Soft tissue inflammatory responses to metal debris from prostheses, categorised as adverse reactions to metal debris (ARMD), are frequent complications of total hip arthroplasty (THA) and often result in implant failure. Introducing modular implant designs in modern orthopaedics has brought benefits to total hip replacements but has also increased patients\' susceptibility to corrosion-related risks. ARMD can develop from various metal articulating surfaces, including ceramic-on-polyethylene (CoP), ceramic-on-ceramic (CoC), metal-on-metal (MoM), and metal-on-polyethylene (MoP) configurations. In this case study, a 68-year-old male who underwent a MoP implant for osteoarthritis of the right hip 16 years ago presented with pain and difficulty walking, exacerbated over the past three months. Clinical examination revealed tenderness around the implant and a limited range of motion. Imaging studies, including X-rays and ultrasound-guided aspiration, coupled with normal serum and urinary cobalt (Co) and chromium (Cr) levels, confirmed the diagnosis of ARMD. Given the severity of symptoms and radiographic findings, surgical intervention was warranted, leading to a two-stage revision with implant augmentation using a Burch-Schneider cage. Three months post operation, the patient experienced significant improvements in pain levels, range of motion (ROM), and hip function. This case underscores the importance of vigilant surveillance for ARMD in patients undergoing non-MoM THA, even years post surgery. Prompt recognition and management of ARMD are crucial to mitigate the risk of long-term complications and optimise patient outcomes. Further research is needed to understand the risk factors and mechanisms underlying ARMD in MoP THA, aiding in developing preventive strategies and refined treatment protocols.

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To conduct a precise health risk assessment of heavy metals (HMs) in soil, it is imperative to ascertain the primary sources of potential health risks. In this study, we conducted comprehensive measurements of HMs, specifically focusing on the accumulation of Cu, Cd, Sb, Zn, and Pb in local soil, which may pose threats to environmental quality. To achieve our objective, we employed a method that combines positive matrix factorization with a health risk assessment model to quantify the health risks associated with specific sources. The results obtained from the geo-accumulation index indicate that the majority of HMs found in the local soil are influenced by anthropogenic activities. Among these sources, local industrial-related activities contributed the largest proportion of HMs to the soil at 34.7%, followed by natural sources at 28.7%, mining and metallurgy-related activities at 28.2%, and traffic-related activities at 8.40%. Although the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks associated with individual HMs were found to be below safety thresholds, the cumulative health risks stemming from total HMs exceeded safety limits for children. Moreover, the unacceptable health risks for children originating from industrial-related activities, natural sources, and mining and metallurgy-related activities were primarily concentrated in proximity to mining sites and industrial areas within the local region. This investigation furnishes valuable insights that can aid governmental authorities in formulating precise control policies to mitigate health threats posed by soils in polymetallic mining areas.

UNASSIGNED: The Lane plate was one of the first widely used bone plates, utilized in the first decades of the twentieth century. Here we present the results of a retrieval analysis on a Lane plate, and a review of the history of these plates. Our patient underwent plating of her femur with a Lane plate in 1938. She developed a sciatic nerve palsy, managed surgically later that year by Dr. Arthur Steindler at the University of Iowa. Her femur healed, her nerve recovered, and she did well until 2020, at age 94, when she presented to the University of Iowa with a draining sinus that appeared to communicate with the plate. She underwent irrigation and debridement with hardware removal. The plate was sectioned, and its composition and structure characterized.
UNASSIGNED: We retrieved hard copies of the patient\'s archived medical records from 1938, which document in detail the treatments performed by Dr. Steindler. The plate was analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to characterize the surface of the plate. A cross section was taken from the plate, and the composition of the alloy was determined using energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS). A review of the literature surrounding early plating techniques was conducted.
UNASSIGNED: Our patient recovered from her surgery and soon returned to her baseline state of health. Intraoperative cultures grew C. acnes. Analysis of the surface of the plate demonstrated significant corrosion, and the crystal structure seen on SEM suggested a strong alloy that is prone to corrosion. Analysis of the cross section with EDS demonstrated an alloy containing 94.9% iron, 1.7% aluminum, 1.2% chromium, and 1.1% manganese.
UNASSIGNED: The Lane plate was introduced around 1907 by Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, a British surgeon, and was one of the first widely used devices for the plating of fractures. Given that this patient was likely one of the last to be treated with a Lane plate, this may be the final opportunity for such a retrieval analysis. Level of Evidence: IV.

In this paper, the problem of the identification of undesirable events is discussed. Such events can be poorly represented in the historical data, and it is predominantly impossible to learn from past examples. The discussed issue is considered in the work in the context of two use cases in which vibration and temperature measurements collected by wireless sensors are analysed. These use cases include crushers at a coal-fired power plant and gantries in a steelworks converter. The awareness, resulting from the cooperation with industry, of the need for a system that works in cold start conditions and does not flood the machine operator with alarms was the motivation for proposing a new predictive maintenance method. The proposed solution is based on the methods of outlier identification. These methods are applied to the collected data that was transformed into a multidimensional feature vector. The novelty of the proposed solution stems from the creation of a methodology for the reduction of false positive alarms, which was applied to a system identifying undesirable events. This methodology is based on the adaptation of the system to the analysed data, the interaction with the dispatcher, and the use of the XAI (eXplainable Artificial Intelligence) method. The experiments performed on several data sets showed that the proposed method reduced false alarms by 90.25% on average in relation to the performance of the stand-alone outlier detection method. The obtained results allowed for the implementation of the developed method to a system operating in a real industrial facility. The conducted research may be valuable for systems with a cold start problem where frequent alarms can lead to discouragement and disregard for the system by the user.

Strategic noise maps are typically prepared for large-scale areas, towns and cities. However, some comparatively smaller industries are given less importance during preparation of noise maps. Very few studies have been reported worldwide providing insight on industrial noise mapping, and similar reports from India are negligible. This study provides a noise map of a forging plant and also investigates noise distribution pattern within 2 km of surrounding area. The complete study is evaluated in two types of scenario; in the first scenario all individual noise sources of the plant were considered as point sources whereas in the second scenario complete plant was treated as an area source. Furthermore, a regression graph is generated between the predicted and measured values for both scenarios individually which gives coefficients of determination of 0.4689 and 0.6382. This study reveals that the second scenario provides more precise noise prediction map than the first scenario.

The Punchuncaví Valley is one of the most polluted areas in central Chile affected by anthropogenic emissions from the Ventanas Industrial Complex (IC) where the most important industry is the copper smelter and refinery. In this context, this research aims were to assess the usefulness of the Cupressus macrocarpa as a biomonitor. The leaf samples were taken from five selected sites, located between 0.8 and 15 km away from the source. A total of 34 elements were analyzed in leaf samples by ICP-MS and examined by enrichment factor (EF), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and principal component analysis (PCA). Leaf concentration of As, Ca, Cd, Cu, Dy, Er, Gd, K, Li, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Nd, P, Pb, Pr, S, Sb, Sr, Ti, Yb and Zn showed statistically significant differences between sampling sites (p-value < 0.05). A clear trend to increase the concentration of Cu, Sb, S, As, Cd and Pb with the proximity to the IC. Besides, high values of Cu (93.4-369 mg kg-1) and As (7.6-12.7 mg kg-1) were observed near to industrial area exceed the phytotoxic levels reported in plants with EF > 3000% for Cu and >1300% for As. The application of PCA and HCA identified 6 factors related to the industrial complex, traffic and geogenic sources, providing the greatest variance the component related to industrial activity mainly with copper smelter and refinery. According to the results, the C. macrocarpa leaves are a good biomonitor to evaluate the high pollution load for anthropogenic elements in industrial areas.

The archaeometallurgical and archaeological research carried out in Anatolia has provided numerous examples of diverse alloying practices representing different levels of societal interaction, from the extraction of ores to the trade of finished goods and high level gift exchange among elites. While discussions abound about the exploitation of mines, mining settlements, possible origins of artifacts, resources of copper, arsenic, and especially tin to improve our knowledge about Anatolian Bronze Age mining and metallurgy, uncommon alloying practices including the use of antimony, nickel, or lead have long remained in the shadows of scholarly research. With the aim of bringing attention to the diversity in alloying practices in Anatolian metallurgy, this article focuses on the use of antimony through an appraisal of archaeological and textual evidence from Bronze Age Anatolia. Archaeometric data from several Early Bronze Age sites are re-examined alongside new data emerging from Resuloğlu (Çorum, Turkey) to explain the reduction of the variety of alloy types used. Portable-XRF analysis of artifacts from Resuloğlu and mineralogical analysis of an antimony-bearing ore fragment present evidence of use of antimony at the region during the Early Bronze Age. This period is followed by disappearance of antimony in material record until the Iron Age, while textual records weakly refer to its circulation within the region. This paper considers geological, technological, and socio-economic factors to explain why the use of antimony alloys falls dormant after the Early Bronze Age. The political and economic change towards centralization over geological and technological factors is proposed as an explanation.

The most pronounced occupational exposure routes for lead (Pb) are inhalation and gastrointestinal uptake mainly through hand-to-mouth behaviour. Skin absorption has been demonstrated for organic Pb compounds, but less is known about inorganic Pb species. Several legislative bodies in Europe are currently proposing lowering biological exposure limit values and air exposure limits due to new evidence on cardiovascular effects at very low blood Pb levels. In light of this, all exposure routes in occupational settings should be revisited to evaluate how to lower the overall exposure to Pb.
The aim of the study was to investigate the possible exposure routes in workers operating computer numerical control-machines in a brass foundry and specifically to understand if metal cutting fluids (MCFs) used by the workers could lead to skin absorption of Pb. The different bronze alloys at the facility may contain up to 20% Pb. After obtaining written informed consent from the workers (n = 7), blood, skin wipes, and personal air samples were collected. In addition, MCFs used on the day of exposure measurements were collected for in vitro skin absorption studies using stillborn piglet skin mounted in static Franz diffusion cells (n = 48). All samples were analysed for Pb content using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.
Pb air concentration (<0.1-3.4 µg m-3) was well below the Swedish occupational exposure limit value. Blood Pb was in the range of <0.72-33 µg dl-1, and Pb on skin surfaces, after performing normal work tasks during 2 h, was in the range of 0.2-48 µg cm-2. Using the MCFs in diffusion cells showed that skin absorption had occurred at very low doses, and that up to 10% of the Pb content was present in the skin after 24 h exposure. Using these results in the US EPA adult lead model, we could estimate a contribution to blood Pb from the three exposure routes; where hand-to-mouth behaviour yielded the highest contribution (16 µg Pb dl-1 blood), followed by skin absorption (3.3-6.3 µg Pb dl-1 blood) and inhalation (2.0 µg Pb dl-1 blood).
This case study shows that MCF may lead to skin absorption of inorganic Pb and contribute to a systemic dose (quasi-steady state). Furthermore, even though good hand hygienic measures were in place, the workers\' skin exposure to Pb is in all likelihood an important contributor in elevating blood Pb levels. Skin exposure should thus be monitored routinely in workers at facilities handling Pb, to help reducing unnecessary occupational exposure.

BACKGROUND: Contact dermatitis is an eczematous skin reaction that is caused by repeated and direct exposure to an allergen: The prevalence of contact dermatitis to nickel is estimated at 17% in women and 3% in men, and 1-3% of the general population has allergic contact dermatitis to cobalt and chromium. Nickel, which is the leading cause of occupational dermatitis, shows reactivity to other metals; mainly chromium and cobalt.
METHODS: A 47-year old man, with previous sensitization to nickel in childhood, is a worker in the metal industry, with occupational exposure to nickel and cobalt, and showed dermatosis predominantly in the upper limbs.
CONCLUSIONS: The risk of new sensitizations to metals (such as cobalt) has been increased by his previous sensitization to nickel that happened in childhood and his work in the metal industry.
Antecedentes: La dermatitis por contacto es una reacción eccematosa en piel causada por la exposición repetida y directa de un alérgeno; se estima que la prevalencia de dermatitis de contacto al níquel es de 17 % en mujeres y 3 % en hombres y que 1 a 3 % de la población general presenta dermatitis de contacto alérgica a cobalto y cromo. El níquel es la causa más importante de dermatitis ocupacional y presenta reactividad a otros metales, principalmente cromo y cobalto. Caso clinico: Hombre de 47 años, con previa sensibilización a níquel en la infancia, trabajador de la industria metalúrgica, con exposición laboral a níquel y cobalto, quien presentó dermatosis de predominio en miembros superiores. Conclusión: La sensibilización previa a níquel en la infancia y el trabajo en la industria metalúrgica incrementó el riesgo de nuevas sensibilizaciones a metales, como cobalto.