Over the past 30 years, particulate matter (PM) air pollution has progressively worsened in many of China's urban and suburban areas. This review provides a current picture of the air pollution in China with an emphasis on the history of PM pollution, policies and reduction goals, recent improvements, and known adverse health effects of PM exposure. Several studies have provided the analyses of current PM pollution levels in cities across China using satellite data and air-monitoring stations. These analyses are consistent with the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) 2015 air pollution report, which concluded that only 8 of 74 (10.8%) cities met the Chinese standards for safe annual average PM _2.5 exposure (35 μg/m ³ ). Even fewer cities met the World Health Organization PM _2.5 guideline of 10 μg/m ³ . The Government of China has acknowledged the public health threat of PM pollution and enacted higher standards and goals through the 12 ^th five-year plan (FYP) (2010), National Ambient Air Quality Standard (2012), the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan (2013), and the 13 ^th FYP (2016). A comparative analysis between 2010 and 2015 satellite data shows that PM pollution decreased by around 17% during this period. This improvement is corroborated by the MEP's report on the State of the Environment in 2014 and the global burden of disease report in 2013. Despite these changes, PM pollution remains a substantial public health challenge. In 2010, an estimated 1.235 million deaths in China were attributed to PM air pollution. Long-term exposure to PM pollution increases the rates of cardiovascular, metabolic, and respiratory mortality. In particular, PM exposure increases the morbidity of respiratory illnesses such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, and lower respiratory infections (LRIs). Elevated levels of PM have been found to increase the incidence of all of the top five causes of death in 2012: Ischemic heart disease, stroke, COPD, LRI, and lung cancer. In addition, higher PM pollution decreases average birth weight, raises incidence of preterm birth, and increases the prevalence of Type II diabetes mellitus across the population. With the knowledge of these serious health consequences, China must enact greater measures to reduce dangerous PM levels.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a spectrum of liver diseases ranging from simple NAFL to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, to irreversible cirrhosis. NAFLD is the most common chronic liver disease in developed countries and is considered as the hepatic manifestation of cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome. In the pathogenesis of NAFLD, hepatic lipid accumulation results from an imbalance between lipid synthesis, storage, oxidation, and/or secretion, and eventually triggers hepatic inflammation and injury. The increasing incidence of NAFLD etiological studies has shown that obesity, hepatitis C, and cryptogenic cirrhosis are associated with NAFLD. Here, we provide a comprehensive NAFLD review that covers the population genetics, genome-wide associated study, epidemiology, pathophysiology of the disease progression, and current existing animal models.

Hormesis can be defined as a biphasic dose-response relationship characterized by low-dose simulation and high-dose inhibition. Given that environmental pollutants are more often found at lower doses, hormesis research has become a recent hot spot in toxicology. This study summarizes current progress on hormesis research, which can be discussed in three contexts: The universality of hormesis, hormesis mechanisms, and the quantification of hormetic responses. The universality of hormesis has been verified, but the degree to which hormesis should be taken into risk assessments and risk management plans remains controversial. Regarding mechanisms, we discuss how our mechanistic understanding of hormesis has come a long way but still lacks strong experimental support, which leads to uncertainty as to the exact underlying causes of hormesis. This study also describes the hormesis quantitative research process and points out that due to an incomplete mechanistic understanding of hormesis, quantitative research has progressed slowly and lacks accurate quantitative characterization parameters and prediction models. Finally, we discuss that a future trend may be to investigate hormesis quantitative characterization parameters based on toxicity mechanism and to establish a quantitative prediction model of hormesis that incorporates those parameters.

Background: Only 28 states have comprehensive laws prohibiting smoking in public places including all bars and restaurants. This project studied secondhand smoke (SHS) in bars in Covington, KY, where it is still legal to smoke indoors versus air quality in Cincinnati, OH bars where it is not legal to smoke indoors. Previous studies took samples from bars before and after smoking bans were put in place, but outdoor air quality in general could have changed in the areas over time. Materials and Methods: Air samples were taken in eight bars, four in Ohio where smoking is prohibited and four in Kentucky where smoking is permitted. All samples were taken on the same evening spending 30 min in each location with the instrument as close to the center of the room as possible. Results: Environmental conditions in Cincinnati, OH, and Covington, KY were very similar on the sampling evening. This along with the fact that the two cities are adjacent across the state line means that the bars in question should be subjected to similar outdoor air influences on air quality. However, the overall average time-weighted average (TWA) in Ohio was found to be 0.019 while the average TWA in Kentucky was 16 times higher at 0.303 mg/m ³ . Conclusion: Smoking bans have been shown to reduce the levels of exposure of SHS to the employees of bars and restaurants along with the patrons of these establishments. This reduces the risk of disease that may result from such exposure.

Objective: To assess the correlation between defecation posture and risk of urinary tract infection (UTI) rates among a representative adolescent sample in Malaysia Methods: The study was conducted between February 2015 and September 2015 using Google forms. A total of 568 enrolled and 551 participated in the study. The online questionnaire was divided into three sections viz., informed consent info; demographic details; knowledge and attitude analysis. The form was circulated online to obtain the responses. Results: The mean age of study participants was 23.99 ΁ 6.04 years. Majority of the study population used western type of toilet and felt comfortable with it. In the public context (movie halls, shopping malls etc.), most of the study participants preferred to use Indian/squatting type of toilet to avoid bodily contact with the toilet bowl. The study population was Malaysian. The respondents normally defecated at least once a day and normally took <10 min to defecate. About 38.8% of the respondents who were having sharing accommodation were not sure about the frequency of toilet cleaning. Totally, 10.7% of the study participants had previous history of UTIs, with the average duration of infection being around 5 days to 3 weeks. Conclusion: Defecation is an important physiological event and many of the study participants required more education on normal physiological methods of defecation postures. Appropriate education is required to improve the personal health and reducing the risk of acquiring UTIs.