Investigating the inflammatory effect of microplastics in cigarette butts on peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

Cigarette filter microplastics are composed of cellulose acetate that does not undergo biological or photo-degradation. These microplastics are readily dispersed and can be found abundantly in water, soil, and air. These fibers possess high absorption capabilities, allowing them to collect and retain pollutants such as toxic elements.

Source-dependent absorption Ångström exponent in the Los Angeles Basin: Multi-time resolution factor analyses of ambient PM and aerosol optical absorption.

Advanced receptor models can leverage the information derived from optical and chemical variables as input by a variety of instruments at different time resolutions to extract the source specific absorption Ångström exponent (AAE) from aerosol absorption. The multilinear engine (ME-2), a Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) solver, serves as a proficient tool for performing such analyses, thereby overcoming the constraints imposed by the assumptions in current optical source apportionment methods such as the Aethalometer approach since the use of a-priori AAE values introduces additional uncertainty into the results of optical methods. Comprehensive PM chemical speciation datasets, and aerosol absorption coefficients (b, λ) at seven wavelengths measured by an Aethalometer (AE33), were used in multi-time source apportionment (MT-PMF).

Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations and breakpoint trends across the waters of the Great Lakes by isotope-dilution high-resolution mass spectroscopy.

Water samples were collected during each of the 2012-2019 Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI) cruises aboard the U.S. EPA R/V Lake Guardian as part of the Great Lakes Fish Monitoring and Surveillance Program (GLFMSP) lower food web contaminant assessment.

Atmospheric deposition of pollutants at three altitudes on Mount Emei, Sichuan Basin, southwestern China.

Comparing the atmospheric deposition chemistry between above and below the planetary boundary layer (PBL) may help understand the impacts from inter-regional air pollutant transport and local emissions to air pollutant deposition. In this study, we monitored ions, soluble and insoluble potentially toxic elements (PTEs), and dissolved organic nitrogen and carbon at the base (M-base: 551 m asl), middle (M-middle: 2400 m asl), and summit (M-summit: 3077 m asl) on Mount Emei. The annual volume-weighted mean (VWM) concentrations of all measured components were substantially higher at M-base than at M-summit, except for Na, Cl, and NO as Na and Cl at M-summit may be largely from ocean and NO to NO transformation may be faster at M-base.

Increases in PM levels in Houston are associated with a highly recirculating sea breeze.

Local land-sea breezes play an important role in coastal air quality because they circulate air between coastal/urban and marine areas, potentially causing the accumulation of pollutants. This has been observed for the secondary photochemical pollutant ozone. However, particulate matter (PM) also warrants investigation.

Source apportionment of ultrafine particles in urban Europe.

There is a body of evidence that ultrafine particles (UFP, those with diameters ≤ 100 nm) might have significant impacts on health. Accordingly, identifying sources of UFP is essential to develop abatement policies. This study focuses on urban Europe, and aims at identifying sources and quantifying their contributions to particle number size distribution (PNSD) using receptor modelling (Positive Matrix Factorization, PMF), and evaluating long-term trends of these source contributions using the non-parametric Theil-Sen's method.

Changes in factor profiles deriving from photochemical losses of volatile organic compounds: Insight from daytime and nighttime positive matrix factorization analyses.

Substantial effects of photochemical reaction losses of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on factor profiles can be investigated by comparing the differences between daytime and nighttime dispersion-normalized VOC data resolved profiles. Hourly speciated VOC data measured in Shijiazhuang, China from May to September 2021 were used to conduct study. The mean VOC concentration in the daytime and at nighttime were 32.

A scalable two-stage Bayesian approach accounting for exposure measurement error in environmental epidemiology.

Accounting for exposure measurement errors has been recognized as a crucial problem in environmental epidemiology for over two decades. Bayesian hierarchical models offer a coherent probabilistic framework for evaluating associations between environmental exposures and health effects, which take into account exposure measurement errors introduced by uncertainty in the estimated exposure as well as spatial misalignment between the exposure and health outcome data. While two-stage Bayesian analyses are often regarded as a good alternative to fully Bayesian analyses when joint estimation is not feasible, there has been minimal research on how to properly propagate uncertainty from the first-stage exposure model to the second-stage health model, especially in the case of a large number of participant locations along with spatially correlated exposures.

Long-term contributions of VOC sources and their link to ozone pollution in Bronx, New York City.

Changes in energy and environmental policies along with changes in the energy markets of New York State over the past two decades, have spurred interest in evaluating their impacts on emissions from various energy generation sectors. This study focused on quantifying these effects on VOC (volatile organic compounds) emissions and their subsequent impacts on air quality within the New York City (NYC) metropolitan area. NYC is an EPA nonattainment region for ozone (O) and likely is a VOC limited region.

Human exposure to aerosol from indoor gas stove cooking and the resulting cardiovascular system responses.

The effect of cooking aerosol on the human heart was investigated in this study. The heart rate and blood pressure of 33 healthy adults were monitored before, exactly after, and two hours post-exposure (30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, and 120 minutes after cooking). One hundred twenty grams of ground beef was fried in sunflower oil for twenty minutes using a gas stove without ventilation.

Source identification of heavy metals and metalloids in soil using open-source Tellus database and their impact on ecology and human health.

The presence of heavy metals and metalloids (metal(loid)s) in the food chain is a global problem, and thus, metal(loid)s are considered to be Potentially Toxic Elements (PTEs). Arsenic (As), lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), and cadmium (Cd) are identified as prominent hazards related to human health risks throughout the food chain. This study aimed to carry out a source attribution for metal(loid)s in shallow topsoil of north-midlands, northwest, and border counties of the Republic of Ireland, followed by an assessment of the potential ecological and human health risks.

Effects of seasonal management programs on PM in Seoul and Beijing using DN-PMF: Collaborative efforts from the Korea-China joint research.

South Korea and China have implemented increasingly stringent mitigation measures to reduce the health risks from PM exposure, jointly conducting a ground-based air quality observation study in Northeast Asia. Dispersion normalized positive matrix factorization (DN-PMF) was used to identify PM sources in Seoul and Beijing and assess the effectiveness of the seasonal management programs (SMPs) through a comparative study. Samples were collected during three periods: January-December 2019, September 2020-May 2021, and July 2021-March 2022.

Exploring emission spatiotemporal pattern and potential reduction capacity in China's aviation sector: Flight trajectory optimization perspective.

China's rapid expansion of civil aviation has led to an increase in pollution-related issues, causing adverse health effects on populations near airports and downwind. Accurately quantifying aviation emissions is essential for effective emission management. Here, we developed a high-resolution aviation emissions inventory for China by employing a bottom-up approach that relied on daily flight schedules.

Comparison of the rate of healthcare encounters for influenza from source-specific PM before and after tier 3 vehicle standards in New York state.

Background: Influenza healthcare encounters in adults associated with specific sources of PM is an area of active research.

Objective: Following 2017 legislation requiring reductions in emissions from light-duty vehicles, we hypothesized a reduced rate of influenza healthcare encounters would be associated with concentrations of PM from traffic sources in the early implementation period of this regulation (2017-2019).

Methods: We used the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) to study adult patients hospitalized (N = 5328) or treated in the emergency department (N = 18,247) for influenza in New York State.

Unexpected changes in source apportioned results derived from different ambient VOC metrics.

Although most source apportionments of VOCs use mixing ratios, about 23 % of published studies use mass concentrations. Thus, systematically exploring the changes in VOC source apportioned results caused by metric differences is important to assess the differences in key precursor apportionment results given the observed increases in O pollution situation. Different monitoring instruments measured hourly VOC volumetric concentrations in three typical Chinese cities (i.

PM and its components and respiratory disease healthcare encounters - Unanticipated increased exposure-response relationships in recent years after environmental policies.

Prior studies reported excess rates (ERs) of cardiorespiratory events associated with short-term increases in PM concentrations, despite implementation of pollution-control policies. In 2017, Federal Tier 3 light-duty vehicle regulations began, and to-date there have been no assessments of population health effects of the policy. Using the NYS Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) database, we obtained hospitalizations and ED visits with a principal diagnosis of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) for residents living within 15 miles of six urban PM monitoring sites in NYS (2014-2019).

An in-depth investigation of global sea surface temperature behavior utilizing chaotic modeling.

Sea surface temperature (SST), with its complex and dynamic behavior, is a major driver of ocean-atmosphere interactions. The purpose of this study is to investigate the behavior of SST and its prediction using a chaotic approach. Average mutual information (AMI) and Cao methods were used to reconstruct the phase space.

Atmospheric concentrations and potential sources of dioxin-like contaminants to Acadia National Park.

Acadia National Park (ANP) is located on Mt. Desert Island, ME on the U.S.