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The quality of Finish broiler meats is ensured during the whole foodchain from primary production to retail trades. Broiler meat products have to maintain the typical microbiological, chemical and sensory attributes during the shelf life. The shelf life of foods are regulated by the European Union and the Finish national law and by the directions of the Finish Food Safety Authority which the food companies have to follow. The shelf life of broiler meat products and especially the microbiological quality can be affected by the internal and the external factors of foods. The internal factors are pH, water activity (aw) and content of nutritive. The food packaging technology, storage temperature and the activity of microbes are examples of external factors that influence the shelf life. The shelf life of broiler meat products can be affected for example by controlling the number of microbes in the carcass during slaughter, packaging technology and storage temperature. The shelf life of meat products can be influenced especially by the storage temperature so that growing conditions of microbes can be controlled in a way that the generation time of spoilage microbes will be as long as possible. The shelf life of meat products and microbial quality will specially have an effect on the microbial load of animals when they are transported to slaughter house. Additionally, the microbial quality of a final product will be affected by the process steps of the slaughter and the contaminations that will happen during the cutting and the packaging. The carcasses passes through the following processes during the slaughter: stunning, bleeding, scalding, rinsing, evisceration, washing and chilling. The aims of the research were to investigate the changes of the microbial load of carcasses during the slaughter and especially how the microbial load can be controlled. Additionally, it was studied how two process parameters affected the microbial quality of carcasses and how the packaging technology affected the microbiological, sensory and chemical properties of products.

High moisture extrusion (HME) can be used to create meat-like structures in plant-protein-based products. This study aimed to describe sensory and textural properties of minced-meat-like products made from a legume ingredient and a plant fibre concentrate using HME. Extrudates with two different ratios of the ingredients, both with and without added hydrocolloid, were produced for the study. Sensory profiling (n = 9) was conducted as generic descriptive analysis (GDA). Instrumental texture profile analysis (TPA) as well as a consumer study (n = 55) were done to complement the data. GDA attributes, TPA parameters and consumers’ hedonic responses were compared, and connections were studied. Also, TPA results were compared to those from sensory analysis, aiming to find connections between instrumentally and sensorially measured parameters. The dry ingredient ratio clearly affected hedonic responses, while the effect of added hydrocolloid was smaller. Several descriptive sensory attributes, such as bitterness, gumminess, cohesiveness and stickiness, were related to the hedonic responses to smell, texture and taste. Plant fibre concentrate content was also clearly linked to these descriptive attributes. Samples perceived as gummy, cohesive, less bitter and less sticky got higher hedonic responses, but TPA parameters could predict neither GDA attributes nor hedonic responses. The results of this study showed that certain ingredients have a clear impact on sensory attributes and therefore hedonic responses of the final products. To further improve the consumer acceptance, pre-processing of the ingredients could be studied. To explain the differences in textural properties, more research on the molecular level assembly of specifically fibres and carbohydrates in the matrix is needed.

A company is considered to be responsible to the public, and it is thus expected to practise Corporate Responsibility. A company practises Corporate Responsibility when its operations are run in a beyond compliance manner regarding society, the environment, and the economy. These practices also benefit the company's image and finance in the long run. Corporate Environmental Policy (CEP) presents the company's practices or intentions considering beyond-compliance operations regarding the environment. There are no existing regulations, common guidelines, or third-party verification processes that would control what and how companies can or should include in their CEPs. There have been only a small number of studies focusing on CEPs, and none of them has addressed the accuracy of the statements. The current study investigates the accuracy levels of SaaS and Consulting companies' CEPs, whether the company discusses their already existing practices or goals, and how companies communicate their motives for having a CEP. An inductive content analysis was conducted on ten CEPs. The results show that CEPs include mostly inaccurate policy statements that inform about the company's plans and aims, and companies motivate their CEPs mainly by their perceived responsibility for their stakeholders. CEPs struggle with similar problems as any other form of Corporate Responsibility communications: vagueness, lack of concrete examples, and large amounts of irrelevant verbiage. This study calls for more research on CEPs and regulations to minimize greenwashing happening in the field.

The aim of this study was to describe the main European Union Emission Trading System`s (EU ETS) aspects that affect carbon abatement investments and the way in which they influence investment decision making of the participating companies. Furthermore, trading phase III was analysed and compared to the previous phases in order to forecast possible carbon abatement investment trends for phase IV. The study consists of the collection of data from 9 EU ETS companies using semi-structured interviews. The questions were structured in four (compliance, protection against carbon leakage, carbon price and allowance allocation methods) sections based on extensive literature review of previous studies. According to the results, most companies considered the EU ETS as an important policy tool that encourages carbon abatement investments; however the system has also created certain difficulties: entering trading phase IV, companies are facing significant administrative burden, regulatory uncertainty and unfair competition caused by direct and indirect carbon costs and therefore increasing the risk of carbon leakage. All the above lower the companies’ ability of investing in carbon abatement. To tackle this problem more protective mechanisms should be introduced, including more flexible free allowance allocation. Taking into account the research limitations, respectively the low response rate (3,5%) and the lack of representation of certain industries, further investigation would be necessary for more definitive results, which would in turn help develop concrete policy proposals.

Introduction: Working conditions have not only been found to impact work ability and productivity, but the overall health of employees. The working environment is a relevant health factor for a considerable part of the population. In research, work-related mental strain has been associated with body weight change, yet no causal relationship can be confirmed based on the existing evidence. Of the psychosocial factors, low job control, as well as both high and low job demands have been associated with weight gain. Most of the research so far has been done with cross-sectional data; long-term follow-ups are scarce and only little research has been done on the association between changing working conditions and body weight change. Aim: The general aim of this study was to examine the association between changes in psychosocial working conditions and body weight change among midlife women and men. The association between two psychosocial work characteristics, job demands and job control, and weight gain during the follow-up was examined in a cohort study among the employees of the City of Helsinki in Finland. The main research question was: (i) Is change in job demands and job control associated with major weight gain during a 10- to 12-year follow-up period among midlife employees? In addition, the contribution of several background and lifestyle factors were taken into account. Especially the contribution of baseline BMI-status, dietary habits and leisure-time physical activity to the association between psychosocial working conditions and major weight gain was studied. Methods: The data were collected from a mail survey among the employees of the City of Helsinki in 2000–2002, 2007 and 2012. The study sample consisted of employees who were 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60 years old at the beginning of the survey in 2000–2002. Exclusion criterions were BMI <18.5kg/m2 in phase 1, retiring before phase 2, and drop out before phase 3. Hence, the final study sample (n=4,630) consisted 52% of the original study population, of which 83% were women. Psychosocial working conditions were assessed with a validated Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) by Karasek and Theorell in phase 1 and 2. Weight change was assessed between phases 1 and 3, and major weight gain was defined as at least 10% weight gain during that time period. Dietary habits were assessed using a 20-item Food Frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Based on the current national dietary recommendations, nine food habits were chosen and their usage frequency was used as a determinant of healthy food habits. Leisure time physical activity was assessed with metabolic equivalent tasks (METs). Logistic regression analysis was used to examine the associations between changing job demands, job control, and major weight gain. All the analyses were stratified by gender. In addition, further stratification was made by the baseline BMI. Results: Weight gain was common among the study population. Major weight gain was observed among 27% of women and 15% of men. A weak association between change in job demands and major weight gain was found among both genders. Among women, the risk of major weight gain was higher among those who reported persistent high job demands (OR 1.22 95% CI 1.02–1.48 full adjusted model) compared with those with persistent low job demands. Among men, in contrast, the risk was higher among those who reported decreased job demands compared with those who reported persistent low job demands (OR 1.80 95% CI 1.02–3.16 full adjusted model). When further stratified by the BMI in phase 1, the risk was higher only among overweight or obese women, whereas among men the increase in risk was seen among both normal weight and overweight or obese participants. Dietary habits and leisure time physical activity did not affect the association of changing psychosocial working conditions with major weight gain. However, they had a minor own effect on the risk. Change in job control was not associated with the risk of major weight gain. Conclusions: The study shows that change in job demands is weakly associated with major weight gain. Future research is needed especially among other employers than municipalities, and especially among men. Changing working conditions should be studied with shorter follow-up periods, while taking into account also the role of social support at the workplace.

Background: Majority of studies on the association of diet and physical activity are conducted in high-income countries and to date, none have been conducted in Kenya although unhealthy lifestyle behaviours are on the rise and may pose more severe risk in low-to-middle-income than in high-income countries. Methods: Study consists of 9-14-year old pre-adolescents (N=104) living in a middle- or low-income area in Nairobi. Dietary data was collected using 7-day FFQ and physical activity data by accelerometer. Dietary patterns were formed through principal component analysis and Dietary Diversity Score created by counting the number of food groups that were used daily. Statistical analysis was conducted using linear regression analysis with wealth index, area, age, gender and BMI as confounding variables. Results: Time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) was weakly and negatively associated with the Snacks, fast food and meat dietary pattern alone and in combination with age and gender and significantly in combination with BMI (p=0.041), while time spent in sedentary behaviour showed no relation. Time spent in MVPA could not explain the variation in adherence to the Traditional Kenyan pattern while time spent in sedentary behaviour showed weak, negative association with adherence to this diet pattern, although it did not reach significance. Neither time spent in sedentary behaviour nor time spent in MVPA could explain variation in Dietary Diversity Score or adherence to the Dairy and plant protein pattern. Conclusions: Physical activity showed some association with diet, but the connections were mostly weak, and the socio-economic position and environment are possibly stronger determinants of lifestyle behaviour in urban Kenya.

Background and aim Complementary feeding is defined as the period during which there is a progressive reduction of breastfeeding or formula while the infant is gradually introduced to solid foods at 4-6 months of age. Improper complementary feeding practices, such as introducing solid foods beyond 6 months of age or having a low dietary diversity could lead to negative infant health outcomes. Therefore, it is important to identify factors that might detrimentally affect complementary feeding, such as maternal stress. This thesis aimed to study the associations between maternal stress indicators, the age of solid food introduction, and dietary diversity during complementary feeding within a Finnish birth cohort. Methods The Health and Early Life Microbiota (HELMi) is a longitudinal birth cohort study. Participants of the HELMi cohort included 1055 healthy infants and their parents, mainly residing in the capital region of Finland. Pre-collected data from the HELMi study were used. The data collection occurred between 2016-2018. The main variables used in this thesis were collected via extensive online questionnaires. Binomial logistic regression analyses were used to study whether prenatal and postpartum stress indicators were associated with the age of solid food introduction and/or the infant’s dietary diversity during complementary feeding. Results Late introduction of solid foods (> 6 months) was less likely among infants whose mothers reported moderate or high prenatal stress (moderate prenatal stress OR=0.66, 95%CI 0.45-0.97, high prenatal stress OR 0.62, 95%CI 0.39-0.98), when compared to infants whose mothers reported low prenatal stress. Maternal stress indicators were not associated with low dietary diversity (0-3 food groups introduced) at 6 months of life. Among infants with a low dietary diversity at 9 months of age, mothers were more likely to report high levels of prenatal stress (OR=4.88, 95%CI 1.27-18.79), when compared to mothers with low levels of prenatal stress. Further, infants with a low dietary diversity at 9 months were less likely to have mothers report low to moderate levels of life satisfaction (OR=0.25, 95%CI 0.06-1.02) when compared to mothers with very high life satisfaction. They were also less likely to report moderate levels of infant health worry (OR=0.18, 95%CI 0.05-0.67) when compared to mothers with no infant health worry. Conclusions This is the first study to look at the associations between maternal stress indicators and dietary outcomes during complementary feeding. Maternal stress indicators were associated with the age of solid food introduction and the infant’s dietary diversity at 9 months, but not at 6 months. In future studies on this topic, a more socio-demographically representative sample should be recruited, and validated tools should be used to collect dietary and psychological data. Health practitioners and family clinic workers should be made aware of the possibly long-lasting effects of prenatal stress and consider its possible effects on dietary outcomes during complementary feeding.

Background: It is known that the dietary patterns adopted in childhood tend to persist into adulthood. Since unhealthy diet is, for instance, a considerable risk factor for non-communicable diseases, it is important to promote the formation of healthy eating habits in children. Food fussiness, a rather common phenomenon in preschool-aged children, is an eating behavior that can adversely affect diet quality. Additionally, it can have other adverse effects on the child and the whole family. It can cause stress in caregivers, for instance. Temperament and emotion regulation are among the various individual and environmental factors that can influence children’s eating behaviors. There is evidence on the association between food fussiness and temperament, especially dimensions of emotionality and negative affectivity. More emotional temperament has been linked with higher food fussiness. However, few studies have investigated whether emotion regulation could be associated with food fussiness. Objectives: The objective of this study was to examine the associations of emotion regulation and emotionality to food fussiness in preschool-aged children, and to examine whether emotion regulation interacts with emotionality in predicting food fussiness. These associations were separately examined for anger, fear, sadness, and positive emotions / exuberance. A secondary objective was to examine the prevalence of fussy eating behavior. Methods: This study was cross-sectional using the baseline data of a feasibility study which tested the effectiveness of an educational mobile application among preschool-aged children in Finland and in Poland. 326 children participated in the study at baseline, and 298 had complete data of the food fussiness measure. Emotion regulation and emotionality were assessed with the Emotion Questionnaire, and food fussiness was assessed with a subscale of the Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ), which both are caregiver-report questionnaires. Linear regression models were used to examine the associations of emotion regulation and emotionality to food fussiness. The prevalence of food fussiness was examined according to cut-offs for the CEBQ subscale (3.00 for moderate or higher food fussiness and 3.33 for severe fussiness), and the difference in the prevalence between the Polish subsample and the Finnish subsample was examined with a chi-square test. Results: The (down)regulation of anger was negatively associated with food fussiness (p=0.022). Emotionality was not associated with food fussiness, in terms of any of the emotions, nor did emotionality and emotion regulation interact. In addition, the prevalence of moderate or higher food fussiness (cut-off 3.00) was significantly (p=0.049) higher in Poland (61%) than in Finland (49%). Conclusions: These results suggest that emotion regulation, possibly specifically in relation to anger, is associated with fussy eating behavior. The direction of the association between anger regulation and food fussiness was in line with previous studies on the association between emotion regulation (or parallel concepts) and food fussiness. The possible causal relationship and mechanisms are subjects for further research.

Natural products have enormous structural and chemical diversity and are either the source or direct inspiration for many drugs in use today. Cyanobacteria are prolific producers of complex natural products with serine protease inhibiting activity. Many of these natural products are the product of non-ribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) modular enzyme complexes. Suomilide is a complex tetrapeptide produced by strains of the benthic cyanobacterium Nodularia sphaerocarpa. It has a highly complicated structure and contains an unusual azabicyclononane moiety, a methylglyceric acid, a xylose unit with hexanoic acids and a terminal 1-amidino-3-(2-aminoethyl)-3-pyrroline moiety. Suomilide inhibits thrombin, plasmin and trypsin in low micro-molar concentrations. The biosynthetic of this unusual glycoside remain unclear. However, suomilide is long predicted to be part to the aeruginosin family of protease inhibitors. A 5.4 Mb draft genome of Nodularia sphaerocarpa HKVV was obtained in order to identify the suomilide biosynthetic. The 43.7 kb suomilide gene cluster was identified on a single contig by performing tBLASTn searches on the draft genome of Nodularia HKVV using aerDEF genes from aeruginosins gene cluster as query. This gene cluster encodes 27 genes including two complex NRPS enzymes and a set of tailoring enzymes for the assembly of suomilide. The suomilide gene cluster shares extensive homology to known aeruginosin gene clusters including two aerB and aerG genes encoding NRPS enzymes, 12 genes (aerC, aerD, aerE, aerF, aerI, aerK, two copies of aerN and four copies of aerH) encoding for the enzymes responsible for synthesis of precursor non-proteinogenic amino acids and 13 other tailoring enzymes. The suomilide gene cluster was much larger and encoded a greater number of biosynthetic enzymes reflecting the structural complexity of suomilide. We identified 10 aeruginosin gene clusters and 2 suomilide gene clusters from 12 strains of cyanobacteria by genome mining. Bioinformatics analyses suggested these gene clusters encoded an unanticipated chemical diversity of aeruginosins and suomilides. LC-MS and Q-TOF analysis detected aeruginosins or suomilide variants from 12 of the 15 strains. Surprisingly, inhibition assays with the crude extracts using all three isoforms of human trypsin suggest that these compounds may have potent and selective inhibition of human trypsin isoforms. Further work is required to prove that suomilide alone can carry out selective inhibition of trypsin isoforms or is it a result of synergism between the compounds produce by cyanobacteria. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the aeruginosin evolved through the acquisition of multiple loading mechanisms and tailoring enzymes through horizontal gene transfers. Our results support the hypothesis that suomilides are a part of aeruginosin family as they are made through the same genetic pathway, however have gained a greater degree of structural diversity due to the acquisition of tailoring enzymes. These results together suggest that cyanobacteria produce an unexpected wealth of complex natural products belonging to the aeruginosin family and that some of these may be potent and selective inhibitors of isoforms of human trypsin.

The interactions between sediment chemistry and bacterial communities are multidirectional and complex. A hypoxia-driven decrease in dissolved oxygen (O2) leads to changes in sediment chemistry, bacterial community and ultimately alters their interactions. The sediment components very sensitive to changes in O2 are iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) oxides. When O2 content decreases, they will be reduced by bacteria in order to obtain energy. This study was carried out with sediment samples collected from sites of different oxygen status in the Gulf of Finland. The focus was to unravel the interactions between sediment chemistry and bacterial communities by means of chemical extractions distinguishing between Fe and Mn pools of different solubility and, thus, bioavailability. For this purpose, a two-step chemical extraction was carried out in order to selectively quantify the easily reducible and more crystalline fractions of Fe and Mn oxides. The chemistry of phosphorus (P) is intrinsically linked to Fe and aluminum (Al) oxides but not to Mn oxides which are not able to retain P. Unlike Fe and Mn, Al is not a redox-sensitive element but its oxides are of importance in controlling the release of P from sediments by resorption of P. The extracts were analyzed for Fe, Mn, Al and P. Furthermore, a next generation high-input method was used to extract the DNA from the sediments. The results of the chemical extractions and taxonomical classification of the bacteria were statistically analyzed. Subsequently, the interactions between the easily-reducible fractions of Fe and Mn oxides and bacterial communities were established using correlations (correlation coefficient ≥ 0.7). The extractability of Fe and Mn increased in poorly-oxygenated and hypoxic conditions. Iron seemed to originate in the easily-reducible fraction, while Mn was in a less reactive form than Fe. As expected, the extractability of Al did not vary with changing oxygen status. In addition, the rather low extractability of P suggests a strong initial adsorption of P on Al oxides. In environment low in oxygen, P released from the Fe oxides was resorbed by Al oxides. We conclude that the major bacterial processes in the sediments are related to the reduction of sulfate and sulfur and decomposition of organic matter. The bacterial communities varied both vertically and horizontally. The vertical variation was mainly explained by the redox potential, while the horizontal variation was more complex and essentially related to easily-reducible Fe and total carbon and nitrogen in sediment. The correlations between the easily-reducible Fe and Mn and the bacterial communities revealed taxa that reduce Fe and/or Mn, some that oxidize metals, and others that could benefit from organic rich environments created by Fe, Mn and S-reducing bacteria. The correlations indicate causative relationships and indirect associations, which can provide leads for future research.