Attributable deaths in Austria due to ozone under different climate scenarios.

Tropospheric ozone is an air pollutant that poses a public health problem in Europe. Climate change could increase the formation of ozone. Applying past and predicted annual total (all-cause) mortality data and modeled daily ozone concentrations, we performed a nationwide health impact assessment estimating annual ozone-related (attributable) deaths in Austria. Different approaches were compared. Estimates were based on maximal 1-h averages of ozone. Until the decade from 2045 till 2055, more people will die in Austria because of the demographic trends. Therefore, more deaths will also be attributable to ozone. Higher greenhouse gas emission scenarios (e.g. Representative Concentration Pathway RCP8.5 compared to RCP2.6) will lead to more ozone-related deaths, mostly due to the national emission of ozone precursors (a difference of 250-340 cases per year, depending on the model), but to a lesser extent because of global climate change. Increases in attributable deaths will be affected mostly by national, not global mitigation measures. National emission reduction will certainly have a strong and beneficial effect on local atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and public health.

Impact of high (1950 MHz) and extremely low (50 Hz) frequency electromagnetic fields on DNA damage caused by occupationally relevant exposures in human derived cell lines.

Epidemiological studies indicate that electromagnetic fields (EMF) are associated with cancer in humans. Exposure to mobile phone specific high frequency fields (HF-EMF) may lead to increased glioma risks, while low frequency radiation (LF-EMF) is associated with childhood leukemia. We studied the impact of HF-EMF (1950 MHz, UMTS signal) on DNA stability in an astrocytoma cell line (1321N1), and the effect of LF-EMF (50 Hz) in human derived lymphoma (Jurkat) cells. To find out if these fields affect chemically induced DNA damage, co-exposure experiments were performed. The cells were exposed to HF-EMF or LF-EMF and treated simultaneously and sequentially with mutagens. The compounds cause DNA damage via different molecular mechanisms, i.e. pyrimidine dimers which are characteristic for UV light (4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide, 4NQO), bulky base adducts (benzo[a]pyrene diolepoxide, BPDE), DNA-DNA and DNA-protein cross links and oxidative damage (NiCl2, CrO3). DNA damage was measured in single cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assays. We found a moderate reduction of basal and 4NQO-induced DNA damage in the astrocytoma line, but no significant alterations of chemically induced DNA migration by the HF and LF fields under all other experimental series. The biological consequences of the moderate reduction remain unclear, but our findings indicate that acute mobile phone and power line specific EMF exposures do not enhance genotoxic effects caused by occupationally relevant chemical exposures.

Microplastics: Omnipresent and an ongoing challenge for medical science.

Micro- and nanoplastics are omnipresent not only in the environment, but have also been detected in human body fluids and tissue. The subsequent commentary provides a perspective about potential risks for human health as well as resulting challenges for medical science.

Mobile phone specific radiation disturbs cytokinesis and causes cell death but not acute chromosomal damage in buccal cells: Results of a controlled human intervention study.

Several human studies indicate that mobile phone specific electromagnetic fields may cause cancer in humans but the underlying molecular mechanisms are currently not known. Studies concerning chromosomal damage (which is causally related to cancer induction) are controversial and those addressing this issue in mobile phone users are based on the use of questionnaires to assess the exposure. We realized the first human intervention trial in which chromosomal damage and acute toxic effects were studied under controlled conditions. The participants were exposed via headsets at one randomly assigned side of the head to low and high doses of a UMTS signal (n = 20, to 0.1 W/kg and n = 21 to 1.6 W/kg Specific Absorption Rate) for 2 h on 5 consecutive days. Before and three weeks after the exposure, buccal cells were collected from both cheeks and micronuclei (MN, which are formed as a consequence of structural and numerical chromosomal aberrations) and other nuclear anomalies reflecting mitotic disturbance and acute cytotoxic effects were scored. We found no evidence for induction of MN and of nuclear buds which are caused by gene amplifications, but a significant increase of binucleated cells which are formed as a consequence of disturbed cell divisions, and of karyolitic cells, which are indicative for cell death. No such effects were seen in cells from the less exposed side. Our findings indicate that mobile phone specific high frequency electromagnetic fields do not cause acute chromosomal damage in oral mucosa cells under the present experimental conditions. However, we found clear evidence for disturbance of the cell cycle and cytotoxicity. These effects may play a causal role in the induction of adverse long term health effects in humans.

Mathematical expression recognition using a new deep neural model.

In this paper, we propose a novel deep neural model for Mathematical Expression Recognition (MER). The proposed model uses encoder-decoder transformer architecture that is supported by additional pre/post-processing modules, to recognize the image of mathematical formula and convert it to a well-formed language. A novel pre-processing module based on domain prior knowledge is proposed to generate random pads around the formula's image to create more efficient feature maps and keeps all the encoder neurons active during the training process. Also, a new post-processing module is developed which uses a sliding window to extract additional position-based information from the feature map, that is proved to be useful in the recognition process. The recurrent decoder module uses the combination of feature maps and the additional position-based information, which takes advantage of a soft attention mechanism, to extract the formula context into the LaTeX well-formed language. Finally, a novel Reinforcement Learning (RL) module processes the decoder output and tunes its results by sending proper feedbacks to the previous steps. The experimental results on im2latex-100k benchmark dataset indicate that each devised pre/post-processing as well as the RL refinement module has a positive effect on the performance of the proposed model. The results also demonstrate the higher accuracy of the proposed model compared to the state-of-the-art methods.

Impact of mobile phone-specific electromagnetic fields on DNA damage caused by occupationally relevant exposures: results of ex vivo experiments with peripheral blood mononuclear cells from different demographic groups.

The aim of this study was to investigate if age and body mass of humans have an impact on the DNA-damaging properties of high-frequency mobile phone-specific electromagnetic fields (HF-EMF, 1950 MHz, universal mobile telecommunications system, UMTS signal) and if this form of radiation has an impact on the genotoxic effects of occupationally relevant exposures. Pooled peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from three groups [young normal weight, young obese (YO), and older age normal weight individuals] were exposed to different doses of HF-EMF (0.25, 0.5, and 1.0 W/kg specific absorption rate-SAR) and simultaneously or sequentially to different chemicals which cause DNA damage (CrO3, NiCl2, benzo[a]pyrene diol epoxide-BPDE, and 4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide-4NQO) via different molecular mechanisms. We found no difference in regard to the background values in the three groups but a significant increase of DNA damage (81% without and 36% with serum) in cells from old participants after radiation with 1.0 W/kg SAR 16 h. In combined treatment experiments we found no impact of the UMTS signal on chemically induced DNA damage in the different groups in general. However, a moderate decrease of DNA damage was seen in simultaneous treatment experiments with BPDE and 1.0 W/kg SAR in the YO group (decline 18%). Taken together our findings indicate that HF-EMF cause DNA damage in PBMC from older subjects (69.1 years). Furthermore, they show that the radiation does not increase induction of DNA damage by occupationally relevant chemicals.

Unexpected air pollutants with potential human health hazards: Nitrification inhibitors, biocides, and persistent organic substances.

To better understand the influence of land use and meteorological parameters on air pollutants, we deployed passive air samplers in 15 regions with different land use in eastern Austria. The samplers consisted of polyurethane PUF and polyester PEF filter matrices, which were analyzed for 566 substances by gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry. In a previous article, we highlighted a widespread contamination of ambient air with pesticides that depends on the surrounding land use and meteorological parameters. Here we report that, in addition to agricultural pesticides, eight other substances were frequently detected in ambient air: Nitrapyrin, a nitrification inhibitor used to increase nitrogen use efficiency of fertilizers and banned in Austria since 1993; biocides against insects (DEET and transfluthrin) used mainly outside agriculture; piperonyl butoxide (PBO), a synergist mixed into pesticide formulations; and four industrially used polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), long banned worldwide. Concentrations of the detected substances were positively related to air temperature, but only slightly related to agricultural land use in the sampler's vicinity. The city center showed the highest concentrations of biocides, PCBs and PBO, but also medium concentrations of nitrapyrin. Four sites had no air contamination with these substances; including two national parks dominated by grassland or forest, but also two sites with mixed land use. The potential human toxicity of the detected substances based on globally harmonized hazard classifications was high: seven substances had specific organ toxicity, six were cancerogenic, and two were acutely toxic; however, several substances had incomplete information of hazard profiles. Moreover, all substances were acutely and chronically toxic to aquatic life. We recommend that substances of different origins be included in the air pollution monitoring portfolio to comprehensively assess the potential hazards to humans and the environment.

[The climate crisis as an ethical challenge]. / Die Klimakrise als ethische Herausforderung.

Climate change is a threat to health and social security of billions of people. Health and quality of life are increasingly affected in many ways due to the climate crisis. Rising global temperatures are resulting in increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather events, contributing to further increase in inequality, discrimination, and injustice overall and in health care specifically. Furthermore, climatic conditions are also becoming increasingly suitable for the transmission of infectious diseases and their spread into new regions. Socio-economically disadvantaged regions with weak health infrastructure (e.g. Global South) will be hardly able to cope without specific support. The overriding imperative is to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from transport, energy and food production at global, national and regional levels to mitigate negative health impacts. The 2015 Paris Agreement must also be seen as crucial health agreement. Our paper aims to highlight ethical aspects of climate change in the health sector.

Pesticides in ambient air, influenced by surrounding land use and weather, pose a potential threat to biodiversity and humans.

Little is known about (i) how numbers and concentrations of airborne pesticide residues are influenced by land use, interactions with meteorological parameters, or by substance-specific chemo-physical properties, and (ii) what potential toxicological hazards this could pose to non-target organisms including humans. We installed passive air samplers (polyurethane PUF and polyester PEF filter matrices) in 15 regions with different land uses in eastern Austria for up to 8 months. Samples were analyzed for 566 substances by gas-chromatography/mass-spectrometry. We analyzed relationships between frequency and concentrations of pesticides, land use, meteorological parameters, substance properties, and season. We found totally 67 pesticide active ingredients (24 herbicides, 30 fungicides, 13 insecticides) with 10-53 pesticides per site. Herbicides metolachlor, pendimethalin, prosulfocarb, terbuthylazine, and the fungicide HCB were found in all PUF samplers, and glyphosate in all PEF samplers; chlorpyrifos-ethyl was the most abundant insecticide found in 93% of the samplers. Highest concentrations showed the herbicide prosulfocarb (725 ± 1218 ng sample-1), the fungicide folpet (412 ± 465 ng sample-1), and the insecticide chlorpyrifos-ethyl (110 ± 98 ng sample-1). Pesticide numbers and concentrations increased with increasing proportions of arable land in the surroundings. However, pesticides were also found in two National Parks (10 and 33 pesticides) or a city center (17 pesticides). Pesticide numbers and concentrations changed between seasons and correlated with land use, temperature, radiation, and wind, but were unaffected by substance volatility. Potential ecotoxicological exposure of mammals, birds, earthworms, fish, and honeybees increased with increasing pesticide numbers and concentrations. Human toxicity potential of detected pesticides was high, with averaged 54% being acutely toxic, 39% reproduction toxic, 24% cancerogenic, and 10% endocrine disrupting. This widespread pesticide air pollution indicates that current environmental risk assessments, field application techniques, protective measures, and regulations are inadequate to protect the environment and humans from potentially harmful exposure.

COVID-19 and air pollution in Vienna-a time series approach.

We performed a time series analysis in Vienna, Austria, investigating the temporal association between daily air pollution (nitrogen dioxide, NO2 and particulate matter smaller than 10 µm, PM10) concentration and risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and death. Data covering about 2 months (March-April 2020) were retrieved from public databases. Infection risk was defined as the ratio between infected and infectious. In a separate sensitivity analysis different models were applied to estimate the number of infectious people per day. The impact of air pollution was assessed through a linear regression on the natural logarithm of infection risk. Risk of COVID-19 mortality was estimated by Poisson regression. Both pollutants were positively correlated with the risk of infection with the coefficient for NO2 being 0.032 and for PM10 0.014. That association was significant for the irritant gas (p = 0.012) but not for particles (p = 0.22). Pollutants did not affect COVID-19-related mortality. The study findings might have wider implications on an interaction between air pollution and infectious agents.

Correlative SEM-Raman microscopy to reveal nanoplastics in complex environments.

Nowadays "microplastics" (MPs) is an already well-known term and results of micro-sized particles found in consumer products or environments are regularly reported. However, studies of native MPs smaller than 1 µm, often referred to as nanoplastics (NPs), in analytically challenging environments are rare. In this study, a correlative approach between scanning electron microscopy and Raman microscopy is tested to meet the challenges of finding and identifying NPs in the 100 nm range in various environments, ranging from ideal (distilled water) to challenging (sea salt, human amniotic fluid). To test the viability of this approach in principle, standardized polystyrene beads (Ø 200 nm) are mixed into the various environments in different concentrations. Promising detection limits of 2 10-3 µg/L (distilled water), 20 µg/L (sea salt) and 200 µg/L (human amniotic fluid) are found. To test the approach in practices both sea salt and amniotic fluid are analysed for native NPs as well. Interestingly a nylon-NP was found in the amniotic fluid, maybe originating from the sampling device. However, the practical test reveals limitations, especially with regard to the reliable identification of unknown NPs by Raman microscopy, due to strong background signals from the environments. We conclude from this in combination with the excellent performance in distilled water that a combination of this approach with an advanced sample preparation technique would yield a powerful tool for the analysis of NPs in various environments.

Health Symptoms Related to Pesticide Use in Farmers and Laborers of Ecological and Conventional Banana Plantations in Ecuador.

Conventional banana farming is pesticide-intensive and leads to high exposure of farmworkers. Ecuador is the world's biggest exporter of bananas. In this field study in 5 communities in Ecuador, we recorded potentially pesticide-associated subjective health symptoms in farmworkers and compared pesticide users to workers in organic farming. With one exception, symptom rates were always higher in the pesticide-exposed group. Significance was reached in 8 out of 19 investigated symptoms with the highest odds ratios (and smallest p-values) for local irritation like skin and eye irritation (OR = 3.58, CI 1.10-11.71, and 4.10, CI 1.37-12.31, respectively) as well as systemic symptoms like dizziness (OR = 4.80, CI 1.55-14.87) and fatigue (OR = 4.96, CI 1.65-14.88). Moreover, gastrointestinal symptoms were reported more frequently by pesticide users: nausea (OR = 7.5, CI 1.77-31.77) and diarrhea (OR = 6.43, CI 1.06-30.00). The majority of farmworkers were not adequately protected from pesticide exposure. For example, only 3 of 31 farmworkers that had used pesticides recently reported using gloves and only 6 reported using masks during active spraying. Improved safety measures and a reduction in pesticide use are necessary to protect the health of banana farmworkers.

Air Pollution Is Associated with COVID-19 Incidence and Mortality in Vienna, Austria.

We determined the impact of air pollution on COVID-19-related mortality and reported-case incidence, analyzing the correlation of infection case numbers and outcomes with previous-year air pollution data from the populations of 23 Viennese districts. Time at risk started in a district when the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed. High exposure levels were defined as living in a district with an average (year 2019) concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and/or particulate matter (PM10) higher than the upper quartile (30 and 20 µg/m3, respectively) of all districts. The total population of the individual districts was followed until diagnosis of or death from COVID-19, or until 21 April 2020, whichever came first. Cox proportional hazard regression was performed after controlling for percentage of population aged 65 and more, percentage of foreigners and of persons with a university degree, unemployment rate, and population density. PM10 and NO2 were significantly and positively associated with the risk of a COVID-19 diagnosis (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.44 and 1.16, respectively). NO2 was also significantly associated with death from COVID-19 (HR = 1.72). Even within a single city, higher levels of air pollution are associated with an adverse impact on COVID-19 risk.

Perfluoroctanoic acid (PFOA) enhances NOTCH-signaling in an angiogenesis model of placental trophoblast cells.

Exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) was found to be associated with several pathological endpoints, including high cholesterol levels, specific defective functions of the immune system and reduced birth weight. While environmental PFAS have been recognized as threats for public health, surprisingly little is known about the underlying mechanisms of toxicity. We hypothesized that some of the observed vascular and developmental effects of environmental PFAS may share a common molecular pathway. At elevated levels of exposure to PFAS, a reduction in mean birth weight of newborns has been observed in combination with a high incidence rate of preeclampsia. As both, preeclampsia and reduced birth weight are consequences of an inadequate placental vascularization, we hypothesized that the adaptation of placental vasculature may get compromised by PFAS. We analyzed pseudo-vascular network formation and protein expression in the HTR8/SVneo cell line, an embryonic trophoblast cell type that is able to form vessel-like vascular networks in 3D-matrices, similar to endothelial cells. PFOA (perfluoroctanoic acid), but not PFOS (perfuoroctanesulfonic acid), induced morphological changes in the vascular 3D-network structure, without indications of compromised cellular viability. Incubation with PFOA reduced cellular sprouting and elongated isolated stalks in pseudo-vascular networks, while a γ-secretase inhibitor BMS-906024 induced directional opposite effects. We found a PFOA-induced increase in NOTCH intracellular domain (NICD) abundance in HTR8/SVneo, indicating that PFOA enhances NOTCH-signaling in this cell type. Enhancement of NOTCH-pathway by PFOA may be a key to understand the mode of action of PFAS, as this pathway is critically involved in many confirmed physiological/toxicological symptoms associated with PFAS exposure.

Time Course of COVID-19 Cases in Austria.

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus, which first appeared in China in late 2019, and reached pandemic distribution in early 2020. The first major outbreak in Europe occurred in Northern Italy where it spread to neighboring countries, notably to Austria, where skiing resorts served as a main transmission hub. Soon, the Austrian government introduced strict measures to curb the spread of the virus. Using publicly available data, we assessed the efficiency of the governmental measures. We assumed an average incubation period of one week and an average duration of infectivity of 10 days. One week after the introduction of strict measures, the increase in daily new cases was reversed, and the reproduction number dropped. The crude estimates tended to overestimate the reproduction rate in the early phase. Publicly available data provide a first estimate about the effectiveness of public health measures. However, more data are needed for an unbiased assessment.

Nitrogen-Dioxide Remains a Valid Air Quality Indicator.

In epidemiological studies, both spatial and temporal variations in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are a robust predictor of health risks. Compared to particulate matter, the experimental evidence for harmful effects at typical ambient concentrations is less extensive and not as clear for NO2. In the wake of the "Diesel emission scandal-Dieselgate", the scientific basis of current limit values for ambient NO2 concentrations was attacked by industry lobbyists. It was argued that associations between NO2 levels and medical endpoints were not causal, as NO2 in older studies served as a proxy for aggressive particulate matter from incineration processes. With the introduction of particle filters in diesel cars, NO2 would have lost its meaning as a health indicator. Austria has a high percentage of diesel-powered cars (56%). If, indeed, associations between NO2 concentrations and health risks in previous studies were only due to older engines without a particle filter, we should expect a reduction in effect estimates over time as an increasing number of diesel cars on the roads were outfitted with particle filters. In previous time series studies from Vienna over shorter time intervals, we have demonstrated distributed lag effects over days up to two weeks and previous day effects of NO2 on total mortality. In a simplified model, we now assess the effect estimates for moving 5-year periods from the beginning of NO2 monitoring in Vienna (1987) until the year 2018 of same and previous day NO2 on total daily mortality. Contrary to industry claims of a spurious, no longer valid indicator function of NO2, effect estimates remained fairly stable, indicating an increase in total mortality of previous day NO2 by 0.52% (95% CI: 0.35-0.7%) per 10 µg/m3 change in NO2 concentration.

Impact of air pollution on symptom severity during the birch, grass and ragweed pollen period in Vienna, Austria: Importance of O3 in 2010-2018.

Air pollution is a threat to the general population, especially to pollen allergy sufferers in urban environments. Different air quality parameters have hitherto been examined which add to the burden of pollen allergy sufferers. Parameters such as NO2, SO2, PM10, PM2.5, and O3 are supposed to have additional impact, not only on health in general (increase in asthma, allergy sensitization frequency), but also on pollen grains (increase of allergenicity). However, it remains unknown if those air quality parameters increase symptom severity during the pollen season. We selected the birch, grass, and ragweed pollen seasons as different time periods throughout the year and analyzed the relationship of symptom data to pollen, air quality, and meteorological data (temperature, relative humidity) for the metropolis of Vienna (Austria). A linear regression model was computed based on different symptom data, and both pollen and air quality data were tested simultaneously. Ozone was positively and significantly associated with symptom scores in all three seasons, whereas this was only rarely the case with other pollutants. Therefore, only ozone was selected for further analysis in a model including meteorological parameters. In this model, effect estimates of ozone were attenuated but remained significant for the grass pollen season. The lack of significance in the other seasons may be attributed to the less numerous symptom data entries and the shorter duration of the pollen seasons for birch and ragweed. All other air quality parameters usually showed lower concentrations during the pollen seasons and displayed little variation. This might explain the lack of a clear signal. Our results suggest that today's allergic population is already affected by air quality (rising O3 levels). Air quality should be considered as well in pollen information and pollen allergy studies in general because of its increasing importance in the light of global warming.

Clinical presentation of young people (10-24 years old) with brain tumors: results from the international MOBI-Kids study.

INTRODUCTION: We used data from MOBI-Kids, a 14-country international collaborative case-control study of brain tumors (BTs), to study clinical characteristics of the tumors in older children (10 years or older), adolescents and young adults (up to the age of 24). METHODS: Information from clinical records was obtained for 899 BT cases, including signs and symptoms, symptom onset, diagnosis date, tumor type and location. RESULTS: Overall, 64% of all tumors were low-grade, 76% were neuroepithelial tumors and 62% gliomas. There were more males than females among neuroepithelial and embryonal tumor cases, but more females with meningeal tumors. The most frequent locations were cerebellum (22%) and frontal (16%) lobe. The most frequent symptom was headaches (60%), overall, as well as for gliomas, embryonal and 'non-neuroepithelial' tumors; it was convulsions/seizures for neuroepithelial tumors other than glioma, and visual signs and symptoms for meningiomas. A cluster analysis showed that headaches and nausea/vomiting was the only combination of symptoms that exceeded a cutoff of 50%, with a joint occurrence of 67%. Overall, the median time from first symptom to diagnosis was 1.42 months (IQR 0.53-4.80); it exceeded 1 year in 12% of cases, though no particular symptom was associated with exceptionally long or short delays. CONCLUSIONS: This is the largest clinical epidemiology study of BT in young people conducted so far. Many signs and symptoms were identified, dominated by headaches and nausea/vomiting. Diagnosis was generally rapid but in 12% diagnostic delay exceeded 1 year with none of the symptoms been associated with a distinctly long time until diagnosis.

Indicators of Genotoxicity in Farmers and Laborers of Ecological and Conventional Banana Plantations in Ecuador.

Banana farming represents an important segment of agricultural production in Ecuador. The health of farmworkers might be compromised by the extensive use of pesticides in plantations applied under poorly regulated conditions. Due to an increased awareness of pesticide-related problems for nature, as well as for worker and consumer health, ecological farming has been established in some plantations of Ecuador. We set out to investigate the occupational health of workers in both conventional and ecological farming. Nuclear anomalies in buccal epithelial cells were used as short-term indicators for genotoxicity and a potentially increased cancer risk in the two groups of farmworkers. By application of the Buccal Micronucleus Cytome Assay (BMCA), we found the frequency of micronuclei in conventional pesticide using farmworkers significantly increased by 2.6-fold, and other nuclear anomalies significantly increased by 24% to 80% (except pyknosis with a non-significant increase of 11%) compared to the farmworkers on ecological plantations. These results demonstrate that ecological farming may provide an alternative to extensive pesticide use with significantly reduced indicators of cancer risk. In conventional farming, improvements in education and instruction regarding the safe handling of pesticides and protective equipment, as well as regulatory measures, are urgently needed.