Air Pollution and Aeroallergens as Possible Triggers in Preterm Birth Delivery.

Preterm birth (PTB) identifies infants prematurely born <37 weeks/gestation and is one of the main causes of infant mortality. PTB has been linked to air pollution exposure, but its timing is still unclear and neglects the acute nature of delivery and its association with short-term effects. We analyzed 3 years of birth data (2015−2017) in Turin (Italy) and the relationships with proinflammatory chemicals (PM2.5, O3, and NO2) and biological (aeroallergens) pollutants on PTB vs. at-term birth, in the narrow window of a week before delivery. A tailored non-stationary Poisson model correcting for seasonality and possible confounding variables was applied. Relative risk associated with each pollutant was assessed at any time lag between 0 and 7 days prior to delivery. PTB risk was significantly associated with increased levels of both chemical (PM2.5, RR = 1.023 (1.003−1.043), O3, 1.025 (1.001−1.048)) and biological (aeroallergens, RR ~ 1.01 (1.0002−1.016)) pollutants in the week prior to delivery. None of these, except for NO2 (RR = 1.01 (1.002−1.021)), appeared to play any role on at-term delivery. Pollutant-induced acute inflammation eliciting delivery in at-risk pregnancies may represent the pathophysiological link between air pollution and PTB, as testified by the different effects played on PTB revealed. Further studies are needed to better elucidate a possible exposure threshold to prevent PTB.

The relevance of social dreaming for action research: exploring jail workers' unconscious thinking of the changes in the prison organization.

The contribution focuses on how dreams can be investigated as social phenomena in a manner which illuminates the role of the individual in a particular group and elucidates unconscious group processes in an organization. The article presents an experience of adopting Lawrence's social dreaming (SD) matrices in a new a specific field: an Italian prison which has shifted in the last two decades from a punitive to a rehabilitative mission. The aim of the experience was twofold: i) to help jail workers, through a formative experience, gaining a deeper understanding of how the new prison environment influences their emotional experience and work functioning; ii) to collect the emotional climate, the feelings, and the critical issues among the prison staff, in order to gain insights for the authorities responsible for the regulation of correctional facility. The experience of SD included 4 matrices, involving a total of 12 participants: 7 prison officers and 5 educators. The main thematic areas emerged from the matrices are related to: trust, competence, professional identity, separateness and privacy, safety, and to the gender differences. All the themes are presented and discussed, along with dreams and free associations. The present work is, to our knowledge, the first attempt to apply the tool of social dreaming to the context of correctional facility all over the world. The described experience might serve as an example of the applicability of this mode of analytic exploration to institutions or organizations, and the contribution opens to reflection and some implications.

Attribution of recent temperature behaviour reassessed by a neural-network method.

Attribution studies on recent global warming by Global Climate Model (GCM) ensembles converge in showing the fundamental role of anthropogenic forcings as primary drivers of temperature in the last half century. However, despite their differences, all these models pertain to the same dynamical approach and come from a common ancestor, so that their very similar results in attribution studies are not surprising and cannot be considered as a clear proof of robustness of the results themselves. Thus, here we adopt a completely different, non-dynamical, data-driven and fully nonlinear approach to the attribution problem. By means of neural network (NN) modelling, and analysing the last 160 years, we perform attribution experiments and find that the strong increase in global temperature of the last half century may be attributed basically to anthropogenic forcings (with details on their specific contributions), while the Sun considerably influences the period 1910-1975. Furthermore, the role of sulphate aerosols and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation for better catching interannual to decadal temperature variability is clarified. Sensitivity analyses to forcing changes are also performed. The NN outcomes both corroborate our previous knowledge from GCMs and give new insight into the relative contributions of external forcings and internal variability to climate.

Air pollution, aeroallergens and admissions to pediatric emergency room for respiratory reasons in Turin, northwestern Italy.

BACKGROUND: Air pollution can cause respiratory symptoms or exacerbate pre-existing respiratory diseases, especially in children. This study looked at the short-term association of air pollution concentrations with Emergency Room (ER) admissions for respiratory reasons in pediatric age (0-18 years). METHODS: Daily number of ER admissions in a children's Hospital, concentrations of urban-background PM2.5, NO2, O3 and total aeroallergens (Corylaceae, Cupressaceae, Gramineae, Urticaceae, Ambrosia, Betula) were collected in Turin, northwestern Italy, for the period 1/08/2008 to 31/12/2010 (883 days). The associations between exposures and ER admissions were estimated, at time lags between 0 and 5 days, using generalized linear Poisson regression models, adjusted for non-meteorological potential confounders. RESULTS: In the study period, 21,793 ER admissions were observed, mainly (81 %) for upper respiratory tract infections. Median air pollution concentrations were 22.0, 42.5, 34.1 µg/m(3) for urban-background PM2.5, NO2, and O3, respectively, and 2.9 grains/m(3) for aeroallergens. We found that ER admissions increased by 1.3 % (95 % CI: 0.3-2.2 %) five days after a 10 µg/m(3) increase in NO2, and by 0.7 % (95 % CI: 0.1-1.2 %) one day after a 10 grains/m(3) increase in aeroallergens, while they were not associated with PM2.5 concentrations. ER admissions were negatively associated with O3 and aeroallergen concentrations at some time lags, but these association shifted to the null when meteorological confounders were adjusted for in the models. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, these findings confirm adverse short-term health effects of air pollution on the risk of ER admission in children and encourage a careful management of the urban environment to health protection.

Analysis of spontaneous pneumothorax in the city of Cuneo: environmental correlations with meteorological and air pollutant variables.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP) tends to cluster. Previous studies have found a correlation between PSP and atmospheric pressure variations or thunderstorms. We conducted this study to analyze the PSP correlations with meteorological variables and the concentrations of air pollutants in the city of Cuneo in Italy (IT). METHODS: We evaluated prospectively 451 consecutive PSP patients treated between 2004 and 2010. For each day within the period analyzed, the meteorological parameters and pollutants data were recorded. Statistical analyses on PSP were done for distribution characteristics, spectral autocorrelation, and spectral analysis. Multivariate regression analyses were performed using artificial neural networks. RESULTS: Analysis of annual, seasonal, and monthly distributions showed no significant correlation between PSP and the time series. The spectral analysis showed that PSP events were not random. Correlations between meteorological and environmental variables confirmed that PSP was significantly more likely to occur on warm windy days with high atmospheric pressure and high mean nitrogen dioxide concentration. CONCLUSIONS: Meteorological parameters and atmospheric pollutants might explain the cluster onset of PSP.

The relationship between meteorological variations and the onset of spontaneous pneumothorax.

This is in reference to: Obuchi et al. (Surg Today 41(10):1380-1384, 2011).

Air pollution, weather variations and primary spontaneous pneumothorax.

BACKGROUND: Spontaneous pneumothoraces (SP) tend to occur in clusters which have been related to atmospheric pressure variations and thunderstorm insurgence. We examined the influence of standard meteorological parameter variations and concentrations of the major air pollutants on incidence of spontaneous pneumothorax (SP) in a highly developed industrial area (Turin, Italy). METHODS: From October 2002 to December 2007, 591 SP patients were prospectively evaluated. For each day, standard weather parameters and concentration of air pollutants were recorded. RESULTS: The total number of admissions for SP was 591. The number of days with admissions was 363, which represents the 19% of the total number of days in the study period (1918). Eighty-one percent of days with SP admissions were clusterized. Results of statistical analysis showed that the sequence of SP events was not random. There was relationship between SP and daily wind speed (WS) minimum, daily standard deviation of NO(2), NO(2), CO(2) daily maximum and minimum, O3 daily minimum, daily mean CO(2) (p = 0.01), daily NO(2) minimum (p = 0.001). Multiple regression analysis has shown relationship between number of SP admissions and increase of daily mean and minimum NO(2) (p = 0.001), decrease of NO(2) standard deviation (p = 0.01), decrease of daily mean and minimum O(3) (p = 0.01), and of maximum of NO (p = 0.001), increase of daily O(3) standard deviation (p = 0.05). Daily decrement of standard deviation of temperature (p = 0.01) and increment ofWS anomalies and minima (p = 0.01) were also significant. CONCLUSIONS: Meteorological parameters and atmospheric pollutants might explain cluster hospitalization.

Measurements of lower carbonyls and hydrocarbons at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.

Measurements of gaseous organic compounds were carried out near Ny-Alesund, in the Norwegian Arctic, during September 2004. Twenty alkanes, alkenes and aromatic hydrocarbons from ethane to toluene and six aldehydes and ketones from formaldehyde to butanal, were identified and quantified in air samples. Hydrocarbons showed a quite uniform distribution, with ethane being by far the most abundant component (> 1 ppb), followed by propane (> 0.4 ppb) and butanes (> 0.3 ppb), while for unsaturated homologues, except ethene, concentrations never exceeding 0.05 ppb were observed. This distribution confirmed that hydrocarbon depletion during the transport time from Europe into the Arctic was depending upon their atmospheric lifetimes, calculated relatively to the OH reactivity scale. The presence of short lived hydrocarbons could be associated to local sources of anthropogenic and/or biogenic origin. Although the local air photochemistry played a primary role in the production of lower aldehydes in late summer, the observed mixing ratios of formaldehyde (in the 0.25 - 0.50 ppb range) could not be fully explained by known gas-phase chemistry. In this case additional sources, such as fluxes of formaldehyde from snow pack to the atmosphere and/or local anthropogenic activities, were to be taken into consideration. The possible influences of these sources on HCHO mixing ratios were analysed by means of a backward-trajectory circulation model.