Cumulative Health Risk from Exposure Load (CHREL): Looking at multi-chemical exposures through the lens of biomonitoring guidance values.

Exposure load (EL) is an indicator of multiple chemical exposures based on human biomonitoring data. We used EL methodology and human biomonitoring health-based guidance values (HB2GVs) as exposure thresholds to create a new metric called Cumulative Health Risk from Exposure Load (CHREL). HB2GVs are derived by calculating the concentration of a biomarker consistent with a health protective exposure guidance value.

Exposure Load: Using biomonitoring data to quantify multi-chemical exposure burden in a population.

People are often concurrently exposed to numerous chemicals. Here we sought to leverage existing large biomonitoring datasets to improve our understanding of multi-chemical exposures in a population. Using nationally-representative data from the 2012-2015 Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS), we developed Exposure Load, a metric that counts the number of chemicals measured in people above a defined concentration threshold.

The impact of a landfill fire on ambient air quality in the north: A case study in Iqaluit, Canada.

A large landfill fire occurred in Iqaluit, Canada in spring/summer 2014. Air quality data were collected to characterize emissions as well as potential threats to public health. Criteria pollutants were monitored (PM2.

Particulate air pollution and vascular reactivity: the bus stop study.

Objective: Particulate air pollution is associated with cardiovascular morbidity but mechanisms are not well understood. We tested the effects on vascular reactivity of exposure to fine particulates matter mass (PM(2.5)), number of particles View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Multimedia authenticity protection with ICA watermarking and digital bacteria vaccination.

We propose the application of independent component analysis (ICA), via unsupervised neural networks, to authenticity protection for multimedia products. We give an overview of the current state of multimedia authenticity protection, including the requirements of various multimedia applications, current approaches to the problem, and the robustness of the approaches. For watermark security, a covert independent-component watermarking signal can serve as a 'vaccination' against a dormant digital 'bacteria' protecting the multimedia data.