Lung fibre concentration, dimension, and asbestosis severity : relationships among Québec chrysotile miners and millers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The objectives of this study were: (1) to compare lung fibre concentration and dimensions found in two groups of former Quebec chrysotile miners (Asbestos and Thetford-Mines) and, (2) to investigate the relationship between lung-retained mineral fibre concentration and dimension (length, diameter, and aspect ratio) to severity of interstitial lung fibrosis (asbestosis) within these groups. Lung fibre content was determined for 86 former employees of chrysotile mines and mills in two Quebec mining regions: Thetford-Mines and Asbestos (Jeffrey Mine). Six lung samples were selected for each subject from predetermined intrapulmonary sites. In summary, the concentrations of tremolite for short (<5 mum) intermediate-length (5--10 mum) and long (>10mum) fibres were 4, 2, and 2 fold higher respectively among workers of Thetford-Mines than those from Asbestos. These differences were statistically significant between the two groups (p < 0.05 for all tremolite size categories). No consistent and biologically important difference was found among fibre dimensions in any of the size categories (p > 0.1 for all fibre types and size categories). These observations suggested that the much higher exposure in Thetford-Mines to asbestos fibres, tremolite fibres being more apparent, is the most plausible factor which may explain the higher incidence of lung diseases among the former miners and millers of Thetford-Mines. Concentration of short (<5 mum) tremolite fibres was the best predictor of asbestosis severity in both mining groups (r = 0.44, p < 0.01 and r = 0.39 p < 0.01 for Thetford-Mines and Asbestos, respectively). Chrysotile fibre concentration showed a lower correlation with asbestosis severity among subjects from Thetford-Mines (r = 0.28, p < 0.1 and r = 0.39, p < 0.01 and for fibres <5 mum and fibres 5--10 mum respectively). Long (>10 mum) amosite fibre concentrations showed a linear relationship with asbestosis severity in the group of miners and millers from Asbestos (r = 0.5, p < 0.01). Shorter commercial amphibole concentrations did not show this relationship and these fibres were largely absent from the lungs of miners from Thetford-Mines. Concentration of asbestos bodies from lung digests was significantly associated with fibrosis for subjects from Thetford-Mines only (r = 0.3, p = 0.05). (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".