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With the rise of globalisation, international trade has increased. As a consequence, cross-border contracts have become more frequent which has led international commercial actors to use a common style when drafting contracts. The world has many different legal cultures and traditions, as a result of which legal concepts are tied to different assumptions, presuppositions, legal procedures, languages, ideas and social and cultural contexts. Further, the values and norms of these cultures have long historical ties. These different cultures have influenced national contract drafting style and contract law and, in the context of international contracts, they have influenced contractual interpretation. If we are solely looking at the practice of contracting parties, it does appear that international contract practice exists, as international agreements are drafted in accordance with the common law drafting style. They are often drafted without considering the applicable law which results in the parties aiming for self-sufficient contracts that minimise the effects of national laws. The parties often include boilerplate terms in the contract, draft in a detailed manner, and aim to exclude external influences. A common tool used by international commercial actors is choosing arbitration as the dispute resolution mechanism, as this removes the case from the national litigation procedure and offers flexibility. The problem is that perfect contracts are nearly impossible to achieve due to market failures and cost efficiency. Contractual negotiations are seldom exhaustive and do not consider all possible outcomes, as negotiations often focus only on a few contractual terms. Therefore, jurisdictions have developed rules to correct and address possible imperfections and shortcomings. Default rules, adjustments and contractual interpretation supplement economic life and complement these incomplete contracts. The problem that can be identified to the existence of international contract practice is that contract laws and interpretation have evolved within national contexts. This means that the interpretation does not necessarily take into account the international character of cross-border contracts. The interpretation of contracts is attached to certain assumptions, and these assumptions are not the same throughout the world. The assumptions can also affect the behaviour and understanding of the contracting parties, lawyers and arbitrators. The fact that national systems have different mechanisms for addressing specific legal problems and social needs does not preclude the existence of international contract practice, provided that the solutions adopted are compatible. However, at present there are still many differences in interpretation which has the possibility of leading to different outcomes in different legal systems, even if a contractual clause is worded similarly. Utilising arbitration is not enough to correct this divergence, as the contracting parties almost always choose national law as the applicable law, the arbitrators must still apply law correctly, and the arbitrators might have internalised a jurisdiction’s approach to law and interpretation. Transnational sources of law are also not adequate to overcome the issue of interpretation. Transnational sources of law may provide neutral language and a compromise between legal traditions. They are not tied to specific national systems so they can have regard towards the international character of cross-border contracts. However, they do not provide sufficiently precise guidance or a complete system that could correct the impact of national jurisdictions. These sources cannot be said to provide adequate guidance on the interpretation of contracts. This master’s thesis does not seek to claim that international contract practice cannot emerge outside the confines of national legal systems, but rather it presents that if similarly worded contracts do not have uniform effect, the result is a mixture of national and international practices. Without uniform effect, international contract practice cannot be said to exist. It is therefore necessary to examine the interpretation of contractual clauses in domestic courts and arbitration and consider whether similarly worded clauses and different rules lead to different outcomes depending on the applicable law. The possibility of divergent interpretation can explain why international commercial parties prefer detailed contracts and wish to detach the contract from the governing law. However, in the current framework, it is not possible to completely eliminate the effects of the applicable law. Autonomous and standard contracts continue to be governed by national laws, they are subject to mandatory rules, and they are interpreted with ways established in the different legal systems and traditions.

Migration to Finland has increased considerably in the last decade. As Finnish society becomes increasingly multicultural and multilingual, new measures and services are needed to promote integration. For integration to be successful, it needs ongoing processes and interaction that require both immigrants themselves and the host society to be active, and to provide the tools that are needed for integration. This master’s thesis investigates the Swedish-language integration path in the capital region of Finland. As Finland’s bilingualism enables integration to happen in both the Finnish and Swedish languages, the purpose of this thesis is to enable immigrants who have chosen to integrate with the Swedish language the chance to be heard and to listen to their personal integration experiences. As the research focuses on immigrants learning Swedish, five interviews with Swedish-speaking immigrants have been conducted as part of this thesis. The qualitative method used in this research has the aim of gaining a deeper understanding of what is considered to be successful integration by the immigrants themselves. The reference framework for this thesis is based on Friedrich Heckmann’s definition of social integration, alongside the Finnish Act on the Promotion of Integration (1386/2010) and the Language Act (423/2003). In addition, a range of previous research is used in order to compare the results that were found in this study. The results demonstrate that although Finnish legislation does make it possible to choose between the Finnish and Swedish languages when intergrating, it is hard to execute this duality in practice. From authorities’ reluctance to it being difficult to find Swedish-speaking connections outside the classroom, the results show that it is difficult for immigrants to practice Swedish in everyday life and they suffer from a lack of interaction with Finnish society. Integration processes are challenging for these immigrants for various reasons, which also illustrates how different the stories and experiences of immigrants are.

The aim of this master’s thesis was to investigate the effect of audience on shame and guilt in Finland and Colombia. Finland is a rapidly developing country where multiculturalism is already part of everyday life. Therefore, it is very important to gather evidence on how people in different cultures understand and interpret emotions. More specifically, it will be investigated how possible cultural variations can be explained with individual, situational and cultural differences. My thesis is a by-product of a larger cross-cultural investigation into how different cultures perceive emotions and what kind of dissimilarities people have when experiencing emotions. This is conducted by postdoctoral researcher Mia Silfver-Kuhalampi from University of Helsinki and Professor Johnny Fontaine from Ghent University, Belgium. The questionnaire used in this thesis is based on the componential emotion theory. This cognitive model of emotions takes into account the concurrent relationship between many cognitive and physiological components. The participants in both countries filled in the questionnaire online. The Finnish sample consisted of 149 students from University of Helsinki from which 120 participants were female and 29 male. The Colombian sample consisted of 137 students from Universidad el Bosque, Bogota, Colombia from which 101 participants were female and 36 male. Factor analysis was used to identify how shame and guilt are factored in Finland and Colombia. Additionally, analysis of variance was used to identify how cultural differences and the effect of audience affect feelings of shame and guilt. The results of the study suggested that feelings of guilt and shame are factored in a similar manner in Finland and Colombia. Moreover, in both countries shame was split into two different types of shame: shame/self-disgust and shame/embarrassment. The Finnish sample experienced more shame/self-disgust than Colombian sample, while Colombian students experienced more shame/embarrassment than Finnish students did. Culture did not have an effect on guilt. Audience presence affected shame/self-disgust and shame/embarrassment in both countries. When it came to guilt the situation was not as clear. When there was no audience present, feeling of guilt was similar in both countries. However, when audience was present Colombian sample experienced significantly more guilt. Some of the results support results from previous research but significant is the fact that two different types of shame were found: shame/self-disgust and shame/embarrassment. This could partly explain why researchers have previously had difficulties in distinguishing shame and guilt.

The aim of this licentiate thesis is to assess by literature the potential exposure of humans to Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) through food and drinking water in Finland and Minnesota, USA and to represent the prevalence (the total number of cases of a disease at a specific time) of Johne's disease and the prevalence and incidence (the number of new cases of a disease during a certain period of time) Crohn's disease in the United States, Minnesota and Finland. Johne's disease (JD), also known as paratuberculosis, is a globally important chronic intestinal disease of cattle and other ruminants such as goats and sheep caused by MAP. Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic intestinal disease of humans. The etiology of CD is unknown but in addition to genetic susceptibility, environmental factors have been found to have an impact on the onset of the disease. It has been suggested that MAP could be one of the etiologic agents of CD. In the United States, JD is more common in dairy cattle than in beef cattle. The apparent cow-level prevalence is 6% and apparent herd-level prevalence is 68 % in dairy cattle. In Minnesota the apparent prevalence of JD in dairy cattle at the cow-level is 3% and at the herd-level 46%. In beef cattle the prevalence at the cow-level is only 0.3 % in Minnesota. The prevalence of CD in the United States is 241/100,000 and the annual incidence 20/100,000. The prevalence of CD in Minnesota is 222/100,000 and the annual incidence 13/100,000. In Finland, JD has been diagnosed in five beef cattle herds since 1992. The disease has not been diagnosed in dairy cattle or sheep or goats in Finland. The prevalence of CD in Finland is 124/100,000 and the annual incidence 9/100,000. The prevalence of MAP in food and drinking water in Finland has not been studied. Despite this, it is unlikely that people are exposed to MAP through drinking water or by eating foods of Finnish origin because the prevalence of JD in Finland is very low. However, exposure to the bacterium is possible by eating imported beef and dairy products such as cheese and yogurt. The share of imported foods within these food groups is relatively large in Finland. Dairy products and beef are imported for example from Germany and Denmark where the prevalence of JD at the herd-level is about 50–80 %. In the United States the occurrence of MAP in foods and drinking water has been studied quite much. It appears that the bacterium is found in foods and drinking water of U.S. origin. Because JD is so common in the United States and Minnesota, it is likely that people are exposed to the bacterium in Minnesota even though not all the food eaten is produced in the state. It is likely that people in areas of high prevalence of JD are exposed more to MAP than people in areas of low prevalence of JD. Comparing subsets of CD patients with high exposure to MAP to healthy controls with and without exposure to MAP could reveal the possible role of MAP in the complex etiology of CD. Based on this literature review it can be assumed that in Finland CD is caused by some other environmental agent than MAP. This licentiate thesis sets up further research needs to estimate the true human exposure to MAP.

Background: Birch hemicellulose, mainly composed of glucuronoxylan (GX), is emerging as a sustainable food hydrocolloid. However, studies on health impacts of GX are limited. Aim(s): To study the effects of birch-derived GX on the expression of tight junction proteins in the colonic mucosa of healthy rats. Methods: An animal intervention study was conducted on 42 rats, stratified into three groups that received different diets for 28 days: 1) AIN-93 + 10% of cellulose (control), 2) AIN-93 + 10% of highly purified GX (GXpure), and 3) AIN-93 + 10% polyphenol-and-GX-rich extract (GXpoly). Protein expressions in the proximal and distal colon were analysed with western blot and examined with ANOVA and Tukey’s post-hoc tests. Results: In the proximal colon, no statistically significant differences in occludin, claudin-1 and claudin-7 expression were observed between the control and GX-diet groups. Similarly, no statistically significant differences in all tight junction proteins expressions were observed between the three groups. There were no differences in the results when adjusted for sex. Conclusion: The findings suggest that birch-derived GX consumption did not significantly alter the expression of TJ proteins, which is a positive sign for its usage as food hydrocolloids. As this is one of the first studies on this topic, further research, especially on a diseased model, is needed before determining the safety of birch-derived GX for human consumption.

Merkelcellskarcinom (MCC) är en ovanlig och agressiv neuroendokrin hudcancer vars cellulära ursprung är okänt. Genomet av Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) är integrerat i genomet av tumörcellerna i cirka 80% av MCC-tumörer. Baserat på proteinexpressionsmönster anses cellerna i MCC vara närmast besläktade med Merkelceller (mekanoreceptiva celler i huden). Av denna orsak har Merkelceller antagits vara ursprungscellen för MCC men detta har aldrig bevisats. Höga grader av PAX5- och TdT-expression har observerats i MCC, detta tyder på möjligheten att ursprungscellen för MCC inte är den postmitotiska Merkelcellen utan snarare en pro/pre- eller pre-B cell eftersom co-expression av PAX5 och TdT är begränsat till dessa celler under fysiologiska omständigheter. I denna studie undersöktes expressionen av PAX5 och TdT i 117 MCC-tumörer med immunohistikemi. Utav de 117 tumörerna som undersöktes expresserade 31.6% TdT, 22.2% expresserade PAX5 och graden av co-expression var 11.1%. Dessa expressionsgrader är betydligt lägre än vad som observerats i tidigare studier. Vidare observerades ett statistiskt signifikant samband mellan expressionen av TdT och närvaro av MCPyV DNA samt mellan expressionen av TdT och antalet kopior av MCPyV-genomet i tumörvävnaden. Inget statistiskt signifikant samband observerades mellan expressionen av PAX5 och/eller TdT och prognos vilket underminerar användningen av dessa markörer i kliniskt syfte.

The thesis is a study of the communicated case ‘S.S. and the Others v. Italy’ (application no. 21660/80) of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The application is on behalf of the victims of an incident in which a migrant boat found itself in distress after having left Libya for Europe. The Libyan Coast Guard failed to rescue all of the migrants and allegedly acted negligently, mistreating those they took onboard, and returned them to Libya, exposing them to continued ill-treatment and some of them also to forced return (refoulement) to their countries of origin. Italy is a State Party to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and has a bilateral agreement, ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU), with Libya (a non-ECHR State). On the basis of the MoU, Italy funds and equips the Libyan Coast Guard. The agreement can be seen as a means to ‘outsource’ border control and to instruct Libya to intercept migrants before they reach Italy and the European Union (EU), thus effectively circumventing the obligations of the ECHR. The research question is in two parts. First, I ask whether Italy had extraterritorial jurisdiction as stated in Article 1 ECHR, and second, if it had, has Italy violated its positive obligations to secure the applicants’ rights. Jurisdiction is a ‘threshold criterium’ for the Court to study the merits of an application. As for the violations, the thesis focuses on Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture; includes also the prohibition of forced return, or refoulement). The methodology is doctrinal in that the thesis aims to examine critically the central features of the relevant legislation and case law in order to create an arguably correct and sufficiently complete statement on the Court’s reasoning and outcome. The main sources are the provisions of the ECHR itself and the relevant previous case law of the Court, together with a literature review. Additionally, there are third-party interveners’ statements and a video reconstruction of the events. The Court’s questions and information requests to the parties, as attached to the application, are used as a starting point. Besides a hypothesis of the argumentation and the decision of the Court, some estimations are made about what could be the consequences of the decision to such bilateral pacts as the MoU between Italy and Libya, and, in general, to ‘deals’ between the EU Member States and third or transit countries. Finally, the thesis reflects on the eventual repercussions on the topical issue of the EU Commission’s 23.9.2020 proposal for the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which appears to encourage the Member States to maintain and develop outsourcing practices.

The Scandinavian countries are behind the EU’s plastics recycling targets for consumer plastic packaging waste. Packaging design plays a major role in achieving recycling targets, as it can influence the sorting carried out by the consumer and the success of the recycling. This master's thesis examines the factors that influence the design for recyclability of labeled food plastic packaging. The sorting conducted by the consumer and the plastics processed at the recycling plant determine the success of the recycling, i.e., a high-quality recyclate with several ends use options. Furthermore, packaging design can enable the consumer to separate the parts of the packaging and allow recyclability. The thesis aims to raise awareness of the importance of packaging design and factors related to recyclability to increase the recycling rate, a legislative target by the EU. In particular, the aim is to understand the role of packaging designers and other decision-makers working with packaging design. The thesis examines the role of the label in plastic packaging and the recycling process and thus leads to new knowledge discovery about the meaning of the label. Eight experienced packaging designers were interviewed for this thesis, and an online survey was conducted for decision-makers participating in the packaging design process. The respondents (N = 23) worked with packaging design either as designers, in printing houses, or in a commercial role. The literature review of the thesis deals with two types of plastic waste treatment in the Scandinavian countries - primary, i.e., recycling of PET bottles, and secondary, i.e., recycling of other, non-deposit plastic packaging. The key difference between these flows is their value due to their differences in quality. Recycled PET bottle material is a valuable raw material for new bottles, while other packaging is made into products unfit for the food products. This does not support the principles of a circular economy and thus does not meet companies' sustainability commitments. The findings show uncertainty within design choices, as it's sometimes unclear who is responsible for ensuring the packaging recyclability. The level of knowledge of those working with packaging design about plastic recycling and the importance of labels also varied significantly. More guidance was needed, although there are several guides on the markets to ensure a better recycling rate, such as the design guide provided by the Finnish Plastics Recycling, which was also evaluated in interviews. However, few participants were aware of these guides. On the other hand, many felt they were necessary and wanted more available information on the importance of packaging design for recyclability. Theoretically, the thesis serves as a comprehensive overview of the factors affecting recyclability that had not previously been brought together. Looking at the role of the label in both food plastic packaging and the recyclability process brings novelty. The thesis also contributes to rectifying the lack of information found in the literature review by guiding designers to familiarize the design guide evaluated. The thesis was commissioned by UPM Raflatac.

In Finland during the 2010’s, continuous political concerns have been expressed for the youth not in education, employment or training. These youth, often referred by acronym NEET or as socially excluded, have been repeatedly shown to be in a vulnerable position in terms of current well-being and future outcomes in various life domains. In this study, the interest lies in the youth transitions to education and employment, conditioned by family background and childhood experiences. Being NEET is regarded as a non-normative transition, embedded in the social and historical context of life course. Family backgrounds are important determinants of various outcomes in subsequent individual life trajectories. The intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status (SES) has been verified by vast amount of research on social mobility and it is well-known that childhood adversities are associated with a wide range of deficiencies in later well-being. However, less is known on the association between family background and NEET. Previous literature implies that socioeconomic disadvantage during childhood is related to NEET but the evidence on childhood adversities and NEET and the concurrent contributions of SES and adversities remains scarce. In this study, Finnish register data on a 20 % random sample of households with 0–14-year-old child in 2000 is used to probe the associations between childhood socioeconomic factors, adversities and NEET at the age of 18. For an analytical sample of cohorts born between 1986–1993 (N=99,137) a broad range of childhood indicators are used to predict NEET. The childhood measures include family SES, parental substance abuse and psychiatric disorders, death of a parent, living with a single parent and being placed outside home. The study aims to find answers to three empirical questions on whether there is an association between socioeconomic family background and NEET, is there an association between childhood adversities and NEET and are the associations of SES and adversities independent. Logistic regression is used as the statistical method. The results from the statistical analyses show that childhood SES is strongly and inversely related to the risk of NEET. Low parental education, low levels of household income and recurrent parental long-term unemployment had independent association with NEET when assessed concurrently, with low parental education tripling the odds of NEET. Adverse experiences in childhood had also crude associations with NEET: exposure to parental psychiatric and substance abuse disorders increased the odds of NEET around 20–100 %. Placement out of home increased the odds of NEET 2.5–3.5 times and living with single parent doubled the odds. However, when socioeconomic background was controlled for, the associations between parental health and NEET disappeared and in the case of the other adversities, the associations were significantly attenuated. Implications for gender modifying the association between parental education and NEET were found, suggesting that parental education has stronger association with NEET among boys. Other childhood variables did not have statistically significant interaction with gender. According to the results derived in this study, the life-course transitions to education and employment are conditioned by family background and thus the opportunities for transitions among Finnish youth can be considered unequal. In NEET-context, the socioeconomic family background is especially important childhood factor for subsequent life course. The results are in line with previous literature on the association between parental SES and NEET. The weaker associations between childhood adversities and NEET might be explained by NEET being more of a socioeconomic indicator during the transition to adulthood and to some extent by measurement of adversities. Regardless of the mechanisms of intergenerational socioeconomic transmission, supportive social political measures for socioeconomically disadvantaged families are in order, especially for those families facing cumulative socioeconomic risks. Further research assessing the total contribution of family background concurrently with individual attributes of NEET-youth would be valuable.

Sorghum and millets are important crops in the world and they are rich of phenolic compounds. Phenolic compounds have good antioxidant ability and they are regarded as the good natural protective screens for oxidative damage. However, the previous studies has only focused on the amount and antioxidant property of phenolic compounds in sorghum and millets and there were limited studies about the effect of sourdough fermentation on the phenolic compounds. Hence, it is necessary to study the fate of phenolic compounds during the sourdough fermentation. The aim of the experimental work was to study the changes of phenolic compounds, namely the soluble and bound phenolics, during lactic acid bacteria fermentation of wholegrain sorghum and millets, and to study the factors contributing to their modifications. Two millet varieties, i.e. finger miller and pearl millet (millet Jaune), and two types of sorghum, i.e. white sorghum and red sorghum were used in this study. Each experiment consisted of two samples, one unfermented and one fermented. The fermented sample was fermented by W. Confusa A16, which was isolated from a sourdough pancake in Burkina Faso and identified in University of Helsinki. During the experiment part, different extraction solvents and methods were used in order to obtain a better extraction of phenolics. Ethanol and methanol were selected as the extraction solvent for soluble phenolics and ultrasonic bath was used to assisst the extraction of insoluble-bound phenolics. And the content of phenolic compounds were determinated by Folin-Ciocalteu assay in coupled with spectrophotometer. The results showed that methanol as the extraction solvent was more efficient in extracting the soluble phenolics than ethanol. And ultrasonic bath could shorten the extraction time of bound phenols from 16h to 2.5h with a good extraction result compared with non-ultrasonic bath. In this study, the content of extracted phenolic compounds varied among different classes and subclasses. Sorghum generally contained higher content of phenolic compounds than millets. And the total phenolic compounds in red sorghum was higher than white sorghum. The changes of total phenolic compounds and insoluble-bound phenolic compounds during sourdough fermentation followed the same trend, both of which decreased after sourdough fermentation. Conversely, soluble phenolic compounds increased during sourdough fermentation both in millet and sorghum samples. Increased enzymatic activities and the increased acidic medium environment during sourdough fermentation might form new interactions between phenolics and other macromolecules or cause the structure changes of phenolics, thus lead to changes of the amount of extractable phenolic compounds. However, the results obtain from this experiment are not completely consistent with literature data, which might be related to the different cultivar of the sorghum and millet raw materials used and the experimental methods adopted .