Kmeriol

25337994

Farming and pesticide use have previously been linked to non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and multiple myeloma (MM). We evaluated agricultural use of specific insecticides, fungicides, and fumigants and risk of NHL and NHL-subtypes (including CLL and MM) in a U.S.-based prospective cohort of farmers and commercial pesticide applicators. A total of 523 cases occurred among 54,306 pesticide applicators from enrollment (1993-97) through December 31, 2011 in Iowa, and December 31, 2010 in North Carolina. Information on pesticide use, other agricultural exposures and other factors was obtained from questionnaires at enrollment and at follow-up approximately five years later (1999-2005). Information from questionnaires, monitoring, and the literature were used to create lifetime-days and intensity-weighted lifetime days of pesticide use, taking into account exposure-modifying factors. Poisson and polytomous models were used to calculate relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) to evaluate associations between 26 pesticides and NHL and five NHL-subtypes, while adjusting for potential confounding factors. For total NHL, statistically significant positive exposure-response trends were seen with lindane and DDT. Terbufos was associated with total NHL in ever/never comparisons only. In subtype analyses, terbufos and DDT were associated with small cell lymphoma/chronic lymphocytic leukemia/marginal cell lymphoma, lindane and diazinon with follicular lymphoma, and permethrin with MM. However, tests of homogeneity did not show significant differences in exposure-response among NHL-subtypes for any pesticide. Because 26 pesticides were evaluated for their association with NHL and its subtypes, some chance finding could have occurred. Our results showed pesticides from different chemical and functional classes were associated with an excess risk of NHL and NHL subtypes, but not all members of any single class of pesticides were associated with an elevated risk of NHL or NHL subtypes. These findings are among the first to suggest links between DDT, lindane, permethrin, diazinon and terbufos with NHL subtypes.

Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Risk and Insecticide, Fungicide and Fumigant Use in the Agricultural Health Study

Michael C. R. Alavanja, 1 , * Jonathan N. Hofmann, 1 Charles F. Lynch, 2 Cynthia J. Hines, 3 Kathryn H. Barry, 1 Joseph Barker, 4 Dennis W. Buckman, 4 Kent Thomas, 5 Dale P. Sandler, 6 Jane A. Hoppin, 6 Stella Koutros, 1 Gabriella Andreotti, 1 Jay H. Lubin, 1 Aaron Blair, 1 and Laura E. Beane Freeman 1 Suminori Akiba, Editor

2014

27713752

Crop diseases are a major threat to food security, but their rapid identification remains difficult in many parts of the world due to the lack of the necessary infrastructure. The combination of increasing global smartphone penetration and recent advances in computer vision made possible by deep learning has paved the way for smartphone-assisted disease diagnosis. Using a public dataset of 54,306 images of diseased and healthy plant leaves collected under controlled conditions, we train a deep convolutional neural network to identify 14 crop species and 26 diseases (or absence thereof). The trained model achieves an accuracy of 99.35% on a held-out test set, demonstrating the feasibility of this approach. Overall, the approach of training deep learning models on increasingly large and publicly available image datasets presents a clear path toward smartphone-assisted crop disease diagnosis on a massive global scale.

crop diseases, machine learning, deep learning, digital epidemiology

Using Deep Learning for Image-Based Plant Disease Detection

Sharada P. Mohanty,1,2,3 David P. Hughes,4,5,6 and Marcel Salathe1,2,3,*

2016;