Supistamista, rationalisointia vai kehittämistä? : Valtiovarainministeriön järjestelyosaston järjestämän henkilöstökoulutus- ja tutkimustoiminnan rakentuminen osaksi valtionhallintoa vuosina 1943-1971

The study examines the personnel training and research activities carried out by the Organization and Methods Division of the Ministry of Finance and their becoming a part and parcel of the state administration in 1943-1971. The study is a combination of institutional and ideological historical research in recent history on adult education, using a constructionist approach. Material salient to the study comes from the files of the Organization and Methods Division in the National Archives, parliamentary documents, committee reports, and the magazines. The concentrated training and research activities arranged by the Organization and Methods Division, became a part and parcel of the state administration in the midst of controversial challenges and opportunities. They served to solve social problems which beset the state administration as well as contextual challenges besetting rationalization measures, and organizational challenges. The activities were also affected by a dependence on decision-makers, administrative units, and civil servants organizations, by different views on rationalization and the holistic nature of reforms, as well as by the formal theories that served as resources. It chose long-term projects which extended to the political decision-makers and administrative units turf, and which were intended to reform the structures of the state administration and to rationalize the practices of the administrative units. The crucial questions emerged in opposite pairs (a constitutional state vs. the ideology of an administratively governed state, a system of national boards vs. a system of government through ministries, efficiency of work vs. pleasantness of work, centralized vs. decentralized rationalization activities) which were not solvable problems but impossible questions with no ultimate answers. The aim and intent of the rationalization of the state administration (the reform of the central, provincial, and local governments) was to facilitate integrated management and to render a greater amount of work by approaching management procedures scientifically and by clarifying administrative instances and their respon-sibilities in regards to each other. The means resorted to were organizational studies and committee work. In the rationalization of office work and finance control, the idea was to effect savings in administrative costs and to pare down those costs as well as to rationalize and heighten those functions by developing the institution of work study practitioners in order to coordinate employer and employee relationships and benefits (the training of work study practitioners, work study, and a two-tier work study practitioner organization). A major part of the training meant teaching and implementing leadership skills in practice, which, in turn, meant that the learning environment was the genuine work community and efforts to change it. In office rationalization, the solution to regulate the relations between the employer and the employees was the co-existence of the technical and biological rationalization and the human resource administration and the accounting and planning systems at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. The former were based on the school of scientific management and human relations, the latter on system thinking, which was a combination of the former two. In the rationalization of the state administration, efforts were made to find solutions to stabilize management ideologies and to arrange the relationships of administrative systems in administrative science - among other things, in the Hoover Committee and the Simon decision making theory, and, in the 1960s, in system thinking. Despite the development-related vocabulary, the practical work was advanced rationalization. It was said that the practical activities of both the state administration and the administrative units depended on professional managers who saw to production results and human relations. The pedagogic experts hired to develop training came up with a training system, based on the training-technological model where the training was made a function of its own. The State Training Center was established and the training office of the Organization and Methods Division became the leader and coordinator of personnel training.

Luottamus koulussa : Tutkimus yhdeksännen luokan oppilaiden luottamus- ja epäluottamuskertomuksista ja niiden merkityksestä oppilaiden kouluarjessa

The aim of this study is to explore trust at school and its meaning for 9th grade students. The intent is to investigate students views about trust and mistrust in school relationships. Three research questions are posed: 1) what meanings do students give to their experiences of trust and mistrust at school and how do they evaluate connection of these experiences to their well-being and enjoyment in the classroom? 2) what and how important, is the teacher s role according to the students writings, and 3) what might the different pedagogical and administrative structures of schools reveal about trust and mistrust in a particular school culture? The data consists of 134 writings of 9th grade students (secondary school) from three schools in one of the biggest cities in Finland. The schools differ from others in terms of their pedagogical or structural backgrounds. The study is restricted to the micro-level of, disposition of Educational Sociology, focusing on trust in schools relationships. The theoretical framework of the study is trust, as a part of social capital; however trust is also approached from the sociological, the psychological and philosophical perspective. The methodological approach is narrative research concerning school practice . Analysis of narrative consist mostly content analysis, but also some elements of holistic-content reading, thematic reading and categorical content. The analysis found three main themes: 1) individual stories of trust, 2) the teachers role in making trust possible in the classroom, and 3) school as a community of trust. According to the study trust at school (1) is a complex phenomenon consisting of people s ability to work together and to recognize the demands that different situations present. Trust at school is often taken for granted. In the students experiences trust is strongly connected to friendship, and the teacher s ability to connect with students. Students experiences of mistrust stem from bulling, school violence, lack of respect as well as teachers lacking basic professional behavior. School relationships are important for some students as source of enjoyment, but some feel that it is difficult to evaluate the connection between trust and enjoyment. The study found that students trust of teachers (2) is linked to the teacher s professional role as a teacher, a caring human being open to dialogue. In other words, the students describe teachers abilities to create a sense of trust in terms of three expectations: the teacher was better, the same or worse than expected. Better than expected, means the teacher engender a high degree of trust and has excellent communication skills. Same as expected means the teacher comes across as familiar and secure, while lower than expected means the teacher creates no trust and has poor communication skills. Finally, it was shown that trust at school (3) should not only exist between some individuals, but between (all) members of the school community. In other words, according to the study there is some evidence that trust is strongly committed to school culture. Further, trust seems to depend on (school-) cultural background, values, beliefs, expectations, norms as well as staff behaviour. The basic elements of an optimum level of trust at school are favourable school structure and pedagogical background; however, good relationships between teachers and students as well as high professional skills are also needed. Trust at school is built by good communication, working together and getting to know each other.

Mental Disorders among Burn Patients

ABSTRACT Mental disorders and suicide attempts among acute burn patients were investigated in a collaborative research project between National Institute for Health and Welfare and Departments of Psychiatry and Plastic surgery in University of Helsinki in Finland. This project was realized in two parts. The first cohort of burn patients consisted of all burn patients admitted to the Helsinki Burn Centre during 1989 97. In this retrospective cohort, 5.7% (N=46) of the total of 811 burn patients had attempted suicide. The burn severity of suicide attempters was markedly higher than in the other burn patients. Suicide attempters were more often unemployed or on disability pension and had psychiatric history before the injury. The second sample was a prospective cohort of all acute consecutive burn patients admitted to the Helsinki Burn Centre during 18 months in 2006- 2007. All subjects (N=107) of the cohort were interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV for Axis I and II mental disorders (SCID-I and SCID-II) at baseline and then 86 % of all (N=92) with SCID-I at the end of six-month follow-up. Most (61%) patients had at least one lifetime mental disorder before burn; 47 % substance-related, 10% psychotic and 23% personality disorders. The overall prevalence of Axis I mental disorders increased significantly from the month prior to burn to acute care but decreased significantly from acute care to six months. However, more than one half (55%) of the cohort suffered from some mental disorder during follow-up. Less than one half of the burn patients with estimated need for psychiatric care received psychiatric care. Burn severity independently and strongly predicted risk for mental disorders during follow-up and pre-burn psychiatric history, severe burns and estimated need for psychiatric care significantly predicted psychiatric care received. The proportion of patients with self-inflicted burns is not high but mental disorders are common among burn patients. Mental disorders may predispose to burns. After burn injury, more than half of the patients suffer from mental disorders and a strong relationship exists between burn severity and some post-burn mental disorders. A minority of the patients with unequivocal need for psychiatric care actually receive it. Psychiatric consultations and care follow mainly the course of acute burn treatment.

What should I think; How should I feel? : The balancing of personal experiences and social norms in the outgroup attitude formation of youth

The present study focused on the associations between the personal experiences of intergroup contact, perceived social norms and the outgroup attitudes of Finnish majority and Russian-speaking minority youth living in Finland. The theoretical background of the study was derived from Allport s (1954) theory of intergroup contact (i.e., the contact hypothesis), social psychological research on normative influences on outgroup attitudes (e.g., Rutland, 2004; Stangor and Leary, 2006) and developmental psychological research on the formation of explicit (deliberate) and implicit (automatically activated) outgroup attitudes in adolescence (e.g., Barrett, 2007; Killen, McGlothlin and Henning, 2008). The main objective of the study was to shed light on the role of perceived social norms in the formation of outgroup attitudes among adolescents. First, the study showed that perceived normative pressure to hold positive attitudes towards immigrants regulated the relationship between the explicit and implicit expression of outgroup attitudes among majority youth. Second, perceived social norms concerning outgroup attitudes (i.e., the perceived outgroup attitudes of parents and peers) affected the relationship between intergroup contact and explicit outgroup attitudes depending on gender and group status. Positive social norms seem to be especially important for majority boys, who need both pleasant contact experiences and normative support to develop outgroup attitudes that are as positive as girls attitudes. The role of social norms is accentuated also among minority youth, who, contrary to majority youth with their more powerful and independent status position, need to reflect upon their attitudes and experiences of negative intergroup encounters in relation to the experiences and attitudes of their ingroup members. Third, the results are indicative of the independent effects of social norms and intergroup anxiety on outgroup attitudes: the effect of perceived social norms on the outgroup attitudes of youth seems to be at least as strong as the effect of intergroup anxiety. Finally, it was shown that youth evaluate intergroup contact from the viewpoint of their ingroup and society as a whole, not just based on their own experiences. In conclusion, the outgroup attitudes of youth are formed in a close relationship with their social environment. On the basis of this study, the importance of perceived social norms for research on intergroup contact effects among youth cannot be overlooked. Positive normative influences have the potential to break the strong link between rare and/or negative personal contact experiences and negative outgroup attitudes, and norms also influence the relationship between implicit and explicit attitude expression.

Myyttisestä sankarirehtorista opistoäidiksi ja manageriksi : Sukupuolen näkökulma kansalais- ja työväenopiston johtajuuteen

Kansansivistystä legitimoiva ja ylläpitävä ajattelu oli kertomusta myyttisistä sankarirehtoreista, jota voisi kutsua myös suomalaisen kansansivistyksen suureksi kertomukseksi. Tutkimusongelmana oli, kuinka kansansivistyksen suuri kertomus rakentui sukupuolen näkökulmasta kansan, sivistyksen ja vapauden käsitteiden tulkinnoissa. Tavoitteena oli jäljittää kansansivistyksen kadonneita naisia. Aineisto koostui eri kirjoittajien 1800-luvun lopulla ja 1900-luvulla laatimista kulttuurihistoriallisista teksteistä, joita metodologisesti tulkittiin sukupuolisensitiivisesti tiheällä otteella. Kansalais- ja työväenopiston rehtorin työ vuonna 2005 muodostui osaksi kansansivistyksen suurta kertomusta. Empiirinen aineisto koostui valtakunnallisesta, sähköisesti toteutetusta rehtorikyselystä (N=79), jota analysoitiin diskursiivisella lähestymistavalla sukupuolisensitiivisesti. Tutkimusongelmat olivat: Miksi kansalais- ja työväenopiston rehtoriksi hakeudutaan? Kuinka sukupuoli tulee esiin rehtorin työssä? Millaista on rehtorin työn arki? Suomalainen kansansivistystraditio kategorisoi naisen yksityiseen ja miehen julkiseen. Kansalais- ja työväenopistoista muotoiltiin sukupuolittuneita kansansivistysinstituutioita, joiden maskuliinisen johtajuuden ympärille rakentui sankarirehtorimyytti. Naisten tulo opistojen johtajattariksi liittyi osaksi naisten yleistä ammatillista kehitystä. Sivistettävälle naiselle rakentui paikka 1900-luvun vaihteesta äitikansalaisten yleissivistettävänä kollektiivina, myöhemmin työläisnaisten kollektiivina ja 1960-luvulta lähtien ammatillisena työvoimaresurssina. 2000-luvulla kansan käsite korvautui vapailla yksilökansalaisilla ja sivistysideologinen vapaus kääntyi uusliberalismin yksilön vapaaksi mahdollisuudeksi kehittää itseään vapaa-ajalla. Sivistys käsitteenä loittoni ja sen korvasivat oppiminen ja viihtyminen. Rehtoriksi hakeutumisen taustalla vaikuttivat edelleen kansansivistysideologiset arvot, jotka naiselle merkitsivät yhteiskunnallisen äitiyden velvoitetta hoitaa reproduktiivista tehtäväänsä ahkerana ja uutterana opistoäitinä. Uusliberalistiset arvot muuttivat naisen rehtorina kansallista ja taloudellista arvoa tuottavaksi palkkatyöäidiksi ja manageriksi. Sekä naiseen että mieheen rehtorina liitettiin stereotyyppisiä sukupuolirooleihin sidottuja ominaisuuksia. Naisen ja miehen paikat työyhteisössä määrittyivät modernin yhteiskuntasopimuksen seksuaalisen sopimuksen mukaisesti. Rehtorit työskentelivät moniosaavina jokapaikanhöylinä keskellä valtakunnallista opistoreformia. Rehtorin ammatillinen kuva jäsentyi monimuotoisesti reformistiksi, konformistiksi ja konservatiiviksi. Asiasanat: vapaa sivistystyö, kansansivistys, rehtorit, sukupuolentutkimus, kansalaisopistot, työväenopistot, diskurssianalyysi

Origins of the sex differences in handedness and mental rotation ability : genetic, environmental and hormonal effects

In humans, well-replicated and robust sex differences in cognitive functions exist for handedness and mental rotation ability. A common characteristic in human cognitive functions is the lateralization of language functions. Handedness is a common measure of laterality and is related to language lateralization. The prevalence of left-handedness is higher in males than in females, the male to female ratio being about 1.2. Among cognitive abilities, the largest sex difference is evident in the Vandenberg and Kuse Mental Rotation Test (MRT), which requires the ability to rotate objects in mental space. On average, males achieve scores one standard deviation higher than females in the MRT. The present thesis investigated the origins of the sex differences in laterality and spatial ability as represented by handedness and mental rotation ability, respectively. Two population-based Finnish twin cohorts were utilized in this study. Handedness was studied in 25 810 twins and 4068 singletons born before 1958 from the Older Finnish Twin Cohort, and in 4736 twins born in 1983-87 from the FinnTwin12. MRT was studied in a sub-sample of 804 young adult participants from the FinnTwin12 sample. The main findings of this study were: 1) the prevalence of left-handedness was higher among males than among females in both singletons and in twins; 2) males had significantly higher scores than females in MRT; 3) about one quarter of the variance in handedness and about half of the variance in MRT was explained by genetic effects, whereas the remainder of the variance in these traits was explained by environmental effects unique to each individual. The magnitude of the genetic effects was similar in both sexes; 4) left-handedness was significantly less common in female co-twins of a male than in female co-twins of a female, and female co-twins of a male scored significantly higher than did female co-twins of a female in the Mental Rotation Test. This dissertation discusses whether these differences between females from opposite- and same-sex twin pairs are due to the prenatal transfer of testosterone from the male fetus in females with male co-twins or whether they arise from postnatal socialization effects.

The Art of Adaptation : A study on the Europeanization of Finland's foreign and security policy

This study examines how Finnish foreign and security policy has been influenced by the European Union and its Common Foreign and Security Policy. It points to a growing interplay and misfit between the external expectations originating from the European level and the domestic expectations and traditional ways-of-doing-things. It is concluded that the deepening European integration in the sphere of foreign, security and defence policy has played a significant role in a number of transformations in the Finnish policies since 1995. New, more European, meanings have been attached to the key concepts of Finnish foreign and security policy. Neutrality and traditional peacekeeping have been replaced by a minimalist reading of military non-alignment and participation in crisis management operations and EU battle groups. Traditional small state identity has been recast more and more as small member stateness . At the same time Finland has entered an era of post-consensus in national foreign and security policy. A key theoretical argument in the background of the study is that collective understandings attached to European policies, when not resonating well with domestic understandings, cause adaptation pressures on domestic-level processes and may lead to changes in the way interests and identities are constructed. This means that Europeanization is principally seen as identity reconstruction. Consequently, the theoretical framework of the study builds on the Europeanization research literature and constructivist IR theory on state identity. Foreign and security policy is defined as the practice in which state identity is reproduced, and the key foreign and security policy concepts are seen as the vehicles of identity production. It is concluded that for Finland, participation in the EU s foreign, security and defence policies represents not only a tool for responding to the changes in the international security environment but also a new means of self-identification. Concerning the Finnish attempts of projecting national interests on the European security policy agenda, it is concluded that they mainly relate to the compatibility of the potential development of EU s defence dimension with the Finnish military non-alignment. Although neutrality was cast aside in the official security policy when Finland joined the EU, the analysis shows that its impact has continued in the domestic political debate and in the mind-set of the decision-makers. The primary research material includes official Finnish foreign and security policy documentation and the related parliamentary debates from 1994 to 2007. This study serves also as a comprehensive empirical overview on Finland s reactions and contributions to the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy.

Psychosocial processes of health behaviour change in a lifestyle intervention : Influences of gender, socioeconomic status and personality

Background: The onset of many chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes can be delayed or prevented by changes in diet, physical activity and obesity. Known predictors of successful behaviour change include psychosocial factors such as selfefficacy, action and coping planning, and social support. However, gender and socioeconomic differences in these psychosocial mechanisms underlying health behaviour change have not been examined, despite well-documented sociodemographic differences in lifestyle-related mortality and morbidity. Additionally, although stable personality traits (such as dispositional optimism or pessimism and gender-role orientation: agency and communion) are related to health and health behaviour, to date they have rarely been studied in the context of health behaviour interventions. These personality traits might contribute to health behaviour change independently of the more modifiable domain-specific psychosocial factors, or indirectly through them, or moderated by them. The aims were to examine in an intervention setting: (1) whether changes (during the three-month intervention) in psychological determinants (self-efficacy beliefs, action planning and coping planning) predict changes in exercise and diet behaviours over three months and 12 months, (2) the universality assumption of behaviour change theories, i.e. whether preintervention levels and changes in psychosocial determinants are similar among genders and socioeconomic groups, and whether they predict changes in behaviour in a similar way in these groups, (3) whether the personality traits optimism, pessimism, agency and communion predict changes in abdominal obesity, and the nature of their interplay with modifiable and domain-specific psychosocial factors (self-efficacy and social support). Methods: Finnish men and women (N = 385) aged 50 65 years who were at an increased risk for type 2 diabetes were recruited from health care centres to participate in the GOod Ageing in Lahti Region (GOAL) Lifestyle Implementation Trial. The programme aimed to improve participants lifestyle (physical activity, eating) and decrease their overweight. The measurements of self-efficacy, planning, social support and dispositional optimism/pessimism were conducted pre-intervention at baseline (T1) and after the intensive phase of the intervention at three months (T2), and the measurements of exercise at T1, T2 and 12 months (T3) and healthy eating at T1 and T3. Waist circumference, an indicator of abdominal obesity, was measured at T1 and at oneyear (T3) and three-year (T4) follow-ups. Agency and communion were measured at T4 with the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ). Results: (1) Increases in self-efficacy and planning were associated with three-month increases in exercise (Study I). Moreover, both the post-intervention level and three-month increases (during the intervention) in self-efficacy in dealing with barriers predicted the 12-month increase in exercise, and a high postintervention level of coping plans predicted the 12-month decrease in dietary fat (Study II). One- and three-year waist circumference reductions were predicted by the initial three-month increase in self-efficacy (Studies III, IV). (2) Post-intervention at three months, women had formed more action plans for changing their exercise routines and received less social support for behaviour change than men had. The effects of adoption self-efficacy were similar but change in planning played a less significant role among men (Study I). Examining the effects of socioeconomic status (SES), psychosocial determinants at baseline and their changes during the intervention yielded largely similar results. Exercise barriers self-efficacy was enhanced slightly less among those with low SES. Psychosocial determinants predicted behaviour similarly across all SES groups (Study II). (3) Dispositional optimism and pessimism were unrelated to waist circumference change, directly or indirectly, and they did not influence changes in self-efficacy (Study III). Agency predicted 12-month waist circumference reduction among women. High communion coupled with high social support was associated with waist circumference reduction. However, the only significant predictor of three-year waist circumference reduction was an increase in health-related self-efficacy during the intervention (Study IV). Conclusions: Interventions should focus on improving participants self-efficacy early on in the intervention as well as prompting action and coping planning for health behaviour change. Such changes are likely to be similarly effective among intervention participants regardless of gender and educational level. Agentic orientation may operate via helping women to be less affected by the demands of the self-sacrificing female role and enabling them to assertively focus on their own goals. The earlier mixed results regarding the role of social support in behaviour change may be in part explained by personality traits such as communion.

Governance theory as a framework for empirical research : a case study on local environmental policy-making in Helsinki, Finland

Governance has been one of the most popular buzzwords in recent political science. As with any term shared by numerous fields of research, as well as everyday language, governance is encumbered by a jungle of definitions and applications. This work elaborates on the concept of network governance. Network governance refers to complex policy-making situations, where a variety of public and private actors collaborate in order to produce and define policy. Governance is processes of autonomous, self-organizing networks of organizations exchanging information and deliberating. Network governance is a theoretical concept that corresponds to an empirical phenomenon. Often, this phenomenon is used to descirbe a historical development: governance is often used to describe changes in political processes of Western societies since the 1980s. In this work, empirical governance networks are used as an organizing framework, and the concepts of autonomy, self-organization and network structure are developed as tools for empirical analysis of any complex decision-making process. This work develops this framework and explores the governance networks in the case of environmental policy-making in the City of Helsinki, Finland. The crafting of a local ecological sustainability programme required support and knowledge from all sectors of administration, a number of entrepreneurs and companies and the inhabitants of Helsinki. The policy process relied explicitly on networking, with public and private actors collaborating to design policy instruments. Communication between individual organizations led to the development of network structures and patterns. This research analyses these patterns and their effects on policy choice, by applying the methods of social network analysis. A variety of social network analysis methods are used to uncover different features of the networked process. Links between individual network positions, network subgroup structures and macro-level network patterns are compared to the types of organizations involved and final policy instruments chosen. By using governance concepts to depict a policy process, the work aims to assess whether they contribute to models of policy-making. The conclusion is that the governance literature sheds light on events that would otherwise go unnoticed, or whose conceptualization would remain atheoretical. The framework of network governance should be in the toolkit of the policy analyst.

Music in the recovering brain

Listening to music involves a widely distributed bilateral network of brain regions that controls many auditory perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and motor functions. Exposure to music can also temporarily improve mood, reduce stress, and enhance cognitive performance as well as promote neural plasticity. However, very little is currently known about the relationship between music perception and auditory and cognitive processes or about the potential therapeutic effects of listening to music after neural damage. This thesis explores the interplay of auditory, cognitive, and emotional factors related to music processing after a middle cerebral artery (MCA) stroke. In the acute recovery phase, 60 MCA stroke patients were randomly assigned to a music listening group, an audio book listening group, or a control group. All patients underwent neuropsychological assessments, magnetoencephalography (MEG) measurements, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans repeatedly during a six-month post-stroke period. The results revealed that amusia, a deficit of music perception, is a common and persistent deficit after a stroke, especially if the stroke affects the frontal and temporal brain areas in the right hemisphere. Amusia is clearly associated with deficits in both auditory encoding, as indicated by the magnetic mismatch negativity (MMNm) response, and domain-general cognitive processes, such as attention, working memory, and executive functions. Furthermore, both music and audio book listening increased the MMNm, whereas only music listening improved the recovery of verbal memory and focused attention as well as prevented a depressed and confused mood during the first post-stroke months. These findings indicate a close link between musical, auditory, and cognitive processes in the brain. Importantly, they also encourage the use of listening to music as a rehabilitative leisure activity after a stroke and suggest that the auditory environment can induce long-term plastic changes in the recovering brain.

Depression and Cognition in Type 2 Diabetes from a Life Course Perspective

Background: Type 2 diabetes is linked to several complications which add to both physical and mental distress. Depression is a common co-morbidity of diabetes which can occur both as a cause and a consequence of type 2 diabetes. Depression has been shown to correlate with glucose regulation and treating depression might prove beneficial for glucose regulation as well as for mental well being. Another complication which might affect diabetes management is cognitive decline. Several risk factors and complications of diabetes might modify the risk for developing cognitive impairment, which is increased 1.5 times among subjects with type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes, depression and impaired cognitive performance have all been linked to low birth weight. This thesis aimed to explore the effects and interactions of birth weight, depression and cognitive ability in relation to type 2 diabetes from a life course perspective. Subjects and methods: Studies I, II and V were part of the Helsinki Birth Cohort Study. 2003 subjects participated in an extensive clinical examination at an average age of 61 years. A standard glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was performed and depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). In addition data was obtained from child welfare clinics and national registers. A subset of the cohort (n=1247) also performed a test on cognitive performance (CogState ®) at the average age of 64. Studies III and IV were randomised clinical trials where mildly depressed diabetic subjects were treated with paroxetine or placebo and the effect on metabolic parameters and quality of life was assessed. The first trial included 14 women and lasted 10 weeks, while the second trial included 43 subjects, both men and women, and lasted 6 months. Results: Type 2 diabetes was positively associated with the occurrence of depressive symptoms. Among diabetic subjects 23.6% had depressive symptoms, compared to 16.7% of subjects with normal glucose tolerance (OR = 1.77, p<0.001). Formal mediation analysis revealed that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is likely to act as a mediator in the association. Furthermore, low birth weight was found to modify the association between type 2 diabetes, CVD and depression. The association between BDI score and having type 2 diabetes or CVD was twice as strong in the subgroup with low birth weight (≤ 2500g) compared with the group with birth weight > 2500g (p for interaction 0.058). In the six months long randomised clinical trial (study IV) paroxetine had a transient beneficial effect on glycosylated haemoglobin A1c (GHbA1c) and quality of life when compared to placebo after three months of treatment. In study V we found that subjects with known diabetes had a consistently poorer level of cognitive performance than subjects with normal glucose tolerance in most of the tested cognitive domains. This effect was further amplified among those born with a small birth weight (p for interaction 0.002). Conclusions: Type 2 diabetes is associated with a higher occurrence of depressive symptoms compared to subjects with normal glucose tolerance. This association is especially strong among subjects with CVD and those born with a low birth weight. Treating depressed diabetic subjects with paroxetine has no long term effect on glucose regulation. Physicians should be aware of depression as an important co-morbidity of type 2 diabetes. Both depression and the cognitive decline often seen among diabetic subjects are increased if the subject is born with a low birth weight. Physicians should recognise low birth weight as an additional risk factor and modifier of diabetic complications.

Late Svecofennian leucogranites of southern Finland : Chronicles of an orogenic collapse

Leucogranite magmatism occurred in southern Finland during the later stages of the Paleoproterozoic Svecofennian orogeny. The leucogranites are considered to have formed from pre-existing crustal rocks that have undergone anatexis in the extensional stage of the orogeny, following continental collision and resultant crustal thickening. The leucogranites have been studied in the field using petrographic and mineralogical methods, elemental and isotope geochemistry on whole rocks and minerals, and U-Pb geochronology. On outcrop scale, these granites typically form heterogeneous, layered, sheet-like bodies that migmatize their country rocks. All of the leucogranites are peraluminous and rich in SiO2, but otherwise display significant geochemical variation. Their Nd isotope composition ranges from fairly juvenile to very unradiogenic, and the Hf isotope composition of their zircon shows a varying degree of mixing in the source, the zircon populations becoming more heterogeneous and generally less radiogenic towards the east. The leucogranites have been dated using U-Pb isotopic analyses, utilizing thermal ionization mass spectrometry, secondary ion mass spectrometry, and laser ablation multicollector ICP mass spectrometry on zircon and monazite. The results show that the granites were emplaced between 1.85 Ga and 1.79 Ga, which is a considerably longer period than has traditionally been perceived for these rocks. The rocks tend to become younger towards the east. Single crystal data also display a wide array of inherited zircons, especially in the eastern part of the leucogranite belt. The most common inherited age groups are ~2.8 2.5 Ga, ~2.1 2.1 Ga, and ~1.9 Ga. Magmatic zircon and monazite usually record similar ages for any one sample.Thermobarometric calculations indicate that the leucogranites in the Veikkola area of southcentral Finland were formed from relatively low-temperature melts, and emplaced at 17-25 km depth, i.e. at mid-crustal level. It is likely that these conditions apply to the Svecofennian leucogranites in general. Large differences in the Hf and Nd isotope compositions, emplacement ages, and distributions of inherited zircon ages show that these granites were formed from different types of source rocks, which probably included both sedimentary and igneous rocks.

Yhden uhka, toisen toive? : Somalien ja venäläisten asumistoiveet etnisen segregaatiokehityksen valossa

Ethnic minorities residential patterns and integration are widely discussed issues in many European countries. They have also become topical in Finland due to an increase in foreign migration, especially in recent decades. This dissertation contributes to debates associated with attempts to explain ethnic minorities residential patterns by examining the role of cultural factors and ethnic preferences of the residential choices of Somali and Russian immigrants in Finland. The research is based on in-depth interviews with Somali (n=24) and Russian (n=26) immigrants living in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Housing officials and social workers (n=18) working in cities of Helsinki and Vantaa were also interviewed. The results of this study show that propinquity to one s own ethnic group is important to Somalis living in Finland. This is important for maintaining their traditional, communal life styles, but also as a safe haven against the racism which they experience on a regular basis. They have a preference for mixed neighbourhoods that contain both native Finnish residents and some ethnic minorities. For Russians the spatial propinquity to their country people is less significant at the neighbourhood level. However, this is not to indicate the insignificance of intra-ethnic networks or one s cultural background. Rather, the differences in ethnic preferences between Somalis and Russians predominantly reflect their varying levels of exposure to racial harassment and diverse meanings that they give to social relations with their neighbours. According to this study, the time spent in a host-country and interactions with other ethnic groups affect ethnic preferences. The importance of one s own ethnic community also varies in accordance with life situations. Therefore, ethnic minorities residential preferences and choices should not be viewed as static or something deriving from cultural background alone. Residential preferences and aspirations are constantly being reshaped vis-à-vis to immigrants experiences. Past and present experiences and the way that immigrants observe the host society and its functions are important for the interpretation of residential preferences and patterns.