Cost-effectiveness analysis of tislelizumab in combination with chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic or recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma in China.

BACKGROUND: The combination of tislelizumab and gemcitabine plus cisplatin (GP) in the first-line treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (R/M NPC) has yielded significant results. However, it is not clear whether this treatment option is cost-effective in China. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of tislelizumab plus GP for the first-line treatment of R/M NPC from the perspective of the Chinese healthcare system. METHODS: A partitioned survival model with three discrete health states was constructed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of tislelizumab plus GP versus GP in patients with R/M NPC. The target population enrolled in the RATIONALE-309 trial had previously not treated for R/M NPC. Drug costs were obtained from relevant databases, and the remaining cost and health utility data were collected from the literature. The main outcomes include the expected life years, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), total cost, and incremental cost-benefit ratio (ICER). RESULTS: The tislelizumab plus GP regimen produced an additional cost ($18392.76) and additional 1.57 QALYs compared with GP used alone. The ICER was $18392.75/QALYs. Sensitivity analysis showed that the analysis was robust and the utility of PD status was most sensitive to the model results. The possibility of tislelizumab plus GP being cost-effective at the willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold of $37 653/QALY was 99.8%. Subgroup analysis showed that high PD-L1 expression had little impact on the ICER of this regimen. CONCLUSION: In patients with R/M NPC, the regimen of tislelizumab plus GP, as the first-line treatment, is more cost-effective than the GP regimen in China.

Does the setting of local government economic growth targets promote or hinder urban carbon emission performance? Evidence from China.

Growth target management drives China's economic expansion, leading to potential carbon emission externalities. This study examines the impact of economic growth target setting on carbon emission performance in 257 Chinese localities from 2004 to 2020. Using cluster standard error regression, 2SLS instrumental variable regression, and the spatial Durbin model, the results show that moderate growth targets improve urban carbon emission performance. Conversely, aggressive targets do not enhance regional carbon emission performance. Moderate growth targets foster innovation in green technology, while aggressive ones encourage investment in fixed assets and new city growth, impeding performance. Cities in the eastern and western regions, with larger populations and less reliance on natural resources, benefit more from effective economic development targets. The establishment of local targets negatively affects neighboring regions' carbon emissions performance, particularly at a spatial scale of 100 to 200 km. This paper contributes to understanding the environmental consequences of growth target setting and offers insights for balancing economic growth with carbon emission governance in emerging market countries.

Prioritising cardiovascular disease risk assessment to high risk individuals based on primary care records.

OBJECTIVE: To provide quantitative evidence for systematically prioritising individuals for full formal cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk assessment using primary care records with a novel tool (eHEART) with age- and sex- specific risk thresholds. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: eHEART was derived using landmark Cox models for incident CVD with repeated measures of conventional CVD risk predictors in 1,642,498 individuals from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Using 119,137 individuals from UK Biobank, we modelled the implications of initiating guideline-recommended statin therapy using eHEART with age- and sex-specific prioritisation thresholds corresponding to 5% false negative rates to prioritise adults aged 40-69 years in a population in England for invitation to a formal CVD risk assessment. RESULTS: Formal CVD risk assessment on all adults would identify 76% and 49% of future CVD events amongst men and women respectively, and 93 (95% CI: 90, 95) men and 279 (95% CI: 259, 297) women would need to be screened (NNS) to prevent one CVD event. In contrast, if eHEART was first used to prioritise individuals for formal CVD risk assessment, we would identify 73% and 47% of future events amongst men and women respectively, and a NNS of 75 (95% CI: 72, 77) men and 162 (95% CI: 150, 172) women. Replacing the age- and sex-specific prioritisation thresholds with a 10% threshold identify around 10% less events. CONCLUSIONS: The use of prioritisation tools with age- and sex-specific thresholds could lead to more efficient CVD assessment programmes with only small reductions in effectiveness at preventing new CVD events.

Using Polygenic Risk Scores for Prioritizing Individuals at Greatest Need of a Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment.

Background The aim of this study was to provide quantitative evidence of the use of polygenic risk scores for systematically identifying individuals for invitation for full formal cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk assessment. Methods and Results A total of 108 685 participants aged 40 to 69 years, with measured biomarkers, linked primary care records, and genetic data in UK Biobank were used for model derivation and population health modeling. Prioritization tools using age, polygenic risk scores for coronary artery disease and stroke, and conventional risk factors for CVD available within longitudinal primary care records were derived using sex-specific Cox models. We modeled the implications of initiating guideline-recommended statin therapy after prioritizing individuals for invitation to a formal CVD risk assessment. If primary care records were used to prioritize individuals for formal risk assessment using age- and sex-specific thresholds corresponding to 5% false-negative rates, then the numbers of men and women needed to be screened to prevent 1 CVD event are 149 and 280, respectively. In contrast, adding polygenic risk scores to both prioritization and formal assessments, and selecting thresholds to capture the same number of events, resulted in a number needed to screen of 116 for men and 180 for women. Conclusions Using both polygenic risk scores and primary care records to prioritize individuals at highest risk of a CVD event for a formal CVD risk assessment can efficiently prioritize those who need interventions the most than using primary care records alone. This could lead to better allocation of resources by reducing the number of risk assessments in primary care while still preventing the same number of CVD events.

Multi-Branch Attention Learning for Bone Age Assessment with Ambiguous Label.

Bone age assessment (BAA) is a typical clinical technique for diagnosing endocrine and metabolic diseases in children's development. Existing deep learning-based automatic BAA models are trained on the Radiological Society of North America dataset (RSNA) from Western populations. However, due to the difference in developmental process and BAA standards between Eastern and Western children, these models cannot be applied to bone age prediction in Eastern populations. To address this issue, this paper collects a bone age dataset based on the East Asian populations for model training. Nevertheless, it is laborious and difficult to obtain enough X-ray images with accurate labels. In this paper, we employ ambiguous labels from radiology reports and transform them into Gaussian distribution labels of different amplitudes. Furthermore, we propose multi-branch attention learning with ambiguous labels network (MAAL-Net). MAAL-Net consists of a hand object location module and an attention part extraction module to discover the informative regions of interest (ROIs) based only on image-level labels. Extensive experiments on both the RSNA dataset and the China Bone Age (CNBA) dataset demonstrate that our method achieves competitive results with the state-of-the-arts, and performs on par with experienced physicians in children's BAA tasks.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of sintilimab plus IBI305 versus sorafenib for unresectable hepatic cell carcinoma in China.

BACKGROUND: Sintilimab combined with IBI305 treatment regimen had potential clinical benefits than sorafenib in the first-line treatment of patients with unresectable hepatic cell carcinoma (HCC). However, whether sintilimab plus IBI305 has economic benefits in China remains unclear. METHODS: From the perspective of Chinese payers, we used the Markov model to simulate patients with HCC receiving treatment with sintilimab plus IBI305 and sorafenib. The transition probability between health states was estimated using the parametric survival model, and the cumulative medical costs and utility of the two treatment methods were estimated. Considering the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) as the evaluation index, sensitivity analyses were performed to explore the impact of uncertainty on the results. RESULTS: Compared to sorafenib, sintilimab plus IBI305 generated an additional $17552.17 and 0.33 quality-adjusted life years, resulting in an ICER of $52817.89. The analysis outcomes were most sensitive to the total cost of sintilimab plus IBI305. With a willingness-to-pay threshold of $38,334, sintilimab plus IBI305 showed a 1.28% probability of being cost-effective. The total cost of sintilimab plus IBI305 should be reduced by at least 31.9% to be accepted by Chinese payers. CONCLUSIONS: Regardless of whether the price of sintilimab plus IBI305 and sorafenib is covered by Medicare, sintilimab plus IBI305 is unlikely to be cost-effective for first-line treatment of patients with unresectable HCC.

A new point to correlate the multi-dimensional assessment for the aging process of microfibers.

Fiber, the most prevalent plastic type, can be weathered and eroded easily in the natural environment. Although a variety of techniques have been applied to characterize the aging characteristics of plastics, a comprehensive understanding was critically essential to correlate the multi-dimensional assessment of the weathering process of microfibers and their environmental behavior. Therefore, in this study, microfibers were prepared from the face masks and Pb2+ was selected as a typical metal pollutant. The weathering process was simulated by xenon aging and chemical aging, and then subjected to Pb2+adsorption to examine the effect of weathering processes. The changes in fiber property and structure were detected by using various characterization techniques, with the development of several aging indices to quantify the changes. The two-dimensional Fourier transform infrared correlation spectroscopy analysis (2D-FTIR-COS) and Raman mapping were also performed to understand the order of changes in the surface functional groups of the fiber. The results showed that both aging processes altered the surface morphology, physicochemical properties, and polypropylene chain conformations of the microfibers, with stronger effect after chemical aging. The aging process also enhanced the affinity of microfiber to Pb2+. Moreover, the changes and correlation of the aging indices were analyzed, showing that the maximum adsorption capacity (Qmax) was positively related to carbonyl index (CI), oxygen-to-carbon atom (O/C) ratio and intensity ratio of the Raman peaks (I841/808), but negatively related to contact angle and the temperature at the maximum weight loss rate (Tm). The O/C ratio was more suitable to quantify the surface changes with lower aging degree while the CI value explained the chemical aging process better. Overall, this study discussed the weathering processes of microfibers based on a multi-dimensional investigation, and attempted to correlate the aging characteristics of the microfibers and their environmental behavior.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of durvalumab plus chemotherapy as first-line treatment for biliary tract cancer.

Objective: The TOPAZ-1 trial reported a significant survival benefit of durvalumab in combination with chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of biliary tract cancer (BTC). However, no studies have evaluated the economics of this treatment option. The aim of this study was to assess the cost effectiveness of durvalumab plus chemotherapy compared to placebo plus chemotherapy from the perspective of US and Chinese payers. Methods: Based on clinical data from the TOPAZ-1 trial, a Markov model was developed to simulate 10-year life expectancy and total healthcare costs for patients with BTC. The treatment group received durvalumab in combination with chemotherapy and the control group received placebo plus chemotherapy. The primary outcomes analyzed included quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs). Uncertainty in the analysis results was assessed by sensitivity analysis. Results: For US payers, the placebo plus chemotherapy group had a total cost of $56,157.05 and a utility of 1.10 QALYs, while the durvalumab plus chemotherapy group had a total cost of $217,069.25, a utility of 1.52 QALYs, resulting in an ICER of $381,864.39/QALY. For Chinese payers, the ICER of durvalumab plus chemotherapy group was $367,608.51/QALY. Sensitivity analysis showed that the analysis was most sensitive to the price of durvalumab. For US and Chinese payers, under the respective willing to pay thresholds, the likelihood of the durvalumab plus chemotherapy arm being cost-effective was 0%. Conclusions: Both in China and in the US, durvalumab in combination with chemotherapy is not a cost-effective option for the first-line treatment of BTC compared with chemotherapy.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy as the first-line treatment for advanced esophageal cancer.

OBJECTIVE: The KEYNOTE-590 trial showed that individuals with advanced esophageal cancer who received Pembrolizumab in combination with chemotherapy as a first-line regimen achieved a significant extension of survival. However, this treatment option increases the financial burden on patients and the economic benefits remain to be further evaluated. METHODS: A Markov model was used to simulate 10-year survival of patients with esophageal cancer from the perspective of United States (US) Medicare payers. We evaluated the economics of Pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy in the PD-L1 positive score (CPS ≥10) and any PD-L1 expression groups, respectively. We estimated total costs, quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), and calculated incremental cost effectiveness ratios (ICERs). Sensitivity analyses were conducted to explore the impact of uncertainties on the results. Subgroup analysis was also performed. RESULTS: The analysis results showed that the ICER for pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone was $293,513.17/QALYs in the any PD-L1 expression group. This exceeded the threshold of willingness to pay ($150,000/QALYs). ICERs were most sensitive to the cost of pembrolizumab and the ICERs exceeded $150,000/QALYs in all subgroups. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence suggests that first-line pembrolizumab in combination with chemotherapy is not a cost-effective option for advanced esophageal cancer in the US, regardless of PD-L1 expression status.

Bargaining power of new-energy enterprises in China's credit-financing market.

The new-energy industry, which is a key area for coping with climate change, faces serious credit-financing difficulties. This study used a bilateral stochastic frontier model to measure the bargaining power of new-energy companies in China's credit-financing market. We then examined the main factors affecting the bargaining power of new-energy enterprises by comparing the results of the firms in different groups, including corporate-related factors, government policies, and financial development levels. The results showed that the bargaining power of both banks and enterprises had an important influence on the final financing price. In the bargaining process, new-energy companies were at a disadvantage, and financing prices were 17.2% higher than fair prices. The nature of state-owned enterprises hinders the improvement of the bargaining power of new-energy enterprises. Technology competence and relationships with banks are useful ways for new-energy enterprises to improve their bargaining power. In solving the financing difficulties in the credit market of new-energy enterprises, government subsidies are usually ineffective, while improving the financial development level is effective.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of pembrolizumab vs. chemotherapy as second-line treatment for advanced esophageal carcinoma in the United States.

Background: The national Comprehensive Cancer Network has suggested pembrolizumab as a second-line therapy for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients with a programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) combined positive score (CPS) ≥ 10. However, despite the increased survival rate associated with pembrolizumab in these patient population, the high cost of pembrolizumab may influence its antitumor effect. This study aimed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of pembrolizumab compared to chemotherapy as second-line treatments for esophageal carcinoma (EC) based on KEYNOTE-181 trial. Methods: A Markov model was constructed using TreeAge 2021 based on three different groups: all intent-to-treat patients (ITT population), patients with ESCC (ESCC population), and patients with a PD-L1 CPS ≥10 (CPS ≥10 population). Incremental cost, Incremental effect, Life-years, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) and incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) were calculated. Analyses were conducted on the setting of a willingness-to-pay threshold of $150,000 from the US perspective. Results: The ICERs for pembrolizumab were $157,589.545 per QALY, $60,238.823 per QALY, and $100,114.929 per QALY compared with chemotherapy in the ITT, ESCC, and CPS≥10 populations, respectively. The ICER of the ITT population was higher than $150,000, suggesting that pembrolizumab was not a cost-effective treatment scheme in patients with a PD-L1 CPS ≤ 10 or esophageal adenocarcinoma. The ICER was < $150,000 in the ESCC and CPS≥10 populations, indicating that pembrolizumab was cost-effective in these two subgroups. Conclusion: The determining of pembrolizumab as a cost-effective second-line therapy for EC in the United States depends on the histologic type and PD-L1 expression.

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Sintilimab Combined with Chemotherapy Versus Chemotherapy Alone as the First-Line Treatment for Advanced Esophageal Cancer.

Background: Esophageal cancer has a poor prognosis and currently ranks sixth in global cancer mortality rates. The ORIENT-15 trial showed sintilimab plus chemotherapy significantly improved survival when compared to chemotherapy alone. This study aimed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of sintilimab, a programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor, plus chemotherapy in treating patients with esophageal cancer compared with chemotherapy alone. Methods: A Markov model with a 10-year horizon was developed based on the perspective of the Chinese healthcare payers. We conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis for sintilimab combined with chemotherapy based on a questionnaire. Patients were grouped into the sintilimab group based on a positive score of 10 or more (combined positive score (CPS) ≥ 10 groups), and those with any other PD-L1 expression were randomized into patient groups. We estimated the cost and the effectiveness of sintilimab on the quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was computed. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted to explore the impact of uncertainties on the cost-effectiveness results. Results: In the base-case analysis, compared with chemotherapy alone, the ICER of sintilimab plus chemotherapy for all patients was $21024.05 per QALY, and in the CPS≥10 group, it was $20974.23 per QALY. This was lower than $37653 per QALY. One-way sensitivity analysis demonstrated that ICERs were most sensitive to the price of sintilimab. Conclusion: The study demonstrated that sintilimab plus chemotherapy for advanced esophageal cancer as its first-line treatment would be more cost-effective than chemotherapy alone in Chinese patients.

Cost-effectiveness of nivolumab plus ipilimumab as first-line treatment for American patients with unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Background: The treatment paradigm of unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) has changed in recent years. Checkmate 743 demonstrate that nivolumab plus ipilimumab showed good clinical benefits compared with chemotherapy in the treatment of MPM. The study is aim to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Nivolumab plus ipilimumab vs. platinum plus chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of unresectable MPM. Methods: A Markov model was developed to compare the cost and quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) of nivolumab plus ipilimumab and chemotherapy over a 10-year time horizon. Clinical efficacy and safety data were extracted from the CheckMate 743 trials. Health state utilities were obtained from published literature. Costs were collected from an US payer perspective. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted to explore the impact of uncertainties on the cost-effectiveness's results. Results: In the base case analysis, the incremental healthcare costs and QALYs for Nivolumab plus Ipilimumab vs. chemotherapy are $196,604.22 and 0.53, respectively, resulting an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of $372,414.28/QALYs for the model cohort of patients with locally advanced or metastatic MPM. However, Probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that there was no probability that Nivolumab plus ipilimumab was cost-effective within the fluctuation range of other model parameters in first-line in unresectable MPM. The results of one-way sensitivity analysis showed that the cost of Nivolumab was the most sensitive parameter. Conclusions: The ICER of Nivolumab plus ipilimumab is above the theoretical willingness-to-pay threshold in the U.S, which suggests that first-line nivolumab plus ipilimumab for unresectable MPM may be not a cost-effective choice.

Heavy Metal Pollution and Health Risk Assessment of Vegetable-Soil Systems of Facilities Irrigated with Wastewater in Northern China.

Soil pollution by heavy metals is a major concern in China and has received much attention in recent years. Aiming to investigate the status of heavy metal pollution and the safety of vegetables in the soil of wastewater-irrigated facilities, this study investigated the distribution and migration characteristics of heavy metals in vegetable−soil systems of facilities in a typical sewage irrigation area of the Xi River, Shenyang City, northern China. Health risks due to the fact of exposure to heavy metals in the vegetable soil of facilities and ingrown vegetables through different exposure pathways were evaluated. Spatial interpolation and a potential ecological risk assessment were applied to evaluate the soil quality. Bioaccumulation factors (BCFs) were used to analyze the absorption and transportation capacity of Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn by different parts of different vegetables. The results showed that the average concentration of Cd exceeded the standard values by 1.82 times and accumulated by 11 times, suggesting that Cd poses the most severe pollution among the four metals in the soil of facilities in the Xi River sewage irrigation area. In the city, a significant accumulation of Cd in the soil was identified with different spatial distributions. Cd also contributed the most in terms of the estimated potential ecological risk index, while the impacts of the other three metals were relatively small. The concentrations of heavy metals were mostly lower than the limit set by the corresponding Chinese standards. Various BCFs were observed for the four metals in the order Cd > Zn > Cu > Pb. Vegetables also demonstrated different BCFs in the order of leaf vegetables > Rhizome vegetable > Solanaceae vegetable. The magnitude of the noncarcinogenic risk for all four heavy metals was less than one for all three exposure routes and did not cause significant noncarcinogenic health effects in humans. However, the carcinogenic risk of Cd from some vegetables via dietary intake was considered higher. Protection measures should be taken to implement better pollution control and land use planning.

Incremental value of risk factor variability for cardiovascular risk prediction in individuals with type 2 diabetes: results from UK primary care electronic health records.

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk prediction models for individuals with type 2 diabetes are important tools to guide intensification of interventions for CVD prevention. We aimed to assess the added value of incorporating risk factors variability in CVD risk prediction for people with type 2 diabetes. METHODS: We used electronic health records (EHRs) data from 83 910 adults with type 2 diabetes but without pre-existing CVD from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink for 2004-2017. Using a landmark-modelling approach, we developed and validated sex-specific Cox models, incorporating conventional predictors and trajectories plus variability of systolic blood pressure (SBP), total and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c). Such models were compared against simpler models using single last observed values or means. RESULTS: The standard deviations (SDs) of SBP, HDL cholesterol and HbA1c were associated with higher CVD risk (P < 0.05). Models incorporating trajectories and variability of continuous predictors demonstrated improvement in risk discrimination (C-index = 0.659, 95% CI: 0.654-0.663) as compared with using last observed values (C-index = 0.651, 95% CI: 0.646-0.656) or means (C-index = 0.650, 95% CI: 0.645-0.655). Inclusion of SDs of SBP yielded the greatest improvement in discrimination (C-index increase = 0.005, 95% CI: 0.004-0.007) in comparison to incorporating SDs of total cholesterol (C-index increase = 0.002, 95% CI: 0.000-0.003), HbA1c (C-index increase = 0.002, 95% CI: 0.000-0.003) or HDL cholesterol (C-index increase= 0.003, 95% CI: 0.002-0.005). CONCLUSION: Incorporating variability of predictors from EHRs provides a modest improvement in CVD risk discrimination for individuals with type 2 diabetes. Given that repeat measures are readily available in EHRs especially for regularly monitored patients with diabetes, this improvement could easily be achieved.

Evaluation of China's forest carbon sink service value.

A study on the value accounting of forest carbon sink services can promote the rapid development of the carbon sink market and help better understand the impact of forest carbon sinks on climate change and economic development. However, few studies have evaluated the value of China's current forest carbon sink services. Based on research on carbon peak and carbon neutrality, according to the characteristics of China's forest ecosystems and forest resource inventory data, the stock volume method was used to measure the amount and value of forest carbon sinks in China in 2009-2013 and 2014-2018. The results showed that: (1) the physical amount of forest carbon aggregates in China increased from 2009 to 2013 and from 2014 to 2018. The carbon storage of natural and plantation forests both showed an upward trend. Among them, the growth rate of the carbon storage of plantation forests was higher than that of natural forests. (2) The state, adjoint, and coupling equations of forest carbon sinks were employed to ascertain the best price for China's forest carbon sinks in 2020. The results showed that the price of China's forest carbon sinks was slightly higher than the internationally accepted carbon sink price, reflecting that the changes in the value of China's forest carbon sinks and international carbon sinks were roughly the same. (3) We obtained an appropriate accounting model for China's forest carbon sinks. (4) The value of China's forest carbon sinks increased from 2009 to 2013 and from 2014 to 2018. Although the price of carbon sinks has declined, the overall forest resource stock has increased, especially in plantation forests. The increase in the value of carbon sinks was as high as 24.7%, resulting in an overall increase in the value of forest carbon sinks, which was also in line with the physical amount of forest carbon sinks. The measurement conclusions were consistent. Several key points to note based on these findings are as follows: (1) China's current forest carbon sink transactions are all project-level certified emission reduction transactions, and diversified non-market means should be constructed to comprehensively promote carbon sink transactions. (2) China's current carbon sink transactions are mainly clean development mechanism projects, with few transactions between enterprises, and the carbon trading market situation is not optimistic. (3) The key to effective forest carbon sequestration trading is the accurate accounting of forest carbon storage and carbon sequestration value. Thus, it is of great significance to establish a forest carbon sequestration measurement method that is economical, simple, and accurate. (4) The physical amount and value of carbon sequestration of China's forest resources are rising, and the contribution rate is increasing year by year. However, there is still a gap in per capita forest area and storage compared with those in other countries worldwide. Thus, China must be vigilant in times of peace and further strengthen the protection and construction of forest resources.

Heavy metal pollution characteristics and health risk assessment of dust fall related to industrial activities in desert steppes.

China's desert steppe is the transition zone between the grasslands in central China and the arid desert. Ecological security in this region has long been a subject of debate, both in the local and academic communities. Heavy metals and other pollutants are readily released during industrial production, combustion, and transportation, aggravating the vulnerability of the desert steppes. To understand the impact of industrial activiteis on the heavy metal content of dust fall in the desert steppe, a total of 37 dust fall samples were collected over 90 days. An inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometer (NexION 350X) was used to measure the concentration of heavy metals Cu, Cd, Cr, Pb, Mn, Co, and Zn in the dust. Using comprehensive pollution index and multivariate statistical analysis methods, we explored the characteristics and sources of heavy metal pollution. We also quantitatively assessed the carcinogenic risks of heavy metals resulting from dust reduction with the help of health risk assessment models. The heavy metals' comprehensive pollution index values in the study area's dust fall were ranked as follows: Zn > Cd > Pb > Mn > Cu > Co > Cr. Among these, Zn, Cd, and Pb were significant pollution factors in the study area, and were affected by industrial production and transportation. The high pollution index was concentrated in the north of the research industrial park and on both sides of a highway. The seven heavy metals' total non-carcinogenic risk index (HI) values were ranked as follows: Mn > Co > Pb > Zn > Cr > Cu > Cd (only the HI of Mn was greater than one). Excluding Mn, the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk index values of the other six heavy metals were within acceptable ranges. Previous studies have also shown that industrial transportation and production have had a significant impact on the heavy metal content of dust fall in the desert steppe.

A multi-agent system for distributed multi-project scheduling with two-stage decomposition.

A two-stage decomposition approach based on a novel multi-agent system (MAS) is proposed for the distributed resource constrained multi-project scheduling problem (DRCMPSP). In stage one, from the point of view of each local project manager, a forward-backward hybrid genetic algorithm (FBHGA) is developed to generate an initial local schedule with the objective of minimizing individual project makespan. In stage two, from the global perspective of project management office, a sequential game-based negotiation mechanism is employed to eliminate global resource conflicts with the objective of minimizing total tardiness cost (TTC). The proposed approach is tested on 140 benchmark problem instances. According to the computational results, high-quality local project schedules can be obtained by FBHGA in stage one. Furthermore, it is observed that our method is capable of dealing with various complex multi-project instances under different degrees of resource conflicts in reasonable CPU running time. Compared to the existing decentralized methods for DRCMPSP, the proposed approach with sequential game-based negotiation mechanism shows the superiority in producing multi-project schedules with lower TTC, especially for large-size and strong conflicting instances.

An Optimized Informatics Pipeline for Mass Spectrometry-Based Peptidomics.

The comprehensive MS analysis of the peptidome, the intracellular and intercellular products of protein degradation, has the potential to provide novel insights on endogenous proteolytic processing and its utility in disease diagnosis and prognosis. Along with the advances in MS instrumentation and related platforms, a plethora of proteomics data analysis tools have been applied for direct use in peptidomics; however, an evaluation of the currently available informatics pipelines for peptidomics data analysis has yet to be reported. In this study, we began by evaluating the results of several popular MS/MS database search engines, including MS-GF+, SEQUEST, and MS-Align+, for peptidomics data analysis, followed by identification and label-free quantification using the well-established accurate mass and time (AMT) tag and newly developed informed quantification (IQ) approaches, both based on direct LC-MS analysis. Our results demonstrated that MS-GF+ outperformed both SEQUEST and MS-Align+ in identifying peptidome peptides. Using a database established from MS-GF+ peptide identifications, both the AMT tag and IQ approaches provided significantly deeper peptidome coverage and less missing data for each individual data set than the MS/MS methods, while achieving robust label-free quantification. Besides having an excellent correlation with the AMT tag quantification results, IQ also provided slightly higher peptidome coverage. Taken together, we propose an optimized informatics pipeline combining MS-GF+ for initial database searching with IQ (or AMT tag) approaches for identification and label-free quantification for high-throughput, comprehensive, and quantitative peptidomics analysis. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.