Finnish System Research Articles

A Framework to Split the Benefits of DR Between Wind Integration and Network Management

In power systems today, considerable developments are being made in the energy transition from centralized fossil fuels to renewable distributed generation (DG) sources. However, this ongoing progress has presented several challenges to the operation and planning of distribution systems due to the variability of intermittent renewable generation. Demand response (DR) is widely regarded as a feasible tool to provide a seamless transition by altering the load profiles according to the intermittent generation profile. However, the resultant volatile power flows can be taxing for network capacity. This paper offers a framework from the distribution system operator's perspective for the optimal utilization of DR between DG curtailment mitigation and network management. The application of the developed framework to a generic Finnish distribution system demonstrates that the benefits of DR should be envisioned for network management as long as the wind curtailment rate is below a certain level. This means that, beyond the threshold energy curtailment rate, the distribution system operator would be more economically efficient by making network reinforcements.

Interpump to purchase GS-Hydro's international assets

Italy's Interpump Group has signed a binding agreement to acquire the international assets of Finnish piping systems specialist GS-Hydro Group in a €9 million deal.

Policy Narratives in Formation of Comprehensive Support System for Parenting and Child Care in Japan

This article aims to analyze the distinctive features of policy narratives by focusing on the formulation of the center of comprehensive support for child-rearing generations in Japan. There have been anticipated effects of the decline in the fertility rate and decreasing population, and the issues surrounding parenting and childcare have been re-discovered as a high priority public policy agenda. In this connection, multi-layered policy narratives have been analyzed with special attention paid to the Finnish system with its consistent support from pregnancy to preschool age. It will discuss how policy narratives have been selective in their focus on specific factors while skipping others when formulating a comprehensive system for parenting and childcare in Japan.

Knocking on prison’s door: a 10-fold rise in the number of psychotic prisoners in Finland during the years 2005–2016

Background: As in many European countries, Finnish psychiatric services experienced a rapid process of deinstitutionalization in the 1990s. In recent decades, the decrease in numbers of psychiatric hospital beds has in several countries been found to be linked with increasing criminality among severely mentally ill individuals. It has been concluded that deinstitutionalization could be the main reason for this development.Aim: To investigate whether the prevalence of severely mentally ill persons to prison is a growing trend also in Finland.Methods: We searched for the annual data in electronic case files of all prisoners about the ICD-10 diagnostic group of the most severe psychotic disorders. We also searched for the comorbid substance use disorders. Psychotic disorders due to substance abuse only were excluded from this study.Results: During the years 2005–2016, a rapid 10-fold increase in psychotic disorders has occurred in Finnish prisons. In 2016, 185 prisoners (5.9% of all Finnish prisoners) were diagnosed as having a psychotic disorder that was not induced by substance abuse. The causes of this dramatic change are unclear. Comorbid substance abuse disorders were detected in only 39.5% of these prisoners and therefore substance abuse can only partly explain the increasing criminality of the severely mentally ill persons. 80.5% of psychotic disorders were diagnosed in Psychiatric Hospital for prisoners and 19.5% in prison policlinic services.Conclusion: Trans-institutionalization has become a serious challenge for the Finnish criminal justice and mental health systems. Further studies are needed to detect the causes of this change. More specialized services for severely mentally ill persons are needed both in the community psychiatry and also inside the prison services.

Bacteriological etiology and treatment of mastitis in Finnish dairy herds

BackgroundThe Finnish dairy herd recording system maintains production and health records of cows and herds. Veterinarians and farmers register veterinary treatments in the system. Milk samples for microbiological analysis are routinely taken from mastitic cows. The laboratory of the largest dairy company in Finland, Valio Ltd., analyzes most samples using real-time PCR. This study addressed pathogen-specific microbiological data and treatment and culling records, in combination with cow and herd characteristics, from the Finnish dairy herd recording system during 2010–2012.ResultsThe data derived from 240,067 quarter milk samples from 93,529 dairy cows with mastitis; 238,235 cows from the same herds served as the control group. No target pathogen DNA was detected in 12% of the samples. In 49% of the positive samples, only one target species and in 19%, two species with one dominant species were present. The most common species in the samples with a single species only were coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) (43%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus (21%), Streptococcus uberis (9%), Streptococcus dysgalactiae (8%), Corynebacterium bovis (7%), and Escherichia coli (5%). On average, 36% of the study cows and 6% of the control cows had recorded mastitis treatments during lactation. The corresponding proportions were 16 and 6% at drying-off. For more than 75% of the treatments during lactation, diagnosis was acute clinical mastitis. In the milk samples from cows with a recorded mastitis treatment during lactation, CNS and S. aureus were most common, followed by streptococci. Altogether, 48% of the cows were culled during the study. Mastitis was reported as the most common reason to cull; 49% of study cows and 18% of control cows were culled because of mastitis. Culling was most likely if S. aureus was detected in the milk sample submitted during the culling year.ConclusionsThe PCR test has proven to be an applicable method also for large-scale use in bacterial diagnostics. In the present study, microbiological diagnosis was unequivocal in the great majority of samples where a single species or two species with one dominating were detected. Coagulase-negative staphylococci and S. aureus were the most common species. S. aureus was also the most common pathogen among the culled cows, which emphasizes the importance of preventive measures.

EHealth osaamisvaateet terveysalan ammattikorkeakoulukoulutuksessa

Teknologia mahdollistaa kansalaisten hoidon koordinoinnin eri palveluntuottajien välillä kansallisesti yli hallintorajojen. Myös rajat ylittävää hoitoa voidaan toteuttaa. Sähköinen arkistopalvelu parantaa asiakkaan hoitoa koskevan tiedon saantia sekä mahdollistaa kansalaisen osallisuuden itseään koskevaan päätöksentekoon. Ammattiin valmistuva sairaanhoitaja saa koulutuksensa aikana eHealth perustiedot ja -taidot. Tämän lisäksi sairaanhoitajat tarvitsevat monimuotoista koulutusta koko työuransa ajan. Teknologian kehittymisen myötä sairaanhoitajan työssä korostuu tieto- ja viestintätekniset taidot sekä interaktiivisen online viestintä- sekä vuorovaikutustaidot. Sairaanhoitajan työ muuttuu kohti potilaan omahoidon tukemista. Uusina rooleina ovat mentorointi, valmentaminen ja potilaan kumppanina oleminen. Sairaanhoitajien työolobarometrin (2016) mukaan suositus kuuden päivän vuotuisesta täydennyskoulutuksesta toteutui vain osin, sillä vain 30 prosenttia vastaajista ilmoitti käyneensä täydennyskoulutuksessa vähintään viisi päivää. Artikkeli kuvaa sairaanhoitajan eHealth -koulutusta ja haasteita, joihin koulutuksen on vastattava.

Finnish Innovations in Medicine and Social Sphere

The article presents data collected during the tour dedicated to the medical and social institutions of Finland about new solutions and Finnish innovations in medicine and the social sphere. The article describes the principles of the Finnish health care system, including the work of maternal and child welfare clinics, as well as common European approaches in geriatrics. Thе article describes the features of geriatric services in Finland. It reflects the role of the municipal social services to provide residents of barrier-free environment in their regions. The article presents the facts from the personal experience exploring the Finnish system of medical and social support to older generation focused on the application of the latest scientific developments. The article presents innovative products for comfortable living of older people, including a traveling exhibition of technologies for older people, specialized furniture and household items available in the functional building DoMedi and others. This article describes the function of public and private Finnish services and the Finnish Centre for Elderly, including a Finnish non-profit organization Valli. The article presents the features of a private home for the elderly “Wilhelmiina” in Helsinki and scientific developments behalf Miyna Sillanpää Foundation. The article describes the innovative products, created in the Health Innovation Village at the Finnish office of GE: vacuum therapy device for the treatment of edema, a portable device for the treatment of depression, a sensor for measuring the electrical activity of muscles. The paper presents the solutions offered by the Finnish university hospitals, including personalized medicine technology for patients with cancer, developed at the Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Helsinki. The article describes the work of one of the divisions of the institute - Biobank. The article describes the general approach to reform the health care system in Finland.

The role and function of the spokesperson in care order proceedings: A cross-country study in Finland and Norway

The article explores the spokesperson's role and function when representing children in care order proceedings in Norway and Finland. The Norwegian and Finnish child welfare systems share many similarities in international comparisons – they both have a family-service approach with a strong recognition of children's rights – but they have established quite different ways of representing children in care order proceedings via spokespersons. Based on the analysis of legislation and interviews with experienced spokespersons, we claim that the Norwegian spokesperson system represents the child's voice perspective and the Finnish system both the child's voice perspective and the child's best interest perspective. Although both child welfare systems have high ambitions to involve children in care order proceedings, the role of the spokesperson still needs to be paid a lot of attention in order to meet those high ambitions.

Human-centred design practice and challenges in four Finnish organisational information system development projects

The objective of this study was to recognise challenges that designers face when they are applying a human-centred design approach into organisational information system development projects. Participant-observation during the years 2004&2013 and inductive analysis were used to gain an understanding of designers' everyday work practices and real-life obstacles. Analysis led to the four categories of human-centred design work barriers: contract limitations, contradictory expectations, technological disinterest and isolation of designers. These barriers indicate that the designer's role in development projects is still vague and unclear, which makes it harder to work productively and affect usability related decisions.

Type 2 DM risk evaluation in Nigerian undergraduates in Ile Ife: a comparison of the Finnish vs Indian risk scoring system

Type 2 DM risk evaluation in Nigerian undergraduates in Ile Ife: a comparison of the Finnish vs Indian risk scoring system

Mathematics teachers’ conceptions and constraints for changing teaching practices in Brazilian higher education: an analysis through activity theory

ABSTRACTIn recent years, changes in the Brazilian economic and social scenario have generated a growing demand for higher education in the country. In response to this new context, the federal government launched in 2007 a programme aiming at expansion of the enrolment to public higher education. In such environment of changes, several proposals have emerged to adapt the Brazilian federal universities to a new reality. Taking this context into account, the focus of our study is on proposals from the Mathematics Department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Their aim is to create a new model of teaching practices for the freshman lessons of the Exact Sciences area, which at first were being experimented in special classrooms of students attending their first course on differential and integral calculus. The data were collected from interviews with students and professors from the mathematics department. They were analyzed and systematized using an activity theory approach. We became instigated by a model developed by Engeström in his study on the changes in the Finnish public health system, considering it as a test (testbench) for activity theory in its application to a particular case. Following Engeström's footsteps when developing his research, we arrived at our own model showing the internal tensions in the activity of reformulation of the courses offered by the Department of Mathematics and in the conceptions of teachers that promote – and constraint – the proposals for change.

The daily life of people with disabilities: experience of Lappeenranta

The article is devoted to the experience of social services in South Karelia (region of Finland) in respect of different types of urban support for disabled people in the areas of employment, housing and hobbies. The article describes the work of institutions providing assistance to people with disabilities and the services which are being provided by social service Eksote in Lappeenranta, Imatra and Parikkale. The article describes the work of centers round the clock monitoring and employment for the day, as well as the daily lives of people with Down syndrome, severe autism, intellectual disabilities. The attention is focused on the best practices in Finland, enabling the disabled child to engage in open employment. The article informs about the kinds of financial support for disabled people in Finland and assistance from the National Insurance Institute Kela, including the payment of rental housing. This article describes the features and differences of the centers around the clock care for people with disabilities in South Karelia: Houses “Petyayamyaki” and Private accommodation center “Villa of Karelia “for people requiring intensive care. The article describes the features of the day centers of employment for people with disabilities in Finland: the Center for Independent Living Support “Arttu” and Center “Valtsy.” According to the official position of the Government of Finland, persons with disabilities have the same rights as all other citizens of the country, and they have possibility to make decisions about their own lives. The Finnish system of medical and social rehabilitation of people with disabilities deserves the attention and replication in Russia.

Science, technology and innovation systems of small economies under pressure – sketching three possible future pathways of the Finnish system

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss possible future pathways of the Finnish science, technology and innovation (STI) system. The paper sketches three speculative pathways for the Finnish STI system. Design/methodology/approach Theoretical considerations behind the pathways are based on analyses of the determinants and behaviour of small open economies, their innovation systems and governance. The empirical background of the paper is in the current trends of the Finnish economy and STI system. The analysis of pathways is based on three dimensions: institutionalized policy environment and economy, domestic interest groups and policy and STI institutions and funding. Changes in these dimensions are analysed by paying special attention to two variables: the position of the nation state and the general economic development. Findings The first future pathway outlined is based on an optimistic view by setting Finland on the basis of past success factors as an European and global STI hotspot. The second pathway is based on the assumption that the Finnish STI system will be increasingly subordinated to international structures and decision-making. The third one is geared around the assumption that the Finnish STI system will be dominated by industries. Research limitations/implications While Finland has been seen as a European showpiece of innovation since the early 2000s, currently the country’s national economy and STI system are undergoing a critical period. The paper sheds light on this transformation and its potential future outcomes and attempts to raise debate on the options policy makers may face in the increasingly complex global environment in small countries. Originality/value The paper introduces potential future avenues for the Finnish STI system and provides a contribution to the debate of the future of small countries’ STI systems and innovation policies by emphasising the limited space of the STI policy choices and how the development paths and space for policy making evolve from the interaction of socio-economic factors between domestic and wider international context.

Pupil selection segments urban comprehensive schooling in Finland: composition of school classes in pupils’ school performance, gender, and ethnicity

ABSTRACTThe Finnish comprehensive school system is regularly referred to as a uniform and “no-tracking”. In this article, we show with novel urban case data in Finland that school performance differed significantly between schools, most strikingly between school classes, and was connected to the school's selectiveness in pupil admission. A comprehensive registry data of 13-year-olds in all schools and school classes of one Finnish city was used. Via the case of urban Finland, it is discussed how school choice policies, and thus pupil selection, has led to hidden ability grouping although applied among totally publicly run basic schooling. Thus the traditional perception of a uniform Finnish comprehensive schooling seems not to be valid in the urban contexts of our study.

Health reform in Finland: current proposals and unresolved challenges.

The Finnish health care system is widely respected for its pilot role in creating primary-care-led health systems. In the early 1990s, however, a severe economic downturn in Finland reduced public funding and weakened the Finnish system's deeply decentralized model of health care administration. Recent Bank of Finland projections forecasting several decades of slow economic growth, combined with the impact of an aging population, appear to make major reform of the existing public system inevitable. Over the last several years, political attention has focused mostly on administrative consolidation inside the public sector, particularly integration of health and social services. Current proposals call for a reformed health sector governance structure based on a new meso-level configuration of public administration. In addition, Finland's national government has proposed replacing the current multi-channel public funding structure (which includes health insurance subsidies for occupational health services) with a single-channel public funding structure. This commentary examines several key issues involved in reforming the delivery structure of the Finnish health care system. It also explores possible alternative strategies to reform current funding arrangements. The article concludes with a brief discussion of implications from this Finnish experience for the wider health reform debate.

Changing Training Needs of Port Workers Due to Future Trends

The operating environment in ports has changed considerably during the past decades. The public ownership is decreased at the same time when the private international operators have taken bigger involvement in business. The technological development has been rapid. Vessel sizes increase all the time, the share of container cargo increases and due to the cargo handling automation the cargo is handled much faster. As a result of more globalized trade, the containers handled in the port have much more variety regarding to their geographical origin or destination. The development of port operations has posed new requirements for port workers. The traditional port worker requirements were ability to do heavy physical work in a group. Due to automation, the work requires less physical strength. In addition, the work is increasingly done in small group without supervisor's presence or completely alone. As the number of handled cargo per worker has increased and the variety of the origins of the cargo has increased, the probability that some threats emerge has also grown. Therefore, nowadays part of the port work is the ability to observe exceptions and decide whether these should be reported before the threats become crisis situation, as an example of changed working requirement. The purpose of this paper is to propose how the recent and future trends of the port operations affects for the education and training needs of port workers in Europe. The question is addressed at first by studying status quo of port worker conditions in the European port sector and then evaluating the development of Finnish educational system by using case study research methodology. In Finland, 80–90% of the foreign trade is transported via ports making Finland as suitable case. Case study research included qualitative research methods such as interviews. In addition, the Finnish system is compared with the systems of other European countries and ILO regulations. As a result, this paper considers pros and cons of harmonizing port work education and training in European Union countries.

The Positive Declaratory Action in Finnish Patent Disputes A Detrimental Burden on the National Patent Enforcement Regime?

This paper examines positive declaratory actions in patent disputes in Finland which are currently subject to escalating academic debate. This study intends to contribute to this discussion by firstly providing an intelligible and up t o date definition of the genesis,current form and linkages of the Finnish positive declaratory action in patent disputes.The all but antiquated existing literature on the subject will be thoroughly examined in order to assess the theoretical standing of this component of patent litigation. Secondly, and perhaps more ambitiously, this thesis will assess whether positive declaratory actions are positively contributing instrument worth upholding in the Finnish legal system. To this end the Finnish international intellectual property rights regime will be compared against selected international counterparts

Analysis of the adoption of new health technology: the case of Dupuytren's disease

Health technology assessment focuses on clinical effectiveness and cost efficiency, but achieving these goals does not guarantee the adoption of a new technology if the incentives of individual decision makers (payers, patients, providers) are not aligned. This study creates a framework for the analysis of the adoption phase. The framework is tested in the case of a new, non-invasive treatment for Dupuytren's disease. The framework is developed based on existing operations management theories. The cost-benefit analysis in the case study utilises information on the Finnish healthcare system, detailed data on the process of the surgical and treatment for Dupuytren's from seven hospital districts and expert interviews on the non-surgical treatment process. The analysis suggests that the new technology will most likely be adopted, but it also shows that there are potential hindrances. The study shows that it is important to consider the incentives of individual operators within the healthcare system.

Ambiguous Labels: Facet Analysis of Class Names in Finnish Public-Sector Functional Classification Systems

Ambiguous Labels: Facet Analysis of Class Names in Finnish Public-Sector Functional Classification Systems

The Finnish Way of Governance: Something New on the Horizon?

The Finnish political system is based on representative forms of governance. The electoral system is proportional within the constraints of areal representation secured by largely independent districts. Partly in response to declining turnout in elections, occasional initiatives have been presented to increase the proportionality of the system, thus far to no avail. At the same time and presumably at least partly for similar reasons, calls to introduce electronic voting have been raised. Deliberative institutions have also been mentioned as ways of improving the quality of Finnish democracy. In this brief note, we shall deal with these initiatives, their motivations and problems related to them.