National Exposure Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Durham, North Carolina 27709, USA.
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830, USA.
Environ Sci Process Impacts. 2018 Mar 1;20(3):428-436. doi: 10.1039/c8em00018b. Epub 2018 Feb 21.
Advancements in measurement technologies and modeling capabilities continue to result in an abundance of exposure information, adding to that currently in existence. However, fragmentation within the exposure science community acts as an obstacle for realizing the vision set forth in the National Research Council's report on Exposure Science in the 21 century to consider exposures from source to dose, on multiple levels of integration, and to multiple stressors. The concept of an Aggregate Exposure Pathway (AEP) was proposed as a framework for organizing and integrating diverse exposure information that exists across numerous repositories and among multiple scientific fields. A workshop held in May 2016 followed introduction of the AEP concept, allowing members of the exposure science community to provide extensive evaluation and feedback regarding the framework's structure, key components, and applications. The current work briefly introduces topics discussed at the workshop and attempts to address key challenges involved in refining this framework. The resulting evolution in the AEP framework's features allows for facilitating acquisition, integration, organization, and transparent application and communication of exposure knowledge in a manner that is independent of its ultimate use, thereby enabling reuse of such information in many applications.
测量技术和建模能力的进步不断产生大量的暴露信息，这增加了目前已有的信息。然而，暴露科学领域内的碎片化现象成为实现国家研究委员会在 21 世纪暴露科学报告中提出的愿景的障碍，该愿景旨在考虑从源到剂量、在多个整合层次上以及多种应激源的暴露。综合暴露途径（AEP）的概念被提出作为一个框架，用于组织和整合存在于众多存储库和多个科学领域中的各种暴露信息。2016 年 5 月举行了一次研讨会，介绍了 AEP 概念，让暴露科学领域的成员有机会对框架的结构、关键组成部分和应用提供广泛的评估和反馈。目前的工作简要介绍了研讨会讨论的主题，并试图解决完善该框架所涉及的关键挑战。AEP 框架功能的演变使得以一种独立于最终用途的方式促进暴露知识的获取、整合、组织和透明应用和交流成为可能，从而使此类信息能够在许多应用中重复使用。
