CombiSimilarity, an innovative method to compare environmental and health data sets with different attribute sizes example: eighteen Organochlorine Pesticides in soil and human breast milk samples.
Human health and the health of the environment have entwined. In this paper we underpin this position by presenting a modeling approach named CombiSimilarity, which has been developed by the first author in the software tool PyHasse comprising a wide variety of partial ordering tools. A case study of 18 Organochlorine Pesticides (OCPs) detected in soil as well as in human breast milk samples in the Taurus Mountains in Turkey is carried out. Seven soil samples and 44 breast milk samples were measured. We seek to answer the question whether the contamination pattern in breast milk is associated with the contamination pattern in soil by studying the mutual quantitative relationships of the chemicals involved. We could demonstrate that there is a similarity with respect to the concentration profiles between the soil and breast milk pollution. Therefore the hypothesis may be formulated that the concentrations of chemicals in the milk samples are strongly related to the soil contamination. This supports the concept that soil could be a surrogate for human exposure at background locations.
Leibniz-Institute of Fresh Water Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, Germany. Electronic address: brg_home@web.de.
Rainer
R
Bruggemann
Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute of Computational Biology, Ingolstaedter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany.
Hagen
H
Scherb
Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Molecular EXposomics (MEX), Ingolstaedter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany; TUM, Wissenschaftszentrum Weihenstephan fuer Ernaehrung und Landnutzung, Department fuer Biowissenschaften, Weihenstephaner Steig 23, 85350 Freising, Germany.
Karl-Werner
KW
Schramm
Department of Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University, 06330 Ankara, Turkey.
Ismet
I
Cok
Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute of Computational Biology, Ingolstaedter Landstr. 1, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany.
Kristina
K
Voigt
D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D006843:Hydrocarbons, Chlorinated / Q000032:analysis*; D008895:Milk, Human / Q000737:chemistry*; D015233:Models, Statistical; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*; D012989:Soil Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*
D006843:Hydrocarbons, Chlorinated; D012987:Soil; D012989:Soil Pollutants
Environmental health; Organochlorine Pesticides (OCPs); Partial order; PyHasse software; Ranking; Turkey