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The article presents information on the distribution of methylmercury in an area polluted by mercury containing wastewater from an organic chemical factory in China. Guizhou Organic Chemical Factory was established in late 1960 and located near Qingzhen City in Guizhou Province, China. Residents in the irrigated region (Qingzhen) are thought to be suffering from mercury pollution. The study presented in this article determined the level of methylmercury pollution, the soil samples collected in the Qingzhen and Lanchong (control) areas were analyzed using special analytical techniques for methylmercury. The results provided further details regarding mercury pollution in the Qingzhen area. more...

An international workshop on "Adapting Agriculture to Climate Change and Air Pollution" took place at Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China, during 23-27 October, 2023. Experts working in various multi-disciplinary areas of agroecosystem and environmental research gathered for academic communication and discussions. Two discussion groups focused on "agriculture under air pollution and climate change: current challenges and priorities for the future" and "adapting agriculture to air pollution and climate change: current status and next steps." Insights derived from the discussions are summarized in this article and include opinions about current issues, knowledge gaps' identification, and potential priorities and actions that could be taken. The first discussion mainly addresses ozone impact estimates; ozone metrics for impact and risk assessments; ozone monitoring; air pollution impacts and policy; and the pivotal role of agriculture and consumer choices. The second discussion covers adaptation and mitigation; greenhouse gases and energy efficiency; concerns about the link between adaptation and mitigation; local food, planetary-health diets and carbon footprint; irrigation and climate change adaptation; scientific evidence and policy-making; air pollution and crop adaptation; machine learning and crop modeling; and challenges faced by smallholder farmers and large-scale enterprises. Hence, this report could be useful for research, educational, and policy purposes, collating opinions of experts working in diverse research areas., Competing Interests: Declarations. Ethics approval: Not applicable. Consent to participate: Not applicable. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.) more...

In recent years, blooms of toxic Alexandrium ostenfeldii strains have been reported from around the world. In 2013, the species formed a red tide in a shallow lagoon in western Japan, which was the first report of the species in the area. To investigate the genetic relatedness of Japanese A. ostenfeldii and global isolates, the full-length SSU, ITS and LSU sequences were determined, and phylogenetic analyses were conducted for isolates from western and northern Japan and from the Baltic Sea. Genotyping and microsatellite sequence comparison were performed to estimate the divergence and connectivity between the populations from western Japan and the Baltic Sea. In all phylogenetic analyses, the isolates from western Japan grouped together with global isolates from shallow and low saline areas, such as the Baltic Sea, estuaries on the east coast of U.S.A. and from the Bohai Sea, China. In contrast, the isolates from northern Japan formed a well-supported separate group in the ITS and LSU phylogenies, indicating differentiation between the Japanese populations. This was further supported by the notable differentiation between the sequences of western and northern Japanese isolates, whereas the lowest differentiation was found between the western Japanese and Chinese isolates. Microsatellite genotyping revealed low genetic diversity in the western Japanese population, possibly explained by a recent introduction to the lagoon from where it was detected. The red tide recorded in the shallow lagoon followed notable changes in the salinity of the waterbody and phytoplankton composition, potentially facilitating the bloom of A. ostenfeldii., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.) more...

Background: The prevalence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is similar in Japan and China and is increasing due to high rates of smoking in these countries. Reducing COPD is an important public health issue. The goals of this study were to verify the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the COOP/WONCA charts, a tool for measuring health status, and to examine the qualitative differences in health status between Japanese and Chinese patients with COPD and between these patients and healthy subjects., Methods: From 2008 to 2011, we examined the factors affecting the health status of Japanese and Chinese populations living in six cities. Participants were patients with COPD staged according to the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) criteria (140 Japanese, 201 Chinese) and healthy subjects (243 Japanese, 199 Chinese), all 50 to 79 years old. Health status was measured by using the COOP/WONCA charts, and basic information such as smoking status and medical history was reported by the participants., Results: The Japanese and Chinese versions of the COOP/WONCA charts were shown to be reliable and valid by test-retest, comparison with the SF-36 and respiratory symptoms, and correlation of results obtained from patients and their physicians. Stepwise multiple regression analyses demonstrated that "Physical fitness", "Daily activities", and "Social activities" were predicted by COPD status and/or respiratory symptoms; "Feelings" by nationality and respiratory symptoms; "Pain" by sex and respiratory symptoms; and "Overall health" by nationality. When the COOP/WONCA scores were stratified by nationality, age, sex, and COPD status, the difference of each score between the patients and healthy subjects was larger for the Chinese subjects than for the Japanese. The physical, psychosocial activities, and pain scores increased significantly as COPD status worsened in Chinese subjects, whereas these scores were not affected by sex, age, or COPD status for Japanese subjects. Brinkman index and use of smoky fuel indoors affected the COOP/WONCA scores in Chinese patients but not in Japanese patients., Conclusions: The Japanese COOP/WONCA charts are reliable and valid. COPD more severely affected the health status of Chinese participants than of Japanese participants. These results suggest that countermeasures against insufficient health care and smoky environments may improve the health status of Chinese patients with COPD. more...

Growth hormone receptor gene (GHR) is one of the likely candidates for determining morphological traits, because GH is a key regulator of bone growth. The genetic association of GHR in exon 10 with mandibular ramus height has been found in different populations, Japanese and Chinese. On the other hand, two common isoforms of GHR, one full-length (fl-GHR) and the other lacking the extracellular domain encoded by exon 3 (d3-GHR), are associated with differences in responsiveness to GH. The purpose of this study involving 159 Korean subjects was to study the associations between a GHR polymorphism (d3/fl-GHR) that results in genomic deletion of exon 3 and craniofacial morphology, and to study the associations between GHR genotypes in exon 10 and craniofacial morphology. Moreover, the allelic frequencies in a multi-ethnic population (24 Han Chinese, 24 African-Americans, 24 European-Americans, and 24 Hispanics) in a GHR polymorphism (d3/fl-GHR) were compared in this study. The five craniofacial linear measurements (cranial base length, maxillary length, overall mandibular length, mandibular corpus length, and mandibular ramus height) obtained from lateral cephalograms were examined as craniofacial morphology. We found that the d3/fl-GHR polymorphism had no association for any measurements, and a statistically significant association (P=0.024) between the GHR polymorphisms P561T and C422F in exon 10 and mandibular ramus height. Neither SNPs besides P561T and C422F polymorphisms in exon 10 nor the measurements besides mandibular ramus height have statistically significances. Both derived alleles at P561T and C422F SNPs were highly associated with only one haplotype, haplotype-4 in Korean population. As quantitative haplotype association, the results showed a significant difference in mandibular ramus height between individuals having one haplotype-4 and others without haplotype-4 (P=0.028). Moreover, we found that the d3/fl-GHR polymorphism showed diverse frequency in different population. Regarding GHR genotypes in exon 10, the present study mostly reflected the results obtained for a Japanese population, although our current study does not replicate the correlation between the I526L polymorphism of GHR and mandibular ramus height as was reported in a previous study of Han Chinese. The results of the present study suggest that the GHR exon 10 SNPs, not d3/fl-GHR, contribute to changes in the mandibular ramus height of Koreans. more...