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Abstract When people stand still, they exhibit a phenomenon called postural sway, or spontaneous movement of the body's center of pressure, which is related to balance control. In general females show less sway than males, but this difference only begins to appear around puberty, pointing to different levels of sex hormones as one potential mechanism for sway sex differences. In this study, we followed cohorts of young females using oral contraceptives (n = 32) and not using oral contraceptives (n = 19), to investigate associations between estrogen availability and postural sway. All participants visited the lab four times over the putative 28‐day menstrual cycle. At each visit, we performed blood draws to measure plasma estrogen (estradiol) levels, and tests of postural sway using a force plate. During late follicular and mid‐luteal phase, estradiol levels were lower in participants using oral contraceptives (mean differences [95% CI], respectively: −231.33; [−800.44, 337.87]; −613.26; [−1333.60, 107.07] pmol/L; main effect p

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have attracted great concern because of their great recalcitrant nature and harmful environmental health effects. Eight PFASs in wastewater from craft villages and industrial environments of Vietnam were analyzed using liquid chromatography triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) with negative electrospray ionization interface. For analysis of PFASs, percent recoveries ranged from 87 to 112, and MQL varied from 0.19 ng/L to 0.49 ng/L. Treated wastewater samples from eight metal-plating and eight textile-dyeing factories were collected for analysis of PFASs. Concentrations of PFOS in wastewater samples obtained from metal-plating factories with decorative plating stage were found at a range of 0.73–18.91 ng/L. For textile-dyeing factories, PFOA and/or PFHxA, which were present in all effluent wastewater samples, varied from 0.37 to 15.96 ng/L and 1.07 to 43.58 ng/L, respectively. Sixty surface water samples in four locations of the textile dyeing craft villages, a recycling plastic village, a paper recycling village, and 10 river water samples in the control area (a rural area without specific waste sources) were collected and analyzed for PFASs. The total concentrations of eight PFASs in surface water samples of craft villages ranged from 0.83 to 58.2 ng/L, which were significantly higher than those in the control area. PFOA, PFHxA, and PFOS are the three most dominant congeners in wastewater taken from craft villages with the highest concentrations of 27.4, 23.8, and 7.36 ng/L, respectively. The environmental risks posed by PFASs in surface water from craft villages were mainly in a range of extremely low to low level, particularly a few points have high ecological risks of PFDoA.

Introduction. Bronchiolitis is the most prevalent cause of hospitalization in infants under the age of 12 months. The disease is caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection, which can cause breathing difficulties and respiratory failure. Therefore, it is necessary to discover the risk factors of severe bronchiolitis to diagnose and treat promptly. This study is aimed at describing the epidemiological characteristics and clinical features of acute bronchiolitis caused by RSV and assessing the related factors to severe acute bronchiolitis in studied patients. Methods. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in Haiphong Children’s Hospital, Haiphong, Vietnam, for one year, from October 1, 2016, to September 30, 2017. All bronchiolitis admissions