Risk assessment of mercury through dietary exposure in China.

Mercury (Hg) is a widespread heavy metal causing various damages to health, while insufficient studies assessed its exposure risk across China. This study explored concentrations in food items and dietary exposure risks across China by comprehensively analyzing the researches on total Hg (THg) in eight food items and methylmercury (MeHg) in aquatic foods published between 1980 and 2021. According to the included 695 studies, the average THg concentration in all food items was 0.033 mg/kg (ranging from 0.004 to 0.185 mg/kg), with the highest concentration in edible fungi. The average daily dietary THg exposure from all foods was 12.9 µg/day. Plant-based foods accounted for 62.7% of the dietary THg exposure. Cereals and vegetables were the primary source of THg exposure. The MeHg concentration in aquatic foods was 0.08 mg/kg, and the average dietary exposure was 3.8 µg/day. Monte Carlo simulations of the dietary exposure risk assessment of THg and MeHg showed that approximately 6.4 and 7.0% of residents exceeded the health-based guidance value set by the European Food Safety Authority, with higher exposure risk in Southwest and South China. The nationwide target hazard quotient index of THg was greater than 1, suggesting that the non-carcinogenic risk of dietary exposure to THg needed further concern. In summary, this study has a comprehensive understanding of dietary Hg exposure risks across China, which provide a data basis for Hg exposure risk assessment and policy formulation.

Comparison among different ASEAN water quality indices for the assessment of the spatial variation of surface water quality in the Selangor river basin, Malaysia.

The assessment of surface water quality is often laborious, expensive and tedious, as well as impractical, especially for the developing and middle-income countries in the ASEAN region. The application of the water quality index (WQI), which depends on several independent key parameters, has great potential and is a useful tool in this region. Therefore, this study aims to find out the spatial variability of various water quality parameters in geographical information system (GIS) environment and perform a comparative study among the ASEAN WQI systems. At present, there are four ASEAN countries which have implemented the WQI system to evaluate their surface water quality, which are (i) Own WQI system-Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam-and (ii) Adopted WQI system: Indonesia. A spatial distribution of 12 water quality parameters in the Selangor river basin, Malaysia, was plotted and then applied into the different ASEAN WQI systems. The WQI values obtained from the different WQI systems have an appreciable difference, even for the same water samples due to the disparity in the parameter selection and the standards among them. WQI systems which consider all biophysicochemical parameters provide a consistent evaluation (Very Poor), but the system which either considers physicochemical or biochemical parameters gives a relatively lenient evaluation (Fair-Poor). The Selangor river basin is stressed and impacted by all physical, biological and chemical parameters caused by both the aridity of the climate and anthropogenic activities. Therefore, it is crucial to include all these aspects into the evaluation and corresponding actions should be taken.

Assessment of combustion and emission behavior of corn straw biochar briquette fuels under different temperatures.

The 350 °C and 700 °C corn straw biochars were used to produce solid fuel briquettes. NovoGro (NG), an industrial by-product, were selected as a binder in the briquetting process. The ratios of the raw material to NG was assumed as 100:1 and 50:1 (denoted as 350NB1, 350NB2, 700NB1 and 700NB2, respectively). The physicochemical and morphological properties, combustion characteristics and gas emissions of the four briquettes were investigated. The results revealed that the biochars and the NG binder performed a good combination. The low temperature biochar briquettes, especially 350NB2, had excellent combustion characteristics, including low H/C and O/C ratios (0.17 and 0.82), low gas emissions (104.06 mg/m3 of CO, 157.25 mg/m3 of NOx and 18.92 mg/m3 of SO2), optimal resistance to mechanical shock (~90%) and high calorific values (21.48 MJ/kg). Thus, NG is a good binder for the briquetting of biochar. The low temperature biochar was a good feedstock for solid fuel production in the improvement of the combustion and emission quality.

Early detection and risk assessment for chronic disease with irregular longitudinal data analysis.

Early detection and risk assessment of complex chronic disease based on longitudinal clinical data is helpful for doctors to make early diagnosis and monitor the disease progression. Disease diagnosis with computer-aided methods has been extensively studied. However, early detection and contemporaneous risk assessment based on partially labeled irregular longitudinal measurements is relatively unexplored. In this paper, we propose a flexible mixed-kernel framework for training a contemporaneous disease risk detector to predict the onset of disease and monitor the disease progression. Moreover, we address the label insufficiency problem by identifying the pattern of disease-induced progression over time with longitudinal data. Our method is based on a Structured Output Support Vector Machine (SOSVM), extended to longitudinal data analysis. Extensive experiments are conducted on several datasets of varying complexity, including the contemporaneous risk assessment with simulated irregular longitudinal data; the identification of the onset of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) with irregularly sampled longitudinal RNA-Seq gene expression dataset; as well as the monitoring of the drug long-term effects on patients using longitudinal RNA-Seq dataset containing missing time points, demonstrating that our method enhances the accuracy in both early diagnosis and risk estimation with partially labeled irregular longitudinal clinical data.

Post-failure behavior analysis of the Shenzhen "12.20" CDW landfill landslide.

Since the 1990s, with rapid economic development and urbanization occurring in many countries, the amount of construction and demolition waste (CDW) has also increased. Landfills have become the most commonly used method of disposing of CDW. The safety of landfill slopes is very important. On December 20, 2015, a catastrophic landslide occurred in Shenzhen, Guangdong, Southeastern China. Seventy-seven people were killed, and 33 buildings were buried or damaged. In this paper, the Shenzhen 12.20 landslide is used as an example, and the characteristics of the landfill landslide's post-failure behavior are studied. The following conclusions are made: (1) According to our field investigations, the landslide's motion can be divided into the source area, the propagation area, and the accumulation area. During post-failure motion, loose saturated spoil, which experiences motion similar to that of a slurry flow, and water are the critical factors that cause slope failure and result in a long runout slide. (2) The DAN3D analysis method can satisfactorily reproduce the motion of the Shenzhen "12.20" landslide. (3) A Frictional model can be used for the simulation analysis of the source area. In addition, the Bingham model can be used for the fluidization simulation analysis of the propagation and accumulation areas of a CDW landslide. These conclusions can be used for scientific analysis of CDW landfill landslide hazard zoning and early monitoring and warnings.

[Influence of different treatment patterns on cost-effectiveness in treatment of acute myocardial infarction].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the influences of different treatment patterns on the cost-effectiveness in treating acute myocardial infarction (AMI). METHODS: Data about referral of AMI patients who called for help because of chest pain to the nearby hospitals from October 2003 to December 2005 were collected from the Guangzhou 120 Call Center. All these patients were followed up 6 months after discharge to survey the cost during hospitalization, major treatment, prognosis (death, re-infarction, stroke etc. ), and secondary prevention for coronary heart disease. We used SF-36 scale was used to quantify the health status. RESULTS: 101 AMI patients referred to grade 2 A hospitals (Group A) and 137 patients referred to grade 3 A hospitals (Group B) were successfully followed up. The cost during hospitalization of Group B was (33965 +/- 963) yuan RMB, significantly higher than that of Group A (18943 +/- 893) yuan, P = 0.021). 11 patients of Group B died, and 5 patients suffered from stroke with the mortality and stroke rate both significantly lower than those of Group A (18/101 and 12/101, P = 0.022, P = 0.015). There was no significant difference in the re-infarction rate between the 2 groups. The scores in physical function, general health status, vitality, social function, role-emotional, mental health of Group B were all significantly higher than those of Group A (all P < 0.05) , however, there were not significant differences in body pain and role-physical between these 2 groups. The smoking cessation rate, specialist outpatient department follow-up rate, statins use rate of Group B were significantly higher than those of Group A (P = 0.017, P = 0.016, P = 0.038). CONCLUSION: The 120-grade 3 A hospital CCU pattern is more cost-effective in treatment of AMI.