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This study aimed to build an integrative model of the interrelations between pedagogical training, teacher regulation skills, learning patterns and student-centred teaching approach. Self-reported questionnaire data were collected from 378 higher education teachers and analysed using structural equation modelling. The findings indicated that pedagogical training was related to teachers' regulation of their pedagogical development, which was further connected to both meaning-oriented and application-oriented teacher learning. However, only meaning-oriented teacher learning was connected to adopting a student-centred teaching approach, while application-oriented teacher learning was not. Teacher regulation was negatively connected to problematic learning, meaning that those who did not regulate their pedagogical development more often reported a problematic pattern towards teacher learning. Thus, pedagogical training, regulation skills and teacher learning patterns are important in terms of teachers' pedagogical development to a student-centred teaching approach. The findings highlight the importance of regulation and the quality of teacher learning in increasing student-centred teaching.

The purpose of this study was to understand the factors behind university teachers' ability to implement instructional changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online questionnaire comprised of open-ended and Likert-scale questions was administered to teachers at a Finnish university in April 2020. The sample consisted of 378 university teachers who were categorised into four groups based on their digital innovativeness and the extent to which they implemented changes to adapt their teaching practices to COVID-19 restrictions: Avoider Survival Adapters, Avoider Ambitious Adapters, Embracer Survival Adapters, and Embracer Ambitious Adapters. We examined the association between the teacher groups and their learning patterns and background characteristics. The findings showed that Embracer Ambitious Adapters have significantly more meaning-oriented and application-oriented learning patterns than Embracer Survival Adapters, though Avoider Survival Adapters have more problematic learning patterns. Furthermore, the results indicated that pedagogical training and having more teaching experience helped innovative teachers embrace more changes in their teaching practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. In terms of discipline, the results showed that teachers working in hard disciplines (e.g., physics) were more likely to belong to the Embracer Survival Adapters group, while teachers working in soft disciplines (e.g., history) were more likely to belong to the Embracer Ambitious Adapters group. Possible interpretations of these findings and perspectives for further research are discussed.

Decision-makers in the field of land administration and surveying need a broad understanding of emerging developments that are expected to shape the future of the industry. This study examines the relative perceived importance of several megatrends in the context of cadastral systems. In addition, we discuss the implications of relevant megatrends for the Finnish cadastral system and synthesize the anticipated impacts into key points. Our results are based on a two-round Delphi survey among Finnish experts in cadastral systems. The respondents identified digital culture, ubiquitous intelligence, and a tendency towards transparency, accessibility, and open data as the most important megatrends shaping the future of the Finnish cadastral system. Technological megatrends were also expected to have major impacts on the Finnish cadastral system by 2035. According to the panel technological advances will shape user preferences in the future. They anticipate that new forms of public services and collaboration between the public and private sectors in producing cadastral information will emerge by 2035. Our results indicate that Finnish experts view the development of the cadastral system as a technology-driven process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use changes and forests both play an important role in combating climate change. The climate effects of forest land consolidation have, however, not been studied in detail. As such, this study identifies a number of possible climate effects of forest land consolidation. To specify these, the increased carbon storage in the Pahkakoski land consolidation project (Finland) due to increased forest growth is valued through substitution costs. The results show that the value of the increased carbon storage in the project area is approximately 750 000 euros, or €153/ha. This emanates from the increased growth due to remedial drainage and from the increased forested area. The result is, however, sensitive to changes in the shadow price of carbon. Likewise, the study recognises a need for studies concerning the total climate effect of measures, such as remedial drainage that may also release carbon from the ground. While the overall effects of forest land consolidation are difficult to estimate with current knowledge, this article highlights the potential of land consolidation to combat climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• In public processes customer-orientation and effectiveness may provide mutually positive results. • There is a demand for cultural changes in public organisations. • Better interaction with public authorities or between authorities increases effectiveness. This paper is presenting research on with possibilities and benefit of applying a customer-oriented approach in public cadastral procedures. Public service providers have raised awareness towards customer-oriented approaches in their procedures during recent decades. This study discusses the relevance of adopting a new approach in cadastral procedures by presenting a new method to obtain a subdivision procedure. This is done by conducting a literature review followed by a description of this new method in Finnish local government, the city of Tampere. After that, the study presents views of customers involved in the procedure collected by interviews. The results show that customers of the subdivision process value direct contact with authorities to ensure their interests to be taken into consideration. Eventually, the study proves that new co-operative methods with and within authorities are essential as well re-evaluating organisational culture values and methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder, for which several disease-associated loci have been located on different chromosomes. We have used a population-based linkage disequilibrium mapping approach in order to find potential AD-associated loci on chromosome 13. To avoid population stratification, late onset AD patients and age-matched controls were carefully chosen from the same geographical area in Eastern Finland, where the population is mainly descended from a small group of original founders. During the initial screening with chromosome 13-specific microsatellite markers, tetranucleotide marker D13S787 was found to be in linkage disequilibrium in the 13q12 region. Screening this region with additional microsatellite markers revealed that marker D13S292 was also significantly associated with AD. Stratification of the AD patients and controls into groups according to apolipoprotein E, sex, and familial/sporadic status indicated that the 13q12 locus was associated with female familial AD patients regardless of ApoE genotype. Based on the physical data from the region 13q12, markers D13S292 and D13S787 were estimated to reside in a 810kb long YAC clone 754h7 together with two infant brain-derived ESTs and the H,K-ATPase alpha-subunit protein gene (ATP1AL1). The localisation of these sequences at the linkage disequilibrium region suggests that they may be candidate genes involved in a sex-specific effect during development of AD.

Antiplatelet treatment is well established in the secondary prevention of ischemic cerebrovascular events. The reasons for the occurrence of stroke, even though the patient receives drug treatment, have remained unclear. We performed a subgroup analysis of the European Stroke Prevention Study (ESPS 1) to investigate the efficacy of treatment in patients with different cardiovascular risk factors. The ESPS 1 recruited 1306 patients with TIA, RIND or stroke in one single center of Kuopio in Finland. The patients were treated with aspirin 990 mg/day+dipyridamole 225 mg/day or placebo for 2 years or until an endpoint. The endpoints were stroke or death from any cause. The risk factors for endpoints were analyzed by Cox univariate regression analyses. The effect of a single risk factor on the efficacy of antiplatelet therapy was analyzed by Cox proportional hazards model in subgroups according to the significant risk factors found in the univariate analysis. The efficacy of treatment was statistically significant in all subgroups except diabetics and current smokers for the stroke endpoint. When the combined endpoint of stroke or death was used, the treatment failed also to show statistical significance in patients with coronary heart disease. This lack of efficacy might be due to the small sample size. The efficacy of treatment was significantly better in TIA patients than in stroke patients when analyzed with stroke as an end point. This study provides strong evidence that the effectiveness of antiplatelet treatment in ischemic stroke and TIA patients is independent of most cardiovascular risk factors. Furthermore, all patients with TIA and ischemic stroke should receive secondary prevention regardless of whether or not there are risk factors.

Objective: To determine the association between features of the insulin resistance syndrome and Alzheimer's disease., Design: Cross sectional population based study., Subjects: 980 people aged 69 to 78 (349 men, 631 women)., Setting: Population of Kuopio, eastern Finland., Main Outcome Measures: Presence of features of the insulin resistance syndrome and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease by detailed neurological and neuropsychological evaluation., Results: 46 (4.7%) subjects were classified as having probable or possible Alzheimer's disease. In univariate analyses, apolipoprotein E4 phenotype (odds ratio; 95% confidence interval 3.24: 1.77 to 5.92), age (1.16; 1.05 to 1.29), low level of education (0.82; 0.72 to 0.93), low total cholesterol concentration (0.77; 0.59 to 1.00), high systolic blood pressure (1.01; 1.00 to 1.03), high fasting and 2 hour plasma glucose concentrations (1.11; 1.01 to 1.23 and 1.08; 1.03 to 1.13, respectively), high fasting and 2 hour insulin concentrations (1.05; 1.02 to 1.08 and 1.003; 1.00 to 1.01, respectively), and abnormal glucose tolerance (1.86; 1.23 to 2.80) were significantly associated with Alzheimer's disease. In multivariate analysis including apolipoprotein E4 phenotype, age, education, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol concentration, fasting glucose concentration, and insulin concentration, apolipoprotein E4 phenotype, age, education, total cholesterol, and insulin were significantly associated with Alzheimer's disease. In 532 non-diabetic subjects without the e4 allele hyperinsulinaemia was associated with an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease (prevalence of disease 7.5% v 1.4% in normoinsulinaemic subjects, P = 0.0004). In contrast, in the 228 with the e4 allele hyperinsulinaemia had no effect on the risk of disease (7.0% v 7.1%, respectively)., Conclusion: Features of the insulin resistance syndrome are associated with Alzheimer's disease independently of apolipoprotein E4 phenotype.

Different diagnostic definitions have been proposed for use in the characterization of mild cognitive disorders associated with ageing. Previously, we reported a high (38.4%) prevalence of age-associated memory impairment (AAMI) using the National Institute of Mental Health criteria in an elderly population. Recently, a work group of the International Psychogeriatric Association proposed criteria for 'ageing-associated cognitive decline' (AACD). The objective of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of AACD in an elderly population. We examined 403 randomly selected subjects (68-78 years of age) with tests of memory, cognitive processing, attention, verbal and visuoconstructive functions and with a structured questionnaire for health status and subjective complaints of cognitive decline. In all, 26.6% of the subjects (24.4% of women, 30. 1% or men) fulfilled the AACD criteria. The prevalence was slightly related to age and education. The rate was lowest in the oldest age of 75 - 78 years (20.5%) and highest in the age of 71 -74 years (30%). Subjects with less than 4 years of education had the lowest (14.3%) and subjects with more than 6 years of education had the highest rate (29.4%) for AACD. However, the differences between these subgroups were not statistically significant. These results suggest that the prevalence of AACD is lower than that of AAMI. As AAMI tends to identify a very heterogeneous subject group, the AACD diagnosis, which takes into account age and education specific norms in its inclusion criteria, might prove superior to AAMI in differentiating a meaningful subgroup from an elderly population both for research purposes and in clinical settings.

In this study, we screened for the amyloid beta precursor protein (APP) 665 (glutamic acid to aspartic acid), 670/671 (lysine to asparagine and methionine to leucine) and 717 (valine to isoleucine) mutations in 34 persons affected with familial Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 139 with sporadic AD, originating from eastern Finland, using polymerase chain reaction amplification and restriction enzyme digestion. We did not find any of these mutations in the APP gene in our study. We conclude that these mutations in the APP gene may be a very rare cause of AD in Eastern Finland and thus most Finnish familial AD will likely be due to other gene defects.

Objective: To examine the clinical course of age-associated memory impairment (AAMI) and to evaluate the value of neuropsychological tests in predicting cognitive decline in AAMI subjects in a follow-up period of more than 3 years., Design: Prospective cohort study., Setting: The outpatient Memory Research Unit of the Department of Neurology at the University of Kuopio in Eastern Finland., Participants: A sample of 229 subjects (mean age 71.7 years) identified in two screening studies as having AAMI., Measurements: A battery of neuropsychological tests and a structured inquiry for health status and subjective memory complaints were performed at baseline and follow-up to diagnose AAMI according to the criteria proposed by a National Institute of Mental Health work group., Results: Of the 229 subjects, 176 (76.9%) participated in the follow-up for, on average, 3.6 years after the baseline. Of the participants, 104 (59.1%) still met the AAMI criteria. Other subjects were classified into five subgroups: (1) subjects showing decline in cognition meeting dementia diagnosis (16, 9.1% (13 of them AD)); (2) subjects with mild cognitive decline meeting neither dementia nor AAMI criteria (13, 7.4%); (3) subjects with memory performance now superior to AAMI criteria (17, 9.7%); (4) subjects having a disease classified as exclusion in the criteria (15, 8.5%); (5) subjects not now reporting subjective memory loss in everyday life (9, 5.1%). Two subjects (1.1%) were not classified because of incomplete data. Neuropsychological tests predicted which subjects would develop dementia during the follow-up period. The best discriminators between these subjects and those who remained AAMI were memory and verbal fluency tests., Conclusion: The study suggests that, in general, AAMI is nonprogressive, but the AAMI population also includes subjects with early dementia and subjects without genuine memory loss. However, these subjects can be differentiated with a more detailed neuropsychological evaluation.

Aging has multiple effects on memory in normal subjects. However, information on the prevalence of age-associated memory impairment (AAMI) is scanty. We studied the prevalence of AAMI in a randomly selected population of 1,049 subjects aged 60 to 78 years from eastern Finland. Research criteria proposed by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Work Group were applied. We calculated prevalence rates for AAMI by the inclusion criteria alone (subjective and objective memory impairment and no dementia) as well as by the inclusion and exclusion criteria (evidence of any neurologic or other medical disorder that could produce cognitive deterioration) for the total study population, for both sexes, and for four age groups (60 to 64, 65 to 69, 70 to 74, and 75 to 78 years). Subjective memory impairment was present in 76.3% of the subjects. Prevalence rates for objective memory impairment ranged from 31.9 to 78.4% in individual tests. A total of 564 subjects (239 men, 325 women) were classified as having AAMI by the inclusion criteria alone, giving a prevalence rate of 53.8% (men, 57.4%; women, 51.3%). When we included the exclusion criteria, the prevalence of AAMI decreased to 38.4% (men, 42.5%; women, 35.7%). By both methods, age- and sex-specific prevalence rates were highest in the youngest group, aged 60 to 64 years, and lowest in the oldest group, aged 75 to 78 years. We conclude that the prevalence of AAMI, by the diagnostic criteria of the NIMH Work Group, is high in the elderly Finnish population.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Apolipoprotein E is a polymorphic protein defined by three alleles, epsilon 2, epsilon 3 and epsilon 4. An increased frequency of the epsilon 4 allele is associated with late-onset familial and sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD). We studied 202 Finnish AD patients and 55 age- and sex-matched controls. AD patients were divided into four subgroups; sporadic early-onset, sporadic late-onset, familial early-onset and familial late-onset disease. We found no significant differences in the epsilon 4 allele frequency between the subgroups. However, all the subgroups differed in the frequency of epsilon 4 allele detection from the controls (P < 0.0001). In the late-onset patients, the age at onset decreased from 76 to 69 as the number of epsilon 4 alleles increased from 0 to 2.

Objective: To determine the association between the e4 allele of apolipoprotein E and Alzheimer's disease in a randomly selected population sample., Design: Cross sectional population based study., Subjects: 980 people aged 69 to 78 (349 men, 631 women)., Setting: Population of Kuopio, eastern Finland., Main Outcome Measures: Presence of e4 allele and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease by detailed neurological and neurophysiological evaluation., Results: 46 (4.7%) subjects were classified as having probable or possible Alzheimer's disease. The frequency of the apolipoprotein E e4 allele was 0.359 in patients with Alzheimer's disease and 0.165 subjects without dementia (P < 0.0001). The prevalence of Alzheimer's disease was 2.9% in subjects with no e4 alleles, 7.6% in subjects with one e4 allele, and 21.4% in subjects with two e4 alleles of apolipoprotein E., Conclusions: Allele e4 of apolipoprotein is associated with Alzheimer's disease in a dose-response fashion in a randomly selected elderly population.

Mutations in the beta-amyloid precursor protein gene on chromosome 21 were shown to cause a small proportion of Alzheimer's disease. We studied the occurrence of the point mutations in exon 17 of the beta-amyloid precursor protein gene in a sample of Finnish familial Alzheimer patients and nondemented controls using polymerase chain reaction and a single strand conformation polymorphism technique. In addition, mutations in familial Alzheimer's disease patients were studied by sequencing the amplified products. Interestingly, two probable polymerase chain reaction errors were detected in codons 717 and 693 of the exon 17. However, no mutations in the exon 17 were confirmed adding the study to the body of literature that mutations in the exon 17 are a rare cause of familial Alzheimer's disease.

A neuropsychological screening battery including the Mini-Mental State Examination and four other brief cognitive tests (Russell's Adaptation of the Visual Reproduction Test, Trail Making Test, Verbal Fluency Tests on letters and category, and the Buschke Selective Reminding Test) was administered to a randomly selected population sample of 403 subjects aged 68 to 77 years to evaluate the effect of education, age, and sex on test scores. The difference in neuropsychological screening tests between various education groups (3 years or less, 4 to 6 years, 7 years or more) was statistically highly significant, even after the adjustment for the effect of age. The subscores and total scores were lowest in the minimal education group on every neuropsychological test. Education correlated more strongly than age with all neuropsychological test scores and subscores. The effect of sex on test results was seen only in some subscores of brief neuropsychological tests but not in a single item of the Mini-Mental State Examination. On the basis of our results, the effects of education, age, and sex have to be evaluated before using brief neuropsychological tests in population-based dementia screening.

During a 20-month study period there were 373 strokes in a geographically defined population (235/100,000/year). When age and sex were adjusted to the mean population of Finland in 1979, the annual incidence of stroke was 270/100,000 persons. The distribution of incident cases by diagnostic category was as follows: cerebral infarction 80%, ICH 9%, SAH 8% and NOS 3%. Case fatality of stroke within one year was 37%. The recurrence rate was 6% during the first year after any stroke.

The possibility of disturbed dopamine and serotonin metabolism in the progressive myoclonus epilepsy (PME) occurring in Finland (a type of PME without Lafora bodies) was examined. Both basal concentrations of HVA and 5-HIAA in the CSF and their increase after oral probenecid administration were studied in 19 PME patients and in 19 age- and sex-matched control patients. The control patients had grand mal epilepsy but not myoclonus or ataxia. The basal value of HVA was significantly reduced and that of 5-HIAA was also slightly reduced in the PME patients as compared to the values of the epileptic controls or to those of 26 nonepileptic controls. The concentrations of HVA and 5-HIAA also seemed to correlate with the severity of the PME. The most severely affected patients had generally the lowest values. After oral probenecid this trend was also seen when the increases of HVA and 5-HIAA were expressed per microgram CSF probenecid, i.e. the mildly affected PME group showed higher increases in response to probenecid than the most severely affected PME group. The PME patients had higher probenecid levels in the CSF than the epileptic controls.

In Finland, only limited data exist on the epidemiology of epilepsy in adults. This prompted us to study the incidence and prevalence of epilepsy in a population over 15 years of age, residing in Eastern Finland. In a retrospective study, various medical data sources were used to identify and reexamine all patients with established or suspected epileptic seizures during 1960-1979. A total of 1,233 patients with active epilepsy were identified. Mean annual incidence of epilepsy was 24/100,000. Age-specific incidence ratios tended to increase with advancing age. Prevalence of active epilepsy was 629/100,000. Both prevalence and incidence were higher in males than in females. Age-specific prevalence of active epilepsy increased until 40-50 years of age, and declined in the oldest age groups. Of the various seizure types, highest prevalence ratios were observed for partial secondarily generalized seizures, complex partial seizures, and tonic-clonic seizures. Prevalence of partial seizures and generalized seizures had a different age-related pattern.

The Mini-Mental State Examination of Folstein et al was translated into and culturally adapted to Chinese and Finnish and used in dementia surveys involving probability samples of 2187 Shanghai elderly, aged 65 to 74 years, and 525 Finns of the same age group. The mean scores of these two groups were statistically different owing to the lower scores of Shanghai subjects who had no formal education. When this subset of 579 subjects was eliminated from the analysis, the distribution of total scores was almost identical in the two populations, suggesting that the Mini-Mental State Examination can be used in disease populations, provided education is taken into account. However, there remained cultural differences in regard to individual test items; the Chinese had better recall but did not do as well as Finnish or US subjects when asked to copy a figure.