Indoor air exposure to coal and wood combustion emissions associated with a high lung cancer rate in Xuan Wei, China

Residents of Xuan Wei County in China have unusually high lung cancer mortality that cannot be attributed to tobacco use or occupational exposure. They are exposed to smoke from unvented, open pit coal or wood fires (often used for cooking and heating). The variation in lung cancer rates among communes within the county suggests that indoor combustion of smoky coal may be the prime determinant of lung cancer. To characterize the air in Xuan Wei homes, samples of air particles and semivolatile organic compounds were collected from homes located in two communes; one commune has a high rate of lung cancer, and the other has a low rate. Samples collected in the commune where the lung cancer rate is high and where smoky coal is the predominant fuel contained high concentrations of small particles with high organic content; organic extracts of these samples were mutagenic. Samples from homes in the wood-burning commune, which has a low rate of lung cancer, consisted mostly of larger particles of lower organic content and mutagenicity. The smoky coal sample was a mouse skin carcinogen and was a more potent initiator of skin tumors in comparison to the wood or smokeless coal sample.     

Airborne uranium contamination--as revealed through elemental and isotopic analysis of tree bark

A new strategy for characterisation of airborne uranium contamination based on ICP mass spectrometric analysis of tree bark is described. The uranium content of tree barks (50 samples) obtained from diverse locations (remote, rural, industrial) varied over almost four orders of magnitude (0.001-8.3 micrograms/g U) with maximum concentrations recorded in the vicinity of a nuclear fuel fabrication plant (0.70-8.3 micrograms/g U). Elevated concentrations were also observed near a coal-fired power station (0.25-0.38 microgram/g U). Isotopic analysis revealed significant deviation from the natural uranium isotope ratio (235U/238U, 0.00725) at four nuclear installations (235U/238U, 0.0055-0.0097). These findings indicate that tree bark serves as an effective biomonitor for uranium and, with isotopic analysis, discrimination between nuclear and non-nuclear emissions is realised.     

MULTIVARIATE TREND TESTING OF LAKE WATER QUALITY1

ABSTRACT: Multivariate methods of trend analysis offer the potential for higher power in detecting gradual water quality changes as compared to multiple applications of univariate tests. Simulation experiments were used to investigate the power advantages of multivariate methods for both linear model and Mann-Kendall based approaches. The experiments focused on quarterly observations of three water quality variables with no serial correlation and with several different intervariable correlation structures. The multivariate methods were generally more powerful than the univariate methods, offering the greatest advantage in situations where water quality variables were positively correlated with trends in opposing directions. For illustration, both the univariate and multivariate versions of the Mann-Kendall based tests were applied to case study data from several lakes in Maine and New York which have been sampled as part of EPA's long term monitoring study of acid precipitation effects.