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  • The aim of this paper is to study the long

    2019-11-22

    The aim of this paper is to study the long-term socioeconomic impacts of local heat entrepreneurship from 2000 to 2016. The analysis focuses on impacts of the biomass-based district heat production on employment and income in a small peripheral community, called Eno, located in North Karelia, Finland. We ask in this paper what type of long-term income and employment impacts have the heat entrepreneurships created while being based on local wood fuels. We assess the socioeconomic impacts of the bioenergy production from start-up to growth and maturity production stages. The focus in our analysis is on the community of Eno, which is a small traditional industrial community located in a predominantly rural region challenged by negative lock-in of the local development (Lehtonen, 2015).
    Case of Eno heat entrepreneurship
    Results
    Conclusions and policy implications The results from this study showed that profitable bioenergy production leads to overall savings which leads to higher positive effects on employment and incomes than reported in earlier studies (e.g. Hendricks et al., 2016; Okkonen and Lehtonen, 2017; Jackson et al., 2018). Lowering heating costs increases the disposable income of the households for local consumption and releases funds of the municipality for maintaining local services of the region and employing staff. These additional impacts almost doubled the employment and income impacts of the heat production during the study period 2000–2015. The traditional direct and indirect impacts of the bioenergy production represented roughly one third of the employment impacts. Induced impacts and the savings generated from employment impacts are also one third of each. Basing on our findings, the socio-economic benefits can be maximised with a) local business models creating common benefits (e.g. community-based businesses, social enterprises, and cooperatives), b) by utilising local Evodiamine resources in sustainable ways without harming future material usage (e.g. use of thinning wood instead of round wood), c) by generating cost-savings for customers through reduced energy costs and d) re-investing the profits for identified local purposes (e.g. other community businesses). International examples of local socio-economic benefits can be found from community energy schemes and energy poverty projects implemented in the UK and Canada, for instance (See e.g. Simcock et al., 2016). There are important caveats to this research. The results are based on a set of assumptions which limit the generalizability of the findings. In reality, the local long-term socio-economic impacts are diverse and will differ according to such factors as the nature of the technology, local economic structures, social profiles, and production processes (Domac et al., 2005). The socio-economic benefits are case specific: they depend on the region\'s characteristics, Evodiamine availability of resources, social capacity, and business models, among others. Therefore, the results are not directly applicable in other regions albeit in similar regions the socioeconomic impacts would be on the same level as the mechanism for these impacts is same.
    Introduction Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a significant health problem [1] and recent data have illustrated that CRS affects about 5–15% of the population in Europe and the USA [2]. Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) is considered a subgroup of CRS, a chronic inflammatory condition of the nasal and paranasal sinuses, and is characterized by grape-like structures in the upper nasal cavity. Typical histological features of nasal polyps are dense inflammatory infiltrates, loose fibrous connective tissue with substantial tissue edema, and a thickened basement membrane covered mostly by respiratory pseudostratified epithelium [2]. The current model of pathogenesis in nasal polyps comprises four steps, starting with an intrinsic host deficit, resulting in impaired release of innate host defense molecules, followed by colonization with bacteria, and the loss of the natural barrier function. A local elevation of pathogen-associated molecular patterns and antigen-driven activation of the adaptive immune system (superantigen effect) generates an inflammatory local microenvironment which per se drives the development of inflammation and autoimmunity [2,3]. However, the pathogenesis of CRSwNP and its proliferative benign and recurrent nature remains unclear.