Similarities of Environmental Health Data of Persistent Organic Pollutants in three Countries Analyzed by the PyHasse Software

Chemicals, such as Persistent Organic Pollutants (P OPs), introduced into the environment by human acti vity may disrupt the endocrine system of animals including f sh and wildlife as well as humans and produce adve rse ffects because of the crucial role hormones play in contro lling development. POPs are detected worldwide. In order to evaluate the data on numerous studies on POPs sound mathematical and statistical data evaluation metho ds are needed. The data analysis method demonstrated in this p aper, is based on the theory of partially ordered s ets and provides a generalized ranking. Partial order is a disciplin e of Discrete Mathematics and one may consider part ial o der as an example of mathematics without arithmetic. The data an lysis is performed with the free available soft ware package PyHasse, written by the second author, which provid es apart from the calculation of Hasse diagrams man y features, such as for example the similarity analysis applied in this paper. Studies on POPs were performed in Denmark (1997-200 1) and Finland (1997-1999) as well as in Turkey in 2010. In our data analysis approach we investigated data set s of breast milk samples of women in Denmark and Fi land which contained detectable levels of 20 Persistent Organi c Pollutants (POPs). These results have already bee n published by Voigt et al, 2010. In a study performed in the Taur us Mountains area in Turkey the same 20 POPs were d etected in breast milk samples. The question arises whether th e above mentioned methodology of partial orders can find differences or similarities among these countries. Applying the sub-routine Similarity of the PyHasse software the similarities between data sets can be identified. The combinations are for the similarity analyses: Turke y with Denmark, Turkey with Finland, and Denmark wi th Finland. In the similarity analysis different types of relat ions are distinguished which quantify the similarit ies of the two compared data sets. The highest degree of similarity c an be found comparing Denmark with Finland. However , there is also some similarity regarding Turkey – Denmark and Turkey – Finland. This means that the breast milk samples in all three countries are similarly contaminated with respect to their quality the 20 POPs looked upon. 1 Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen, German Research Center f or Environmental Health, Institute of Biomathematics and Biometry, Ingolstaedt er Landstr.1, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany, kvoigt@hel m o tzmuenchen.de 2 Leibniz-Institute of Fresh Water Ecology and Inlan d Fisheries, Berlin, Germany, 3 Department of Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Gaz i University, 06330, Ankara, Turkey 4 Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences and Let ters, University of Mersin, Turkey 5 Faculty of Agriculture, Adnan Menderes University, 09100 Aydin, Turkey 6 Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Institute of Ecological Chemis try, Ingolstädter Landstrasse 1, 85764 Neuherberg, Germany 7 TUM, Wissenschaftszentrum Weihenstephan fuer Ernae hrung und Landnutzung, Department fuer Biowissenscha ften, Weihenstephaner Steig 23, 85350 Freising, Germany EnviroInfo 2011: Innovations in Sharing Environmental Observations and Information Copyright 2011 Shaker Verlag Aachen, ISBN: 978-3-8440-0451-9