Protecting Non-personal Data in the Framework of the Legislation of the European Union

Data has become one of the most valued resources in today’s economy. With the introduction of Big Data analytics and the Internet of Things, it is vital for businesses of all sizes to gain access and benefit from non-personal data. While personal data is governed by the GDPR, non-personal data does not currently have any catch-all regulation within the EU. The majority of protection is brought by a combination of contract law and technological means. This Master’s thesis aims to explore the current EU legislation in order to determine whether or not there are ways to protect non-personal data within the EU, and how this protection could be developed. The thesis is mostly legal dogmatic in nature, but some comparative and critical legal perspectives are also taken. Additionally, some technological terminology and economic theories of value are used. Conclusion is that some EU legislation, namely the Database Directive and the Trade Secrets Directive could offer protection to non-personal data that falls within their scope. This, however, is not necessarily a very significant portion of the data. In the U.S. trade secrets protection, the civil law regulations seem to be even stricter on what can benefit from trade secrets protection. Data ownership and non-legislative measures are explored as possible avenues forward, but in the end, there are benefits to both legislating and using non-binding measures. It is concluded that the best solution would likely involve a combination of both, in addition to the development of technical means of protection. Further research in the area is required.Datasta on tullut yksi taloutemme ja yhteiskuntamme tärkeimmistä resursseista. Big Datan ja esineiden internetin (Internet of Things) vallankumouksen myötä Big Data analytiikasta on tullut tärkeää myös sellaisille yrityksille, joiden liiketoiminta ei suoraan liity dataan. Vaikka EU:n alueella Tietosuojaasetus säänteleekin henkilötietoja hyvin pitkälle, ei muun tyyppisiä tietoja koskevaa sääntelyä ole juuri lainkaan. Tämän pro gradu -tutkielman tarkoituksena on kartoittaa EU:n nykyisen lainsäädännön sisältöä, sekä arvioida miten sitä voisi hyödyntää yritysten dataomaisuuden suojelussa. Lisäksi se tutkii mahdollisuuksia lainsäädännön kehittämiseksi tällä alueella. Tutkielman metodi on pitkälti oikeusdogmaattinen, vaikkakin jonkin verran oikeusvertailua ja oikeuskriittistäkin näkökulmaa on hyödynnetty. Myös teknologista termistöä ja taloustieteen arvoteorioita käytetään hyödyksi. Tutkielman tulosten perusteella voidaan todeta, että sekä EU:n Tietokantadirektiivi, että Liikesalaisuusdirektiivi voivat olla hyödyksi datan suojelemisessa. Direktiivien asettamien vaatimusten vuoksi niiden kattavuus jättää kuitenkin toivomisen varaa, eikä Yhdysvaltojenkaan liikesalaisuuslainsäädännön tarkastelu tuottanut laajempaa tulosta. Toimivin tulevaisuuden ratkaisu datalainsäädännön alalla tulee todennäköisesti olemaan jonkinlainen yhdistelmä datan omistajanoikeuksia, ei-lainsäädännöllisiä keinoja ja teknologisten suojausmuotojen kehittämistä. Selkeiden vastausten saamiseksi tarvitaan lisää tutkimusta

Multifunctional School - Flexibility as a key for ecological spatial design

This master's thesis maps the multifunctionality of a school building from different perspectives. The goal was to explore how enabling varied uses and flexible spatial solutions could make the school building more vivid and in better use. The goal was to show how this could be a new ecological angle for school design. Another viewpoint for this master's thesis was the new national core curriculum for basic education, that sees the pupil as a active learner. The new core curriculum requires pedagogical flexibility for spatial solutions to enable different, changing teaching and learning methods. This master's thesis shows multifunctional and flexible spatial solutions for elementary school. The master's thesis consists of a written part that is visualized by graphs. The research approaches multifunctionality from two perspectives: in building scale from user's and the function's perspective and in spatial level. In bulding scale, the thesis maps the characteristics of a school that can answer the needs of various users. These characteristics are illustrated among the text with the exemplary school design. In spatial level, multifunctionality is approached by presenting the spatial solutions for flexibility and applying them to school design in concept level. In conclusion, a conceptual design for a multifunctional school in Vartiosaari is presented. This master’s thesis is part of the research project COMBI, which is led by Tampere University of Technology (TUT) and explores the concept of nearly zero-energy in the context of municipal service buildings. The thesis is included in the work package titled The Impact of Architecture on Energy Efficiency, carried out by TUT’s School of Architecture. The work package’s aim is to study current and future energy efficient building solutions as well as develop a tool for guiding the design and illustrating the connections between various aspects of energy efficient architectural design.Tämä diplomityö käsittelee koulurakennuksen monikäyttöisyyttä eri näkökulmista. Työssä tutkitaan, kuinka monipuolisen käytön mahdollistaminen ja joustavat tilaratkaisut voivat tehostaa rakennuksen käyttöä ja toimia sitä kautta uutena ekologisena näkökulmana koulusuunnittelulle. Työ keskittyy tilan käyttötehokkuuden parantamiseen monikäyttöisyyden keinoin. Toinen merkittävä lähtökohta työlle on uusi 1.8.2016 käyttöön otettu opetussuunnitelma, joka korostaa oppilasta aktiivisena toimijana. Uusi opetussuunnitelma vaatii tiloilta pedagogista joustavuutta ja monikäyttöisyyttä mahdollistamaan erilaisia muuttuvia opetus- ja oppimismenetelmiä. Työssä käsitellään opetussuunnitelman tilallisia tavoitteita ja pohditaan tilasuunnittelun vaikutusta ekologisuuteen. Työ koostuu kirjallisesta osiosta, jota selvennetään kaavioiden avulla. Monikäyttöisyyttä tarkastellaan kahdesta näkökulmasta: rakennustasolla käyttäjien ja toimintojen tasolla sekä tilasuunnittelun näkökulmasta. Monikäyttöisyyteen keskitytään rakennustasolla kartoittamalla usean eri käyttäjän tarpeisiin soveltuvan koulun ominaisuuksia, kuten käytön vyöhykkeistämistä sekä tilaohjelman joustavuutta, joita havainnollistetaan tekstin lomassa konkreettisen, pohdintojen myötä syntyneen esimerkkisuunnitelman avulla. Tilojen tasolla monikäyttöisyyteen paneudutaan esittelemällä asuntosuunnittelussa tutkittuja joustavuuden keinoja, joita sovelletaan koulurakentamiseen. Lopuksi esitetään tarkemmin Vartiosaareen sijoittuva esimerkkisuunnitelma monikäyttöisestä koulusta. Diplomityö on osa Tampereen teknillisen yliopiston (TTY) vetämää Tekes-rahoitteista COMBI-hanketta, joka tutkii lähes nollaenergiarakentamista palvelurakennusten näkökulmasta. Työ sisältyy työpakettiin Arkkitehtonisten ratkaisujen vaikutus energiatehokkuuteen, josta vastaa TTY:n Arkkitehtuurin laboratorio. Työpaketin tavoitteina on kartoittaa nykyisiä ja tulevaisuuden energiatehokkaita suunnitteluratkaisuja sekä kehittää ohjausmalli energiatehokkuuteen vaikuttavien arkkitehtuurin ominaisuuksien ohjeistukseen ja vertailuun

Polymerase Chain Reaction Assay With Urine Specimens in the Diagnosis of Acute Chlamydia trachomatis Infection in Women

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the benefits achievable by Amplicor polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (F. Hoffmann-LaRoche Ltd., Basel, Switzerland) with urine specimens in addition to PACE 2 (Gen-Probe, Inc., San Diego, California) assay with cervical swab specimens in the diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis in women

GNAS, PDE4D, and PRKAR1A Mutations and GNAS Methylation Changes Are Not a Common Cause of Isolated Early-Onset Severe Obesity Among Finnish Children

Context: Pseudohypoparathyroidism type Ia (PHP1A) is caused by inactivating mutations involving GNAS exons 1–13, encoding the alpha-subunit of the stimulatory G protein (Gsα). Particularly PHP1A, but also other disorders involving the Gsα-cAMP-signaling pathway, have been associated with early-onset obesity. Thus, patients with mutations in the genes encoding PDE4D and PRKAR1A can also be obese. Furthermore, epigenetic GNAS changes, as in pseudohypoparathyroidism type Ib (PHP1B), can lead to excessive weight.Objective: Search for genetic variants in GNAS, PDE4D, and PRKAR1A and for methylation alterations at the GNAS locus in Finnish subjects with isolated severe obesity before age 10 years.Methods: Next generation sequencing to identify pathogenic variants in the coding exons of GNAS, PDE4D, and PRKAR1A; Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification (MLPA) and methylation-sensitive MLPA (MS-MLPA) to search for deletions in GNAS and STX16, and for epigenetic changes at the four differentially methylated regions (DMR) within GNAS.Results: Among the 88 subjects (median age 13.8 years, median body mass index Z-score +3.9), we identified one rare heterozygous missense variant of uncertain significance in the XL exon of GNAS in a single patient. We did not identify clearly pathogenic variants in PDE4D and PRKAR1A, and no GNAS methylation changes were detected by MS-MLPA.Conclusions: Our results suggest that coding GNAS mutations or methylation changes at the GNAS DMRs, or coding mutations in PDE4D and PRKAR1A are not common causes of isolated childhood obesity in Finland.Peer reviewe

Targeted Exome Sequencing of Genes Involved in Rare CNVs in Early-Onset Severe Obesity

Context: Rare copy number variants (CNVs) have been associated with the development of severe obesity. However, the potential disease-causing contribution of individual genes within the region of CNVs is often not known.Objective: Screening of rare variants in genes involved in CNVs in Finnish patients with severe early-onset obesity to find candidate genes linked to severe obesity.Methods: Custom-made targeted exome sequencing panel to search for rare (minor allele frequencyPeer reviewe

Homologous overexpression of NpDps2 and NpDps5 increases the tolerance for oxidative stress in the multicellular cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme

The filamentous cyanobacterium Nostoc punctiforme has several oxidative stress-managing systems, including Dps proteins. Dps proteins belong to the ferritin superfamily and are involved in abiotic stress management in prokaryotes. Previously, we found that one of the five Dps proteins in N. punctiforme, NpDps2, was critical for H2O2 tolerance. Stress induced by high light intensities is aggravated in N. punctiforme strains deficient of either NpDps2, or the bacterioferritin-like NpDps5. Here, we have investigated the capacity of NpDps2 and NpDps5 to enhance stress tolerance by homologous overexpression of these two proteins in N. punctiforme. Both overexpression strains were found to tolerate twice as high concentrations of added H2O2 as the control strain, indicating that overexpression of either NpDps2 or NpDps5 will enhance the capacity for H2O2 tolerance. Under high light intensities, the overexpression of the two NpDps did not enhance the tolerance against general light-induced stress. However, overexpression of the heterocyst-specific NpDps5 in all cells of the filament led to a higher amount of chlorophyll-binding proteins per cell during diazotrophic growth. The OENpDps5 strain also showed an increased tolerance to ammonium-induced oxidative stress. Our results provide information of how Dps proteins may be utilised for engineering of cyanobacteria with enhanced stress tolerance

Comparison of alternative integration sites in the chromosome and the native plasmids of the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 in respect to expression efficiency and copy number

Background: Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 provides a well-established reference point to cyanobacterial metabolic engineering as part of basic photosynthesis research, as well as in the development of next-generation biotechnological production systems. This study focused on expanding the current knowledge on genomic integration of expression constructs in Synechocystis, targeting a range of novel sites in the chromosome and in the native plasmids, together with established loci used in literature. The key objective was to obtain quantitative information on site-specific expression in reference to replicon copy numbers, which has been speculated but never compared side by side in this host. Results: An optimized sYFP2 expression cassette was successfully integrated in two novel sites in Synechocystis chromosome (slr0944; sll0058) and in all four endogenous megaplasmids (pSYSM/slr5037-slr5038; pSYSX/slr6037; pSYSA/slr7023; pSYSG/slr8030) that have not been previously evaluated for the purpose. Fluorescent analysis of the segregated strains revealed that the expression levels between the megaplasmids and chromosomal constructs were very similar, and reinforced the view that highest expression in Synechocystis can be obtained using RSF1010-derived replicative vectors or the native small plasmid pCA2.4 evaluated in comparison. Parallel replicon copy number analysis by RT-qPCR showed that the expression from the alternative loci is largely determined by the gene dosage in Synechocystis, thereby confirming the dependence formerly proposed based on literature. Conclusions: This study brings together nine different integrative loci in the genome of Synechocystis to demonstrate quantitative differences between target sites in the chromosome, the native plasmids, and a RSF1010-based replicative expression vector. To date, this is the most comprehensive comparison of alternative integrative sites in Synechocystis, and provides the first direct reference between expression efficiency and replicon gene dosage in the context. In the light of existing literature, the findings support the view that the small native plasmids can be notably more difficult to target than the chromosome or the megaplasmids, and that the RSF1010-derived vectors may be surprisingly well maintained under non-selective culture conditions in this cyanobacterial host. Altogether, the work broadens our views on genomic integration and the rational use of different integrative loci versus replicative plasmids, when aiming at expressing heterologous genes in Synechocystis.The research was financially supported by the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence (#307335), NordForsk Nordic Centre of Excellence (#82845) and Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation (#4605–26422). The work also received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action—Innovative Training Network 2017 (#764920), and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (CEECIND/00259/2017 to CCP)

Flavodiiron proteins Flv1 and Flv3 enable cyanobacterial growth and photosynthesis under fluctuating light

Cyanobacterial flavodiiron proteins (FDPs; A-type flavoprotein, Flv) comprise, besides the β-lactamase–like and flavodoxin domains typical for all FDPs, an extra NAD(P)H:flavin oxidoreductase module and thus differ from FDPs in other Bacteria and Archaea. Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 has four genes encoding the FDPs. Flv1 and Flv3 function as an NAD(P)H:oxygen oxidoreductase, donating electrons directly to O2 without production of reactive oxygen species. Here we show that the Flv1 and Flv3 proteins are crucial for cyanobacteria under fluctuating light, a typical light condition in aquatic environments. Under constant-light conditions, regardless of light intensity, the Flv1 and Flv3 proteins are dispensable. In contrast, under fluctuating light conditions, the growth and photosynthesis of the Δflv1(A) and/or Δflv3(A) mutants of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 and Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 become arrested, resulting in cell death in the most severe cases. This reaction is mainly caused by malfunction of photosystem I and oxidative damage induced by reactive oxygen species generated during abrupt short-term increases in light intensity. Unlike higher plants that lack the FDPs and use the Proton Gradient Regulation 5 to safeguard photosystem I, the cyanobacterial homolog of Proton Gradient Regulation 5 is shown not to be crucial for growth under fluctuating light. Instead, the unique Flv1/Flv3 heterodimer maintains the redox balance of the electron transfer chain in cyanobacteria and provides protection for photosystem I under fluctuating growth light. Evolution of unique cyanobacterial FDPs is discussed as a prerequisite for the development of oxygenic photosynthesis

Lifestyle counselling during pregnancy and offspring weight development until four years of age: follow-up study of a controlled trial

Background Fetal conditions are known to be partly responsible for the child’s risk for obesity. Our pilot study aimed to determine the effect of gestational lifestyle counseling on the offspring weight gain until 4 years of age and to estimate power for future studies. Design and methods First-time pregnant mothers participated in a controlled trial conducted in maternity health clinics during 2004 – 2006. The intervention included individual counseling on physical activity and diet, and an option to attend supervised group exercise sessions. The participant mothers (N = 109) received a follow-up questionnaire concerning 13 repeated growth measurements of their offspring. Response rate to the follow-up questionnaire was 66.1% (N = 72/109). Results The increase of BMI z-score between 24–48 months was not significantly slower among the intervention group offspring (95% CI −0.025 to 0.009, p = 0.34) compared to control group. Z-scores for weight-for-length/height did not differ between groups when the period 0–48 months was analyzed (95% CI −0.010 to 0.014, p = 0.75). Conclusions In this pilot study gestational lifestyle counseling did not significantly slow the weight gain of the offspring. Gestational intervention studies with at least 300 mothers per group are needed to confirm the possible effect on offspring’s risk for obesity.BioMed Central open acces