Agency for Medical Innovations (Austria)

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Air pollution has been shown to be associated with cause-specific mortality. However, mortality due to chronic kidney disease (CKD) is understudied despite the kidney being a central organ of detoxification. We investigated the association of mortality due to CKD with long-term exposure to air pollution in the Effects of Low-Level Air Pollution: A Study in Europe (ELAPSE). METHOD: We included five population-based cohorts from four European countries from the pooled ELAPSE cohort which were linked to data from local mortality registries. CKD-death was defined as ICD10 codes N18-N19 or corresponding ICD9 codes. Mean annual exposure at home address was determined with Europe-wide hybrid land use regression models for particulate matter ≤2.5µm (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide(NO2), black carbon (BC) and ozone (O3) with a spatial resolution of 100m x 100m. Cox regression models were adjusted for age (time-axis), cohort and sex (both as strata), calendar year of recruitment, smoking status, marital status, employment status and neighbourhood mean income. Dose-response was investigated with splines, threshold and subset analyses. RESULTS: Over a mean follow-up time of 20.4 years, 313 of 289,564 persons died from CKD. Associations were observed for all pollutants, positive for PM2.5 (hazard ratio (HR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) of 1.31 (1.03-1.66) per 5µg/m3 increase), BC (1.26 (1.03-1.53) per 0.5×10− 5/m), NO2 (1.13 (0.93-1.38) per 10µg/m3) and negative for O3 (0.71 (0.54-0.93) per 10µg/m3). Results were robust when additionally adjusting for smoking intensity and duration, BMI, education or residential greenness. Exclusion of the large Austrian cohort, that contributed 226 cases, lead to null associations. Dose-response analysis showed no evidence for a threshold. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest a possible association of air pollution with mortality from CKD. Results were robust to other model specifications but susceptible to cohort selection. Therefore, further even larger studies are needed to confirm our results.

Background and aim: End-stage kidney disease (ESKD) poses a high burden on patients and the health system. While studies indicating associations of air pollution with chronic kidney disease are accumulating, studies on ESKD are still scant. We investigate the association of long-term exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon (BC) with ESKD in two large population-based European cohorts. Methods: Individuals in the Rome Longitudinal Study (RoLS) and the Vorarlberg Health Monitoring and Prevention Program (VHM&PP) were followed up with Dialysis and Transplant Registries from 1985 to 2019 and 2011 to 2019, respectively. Long-term exposures to NO2, PM2.5 and BC were approximated by concentration at residence determined with Europe-wide hybrid land use regression models at 100x100m scale. Hazard ratios (HR) were determined from Cox-proportional hazard models with age as time axis and adjusted for individual and neighbourhood confounders; effect modification by various factors was tested. Results: RoLS contributed 3,231 cases from 1,939,461 individuals (mean age 52.4 years; crude incidence rate (CIR) 0.22 per 1,000 person years ) and VHM&PP 501 cases from 136,823 individuals (mean age 42.1 years; CIR 0.14). In RoLS, ESKD was significantly associated with PM2.5 In RoLS (HR 1.37 [1.06, 1.76] for an increase of 5 µg/m³) whereas in VHM&PP, ESKD was associated with BC (HR 1.17 [0.98,1.39] for 0.5*10-5m-1), and NO2 (HR 1.14 [0.96,1.35] for 10 µg/m³). Statistically significant effect modification was found in RoLS for all pollutants with higher HRs in diabetic and hypertensive subjects. For example, comparing non-diabetics and diabetics, respectively, the HRs for PM2.5 was 1.24 (0.96,1.60) vs 1.86 (1.44,2.40) in RoLS. Conclusion: Air pollution was associated with ESKD in both cohorts and in Rome may possibly be a potent trigger for ESKD in persons with chronic conditions. Keywords: air pollution, end-stage kidney disease, long-term exposure, effect modification, cohorts

Background and aim: End-stage kidney disease (ESKD) poses a high burden on patients and the health system. The very few studies on air pollution and ESKD have shown associations with PM₂.₅, but no study so far has investigated which of the components may be most relevant. We investigate the association of long-term exposure to PM₂.₅ elements with ESKD incidence in two large population-based European cohorts. Methods: Individuals in the Rome Longitudinal Study (RoLS) and the Vorarlberg Health Monitoring and Prevention Program (VHM&PP) were followed up with Dialysis and Transplant Registries from 1985 to 2019 and 2011 to 2019, respectively. Long-term exposures to eight PM₂.₅ components (copper, iron, potassium, nickel, sulfur, silicon, vanadium, and zinc) at residence were estimated with Europe-wide hybrid land use regression models at 100x100m scale. Hazard ratios (HR) were determined from Cox-proportional hazard models with age as time axis and adjusted for individual and neighbourhood confounders. Results: RoLS contributed 3,231 cases from 1,939,461 individuals (mean age 52.4 years; crude incidence rate (CIR) 0.22 per 1000 person years) and VHM&PP 501 cases from 136,823 individuals (mean age 42.1years; CIR 0.14). In RoLS, elements associated with ESKD were potassium (HR 1.25 [1.05,1.48]) and sulphur (HR 1.10 [0.97,1.25]) for an increase of 50 and 200 ng/m³, respectively, whereas in VHM&PP, risk of ESKD was associated with copper (HR 1.20 [0.97, 1.47]) and iron (1.30 [0.98, 1.74]) for 5 and 100 ng/m³, respectively . Conclusion: Air pollution indicative for biomass burning (potassium) and long-range transport (sulphur) in Rome, and indicators of traffic-related air pollution (iron and copper) in Vorarlberg were associated with an increased risk of ESKD.

Abstract Fundamentals of fatigue failure are outlined. Addressed are fatigue crack characteristics, basic crack types, unidirectional bending, alternate bending, rotary bending, torsion, direct stress, and combined stress. Stress cycle, endurance limits, under and overstressing, stress concentration, and surface condition are discussed. Sections are devoted to fatigue crack assessment, corrosion relation to fatigue failure, and the micro-mechanisms of fatigue failure. Materials considered include steels. Photographs of service failures are used to illustrate features alluded to in the text.

Let \({\mathcal{O}}\) be the local ring at a singular point of a geometrically integral algebraic curve defined over a finite field, and let m be the number of branches centered at the curve singularity. By encoding cardinalities of certain finite sets of ideals, we associate to each pair of ideal classes of \({\mathcal{O}}\) a power series in m variables with integer coefficients, which can be represented by an integral within the framework of harmonic analysis. We prove that partial local zeta functions can be expressed in terms of these multi-variable power series. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the properties of these series, and to provide in this way a deeper insight into the nature of local zeta functions.

A prototype computer vision system and framework for the recognition of vehicles from single images is presented. An appearance based pattern matching algorithm which relies on principal component analysis detects and classifies cars and trucks under geometric constraints (front and back views only) independent of scale and location in an image. Since no motion information is required in order to segment vehicles prior to recognition, the proposed system can be used in situations where extensive lane observation time is not available or motion information is unreliable.