ja Poliisi osallistuvat ryhmän työskentelyyn. Työryhmän toiminta kattaa kaikki merkittävät ikä- ja liikkujaryhmät (lapset, nuoret, iäkkäät, vammaiset, jne.), liikenteen ja maankäytön suunnittelun sekä hyvinvoinnin ja terveyden edistämisen näkökulmat. Tärkeää on myös kunnan johdon ja luottamuselinten tiedottaminen liikenneturvallisuustilanteesta ja sitouttaminen liikenneturvallisuustavoitteisiin. Työn aikana laadittiin työryhmälle alustava toimintasuunnitelma ensivaiheen toimenpiteistä. Pornaisten kunnan alueella tapahtui tarkasteluvuosina 2006–2010 yhteensä 94 poliisin tilastoimaa liikenneonnettomuutta (keskimäärin 19 vuodessa), mikä on neljänneksi vähiten Uudenmaan kunnista. Henkilövahinkoon johtaneita onnettomuuksia tapahtui 38 (40 % kaikista onnettomuuksista). Pornaisissa ei ole merkittäviä onnettomuuskasaumapisteitä. Tarkasteluvuosina ei tapahtunut kuolemaan johtaneita onnettomuuksia (vuonna 2011 yksi). Suurin riskiryhmä Pornaisissa on 18–20-vuotiaat, joille on tapahtunut asukaslukuun suhteutettuna eniten onnettomuuksia. Vaikka onnettomuusmäärät ovat pieniä, on kevyen liikenteen onnettomuuksia ja etenkin vakavia mopo-onnettomuuksia tapahtunut paljon. Onnettomuuksista aiheutui laskennallisesti noin 3,6 miljoonan euron kustannukset vuositasolla (kunnan osuus noin 0,6 miljoonaa euroa). Asukkaille suunnatun kyselyn perusteella kuntalaiset pitävät Pornaisten liikenneturvallisuustilannetta kohtuullisena. Turvattomimmiksi liikkujaryhmiksi mainittiin alle kouluikäiset, alakoululaiset ja liikkumisrajoitteiset. Turvattomimpia kulkutapoja olivat vastaajien mielestä pyöräily, kävely ja mopoilu, mikä näkyi myös lukuisia kevyen liikenteen väylätoiveina. Suurimmat kehittämistarpeet suuntautuvat jalankulku- ja pyöräily- yhteyksien, liikennekäyttäytymisen, teiden ja katujen kunnossapidon sekä joukkoliikenteen toimintaedellytysten parantamiseen. Yksittäisiksi merkittävimmiksi parantamiskohteiksi mainittiin Parkkojan koulun kohdan sekä Pornaisten ja Järvenpään välisen kevyen liikenteen väylän puute, koulukeskuksen kohdan joukkoliikenne- ja liittymäjärjestelyt sekä Kirkkotien pääliittymät keskustassa. Myös alakoulujen oppilaille toteutettiin avoin internetkysely liikenneturvallisuustilanteeseen liittyen. Kouluissa annettavaa liikennekasvatusta oppilaat pitävät riittävänä, samoin vanhempien kanssa on turvallisesta liikkumisesta puhuttu. Koulutien turvallisuutta olisi hyvä käsitellä muulloinkin kuin kouluvuoden käynnistyessä. Pyöräilykypärän käytön väheneminen iän myötä on suurimpia haasteita lasten ja nuorten liikenneturvallisuustyössä, ja siinä tarvitaan myös aikuisten esimerkkiä

Quest for identity : defining the "self" in two novels by Annie Proulx

The idea of the “self’ as an autonomous whole is no longer sufficient in contemporary discussions of identity. Individuals are “subjects,” defining themselves against and through other subjects and their environments. A definitive self is impossible to achieve—the process is ongoing, fluid, and relational, without a final destination. The focus of this thesis is an examination of the quest for identity in two novels by Annie Proulx— The Shipping News and Accordion Crimes. To facilitate this discussion of the quest for identity, I employ the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin, and of the dialogic critics that he has influenced. The notion of “dialogue,” in its broadest sense, reveals that the quest for identity is not a solitary quest. Each questor is a product o f his or her surroundings, and these surroundings shape the quest. The quest for identity is a dialogue with place, including both the environment and the people within it. The situatedness o f the quest for identity is also compounded by time. Bakhtin’s notion of the “chronotope” (“time-place”) further extends the interconnectedness of the quests for identity. Characters are dialogically related to each other through time, as past, present, and future quests intersect. All o f these aspects illustrate the inconclusivity of the quest for identity. Chapter 1, “Introducing the Quest,” outlines the critical framework that I use throughout my thesis. I explore Bakhtin’s notions of “polyphony,” “dialogue,” “carnivalesque,” and “chronotope,” and explain their relevance both to Proulx’s novels and to the quest for identity. Chapter 2, “Untying the Knots: The Shipping News,” applies this framework to The Shipping News. I focus primarily on Quoyle’s quest for identity, though the quests of the other characters in the novel are important in the dialogic model I employ. To structure this chapter, the “knots of narrative”—structure, place, and relationships—are shown to be central to defining the quest for identity. Chapter 3, “Listen to the Music: Accordion Crimes,” discusses Proulx’s depiction of the immigrant experience in America. This novel is different from The Shipping News in that the protagonist is not a human questor but a green button accordion. As the accordion moves through its various owners, many perspectives of the quest for identity are presented. I use the metaphor of the “unfinished symphony” to examine this novel, emphasizing the polyphony of the text, as well as the unfinalizability of the subject. Chapter 4, “Colouring the Quest,” brings these two novels together and summarizes their similarities and differences by comparing the major symbols of each novel—the green house in The Shipping News and the green button accordion in Accordion Crimes

The effects of unemployment among single mothers on adolescent children’s mental health

The effects of parental unemployment on the health and well-being of children have been receiving increased attention in recent years. However, the previous research on this topic focused on children living in two-parent families. This paper studies the effects of maternal unemployment in single- mother families – a particularly vulnerable family setting for coping with the effects of unemployment – on the mental health of adolescent children. We use data from a large, register-based panel of Finnish adolescents aged 15-21 years in 1995-2018 (n=150,073) that includes information on maternal unemployment and adolescent psychotropic medication purchases in six-month periods. We employ panel data models with individual fixed effects to explore how maternal unemployment was associated with adolescents’ psychotropic medication use, net of measured time-varying confounders and all stable unobserved confounders. We estimate separate models for adolescent boys and girls, and also examine whether the effects were mediated through maternal income, or were compensated for by the absent father’s income or the mother’s re-partnering. Our findings show that exposure to maternal unemployment was associated with a moderate increase in psychotropic medication use among boys and girls, although the effect was statistically significant only for boys. This effect was not mediated by the mother’s income, and it did not differ depending on the biological father’s income or the mother’s re-partnering. Our results suggest that boys are more vulnerable to the stressful event of maternal unemployment than girls, and do not support the assumption that the financial consequences and income losses associated with unemployment mediate these effects. Further research is needed to investigate the vulnerability of adolescent boys, and the factors that contribute to the potentially greater resilience of adolescent girls to the effects of maternal unemployment

Maternal age and risk of low birth weight and premature birth in children conceived through medically assisted reproduction : Evidence from Finnish population registers

STUDY QUESTION Does the risk of low birth weight and premature birth increase with age among mothers who conceive through medically assisted reproduction (MAR)? SUMMARY ANSWER Among MAR mothers, the risk of poorer birth outcomes does not increase with maternal age at birth except at very advanced maternal ages (40+). WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY The use of MAR treatments has been increasing over the last few decades and is especially diffused among women who conceive at older ages. Although advanced maternal age is a well-known risk factor for adverse birth outcomes in natural pregnancies, only a few studies have directly analysed the maternal age gradient in birth outcomes for MAR mothers. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION The base dataset was a 20% random sample of households with at least one child aged 0-14 at the end of 2000, drawn from the Finnish population register and other administrative registers. This study included children who were born in 1995-2000, because the information on whether a child was conceived through MAR or naturally was available only from 1995 onwards. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS The outcome measures were whether the child had low birth weight (LBW, MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE A total of 56026 children, 2624 of whom were conceived through MAR treatments, were included in the study. Among the mothers who used MAR to conceive, maternal age was not associated with an increased risk of LBW (the overall prevalence was 12.6%) at ages 25-39. For example, compared to the risk of LBW at ages 30-34, the risk was 0.22 percentage points lower (95% CI: -3.2, 2.8) at ages 25-29 and was 1.34 percentage points lower (95% CI: -4.5, 1.0) at ages 35-39. The risk of LBW was increased only at maternal ages >= 40 (six percentage points, 95% CI: 0.2, 12). Adjustment for maternal characteristics only marginally attenuated these associations. In contrast, among the mothers who conceived naturally, the results showed a clear age gradient. For example, compared to the risk of LBW (the overall prevalence was 3.3%) at maternal ages 30-34, the risk was 1.1 percentage points higher (95% CI: 0.6, 1.6) at ages 35-39 and was 1.5 percentage points higher (95% CI: 0.5, 2.6) at ages >= 40. The results were similar for preterm births. LIMITATIONS, REASON FOR CAUTION A limited number of confounders were included in the study because of the administrative nature of the data used. Our ability to reliably distinguish mothers based on MAR treatment type was also limited. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS This is the first study to analyse the maternal age gradient in the risk of adverse birth outcomes among children conceived through MAR using data from a nationally representative sample and controlling for important maternal health and socio-economic characteristics. This topic is of considerable importance in light of the widespread and increasing use of MAR treatments.Peer reviewe

Comparison of EQ-5D and 15D instruments for assessing the health-related quality of life in cardiac surgery patients

Peer reviewe

Gender- and age-stratified analyses of ADHD medication use in children and adolescents in Finland using population-based longitudinal data, 2008-2018

Aims: This study examined medication use for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among children and adolescents by gender in Finland during 2008-2018. Methods: Aggregated data on medication use for ADHD from 2008 to 2018 were extracted from the nationwide register on reimbursed prescriptions. The annual prevalence of ADHD medication use was calculated as the number of children (6-12 years) and adolescents (13-17 years) per calendar year with at least one ADHD medication purchase divided by the number of children and adolescents in the population. Population prevalence for children was also examined by birth month. Results: In 2008, the prevalence rates for males were 1.26% in children and 0.93% in adolescents, and for females 0.21% and 0.14%, respectively. In 2018, the prevalence rates for males were 4.42% in children and 4.21% in adolescents, and for females 0.99% and 1.28%, respectively. Male-to-female ratios decreased during the study period from 6.0:1 to 4.5:1 (children) and from 6.6:1 to 3.3:1 (adolescents). ADHD medication use was more common among males and females (aged 6-12 years) born in May-August or September-December than among males and females born in January-April. Conclusions: The prevalence of ADHD medication use has continued to increase in Finland. Although use has increased more rapidly among females resulting in lower male-to-female ratios, medication use among females is considerably lower compared with males. Consequently, gender discrepancy in 2018 was relatively large, particularly among children. Future studies should also consider reporting annual prevalence by children's birth month

Children's Relative Age and ADHD Medication Use : A Finnish Population-Based Study

Using population-based register data, we examine the association between children's birth month and ADHD medication use in a single jurisdiction (Finland). OBJECTIVES: The youngest children in a classroom are at increased risk of being medicated for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We examined the association between children's birth month and ADHD medication rates in Finland. METHODS: Using a population-based study, we analyzed ADHD medication use among children born in 2005 to 2007. Cases (n= 7054) were identified from the first purchase of medication for ADHD. Cox proportional hazard models and hazard ratios (HRs) were examined by birth month and sex. Finnish children start first grade in the year of their seventh birthday. The cutoff date is December 31. RESULTS: Risk of ADHD medication use increased throughout the year by birth month (ie, January through April to May through August to September through December). Among boys born in September to December, the association remained stable across cohorts (HR: 1.3; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.1-1.5). Among girls born in September to December, the HR in the 2005 cohort was 1.4 (95% CI: 1.1-1.8), whereas in the 2007 cohort it was 1.7 (95% CI: 1.3-2.2). In a restricted follow-up, which ended at the end of the year of the children's eighth birthday, the HRs for boys and girls born in September to December 2007 were 1.5 (95% CI: 1.3-1.7) and 2.0 (95% CI: 1.5-2.8), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Relative immaturity increases the likelihood of ADHD medication use in Finland. The association was more pronounced during the first school years. Increased awareness of this association is needed among clinicians and teachers.Peer reviewe

Buckling force of the thin-walled cross-sections and shear resistance of their joints: tests and FEM-modelling

This summary report is based on the experimental and numerical research of thin-walled cross-section compression resistance and shear strength of their joints carried out in St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University and HAMK University of Applied Sciences, Sheet Metal Centre. Current situation on the Russian market concerning the usage of cold-formed thin-walled cross-sections is aimed to find out a base foundation to start up application of the elements under discussion in the building industry (Kolesov et al. 2007; Peleshko, Urchenko 2009; Zhmarin 2012). Some questions about the compression resistance of such cross-sections were raised at different conferences (Vatin, Sinelnikov 2013; Winter 1952; Yu Wei-Wen et al. 1996) by scientific community and by companies such as Rautaruukki Oyj (Finland). Steel galvanized C- and U-profiles and thermo-profiles are types of thin-walled cross-sections that are normally used in small house construction (Shatov 2011; Smaznov 2011). Thermo-profiles have slots in webs that decrease the thermal flow through the web, but have a negative effect on strength of the profiles (Schafer, Pekoz 1998). These profiles were object of the research. Investigations carried out included tests to prove the compression resistance of the thin-walled cross-sections and shear strength of stud-to-rack joints. Numerical modelling of thin-walled cross-sections (Cheng, Schafer 2007) was done with contemporary analysis software (SCAD Office, Lira) (Kriksunov et al. 2010; Perel'muter et al. 2009) using the finite element method (FEM) (Bayan et al. 2011; Gordeeva, Vatin 2011; Rasmussen 2009)

Opiskelijatutkimus 2017: Eurostudent VI –tutkimuksen keskeiset tulokset

EUROSTUDENT VI -tutkimus toteutettiin Suomessa internetkyselynä otokseen valikoituneille 24 000 korkeakouluopiskelijalle keväällä 2016. Tutkimus on osa kansainvälistä EUROSTUDENT-hanketta, jota vetää DZHW - German Centre for Higher Education Research and Science Studies, ja jota rahoittaa Euroopan unioni Erasmus + -ohjelmasta. Tutkimushankkeesta vastasi Suomessa opetus- ja kulttuuriministeriön korkeakoulu- ja tiedepolitiikan osasto, tiedonkeruusta ja aineistojen käsittelystä Tilastokeskus. Uusimman EUROSTUDENT-tutkimuksen tuloksia on tarkoitus saada aiempaa paremmin kansalliseen käyttöön osana pääministeri Sipilän hallituksen korkeakoulutuksen kehittämisen kärkihanketta ”Nopeammin työelämään”. EUROSTUDENT VI –aineistosta valmistuu tämän raportin lisäksi kahdeksan artikkelia ammattitutkijoiden voimin. Käsillä oleva raportti kokoaa keskeisimmät EUROSTUDENT VI –tutkimuksen määrälliset tulokset suomalaisen korkeakoulupolitiikan näkökulmast