Search results for "FINLAND"
showing 10 items of 1724 documents
The challenge for equity and excellence: Evidence for future successful action in bilingual Finland
2018
In 2013, the authors prepared a report on educational excellence and equity in Finland based on PISA 2009 data and asked the question “Could Finland achieve both excellence and equality goals in the coming decade? Five years later, this report re-examines the challenge faced by Finland in light of recent PISA results. The Finnish school system, both the Finnish and Swedish speaking components, have consistently ranked at the top of the list of OECD countries. However, Finland’s performance has been dropping compared to previous years, while it failed to keep pace with performance improvements in other countries. Simply working harder along the same path will no longer work. Therefore, this …
The associations among fundamental movement skills, self-reported physical activity and academic performance during junior high school in Finland.
2015
The purpose of this study was to analyse the longitudinal associations between (1) fundamental movement skills (FMSs) and academic performance, and (2) self-reported physical activity and academic performance through junior high school in Finland. The participants of the study were 325 Finnish students (162 girls and 163 boys), who were 13 years old at the beginning of the study at Grade 7. Students performed three FMS tests and responded to a self-reported physical activity questionnaire at Grades 7 and 8. Marks in Finnish language, mathematics and history from Grades 7, 8 and 9 were collected. Structural equation modelling with multigroup method demonstrated that in the boys' group, a cor…
Intensive fish farming and the evolution of pathogen virulence: the case of columnaris disease in Finland.
2009
Ecological changes affect pathogen epidemiology and evolution and may trigger the emergence of novel diseases. Aquaculture radically alters the ecology of fish and their pathogens. Here we show an increase in the occurrence of the bacterial fish disease Flavobacterium columnare in salmon fingerlings at a fish farm in northern Finland over 23 years. We hypothesize that this emergence was owing to evolutionary changes in bacterial virulence. We base this argument on several observations. First, the emergence was associated with increased severity of symptoms. Second, F. columnare strains vary in virulence, with more lethal strains inducing more severe symptoms prior to death. Third, more vir…
Seasonal dynamics of egg laying and egg-laying strategy of the ectoparasite Argulus coregoni (Crustacea: Branchiura).
2004
Substrate preferences, spatial aggregation patterns and seasonal dynamics in the egg laying of ectoparasiticArgulus coregoniwere studied at a commercial fish farm in Finland. Pilot experiments showed thatA. coregonifemales selected specific types of substrates for egg laying. Significantly moreA. coregonieggs were laid on dark substrates than on light ones suggesting the use of visual cues. Therefore, egg-laying plates of dark colour were constructed for further experiments. MostA. coregonieggs were deposited in locations in shadow and in the deepest water in a 2 m deep farming canal. Relatively more eggs were laid on bottom stones situated near each egg-laying trap than on artificial egg-l…
Risk assessment of gypsum amendment on agricultural fields: Effects of sulfate on riverine biota
2022
Gypsum (CaSO4 ∙ 2H2 O) amendment is a promising way of decreasing the phosphorus loading of arable lands, and of thus preventing aquatic eutrophication. However, in freshwaters with low sulfate concentrations, gypsum-released sulfate may pose a threat to the biota. To assess such risks, we performed a series of sulfate toxicity tests in the laboratory and conducted field surveys. These field surveys were associated with a large-scale pilot exercise involving spreading gypsum on agricultural fields covering 18% of the Savijoki River catchment area. The gypsum amendment in such fields resulted in about fourfold increase in the mean sulfate concentration for a 2-month period, and a transient, …
Trophic transfer of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) in a boreal lake ecosystem: Testing of bioaccumulation models
2013
Understanding the fate of persistent organic chemicals in the environment is fundamental information for the successful protection of ecosystems and humans. A common dilemma in risk assessment is that monitoring data reveals contaminant concentrations in wildlife, while the source concentrations, route of uptake and acceptable source concentrations remain unsolved. To overcome this problem, different models have been developed in order to obtain more precise risk estimates for the food webs. However, there is still an urgent need for studies combining modelled and measured data in order to verify the functionality of the models. Studies utilising field-collected data covering entire food we…
Seasonal changes in predator community switch the direction of selection for prey defences
2014
Insect communities consist of aposematic species with efficient warning colours against predation, as well as abundant examples of crypsis. To understand such coexistence, we here report results from a field experiment where relative survival of artificial larvae, varying in conspicuousness, was estimated in natural bird communities over an entire season. This takes advantage of natural variation in the proportion of naive predators: naivety peaks when young birds have just fledged. We show that the relative benefit of warning signals and crypsis changes accordingly. When naive birds are rare (early and late in the season), conspicuous warning signals improve survival, but conspicuousness b…
Agroecosystems shape population genetic structure of the greenhouse whitefly in Northern and Southern Europe
2014
International audience; Background: To predict further invasions of pests it is important to understand what factors contribute to the genetic structure of their populations. Cosmopolitan pest species are ideal for studying how different agroecosystems affect population genetic structure within a species at different climatic extremes. We undertook the first population genetic study of the greenhouse whitefly (Trialeurodes vaporariorum), a cosmopolitan invasive herbivore, and examined the genetic structure of this species in Northern and Southern Europe. In Finland, cold temperatures limit whiteflies to greenhouses and prevent them from overwintering in nature, and in Greece, milder tempera…
Low levels of relatedness on black grouse leks despite male philopatry
2008
In lekking species, males cluster on specific areas for display (the leks) and females generally prefer to copulate with males on large aggregations. The maintenance of leks in which only a few males reproduce might be explained if subordinate males gain indirect fitness benefits. By joining a lek on which relatives are displaying, subordinates might attract more females to the lek thereby increasing the mating opportunities of their kin. In black grouse, a genetic structure among leks has previously been found suggesting that relatives could display together. Using 11 microsatellite loci, we extended this result by testing for the presence of kin structures in nine black grouse leks (101 m…
Fine mapping of the 2p11 dyslexia locus and exclusion of TACR1 as a candidate gene.
2003
Developmental dyslexia, or reading disability, is a multigenic complex disease for which at least five loci, i.e. DYX1-3 and DYX5-6, have been clearly identified from the human genome. To date, DYX1C1 is the only dyslexia candidate gene cloned. We have previously reported linkage to 2p11 and 7q32 in 11 Finnish pedigrees. Here, we report the fine mapping of the approximately 40-cM linked region from chromosome 2 as we increased marker density to one per 1.8 cM. Linkage was supported with the highest NPL score of 3.0 (P=0.001) for marker D2S2216. Association analysis using the six pedigrees showing linkage pointed to marker D2S286/rs3220265 (P value0.001) in the near vicinity of D2S2216. We w…