Holiday Week Research Articles

Informing inclusive park planning: Neighborhood park visitation modeling based on smartphone big data in Austin, Texas

This research uses smartphone-based big data to explore how socioeconomic, built environment characteristics, and spatiotemporal factors influence neighborhood park use, with a specific focus on minority groups’ park visitation patterns. Panel data are collected through SafeGraph, and combined with GIS and American Community Survey data. We analyze 12,227 visitations from 1121 block groups to 30 neighborhood parks from September 2019 to August 2020 in Austin, Texas. Time-fixed-effect nested regression models are employed to control for unobserved time-related effects. Findings indicate a substantial increase in overall park use during the pandemic, with visiting frequencies up by 22 % and dwell time by 56 %. In contrast, minority groups, including seniors, children, blacks, unemployed, living alone, and recent movers, exhibited a decline in park visits. It also highlights visitors’ risk-averse behaviors during the pandemic, such as avoiding visiting parks during holiday weeks and avoiding using swimming pools. Before the pandemic, proximity held the utmost significance for park use; during the pandemic, park quality and facilities emerged as the primary factors influencing park utilization. This study suggests that park planning needs to improve neighborhood parks’ proximity, park facilities, and park safety to boost park use and foster inclusive park planning.

THE IMPORTANCE OF USER-GENERATED CONTENT IN TOURISM EVENTS FOR CREATING ENGAGEMENT

Objective: The objective of this study is to investigate engagement with the aim of knowing the impact that user-generated content has on it.
 
 Theoretical Framework: Laroche et al. (2012) revealed that social networking communities promote shared awareness, society's obligation, rites and traditions, trust, and customer loyalty. A year later, Brodie et al. (2013) specified the reach of consumers in online participation suggesting that consumers with a good level of engagement present greater loyalty.
 
 Method: The methodology adopted for this research comprises Extensive field work was carried out by administering a questionnaire to tourists who visited the events during the holiday week. Data collection was carried out through questionnaires and social network studies.
 
 Results and Discussion: The results obtained revealed the strong relationship between variables, especially between engagement and user generated contents.
 
 Research Implications: The results may be applied and influence practices in the field of tourism and also in other fields.
 
 Originality/Value: The study makes a specific contribution to literature, because the proposed model is innovative especially with the introduction of engagement as a mediator variable, as well as to use and compare two methodologies, questionnaires and Twitter, for the same tourism event.

Drawing a parallel between the trend of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the winters of 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 in Italy, with a prediction.

We studied the weekly number and the growth/decline rates of COVID-19 deaths of the period from October 31, 2022, to February 9, 2023, in Italy. We found that the COVID-19 winter wave reached its peak during the three holiday weeks from December 16, 2022, to January 5, 2023, and it was definitely trending downward, returning to the same number of deaths as the end of October 2022, in the first week February 2023. During this period of 15 weeks, that wave caused a number of deaths as large as 8,526. Its average growth rate was +7.89% deaths per week (10 weeks), while the average weekly decline rate was -15.85% (5 weeks). At the time of writing of this paper, Italy has been experiencing a new COVID-19 wave, with the latest 7 weekly bulletins (October 26, 2023 - December 13, 2023) showing that deaths have climbed from 148 to 322. The weekly growth rate had risen by +14.08% deaths, on average. Hypothesizing that this 2023/2024 wave will have a total duration similar to that of 2022/2023, with comparable extensions of both the growth period and the decline period and similar growth/decline rates, we predict that the number of COVID-19 deaths of the period from the end of October 2023 to the beginning of February 2024 should be less than 4100. A preliminary assessment of this forecast, based on 11 of the 15 weeks of the period, has already confirmed the accuracy of this approach.

Operational planning for public holidays in grocery retailing - managing the grocery retail rush

Public holiday weeks cause specific challenges in grocery retailing as sales are raising and working days for logistics processes are reduced. The paper analyzes the operational planning challenges and solutions for demand planning and disposition as well as for warehouse and transportation management of grocery retailers in public holiday seasons. A total of 22 top managers representing 20 sales lines of 17 of the top 30 grocery retailers in Germany participated in the study. Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with logistics managers were conducted and analyzed. Uncertainties and missing resources can be identified as the two main challenges of public holiday seasons in grocery retailing. Retailers implement numerous measures that can be summarized in three categories, i.e., the adjustment of workload profiles, the adaptation of resources and modifying processes. Literature has so far considered public holidays only to a limited extent, e.g., as a parameter in forecasting models or for the application of marketing instruments. This study is the first developing a framework and providing insights into operational planning in grocery retailing.

Investigating Temporal Patterns of Glycemic Control around Holidays.

Maintaining good glycemic control is a central part of diabetes care. However, it can be a tedious task because many factors in daily living can affect glycemic control. To support management, a growing number of people living with diabetes are now being prescribed continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) for real-time tracking of their blood glucose levels. However, routine use of CGMs is also an invaluable source of patient-generated data for individual and population-level studies. Prior research has shown that festive periods such as holidays can be a notable contributor to overeating and weight gain. Thus, in this work, we sought to investigate patterns of glycemic control around the holidays, particularly Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year, by using 3-months of CGM data from 14 patients with Type 1 Diabetes. We leveraged clinically validated metrics for quantifying glycemic control from CGM data and well-established statistical tests to compare diabetes management on holiday weeks versus non-holiday weeks. Based on our analysis, we found that 86% of subjects (12 out of 14) had worse glycemic control (i.e., more ad-verse glycemic events) during holiday weeks compared to non-holiday weeks. This general trend was prevalent amongst most subjects, however, we also observed unique individual patterns of glycemic control. Our findings provide a basis for further research on temporal patterns in diabetes management and data-driven interventions to support patients and caregivers with maintaining good glycemic control all year round.

Temps d’exposition aux écrans et grapho-motricité des enfants de 5 à 6 ans

To investigate upon the relationship between screen exposure time and graphic/fine motor skills of children aged 5 to 6 in Auvergne. A cross-sectional epidemiological study was carried out in 2019-2020 in 3 kindergarten classes in Clermont-Ferrand and 4 in Cantal, chosen according to different socio-demographic criteria. The main criteria for evaluating fine motor skills were 3calibrated graphic/fine motor activities, carried out during an individual assessment at school. The weekly screen exposure time of the child was assessed during a parental interview. 127 children took part in the survey.The main results point out that children who spend more than 10 hours per school week (more than 20 hours a holiday school week) on screen have significantly lower graphic/fine motor skills. Regardless of screen exposure time, a child living with a single parent, and/or of low level of educational, and/or intermediate occupation/socio-professional category, has lower graphic/fine motor skills scores. The rural setting of the school seems to play a positive role in the level of graphic/fine motor skills, while the socio-demographic profile of the school and the attendance of the children do not seem to influence these skills. Our survey shows a significant association between increased weekly screen time exposure and decreased graphic/fine motor skills in children aged 5-6years. Further work will be required to explore this association. Health education programs implemented in school and health communities with parental involvement would be useful to improve screen usage and prevent learning disabilities.

The impact of performing gastric cancer surgery during holiday periods. A population-based study using Dutch upper gastrointestinal cancer audit (DUCA) data

Existing literature suggests inferior quality of oncologic surgery during holiday periods. This study aimed to investigate the impact of holiday periods on surgical treatment of gastric cancer in the Netherlands. This nationwide study included all gastric cancer patients undergoing potentially curative surgery registered in the Dutch Upper Gastrointestinal Cancer Audit (DUCA). For each patient it was established whether they underwent surgery during or outside the 11 Dutch holiday weeks, based on date and region of surgery. Separate, single-day holidays were not included. Baseline and treatment characteristics were compared using descriptive statistics. Time from diagnosis to treatment and short-term surgical outcomes were compared using multilevel multivariable logistic regression analyses. To prevent bias from recent advancements, analyses were repeated in a recent cohort of patients (2015-2018). Between 2011-2018, 3440 patients were included in the DUCA. Some 555 (16.1%) patients underwent surgery during 11 holiday weeks. There were no differences in patient, tumor and treatment characteristics and time to treatment between holidays and non-holidays. Tumor-positive resection margins (R1/R2 vs R0) occurred more frequent during holidays (aOR:1.47, 95%CI:1.07-2.04). Subgroup analyses in a recent cohort of patients also found higher tumor-positive resection margins (aOR:1.59, 95%CI:1.01-2.43) and higher failure-to-rescue rates (aOR:2.55, 95%CI:1.18-5.49) during holidays. Even though time to treatment and patient, tumor and treatment characteristics were comparable between holidays and non-holidays, tumor-positive resection margin and failure-to-rescue rates were higher during holidays. This suggests that steps must be taken to keep specialized and dedicated gastric cancer expertise up to standard during holiday periods.

Wastewater surveillance for 168 pharmaceuticals and metabolites in a WWTP: Occurrence, temporal variations and feasibility of metabolic biomarkers for intake estimation

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is amply used for mining information about public health such as the estimation of consumption/intake of certain substances. Yet, proper biomarker selection is critical to obtain reliable data. This study measured a broad range of pharmaceuticals and metabolites in a wastewater treatment plant in Beijing, China, and evaluated their suitability as consumption estimation biomarkers. Wastewater sampling was conducted during a normal week and two holiday weeks to assess the impact of the holiday on population normalized daily mass loads (PNDLs). One hundred and forty-nine out of 168 pharmaceuticals were detected, with 94 analytes being quantified in all sampling events. Moreover, digestive drug cimetidine (<MDL∼672 ng L − 1) and anabolic steroid trenbolone (<MDL∼53 ng L − 1) were only detected during holiday weeks. PNDLs of some substances showed disparities between weekdays and weekends during the normal week. This study proposed a framework to diagnose whether a parent compound or its metabolite is suitable for intake/prevalence rate estimation. Our results support that not all the metabolites can be employed as biomarkers for back-calculation when the in-sewer stability of these compounds is unclear, such as metoprolol acid and O-desmethyl venlafaxine. Public healthcare data for drug utilization were applied to validate the prevalence of average substance use in this study. As a popular anti-epileptic ranging from hundreds to thousands of ng L − 1 in this study, the parent compound levetiracetam is more appropriate to be used in WBE under our framework, referring to public healthcare data. This WBE study illustrates the changes in pharmaceutical use and population lifestyle that stem from holidays and commutes. In addition, it can provide data support for the selection of more suitable biomarkers in WBE studies.

Do holidays change subjective sleep length or sleep debt in shift work disorder?

In shift work disorder (SWD), disturbed sleep acutely impairs employees' recovery, but little attention has been paid to sleep during longer recovery periods. We examined how holidays affect self-estimated sleep length, sleep debt, and recovery in cases of SWD. Twenty-one shift workers with questionnaire-based SWD and nine reference cases without SWD symptoms completed a questionnaire on recovery and sleep need. They also reported sleep length on two separate occasions: during a work period and after ≥ 2 weeks of holidays. Sleep debt was calculated by subtracting sleep length from sleep need. We used parametric tests to compare the groups and the periods. The groups reported shorter sleep on workdays than during holidays (median difference: SWD group 1.7 h, p<0.001; reference group 1.5 h; p<0.05). The SWD group's self-estimated sleep during holidays increased less above the sleep need (median 0.0 h) than the reference group's sleep (1.0 h, p<0.05). In addition, the SWD group reported good recovery from irregular working hours less often (14%) than the reference group (100%, p<0.001). Although holidays were generally associated with longer sleep estimates than workdays, employees with SWD experienced consistently less efficient recovery than those without SWD.

The role of schools in transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus: quasi-experimental evidence from Germany

Abstract This paper considers the role of school closures in the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. To isolate the impact of the closures from other containment measures and identify a causal effect, we exploit variation in the start and end dates of the summer and fall school holidays across the 16 federal states in Germany using a difference-in-differences design with staggered adoption. We show that neither the summer closures nor the closures in the fall had a significant containing effect on the spread of SARS-CoV-2 among children or a spill-over effect on older generations. There is also no evidence that the return to school at full capacity after the summer holidays increased infections among children or adults. Instead, we find that the number of children infected increased during the last weeks of the summer holiday and decreased in the first weeks after schools reopened, a pattern we attribute to travel returnees.

Nighttime Vitality and Its Relationship to Urban Diversity: An Exploratory Analysis in Shenzhen, China

Relationship between urban diversity and urban vitality is imperative for guiding better design in urban development, although existing frameworks are not able to efficiently examine the relationship at multiple scales. In this article, we propose a new framework to integrate nighttime light (NTL) imagery and multisource urban data into multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) models to examine the varying relationship between diversity and vitality across space and time. NTL is used as a proxy for urban nighttime vitality. Public transport, taxi transit, and points of interest data are used to derive three aspects of urban diversity indices: ridership diversity, spatial interaction diversity, and built environment diversity. By comparing the models in holiday and nonholiday weeks in Shenzhen, China, the NTL-based vitality proxy was found to be strongly correlated with the urban diversity indices, given by the satisfactory goodness of fit ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">r</i> -squared = 0.9) of the MGWR models. The spatially varying relationships between diversity indices and nighttime vitality were observed and patterns discussed. The analysis of the coefficients revealed the importance of stable public transport and fluctuating taxi trips for nighttime vitality. The new index proposed for the diversity of spatial interaction (DSI) is a strong indicator for nighttime vitality, adding to existing vitality indicators. Furthermore, this study found that DSI and density of catering have less temporal variation, indicating their robustness in measuring nighttime vitality. This study provided empirical insights into how nighttime vitality is related to urban diversity, demonstrating new applications of NTL for intracity studies.

Wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 corroborates heightened community infection during the initial peak of COVID-19 in Bexar County, Texas.

The purpose of this study was to conduct a preliminary assessment of the levels of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA in wastewater at the Salitrillo Wastewater Treatment Plant in Texas during the initial peak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Raw wastewater influent (24h composite, time-based 1L samples, n = 13) was collected weekly during June-August 2020. We measured SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater by reverse transcription droplet digital PCR using the same N1 and N2 primer sets as employed in COVID-19 clinical testing. Virus RNA copies for positive samples (77%) ranged from 1.4 × 102to 4.1 × 104copies per liter of wastewater, and exhibited both increasing and decreasing trends, which corresponded well with the COVID-19 weekly infection rate (N1: ρ = 0.558, P = 0.048; N2: ρ = 0.487, P = 0.092). A sharp increase in virus RNA concentrations was observed during July sampling dates, consistent with the highest number of COVID-19 cases reported. This could be attributed to an increase in the spread of COVID-19 infection due to the Fourth of July holiday week gatherings (outdoor gatherings were limited to 100 people during that time). Our data show that wastewater surveillance is an effective tool to determine trends in infectious disease prevalence, and provide complementary information to clinical testing.

Influence of COVID-19 Lockdowns on the Usage of a Vision Assistance App Among Global Users With Visual Impairment: Big Data Analytics Study.

BackgroundMillions of individuals with visual impairment use vision assistance apps to help with their daily activities. The most widely used vision assistance apps are magnifier apps. It is still largely unknown what the apps are used for. Lack of insight into the visual needs of individuals with visual impairment is a hurdle for the development of more effective assistive technologies.ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate how needs for visual aids may vary with social activities, by observing the changes in the usage of a smartphone magnifier app when many users take breaks from work.MethodsThe number of launches of the SuperVision Magnifier app was determined retrospectively from 2018 to 2020 from among active users worldwide. The fluctuation in app usage was examined by comparing weekday vs weekend periods, Christmas and new year vs nonholiday seasons, and COVID-19 lockdowns vs the easing of restriction during the pandemic.ResultsOn average, the app was used 262,466 times by 38,237 users each month in 2020 worldwide. There were two major trough points on the timeline of weekly app usage, one aligned with the COVID-19 lockdowns in April 2020 and another aligned with the Christmas and new year week in 2018 and 2019. The app launches declined by 6947 (11% decline; P<.001) during the lockdown and by 5212 (9% decline; P=.001) during the holiday weeks. There was no significant decline during March to May 2019. App usage compensated for seasonal changes was 8.6% less during weekends than during weekdays (P<.001).ConclusionsThe need for vision assistance technology was slightly lower during breaks and lockdowns, probably because the activities at home were different and less visually demanding. Nevertheless, for the entire user population, the needs for visual aids are still substantial.

Rapid transformation of work integrated learning from the farm to virtual reality

All veterinary schools in Australasia require students in the first half of their course to complete work integrated learning (WIL) during vacation time on a range of animal enterprises. This allows students to gain an understanding of how the enterprises function on a day to day basis and compare to the theoretical training that students receive on-campus. The time on-property required is equivalent to 60 days of work with a requirement to visit several enterprises (AVBC, 2016). COVID-19 required immediate cessation of all on-property placements. Given the limited number of holiday weeks available for WIL we developed an on-line experiential program to support student learning.&#x0D; &#x0D; The backbone of the online WIL experience relied on previously developed or developing virtual reality (VR) farm resources; the 4DVirtual Farm and DookieVR (Barber etal, 2016). These resources allow students to visit properties via multiple 360 images through time on a property, allowing virtual travel through time and place to see what happens on an enterprise throughout a year. They also integrate environmental variables and both 360 and standard video to provide access to further information. They are viewable using mobile phones, laptop and desktop systems as well as VR viewers. The basic VR resource allows students to take their own tour around the property however the week of experiential learning was planned to reinforce the students’ ability to see what happens on the individual property throughout the year. This compares to an individual property visit where a student gains more “hands-on” insight for a much more limited timespan of the year, usually 1-2 weeks.&#x0D; &#x0D; The week of synchronous, experiential learning used Zoom as the primary tool to allow communication between staff and students with content managed on the learning management system, Canvas. The standard format for each day involved an initial entire class group session, mostly in didactic information transfer from staff to students and then a mixture of small group, full class or individual tasks. Assessment of content understanding was evaluated on a regular basis using multiple choice questions or word responses using PollEverywhere. The large class group of 100-250 students broke into small virtual rooms of 6 to 8 students. Each day this small student group had a task to complete and submit via Feedback Fruits, which then allocated individual students to provide written feedback on the group report by the next day. Time was allocated for students to review these reports both individually and then to discuss the multiple reports that group members were assessing and submit feedback. In addition, each small group reported on a relevant name to the veterinary industry, either from current or historical times. A short video detailing the link of this name to the veterinary industry was posted to Flipgrid for both staff and other students to review. Student understanding of the week was measured at the commencement and completion of the week using an online multiple choice quiz as well as receiving student feedback by an online survey. This presentation will cover the background, development and design of the week and associated material.&#x0D; &#x0D; References&#x0D; &#x0D; AVBC (2016), Standard 9.3 Extra Mural Studies (EMS or Workplace Learning), page 32, Australasian Veterinary Boards Council, https://avbc.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/documents/public/AVBCStandardsAug2016.pdf&#x0D; Barber S, Hallein E, Shallcross D, Weston J, Jacobson C, Bramley E, Celi P, McGowan M (2016), Final report: Development of 4D farms to improve student learning and safety, Office of Learning and Teaching https://ltr.edu.au/resources/ID12_2365_Barber_Report_2016.pdf&#x0D;

Comparative Analysis of Supervised Machine Learning Techniques for Sales Forecasting

This study talks about how data mining can be used for sales forecasting in retail sales and demand prediction. Prediction of sales is a crucial task which determines the success of any organization in the long run. There are various techniques available for predicting the sales of a supermarket such as Time Series Algorithm, Regression Techniques, Association rule etc. In this paper, a comparative analysis of some of the Supervised Machine Learning Techniques have been done such as Multiple Linear Regression Algorithm, Random Forest Regression Algorithm, K-NN Algorithm, Support Vector Machine (SVM) Algorithm and Extra Tree Regression to build a prediction model and precisely estimate possible sales of 45 retail outlets of Walmart store which are at different geographical locations. Walmart is one of the foremost stores across the world and thus authors would like to predict the sales accurately. Certain events and holidays affect the sales periodically, which sometimes can also be on a daily basis. The forecast of probable sales is based on a combination of features such as previous sales data, promotional events, holiday week, temperature, fuel price, CPI i.e., Consumer Price Index and Unemployment rate in the state. The data is collected from 45 outlets of Walmart and the prediction about the sales of Walmart was done using various Supervised Machine Learning Techniques. The contribution of this paper is to help the business owners decide which approach to follow while trying to predict the sales of their Supermarket taken into account different scenarios including temperature, holidays, fuel price, etc. This will help them in deciding the promotional and marketing strategy for their products.

Timing of the Winter Holiday and Excess Mortality Across Regions of Europe During the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic – An Ecological Study

Background: This ecological study of 219 regions in 11 European countries aimed to investigate the effect of the seemingly quasi-randomly assigned school winter holiday week on excess mortality associated with the COVID-19 pandemic during spring 2020. A secondary aim was to evaluate the impact of stringency and timing of the government responses to the early inflow of infected cases.Methods: Regional data on mortality week 14 – 23 in 2020 compared with the same period 2015 – 2019 were retrieved from Eurostat and national statistical agencies. Data on initial government responses were obtained from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker. Variance-weighted least square regression was used to estimate the effect of winter holiday week and government responses with adjustment for population density and age distribution.Findings: Being a region with winter holiday exclusively in week 9 was in the adjusted analysis associated with 16 weekly excess deaths (95% CI 13 to 20) per million inhabitants, which corresponds to 38% of the excess mortality in these regions. A more stringent response implemented in week 11, corresponding to 10 additional units on the 0 – 100 ordinal scale, was associated with 20 fewer weekly deaths (95% CI 18 to 22) per million inhabitants.Interpretation: Winter holiday in week 9 was an amplifying event contributed importantly to the excess mortality observed in the study area during the spring 2020. Timely government response to the resulting early inflow of cases was associated with lower excess mortality.Funding: Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet; grant no. 2019 – 00198).Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no conflicting interests.Ethics Approval Statement: The authors stated that this study was entirely based on aggregated data so no ethical approval was necessary.

Time for time off? Secondary public holiday shows minimal net hospitalisation benefit

BackgroundWe aimed to use New Zealand’s Anzac Day to test the public health effect of secondary public holidays; and to use weekly hospitalisation counts to identify which dates were more...

The impact of COVID-19 control measures on air quality in China

The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China in January 2020 prompted substantial control measures including social distancing measures, suspension of public transport and industry, and widespread cordon sanitaires (‘lockdowns’), that have led to a decrease in industrial activity and air pollution emissions over a prolonged period. We use a 5 year dataset from China’s air quality monitoring network to assess the impact of control measures on air pollution. Pollutant concentration time series are decomposed to account for the inter-annual trend, seasonal cycles and the effect of Lunar New Year, which coincided with the COVID-19 outbreak. Over 2015–2019, there were significant negative trends in particulate matter (PM2.5, −6% yr−1) and sulphur dioxide (SO2, −12% yr−1) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2, −2.2% yr−1) whereas there were positive trends in ozone (O3, + 2.8% yr−1). We quantify the change in air quality during the LNY holiday week, during which pollutant concentrations increase on LNY’s day, followed by reduced concentrations in the rest of the week. After accounting for interannual trends and LNY we find NO2 and PM concentrations were significantly lower during the lockdown period than would be expected, but there were no significant impacts on O3. Largest reductions occurred in NO2, with concentrations 27.0% lower on average across China, during the lockdown. Average concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 across China were respectively 10.5% and 21.4% lower during the lockdown period. The largest reductions were in Hubei province, where NO2 concentrations were 50.5% lower than expected during the lockdown. Concentrations of affected pollutants returned to expected levels during April, after control measures were relaxed.

Epigenetic Mechanisms Underlying Anthracycline-Induced Cardiotoxicity

We sought to develop a mouse model of pediatric anthracycline cardiotoxicity to test our hypothesis for an epigenetic mechanism (including epigenetic memory), which may be operating to explain delayed-onset anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity. Three week-old male and female C57Bl/6J mice were administered 5 weekly injections with low-dose doxorubicin (1mg/kg) (n=24) or saline (n=8). Half of the doxorubicin-treated (DOX) mice (n=12) and all controls (n=8) were sacrificed 1 week after the last injection; the rest of DOX mice (n=12) were given 4 weeks of drug-free holiday before sacrifice. Echocardiographic measurements were obtained before the first injection, 1 week after the final injection, and before sacrifice. Gene expression profiles were assessed by RNA-sequencing, genome-wide DNA methylation by reduced representation bisulphite sequencing (RRBS), and chromatin accessibility by ATAC-seq. These analyses were performed on purified pools of isolated cardiac myocytes, procured using a published Langendorff-free method. With the selected dosing regimen, there was no death in either the DOX or control mice. Left ventricular chamber dimension and wall thickness as well as fractional shortening did not differ between DOX and controls, implying the lack of obvious functional insufficiency from this dose of DOX. Similarly, DOX mice did not differ in body weight, heart weights (HW), and HW-to-tibia length ratios compared with controls. Cardiomyocyte dimensions and myocardial interstitial fibrosis (using picrosirius red) were the same between groups. Despite the lack of echocardiographic and histological changes in DOX mice, RNA-sequencing analysis revealed profound and significant differentially expressed genes between the DOX mice and controls. Importantly, a significant proportion of downregulated and upregulated genes persisted, despite the period of drug-free holiday (Figure 1). Moreover, despite being taken off DOX, cardiomyocytes appeared to display new gene expression changes taking place even 4 weeks after stopping DOX. Detailed results of RNA-sequencing, RRBS and ATAC-Seq will be presented during the meeting. These results suggest that cardiomyocytes display DOX-related epigenetic alterations, which may implicate the basis for delayed-onset anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity.

Effect of Fireworks, Chinese New Year and the COVID-19 Lockdown on Air Pollution and Public Attitudes

Concentrations of primary air pollutants are driven by emissions and weather patterns, which control their production and dispersion. The early months of the year see the celebratory use of fireworks, a week-long public holiday in China, but in 2020 overlapped in Hubei Province with lockdowns, some of > 70 days duration. The urban lockdowns enforced to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic give a chance to explore the effect of rapid changes in societal activities on air pollution, with a public willing to leave views on social media and show a continuing concern about the return of pollution problems after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Fireworks typically give rise to sharp peaks in PM2.5 concentrations, though the magnitude of these peaks in both Wuhan and Beijing has decreased under tighter regulation in recent years, along with general reductions in pollutant emissions. Firework smoke is now most evident in smaller outlying cities and towns. The holiday effect, a reduction in pollutant concentrations when normal work activities are curtailed, is only apparent for NO2 in the holiday week in Wuhan (2015–2020), but not Beijing. Lockdown in Wuhan was characterised by decreases in NO2, along with more subtle changes in particulate matter and other pollutants. Ozone noticeably increases as there is less NO available for titration, but such change may not be widespread geographically. Beijing, where restrictions were less stringent, showed some improvement in air quality, though this is more difficult to detect, even within the 5th Ring Road.