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Widespread population exposure to wildland fire smoke underscores the urgent need for new techniques to characterize fire-derived pollution for epidemiologic studies and to build climate-resilient communities especially for aging populations. Using atmospheric chemical transport modeling, we examined air quality with and without wildland fire smoke PM 2.5 . In 12-km gridded output, the 24-hour average concentration of all-source PM 2.5 in California (2007-2018) was 5.16 μg/m 3 (S.D. 4.66 μg/m 3 ). The average concentration of fire-PM 2.5 in California by year was 1.61 μg/m 3 (~30% of total PM 2.5 ). The contribution of fire-source PM 2.5 ranged from 6.8% to 49%. We define a "smokewave" as two or more consecutive days with modeled levels above 35 μg/m 3 . Based on model-derived fire-PM 2.5 , 99.5% of California's population lived in a county that experienced at least one smokewave from 2007 to 2018, yet understanding of the impact of smoke on the health of aging populations is limited. Approximately 2.7 million (56%) of California residents aged 65+ years lived in counties representing the top 3 quartiles of fire-PM 2.5 concentrations (2007-2018). For each year (2007-2018), grid cells containing skilled nursing facilities had significantly higher mean concentrations of all-source PM 2.5 than cells without those facilities, but they also had generally lower mean concentrations of wildland fire-specific PM 2.5 . Compared to rural monitors in California, model predictions of wildland fire impacts on daily average PM 2.5 carbon (organic and elemental) performed well most years but tended to overestimate wildland fire impacts for high-fire years. The modeling system isolated wildland fire PM 2.5 from other sources at monitored and unmonitored locations, which is important for understanding exposures for aging population in health studies., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Traditionally, serotyping of Escherichia coli has been performed via slide agglutination methods using antisera. More recently, multiplex immunoassays and "molecular serotyping" via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) have been validated for this purpose. In this study, the serogroups of 161 Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) strains isolated from fecal samples of California cattle were typed by conventional methods using antisera as well as two newly developed multiplex PCR- and antibody-based microbead assays using the Luminex technology. Using the Luminex assays, we were capable of serotyping 11 STEC isolates that were previously determined untypeable for the O antigen by conventional methods using antisera. Except for 14 isolates, results from the 2 Luminex assays agreed.

Background and Methods: There are considerable uncertainty and debate regarding all aspects of newborn screen-positive cases of 3-methylcrotonyl-CoA carboxylase deficiency (3-MCCD), including diagnostic criteria, clinical spectrum, morbidity, prognosis, and appropriate management. To address some of these questions, we queried data from the California Newborn Screening Program's Screening Information System (SIS) and available scanned laboratory reports on cases of 3-MCCD reported by 15 state contracted metabolic specialty care centers born between July 2005 and December 2010. We evaluated the completeness and utility of the database as a tool for clinical disease characterization., Results: During the study period, 2,959,108 infants were screened and 71 infants were diagnosed with 3-MCCD for an overall incidence of 1:41,676. The availability of diagnostic biochemical laboratory data varied significantly from subject to subject. Using a new case classification based on biochemical severity, we found that 8 of the cases met our criteria for biochemically severe (category 1), 19 cases met our criteria for biochemically mild (category 2) that we suspect to possibly be hypomorphic variants or heterozygote carriers, and 44 cases could not be classified (category 3) as mild or severe based on the data available in SIS. Documentation of the treatment regimens also varied significantly with 49% receiving dietary modification and 44% receiving carnitine. 15% of cases were documented to have experienced at least one of the following symptoms: lethargy, vomiting, irritability, ketosis, poor feeding, or poor tone. The majority of the subjects were completely developmentally age appropriate at their last assessment., Conclusions: The results suggest that a significant portion of the 3-MCCD "confirmed" cases have a mild biochemical phenotype. Moreover the majority of cases had insufficient data entered to allow for adequate clinical characterization of the cases. These findings raise the concern that a significant number of individuals receiving treatment for 3-MCCD may not have a clinically significant condition. Additionally, the utility of this data system could be improved if centers provided complete confirmatory test results and more specific documentation of clinical outcomes and health/developmental status. Further studies, including a clinical chart review, are necessary to validate the data and further characterize this cohort., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)