PM2.5 and its major chemical compositions were sampled and analyzed in January, April, July and October of 2014 at Beijing (BJ), Tianjin (TJ), Langfang (LF) and Baoding (BD) in order to probe the ...temporal and spatial characteristics as well as source apportionment of PM2.5 in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region. The results showed that PM2.5 pollution was severe in the BTH region. The average annual concentrations of PM2.5 at four sampling sites were in the range of 126–180 μg/m3, with more than 95% of sampling days exceeding 35 μg/m3, the limit ceiling of average annual concentration of PM2.5 regulated in the Chinese National Ambient Air Quality Standards (GB3095-2012). Additionally, concentrations of PM2.5 and its major chemical species were seasonally dependent and demonstrated spatially similar variation characteristics in the BTH region. Concentration of toxic heavy metals, such as As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sb, Se, and Zn, were higher in winter and autumn. Secondary inorganic ions (SO42−, NO3−, and NH4+) were the three-major water-soluble inorganic ions (WSIIs) of PM2.5 and their mass ratios to PM2.5 were higher in summer and autumn. The organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) concentrations were lower in spring and summer than in autumn and winter. Five factors were selected in Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) model analysis, and the results showed that PM2.5 pollution was dominated by vehicle emissions in Beijing, combustion emissions including coal burning and biomass combustion in Langfang and Baoding, and soil and construction dust emissions in Tianjin, respectively. The air mass that were derived from the south and southeast local areas around BTH regions reflected the features of short-distant and small-scale air transport. Shandong, Henan, and Hebei were identified the major potential sources-areas of secondary aerosol emissions to PM2.5.
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•We present the temp-spatial PM2.5 variations at four cities in BTH region of China.•PM2.5 concentrations and its species show spatially similar variation in BTH region.•PMF results indicate PM2.5 pollution is dominated by vehicle emissions in Beijing.•Coal combustion plays a significant contribution on PM2.5 in LangFang and Baoding.•Soil and construction dust constitute most important components of PM2.5 in TianJin.
PM2.5 mass and its major chemical composition in the BTH region were seasonally dependent and demonstrated spatially similar variation characteristics. PMF results indicated that PM2.5 was dominated by vehicle emissions in Beijing, coal and biomass combustion emissions in Langfang and Baoding, and soil and construction dust emissions in Tianjin, respectively.
Severe hazes occurred during 2016–2017 winter manifested winter haze was still a tough challenge in Beijing since the unprecedented haze in January 2013. Three haze episodes were identified from ...December 15, 2016 to January 15, 2017 in Beijing: the Red-Alert episode, the mixed haze-dust episode and the longest and heaviest Cross 2017 New Year's Haze episode. We analyzed the chemical components (water-soluble inorganic ions, carbonaceous components and trace elements) of multi-size airborne particles (PM1, PM2.5, PM10) samples, as well as the associated gaseous pollutants and meteorological parameters. Compared with the well-documented severe haze in January 2013, 2016–2017 winter haze was characterized by more stagnant synoptic conditions, sustained accumulation growth of PM enhanced by secondary reactions and regional contribution, as well as prominent fine particles mainly constituted by high concentrations of carbonaceous aerosol, secondary inorganic ions and anthropogenic elements. With strict pollution control measures since the enacting of Clean Air Action Plan in 2013, ambient concentrations of SO2, as well as SO42− and most anthropogenic elements in PM2.5 have decreased, whereas NO3− and NH4+ concentration in PM2.5 increased by as high as 77.9% and 47.3% respectively compared with January 2013. The ratios of NO3− /SO42− in PM1, PM2.5, PM10 were higher than 1.0 no matter during normal period or haze period, totally different with the results in January 2013, which suggested the increased relative contribution from mobile sources and decreased contribution from coal combustion in Beijing. Nitrate and its precursors had become major concerns during winter haze in Beijing, although the rapid growth of sulfate still played an important role in the formation and evolution of extremely heavy haze events. Under ammonium-rich and high relative humidity conditions, NO3− was thought to mainly be produced by enhanced heterogeneous reactions. To prevent Beijing winter haze effectively, it's quite crucial to cut NOx, NH3, SO2 and VOCs emissions simultaneously and strengthen regional cooperation on air pollution control.
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•Characteristics, precursors and sources of PM2.5 have changed obviously since the enacting of Clean Air Action Plan in 2013.•Compared with January 2013, SO2, SO42− and trace elements in PM2.5 decreased, whereas NO3− and NH4+ increased significantly.•2016–2017 winter haze is featured with more stagnant meteorology and sustained accumulation of PM2.5 enhanced by regional transport and secondary reactions.•Carbonaceous aerosol (OC, EC) and secondary inorganic aerosol (SO42−, NO3− and NH4+) were two major parts in PM with fine-mode size distributions.
Henan is the most populous province and one of the most seriously polluted areas in China at present. In this study, we establish an integrated atmospheric emission inventory of primary air ...pollutants in Henan province for the target year of 2012. The inventory developed here accounts for detailed activity levels of 11 categories of primary anthropogenic emission sources, and determines the best available representation of emission factors. Further, we allocate the annual emissions into a high spatial resolution of 3km×3km with ArcGIS methodology and surrogate indices, such as regional population distribution and gross domestic product (GDP). Our results show that the emissions of VOCs, SO2, PM10, PM2.5, NOX, NH3, CO, BC and OC are about 1.15, 1.24, 1.29, 0.70, 1.93, 1.05, 7.92, 0.27 and 0.25milliontons, respectively. The majority of these pollutant emissions comes from the Central Plain Urban Agglomeration (CPUA) region, particularly Zhengzhou and Pingdingshan. By combining with the emission inventory with the WRF/Chem modeling and backward trajectory analysis, we investigate the temporal and spatial variability of air pollution in the province and explore the causes of higher pollutants concentrations in the region of CPUA during the heavily polluted period of January. The results demonstrate that intensive pollutants emissions and unfavorable meteorological conditions are the main causes of the heavy pollution. Besides, Weighted Potential Source Contribution Function (WPSCF) analysis indicates that local emissions remain the major contributor of PM2.5 in Henan province, although emissions from the neighboring provinces (e.g. Shanxi, Shaanxi, Anhui, and Shandong) are also important contributors.
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•We develop an integrated emission inventory of multi-pollutants in Henan of China.•We explore spatial-temporal variations of air pollution in Henan with WRF/Chem and back trajectories.•We analyze causes of heavier pollution region and period with integrated methods.•Heavier pollution in central Henan is mainly due to local intensive emissions.•Emissions from surrounding provinces are also potential source of PM2.5 in Henan.
For the textile industry, fabric defect detection is an important part of production. In order to make the automatic fabric defect detection system used in production sites, this article proposes a ...lightweight algorithm Lightweight Single Shot Multi-Box Detector (LW-SSD) to address the issues of low detection accuracy, high computational complexity, and difficulty in deploying on hardware devices with limited computing power in fabric defect detection. Firstly, MobileNetv3 is introduced as the backbone network to reduce the number of model parameters. Secondly, in the feature fusion module, down-sampling stacking is used to fuse the feature maps processed by maximum pooling and regular 3 × 3 convolution, respectively, to enhance the generalization and small target feature extraction capability of the network. Then, the dilated convolution is incorporated into the Inceptionv3 to form a multi-branch parallel dilated convolution module, which can expand the receptive field of the feature layer and enhance the extraction of the target information. Finally, a dual-channel attention module is added, which adds the maximum pooling operation based on the efficient channel attention for deep convolutional neural networks (ECA) channel attention mechanism to highlight defect features and suppress background noise features. The experiments show that the accuracy of the system is improved while maintaining the faster detection speed. Among them, the LW-SSD algorithm has an accuracy improvement of 10.03% on the self-made dataset, a reduction of 58% in the number of model parameters compared to the Single Shot Multi-Box Detector (SSD) algorithm, and the detection speed reaches 48 frames per second.
In order to probe the seasonal variation, formation mechanisms as well as geographical origins of fine particles and its chemical components in two cities (Zhengzhou, ZZ and Xinxiang, XX) in Central ...Plains Urban Agglomeration, daily PM2.5 aerosol samples were collected for four consecutive seasons during 2017–2018. The annual average concentrations of PM2.5 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter smaller than 2.5 μm) were calculated at 70.5 ± 50.8 and 69.0 ± 46.3 μg m−3 at ZZ and XX, respectively. Daily ambient PM2.5 concentrations ranged from 18.2 to 303.0 μg m−3, among which >81% of the total sampling days exceeded the National Ambient Air Quality Standard of China (NAAQS, 35 μg m−3 as an annual average). Additionally, concentrations of PM2.5 and its major chemical components were seasonally dependent, usually with the highest mass concentration in winter. Compared with previous studies, higher NO3−/SO42− were observed in this study depicted that air pollution caused by motor vehicle exhaust cannot be ignored. OC concentration was higher at ZZ than XX during sampling campaign likely partially caused by larger number of motor vehicles, chemical pesticide and solvent used in ZZ. Both homogeneous and heterogeneous reactions played an important role in the formation of nitrate, while heterogeneous reactions dominated the formation of sulfate. We also found a faster increase in nitrate than in sulfate during the evolution of haze. The characteristics of long-range transportation of PM2.5 and its major chemical components and gaseous precursors were observed at both sites through back trajectories and WPSCF analysis, suggesting the complexity of air pollution and the multi-influence among cities.
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•Seasonal variation characteristics of PM2.5 and its chemical components are explored.•A faster increase in nitrate than in sulfate during the evolution of haze periods.•Severe pollution in winter has alleviated obviously compared with previous years.•Discrepancies of individual compositions of PM2.5 at both sites are significant.•Long-range transportation of PM2.5 is observed at both sites with WPSCF analysis.
A high resolution regional emission inventory of typical primary air pollutants (PAPs) for the year 2012 in Beijing and the surrounding five provinces (BSFP) of North China is developed. It is ...compiled with the combination of bottom-up and top-down methods, based on city-level collected activity data and the latest updated specific emission factors for different sources. The considered sources are classified into 12 major categories and totally 36 subcategories with respect to their multi-dimensional characteristics, such as economic sector, combustion facility or industrial process, installed air pollution control devices, etc. Power plant sector is the dominant contributor of NOX emissions with an average contribution of 34.1%, while VOCs emissions are largely emitted from industrial process sources (33.9%). Whereas, other stationary combustion sources represent major sources of primary PM2.5, PM10 and BC emissions, accounting for 22.7%, 30.0% and 33.9% of the total emissions, respectively. Hebei province contributes over 34% of the regional total CO emissions because of huge volume of iron and steel production. By comparison, Shandong province ranks as the biggest contributor for NOX, PM10, PM2.5, SO2, VOCs and OC. Further, the BSFP regional total emissions are spatially distributed into grid cells with a high resolution of 9 km × 9 km using GIS tools and surrogate indexes, such regional population, gross domestic product (GDP) and the types of arable soils. The highest emission intensities are mainly located in Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan area, Jinan-Laiwu-Zibo area and several other cities such as Shijiazhuang, Handan, and Zhengzhou. Furthermore, in order to establish a simple method to estimate and forecast PAPs emissions with macroscopic provincial-level statistical parameters in China, multi-parameter regression equations are firstly developed to estimate emissions outside the BSFP region with routine statistics (e.g. population, total final coal consumption, area of cultivated land and possession of civil vehicles) using the software 1stOpt. We find the estimated PAPs emissions of 31 provinces show close correlation with the well-recognized MEIC inventory. This high resolution multi-pollutants inventory provides necessary input data for regional air quality models that could help to identify and appoint the major influence sources, better understand the complex regional air pollution formation mechanism, and benefit for developing the corresponding joint prevention and control policies of regional complex air pollution in North China.
Display omitted (CT = crematoria, MS = mobile sources, NFMS = nonferrous metal smelting plants, CP = cement plants, ISP = iron and steel plants, PP = power plants, WTS = waste treatment sources, VOC-PS = VOCs product-related sources, BBS = biomass burning sources, IPS = industrial processes sources, PAES = primary ammonia emission sources, OSCS = other stationary combustion sources (including residential fuel consumption, commercial fuel consumption, industrial non-point sources), RFC = emissions from residential fuel consumption, CFC = emissions from commercial fuel consumption, INP = emissions from industrial non-point sources).
•A dedicated high-resolution PAPs emission inventory of BSFP region is established.•Primary sources are divided into 12 major categories and totally 36 sub-categories.•Multi-parameter regression equations are firstly developed to estimate emissions.•Specific emission factors of different processes for various sources are adopted.
Municipal solid waste (MSW) contains considerable hazardous components and the widely-distributed open MSW burning in heavily-populated urban areas can cause direct exposure of hazardous materials to ...citizens. By determining the best available representation of composition-varying and time-varying emission factors with fuzzy mathematics method and S-shape curves, a comprehensive atmospheric emission inventories of 9 typical toxic heavy metals (THMs, e.g. mercury (Hg), arsenic (As), lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), selenium (Se), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), and nickel (Ni)) from open MSW burning activities in China is established during the period of 2000–2013 for the first time. Further, the emissions in 2013 are allocated at a high spatial resolution of 0.5° × 0.5° grid by surrogate indexes. The results show that 9 typical THMs emissions from open MSW burning are estimated at 21.25 t for Hg, 131.52 t for As, 97.12 t for Pb, 10.12 t for Cd, 50.58 t for Cr, 81.95 t for Se, 382.42 t for Cu, 1790.70 t for Zn, and 43.50 t for Ni, respectively. In terms of spatial variation, the majority of emissions are concentrated in relatively developed and densely-populated regions, especially for the eastern, central and southern regions. Moreover, future emissions are also projected for the period of 2015–2030 based on different scenarios of the independent and collaborative effects of control proposals including minimizing waste, improving MSW incineration ratio, and enhancing waste sorting and recycling, etc. The collaborative effect of the above proposals is expected to bring the most effective reduction to THMs emissions from open MSW burning in China except for Hg. The results will be supplementary to all anthropogenic emissions and useful for relevant policy-making and the improvement of urban air quality as well as human health.
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•A comprehensive inventory of atmospheric THMs emissions from open MSW burning in China is established.•Emissions from 361 cities in 2013 are allocated into 0.5° × 0.5° grid cells.•Future trends of THMs emissions till 2030 are projected with three control scenarios.•Increasing proportion of waste incineration will result in increasing Hg emission.•Collaborative effects of all proposals can bring in the largest reduction in THMs emissions.
Carbonaceous constituents have various adverse impacts on human health, visibility, and climate change. Although comprehensive studies on the characteristics of carbonaceous constituents have been ...conducted recently, systematic studies covering both the mass characteristics and light-absorption properties of carbonaceous constituents on a regional scale in China are quite limited. In this study, current seasonal measurements of organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) in PM2.5 were investigated during autumn and winter (1–30 October 2017 and December 18, 2017 to January 17, 2018) in six selected cities located at the eastern foot of the Taihang Mountains: Beijing, Baoding, Shijiazhuang, Handan, Xinxiang, and Zhengzhou. Seasonal variations were similar when Beijing was excluded. The lowest concentrations of OC (18.33 ± 9.39 μg/m3) and EC (7.66 ± 5.64 μg/m3) were observed in Xinxiang (autumn) and Beijing (winter), respectively, while the highest concentrations of OC (38.43 ± 62.10 μg/m3) and EC (12.24 ± 24.67 μg/m3) occurred in Baoding during winter mainly due to elevated fuel combustion for space heating. The results of the potential source contribution function (PSCF) analysis suggested that border zones between several provinces in North China should be highlighted in order to strengthen pollution control. Moreover, by separating the optical properties of brown carbon from those of black carbon, we were able to estimate the contributions of brown carbon to the PM2.5 total light-absorption coefficient. The results show that the brown carbon absorption coefficient (at 405 nm) in winter at six sites accounted for 21.2%, 33.3%, 34.7%, 39.1%, 48.6%, and 23.3% of the PM2.5 light absorption, which are values that are comparable to the contribution of black carbon in Xinxiang. These results provide a more comprehensive understanding of carbonaceous constituents on a regional scale.
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•Significant seasonal variations of PM2.5 and its carbonaceous components were observed.•Seasonal variations of OC/EC and brown carbon highly relied on fuel used for heating.•Beijing showed the opposite seasonal characteristics compared with other cities.•Light absorption of brown carbon was comparable to black carbon in Xinxiang winter.
Single wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) based thermo‐sensitive hydrogel (SWNT‐GEL) is reported, which provides an injectable drug delivery system as well as a medium for photothermal transduction. ...SWNT‐hydrogel alone appears to be nontoxic on gastric cancer cells (BGC‐823 cell line) but leads to cell death with NIR radiation through a hyperthermia proapoptosis mechanism. By incorporating hyperthermia therapy and controlled in situ doxorubicin (DOX) release, DOX‐loaded SWNT‐hydrogel with NIR radiation proves higher tumor suppression rate on mice xenograft gastric tumor models compared to free DOX without detectable organ toxicity. The developed system demonstrates improved efficacy of chemotherapeutic drugs which overcomes systemic adverse reactions and presents immense potential for gastric cancer treatment.
A DOX‐loaded SWNT‐based thermo‐sensitive hydrogel (DOX/SWNT‐GEL) in situ drug delivery system is reported. DOX/SWNT‐GEL exhibits pro‐apoptosis effect through a hyperthermia therapy mechanism by NIR radiation, as well as better tumor growth suppression efficacy compared with free DOX in vivo. The combination of controlled drug release and photothermal transduction of DOX/SWNT‐GEL provides a promising prospect in future nanomedicine progress.
Ferroptosis is a recently recognized type of programmed cell death that is involved in the biological processes of various cancers. However, the mechanism of ferroptosis in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) ...remains unclear. This study aimed to determine the role of ferroptosis-associated long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in LUAD and to establish a prognostic model.
We downloaded ferroptosis-related genes from the FerrDb database and RNA sequencing data and clinicopathological characteristics from The Cancer Genome Atlas. We randomly divided the data into training and validation sets. Ferroptosis-associated lncRNA signatures with the lowest Akaike information criteria were determined using COX regression analysis and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator. The risk scores of ferroptosis-related lncRNAs were calculated, and patients with LUAD were assigned to high- and low-risk groups based on the median risk score. The prognostic value of the risk scores was evaluated using Kaplan-Meier curves, Cox regression analyses, and nomograms. We then explored relationships between ferroptosis-related lncRNAs and the immune response using gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA).
Ten ferroptosis-related lncRNA signatures were identified in the training group, and Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses confirmed that the risk scores were independent predictors of LUAD outcome in the training and validation sets (all
< 0.05). The area under the curve confirmed that the signatures could determine the prognosis of LUAD. The predictive accuracy of the established nomogram model was verified using the concordance index and calibration curve. The GSEA showed that the 10 ferroptosis-related lncRNAs might be associated with tumor immune response.
We established a novel signature involving 10 ferroptosis-related lncRNAs (LINC01843, MIR193BHG, AC091185.1, AC027031.2, AL021707.2, AL031667.3, AL606834.1, AC026355.1, AC124045.1, and AC025048.4) that can accurately predict the outcome of LUAD and are associated with the immune response. This will provide new insights into the development of new therapies for LUAD.