Asthma risk is lower after wheezing associated with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) than with non-RSV infection in infancy. RSV is the main wheezing-associated virus in infants aged ,6 months. We evaluated the outcome of children hospitalised for bronchiolitis at ,6 months of age, with special focus on viral aetiology and early risk factors.Out of 205 infants hospitalised for bronchiolitis at ,6 months of age, 127 (62%) attended a control visit at a mean age of 6.5 yrs and the parents of an additional 39 children were interviewed by telephone. Thus, follow-up data collected by identical structured questionnaires were available from 166 (81%) children. Viral aetiology of bronchiolitis, studied on admission by antigen detection or PCR, was demonstrable in 97% of cases.Current asthma was present in 21 (12.7%) children: 8.2% in the 110 former RSV patients versus 24% in non-RSV patients (p50.01). 45 (27%) children had ever had asthma. In adjusted analyses, atopic dermatitis, non-RSV bronchiolitis and maternal asthma were independently significant early-life risk factors for asthma.The risk of asthma was lower after RSV bronchiolitis than after bronchiolitis caused by other viruses in children hospitalised at ,6 months of age.

After bronchiolitis at less than 6 months of age, the risk of doctor-diagnosed asthma at 11-13 years was about twice that of the general Finnish population. Maternal asthma was the only independently significant early-life risk factor for current asthma at 11-13 years of age.

Though reduced lung function and increased airway reactivity were rather common, evidence for persistent lung function reduction was rare, less than 1%, at preschool age in children hospitalized for bronchiolitis caused mainly by respiratory syncytial virus at age less than 6 months.

Hospital LOS is associated with rhinovirus etiology of bronchiolitis. Our data call attention to the importance of both RSV and rhinovirus testing in clinical research.

Reduced FEV1 after bronchodilation was found in early adolescence after infant bronchiolitis, suggesting irreversible bronchial obstruction.

The application of White Rabbit precision time protocol (WR-PTP) in long-distance optical fiber links has been investigated. WR-PTP is an implementation of PTP in synchronous Ethernet optical fiber networks, originally intended for synchronization of equipment within a range of 10 km. This paper discusses the results and limitations of two implementations of WR-PTP in the existing communication fiber networks. A 950-km WR-PTP link was realized using unidirectional paths in a fiber pair between Espoo and Kajaani, Finland. The time transfer on this link was compared (after initial calibration) against a clock comparison by GPS precise point positioning (PPP). The agreement between the two methods remained within [Formula: see text] over three months of measurements. Another WR-PTP implementation was realized between Delft and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, by cascading two links of 137 km each. In this case, the WR links were realized as bidirectional paths in single fibers. The measured time offset between the starting and end points of the link was within 5 ns with an uncertainty of 8 ns, mainly due to the estimated delay asymmetry caused by chromatic dispersion.

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Cytokine and TLR4 polymorphisms and their association with the infection history of 129 children hospitalized for bronchiolitis during the first 6 months of life were analyzed. The carriers of IFNG +874 T/A allele A had fewer infections and use of inhaled corticosteroids and the carriers of TLR4+896 A/G allele G were more likely to need tympanostomy than noncarriers.