BACKGROUND Sensitization in early childhood may precede respiratory allergy in adolescence. METHODS IgE reactivity against 132 allergen molecules was evaluated using the MeDALL microarray in sera obtained from a random sample of 786 children at the age of 4, 8 and 16years in a population based birth cohort (BAMSE). Symptoms were analyzed by questionnaire at ages 4, 8 and 16years. Clinically a...

In this 31-year retrospective study, we examined the influence of meteorology on airborne Betula spp. (birch) pollen concentrations in Turku, Finland. The seasonal incidence of airborne birch pollen in Turku occurred over a brief period each year during spring (April 30 - May 31). Mean peak concentrations were restricted to May (May 5 to 13). Statistically significant increases in the annual ac...

Measures of increased tundra plant productivity have been associated with the accelerating retreat of the Arctic sea-ice. Emerging studies document opposite effects, advocating for a more complex relationship between the shrinking sea-ice and terrestrial plant productivity. I introduce an autoregressive plant growth model integrating effects of biological and climatic conditions for analysing i...

Although climatic forcing has been suspected to be the most common cause of spatial population synchrony owing to the Moran effect, it has proved difficult to disentangle the impact of climate from other possible causes of synchrony based on population survey data. Nonlinear population responses to climatic variation may be a part of this difficulty, but they can also provide an opportunity to ...

Batch hydrolysis kinetics of paper birch (Betula papyrifera) xylan and its associated acetyl groups in dilute sulfuric acid have been measured for acid concentrations of between 0.04 and 0.18M and temperatures of between 100 and 170 degrees C. Only 5% of the cellulose was hydrolyzed for up to 85% xylan removal. Rate data were correlated well by a parallel reaction model based on the existence o...

We show that a non-singular integral form of degree d is soluble over the integers if and only if it is soluble over R and over Qp for all primes p, provided that the form has at least (d− 12 √ d)2 variables. This improves on a longstanding result of Birch.

1. A brief history of nonvanishing theorems. The nonvanishing of a Dirichlet series 2 a(n)n~\ or the existence of a pole, at a particular value of s often has applications to arithmetic. Euler gave the first example of this, showing that the infinitude of the primes follows from the pole of Ç(s) at s = 1. A deep refinement was given by Dirichlet, whose theorem on primes in an arithmetic progres...

For N and k positive integers, let M(N, k)C denote the C-vector space of cuspidal modular forms of level N and weight k. This vector space is equipped with the usual Hecke operators Tn, n ≥ 1. If we need to consider several levels or weights at the same time, we will denote this Tn by T N n , or T N,k n . If p is a prime number dividing N , our Tp is also known under the name Up. One of our mai...

The ongoing shifts in natural vegetation zones predict the expansion of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) into Eastern Baltic region, suggesting it will become a potential alternative to birch (Betula pendula Roth. and Betula pubescens Ehrh.) forest regeneration. For successful application regeneration material, an evaluation susceptibility disturbances (e.g., wind) is necessary for reliable ...