Projections of Climate Change Impact on Acute Heat Illnesses in Taiwan: Case-Crossover Study.

Background: With global warming, the number of days with extreme heat is expected to increase and may cause more acute heat illnesses. While decreasing emissions may mitigate the climate impacts, its effectiveness in reducing acute heat illnesses remains uncertain. Taiwan has established a real-time epidemic surveillance and early warning system to monitor acute heat illnesses since January 1, 2011.

Improvements in source apportionment of multiple time-resolved PM inorganic and organic speciation measurements using constrained Positive Matrix Factorization.

The equation of Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) has been modified to resolve multiple time resolution inputs and applied in numerous field studies. The refined modeling results provide a solution with an increased number of factors and enriched profile features. However, the incorporation of low time-resolved data may retrieve unfavorable mixed factor profiles, introducing high uncertainties into the PMF solution computations.

Estimating monthly NO, O, and SO concentrations via an ensemble three-stage procedure with downscaled satellite remote sensing data and ground measurements.

The gaseous air pollutants nitrogen dioxide (NO), ozone (O), and sulfur dioxide (SO), in addition to particulate matter (PM), are known to be associated with many adverse health effects. However, exposure estimates may not be available in rural or mountainous areas without monitoring stations. In this study, we retrieved satellite remote sensing data for NO, O, and SO from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) L3 products.

Vertical variation of source-apportioned PM and selected volatile organic compounds near an elevated expressway in an urban area.

Fine particulate matter (PM) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are associated with adverse health effects and show spatial variation in three dimensions. The present study attempted to evaluate source contributions of PM and toxic VOCs in a metropolitan area focusing on the associated vertical variations. A special emphasis is put on the effects of the elevated expressway on the vertical variability of contribution estimates of the identified sources.

Associations of road traffic noise and its frequency spectrum with prevalent depression in Taichung, Taiwan.

Introduction: Exposure to road traffic noise has been reported to be associated with depression in many epidemiological studies, but the association between noise frequency spectrum and depression remains unclear. This community-based study investigated the associations between road traffic noise exposure and its frequency components with prevalent depression.

Methods: A total of 3,191 residents living in Taichung who participated in the Taiwan Biobank between 2010 and 2017, were included as study participants.

Identifying and quantifying PM pollution episodes with a fusion method of moving window technique and constrained Positive Matrix Factorization.

PM pollution episodes rapidly and significantly deteriorate the air quality and are a critical concern worldwide. This study developed a fusion method based on the moving window dataset technique and constrained Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) to differentiate and characterize potential factors in a PM episode case assuming having one new contributor. The hourly PM compositions of elements, ions and carbonaceous components, were collected from September to December 2020 in Taipei, Taiwan.

Urban Air Pollution and Subclinical Atherosclerosis in Adolescents and Young Adults.

Purpose: The contribution of air pollution to subclinical atherosclerosis in a young population remains limited. This study aimed to assess whether long-term exposure to urban air pollutants increases carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in adolescents and young adults.

Methods: This study included 789 subjects between the ages of 12 and 30 years who lived in the Taipei metropolis from a cohort of young Taiwanese individuals.

Urban Fine Particulate Matter and Elements Associated with Subclinical Atherosclerosis in Adolescents and Young Adults.

The relationships between the elemental constituents of PM and atherosclerosis remain limited, especially in young populations. This study included 755 subjects aged 12-30 years in the Taipei metropolis. A land use regression model was used to estimate residential annual mean concentrations of PM and eight elemental constituents.

Identifying low-PM exposure commuting routes for cyclists through modeling with the random forest algorithm based on low-cost sensor measurements in three Asian cities.

Cyclists can be easily exposed to traffic-related pollutants due to riding on or close to the road during commuting in cities. PM has been identified as one of the major pollutants emitted by vehicles and associated with cardiopulmonary and respiratory diseases. As routing has been suggested to reduce the exposures for cyclists, in this study, PM was monitored with low-cost sensors during commuting periods to develop models for identifying low exposure routes in three Asian cities: Taipei, Osaka, and Seoul.

Quantifying spatial heterogeneity of vulnerability to short-term PM exposure with data fusion framework.

The current estimations of the burden of disease (BD) of PM exposure is still potentially biased by two factors: ignorance of heterogeneous vulnerabilities at diverse urbanization levels and reliance on the risk estimates from existing literature, usually from different locations. Our objectives are (1) to build up a data fusion framework to estimate the burden of PM exposure while evaluating local risks simultaneously and (2) to quantify their spatial heterogeneity, relationship to land-use characteristics, and derived uncertainties when calculating the disease burdens. The feature of this study is applying six local databases to extract PM exposure risk and the BD information, including the risks of death, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and respiratory disease (RD), and their spatial heterogeneities through our data fusion framework.

[Relationship between long non-coding RNA MALAT1 and prostate cancer].

Prostate cancer (PCa), as a malignant tumor originating in the prostate glandular epithelium, has become a global "killer" that threatens the health of elderly men. PCa-related studies have been focusing on the progression mechanisms and treatment strategies of the malignancy, particularly on the role of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in recent years. The lncRNA metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) plays a key role in the progression and treatment of PCa, as well as in its metastasis and invasion and cell proliferation.

Neuropathology changed by 3- and 6-months low-level PM inhalation exposure in spontaneously hypertensive rats.

Background: Epidemiological evidence has linked fine particulate matter (PM) to neurodegenerative diseases; however, the toxicological evidence remains unclear. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of PM on neuropathophysiology in a hypertensive animal model. We examined behavioral alterations (Morris water maze), lipid peroxidation (malondialdehyde (MDA)), tau and autophagy expressions, neuron death, and caspase-3 levels after 3 and 6 months of whole-body exposure to urban PM in spontaneously hypertensive (SH) rats.

Trajectory-Assisted Source Apportionment of Winter-Time Aerosol Using Semi-continuous Measurements.

Receptor models, e.g., positive matrix factorization (PMF), are beneficial in designing effective control strategies to improve air quality.

Application of land-use regression models to estimate sound pressure levels and frequency components of road traffic noise in Taichung, Taiwan.

Few studies have applied land-use regression to predict road traffic noise exposure, and there are few predictive models for different frequencies. This study aimed to measure 24-h average road traffic noise levels and to analyze the frequency components over one year to establish land-use regression models of noise exposure. Fifty monitoring stations were set up to conduct 3 measurements for A-weighted equivalent sound pressure levels over 24 h (L) and night equivalent sound pressure levels (L), as well as octave-band analyses, during the 2013-2014 period.

Vertical distribution of source apportioned PM using particulate-bound elements and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in an urban area.

Receptor models have been widely used for identifying and quantifying source-specific contributions from mixtures of air pollutants. Nonetheless, our knowledge is still limited on how various components of air pollution are vertically distributed and the sources of such pollutants. In this study, we collected 135 samples of PM (particles with aerodynamic diameter less than or equal to 2.

Temperature-related mortality impacts under and beyond Paris Agreement climate change scenarios.

The Paris Agreement binds all nations to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change, with the commitment to Bhold warming well below 2 °C in global mean temperature (GMT), relative to pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 °C". The 1.

Health effects of a forest environment on natural killer cells in humans: an observational pilot study.

Health effect assessments based on natural killer (NK) cells are an important emerging area of human health. We recruited 90 forest staff members in Xitou, Taiwan and 110 urban staff members in Taipei to investigate the health effects of forest environment exposure on NK cells (CD3/CD56) and activating NK cells (CD3/CD56/CD69) in humans. We also invited 11 middle-aged volunteers in a pilot study to participate in a five-day/four-night forest trip to Xitou forest to investigate the health effects of a forest trip on NK cells and activating NK cells.

Longer-Term Impact of High and Low Temperature on Mortality: An International Study to Clarify Length of Mortality Displacement.

Background: In many places, daily mortality has been shown to increase after days with particularly high or low temperatures, but such daily time-series studies cannot identify whether such increases reflect substantial life shortening or short-term displacement of deaths (harvesting).

Objectives: To clarify this issue, we estimated the association between annual mortality and annual summaries of heat and cold in 278 locations from 12 countries.

Methods: Indices of annual heat and cold were used as predictors in regressions of annual mortality in each location, allowing for trends over time and clustering of annual count anomalies by country and pooling estimates using meta-regression.

Heat Wave and Mortality: A Multicountry, Multicommunity Study.

Background: Few studies have examined variation in the associations between heat waves and mortality in an international context.

Objectives: We aimed to systematically examine the impacts of heat waves on mortality with lag effects internationally.

Methods: We collected daily data of temperature and mortality from 400 communities in 18 countries/regions and defined 12 types of heat waves by combining community-specific daily mean temperature ≥90th, 92.

Source apportionment of mass concentration and inhalation risk with long-term ambient PCDD/Fs measurements in an urban area.

This study applies a receptor model to quantify source contributions to ambient concentration of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) and inhalation cancer risk in Taipei from 2003 through 2009. Seventeen PCDD/F congeners were used in the effective variance solution to the Chemical Mass Balance equations to estimate source-specific mass contributions and inhalation risks. The average total PCDD/F concentration was 0.