Nitrogen and phosphorus balances on Finnish dairy farms

The calculation of whole-farm nutrient balance is an effective and simple method for estimating the potential nutrient loading from dairy farming into the environment. In Finland, however, the published results based on larger number of farms are still lacking. In this study whole-farm nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) balances on Finnish dairy farms were studied based on short-cut data for the year 2002. The survey was targeted to 1260 dairy farms, located all over Finland. Of the 386 replies received, 319 were used for subsequent statistical analyses. The association between selected farm variables and nutrient balance was studied using regression analysis and a sensitivity coefficient was calculated for each regression slope. The average (± standard deviation) whole-farm nutrient balance for N and P was 109 (±41.3) and 12 (±7.2) kg ha-1, respectively. The most responsive factors affecting the nutrient balances were total nutrient and fertilizer import per ha, followed by animal density, milk export per ha and concentrate import per ha. The results suggested that nutrient surpluses could be controlled more easily in combined crop and milk than in specialised milk production. It is concluded that nutrient surplus on Finnish dairy farms is markedly lower than that on areas with intensive production in central European countries. However, when nutrient balances were extrapolated to comparable production intensity as in central Europe, the level of the surpluses was equal

Adaptive discontinuous Galerkin approximations to fourth order parabolic problems

An adaptive algorithm, based on residual type a posteriori indicators of errors measured in $L^{\infty}(L^2)$ and $L^2(L^2)$ norms, for a numerical scheme consisting of implicit Euler method in time and discontinuous Galerkin method in space for linear parabolic fourth order problems is presented. The a posteriori analysis is performed for convex domains in two and three space dimensions for local spatial polynomial degrees $r\ge 2$. The a posteriori estimates are then used within an adaptive algorithm, highlighting their relevance in practical computations, which results into substantial reduction of computational effort

‘What face … will the bogeyman of this dark century wear?’ Politicizing a Contemporary Joker

What might a political reading of the Joker look like in the 21st century? Although the politics of Batman have been a subject of a number of academic studies, comparatively less is said about those of his arch nemesis. This article builds on the existing proposals in Peaslee and Weiner’s recently published The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime in order to offer a new interpretation of how the character might be politicized during an era of monstrous inequality that is enforced increasingly aggressive ways. It begins by mapping out consistent patterns of the Joker’s appearances throughout his publication history. It provides a close examination of The Killing Joke and Batman: Going Sane, which are analyzed alongside themes of trauma, precarity and multiplicity. Finally, it turns to consider Azzarello and Bermejo’s The Joker in unison with the recent theoretical work of Joshua Clover in order to propose that sometimes – in more senses than one – the Joker can truly be a riot

‘on-fold worldly-cares’: Metrical Cookery with Bill Griffiths

This article closely examines Bill Griffiths’ fugitive pamphlet Metrical Cookery, published through his Amra Imprint in 1991. Considering the anecdotes regarding Griffiths’ diet, a sequence about cooking seems like a peculiar subject matter, but this article seeks to demonstrate that underneath the domestic exterior of the poems, the poet is in fact conducting a sociopolitical interrogation of the ‘illogical’ and ‘arbitrary’ premises of hierarchy and power, and ultimately presents a challenge to these systems of societal exclusion. This analysis is approached with reference to other Amra publications from 1991; Marx’s concept of alienated labour; as well as studies into the social anthropology of cooking and eating. The article also makes reference to Vaneigem’s The Revolution of Everyday Life, along with briefer discussions of works by both Adorno and Bu?rger. Ultimately, the article suggests that the poems of Metrical Cookery are a refusal of constraints that is enacted through the familiarity of its subject matter, which allows Griffiths to explore – if only on an aesthetic level – alternative modes of solidarity and sociality

An A Posteriori Error Indicator for Discontinuous Galerkin Approximations of Fourth Order Elliptic Problems

We introduce a residual-based a posteriori error indicator for discontinuous Galerkin discretizations of the biharmonic equation with essential boundary conditions. We show that the indicator is both reliable and efficient with respect to the approximation error measured in terms of a natural energy norm, under minimal regularity assumptions. We validate the performance of the indicator within an adaptive mesh refinement procedure and show its asymptotic exactness for a range of test problems

Sijaishuoltoprosessin alkuvaihe Laaban Oy:ssä

Teimme opinnäytetyömme Laaban Oy:n toiveesta. Laaban Oy on yksityinen lastensuojelulaitos, johon kuuluu kaksi yksikköä; Riihenmäen Ryhmäkoti sekä Ryhmäkoti Metsäpolku. Laaban Oy:llä on käytössään toimintakäsikirja, joka osaltaan ohjaa yrityksen toimintaa. Toimintakäsikirjaan sisältyy prosessikuvaukset, joista taas yksi osa on uuden asiakkaan tulo- ja muuttoprosessi. Opinnäytetyömme tarkoituksena on uuden asiakkaan eli sijoitetun lapsen tulo- ja muuttoprosessin kartoittaminen. Kartoittamisella tarkoitamme tässä yhteydessä tulo- ja muuttoprosessin rakenteen, kulun ja käytänteiden näkyväksi tekemistä. Tarkoituksena on kerätä kokemuksiin perustuvaa tietoa työntekijöiltä ja yksiköissä asuvilta lapsilta tulo- ja muuttoprosessista. Lisäksi tarkoituksenamme on löytää tulo- ja muuttoprosessiin liittyviä toimivia käytänteitä sekä kehittämiskohteita. Keräämämme tiedon on tarkoitus toimia apuna ja pohjana Laaban Oy:n johtoryhmälle prosessikuvauksen laatimiseen. Prosessikuvauksen funktiona on välittää koko työyhteisön hiljaista tietoa yksilötasolle, eli päivittää pitkäaikaisten työntekijöiden tietämystä, nopeuttaa uuden työntekijän orientoitumista työhön ja ennen kaikkea nopeuttaa ja helpottaa uuden lapsen tulo- ja muuttoprosessia ja lapsen asettumista. Opinnäytetyömme on tutkimusosio on luonteeltaan laadullinen. Aineistonkeruumenetelmänä käytimme fokusryhmähaastatteluja sekä parihaastatteluja. Haastattelimme kummankin ryhmäkodin lapsia sekä työntekijöitä erikseen. Analyysimenetelmänä käytimme sisällönanalyysia.First steps in the fostercare process in laaban oy The main study for our thesis was commissioned by the Laaban Oy. Laaban Oy is a private, non-governmental and non-municipal child welfare organization, consisting of two separate units, Riihenmäen Ryhmäkoti and Ryhmäkoti Metsäpolku. Laaban Oy has in its use a directive that gives the company its operative guidelines. The directive includes process descriptions, one part of them dealing with the entry, transfer and moving process of a new customer in the child welfare service. Our thesis aimed to map out this process. By mapping out we mean the charting of the structure, progression and the conventions in the case in question. Our main goal is to gather data and information based on the knowledge of the staff and children living in these particular units. We intended to find existing conventions, which were stated as being functional and we also tried to point out subjects that required improvement. The gathered data will operate as a template and help the Laaban Oy executive group to work on the new process descriptions. The function of the process descriptions was to provide tacit knowledge from the whole working community to the individual level. This knowledge gathered together should upgrade the know-how of long-term -employees, speed up the orientation of new employees and above all, ease the moving and settling down of a new child. The nature of the thesis’ research section was qualitative. The data was collected in focus group-interviews. We interviewed the children and the employees from both of the units as separate groups. The interviews were analysed with content analysis

Localisation of primary food production in Finland: production potential and environmental impacts of food consumption patterns

The potential for and environmental consequences of localising primary production of food were investigated by considering different food consumption patterns, based on conventional and organic production. Environmental impact was assessed according to agricultural land use and numbers of production animals, both of which depend on food consumption. The results were quantified in terms of nutrient balances, greenhouse gas and acid emissions and the diversity of crop cultivation, which indicate eutrophication of watersheds, climate change and landscape changes, respectively. The study region was able to satisfy its own needs for all farming and food consumption scenarios. Dietary choice had a marked impact on agricultural land use and on the environmental parameters considered. Organic farming for local food production resulted in higher greenhouse gas emissions. Compared with mixed diets, the vegetarian diet was associated with lower emissions and nutrient surpluses, but also with reduced crop diversity. The arable areas allocated to leys and pastures were also smaller. The study area represents a predominantly rural region and is a net exporter of agricultural produce. Therefore, only part of the environmental impact of food production results from local needs. Both the differences among the dietary options and the overall environmental benefit of localised primary food production were greatly reduced when considering total agricultural production of the region. Much of the negative impact of agriculture is due to food consumption in the densely populated urban areas, but the consequences are mainly felt in the production areas. The environmental impacts of localisation of primary food production for the rural areas are small and inconsistent. The results indicate the importance of defining ‘local’ on a regional basis and including the urban food sinks in impact assessment

Carbon footprint of food - an approach from national level and from a food portion

The evaluation of food chain environmental impacts was conducted using an environmental accounting model developed for the Finnish food sector, and a model of a Finnish standard lunch plate, which followed nutritional recommendations and represented division of a plate into three parts; half of the plate comprising vegetables, one quarter protein and one quarter carbohydrate.The impacts on climate change were analysed over the whole food chain. Different methods of food processing were assessed: preparation of a standard lunch plate at home, public food service preparation of lunch portions and industrial processing of ready‐made food. The overall aim was to help consumers make environmentally responsible choices in consumption and identify the key areas requiring improvement in terms of climate change and the food supply chain.According to environmental accounting in the food sector, the food chain accounts for 7% of CO2 emissions, 43% of CH4 emissions, and 50% of N2O emissions produced across the entire economy. Impact contribution of the Finnish food chain in climate change was calculated to be 14%. Food represented 15‐20% of the climate change impact of daily consumption. The carbon footprint ranged from 570g to 3.5kg equivalent CO2 for a single food portion. Impact profiles of portions varied depending on raw material composition and production procedure. Producers of animal products, food consumers making their food choices, and particularly decision makers in public catering are the critical stakeholders for minimizing climate change impacts of the food chain

Irtisanomisten vaikutus osakekurssiin : tapahtumatutkimus Suomen osakemarkkinoilta 2007-2010

Siirretty Doriast

Development of Sensor Integrated and Inkjet-Printed Tag Antennas for Passive UHF RFID Systems

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a form of automated identification technology that is nowadays widely used to replace bar codes in asset tracking and management. Looking ahead to the future, our lives will be surrounded by small, embedded and wireless electronic devices that provide information about everything for everybody through pervasive computing. At the core of this vision lie two key concepts of ubiquitous sensing and the Internet of Things. RFID technology is seen as one of the most prominent technologies of today for the implementation of these future concepts. Ubiquitous sensing describes a situation, where small embedded sensors monitoring various environmental parameters are found everywhere. The second concept, the Internet of Things, requires that all objects, even the most insignificant everyday items, surrounding us should encompass computing and communication capabilities of some sort. In its simplest form, such computing could be a transponder that allows the unique identification and tracking of the item. Together these future concepts could truly revolutionize our lives by delivering significantly more information from our living environment. The objectives of this thesis are twofold. Firstly, passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID technology is utilized to develop low cost, completely passive, wireless sensor devices for ubiquitous sensing applications. Secondly, inkjet-printed passive UHF RFID tag antennas are developed and optimization techniques are presented to lower the cost of such tag antenna implementations. The latter objective aims to facilitate the advancement of the Internet of Things by enabling tag antennas to be directly printed on or in to various objects. As a result of the research work presented in this thesis, three different passive UHF RFID based sensor tags were developed. Two of these designs monitor temperature and one is developed for relative humidity measurements. For the first time, the applicability and accuracy of such passive sensor tags was demonstrated. The results show that UHF RFID sensor tags have potential to be utilized as low cost sensor devices in ubiquitous applications. In addition, this thesis presents methods to lower the costs of inkjet-printed tag antennas. A technique was developed to reduce the ink consumption significantly to produce high performance tag antennas. Moreover, a special type of tag antenna design consisting of very narrow lines was developed. Finally, novel electronic materials were used as tag antenna substrate materials for inkjet-printed tag antennas. The use of a high permittivity ceramic-polymer composite, wood veneer, paper and cardboard were demonstrated. In each case, it was shown that inkjet-printing is a feasible form of fabrication on such materials, producing passive UHF RFID tags with long read ranges. This shows that tag antennas can be inkjet-printed directly on to various items to advance the realization of the Internet of Things