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.

Urbanisation is one of the most significant global megatrends and, as a result, major cities are facing multiple challenges. In this study, we contribute to the sustainable urban development debate and examine the relation between housing density and infrastructure costs. The analysis is based on four hypothetical design prototypes and a consistent cost calculation framework. Based on the results, infrastructure costs per capita are the highest in low-density areas and the lowest in high-density areas, if parking is excluded. However, if also construction costs of parking structures are included, the costs per capita are the highest in high-density areas. Considering the notably high cost impact of parking structures and people's limited willingness to pay for parking, municipally zoned parking requirements in urban areas are likely to result in non-optimal land use. Furthermore, construction in poor soil conditions may only be considered feasible if the floor area ratio and residential densities are relatively high. Beyond the cost benefits, the number of residents that may be accommodated is crucial and higher density in central urban locations should be promoted. We also suggest the cost of urban greenness to be reasonable relative to its many reported benefits and conclude that denser urban structure should not be pursued at the expense of green spaces.

Water services face global challenges, many of which are institutional by nature. While technical solutions may suit several situations, institutional frameworks are likely to vary more. On the basis of constructive research approach and new institutional economics we analyze and illustrate water services and the roles of various water sector actors in Finnish water utility setting using the "soccer analogy" by the Nobel Laureate D.C. North: Institutions are the "formal and informal rules of the game" while organizations are the "players". Additionally, we assess the Finnish water governance system and discuss issues of scale and fragmentation and distinguish terms water provision and production. Finally, we elaborate the limitations of the soccer analogy to water services through ownership of the systems. According to the soccer analogy, inclusive institutional development requires skillful players (competent staff), team play (collaboration), proper coaching (education), supporters (citizens, media), managers (policymakers), and referees (authorities). We argue that institutional diversity and player/stakeholder collaboration are the foundation for enhancing good multi-level water governance, and that water management, although fragmented, should be seen as a connector of different sectors. For successful outcomes, scientific results should be communicated to public in more common language.

This paper presents a potential solution to fill a gap in both research and practice that there are few interactions between transnational industry cooperation (TIC) and transnational university cooperation (TUC) in transnational innovation ecosystems. To strengthen the synergies between TIC and TUC for innovation, the first step is to match suitable industrial firms from two countries for collaboration through their common connections to transnational university/academic partnerships. Our proposed matching solution is based on the integration of social science theories and specific artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. While the insights of social sciences, e.g., innovation studies and social network theory, have potential to answer the question of why TIC and TUC should be looked at as synergetic entities with elaborated conceptualization, the method of machine learning, as one specific technic off AI, can help answer the question of how to realize that synergy. On the way towards a transdisciplinary approach to TIC and TUC synergy building, or creating transnational university-industry co-innovation networks, the paper takes an initial step by examining what the supports and gaps of existing studies on the topic are, and using the context of EU-China science, technology and innovation cooperation as a testbed. This is followed by the introduction of our proposed approach and our suggestions for future research.

Electrification is a frequently discussed solution for reducing transport related carbon dioxide emissions. However, transport sectors such as aviation and heavy-duty vehicles remain dependent on on-board fuels. Here, biomethane is still a little exploited solution, and the case of heavy-duty vehicles is particularly underappreciated despite the recent technical advances and potentially notable emission reductions. This paper discusses the potential of biomethane in heavy-duty road transport in the case of Finland, where the utilization rate is low compared to the technical potential. To this end, the potential of biomethane production through both anaerobic digestion and gasification was calculated in three scenarios for the heavy-duty transport fleet, based on the literature values of biomethane potential and truck class fuel consumption. The authors find that approximately half of the heavy-duty transport in Finland could be biomethane fueled by 2030. The estimated production costs for biomethane (81-190 €/MWh) would be competitive with the current consumer diesel price (152 €/MWh). Utilizing the total biomethane potential in heavy-duty transport would furthermore decrease the respective carbon dioxide emissions by 50%. To accelerate the transition in the heavy-duty transport sector, a more comprehensive political framework is needed, taking into account both production and consumption.

To better understand the role of the built environment in route choices among pedestrians and bicyclists, this study explores the built environment distribution along commute routes in two neighbourhoods in Tampere, Finland. A new grid-based method is developed to enable a more sophisticated analysis of the built environment along the route. The data consist of 73 commute routes collected with the Sports Tracker® smartphone application, of which 18 are made by foot and 55 by bicycle. To find the most relevant spatial scale, the values of each built environment variable are calculated with five buffer sizes for each cell of the grid covering the research area. Five statistics describing the distribution of the built environmental variables along each shortest and actual route are then calculated and compared. The results show that besides determining whether a significant association is found, different spatial scales for the analysis produce dissimilar findings in strength and even the direction of the correlations found. The most significant associations are found mainly with the smallest buffer (15m). Of the five built environment statistics calculated, the mean value of most built environmental variables had the most consistent correlation with route choice. Also, standard deviation and the third quartile of several built environmental variables along the routes correlate with route choice. The most significant associations with route choice are found with intersection density, institutional land use, slope, and age of buildings.

New technologies have major effects on the profitability of companies and the economic growth of society. If appropriate technologies can be routinely selected, then it is possible to achieve sustainability at a company level. Knowledge management (KM) can be used to support technology decision making and give an understanding of the potential of particular technologies in a specific business environment. In this study, the design research methodology (DRM) is used with three case studies in an industry environment to develop and evaluate a novel technology valuation method (TVM). The proposed six-step TVM focuses on the acquisition, modeling, and validation of product-related knowledge to support KM related to technology decisions. The contribution of this research is to use distinctions between product properties and behaviors with a disposition toward understanding the potential of technology. During the process, tacit knowledge is made visible and documented, which supports the reliability of technology decisions and enables companies to gain sustainability.

Globally, urban populations are growing rapidly, and in most cases their demands for resources are beyond current limits of sustainability. Cities are therefore critical for achieving national and international sustainability objectives, such as greenhouse gas reduction. Improving sustainability may also provide opportunities for urban population health co-benefits by reducing unhealthy exposures and behaviours. However, there is currently sparse empirical evidence on the degree to which city characteristics are associated with variations in health-related exposures, behaviours and sustainability. This paper examines the feasibility of aggregating empirical data relating to sustainability and health for global cities. An initial scoping review of existing English-language datasets and networks is performed. Resulting datasets are analysed for data types, collection method, and the distribution of contributing cities across climates, population sizes, and wealth. The review indicates datasets are populated using inconsistent methodologies and metrics and have poor overlap of cities between them. Data and organisations tend to be biased towards larger and wealthier cities, and concentrated in Europe and North America. Therefore, despite vast amounts of available data, limitations of reliability, representativeness, and disparate sources mean researchers are faced with significant obstacles when aggregating data to analyse the sustainability and health of globally representative samples of cities.

In this case study was to investigate how ventilation of the crawl space will influence on concentrations of radon, fungal spores and MVOCs in the crawl space and indoors of detached house. The crawl space pressurisation by exhaust air from indoors was successful to prevent the convective flow of radon from the soil, but it increased microbial growth in the crawl space. After installation of the supply and exhaust ventilation in the crawl-space and in the living space, the concentrations of fungal spores in the crawl space and also entry of radon and MVOCs into a house decreased. A microbiologically safe crawl space was determined with hygrothermal simulation utilizing the Finnish Mould Growth Model and a two year examination period. The optional structures of the crawl space being depressurised with exhaust ventilation included an open base uncovered ground and various air-sealed closed structures. When mould growth of building materials was at medium resistant sensitivity class, mould was not observed during different air change rates in any of the examined structures. Open base uncovered gravel ground is a functional solution of a crawl space, only when there are no organic materials. The air-sealed ground structure is recommended build with concrete + insulation and when air exchange rate (ach) varied from 0.2 to 1 h⁻¹. A concrete ground in the crawl space having ach from 0.2 to 0.6 h⁻¹ is also very effective. XPS insulation and plastic sheet covered ground are not recommendable due to their high mould index.

The article follows Kevin Lynch’s renowned formulation of ‘urban elements’ to examine the mobilities, experiences and materialities on ordinary routes in the city. Utilizing route narratives and participant-produced visual data, the article focuses on various identifiable micro-temporalities and mobility rhythms on repeated walking and driving routes, building on Henri Lefebvre’s notion of ‘rhythmanalysis’. The article examines how a framework built around rhythm and urban elements can add to the analysis of contemporary urban sites from the perspectives of situated mobile contexts, noting sequences and polyrhythmia as central temporal characteristics in the body‒environment relations.

Reducing the number of fatalities is a key objective of road safety policy. As road safety improvements in Europe have decreased the number of fatalities, more focus has been directed to seriously injured. The aim of this study is to compare the different definitions of and international data on seriously injured, combine this data with fatality data and investigate the results and the conclusions for road safety policy. Particularly, a combined indicator of killed and seriously injured (KSI) is used in analysis. For comparing the amount of seriously injured in different countries, the definition recommended by the European Commission, the Maximum Abbreviated Injury Scale (MAIS) level 3+ was adapted. Based on the comparisons the use of a KSI indicator is recommended as it widens overall awareness of road safety performance. When analysing the amount of seriously injured and KSI, the results highlight bicycle, moped and motorcycle users compared to fatalities as an indicator. As sustainable mobility and urbanisation shape the future transport systems and increase the importance of cycling, adopting KSI indicator is increasingly important, but further research is needed to identify the best practices and define guidelines for gathering, reporting and analysing international data on seriously injured.

Landowners are the key players in bioenergy production on wasteland; such as cutaway peatlands. In this study, the landowner's interest to use cutaway peatlands for bioenergy production was investigated using a survey and GIS (Geographic Information Systems) methods in an area in South Ostrobothnia, Finland. The focus was to identify which different bioenergy production chains are preferred by the respondents: combustion, gasification or biogas production from agriculture, energy-willow short-rotation forestry or forestry based energy crops. Also, the influence of personal environmental values on the selection was measured and the future impacts and barriers for the land use were assessed. Afforestation was the most popular after-use method among the landowners. The next most favorable method was energy crop cultivation but it was highly dependent on economic profitability and subsidies. Currently, approximately 8.2% or 500 ha of the total peat extraction area could be used for bioenergy production in the region by 2035. Based on the survey, forest based biomass is the best option if bioenergy is to be produced. The next choice was agro biomass and the least favored plant was willow. This study suggests that the biggest cutaway peatlands will be converted to forest energy in the future. Suggestive results were that the owners with high environmental values are especially interested in agro biomass growing and the landowner having a distant home place does not have a negative influence on bioenergy production. Altogether, land use and biomass production of cutaway peatlands is connected with the demands of the Finnish bio-economy.

Housing has long been thought to play a significant role in population exposure to environmental hazards such as high temperatures and air pollution. However, there is sparse data describing how housing may modify heat and air pollution exposure such that housing's role in poor health and mortality from these hazards may be estimated. This paper describes the development of individual-address level indoor overheating and air pollution risk modifiers for Great Britain, for use alongside historical weather, outdoor air pollution, population socio-economic data, and mortality data in a large-scale epidemiological investigation. A geographically-referenced housing stock database was developed using the Homes Energy Efficiency Database (HEED) and the English Housing Survey (EHS). Simulations of unique combinations of building, fabric, occupation, and environment were run using a modelling framework developed for EnergyPlus 8.0, estimating indoor temperature metrics, indoor/outdoor ratio of pollution from outdoor sources, and indoor air pollution from multiple indoor sources. Results were compiled, matched back to individual properties in HEED, and mapped using Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Results indicate urban areas had higher numbers of buildings prone to overheating, reduced levels indoor air pollution from outdoor sources, and higher air pollution from indoor sources relative to rural areas, driven largely by variations in building types. The results provide the first national-scale quantitative estimate of heat and indoor air pollution modification by dwellings, aggregated at levels suitable for inclusion in health analysis.

Both the construction and use of buildings cause significant environmental pressures. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions imposed by buildings have been studied rather extensively, but less is known about other impacts. Still, climate change is only one harmful impact driven by buildings. Furthermore, no studies exist about how the other impacts are correlated with GHG emissions in the building context, and thus to what extent GHGs could be utilized as a more general environmental performance indicator. This paper fills these gaps by presenting a life cycle assessment of the pre-use phase of a modern concrete-element residential building with a very comprehensive life cycle inventory (LCI). The focus of the study is on the comparison of the accumulation of different environmental impacts relative to GHGs. The accumulation is analyzed from two perspectives common to building LCAs: building systems and different construction materials. The ReCiPe midpoint assessment method is utilized to reach wide impact category coverage. The study shows how GHGs act as a relatively good indicator for eight impact categories, but not for the others. The study also depicts that a very high coverage in the LCI must be reached to capture the majority of the different impacts. Many materials and building systems are considered non-relevant and are often excluded from building LCAs, which are in fact of great importance in many impact categories.

The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the dynamics of knowledge production in the context of large-scale environmental projects causing local conflict. In particular, the paper analyses the discourse coalitions that formed around an artificial groundwater recharge project for the Turku Region in Finland. The material for this study consists of over 400 articles and opinion pieces which were collected from local and regional newspapers between 1999 and 2010. The articles were analysed by using Hajer's [1995. The politics of environmental discourse. Ecological modernisation and the policy process. Oxford, UK: Clarendon] discursive framework, and the analysis was complemented with the concept of knowledge coalition by Van Buuren and Edelenbos [2004. Conflicting knowledge. Why is joint knowledge production such a problem? Science and Public Policy, 31 (4), 289–299]. Results of the study indicate that knowledge coalitions were formed among the researchers, lay residents, and policy-makers, and they all utilised similar expertise-based factual arguments to support their cause. Thus, the paper participates in the academic discussion on the use and interpretation of expert knowledge in environmental policy-making by reshaping the division between experts and lay residents.

The evolution of the different documentation and renderization techniques has made substantial improvements in the representation and preservation of cultural heritage in the last 20 years. In the field of photogrammetry, Reflectance Transformation Images (RTI) for interactive representation of the geometric properties of surfaces, are an effective tool for the interpretation and preservation of cultural heritage. The need for specific light conditions and camera positions for RTI generation, have limited its application in the field of archaeology of architecture and urbanism, and has narrowed the application to small objects such as artifacts, sculptures, inscriptions, among others. This study proposes a new workflow that eliminates the dependence on external conditions and scale for representing surfaces of architectural heritage from RTI images. This workflow starts with the three-dimensional virtual reconstruction based on photogrammetric methods and concludes with the generation of 2.5D images based on RTI. The workflow will be demonstrated using a 2.5D representation of the interior topography of the ruins of the Castle Villagarcía de Campos in Spain in order to identify undocumented historical traces.

With the predicted increase in heatwave frequency in the UK due to climate change, there has been an increasing research focus on mortality during hot weather. This paper examines the risk of mortality in London during hot weather by combining data on population age and distribution, Urban Heat Island (UHI), and dwelling propensity to overheat due to geometry and fabric characteristics derived using building physics in order to calculate the spatial variation in heat-related mortality risk across London. Spatial variation of heat-related mortality was found to reflect background mortality rates due to population age, while dwelling characteristics were found to cause a larger variation in temperature exposure (and therefore risk) than UHI. The highest levels of excess mortality were found in areas with larger elderly populations, towards the outskirts of the Greater London Authority (GLA).

Single-family buildings and apartments in multi-family apartment buildings have been studied in Finland in two large-scale studies between the years 2002 and 2009. This paper is based on the measurements of airtightness of 170 single-family detached houses and 56 apartments by fan pressurisation method at 50 Pa.The mean air change rate of 10 autoclaved aerated concrete block, 10 shuttering concrete block, 10 concrete element, 10 brick masonry, 10 lightweight aggregate concrete block, 100 timber-framed, and 20 log single-family houses was 1.5 h^-1, 1.6 h^-1, 2.6 h^-1, 2.8 h^-1, 3.2 h^-1, 3.9 h^-1 and 6.0 h^-1, respectively. In concrete-built multi-storey houses, in which the intermediate floor was cast on site, the mean n<inf>50</inf>-value of 23 apartments was 0.7 h^-1. The mean n<inf>50</inf>-value of 20 apartments in multi-storey houses built from concrete elements was 1.6 h^-1. 16 apartments in timber-framed multi-storey houses had a mean n<inf>50</inf>-value 2.9 h^-1.Factors like construction method and insulation material (polyurethane insulation) in timber-framed houses, seam insulation material in log houses and ceiling structure in heavyweight buildings among others were found to have an effect on the average values of air change rates. The mean values of airtightness do not satisfy the recommended level of airtightness in Finland. Most important result, however, is that good airtightness of individual houses was reached within all house groups regardless of the choice of structure, storeys, ventilation system or technology of construction.

Strategies to reduce domestic heating loads by minimizing the infiltration of cold air through adventitious openings located in the thermal envelopes of houses are highlighted by the building codes of many countries. Consequent reductions of energy demand and CO₂e emission are often unquantified by empirical evidence. Instead, a mean heating season infiltration rate is commonly inferred from an air leakage rate using a simple ratio scaled to account for the physical and environmental properties of a dwelling. The scaling does not take account of the permeability of party walls in conjoined dwellings and so cannot differentiate between the infiltration of unconditioned ambient air that requires heating, and conditioned air from adjacent dwellings that does not.A stochastic method is presented that applies a theoretical model of adventitious infiltration to predict distributions of mean infiltration rates and the associated total heat loss in any stock of dwellings during heating hours. The method is applied to the English and UK housing stocks and provides probability distribution functions of stock infiltration rates and total heat loss during the heating season for two extremes of party wall permeability. The distributions predict that up to 79% of the current English stock could require additional purpose-provided ventilation to limit negative health consequences. National models predict that fewer dwellings are under-ventilated. The distributions are also used to predict that infiltration is responsible for 3-5% of total UK energy demand, 11-15% of UK housing stock energy demand, and 10-14% of UK housing stock carbon emissions.

Self-organization is a basic mechanism by which complex urban systems organize themselves. This mechanism emerges from individual agents’ local interactions, often with unpredictable consequences at the regional level. These emergent patterns cannot be controlled by traditional hierarchical methods, but they can be steered and encouraged towards desirable goals. Self-organization is often used as an allegory for all ‘unplanned’ activity in cities. It is important to study the actual mechanisms of self-organization in cities to link the theory of self-organization to planning praxis. This work builds on ongoing work exploring novel complex planning tools and methods. Here I explore the key features of open dynamic systems identified in the literature as indicators of self-organizing capacity. I study their applicability in urban spatial planning, and propose three measurable characteristics for estimating the self-organization potential of urban activities. Flow reflects generic accessibility, and is measured using space syntax. Internal order refers to autonomously organizing entities, in this case the clustering tendencies of activities. Enriching rests upon increasing complexity and is measured as changes in degrees of entropy over time. The results indicate that (1) the study area meets the criteria for self-organization, and (2) these characteristics can be applied to discover nodes of higher potential for self-organization in a city.

One imperfection in housing markets is imperfect knowledge about legal interests such as ground leases. Both actual reduced legal interest as well as uncertainty surrounding rights and future lease payments for houses constructed on leased land may affect prices relative to houses built on freehold land. We use regression analysis of sales prices of condominium transactions in Helsinki to examine the effect ground leases have on house prices. We find that prices on condominiums constructed on leased lots are discounted at least 5 %, on average. In addition, we see that the announcement of potentially large increases in base rents upon renewal contributes to the discount.

Community planners, decision-makers and authorities frequently encounter conflicts revolving around natural resource management as well as around urban planning. Since the 1970s, the dynamics of conflict resolution have evolved from conventional expert-based rational solutions towards collaborative ones. Against this background, our research investigates one contentious groundwater project in the Tampere Region in Finland. Conflict assessment clarified the divergent interests of the multiple parties. Drawing on negotiation theory, this study illustrates how polarised positions and competitive framing, as well as the influence of historical baggage, may form an insurmountable barrier to successful negotiation. While the acknowledgement of various interests should form the heart of the integrative negotiation process, excessive energy is used for argumentation to protect predefined goals with as minor concessions as possible. Addressing the collaborative approach, we suggest multiple ways towards creating mutual gains and cooperation in future water supply projects.

In this paper we ask what is the place of institutional entrepreneurship in a (regional) innovation system. The main research questions addressed are (a) how does a new science-based concentration of innovation become institutionalized in an innovation system; (b) who are the institutional entrepreneurs and what do they actually do in their efforts to institutionalize new beliefs, practices, and activities within a system; and (c) what knowledge do institutional entrepreneurs need and what kind of power do they exercise in the institutionalization process. We add new knowledge to studies focusing on innovation systems by revealing how new elements are attached into it. We also add power and knowledge to the study of institutional entrepreneurship and institutional change. The empirical analysis identifies the main phases of institutionalization, key actors in different phases, and their strategies of influence. This paper is based on the analysis of secondary data and twenty-eight interviews with key actors.

It is widely recognised that a major source of uncertainty in building performance simulation relates to occupancy and behavioural assumptions. This paper aims to assess the relative impact of lifestyle patterns, occupant-controlled window opening and shading use on indoor overheating risk levels in dwellings. The indoor thermal environment of a set of broadly representative archetypes of the London housing stock was simulated using dynamic thermal modelling. Two lifestyle patterns and four scenarios of window opening and shading use schedules were combined with multiple other varying parameters (building geometry and orientation, insulation levels, level of overshadowing by adjacent buildings), leading to a total of 27,648 modelled dwelling variants. It was found that the rankings obtained for dwellings occupied by a family with children at school and dwellings occupied by pensioners were broadly similar for all combinations of behaviour and the majority of overheating metrics. Lower ranking correlations were, however, observed between simple temperature-dependent window opening scenarios and a more sophisticated scenario of combined shading and night ventilation. This is an indication that shading and/or night cooling could modify indoor overheating risk significantly. The findings of the study add to a growing body of literature suggesting that the way inhabitants occupy and operate a building has a measurable impact on thermal discomfort and potentially the health risks associated with their exposure to high indoor temperatures. This should be taken into consideration in the design of retrofit interventions and public health strategies aiming to minimise such risks.

The risk of overheating in UK dwellings is predicted to increase due to anthropogenic climate change and local urban climate modification leading to an increased urban heat island effect. Dwelling geometry characteristics such as orientation, aspect, and glazing, and building fabric characteristics such as thermal mass and resistance can influence the risk of overheating. The majority of simulation-based studies have focused on identifying the importance of building characteristics on overheating risk using a small number of weather files, or focus solely on the impact of external temperatures rather than a full set of climatic variables. This study examines the overheating risk in London dwelling archetypes when simulated under different UK climates, both in the present and under 'hot future' conditions, with the objective of identifying whether the conclusions drawn from location-specific studies can be generically applied to different cities. Simulations were carried out using the dynamic thermal simulation tool EnergyPlus using 3456 dwelling variants and six different Design Summer Year (DSY) climate files from locations within the UK. In addition, a 2050 Medium Emissions scenario weather file was used to model a particularly hot summer in all locations. The results indicate that weather files can influence the ranking of relative overheating risk between dwelling types, with significant variations in the relative ranking between London, Scotland and the North of England, and the rest of England. These results show that studies examining the overheating risk across the UK need to consider the variability of building performance under regional weather conditions.

We develop a probabilistic framework for modelling indoor air quality in housing stocks, selecting appropriate sensitivity analyses to understand indoor air quality determinants, and constructing a reliable metamodel from the most relevant determinants to allow quick assessments of future intervention scenarios. The replicated Latin Hypercube sampling method is shown to be efficient at propagating variations between model input and output variables. A comparison of a range of sample-based sensitivity methods shows that an initial visual assessment can help to select appropriate sensitivity analyses, as they test for different types of relations (i.e. linear, monotonic, and non-monotonic). An advantage of linear regression methods is that the total output can be apportioned to various input variables. The advantage of tests with correlation coefficients is that the associated p-values can be used to assess whether input variables are significant. An artificial neural network constructed from a reduced set of input variables selected at a 5% level of significance is able to accurately predict indoor air quality. In the application of the framework to the modelling of winter indoor air quality in single-storey flats in England, the drivers for internally- and externally-generated PM_2.5 are found to be different, therefore allowing interventions that reduce both concentrations simultaneously. Principal determinants for externally-generated PM_2.5 are the internal deposition rate of PM_2.5, weather-corrected volumetric infiltration rate, and ambient concentration of PM_2.5, while for PM_2.5 produced by gas cooking, they are the kitchen window opening area, generation rate of PM_2.5, and indoor temperature.

Water supply and sanitation services in Finland before World War II is reviewed. In Finland, fire insurance companies played a significant role in the initial development of water services. Water was needed for putting out fires as well as for domestic and other community purposes. At first, Finnish houses were insured, if at all, with the General Fire Insurance Fund in Stockholm. Important social and political reforms such as municipal self-government and universal suffrage also influenced positively the development of the sector. After Finnish cities opted for municipal ownership and responsibility, three other technical options were adopted: metering-based billing, a ban on lead pipes, and the acceptance of flush toilets. Several plans for sewer systems were made and some were also constructed in the late 1800s. Although the wettest areas of the towns were drained and hygiene improved, lakes were still being polluted due to untreated wastewater discharges. The bucket was replaced by a drainpipe, and the problems were flushed out of sight, untreated, to the nearest water systems as is typical of protosystems.

To mitigate climate change technical advances must be accompanied by greater ecological commitment from consumers, i.e. households. This study aims to determine whether there are differences in energy attitudes and energy behaviour between residents living in three different types of residential districts. To gain an understanding of attitudes, the study investigated the participants' concerns about climate change, their position on energy issues and their perceptions of their own energy behaviour. To gain an understanding of actual energy behaviour the study investigated the participants' carbon footprints. The results indicate that there is a gap between people's energy attitudes and their actual energy behaviour. There seems to be a discernible 'ecologisation', a greening of attitudes, in Finnish society, but actual energy behaviour is changing more slowly. People know how to reduce their energy use but are e.g. too comfort-loving or indifferent to make any changes to their energy use. Due to the attitudes are not becoming more environment friendly and no environmental action is happening. Regarding further research this gap need to be investigated specifically and filled because it could otherwise prove a significant stumbling block to achieving the desired rate of progress towards the country's environmental goals.

This article examines the self-organising features of participatory planning. The argument is that the complexity and non-linearity of present-day participatory practices unavoidably transgresses the formal linear idea of public interaction in planning processes. To study this development, the article approaches public participation as boundary interaction (Wenger, 2003). The approach is applied to two cases of participatory planning in Finland. Further, the article analyses the possibilities self-organising initiatives offer for developing cooperative practices in urban planning.

Due to climate change, there is an urgent need to take measures toward reducing greenhouse gases and energy consumption. It is therefore vital to examine peoples' attitudes and the potential for a more pro-environmental readiness. Consumer panels were used in the gathering of data, even with such small subsamples, statistical significance of difference cannot be assessed. The research subjects participating were randomly selected from two different residential areas and three different age groups. The consumer panels examined the environmental attitudes of the research subjects as well as their readiness to adopt a more pro-environmental lifestyle under four theme headings: Urban structure, household energy consumption, mobility and lifestyle. The results suggest that all the research subjects are very much ready to reduce their consumption, but not quite ready to invest in expensive, but environmentally-friendly equipment. Young and elderly research subjects seemed more prepared to make pro-environmental changes than middle-aged subjects. Place of residence also seemed to have an impact on the adoption threshold: Research subjects living in more densely populated suburbs seemed to be more willing to give up driving, whereas those living in sparsely populated areas seemed to be more willing to invest in expensive, but environmentally-friendly equipment and give up flying for vacations.

Parkour is a spectacular and highly mediatized new way of movement that challenges conceptions of acceptable or appropriate behaviour in urban public space. This article will examine the potential of parkour to "loosen" urban spatial texture by applying recent thinking on loose and tight space by Karen A. Franck and Quentin Stevens to data gathered through in-depth interviews with parkour practitioners (traceurs) in two Finnish cities. When practising in urban public spaces, the traceurs we interviewed often caused confusion among other people. We explore how they negotiate their right to public space in the face of these reactions, either by evasion or with a combination of legal and moral arguments. We argue that parkour is not only a playful and confrontational practice with a potentially subversive character, but that the process of loosening space constitutes a complex dialectic, which may also involve a certain degree of tightening in the public space for other unexpected or unintended activities.

The objective of our article is twofold. First, we claim that the theoretical planning discussion dealing with public participation has forgotten one basic principle, namely that the people are taking part in the planning process because they are interested in a particular issue. There is a need for new conceptual approaches in participatory research which carry the discussion first towards the issues, then to the structures of participation. For this reason, we have combined practice-oriented policy analysis with the recent discussion of issue politics. Second, we implement the key propositions of the theoretical debate in an empirical case. The aim is to indicate how the trajectory of the issue, as well as its continuities and discontinuities, develop in diverse ways in different civic forums. We claim that this perspective provides more information for researchers, civil servants and citizens about the logic of participatory practice.

We analyze EU biodiversity policy as a way of building a coherent Europe, using the contextual conservation problems of an endangered species of violet Viola uliginosa as a proxy for scalar practices. The material consists of an extensive review of the literature on the existence, ecology and conservation of the species on both sides of the EU eastern border as well as biological field data gathered where it occurs in Finland. The case study shows that the scalar practices exercised in conservation create two geopolitical spaces over Europe through which the EU defines its geo-power over member and non-member states. The case also brings out the importance of human-non-human constellations in the geopolitics of nature emerging from field inventories, data gathering, site management and genetic analyses with separate violet populations. Altogether, the paper emphasizes the crucial role of practices and political processes in understanding the influence of scales in biodiversity policy.

Social questions become especially tangible in the context of human-nonhuman interrelations. This article focuses on coexistential practices in the context of management, protection, and production and it clarifies how the social in par-ticular empirical cases is enacted. The work is based on three empirical case studies. We explore the conflicts in for-estry and urban planning caused by the Siberian flying squirrel; the increased presence of the grey wolf; and the par-adox of the domestic pig-a clever animal that is treated harshly by factory-farming practices. As our cases indicate, the social is not a group of people living in a certain setting according to certain norms and traditions. The social is a contingent, activated constellation of interagentivities that emerges together with a shared concern that particular customs and habits are not serving the purpose they are expected to serve. The cases challenge efforts to adopt a human-centered view of the social as the basis for developing the concept of sustainability. They also indicate that there is no one social sustainability, but rather many articulations of the concept.

With this paper I aim to shed light on the attempts that have been made to adjust Finnish policy making to the changes in the global technoeconomic environment, as well as to the meta-rationales behind the evolving cluster-flavoured innovation (CFI) policies. Policy learning is discussed with reference to the main cluster and innovation policy changes in Finland and related conceptual development. My main aim is to paint an overall picture of Finnish CFI polices and learning related to them as well as to analyse how eff orts to redesign the policies have been unfolding over the past twenty years. This paper is based on (a) secondary data (ie, earlier studies and reports on the Finnish cluster and innovation policies) and (b) data from two empirical studies.

In regional innovation systems (RIS), there is a need to identify the knowledge bases that firms draw upon and differentiate innovation policies accordingly. From this premise, the main aim of this paper is to compare two Finnish industries, intelligent machinery and digital content services, that draw upon different kinds of knowledge bases. The three main research questions discussed here are as follows: (a) do knowledge sources of the firms representing two different industries with two different knowledge bases differ from each other, and how; (b) how do the knowledge sources differ between different types of RIS and (c) what kind of extra-regional pipelines do the three different cases have? The RIS under scrutiny represent fragmented metropolitan (Helsinki metropolitan area), old industrial (Tampere region) and organizationally thin (South Ostrobothnia) RIS.

This briefing describes the research project The Future Concepts of Urban Housing (Urba), which was initiated in 2007 to develop new ideas, concepts and cooperative practices for Urban housing in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The area suffers from Urban sprawl, soaring prices and a lack of feasible and attractive housing alternatives as a result of the narrow and inflexible housing market. Moreover, the housing sector suffers from a lack of cooperation. Urba is a multi-disciplinary research project that brings together a wide range of stakeholders and actors in the housing sector. The first phase of the project has produced an initial selection of promising Urban housing concepts that will serve as the basis for the development phase. The development phase is structured in the form of a collective learning and invention process that involves a wide group of participants from the housing sector.

We investigate conceptually the institutional change process and innovation underpinning knowledge-based regional development from the point of view of institutional entrepreneurship. The main aim is to raise institutional entrepreneurship among debated concepts in regional development studies. We set out to discuss the following question: what kind of conceptual base provides empirical studies with a fresh set of research questions and hence point of departure in a study of the ways in which actors influence the course of events and aim to change the very institutional setting in which they are embedded.

Most biodiversity data for research and decision-making are gathered using various lists of species. How do these tools influence observation, perception and knowledge generation among the data gatherers? A group of birdwatchers participating in a oneday species spotting competition is studied in this article as users of a species list. The study is ethnographic and derives its analytical perspectives from social studies of science, game studies and narrative research. The practice of knowing is the unit of analysis. The findings suggest that the species list can serve as a tool for representing biodiversity and producing statistical data due solely to its simultaneous role in placemaking. In this role the species list becomes an integrated component of the group's shared perception system, and also supports narratives as the basis of experiential knowing.