Tag: pubmed

Environ Int. 2021 Jun 5;155:106669. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2021.106669. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Residential airborne fungi may present obvious risk to human health. However, many countries do not recognize the necessarily need to control residential airborne culturable fungi (RAF). In China, few systemic investigations have been conducted to illustrate the distribution of residential airborne fungi and identify the association between indoor influencing variables and RAF under general living scenario in China.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate RAF with the on-site research of 12 typical cities in China, and provided the latest characteristics and potential influencing factors of RAF under general living scenario.

METHODS: We measured RAF and investigated residential characteristics in 12 typical cities in China, 2018. At least 50 resident families were randomly selected both from downwind and upwind districts in each city with pre-proposed requirements. The RAF were sampled by the six-stage Anderson impactor. PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ were monitored by calibrated light-scattering dust meters. CO and CO₂ were monitored by non-dispersive infrared analyzer method. NO₂ was determined by Saltzman method. General linear model was used to evaluate the association between RAF exposure and residential characteristics with adjustment for potential confounders.

RESULTS: The RAF concentrations ranged from 0 to 9371 CFU/m³ with a median concentration of 396 CFU/m³. The median concentrations of RAF in the warm season were statistically higher than the cold season in Panjin, Qingdao, Lanzhou and Luoyang, but lower than the cold season in Shijiazhuang, Ningbo and Nanning. RAF in the bedrooms were more than the living rooms in all cities except Xi’an. Temperature and humidity had an interactive effect on the RAF (OR = 1.0006, 95% CI: 1.0005, 1.0006). Some residential environmental pollutants, including PM_2.5 (OR = 0.9989, 95% CI: 0.9988, 0.9989), PM₁₀ (OR = 0.9993, 95% CI: 0.9993, 0.9993), and CO₂ (OR = 0.0236, 95% CI: 0.0230, 0.0243), were negatively correlated with RAF. CO (OR = 1.1450, 95% CI: 1.1433, 1.1467) and NO₂ (OR = 1.0026, 95% CI: 1.0024, 1.0028) were positively correlated with RAF. Architectural characteristics (sunlight exposure, building history, longitude, latitude, total living area, living floor, distance from the road, house type, the layers of window glass and decoration), family-related information (income) and lifestyle behaviors (keeping pets, growing plants, cooking, using insecticide, burning incense, heating, using air conditioner and cleaning frequencies) were also significantly related with RAF.

CONCLUSIONS: This study reported nation-wide baseline condition of RAF and related influencing factors under general living scenario with quantitative details, which are exceedingly promising for evidence-driven standard and reasonable control strategy of residential airborne culturable in China.

PMID:34102580 | DOI:10.1016/j.envint.2021.106669

J Clin Psychopharmacol. 2021 Jun 7. doi: 10.1097/JCP.0000000000001417. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Given the relative lack of psychiatric information and data on the perpetrators of US mass shootings, the aim of our study was to understand who these “mass shooters” were and whether they had a psychiatric illness. If so, were they competently diagnosed, and if so, were they treated with appropriate medication for their diagnoses before the violence?

METHODS: Because a prospective study of diagnosis and treatment could not, for obvious reasons, be carried out, we designed a retrospective, observational study of mass shooters, defined as those who killed 4 or more people with firearms between 1982 and 2012 or who killed 3 or more people with firearms between 2013 and 2019 in the United States. We used the Mother Jones database-a database of 115 persons identified as committing a mass shooting in the United States between January 1982 and September 2019. In the vast majority of the incidents identified in the database, the perpetrator died either during or shortly after the crime, leaving little reliable information about their history-especially psychiatric history. We focused on the 35 mass shooters who survived and for which legal proceedings were instituted because these cases presented the most reliable psychiatric information. For each of these 35 mass shootings, we interviewed forensic psychiatrists and forensic psychologists who examined the perpetrator after the crime and/or collected the testimony and reports by psychiatrist(s) at trial or in the postconviction proceedings contained in the court record. In addition, we reviewed available information from the court proceedings, public records, a videotaped interview of assailant by law enforcement, social media postings of the assailant, and writings of the assailant. After collecting the clinical information from multiple sources on each case to make a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, diagnosis, we also completed a Sheehan Diagnostic Scale. After this, 20 additional cases where the assailant died at the crime were randomly selected form the remaining 80, to determine whether there were differences in psychiatric diagnoses and treatment between such assailants and those who survived.

RESULTS: Twenty-eight of 35 cases in which the assailant survived had a psychiatric diagnosis-18 with schizophrenia, 3 with bipolar I disorders, 2 with delusional disorders, persecutory type, 2 with personality disorders (1 paranoid and 1 borderline), 2 with substance-related disorders without other psychiatric diagnoses, and 1 with posttraumatic stress disorder. Four had no psychiatric diagnosis, and in 3, we did not have enough information to make a diagnosis.Of 15 of 20 cases in which the assailant died, 8 had schizophrenia. None of those diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses were treated with medication.

CONCLUSIONS: A significant proportion of mass shooters experienced unmedicated and untreated psychiatric disorder.

PMID:34102649 | DOI:10.1097/JCP.0000000000001417

Blood Coagul Fibrinolysis. 2021 Jun 7. doi: 10.1097/MBC.0000000000001039. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Congenital factor XIII (FXIII) deficiency is one of the rarest bleeding disorders, with an incidence of one per 2 million persons. Intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), a major cause of mortality in FXIII deficiency, is reported to be associated with vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1). Therefore, we investigated the association of VEGF and TSP-1 expression and methylation patterns with ICH in congenital FXIII deficiency patients. This study was conducted on 40 participants with FXIII, 20 of whom experienced ICH (cases), and 20 who did not (controls). Methylation pattern, gene expression, and plasma protein level were assessed using bisulfite sequencing PCR, quantitative real-time PCR, and ELISA. We found a partially methylated pattern for both VEGF and TSP-1 (P > 0.05). VEGF mRNA levels of the case group were significantly higher than those of the control group (P < 0.05), whereas TSP-1 mRNA levels did not show significant upregulation (P > 0.05). Plasma VEGF and TSP-1 concentrations in the case group were higher, but not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Our findings showed no obvious correlation between VEGF or TSP-1 methylation patterns and expression, suggesting that their expression in FXIII deficiency may not solely be controlled by gene methylation.

PMID:34102652 | DOI:10.1097/MBC.0000000000001039

J Environ Manage. 2021 Jun 5;294:112973. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112973. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The dramatic increase in world population underpins current escalating food demand, which requires increased productivity in the available arable land through agricultural intensification. Agricultural intensification involves increased agrochemicals use to increase land productivity. Increased uses of agrochemicals pose environmental and ecological risks such as contamination and water eutrophication. Consequently, toxic metals accumulate in plant products, thus entering the food chain leading to health concerns. To achieve this study, secondary data from peer-reviewed papers, universities, and government authorities were collected from a public database using Tanzania as a case study. Data from Science Direct, Web of Science, and other internet sources were gathered using specific keywords such as nutrient saturation and losses, water eutrophication, potentially toxic metal (PTEs), and impact of toxic metals on soils, water, and food safety. The reported toxic metal concentrations in agro-ecosystem worldwide are linked to agricultural intensification, mining, and urbanization. Statistical analysis of secondary data collected from East African agro-ecosystem had wide range of toxic metals concentration such as; mercury (0.001-11.0 mg Hg/kg), copper (0.14-312 mg Cu/kg), cadmium (0.02-13.8 mg Cd/kg), zinc (0.27-19.30 mg Zn/kg), lead (0.75-51.7 mg Pb/kg) and chromium (19.14-34.9 mg Cr/kg). In some cases, metal concentrations were above the FAO/WHO maximum permissible limits for soil health. To achieve high agricultural productivity and environmental safety, key research-informed policy needs are proposed: (i) development of regulatory guidelines for agrochemicals uses, (ii) establishment of agro-environmental quality indicators for soils and water assessment to monitor agro-ecosystem quality changes, and (iii) adoption of best farming practices such as split fertilization, cover cropping, reduced tillage, drip irrigation to ensure crop productivity and agro-ecosystem sustainability. Therefore, robust and representative evaluation of current soil contamination status, sources, and processes leading to pollution are paramount. To achieve safe and sustainable food production, management of potential toxic metal in agro-ecosystems is vital.

PMID:34102465 | DOI:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112973

J Environ Manage. 2021 Jun 5;294:112986. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112986. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

We present Flood-SHE, a data-driven, statistically-based procedure for the delineation of areas expected to be inundated by river floods. We applied Flood-SHE in the 23 River Basin Authorities (RBAs) in Italy using information on the presence or absence of inundations obtained from existing flood zonings as the dependent variable, and six hydro-morphometric variables computed from a 10 m × 10 m DEM as covariates. We trained 96 models for each RBA using 32 combinations of the hydro-morphometric covariates for the three return periods, for a total of 2208 models, which we validated using 32 model sets for each of the covariate combinations and return periods, for a total of 3072 validation models. In all the RBAs, Flood-SHE delineated accurately potentially inundated areas that matched closely the corresponding flood zonings defined by physically-based hydro-dynamic flood routing and inundation models. Flood-SHE delineated larger to much larger areas as potentially subject of being inundated than the physically-based models, depending on the quality of the flood information. Analysis of the sites with flood human consequences revealed that the new data-driven inundation zones are good predictors of flood risk to the population of Italy. Our experiment confirmed that a small number of hydro-morphometric terrain variables is sufficient to delineate accurate inundation zonings in a variety of physiographical settings, opening to the possibility of using Flood-SHE in other areas. We expect the new data-driven inundation zonings to be useful where flood zonings built on hydrological modelling are not available, and to decide where improved flood hazard zoning is needed.

PMID:34102469 | DOI:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112986

Ophthalmol Retina. 2021 Jun 5:S2468-6530(21)00177-9. doi: 10.1016/j.oret.2021.06.001. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Investigate clinical and morphologic characteristics of serous retinal disturbances in patients taking extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) inhibitors.

PARTICIPANTS: Of 61 patients receiving ERK inhibitors for treatment of metastatic cancer, this study included 40 eyes of 20 patients with evidence of retinopathy confirmed by optical coherence tomography (OCT).

DESIGN: Single center, retrospective study of prospectively collected data METHODS: Clinical exam, fundus photography and OCT were used to evaluate ERK inhibitor retinopathy. The morphology, distribution and location of fluid foci were serially evaluated for each eye. Visual acuity and choroidal thickness measurements were compared at baseline, fluid accumulation and resolution.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Characteristcs of treatment-emergent choroid and retinal OCT abnormalities as compared to baseline OCT, and the impact of toxicity on visual acuity and final visual acuity.

RESULTS: Of 20 patients with retinopathy the majority of patients had fluid foci that were bilateral (100%), multifocal in each eye (75%) and at least one focus involving the fovea (95%). All subretinal fluid foci occurred between the interdigitation zone and an intact retinal pigment epithelium. There was no statistical difference in choroidal thickness at fluid accumulation and resolution compared to baseline. 45% eyes had evidence of concomitant intraretinal edema localized to the outer nuclear layer. At the time of fluid accumulation, 57.5% eyes had a decline in visual acuity (mainly by 1-2 lines from baseline). For all eyes with follow-up, the subretinal fluid and intraretinal edema was reversible and resolved without medical intervention; and best-corrected visual acuity at fluid resolution was not statistically different from baseline. Concomitant intraretinal fluid was not associated with worsening of visual acuity. No patient discontinued or decreased drug dose on account of their retinopathy.

CONCLUSION: This study shows ERK inhibitors may cause subretinal fluid foci with unique clinical and morphologic characteristics. The observed foci are similar to MEK inhibitor associated retinopathy and distinct from central serous chorioretinopathy. However, unlike MEK inhibitors, there appears to be an increased occurrence of concomitant intraretinal fluid without significant additive visual impact. In this series, ERK inhibitors did not cause irreversible loss of vision or serious eye damage: retinopathy was self-limited and did not require medical intervention.

PMID:34102344 | DOI:10.1016/j.oret.2021.06.001

Animal. 2021 Jun 4;15(7):100269. doi: 10.1016/j.animal.2021.100269. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Understanding broiler behaviours provides important implications for animal well-being and farm management. The objectives of this study were to classify specific broiler behaviours by analysing data from wearable accelerometers using two machine learning models, K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Lightweight triaxial accelerometers were used to record accelerations of nine 7-week-old broilers at a sampling frequency of 40 Hz. A total of 261.6-min data were labelled for four behaviours – walking, resting, feeding and drinking. Instantaneous motion features including magnitude area, vector magnitude, movement variation, energy, and entropy were extracted and stored in a dataset which was then segmented by one of the six window lengths (1, 3, 5, 7, 10 and 20 s) with 50% overlap between consecutive windows. The mean, variation, SD, minimum and maximum of each instantaneous motion feature and two-way correlations of acceleration data were calculated within each window, yielding a total of 43 statistic features for training and testing of machine learning models. Performance of the models was evaluated using pure behaviour datasets (single behaviour type per dataset) and continuous behaviour datasets (continuous recording that involved multiple behaviour types per dataset). For pure behaviour datasets, both KNN and SVM models showed high sensitivities in classifying broiler resting (87% and 85%, respectively) and walking (99% and 99%, respectively). The accuracies of SVM were higher than KNN in differentiating feeding (88% and 75%, respectively) and drinking (83% and 62%, respectively) behaviours. Sliding window with 1-s length yielded the best performance for classifying continuous behaviour datasets. The performance of classification model generally improved as more birds were included for training. In conclusion, classification of specific broiler behaviours can be achieved by recording bird triaxial accelerations and analysing acceleration data through machine learning. Performances of different machine learning models differ in classifying specific broiler behaviours.

PMID:34102430 | DOI:10.1016/j.animal.2021.100269

Photodiagnosis Photodyn Ther. 2021 Jun 5:102383. doi: 10.1016/j.pdpdt.2021.102383. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the effect of intravitreal aflibercept injection on macular ganglion cell complex (GCC) in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD).

METHODS: In total, 36 eyes of 36 treatment-naïve patients with nAMD (18 female and 18 male) and 36 eyes of 36 healthy subjects (20 female and 16 male) as controls were included in this retrospective study. Spectral-domain optical coherence tomography images were evaluated after each injection for 3 months and at 12 months. Mean GCC thickness of the center, inner ring, and outer ring of the ETDRS grid was automatically quantified.

RESULTS: Mean foveal thickness was statistically significantly decreased at 3 months and at 12 months compared with baseline in the patient group. Ganglion cell layer thickness in the center was statistically significantly decreased in eyes with nAMD at baseline. There was a statistically significant decrease for mean retinal nerve fiber layer, ganglion cell layer, and inner plexiform layer thickness at 12 months compared with baseline.

CONCLUSIONS: Macular GCC thickness was decreased after intravitreal aflibercept injection in patients with nAMD, in particular at 12 months.

PMID:34102332 | DOI:10.1016/j.pdpdt.2021.102383

Environ Res. 2021 Jun 5:111354. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2021.111354. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and the major dietary patterns among urbanized Tibetans are unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the prevalence of MetS among Jiarong Tibetans in Aba Plateau, identify the major dietary patterns, and evaluate their association with the risk of MetS. In this cross-sectional study on 476 subjects, 18-80-years-old, dietary intakes were evaluated using a simplified food frequency questionnaire (SFFQ). MetS was defined according to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) guidelines. Principal component analysis was performed to assess the major dietary patterns. Multivariate logistic regression analysis examined the associations between dietary patterns and the risk of MetS. The prevalence of Mets in the population was 37.6%. Herein, three major dietary patterns were extracted: traditional Tibetan, urbanized, and healthy dietary patterns. After adjusting for potential confounders (Model 1: adjusted for sex and age; Model 2: adjusted for sex, age, smoking status, drinking situation, physical activity level and total energy intake), subjects in the highest tertile of the healthy dietary had a lower risk of MetS compared to those from the lowest tertile. Also, no significant statistical association was established between the risk of MetS and the traditional Tibetan and urbanized diet.

PMID:34102164 | DOI:10.1016/j.envres.2021.111354

Transfus Clin Biol. 2021 Jun 5:S1246-7820(21)00082-3. doi: 10.1016/j.tracli.2021.05.011. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The rate and trend of transfusion transmissible infections (TTIs) in blood donations from 2012 to 2017 at the Bamenda Regional Hospital Blood Service (BRHBS), Cameroon was assessed.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A six-year retrospective study was conducted by reviewing the records of donors. Blood was screened for HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and syphilis. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 21. Differences in seropositivity rates for the four TTIs were analyzed using Chi-squared test or Fisher’s exact test where appropriate. Associations between sociodemographic characteristics and the TTIs markers were assessed using multiple logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS: A total of 12,115 blood donations was included in the study and of these, the overall seropositivity rate of the four conventional TTIs markers was 10.5% (n=1,273). Of the seropositive cases, 23.8% (n=303) showed reactivity with at least two of the markers combined. When the markers were assessed individually, HBsAg recorded the highest seropositivity rate (4.7%), followed by anti-HIV and anti-syphilis (2.2%), then anti-HCV (1.7%). A significant decrease in the trend of the combined serological markers, HBsAg and anti-syphilis was observed over the years (p≤0.05).

CONCLUSION: There is a decrease in seropositivity rates of TTIs markers in this blood service. Ongoing efforts toward the prevention of these infections is encouraged and should be intensified to improve blood safety.

PMID:34102320 | DOI:10.1016/j.tracli.2021.05.011