Responses of Scots pine to wintertime flooding

Poster

SUBCRITICAL BUBBLES NEAR THE PHASE SPACE DOMAIN WALL

We study the subcritical bubble formation near the phase space domain wall. We take into account that the phase of the scalar field can vary using complex U(1) symmetric field and a phenomenological potential with cubic term responsible to symmetry breaking. We show that the presence of the domain wall induces subcritical bubbles so that their formation rate near the wall is considerably larger than far of it. The allowed deviations of the phases of new bubbles are so large that they prevent the system from induced nucleation.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, 3 compressed and uuencoded ps-figures on a separate file

Damping rate of neutrinos in the singlet Majoron model

The damping rate and free path of neutrinos in the singlet Majoron model have been calculated including both finite temperature and symmetry breaking effects. The behaviour of right- and left-handed fermions are found inherently different. While the damping rates of the left-handed leptons are essentially model independent, e.g. directly applicable to the Standard Model, for the right-handed particles the rates are crucially sensitive to parameters of the scalar sector. In general, the damping rates are fairly large. The possibility of the right-handed neutrinos to penetrate deep into the broken phase in the electroweak phase transition still remains, however, for some parts of parameter space.Comment: 23 pages, latex, 6 figures as uuencoded postscript fil

Full Likelihood Analysis of Genetic Risk with Variable Age at Onset Disease-Combining Population-Based Registry Data and Demographic Information

Peer reviewe

Laatukäsikirja jatkuvatoimisille vedenlaadun mittauksille - Opas hyviksi käytännöiksi

Laatukäsikirjan kirjoittaminen jatkuvatoimisille vedenlaadunmittauksille lähti tarpeesta saada yhdenmukaisempia käytäntöjä ja toimintamalleja koko ajan lisääntyvälle mittaustoiminnalle. Laatukäsikirjassa keskitytään jatkuvatoimisten mittausten laatuun vaikuttaviin yleisiin asioihin, jotta esitettävät toimenpiteet sopisivat useimmille vedenlaatua mittaaville laitteille ja olisivat käytettävissä eri vesiympäristöissä. Ohjeistusta ei ole kuitenkaan tarkoitettu ns. kenttämittareille, joita käytetään hetkellisten mittausten tekemiseen, ja joita ei jätetä maastoon pidemmäksi aikaa mittaamaan. Kirjassa käsitellään ensin yleisesti kaikkia vesiympäristöjä koskevia asioita, jonka jälkeen virtavesiä, järviä ja merialuetta koskevia asioita käsitellään erikseen, mikäli toimet poikkeavat eri ympäristöissä. Virtavesiä koskevia ohjeita voidaan soveltaa eri kokoisissa uomissa tehtäviin mittauksiin. Laatukäsikirja jatkuvatoimisille vedenlaadun mittauksille on tarkoitettu: - jatkuvatoimisia mittauksia suunnitteleville, toteuttaville ja niistä vastaaville henkilöille - laitetoimittajille, konsulteille - mittaustulosten käyttäjille Laatukäsikirjalla pyritään parantamaan ja yhtenäistämään mittausten laatua mittaustoiminnan kaikissa vaiheissa. Laadunvarmistus käsittää toimivan ketjun vesiympäristöön sopivan laitteen valinnasta, validoinnista, asennuksesta, huollosta, kalibroinnista, laadukkaista laboratorioanalyyseistä sekä ammattitaitoisesta mittausaineistojen laadunvarmistuksesta. Huolellinen toiminta ketjun kaikissa vaiheissa takaa mittausten onnistumisen ja aineistojen korkean laadun, mikä lisää olennaisesti myös aineistojen hyödyntämismahdollisuuksia. Laatukäsikirja on toteutettu ”Jatkuvatoimisten vedenlaatuasemien valtakunnallisen verkoston toteuttamissuunnitelma - JatkuvaLaatu” -hankkeessa vuonna 2018. Hankkeen toteutuksesta vastasi Suomen ympäristökeskus (SYKE) yhdessä Varsinais- Suomen ELY-keskuksen kanssa. Hanketta rahoitti ympäristöministeriö

Climate impacts of peat fuel utilization chains – a critical review of the Finnish and Swedish life cycle assessments

In recent years there has been a lively debate in Finland and Sweden on the climate impact of peat fuel utilization. The aim of this study was to clarify the contradictions between the Finnish and Swedish studies and provide a better basis for energy policy decision-making by summarizing the recent scientific knowledge about the climate impacts of peat fuel utilization chains based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. A starting point for this study was to carry out a critical review of Finnish and Swedish life cycle studies of the climate impacts of peat fuel utilization chains. The critical review was conducted according to the recommendations of international standards and its aim was to ensure that the methods, data and interpretation of results were carried out in a scientifically and technically valid way. During the review the available data (mostly published) on the greenhouse gas (GHG) balances and the radiative forcing impacts of GHGs were gathered and updated.  The re-calculations showed that the climate impact of "Pristine mire – afforestation" utilization chain is similar to the climate impact of coal utilization, whereas the result of the peat utilization chain "Pristine mire – restoration" is slightly worse than for the coal utilization chain. The results were similar in the reviewed studies. The peat utilization chain "Forestry-drained peatlands – afforestration" causes a slightly higher climate impact on average than the coal utilization chain does. From the viewpoint of peat utilization the result was similar to the result of Finnish study. According to the reviewed studies the use of cultivated peatlands causes the lowest climate impact compared to the climate impacts of the other peatlands. However, cultivated peatlands do not play important role as an extraction area for peat utilization. From the viewpoint of peat utilization the result of cultivated peatland was worse compared to the result produced by the Finnish and Swedish studies. The climate impacts of peat fuel utilization chains are mostly caused by the carbon dioxide released by peat combustion. These emissions are known quite  well. However, the emission assessments of different peat types include large uncertainty before, during and after peat extraction. In spite of that it can be said that land change options related to peat extraction and after-treatments have very limited effects on the climate impacts of peat utilization chain

Updated Parameter Limits of the Left-Right Symmetric Model

Bounds of the neutral current sector parameters of the left-right symmetric model are investigated taking into account the low-energy data, LEP-data and CDF-result for the top mass $m_t=174\pm 10^{+13}_{-12}$. It is found that in the case of the minimal scalar sector with a left- and a right-handed triplet and a bidoublet Higgses the mass of the heavy neutral gauge boson $M_{Z'}$ should be larger than 1.2 TeV, assuming equal left- and right-handed gauge couplings and a negligible VEV of the left-handed triplet. For larger values of the ratio $g_L/g_R$ smaller values of $M_{Z'}$ are allowed.Comment: 19 pages, TURKU-FL-P1

Renewal of forest based manufacturing towards a sustainable circular bioeconomy

Environmental problems, combined with European Union environmental and energy policies shaped to address them, have created pressures for change. Some of these open significant opportunities to renew industries. This report delivers new understanding of the potential of circular economy for sustainable renewal of manufacturing in bio-based industries. With particular focus on novel value chains, it provides novel insights into the role of innovation policies in facilitating the shift towards sustainable, circular bioeconomy in Finland and Sweden. The textile and multi-storey wood construction sectors, and emergent biorefineries are utilised as case studies that deepen understanding of the circular bioeconomy, its opportunities, barriers, and impacts, and the policies that affect its emergence. Recent developments of bioeconomy and circular economy solutions and governance in the Netherlands are also summarised in order to deliver contrasting context to the Nordic focus countries. In this work, the bioeconomy is conceptualised as an economy where the basic building blocks for materials, chemicals and energy are derived from renewable biological resources, such as plant and animal biomass. The essence of the circular economy, that is used here, lies in maximisation of added value and in making the best use of any extracted raw material. This analysis shows that to date discussions and activities related to the promotion of bioeconomy and circular economy have largely been separate efforts, but there are signs that the discussions may converge. It finds that while the form of developments are similar in Finland and in Sweden in the case areas (i.e. textiles, wood construction and biorefineries), there are also clear differences in the strengths of the countries. Evidence is found that such strengths offer potential to develop world leadership in a circular bioeconomy. The report identifies policy recommendations to support renewal of manufacturing in the wood based industries towards a sustainable circular bioeconomy