Silicosis Leung, Chi Chiu, Dr; Yu, Ignatius Tak Sun, Prof; Chen, Weihong, Prof
The Lancet (British edition),
05/2012, Letnik:
379, Številka:
9830
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Summary Silicosis is a fibrotic lung disease caused by inhalation of free crystalline silicon dioxide or silica. Occupational exposure to respirable crystalline silica dust particles occurs in many ...industries. Phagocytosis of crystalline silica in the lung causes lysosomal damage, activating the NALP3 inflammasome and triggering the inflammatory cascade with subsequent fibrosis. Impairment of lung function increases with disease progression, even after the patient is no longer exposed. Diagnosis of silicosis needs carefully documented records of occupational exposure and radiological features, with exclusion of other competing diagnoses. Mycobacterial diseases, airway obstruction, and lung cancer are associated with silica dust exposure. As yet, no curative treatment exists, but comprehensive management strategies help to improve quality of life and slow deterioration. Further efforts are needed for recognition and control of silica hazards, especially in developing countries.
Southeastern (SE) Yunnan is a major Sn polymetallic province of China, with the Dulong large Sn-Zn polymetallic deposit (in the Laojunshan orefield) being one of the most representative deposits. Our ...recent work had first identified helvine-group minerals in this deposit. These minerals mainly occur in massive sphalerite ores, and coexist with sphalerite, pyrrhotite, biotite, talc, cassiterite, and fluorite. Raman spectroscopic, X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopic (SEM), and electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) analyses indicate that these helvine-group minerals are oscillatory-zoned helvine-danalite. Both the helvine and danalite zones are mixed with varying proportion of the other helvine-group end-member, and our studies indicate that the oscillatory zoning was formed mainly by periodic fluctuations of the fluid physicochemical conditions (notably fS2 and fO2), but less related to the variation of the fluid Mn, Fe, and Zn contents. The helvine zone was likely formed in a higher fS2 but lower fO2 environment than the danalite zone. In this study, we present the first LA-ICP-MS in situ trace element data for the helvine-danalite minerals from Dulong, and the results indicate that the helvine has considerably high contents and a wide range of trace elements. The helvine is rich in Ca, Al, Sc, and Y, while the danalite is rich in Sn and P (reaching thousands of parts per million). Such trace element enrichments are likely controlled by their respective ionic size and chalcophile behavior. Meanwhile, the fO2 and fS2 conditions during the zoning formation may have also influenced the trace element distributions: trace elements may have mainly entered the helvine-group minerals by substituting into the M-sites in M4BeSiO43S, for instance Al, Sc, and Y substitute for Mn, and Sn and Mg for Fe and Zn. It is noteworthy that the helvine and danalite zones are all HREE-enriched and have distinct negative Eu anomalies. This may be related to the high fluid F-Y-P contents during the mineral formation. High-F-Y fluids can readily incorporate HREEs into helvine-group minerals, and phosphates incorporate HREEs more readily in alkali fluids. Europium occurs as Eu2+ in the fluid, causing the negative Eu anomalies observed. We have also identified grains of cassiterite in the helvine-group minerals and its coexisting sphalerite. U-Pb dating on these cassiterite grains yielded 86.5 ± 1.6 Ma, coeval with the reported sulfide mineralization age. This indicates that both the Be and Sn-Zn polymetallic mineralization occurred in the Cretaceous, and may have been products of the Late Yanshanian Laojunshan magmatic-hydrothermal activity. Considering the close relations with many W(-Be) deposits nearby (e.g., Nanyangtian, Saxi, and Maka), the Laojunshan orefield may also have substantial Be mineralization potential.
Environmental risk factors have been implicated in adverse health effects. Previous epidemiological studies on environmental risk factors mainly analyzed the impact of single pollutant exposure on ...health, while in fact, humans are constantly exposed to a complex mixture consisted of multiple pollutants/chemicals. In recent years, environmental epidemiologists have sought to assess adverse health effects of exposure to multi-pollutant mixtures based on the diversity of real-world environmental pollutants. However, the statistical challenges are considerable, for instance, multicollinearity and interaction among components of the mixture complicate the statistical analysis. There is currently no consensus on appropriate statistical methods. Here we summarized the practical statistical methods used in environmental epidemiology to estimate health effects of exposure to multi-pollutant mixture, such as Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR), weighted quantile sum (WQS) regressions, shrinkage methods (least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, elastic network model, adaptive elastic-net model, and principal component analysis), environment-wide association study (EWAS), etc. We sought to review these statistical methods and determine the application conditions, strengths, weaknesses, and result interpretability of each method, providing crucial insight and assistance for addressing epidemiological statistical issues regarding health effects from multi-pollutant mixture.
Display omitted
•Mixture analysis is challenged by high-dimensionality, multicollinearity, interaction, etc.•BKMR and WQS-based methods developed for mixture analysis are increasingly used.•Method selection should be based on its features, data traits, study purposes, etc.•Combined use of multiple statistical methods proposed in this study is recommended.•Measurement error deserves attention when assessing multi-pollutant mixture effects.
The Finemet/FeSi compound powder cores with crystal-like microstructure were successfully fabricated by adding micron-size gas-atomized FeSi powders into the thick Finemet flaky-powders. ...Loss-separation fitting model for the compound cores mixed with different mass fractions of FeSi powders was built to analyze the relative loss mechanism and source of each part loss. Due to the fact that the magnetic powders were coated with high-quality electrical-insulating layer, the inter-particle eddy current energy loss is only 1/400–1/800 of total energy loss. The volume fraction of non-magnetic phase and pinning effect, which are found to be sensitive to density of cores, play a significant role on both hysteresis loss and excess loss. As compared to the pure Finemet based powder cores, the Finemet/FeSi compound cores mixed with 10–14 wt% of FeSi powders exhibit a higher permeability and a greater retained permeability at a DC-bias field of 7960 A/m. The total core loss reduced from 788 kW/m3 to 614 kW/m3 at 300 kHz, 0.05 T. These results indicated that the Finemet/FeSi compound powder cores with crystal-like microstructure have a great advantage in power electronics applications, and suggested that the powder micro-structure design is a promising method to further improve magnetic performances for soft magnetic composites.
Display omitted
•Finemet/FeSi compound powder cores with crystalloid micro-structure were successfully fabricated.•Finemet/FeSi compound powder cores mixed with 10–14 wt% of FeSi powders exhibit the best magnetic properties.•Both hysteresis and excess losses are found to be sensitive of cores' density.•The excess loss will be the major contributor to the total core loss when frequency > 275 kHz.•The inter-particle eddy current loss is only 1/400–1/800 of total core loss.
Formation of composites of dextran-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles (NPs) and graphene oxide (Fe3O4-GO) and their application as T 2-weighted contrast agent for efficient cellular magnetic resonance ...imaging (MRI) are reported. Aminodextran (AMD) was first synthesized by coupling reaction of carboxymethyldextran with butanediamine, which was then chemically conjugated to meso-2,3-dimercaptosuccinnic acid-modified Fe3O4 NPs. Next, the AMD-coated Fe3O4 NPs were anchored onto GO sheets via formation of amide bond in the presence of 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethyaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC). It is found that the Fe3O4-GO composites possess good physiological stability and low cytotoxicity. Prussian Blue staining analysis indicates that the Fe3O4-GO nanocomposites can be internalized efficiently by HeLa cells, depending on the concentration of the composites incubated with the cells. Furthermore, compared with the isolated Fe3O4 NPs, the Fe3O4-GO composites show significantly enhanced cellular MRI, being capable of detecting cells at the iron concentration of 5 μg mL–1 with cell density of 2 × 105 cells mL–1, and at the iron concentration of 20 μg mL–1 with cell density of 1000 cells mL–1.
•Research on the joint toxic effect of various phthalates exposure on the liver is lacking.•Several phthalate metabolites were significantly related to indicators of liver function tests.•The ...combined effect of the phthalate mixture on the markers of liver injury was statistically significant.
Phthalates have been largely used for years in varieties of products worldwide. However, research on the joint toxic effect of various phthalates exposure on the liver is lacking.
We aimed to assess exposure to phthalates on liver function tests (LFTs).
This analysis included data on 6046 adults (≥20 years old) who participated in a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) in 2007–2016. We employed linear regression and Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR), to explore the associations of urinary phthalate metabolites with 8 indicators of LFTs.
Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (ΣDEHP) was found to be positively associated with serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) (all P FDR < 0.05). We found significant positive associations of ∑DEHP, mono-ethyl phthalate (MEP) and mono-(carboxyisononyl) phthalate (MCNP) with total bilirubin (TBIL) (all P FDR < 0.05). ΣDEHP, mono-n-butyl phthalate (MBP), mono-(3-carboxypropyl) phthalate (MCPP) and mono-benzyl phthalate (MBzP) were negatively associated with serum ALB (all P FDR < 0.05). The BKMR analyses showed a significantly positive overall effect on ALT, AST, ALP and TBIL levels with high concentrations of phthalate metabolites and a significantly negative overall effect on ALB and TP, when all the chemicals at low concentrations.
Our results add novel evidence that exposures to phthalates might be adversely associated with the indicators of LTFs, indicating the potential toxic effect of phthalate exposures on the human liver.
Integrating faultline theory and the attention-based view, this paper explores the impact and process mechanisms of two types of faultlines (i.e., task-related faultlines and relationship-related ...faultlines) within top management teams (TMTs), specifically on corporate industrial diversification.
Based on the unbalanced panel data of Chinese A-share non-financial listed firms from 2008-2021, this study uses the fixed-effects model for hypothesis testing.
First, task-related TMT faultlines promote corporate industrial diversification, while conversely, relationship-related TMT faultlines inhibit corporate industrial diversification. Second, task-related TMT faultlines promote firms' strategic attentional breadth, while conversely, relationship-related TMT faultlines inhibit firms' strategic attentional breadth. Third, strategic attentional breadth plays a partially-mediating role in the relationship between both types of TMT faultlines and firms' industrial diversification.
This study extends the research related to corporate industrial diversification based on micro-level explanatory mechanisms, and also provides implications and guidance for the rational allocation of TMT and firms' industrial diversification management practices.
Adverse health effects of ambient ozone are getting widespread attention, but the evidence on the relationship between ozone levels and circulatory system diseases are limited and inconsistent. Daily ...data for ambient ozone levels and hospitalizations for total circulatory diseases and five subtypes in Ganzhou, China from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2020 were collected. We constructed a generalized additive model with quasi-Poisson regression accounting for lag effects to estimate the associations between ambient ozone levels and the number of hospitalized cases of total circulatory diseases and five subtypes. The differences among gender, age, and season subgroups were furtherly assessed through stratified analysis. A total of 201,799 hospitalized cases of total circulatory diseases were included in the present study, including 94,844 hypertension (HBP), 28,597 coronary heart disease (CHD), 42,120 cerebrovascular disease (CEVD), 21,636 heart failure (HF), and 14,602 arrhythmia. Significantly positive associations were observed between ambient ozone levels and daily hospitalizations for total circulatory diseases and all subtypes except arrhythmia. Each 10 μg/m3 increase in ozone concentration, the risk of hospitalizations for total circulatory diseases, HBP, CHD, CEVD, and HF increased by 0.718% (95% confidence interval, 0.156%–1.284%), 0.956% (0.346%–1.570%), 0.499% (0.057%–0.943%), 0.386% (0.025%–0.748%), and 0.907% (0.118%–1.702%), respectively. The above associations remained significant after adjusting for other air pollutants. The risk of hospitalization for circulatory diseases was higher in warm season (May to October) and varied in gender and age subgroups. This study suggested that short-term exposure to ambient ozone may increase the risk of hospitalizations for circulatory diseases. Our findings reinforce the importance of reducing ambient ozone pollution levels for protecting public health.
Display omitted
•Ambient ozone levels were positively associated with daily hospitalizations for circulatory diseases.•The associations between ozone and hospitalizations for circulatory diseases were still significant after the adjustment of other air pollutants.•The risk of hospitalizations for circulatory diseases associated with ambient ozone was higher in warm season.
High-fat diet (HFD)-induced metabolic syndrome followed by chronic kidney disease (CKD) have received extensive attention. However, the pathogenesis that contributes to HFD-induced renal injury still ...remains unclear. Transmembrane protein 126B (Tmem126b) is a complex I assembly factor, playing critical role in controlling important biological processes. In the study, we showed that Tmem126b levels were increased in kidney of HFD-fed mice. Tmem126b knockout (KO) attenuated metabolic disorders in mice challenged with HFD. Further, Tmem126b-KO mice showed alleviated kidney damage in response to HFD treatment. Mechanistically, we suggested that in kidney of mice, the dyslipidemia, apoptosis, and mitochondria dysfunction generated by HFD were prevented by Tmem126b deletion via regulating the expression of associated signals. Further, we demonstrated that HFD-induced renal inflammation was ameliorated by Tmem126b knockout, as evidenced by the down-regulated expression of inflammatory factors, including tumor necrosis factor a (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1β and monocyte chemotactic protein (MCP)-1, which was through repressing nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathways. Additionally, Tmem126b ablation repressed oxidative stress in renal samples of HFD-fed mice partly by promoting nuclear factor-erythroid 2 related factor-2 (Nrf-2) and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) expression. The role of Tmem126b knockout in protecting against HFD-triggered renal injury was verified in palmitate (PA)-incubated cells with Tmem126b knockdown. Importantly, inhibiting Nrf-2 expression abolished Tmem126b knockdown-alleviated lipid deposition, apoptosis, inflammation, ROS generation and mitochondrial dysfunction. Collectively, our study identified Tmem126b as a positive regulator for the progression of CKD induced by HFD through meditating Nrf-2 expression.
•Inhibition of Tmem126b alleviates HFD-induced metabolic disorders in mice.•Tmem126b knockout attenuates HFD-induced dyslipidemia and apoptosis in kidney.•Tmem126b knockout improves inflammation and oxidative stress in kidney of mice fed with HFD.
Fatigue driving is a serious threat to road safety, which is why accurately identifying fatigue driving behavior and warning drivers in time are of great significance in improving traffic safety. ...However, accurately recognizing fatigue driving is still challenging due to large intra-class variations in facial expression, continuity of behaviors, and illumination conditions. A fatigue driving recognition method based on feature parameter images and a residual Swin Transformer is proposed in this paper. First, the face region is detected through spatial pyramid pooling and a multi-scale feature output module. Then, a multi-scale facial landmark detector is used to locate 23 key points on the face. The aspect ratios of the eyes and mouth are calculated based on the coordinates of these key points, and a feature parameter matrix for fatigue driving recognition is obtained. Finally, the feature parameter matrix is converted into an image, and the residual Swin Transformer network is presented to recognize fatigue driving. Experimental results on the HNUFD dataset show that the proposed method achieves an accuracy of 96.512%, thus outperforming state-of-the-art methods.
PDF
