Vulnerability to pine sawfly damage decreases with site fertility but the opposite is true with Scleroderris canker damage; results from Finnish ICP Forests and NFI data

201

Glutathione s-transferase omega in the lung and sputum supernatants of COPD patients

BACKGROUND: The major contribution to oxidant related lung damage in COPD is from the oxidant/antioxidant imbalance and possibly impaired antioxidant defence. Glutathione (GSH) is one of the most important antioxidants in human lung and lung secretions, but the mechanisms participating in its homeostasis are partly unclear. Glutathione-S-transferase omega (GSTO) is a recently characterized cysteine containing enzyme with the capability to bind and release GSH in vitro. GSTO has not been investigated in human lung or lung diseases. METHODS: GSTO1-1 was investigated by immunohistochemistry and Western blot analysis in 72 lung tissue specimens and 40 sputum specimens from non-smokers, smokers and COPD, in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and in plasma from healthy non-smokers and smokers. It was also examined in human monocytes and bronchial epithelial cells and their culture mediums in vitro. RESULTS: GSTO1-1 was mainly expressed in alveolar macrophages, but it was also found in airway and alveolar epithelium and in extracellular fluids including sputum supernatants, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, plasma and cell culture mediums. The levels of GSTO1-1 were significantly lower in the sputum supernatants (p = 0.023) and lung homogenates (p = 0.003) of COPD patients than in nonsmokers. CONCLUSION: GSTO1-1 is abundant in the alveolar macrophages, but it is also present in extracellular fluids and in airway secretions, the levels being decreased in COPD. The clinical significance of GSTO1-1 and its role in regulating GSH homeostasis in airway secretions, however, needs further investigations

Avoiding BBN Constraints on Mirror Models for Sterile Neutrinos

We point out that in models that explain the LSND result for neutrino oscillation using the mirror neutrinos, the big bang nucleosynthesis constraint can be avoided by using the late time phase transition that only helps to mix the active and the sterile neutrinos. We discuss the astrophysical as well as cosmological implications of this proposal.Comment: 5 pages, latex; more discussion added; results unchange

Reflectance properties of selected arctic-boreal land cover types: field measurements and their application in remote sensing

International audienceWe developed a mobile remote sensing measurement facility for spectral and anisotropic reflectance measurements. We measured reflection properties (BRF) of over 100 samples from most common land cover types in boreal and subarctic regions. This extensive data set serves as a unique reference opportunity for developing interpretation algorithms for remotely sensed materials as well as for modelling climatic effects in the boreal and subarctic zones. Our goniometric measurements show that the reflectances of the most common land cover types in the boreal and subarctic region can differ from each other by a factor of 100. Some types are strong forward scatterers, some backward scatterers, some reflect specularly, some have strong colours, some are bright in visual, some in infrared. We noted that spatial variations in reflectance, even among the same type of vegetation, can be well over 20%, diurnal variations of the same order and seasonal variation often over a factor of 10. This has significant consequences on the interpretation of satellite and airborne images and on the development of radiation regime models in both optical remote sensing and climate change research. We propose that the accuracy of optical remote sensing can be improved by an order of magnitude, if better physical reflectance models can be introduced. Further improvements can be reached by more optimised design of sensors and orbits/flight lines, by the effective combining of several data sources and better processing of atmospheric effects. We conclude that more extensive and systematic laboratory experiments and field measurements are needed, with more modelling effort

Light Unstable Sterile Neutrino

The three massless active (doublet) neutrinos may mix with two heavy and one \underline {light} sterile (singlet) neutrinos so that the induced masses and mixings among the former are able to explain the present data on atmospheric and solar neutrino oscillations. If the LSND result is also to be explained, one active neutrino mass eigenstate must mix with the light sterile neutrino. A specific model is proposed with the spontaneous and soft explicit breaking of a new global $U(1)_S$ symmetry so that a sterile neutrino will decay into an active antineutrino and a nearly massless pseudo-Majoron.Comment: Discussion and references adde

Measurements of muon flux in the Pyh\"asalmi underground laboratory

The cosmic-ray induced muon flux was measured at several depths in the Pyh\"asalmi mine (Finland) using a plastic scintillator telescope mounted on a trailer. The flux was determined at four different depths underground at 400 m (980 m.w.e), at 660 m (1900 m.w.e), at 990 m (2810 m.w.e) and at 1390 m (3960 m.w.e) with the trailer, and also at the ground surface. In addition, previously measured fluxes from depths of 90 m (210 m.w.e) and 210 m (420 m.w.e) are shown. A relation was obtained for the underground muon flux as a function of the depth. The measured flux follows well the general behaviour and is consistent with results determined in other underground laboratories.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to Nuclear Instrum. Methods

Transition to adult care in Finnish adolescents with juvenile idiopathic arthritis

Objective The symptoms of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and the necessity for continuous treatment may persist in adulthood. Therefore, patients with JIA need to be appropriately transferred to adult care. We aimed to analyse the timing of the patients' transition to adult care, and patients' self-management skills with the process and the quality of the transition. Method This study included 161 Finnish participants of the population-based Nordic JIA cohort who attended a 17 year follow-up appointment. Special attention was paid to the three groups: those referred by the paediatric rheumatology outpatient clinic to primary healthcare (PHC), those who were directly transferred to adult rheumatology care, and those who were later referred. Results A total of 136 patients (84%) were eligible to participate in the study, and 40% of them were directly transferred to an adult rheumatology clinic. Of the patients, 72% eventually ended up being referred to an adult rheumatology outpatient clinic. However, 16% of the patients in the PHC group had active disease during the study appointment and were referred to adult services after the study visit. Conclusion This study reveals the need to improve the transition process from paediatric care to adult care and to find the variables that can indicate the need for immediate transition. Although challenging, it is important to avoid treatment delay in adult patients with JIA who may have active disease but who do not have appropriate access to an adult rheumatological outpatient clinic.Peer reviewe

A System for Acquisition, Processing and Visualization of Image Time Series from Multiple Camera Networks

201

Neutrino Mass Texture with Large Mixing

We propose a simple texture for the right-handed Majorana mass matrix to give a large $\nu_\mu-\nu_\tau$ mixing angle and hierarchical left-handed neutrino mass pattern. Consistently with the Dirac mass texture of the quark sector realizing the CKM mixing, this naturally explains the recent experimental results on both the atmospheric neutrino anomaly observed by the Superkamiokande collaboration and the solar neutrino problem. In this texture the right-handed Majorana mass of the third generation is of the order of GUT scale, which is favorable for reproducing the observed bottom-tau mass ratio.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, comments and references adde

Neutrino Anomalies and Quasi-Dirac neutrinos

We discuss possibility of describing solar, atmospheric and LSND results with four neutrinos forming two quasi-degenerate pairs. The simplest versions of this 2+2 scheme with either $\nu_e$ or $\nu_\mu$ mixing exclusively with sterile neutrino is disfavored by the SNO and atmospheric neutrino results respectively. A generalized scheme with sterile state participating in both the solar and atmospheric oscillations is still allowed. We show thasolar and atmospheric oscillations is still allowed. We show that the complex pattern of mixing needed for this purpose follows from a simple L_e+L_\mu-L_\tau-L_s symmetry. Specific form of L_e+L_\mu-L_\tau-L_s symmetric mass matrix is determined from experimental results. Two theoretical schemes which lead to this form and a proper breaking of L_e+L_\mu-L_\tau-L_s symmetry are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, LATEX, minor corrections; addition of few reference