The non-literary Latin letters. A study of their syntax and pragmatics

This dissertation studies the language of Latin letters that were written in Egypt and Vindolanda (in northern Britain) during the period 1st century BC 3rd century AD on papyri, ostraca, and wooden tablets. The majority of the texts is, in one way or another, connected with the Roman army. The focus of the study is on syntax and pragmatics. Besides traditional philological methods, modern syntactic theory is used as well, especially in the pragmatic analysis. The study begins with a critical survey of certain concepts that are current in the research on the Latin language, most importantly the concept of vulgar Latin , which, it is argued, seems to be used as an abstract noun for variation and change in Latin . Further, it is necessary to treat even the non-literary material primarily as written texts and not as straightforward reflections of spoken language. An examination of letter phraseology shows that there is considerable variation between the two major geographical areas of provenance. Latin letter writing in Egypt was influenced by Greek. The study highlights the importance of seeing the letters as a text type, with recurring phraseological elements appearing in the body text as well. It is argued that recognising these elements is essential for the correct analysis of the syntax. Three areas of syntax are discussed in detail: sentence connection (mainly parataxis), syntactically incoherent structures and word order (the order of the object and the verb). For certain types of sentence connection we may plausibly posit an origin in spoken Latin, but for many other linguistic phenomena attested in this material the issue of spoken Latin is anything but simple. Concerning the study of historical syntax, the letters offer information about the changing status of the accusative case. Incoherent structures may reflect contaminations in spoken language but usually the reason for them is the inability of the writer to put his thoughts into writing, especially when there is something more complicated to be expressed. Many incoherent expressions reflect the need to start the predication with a thematic constituent. Latin word order is seen as resulting from an interaction of syntactic and pragmatic factors. The preference for an order where the topic is placed sentence-initially can be seen in word order more generally as well. Furthermore, there appears a difference between Egypt and Vindolanda. The letters from Vindolanda show the order O(bject) V(erb) clearly more often than the letters from Egypt. Interestingly, this difference correlates with another, namely the use of the anaphoric pronoun is. This is an interesting observation in view of the fact that both of these are traditional Latin features, as opposed to those that foreshadow the Romance development (VO order and use of the anaphoric ille). However, it is difficult to say whether this is an indication of social or regional variation.

Future chemistry teachers use of knowledge dimensions and high-order cognitive skills in pre-laboratory concept maps

This poster describes a pilot case study, which aim is to study how future chemistry teachers use knowledge dimensions and high-order cognitive skills (HOCS) in their pre-laboratory concept maps to support chemistry laboratory work. The research data consisted of 168 pre-laboratory concept maps that 29 students constructed as a part of their chemistry laboratory studies. Concept maps were analyzed by using a theory based content analysis through Anderson & Krathwohls' learning taxonomy (2001). This study implicates that novice concept mapper students use all knowledge dimensions and applying, analyzing and evaluating HOCS to support the pre-laboratory work.

A Sketch of the Phonology and Grammar of Rajbanshi

This dissertation is a synchronic description of the phonology and grammar of two dialects of the Rajbanshi language (Eastern Indo-Aryan) as spoken in Jhapa, Nepal. I have primarily confined the analysis to the oral expression, since the emerging literary form is still in its infancy. The grammatical analysis is therefore based, for the most part, on a corpus of oral narrative text which was recorded and transcribed from three informants from north-east Jhapa. An informant, speaking a dialect from south-west Jhapa cross checked this text corpus and provided additional elicited material. I have described the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language, and also one aspect of its discourse structure. For the most part the phonology follows the basic Indo-Aryan pattern. Derivational morphology, compounding, reduplication, echo formation and onomatopoeic constructions are considered, as well as number, noun classes (their assignment and grammatical function), pronouns, and case and postpositions. In verbal morphology I cover causative stems, the copula, primary and secondary agreement, tense, aspect, mood, auxiliary constructions and non-finite forms. The term secondary agreement here refers to genitive agreement, dative-subject agreement and patient (and sometimes patient-agent) agreement. The breaking of default agreement rules has a range of pragmatic inferences. I argue that a distinction, based on formal, semantic and statistical grounds, should be made between conjunct verbs, derivational compound verbs and quasi-aspectual compound verbs. Rajbanshi has an open set of adjectives, and it additionally makes use of a restricted set of nouns which can function as adjectives. Various particles, and the emphatic and conjunctive clitics are also considered. The syntactic structures studied include: non-declarative speech acts, phrase-internal and clause-internal constituent order, negation, subordination, coordination and valence adjustment. I explain how the future, present and past tenses in Rajbanshi oral narratives do not seem to maintain a time reference, but rather to indicate a distinction between background and foreground information. I call this tense neutralisation .

Self-love and self-liking in the moral and political philosophy of Bernard Mandeville and David Hume

This work offers a novel interpretation of David Hume’s (1711–1776) conception of the conjectural development of civil society and artificial moral institutions. It focuses on the social elements of Hume’s Treatise of human nature (1739–40) and the necessary connection between science of man and politeness, civilised monarchies, social distance and hierarchical structure of civil society. The study incorporates aspects of intellectual history, history of philosophy and book history. In order to understand David Hume’s thinking, the intellectual development of Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733) needs to be accounted for. When put into a historical perspective, the moral, political and social components of Treatise of human nature can be read in the context of a philosophical tradition, in which Mandeville plays a pivotal role. A distinctive character of Mandeville and Hume’s account of human nature and moral institutions was the introduction of a simple distinction between self-love and self-liking. The symmetric passions of self-interest and pride can only be controlled by the corresponding moral institutions. This is also the way in which we can say that moral institutions are drawn from human nature. In the case of self-love or self-interest, the corresponding moral institution is justice. Respectively, concerning self-liking or pride the moral institution is politeness. There is an explicit analogy between these moral institutions. If we do not understand this analogy, we do not understand the nature of either justice or politeness. The present work is divided into two parts. In the first part, ‘Intellectual development of Bernard Mandeville’, it is argued that the relevance of the paradigmatic change in Mandeville’s thinking has been missed. It draws a picture of Mandeville turning from the Hobbism of The Fable of the Bees to an original theory of civil society put forward in his later works. In order to make this change more apparent, Mandeville’s career and the publishing history of The Fable of the Bees are examined comprehensively. This interpretation, based partly on previously unknown sources, challenges F. B. Kaye’s influential decision to publish the two parts of The Fable of the Bees as a uniform work of two volumes. The main relevance, however, of the ‘Intellectual development of Mandeville’ is to function as the context for the young Hume. The second part of the work, ‘David Hume and Greatness of mind’, explores in philosophical detail the social theory of the Treatise and politics and the science of man in his Essays. This part will also reveal the relevance of Greatness of mind as a general concept for David Hume’s moral and political philosophy.

A Touch of Red : Archaeological and Ethnographic Approaches to Interpreting Finnish Rock Paintings

Approximately 125 prehistoric rock paintings have been found in the modern territory of Finland. The paintings were done with red ochre and are almost without exception located on steep lakeshore cliffs associated with ancient water routes. Most of the sites are found in the central and eastern parts of the country, especially on the shores of Lakes Päijänne and Saimaa. Using shore displacement chronology, the art has been dated to ca. 5000 – 1500 BC. It was thus created mainly during the Stone Age and can be associated with the so-called ‘Comb Ware’ cultures of the Subneolithic period. The range of motifs is rather limited, consisting mainly of schematic depictions of stick-figure humans, elks, boats, handprints and geometric signs. Few paintings include any evidence of narrative scenes, making their interpretation a rather difficult task. In Finnish archaeological literature, the paintings have traditionally been associated with ’sympathetic’ hunting magic, or the belief that the ritual shooting of the painted animals would increase hunting luck. Some writers have also suggested totemistic and shamanistic readings of the art. This dissertation is a critical review of the interpretations offered of Finnish rock art and an exploration of the potentials of archaeological and ethnographic research in increasing our knowledge of its meaning. Methods used include ’formal’ approaches such as archaeological excavation, landscape analysis and the application of neuropsychological research to the study of rock art, as well as ethnographically ’informed’ approaches that make use of Saami and Baltic Finnish ethnohistorical sources in interpretation. In conclusion, it is argued that although North European hunter-gatherer rock art is often thought to lie beyond the reach of ‘informed’ knowledge, the exceptional continuity of prehistoric settlement in Finland validates the informed approach in the interpretation of Finnish rock paintings. The art can be confidently associated with shamanism of the kind still practiced by the Saami of Northern Fennoscandia in the historical period. Evidence of similar shamanistic practices, concepts and cosmology are also found in traditional Finnish-Karelian epic poetry. Previous readings of the art based on ‘hunting magic’ and totemism are rejected. Most of the paintings appear to depict experiences of falling into a trance, of shamanic metamorphosis and trance journeys, and of ‘spirit helper’ beings comparable to those employed by the Saami shaman (noaidi). As demonstrated by the results of an excavation at the rock painting of Valkeisaari, the painted cliffs themselves find a close parallel in the Saami cult of the 'sieidi', or sacred cliffs and boulders worshipped as expressing a supernatural power. Like the Saami, the prehistoric inhabitants of the Finnish Lake Region seem to have believed that certain cliffs were ’alive’ and inhabited by the spirit helpers of the shaman. The rock paintings can thus be associated with shamanic vision quests, and the making of ‘art’ with an effort to socialize the other members of the community, especially the ritual specialists, with trance visions. However, the paintings were not merely to be looked at. The red ochre handprints pressed on images of elks, as well as the fact that many paintings appear ’smeared’, indicate that they were also to be touched – perhaps in order to tap into the supernatural potency inherent in the cliff and in the paintings of spirit animals.

Questions to Artificial Nature: A Philosophical Study of Interdisciplinary Models and their Functions in Scientific Practice

This thesis presents an interdisciplinary analysis of how models and simulations function in the production of scientific knowledge. The work is informed by three scholarly traditions: studies on models and simulations in philosophy of science, so-called micro-sociological laboratory studies within science and technology studies, and cultural-historical activity theory. Methodologically, I adopt a naturalist epistemology and combine philosophical analysis with a qualitative, empirical case study of infectious-disease modelling. This study has a dual perspective throughout the analysis: it specifies the modelling practices and examines the models as objects of research. The research questions addressed in this study are: 1) How are models constructed and what functions do they have in the production of scientific knowledge? 2) What is interdisciplinarity in model construction? 3) How do models become a general research tool and why is this process problematic? The core argument is that the mediating models as investigative instruments (cf. Morgan and Morrison 1999) take questions as a starting point, and hence their construction is intentionally guided. This argument applies the interrogative model of inquiry (e.g., Sintonen 2005; Hintikka 1981), which conceives of all knowledge acquisition as process of seeking answers to questions. The first question addresses simulation models as Artificial Nature, which is manipulated in order to answer questions that initiated the model building. This account develops further the "epistemology of simulation" (cf. Winsberg 2003) by showing the interrelatedness of researchers and their objects in the process of modelling. The second question clarifies why interdisciplinary research collaboration is demanding and difficult to maintain. The nature of the impediments to disciplinary interaction are examined by introducing the idea of object-oriented interdisciplinarity, which provides an analytical framework to study the changes in the degree of interdisciplinarity, the tools and research practices developed to support the collaboration, and the mode of collaboration in relation to the historically mutable object of research. As my interest is in the models as interdisciplinary objects, the third research problem seeks to answer my question of how we might characterise these objects, what is typical for them, and what kind of changes happen in the process of modelling. Here I examine the tension between specified, question-oriented models and more general models, and suggest that the specified models form a group of their own. I call these Tailor-made models, in opposition to the process of building a simulation platform that aims at generalisability and utility for health-policy. This tension also underlines the challenge of applying research results (or methods and tools) to discuss and solve problems in decision-making processes.

Archaeology of wings : Birds and people in the Baltic Sea region during the Stone Age

The prominent roles of birds, often mentioned in historical sources, are not well reflected in archaeological research. Absence or scarcity of bird bones in archaeological assemblages has been often seen as indication of a minor role of birds in the prehistoric economy or ideology, or explained by taphonomic loss. Few studies exist where birds form the basis for extensive archaeological interpretation. In this doctoral dissertation bird bone material from various Stone Age sites in the Baltic Sea region is investigated. The study period is approximately 7000-3400 BP, comprising mainly Neolithic cultures. The settlement material comes from Finland, Åland, Gotland, Saaremaa and Hiiumaa. Osteological materials are used for studying the economic and cultural importance of birds, fowling methods and principal fowling seasons. The bones were identified and earlier identifications partially checked with help of a reference material of modern skeletons. Fracture analysis was used in order to study the deposition history of bones at Ajvide settlement site. Birds in burials at two large cemeteries, Ajvide on Gotland and Zvejnieki in northern Latvia were investigated in order to study the roles of birds in burial practices. My study reveals that the economic importance of birds is at least seasonally often more prominent than usually thought, and varies greatly in different areas. Fowling has been most important in coastal areas, and especially during the breeding season. Waterbirds and grouse species were generally the most important groups in Finnish Stone Age economy. The identified species composition shows much resemblance to contemporary hunting with species such as the mallard and capercaillie commonly found. Burial materials and additional archaeological evidence from Gotland, Latvia and some other parts of northern Europe indicate that birds –e.g., jay, whooper swan, ducks – have been socially and ideologically important for the studied groups (indicating a place in the belief system, e.g. clan totemism). The burial finds indicate that some common ideas about waterbirds (perhaps as messengers or spirit helpers) might have existed in the northern European Stone Age.

Poetics of Subjectivity : Existence and Expressivity in Simone de Beauvoir's Philosophy

In the last thirty years, primarily feminist scholars have drawn attention to and re-evaluated the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir (1908 1986). Her philosophical practice has been described as non-systematic, and her literary writing has been viewed as part of her non-systematic mode of philosophising. This dissertation radically deepens the question concerning Beauvoir s philosophical motivations for turning to literature as a mode to express subjectivity. It explicates the central concepts of Beauvoir s philosophy of existence, which are subjectivity, ambiguity, paradox and temporality, and their background in the modern traditions of existential philosophy and phenomenology. It also clarifies Beauvoir s main reason to turn to literature in order to express subjectivity as both singular and universal: as a specific mode of communication, literature is able to make the universality of existence manifest in the concrete, singular and temporal texture of life. In addition, the thesis gives examples of how Beauvoir s literary works contribute to an understanding of the complexity of subjectivity. I use the expression poetics of subjectivity to refer to the systematic relation between Beauvoir s existential and phenomenological notion of subjectivity and her literary works, and to her articulations of a creative mode of using language, especially in the novel. The thesis is divided into five chapters, of which the first three investigate Beauvoir s philosophy of existence at the intersection of the modern traditions of thought that began with René Descartes and Søren Kierkegaard s intuitions about subjectivity. Chapter 1 interprets Beauvoir s notion of ambiguity, as compared to paradox, and argues that both determine her notion of existence. Chapters 2 and 3 investigate the phenomenological side of Beauvoir s philosophy through a study of her response to early French interpretations of transcendental subjectivity, especially in the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. My analysis shows that Edmund Husserl s distinction between different levels of subjective experience is central to Beauvoir s understanding of subjectivity and to the different ego concepts she uses. Chapter 4 is a study of Beauvoir s reflections on the expression of subjective thought, and, more specifically, her philosophical conceptions of the metaphysical novel and the autobiography as two modes of indirect communication. Chapter 5, finally, compares two modes of investigating concrete subjectivity; Beauvoir s conceptual study of femininity in Le deuxième sexe and her literary expression of subjectivity in the novel L Invitée. My analysis reveals and explicates Beauvoir s original contribution to a comprehensive understanding of the becoming and paradox of human existence: the fundamental insight that these phenomena are sexed, historically as well as imaginatively.

The One and The Many : In the works of Heraclitus, Parmenides and Lao Zi

This paper concentrates on Heraclitus, Parmenides and Lao Zi. The focus is on their ideas on change and whether the world is essentially One or if it is composed of many entities. In the first chapter I go over some general tendences in Greek and Chinese philosophy. The differences in the cultural background have an influence in the ways philosophy is made, but the paper aims to show that two questions can be brought up when comparing the philosophies of Heraclitus, Parmenides and Lao Zi. The questions are; is the world essentially One or Many? Is change real and if it is, what is the nature of it and how does it take place? For Heraclitus change is real, and as will be shown later in the chapter, quite essential for the sustainability of the world-order (kosmos). The key-concept in the case of Heraclitus is Logos. Heraclitus uses Logos in several senses, most well known relating to his element-theory. But another important feature of the Logos, the content of real wisdom, is to be able to regard everything as one. This does not mean that world is essentially one for Heraclitus in the ontological sense, but that we should see the underlying unity of multiple phenomena. Heraclitus regards this as hen panta: All from One, One from All. I characterize Heraclitus as epistemic monist and an ontological pluralist. It is plausible that the views of Heraclitus on change were the focus of Parmenides’ severe criticism. Parmenides held the view that the world is essentially one and that to see it as consisting of many entities was the error of mortals, i.e. the common man and his philosophical predecessors. For Parmenides what-is, can be approached by two routes; The Way of Truth (Aletheia) and The Way of Seeming (Doxa). Aletheia essentially sees the world as one, where even time is an illusion. In Doxa Parmenides is giving an explanation of the world seen as consisting of many entities and this is his contribution to the line of thought of his predecessors. It should be noted that a strong emphasis is given to the Aletheia, whereas the world-view given is in Doxa is only probable. I go on to describe Parmenides as ontological monist, who gives some plausibility to pluralistic views. In the work of Lao Zi world can be seen as One or as consisting of Many entities. In my interpretation, Lao Zi uses Dao in two different senses; Dao is the totality of things or the order in change. The wu-aspect (seeing-without-form) attends the world as one, whereas the you-aspect attends the world of many entities. In wu-aspect, Dao refers to the totality of things, when in you-aspect Dao is the order or law in change. There are two insights in Lao Zi regarding the relationship between wu- and- you-apects; in ch.1 it is stated that they are two separate aspects in seeing the world, the other chapters regarding that you comes from wu. This naturally brings in the question whether the One is the peak of seeing the world as many. In other words, is there a way from pluralism to monism. All these considerations make it probable that the work attributed to Lao Zi has been added new material or is a compilation of oral sayings. In the end of the paper I will go on to give some insights on how Logos and Dao can be compared in a relevant manner. I also compare Parmenides holistic monism to Lao Zi’s Dao as nameless totality (i.e. in its wu-aspect). I briefly touch the issues of Heidegger and the future of comparative philosophy.

Effects of dairy proteins and calcium on diet-induced obesity in mice

Diet high in dairy products is inversely associated with body mass index, risk of metabolic syndrome and prevalence of type 2 diabetes in several populations. Also a number of intervention studies support the role of increased dairy intake in the prevention and treatment of obesity. Dairy calcium has been suggested to account for the effect of dairy on body weight, but it has been repeatedly shown that the effect of dairy is superior to the effect of supplemental calcium. Dairy proteins are postulated to either enhance the effect of calcium or have an independent effect on body weight, but studies in the area are scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of dairy proteins and calcium in the prevention and treatment of diet-induced obesity in C57Bl/6J mice. The effect of dairy proteins and calcium on the liver and adipose tissue was also investigated in order to characterise the potential mechanisms explaining the reduction of risk for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. A high-calcium diet (1.8%) in combination with dietary whey protein inhibited body weight and fat gain and accelerated body weight and fat loss in high-fat-fed C57Bl/6J mice during long-term studies of 14 to 21 weeks. α-lactalbumin, one of the major whey proteins, was the most effective whey protein fraction showing significantly accelerated weight and fat loss during energy restriction and reduced the amount of visceral fat gain during ad libitum feeding after weight loss. The microarray data suggest sensitisation of insulin signalling in the adipose tissue as a result of a calcium-rich whey protein diet. Lipidomic analysis revealed that weight loss on whey protein-based high-calcium diet was characterised by significant decreases in diabetogenic diacylglycerols and lipotoxic ceramide species. The calcium supplementation led to a small, but statistically significant decrease in fat absorption independent of the protein source of the diet. This augments, but does not fully explain the effects of the studied diets on body weight. A whey protein-containing high-calcium diet had a protective effect against a high-fat diet-induced decline of β3 adrenergic receptor expression in adipose tissue. In addition, a high-calcium diet with whey protein increased the adipose tissue leptin expression which is decreased in this obesity-prone mouse strain. These changes are likely to contribute to the inhibition of weight gain. The potential sensitisation of insulin signalling in adipose tissue together with the less lipotoxic and diabetogenic hepatic lipid profile suggest a novel mechanistic link to explain why increased dairy intake is associated with a lower prevalence of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes in epidemiological studies. Taken together, the intake of a high-calcium diet with dairy proteins has a body weight lowering effect in high-fat-fed C57Bl/6J mice. High-calcium diets containing whey protein prevent weight gain and enhance weight loss, α-lactalbumin being the most effective whey protein fraction. Whey proteins and calcium have also beneficial effects on hepatic lipid profile and adipose tissue gene expression, which suggest a novel mechanistic link to explain the epidemiological findings on dairy intake and metabolic syndrome. The clinical relevance of these findings and the precise mechanisms of action remain an intriguing field of future research.

Regulation of strawberry growth and development

Strawberries (Fragaria sp.) are adapted to diverse environmental conditions from the tropics to about 70ºN, so different responses to environmental conditions can be found. Most genotypes of garden strawberry (F. x ananassa Duch.) and woodland strawberry (F. vesca L.) are short-day (SD) plants that are induced to flowering by photoperiods under a critical limit, but also various photoperiod x temperature interactions can be found. In addition, continuously flowering everbearing (EB) genotypes are found. In addition to flowering, axillary bud differentiation in strawberry is regulated by photoperiod. In SD conditions, axillary buds differentiate to rosette-like structures called "branch crowns", whereas in long-day conditions (LD) they form runners, branches with 2 long internodes followed by a daughter plant (leaf rosette). The number of crown branches determines the yield of the plant, since inflorescences are formed from the apical meristems of the crown. Although axillary bud differentiation is an important developmental process in strawberries, its environmental and hormonal regulation has not been characterized in detail. Moreover, the genetic mechanisms underlying axillary bud differentiation and regulation of flowering time in these species are almost completely unresolved. These topics have been studied in this thesis in order to enhance strawberry research, cultivation and breeding. The results showed that 8-12 SD cycles suppressed runner initiation from the axillary buds of the garden strawberry cv. Korona with the concomitant induction of crown branching, and 3 weeks of SD was sufficient for the induction of flowering in the main crown. Furthermore, a second SD treatment given a few weeks after the first SD period can be used to induce flowering in the primary branch crowns and to induce the formation of secondary branches. Thus, artificial SD treatments effectively stimulate crown branching, providing one means for the increase of cropping (yield) potential in strawberry. It was also shown by growth regulation applications, quantitave hormone analysis and gene expression analysis that gibberellin (GA) is one of the key signals involved in the photoperiod control of shoot differentiation. The results indicate that photoperiod controls GA activity specifically in axillary buds, thereby determining bud fate. It was further shown that chemical control of GA biosynthesis by prohexadione-calcium can be utilized to prevent excessive runner formation and induce crown branching in strawberry fields. Moreover, ProCa increased berry yield up to 50%, showing that it is an easier and more applicable alternative to artificial SD treatments for controlling strawberry crown development and yield. Finally, flowering gene pathways in Fragaria were explored by searching for homologs of 118 Arabidopsis thaliana flowering-time genes. In total, 66 gene homologs were identified, and they distributed to all known flowering pathways, suggesting the presence of these pathways also in strawberry. Expression analysis of selected genes revealed that the mRNA of putative floral identity gene APETALA1 accumulated in the shoot apex of the EB genotype after the induction of flowering, whereas it was absent in vegetative SD genotype, indicating the usefulness of this gene product as the marker of floral initiation. The present data enables the further exploration of strawberry flowering pathways with genetic transformation, gene mapping and transcriptomics methods.

Determinants of farmer retirement and farm succession in Finland

In the past decade, the Finnish agricultural sector has undergone rapid structural changes. The number of farms has decreased and the average farm size has increased when the number of farms transferred to new entrants has decreased. Part of the structural change in agriculture is manifested in early retirement programmes. In studying farmers exit behaviour in different countries, institutional differences, incentive programmes and constraints are found to matter. In Finland, farmers early retirement programmes were first introduced in 1974 and, during the last ten years, they have been carried out within the European Union framework for these programmes. The early retirement benefits are farmer specific and de-pend on the level of pension insurance the farmer has paid over his active farming years. In order to predict the future development of the agricultural sector, farmers have been frequently asked about their future plans and their plans for succession. However, the plans the farmers made for succession have been found to be time inconsistent. This study estimates the value of farmers stated succession plans in predicting revealed succession decisions. A stated succession plan exists when a farmer answers in a survey questionnaire that the farm is going to be transferred to a new entrant within a five-year period. The succession is revealed when the farm is transferred to a suc-cessor. Stated and revealed behaviour was estimated as a recursive Binomial Probit Model, which accounts for the censoring of the decision variables and controls for a potential correlation between the two equations. The results suggest that the succession plans, as stated by elderly farmers in the questionnaires, do not provide information that is significant and valuable in predicting true, com-pleted successions. Therefore, farmer exit should be analysed based on observed behaviour rather than on stated plans and intentions. As farm retirement plays a crucial role in determining the characteristics of structural change in agriculture, it is important to establish the factors which determine an exit from farming among eld-erly farmers and how off-farm income and income losses affect their exit choices. In this study, the observed choice of pension scheme by elderly farmers was analysed by a bivariate probit model. Despite some variations in significance and the effects of each factor, the ages of the farmer and spouse, the age and number of potential successors, farm size, income loss when retiring and the location of the farm together with the production line were found to be the most important determi-nants of early retirement and the transfer or closure of farms. Recently, the labour status of the spouse has been found to contribute significantly to individual retirement decisions. In this study, the effect of spousal retirement and economic incentives related to the timing of a farming couple s early retirement decision were analysed with a duration model. The results suggest that an expected pension in particular advances farm transfers. It was found that on farms operated by a couple, both early retirement and farm succession took place more often than on farms operated by a single person. However, the existence of a spouse delayed the timing of early retirement. Farming couples were found to co-ordinate their early retirement decisions when they both exit through agricultural retirement programmes, but such a co-ordination did not exist when one of the spouses retired under other pension schemes. Besides changes in the agricultural structure, the share and amount of off-farm income of a farm family s total income has also increased. In the study, the effect of off-farm income on farmers retirement decisions, in addition to other financial factors, was analysed. The unknown parameters were first estimated by a switching-type multivariate probit model and then by the simulated maxi-mum likelihood (SML) method, controlling for farmer specific fixed effects and serial correlation of the errors. The results suggest that elderly farmers off-farm income is a significant determinant in a farmer s choice to exit and close down the farm. However, off-farm income only has a short term effect on structural changes in agriculture since it does not significantly contribute to the timing of farm successions.

Effects of recreational use and fragmentation on the understorey vegetation and soil microbial communities of urban forests in southern Finland

The impacts of fragmentation and recreational use on the hemiboreal urban forest understorey vegetation and the microbial community of the humus layer (the phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) pattern, microbial biomass and microbial activity, measured as basal respiration) were examined in the greater Helsinki area, southern Finland. Trampling tolerance of 1) herb-rich OMT, 2) mesic MT, and 3) sub-xeric VT forests (in decreasing order of fertility) was studied by comparing relative understorey vegetation cover (urban/untrampled reference ratio) of the three forest types. The trampling tolerance of forest vegetation increased with the productivity of the site (sub-xeric < mesic < herb-rich). Wear of understorey vegetation correlated positively with the number of residents (i.e., recreational pressure) around the forest patch. An increase of 15000 residents within a radius of 1 km around a forest patch was associated with ca. 30% decrease in the relative understorey vegetation cover. The cover of dwarf shrub Vaccinium myrtillus in particular decreased with increasing levels of wear. The cover of mosses in urban forests was less than half of that in untrampled reference areas. Cover of tree saplings, mainly Sorbus aucuparia, and some resilient herbs was higher than in the reference areas. In small urban forest fragments, broad-leaved trees, grasses and herbs were more abundant and mosses were scarcer than in larger urban forest areas. Thus, due to trampling and edge effects, resilient herb and grass species are replacing sensitive dwarf shrubs, mosses and lichens in urban forests. Differences in the soil microbial community structure were found between paths and untrampled areas and the effects of paths extended more than one meter from the paths. Paths supported approximately 25-30% higher microbial biomass with a transition zone of at least 1 m from the path edge. However, microbial activity per unit of biomass was lower on paths than in untrampled areas. Furthermore, microbial biomass and activity were 30-45% lower at the first 20 m into the forest fragments, due to low moisture content of humus near the edge. The decreased microbial activity detected at forest edges and paths implies decreased litter decomposition rates, and thus, a change in nutrient cycling. Changes in the decomposition and nutrient supply may in turn affect the diversity and function of plant communities in urban forests. Keywords: boreal forest vegetation, edge effects, phospholipid fatty acids, trampling, urban woodlands, wear

Human genetic variation in the Baltic Sea region: Features of population history and natural selection

In this thesis, the genetic variation of human populations from the Baltic Sea region was studied in order to elucidate population history as well as evolutionary adaptation in this region. The study provided novel understanding of how the complex population level processes of migration, genetic drift, and natural selection have shaped genetic variation in North European populations. Results from genome-wide, mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal analyses suggested that the genetic background of the populations of the Baltic Sea region lies predominantly in Continental Europe, which is consistent with earlier studies and archaeological evidence. The late settlement of Fennoscandia after the Ice Age and the subsequent small population size have led to pronounced genetic drift, especially in Finland and Karelia but also in Sweden, evident especially in genome-wide and Y-chromosomal analyses. Consequently, these populations show striking genetic differentiation, as opposed to much more homogeneous pattern of variation in Central European populations. Additionally, the eastern side of the Baltic Sea was observed to have experienced eastern influence in the genome-wide data as well as in mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal variation – consistent with linguistic connections. However, Slavic influence in the Baltic Sea populations appears minor on genetic level. While the genetic diversity of the Finnish population overall was low, genome-wide and Y-chromosomal results showed pronounced regional differences. The genetic distance between Western and Eastern Finland was larger than for many geographically distant population pairs, and provinces also showed genetic differences. This is probably mainly due to the late settlement of Eastern Finland and local isolation, although differences in ancestral migration waves may contribute to this, too. In contrast, mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal analyses of the contemporary Swedish population revealed a much less pronounced population structure and a fusion of the traces of ancient admixture, genetic drift, and recent immigration. Genome-wide datasets also provide a resource for studying the adaptive evolution of human populations. This study revealed tens of loci with strong signs of recent positive selection in Northern Europe. These results provide interesting targets for future research on evolutionary adaptation, and may be important for understanding the background of disease-causing variants in human populations.

The effects of habitat edges and trampling intensity on vegetation in urban forests

Although changes in urban forest vegetation have been documented in previous Finnish studies, the reasons for these changes have not been studied explicitly. Especially, the consequences of forest fragmentation, i.e. the fact that forest edges receive more solar radiation, wind and air-borne nutrients than interiors have been ignored. In order to limit the change in urban forest vegetation we need to know why it occurs. Therefore, the effects of edges and recreational use of urban forests on vegetation were investigated together in this thesis to reveal the relative strengths of these effects and to provide recommendations for forest management. Data were collected in the greater Helsinki area (in the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa and Espoo, and in the municipalities of Sipoo and Tuusula) and in the Lahti region (in the city of Lahti and in the municipality of Hollola) by means of systematic and randomized vegetation and soil sampling and tree measurements. Sample plots were placed from the forest edges to the interiors to investigate the effects of forest edges, and on paths of different levels of wear and off these paths to investigate the effects of trampling. The natural vegetation of mesic and sub-xeric forest site types studied was sensitive both to the effects of the edge and to trampling. The abundances of dwarf shrubs and bryophytes decreased, while light- and nitrogen-demanding herbs and grasses - and especially Sorbus aucuparia – were favoured at the edges and next to the paths. Results indicated that typical forest site types at the edges are changing toward more nitrophilic vegetation communities. Covers of the most abundant forest species decreased considerably – even tens of percentages – from interiors to the edges indicating strong edge effects. These effects penetrated at least up to 50 m from the forest edges into the interiors, especially at south to west facing open edges. The effects of trampling were pronounced on paths and even low levels of trampling decreased the abundances of certain species considerably. The effects of trampling extended up to 8 m from path edges. Results showed that the fragmentation of urban forest remnants into small and narrow patches should be avoided in order to maintain natural forest understorey vegetation in the urban setting. Thus, urban forest fragments left within urban development should be at least 3 ha in size, and as circular as possible. Where the preservation of representative original forest interior vegetation is a management aim, closed edges with conifers can act as an effective barrier against solar radiation, wind and urban load, thereby restricting the effects of the edge. Tree volume at the edge should be at least 225-250 m3 ha-1 and the proportion of conifers (especially spruce) 80% or more of the tree species composition. Closed, spruce-dominated edges may also prevent the excessive growth of S. aucuparia saplings at urban forest edges. In addition, closed edges may guide people’s movements to the maintained paths, thus preventing the spontaneous creation of dense path networks. In urban areas the effects of edges and trampling on biodiversity may be considerable, and are important to consider when the aim of management is to prevent the development of homogeneous herb-grass dominated vegetation communities, as was observed at the investigated edges.