Contamination characteristics of heavy metals in a small-scale tanning area of southern China and their source analysis.

Tanning industry has been identified as a significant source of heavy metals; however, heavy metals contamination in farmland soil due to small-scale tanning activities remains unstudied. Here, samples from topsoil, profile soil, water and sediments in the vicinity of a small-scale tanning area in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, southern China, were collected to explore the contamination characteristics and source apportionment of Cd, Cr, Hg, As, Cu, Pb, Ni and Zn. The results show that the farmland soil was mainly contaminated by Cr and its content was 33.40-3830.00 mg kg-1. The highest level of Cr, Cd and Hg was above their thresholds, while the average contents of Cd, Cr, Pb and Hg exceeded the corresponding background levels. Moreover, enrichment of Cr in soil profiles and stream sediments were also observed, whose concentrations varied from 11.50 to 2590.00 mg kg-1 and 738.00 to 11,200.00 mg kg-1, respectively. Concentrations of Cr in top soils and soil profiles from farmland surrounding the stream were significantly higher than those from other areas, and the soils surrounding the stream were moderately to heavily polluted. The multivariate statistical analysis indicated that the heavy metals originated from traffic (Cu, Ni, Zn, Hg, and Pb), agriculture (Cr and Cd) and nature (As). Source apportionment with PMF model results showed that the relative contribution rates of heavy metals by traffic, tanning, agriculture, other industrial activities and natural sources were 16.00%, 18.88%, 20.88%, 22.04% and 22.20%, respectively. These findings indicate that small-scale tanning activities could also lead to heavy metal accumulation in the surrounding environment, which requires decision-makers to pay more attention and to develop effective remediation procedures.

Temporal and spatial analysis of vegetation cover change in the Yellow River Delta based on Landsat and MODIS time series data.

Based on the Landsat normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the NDVI product of MODIS, this study synthesized two kinds of time-series images. The features were selected according to the characteristics of the time series, and the random forest algorithm was used for classification. Based on the classification results and GIS spatial analysis, the temporal and spatial changes in vegetation cover in the Yellow River Delta from 2000 to 2020 were studied. The results showed that from 2000 to 2020, the vegetation first increased and then decreased, and the dynamic degree of land cover change was generally low. The monthly average minimum NDVI values during the vegetation growth period mostly occurred before 2010, and the maximum values occurred after 2010. From the spatial perspective, the average vegetation area of the Yellow River Delta accounted for 31.54% of the total study area; specifically, the spatial pattern of vegetation distribution was relatively fixed, and the fixed vegetation area accounted for 63.90% of the total vegetation area. The spatial distribution had significant differences, and the vegetation was distributed radially from the center of the Yellow River to the periphery, with significant fragmentation found outside the watershed. The Yellow River had a strong interference with vegetation growth, and the stable vegetation distribution areas were concentrated near the Yellow River. The correlation coefficient between vegetation distribution and the location of the Yellow River was - 0.9964.

Temporal and Spatial Synchronicity in West Nile Virus Cases Along the Central Flyway, USA.

This study of West Nile virus (WNV) examined the possibility of avian transmission to explain synchronicity in the year-to-year variability of WNV case numbers from Texas northward to the Dakotas, and reasons for the large case numbers on the northern Great Plains. We determined correlation coefficients between annual disease incidence per 100,000 people among states within the Great Plains Region, as well as the Central Flyway. There was spatial and temporal synchronicity, as evidenced by Pearson "r," with values along the core of the Central Flyway (Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota) varying between 0.69 and 0.79. Correlations for North Dakota (r = 0.6), however, were affected by local conditions. The concept of relative amplification is helpful in explaining why northerly states along the Central Flyway have larger annual case numbers per 100,000 than Texas but preserve the temporal signal. States differed in their capacity for amplifying the temporal signal in case numbers. For example, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota case numbers were commonly amplified relative to Texas, with Oklahoma and Kansas deamplified. Relative amplification factors for all states increased as a function of increasing case numbers in Texas. Thus, increased numbers of initially infected birds in Texas likely led to the rapid intensification of the zoonotic cycle as compared to more typical years. The study also confirmed the importance of winter weather in locally modulating disease cases. North Dakota appeared most impacted by these factors to the extent of reducing WNV case numbers in colder years and years with deep snow.

A review of _urban water networks management using GIS.

Use of computer technology is common in the construction since the 90's .Geographical Information System is a very useful technology in any data driven industry. The present paper reviews on the application and management of water works through GIS. GIS Data can be categorized as spatial and non-spatial data, which can be stored, manipulated, analysed and displayed with multiple users which can help in comprehensive solutions in a systematic way. GIS application is very common in construction industry, construction safety, flood studies, pipeline management which includes water works and sewerage. Project management through GIS is different from GIS based projects, the review briefs about the difference between the two. The pipe network management includes planning, designing, and management of the network, the planning is done using Remote sensing, photogrammetry drone or field survey method depending on the budget and objectives of the project. The designing of the network is done in GIS or separate application environment. The final step is the operations and management of the network which is in GIS.

Single-Cell and Spatial Analysis of Emergent Organoid Platforms.

Organoids have emerged as a promising advancement of the two-dimensional (2D) culture systems to improve studies in organogenesis, drug discovery, precision medicine, and regenerative medicine applications. Organoids can self-organize as three-dimensional (3D) tissues derived from stem cells and patient tissues to resemble organs. This chapter presents growth strategies, molecular screening methods, and emerging issues of the organoid platforms. Single-cell and spatial analysis resolve organoid heterogeneity to obtain information about the structural and molecular cellular states. Culture media diversity and varying lab-to-lab practices have resulted in organoid-to-organoid variability in morphology and cell compositions. An essential resource is an organoid atlas that can catalog protocols and standardize data analysis for different organoid types. Molecular profiling of individual cells in organoids and data organization of the organoid landscape will impact biomedical applications from basic science to translational use.

The Analysis of Classification and Spatiotemporal Distribution Characteristics of Ride-Hailing Driver's Driving Style: A Case Study in China.

Monitoring the driving styles of ride-hailing drivers is helpful for providing targeted training for drivers and improving the safety of the service. However, previous studies have lacked analyses of the temporal variation as well as spatial variation characteristics of driving styles. Understanding the variations can also help authorities formulate driver management policies. In this study, trajectory data are used to analyze driving styles in various temporal and spatial scenarios involving 34,167 drivers. The k-means method is used to cluster sample drivers. In terms of driving style time-varying, we found that only 31.79% of drivers could maintain a stable driving style throughout the day. Spatially, we divided the research area into two parts, namely, road segments and intersections, to analyze the spatial driving characteristics of drivers with different styles. The speed distribution, the acceleration and deceleration distributions are analyzed, results indicated that aggressive drivers display more aggressive driving styles in road segments, and conservative drivers exhibit more conservative driving styles at intersections. The findings of this study provide an understanding of temporal and spatial driving behavior factors for ride-hailing drivers and offer valuable contributions to ride-hailing driver training and road safety management.

Evaluation of polluted urban river water quality: a case study of the Xunsi River watershed, China.

Urbanization has caused severe negative impacts on intra-urban river water bodies. In this paper, 22 physicochemical parameters were measured at 20 locations in the level period and 29 locations in the wet and dry period using nearby urban area surface water samples from a medium-sized polluted river (a lake-river continuum, i.e., Xunsi River, Qingling River and Tangxun Lake) in the Yangtze River watershed in Wuhan, China. In this study, the environmental quality standards for surface water of China (GB3838-2002) and the WHO drinking water standard (2011) were used as reference standards. After the basic physicochemical parameters were evaluated, the possible sources of pollution in the study area under urban pressure were examined by applying multivariate statistical techniques. The factor analysis method and entropy weighting method identified three critical factors describing the type of surface water pollution in the watershed: (1) pollution from nutrients, mainly nitrogen pollution, (2) trace metals pollution, mainly from Fe and Pb, and (3) organic pollution. Based on multivariate analysis, the weighted arithmetic water quality index (WQI) was used to assess the water quality of each period. The WQI results show that the water near the urban area of the watershed temporally shows light to moderate pollution overall in the level and wet periods, and sever pollution in the dry period. The worst water quality indicating water that is not suitable for any practical use occurs in the dry period. Spatially distributed in clusters and strips visualized in kriging method, the water quality of the lake source and upstream is better than that of the downstream. In addition, Escherichia coli was detected at consistently high levels, and although the river is not a source of drinking water, it could pose a threat to downstream waterworks.

An effective method for determining the optimal sampling scale based on the purposes of soil pollution investigations and the factors influencing the pollutants.

There is a lack of a systematic method for determining the optimal sampling scale based on the purposes of soil pollution investigations (purposeinvest) and the factors influencing of pollutants, which could affect the accuracy of determining pollution scope of the pollution. Therefore, in this study, both the purposeinvest and the influencing factors were considered to determine the optimal sampling scale. The conclusions were obtained through geostatistical and spatial analysis. (1) The optimal sampling scale should account for 3% of the range of the pollutants, which can identify pollution information and minimize sampling costs. (2) The optimal sampling scale should be set to 3% of the range of the main factor influencing the pollutants in the absence of prior pollution information. (3) The greater the influences of the factors on the pollutants, the closer the optimal sampling scale calculated according to the influencing factors will be to that calculated based on the purposeinvest. (4) The method of determination based on both the purposeinvest and the influencing factors was concluded to be rational and reliable based on validation and advantage analysis. These results provide a method for soil pollution investigation that can minimize costs and improve the representativeness of the sample sites.

Evaluating an intervention for neural tube defects in coal mining cites in China: a temporal and spatial analysis.

BACKGROUND: Neural tube defects (NTDs) are congenital birth defects of the central nervous system that affect 0.5-2 per 1000 pregnancies worldwide. Therefore effective interventions for birth defects, especially NTDs, are very important. METHODS: Yuanping City is a coal mining city in Shanxi Province, China, with a high incidence of NTDs. This study evaluates the effects of NTD interventions in this city after adjusting for covariates that characterize the native environment. The number of NTD cases and births for the 18 towns in Yuanping City from 2007 to 2014 were included in the study. A shared-component zero-inflated Poisson regression was applied to analyse the temporal-spatial variance among the incidence rates of NTDs in Yuanping City before and after the interventions. RESULTS: The results showed that existing interventions to mitigate birth defects, such as folic acid supplementation, reduced the incidence of NTDs by 53.5% in coal mining areas in Yuanping City. However, the NTD risk in areas near coal mines, especially unrestored coal mines, was still high, even after the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The government should focus on health hazards related to mining and agricultural production and should provide education and resources to reduce environmental exposure. Reducing environmental risks should be regarded as an early intervention strategy to mitigate birth defects.

[Research evolutions in immuno-oncology and their impact on the management of patients treated with immunotherapy]. / Les évolutions de la recherche en immuno-oncologie et leurs impacts sur la prise en charge des patients traités par immunothérapie.

In this brief note, we review the state of knowledge about biomarkers that influence the response to current immunotherapies and the impact of recent technological developments (single-cell analysis, multi-dimensional imaging) on the analysis of these biomarkers. Also, new developments and strategies around CAR-T cells and bispecific antibodies in immuno-oncology are presented.

Integrating Geospatial Data and Measures of Disability and Wealth to Assess Inequalities in an Eye Health Survey: An Example from the Indian Sunderbans.

The Sunderbans are a group of delta islands that straddle the border between India and Bangladesh. For people living on the Indian side, health services are scarce and the terrain makes access to what is available difficult. In 2018, the international non-governmental organisation Sightsavers and their partners conducted a population-based survey of visual impairment and coverage of cataract and spectacle services, supplemented with tools to measure equity in eye health by wealth, disability, and geographical location. Two-stage cluster sampling was undertaken to randomly select 3868 individuals aged 40+ years, of whom 3410 were examined. Results were calculated using standard statistical processes and geospatial approaches were used to visualise the data. The age-sex adjusted prevalence of blindness was 0.8%, with higher prevalence among women (1.1%). Cataract Surgical Coverage for eyes at visual acuity (VA) 3/60 was 86.3%. The study did not find any association between visual impairment and wealth, however there were significant differences by additional (non-visual) disabilities at all levels of visual impairment. Geospatial mapping highlighted blocks where higher prevalence of visual impairment was identified. Integrating additional tools in population-based surveys is critical for measuring eye health inequalities and identifying population groups and locations that are at risk of being left behind.

Effects of natural factors on the spatial distribution of heavy metals in soils surrounding mining regions.

Various studies have shown that soils surrounding mining areas are seriously polluted with heavy metals. Determining the effects of natural factors on spatial distribution of heavy metals is important for determining the distribution characteristics of heavy metals in soils. In this study, an 8km buffer zone surrounding a typical non-ferrous metal mine in Suxian District of Hunan Province, China, was selected as the study area, and statistical, spatial autocorrelation and spatial interpolation analyses were used to obtain descriptive statistics and spatial autocorrelation characteristics of As, Pb, Cu, and Zn in soil. Additionally, the distributions of soil heavy metals under the influences of natural factors, including terrain (elevation and slope), wind direction and distance from a river, were determined. Layout of sampling sites, spatial changes of heavy metal contents at high elevations and concentration differences between upwind and downwind directions were then evaluated. The following results were obtained: (1) At low elevations, heavy metal concentrations decreased slightly, then increased considerably with increasing elevation. At high elevations, heavy metal concentrations first decreased, then increased, then decreased with increasing elevation. As the slope increased, heavy metal contents increased then decreased. (2) Heavy metal contents changed consistently in the upwind and downwind directions. Heavy metal contents were highest in 1km buffer zone and decreased with increasing distance from the mining area. The largest decrease in heavy metal concentrations was in 2km buffer zone. Perennial wind promotes the transport of heavy metals in downwind direction. (3) The spatial extent of the influence of the river on Pb, Zn and Cu in the soil was 800m. (4) The influence of the terrain on the heavy metal concentrations was greater than that of the wind. These results provide a scientific basis for preventing and mitigating heavy metal soil pollution in areas surrounding mines.

Syndromic surveillance in companion animals utilizing electronic medical records data: development and proof of concept.

In an effort to recognize and address communicable and point-source epidemics in dog and cat populations, this project created a near real-time syndromic surveillance system devoted to companion animal health in the United States. With over 150 million owned pets in the US, the development of such a system is timely in light of previous epidemics due to various causes that were only recognized in retrospect. The goal of this study was to develop epidemiologic and statistical methods for veterinary hospital-based surveillance, and to demonstrate its efficacy by detection of simulated foodborne outbreaks using a database of over 700 hospitals. Data transfer protocols were established via a secure file transfer protocol site, and a data repository was constructed predominantly utilizing open-source software. The daily proportion of patients with a given clinical or laboratory finding was contrasted with an equivalent average proportion from a historical comparison period, allowing construction of the proportionate diagnostic outcome ratio and its confidence interval for recognizing aberrant heath events. A five-tiered alert system was used to facilitate daily assessment of almost 2,000 statistical analyses. Two simulated outbreak scenarios were created by independent experts, blinded to study investigators, and embedded in the 2010 medical records. Both outbreaks were detected almost immediately by the alert system, accurately detecting species affected using relevant clinical and laboratory findings, and ages involved. Besides demonstrating proof-in-concept of using veterinary hospital databases to detect aberrant events in space and time, this research can be extended to conducting post-detection etiologic investigations utilizing exposure information in the medical record.

Pulmonary tuberculosis in São Luis, State of Maranhão, Brazil: space and space-time risk clusters for death (2008-2012)

INTRODUCTION: The objective was to identify space and space-time risk clusters for the occurrence of deaths in a priority city for the control of tuberculosis (TB) in the Brazilian Northeast. METHODS: Ecological research was undertaken in the City of São Luis/Maranhão. Cases were considered that resulted in deaths in the population living in the urban region of the city with pulmonary TB as the basic cause, between 2008 and 2012. To detect space and space-time clusters of deaths due to pulmonary TB in the census sectors, the spatial analysis scan technique was used. RESULTS: In total, 221 deaths by TB occurred, 193 of which were due to pulmonary TB. Approximately 95% of the cases (n=183) were geocoded. Two significant spatial clusters were identified, the first of which showed a mortality rate of 5.8 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per year and a high relative risk of 3.87. The second spatial cluster showed a mortality rate of 0.4 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per year and a low relative risk of 0.10. A significant cluster was observed in the space-time analysis between 11/01/2008 and 04/30/2011, with a mortality rate of 8.10 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per year and a high relative risk (3.0). CONCLUSIONS: The knowledge of priority sites for the occurrence of deaths can support public management to reduce inequities in the access to health services and permit an optimization of the resources and teams in the control of pulmonary TB, providing support for specific strategies focused on the most vulnerable populations. .