Memory Revisited in Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending

An accumulation of years brings with it an accumulation of experiences. The revision of such experiences usually becomes more recurrent after retirement, a transition time from one period of life to another and, as such, a time in which we, human beings, have a tendency to take stock of our lives. This is actually one of the main issues present in Julian Barnes's last novel The Sense of an Ending (2011). When the main protagonist, a retired man quite comfortable and contented with his present life, receives an unexpected inheritance from the mother of a girlfriend from his university years, he is forced to track down a part of his life that he had left at the back of his mind a long time ago. As he explains his story, the protagonist and narrator of the novel raises a number of questions related to the quality and function of memory as one gets into old age. He experiments the unreliability of memory and questions to what extent memory is constructed through the remembered emotions that invaded him over that episode of his life rather than through the events as they actually took place. On the other hand, the act of revisiting and revising that specific episode, brings with it feelings of guilt and remorse as the protagonist realises that his past acts were not as noble as he remembered them to be. However, these acts are part of the past and they cannot be changed; thus, another question that the novel raises is how to account for those actions of which one does not feel proud and, more importantly, how to manage those bad memories as one gets older.

Estudi tècnic-econòmic de l'adaptació a la Llei de Benestar Animal d'una explotació porcina de la comarca d'Osona i posterior valoració de la seva implementació

Des de la publicació de la Llei de Benestar Animal RD 1135/ 2002, de 31 d’octubre que regula els tres aspectes clau de la producció porcina‐ sistemes d’estabulació i construccions permeses; formació obligatòria dels ramaders i maneig dels animals‐ totes les granges de nova construcció han estat projectades seguint els seus preceptes. Mentre que les granges existents han hagut d’adaptar‐hi les seves instal∙lacions sota amenaça de tancament si no es complien els requisits. L’objectiu d’aquest treball ha estat l’elaboració de l’estudi tècnic‐ econòmic per a l’adaptació a la Llei de Benestar Animal d’una explotació porcina de la comarca d’Osona. Després d’avaluar la situació inicial de les instal∙lacions, establir les línies de previsió de creixement i analitzar els avantatges i inconvenients de cada sistema i model, s’opta pel sistema d’alimentació electrònic model Nedap en grup dinàmic de truges sobre sòl amb jaç de palla. Una decisió no massa extesa en granges del sud d’Europa on se sol preferir l’slat de formigó i/o superfície pavimentada, però imprescindible perquè aquesta explotació pogués aconseguir una millor gestió de les dejeccions ramaderes i assegurar una millora agronòmica de les terres de conreu. El treball conclou amb el seguiment del desenvolupament de l’alternativa escollida i una valoració dels canvis derivats de l’adaptació al Benestar Animal després del primer any i mig en ús. Les millores obtingudes en termes de maneig, funcionament de la granja, salut dels animals i índex productius són remarcables. D’una banda, cal destacar el fet de tenir un nombre de coixeres molt menor respecte les granges amb superfície dura, així com la facilitat i rapidesa en els parts degut al benestar. De l’altra,la reducció del volum de purí, l’increment de la fracció sòlida i la disponibilitat de compost per al camp. Per això, no és exagerat observar el jaç amb palla com una de les solucions més adequades i equilibrades per aquesta explotació que combina boví, porcí i terra per a la producció de cultius.

Educación en Valores y Diferencia Sexual: Realidad y políticas educativas en el contexto español

Este artículo analiza para el contexto español las políticas promovidas en los últimos años por el gobierno conservador del partido popular y los cambios que conllevaron la entrada en vigor, en el 2002, de la Ley de Calidad de la Enseñanza. Los mismos no parecen garantizar la igualdad de oportunidades para las mujeres, pues nos encontramos ante una Ley cuya finalidad es buscar respuestas a los cambios tecnológicos y los criterios de mercado, llegando a afirmarse que las reformas educativas son necesarias para la “revisión, ajuste y mejora”, siendo la “calidad” el mecanismo para “el logro de cotas más elevadas de progreso social y económico”. A pesar de que la exposición de motivos de la Ley alude al bienestar individual y social –sin explicitar abiertamente el significado que les otorga-, los planteamientos neoliberales de las economías capitalistas se insertan en el discurso y se habla, como se ha indicado, de la necesidad de ajustes que en estas perspectivas no garantizan el avance en la lucha contra la exclusión y la discriminación, dificultando el encuentro de las diferencias, de lo femenino y de lo masculino. El nuevo gobierno socialista, surgido de las elecciones celebradas en el pasado mes de marzo de 2004, forzosamente debe plantear una transición educativa que necesita de medidas urgentes, atrevidas y transformadoras.

Evolutionary Ecology of Mountain Birch in Subarctic Stress Gradients: Interplay of Biotic and Abiotic Factors in Plant-Plant Interactions and Evolutionary Processes

In nature, variation for example in herbivory, wind exposure, moisture and pollution impact often creates variation in physiological stress and plant productivity. This variation is seldom clear-cut, but rather results in clines of decreasing growth and productivity towards the high-stress end. These clines of unidirectionally changing stress are generally known as ‘stress gradients’. Through its effect on plant performance, stress has the capacity to fundamentally alter the ecological relationships between individuals, and through variation in survival and reproduction it also causes evolutionary change, i.e. local adaptations to stress and eventually speciation. In certain conditions local adaptations to environmental stress have been documented in a matter of just a few generations. In plant-plant interactions, intensities of both negative interactions (competition) and positive ones (facilitation) are expected to vary along stress gradients. The stress-gradient hypothesis (SGH) suggests that net facilitation will be strongest in conditions of high biotic and abiotic stress, while a more recent ‘humpback’ model predicts strongest net facilitation at intermediate levels of stress. Plant interactions on stress gradients, however, are affected by a multitude of confounding factors, making studies of facilitation-related theories challenging. Among these factors are plant ontogeny, spatial scale, and local adaptation to stress. The last of these has very rarely been included in facilitation studies, despite the potential co-occurrence of local adaptations and changes in net facilitation in stress gradients. Current theory would predict both competitive effects and facilitative responses to be weakest in populations locally adapted to withstand high abiotic stress. This thesis is based on six experiments, conducted both in greenhouses and in the field in Russia, Norway and Finland, with mountain birch (Betula pubescens subsp. czerepanovii) as the model species. The aims were to study potential local adaptations in multiple stress gradients (both natural and anthropogenic), changes in plant-plant interactions under conditions of varying stress (as predicted by SGH), potential mechanisms behind intraspecific facilitation, and factors confounding plant-plant facilitation, such as spatiotemporal, ontogenetic, and genetic differences. I found rapid evolutionary adaptations (occurring within a time-span of 60 to 70 years) towards heavy-metal resistance around two copper-nickel smelters, a phenomenon that has resulted in a trade-off of decreased performance in pristine conditions. Heavy-metal-adapted individuals had lowered nickel uptake, indicating a possible mechanism behind the detected resistance. Seedlings adapted to heavy-metal toxicity were not co-resistant to others forms of abiotic stress, but showed co-resistance to biotic stress by being consumed to a lesser extent by insect herbivores. Conversely, populations from conditions of high natural stress (wind, drought etc.) showed no local adaptations, despite much longer evolutionary time scales. Due to decreasing emissions, I was unable to test SGH in the pollution gradients. In natural stress gradients, however, plant performance was in accordance with SGH, with the strongest host-seedling facilitation found at the high-stress sites in two different stress gradients. Factors confounding this pattern included (1) plant size / ontogenetic status, with seedling-seedling interactions being competition dominated and host-seedling interactions potentially switching towards competition with seedling growth, and (2) spatial distance, with competition dominating at very short planting distances, and facilitation being strongest at a distance of circa ¼ benefactor height. I found no evidence for changes in facilitation with respect to the evolutionary histories of plant populations. Despite the support for SGH, it may be that the ‘humpback’ model is more relevant when the main stressor is resource-related, while what I studied were the effects of ‘non-resource’ stressors (i.e. heavy-metal pollution and wind). The results have potential practical applications: the utilisation of locally adapted seedlings and plant facilitation may increase the success of future restoration efforts in industrial barrens as well as in other wind-exposed sites. The findings also have implications with regard to the effects of global change in subarctic environments: the documented potential by mountain birch for rapid evolutionary change, together with the general lack of evolutionary ‘dead ends’, due to not (over)specialising to current natural conditions, increase the chances of this crucial forest-forming tree persisting even under the anticipated climate change.

Työterveys- ja työturvallisuusriskienhallinnan kehittäminen

Työturvallisuuslaki (738/2002) asettaa vaatimuksia yrityksen suorittamalle työterveys- ja työturvallisuusriskienhallinalle ja TTT-toiminnan kehittämiselle. Organisaation tulee tunnistaa järjestelmällisesti työympäristön vaarat ja hallita niiden aiheuttamia riskejä. Taatakseen TTT-toiminnan jatkuvan kehittämisen ja lakisääteisten vaatimuksien täyttymisen organisaatiot laativat turvallisuusjohtamisjärjestelmä spesifikaatio OHSAS 18001 mukaisen TTT-järjestelmän ohjaamaan toimintaa. Työssä selvitetään, miten eräs suomalainen suuryritys on suoriutunut OHSAS 18001:fi mukaisen TTT-riskienhallintatoiminnan implementoinnista ja, mitkä ovat toiminnan suurimmat haasteet ja ongelmat. Työ pyrkii luomaan tietoa yrityksen TTT-toiminnan kehittämisen tueksi ja esittämään kehitysehdotukset toiminnassa ilmenneiden ongelmien korjaamiseksi. Teoreettisena lähtökohtana on käytetty yrityksen TTT-riskinarvioinnin ohjeistamiseksi laadittua kirjallisuutta sekä pohdittu riskienhallinnan ja turvallisuuskulttuurin vuorovaikutusta. Riskinarviointi edistää organisaation avointa raportointikulttuuria, joka on edellytys hyvän turvallisuuskulttuurin muodostumiselle. Selvityksessä havaittiin, että vastuiden ja valtuuksien epäselvyys organisaatioyksiköiden välillä ja sisällä vaikuttaa merkittävästi riskienhallinnan tehokkuuteen. Lisäksi riskinarviointitoiminta on edelleen irrallinen kokonaisuus organisaation jokapäiväisistä toiminnoista, mikä heikentää riskinarvioinnin tuloksien siirtymistä kenttätasolle.

Knowledge Sharing between Generations in an Organisation - Retention of the Old or Building the New?

The study explores knowledge transfer between retiring employees and their successors in expert work. My aim is to ascertain whether there is knowledge development or building new knowledge related to this organisational knowledge transfer between generations; in other words, is the transfer of knowledge from experienced, retiring employees to their successors merely retention of the existing organisational knowledge by distributing it from one individual to another or does this transfer lead to building new and meaningful organisational knowledge. I call knowledge transfer between generations and the possibly related knowledge building in this study knowledge sharing between generations. The study examines the organisation and knowledge management from a knowledge-based and constructionist view. From this standpoint, I see knowledge transfer as an interactive process, and the exploration is based on how the people involved in this process understand and experience the phenomenon studied. The research method is organisational ethnography. I conducted the analysis of data using thematic analysis and the articulation method, which has not been used before in organisational knowledge studies. The primary empirical data consists of theme interviews with twelve employees involved in knowledge transfer in the organisation being studied and five follow-up theme interviews. Six of the interviewees are expert duty employees due to retire shortly, and six are their successors. All those participating in the follow-up interviews are successors of those soon to retire from their expert responsibilities. The organisation in the study is a medium-sized Finnish firm, which designs and manufactures electrical equipment and systems for the global market. The results of the study show that expert work-related knowledge transfer between generations can mean knowledge building which produces new, meaningful knowledge for the organisation. This knowledge is distributed in the organisation to all those that find it useful in increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of the whole organisation. The transfer and building of knowledge together create an act of knowledge sharing between generations where the building of knowledge presupposes transfer. Knowledge sharing proceeds between the expert and the novice through eight phases. During the phases of knowledge transfer the expert guides the novice to absorb the knowledge to be transferred. With the expert’s help the novice gradually comes to understand the knowledge and in the end he or she is capable of using it in his or her work. During the phases of knowledge building the expert helps the novice to further develop the knowledge being transferred so that it becomes new, useful knowledge for the organisation. After that the novice takes the built knowledge to use in his or her work. Based on the results of the study, knowledge sharing between generations takes place in interaction and ends when knowledge is taken to use. The results I obtained in the interviews by the articulation method show that knowledge sharing between generations is shaped by the novices’ conceptions of their own work goals, knowledge needs and duties. These are not only based on the official definition of the work, but also how the novices find their work or how they prioritise the given objectives and responsibilities. The study shows that the novices see their work primarily as maintenance or development. Those primarily involved in maintenance duties do not necessarily need knowledge defined as transferred between generations. Therefore, they do not necessarily transfer knowledge with their assigned experts, even though this can happen in favourable circumstances. They do not build knowledge because their view of their work goals and duties does not require the building of new knowledge. Those primarily involved in development duties, however, do need knowledge available from their assigned experts. Therefore, regardless of circumstances they transfer knowledge with their assigned experts and also build knowledge because their work goals and duties create a basis for building new knowledge. The literature on knowledge transfer between generations has focused on describing either the knowledge being transferred or the means by which it is transferred. Based on the results of this study, however, knowledge sharing between generations, that is, transfer and building is determined by how the novice considers his or her own knowledge needs and work practices. This is why studies on knowledge sharing between generations and its implementation should be based not only on the knowledge content and how it is shared, but also on the context of the work in which the novice interprets and shares knowledge. The existing literature has not considered the possibility that knowledge transfer between generations may mean building knowledge. The results of this study, however, show that this is possible. In knowledge building, the expert’s existing organisational knowledge is combined with the new knowledge that the novice brings to the organisation. In their interaction this combination of the expert’s “old” and the novice’s “new” knowledge becomes new, meaningful organisational knowledge. Previous studies show that knowledge development between the members of an organisation is the prerequisite for organisational renewal which in turn is essential for improved competitiveness. Against this background, knowledge building enables organisational renewal and thus enhances competitiveness. Hence, when knowledge transfer between generations is followed by knowledge building, the organisation kills two birds with one stone. In knowledge transfer the organisation retains the existing knowledge and thus maintains its competitiveness. In knowledge building the organisation developsnew knowledge and thus improves its competitiveness.

Developing markets of energy biomass – local and global perspectives

The thesis explores global and national-level issues related to the development of markets for biomass for energy. The thesis consists of five separate papers and provides insights on selected issues. The aim of Paper I was to identify methodological and statistical challenges in assessing international solid and liquid biofuels trade and provide an overview of the Finnish situation with respect to the status of international solid and liquid biofuels trade. We found that, for the Finnish case, it is possible to qualify direct and indirect trade volumes of biofuels. The study showed that indirect trade of biofuels has a highly significant role in Finland and may be a significant sector also in global biofuels trade. The purpose of Paper II was to provide a quantified insight into Finnish prospects for meeting the national 2020 renewable energy targets and concurrently becoming a largescale producer of forest-biomass-based second-generation biofuels for feeding increasing demand in European markets. We found that Finland has good opportunities to realise a scenario to meet 2020 renewable energy targets and for large-scale production of wood-based biofuels. The potential net export of transport biofuels from Finland in 2020 would correspond to 2–3% of European demand. Paper III summarises the global status of international solid and liquid biofuels trade as illuminated by several separate sources. International trade of biofuels was estimated at nearly 1 EJ for 2006. Indirect trade of biofuels through trading of industrial roundwood and material by-products comprises the largest proportion of the trading, with a share of about two thirds. The purpose of Paper IV was to outline a comprehensive picture of the coverage of various certification schemes and sustainability principles relating to the entire value-added chain of biomass and bioenergy. Regardless of the intensive work that has been done in the field of sustainability schemes and principles concerning use of biomass for energy, weaknesses still exist. The objective of Paper V was to clarify the alternative scenarios for the international biomass market until 2020 and identify the underlying steps needed toward a wellfunctioning and sustainable market for biomass for energy purposes. An overall conclusion drawn from this analysis concerns the enormous opportunities related to the utilisation of biomass for energy in the coming decades.

Effectiveness of Pilotage

The objective of the pilotage effectiveness study was to come up with a process descrip-tion of the pilotage procedure, to design performance indicators based on this process description, to be used by Finnpilot, and to work out a preliminary plan for the imple-mentation of the indicators within the Finnpilot organisation. The theoretical aspects of pilotage as well as the guidelines and standards used were determined through a literature review. Based on the literature review, a process flow model with the following phases was created: the planning of pilotage, the start of pilo-tage, the act of pilotage, the end of pilotage and the closing of pilotage. The model based on the literature review was tested through interviews and observation of pilotage. At the same time an e-mail survey directed at foreign pilotage organisations, which included a questionnaire concerning their standards and management systems, operations procedures, measurement tools and their attitude to the passage planning, was conducted. The main issues in the observations and interviews were the passage plan and the bridge team co-operation. The phases of the pilotage process model emerged in both the pilotage activities and the interviews whereas bridge team co-operation was relatively marginal. Most of the pilotage organisations, who responded to the query, also use some standard-based management system. All organisations who answered the survey use some sort of a pilotage process model. According to the query, the main measuring tools for pilotage are statistical information concerning pilotage and the organisations, the customer feedback surveys, and financial results. Attitudes to-wards passage planning were mostly positive among the organisations. A workshop with pilotage experts was arranged where the process model constructed on the basis of the literature review was tuned to match practical pilotage. In the workshop it was determined that certain phases and the corresponding tasks, through which pilo-tage can be described as a process, were identifiable in all pilotage. The result of the workshop was a complemented process model, which separates incoming and outgoing traffic, as well as the fairway pilotage and harbour pilotage from each other. Addition-ally indicators divided according to the data gathering method were defined. Data con-cerning safety and traffic flow is gathered in the form of customer feedback. The pilot's own perceptions of the pilotage process are gathered through self-assessment. The measurement data which is connected to the phases of the pilotage process is generated e.g. by gathering statistics of the success of the pilot dispatches, the accuracy of the pi-lotage and the incidents that occurred during the pilotage, near misses, deviations and accidents. The measurement data is collected via the PilotWeb at the closing of the pilo-tage. A separate project and a project group with pilots also participating will be established for the deployment of the performance indicators. The phases of the project are: the definition phase, the implementation phase and the deployment phase. The purpose of the definition phase is to prepare questions for ship commanders concerning the cus-tomer feedback questionnaire and also to work out the self-assessment queries and the queries concerning the process indicators.