Reconciling the rule of law with adaptive regulation of marine ecosystems – Challenges and opportunities for the Arctic and beyond

Non peer reviewe

Resilience and Adaptive Capacity of Aquatic Environmental Law in the EU : An evaluation and comparison of the WFD, MSFD, and MSPD

Peer reviewe

Stream diatom assemblages as environmental indicators - A cross-regional assessment

Ongoing climatic change and anthropogenic pressure highlight the importance of reliable assessment of the ecological status of freshwaters. Bioindicators are used widely in ecological assessments as biotic assemblages reflect the environmental conditions in current ecosystems. However, the robustness of bioindicators relies on the transferability of indices and models outside the regions they were derived from. We tested the reliability of stream diatom assemblages as indicators of water chemistry and climatic factors in a cross-regional assessment by developing a predictive model with diatom assemblage data from Sweden and using it to model stream conditions in Finland. The inference models and predictions were performed using the Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) method, separately in species and genus levels. The predictive performance of the calibration models in Sweden were good or moderate for both water chemistry and climatic variables, both at species and genus levels. The most important climatic (growing degree days, r(2) = 0.57) and water chemistry variables (pH, r(2) = 0.65; and total phosphorus (TP), r(2) = 0.52) could be inferred from diatom assemblages relatively well. However, predictive performances of the cross-regional models were low (r(2)Peer reviewe

"Nykyään ei saa enää sanoa mitään" : argumentointistrategiat sananvapautta käsittelevissä kolumneissa

Sananvapauden rajoja ja määritelmiä arvioidaan yhteiskunnassa jatkuvasti – ja hyvä niin, sillä se on samalla sananvapauden toteutumisen ydintä. Siinä missä sananvapaus on demokraattisen yhteiskunnan perusta, on se toisaalta myös vahvasti yksilön näkemyksistä riippuvainen aihe. Tässä tutkielmassa tarkastelen kymmentä eri kolumnia, jotka käsittelevät sananvapautta. Tutkimuskysymykseni ovat: Millaisia argumentointistrategioita sananvapauskolumneissa käytetään? Miten eri tavoin sananvapauteen asennoidutaan? Millaisissa argumentatiivisissa yhteyksissä tietyt kielelliset ilmaukset korostuvat? Tutkimukseni teoreettinen lähtökohta on diskurssianalyysissa ja kriittisessä lingvistiikassa. Keskeistä on ajatus kielen ideologisuudesta. Argumentaatioteoriaan ammennan uuden retoriikan ajatuksia Perelmanin (1996) mukaisesti. Hyödynnän myös Kakkuri-Knuuttilan (1998) näkemyksiä argumentoinnista sekä Mäntysen ja Sääskilahden ajatuksia uuden retoriikan ja genretutkimuksen yhdistämisestä. Lisäksi teoriataustaa tukee Martinin ja Whiten (2005) suhtautumisen teoria. Tuloksista erottuu seitsemän erilaista argumentointistrategiaa. Vastakkainasetteluissa (1) hyödynnetään myönnyttelyrakennetta ja aikajaottelua, lisäksi oma sisäryhmä arvotetaan positiivisesti ja “muiden” muodostama ulkoryhmä negatiivisesti. Ryhmien kategorisointiin käytetään myös nimeämisen (2) eri resursseja. Lisäksi molemmilla strategioilla luodaan jännite poliittisesti erilaisten ryhmien välille: tällöin sananvapaus ja vihapuheeseen liittyvä keskustelu koetaan uhkana omaa puoluetta kohtaan. Uhkakuvien ja yksioikoisuuden (3) tuntua luodaan esimerkiksi passiivilla, teonnimillä ja predikatiivilauseilla. Sananvapauskolumnien moniäänisyys (4) on lähinnä kiistämiseen pohjautuvaa dialogista supistamista. Kiisto toimii myös vastakohtaistavana keinona. Lainausmerkeillä paitsi referoidaan myös irtisanoudutaan väitteestä, jolloin esimerkiksi vihapuhe tai sananvastuu arvottuu negatiivisesti. Auktoriteettiin vedotaan (5) niin henkilöiden kuin yleisten uskomusten tai ajankohtaisuuden nojalla. Inhimillisen toiminnan arvottaminen (6) linkittyy muihin strategioihin, ja sen avulla tuodaan esiin etenkin sananvapauden moraaliargumentoinnin aspektia. Ajallista jaottelua (7) esiintyy kolumneissa kattavasti ja sen avulla perustellaan lukijalle, miksi sananvapauden määrittely on nykyisin vaikeaa. Tutkielma osoittaa, että sananvapauden määrittely on monimutkaista, sillä aihe määrittyy suhteessa yksilön arvoihin, ideologiaan ja kokemuksiin. Samalla nuo elementit heijastuvat sananvapauden tosiasiallisen toteutumisen tasoon eli siihen, millainen sananvapausnäkemys sen hetken yhteiskunnallisessa ilmapiirissä vallitsee

Betänkande av arbetsgruppen för beredningen av en teckenspråkslag

Arbetsgruppen föreslår att det stiftas en särskild lag om teckenspråk. Arbetsgruppens förslag har utarbetats i form av en regeringsproposition. Teckenspråkslagen ska vara en kortfattad allmän lag. Med teckenspråk avses i den föreslagna lagen det finska och det finlandssvenska teckenspråket. Ett centralt syfte med den föreslagna lagen är att främja förverkligandet av de teckenspråkigas språkliga rättigheter. Ett annat syfte är att trygga att myndigheterna i sin verksamhet strävar efter att främja de teckenspråkigas möjligheter att använda sitt eget språk och få information på teckenspråk. Avsikten är att den föreslagna lagen ökar myndigheternas kännedom om teckenspråken och stöder beaktandet av de teckenspråkiga som en språk- och kulturgrupp. De materiella bestämmelserna om de teckenspråkigas språkliga rättigheter ska fortsättningsvis ingå i lagstiftningen för de olika förvaltningsområdena. I betänkandet ingår också arbetsgruppens ställningstagande om utvecklingsbehoven i de olika förvaltningsområdenas lagstiftning som gäller de teckenspråkiga

Will borealization of Arctic tundra herbivore communities be driven by climate warming or vegetation change?

Poleward shifts in species distributions are expected and frequently observed with a warming climate. In Arctic ecosystems, the strong warming trends are associated with increasing greenness and shrubification. Vertebrate herbivores have the potential to limit greening and shrub advance and expansion on the tundra, posing the question of whether changes in herbivore communities could partly mediate the impacts of climate warming on Arctic tundra. Therefore, future changes in the herbivore community in the Arctic tundra will depend on whether the community tracks the changing climates directly (i.e. occurs in response to temperature) or indirectly, in response to vegetation changes (which can be modified by trophic interactions). In this study, we used biogeographic and remotely sensed data to quantify spatial variation in vertebrate herbivore communities across the boreal forest and Arctic tundra biomes. We then tested whether present-day herbivore community structure is determined primarily by temperature or vegetation. We demonstrate that vertebrate herbivore communities are significantly more diverse in the boreal forest than in the Arctic tundra in terms of species richness, phylogenetic diversity and functional diversity. A clear shift in community structure was observed at the biome boundary, with stronger northward declines in diversity in the Arctic tundra. Interestingly, important functional traits characterizing the role of herbivores in limiting tundra vegetation change, such as body mass and woody plant feeding, did not show threshold changes across the biome boundary. Temperature was a more important determinant of herbivore community structure across these biomes than vegetation productivity or woody plant cover. Thus, our study does not support the premise that herbivore-driven limitation of Arctic tundra shrubification or greening would limit herbivore community change in the tundra. Instead, borealization of tundra herbivore communities is likely to result from the direct effect of climate warming

Novel frontier in wildlife monitoring: Identification of small rodent species from fecal pellets using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS)

Small rodents are prevalent and functionally important across the world's biomes, making their monitoring salient for ecosystem management, conservation, forestry, and agriculture. There is a growing need for cost-effective and noninvasive methods for large-scale, intensive sampling. Fecal pellet counts readily provide relative abundance indices, and given suitable analytical methods, feces could also allow for the determination of multiple ecological and physiological variables, including community composition. In this context, we developed calibration models for rodent taxonomic determination using fecal near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (fNIRS). Our results demonstrate fNIRS as an accurate and robust method for predicting genus and species identity of five coexisting subarctic microtine rodent species. We show that sample exposure to weathering increases the method's accuracy, indicating its suitability for samples collected from the field. Diet was not a major determinant of species prediction accuracy in our samples, as diet exhibited large variation and overlap between species. fNIRS could also be applied across regions, as calibration models including samples from two regions provided a good prediction accuracy for both regions. We show fNIRS as a fast and cost-efficient high-throughput method for rodent taxonomic determination, with the potential for cross-regional calibrations and the use on field-collected samples. Importantly, appeal lies in the versatility of fNIRS. In addition to rodent population censuses, fNIRS can provide information on demography, fecal nutrients, stress hormones, and even disease. Given the development of such calibration models, fNIRS analytics could complement novel genetic methods and greatly support ecosystem- and interaction-based approaches to monitoring

Novel frontier in wildlife monitoring : Identification of small rodent species from fecal pellets using near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS)

Small rodents are prevalent and functionally important across the world's biomes, making their monitoring salient for ecosystem management, conservation, forestry, and agriculture. There is a growing need for cost-effective and noninvasive methods for large-scale, intensive sampling. Fecal pellet counts readily provide relative abundance indices, and given suitable analytical methods, feces could also allow for the determination of multiple ecological and physiological variables, including community composition. In this context, we developed calibration models for rodent taxonomic determination using fecal near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (fNIRS). Our results demonstrate fNIRS as an accurate and robust method for predicting genus and species identity of five coexisting subarctic microtine rodent species. We show that sample exposure to weathering increases the method's accuracy, indicating its suitability for samples collected from the field. Diet was not a major determinant of species prediction accuracy in our samples, as diet exhibited large variation and overlap between species. fNIRS could also be applied across regions, as calibration models including samples from two regions provided a good prediction accuracy for both regions. We show fNIRS as a fast and cost-efficient high-throughput method for rodent taxonomic determination, with the potential for cross-regional calibrations and the use on field-collected samples. Importantly, appeal lies in the versatility of fNIRS. In addition to rodent population censuses, fNIRS can provide information on demography, fecal nutrients, stress hormones, and even disease. Given the development of such calibration models, fNIRS analytics could complement novel genetic methods and greatly support ecosystem- and interaction-based approaches to monitoring.Peer reviewe

Dementia prevention : The potential long-term cost-effectiveness of the FINGER prevention program

Introduction The aim of this study was to estimate the potential cost-effectiveness of the Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability (FINGER) program. Methods A life-time Markov model with societal perspective, simulating a cohort of people at risk of dementia reflecting usual care and the FINGER program. Results Costs were 1,653,275 and 1,635,346 SEK and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) were 8.636 and 8.679 for usual care and the FINGER program, respectively, resulting in savings of 16,928 SEK (2023 US$) and 0.043 QALY gains per person, supporting extended dominance for the FINGER program. A total of 1623 dementia cases were avoided with 0.17 fewer person-years living with dementia. The sensitivity analysis confirmed the conclusions in most scenarios. Discussion The model provides support that programs like FINGER have the potential to be cost-effective in preventing dementia. Results at the individual level are rather modest, but the societal benefits can be substantial because of the large potential target population.Peer reviewe

Circulating Proteomic Signatures of Chronological Age

To elucidate the proteomic features of aging in plasma, the subproteome targeted by the SOMAscan assay was profiled in blood samples from 202 females from the TwinsUK cohort. Findings were replicated in 677 independent individuals from the AddNeuroMed, Alzheimer's Research UK, and Dementia Case Registry cohorts. Results were further validated using RNAseq data from whole blood in TwinsUK and the most significant proteins were tested for association with aging-related phenotypes after adjustment for age. Eleven proteins were associated with chronological age and were replicated at protein level in an independent population. These were further investigated at gene expression level in 384 females from the TwinsUK cohort. The two most strongly associated proteins were chordin-like protein 1 (meta-analysis β [SE] = 0.013 [0.001], p = 3.66 × 10−46) and pleiotrophin (0.012 [0.005], p = 3.88 × 10−41). Chordin-like protein 1 was also significantly correlated with birthweight (0.06 [0.02], p = 0.005) and with the individual Framingham 10-years cardiovascular risk scores in TwinsUK (0.71 [0.18], p = 9.9 × 10−5). Pleiotrophin is a secreted growth factor with a plethora of functions in multiple tissues and known to be a marker for cardiovascular risk and osteoporosis. Our study highlights the importance of proteomics to identify some molecular mechanisms involved in human health and agin