Trampling tolerance of understorey vegetation in different hemiboreal urban forest site types in Finland

The effects of trampling on the understorey vegetation were studied in boreal urban forests of different fertility in the greater Helsinki area, Finland. The three studied forest types in decreasing order of fertility were: 1) herb-rich heath forest, 2) mesic heath forest, and 3) sub-xeric heath forest. We inventoried the cover percentages of understorey vegetation in 40 herb-rich, 75 mesic and 40 sub-xeric biotopes located in 51 urban forests varying in size (0.6–502 ha). Cover percentages were compared to those of untrampled reference areas. In our study, trampling tolerance increased with increasing fertility of the forest type. Wear of understorey vegetation correlated positively with the number of residents (i.e. recreational pressure) around the forest patch. In general, understorey vegetation cover in all three forest types was lower than in the same forest types in untrampled reference areas. Ground layer cover in urban forests was less than half of that in reference areas. Mosses, lichens, and dwarf shrubs, especially Vaccinium vitis-idaea, proved to be sensitive to trampling and consequently decreased in cover. The cover of tree saplings, mainly Sorbus aucuparia, and some resilient herbs increased.     

THE DOUBLE BIND: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF RESPONSES TO INCONSISTENT COMMUNICATIONS*

An empirical study of communications in a mother-child context was conducted. Cognitive, emotional, and metacommunicational responses to “subtle inconsistencies” and consistencies in communication in this context were studied. Subtle inconsistency was found to be more stressful, complex, and evocative of responses showing a lack of metacommunication than consistency, by both clinical and non-clinical adolescents. Finer differences were also found between clinical and non-clinical adolescents' emotional and metacommunicational responses to subtle inconsistency. The findings provide empirical support for the double bind hypothesis.     

Extraction of sea temperature in the Barents Sea by a scale space multiresolution method – prospects for Atlantic salmon

Variation of marine temperature at different time scales is a central environmental factor in the life cycle of marine organisms, and may have particular importance for various life stages of anadromous species, for example, Atlantic salmon. To understand the salient features of temperature variation we employ scale space multiresolution analysis, that uses differences of smooths of a time series to decompose it as a sum of scale-dependent components. The number of resolved components can be determined either automatically or by exploring a map that visualizes the structure of the time series. The statistical credibility of the features of the components is established with Bayesian inference. The method was applied to analyze a marine temperature time series measured from the Barents Sea and its correlation with the abundance of Atlantic salmon in three Barents Sea rivers. Besides the annual seasonal variation and a linear trend, the method revealed mid time-scale (～10 years) and long time-scale (～30 years) variation. The 10-year quasi-cyclical component of the temperature time series appears to be connected with a similar feature in Atlantic salmon abundance. These findings can provide information about the environmental factors affecting seasonal and periodic variation in survival and migrations of Atlantic salmon and other migratory fish.     

Language as an issue in international internal communication: English or local language? If English,what English?

The present paper discusses internal communication in the global context, with a focus on language as an issue for the organization. Although ‘language’, naturally, is a resource that enables any – internal or other – communication, it has not been examined in public relations research but has been taken for granted or as given. The current pace of globalization in all sectors has rapidly globalized internal communication and the language issue needs to be addressed. On the basis of two empirical studies we discuss language strategy and language use in international internal communication. Our findings show that although a common ‘corporate language’ – which mostly today refers to English – enables internal communication, it is not a straightforward solution but a number of issues need to be considered. For example, as international communication in a business context is today mostly conducted by non-native speakers of English, their language can be characterized as BELF (English as Business Lingua Franca), which differs from ‘standard English’ in many ways. Also, language issues need to be considered for organizational credibility and knowledge sharing and for constructing trust and rapport in international interaction.     

The Buffering Role of Social Support on the Psychosocial Wellbeing of Orphans in Rwanda

Little is known about the buffering role of social support among orphans living in Africa. This study examined (1) how perceived social support (PSS) varied across orphan‐related characteristics (e.g., orphan status, such as single, maternal or paternal, and their living environments, such as in child‐headed households, on the street, in an orphanage or in a foster home) and (2) the relative importance of sources of PSS (relatives/community/adults and peers) and functional social support (emotional/informational/instrumental and social) and its association with emotional well‐being and mental distress. The participants included 430 orphaned Rwandan children and youth aged between 10 and 25 years (Mean age = 17.74), of whom (n = 179, 41.6%) were females and (n = 251, 58.4%) were males. Result showed that children living in an orphanage exhibited a higher level of PSS from all sources of social support than did children in other living environments. A higher level of PSS from relatives, communities and adults was associated with high level of emotional well‐being, and only adult support was associated with low level of mental distress. Furthermore, the functional PSS indicated that emotional support and companionship support were equally important in their association with higher levels of emotional well‐being and lower levels of mental distress. The findings highlight the importance of having different sources of social support and their functions in relation to psychosocial well‐being.     

Dynamic Family System Trajectories From Pregnancy to Child's First Year

Family systems reorganize during transitional periods, such as the birth of a new child. Longitudinal research, however, on family dynamics during the transition to parenthood is lacking. Accordingly, the authors aimed to identify family system trajectories from pregnancy to the child's first birthday and to examine their contextual predictors. Both parents (N = 702) reported autonomy and intimacy in marital (wife‐to‐husband, husband‐to‐wife) and parenting (mother‐to‐child, father‐to‐child) relations during pregnancy and at child's ages of 2 months and 12 months. Finite mixture modeling revealed 7 unique family system trajectories: (a) Cohesive (35%), (b) Disengaged (5%), (c) Enmeshed Declining (6%), (d) Enmeshed Quadratic (5%), (e) Authoritarian (14%), (f) Escalating Crisis (4%), and (g) Discrepant (15%) families. Parental education in interaction with duration of partnership and parity predicted family trajectory membership. The study demonstrates how different family types reorganize during the transition to parenthood; this includes decline, growth, and stability in autonomy and intimacy.     

Searching for the Self: Adult International Adoptees’ Narratives of Their Search for and Reunion With Their Birth Families

In this case study, five international adoptees from Finland were interviewed about their search and reunion experiences to find out what meanings they ascribed to their identities and family relations. The thematic analysis yielded three themes: search and reunion in significant periods of life, meaning of reunion for identity, and belonging and relatedness within family. The first theme was characterized by the changing interest in birth family from the inability in childhood to fully understand the meaning of adoption and the growing interest in adolescence to adulthood where participants’ own parenthood intensified their interest. The second theme was characterized by the sense of coherence and sense of continuity that the adoptees, despite the conflicting emotions of reunion, felt they had achieved through reunion. In the third theme, reunion with their birth family appeared significant, even though belonging to a family was interpreted more as an outcome of attachment and nurture than biology. Particular for all themes was the meaning of communicating about adoption-related issues for the adoptee–adoptive parent relationship. Future research is needed to concentrate in more detail on the broad themes and to investigate how the meanings of the birth family for adoptive identity change over life courses.     

Effects of early support intervention on workplace ergonomics--a two-year followup study

The purpose of the controlled longitudinal study was to determine the effect of a tailored early support intervention method on workers' workplace ergonomics. The main areas of the early support intervention were training, guidance and support for supervisors in finding weak signals of impaired ergonomics. Supervisors were also trained to bring up these weak signals in discussion with employees and to make necessary changes at the workplace. The data consisted of 301 intervention subjects and 235 control subjects working in the field of commerce. The questionnaires were carried out in 2008 and in 2010, and the response rates among both groups were 45%. We used multivariate repeated measures analysis of variance (MANOVA) to test the difference in the groups at two points of time. The main result was that in the areas of work environment, the interaction between group and time was statistically significant (p=0.0004). The work environment improved in the intervention group, but deteriorated in the control. Working methods improved due to the interventions, but physical load factors increased over time in both groups. According to the study, tailored early support intervention has a generally beneficial impact on workers' workplace ergonomics in the areas of work methods, work environment and accident factors.     

Ecosocial innovations enabling social work to promote new forms of sustainable economy

Social work research and practice that address environmental sustainability have already become prominent. However, a change in unsustainable economic structures is also urgently needed. This study explored emerging opportunities in theory and practice for a sustainable economy that are relevant to the aims of social work. As practical examples, our study concerns ‘ecosocial innovations’, i.e., social innovations that combine ecological and social goals. We analysed how these grassroots innovations in the field of social work reflect crucial shared conceptions of alternative economies. The qualitative data set comprised of 50 ecosocial innovations and six case studies in five European countries. The findings show a rich diversity of ecosocial innovations and describe how they reframe economic purposes, value economic diversity and democratise the economy. We suggest that social work might consider these practices as opportunities for collaboration, especially regarding work with people on the margins of the labour market.     

Bayesian scale space analysis of temporal changes in satellite images

We consider the detection of land cover changes using pairs of Landsat ETM+ satellite images. The images consist of eight spectral bands and to simplify the multidimensional change detection task, the image pair is first transformed to a one-dimensional image. When the transformation is non-linear, the true change in the images may be masked by complex noise. For example, when changes in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index is considered, the variance of noise may not be constant over the image and methods based on image thresholding can be ineffective. To facilitate detection of change in such situations, we propose an approach that uses Bayesian statistical modeling and simulation-based inference. In order to detect both large and small scale changes, our method uses a scale space approach that employs multi-level smoothing. We demonstrate the technique using artificial test images and two pairs of real Landsat ETM+satellite images.