Regulation Mechanism and Potential Value of Active Substances in Spices in Alcohol-Liver-Intestine Axis Health.

Excessive alcohol intake will aggravate the health risk between the liver and intestine and affect the multi-directional information exchange of metabolites between host cells and microbial communities. Because of the side effects of clinical drugs, people tend to explore the intervention value of natural drugs on diseases. As a flavor substance, spices have been proven to have medicinal value, but they are still rare in treating hepatointestinal diseases caused by alcohol. This paper summarized the metabolic transformation of alcohol in the liver and intestine and summarized the potential value of various perfume active substances in improving liver and intestine diseases caused by alcohol. It is also found that bioactive substances in spices can exert antioxidant activity in the liver and intestine environment and reduce the oxidative stress caused by diseases. These substances can interfere with fatty acid synthesis, promote sugar and lipid metabolism, and reduce liver injury caused by steatosis. They can effectively regulate the balance of intestinal flora, promote the production of SCFAs, and restore the intestinal microenvironment.

External quality assessment for molecular detection of Ureaplasma urealyticum in China.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: A pilot external quality assessment (EQA) scheme for molecular detection of Ureaplasma urealyticum (UU) was conducted by the National Center for Clinical Laboratories (NCCL) to evaluate the testing capabilities of clinical laboratories and the actual performance of DNA-based nucleic acid amplification tests (NAAT) and RNA-based NAATs when applied in clinical settings. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The EQA panel contained twelve lyophilized samples, including positive samples containing inactivated cell culture supernatants of UU at different concentrations and sterile saline for negative samples. The positive samples were further divided into three groups of high, moderate and low concentrations. The panels were distributed to the participants and the datasets were analyzed according to the qualitative results. RESULTS: A total of 365 laboratories participated in the EQA scheme, and 360 results submitted by 338 laboratories were collected, of which 96.11 % (346/360) of the returned results and 95.86 % (324/338) of the laboratories were deemed competent. The positive percentage agreement (PPA) was ≥ 97.5 % for high and moderate concentration samples, but varied significantly for low concentration samples, decreasing from 86.94 % to 51.94 % as the sample concentration decreased. Additionally, for low concentration samples, RNA-based NAAT showed higher PPAs than DNA-based NAATs, but these results were specific to UU supernatants used in this study. CONCLUSION: Most of UU detection assays employed by the participants were generally consistent with their estimated limit of detection (LOD), and the majority of participants can reliably detect UU samples with high and moderate concentrations, while the poor analytical performance for low concentration samples requires further improvement and optimization.

Performance evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 antigen detection in the post-pandemic era: multi-laboratory assessment.

OBJECTIVES: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) antigen detection is an indispensable tool for epidemic surveillance in the post-pandemic era. Faced with irregular performance, a comprehensive external quality assessment (EQA) scheme was conducted by the National Center for Clinical Laboratories (NCCL) to evaluate the analytical performance and status of SARS-CoV-2 antigen tests. METHODS: The EQA panel included ten lyophilized samples containing serial 5-fold dilutions of inactivated SARS-CoV-2-positive supernatants of the Omicron BA.1 and BA.5 strains and negative samples, which were classified into "validating" samples and "educational" samples. Data were analyzed according to qualitative results for each sample. RESULTS: A total of 339 laboratories in China participated in this EQA scheme, and 378 effective results were collected. All validating samples were correctly reported by 90.56 % (307/339) of the participants and 90.21 % (341/378) of the datasets. The positive percent agreement (PPA) was >99 % for samples with concentrations of 2 × 107 copies/mL but was 92.20 % (697/756) for 4 × 106 copies/mL and 25.26 % (382/1,512) for 8 × 105 copies/mL samples. Colloidal gold was the most frequently used (84.66 %, 320/378) but showed the lowest PPAs (57.11 %, 1,462/2,560) for positive samples compared with fluorescence immunochromatography (90 %, 36/40) and latex chromatography (79.01 %, 335/424). Among 11 assays used in more than 10 clinical laboratories, ACON showed a higher sensitivity than other assays. CONCLUSIONS: The EQA study can help to validate whether it's necessary to update antigen detection assays for manufacturers and provide participants with information about the performance of assays to take the first step toward routine post-market surveillance.

Air pollution and associated health impact and economic loss embodied in inter-provincial electricity transfer in China.

As the largest producer and consumer of coal in the world, China heavily relies on coal resources for thermal power generation. Owing to the unbalanced distribution of energy resources, electricity transfer among regions in China plays a key role in promoting economic growth and ensuring energy safety. However, little is known about air pollution and the related health impacts resulting from electricity transfer. This study assessed PM2.5 pollution and related health and economic losses attributable to the inter-provincial electricity transfer in mainland China in 2016. The results show that a large amount of virtual air pollutant emissions were transferred from energy-abundant northern, western and central China to well-developed and populated eastern coastal regions. Correspondingly, the inter-provincial electricity transfer dramatically reduced the atmospheric levels of PM2.5 and related health and economic losses in eastern and southern China, while increasing those in northern, western and central China. The health benefits attributable to inter-provincial electricity transfer were mainly found in Guangdong, Liaoning, Jiangsu and Shandong, whereas the extra health loss is concentrated in Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, and Heilongjiang. Overall, the inter-provincial electricity transfer led to an extra increase of 3600 (95 % CI: 3200-4100) PM2.5-related deaths and 345 (95 % CI: 294-389) million USD of economic loss in China in 2016. The results could assist air pollution mitigation strategies for the thermal power sector in China by strengthening the cooperation between suppliers and consumers of electricity.

SpineQ: Unsupervised 3D Lumbar Quantitative Assessment.

Most lumbar quantitative assessment methods can only analyze the image from one view and require laborious manual annotation. We aim to develop an unsupervised pipeline for 3D quantitative assessment of the lumbar spine that can assess the MRI with different views. We combine rule-based and deep learning methods to generate multi-tissue segmentation, and parameters can be measured from segmentation results using the anatomical and geometric prior. Preliminary testing demonstrates that our proposed method can generate accurate segmentation and measurement results.Clinical Relevance- The proposed unsupervised 3D lumbar quantitative assessment pipeline can significantly improve the efficiency and consistency of clinical diagnosis and surgical planning.

Population Aging Driven Slowdown in the Reduction of Economic Cost-Attributed to PM2.5 Pollution after 2013 in China.

Since seniors are more susceptible to ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5), the high economic cost to protect the aged population from PM2.5 exposure is expected. Significant efforts have been made in China to mitigate PM2.5 since 2013 under the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action (APPCA) Plan, which remarkably reduced PM2.5 contamination and its associated economic and health burdens. However, to what extent population aging could influence the economic benefits from the APPCA Plan is unclear. Here, we estimate five driving factors contributing to the economic cost of mortality attributable to PM2.5 pollution. The results show that the economic cost attributed to PM2.5 pollution increased from 1980 to 2013 and decreased from 2013 to 2019 in China, benefiting from the APPCA Plan. Since 2013, population aging becomes the most significant positive driver that almost offsets declining economic cost from significantly declining PM2.5. Rapid aging has become an enormous burden to PM2.5-associated health and economic loss. Our findings suggest that we should further improve air quality and enhance health care for the elderly population.

Innovation Service Platform of Small and Medium-Sized Microenterprises Based on Social Perception and Neural Network Algorithm.

In recent years, the number and scale of small, medium-sized, and micro enterprises have continued to increase, which is the main force to promote the development of China's national economy, the guarantee of China's rapid and stable economic development, and has a direct impact on social stability and people's livelihood. In China's economic growth, small, medium-sized, and micro businesses play a critical role. However, several limitations limit their current growth stage, preventing them from expanding their size, such as resource and environmental limits, an inappropriate industrial structure, and institutional issues, such as severe market rivalry. To address this issue, this paper develops a micro innovation service platform for small and medium-sized businesses, offers a variety of services to small and medium-sized businesses, fully realizes data sharing and transmission in all aspects using social perception and neural network algorithms, and effectively utilizes social attributes on mobile nodes to assist each node. Also, it investigates the impact of the innovation service platform for small and medium-sized micro firms in practice. After the construction of the innovation service platform for small and medium-sized micro enterprises in 2018, it analyzes the number of transaction projects of platform technology transfer, technology development, technical consultation, and technical services from 2018 to 2020 and analyzes the transaction volume of projects in four aspects. The results show that they have significantly improved, which plays an important role in realizing the transformation of achievements and improving the innovation ability of small and medium-sized micro enterprises in China. At the same time, according to the investigation and analysis of 8 innovative service platforms in the western region, 25% of them have developed well.

Vulnerability Assessment of Farmland Groundwater Pollution around Traditional Industrial Parks Based on the Improved DRASTIC Model-A Case Study in Shifang City, Sichuan Province, China.

In this study, an improved DRASTIC model, including the DRASTIC-LTPD model and the AHP-DRASTIC-LTPD model, with the addition of four extra evaluation factors, including land use type (L), aquifer thickness (T'), aquifer potential (P) and pollution source distance (D'), was constructed and compared to assess the groundwater vulnerability around farmland area in Shuangsheng Industrial Park, Sichuan Province, China. From the vulnerability grading charts of the traditional DRASTIC model, the improved DRASTIC-LTPD model and the AHP-DRASTIC-LTPD model, it showed that the vulnerability presented a lower level in the western and eastern farmland areas, whereas a higher level was in the central industrial park area. This result was consistent with the actual situation where groundwater recharge by rivers, regional land use, and human activities were more active in the middle in these areas. Nevertheless, the area at the same level of vulnerability varied greatly from model to model. The vulnerability index V-level region ratio calculated by the AHP-DRASTIC-LTPD model was 0, indicating that the distribution of vulnerability was smoother without the appearance of extremely good or poor conditions. From the present study, it was revealed that the AHP-DRASTIC-LTPD model could effectively reflect the impact of human activities and dilution on groundwater vulnerability. The adopted AHP method was also of high accuracy to empower the evaluation index leading to a more reliable evaluation results of regional groundwater vulnerability in comparison with the other two models. Therefore, this research could be employed as a reference for the evaluation of groundwater pollution around other similar unplanned industrial parks.

Clinical Outcome and Medical Cost of Originator and Generic Antihypertensive Drugs: A Population-Based Study in Yinzhou, China.

Background: The substitution of generic drugs can effectively alleviate the rapid growth of drug costs; however, the clinical effectiveness and medical costs of originator products and generics were barely studied in China. Objectives: To compare the effectiveness of antihypertensive drugs and hypertension-related medical costs between originator and generic initiators in Yinzhou, China. Methods: We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study using the Chinese Electronic Health Records Research in Yinzhou (CHERRY), from July 1, 2011, to December 31, 2018. Hypertension patients initiating with originator products were compared with patients initiating with generic counterparts. We used 1:1 propensity score matching to pair the two groups based on sociodemographic, clinical, and health service utilization variables. Cox proportional regression was adopted to compare the rate of hospitalization for hypertension-related cardiovascular disease between matched originator and generic initiators. Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test was used to compare annual hypertension-related medical costs. Results: Matched pairs (10,535) of patients were included in the comparative study of originator products and generics, corresponding to seven antihypertensive drugs including amlodipine, felodipine, nifedipine, irbesartan, losartan, valsartan, and metoprolol. The average age of patients included in the analysis was around 60 years (originator vs. generics initiators: from 59.0 vs. 59.1 years in losartan to 62.9 vs. 63.6 years in nifedipine). Higher hospitalization rates among originator initiators were observed for three calcium channel blockers (hazard ratio[95% CI]: amlodipine, 3.18[1.43, 7.11]; felodipine, 3.60[1.63, 7.98]; and nifedipine, 3.86[1.26, 11.81]; respectively). The remaining four out of seven drugs of the clinical endpoint estimates showed comparable outcomes between originator products and generics (hazard ratio[95% CI]: irbesartan, 1.19[0.50, 2.84]; losartan, 1.84[0.84, 4.07]; valsartan, 2.04[0.72, 5.78]; and metoprolol, 1.25[0.56, 2.80]; respectively). Higher median annual hypertension-related medical costs were observed in originator initiators (all p < 0.001), except for metoprolol (p = 0.646). Conclusion: We observed comparable or even better clinical outcomes and less medical cost associated with the use of antihypertensive generics compared to originator counterparts. This could help increase patient and provider confidence in the efficacy of generic medicines to manage hypertension diseases.

Assessment of causal direction between thyroid function and cardiometabolic health: a Mendelian randomization study.

BACKGROUND: Growing evidence have demonstrated that thyroid hormones have been involved in the processes of cardiovascular metabolism. However, the causal relationship of thyroid function and cardiometabolic health remains partly unknown. METHODS: The Mendelian randomization (MR) was used to test genetic, potentially causal relationships between instrumental variables and cardiometabolic traits. Genetic variants of free thyroxine (FT4) and thyrotropin (TSH) levels within the reference range were used as instrumental variables. Data for genetic associations with cardiometabolic diseases were acquired from the genome-wide association studies of the FinnGen, CARDIoGRAM and CARDIoGRAMplusC4D, CHARGE, and MEGASTROKE. This study was conducted using summary statistic data from large, previously described cohorts. Association between thyroid function and essential hypertension (EHTN), secondary hypertension (SHTN), hyperlipidemia (HPL), type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), ischemic heart disease (IHD), myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure (HF), pulmonary heart disease (PHD), stroke, and non-rheumatic valve disease (NRVD) were examined. RESULTS: Genetically predicted FT4 levels were associated with SHTN (odds ratio = 0.48; 95% CI = 0.04-0.82,P = 0.027), HPL (odds ratio = 0.67; 95% CI = 0.18-0.88,P = 0.023), T2DM (odds ratio = 0.80; 95% CI = 0.42-0.86,P = 0.005), IHD (odds ratio = 0.85; 95% CI = 0.49-0.98,P = 0.039), NRVD (odds ratio = 0.75; 95% CI = 0.27-0.97,P = 0.039). Additionally, genetically predicted TSH levels were associated with HF (odds ratio = 0.82; 95% CI = 0.68-0.99,P = 0.042), PHD (odds ratio = 0.75; 95% CI = 0.32-0.82,P = 0.006), stroke (odds ratio = 0.95; 95% CI = 0.81-0.97,P = 0.007). However, genetically predicted thyroid function traits were not associated with EHTN and MI. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests FT4 and TSH are associated with cardiometabolic diseases, underscoring the importance of the pituitary-thyroid-cardiac axis in cardiometabolic health susceptibility.

One-century sedimentary record, sources, and ecological risk of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Dianchi Lake, China.

In this study, the sedimentary records, sources, and ecological risks of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Dianchi Lake were analyzed. The concentrations of ΣPAH16 in the sediments of Dianchi Lake ranged from 368 to 990 ng/g, with an average value of 572 ng/g, peaking in 1988. Economic development, rapid population growth, and rapid growth of coal consumption have a greater impact on the HMW (high molecular weight) PAHs than on the LMW (low molecular weight) PAHs in the sedimentary environment. The results of the diagnostic ratios and PCA (principal component analysis) model show that the main sources of PAHs were coal and biomass combustion, as well as the fossil fuel combustion in individual years. The risk assessment results showed that the PAH concentrations in the sediment were within a safe range. In the past 100 years of sediment pore water, other 2-3 ring LMW PAHs were within a safe range (except for Phe, which reached chronic toxic pollution levels in some years). With an increase in industrialization and urbanization, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum has increased, and some of the 4-6 ring HMW PAHs have reached chronic toxicity or even acute toxicity in the sediment pore water.

Health technology assessment-informed pricing negotiation in China: higher negotiated price for more effective targeted anticancer medicines?

BACKGROUND: In China, health technology assessment (HTA) has recently been adopted in pricing negotiation for medicine listing in the National Reimbursement Drug List. At present, how HTA is applied to inform the decision-making process remains underreported. In order to explore how the adoption of HTA was translated into listing and price negotiation results in light of the confidential nature of the negotiating process, this study aimed to compare the negotiated price and the clinical benefit of selected targeted anticancer medicines (TAMs) involved in the 2019 negotiation. MAIN TEXT: Among 16 TAMs successfully negotiated, only four TAMs representing four indication groups had appropriate reference medicines for comparison and were, therefore, included in the analysis. The price and clinical benefit of the four TAMs were compared against one or two reference medicines with the same initial indications. The sales prices for nine TAMs before and after the negotiation were extracted from the centralized medication procurement system. Clinical benefits were evaluated based on evidence from published articles and clinical guidelines. The results suggested that, despite the application of HTA, both rational and irrational decisions had been made about the reimbursement of TAMs in the 2019 negotiation, warranting further investigation. CONCLUSION: While the development and adoption of HTA has seen significant progress in China, actions are needed to ensure that the adoption of HTA is effectively applied in decisions on the reimbursement of medicines.

Assessment of bidirectional relationships between 98 genera of the human gut microbiota and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a 2-sample Mendelian randomization study.

BACKGROUND: Growing evidence suggests a mutual interaction between gut microbiome alterations and ALS pathogenesis. However, previous studies were susceptible to potential confounding factors and reverse causation bias, likely leading to inconsistent and biased results. OBJECTIVES: To decipher the potentially mutual relationship between gut microbiota and ALS, we used a bidirectional two-sample MR approach to examine the associations between the gut microbiome and ALS. RESULTS: Using the inverse variance-weighted method, OTU10032 unclassified Enterobacteriaceae species-level OTU and unclassified Acidaminococcaceae were associated with a higher risk of ALS (per relative abundance: OR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.01-1.07; P = 0.011 and OR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01-1.04; P = 0.009, respectively). Importantly, Gamma-Glu-Phe was showed potential deleterious effects on the risk of ALS (genetically predicted per a 1-standard deviation increase in the level of Gamma-Glu-Phe: OR, 1.96; 95% CI, 1.50-2.55; P = 0.012). Sensitivity analysis of the two candidate genera and metabolites using the MR-Egger and weighted-median methods produced similar estimates, and no horizontal pleiotropy or outliers were observed. Intriguingly, genetically predicted ALS was associated with an increase in the relative abundance of OTU4607_Sutterella (per 1-unit higher log odds: ß, 2.23; 95% CI, 1.27-3.18; P = 0.020) and Lactobacillales_ORDER (per 1-unit higher log odds: ß, 0.51; 95% CI, 0.09-0.94; P = 0.019). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide novel evidence supporting the bidirectional relationship between the gut microbiota and ALS. These results may contribute to designing microbiome- and microbiome-dependent metabolite interventions in future ALS clinical trials.

A Novel Occlusion-Aware Vote Cost for Light Field Depth Estimation.

Capturing the directions of light by light field cameras powers next-generation immersive multimedia applications. A critical problem in taking advantage of the rich visual information in light field images is depth estimation. Conventional light field depth estimation methods build a cost volume that measures the photo-consistency of pixels refocused to a range of depths, and the highest consistency indicates the correct depth. This strategy works well in most regions but usually generates blurry edges in the estimated depth map due to occlusions. Recent work shows that integrating occlusion models to light field depth estimation can largely reduce blurry edges. However, existing occlusion handling methods rely on complex edge-aided processing and post-refinement, and this reliance limits the resultant depth accuracy and impacts on the computational performance. In this paper, we propose a novel occlusion-aware vote cost (OAVC) which is able to accurately preserve edges in the depth map. Instead of using photo-consistency as an indicator of the correct depth, we construct a novel cost from a new perspective that counts the number of refocused pixels whose deviations from the central-view pixel are less than a small threshold, and utilizes that number to select the correct depth. The pixels from occluders are thus excluded in determining the correct depth. Without the use of any explicit occlusion handling methods, the proposed method can inherently preserve edges and produces high-quality depth estimates. Experimental results show that the proposed OAVC outperforms state-of-the-art light field depth estimation methods in terms of depth estimation accuracy and computational complexity.

Trends in the impact of socioeconomic developments on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon concentrations in Dianchi Lake.

An analysis of the correlation between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and economic parameters demonstrates that the total population, gross domestic product, coal consumption, petroleum, temperature, and day consumption significantly affect PAH concentrations in Dianchi Lake, Yunnan province, China. An artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed to predict the trend in PAH concentrations in the sediments of Dianchi Lake over the next 10 years based on current indicators of economic development. The ANN model estimated the concentration of PAHs from 1980 to 2014. The model was evaluated using available observations for the historical trends; concentrations of PAHs in the sediments of Dianchi Lake are calculated to be at 2128.1 ng/g in 2025 and are expected to decline up to 1044.3 ng/g by 2030. These concentrations are considered relatively high because of their impacts on the health of people and aquatic organisms and the development of surrounding industries. We show the importance of the socioeconomic and climate factors in increasing the pollution levels. Our results could support the local government to formulate effective measures to reduce the pollution levels in the lake.

A quantitative analysis of risk-sharing agreements with patient support programs for improving medication adherence.

Medication adherence is a challenge for patients, drugmakers, and payers. To promote adherence, some payers adopt a form of pay-for-success value-based risk-sharing agreements. Drugmakers reduce prices for meaningful improvement in adherence and share patient information and resources with payers; as a return, payers run patient support programs and put drugs on a tier with lower copays. We use a game-theoretic approach to investigate the optimal program effect and the optimal prices with and without improvement in adherence, measured by Proportion of Days Covered, under such an agreement. Since negotiation power impacts how prices are determined, we consider several pricing settings: the payer or the drugmaker sets both prices or sets one price simultaneously or sequentially. Although a discount for improved adherence tends to promote adherence, it may not always be achievable nor guarantees better adherence. The drugmaker with strong negotiation power can align its interest with social welfare but the payer may not. The payer with strong negotiation power can improve more adherence than the drugmaker. Balanced negotiation power contributes either the most or the least to adherence depending on contract form and decision sequence. Although cost-sharing by the drugmaker expects to increase program efforts, it may not be true. We find that the policymaker prefers different levels of cost-sharing under different pricing settings. The payer may have a first-mover advantage when setting the price without improved adherence; the drugmaker, however, does not have such an advantage.

Life cycle environmental and economic comparison of thermal utilization of refuse derived fuel manufactured from landfilled waste or fresh waste.

This paper analyses environmental and economic performance of thermal utilization technologies of two different refuse derived fuel (RDF) manufactured from landfilled waste or fresh municipal waste, including incineration of landfilled RDF (I-LRDF), gasification of landfilled RDF (G-LRDF), replacement of partial coal by landfilled RDF for the cement industry (C-LRDF), incineration of municipal RDF (I-MRDF), and replacement of partial coal by municipal RDF for the cement industry (C-MRDF). The preference among the RDF utilization options is identified from the standpoints of various stakeholders by integrating the life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA) with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approaches. RDF thermal utilization technologies bring an economic profit of $17.29∼$35.77 per ton of waste. Especially, I-LRDF has the worst effect on ecosystem quality and human health and can yield the greatest economic profit of $35.77 per ton of landfilled waste, while I-MRDF has the least impact on environment. In terms of the five RDF thermal utilization technologies, I-MRDF has the best comprehensive performance from the perspectives of different stakeholders. The improvement of the RDF thermal utilization efficiency is the most critical factor affecting the economic benefits for all cases.

Behavioral and developmental toxicity assessment of the strobilurin fungicide fenamidone in zebrafish embryos/larvae (Danio rerio).

Strobilurin fungicides are among the most widely used in the world and have characteristics that include high water solubility and toxicity to aquatic organisms. While several studies report on mechanisms of toxicity of strobilurins in fish, there are no data on the sub-lethal toxicity of fish to the fungicide fenamidone. To address this gap, survival and hatch rate, deformities, mitochondrial bioenergetics, expression of oxidative stress and apoptotic genes, and behavior (locomotor activity and anxiolytic-related behaviors) were assessed in zebrafish embryos and larvae following exposure to fenamidone. Fenamidone negatively affected development of zebrafish embryos, causing a delay of hatching time at concentrations of 2.5 and 5 µM. Fenamidone caused morphological deformities in zebrafish, including pericardial edema, yolk sac edema, tail deformities, and spinal curvature. Exposure to 1.5 µM fenamidone reduced surface area of swim bladder in larvae at 6 dpf. Fenamidone significantly reduced oxygen consumption rates of embryos; 5 µM fenamidone decreased basal respiration (~85%), oligomycin induced ATP-linked respiration (~70%), FCCP-induced maximal respiration (~75%) and non-mitochondrial respiration (~90%) compared to controls. Sod2 mRNA levels were decreased by fenamidone in larval fish. Locomotor activity was significantly decreased in zebrafish larvae following exposure to 2 µM fenamidone but there was no evidence for anxiolytic nor anxiety-related behaviors (exposures of 100 nM up to 1.5 µM). This study addresses a data gap for potential risks associated with fenamidone exposure in developing fish.

The atmospheric lead emission, deposition, and environmental inequality driven by interprovincial trade in China.

Lead (Pb) as a hazardous air pollutant has raised widespread concerns due to its adverse and toxic effects on the ecological environment and human health. Here we integrated the multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model and an atmospheric transport model to examine regional environmental inequality (REI) index induced by Pb emission transfers, and to evaluate the impacts of interprovincial trade on regional atmospheric Pb concentrations and dry deposition fluxes in China in 2012. In 2012, approximately 57.4% ~ 72.6% of Pb emissions in well-developed eastern regions (Beijing-Tianjin, Yangtze River Delta (YRD)) and the southern seaboard of China were embodied in other regions in China subject to the demands from these well-developed regions to industrial products and services. Our results, based on the net virtual flows of Pb emission and value-added, indicate that most provinces in the eastern seaboard of China outsource Pb emission and benefit from the interprovincial trade by reducing their Pb emissions. REI indexes show that the well-developed Guangdong province outsources its Pb emission but has low economic gains. Many less-developed provinces in central China enhance virtual Pb emission inflow but have high economic gains. Whereas, inland provinces in western China not only experience Pb emission increase, but also suffer from indirect economic loss due to trade with well-developed provinces to meet their increasing demands to Pb emission abundant industrial products from these provinces in eastern China which are mostly provided by less-developed but energy and mineral product abundant provinces in western China. For example, the province pair with highest REI index was Jiangsu-Inner Mongolia (REI = 2.47), which revealed that Jiangsu was the largest beneficiary which exported 37.2 t of net Pb emission and gained value-added of 521.4 billion RMB through trade with Inner Mongolia which suffered from both virtual Pb inflow and economic loss in 2012. As a result of interprovincial trade, Pb dry deposition in central and eastern China was decreased but increased in western China. Overall, interprovincial trade reduced 17.6% of atmospheric Pb dry deposition in China.

Assessment of causality between modifiable factors and heart failure: A Mendelian randomization analysis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Observational studies have associated lifestyle, dietary, adiposity, biochemical and clinical measures with heart failure. Whether the associations are causal remains unclear. We aimed to determine the causal associations between modifiable risk factors and incidence or mortality of heart failure. METHODS AND STUDY DESIGN: Using single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) as genetic instruments, we conducted a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to estimate the causal effects of 27 modifiable risk factors on incident heart failure (2526 cases; 20926 participants) and mortality of heart failure (1798 deaths; 2828 patients). RESULTS: None of 27 modifiable risk factors were significantly associated with incidence or mortality of heart failure after the Bonferroni correction (p<0.0019). However, there was suggestive evidence for genetically predicted educational attainment (odds ratio [OR] per educational year increase: 0.57, 95% CI 0.33-0.99, p=0.049), circulating mono-unsaturated fatty acid concentrations (OR per 1-SD increase [ORSD] : 1.50, 1.10-2.04, p=0.011), C-reactive protein (CRP) (1.53, 1.04-2.25, p=0.031), high-density lipoprotein (HDL) (0.84, 0.72-0.99, p=0.036), triglycerides (1.24, 1.00-1.52, p=0.045), and systolic blood pressure (SBP) (1.06, 1.01-1.11, p=0.017) with incident heart failure. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide supporting evidence for prioritizing certain modifiable risk factors such as education, lipids, and blood pressure for primary prevention of heart failure, suggesting important clues for further mechanism research.