Vähähiilisyyden ja puun rooli rakennusmateriaalivalinnoissa

Vähähiilisyys on yksi Euroopan energiastrategian visioista. ”Savolaisen ekopientalon modernit rakennusmateriaalit” -hankkeen päätavoitteena on selvittää miten rakennusmateriaaleja valmistava sekä hyödyntävä teollisuus ja kauppa voivat parantaa vähähiilisten ja resurssiviisaiden ideoiden, tuotteiden ja palveluiden tuotteistamista, kaupallistamista ja markkinoille pääsyä. Tähän raporttiin on koottu rakentamiseen liittyviä ympäristövaikutuksia ja viranomaisvaatimuksia. Raportissa kuvataan myös kokemuksia ja mielikuvia ekologisista ja vähähiilisistä rakennusmateriaaleista rautakaupoissa ja omakotitalomyynnissä.Vierailukäynneillä lähialueen rautakauppoihin selvitettiin rakentajien materiaalivalintoja ja tarjolla olevien lattia- ja eristemateriaalien ympäristösertifikaattej

Apparent survival, territory turnover and site fidelity rates in Northern Goshawk Accipiter gentilis populations close to the northern range limit

Capsule: Mark-recapture data suggest low apparent survival and sex- and population-specific site fidelity and territory turnover in adult Northern Goshawks Accipiter gentilis breeding in northern Europe.Aims: To understand how species cope with global environmental change requires knowledge of variation in population demographic rates, especially from populations close to the species' northern range limit and from keystone species such as raptors. We analyse apparent survival and breeding dispersal propensity of adult Northern Goshawks breeding in northern Europe.Methods: We used long-term mark-recapture data from two populations in Finland, northern Europe, and Cormack-Jolly-Seber models and binomial generalized linear models to investigate sex- and population-specific variation in apparent survival, territory turnover and site fidelity.Results: We report low apparent survival (53-72%) of breeding adult Goshawks. Breeding dispersal propensity was higher in females than males, especially in northern Finland, contrasting with previous studies that suggest high site fidelity in both sexes.Conclusion: Low apparent survival in females may be mainly due to permanent emigration outside the study areas, whereas in males the survival rate may truly be low. Both demographic aspects may be driven by the combination of sex-specific roles related to breeding and difficult environmental conditions prevailing in northern latitudes during the non-breeding season.Peer reviewe

A Person-Oriented Approach to Diary Data : Children's Temperamental Negative Emotionality Increases Susceptibility to Emotion Transmission in Father-Child Dyads

The notion that some individuals are more prone to emotion transmission than others has prompted the need for a person-oriented approach to emotion transmission in parent-child dyads. The present study applied a person-oriented analysis to examine the patterns of emotion transmission that can be identified in the diary data of father-child dyads, and the extent to which children with high levels of temperamental negative emotionality are particularly susceptible to emotion transmission within the family. Mothers of 149 first grade children (age 6 to 7) completed questionnaires concerning their child’s temperament. Mothers and fathers maintained diary questionnaires (for a total of 7 days) concerning their child’s negative daily emotions, and fathers (n = 116) maintained diary questionnaires concerning their own negative daily emotions. Results of variable-oriented analyses with prospective change multilevel modeling showed, first, that emotions were, on average, not significantly transmitted in a father-child interaction. However, the person-oriented approach using multilevel mixture regression identified four qualitatively different patterns in the transmission of emotions. These results showed that the higher the level of a child’s temperamental negative emotionality, the more typical it was for the father-child dyad in their daily life to show interaction patterns wherein the father’s negative emotions were transmitted to the child.Peer reviewe

Ecological Restoration of the Boreal Forest in Fennoscandia

Mixed-severity disturbances have historically shaped boreal forests, creating a dynamic mosaic landscape. In Fennoscandia, however, intensive even-aged forest management has simplified the forest landscape, threatening biodiversity. To safeguard this biodiversity, we therefore need to restore structural complexity in hitherto managed forests. Knowledge generated from relevant case studies on natural disturbance emulation–based ecological restoration suggests that prescribed burning positively affects many early-successional organisms. Gap cutting benefits some insects and wood fungi but has a limited effect on birds, bryophytes, and vascular plants. Restoration of deciduous forests appears to benefit light- and deciduous tree–associated insect species and some forest birds

Novel Sulfonanilide Inhibitors of SHIP2 Enhance Glucose Uptake into Cultured Myotubes

A series of substituted sulfonanilide analogs were prepared and evaluated as novel potent inhibitors of SH2 domaincontaining inositol polyphosphate 5′-phosphatase 2 (SHIP2). SHIP2 has been shown to be a new attractive target for the treatment of insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D), which can lead to life-threatening diabetic kidney disease (DKD). Amongst the synthesized compounds, the two most promising candidates, 10 and 11, inhibited SHIP2 significantly. Additionally, these compounds induced Akt activation in a dose-dependent manner, increased the presence of glucose transporter 4 at the plasma membrane, and enhanced glucose uptake in cultured myotubes in vitro at lower concentrations than metformin, the most widely used antidiabetic drug. These results show that the novel SHIP2 inhibitors have insulin sensitizing capacity and provide prototypes for further drug development for T2D and DKD.Peer reviewe

Concurrent heavy use of general and oral health services among Finnish adults

The aim was to identify heavy users of public health (PHS) and public oral health (POHS) services and combined and concurrent users of these services.\nNumbers of 18+ year-old patients and their visits to POHS (12,124 patients) and PHS (28,479 patients) were collected from two patient registers in a Finnish town in 2013. The combined dataset consists of 32,481 patients. Using a highest decile criterion for both for POHS and PHS, those patients who had made 8 or more visits were categorised as heavy users. Patients who had made total of 10 or more visits to the POHS and/or PHS were categorised as combined heavy users. Patients who had made 8 or more visits to both the POHS and PHS were categorised as concurrent heavy users (195 patients).\nHeavy users of POHS were more often men and those of PHS more often women. Combined heavy users were likely to be women and to be older. The combined heavy users accounted for 40% of all visits of POHS and/or PHS. Among them 30% did not have any POHS visits and 4% did not have any PHS visits. Concurrent heavy use was rare, involving 0.06% of all patients, but made 3.4% of all visits.\nOf the patients making 10 or more POHS and/or PHS visits, only five percent were concurrent heavy users of both services. As many non-communicable diseases share common risk factors the combined heavy users of PHS should be directed to use POHS and vice versa

Response of ground macrolichens to site factors, co‐existing plants and forestry in boreal forests

Aim Ground lichens have declined in boreal and temperate Europe. The potential causes of the decline were explored by analysing the response of lichen cover to forest management, site and stand variables as well as co-existing plants in different boreal vegetation subzones. Location Finland. Methods Understorey vegetation was surveyed on a systematic network of 1721 sample plots in forests on mineral soil. The response of macrolichen cover to explanatory variables was analysed by generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs). Results Ground lichens favoured old Pinus sylvestris forests on xeric sites with sufficient light conditions. Intensive forest management regimes, such as regeneration cutting and soil ploughing decreased lichen cover, while lighter scarification methods had less effect on lichens. Lichens benefitted from intermediate cutting on sites with low bryophyte cover. Lichens responded similarly to site and stand variables in all boreal subzones, showing that despite heavy reindeer grazing these response patterns apply also in the northern boreal subzone. Lichens showed both negative (Vaccinium myrtillus, Empetrum nigrum and Calluna vulgaris) and positive (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) responses to increasing dwarf shrub cover. Generally, lichens negatively responded to increasing bryophyte cover, indicating either that bryophytes benefit from a decline of lichens or that there is real competition between these groups. The negative relationship between bryophytes and lichens strengthened as the tree canopy becomes denser. Conclusions Our study provides new quantitative insights into the effects of forest management and changes in forest structure as underlying factors for lichen decline both inside and outside the reindeer-herding area (i.e., the northern boreal subzone). These factors include increased canopy cover with increased shading as well as disturbance caused by regeneration cutting and soil preparation. The possible effects of the long-term legacy of nitrogen deposition, lack of forest fires and climate change are also discussed

Multiple clinical characteristics separate MED12-mutation-positive and -negative uterine leiomyomas

Up to 86% of uterine leiomyomas harbour somatic mutations in mediator complex subunit 12 (MED12). These mutations have been associated with conventional histology, smaller tumour size, and larger number of tumours within the uterus. Prior studies, with limited sample sizes, have failed to detect associations between other clinical features and MED12 mutations. Here, we prospectively collected 763 uterine leiomyomas and the corresponding normal myometrial tissue from 244 hysterectomy patients, recorded tumour characteristics, collected clinical data from medical records, and screened the tissue samples for MED12 mutations to assess potential associations between clinical variables and mutation status. Out of 763 leiomyomas, 599 (79%) harboured a MED12 mutation. In the analysis of tumour characteristics, positive MED12-mutation status was significantly associated with smaller tumour size, conventional histology, and subserous location, relative to intramural. In the analysis of clinical variables, the number of MED12-mutation-positive tumours showed an inverse association with parity, and the number of mutation-negative tumours showed a positive association with a history of pelvic inflammatory disease. This study confirmed the previously reported differences and discovered novel differentiating features for MED12-mutation-positive and -negative leiomyomas. These findings emphasise the relevance of specific driver mutations in genesis and presentation of uterine leiomyomas.Peer reviewe

Neural Network and Random Forest Models in Protein Function Prediction

Over the past decade, the demand for automated protein function prediction has increased due to the volume of newly sequenced proteins. In this paper, we address the function prediction task by developing an ensemble system automatically assigning Gene Ontology (GO) terms to the given input protein sequence. We develop an ensemble system which combines the GO predictions made by random forest (RF) and neural network (NN) classifiers. Both RF and NN models rely on features derived from BLAST sequence alignments, taxonomy and protein signature analysis tools. In addition, we report on experiments with a NN model that directly analyzes the amino acid sequence as its sole input, using a convolutional layer. The Swiss-Prot database is used as the training and evaluation data. In the CAFA3 evaluation, which relies on experimental verification of the functional predictions, our submitted ensemble model demonstrates competitive performance ranking among top-10 best-performing systems out of over 100 submitted systems. In this paper, we evaluate and further improve the CAFA3-submitted system. Our machine learning models together with the data pre-processing and feature generation tools are publicly available as an open source software at https://github.com/TurkuNLP/CAFA3.</p