Network In Finland Research Articles

Techno-economic evaluation of waste heat recovery from an off-grid alkaline water electrolyzer plant and its application in a district heating network in Finland

The expected extensive production of hydrogen through water electrolysis will generate a substantial quantity of industrial waste heat. Waste heat recovery from electrolyzer facilities would provide significant potential for renewable heat generation into district heating (DH) networks.This paper investigates the techno-economic potential for recovering waste heat from an off-grid alkaline water electrolyzer (AWE) plant and using the heat in a DH network under Nordic conditions. A waste heat recovery system that includes heat pumps, a pit thermal energy storage (PTES) and an electric boiler is modeled and component capacities are cost-optimized for four different scenarios with varying DH demand coverage rates. The waste heat generation of the AWE plant and the DH demand are based on measurements conducted in southeastern Finland.It was found that even with 100% DH demand coverage rate, the levelized cost of heat (LCOH) would be 44€/MWh. Heat pumps constitute the largest single cost while the share of the PTES in the LCOH varies between 11% and 19%. The results were compared with the estimated renewable hydrogen production capacity of Finland, leading to the conclusion that by 2040, there could be potential to fulfill the DH demand of the entire country.

Evaluation Framework for Multi-Modal Public Transport Systems Based on Connectivity and Transfers at Stop Level

Multi-modal public transport (PT) networks within metropolitan areas are often characterized by complexity resulting mainly from their infrastructure, design, operations, and demand. This complexity leads to a significant amount of effort on behalf of the transit agencies to properly evaluate their performance at certain locations and proceed with improvements. This study proposes a methodology based on clustering techniques that facilitates the evaluation of PT networks. The evaluation framework refers to the comparison between the levels of supply and demand at a certain stop. Service supply is quantified through an existing connectivity index, whereas demand is considered through the number of transfers that are performed at each stop. Transfers are critical within multi-modal mobility and often serve as a hindrance for choosing PT. The case study here is the Helsinki PT network in Finland. General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data are used for quantifying connectivity and a dataset deriving from smartphone ticketing application for quantifying transfers. Results include the evaluation for each PT mode and for the overall multi-modal PT network. Focusing on the evaluation of the overall multi-modal PT network, connectivity and transfers levels for 75.60% of stops are found to be well aligned. Therefore, these stops could be eliminated from the list of candidate stops for performing improvements. Of the remaining stops, 19.73% belongs to the case of higher connectivity than transfers and 4.67% to the case of lower connectivity than transfers. Stops included in these two cases require further attention and prioritization during planning processes.

Futures literacy in collaborative foresight networks: advancing sustainable shipbuilding

Businesses are facing increasing pressure from society and regulators to become more sustainable and do their part to address the climate crisis. These businesses will require continual sustainability innovation formulation and implementation processes to meet these demands. Collaborative foresight (CF) has high potential for helping business sectors produce a continuous stream of sustainability options to select and deploy in finished products. Recent developments in futures studies indicate that a capability called futures literacy (FL)—acts of individuals or groups switching their modes and purposes for imagining futures—is relevant to the production of innovation-related outcomes. FL may be key to driving the effectiveness of such foresight collaborations; however, little is known about its exact functions in such business networks and processes. This article examines this issue in the context of a luxury-cruise shipbuilding network in Finland. It analyzes research data from the foresight workstreams of a multi-partner consortium active across three sequential projects between 2016 and 2022. The foresight team took an interventionist research approach, conducting interviews and workshops as part of all three projects. In this article, we analyze the materials produced from these interventions for the appearances of FL enhancement. Based on this analysis, we found that FL can play key functions in CF, such as supporting actors in perceiving new developmental pathways, identifying new opportunities for innovation, and identifying alternative priorities built from new realizations and insights—a finding in line with existing claims by FL scholars and educators. This article contributes to ongoing discussions about the significance of CF and FL in addressing the most pressing environmental issues of our time. It offers an evidence-based argument for the relevance of taking a capabilities approach (i.e., introducing and developing FL) for business networks seeking to use foresight when engaging in sustainability innovation.

Broadleaved trees enhance biodiversity of the understorey vegetation in boreal forests

Understorey vegetation constitutes a remarkable part of the total biodiversity of boreal forests. Mixing broadleaved trees in coniferous forests has been shown to enhance vascular plant abundance and species richness, while high stand density has a counteracting effect. However, more information is needed on how environmental factors modify these biodiversity responses.We investigated how the proportion of broadleaved trees of total basal area, tree species richness, stand density, and shrub cover were reflected in the number of vascular plant species and percentage cover of herbs and bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus). We also studied the response of site fertility indicators, i.e. C:N ratio and extractable calcium concentration in the soil organic layer, to broadleaved species in mixed-forests.The study was based on the data of understorey vegetation, soil, and stand properties in forests on mineral soil, inventoried on a systematic sample plot network in Finland in 2006. We used a subset of 307 plots in the hemi-southern and middle boreal zones and divided the plots either to xeric or mesic types. We used generalized additive models in analysing the data.Birches (Betula sp.) were the main broadleaved species. Vascular species richness and herb cover generally increased with increasing proportions of broadleaved trees and tree species number both on mesic and xeric sites but decreased with increasing stand density on mesic sites. An increase in proportion of broadleaved trees and stand density resulted in decreased bilberry cover in the southern boreal zone, probably due to stand shading, but in increased cover in the middle boreal zone. Vegetation responses to increasing shrub cover often showed unimodal shape. As increase of proportion of broadleaved trees correlated positively with calcium and negatively with C:N of the organic layer, we suggest that nutrient input from easily decomposable birch leaf litter promotes species richness and herb cover via improved nutrient availability in the soil.Our results indicate that many stand characteristics determining understorey biodiversity can be directed by forest management regimes. Generally, slight increase of broadleaved trees benefitted the understory plant richness, given that stand density is not too high. Because site type and zone controlled many responses, we suggest that it would be beneficial to have habitat and zone-specific instructions in forest management practices that conserve understorey vegetation and its multi-purpose ecosystem services.

Geospatial Research Supporting Decision-Making in Court Services – an Assessment of the 2019 District Court Reform in Finland

As a result of the district court reform which came into force in Finland in 2019, the number of district court locations decreased from 57 to 36. The idea is that the reform strengthens the operational capacity of the district courts by forming administratively larger units. The main objective of this study is to assess the district court reform with the spatial optimization technique and demonstrate how the geospatial analysis could be utilized in the planning and decision-making process of the district court network. The results show that the reform is not geographically optimal and that, in the future, the district court network cannot be centralized very much without worsening the accessibility of the nearest district court radically. The study demonstrates that district court reform could benefit from geospatial research methods, such as location allocation analysis, as these methods offer an objective criterion for the planning and decision-making of the service networks and operational practices. Based on the findings, the next structural reform and development of the district court network in Finland should therefore be based on the development of functionality instead of shrinking the size of the network if the distances are not to increase further. The results also underline the need for new ways to develop the accessibility of district courts through digitalization.

‘We hugged each other during the cold nights’: the role of affect in an anti-deportation protest network in Finland

ABSTRACT This article analyses the role of affect and emotions in Finland’s first large-scale anti-deportation protest, the 2017 Right to Live protest in Helsinki. Despite deportation protests having recently gained scholarly attention, their emotional dimensions have not been sufficiently studied, especially as concerns the emotions of protestors with vulnerable legal status. This article is based on in-depth interviews with key activists in the anti-deportation protest network in Finland, including asylum seekers, refugees and Finnish citizens. The article argues that in order for the protest of asylum seekers facing the threat of deportation to become public and visible, it was important that citizens who supported the cause not only offered material assistance but also shared their emotions. The article applies Margaret Wetherell’s theoretical concept of affective practices to analyse interactions between asylum seekers and their supporters, and Sara Ahmed’s circulation of affect and affective economies to explain how affect and emotions played a role in mobilizing protesters and sustaining the protest. The article concludes that the circulation of affect within the network of asylum seekers and supporters produced lasting affective value during the protest and after the protest ended. Strong affective ties enabled the protesters’ network to function effectively in a challenging political climate and despite the network’s lack of formal organization, leadership and shared ideological premises.

Practicing mundane consumer resistance in the REKO local food system

PurposeThis study aims to answer two research questions, namely, what kinds of mundane resistance practices emerge in the local food system and which spatial, material and social elements catalyse the resistance practices.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a post-humanist practice approach and focusses on exploring the agentic capacity of socio-material elements to generate resistance practices. The data were generated through a multi-method approach of interviews, field observations and Facebook discussions collected between 2014 and 2017.FindingsThe empirical context is the rejäl konsumtion local food network in Finland. The analysis presents two types of resisting practices – resisting facelessness and resisting carelessness – which are connected to spatial, material and social elements.Research limitations/implicationsThe study focusses on one local food system, highlighting the socio-material structuring of resistance in this specific cultural setting.Practical implicationsThe practical implications highlight that recognising the socio-material elements provides tools for better engagement of consumer actors with local food systems.Originality/valueThe study adds to the extant research by interweaving the consumer resistance literature and local food systems discussions with the neo-material approach. The findings present a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which consumer resistance is actualised in a non-recreational, mundane context of consumption. Consequently, the study offers new insights into the agentic socio-material actors structuring the local food system.

The quiet opposition: How the pro-economy lobby influences climate policy

The lack of ambitious climate change policies in large anglophone countries, such as the United States, has been explained by the strong media presence of denialist arguments against climate science. Such counterarguments are less visible in the news media of most European countries. Why do many of these countries nevertheless fail to enact ambitious climate change policies? This paper suggests that influential organizations may block ambitious climate change policies in corporatist countries without an extensive media strategy or a strong denialist message. We draw from theories on the policy process, policy networks, influence strategies, and comparative politics to formulate hypotheses about the existence, influence, and strategies of organizations that oppose ambitious climate policy. We test these hypotheses using an original combination of media data and survey data on the national climate policy network in Finland, a corporatist European country that has long lacked ambitious climate policies. The findings show that a coalition that prioritizes economic competitiveness over climate change mitigation is influential and occupies a central position in the policy network. This pro-economy lobby does not question the validity of climate science or actively seek media visibility. Rather, it influences the policy process using other strategies, such as inside lobbying, and appears in the news media less often than other climate policy organizations. Our results suggest that opponents of climate change mitigation can be powerful despite a weak media presence. This implies that studies on climate politics should pay more attention to strategies of influencing beyond the media spotlight.

Monitoring of ticks and tick-borne pathogens through a nationwide research station network in Finland

In 2015 a long-term, nationwide tick and tick-borne pathogen (TBP) monitoring project was started by the Finnish Tick Project and the Finnish Research Station network (RESTAT), with the goal of producing temporally and geographically extensive data regarding exophilic ticks in Finland. In the current study, we present results from the first four years of this collaboration.Ticks were collected by cloth dragging from 11 research stations across Finland in May–September 2015–2018 (2012–2018 in Seili). Collected ticks were screened for twelve different pathogens by qPCR: Borrelia afzelii, Borrelia garinii, Borrelia valaisiana, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, Borrelia miyamotoi, Babesia spp., Anaplasma phagocytophilum, Rickettsia spp., Candidatus Neoehrlichia mikurensis, Francisella tularensis, Bartonella spp. and tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV).Altogether 15 067 Ixodes ricinus and 46 Ixodes persulcatus were collected during 68 km of dragging. Field collections revealed different seasonal activity patterns for the two species. The activity of I. persulcatus adults (only one nymph detected) was unimodal, with activity only in May–July, whereas Ixodes ricinus was active from May to September, with activity peaks in September (nymphs) or July–August (adults). Overall, tick densities were higher during the latter years of the study. Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato were the most common pathogens detected, with 48.9 ± 8.4% (95% Cl) of adults and 25.3 ± 4.4% of nymphs carrying the bacteria. No samples positive for F. tularensis, Bartonella or TBEV were detected.This collaboration project involving the extensive Finnish Research Station network has ensured enduring and spatially extensive, long-term tick data collection to the foreseeable future.

Hospital-at-home network in Finland

ABSTRACT Introduction: Hospital-at-home (HAH) may provide cost-effectively high-quality care for patients otherwise requiring inpatient ward care. However, large-scale nation-wide studies on HAHs and their effectivity are lacking. Methods: A web-based questionnaire, directed to 56 HAHs identified in Finland, was used to gather information on the performance, quality and future plans of the Finnish HAHs. The national recommendations and guidelines were searched for HAH-related contents. Results: The response rate was 60.7% (N = 34). All the HAHs that responded were functioning in public municipal healthcare. The median catchment population per a HAH was 40,970 and the median number of patients was 5435 in 2015, and the major reasons for admission were parenteral antibiotic treatment for infections and end-of-life care. The staff of HAHs consisted mostly of nurses. The administration and financing of the HAHs were arranged varyingly, and no uniform quality control system could be detected. Although there are national guidelines acknowledging the presence of HAHs they do not regulate their operations in any way. Conclusion: A large HAH network, based mostly on nursing activities, has been established in Finland and a tendency to increase the availability of the service can be recognized. New national guidelines regulating the service should be composed.

Fine-grained climate velocities reveal vulnerability of protected areas to climate change

Climate change velocity is an increasingly used metric to assess the broad-scale climatic exposure and climate change induced risks to terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, the utility of this metric in conservation planning can be enhanced by determining the velocities of multiple climatic drivers in real protected area (PA) networks on ecologically relevant scales. Here we investigate the velocities of three key bioclimatic variables across a nation-wide reserve network, and the consequences of including fine-grained topoclimatic data in velocity assessments. Using 50-m resolution data describing present-day and future topoclimates, we assessed the velocities of growing degree days, the mean January temperature and climatic water balance in the Natura 2000 PA network in Finland. The high-velocity areas for the three climate variables differed drastically, indicating contrasting exposure risks in different PAs. The 50-m resolution climate data revealed more realistic estimates of climate velocities and more overlap between the present-day and future climate spaces in the PAs than the 1-km resolution data. Even so, the current temperature conditions were projected to disappear from almost all the studied PAs by the end of this century. Thus, in PA networks with only moderate topographic variation, far-reaching climate change induced ecological changes may be inevitable.

Organic Transportation Networks: Human-Oriented Renewal of Modern Megapolises

Studies related to the growth of the transportation networks from the second half of the 20th century have constantly been focused on the topological complexity of motorized & public transportation network (internal geometry & dynamics, occupied space, and geographical settings), or the structural properties (complexity of network structure). However, those studies have failed to incorporate the concept of an integrated public-soft transportation network, and the human-oriented transportation system, and its structural elements: soft transportation network, accessible nodes called Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs), healthy neighborhoods and, most importantly, its attributes. Additionally, the relative location (urban geographical settings) haven't been conceptualized in their models.In this paper, the ontological frameworks of an integrated public-soft transportation network and human-oriented transportation system will be proposed. Secondly, the attributes of those networks will be determined by comparing the integrated public-soft transportation network in Finland (Helsinki) with ordinary one in Italy (Rome) through the human-oriented transportation system framework. Thirdly, the applicability of the concept of human-oriented transportation system in Bozcaada (Tenedos) Island will be discussed. Thus, a new conceptual model of the human oriented transportation system will be proposed.

Boundary Negotiations in a Self-Organized Grassroots-Led Food Network: The Case of REKO in Finland

Self-organization is a term that is increasingly used to describe how engaged citizens come together to create sustainable food systems at the local community level. Yet, there is a lack of understanding of what this self-organizing activity actually means. While previous literature has addressed self-organization as an outcome of building consensus and a collective intentionality shared by the members of a group, we focus on the complex social processes involved when people with a diverse set of interests and motivations interact in the food network. In this study, we analyze what kinds of boundary negotiations emerge when grassroots-led food networks scale up. Our embedded single case study focuses on a REKO (‘REjäl KOnsumtion’, meaning ‘fair consumption’ in English) network in Finland comprising distributed local food groups and three types of actors: consumers, producers, and local administrators. We examine a conflict that arose within the REKO network in May–June 2016 when a small group of actors demanded that all local groups should implement similar rules, principles, and ethical standards. Our findings illustrate how moral, geographic, market, and power boundaries emerge in a self-organized grassroots-led food network. We further explicate the challenges that may appear within a self-organized grassroots-led food network, as it grows in scale and scope.

Discursive Struggle and Agency—Updating the Finnish Peatland Conservation Network

This paper explores the process of updating the peatland conservation network in Finland—the Supplemental Mire Conservation Programme, which was drafted from 2012 to 2015. This study employs discursive agency approach (DAA), to reveal how agents actively seek to gain legitimate speaker positions and influence policy outcomes as they rely on existing discourses. It also studies the role of discourse in the context of Finnish peatland conservation policy and evaluates the role of agents in the discursive process and how they influenced the outcome. The empirical data consists of expert interviews, newspaper articles and policy documents. The results indicate that the discourses of ‘maintenance of biodiversity’, ‘regulatory program’, ‘voluntary conservation’ and ‘participatory approach’ influence the peatland conservation policy. Additionally, discursive agency is achieved through hegemonic discourse and a consensus seeking argumentation strategy that rely on keywords, such voluntary and sustainability.

Integrating intangible resources enables creating new types of forest services - developing forest leasing value network in Finland

Emergence of more urban forest owners who live far from their forests challenges not only policies but also businesses for how to engage owners to active forest management. This study explores the opportunities of how exchanging and integrating intangible resources in collaborator networks may enable designing new types of forest services. To that end, the study scrutinizes the value network of a potential forest leasing service for family forests. Service-dominant logic and the concept of value network framed the analysis, which is based on semi-structured interviews with 12 Finnish forerunners and experts in private forestry. The results highlight the mediating role of the integrator (tenant or consultant). The value network offers novel value propositions via exchanging intangible benefits, i.e. trust, expertise, easiness, and communication. Main actors and operations already exist in Finland: integrating intangible resources (=working in reciprocal business networks) in creating new kind of forest services may serve new forest owner types and their emerging needs better and more flexibly. Companies' capability to convert information and knowledge to exchangeable deliverables within the value network will determine their competitive advantage in future. The task for forest policy is to enable open forest and landowner data for the novel service concepts. Further research is suggested to introduce novel value cocreating business logic to forest services in general.

A System for Acquisition, Processing and Visualization of Image Time Series from Multiple Camera Networks

A system for multiple camera networks is proposed for continuous monitoring of ecosystems by processing image time series. The system is built around the Finnish Meteorological Image PROcessing Toolbox (FMIPROT), which includes data acquisition, processing and visualization from multiple camera networks. The toolbox has a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) for which only minimal computer knowledge and skills are required to use it. Images from camera networks are acquired and handled automatically according to the common communication protocols, e.g., File Transfer Protocol (FTP). Processing features include GUI based selection of the region of interest (ROI), automatic analysis chain, extraction of ROI based indices such as the green fraction index (GF), red fraction index (RF), blue fraction index (BF), green-red vegetation index (GRVI), and green excess (GEI) index, as well as a custom index defined by a user-provided mathematical formula. Analysis results are visualized on interactive plots both on the GUI and hypertext markup language (HTML) reports. The users can implement their own developed algorithms to extract information from digital image series for any purpose. The toolbox can also be run in non-GUI mode, which allows running series of analyses in servers unattended and scheduled. The system is demonstrated using an environmental camera network in Finland.

From Underground Terrorism to State Terrorism and Beyond: The Question of Terrorism in the Finnish Jäger Movement during and after the First World War

ABSTRACTPolitical terrorism has played an integral part in the independence struggle of several sovereign nations, and resistance and liberation movements have often had to resort to terrorism as a deliberate strategy. In the Finnish nationalist struggle for independence, a key role was played by the Jäger Movement, which combined the features of transnational war volunteerism and an underground organization. The military cooperation with Germany against the Russian Empire during the First World War, and the creation of the Finnish 27th Royal Prussian Jäger Battalion, also necessitated the establishment of a clandestine recruitment network in Finland, which effectively operated as an underground organization. During the war, the Jäger Movement was repeatedly faced with the question of resorting to reprisals and terror tactics. This process culminated in the autumn of 1916, and briefly showed signs of escalating to the level of an actual terror campaign, until it was cut short by the Russian February Revolution. Nonetheless, the accumulated propensity for political violence manifested itself during the subsequent Finnish Civil War, as well as during the far-right reaction of the early 1930s. The article approaches the question of terrorism in the Jäger Movement during this era, the issue of deploying “enforcement terror” during the independence struggle, and the subsequent distinctive participation of Jägers in state terror during the Civil War and the extreme right-wing political terror in the 1930s.

Optimization of a natural gas distribution network with potential future extensions

A model of a pipeline network for gas distribution is developed considering supply of gas, either from external gas networks or as injected biogas or gasified liquefied natural gas (LNG) at terminals. The model is based on mass and energy balance equations for the network nodes, equations of the pressure drop of a compressible gas in the pipes, as well as expressions of gas compression in compressor nodes. The model is applied within an optimization framework where the optimal supply of natural gas to the customers is studied under a multi-period mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) formulation, considering possible extensions of the pipeline network to new sites as well as potential supply of the gas from LNG terminals. The natural gas network in Finland is used in a case study, which determines the network's size and operation conditions. The results illustrate that the model can tackle complex gas supply problems and that it finds interesting alternatives where the optimal gas flow is reversed between the periods. The findings reveal the conditions under which it is beneficial to upgrade existing connections by parallel pipelines, extend the pipeline to new sites, or to re-gasify LNG and inject it into the network.

Localising and acculturating the global: the Healing Rooms prayer service network in Finland

The article addresses the theme of accommodating an imported model of international religious practice into a national context. The case in question involves an intentional ’translation’ of an American Pentecostal concept of a lay-based prayer service into a Nordic, rather secularised Lutheran context. This recent newcomer into the Finnish religious field is the Healing Rooms network which is a predominantly charismatic Christian, globally expanded, interdenominational intercessory prayer service. This study of Healing Rooms is based on material compiled by means of ethnographic methods. According to the interviewees, the idea of a prayer clinic must be adjusted culturally and nationally, even though the basic function of the practice is the same everywhere. In Finland this means adjusting the service to fit a culture and society in which the mainline Lutheran Church has traditionally had simultaneously a distant and dominating role on the religious scene.

Public Participation and Environmental Justice in Biodiversity Governance in Finland, Greece, Poland and the UK

AbstractThe novel articulations between the state, markets and civil society arising from the shift to networked environmental governance highlight the importance of creating equal participation opportunities. Relevant questions from an environmental justice perspective are not only who participates, but also with whom, in what, why and how. In this paper, we explore public participation in biodiversity governance that has emerged after the initial designation of a Natura 2000 network in Finland, Greece, Poland and the UK by focusing on distributive and procedural justice. Our analysis, based on focus groups and document analysis, shows that new participatory arrangements have taken the modes of project‐based, market, interest group and e‐governance. These arrangements have been marked by problems in power and knowledge sharing, and in the distribution of conservation costs and benefits, reflecting serious deficits regarding environmental justice. Calls for public participation and wider stakeholder engagement in conservation across Europe should be followed by an acknowledgment of the diversity of perspectives, conflicting interests and social positions and their integration into biodiversity governance. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment