Occupational exposure to saw dust: a case study

ABSTRACT: Occupational exposure to saw dust is associated with the development of oncological diseases, namely nasopharyngeal cancers (about 44% are from nasal cavity and paranasal sinus cancers), in the wood and furniture industries, about 55.000, according to the (Associação das Indústrias de Madeira e Mobiliário de Portugal) AIMMP. It should be noted that since 1995 these dusts have been classified as carcinogenic, by The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The main objective of this study is to evaluate the exposure to saw dust, quantifying its concentration, comparing with values stipulated by existing legislation and standardization. In order to reach the objectives described above, total dust sampling was performed following the NIOSH0500 methodology, in several jobs, in three different carpentries. From the samplings performed, an average value of saw dust concentration was obtained in each workstation. After analyzing the values obtained in the measurements, performed in the real work context, it was verified there was legal non-compliance in the Garlopa workstation and values of the order of magnitude of the NP 1796 exposure limit values ELV, in the Manual Polishing workstation, in some of the Carpentry Workshops. However, if we consider the Scientific Committee on Occupational Exposure Limit (SCOEL) ELV we can state that only the Trimmer complies with the established ELV. Thus, corrective and/or preventive measures should be implemented by employers and preventive measures should be receptive by workers by implementing/complying to ensure the health and well-being of all, will be proposed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Estimation and analysis of multi-GNSS differential code biases using a hardware signal simulator

In ionospheric modeling, the differential code biases (DCBs) are a non-negligible error source, which are routinely estimated by the different analysis centers of the International GNSS Service (IGS) as a by-product of their global ionospheric analysis. These are, however, estimated only for the IGS station receivers and for all the satellites of the different GNSS constellations. A technique is proposed for estimating the receiver and satellites DCBs in a global or regional network by first estimating the DCB of one receiver set as reference. This receiver DCB is then used as a ‘known’ parameter to constrain the global ionospheric solution, where the receiver and satellite DCBs are estimated for the entire network. This is in contrast to the constraint used by the IGS, which assumes that the involved satellites DCBs have a zero mean. The ‘known’ receiver DCB is obtained by simulating signals that are free of the ionospheric, tropospheric and other group delays using a hardware signal simulator. When applying the proposed technique for Global Positioning System legacy signals, mean offsets in the order of 3 ns for satellites and receivers were found to exist between the estimated DCBs and the IGS published DCBs. It was shown that these estimated DCBs are fairly stable in time, especially for the legacy signals. When the proposed technique is applied for the DCBs estimation using the newer Galileo signals, an agreement at the level of 1–2 ns was found between the estimated DCBs and the manufacturer’s measured DCBs, as published by the European Space Agency, for the three still operational Galileo in-orbit validation satellites

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of asthma exacerbations

Altres ajuts: European Regional Development Fund "ERDF A way of making Europe"; Allergopharma-EAACI award 2021; SysPharmPedia grant from the ERACoSysMed 1st Joint Transnational Call from the European Union under the Horizon 2020; Sandler Family Foundation; American Asthma Foundation; RWJF Amos Medical Faculty Development Program; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (R01HL117004, R01HL128439, R01HL135156, X01HL134589, R01HL141992, R01HL141845); National Institute of Health and Environmental Health Sciences (R01ES015794, R21ES24844); National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) (P60MD006902, R01MD010443, R56MD013312); National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) (RL5GM118984); Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (24RT-0025, 27IR-0030); National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) (U01HG009080); GlaxoSmithKline and Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences; Slovenian Research Agency (P3-0067); SysPharmPediA grant, co-financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport Slovenia (MIZS) (C3330-16-500106); NHS Research Scotland; Wellcome Trust Biomedical Resource (099177/Z/12/Z); Genotyping National Centre (CeGEN) CeGen-PRB3-ISCIII (AC15/00015); UK Medical Research Council and Wellcome (102215/2/13/2); University of Bristol; Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, Swedish Research Council; Region Stockholm (ALF project and database maintenance); NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics via the UK Department of Health; Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) (115010); European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA); Spanish National Cancer Research Centre; Fundación Canaria Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Canarias (PIFIISC19/17); Erasmus Medical Center; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Netherlands Organization for the Health Research and Development (ZonMw); the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (RIDE); Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sports; European Commission (DG XII); Municipality of Rotterdam; German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF); U.S. National Institutes of Health (HL07966); European Social Fund "ESF Investing in your future"; Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades; Universidad de La Laguna (ULL); European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI); European Respiratory Society (ERS) (LTRF202101-00861); Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Slovenia (C3330-19-252012); Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund; Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN); National Medical Research Council (NMRC Singapore); Biomedical Research Council (BMRC Singapore); Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR Singapore, N-154-000-038-001, R-154-000-191-112, R-154-000-404-112, R-154-000-553-112, R-154-000-565-112, R-154-000-630-112, R-154-000-A08-592, R-154-000-A27-597, R-154-000-A91-592, R-154-000-A95-592, R-154-000-B99-114, BMRC/01/1/21/18/077, BMRC/04/1/21/19/315, SIgN-06-006, SIgN-08-020, NMRC/1150/2008, H17/01/a0/008); Sime Darby Technology Centre; First Resources Ltd; Genting Plantation; Olam International; U.S. National Institutes of Health (HL138098).Background: Asthma exacerbations are a serious public health concern due to high healthcare resource utilization, work/school productivity loss, impact on quality of life, and risk of mortality. The genetic basis of asthma exacerbations has been studied in several populations, but no prior study has performed a multi-ancestry meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies (meta-GWAS) for this trait. We aimed to identify common genetic loci associated with asthma exacerbations across diverse populations and to assess their functional role in regulating DNA methylation and gene expression. Methods: A meta-GWAS of asthma exacerbations in 4989 Europeans, 2181 Hispanics/Latinos, 1250 Singaporean Chinese, and 972 African Americans analyzed 9.6 million genetic variants. Suggestively associated variants (p ≤ 5 × 10) were assessed for replication in 36,477 European and 1078 non-European asthma patients. Functional effects on DNA methylation were assessed in 595 Hispanic/Latino and African American asthma patients and in publicly available databases. The effect on gene expression was evaluated in silico. Results: One hundred and twenty-six independent variants were suggestively associated with asthma exacerbations in the discovery phase. Two variants independently replicated: rs12091010 located at vascular cell adhesion molecule-1/exostosin like glycosyltransferase-2 (VCAM1/EXTL2) (discovery: odds ratio (OR) = 0.82, p = 9.05 × 10 and replication: OR = 0.89, p = 5.35 × 10) and rs943126 from pantothenate kinase 1 (PANK1) (discovery: OR = 0.85, p = 3.10 × 10 and replication: OR = 0.89, p = 1.30 × 10). Both variants regulate gene expression of genes where they locate and DNA methylation levels of nearby genes in whole blood. Conclusions: This multi-ancestry study revealed novel suggestive regulatory loci for asthma exacerbations located in genomic regions participating in inflammation and host defense

Estimación del contenido total de electrones en la ionosfera usando datos del sistema de posicionamiento global

Una de las principales técnicas geodésicas espaciales de posicionamiento utilizadas actualmente es el Sistema de Posicionamiento Global, que denotamos por sus siglas en inglés, GPS (Global Positioning System). La ionosfera actúa cómo un medio dispersivo. Este efecto, que es directamente proporcional al conteñido total de electrones (TEC, Total Electron Content) e inversamente proporcional al cuadrado de la frecuencia, es una de las principales fuentes de error en GPS. En este artículo se describe el méiodo que hemos desarrollado para la estimación del contenido total del electrones apartir de observaciones GPS. El proceso de ajuste se basará en la técnica del filtro de Kalman.Peer reviewe

Test of GPS for permanent ionospheric TEC monitoring at high latitudes

The Global Positioning System (GPS) observables are affected by the ionosphere. The dispersive nature of this effect and the use of two frequencies in the GPS observations make possible to measure the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) from dual frequency GPS data. In this work we test the concept of permanent monitoring of TEC using a network of GPS receivers at high latitudes. We have used GPS data from five permanent receivers in Scandinavia, from 1-30 January 1994, with geographic latitudes ranging from 57.4<sup>°</sup>N to 78.9<sup>°</sup>N. The results show the capability of the method to monitor the evolution of TEC as a function of time and geographical location. We have detected night-time enhancements almost every night for some of the stations, and we have also been able to produce maps of the instantaneous TEC as a function of both latitude and longitude around the GPS network. We also present some of the current limitations in the use of GPS for estimating TEC at high latitudes such as the difficulties in solving for cycle-slips, and the necessity of reliable values for the receiver and satellite differential instrumental biases

Comparación de los retardos ionosfericos obtenidos a partir de los experimentos S-X vlbi y de las observaciones GPS

En: Sardón, E., Rius, A., Zarraoa, N. GPS inospheric delays. Publicación. Instituto de Astronomía y Geodesia, nº 185, 1993.GPS observations gathered during S-X VLBI experiments have been analyzed to extract the ionospheric delay along the signal path of the VLBI observations. These GPS-based delays have been compared with those obtained from S-X VLBI observations, with the rms of the differences less than 0.1 nanoseconds. In order to check the use of dual GPS data for the ionospheric calibration of single frequency VLBI observations, the baseline lengths estimated using dual VLBI data have been compared with those estimated from single band VLBI data calibrated with the GPS-based ionospheric delays. The differences between both results for European baselines were in the order of 3-5 parts per 10.Peer reviewe

GPS ionospheric delays

Peer reviewe

Comparación del tec obtenido a partir de la rotación Faraday de las señales de satélites geoestacionario y de los datos GPS

En: Sardón, E., Rius, A., Zarraoa, N. GPS inospheric delays. Publicación. Instituto de Astronomía y Geodesia, nº 185, 1993.In this paper we compare the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) obtained from Faraday rotation observations carried out at Neustrelitz (Germany), and the total electron content predicted for the same subionospheric points using Global Positioning System data gathered at Wettzell (Germany). Three different periods with data have been compared. In general, the same features for the TEC are reproduced by both results. For two of the compared periods there is a bias between both results, possibly due to the unknown initial polarization, the unresolved ambiguities in the Faraday-derived TEC or to plasmaspheric contributions. Another source of discrepancies between both results are deficiencies in the way of predicting the TEC at Neustrelitz using data from Wettzell.Peer reviewe

Placas de identificación de combatientes de la Guerra Civil española (1936-1937), recuperadas en exhumaciones de escenarios bélicos en el País Vasco

A finales del s. XIX la preocupación por conocer la identidad de los soldados heridos o fallecidos en una batalla motivó la creación de un sistema de identificación con placas metálicas que se llevaban suspendidas del cuello o alrededor de la muñeca. Los propios soldados sentían temor de no ser identificados tras su muerte. Las placas de identificación personal cuentan con una larga tradición en todos los ejércitos, si bien su uso se generaliza en el siglo XX como consecuencia de la Primera Guerra Mundial. Su aplicación sigue vigente y se encuentra regulada en la actualidad por disposiciones concretas que mantienen la misma idea suscitada en su origen. El uso de estas placas permitía conocer la identidad de los cadáveres en el mismo lugar de la contienda, tanto para los heridos como para los muertos, y registrar el hecho documentalmente de forma fehaciente. En la actualidad, estas mismas placas, han servido para establecer las identidades de los restos humanos recuperados en las exhumaciones de la Guerra Civil (1936-1939), que se han realizado siguiendo una metodología científica. La puesta en marcha de exhumaciones sistemáticas con presencia de arqueólogos profesionales ha posibilitado la recuperación de algunas de estas evidencias que son de gran importancia para constatar los hechos históricos y posibilitar una orientación identificativa de los casos que es gran ayuda desde la perspectiva forense. Se presentan varios ejemplos en los que las placas de identificación, recuperadas en las exhumaciones realizadas en el País Vasco, han facilitado determinar la identidad de los soldados allí enterrados