Search results for "inla"
showing 10 items of 1834 documents
Adolescents' experiences of parental employment and parenting: connections to adolescents' well-being.
2004
This paper examines whether the relationship between parental work and adolescents' well-being would be mediated through parenting behaviour. The primary focus was on the experiences of adolescents. Questionnaire-based data from families (both parents and one children, n = 77) and adolescents (n = 126) were collected in Finland in 2000 and 2001, respectively. The adolescents were on average 14 years old. Results showed that the relationships between parents' negative work experiences and adolescents' depression (all perceived by adolescents) were partially mediated by adolescents' experience of lessened autonomy granting in parenting and increased conflicts between parents and adolescents. …
Persistence of low back pain reporting among a cohort of employees in a metal corporation: A study with 5-, 10-, and 28-year follow-ups
2005
Low back pain (LBP) is a common symptom among adults but little is known about its persistence over time in defined populations. The aim of this study was to examine the persistence of LBP among a cohort of industrial employees studied in four successive surveys during a total of 28 years. Cross-tabulations and logistic regression was used to estimate the interdependence of LBP occurrence at the surveys. At baseline, 54% of the subjects reported local LBP and 25% LBP radiating to the lower limb(s). Persistent or recurrent LBP was common. Of those with LBP at baseline, 75, 73, and 88% reported it also at the 5-, 10- or 28-year follow-up, respectively. Of those with radiating pain, 66, 65, an…
The effect of weight on labor market outcomes: An application of genetic instrumental variables
2019
This paper contributes to the literature on the labor market consequences of obesity by using a novel instrument: genetic risk score, which reflects the predisposition to higher body mass index (BMI) across many genetic loci. We estimate instrumental variable models of the effect of BMI on labor market outcomes using Finnish data that have many strengths, for example, BMI that is measured rather than self‐reported, and data on earnings and social income transfers that are from administrative tax records and are thus free of the problems associated with nonresponse, reporting error or top coding. The empirical results are sensitive to whether we use a narrower or broader genetic risk score, …
Occupational hygiene in a waste incineration plant
2003
Abstract The Turku incineration plant was renovated in 1995 to meet the emission requirements of modern waste combustion facilities. It treats presorted municipal waste from 170,000 residents in the Turku area. In the plant, the incineration process produces several types of by-products having importance in terms of occupational hygiene. Although not obligated by the law, the management of the plant has a keen interest in occupational hygiene at the plant, which was studied from 1998 to 2001. Concentrations of microbes, endotoxins, and dust and the noise level were investigated in three different working areas. Microbe measurements were conducted with a six-stage impactor and using the CAMN…
Exploring Finnish university students' perceived level of critical thinking
2015
Critical thinking is believed to be a 21 st century skill that many employers consider crucial when hiring recent graduates. However, it is debated whether critical thinking should be taught in academic foreign language courses at the tertiary level, which primarily aim to develop students’ language and communication skills. This localized, exploratory research examines Finnish university students’ self-reported critical thinking skills and dispositions after completing the compulsory academic English courses. The aim of the research is to examine what skills and dispositions students feel competent in, and discover if there is a correlation between students’ self-reported critical thinking…
Entrepreneurship training for new ventures
2009
Several studies in the field of international entrepreneurship have indicated the inadequacy of public policy support for new ventures and called for more tailored training programs. This paper introduces a training program created for new ventures in Central Finland and analyzes its benefits and shortcomings using a qualitative case study. The findings reveal that the training program provided useful knowledge on how to develop a business further and how to make it understandable and attractive to a funder. However, the findings also indicate that there is a need for cultural adaptation: the training program developed originally for U.S. new ventures was not fully adapted for the needs of …
Balancing ‘flexibility’ and ‘employability’: The changing role of general studies in the Finnish and Swedish VET curricula of the 1990s and 2010s
2019
This article analyses and compares the evolving role of general subjects in the curricula of initial upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) in Finland and Sweden during the 1990s and 2010s. The research illustrates how Bernstein’s concept of ‘pedagogic code’ supports comparative studies on principles guiding changes to curricula and how the role of general studies in VET has been redefined. The findings show that while a principle of ‘market relevance’ has been central to VET over the decades since the 1990s, it has been subject to varying interpretations. The shifts in interpretations have guided the organisation of VET in these two countries in different directions, incl…
Becoming and Being a Creative and Entrepreneurial Mum in Finland
2020
This chapter explores the pathways of mothers with young children into cultural and creative industries (CCIs). These women can be described as mumpreneurs, meaning that they combine running a business enterprise with looking after their children. Typically unstable, insecure, and unpredictable, CCIs also offer scope for great self-engagement and personal satisfaction. At the same time, the current culture of intensive mothering has made motherhood more challenging than in the past. Mumpreneurship may be a way to ‘have it all’ for the women interviewed for this study. However, critical researchers have suggested that this individual ‘choice’ locks women into marginalised roles in the neolib…
Entry in a Psychically Distant Market: Finnish Small and Medium-sized Software Firms in Japan
2008
This paper investigates the market entry and entry mode choice of eight small and medium-sized Finnish software firms in the Japanese market. The findings in this study reveal that, despite of the psychic distance between Finland and Japan, most of the firms entered Japan at a very early stage of their internationalization process by using direct entry modes. This was mainly due to the market size, sophisticated industry structure, and requirements for intensive cooperation with the customers during the sales process. The firms were able to overcome psychic distance by hiring local employees and western managers who already had working experience in the Japanese market. This finding indicat…
Climate change and reindeer management in Finland: Co-analysis of practitioner knowledge and meteorological data for better adaptation.
2020
Abstract We studied interannual variability and changes over time in selected climate indices in the reindeer management area (RMA) in northern Finland. We present together the knowledge possessed by reindeer herders with information from meteorological measurements over three decades. The practitioner knowledge was gathered via a survey questionnaire addressing herder observations of long-term changes (approximately during the past 30 years) in climatic conditions and their impacts on herding during the four seasons. A set of temperature-, precipitation- and snow-related indices relevant for herding within the RMA was derived from spatially interpolated daily meteorological data (1981–2010…