European Forest Institute
The European Forest Institute is an international organization established by the European states. It has 29 Member Countries, c. 120 member organizations from 40 different countries working in diverse research fields. EFI provides forest-related knowledge around three interconnected and interdisciplinary themes: bioeconomy and governance. EFI' s headquarters is located in Joensuu, it has offices in Belgium, France and Spain, as well as project offices in Malaysia and China, it employs a staff of over 100 experts. The Convention on the European Forest Institute has been ratified by total of 29 European countries by the summer of 2018, namely Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom; these countries each have a seat in the highest decision-making body in EFI's organisation, the Council. EFI has 120 member organisations from more than 40 countries; the benefits of associate and affiliate membership include voting rights for important decisions, access to the EFI network and announcements related to European forest research, visibility on the EFI website, opportunity to receive EFI publications and publish announcements in EFI Network News free of charge.
EFI has project centres around Europe. These centres focus on specific topics relevant to important issues. EFI provides policy support on forest related issues. Further, it facilitate and stimulates forest related networking as well as promotes the supply of unbiased and policy relevant information on forests and forestry, it advocates for forest research and for scientifically sound information as a basis for policy-making on forests. EFI excels in carrying out projects at the European level, has a track record of over 30 projects carried out for the European Commission DGs during the past few years. EFI puts increasing emphasis on cross-sectoral approaches in its research and development activities, it is thus in a good position to have efficient access to social and environmental expertise covering all of Europe’s bio-geographical regions. The work in the field of policy support includes enhanced support for decision takers and policy makers. For example, the high-level forum on forests, ThinkForest, brings together high-level policy makers and leading European forest scientists to generate science-policy dialogue on strategic forest-related issues.
EFI is becoming a leading science-policy platform providing forest-related knowledge to build a sustainable future: connecting knowledge to action. EFI has a strong policy support role by hosting the EU FLEGT Facility which supports the EU Forest Law Enforcement and Trade process in developing countries, related to the implementation of the EU FLEGT Action Plan. EU FLEGT Facility assist the European Commission and the EU Member States in their joint efforts of its implementation. Official EFI webpage
Karelia
Karelia, the land of the Karelian people, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Finland and Sweden. It is divided among the northwestern Russian Federation and Finland. Various subdivisions may be called Karelia. Finnish Karelia was a historical province of Finland, is now divided between Finland and Russia called just Karjala in Finnish; the eastern part of this chiefly Lutheran area was ceded to Russia after the Winter War of 1939–40. The Republic of Karelia is a Russian federal subject, including the so-called East Karelia with a chiefly Russian Orthodox population. Within present-day Finland, Karjala refers to the regions of South and North Karelia, although parts of historical Karelia lies within the region of Kymenlaakso, Northern Savonia and Southern Savonia. Karelia stretches from the White Sea coast to the Gulf of Finland, it contains the two largest lakes in Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega. The Karelian Isthmus is located between the Gulf of Lake Ladoga; the border between Karelia and Ingria, the land of the related Ingrian people, had been the Neva River itself but on it was moved northward into Karelian isthmus to follow the Sestra River, today in the Saint Petersburg metropolitan area, but in 1812–1940 the Russo-Finnish border.
On the other side of Lake Ladoga, the River Svir is thought of as the traditional southern border of Karelian territory, as Lake Saimaa marks the Western border while Lake Onega and the White Sea mark the Eastern border. In the North lived the nomadic Samis, but there were no natural border except for large wooded areas and the tundra. In historical texts Karelia is sometimes divided into East Karelia and West Karelia, which are called Russian Karelia and Finnish Karelia respectively; the area to the north of Lake Ladoga which belonged to Finland before World War II is called Ladoga Karelia, the parishes on the old pre-war border are sometimes called Border Karelia. White Sea Karelia is the northern part of East Karelia and Olonets Karelia is the southern part. Tver Karelia denotes the villages in the Tver Oblast. Republic of Karelia Petrozavodsk Belomorsk Medvežyegorsk Kalevala Kem Kostomukša Kondopoga Sortavala Suojarvi Segeža Pitkjaranta Olonec Karelian Isthmus Vyborg Priozersk South Karelia Imatra Joutseno Lappeenranta North Karelia Joensuu Ilomantsi Kitee Kesalahti Kontiolahti Lieksa Liperi Nurmes Outokumpu Karelia was bitterly fought over by Sweden and the Novgorod Republic for a period starting in the 13th-century Swedish-Novgorodian Wars.
The Treaty of Nöteborg in 1323 divided Karelia between the two. Viborg became the capital of the new Swedish province. In the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617 large parts of Russian Karelia were ceded to Sweden. Conflicts between the new Swedish rulers and the indigenous population of these areas led to an exodus: thousands of Karelians, including the ancestors of the Tver Karelians, emigrated to Russia; the Treaty of Nystad in 1721 between Imperial Russia and Sweden ceded most of Karelia to Russia. The Treaty of Åbo in 1743 between Sweden and Russia ceded South Karelia to Russia. After Finland had been occupied by Russia in the Finnish War, parts of the ceded provinces were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1917, Finland became independent and the border was confirmed by the Treaty of Tartu in 1920. Finnish partisans were involved in attempts to overthrow the Bolshevists in Russian Karelia in 1918–20, such as in the failed Aunus expedition, they wanted to incorporate the rest of Karelia into Finland and cooperated with the short-lived Republic of Uhtua.
These private expeditions ended after the peace treaty of Tartu. After the end of the Russian Civil War and the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1922, the Russian part of Karelia became the Karelian Autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in 1923. In 1939, The Soviet Union attacked Finland; the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940 handed most of Finnish Karelia to the Soviet Union. About 400,000 people the whole population, had to be relocated within Finland. In 1941, Karelia was liberated for three years during the Continuation War of 1941 to 1944 when East Karelia was occupied by the Finns; the Winter War and the resulting Soviet expansion caused considerable bitterness in Finland, which lost its second biggest city, its industrial heartland along the river Vuoksi, the Saimaa canal that connected central Finland to the Gulf of Finland, access to the fishing waters of Lake Ladoga, made an eighth of her citizens refugees with no chance of return. From the areas ceded to the Soviet Union, the whole population was evacuated and resettled in other parts of Finland.
The present inhabitants of the former Finnish K
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I reigned as Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855. He was the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, he has become best known as a political conservative whose reign was marked by geographical expansion, repression of dissent, economic stagnation, poor administrative policies, a corrupt bureaucracy, frequent wars that culminated in Russia's defeat in the Crimean War of 1853–56. Nicholas had a happy marriage, his biographer Nicholas V. Riasanovsky says that Nicholas displayed determination, singleness of purpose, an iron will, along with a powerful sense of duty and a dedication to hard work, he saw himself as a soldier—a junior officer consumed by spit and polish. A handsome man, he was nervous and aggressive. Trained as an engineer, he was a stickler for minute detail. In his public persona, says Riasanovsky, "Nicholas I came to represent autocracy personified: infinitely majestic and powerful, hard as stone, relentless as fate." He was the younger brother of his predecessor, Alexander I.
Nicholas inherited his brother's throne despite the failed Decembrist revolt against him and went on to become the most reactionary of all Russian leaders. Nicholas I was instrumental in helping to create an independent Greek state, was successful against Russia's neighbouring southern rivals as he seized the last territories in the Caucasus held by Persia by ending the Russo-Persian War. By now, Russia had gained what is now Dagestan, Georgia and Armenia from Persia, had therefore at last gained the clear upper hand in the Caucasus, both geopolitically as well as territorially, he ended the Russo-Turkish War as well. On, however, he led Russia into the Crimean War, with disastrous results. Historians emphasize that his micromanagement of the armies hindered his generals, as did his misguided strategy. Fuller notes that historians have concluded that "the reign of Nicholas I was a catastrophic failure in both domestic and foreign policy." On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its geographical zenith, spanning over 20 million square kilometers, but had a desperate need for reform.
Nicholas was born at Gatchina Palace in Gatchina to Grand Duke Paul, Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia. Five months after his birth, his grandmother, Catherine the Great and his parents became emperor and empress of Russia, he was a younger brother of Emperor Alexander I of Russia, who succeeded to the throne in 1801, of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia. Riasanovsky says he was, "the most handsome man in Europe, but a charmer who enjoyed feminine company and was at his best with the ladies."On 13 July 1817, Nicholas married Princess Charlotte of Prussia, who thereafter went by the name Alexandra Feodorovna when she converted to Orthodoxy. Charlotte's parents were Frederick William III of Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Nicholas and Charlotte were third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandchildren of Frederick William I of Prussia. With two older brothers, it seemed unlikely Nicholas would become Tsar. However, as Alexander and Constantine both failed to produce sons, Nicholas remained to rule one day.
In 1825, when Alexander I died of typhus, Nicholas was caught between swearing allegiance to Constantine and accepting the throne for himself. The interregnum lasted until Constantine, in Warsaw at that time, confirmed his refusal. Additionally, on 25 December, Nicholas issued the manifesto proclaiming his accession to the throne; that manifesto retroactively named 1 December, the date of Alexander I's death, as the beginning of his reign. During this confusion, a plot was hatched by some members of the military to overthrow Nicholas and to seize power; this led to the Decembrist Revolt on 26 December 1825, an uprising Nicholas was successful in suppressing. Nicholas lacked his brother's spiritual and intellectual breadth. Nicholas I began his reign on 14 December 1825; this particular Monday dawned cold, with temperatures of −8 degrees Celsius. This was regarded by the Russian people as a bad omen for the coming reign; the accession of Nicholas I was marred by a demonstration of 3000 young Imperial Army officers and other liberal-minded citizens.
This demonstration was an attempt to force the government to accept a constitution and a representative form of government. Nicholas ordered the army out to smash the demonstration; the "uprising" was put down and became known as the Decembrist Revolt. Having experienced the trauma of the Decembrist Revolt on the first day of his reign, Nicholas I was determined to restrain Russian society; the Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery ran a huge network of spies and informers with the help of Gendarmes. The government exercised censorship and other forms of control over education and all manifestations of public life, he appointed Alexander Benckendorff to head this Chancellery. Benckendorff employed 16 staff in his office, he began intercepting mail at a high rate. Soon, because of Benckendorff, the saying that it was impossible to sneeze in one's house before it is report
Central Europe
Central Europe is the region comprising the central part of Europe. It is said to occupy continuous territory that are otherwise conventionally Western Europe, Southern Europe, Eastern Europe; the concept of Central Europe is based on a common historical and cultural identity. Central Europe is going through a phase of "strategic awakening", with initiatives such as the CEI, Centrope and the Visegrád Four. While the region's economy shows high disparities with regard to income, all Central European countries are listed by the Human Development Index as highly developed. Elements of unity for Western and Central Europe were Latin; however Eastern Europe, which remained Eastern Orthodox, was the area of Graeco-Byzantine cultural influence. According to Hungarian historian Jenő Szűcs, foundations of Central European history at the first millennium were in close connection with Western European development, he explained that between the 11th and 15th centuries not only Christianization and its cultural consequences were implemented, but well-defined social features emerged in Central Europe based on Western characteristics.
The keyword of Western social development after millennium was the spread of liberties and autonomies in Western Europe. These phenomena appeared in the middle of the 13th century in Central European countries. There were self-governments of towns and parliaments. In 1335, under the rule of the King Charles I of Hungary, the castle of Visegrád, the seat of the Hungarian monarchs was the scene of the royal summit of the Kings of Poland and Hungary, they agreed to cooperate in the field of politics and commerce, inspiring their post-Cold War successors to launch a successful Central European initiative. In the Middle Ages, countries in Central Europe adopted Magdeburg rights. Before 1870, the industrialization that had developed in Western and Central Europe and the United States did not extend in any significant way to the rest of the world. In Eastern Europe, industrialization lagged far behind. Russia, for example, remained rural and agricultural, its autocratic rulers kept the peasants in serfdom.
The concept of Central Europe was known at the beginning of the 19th century, but its real life began in the 20th century and became an object of intensive interest. However, the first concept mixed science and economy – it was connected with intensively growing German economy and its aspirations to dominate a part of European continent called Mitteleuropa; the German term denoting Central Europe was so fashionable that other languages started referring to it when indicating territories from Rhine to Vistula, or Dnieper, from the Baltic Sea to the Balkans. An example of that-time vision of Central Europe may be seen in J. Partsch's book of 1903. On 21 January 1904, Mitteleuropäischer Wirtschaftsverein was established in Berlin with economic integration of Germany and Austria–Hungary as its main aim. Another time, the term Central Europe became connected to the German plans of political and cultural domination; the "bible" of the concept was Friedrich Naumann's book Mitteleuropa in which he called for an economic federation to be established after the war.
Naumann's idea was that the federation would have at its centre Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire but would include all European nations outside the Anglo-French alliance, on one side, Russia, on the other. The concept failed after the German defeat in the dissolution of Austria -- Hungary; the revival of the idea may be observed during the Hitler era. According to Emmanuel de Martonne, in 1927 the Central European countries included: Austria, Germany, Poland and Switzerland; the author use both Human and Physical Geographical features to define Central Europe, but he doesn't care about the legal development, the social, economic, infrastructural developments in these countries. The interwar period brought new geopolitical system and economic and political problems, the concept of Central Europe took a different character; the centre of interest was moved to its eastern part – the countries that have appeared on the map of Europe: Czechoslovakia and Poland. Central Europe ceased to be the area of German aspiration to lead or dominate and became a territory of various integration movements aiming at resolving political and national problems of "new" states, being a way to face German and Soviet pressures.
However, the conflict of interests was too big and neither Little Entente nor Intermarium ideas succeeded. The interwar period brought new elements to the concept of Central Europe. Before World War I, it embraced German states, non-German territories being an area of intended German penetration and domination – German leadership position was to be the natural result of economic dominance. After the war, the Eastern part of Central Europe was placed at the centre of the concept. At that time the scientists took an interest in the idea: the International Historical Congress in Brussels in 1923 was committed to Central Europe, the 1933 Congress continued the discussions. Hungarian scholar Magda Adam wrote in her study Versailles System and Central Europe: "Today we know that the bane of Central Europe was the Little Entente, military alliance of Czechoslovakia and Kingdom of Serbs and Slovenes (later Yu
Unemployment
Unemployment or joblessness is a situation in which able-bodied people who are looking for a job cannot find a job. The causes of unemployment are debated. Classical economics, new classical economics, the Austrian School of economics argued that market mechanisms are reliable means of resolving unemployment; these theories argue against interventions imposed on the labor market from the outside, such as unionization, bureaucratic work rules, minimum wage laws and other regulations that they claim discourage the hiring of workers. Keynesian economics emphasizes the cyclical nature of unemployment and recommends government interventions in the economy that it claims will reduce unemployment during recessions; this theory focuses on recurrent shocks that reduce aggregate demand for goods and services and thus reduce demand for workers. Keynesian models recommend government interventions designed to increase demand for workers, its namesake economist John Maynard Keynes, believed that the root cause of unemployment is the desire of investors to receive more money rather than produce more products, not possible without public bodies producing new money.
A third group of theories emphasize the need for a stable supply of capital and investment to maintain full employment. On this view, government should guarantee full employment through fiscal policy, monetary policy and trade policy as stated, for example, in the US Employment Act of 1946, by counteracting private sector or trade investment volatility, reducing inequality. In addition to theories of unemployment, there are a few categorizations of unemployment that are used to more model the effects of unemployment within the economic system; some of the main types of unemployment include structural unemployment and frictional unemployment, as well as cyclical unemployment, involuntary unemployment, classical unemployment. Structural unemployment focuses on foundational problems in the economy and inefficiencies inherent in labor markets, including a mismatch between the supply and demand of laborers with necessary skill sets. Structural arguments emphasize causes and solutions related to disruptive technologies and globalization.
Discussions of frictional unemployment focus on voluntary decisions to work based on each individuals' valuation of their own work and how that compares to current wage rates plus the time and effort required to find a job. Causes and solutions for frictional unemployment address job entry threshold and wage rates; the unemployment rate is a measure of the prevalence of unemployment and it is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by all individuals in the labor force. During periods of recession, an economy experiences a high unemployment rate. Millions of people globally or 6% of the world's workforce were without a job in 2012; the state of being without any work yet looking for work is called unemployment. Economists distinguish between various overlapping types of and theories of unemployment, including cyclical or Keynesian unemployment, frictional unemployment, structural unemployment and classical unemployment; some additional types of unemployment that are mentioned are seasonal unemployment, hardcore unemployment, hidden unemployment.
Though there have been several definitions of "voluntary" and "involuntary unemployment" in the economics literature, a simple distinction is applied. Voluntary unemployment is attributed to the individual's decisions, whereas involuntary unemployment exists because of the socio-economic environment in which individuals operate. In these terms, much or most of frictional unemployment is voluntary, since it reflects individual search behavior. Voluntary unemployment includes workers who reject low wage jobs whereas involuntary unemployment includes workers fired due to an economic crisis, industrial decline, company bankruptcy, or organizational restructuring. On the other hand, cyclical unemployment, structural unemployment, classical unemployment are involuntary in nature. However, the existence of structural unemployment may reflect choices made by the unemployed in the past, while classical unemployment may result from the legislative and economic choices made by labour unions or political parties.
The clearest cases of involuntary unemployment are those where there are fewer job vacancies than unemployed workers when wages are allowed to adjust, so that if all vacancies were to be filled, some unemployed workers would still remain. This happens with cyclical unemployment, as macroeconomic forces cause microeconomic unemployment which can boomerang back and exacerbate these macroeconomic forces. Classical, or real-wage unemployment, occurs when real wages for a job are set above the market-clearing level causing the number of job-seekers to exceed the number of vacancies. On the other hand, most economists argue that as wages fall below a livable wage many choose to drop out of the labor market and no longer seek employment; this is true in countries where low-income families are supported through public welfare systems. In such cases, wages would have to be high enough to motivate people to choose employment over what they receive through public welfare. Wages below a livable wage are to result in lower labor market participation in the above-stated scenario.
In addition, consumption of goods and services is the primary driver of increased demand for labor. Higher wages lead to workers having more income available to consume services. Therefore, higher wages increase gene
Tower
A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are distinguished from "buildings" in that they are not built to be habitable but to serve other functions; the principal function is the use of their height to enable various functions to be achieved including: visibility of other features attached to the tower such clock towers. Towers can be stand alone structures or be supported by adjacent buildings or can be a feature on top of a large structure or building. Old English torr is from Latin turris via Old French tor; the Latin term together with Greek τύρσις was loaned from a pre-Indo-European Mediterranean language, connected with the Illyrian toponym Βου-δοργίς. With the Lydian toponyms Τύρρα, Τύρσα, it has been connected with the ethnonym Τυρρήνιοι as well as with Tusci, the Greek and Latin names for the Etruscans Towers have been used by mankind since prehistoric times.
The oldest known may be the circular stone tower in walls of Neolithic Jericho. Some of the earliest towers were ziggurats, which existed in Sumerian architecture since the 4th millennium BC; the most famous ziggurats include the Sumerian Ziggurat of Ur, built the 3rd millennium BC, the Etemenanki, one of the most famous examples of Babylonian architecture. The latter was built in Babylon during the 2nd millennium BC and was considered the tallest tower of the ancient world; some of the earliest surviving examples are the broch structures in northern Scotland, which are conical towerhouses. These and other examples from Phoenician and Roman cultures emphasised the use of a tower in fortification and sentinel roles. For example, the name of the Moroccan city of Mogador, founded in the first millennium BC, is derived from the Phoenician word for watchtower; the Romans utilised octagonal towers as elements of Diocletian's Palace in Croatia, which monument dates to 300 AD, while the Servian Walls and the Aurelian Walls featured square ones.
The Chinese used towers as integrated elements of the Great Wall of China in 210 BC during the Qin Dynasty. Towers were an important element of castles. Other well known towers include the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy built from 1173 until 1372 and the Two Towers in Bologna, Italy built from 1109 until 1119; the Himalayan Towers are stone towers located chiefly in Tibet built 14th to 15th century. Up to a certain height, a tower can be made with the supporting structure with parallel sides. However, above a certain height, the compressive load of the material is exceeded and the tower will fail; this can be avoided. A second limit is that of buckling—the structure requires sufficient stiffness to avoid breaking under the loads it faces those due to winds. Many tall towers have their support structures at the periphery of the building, which increases the overall stiffness. A third limit is dynamic; these are dealt with through a combination of simple strength and stiffness, as well as in some cases tuned mass dampers to damp out movements.
Varying or tapering the outer aspect of the tower with height avoids vibrations due to vortex shedding occurring along the entire building simultaneously. Although not called towers many modern skyscraper are called towers. In the United Kingdom, tall domestic buildings are referred to as tower blocks. In the United States, the original World Trade Center had the nickname the Twin Towers, a name shared with the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur; the tower throughout history has provided its users with an advantage in surveying defensive positions and obtaining a better view of the surrounding areas, including battlefields. They were rolled near a target. Today, strategic-use towers are still used at prisons, military camps, defensive perimeters. By using gravity to move objects or substances downward, a tower can be used to store items or liquids like a storage silo or a water tower, or aim an object into the earth such as a drilling tower. Ski-jump ramps use the same idea, in the absence of a natural mountain slope or hill, can be human-made.
In history, simple towers like lighthouses, bell towers, clock towers, signal towers and minarets were used to communicate information over greater distances. In more recent years, radio masts and cell phone towers facilitate communication by expanding the range of the transmitter; the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada was built as a communications tower, with the capability to act as both a transmitter and repeater. Its design incorporated features to make it a tourist attraction, including the world's highest observation deck at 147 storeys. Towers can be used to support bridges, can reach heights that rival some of the tallest buildings above-water, their use is most prevalent in cable-stayed bridges. The use of the pylon, a simple tower structure, has helped to build railroad bridges, mass-transit systems, harbors. Control towers are used to give visibility to help direct aviation traffic. To access tall or high objects: launch tower, service tower, service structure, tower c
Finland
North Karelia
Linköping, Sweden
Ísafjarðarbær, Iceland
Tønsberg, Norway
Petrozavodsk, Russia
Hof, Germany
Vilnius, Lithuania
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Joensuu travel guide from Wikivoyage
