Heavy metal pollution in drinking water - a global risk for human health: A review

Water resources in the world have been profoundly influenced over the last years by human activities, whereby the world is currently facing critical water supply and drinking water quality problems. In many parts of the world heavy metal (HM) concentrations in drinking water are higher than some international guideline values. Discussing about the HM pollution in drinking water, the incorporation of them into the food chain, and their implications as a global risk for the human health, are the objectives of this review. It is known that there are million people with chronic HM poisoning which has become a worldwide public health issue, while 1.6 million children die each year from diseases for which contaminated drinking water is a leading cause. There is also evidence of HM in drinking water that are responsible for causing adverse effect on human health through food chain contamination. A global effort to offering affordable and healthy drinking water most to be launched throughout the world, while various laws and regulations to protect and improve the utilization of drinking water resources should be updated or created throughout the world, including the low income countries; otherwise, the problem of HM-polluted drinking water will be growing because demand for drinking water is still growing such as this problem will become even more pressing in the future. Finally, notwithstanding, additional researches are necessaries about the correlation between HM concentration in drinking water and human diseases, while the development of robust, cheap and sustainable technologies to improve the drinking water quality is necessary.Key words: Groundwater, aquifer, water quality, water pollution, microorganism, water supply, microbial communities, food chain, disease

World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: Development of a core outcome set for oral lichen planus: a systematic review of outcome domains

Objective: There is a lack of consensus regarding clinician- and patient-reported oral lichen planus (OLP) outcomes. The World Workshop on Oral Medicine Outcomes Initiative for the Direction of Research (WONDER) Project aims to develop a core outcome set (COS) for OLP, which would inform the design of clinical trials and, importantly, facilitate meta-analysis, leading to the establishment of more robust evidence for the management of this condition and hence improved patient care. Study Design: Ovid MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, CENTRAL, and Clinicaltrials.gov were searched for interventional studies (randomized controlled trials, controlled clinical trials, and case series including ≥5 participants) on OLP and oral lichenoid reactions published between January 2001 and March 2022 without language restriction. All reported primary and secondary outcomes were extracted. Results: The searches yielded 9,135 records, and 291 studies were included after applying the inclusion criteria. A total of 422 outcomes were identified. These were then grouped based on semantic similarity, condensing the list to 69 outcomes. The most frequently measured outcomes were pain (51.9%), clinical grading of the lesions (29.6%), lesion size/extension/area (27.5%), and adverse events (17.5%). Conclusion: As a first step in developing a COS for OLP, we summarized the outcomes that have been used in interventional studies over the past 2 decades, which are numerous and heterogeneous.S

World Workshop on Oral Medicine VIII: Development of a core outcome set for oral lichen planus: the patient perspective

Objective: This study aimed to explore the lived experience of patients with oral lichen planus (OLP) and investigate what treatment-related outcomes are the most important to them and should be included in a core outcome set (COS) for OLP. Study Design: A qualitative study involving focus group work with 10 participants was conducted. Interviews with each focus group were held twice: session 1 explored the lived experience of patients with OLP, and session 2 allowed patients to review a summary of the outcome domains used in the OLP literature to date. The discussions were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using framework analysis. Results: In session 1, 4 themes and 8 sub-themes emerged from the data analysis. An additional outcome, ‘knowledge of family and friends,’ was suggested in session 2. Conclusions: We have gained valuable insight into the lived experience of patients with OLP via this qualitative study. To our knowledge, this study is the first to explore the patient perspective on what should be measured in clinical trials on OLP, highlighting an important additional suggested outcome. This additional outcome will be voted upon in a consensus process to determine a minimum COS for OLPS

Vanadium Inhalation in a Mouse Model for the Understanding of Air-Suspended Particle Systemic Repercussion

There is an increased concern about the health effects that air-suspended particles have on human health which have been dissected in animal models. Using CD-1 mouse, we explore the effects that vanadium inhalation produce in different tissues and organs. Our findings support the systemic effects of air pollution. In this paper, we describe our findings in different organs in our conditions and contrast our results with the literature

Mathematical modeling of gallic acid release from chitosan films with grape seed extract and carvacrol

Controlled release of antimicrobial and antioxidant compounds from packaging films is of utmost importance for extending the shelf-life of perishable foods. This study focused on the mathematical modeling of gallic acid release into an aqueous medium from three chitosan films, formulated with grape seed extract (GSE) and carvacrol. We quantified the release by HPLC technique during 30days at three temperatures (5, 25 and 45°C). The diffusion coefficients, varying with temperature according to an Arrhenius-type relationship, and the respective activation energies for Film-1 and Film-2 were, respectively [Formula: see text] m2s-1 and [Formula: see text] m2s-1, Ea1=58kJmol-1 and Ea2=60kJmol-1 as obtained from the Fickian fit. The low concentrations of gallic acid released by Film-3 could not be detected by HPLC, therefore the respective diffusion coefficient was not estimated. This study will help with the development and optimization of active packaging (AP) films aiming at improved food preservation and shelf-life extension.Javiera F. Rubilar gratefully acknowledges her Ph.D. grant from ErasmusMundus 2008-1022/001 Frame ECW/17, EACEA(European Union), financial support of the Fondecyt-Postdoctoral #3140349 project from CONICYT, and also “Dirección de Investigación e Innovación Escuela de Ingeniería” at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Rui M. S. Cruz acknowledges grant SFRH/BPD/70036/2010 from Fundac¸ ão para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugalinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Dynamical Boson Stars

The idea of stable, localized bundles of energy has strong appeal as a model for particles. In the 1950s John Wheeler envisioned such bundles as smooth configurations of electromagnetic energy that he called {\em geons}, but none were found. Instead, particle-like solutions were found in the late 1960s with the addition of a scalar field, and these were given the name {\em boson stars}. Since then, boson stars find use in a wide variety of models as sources of dark matter, as black hole mimickers, in simple models of binary systems, and as a tool in finding black holes in higher dimensions with only a single killing vector. We discuss important varieties of boson stars, their dynamic properties, and some of their uses, concentrating on recent efforts.Comment: 79 pages, 25 figures, invited review for Living Reviews in Relativity; major revision in 201

Factores que pueden afectar la eficiencia bioeconómica y ambiental en sistemas estacionales cubanos de producción de leche (artículo reseña)

This review aims at assessing a number of factors possibly affecting bioeconomic and environmental efficiency in seasonal dairy farming systems to be implemented as an alternative to traditional annual ones. Researchers carried out from March 1988 to February 2011 about the performance to 210 dairy farms and even livestock dairy production centers from Camagüey, Ciego de Ávila, and other provinces were reviewed. Concerning statistical data, several factors were evaluated: world milk production, productivity and quality of tropical pastures and their association with consumption based on animal load, seasonal calving patterns for dairy cows as an alternative to annual calving patterns, evaluations of seasonal calving periods and time, advantages of body reserves mobility process in dairy cows, herd reproductive performance status and its effects on milk production, economy, and profitability, as well as the perspective of implementing this seasonal dairy farming systems. Results showed that seasonal milk production possibilities were scientifically and economically valid based on seasonal calving intensification levels over 60 % at the beginning of the rainy season. This is translated into potential savings in convertible currency by a marked decrease in imports of dairy products and concentrated foods supplies, a better utilization of pastures and forage as a cheaper animal food supply, lower production costs by a reduction in powder milk manufacture, and environmental benefits by diminishing negative impacts through technological changes.Se discuten posibles factores que pueden afectar la eficiencia bioeconómica de los sistemas lecheros que se desarrollen en el país como alternativa a la producción lechera anualizada tradicional. Se revisaron investigaciones de Camagüey, Ciego de Ávila y otras zonas del país, desde marzo de 1988 hasta febrero de 2011 en 210 fincas lecheras y de empresas. Se utilizaron estadísticas de producción mundial de leche, productividad y calidad de los pastos tropicales y sus relaciones con el consumo según la carga animal, los patrones de partos estacionales en vacas lecheras como alternativa a los patrones anualizados, la evaluación de períodos de ocurrencia y momentos de parto dentro de época; las ventajas del proceso de movilización de reservas corporales en vacas lecheras, el estatus reproductivo del rebaño y sus efectos sobre la producción láctea, su economía y rentabilidad, así como la perspectiva de implementación de estos sistemas estacionales como alternativa. Se confirman científica y económicamente las posibilidades de la producción estacional de leche con pariciones concentradas en más de 60 % al inicio de la etapa lluviosa, como alternativa viable y sostenible a la clásica producción de leche anualizada que practican los sistemas ganaderos en Cuba, con potenciales ahorros de moneda convertible por una menor importación de lácteos y alimentos concentrados, con ventajas ambientales por la mínima agresión al medio por esos cambios tecnológicos y la reducción de los costos de la fabricación nacional de leche en polvo

Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities

AimComprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroecology. We provide global range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species harmonised to the taxonomy of the Mammal Diversity Database (MDD) mobilised from two sources, the Handbook of the Mammals of the World (HMW) and the Illustrated Checklist of the Mammals of the World (CMW).LocationGlobal.TaxonAll extant mammal species.MethodsRange maps were digitally interpreted, georeferenced, error-checked and subsequently taxonomically aligned between the HMW (6253 species), the CMW (6431 species) and the MDD taxonomies (6362 species).ResultsRange maps can be evaluated and visualised in an online map browser at Map of Life (mol.org) and accessed for individual or batch download for non-commercial use.Main conclusionExpert maps of species' global distributions are limited in their spatial detail and temporal specificity, but form a useful basis for broad-scale characterizations and model-based integration with other data. We provide georeferenced range maps for the native ranges of all extant mammal species as shapefiles, with species-level metadata and source information packaged together in geodatabase format. Across the three taxonomic sources our maps entail, there are 1784 taxonomic name differences compared to the maps currently available on the IUCN Red List website. The expert maps provided here are harmonised to the MDD taxonomic authority and linked to a community of online tools that will enable transparent future updates and version control