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...

What is air quality? Zhang (2005) defines air quality as the degree of pollution of clean air. Clean air is the air that is free from impurities. Air quality can be determined by measuring the concentration of pollutants in the air. The lower the concentration of airborne pollutants, the better is the air quality. Auvermann (2006) defined air pollutants as compounds or materials that, when susp...

Some of the highest exposures to air pollutants in developing countries occur inside homes where solid biofuel, particularly wood fuel, is used for daily cooking. A relatively high proportion of the world population living in these countries is exposed to increased levels of indoor air pollutants produced by inefficiently burning stoves. Inhalation of these pollutants may have serious consequen...

Introduction Conclusions References

Indoor air quality (IAQ) control of hospitals plays a critical role in protecting both hospital staffs and patients, particularly those who are highly susceptible to the adverse effects of indoor noxious hazards. However, moxibustion in outpatient departments (OPDs) of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) may be a source of indoor air pollution in hospitals. Some studies have investigated indoor ...

Sandstorms in the desert and loess regions of north-northwestern China and Mongolia, as well as the associated dustfall episodes in the Korean Peninsula, were monitored between January and December 2005. Composite color images were made on the basis of data received directly from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite advanced very high resolution radiometer, and the dist...

BACKGROUND Statistics on lung cancer incidences and air pollutants show a strong correlation between air pollutant concentrations and pulmonary diseases. And environmental effects on lung cancer incidences remain highly unknown and uncertain in China. OBJECTIVE This study aims to measure the relationships between different air pollutants and lung cancer incidences in Tianjin. METHODS One th...

Air pollution is air contaminated by anthropogenic or naturally occurring substances in high concentrations for a prolonged time, resulting in adverse effects on human comfort and health as well as on ecosystems. Major air pollutants include particulate matters (PMs), ground-level ozone (O3), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxides (NO2), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). During the last t...

This article deals with jointly modeling a large number of geographically referenced outcomes observed over a very large number of locations. We seek to capture associations among the variables as well as the strength of spatial association for each variable. In addition, we reckon with the common setting where not all the variables have been observed over all locations, which leads to spatial ...

Air pollution can have a significant influence on the weathering of monuments and on the deterioration of museum objects and prehistoric cave paintings. Three important mechanisms of stone weathering will be discussed, and an overview of analysis techniques invoked for the assessment of the degradation processes will be given. The effects of several air pollutants on works of art are reviewed, ...