Use of metered dose inhalers for bronchodilator responsiveness testing: laboratory practices in Australia and opportunities for carbon footprint reduction.

Background: Metered dose inhalers (MDIs) are important devices for delivering inhaled medications; however, they have an outsized carbon footprint due to their propellant gas. Many short-acting beta-agonist inhalers contain HFA-134a which has a global warming potential >1000 fold higher than carbon dioxide. We aimed to determine the practices around MDI use and disposal within Australia's major lung function testing laboratories and identify the actions that most influence the carbon footprint of bronchodilator responsiveness (BDR) testing.

Using membrane-water partition coefficients in a critical membrane burden approach to aid the identification of neutral and ionizable chemicals that induce acute toxicity below narcosis levels.

The risk assessment of thousands of chemicals used in our society benefits from adequate grouping of chemicals based on the mode and mechanism of toxic action (MoA). We measure the phospholipid membrane-water distribution ratio () using a chromatographic assay (IAM-HPLC) for 121 neutral and ionized organic chemicals and screen other methods to derive . We use IAM-HPLC based as a chemical property to distinguish between baseline narcosis and specific MoA, for reported acute toxicity endpoints on two separate sets of chemicals.

Construction of an In Silico Structural Profiling Tool Facilitating Mechanistically Grounded Classification of Aquatic Toxicants.

The performance of chemical safety assessment within the domain of environmental toxicology is often impeded by a shortfall of appropriate experimental data describing potential hazards across the many compounds in regular industrial use. In silico schemes for assigning aquatic-relevant modes or mechanisms of toxic action to substances, based solely on consideration of chemical structure, have seen widespread employment─including those of Verhaar, Russom, and later Bauer (MechoA). Recently, development of a further system was reported by Sapounidou, which, in common with MechoA, seeks to ground its classifications in understanding and appreciation of molecular initiating events.

Remote-delivered cardiac rehabilitation during COVID-19: a prospective cohort comparison of health-related quality of life outcomes and patient experiences.

Aims: Enforced suspension and reduction of in-person cardiac rehabilitation (CR) services during the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic restrictions required rapid implementation of remote delivery methods, thus enabling a cohort comparison of in-person vs. remote-delivered CR participants. This study aimed to examine the health-related quality of life (HRQL) outcomes and patient experiences comparing these delivery modes.

Development of an Enhanced Mechanistically Driven Mode of Action Classification Scheme for Adverse Effects on Environmental Species.

This study developed a novel classification scheme to assign chemicals to a verifiable mechanism of (eco-)toxicological action to allow for grouping, read-across, and model generation. The new classification scheme unifies and extends existing schemes and has, at its heart, direct reference to molecular initiating events (MIEs) promoting adverse outcomes. The scheme is based on three broad domains of toxic action representing nonspecific toxicity (e.

Equine Calming Products: A Short Survey Into Their Use, Effect, and Knowledge Using a Small Sample of Horse Owners in the North of Scotland, UK.

Equine calming products (ECPs) are often used by horse owners to alter or mitigate unwanted or dangerous behaviors in various situations. Little scientific research to date examines horse owners' knowledge surrounding these products. The objective of this pilot survey was to determine horse owners' use and perceptions of ECPs.

Ecotoxicological thresholds-practical application to an industrial inventory.

The concept of thresholds of toxicological concern as a potentially useful tool in environmental risk assessment has been applied to the inventory of a home and personal care products company to derive a series of chemical class-based ecotoxicological threshold of concern (ecoTTC) values. Cationic chemicals of various types show notably higher toxicity than other classes and should be treated separately. Despite this, the ecoTTC for the full data set in the present study is only slightly lower than that derived previously for chemicals causing toxicity via Verhaar modes of action (MoAs) 1 to 3.

Accounting for dissociation and photolysis: a review of the algal toxicity of triclosan.

Triclosan, an antimicrobial agent commonly used in down-the-drain consumer products, is toxic to freshwater microalgae. However, the rapid photolysis and pH-dependent dissociation of this compound may give rise to uncertainty in growth inhibition tests with freshwater microalgae, if these are not well characterized. Methods are presented to minimize these uncertainties by stabilizing pH with an organic buffering agent (Bis-Tris) and by the application of ultraviolet (UV) covers to remove UV wavelengths.

Toxicity of haloacetic acids to freshwater algae.

Haloacetic acids (HAA), such as trichloroacetic acid (TCA), are commonly occurring by-products from disinfection and bleaching processes using sodium hypochlorite. Currently, the lowest no observed effect concentration (NOEC) for TCA is reported to be 8.7microgL(-1), which was derived from a toxicity study conducted in 1981 on Chlorella pyrenoidosa.

Aquatic toxicity of ethoxylated and propoxylated alcohols to daphnia magna.

Ethoxylated alcohols, which are used as nonionic surfactants, are known to act as general narcotics in acute aquatic toxicity; that is, they behave in the same way as nonsurfactant unreactive organic chemicals. The toxicity of such chemicals is well predicted by quantitative structure-activity relationships based solely on the logarithm of the octanol/water partition coefficient (log P), which can be calculated from structure. In the present study, we have shown, using experimental results, that a similar approach can be used to determine the toxicity of ethoxylate/propoxylate alcohols (i.