Five Baltic Ports Togehter: Forecasts, Trends and Recommendations

The ports of Stockholm, Tallinn, Helsinki, Naantali and Turku play key roles in making the Central Baltic region accessible. Effective, competitive, eco-friendly and safe port procedures and solutions for the transportation of goods are of major importance for trade in the Baltic Sea region. This report presents the most essential results and recommendations of the PENTA project, which focused on how ports could better comprehend and face current and future challenges facing carriage of goods by sea. Each of the four work packages (WPs) of the PENTA project analysed the changes from a different perspective. WP2 focused on traffic flows between the PENTA ports. Its main emphasis was on the ports, shipowners, and logistics companies that are the key parties in freight transport and on the changes affecting the economy of those ports. In WP3 noise as an environmental challenge for ports was investigated and the analysis also shed light on the relationship between the port and the city. In WP4 procedures related to safety, security and administrative procedures were researched. The main emphasis was on identifying the requirements for the harmonisation of those procedures. Collaboration is highlighted throughout this report. In order to prepare for the future, it was found that ports need to respond to growing competition, increasing costs and shifts in customer demand by strengthening their existing partnerships with other actors in the maritime cluster. Cargo and passenger transport are the main sources of income for most ports. Cargo traffic between the PENTA ports is expected to grow steadily in the future and the outlook for passenger traffic is positive. However, to prepare for the future, ports should not only secure the core activities which generate revenue but also seek alternative ways to make profit. In order to gain more transit traffic, it is suggested that ports conduct a more thorough study of the future requirements for doing business with Russia. The investigation of noise at ports revealed two specific dilemmas that ports cannot solve alone. Firstly, the noise made by vessels and, secondly, the relationship between the port and the surrounding city. Vessels are the most important single noise source in the PENTA ports and also one of the hardest noise sources to handle. Nevertheless, port authorities in Finland and Sweden are held responsible for all noise in the port area, including noise produced by vessels, which is noise the port authority can only influence indirectly. Building housing by waterfront areas close to ports may also initiate disagreements because inhabitants may want quiet areas, whereas port activities always produce some noise from their traffic. The qualitative aspects of the noise question, cooperating with the stakeholders and the communicating of issues related to noise are just as important. We propose that ports should follow the logic of continuous improvement in their noise management. The administrative barriers discussed in this report are mainly caused by differences in international and national legislation, variations in the customs procedures of each country, the incompatibility of the IT systems used in maritime transport, noncompliance with regulations regarding dangerous goods, and difficulties in applying Schengen regulations to vessels from non-EU countries. Improving the situation is out of the hands of the ports to do alone and requires joint action on a variety of levels, including the EU, national authorities and across administrative borders.

Forest cover and its change in Unguja Island, Zanzibar

Tropical forests are sources of many ecosystem services, but these forests are vanishing rapidly. The situation is severe in Sub-Saharan Africa and especially in Tanzania. The causes of change are multidimensional and strongly interdependent, and only understanding them comprehensively helps to change the ongoing unsustainable trends of forest decline. Ongoing forest changes, their spatiality and connection to humans and environment can be studied with the methods of Land Change Science. The knowledge produced with these methods helps to make arguments about the actors, actions and causes that are behind the forest decline. In this study of Unguja Island in Zanzibar the focus is in the current forest cover and its changes between 1996 and 2009. The cover and changes are measured with often used remote sensing methods of automated land cover classification and post-classification comparison from medium resolution satellite images. Kernel Density Estimation is used to determine the clusters of change, sub-area –analysis provides information about the differences between regions, while distance and regression analyses connect changes to environmental factors. These analyses do not only explain the happened changes, but also allow building quantitative and spatial future scenarios. Similar study has not been made for Unguja and therefore it provides new information, which is beneficial for the whole society. The results show that 572 km2 of Unguja is still forested, but 0,82–1,19% of these forests are disappearing annually. Besides deforestation also vertical degradation and spatial changes are significant problems. Deforestation is most severe in the communal indigenous forests, but also agroforests are decreasing. Spatially deforestation concentrates to the areas close to the coastline, population and Zanzibar Town. Biophysical factors on the other hand do not seem to influence the ongoing deforestation process. If the current trend continues there should be approximately 485 km2 of forests remaining in 2025. Solutions to these deforestation problems should be looked from sustainable land use management, surveying and protection of the forests in risk areas and spatially targeted self-sustainable tree planting schemes.

Social entrepreneurship – Believe in it or not!

The practice of social entrepreneurship already exists for a long time but the concept is quite new and has more recently raised a growing interest among academics. However, the majority of researches and considerations about the subject have taken a strong positive concern by omitting some sort of a critical reflection. The idea of this study is to consider the gap between the very optimistic and the more precautious concerns about social entrepreneurship. It means presenting the advantages and downsides connected to the topic in the business, public and third sector. The aim is to help the reader building his/her own belief on social entrepreneurship by considering the positive and negative sides of social entrepreneurship. Hence, the research is intended to take a critical step and aims to answer to the following research questions:  Shall we believe in social entrepreneurship?  What are the reasons for believing or not in social entrepreneurship taking into account the advantages and possible risks of it in the business, public, and third sector? The theoretical framework consists of the comparison between the promising and precautious sides about social entrepreneurship for private, public and non-governmental organizations including the actors or participants inside these sectors. The empirical part is conducted using a qualitative method. Personal interviews of experts in the fields of business, public and third sectors were handled. The purpose of this approach is to compare the critics in theory with the experience of persons dealing with social entrepreneurship. The results from the interviews revealed that in general, reasons for believing in social entrepreneurship prevail over critics about the subject. Social entrepreneurship may not yet represent a full performing business. Concerns for weakening the public power and putting aside the interests of communities in need may exist too. Furthermore, naïve and extra liberal ways of thinking or doing can lead to practices going in opposition with initial social objectives. Nevertheless, problems about social entrepreneurship would be mainly due to the young age of the movement. Time and experience would give better foundations and results to social entrepreneurs. Critics about social entrepreneurship could also easily be done to any sorts of business. Overall, the positive considerations of social entrepreneurship with skillful, motivated and responsible actors could represent some useful tools for enterprises, governments and charities. Some tools among many other possibilities to help people in need.

Culture in business interaction: an individual perspective : empirical studies in Finnish-Russian business relationships

The main objective of this doctoral dissertation is to reach a holistic and indepth understanding of the intercultural interaction within dyadic business relationships through the perspective of individual managers. The empirical setting is dyadic business relationships between Russian and Finnish firms in construction and engineering industries. The motivation for the study mainly arose from: 1) the lack of business marketing literature considering cultural and individual perspectives; 2) the need to find ways to study intercultural issues in business relationships, other than through the application of models derived from the work of Hofstede (1980). The study consists of two parts, an introductory essay containing the research objectives, theoretical foundations, methodological choices, limitations and contributions, and original research articles. The four articles each address a sub-objective: 1) to develop an understanding of intercultural business relationships development, cultural adaptation, and its role in the development of trust (Article 1); 2) to develop an appropriate methodological framework for studying business interaction from a cultural and individual perspective (Article 2); 3) to develop an understanding of the role of culture in individual manager’s sensemaking of interaction events in business relationships (Article 3); and 4) to develop an appropriate theoretical framework for studying interactive intercultural business relationships in international industrial markets (Article 4). The ontological and epistemological foundations are built on the interpretivist/ social constructivist view of reality. Interaction, in this study, is seen as being conducted between individuals, who are the key representative actors of their firms. In turn, culture is regarded both as an independent context existing prior to the individuals’ participation in it, and as knowledge incorporated by the individuals, who use it in sensemaking and interaction across cultures. The methods applied in the articles are: an interpretive qualitative study (Article 1), a literature review and conceptual analysis (Article 2), a structural analysis of the narratives and a metaphor analysis (Article 3), and a literature review and conceptual analysis (Article 4). The main contributions are the following. First, it contributes to business marketing literature by developing the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological underpinning of IMP theories in relation to culture. Second, the thesis contributes to the growing literature on managerial sensemaking in industrial markets by looking at it from a cultural perspective, as well as emphasizing the importance of figurative language in cultural sensemaking.

State of logistics and transport in the Baltic Sea region in 2025

The world’s pace of change is accelerating and new innovations, inventions and technologies come about every day. Change is unavoidable. It is difficult to keep up and even more difficult to prepare for the future. Even though it is not possible to know exactly what will happen in the future, by studying futures people can better anticipate what might lie ahead. By making decisions and realizing the consequences of their choices today, people and governments are able to actively decide how they will act in the future. Both opportunities and pitfalls lie ahead, which encourages actors to make more farsighted decisions. The Baltic Sea region is an interesting area for futures studies. It comprises 11 nations and more than 100 million inhabitants and entails countries with advanced, high-income economies, like Finland, Germany and Denmark, and developing economies, like Russia, Latvia and Lithuania. The western, eastern, northern and southern parts of the region are separated by the Baltic Sea, which at the same time represents a barrier and a facility for trade and travel between the countries belonging to the region The purpose of this study was to uncover the most probable future of transport and logistics in the Baltic Sea region in 2025 by using the Delphi method. Altogether 109 responses were collected in two separate instances from experts in all the Baltic Sea region countries, 56 of whom were defined as academic respondents and 53 of whom business respondents. Only minor differences in the opinions of academic and business experts were discovered, and the larger differences lie between eastern and western response groups. The Baltic Sea region is a very heterogeneous region and the division is clearest between East and West, which differ in political, economic, social, technological and environmental aspects. The probable future of the Baltic Sea region presented in this study is coherent with previous studies on the same subject. The future of the Baltic Sea region in terms of logistics and transport looks quite bright according to the experts who participated in the study. Trade volumes will grow and the importance of logistics and transport to the competitiveness of the region will increase. Respondents from eastern countries seemed to be more optimistic about the future in general. Most differences between opinions could be explained by the gap in technological and infrastructural development between the East and West. As eastern countries are less-developed in some parts of their economies, it is easier for them to improve the technical condition of infrastructure by merely catching up with the western countries.

ELY Centre for Southwest Finland - Sustainable Growth with Us

The Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for Southwest Finland (ELY Centre for Southwest Finland) is a diverse and broad-ranging development and service centre created during the Government’s Reform Project for Regional administration. Our goal is to strengthen well-being in the regions of Varsinais-Suomi and Satakunta. Networking with other actors in the region is the starting point for our activities. The best ways to achieve impact and reach targets are good co-operation and effective use of resources.

Comparison between dSPACE and NI systems based on real-time intelligent control of a teleoperated hydraulic servo system

The Laboratory of Intelligent Machine researches and develops energy-efficient power transmissions and automation for mobile construction machines and industrial processes. The laboratory's particular areas of expertise include mechatronic machine design using virtual technologies and simulators and demanding industrial robotics. The laboratory has collaborated extensively with industrial actors and it has participated in significant international research projects, particularly in the field of robotics. For years, dSPACE tools were the lonely hardware which was used in the lab to develop different control algorithms in real-time. dSPACE's hardware systems are in widespread use in the automotive industry and are also employed in drives, aerospace, and industrial automation. But new competitors are developing new sophisticated systems and their features convinced the laboratory to test new products. One of these competitors is National Instrument (NI). In order to get to know the specifications and capabilities of NI tools, an agreement was made to test a NI evolutionary system. This system is used to control a 1-D hydraulic slider. The objective of this research project is to develop a control scheme for the teleoperation of a hydraulically driven manipulator, and to implement a control algorithm between human and machine interaction, and machine and task environment interaction both on NI and dSPACE systems simultaneously and to compare the results.

Design and validation of stateful composite RESTful web services

A web service is a software system that provides a machine-processable interface to the other machines over the network using different Internet protocols. They are being increasingly used in the industry in order to automate different tasks and offer services to a wider audience. The REST architectural style aims at producing scalable and extensible web services using technologies that play well with the existing tools and infrastructure of the web. It provides a uniform set of operation that can be used to invoke a CRUD interface (create, retrieve, update and delete) of a web service. The stateless behavior of the service interface requires that every request to a resource is independent of the previous ones facilitating scalability. Automated systems, e.g., hotel reservation systems, provide advanced scenarios for stateful services that require a certain sequence of requests that must be followed in order to fulfill the service goals. Designing and developing such services for advanced scenarios with REST constraints require rigorous approaches that are capable of creating web services that can be trusted for their behavior. Systems that can be trusted for their behavior can be termed as dependable systems. This thesis presents an integrated design, analysis and validation approach that facilitates the service developer to create dependable and stateful REST web services. The main contribution of this thesis is that we provide a novel model-driven methodology to design behavioral REST web service interfaces and their compositions. The behavioral interfaces provide information on what methods can be invoked on a service and the pre- and post-conditions of these methods. The methodology uses Unified Modeling Language (UML), as the modeling language, which has a wide user base and has mature tools that are continuously evolving. We have used UML class diagram and UML state machine diagram with additional design constraints to provide resource and behavioral models, respectively, for designing REST web service interfaces. These service design models serve as a specification document and the information presented in them have manifold applications. The service design models also contain information about the time and domain requirements of the service that can help in requirement traceability which is an important part of our approach. Requirement traceability helps in capturing faults in the design models and other elements of software development environment by tracing back and forth the unfulfilled requirements of the service. The information about service actors is also included in the design models which is required for authenticating the service requests by authorized actors since not all types of users have access to all the resources. In addition, following our design approach, the service developer can ensure that the designed web service interfaces will be REST compliant. The second contribution of this thesis is consistency analysis of the behavioral REST interfaces. To overcome the inconsistency problem and design errors in our service models, we have used semantic technologies. The REST interfaces are represented in web ontology language, OWL2, that can be part of the semantic web. These interfaces are used with OWL 2 reasoners to check unsatisfiable concepts which result in implementations that fail. This work is fully automated thanks to the implemented translation tool and the existing OWL 2 reasoners. The third contribution of this thesis is the verification and validation of REST web services. We have used model checking techniques with UPPAAL model checker for this purpose. The timed automata of UML based service design models are generated with our transformation tool that are verified for their basic characteristics like deadlock freedom, liveness, reachability and safety. The implementation of a web service is tested using a black-box testing approach. Test cases are generated from the UPPAAL timed automata and using the online testing tool, UPPAAL TRON, the service implementation is validated at runtime against its specifications. Requirement traceability is also addressed in our validation approach with which we can see what service goals are met and trace back the unfulfilled service goals to detect the faults in the design models. A final contribution of the thesis is an implementation of behavioral REST interfaces and service monitors from the service design models. The partial code generation tool creates code skeletons of REST web services with method pre and post-conditions. The preconditions of methods constrain the user to invoke the stateful REST service under the right conditions and the post condition constraint the service developer to implement the right functionality. The details of the methods can be manually inserted by the developer as required. We do not target complete automation because we focus only on the interface aspects of the web service. The applicability of the approach is demonstrated with a pedagogical example of a hotel room booking service and a relatively complex worked example of holiday booking service taken from the industrial context. The former example presents a simple explanation of the approach and the later worked example shows how stateful and timed web services offering complex scenarios and involving other web services can be constructed using our approach.

Public and private sector cooperative opportunities in the Finnish healthcare internationalization : views from the public sector’s perspective

Traditionally mostly publicly provided Finnish healthcare services are confronted today by the evident challenge of rising healthcare costs as the expenditure on health and social case has exceeded Finland’s national GDP growth significantly since the new millennium. While the opening of the traditional barriers through the EU’s new patient directive resulting in increasing international competition and the free flow of patients within the EU present opportunities for the Finnish healthcare services industry there are also several challenges for the existing healthcare system as proposed by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy in 2011. Due to the structure and nature of the current Finnish healthcare service system the greatest potential for internationalization is seen from a joint cooperation of the public and private sectors in an internationalization network for Finnish healthcare services. As its formation has recently also taken as a strategic initiative to be completed by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy and no earlier research exists on how this is seen in practice by the network actors, the purpose of this study is to examine the proposed solution of forming an internationalization network between the public and private sector actors in Finland in practice from the viewpoint of public sector actors. The research relied heavily on the reports by the Finnish Ministries in understanding the current situation of the Finnish healthcare services internationalization and its potential. Suitable theories were also used to build a more comprehensive view of the matter. The study applied a qualitative research approach on the explorative research problem. The data collection was achieved through expert interviews in two of the largest Finnish public healthcare service providers; the Turku and Helsinki Central University Hospitals. Expert interviews were considered as the most suitable method for data collection in order to create an in-depth understanding of the topic within the limitations of this thesis. In turn, two different public healthcare service providers were chosen to give a broader view of the field instead of focusing on a specific unit and also to allow a possible comparison between the two different organizations. The latter however was shown not to be suitable for the purposes of this study as the opinions of the respondents varied largely also within their own organizations. The conclusion is that while the actors agree on the evident internationalization of Finnish healthcare services, there are several large-scale structural challenges effectively preventing such activities while at the same time the opportunities within Finland vary, as there are several niches but no real large-scale advantages in the highly competitive industry. Interest towards cooperation between the sectors are seen especially in exploiting the advantages offered by the private sector in commercialization and marketization, yet however no clear views exist on how these activities should be governed or structured in the short-term as a larger reform of the entire Finnish healthcare service sector is needed in the long-term.

Balancing creativity and risk intelligence in professional knowledge-intensive business services

The main strengths of professional knowledge-intensive business services (P-KIBS) are knowledge and creativity which needs to be fostered, maintained and supported. The process of managing P-KIBS companies deals with financial, operational and strategic risks. That is why it is reasonable to apply risk management techniques and frameworks in this context. A significant challenge hides in choosing reasonable ways of implementing risk management, which will not limit creative ability in organization, and furthermore will contribute to the process. This choice is related to a risk intelligent approach which becomes a justified way of finding the required balance. On a theoretical level the field of managing both creativity and risk intelligence as a balanced process remains understudied in particular within KIBS industry. For instance, there appears to be a wide range of separate models for innovation and risk management, but very little discussion in terms of trying to find the right balance between them. This study aims to shed light on the importance of well-managed combination of these concepts. The research purpose of the present study is to find out how the balance between creativity and risk intelligence can be managed in P-KIBS. The methodological approach utilized in the study is strictly conceptual without empirical aspects. The research purpose can be achieved through answering the following research supporting questions: 1. What are the characteristics and role of creativity as a component of innovation process in a P-KIBS company? 2. What are the characteristics and role of risk intelligence as an approach towards risk management process implementation in a P-KIBS company? 3. How can risk intelligence and creativity be balanced in P-KIBS? The main theoretical contribution of the study conceals in a proposed creativity and risk intelligence stage process framework. It is designed as an algorithm that can be applied on organizational canvas. It consists of several distinct stages specified by actors involved, their roles and implications. Additional stage-wise description provides detailed tasks for each of the enterprise levels, while combining strategies into one. The insights driven from the framework can be utilized by a vast range of specialists from strategists to risk managers, and from innovation managers to entrepreneurs. Any business that is designing and delivering knowledge service can potentially gain valuable thoughts and expand conceptual understanding from the present report. Risk intelligence in the current study is a unique way of emphasizing the role of creativity in professional knowledge-intensive industry and a worthy technique for making profound decisions towards risks.

Etelä- ja Länsi-Suomen jätesuunnittelun toteutumisen 1. väliarvio

Jätehuollon tavoitetilana Etelä- ja Länsi-Suomessa vuonna 2020 on, että jätemäärä on vähentynyt, hyödyntäminen lisääntynyt ja jätehuolto muuttunut suunnitelmalliseksi. Jätehuoltoa kehitetään yhteistyössä sidosryhmien kanssa. Tässä ensimmäisessä väliarviossa tarkastellaan Etelä- ja Länsi-Suomen jätesuunnitelman sekä Keski-Suomen jätesuunnitelman toteutumista ja vaikuttavuutta. Väliarvio sisältää seurantatiedot jätemääristä ja tietoa toimenpiteistä jätehuollon kehittämiseksi. Tarkastelu kattaa Etelä-Pohjanmaan, Hämeen, Kaakkois-Suomen, Keski-Suomen, Pirkanmaan, Uudenmaan ja Varsinais-Suomen ELY-keskusten toiminta-alueet. Jätesuunnitelmissa vuonna 2009 asetetut tavoitteet ovat edenneet osittain. Painopisteet biohajoavat jätteet sekä yhdyskunta- ja haja-asutuslietteet ovat lähteneet edistymään parhaiten. Haastavimmat teemat, jotka eivät ole edenneet odotetusti, ovat pilaantuneita maita sekä jätehuoltoa poikkeuksellisissa tilanteissa koskevat painopisteet. Lähiaikoina kehittämistä vaativat teemat ovat painopisteet rakentamisen ateriaalitehokkuus sekä tuhkat ja kuonat. Näissä teemoissa on konkreettisia toteutumismahdollisuuksia ja useita kiinnostuneita toimijoita. Uusiomateriaalien kuten tuhkien ja kuonien, teollisuuden sivutuotteiden ja jätemateriaalien käyttöä on mahdollisuus lisätä luonnon kiviainesten sijaan. Rakentamisen materiaalitehokkuutta voidaan ennakoida suunnitelmallisuudella, resurssitehokkuudella ja säästävällä purkamisella. Väliarviossa on esitetty jatkotoimenpiteitä, jotka mahdollistavat jätesuunnitelmien toteutumisen. Asetetuista keskeisistä painopisteistä rakentamisen materiaalitehokkuus sekä tuhkat ja kuonat edellyttävät eniten jatkotoimenpiteitä. Lisäksi yhdyskuntajätteiden kierrätystä tulisi lisätä.

The Russian National Innovation System - an International Perspective

Russia inherited a large research and development (R&D) sector from the Soviet times, and has retained a substantial R&D sector today, compared with other emerging economies. However, Russia is falling behind in all indicators measuring innovative output in comparison with most developed countries. Russia’s innovation performance is disappointing, despite the available stock of human capital and overall investment in R&D. The communist legacy still influences the main actors of the innovation system. The federal state is still the most important funding source for R&D. Private companies are not investing in innovative activities, preferring to “import” innovations embedded in foreign technologies. Universities are outsiders in the innovation system, only a few universities carry out research activities. Nowadays, Russia is a resource-depended country. The economy depends on energy and metals for growth. The Russian economy faces the challenge of diversification and should embrace innovation, and shift to a knowledge economy to remain competitive in the long run. Therefore, Russia has to tackle the challenge of developing an efficient innovation system with its huge potential in science expertise and engineering know-how.

Metsäenergian käytön kasvun liiketoimintamahdollisuudet Kaakkois-Suomessa

Kaakkois-Suomessa (Kymenlaakson ja Etelä-Karjalan maakunnat) metsäenergian käytön kasvaessa on tullut tarve tarkastella käytön kasvua eri käyttäjien näkökulmasta sekä arvioida kasvaneen käytön luomia liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia alueen toimijoille. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on selvittää metsäenergian nykyinen käyttö ja käytön kasvumahdollisuudet alueella. Metsäenergian käytön kasvumahdollisuuksia voidaan arvioida nykyisen energian tuotantorakenteen sekä energian tarpeen perusteella. Näiden tietojen pohjalta voidaan arvioida metsäenergian riittävyyttä, käytön laajentamista ja laajentamisen yhteydessä syntyviä liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia alueen metsäenergian hankinnassa mukana oleville toimijoille ja energian tuotannon pk-yrittäjille (mm. energiayrittäjät ja -osuuskunnat). Hankkeen toteutuksen yhteydessä valmistellaan laajempaa hankekokonaisuutta uusiutuvien paikallisten energiamahdollisuuksien hyödyntämiseksi ja liiketoiminnan kehittämiseksi alueella. Tutkimusten tavoitteena on luoda hyvinvointia ja liiketoimintamahdollisuuksia alueelle. Etelä-Karjalan ja Kymenlaakson maakuntien osalta tutkimus sisälsi seuraavat osatehtävät: metsäenergian nykyisen käytön selvittäminen käyttökohteittain ja polttoainelajeittain (hakkuutähteet, kannot, pienpuu), metsäenergian potentiaalisten käyttökohteiden selvittäminen, metsäenergian kuntakohtaisen saatavuuden selvittäminen polttoainelajeittain, metsäenergian käytön suhde saatavuuteen, metsäenergian ympärille liittyvien liiketoimintamahdollisuuksien tunnistaminen ja kartoittaminen sekä tulosten raportointi. Tutkimuksen tuloksina saatiin Etelä-Karjalan ja Kymenlaakson maakuntien kuntakohtaiset taseet metsäenergian kysynnän ja tarjonnan määristä sekä alaan liittyvistä työllisyys- ja liiketoimintamahdollisuuksista. Tutkimuksen toteutuksessa on tehty tiiviisti yhteistyötä Kaakkois-Suomen metsäkeskuksen kanssa. Tutkimuksen seurantaryhmänä toimi Kaakkois-Suomen metsäenergianeuvottelukunta. Tutkimuksessa on luotu toimintamalli alueellisen ja paikallisen metsäenergian käytön ja saatavuuden tarkastelua varten. Toimintamallilla voidaan esittää paikalliset mahdollisuudet metsäenergian hyödyntämiseksi ja liiketoimintamahdollisuuksien arvioimiseksi.

Helluntailaiset luokkakuvassa. uskontokulttuuri ja yksikön luokka-asema Turun Helluntaiseurakunnassa

Tässä tutkimuksessa analysoin sitä, miten helluntailainen uskontokulttuuri vaikuttaa yksilön valintoihin ja sen kautta siihen, mihin luokka-asemiin seurakuntalaiset ovat päätyneet Turun Helluntaiseurakunnassa. Tutkimus on uskontoantropologinen ja kuuluu uskontotieteen alaan. Siinä yhdistetään sosiologista luokkatutkimusta sekä rationaalisen valinnan ja toiminnan teorioita uskontoantropologisessa viitekehyksessä. Pääasialliseksi aineistoksi keräsin laajan etnografisen aineiston, joka koostuu systemaattisesta havainnoinnista, kyselyistä ja haastatteluista. Lisäksi olen tutkinut seurakunnan ja helluntailaisuutta koskevia arkistoja sekä kirjallisuutta. Tutkimuksen kohde on Turun helluntaiseurakunta, joka muodostaa tutkimusongelman kannalta mielekkään tutkimusasetelman. Tutkimus kertoo olennaista tietoa siitä, miten uskonto vaikuttaa yksilön valintoihin ja hänen yhteiskunnalliseen asemaansa. Tutkimusaineiston pohjalta laadin selittävän mallin kuvaamaan sitä prosessia, miten yksilöt tekevät valintojaan rationaalisina toimijoina eri kulttuurien vaikutuspiireissä. Antropologisena pohjana selitykselle toimii uskonnon rajojen rakentumisen, muuttamisen ja ylittämisen logiikka. Pyhän kategorisoinnin jäsentämä uskontokulttuuri ohjaa yksilöä suosimaan toisia kulttuureja, luokkakulttuureja ja tyylejä sekä vierastamaan toisia. Jos yksilö haluaa tehdä valinnan, joka nähdään arveluttavana, täytyy hänen oikeuttaa se kulttuurinsa sisäisillä symboleilla ja rituaaleilla. Turun Helluntaiseurakunnassa korostuvat auttamisen ja sivistämisen ammatit, kuten lääkäri, sairaanhoitaja ja opettaja. Nämä voidaan edelleen jäljittää seurakunnan opetuksiin sekä seurakuntalaisten käyttämiin diskursseihin ja oletuksiin hyväksytyistä elämäntyyleistä. Lisäksi diskursseissa korostuvat näkemykset ammatista kutsumuksena, koulutuksen itsestäänselvyys sekä asemaan liittyvän radikalismin välttäminen. Seurakunnan uskontokulttuurin keskiluokkaistava vaikutus näkyy ennen kaikkea toisen ja useamman polven helluntailaisissa, jotka sijoittuvat korkeampiin asemiin kuin ulkopuolelta kääntyneet. Seurakunnan uskontokulttuuri vähentää luokkatietoisuuden syntyä ja voi osaltaan ylläpitää yhteiskunnan luokkarakennetta, koska uskonnon ensisijaiset päämäärät eivät kohdistu yhteiskunnan rakenteen muuttamiseen Suomessa. Tutkimuksen mukaan yksilön omat ja häneen kohdistetut oletukset ja arvot, jotka hän kulttuurissa omaksuu, ohjaavat häntä myös kulttuurinsa näkökulmasta suosiollisiin asemiin.

Images of the future of privacy: A privacy dynamics framework and a causal layered

The future of privacy in the information age is a highly debated topic. In particular, new and emerging technologies such as ICTs and cognitive technologies are seen as threats to privacy. This thesis explores images of the future of privacy among non-experts within the time frame from the present until the year 2050. The aims of the study are to conceptualise privacy as a social and dynamic phenomenon, to understand how privacy is conceptualised among citizens and to analyse ideal-typical images of the future of privacy using the causal layered analysis method. The theoretical background of the thesis combines critical futures studies and critical realism, and the empirical material is drawn from three focus group sessions held in spring 2012 as part of the PRACTIS project. From a critical realist perspective, privacy is conceptualised as a social institution which creates and maintains boundaries between normative circles and preserves the social freedom of individuals. Privacy changes when actors with particular interests engage in technology-enabled practices which challenge current privacy norms. The thesis adopts a position of technological realism as opposed to determinism or neutralism. In the empirical part, the focus group participants are divided into four clusters based on differences in privacy conceptions and perceived threats and solutions. The clusters are fundamentalists, pragmatists, individualists and collectivists. Correspondingly, four ideal-typical images of the future are composed: ‘drift to low privacy’, ‘continuity and benign evolution’, ‘privatised privacy and an uncertain future’, and ‘responsible future or moral decline’. The images are analysed using the four layers of causal layered analysis: litany, system, worldview and myth. Each image has its strengths and weaknesses. The individualistic images tend to be fatalistic in character while the collectivistic images are somewhat utopian. In addition, the images have two common weaknesses: lack of recognition of ongoing developments and simplistic conceptions of privacy based on a dichotomy between the individual and society. The thesis argues for a dialectical understanding of futures as present images of the future and as outcomes of real processes and mechanisms. The first steps in promoting desirable futures are the awareness of privacy as a social institution, the awareness of current images of the future, including their assumptions and weaknesses, and an attitude of responsibility where futures are seen as the consequences of present choices.