Environmental heavy metal exposure and altering anti-Mullerian hormone levels in women.

Background: Serum levels of anti-Mullerian hormone (AMH), a key indicator of ovarian aging, decrease with age. This decline may be accelerated by genetic and environmental factors. Accordingly, the present study investigates the relationship between serum AMH concentrations and exposure to heavy metals.

Natural sources exert substantially greater influence on atmospheric ozone formation during high-ozone episodes in a medium-sized industrial city.

Atmospheric ozone (O) formation mechanisms remain challenging to clarify through conventional approaches that rely on the observed or initial volatile organic compound (VOC) concentration data, as they fail to capture the dynamic photochemical consumption processes. This study presents a novel consumption-based methodology that quantifies photochemically consumed VOCs and their critical sources during the O formation, providing unprecedented insights into the pollution mechanisms. Through systematic analysis of 17 typical high O episodes in 2020 in Zhumadian, China, the results showed that the photochemical losses of alkenes had the most substantial impact on the O formation, with a contribution of ∼94.

Enclosed-terrain urbanized areas require vertically stratified air quality management: Insights from particulate matter vertical observations in China's Sichuan Basin.

Urbanized basins are widely recognized as hotspots‌ of particulate matter (PM) pollution. Characterizing the vertical stratification of PM in these regions is essential to elucidate the influence of regional air pollutant transport, dynamics of planetary boundary layer, and pollution-meteorology feedbacks. Using Mount Emei (500-3100 m a.

Potential Impact of Maternal Nighttime Light Exposure and Its Interaction With Sociodemographic Characteristics on the Risk of Various Congenital Heart Diseases.

Background: Although maternal exposure to artificial light at night has shown negative associations with pregnancy outcomes, its impact on the risk of congenital heart disease remains unclear. This study examined the association between maternal exposure to artificial light at night during pregnancy and occurrence of congenital heart disease in offspring, considering potential interactions with sociodemographics.

Methods: We included newborns diagnosed prenatally with congential heart disease and healthy volunteers from 21 cities in southern China.

Ambient air pollution exposure and effects on neutralizing antibody titers following SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in adults.

We examined the association between air pollution and neutralizing antibody responses to COVID-19 vaccination in participants enrolled in a phase 3 clinical trial. Seventy-four adults were vaccinated with two doses of the AstraZeneca ChAdOx1 vectored vaccine (AZD1222) (5 x 1010 viral particles) at baseline and day 29, between Aug 28, 2020, to Jan 15, 2021, in Monroe County, NY. SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus neutralizing ID50 titers (NAb) and total spike protein IgG were assessed at baseline and 15, 29, 43, 57 and 90 days after vaccination.

Source apportionment of PM particles in the urban atmosphere using PMF and LPO-XGBoost.

Atmospheric particulate matter (PM), as a leading part of air pollution, affects health in many ways. Thus, identifying and quantifying the contribution of atmospheric particulate matter sources of PM is vital for developing effective air quality management strategies. Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) is one of the most common methods for source apportionment.

The role of environmental access to exercise opportunities in cardiovascular mortality: evidence from a nationwide study.

Background: Environmental access to exercise opportunities plays a crucial role in determining the level of physical activity within a population. However, it is unclear how environmental factors contribute to disparities in physical activity and health outcomes. We explored the associations between county-level access to exercise opportunities and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality across US counties.

Source apportionment of PM using dispersion normalized positive matrix factorization (DN-PMF) in Beijing and Baoding, China.

Fine particulate matter (PM) samples were collected in two neighboring cities, Beijing and Baoding, China. High-concentration events of PM in which the average mass concentration exceeded 75 µg/m were frequently observed during the heating season. Dispersion Normalized Positive Matrix Factorization was applied for the source apportionment of PM as minimize the dilution effects of meteorology and better reflect the source strengths in these two cities.

Utilization of Negative Chemical Ionization to Expand Nontargeted Screening of Halogenated Organics in Great Lakes Top Predator Fish.

Nontargeted screening (NTS) of halogenated contaminants in biota is part of the routine monitoring of the Great Lakes ecosystem. NTS can give insight into new chemicals with possible persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) properties and help quantify known PBT's degradation and transformation products. The most common ionization technique for NTS is electron impact ionization (EI) due to the consistent and easily standardized fragmentation patterns.

Drivers of civil aviation emissions in China: Considering spatial heterogeneity and interdependence.

CO and NO emissions from aviation transportation are critical components of overall transportation-related emissions, significantly impacting both climate and air quality. To implement more targeted and effective measures for mitigating emissions in this sector, it is essential to conduct empirical analyses that deepen our understanding of the factors influencing aviation emissions. Previous studies have predominantly focused on emissions from the entire transportation sector, with limited research specifically addressing aviation emissions.

Gestational exposure to PM, NO, and sex steroid hormones: Identifying critical windows of exposure in the Rochester UPSIDE Cohort.

Background: Sex steroid hormones are critical for maintaining pregnancy and optimal fetal development. Air pollutants are potential endocrine disruptors that may disturb sex steroidogenesis during pregnancy, potentially leading to adverse health outcomes.

Methods: In the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes Understanding Pregnancy Signals and Infant Development pregnancy cohort (Rochester, NY), sex steroid concentrations were collected at study visits in early-, mid-, and late-pregnancy in 299 participants.

Investigating the inflammatory effect of microplastics in cigarette butts on peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

Cigarette filter microplastics are composed of cellulose acetate that does not undergo biological or photo-degradation. These microplastics are readily dispersed and can be found abundantly in water, soil, and air. These fibers possess high absorption capabilities, allowing them to collect and retain pollutants such as toxic elements.

Source-dependent absorption Ångström exponent in the Los Angeles Basin: Multi-time resolution factor analyses of ambient PM and aerosol optical absorption.

Advanced receptor models can leverage the information derived from optical and chemical variables as input by a variety of instruments at different time resolutions to extract the source specific absorption Ångström exponent (AAE) from aerosol absorption. The multilinear engine (ME-2), a Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) solver, serves as a proficient tool for performing such analyses, thereby overcoming the constraints imposed by the assumptions in current optical source apportionment methods such as the Aethalometer approach since the use of a-priori AAE values introduces additional uncertainty into the results of optical methods. Comprehensive PM chemical speciation datasets, and aerosol absorption coefficients (b, λ) at seven wavelengths measured by an Aethalometer (AE33), were used in multi-time source apportionment (MT-PMF).

Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations and breakpoint trends across the waters of the Great Lakes by isotope-dilution high-resolution mass spectroscopy.

Water samples were collected during each of the 2012-2019 Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI) cruises aboard the U.S. EPA R/V Lake Guardian as part of the Great Lakes Fish Monitoring and Surveillance Program (GLFMSP) lower food web contaminant assessment.

Atmospheric deposition of pollutants at three altitudes on Mount Emei, Sichuan Basin, southwestern China.

Comparing the atmospheric deposition chemistry between above and below the planetary boundary layer (PBL) may help understand the impacts from inter-regional air pollutant transport and local emissions to air pollutant deposition. In this study, we monitored ions, soluble and insoluble potentially toxic elements (PTEs), and dissolved organic nitrogen and carbon at the base (M-base: 551 m asl), middle (M-middle: 2400 m asl), and summit (M-summit: 3077 m asl) on Mount Emei. The annual volume-weighted mean (VWM) concentrations of all measured components were substantially higher at M-base than at M-summit, except for Na, Cl, and NO as Na and Cl at M-summit may be largely from ocean and NO to NO transformation may be faster at M-base.

Increases in PM levels in Houston are associated with a highly recirculating sea breeze.

Local land-sea breezes play an important role in coastal air quality because they circulate air between coastal/urban and marine areas, potentially causing the accumulation of pollutants. This has been observed for the secondary photochemical pollutant ozone. However, particulate matter (PM) also warrants investigation.

Source apportionment of ultrafine particles in urban Europe.

There is a body of evidence that ultrafine particles (UFP, those with diameters ≤ 100 nm) might have significant impacts on health. Accordingly, identifying sources of UFP is essential to develop abatement policies. This study focuses on urban Europe, and aims at identifying sources and quantifying their contributions to particle number size distribution (PNSD) using receptor modelling (Positive Matrix Factorization, PMF), and evaluating long-term trends of these source contributions using the non-parametric Theil-Sen's method.

Changes in factor profiles deriving from photochemical losses of volatile organic compounds: Insight from daytime and nighttime positive matrix factorization analyses.

Substantial effects of photochemical reaction losses of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on factor profiles can be investigated by comparing the differences between daytime and nighttime dispersion-normalized VOC data resolved profiles. Hourly speciated VOC data measured in Shijiazhuang, China from May to September 2021 were used to conduct study. The mean VOC concentration in the daytime and at nighttime were 32.

A scalable two-stage Bayesian approach accounting for exposure measurement error in environmental epidemiology.

Accounting for exposure measurement errors has been recognized as a crucial problem in environmental epidemiology for over two decades. Bayesian hierarchical models offer a coherent probabilistic framework for evaluating associations between environmental exposures and health effects, which take into account exposure measurement errors introduced by uncertainty in the estimated exposure as well as spatial misalignment between the exposure and health outcome data. While two-stage Bayesian analyses are often regarded as a good alternative to fully Bayesian analyses when joint estimation is not feasible, there has been minimal research on how to properly propagate uncertainty from the first-stage exposure model to the second-stage health model, especially in the case of a large number of participant locations along with spatially correlated exposures.