Intensity, productivity and efficiency in agriculture in Finland and implications for N and P fertiliser management

The purpose of this study was to evaluate intensity, productivity and efficiency in agriculture in Finland and show implications for N and P fertiliser management. Environmental concerns relating to agricultural production have been and still are focused on arguments about policies that affect agriculture. These policies constrain production while demand for agricultural products such as food, fibre and energy continuously increase. Therefore the importance of increasing productivity is a great challenge to agriculture. Over the last decades producers have experienced several large changes in the production environment such as the policy reform when Finland joined the EU 1995. Other and market changes occurred with the further EU enlargement with neighbouring countries in 2005 and with the decoupling of supports over the 2006-2007 period. Decreasing prices a decreased number of farmers and decreased profitability in agricultural production have resulted from these changes and constraints and of technological development. It is known that the accession to the EU 1995 would herald changes in agriculture. Especially of interest was how the sudden changes in prices of commodities on especially those of cereals, decreased by 60%, would influence agricultural production. The knowledge of properties of the production function increased in importance as a consequence of price changes. A research on the economic instruments to regulate productions was carried out and combined with earlier studies in paper V. In paper I the objective was to compare two different technologies, the conventional farming and the organic farming, determine differences in productivity and technical efficiency. In addition input specific or environmental efficiencies were analysed. The heterogeneity of agricultural soils and its implications were analysed in article II. In study III the determinants of technical inefficiency were analysed. The aspects and possible effects of the instability in policies due to a partial decoupling of production factors and products were studied in paper IV. Consequently connection between technical efficiency based on the turnover and the sales return was analysed in this study. Simple economic instruments such as fertiliser taxes have a direct effect on fertiliser consumption and indirectly increase the value of organic fertilisers. However, fertiliser taxes, do not fully address the N and P management problems adequately and are therefore not suitable for nutrient management improvements in general. Productivity of organic farms is lower on average than conventional farms and the difference increases when looking at selling returns only. The organic sector needs more research and development on productivity. Livestock density in organic farming increases productivity, however, there is an upper limit to livestock densities on organic farms and therefore nutrient on organic farms are also limited. Soil factors affects phosphorous and nitrogen efficiency. Soils like sand and silt have lower input specific overall efficiency for nutrients N and P. Special attention is needed for the management on these soils. Clay soils and soils with moderate clay content have higher efficiency. Soil heterogeneity is cause for an unavoidable inefficiency in agriculture.

Exploring the relationships between design & public libraries through the lens of service design

Design is ubiquitous to the life of contemporary societies and key to their progress, but for some, it is an elitist concept. This thesis investigates the role of public libraries contribution to the general public's understanding of 'Design'. This study compared participants views in the context of State Libraries in two cities: Brisbane and Curitiba. Findings revealed that exploring four new aspects in the Development and Deliver Stages of a service design framework for public libraries can be an effective tool to enhance people's access and experiences of Design, and ultimately, it can contribute to the democratization of design.

Exploring the relationships between design and public libraries through the lens of service design

Design is ubiquitous to the life of contemporary societies and key to their progress, but for some, it is an elitist concept. This thesis investigates the role of public libraries contribution to the general public's understanding of "Design". This study compared participants views in the context of State Libraries in two cities: Brisbane and Curitiba. Findings revealed that exploring four new aspects in the Development and Deliver Stages of a service design framework for public libraries can be an effective tool to enhance people"s access and experiences of Design, and ultimately, it can contribute to the democratisation of design.

Lake sediment research as a part of lake management - case studies and implications from southern Finland

In Finland one of the most important current issues in the environmental management is the quality of surface waters. The increasing social importance of lakes and water systems has generated wide-ranging interest in lake restoration and management, concerning especially lakes suffering from eutrophication, but also from other environmental impacts. Most of the factors deteriorating the water quality in Finnish lakes are connected to human activities. Especially since the 1940's, the intensified farming practices and conduction of sewage waters from scattered settlements, cottages and industry have affected the lakes, which simultaneously have developed in to recreational areas for a growing number of people. Therefore, this study was focused on small lakes, which are human impacted, located close to settlement areas and have a significant value for local population. The aim of this thesis was to obtain information from lake sediment records for on-going lake restoration activities and to prove that a well planned, properly focused lake sediment study is an essential part of the work related to evaluation, target consideration and restoration of Finnish lakes. Altogether 11 lakes were studied. The study of Lake Kaljasjärvi was related to the gradual eutrophication of the lake. In lakes Ormajärvi, Suolijärvi, Lehee, Pyhäjärvi and Iso-Roine the main focus was on sediment mapping, as well as on the long term changes of the sedimentation, which were compared to Lake Pääjärvi. In Lake Hormajärvi the role of different kind of sedimentation environments in the eutrophication development of the lake's two basins were compared. Lake Orijärvi has not been eutrophied, but the ore exploitation and related acid main drainage from the catchment area have influenced the lake drastically and the changes caused by metal load were investigated. The twin lakes Etujärvi and Takajärvi are slightly eutrophied, but also suffer problems associated with the erosion of the substantial peat accumulations covering the fringe areas of the lakes. These peat accumulations are related to Holocene water level changes, which were investigated. The methods used were chosen case-specifically for each lake. In general, acoustic soundings of the lakes, detailed description of the nature of the sediment and determinations of the physical properties of the sediment, such as water content, loss on ignition and magnetic susceptibility were used, as was grain size analysis. A wide set of chemical analyses was also used. Diatom and chrysophycean cyst analyses were applied, and the diatom inferred total phosphorus content was reconstructed. The results of these studies prove, that the ideal lake sediment study, as a part of a lake management project, should be two-phased. In the first phase, thoroughgoing mapping of sedimentation patterns should be carried out by soundings and adequate corings. The actual sampling, based on the preliminary results, must include at least one long core from the main sedimentation basin for the determining the natural background state of the lake. The recent, artificially impacted development of the lake can then be determined by short-core and surface sediment studies. The sampling must be focused on the basis of the sediment mapping again, and it should represent all different sedimentation environments and bottom dynamic zones, considering the inlets and outlets, as well as the effects of possible point loaders of the lake. In practice, the budget of the lake management projects of is usually limited and only the most essential work and analyses can be carried out. The set of chemical and biological analyses and dating methods must therefore been thoroughly considered and adapted to the specific management problem. The results show also, that information obtained from a properly performed sediment study enhances the planning of the restoration, makes possible to define the target of the remediation activities and improves the cost-efficiency of the project.

Can teacher collaboration overcome barriers to interdisciplinary learning in a disciplinary university? A case study using climate change

A teacher network was formed at an Australian university in order to better promote interdisciplinary student learning on the complex social-environmental problem of climate change. Rather than leaving it to students to piece together disciplinary responses, eight teaching academics collaborated on the task of exposing students to different types of knowledge in a way that was more than the summing of disciplinary parts. With a part-time network facilitator providing cohesion, network members were able to teach into each other’s classes, and share material and student activities across a range of units that included business, zoology, marine science, geography and education. Participants reported that the most positive aspects of the project were the collegiality and support for teaching innovation provided by peers. However, participants also reported being time-poor and overworked. Maintaining the collaboration beyond the initial one year project proved difficult because without funding for the network facilitator, participants were unable to dedicate the time required to meet and collaborate on shared activities. In order to strengthen teacher collaboration in a university whose administrative structures are predominantly discipline-based, there is need for recognition of the benefits of interdisciplinary learning to be matched by recognition of the need for financial and other resources to support collaborative teaching initiatives.

A Decentralized Session Management Framework for Heterogeneous Ad-Hoc and Fixed Networks

Wireless technologies are continuously evolving. Second generation cellular networks have gained worldwide acceptance. Wireless LANs are commonly deployed in corporations or university campuses, and their diffusion in public hotspots is growing. Third generation cellular systems are yet to affirm everywhere; still, there is an impressive amount of research ongoing for deploying beyond 3G systems. These new wireless technologies combine the characteristics of WLAN based and cellular networks to provide increased bandwidth. The common direction where all the efforts in wireless technologies are headed is towards an IP-based communication. Telephony services have been the killer application for cellular systems; their evolution to packet-switched networks is a natural path. Effective IP telephony signaling protocols, such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and the H 323 protocol are needed to establish IP-based telephony sessions. However, IP telephony is just one service example of IP-based communication. IP-based multimedia sessions are expected to become popular and offer a wider range of communication capabilities than pure telephony. In order to conjoin the advances of the future wireless technologies with the potential of IP-based multimedia communication, the next step would be to obtain ubiquitous communication capabilities. According to this vision, people must be able to communicate also when no support from an infrastructured network is available, needed or desired. In order to achieve ubiquitous communication, end devices must integrate all the capabilities necessary for IP-based distributed and decentralized communication. Such capabilities are currently missing. For example, it is not possible to utilize native IP telephony signaling protocols in a totally decentralized way. This dissertation presents a solution for deploying the SIP protocol in a decentralized fashion without support of infrastructure servers. The proposed solution is mainly designed to fit the needs of decentralized mobile environments, and can be applied to small scale ad-hoc networks or also bigger networks with hundreds of nodes. A framework allowing discovery of SIP users in ad-hoc networks and the establishment of SIP sessions among them, in a fully distributed and secure way, is described and evaluated. Security support allows ad-hoc users to authenticate the sender of a message, and to verify the integrity of a received message. The distributed session management framework has been extended in order to achieve interoperability with the Internet, and the native Internet applications. With limited extensions to the SIP protocol, we have designed and experimentally validated a SIP gateway allowing SIP signaling between ad-hoc networks with private addressing space and native SIP applications in the Internet. The design is completed by an application level relay that permits instant messaging sessions to be established in heterogeneous environments. The resulting framework constitutes a flexible and effective approach for the pervasive deployment of real time applications.

The effectiveness of the teach-back method on adherence and self-management in health education for people with chronic disease: A systematic review

- BACKGROUND Chronic diseases are increasing worldwide and have become a significant burden to those affected by those diseases. Disease-specific education programs have demonstrated improved outcomes, although people do forget information quickly or memorize it incorrectly. The teach-back method was introduced in an attempt to reinforce education to patients. To date, the evidence regarding the effectiveness of health education employing the teach-back method in improved care has not yet been reviewed systematically. - OBJECTIVES This systematic review examined the evidence on using the teach-back method in health education programs for improving adherence and self-management of people with chronic disease. - INCLUSION CRITERIA Types of participants: Adults aged 18 years and over with one or more than one chronic disease. Types of intervention: All types of interventions which included the teach-back method in an education program for people with chronic diseases. The comparator was chronic disease education programs that did not involve the teach-back method. Types of studies: Randomized and non-randomized controlled trials, cohort studies, before-after studies and case-control studies. Types of outcomes: The outcomes of interest were adherence, self-management, disease-specific knowledge, readmission, knowledge retention, self-efficacy and quality of life. - SEARCH STRATEGY Searches were conducted in CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, Web of Science, ProQuest Nursing and Allied Health Source, and Google Scholar databases. Search terms were combined by AND or OR in search strings. Reference lists of included articles were also searched for further potential references. - METHODOLOGICAL QUALITY Two reviewers conducted quality appraisal of papers using the Joanna Briggs Institute Meta-Analysis of Statistics Assessment and Review Instrument. - DATA EXTRACTION Data were extracted using the Joanna Briggs Institute Meta-Analysis of Statistics Assessment and Review Instrument data extraction instruments. - DATA SYNTHESIS There was significant heterogeneity in selected studies, hence a meta-analysis was not possible and the results were presented in narrative form. - RESULTS Of the 21 articles retrieved in full, 12 on the use of the teach-back method met the inclusion criteria and were selected for analysis. Four studies confirmed improved disease-specific knowledge in intervention participants. One study showed a statistically significant improvement in adherence to medication and diet among type 2 diabetics patients in the intervention group compared to the control group (p < 0.001). Two studies found statistically significant improvements in self-efficacy (p = 0.0026 and p < 0.001) in the intervention groups. One study examined quality of life in heart failure patients but the results did not improve from the intervention (p = 0.59). Five studies found a reduction in readmission rates and hospitalization but these were not always statistically significant. Two studies showed improvement in daily weighing among heart failure participants, and in adherence to diet, exercise and foot care among those with type 2 diabetes. - CONCLUSION Overall, the teach-back method showed positive effects in a wide range of health care outcomes although these were not always statistically significant. Studies in this systematic review revealed improved outcomes in disease-specific knowledge, adherence, self-efficacy and the inhaler technique. There was a positive but inconsistent trend also seen in improved self-care and reduction of hospital readmission rates. There was limited evidence on improvement in quality of life or disease related knowledge retention.

Improving the effectiveness of age-abundance indicators in the management of fisheries in Queensland, Australia

The development of fishery indicators is a crucial undertaking as it ultimately provides evidence to stakeholders about the status of fished species such as population size and survival rates. In Queensland, as in many other parts of the world, age-abundance indicators (e.g. fish catch rate and/or age composition data) are traditionally used as the evidence basis because they provide information on species life history traits as well as on changes in fishing pressures and population sizes. Often, however, the accuracy of the information from age-abundance indicators can be limited due to missing or biased data. Consequently, improved statistical methods are required to enhance the accuracy, precision and decision-support value of age-abundance indicators.

Communities of wood-inhabiting fungi : Ecological requirements and responses to forest management and fragmentation

Despite much research on forest biodiversity in Fennoscandia, the exact mechanisms of species declines in dead-wood dependent fungi are still poorly understood. In particular, there is only limited information on why certain fungal species have responded negatively to habitat loss and fragmentation, while others have not. Understanding the mechanisms behind species declines would be essential for the design and development of ecologically effective and scientifically informed conservation measures, and management practices that would promote biodiversity in production forests. In this thesis I study the ecology of polypores and their responses to forest management, with a particular focus on why some species have declined more than others. The data considered in the thesis comprise altogether 98,318 dead-wood objects, with 43,085 observations of 174 fungal species. Out of these, 1,964 observations represent 58 red-listed species. The data were collected from 496 sites, including woodland key habitats, clear-cuts with retention trees, mature managed forests, and natural or natural-like forests in southern Finland and Russian Karelia. I show that the most relevant way of measuring resource availability can differ to a great extent between species seemingly sharing the same resources. It is thus critical to measure the availability of resources in a way that takes into account the ecological requirements of the species. The results show that connectivity at the local, landscape and regional scales is important especially for the highly specialized species, many of which are also red-listed. Habitat loss and fragmentation affect not only species diversity but also the relative abundances of the species and, consequently, species interactions and fungal successional pathways. Changes in species distributions and abundances are likely to affect the food chains in which wood-inhabiting fungi are involved, and thus the functioning of the whole forest ecosystem. The findings of my thesis highlight the importance of protecting well-connected, large and high-quality forest areas to maintain forest biodiversity. Small habitat patches distributed across the landscape are likely to contribute only marginally to protection of red-listed species, especially if habitat quality is not substantially higher than in ordinary managed forest, as is the case with woodland key habitats. Key habitats might supplement the forest protection network if they were delineated larger and if harvesting of individual trees was prohibited in them. Taking the landscape perspective into account in the design and development of conservation measures is critical while striving to halt the decline of forest biodiversity in an ecologically effective manner.

Sustainable forest management : ecologically sound and socially accepted

This dissertation explored the ecological dimension of ecologically sustainable forest management in boreal forests, and factors of the socio-cultural dimension that affect how the concept of ecologically sustainable forest management is defined. My approach was problem-oriented and generalistic-holistic. I examined associations between the abundances of wildlife groups (grouse, large predators, small predators, ungulates) and Siberian flying squirrels, and their co-occurrence with tree structural characteristics at the regional level. The trade-offs between ecological, social and economic sustainability in forestry were explored at the regional scale. I identified a potential 'shopping basket' of regional indicators for ecologically sustainable forest management, combining the relative abundance of Siberian flying squirrels, a wildlife richness index (WRI) for grouse, diversity indices of saw-timber trees, tree age classes and the proportion of old-growth (> 120 yr) forests. I suggest that the close association between forestry activity, the proportion of young forests (< 40 yr) and a WRI for small predators can be considered as potential 'alarm bells' for regions in which the creation of trade-offs (negative relationships) between economic and ecological components of sustainable forestry is ongoing. Explorative analyses revealed negative relationships between forestry activity and a WRI of 16 game species, the WRI for grouse and tree age diversity. Socially sustainable communities compete less intensively with ecological components of forests than communities where forestry is important. Interestingly, forest ownership types (farmers, other private forest owners, the forestry industry, the State) correlated significantly with the co-occurrence of flying squirrels, grouse and diverse forest structural characteristics rather than, for instance, with the total number of protection areas, suggesting that private forest ownership can lead to increased ecological sustainability. I examined forest actors’ argumentation to identify characteristics that affect the interpretation of ecologically sustainable forest management. Four argumentation frame types were constructed: information, work, experience and own position based. These differed in terms of their emphasis on external experts or own experiences. The closer ecologically sustainable forest management is to the forest actor’s daily life, the more profiled policy tools (counselling, learning through experiences) are needed to guide management behaviour to become more ecologically sound. I illustrated that forest actors interpret, use and understand information through meaningful framing. I analysed the extent to which ecological research information has been perceived in the Forestry Development Centre TAPIO’s recommendations and revised PEFC Finland criteria. We noticed that the political value for decaying wood was much lower in PEFC Finland critera (4 m3) than could be expected as a socially acceptable level (9 m3) or ecologically sound (10-20 m3). I consider it important for scientists to join political discourses and become involved in policy making concerning sustainable forest management to learn to present their results in a way that is reasonable from the user’s perspective.

Effects of management and landscape structure on biodiversity in boreal agricultural farmland

Intensified agricultural practises introduced after the Second World War are identified as a major cause of global biodiversity declines. In several European countries agri-environment support schemes have been introduced to counteract the ongoing biodiversity declines. Farmers participating in agri-environment schemes are financially compensated for decreasing the intensity of farming practises leading to smaller yields and lower income. The Finnish agri-environment support scheme is composed of a set of measures, such as widened field margins along main ditches (obligatory measure), management of features increasing landscape diversity, management of semi-natural grasslands, and organic farming (special agreement measures). The magnitude of the benefits for biodiversity depends on landscape context and the properties of individual schemes. In this thesis I studied whether one agri-environment scheme, organic farming, is beneficial for species diversity and abundance of diurnal lepidopterans, bumblebees, carabid beetles and arable weeds. I found that organic farming did not enhance species richness of selected insect taxa, although bumblebee species richness tended to be higher in organic farms. Abundance of lepidopterans and bumblebees was not enhanced by organic farming, but carabid beetle abundance was higher in mixed farms with both cereal crop production and animal husbandry. Both species richness and abundance of arable weeds were higher in organic farms. My second objective was to study how landscape structure shapes farmland butterfly communities. I found that the percentage of habitat specialists and species with poor dispersal abilities in butterfly assemblages decreased with increasing arable field cover, leading to a dramatic decrease in butterfly beta diversity. In field boundaries local species richness of butterflies was linearly related to landscape species richness in geographic regions with high arable field cover, indicating that butterfly species richness in field boundaries is more limited by landscape factors than local habitat factors. In study landscapes containing semi-natural grasslands the relationship decelerated at high landscape species richness, suggesting that local species richness of butterflies in field boundaries is limited by habitat factors (demanding habitat specialists that occurred in semi-natural grasslands were absent in field margins). My results suggest that management options in field margins will affect mainly generalists, and species with good dispersal abilities, in landscapes with high arable field cover. Habitat specialists and species with poor dispersal abilities may benefit of management options if these are applied in the vicinity of source populations.

Environmental factors and uncertainty in fisheries management in the northern Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a geologically young, large brackish water basin, and few of the species living there have fully adapted to its special conditions. Many of the species live on the edge of their distribution range in terms of one or more environmental variables such as salinity or temperature. Environmental fluctuations are know to cause fluctuations in populations abundance, and this effect is especially strong near the edges of the distribution range, where even small changes in an environmental variable can be critical to the success of a species. This thesis examines which environmental factors are the most important in relation to the success of various commercially exploited fish species in the northern Baltic Sea. It also examines the uncertainties related to fish stocks current and potential status as well as to their relationship with their environment. The aim is to quantify the uncertainties related to fisheries and environmental management, to find potential management strategies that can be used to reduce uncertainty in management results and to develop methodology related to uncertainty estimation in natural resources management. Bayesian statistical methods are utilized due to their ability to treat uncertainty explicitly in all parts of the statistical model. The results show that uncertainty about important parameters of even the most intensively studied fish species such as salmon (Salmo salar L.) and Baltic herring (Clupea harengus membras L.) is large. On the other hand, management approaches that reduce uncertainty can be found. These include utilising information about ecological similarity of fish stocks and species, and using management variables that are directly related to stock parameters that can be measured easily and without extrapolations or assumptions.