A multicomponent approach to using waste-derived biochar in biofiltration : A case study based on dissimilar types of waste

The environmental legislation and strict enforcement of environmental regulations are the tools effectively used for developing the market of materials for environmental protection technologies. Sustain ability criteria shift environmental engineering systems to more sustainable-material-based technologies. For carbon-based medium materials in biofiltration, this trend results in attempts to use biochar for biofiltration purposes. The paper presents the analysis of biochar properties based on the main criteria for biofiltration medium integrating the environmental quality properties of biochar, following the European Biochar Certificate guidelines. Three types of biochar produced from feedstock of highly popular and abundant types of waste are analysed. A multi component approach was applied to summarize the results. The lignocellulosic type of biochar was found to be more competitive for use as a biofiltration medium than the types of biochar with high ash or lignin content. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Katsaus tekoälyyn : tekoäly ja sen sovellutukset

Postgraduate seminar series with a title artificial intelligence and logic held at the Department of Military Technology of the National Defence University in 2020 and 2021. This book is a collection of some of talks that were presented in the seminar. The papers address ethics in autonomous military technology, algorithmic thinking, application of fuzzy logic in the Armed Forces, logic and skill, use of artificial intelligence technologies in information and psychological warfare, cyber security risks of artificial intelligence applications and algorithms, information acquisition strategies and artificial intelligence to support learning. This set of papers tries to give some insight to current issues of the artificial intelligence and logic. Seminars at the Department of Military Technology have a tradition to make publication based on the presentations, but only as an internal publication of the Finnish Defence Forces and in such a way has not hindered publication of the papers e.g. in international conferences. Publication of these papers in peer reviewed conferences has indeed been always the goal of the seminar, since it teaches writing conference level papers. We still hope that an internal publication in the department series is useful to the Finnish Defence Forces by offering an easy access to these papers

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

Availability and critical systems of the Future Circular Electron–Positron Collider

The Future Circular Electron–Positron Collider (FCC-ee) is planned to be the world’s largest particle collider and a precision instrument to study the heaviest known particles. Achieving substantial physics results requires producing high amounts of integrated luminosity, which calls for sufficient machine availability. Although the operational availability of lepton colliders has been high, the increased complexity of the new infrastructure creates a challenge to maintain this. At the early stage of research, the main activity of an availability study should be to identify the causes that potentially have the most significant effect on downtime. This paper identifies critical systems of the FCC-ee based on available failure data. The paper further presents an operation model for the FCC-ee that can be used for assessing the effect of unavailability on overall performance. Special attention is given to systems with built-in redundancies as this design concept has been proven to increase accelerator availability

Wood-harvesting enterprise financing and investment

Large Finnish forest industry companies want to increase the size of their harvest-ing service enterprises after the extremely low industry production volumes in 2009. This has required harvesting enterprises to grow. However, profits in this small and medium size enterprise business have been low, especially since the 2009 downturn. Thus there has been only limited potential to grow organically. Other possibilities are to organise cooperation in the main - subcontractor base or to network to establish a limited company owned by independent entrepreneurs to make agreements with customers. The harvesting enterprises and their growth opportunities were analysed by statis-tical methods using the tax authority data of about 1000 enterprises for the 2001–2008 closing of the books. The usability of all applicable ratios was tested, and results were produced in the form of tables and figures. The closing of the books data from 2008 was analysed, revealing interesting relations and eight independ-ent factors which describe success and failure factors. Recommended ratios were defined for the analysis of the whole wood-harvesting sector and for researching individual enterprises.Redovisning och finansierin

Kirjat

Kari Tarkiainen, Finnarnas historia i Sverige 1 Tony Griffiths, Scandinavia Peter A. Fischer & Thomas Straubhaar, Integration und Migration in Nordeuropa: Frelzügigkeit im Gemeinsamen Nordischen Arbeitsmarkt

Profitability of wood harvesting enterprises

The forest machine business is about 50 years old. The rapid technical development of machinery increased productivity up to the end of last century. In 2007, the total value of round and energy wood harvesting and silvicultural work operated by forest machine enterprises exceeded 570 mill. . According to the materials of the Vehicle Administration Finland and Statistics Finland there are about 1 600 active harvesting enterprises in the personal and business taxation system. Beside this, there are according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry about 1 300 farmers who do harvesting as side business. About 1 000 enterprises working in June 2007 were studied with their retrospective economic analyses from 2001. The data includes all enterprises that had supplied closing of the accounts data. One-machine entrepreneurs represent more than a third of the number of enterprises, but only 13 percent of the turnover. Enterprises with seven or more machines represent less than ten percent of the number, but over twenty percent of the turnover. Enterprises are largest in eastern and northern Finland, where the average number of machines per enterprise exceeds three. Small enterprises are mostly singleowner business enterprises with a median turnover of 125 000 euros per annum. Partnerships and limited enterprises have double the median turnover of single-owner businesss. Limited companies turn over a median of 450 000 /y, representing 67 percent of total turnover.Median net profit varied between 6 and 10 percent of turnover in 2001 2007, but only between 2 and 4 percent where the wage adjustment is deducted from the profit. The wage adjustment is estimated as if the owners of single-owner businesses earn an operator s salary. Profit was highest in 2002 and lowest 2006. In the smallest enterprise class with a turnover of less than 75 000 /y, profit was lowest and negative in 2006 and 2007. The variation in profits between enterprises was also biggest in that period. The median net profit was best in limited companies and partnerships; about 6 percent. The annual reserve after debt amortization and investment was some 50 000 among the biggest enterprises, about 30 000 among the medium size groups and at most some 10 000 in the smallest ones. Return on capital varied only a little, showing a slight decrease towards the end of study period. In 2007, return on assets (ROA) was around 12%, except in enterprises with turnover of less than 75 000 , where ROA was two percent. Return on equity (ROE) varied between 15 and 25%, except for the smallest enterprises, with less than 10%. The harvesting business, with limited means of meeting the severe challenges of global recession, cease operations for several months. Finding a profitable growing formula and qualified operators is a challenge, even without these cuts

An Open Modelling Approach for Availability and Reliability of Systems - OpenMARS

This document introduces and gives specification for OpenMARS, which is an open modelling approach for availability and reliability of systems. It supports the most common risk assessment and operation modelling techniques. Uniquely OpenMARS allows combining and connecting models defined with different techniques. This ensures that a modeller has a high degree of freedom to accurately describe the modelled system without limitations imposed by an individual technique. Here the OpenMARS model definition is specified with a tool independent tabular format, which supports managing models developed in a collaborative fashion. Origin of our research is in Future Circular Collider (FCC) study, where we developed the unique features of our concept to model the availability and luminosity production of particle colliders. We were motivated to describe our approach in detail as we see potential further applications in performance and energy efficiency analyses of large scientific infrastructures or industrial processes

IAS fair value and forest evaluation on farm forestry

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