An empirical and modelling approach to the evaluation of cruise ships' influence on air quality: The case of La Paz, Mexico.

Maritime activity has diverse environmental consequences impacts in port areas, especially for air quality, and the post-COVID-19 cruise tourism market's potential to recover and grow is causing new environmental concerns in expanding port cities. This research proposes an empirical and modelling approach for the evaluation of cruise ships' influence on air quality concerning NO2 and SO2 in the city of La Paz (Mexico) using indirect measurements. EPA emission factors and the AERMOD modelling system coupled to WRF were used to model dispersions, while street-level mobile monitoring data of air quality from two days of 2018 were used and processed using a radial base function interpolator. The local differential Moran's Index was estimated at the intersection level using both datasets and a co-location clustering analysis was performed to address spatial constancy and to identify the pollution levels. The modelled results showed that cruise ships' impact on air quality had maximum values of 13.66 µg/m3 for NO2 and 15.71 µg/m3 for SO2, while background concentrations of 8.80 for NOx and 0.05 for SOx (µg/m3) were found by analysing the LISA index values for intersections not influenced by port pollution. This paper brings insights to the use of hybrid methodologies as an approach to studying the influence of multiple-source pollutants on air quality in contexts totally devoid of environmental data.

Analyses of the Genetic Polymorphisms rs3740199 and rs1871054 of the ADAM12 Gene and the Alleles at the rs2073508 Loci of the TGFB1 Gene and Their Contribution to Susceptibility to Primary Knee Osteoarthritis.

Aims: To analyze the association of polymorphisms in the ADAM12 (rs3740199 and rs1871054) and TGFB1 (rs2073508) genes with knee osteoarthritis (KOA) in a population from northern Mexico. Methods: A total of 296 individuals were included in the study. Primary KOA was confirmed according to the criteria established by the American College of Rheumatology. A real-time PCR-based DNA genotyping method was used to evaluate the rs3740199, rs1871054, and rs2073508 polymorphisms in 132 cases and 164 controls. Results: Our results demonstrate that the ADAM12 rs3740199 polymorphism was significantly associated with primary KOA under the recessive model (p = 0.036). However, after performing a multinomial logistic regression model, no significant association was found (p = 0.722). Furthermore, no associations for the rs1871054 and rs2073508 polymorphisms were observed in this study. Conclusion: These findings suggest that polymorphisms within the ADAM12 and TGFB1 genes may not have a significant influence on primary KOA susceptibility in the Mexican Mestizo population; however, inclusion of other ethnic groups and a larger sample size are needed to more fully analyze the role of these polymorphisms with KOA risk.