A study protocol for the evaluation of occupational mutagenic/carcinogenic risks in subjects exposed to antineoplastic drugs: a multicentric project

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Some industrial hygiene studies have assessed occupational exposure to antineoplastic drugs; other epidemiological investigations have detected various toxicological effects in exposure groups labeled with the job title. In no research has the same population been studied both environmentally and epidemiologically. The protocol of the epidemiological study presented here uses an integrated environmental and biological monitoring approach. The aim is to assess in hospital nurses preparing and/or administering therapy to cancer patients the current level of occupational exposure to antineoplastic drugs, DNA and chromosome damage as cancer predictive effects, and the association between the two.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>About 80 healthy non-smoking female nurses, who job it is to prepare or handle antineoplastic drugs, and a reference group of about 80 healthy non-smoking female nurses not occupationally exposed to chemicals will be examined simultaneously in a cross-sectional study. All the workers will be recruited from five hospitals in northern and central Italy after their informed consent has been obtained.</p> <p>Evaluation of surface contamination and dermal exposure to antineoplastic drugs will be assessed by determining cyclophosphamide on selected surfaces (wipes) and on the exposed nurses' clothes (pads). The concentration of unmetabolized cyclophosphamide as a biomarker of internal dose will be measured in end-shift urine samples from exposed nurses.</p> <p>Biomarkers of effect and susceptibility will be assessed in exposed and unexposed nurses: urinary concentration of 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine; DNA damage detected using the single-cell microgel electrophoresis (comet) assay in peripheral white blood cells; micronuclei and chromosome aberrations in peripheral blood lymphocytes. Genetic polymorphisms for enzymes involved in metabolic detoxification (i.e. glutathione <it>S</it>-transferases) will also be analysed.</p> <p>Using standardized questionnaires, occupational exposure will be determined in exposed nurses only, whereas potential confounders (medicine consumption, lifestyle habits, diet and other non-occupational exposures) will be assessed in both groups of hospital workers.</p> <p>Statistical analysis will be performed to ascertain the association between occupational exposure to antineoplastic drugs and biomarkers of DNA and chromosome damage, after taking into account the effects of individual genetic susceptibility, and the presence of confounding exposures.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The findings of the study will be useful in updating prevention procedures for handling antineoplastic drugs.</p

POTENSI KOMODITI UNGGULAN AGRIBISNIS HORTIKULTURA DAN STRATEGI PENGEMBANGANNYA DI KABUPATEN HALMAHERA SELATAN

ABSTRACT SUPERIOR COMMODITY POTENTIAL OF HORTICULTURE AGROBUSSINESS AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY IN SOUTH HALMAHERA REGENCY. This study was conducted to evaluate the potential of the horticulture superior commodity, growth structure, relation of farm income and to define strategy formulation of superior commodity development in South Halmahera regency. Study was done using survey approach on location basis of horticulture superior commodity. Location was defined by multistage random sampling in South Halmahera regency. Samples were taken by purposive sampling method, based on the criteria including the stakeholders of horticulture commodity spreading around research location. Data were analyzed using Location Quotient (LQ) method comparing the regency PDRB and the province PDRB, using localization coefficient (αi) by defining growth structure of commodity focusing on either one areal or not; using specialization coefficient  on one or more of commodities at one certain areal location, using Basic Service Ratio (BSR, the comparison of commodity basis and non basis of commodity, and SWOT analysis formulating the internal and external strategy. Based on LQ analysis, commodities of red pepper, lanseh and durian fruits had LQ value &gt; 1, indicating that these commodities were categorized sector basis and tomato commodity LQ &lt; 1 included into non basis sector or inferior commodity. Analysis of αi indicated that horticulture commodity was not concentrated into one location of region. In addition, analysis of , indicated that commodity of horticulture sub sector was not focused on one commodity. Analysis of BSR indicated that BSR value varied from one year to the other next year, such as in year of 2009 was 5.38, year of 2012 was 7.41 and year of 2013 was 10.22. The BSR &gt; 1 indicated that correlation between sector basis of commodity contributed positively on development of non basis sector of commodity, while year of 2010 was 0.77 and year of 2011 was 0.833. Value of BSR &lt; 1 was indicating negative contribution of commodity sector basis on non basis sector, especially in South Halmahera regency. Based on analysis results, the average income of each respondent for tomato was IDR 33,843,720.-; red pepper was IDR 10,782,350.- ; lanseh fruit was IDR 43,074,200.- and durian fruit was IDR 75,838,040.-. Development strategies based on SWOT analysis were (1) increase of product and agricultural commodity quality, (2) Focused and clearly political will of government, (3) Increase of farmer resource, (4) Self seedling development training, (5) Government regulation on prohibiting exploration of the agricultural potential areas, (6) Increasing activity of the industrial and trade office on easily market information, (7) Effective utilization of productive areas, (8) Collaboration between government and private entrepreneurship, (9) Adoption of modern agricultural technology, (10) Optimizing  of the function of economical institution (corporation institution) and banking institution, and (11) Optimizing  the role of field agricultural extension. Therefore, based on this research, it can be concluded that South Halmahera regency had high potential of superior commodity of the horticulture sub sector that can be developed due to higher supporting of potential location areas. Key words: Superior commodity, horticulture sub sector, SWOT analysis, South Halmahera regency. Â

One second vector and scalar magnetic measurements at the low-latitude Choutuppal (CPL) magnetic observatory

One second measurements of the geomagnetic field variations, which meet INTERMAGNET quality and transmission specifications, require very special conditions to be maintained at the observatories over sustained periods of time, which pose serious challenges for the operators, particularly when infrastructural and environmental conditions are far from ideal. This work presents the progressive steps, which led to the successful setup of such measurements at the new magnetic observatory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)-National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) in the Choutuppal (CPL) campus, Hyderabad (HYB), India. The 1 s magnetic measurements in trial mode commenced in 2015 using the newly developed observatory-grade 1 s fluxgate magnetometer, GEOMAG-02MO, from Research Centre GEOMAGNET (GM), Ukraine, and the Overhauser proton precession magnetometer, GSM-90F1, along with the data acquisition system, Magrec-4B from Mingeo, Hungary. Iterative tuning of the setup led to the generation of good quality data from 2016 onward. The processes of commissioning this setup in low-latitude conditions, with the aim of producing 1 s definitive data, and the characteristics of the data from this new instrument are presented here

Neural network classification of late gamma band electroencephalogram features

This paper investigates the feasibility of using neural network (NN) and late gamma band (LGB) electroencephalogram (EEG) features extracted from the brain to identify the individuality of subjects. The EEG signals were recorded using 61 active electrodes located on the scalp while the subjects perceived a single picture. LGB EEG signals occur with jittering latency of above 280 ins and are not time-locked to the triggering stimuli. Therefore, LGB EEG could only be computed from single trials of EEG signals and the common method of averaging across trials to remove undesired background EEG (i.e. noise) is not possible. Here, principal component analysis has been used to extract single trials of EEG signals. Zero phase Butterworth filter and Parseval's time-frequency equivalence theorem were used to compute the LGB EEG features. These features were then classified by backpropagation and simplified fuzzy ARTMAP NNs into different categories that represent the individuality of the subjects. The results using a tenfold cross validation scheme gave a maximum classification of 97.33% when tested on 800 unseen LGB EEG features from 40 subjects. This pilot investigation showed that the method of identifying the individuality of subjects using NN classification of LGB EEG features is worth further study