Search results for "FINLAND"
showing 10 items of 1724 documents
African Immigrants in Finland in Onward Translocal and Transnational Mobility and Migration, and the Political Implications
2016
This article examines the onward translocal and transnational mobility and migration of African immigrants in Finland, and finds that this is because of racism, and hence more of a search for belonging than just for greener pastures. In the process of this mobility/migration, they represent translocal and transnational identities that crisscross translocal and transterritorial spaces, experiencing transcultural practices. Along the way, they acquire transcultural, multicultural, and cosmopolitan skills with which they negotiate their identities and belonging in the places they visit or reside. This article argues that these multifaceted forms of mobility and migration say something about ne…
Consumers' perceptions of mobile banking continuous usage in Finland and South Africa
2015
This study examines continuous usage behaviour related to mobile banking (m-banking) among consumers living in Finland (FI) and South Africa (ZA). The study investigates three post-adoption behavioural consequences - namely, trust, satisfaction and word of mouth. Using purposeful sampling techniques, we found that trust plays a significant role in promoting continuous usage of m-banking. In general, the respondents reported high levels of trust in m-banking technology and were satisfied with the m-banking application and services. In addition, convenience, user friendliness and speed emerged as the main sub-topics related to satisfaction. In most cases, the convenience of using m-banking do…
Elimination of cyanobacteria and microcystins in irrigation water—effects of hydrogen peroxide treatment
2020
AbstractCyanobacterial blooms pose a risk to wild and domestic animals as well as humans due to the toxins they may produce. Humans may be subjected to cyanobacterial toxins through many routes, e.g., by consuming contaminated drinking water, fish, and crop plants or through recreational activities. In earlier studies, cyanobacterial cells have been shown to accumulate on leafy plants after spray irrigation with cyanobacteria-containing water, and microcystin (MC) has been detected in the plant root system after irrigation with MC-containing water. This paper reports a series of experiments where lysis of cyanobacteria in abstracted lake water was induced by the use of hydrogen peroxide and…
New enveloped dsRNA phage from freshwater habitat.
2015
Cystoviridae is a family of bacteriophages with a tri-segmented dsRNA genome enclosed in a tri-layered virion structure. Here, we present a new putative member of the Cystoviridae family, bacteriophage ϕNN. ϕNN was isolated from a Finnish lake in contrast to the previously identified cystoviruses, which originate from various legume samples collected in the USA. The nucleotide sequence of the virus reveals a strong genetic similarity (~80 % for the L-segments, ~55 % for the M-segments and ~84 % for the S-segments) to Pseudomonas phage ϕ6, the type member of the virus family. However, the relationship between ϕNN and other cystoviruses is more distant. In general, proteins located in the int…
Wood-inhabiting fungal responses to forest naturalness vary among morpho-groups
2021
The general negative impact of forestry on wood-inhabiting fungal diversity is well recognized, yet the effect of forest naturalness is poorly disentangled among different fungal groups inhabiting dead wood of different tree species. We studied the relationship between forest naturalness, log characteristics and diversity of different fungal morpho-groups inhabiting large decaying logs of similar quality in spruce dominated boreal forests. We sampled all non-lichenized fruitbodies from birch, spruce, pine and aspen in 12 semi-natural forest sites of varying level of naturalness. The overall fungal community composition was mostly determined by host tree species. However, when assessing the …
Top consumer abundance influences lake methane efflux
2015
Lakes are important habitats for biogeochemical cycling of carbon. The organization and structure of aquatic communities influences the biogeochemical interactions between lakes and the atmosphere. Understanding how trophic structure regulates ecosystem functions and influences greenhouse gas efflux from lakes is critical to understanding global carbon cycling and climate change. With a whole-lake experiment in which a previously fishless lake was divided into two treatment basins where fish abundance was manipulated, we show how a trophic cascade from fish to microbes affects methane efflux to the atmosphere. Here, fish exert high grazing pressure and remove nearly all zooplankton. This re…
Spatial and temporal changes in Actinobacterial dominance in experimental artificial groundwater recharge.
2008
Abstract Artificial groundwater recharge (AGR) is used in the drinking water industry to supplement groundwater resources and to minimise the use of chemicals in water treatment. This study analysed the spatial and temporal changes of microbial communities in AGR using two test systems: a nutrient-amended fluidized-bed reactor (FBR) and a sand column. Structural changes in the feed lake water (Lake Roine), FBR, and sand column bacterial communities were determined by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) and the length heterogeneity analysis of amplified 16S rRNA genes (LH-PCR). Two clone libraries were created to link the LH-PCR results to the dominant bacterial groups. The lake w…
Acidobacteria dominate the active bacterial communities of Arctic tundra with widely divergent winter-time snow accumulation and soil temperatures.
2012
The timing and extent of snow cover is a major controller of soil temperature and hence winter-time microbial activity and plant diversity in Arctic tundra ecosystems. To understand how snow dynamics shape the bacterial communities, we analyzed the bacterial community composition of windswept and snow-accumulating shrub-dominated tundra heaths of northern Finland using DNA- and RNA-based 16S rRNA gene community fingerprinting (terminal restriction fragment polymorphism) and clone library analysis. Members of the Acidobacteria and Proteobacteria dominated the bacterial communities of both windswept and snow-accumulating habitats with the most abundant phylotypes corresponding to subdivision …
First Report of Anaplasma phagocytophilum and Babesia microti in Rodents in Finland
2014
Tick-borne diseases pose an increasingly important public health problem in Europe. Rodents are the reservoir host for many tick-transmitted pathogens, including Anaplasma phagocytophilum and Babesia microti, which can cause human granulocytic anaplasmosis and babesiosis, respectively. To estimate the presence of these pathogens in rodents in Finland, we examined blood samples from 151 bank voles (Myodes glareolus) and demonstrate, for the first time, that A. phagocytophilum and B. microti commonly infect bank voles (in 22% and 40% of animals, respectively) in Finland. Sequence analysis of a fragment of 18S rRNA showed that the B. microti strain isolated was identical to the Munich strain, …
Mucilaginibacter frigoritolerans sp. nov., Mucilaginibacter lappiensis sp. nov. and Mucilaginibacter mallensis sp. nov., isolated from soil and liche…
2010
Five cold-adapted bacteria belonging to the genus Mucilaginibacter were isolated from lichen and soil samples collected from Finnish Lapland and investigated in detail by phenotypic and phylogenetic analyses. Based on 16S rRNA gene phylogeny, the novel strains represent three new branches within the genus Mucilaginibacter. The strains were aerobic, chemo-organotrophic, non-motile rods and formed pigmented, smooth, mucoid colonies on solid media. The strains grew between 0 and 33 °C (optimum growth at 25 °C) and at pH 4.5–8.0 (optimum growth at pH 6.0). The main cellular fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1 ω7c/iso-C15 : 0 2-OH) and iso-C17 : 0 3-OH and the major respirato…