Arsenic speciation in freshwater fish: challenges and research needs.

Food and water are the main sources of human exposure to arsenic. It is important to determine arsenic species in food because the toxicities of arsenic vary greatly with its chemical speciation. Extensive research has focused on high concentrations of arsenic species in marine organisms.

Machine learning for stone artifact identification: Distinguishing worked stone artifacts from natural clasts using deep neural networks.

Stone artifacts are often the most abundant class of objects found in archaeological sites but their consistent identification is limited by the number of experienced analysts available. We report a machine learning based technology for stone artifact identification as part of a solution to the lack of such experts directed at distinguishing worked stone objects from naturally occurring lithic clasts. Three case study locations from Egypt, Australia, and New Zealand provide a data set of 6769 2D images, 3868 flaked artifact and 2901 rock images used to train and test a machine learning model based on an openly available PyTorch implementation of Faster R-CNN ResNet 50.

Experimental evidence for recovery of mercury-contaminated fish populations.

Anthropogenic releases of mercury (Hg) are a human health issue because the potent toxicant methylmercury (MeHg), formed primarily by microbial methylation of inorganic Hg in aquatic ecosystems, bioaccumulates to high concentrations in fish consumed by humans. Predicting the efficacy of Hg pollution controls on fish MeHg concentrations is complex because many factors influence the production and bioaccumulation of MeHg. Here we conducted a 15-year whole-ecosystem, single-factor experiment to determine the magnitude and timing of reductions in fish MeHg concentrations following reductions in Hg additions to a boreal lake and its watershed.

Safety, Tolerability, and Activity of ALXN1830 Targeting the Neonatal Fc Receptor in Chronic Pemphigus.

Pemphigus is a debilitating IgG-mediated autoimmune disease requiring better tolerated, more targeted, and rapid onset therapies. ALXN1830 is a humanized IgG4 antibody that blocks neonatal Fc receptor interactions with IgG. A multicenter, open-label safety and tolerability phase 1b/2 trial (NCT03075904) was conducted in North America from July 2017 to January 2019 and included patients aged ≥18 years with a confirmed diagnosis of pemphigus (vulgaris or foliaceus) and active disease.