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Purpose: Pro-angiogenic and immune cells expressing chemokine receptor CXCR4 traffic along concentration gradients of the chemokine ligand CXCL12, which disseminates from stromal niches. The CXCR4/CXCL12 axis is hijacked by various cancer types characterized by dramatic CXCR4 and/or CXCL12 upregulation. This chemokine network misregulation causes hyperactivation of CXCR4-mediated processes, leading to (1) excessive stimulation of protective tumor-stromal interactions, (2) metastatic expansion of CXCR4+ cancer cells to CXCL12-rich sites, and (3) intratumoral infiltration of CXCR4+ immunosuppressive cells. Accordingly, CXCR4 antagonists have significant therapeutic potential against cancer. While clinical CXCR4 inhibitors are severely limited by suboptimal pharmacokinetic (PK) properties and off-target activities, several of our tetrahydroisoquinoline-based CXCR4 antagonists exhibit superior selectivity and PK profiles to these clinical comparators (e.g., X4P-001). Methods: To test the hypothesis that improved PK profiles would translate to enhanced efficacy, our lead CXCR4 antagonist EMU-116 was compared to X4P-001 head-to-head in three mouse models of genitourinary cancers. First, human 786.0 renal cell carcinoma (RCC) xenograft-bearing female nude mice were treated p.o., q.d. with vehicle, axitinib (30 mg/kg), X4P-001 (100 mg/kg), EMU-116 (3, 10, or 30 mg/kg), X4P + axitinib, or EMU-116 + axitinib. Subcutaneous tumor volume was monitored using calipers. Second, nude male mice bearing intratibial, luciferase-expressing human PC-3 prostate cancer xenografts were treated with vehicle (p.o., q.d.), docetaxel (10 mg/kg i.p. weekly), X4P-001 (10 or 30 mg/kg p.o., q.d.), EMU-116 (10 or 30 mg/kg p.o., q.d.), X4P + axitinib, or EMU + axitinib. Intratibial tumor volume was monitored via luminescence imaging. Third, syngeneic RENCA RCC tumor-bearing female Balb/c mice were treated p.o., q.d. with vehicle, X4P-001 (30 mg/kg), or EMU-116 (30 mg/kg). Subcutaneous tumor volume was monitored using calipers, and immune cell subsets in bone marrow, blood, tumor, and tumor-draining lymph nodes were quantified via flow cytometry. Results: In the RCC xenograft model in combination with axitinib, EMU-116 (3 or 10 mg/kg) was equally effective at decreasing tumor burden compared to X4P-001 (100 mg/kg), whereas EMU-116 (30 mg/kg) was more effective. In the bone metastatic prostate cancer xenograft model, EMU-116 was as or more effective than X4P-001 when paired with docetaxel. In the syngeneic RCC model, EMU-116 mobilized T cells more effectively than X4P-001. Conclusion: EMU-116, at the same or lower dose, was more efficacious than X4P-001 in these models. These results highlight EMU-116 as a clinical candidate with significant therapeutic potential to synergize with chemotherapeutics, targeted therapies, and immuno-oncology agents. Citation Format: Eric J. Miller, Carrie Q. Sun, Petra Gregorova, Edgars Jecs, Yesim Altas Tahirovic, Robert J. Wilson, Huy H. Nguyen, Savita K. Sharma, Perry Bartsch, Zachary Sticher, Levi Moellering, Priscilla Davidson, Ryan Jajosky, Michael D'Erasmo, Manohar Saindane, Zafer Sahin, Nicholas S. Akins, Alexander A. Kolykhalov, Lawrence Wilson, Rebecca S. Arnold, John A. Petros, Haydn Kissick, Lingjie Xu, Yi Jiang, Dennis C. Liotta. Orally bioavailable small molecule CXCR4 antagonists with enhanced efficacy in mouse models of genitourinary cancers [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 2649.

Ju, Z. et al. Telomere dysfunction induces environmental alterations limiting hematopoietic stem cell function and engraftment. Nat. Med. 13, 742–747 (2007). CAS Article Google Scholar De Cecco, M. et al. Genomes of replicatively senescent cells undergo global epigenetic changes leading to gene silencing and activation of transposable elements. Aging Cell. 12, 247–256 (2013). Article Google Scholar Murnane, J. P. & Sabatier, L. Chromosome rearrangements resulting from telomere dysfunction and their role in cancer. Bioessays 26, 1164–1174 (2004). CAS Article Google Scholar Niyongere, S. et al. Heterogeneous expression of cytokines accounts for clinical diversity and refines prognostication in CMML. Leukemia 33, 205–216 (2019). CAS Article Google Scholar Download references We thank the Dr. Jian Mao (School of Medicine, Hangzhou Normal University) for technical assistance. This work was supported by Grants 2016YFA0100602, 2017YFA0103302, 2018YFA0109300 from the National Key Research and Development Program of China; Grants 81525010, 91749203, 81871116, 81501214, 91749117, 81770155, and 81771502 from the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Grants LQ14C070002 from the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China; Grant 2018GZR110103002 from Innovative Team Program of Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health Guangdong Laboratory and Grant 2017ZT07S347 from the Program for Guangdong Introducing Innovative and Enterpreneurial Teams. This work was supported by the Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of Guangdong Province (2019B151502008) to Hu Wang. These authors contributed equally: Ying Wang, Jin-ping Zheng Key Laboratory of Aging and Cancer Biology of Zhejiang Province, Institute of Aging Research, School of Medicine, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 311121, China Ying Wang, Junyi Wang, Lingjie Xu, Hu Wang & Zhenyu Ju Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Changzhi Medical College, Changzhi, Shanxi, 046000, P. R. China Jin-ping Zheng Key Laboratory of Regenerative Medicine of Ministry of Education, Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health Guangdong Laboratory, Institute of Aging and Regenerative Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China Ying Luo, Hu Wang & Zhenyu Ju CAS Key Laboratory of Regenerative Biology and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China Jinyong Wang Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI, 02903, USA John M. Sedivy Department of Colorectal Surgery, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China Zhangfa Song You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar Y.W., JP.Z., H.W., Y.L., JY.W., and LJ.X. carried out the experiments. Y.W., JP.Z., H.W., JinY W., J.M.S., ZF.S., and ZY.J. analyzed the data. Y.W., JP.Z., H.W., J.M.S., and ZY.J. wrote the paper. Correspondence to Ying Wang or Zhangfa Song or Hu Wang or Zhenyu Ju. The authors declare no competing interests. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Reprints and Permissions Wang, Y., Zheng, J., Luo, Y. et al. L1 drives HSC aging and affects prognosis of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia. Sig Transduct Target Ther 5, 205 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41392-020-00279-4 Download citation Received: 26 March 2020 Revised: 27 July 2020 Accepted: 30 July 2020 Published: 19 September 2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41392-020-00279-4

There has been a rapid proliferation of machine learning/deep learning (ML) models and wide adoption of them in many application domains. This has made profiling and characterization of ML model performance an increasingly pressing task for both hardware designers and system providers, as they would like to offer the best possible system to serve ML models with the target latency, throughput, cost, and energy requirements while maximizing resource utilization. Such an endeavor is challenging as the characteristics of an ML model depend on the interplay between the model, framework, system libraries, and the hardware (or the HW/SW stack). Existing profiling tools are disjoint, however, and only focus on profiling within a particular level of the stack, which limits the thoroughness and usefulness of the profiling results. This paper proposes XSP - an across-stack profiling design that gives a holistic and hierarchical view of ML model execution. XSP leverages distributed tracing to aggregate and correlates profile data from different sources. XSP introduces a leveled and iterative measurement approach that accurately captures the latencies at all levels of the HW/SW stack in spite of the profiling overhead. We couple the profiling design with an automated analysis pipeline to systematically analyze 65 state-of-the-art ML models. We demonstrate that XSP provides insights which would be difficult to discern otherwise.

Machine-learning (ML) hardware and software system demand is burgeoning. Driven by ML applications, the number of different ML inference systems has exploded. Over 100 organizations are building ML inference chips, and the systems that incorporate existing models span at least three orders of magnitude in power consumption and five orders of magnitude in performance; they range from embedded devices to data-center solutions. Fueling the hardware are a dozen or more software frameworks and libraries. The myriad combinations of ML hardware and ML software make assessing ML-system performance in an architecture-neutral, representative, and reproducible manner challenging. There is a clear need for industry-wide standard ML benchmarking and evaluation criteria. MLPerf Inference answers that call. In this paper, we present our benchmarking method for evaluating ML inference systems. Driven by more than 30 organizations as well as more than 200 ML engineers and practitioners, MLPerf prescribes a set of rules and best practices to ensure comparability across systems with wildly differing architectures. The first call for submissions garnered more than 600 reproducible inference-performance measurements from 14 organizations, representing over 30 systems that showcase a wide range of capabilities. The submissions attest to the benchmark's flexibility and adaptability., Comment: ISCA 2020

Electric vehicles (EVs) have unparalleled advantages compared to traditional cars in energy saving and alleviating the dependence on fossil fuel. However, thousands of EVs charging at the same time will lead to bad impacts on the power grid, which may further increase the peak-valley difference and load fluctuation. This paper aims to find an optimal coordinated charging strategy of EVs with consideration of renewable energy involvement. Based on Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm, a coordinated charging control method is developed. EV users' satisfaction and the proportion of abandoned renewable energy are chosen to be part of the objective function. Monte-Carlo method is employed to simulate the charging behaviors of EV users. Simulation results under uncoordinated and coordinated charging scenarios are compared and analyzed, which shows that the proposed method can effectively smoothen the system load curve.

Table S1. The primers used for qRT-PCR analysis. (DOC 35 kb)

Table S2. Analysis of data from TCGA regarding the relationship between PHF5A expression and lung adenocarcinoma T and N stage. (DOC 39 kb)

Table S3. The correlation between PHF5A expression and T or N stage of human lung adenocarcinoma from data of TCGA. (DOC 30 kb)

Purpose To assess the long-term efficacy and safety of DPP-IV inhibitors therapy versus comparators in patients with T2DM. Methods A comprehensive search for randomized controlled trials (RCTs; ≥24 weeks) was performed. RCTs had to compare DPP-IV inhibitors therapy with placebo, metformin and sulphonylureas + metformin. Inverse variance mean difference (IV-MD) with 95%CI was calculated for the mean HbA1c changes (%) from baseline to (imputed) endpoint. Mantel–Haenszel odds ratio (MH-OR) with 95%CI was calculated for side reactions. Results Twenty-three RCTs were included. The mean HbA1c changes (%) were as follows: IV-MD, 95%CI = −0.35 [−0.51, −0.19], p

Paraquat is an organic heterocyclic herbicide that is widely used in agriculture, especially in Asian countries. The prevalence of paraquat poisonings has increased dramatically in the past two decades in China. Nearly all paraquat poisonings resulted from intentional or accidental oral administration leading to acute lung injury and, ultimately, acute respiratory distress syndrome. The mortality rate has been reported to be greater than 90%. However, the exact toxic mechanism remains unclear. Herein, we reviewed and summarized the most recent publications related to the molecular mechanisms of paraquat-induced acute lung injury.

Poly(phenylene sulfide ether) and poly(phenylene sulfoxide ether sulfide ether) (PPSOESE) were successfully prepared and their structures were proved by several analytical techniques in the present work. The molecular weight (MW) of PPSOESE, a soluble polymer in common organic solvent at room temperature, was determined by gel permeation chromatography. Based on the conversion reaction of the two polymers, the MW of PPSE was calculated and correlated with its intrinsic viscosity. As a result, the Mark-Houwink equation for PPSE was concluded. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013

Objective To investigate the circadian and seasonal patterns in the presentation of acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding (AUGIB) in Beijing, China. Methods Medical records of the Beijing Emergency Medical Service System (EMSS) for 1 August 2005 to 31 July 2007 were reviewed; all patients diagnosed with AUGIB were included in the study. Results 2580 patients were recorded in the EMSS system with a diagnosis of AUGIB during the study period. 1888 (73%) were male and 692 (27%) were female. Mean age was 53620 years for male patients and 63621 years for female patients. Significant differences in the presentation of AUGIB were noticed between seasons (p

Background Previous in-hospital studies suggest that there are significant circadian rhythms associated with the incidence of acute coronary syndromes (ACSs). No study to date has examined the presentation of ACS in the prehospital setting. Our goal was to examine circadian, day-of-week, and age patterns of occurrence in ACS in a large, urban emergency medical services (EMS) system. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the electronic prehospital medical records from the Beijing's EMS system spanning August 1, 2005, to July 31, 2007. Data were analyzed by hour of the day and day of the week. χ2 tests were performed to compare the difference. Results Seven thousand thirty-two cases of ACS were identified by the EMS system physicians during the 2-year study period, including 536 cases of acute myocardial infarction. A significant variation of circadian distribution of ACS was observed in both 24-hour (P < .001) and 2-hour (P < .001) interval time course. Two peaks were observed in the morning from 0800 to 1000 and approaching midnight from 2200 to 2400. Increases of 50% and 60.8% in the morning and evening peaks were found, respectively, when compared with the early morning baseline (nadir). No significant difference was found among the accumulated cases in 2 years on each day in a week (P = .203). Conclusions Our study shows that, in the Beijing metropolitan area, the presentation of ACS has significant circadian rhythm characterized by 2 peaks within 24 hours, the morning peak is 0800 to 1000, and the late evening peak is 2200 to 2400. No significant weekly rhythm was observed in the present study.

Paraquat (PQ) is a widely used herbicide associated with a high mortality rate, yet, there are no effective treatments for PQ poisoning. PQ may damage alveolar type II cells leading to moderate to severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The present study was undertaken to show that PQ causes alveolar type II (A549) cell death and to evaluate whether chloroquine (CQ) can protect A549 cells against PQ-induced cell death. The results showed that high concentrations of PQ resulted in toxicity, as indicated by a decrease in cell viability. More importantly, for the first time, CQ was found to improve cell viability of PQ treated A549 cells. Moreover, our data demonstrated that CQ increased lysosome-associated membrane protein-1, lysosome-associated membrane protein-2 and light chain-3 expressions, suggesting that the mechanism by which CQ rescues PQ-induced cytotoxicity may be through protection of the lysosomal membrane or up-regulation of autophagy. In conclusion, our study indicates that CQ may be used as a potential drug to rescue PQ-induced ARDS.

Aim: To investigate the effects of deferiprone on doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity and determine its protection on cardiac contractility in vivo at tissue level. Methods: Spontaneously-beating isolated atria from rats were pre-treated with deferiprone for 10 min at 1.2 mmol/L or 0.3 mmol/L, respectively before co-incubation with doxorubicin (DOX) at 0.03 mmol/L for 60 min. Contractility (d F /d t ) was assessed every 10 min during the incubation. After that, the tissues around the sinuatrial nodes were fixed for ultrastructural study; succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) and Cu, Zn superoxide dismutase (Cu, Zn-SOD) activity, as well as malondialdehyde (MDA) level of the atria were assayed. Results: Treatment with DOX alone resulted in a 49.34% reduction of the contractility, mitochondria swelling, disruption of mitochondrial crista and decreased electron density of the matrices. Conversely, with the presence of deferiprone, the negative inotropic effect and lesions in the cardiac mitochondria structure induced by DOX were attenuated. Cu, Zn-SOD activity increased by 12.97%–12.11%, the MDA level decreased by 29.12%–39.82% and succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activity was ameliorated by 25.15%–34.76%. Conclusion: Deferiprone can efficiently preserve cardiac contractility. Moreover, the results of this study indicate that deferiprone is able to protect mitochondrial function and structure form damage induced by DOX. This cardiac protective potential of deferiprone could be due to its defense capability against oxidative damage.

A specific, sensitive and precise liquid chromatographic assay method was established using LC-MS for the determination of acyclovir (ACV) in aqueous humor (AH), which was directly injected onto an Inertsil ODS-3 C18 column without any pretreatment. The Agilent 1100 series LC–MS system was operated under the electrospray ionization mode (ESI). The analyte was separated from endogenous substances with a mobile phase of methanol: water: acetic acid (5:95:0.1, v/v) at a flow-rate of 0.3mL min−1. A linear response was observed over the concentration range from 5 to 50ng mL−1 (r=0.9993). Intra- and inter-day coefficients of variation were in the ranges 5.2–9.0% and 5.8–8.2%, respectively. The recovery was > 91.0%, and the limit of detection was approximate 1ng mL−1. The pharmacokinetics of topically applied eye-drop and thermosetting gel were compared in rabbits utilizing the present method, the results demonstrated that LC-MS was a powerful tool for the detection of ACV in AH.

The focus of prosecution of East Star Aviation against CAAC South Central Management Bureau lies in whether the legal nature of the decision of CAAC South Central Management Bureau on "ordering East Star Aviation to stop its flight" is administrative penalty or administrative coercive measures. By comparing the differences between the administrative penalty and administrative coercive measures in purpose, function, implementation premise, action independence, finality, justiciability and the risk of infringing the right of administrative counterpart and in combination with the case condition, it is analyzed that the decision on flight stop is an immediate and emergency administrative coercive measures taken by CAAC South Central Management Bureau against the major hidden danger of East Star Aviation which might endanger the public security, and it is further pointed out that safety is the life of civil aviation, the civil aviation authority should strictly require the safety, ensure zero maintenance and supervise the safety continuously, and it is suggested to regulate the establishment and implementation of civil aviation administrative coercive measures according to Administrative Compulsory Law of China.

To assess the long-term efficacy and safety of DPP-IV inhibitors therapy versus comparators in patients with T2DM.A comprehensive search for randomized controlled trials (RCTs; ≥24 weeks) was performed. RCTs had to compare DPP-IV inhibitors therapy with placebo, metformin and sulphonylureas + metformin. Inverse variance mean difference (IV-MD) with 95%CI was calculated for the mean HbA1c changes (%) from baseline to (imputed) endpoint. Mantel-Haenszel odds ratio (MH-OR) with 95%CI was calculated for side reactions.Twenty-three RCTs were included. The mean HbA1c changes (%) were as follows: IV-MD, 95%CI = -0.35 [-0.51, -0.19], p 0.0001 for DPP-IV inhibitors therapy versus comparators, and IV-MD, 95%CI = 0.11 [0.04, 0.18], p = 0.002 for DPP-IV inhibitors + met versus su + met. For hypoglycaemia, MH-OR, 95%CI = 0.13 [0.09, 0.19], p 0.00001(DPP-IV inhibitors + met vs. su + met). For diarrhoea, MH-OR, 95%CI = 0.77 [0.64, 0.93], p = 0.008 (DPP-IV inhibitors + met vs. met). By comparing DPP-IV inhibitors therapy with comparators, we found 95%CI = 0.00 [-0.01, 0.01], p = 0.49, for the upper respiratory tract infection MH-OR; 95%CI = 0.97 [0.70, 1.34], p = 0.83 for the urinary tract infection MH-OR; and 95%CI = 1.07 [0.94, 1.21], p = 0.30 for nasopharyngitis MH-OR.DPP-IV inhibitors could achieve a long-term effective and safe glycaemic control for use as monotherapy or in combination with metformin. They have low incidences of hypoglycaemia and gastrointestinal side effects. There is no evidence that DPP-IV inhibitors increase the risk of infections.

Background In addition to SARS associated coronaviruses, 4 non-SARS related human coronaviruses (HCoVs) are recognized as common respiratory pathogens. The etiology and clinical impact of HCoVs in Chinese adults with acute upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) needs to be characterized systematically by molecular detection with excellent sensitivity. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study, we detected 4 non-SARS related HCoV species by real-time RT-PCR in 981 nasopharyngeal swabs collected from March 2009 to February 2011. All specimens were also tested for the presence of other common respiratory viruses and newly identified viruses, human metapneumovirus (hMPV) and human bocavirus (HBoV). 157 of the 981 (16.0%) nasopharyngeal swabs were positive for HCoVs. The species detected were 229E (96 cases, 9.8%), OC43 (42 cases, 4.3%), HKU1 (16 cases, 1.6%) and NL63 (11 cases, 1.1%). HCoV-229E was circulated in 21 of the 24 months of surveillance. The detection rates for both OC43 and NL63 were showed significantly year-to-year variation between 2009/10 and 2010/11, respectively (P

To avoid the clinical inconvenience of repeated injection of the immune modulator thymopentin (TP5), biodegradable implants comprising a mixed polymer matrix of poly(lactide acid) (PLA) and poly(lactide- co -glycolide acid) (PLGA) were produced using a simple extrusion method. Drug release from these TP5-loaded implants was characterized both in vitro and in vivo . Pharmacodynamic studies were carried out in immunosuppressed rats using the ratio of CD4 + /CD8 + cells, determined by flow cytometry, as an index of immunity. The results indicated that the entrapment efficiency of the implants was greater than 98%, but the release rate of TP5 depended on the drug loading. Implants containing less than 10% TP5 showed consistent release over 30 days, with low burst-release both in vitro and in vivo . Improved immunity and survival rates were observed in rats treated by TP5 injection and in rats given middle-to-high dose implants. When the release of TP5 exceeded 0.1 mg/kg body weight/day the CD4 + /CD8 + ratios increased in the 3 weeks after implantation, reaching a maximum (91.6% of the normal level) by the end of the third week. The TP5-loaded implants presented here provide a promising alternative to injections and the results support the further development of controlled-release TP5 formulations.

Background: Most research on the seasonality of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) has been were reported from hospital-based data. We aimed to investigate the seasonal distribution of ACS in Beijing and to elucidate the relations between ACS occurrence and climatic parameters in a prehospital setting. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the electronic prehospital medical records from the Beijing's emergency medical service system spanning August 1, 2005, to July 31, 2007. Case data were analyzed by month and season with χ 2 test. The effects of climatic factors on the occurrence of ACS were analyzed by Poisson regression with generalized linear model. Results: During the 2-year study period, a total of 7037 ACS events were identified, including 4135 male patients (58.8%) and 2902 female patients (41.2%). Significant variations were observed in the monthly (P b .001) and seasonal (P b .001) distribution of ACS. The highest seasonal incidence occurred in winter and lowest in autumn. Significant negative correlations were noticed between the number of ACS events and daily mean temperature (P b .001) and between the number of ACS events and barometric pressure (P b .001). Comparing to the baseline level (temperature of 25°C to approximately 31°C; barometric pressure of 1026 to approximately 1048 hectopascal (hPa)), an increase of 41.3% of daily ACS incidence was associated with temperature lower than 2°C (�10.0°C to approximately 2.0°C), and an increase of 19.8% was associated with barometric pressure under 1006 hPa (991.0 to approximately 1006 hPa). Conclusions: There are clear monthly and seasonal rhythms of ACS in Beijing metropolitan area. Temperature and barometric pressure are negatively related with the occurrence of ACS.

Many studies have identified strong correlations between winter months and acute, unintentional carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. In this study, we aimed to investigate the incidence pattern of acute domicile-related CO poisoning in Beijing and its relation with climatic factors.Data on CO poisoning were collected from the emergency medical service system during August 1, 2005, to July 31, 2007, in Beijing. Variations of the monthly and seasonal distribution of CO poisoning occurrences were examined with χ(2) testing. Climatic data including temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, wind speed, and visibility were obtained from the Beijing Meteorological Bureau. Correlations between the occurrence of CO poisoning and mean of each meteorological parameter spanning 3 days were analyzed with partial correlation test, with related parameters controlled.Significant differences were found among the cases occurring each month of the year (P.001). The monthly caseload reached the peak and the nadir in January and in September, respectively. During the cold period, 3331 patients were recorded, accounting for 88.4% of the total cases of the 2-year study period. Among the 5 climatic parameters, only temperature had a significant inverse correlation with the occurrence of CO poisoning (P.001, r = -0.467).The incidences of CO poisoning were highest during winter, particularly during the time period when charcoal or coal use for indoor heating would be most prevalent in Beijing.