DNA analysis can strengthen identification. Third, DNA analysis may have other applications, such as in archaeology— determining the source, local or imported, of cordage found at an excavation. Finally, with advancements in technology, DNA analysis could eventually provide a background for identifying individual samples of rope, in addition to the rope’s botanical origin.Human immunodeficiency virus infection is often accompanied by chronic fatigue and disrupted sleep patterns . A considerable number of people with HIV report sleep disturbance, with some studies estimating the prevalence of symptoms to be up to five times that of the general population . PWH face a variety of unique social , physical , and socioeconomic stressors , which may influence sleep disturbance . Prolonged poor sleep quality among PWH is associated with anxiety, depression, loss of productivity, interference with employment, physiologic stress, and poorer quality of life . Methamphetamine , a central nervous system stimulant, is among the most commonly used addictive drugs, with 35 million users per year worldwide . PWH and individuals at risk for HIV transmission, such as men who have sex with men, have a particularly high prevalence of MA use . A recent study on MA-dependent gay and bisexual men reported the prevlance of HIV infection to be 63% . Among PWH, MA is linked to accelerated viral replication, more rapid progression to AIDS, reduced effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy , and increased immune suppression . Global neuropsychological impairment and dependence on basic and instrumental activities of daily living are more common among PWH who also use MA than among those who do not, with an additive effect of HIV and MA on neuronal injury and glial activation . Despite these negative effects, perceived benefits, such as sexual enhancement and relief of negative psychosocial symptoms, continue to drive MA use among PWH . MA functions by stimulating monoamine release , and facilitates hyperactivity, euphoria, feelings of increased mental and physical capacity, and riskier sexual behavior . Among the general population, prolonged MA use can have detrimental effects on alertness, mood, cognition, and activity levels .

MA use also has been associated with poor sleep quality, increased sleep latency, and daytime sleepiness . Cessation of MA is often accompanied by withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and craving that can further contribute to poor sleep quality. The adverse effects of MA also contribute to functional decline , such as unemployment , which also may exacerbate sleep disturbance. Among MA-using PWH, poorer adherence and missing ART doses after MA use have been reported, in part due to disrupted sleep-wake cycles . Taken together, acute and chronic MA use can have multiple direct and indirect effects on sleep quality.Few studies have examined the combined associations of MA use and HIV on sleep disturbance. This study evaluates effects of lifetime MA use on self-reported sleep quality among participants with or without HIV infection. The hypothesis was that lifetime MA use disorder would be associated with poorer sleep quality, particularly among PWH, and that this would relate to poor outcomes, including poorer cognition, reduced independence in activities of daily living, unemployment, and poorer life quality. Participants included 225 HIV-seropositive and 88 HIV-seronegative adults enrolled in NIH-funded research studies at the UC San Diego’s HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center . All participants completed a standard, selfreport evaluation of sleep quality as well as comprehensive neurobehavioral and neuromedical assessments. Exclusion criteria were: 1) sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome; 2) disruptions to sleep due to temporary circumstances ; 3) history of comorbid neurological illness or injury that would affect cognitive functioning ; 4) history of psychotic disorder; 5) alcohol dependence within a year; and 6) low premorbid verbal IQ as estimated by a Wide Range Achievement Test-4 score less than 80. The study protocol was approved by the UC San Diego Institutional Review Board and each participant provided written, informed consent. The Composite International Diagnostic Interview  was administered to diagnose participants for current and lifetime substance use and mood disorders , as defined by the Fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . For the initial analyses, participants were stratified into four groups based on HIV status and lifetime MA use disorder diagnosis: HIV +/MA+ ; HIV+/MA− ; HIV−/MA+ ; and HIV−/MA− .

Current depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory, Second Edition . Item 16 on the BDI-II, which assesses change in sleep pattern in the last two weeks, was excluded from the BDI-II total score to avoid collinearity with our outcome of interest, perceived sleep quality. All participants completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index , a self-report questionnaire that assesses perceptions of average sleep quality and disturbances over the past 30 days . The PSQI is a widely used and well-validated measure of subjective sleep quality in adults . The PSQI has 19-items that assesses seven components of sleep, including quality, latency, duration, efficiency, disturbances,vertical grow lights use of medications to aid sleeping, and daytime sleepiness. Component scores range from 0 to 3 . Items were summed to generate a continuous global sleep score ranging from 0 to 21. Global scores > 5 indicate problematic sleep . For purposes of the present study, the continuous global PSQI score and dichotomous sleep quality classification were used as outcome variables.All participants underwent a standardized medical history interview, neuromedical examination, and blood and urine collection. HIV serological status was confirmed via ELISA and Western blot test, and HIV RNA levels were measured in plasma by rtPCR . Current CD4+ T-cell count was measured in blood by clinical flow cytometry. Additional HIV disease and treatment variables included nadir CD4+ T-cell count, AIDS diagnosis, estimated duration of HIV disease, and current ART regimen. MA use characteristics were self-reported. Comorbid medical conditions and current medication use were determined by self-report and medical chart review.All participants completed a comprehensive and validated neurocognitive assessment across seven neurocognitive domains commonly affected by HIV and MA use ; these include verbal fluency, executive functioning, speed of information processing, learning and memory , working memory/attention, and motor. Using established normative standards, test scores were adjusted for known influences on neurocognitive performance . Deficit scores were calculated for each domain and averaged across the test battery to derive a global deficit score ranging from 0 to 5 . Dependence in instrumental activities of daily living was determined using a revised version of the Lawton and Brody ADL questionnaire , in which participants rated current degree of independence as compared to prior best level of independence across 13 IADL domains. Participants were classified as IADL “dependent” if they endorsed requiring increased assistance in at least 2 IADL domains. Employment status and symptoms of cognitive difficulties in daily life were determined via the Patient’s Assessment of Own Functioning Inventory . The Karnofsky Performance Status Scale is a clinician administered assessment of disease-related functional impairment with a range from 0 to 100 with standard intervals of 10 . Self-reported physical and mental health quality of life were assessed using the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form Survey . Physical and mental health composite scores were calculated via validated summary score formulas derived from an obliquely rotated factor solution . Group differences on demographics, neuropsychiatric and neuromedical characteristics, HIV disease and treatment parameters, MA use history, and global sleep outcomes were tested using analysis of variance , Kruskal-Wallis tests, Chi-square statistics, or Fisher’s Exact test . Two-tailed t-tests were used to compare groups on HIV disease and methamphetamine use characteristics. Follow-up pairwise comparisons were conducted using Tukey’s Honest Significant Difference or Wilcoxon tests for continuous outcomes, or Bonferroni-corrections for categorical outcomes.

Cohen’s d measured effect size for pairwise comparisons of means. Based on the pattern of univariable group differences in global sleep health and the small sample size of the HIV−/MA+ group, multiple linear regression examined global sleep scores as a function of MA status and clinical covariates specifically within PWH. Covariates included clinical variables from Table I with univariable associations with the primary independent variable [MA status ] as well as associations with the primary dependent variable with p values < 0.10. Variables sex and sexual orientation were included based on theoretical evidence . Additionally, HIV disease and treatment covariates were included to determine if HIVspecific factors attenuated the effects of MA status on global sleep in PWH. Stepwise regression models used backward selection based on Akaike Information Criterion to select the optimal model. To determine potential co-occuring neurobehavioral functional impairments associated with poor sleep quality within the dual-risk HIV+/MA+ group, additional nominal logistic regression models based on AIC were run to examine the association between problematic sleep membership and neurobehavioral outcomes . Covariates were selected based on univariable associations with global PSQI and did not include HIV or methamphetamine characteristics.Multiple regression analysis within PWH examined the independent contribution of MA status on Global PSQI scores while adjusting for clinical covariates and HIV-disease specific factors . Based on univariable associations with the primary independent variable [MA status ], the following were included as covariates in AIC-based regression: age, sex, education, BDI-II scores, lifetime alcohol use disorder, lifetime cocaine use disorder, lifetime cannabis use disorder, MA use in the last 30 days, and HCV. In addition, body mass index was added to the model based on its association with the primary dependent variable , along with sexual orientation and HIV-specific covariates and contained lifetime MA use disorder, having higher BDI-II scores, higher BMI, and detectable HIV RNA being associated with higher global PSQI scores. In considering the possible contribution of extraneous variables that may be common among participants who reported recent MA use, the regression model was rerun after excluding for those who endorsed MA use within the last 30 days . Using AIC selection criteria, lifetime MA use disorder continued to significantly contribute to the variance in sleep quality . Similarly, to focus on a clinically relevant subgroup, the regression model was rerun after excluding participants who were off ART or had HIV RNA levels above 200 copies/ml . In this virologically suppressed subgroup, lifetime MA dependence again remained associated with global sleep based on AIC selection . Rates of MA use are elevated among PWH and are associated with poorer sleep quality in the general population . The present study is the first to explore the relationships between past MA use disorder, HIV disease, and sleep quality. Our results demonstrate that PWH who have a history of prior MA use disorder had significantly poorer sleep quality and were more likely to be classified as problematic sleepers than those without a lifetime disorder. This relationship between lifetime MA use disorder among PWH is robust to MA group differences in biopsychosocial factors and is linked to sleep quality above and beyond the effects of HIV disease severity and other established risk factors for poor sleep.

The same study showed that although current or past ETS exposure occurring only after birth was associated with reports of wheezing,drying and curing cannabis it was not associated with asthma prevalence. Furthermore, combined in utero plus postnatal exposures did not increase risk of asthma beyond in utero exposures alone. The finding that maternal smoking during pregnancy has a stronger relationship to asthma onset than later ETS exposures was supported by several other studies that separated maternal in utero exposures from postnatal exposures . It is conceivable that in utero exposures to ETS shifts the immune response toward a TH2-type pattern as a result of the adjuvant action of PAH components interacting with in utero allergen exposures, which are now believed to lead to atopic sensitization before birth . It is plausible that postnatal coexposures would do the same, but the epidemiologic data are inconsistent for the relationship between ETS exposure and childhood asthma incidence. On the other hand, there is a preponderance of evidence linking ETS to acute exacerbations of asthma in asthmatic children. A recent meta-analysis concluded that studies showed an excess incidence of wheezing in smoking households, particularly in nonatopic children, suggesting a “wheezy bronchitis” pattern; however, in children with diagnosed asthma, parental smoking was associated with greater severity rather than incidence . A quantitative meta-analysis of studies up to April 1997 for 25 studies of asthma prevalence showed a pooled odds ratio for asthma of 1.21 if either parent smoked . Well-conducted panel studies are still needed to evaluate acute exposure–response relationships using repeated measures methods. A recent daily panel study over 3 months in 74 asthmatic children showed that acute asthma symptom severity, PEF, and bronchodilator use was associated with ETS exposure . There is less information about adult onset asthma. A cohort study of 451 nonsmoking asthmatic adults found that acute asthma severity, asthma-specific quality of life, and health status were associated with self-reported ETS exposure . Cohort studies have also shown increased risk of developing adult asthma from ETS , including occupational exposures . Among 3,914 nonsmoking adults followed 10 years, the relative risk for asthma onset from 10 years of working with a smoker was 1.45 .

A large survey of 4,197 never-smoking adults showed an elevated risk of physician-diagnosed asthma from any ETS exposure [OR 1.39 ] but no increased risk of allergic rhinitis . Reviews that have included other epidemiologic studies have concluded that although ETS is consistently associated with adult asthma onset, the number of studies is limited and the magnitude of effects are small, with limited dose–response information . One question that remains to be answered is what are the chemical determinants of associations between asthma and ETS, which is a complex mixture of particle and gas-phase components? Do PAHs play a major role in these associations?The urban exposure most relevant to the potential importance of PAHs to asthma is exposure to automobile and truck traffic. An earlier descriptive study spurred interest in potential adjuvant effects of DEP on IgE mediated respiratory allergic responses . This was a cross-sectional study of 3,133 Japanese persons that showed the prevalence of cedar pollen allergy was higher near busy highways despite equivalent local exposure to cedar pollen in less-busy areas. No epidemiologic studies have used quantitative exposure estimates of either DEP or ambient PAHs. However, European research has had access to black smoke measurements. A panel study of 61 children in the summer showed stronger associations for black smoke than for PM10 in relation to PEF, respiratory symptoms, and bronchodilator use . The authors hypothesized that black smoke may be a better surrogate for fine particles emitted by diesel engines or for other chemicals that may be the causal components in DE. Ambient NO2 could additionally serve as a marker for traffic exposure. Studnicka et al. explicitly used outdoor NO2 as a surrogate to show “traffic-related pollution” was associated with asthma prevalence among 843 children living in areas of lower Austria without local industrial emissions of air pollution. Numerous epidemiologic studies have shown associations between traffic density and asthma prevalence or morbidity. All but one were conducted in Europe and Asia . Fifteen of these have been in children , four in adults , and one study in both children and adults . All but seven have been purely cross-sectional studies. Krämer et al. conducted a cross-sectional study of atopic sensitization and asthma diagnosis but had a prospective outcome assessment of atopic symptoms for 1 year along with seasonal NO2 measurements.

Other designs include three case–control studies of hospital admissions , and one case–control study of California Medicaid claims for asthma . Another study was a mixture of cross-sectional, survey nested case–control, and historical cohort . One study of adult Japanese women was cross-sectional for symptom prevalence and also tested longitudinal models for 10 seasonal repeated measures for lung function in a sub-sample . Eleven looked at traffic density, but no air pollution measurements were used in effect estimates or as confirmation of exposure gradients ; four had traffic density, black smoke and/or NO2 ; and five used combustion-related air pollution measurements near the home as modeled surrogates for traffic exposures . Hirsch et al. briefly mentioned results for truck traffic,cannabis drying rack focusing instead on predicted home exposures from one hundred eighty-two 1-km2 grid measurements of CO, benzene, NO2, SO2, and O3. Pershagen et al. used predicted NO2 from models involving traffic data near the home and background ambient NO2 data, with home residence time as a weighting factor. Oosterlee et al. investigated respiratory symptom prevalence and asthma in relation to busy and quiet streets predicted with model calculations of NO2 concentrations using the Dutch CAR model . Only four studies have separately assessed exposures from truck versus automobile traffic , two of which examined the same children in South Holland using actual 1-year measurements of traffic density in relation to lung function and symptoms . Another study in Germany had only self-reported truck traffic density in relation to symptoms . Except for one study , all of the above studies examining truck traffic showed increased risks in respiratory symptoms including wheeze from higher truck traffic density near the home . The Holland studies showed greater increased risks in respiratory symptoms including wheeze and lung function deficits from higher truck traffic than from automobile density near the home. Both Holland studies confirmed the possible relevance of DE by finding that black smoke measurements at the children’s schools were also associated with increased symptoms and lung function deficits . A study in Italy also found increased prevalence of asthma and symptoms from truck and bus traffic but not overall traffic . Only the study by Wyler et al. failed to show any difference between truck and car traffic in strengths of association; positive associations were limited to atopic sensitization. Although most of the traffic studies did not report associations by gender, four did find adverse effects of traffic-related exposures in children to be stronger in girls than in boys , while two other showed null results for both genders . In the study by Wyler et al. in adults, associations between pollen sensitization and home traffic density were larger for women than men.

These gender differences are unexplained. Although differences in the perception of symptoms or reporting bias are possible, this does not explain the considerably larger lung function deficits in girls reported by Brunekreef et al. . Negative results in the studies of traffic related exposures may be due to weaknesses that lead to exposure and outcome misclassifi- cation, which generally, but not always, lead to bias toward the null hypothesis if the mis-classification is independent of systematic errors . This bias was possible in studies that used are a wide exposure estimates without assessments of micro-environmental exposures or traffic near the home and school , or that relied entirely or partly on self-reported exposures . Nevertheless, most of these studies still showed positive associations between traffic and respiratory outcomes. Except for pulmonary function tests and tests for atopic sensitization , respiratory outcomes, including physician-diagnosed illnesses, were either abstracted from administrative databases or self-reported for the remaining studies. All but a sub-sample of two studies were subject to cross sectional or case–control biases. One of these biases stems from the use of current exposure. Current exposure may not be a good surrogate for exposure during past times that are more temporally relevant to current disease status. This is because outcomes may have an onset in the past, or because outcomes were previous illnesses or exacerbations of disease recalled in survey questionnaires. An important assumption is that current residence near traffic is a proxy for past exposures, and some, but not all, of the studies screened for residence times . One resultant systematic bias that could lead to null results is differential migration away from busy streets by symptomatic subjects. This is supported by the finding of Oosterlee et al. that parents with children having respiratory symptoms live an average of 2.6 years shorter at the present address than those of asymptomatic children. A positive bias, on the other hand, could have occurred from socioeconomic status , which was not always controlled for. This is important because people living on busy streets may be poorer. Clearly, well-designed prospective cohort studies and repeated measures panel studies are needed to assess the question of whether exposure to primary pollutants from traffic, which include air toxics, are risk factors for the onset or exacerbation of asthma and other respiratory allergic illnesses in children and adults. One epidemiologic approach that may prove useful to define source-specific air pollutant exposures such as traffic-related exposures is the use of principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation using available criteria pollutant data. One large survey study used this approach in Taiwan . They recruited 331,686 middle school children who were nonsmokers and were enrolled in schools within 2 km of 1 of 55 monitoring stations. They compared asthma prevalence rates with air pollution concentrations and found positive associations with asthma prevalence for NOx and CO. These gases had factor loadings over 0.91, along with inverse loadings for O3 of –0.92, likely from scavenging of O3 by NOx . For an interquartile increase in CO and in NOx , the prevalence of either physician diagnosed or questionnaire-based asthma increased around 1% for both boys and girls.

One of the pioneers in vertical farming is Dickson Despommier, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University. Despommier popularized the concept of vertical farming in 1999 with his book “The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century.” His book laid out the vision and potential benefits of growing crops in multilevel indoor environments using hydroponics or aeroponics.

Following Despommier’s work, vertical farming gained more attention and traction in the early 2000s. Companies and entrepreneurs began exploring and implementing vertical farming systems, experimenting with different technologies and designs to maximize productivity and efficiency. Advancements in LED lighting, hydroponic systems, and automation technologies also contributed to the growth and development of vertical farming.

Around the mid-2000s, the first commercial vertical farming ventures started to emerge. These early pioneers focused on leafy greens and herbs as the primary crops due to their fast growth and suitability for controlled indoor environments. As the industry evolved, vertical farming expanded to include a wider range of crops, including strawberries, tomatoes, peppers, and even vine crops like cucumbers.

Since then, vertical farming has continued to gain momentum globally. Numerous vertical farms have been established in various countries, utilizing innovative techniques and technologies to improve efficiency, sustainability, and crop quality. The industry is constantly evolving, with ongoing research and development driving advancements in vertical farming practices.

Overall, while the concept of growing plants vertically can be traced back further, the modern era of vertical farming began to take shape in the early 2000s with the work of Dickson Despommier and subsequent efforts by researchers, entrepreneurs, and companies to explore and develop this innovative farming approach.