BACKGROUND The elevation and dissipation of pollutants after the ignition of fireworks in different functional areas of a valley city were investigated. METHODS The Air Quality Index (AQI) as well as inter-day and intra-day concentrations of various air pollutants (PM10, PM2.5, SO2, NO2, CO, O3) were measured during two episodes that took place during Chinese New Year festivities. RESULTS F...

Sustainable urbanization is a challenge to human beings in the modern era of technology. Cities all over the world are facing several problems due to urbanization and industrialization. Urban problems could be assessed through development of indices of urban sustainability on the basis of its three dimensions: environment, economics and social. The present study was conducted to identify indica...

The objective of this study is to build a regression model of air quality by using the support vector machine (SVM) technique in the Avilés urban area (Spain) at local scale. Hazardous air pollutants or toxic air contaminants refer to any substance that may cause or contribute to an increase in mortality or serious illness, or that may pose a present or potential hazard to human health. To acco...

BACKGROUND Air pollution contributes significantly to global increases in mortality, particularly within urban environments. Limited knowledge exists on the mechanisms underlying health effects resulting from exposure to pollutant mixtures similar to those occurring in ambient air. In order to clarify the mechanisms underlying exposure effects, toxicogenomic analyses are used to evaluate genome...

Being major ornamental street trees, species of Platanus are widely planted in the Shanghai urban area. A great deal of allergenic Platanus pollen is released from the trees and suspended in the atmosphere during its flowering season, ultimately causing allergic respiratory diseases. Few papers have focused on the distribution of this type of pollen and its expression of allergenic proteins. In...

BACKGROUND Although urban air pollution is a complex mix containing multiple constituents, studies of the health effects of long-term exposure often focus on a single pollutant as a proxy for the entire mixture. A better understanding of the component pollutant concentrations and interrelationships would be useful in epidemiological studies that exploit spatial differences in exposure by clarif...

Higher levels of pollutants are observed in the residential area near the highway passing through Jalgaon urban center. The continuous exposure of the population to these higher levels of air pollutants leads in decrease in the lung capacity. Decline in the lung parameters FVC, FEV1, and PEFR are observed in the population residing in the area than the non-exposed population.

In urban areas, emissions of air pollutants by anthropogenic processes such as traffic, industry, power plants and domestic heating systems are the main sources of pollution (Fenger, 1999). The massive growth in road traffic and in the use of fossil fuels during the last decades has changed the composition of urban air, increasing the frequency of pollution episodes and the number of cities exp...

In many people’s minds air pollution is associated with the contamination of urban air from automobile exhausts and industrial effluents. However, in developing countries, the problem of indoor air pollution far outweighs the ambient air pollution. There are four principal sources of pollutants of indoor air : (i) combustion, (ii) building material, (iii) the ground under the building, and (iv)...

Snowmelt is known to cause peak concentrations of pollutants, which may adversely affect receiving water quality. High concentrations of metals and suspended solids in snow have been reported, whereas studies on organic pollutants are rare. This study aims at investigating the occurrence of anthropogenic organic compounds in urban snow in Gothenburg (Sweden). The most frequently detected organi...