Design and testing of stand-specific bucking instructions for use on modern cut-to-length harvesters

This study addresses three important issues in tree bucking optimization in the context of cut-to-length harvesting. (1) Would the fit between the log demand and log output distributions be better if the price and/or demand matrices controlling the bucking decisions on modern cut-to-length harvesters were adjusted to the unique conditions of each individual stand? (2) In what ways can we generate stand and product specific price and demand matrices? (3) What alternatives do we have to measure the fit between the log demand and log output distributions, and what would be an ideal goodness-of-fit measure? Three iterative search systems were developed for seeking stand-specific price and demand matrix sets: (1) A fuzzy logic control system for calibrating the price matrix of one log product for one stand at a time (the stand-level one-product approach); (2) a genetic algorithm system for adjusting the price matrices of one log product in parallel for several stands (the forest-level one-product approach); and (3) a genetic algorithm system for dividing the overall demand matrix of each of the several log products into stand-specific sub-demands simultaneously for several stands and products (the forest-level multi-product approach). The stem material used for testing the performance of the stand-specific price and demand matrices against that of the reference matrices was comprised of 9 155 Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) sawlog stems gathered by harvesters from 15 mature spruce-dominated stands in southern Finland. The reference price and demand matrices were either direct copies or slightly modified versions of those used by two Finnish sawmilling companies. Two types of stand-specific bucking matrices were compiled for each log product. One was from the harvester-collected stem profiles and the other was from the pre-harvest inventory data. Four goodness-of-fit measures were analyzed for their appropriateness in determining the similarity between the log demand and log output distributions: (1) the apportionment degree (index), (2) the chi-square statistic, (3) Laspeyres quantity index, and (4) the price-weighted apportionment degree. The study confirmed that any improvement in the fit between the log demand and log output distributions can only be realized at the expense of log volumes produced. Stand-level pre-control of price matrices was found to be advantageous, provided the control is done with perfect stem data. Forest-level pre-control of price matrices resulted in no improvement in the cumulative apportionment degree. Cutting stands under the control of stand-specific demand matrices yielded a better total fit between the demand and output matrices at the forest level than was obtained by cutting each stand with non-stand-specific reference matrices. The theoretical and experimental analyses suggest that none of the three alternative goodness-of-fit measures clearly outperforms the traditional apportionment degree measure. Keywords: harvesting, tree bucking optimization, simulation, fuzzy control, genetic algorithms, goodness-of-fit

Geological factors affecting on after-use of Finnish cut-over peatlands : with implications on the carbon accumulation

In Finland, peat harvesting sites are utilized down almost to the mineral soil. In this situation the properties of mineral subsoil are likely to have considerable influence on the suitability for the various after-use forms. The aims of this study were to recognize the chemical and physical properties of mineral subsoils possibly limiting the after-use of cut-over peatlands, to define a minimum practice for mineral subsoil studies and to describe the role of different geological areas. The future percentages of the different after-use forms were predicted, which made it possible to predict also carbon accumulation in this future situation. Mineral subsoils of 54 different peat production areas were studied. Their general features and grain size distribution was analysed. Other general items studied were pH, electrical conductivity, organic matter, water soluble nutrients (P, NO3-N, NH4-N, S and Fe) and exchangeable nutrients (Ca, Mg and K). In some cases also other elements were analysed. In an additional case study carbon accumulation effectiveness before the intervention was evaluated on three sites in Oulu area (representing sites typically considered for peat production). Areas with relatively sulphur rich mineral subsoil and pool-forming areas with very fine and compact mineral subsoil together covered approximately 1/5 of all areas. These areas were unsuitable for commercial use. They were recommended for example for mire regeneration. Another approximate 1/5 of the areas included very coarse or very fine sediments. Commercial use of these areas would demand special techniques - like using the remaining peat layer for compensating properties missing from the mineral subsoil. One after-use form was seldom suitable for one whole released peat production area. Three typical distribution patterns (models) of different mineral subsoils within individual peatlands were found. 57 % of studied cut-over peatlands were well suited for forestry. In a conservative calculation 26% of the areas were clearly suitable for agriculture, horticulture or energy crop production. If till without large boulders was included, the percentage of areas suitable to field crop production would be 42 %. 9-14 % of all areas were well suitable for mire regeneration or bird sanctuaries, but all areas were considered possible for mire regeneration with correct techniques. Also another 11 % was recommended for mire regeneration to avoid disturbing the mineral subsoil, so total 20-25 % of the areas would be used for rewetting. High sulphur concentrations and acidity were typical to the areas below the highest shoreline of the ancient Litorina sea and Lake Ladoga Bothnian Bay zone. Also differences related to nutrition were detected. In coarse sediments natural nutrient concentration was clearly higher in Lake Ladoga Bothnian Bay zone and in the areas of Svecokarelian schists and gneisses, than in Granitoid area of central Finland and in Archaean gneiss areas. Based on this study the recommended minimum analysis for after-use planning was for pH, sulphur content and fine material (<0.06 mm) percentage. Nutrition capacity could be analysed using the natural concentrations of calcium, magnesium and potassium. Carbon accumulation scenarios were developed based on the land-use predictions. These scenarios were calculated for areas in peat production and the areas released from peat production (59300 ha + 15 671 ha). Carbon accumulation of the scenarios varied between 0.074 and 0.152 million t C a-1. In the three peatlands considered for peat production the long term carbon accumulation rates varied between 13 and 24 g C m-2 a-1. The natural annual carbon accumulation had been decreasing towards the time of possible intervention.

Non-industrial private forest landowners’ choices of timber management strategies and potential allowable cut.

In the study, the potential allowable cut in the district of Pohjois-Savo - based on the non-industrial private forest landowners' (NIPF) choices of timber management strategies - was clarified. Alternative timber management strategies were generated, and the choices and factors affecting the choices of timber management strategies by NIPF landowners were studied. The choices of timber management strategies were solved by maximizing the utility functions of the NIPF landowners. The parameters of the utility functions were estimated using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The level of the potential allowable cut was compared to the cutting budgets based on the 7th and 8th National Forest Inventories (NFI7 and NFI8), to the combining of private forestry plans, and to the realized drain from non-industrial private forests. The potential allowable cut was calculated using the same MELA system as has been used in the calculation of the national cutting budget. The data consisted of the NIPF holdings (from the TASO planning system) that had been inventoried compartmentwise and had forestry plans made during the years 1984-1992. The NIPF landowners' choices of timber management strategies were clarified by a two-phase mail inquiry. The most preferred strategy obtained was "sustainability" (chosen by 62 % of landowners). The second in order of preference was "finance" (17 %) and the third was "saving" (11 %). "No cuttings", and "maximum cuttings" were the least preferred (9 % and 1 %, resp.). The factors promoting the choices of strategies with intensive cuttings were a) "farmer as forest owner" and "owning fields", b) "increase in the size of the forest holding", c) agriculture and forestry orientation in production, d) "decreasing short term stumpage earning expectations", e) "increasing intensity of future cuttings", and f) "choice of forest taxation system based on site productivity". The potential allowable cut defined in the study was 20 % higher than the average of the realized drain during the years 1988-1993, which in turn, was at the same level as the cutting budget based on the combining of forestry plans in eastern Finland. Respectively, the potential allowable cut defined in the study was 12 % lower than the NFI8-based greatest sustained allowable cut for the 1990s. Using the method presented in this study, timber management strategies can be clarified for non-industrial private forest landowners in different parts of Finland. Based on the choices of timber managemet strategies, regular cutting budgets can be calculated more realistically than before.

Effects of forestry extension on the use of allowable cut in non-industrial private forests.

XVIII IUFRO World Congress, Ljubljana 1986.

Logic as the Universal Science : Bertrand Russell's Early Conception of Logic and Its Philosophical Context

Bertrand Russell (1872 1970) introduced the English-speaking philosophical world to modern, mathematical logic and foundational study of mathematics. The present study concerns the conception of logic that underlies his early logicist philosophy of mathematics, formulated in The Principles of Mathematics (1903). In 1967, Jean van Heijenoort published a paper, Logic as Language and Logic as Calculus, in which he argued that the early development of modern logic (roughly the period 1879 1930) can be understood, when considered in the light of a distinction between two essentially different perspectives on logic. According to the view of logic as language, logic constitutes the general framework for all rational discourse, or meaningful use of language, whereas the conception of logic as calculus regards logic more as a symbolism which is subject to reinterpretation. The calculus-view paves the way for systematic metatheory, where logic itself becomes a subject of mathematical study (model-theory). Several scholars have interpreted Russell s views on logic with the help of the interpretative tool introduced by van Heijenoort,. They have commonly argued that Russell s is a clear-cut case of the view of logic as language. In the present study a detailed reconstruction of the view and its implications is provided, and it is argued that the interpretation is seriously misleading as to what he really thought about logic. I argue that Russell s conception is best understood by setting it in its proper philosophical context. This is constituted by Immanuel Kant s theory of mathematics. Kant had argued that purely conceptual thought basically, the logical forms recognised in Aristotelian logic cannot capture the content of mathematical judgments and reasonings. Mathematical cognition is not grounded in logic but in space and time as the pure forms of intuition. As against this view, Russell argued that once logic is developed into a proper tool which can be applied to mathematical theories, Kant s views turn out to be completely wrong. In the present work the view is defended that Russell s logicist philosophy of mathematics, or the view that mathematics is really only logic, is based on what I term the Bolzanian account of logic . According to this conception, (i) the distinction between form and content is not explanatory in logic; (ii) the propositions of logic have genuine content; (iii) this content is conferred upon them by special entities, logical constants . The Bolzanian account, it is argued, is both historically important and throws genuine light on Russell s conception of logic.

Meillä ei ole ikuisia ystäviä eikä ikuisia vihollisia. Ikuisia ovat meidän omat etumme. : Suomen suhteet Kiinan kansantasavaltaan 1949 - 1989

"We have neither Eternal Friends nor Eternal Enemies. We have only Eternal Interests .Finland's Relations with China 1949-1989 The study focuses on the relations between Finland and the People s Republic of China from 1949-1989 and examines how a small country became embroiled in international politics, and how, at the same time, international politics affected Finnish-Chinese relations and Finland s China policy formulation. The study can be divided into three sections: relations during the early years, 1949-1960, before the Chinese and Soviet rift became public; the relations during the passive period during the 1960s and 1970s; and the impact of China s Open Door policy on Finland s China policy from 1978-1989. The diplomatically challenging events around Tiananmen Square and the reactions which followed in Finland bring the study to a close. Finland was among the first Western countries to recognise the People s Republic and to establish diplomatic relations with her, thereby giving Finland an excellent position from which to further develop good relations. Finland was also the first Western country to sign a trade agreement with China. These two factors meant that Finland was able to enjoy a special status with China during the 1950s. The special status was further strengthened by the systematic support of the government of Finland for China's UN membership. The solid reputation earned in the 1950s had to carry Finland all the way through to the 1980s. For the two decades in between, during the passive policy period of the 1960s and 1970s, relations between Finland and the Soviet Union also determined the state of foreign relations with China. Interestingly, however, it appeared that President Urho Kekkonen was encouraged by Ambassador Joel Toivola to envisage a more proactive policy towards China, but the Cultural Revolution cut short any such plan for nearly twenty years. Because of the Soviet Union, Finland held on to her passive China policy, even though no such message was ever received from the Soviet Union. In fact, closer relationships between Finland and China were encouraged through diplomatic channels. It was not until the presidency of Mauno Koivisto that the first high-level ministerial visit was made to China when, in 1984, Foreign Minister Paavo Väyrynen visited the People s Republic. Finnish-Chinese relations were lifted to a new level. Foreign Minister Väyrynen, however, was forced to remove the prejudices of the Chinese. In 1985, when the Speaker of the Finnish Parliament, Erkki Pystynen visited China he also discovered that Finland s passive China policy had caused misunderstandings amongst the Chinese politicians. The number of exchanges escalated in the wake of the ground-breaking visit by Foreign Minister Väyrynen: Prime Minister Kalevi Sorsa visited China in 1986 and President Koivisto did so in 1988. President Koivisto stuck to practical, China-friendly policies: his correspondence with Li Peng, the attitude taken by the Finnish government after the Tiananmen Square events and the subsequent choices made by his administration all pointed to a new era in relations with China.

Ylirajaisia suhteita : Helsingin olympialaiset, Armi Kuusela ja ylikansallinen historia

In 1952 Helsinki hosted the Summer Olympic Games and Armi Kuusela, the current “Maiden of Finland”, was at the same time crowned Miss Universe. In popular history writing, these events have been designated as a crucial turning point – the end of an era marked by war and deprivation and the beginning of a modern, Western nation. Symptomatically, both events were marked by Finnish women’s sexual relationships with foreign men. The Olympics were shadowed by a concern over Finnish women’s “undue friendliness” with the Olympic guests, and Armi Kuusela's world tour was cut short by her surprise marriage in Tokyo and subsequent emigration to the Philippines. This study is an inquiry into the Helsinki Olympics and the public persona of Armi Kuusela from the point of view of transnational heterosexuality and the constitution of Finnish national identity. Methodologically the two main components of the study are intersectionality, defined here as a focus on the mutual histories and effects of discourses of gender, sexuality, race and nation; and transnational history as a way of exploring the ways that both nations and sexual subjects are embedded in global relations of power. The analysis proceeds by way of contextual and intertextual readings of various sources. Part one, centering on the Olympics, involves a campaign mounted by certain women’s organizations before the Games in order to educate young women about the potential dangers of the forthcoming international event as well as magazine and newspaper articles published during and after the Games concerning the encounter between young Finnish women and foreign, especially “Southern,” men. It places the debates during the Olympics within the framework of wartime understandings of women’s sexuality; the history of the concept of decency (siveellisyys); post-war population policy; the intersectional histories of conceptions pertaining to race and sexuality; and finally, the post-war concerns over women’s migration from rural areas to the capital city and their potential emigration abroad. Part two deals with the persona of Armi Kuusela and the public reception of her world tour and marriage, based on material from both Finland and the Philippines (newspapers, magazines, advertisements, books and films). It examines the persona of Armi Kuusela as a figure of national import in terms of the East/West divide; the racialized images of different geographic climates and Oriental “Others;” the meaning of whiteness in the Philippines; the significance of class and colonial history for the domestication of sexual and racial transgressions implied by an unconventional transnational marriage; as well as the cultural logics of transnational desire and its possible meanings for women in 1950s Finland. The study develops two arguments. First, it suggests that instead of being purely oppositional to national discourses, transnational desire may also be viewed as a product of these very discourses. Second, it claims that the national significance of both the Olympics and the persona of Armi Kuusela was due to the new points of comparison they both offered for national identity construction. In comparison with the sexualized Southern men at the Olympics and the racialized Orient in the representations of Armi Kuusela’s travels and marriage, Finland emerged as part of the civilized North, placed firmly within the perimeters of Western Europe. As such, both events mark a “whitening” of the Finnish people as well as a distancing from their previous designations in racial hierarchies. At the same time, however, the process of becoming a white nation inevitably meant complying with and reproducing racial hierarchies, rather than simply abolishing them.

"Secoituxesta järjettömäin luondocappalden canssa" : Perversiot, oikeuselämä ja kansankulttuuri 1700-luvun Suomessa

Bestiality was in the 18th century a more difficult problem in terms of criminal policy in Sweden and Finland than in any other Christian country in any other period. In the legal history of deviant sexuality, the phenomenon was uniquely widespread by international comparison. The number of court cases per capita in Finland was even higher than in Sweden. The authorities classified bestiality among the most serious crimes and a deadly sin. The Court of Appeal in Turku opted for an independent line and was clearly more lenient than Swedish courts of justice. Death sentences on grounds of bestiality ended in the 1730s, decades earlier than in Sweden. The sources for the present dissertation include judgment books and Court of Appeal decisions in 253 cases, which show that the persecution of those engaging in bestial acts in 18th century Finland was not organised by the centralised power of Stockholm. There is little evidence of local campaigns that would have been led by authorities. The church in its orthodoxy was losing ground and the clergy governed their parishes with more pragmatism than the Old Testament sanctioned. When exposing bestiality, the legal system was compelled to rely on the initiative of the public. In cases of illicit intercourse or adultery the authorities were even more dependent on the activeness of the local community. Bestiality left no tangible evidence, illegitimate children, to betray the crime to the clergy or secular authorities. The moral views of the church and the local community were not on a collision course. It was a common view that bestiality was a heinous act. Yet nowhere near all crimes came to the authorities' knowledge. Because of the heavy burden of proof, the legal position of the informer was difficult. Passiveness in reporting the crime was partly because most Finns felt it was not their place to intervene in their neighbours' private lives, as long as that privacy posed no serious threat to the neighbourhood. Hidden crime was at least as common as crime more easily exposed and proven. A typical Finnish perpetrator of bestiality was a young unmarried man with no criminal background or mental illness. The suspects were not members of ethnic minorities or marginal social groups. In trials, farmhands were more likely to be sentenced than their masters, but a more salient common denominator than social and economical status was the suspects' young age. For most of the defendants bestiality was a deep-rooted habit, which had been adopted in early youth. This form of subculture spread among the youth, and the most susceptible to experiment with the act were shepherds. The difference between man and animal was not clear-cut or self-evident. The difficulty in drawing the line is evident both in legal sources and Finnish folklore. The law that required that the animal partners be slaughtered led to the killing of thousands of cows and mares, and thereby to substantial material losses to their owners. Regarding bestiality as a crime against property motivated people to report it. The belief that the act would produce human-animal mongrels or that it would poison the milk and the meat horrified the public more than the teachings of the church ever could. Among the most significant aspects in the problems regarding the animals is how profoundly different the worldview of 18th century people was from that of today.

On Toponymic Constructions as an Alternative to Naming Patterns in Describing Finnish Lake Names

This thesis combines a computational analysis of a comprehensive corpus of Finnish lake names with a theoretical background in cognitive linguistics. The combination results on the one hand in a description of the toponymic system and the processes involved in analogy-based naming and on the other hand some adjustments to Construction Grammar. Finnish lake names are suitable for this kind of study, as they are to a large extent semantically transparent even when relatively old. There is also a large number of them, and they are comprehensively collected in a computer database. The current work starts with an exploratory computational analysis of co-location patterns between different lake names. Such an analysis makes it possible to assess the importance of analogy and patterns in naming. Prior research has suggested that analogy plays an important role, often also in cases where there are other motivations for the name, and the current study confirms this. However, it also appears that naming patterns are very fuzzy and that their nature is somewhat hard to define in an essentially structuralist tradition. In describing toponymic structure and the processes involved in naming, cognitive linguistics presents itself as a promising theoretical basis. The descriptive formalism of Construction Grammar seems especially well suited for the task. However, now productivity becomes a problem: it is not nearly as clear-cut as the latter theory often assumes, and this is even more apparent in names than in more traditional linguistic material. The varying degree of productivity is most naturally described by a prototype-based theory. Such an approach, however, requires some adjustments to onstruction Grammar. Based on all this, the thesis proposes a descriptive model where a new name -- or more generally, a new linguistic expression -- can be formed by conceptual integration from either a single prior example or a construction generalised from a number of different prior ones. The new model accounts nicely for various aspects of naming that are problematic for the traditional description based on analogy and patterns.

Post-industrial Intervention : An Activity-Theoretical Expedition Tracing the Proximal Development of Forms of Conducting Interventions

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Issues in socially desirable responding and personality research

The four studies presented in this dissertation were designed to examine the influence of socially desirable responding (SDR) on personality research outcomes. The assessment of personality relies heavily on the use of self-report questionnaires. Their validity could be threatened by people being dishonest in their self-descriptions and ascribing more desirable traits to themselves than would be warranted by their behaviour. Scales designed to detect SDR have been around for half a century, but their status continues to be debated. Paulhus (1991) Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) is perhaps the most prominent of the scales developed to distinguish between those individuals who have distorted their responses and those who have not. The first two studies included in this dissertation mostly deal with the properties of the BIDR. The other two studies are less focused on SDR scales and investigate, more generally, the potential effects of SDR on two phenomena that are of central interest to the general personality discourse personality stability over time and volunteering as participants in psychological research. The data of Studies I and II showed that Paulhus BIDR scales, designed to be indicators of SDR, are not pure measures both the communion management and self-deceptive enhancement scales are, at once, measures of response bias and measures of more substantive individual differences in behaviour. The data further suggested that the communion management and self-deceptive enhancement scales of the BIDR are somewhat accurate measures of communal and agentic bias, respectively. No evidence for a suppressor model of SDR, and only weak evidence for a moderator model, was found in those studies. Concerning research on personality stability, some data in Study I suggested that SDR may add reliable and common variance to a personality questionnaire administered at two different points in time, thus artificially inflating the test-retest correlation of that questionnaire. Furthermore, Study III demonstrated that the maturity-stability hypothesis may be in part, but not entirely, a product of SDR. Study IV suggested that some of the observed personality differences between research volunteers and nonvolunteers may be due to heightened SDR of volunteers. However, those personality differences were by no means exclusively attributable to differences in SDR. In sum, the work presented in this thesis reveals some ambiguity regarding the effects of SDR on personality research, as is true of much of the previous research on SDR. Clear-cut conclusions are difficult to reach, as the data were neither fully consistent with the view that SDR can be ignored, nor with the view that SDR needs to be controlled in some way. The struggle to understand the influence of SDR on personality research continues.

The scientific basis and development of a matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) -8 specific chair-side test for monitoring of periodontal health and disease from gingival crevicular fluid

Matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) -8, collagenase-2, is a key mediator of irreversible tissue destruction in chronic periodontitis and detectable in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF). MMP-8 mostly originates from neutrophil leukocytes, the first line of defence cells which exist abundantly in GCF, especially in inflammation. MMP-8 is capable of degrading almost all extra-cellular matrix and basement membrane components and is especially efficient against type I collagen. Thus the expression of MMP-8 in GCF could be valuable in monitoring the activity of periodontitis and possibly offers a diagnostic means to predict progression of periodontitis. In this study the value of MMP-8 detection from GCF in monitoring of periodontal health and disease was evaluated with special reference to its ability to differentiate periodontal health and different disease states of the periodontium and to recognise the progression of periodontitis, i.e. active sites. For chair-side detection of MMP-8 from the GCF or peri-implant sulcus fluid (PISF) samples, a dip-stick test based on immunochromatography involving two monoclonal antibodies was developed. The immunoassay for the detection of MMP-8 from GCF was found to be more suitable for monitoring of periodontitis than detection of GCF elastase concentration or activity. Periodontally healthy subjects and individuals suffering of gingivitis or of periodontitis could be differentiated by means of GCF MMP-8 levels and dipstick testing when the positive threshold value of the MMP-8 chair-side test was set at 1000 µg/l. MMP-8 dipstick test results from periodontally healthy and from subjects with gingivitis were mainly negative while periodontitis patients sites with deep pockets ( 5 mm) and which were bleeding on probing were most often test positive. Periodontitis patients GCF MMP-8 levels decreased with hygiene phase periodontal treatment (scaling and root planing, SRP) and even reduced during the three month maintenance phase. A decrease in GCF MMP-8 levels could be monitored with the MMP-8 test. Agreement between the test stick and the quantitative assay was very good (κ = 0.81) and the test provided a baseline sensitivity of 0.83 and specificity of 0.96. During the 12-month longitudinal maintenance phase, periodontitis patients progressing sites (sites with an increase in attachment loss ≥ 2 mm during the maintenance phase) had elevated GCF MMP-8 levels compared with stable sites. General mean MMP-8 concentrations in smokers (S) sites were lower than in non-smokers (NS) sites but in progressing S and NS sites concentrations were at an equal level. Sites with exceptionally and repeatedly elevated MMP-8 concentrations during the maintenance phase were clustered in smoking patients with poor response to SRP (refractory patients). These sites especially were identified by the MMP-8 test. Subgingival plaque samples from periodontitis patients deep periodontal pockets were examined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to find out if periodontal lesions may serve as a niche for Chlamydia pneumoniae. Findings were compared with the clinical periodontal parameters and GCF MMP-8 levels to determine the correlation with periodontal status. Traces of C. pneumoniae were identified from one periodontitis patient s pooled subgingival plaque sample by means of PCR. After periodontal treatment (SRP) the sample was negative for C. pneumoniae. Clinical parameters or biomarkers (MMP-8) of the patient with the positive C. pneumoniae finding did not differ from other study patients. In this study it was concluded that MMP-8 concentrations in GCF of sites from periodontally healthy individuals, subjects with gingivitis or with periodontitis are at different levels. The cut-off value of the developed MMP-8 test is at an optimal level to differentiate between these conditions and can possibly be utilised in identification of individuals at the risk of the transition of gingivitis to periodontitis. In periodontitis patients, repeatedly elevated GCF MMP-8 concentrations may indicate sites at risk of progression of periodontitis as well as patients with poor response to conventional periodontal treatment (SRP). This can be monitored by MMP-8 testing. Despite the lower mean GCF MMP-8 concentrations in smokers, a fraction of smokers sites expressed very high MMP-8 concentrations together with enhanced periodontal activity and could be identified with MMP-8 specific chair-side test. Deep periodontal lesions may be niches for non-periodontopathogenic micro-organisms with systemic effects like C. pneumoniae and possibly play a role in the transmission from one subject to another.