Comparison of source apportionment targeting hot-spot concentration and average population exposure.

Source apportionment (SA) is an essential first step in supporting the design of air quality plans. However, SA results can strongly be influenced by the choice of setting parameters, such as the indicator used. In this study, we assess how different choices of indicator for PM (hot spot concentrations, average population exposure and average concentration) impact the SA results.

Carotid Artery Stenting during Endovascular treatment of acute ischemic Stroke (CASES) study protocol for a multicenter randomized clinical trial.

Background: The optimal acute management of patients with acute ischemic stroke and a tandem lesion, defined as intracranial large vessel occlusion (LVO) with concomitant carotid artery stenosis or occlusion, remains unclear. Our aim is to assess the efficacy and safety of immediate carotid artery stenting (CAS) compared to delayed management in patients undergoing endovascular treatment (EVT) for acute ischemic stroke due to tandem lesions.

Study Design: CASES is a phase 3 multicenter prospective randomized open-label blinded endpoint (PROBE) non-inferiority clinical trial.

Feeling hormonal? Insights into bacterial auxin sensing and its physiological effects.

Plant-microbe communication involves a rich language of chemical signals. Among these signals are plant hormones such as auxins, which are primarily recognized for their roles in plant development. However, they also function in modulating plant-microbe interactions.

Impact of air quality model settings for the evaluation of emission reduction strategies to curb air pollution.

For air quality management, while numerical tools are mainly evaluated to assess their performances on absolute concentrations, this study assesses the impact of their settings on the robustness of model responses to emission reduction strategies for the main criteria pollutants. The effect of the spatial resolution and chemistry schemes is investigated. We show that whereas the spatial resolution is not a crucial setting (except for NO), the chemistry scheme has more impact, particularly when assessing hourly values of the absolute potential of concentrations.

Reducing biomass burning is key to decrease PM exposure in European cities.

Throughout the world, ambient fine particulate matter (PM) is the environmental factor that poses the greatest risk to health and most European citizens continue to be exposed to PM levels well above World Health Organization guidelines. Here we present a comprehensive PM modelling-based source allocation assessment in 708 urban areas in Europe. The results show that urban cores, together with their commuting zones, contribute an average of 22% to urban PM concentrations levels.