Background and aims A wide variety of adverse health effects on both fetuses and neonates have been ascribed to particulate matter (PM) air pollution. Recent evidence suggests that PM exposure results in increased oxidative and nitrosative stress. In the ENVIRONAGE birth cohort, we investigated the association of placental 3-nitrotyrosine (3-NT) with PM exposure during various time windows of p...

In this paper we develop a nonparametric multivariate spatial model that avoids specifying a Gaussian distribution for spatial random effects. Our nonparametric model extends the stick-breaking (SB) prior of Sethuraman (1994), which is frequently used in Bayesian modelling to capture uncertainty in the parametric form of an outcome. The stick-breaking prior is extended here to the spatial setti...

Given an elevated prevalence of respiratory disease and density of pollution sources, residents of Roxbury, Massachusetts, have been interested in better understanding their exposures to air pollution. To determine whether local transportation sources contribute significantly to exposures, we conducted a community-based pilot investigation to measure concentrations of fine particulate matter (p...

Bacteria and fungi are ubiquitous throughout the Earth's lower atmosphere where they often represent an important component of atmospheric aerosols with the potential to impact human health and atmospheric dynamics. However, the diversity, composition, and spatiotemporal dynamics of these airborne microbes remain poorly understood. We performed a comprehensive analysis of airborne microbes acro...

Allergic respiratory diseases have recently become a major public and political concern in most industrialized countries over the world. The increased incidence in allergic asthma and allergic rhinitis has paralleled the motor vehicle traffic booming, suggesting a potential role of air pollutants in this major rise. Epidemiological studies have revealed a consistent association between outdoor ...

The biological effects of acute particulate air pollution exposure in host innate immunity remain obscure and have relied largely on in vitro models. We hypothesized that single acute exposure to ambient or engineered particulate matter (PM) in the absence of other secondary stimuli would activate lung dendritic cells (DC) in vivo and provide information on the early immunological events of PM ...

Particulate matter derived from various sources of fuel combustion contains minor to trace amounts of Fe-oxides that can be detected by magnetic measurements. These magnetic particulates can be used as proxies for particulate pollution, since oxide contents are often larger in amounts and may have distinctive magnetic properties, compared to most types of natural dusts. Magnetic particulates ra...

Background & Aims of the Study: Particulate matters less than 10 microns can absorb into your lungs and reacting with the moisture and enter the circulatory system directly through the airways. The aim of this study is to assess Behavior PM 10 data in different seasons and Determination effects on human health in Ahvaz city during 2013. Materials & Methods: Data Particulate matters less than 10...

The aim of this study was to analyze the association between the exposure to fine particulate matter and circulatory disease mortality rates in the elderly living in the Brazilian Amazon. An ecological study of circulatory disease, acute myocardial infarction and cerebrovascular disease mortality rates in micro areas of the Brazilian Amazon was carried out. The environmental exposure indicator ...