Public service priorities in transition: catering for minority interests in the public service media environments of the UK and Finland

This thesis examines the impact of neo-liberal marketisation on the provision of two types of minority interest content; children’s and religious programmes, in the terrestrial broadcasting environments of the UK and Finland between 1986 and 2009. Utilising a customised explanatory model devised for this study: the Industrial Equilibrium Model, which combines elements of historical institutionalism and the Structure-Conduct-Performance Paradigm, the thesis provides an empirical record of marketisation-driven changes in broadcasting institutions and their impact on the provision of children’s and religious programmes. In so doing, the study allows us to evaluate the current state of and future outlook for minority interest content in the 21st century marketised multi-platform broadcasting environment. The thesis demonstrates that notwithstanding significant social, political, cultural, economic and demographic differences between the UK and Finland, similar marketisation-driven changes have taken place in the strategies of broadcasting institutions. Increasing competitive pressures produced by liberalisation and reorientation of regulation have forced commercial broadcasters in particular to focus increasingly on majority preferences and populist content in their programming, while catering for minority interests occupies a lesser role in the agendas of these broadcasters. The thesis demonstrates that popular preferences increasingly inform programming strategies and production resource allocation. The rise in the preference to use commercial and economic yardsticks in measuring the performance of broadcasting companies has also resulted in an increasing preference for costeffective and/or commercially lucrative types of programming with mass audience potential. All these changes have influenced the structure of the output of public service broadcasters, which is increasingly shaped by these populist, economic and commercial considerations, while the significance of the historically dominant social and cultural goals has declined to an extent. Through these changes in broadcasters’ institutional conduct, an understanding is gained of the impact of neo-liberal marketisation on the conceptual model of public service broadcasting. The thesis demonstrates that broadcasters and regulators have adopted an increasingly consumerist interpretation of the missions of public service broadcasting, and use viewing preferences of the audience majority to set their public service agenda. This tendency has compromised their ability and willingness to cater for certain disadvantaged minorities. By highlighting potential areas of vulnerability in the emerging model for minority interest provision, the thesis also presents recommendations for securing diversity and plurality in future minority interest provision

Statutory pensions in Finland: Long-term projections 2016

The report presents the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ long-term projections regarding the development of statutory pensions from 2016 to 2085. The main focus of the report is on projections of earnings-related pensions. The report examines the development of pension expenditure and the benefit level, as well as the financing of private sector earnings-related pensions. The main results depict the development of contributions and assets under the Employees Pension Act

Lakisääteiset eläkkeet: pitkän aikavälin laskelmat 2016

Raportissa esitellään Eläketurvakeskuksen pitkän aikavälin laskelmat lakisääteisten eläkkeiden kehityksestä vuosille 2016–2085. Pääpaino on työeläkkeitä koskevissa laskelmissa. Raportissa tarkastellaan eläkemenojen ja etuustason kehitystä sekä työeläkkeiden rahoitusta. Rahoituslaskelman keskeisimpiä tuloksia ovat TyEL-maksun ja -varojen kehitys

Combining range and phenology shifts offers a winning strategy for boreal Lepidoptera

Species can adapt to climate change by adjusting in situ or by dispersing to new areas, and these strategies may complement or enhance each other. Here, we investigate temporal shifts in phenology and spatial shifts in northern range boundaries for 289 Lepidoptera species by using long-term data sampled over two decades. While 40% of the species neither advanced phenology nor moved northward, nearly half (45%) used one of the two strategies. The strongest positive population trends were observed for the minority of species (15%) that both advanced flight phenology and shifted their northern range boundaries northward. We show that, for boreal Lepidoptera, a combination of phenology and range shifts is the most viable strategy under a changing climate. Effectively, this may divide species into winners and losers based on their propensity to capitalize on this combination, with potentially large consequences on future community composition.Peer reviewe

Lakisääteiset eläkkeet: pitkän aikavälin laskelmat 2013

Raportissa esitellään Eläketurvakeskuksen pitkän aikavälin laskelmat lakisääteisten eläkkeiden kehityksestä vuosille 2013–2080. Pääpaino on työeläkkeitä koskevissa laskelmissa. Raportissa tarkastellaan eläkemenojen ja keskimääräisen etuustason kehitystä sekä työeläkkeiden rahoitusta. Rahoituslaskelman keskeisimpiä tuloksia ovat TyEL-maksun ja -varojen kehitys

Statutory pensions in Finland: long-term projections 2013

The report presents the Finnish Centre for Pensions’ long-term projections regarding the development of statutory pensions from 2013 to 2080. The main focus of the report is on projections of earnings-related pensions. The report examines the development of pension expenditure and the average benefit level, as well as the financing of private sector earnings-related pensions. The main results depict the development of contributions and assets under the Employees Pension Act

General Collections Policy of the Finnish Museum of Natural History

As part of its quality management and goal-driven strategic development, the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus drafts policy documents to guide its operational sectors. The purpose of such policies is to define the content and procedures of the Museum’s activities. They answer the questions “what”, “why”, “who” and “for whom” about the activities they discuss, which is to say that they define and delimit the scope of the operational sector, provide the operations with a purpose and determine their content, describe the allocation of responsibilities in the sector under the Luomus organisation and identify the target groups. The policies provide general objectives and thus form the basis for target programmes and any action plans which in turn answer the question “How can we reach the designated goals?”. Policies are not tied to a schedule, unlike target programmes, even though they must be dynamic and updated periodically to better serve the organisation. The core activities at Luomus are: (1) maintenance of the scientific collections, (2) research and (3) expert services. The General Collections Policy sets guidelines for the maintenance of the scientific collections based on the mission of the University of Helsinki and LuomusNon peer reviewe

Living plant collections policy of the Finnish Museum of Natural History

The collections policy of the Finnish Museum of Natural History Luomus is hierarchically structured. The general collections policy defines the overall principles and guidelines. The sub-collections policies, such as the Living collections policy, comply with and apply the general collections policy and specify its guidelines and instructions, taking the special nature of the sub-collections into account. The living plant collections policy guides the care of the collections in the botanic gardens and the seed bank, excluding DNA and tissue samples which are covered by a separate genomic resources policy. The purpose of the collections policy is to help guide the care of the garden collections and the processing of information relating to the collections, thereby providing the basis for developing the botanic gardens.Non peer reviewe

A molecular-based identification resource for the arthropods of Finland

Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors. Molecular Ecology Resources published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.To associate specimens identified by molecular characters to other biological knowledge, we need reference sequences annotated by Linnaean taxonomy. In this study, we (1) report the creation of a comprehensive reference library of DNA barcodes for the arthropods of an entire country (Finland), (2) publish this library, and (3) deliver a new identification tool for insects and spiders, as based on this resource. The reference library contains mtDNA COI barcodes for 11,275 (43%) of 26,437 arthropod species known from Finland, including 10,811 (45%) of 23,956 insect species. To quantify the improvement in identification accuracy enabled by the current reference library, we ran 1000 Finnish insect and spider species through the Barcode of Life Data system (BOLD) identification engine. Of these, 91% were correctly assigned to a unique species when compared to the new reference library alone, 85% were correctly identified when compared to BOLD with the new material included, and 75% with the new material excluded. To capitalize on this resource, we used the new reference material to train a probabilistic taxonomic assignment tool, FinPROTAX, scoring high success. For the full-length barcode region, the accuracy of taxonomic assignments at the level of classes, orders, families, subfamilies, tribes, genera, and species reached 99.9%, 99.9%, 99.8%, 99.7%, 99.4%, 96.8%, and 88.5%, respectively. The FinBOL arthropod reference library and FinPROTAX are available through the Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility (www.laji.fi) at https://laji.fi/en/theme/protax. Overall, the FinBOL investment represents a massive capacity-transfer from the taxonomic community of Finland to all sectors of society.Peer reviewe