Long-term sensor measurements of lung deposited surface area of particulate matter emitted from local vehicular and residential wood combustion sources

Abstract

Lung deposited surface area (LDSA) is a relatively new metric that has been argued to be more accurate at predicting health effects from aerosol exposure. For typical atmospheric aerosol, the LDSA concentration depends mainly on the concentration of ultrafine particles (e.g. vehicular exhaust emissions and residential wood combustion) and therefore optical methods cannot be used to measure and quantify it. The objective of this study was to investigate and describe typical characteristics of LDSA under different urban environments and evaluate how a diffusion charging-based Pegasor AQ Urban sensor (Pegasor Ltd., Finland) can be used as an alternative to optical sensors when assessing local combustion emissions and respective LDSA concentrations. Long-term (12?months) sensor measurements of LDSA were carried out at three distinctly different measurement sites (four sensor nodes) in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland. The sites were affected mainly by vehicular exhaust emission (street canyon and urban background stations) and by residential wood combustion (two detached housing area stations). The results showed that the accuracy of the AQ Urban was good (R² = 0.90) for the measurement of LDSA when compared to differential mobility particle sizer. The mean concentrations of LDSA were more than twice as high at the street canyon (mean 22 µm² cm^?3) site when compared to the urban background site (mean 9.4 µm² cm^?3). In the detached housing area, the mean concentrations were 12 µm² cm^?3, and wood combustion typically caused high LDSA peaks in the evenings. High correlations and similar diurnal cycles were observed for the LDSA and black carbon at street canyon and urban background stations. The utilization of a small-scale sensor network (four nodes) showed that the cross-station variability in hourly LDSA concentrations was significant in every site, even within the same detached housing area (distance between the two sites ～670?m).     

The posthuman: AI,dronology, and “becoming alien”

AI & SOCIETY - This paper is addressed to recent theoretical discussions of the Anthropocene, in particular Bernard Stiegler’s Neganthropocene (Open Universities Press, 2018), which...     

Supramolecular Assembly of Aminoethylene‐Lipopeptide PMO Conjugates into RNA Splice‐Switching Nanomicelles

Phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PMOs) are oligonucleotide analogs that can be used for therapeutic modulation of pre‐mRNA splicing. Similar to other classes of nucleic acid‐based therapeutics, PMOs require delivery systems for efficient transport to the intracellular target sites. Here, artificial peptides based on the oligo(ethylenamino) acid succinyl‐tetraethylenpentamine (Stp), hydrophobic modifications, and an azide group are presented, which are used for strain‐promoted azide‐alkyne cycloaddition conjugation with splice‐switching PMOs. By systematically varying the lead structure and formulation, it is determined that the type of contained fatty acid and supramolecular assembly have a critical impact on the delivery efficacy. A compound containing linolenic acid with three cis double bonds exhibits the highest splice‐switching activity and significantly increases functional protein expression in pLuc/705 reporter cells in vitro and after local administration in vivo. Structural and mechanistic studies reveal that the lipopeptide PMO conjugates form nanoparticles, which accelerate cellular uptake and that the content of unsaturated fatty acids enhances endosomal escape. In an in vitro Duchenne muscular dystrophy exon skipping model using H2K‐mdx52 dystrophic skeletal myotubes, the highly potent PMO conjugates mediate significant splice‐switching at very low nanomolar concentrations. The presented aminoethylene‐lipopeptides are thus a promising platform for the generation of PMO‐therapeutics with a favorable activity/toxicity profile.     

Biases of Success Rate Differences Shown in Binomial Effect Size Displays.

The intent of a binomial effect size display (BESD) is to show "the [real-world] importance of [an] effect indexed by a correlation [r]" (R. Rosenthal, 1994, p. 242) by reexpressing this correlation as a success rate difference (SRD) (e.g., treatment group success rate - control group success rate). However, SRDs displayed in BESDs generally overestimate real-world SRDs implied by correlations of (a) dichotomous X and Y variables (φ coefficients), (b) dichotomous X and continuous Y variables (point-biserial coefficients [rphs]). and (c) continuous X and Y variables (rxys). Furthermore, overestimation biases are larger for rxys than for rphs. Differences in the sizes of biases linked to different correlations suggest that BESD SRDs reported for different correlations are not comparable. The stochastic difference index (N. Cliff, 1993: A. Vargha & H. D. Delaney, 2000) is recommended as an alternative to the BESD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Revised Methodology for Research on Metamemory: Pre-judgment Recall And Monitoring (PRAM).

A revised methodology is described for research on metacognitive monitoring, especially judgments of learning (JOLs), to investigate psychological processing that previously has been only hypothetical and unobservable. During data collection a new stage of recall occurs just prior to the JOL, so that during data analysis the items can be partitioned into subcategories to measure the degree of JOL accuracy in ways that are more analytic than was previously possible. A weighted-average combinatorial rule allows the component measures of JOL accuracy to be combined into the usual overall measure of metacognitive accuracy. An example using the revised methodology offers a new explanation for the delayed-JOL effect, in which delayed JOLs are more accurate than immediate JOLs for predicting recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scientific and artistic investigation of multi-dimensional fractals on the AT & T pixel machine

The pipelined architecture and parallel organization of the AT&T Pixel Machine image computer are described and demonstrated with applications for the visualization of multidimensional fractals, particularly linear fractals and quaternion/ stacked Julia sets. Techniques for pushing the Pixel Machine to its peak abilities are described and apply to more recent parallel image computers as well.     

Manual dexterity of older Mexican American adults: a cross-sectional pilot experimental investigation

This paper reports results from an experimental pilot study performed to quantify the manual dexterity of older Mexican American adults. The Purdue pegboard test, a two-arm coordination test, and a hand-tool dexterity test were used in this study. To enable cross-sectional comparisons of manual dexterity measures of older Mexican American adults with young Mexican American adults, these tests were administered to 18 older Mexican American adults aged 63–85 (mean age: 71.3 years, SD: 7.0 years), recruited from senior recreation centers in El Paso, and eighteen young adults aged 21–32 (mean age: 25.6 years, SD: 3.8 years) recruited from the student body at the University of Texas at El Paso. For the Purdue pegboard test, the number of pegs placed in 30 s using the preferred hand, the non-preferred hand, and both hands were first individually monitored. Then, scores on an assembly task using the Purdue pegboard were obtained. For the two-arm coordination test, participants were required to trace a star pattern with a stylus using both hands. The time for task completion and the number of errors made during task performance were monitored. For the hand-tool dexterity test, participants were required to use common hand tools and remove nuts and bolts from one side of a wooden upright, and to assemble nuts and bolts in the corresponding holes on the other side of the upright. The time taken for task completion was recorded. Since modified Levene's test showed equality of variances, two sample t-tests, comparing the mean responses of older adults with the mean responses of young adults for each individual test, were conducted. Results indicate that responses for the older adults were statistically significant different (p<0.001) from young adults for all Purdue pegboard tasks. On the average, older adults performed significantly slower (p<0.001) than young adults on the two-arm coordination test, and committed more errors before task completion (p<0.05). Older adults also took longer to complete the hand-tool dexterity task compared to their younger counterparts (p<0.05). In addition to the t-tests, manual dexterity performance measures from older adults were regressed with age to determine the cross-sectional age effects on manual dexterity measures. Results indicate that all Purdue pegboard performance measures were significantly affected by age (p<0.05). The time to complete the two-arm coordination test was significantly linearly related to age (p<0.05). However, the number of errors committed by older adults in the performance of the two-arm coordination test was not significantly linearly related to age. Time to complete the hand-tool dexterity was also significantly linearly related to age (p<0.05). Accommodating age-related changes in manual dexterity is important for job design in industry, especially in industries employing older adults requiring significant assembly and hand-tool use.

Relevance to industry

Given the aging of the industrial workforce, it is important to understand how manual dexterity is affected by age, so that jobs requiring significant manual dexterity for task initiation, task performance and task completion are designed to fit older adult dexterity levels.