Journal of Health Scope
Volume:3 Issue: 3, Aug 2014

Welding fumes consist of a wide range of complex metal component. Metals induced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchitis, metal fume fever, cancer, and functional changes in the lung. Since oxidative stress plays a role in this pathogenesis, it is characterized by airflow limitation.. This study focused on the anticipation of the oxidative stress biomarker in welders by assessing the amount of urinary metals and spirometry airflow index.. We measured malondialdehyde (MDA), as a biomarker of oxidative stress, in urine from20 manual metal arc welders of a petroleum tank making plant. For controls, we recruited 20 ministerial workers who were matched with welders. Urine content of chromium, cadmium, and lead as well as spirometry airflow parameters such as expiratory volumes were applied to partial least square regression (PLS) model for predicting oxidative stress biomarker.. The Results revealed that metal urine concentration in welders was higher than controls but only the difference in chromium concentration was significant (P < 0.002). In the range of metals exposure, induction of oxidative stress for exposed group was observed by increase in urine MDA (11.17 ± 4.23 and 4.83 ± 1.82 mM in welders and controls, respectively; P < 0.01). Information of the metals urine concentration and FEV1/FVC, FEF25%-75% of spirometry index were subjected to PLS analysis to predict oxidative stress biomarker. This model was capable of predicting the concentration of MDA with the regression of R2 = 0.91.. PLS predicts the oxidative stress biomarker with an acceptable sensitivity. According to our research, we can assess the level of oxidative stress as the sign of multi-metal toxicity by following the common biomonitoring assessment. This method could be useful for further engineering control procedures.

Detergents and difficulties of their presence in the water and wastewater cause various problems such as foam production, anomalies in the growth of algae, and accumulation and dispersion in aqueous environments.. The aim of this study was to examine and compare the moving bed biofilm reactor with another reactor without media (carries) for anionic surfactants removal.. In this study, the media was from the 2H Company with specific surface of 535 m2/m3 and the experiment reactor was made of a 4-mm plexiglass. The experiment was conducted by using two reactor, as one of them was without media, with exactly similar conditions to compare their operations. The standard method (MBAS) was used to measure the anionic surfactant. The concentrations of the examined anionic surfactant were 50, 100, 200, 300, and 400 mg/L in hydraulic retention times (HRTs) of 72, 24 and 8 hours.. The removal percentage for both reactors at 50 mg/L concentration of pollutant was same, but after gradually increasing the pollutant concentration and decreasing the HRT, the media-containing reactor had significant efficiency in comparison with the other one. The optimum condition in this experiment was obtained at HRT of about 24 hours and 200 mg/L pollutant concentration with 99.2% removal. Regarding the anionic surfactant standard in Iran which is 1.5 mg/L for surface water discharge, using this process is suitable for treating municipal wastewater and industrial wastewater, containing 100-200 mg/L pollutant. However, for the industries that produce detergents, discharging more than 200 mg/L surfactants to the wastewater, using supplementary treatments for achieving the discharge standard are required.

One of the most important indicators of any society development is its health status and one of the most substantial issues in the field of community health status is its access to essential drugs so that the timely and adequate provision of essential drugs is one of the components of primary health care (PHC) principles.. This research aimed to study the influence of various factors such as drug price index, inflation rate, income, the number of physicians, etc. on the drug demand and consumption for Iranian urban households based on households'' budget during 1990-2010..Patients and This research was a descriptive-analytical study which, used time-series data econometrics method to examine the relationships between the costs of drug consumption in urban households with variables such as drug price index, inflation rate, income, and tariff of the Medical staff visits. In addition, ADF test was used to show that whether variables were stationary or not. Furthermore, the OLS technique was employed to estimate the drug demand function using Eviews7 and STATA 11 software.. The results showed that the estimated effects of sub-specialist visits tariff and general physician visits tariff on the drug demand were positive but not significant (P > 0.05) and urban households'' income and drug price index had positive and significant effects on the drug demand (P < 0.05).. Based on the results of this research, it seems that allocating public resources in the form of providing health insurance or government subsidies can decline financial burden of drugs on patients.

A popular dieting guide for the weight loss is the negative-calorie diet; even so, there is still little knowledge about this method.. The present study aimed to determine the effects of negative-calorie diet supplemented with exercise, on the weight loss and lipid profile, and to compare its efficiency with low-calorie diet with exercise among middle-aged overweight women..Patients and This was a randomized study (the CONSORT statement) carried out at Ukrainian Center of Sports Medicine (Kiev-2012). Participants (n = 66) included sedentary overweight or obese women (age 45-64 years). They were randomly divided into two groups: negative calorie diet with exercise, and low-calorie diet with exercise. Out of all 66 participants, 60 persons completed the study period (three months). The weight parameters, including change in weight and body composition, and blood sample tests were assessed pre- and post-intervention for all subjects and compared to each other. P 0.05 was considered significant. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS (version 19.0 for windows).. All parameters changed significantly in both groups. Reduction in total cholesterol (P 0.05) and LDL-cholesterol (P 0.05) as well as raising HDL-cholesterol level (P 0.002) were different between the two groups. Decline of the total cholesterol to HDL-cholesterol ratio was similar in both groups.. It seems that the concept of negative-calorie lacks any validity and application. Contrary to expectation, efficacy of both weight-loss diets was the same.

Sewage sludge (Biosolids) is a byproduct of wastewater treatment that accumulates in large quantities. Effective stabilization and disinfection of sewage sludge prior to land application are necessary to not only protect human health, but also to induce the public its benefits and safety. Currently, many wastewater treatment plants in Iran dispose great amounts of untreated sewage sludge to the environment.. The purpose of this work was to upgrade wastewater treatment plants by lime stabilization of waste sludge.. Lime stabilization of waste sludge from Shoosh wastewater treatment plant was performed in a 10-L reactor. Microbial quality of lime-stabilized sludge was checked for 6 weeks in the reactor. During this stage, pH, FC (fecal coliforms) and viable helminthes ova density were determined and compared with sludge stabilized criteria suggested by USEPA.. Average number of fecal coliforms and viable helminthes ova in waste sludge were 1.65 × 1012 MPN/g of dry solids (DS) and 353 ova/4 g of dry solids, respectively..1.8. The results of this study showed that sewage sludge stabilization with hydrated lime reduced fecal coliforms more than 99.99% and also stabilized sludge covered standards of class B of USEPA criteria.

Contamination of water resources with nitrate is a serious environmental problem in many regions of the world. In addition, this problem has been observed in some regions of Iran. As Nitrate is threatening for human health and environment, it must be decreased to standard levels in drinking water. The purpose of this research was to model the nitrate removal from water by nano-scaled zero-valent iron (nZVI) using response surface methodology and to investigate the effects of the nZVI dose, nitrate concentration, contact time, and ionic strength on removal efficiency. Box-Behnken design was used. Response surface methodology was used for modeling nitrate removal. All experiments were conducted according to standard methods. Important assessed parameters included nZVI dose (0.5-2 g/L), nitrate concentration (50-150 mg/L), contact time (15-60 minutes), and ionic strength (1000-5000 μmho/cm). Results indicated that there was a direct association between nitrate removal efficiency and time and nZVI dosage. Therefore, increasing of the contact time or nZVI dose would increase nitrate removal. On the other hand, the nitrate removal was decreased when ionic strength and initial concentration were increased. The analysis of variance revealed that the proposed regression model could be appropriately used to design experiments. The model correlation coefficient was 0.9992 and the adjusted value was 0.9982. Response surface methodology and Box-Behnken design were powerful statistical tools for navigating nitrate reduction process. The results showed that a high percentage of nitrate were reduced by nZVI and this method might be efficiently used for nitrate removal from water.

The presence of nitrate and its intermediates are considered undesirable compounds in the environment. Various methods have been proposed to remove nitrate from wastewater and water streams.. In this study, we investigated removal of nitrate from an aqueous solution by the process of electrocoagulation, using aluminum/graphite as the anode/cathode electrodes.. We applied response surface methodology (RSM) as the statistical method for modeling, and optimizing the applied variables. All experiments were performed according to the standard methods for the examination of water and wastewater. To prepare the optimum condition, we considered the following amount of compounds and conditions: NaCl, 1 g/L; nitrate concentration range, 50-200 mg/L; applied electric current range, 0.05-0.2 A; anode, aluminum; cathode, graphite; and detention time: 120 minutes.. The results showed that by applying electric current of 0.14 A for 120 minutes, the nitrate content would reduce down to 97%. The obtained R2 for the nitrate removal model was higher than 0.99. With regard to supporting electrolytes, more nitrate reduction is obtained with NaCl. The oxidation reduction potential (ORP) was changed from 220 to -375 mV and this range is suitable for denitrification and nitrate reduction.. The results of this study show that it is possible to remove nitrate, and its intermediates from waste water. Regarding the desirability of the process, the field scale study is proposed.

Around 30% of suicides are committed by burning. The problem of self-immolation remains a crisis even after population based interventions and still a considerable proportion of admissions of burn ward is belonged to suicide cases.. This study was designed to present the epidemiologic profile of these patients and compare completed self-immolation and attempted ones..Patients and All patients with self-immolation admitted to the burn ward of Imam Khomeini Hospital of Kermanshah were entered. The study period was from 20th March 2011 to 21th March 2012. A trained person was responsible to fill the forms by asking victims or their families. Multiple logistic regressions was applied to identify mortality risk and protective factors. Chi-squared test was used to compare attempted cases with complete ones.. In total, 164 cases of self-immolation were admitted (30% of total admission to the burn center). One-hundred and forty-two were female and the median age was 25 (IQR: 21-36). The most common used substance for burning was kerosene (85%). The commonest motive of self-immolation was sadness, followed by conflict with spouse. Overall mortality rate was 38.1%. TBSA was the most important determinant of death when adjusted for age and sex. Odds ratio of death was increased by 3 percent for each percent increase of TBSA (P < 0.0001). There were no statistically significant differences between the attempted cases and completed ones except for TBSA, which was higher among completed cases (P < 0.0001).. Suicide is a tragic way to end life. As the most common motive was sadness, it is recommended to implement mental health programs and educate problem-solving skills to population, particularly young housekeeper girls..

Aromatic organic solvents are extensively used in various industries. Xylene is a colorless, transparent liquid, with the characteristic odor of the aromatic hydrocarbons family, which is widely used in industries. Adsorption is a conventional method of purifying polluted air containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Zeolite has many unique properties such as high capacity, molecular sieve characteristics, nonflammability, thermal stability, and strong acid sites. Moreover, it is reconstructed at low temperatures.. In this study, we investigated the effect of various parameters on the adsorption capacity of natural zeolite (clinoptilolite) for xylene adsorption.. Physical and chemical properties of natural zeolites were tested by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and elemental analyses of natural zeolites were characterized by X-ray diffraction. Xylene concentration was measured at various times through concentrations-measured valve before and after the adsorbent bed reactor by the direct reading of Phocheck (Ion Science Ltd, UK).. Experimental results showed that clinoptilolite is a potential sorbent for xylene in the range of ppm, and the breakthrough time would be reduced by increasing the concentration. The optimal temperature of xylene adsorption on natural zeolite was 35℃ and by increasing the temperature, the absorption efficiency of clinoptilolite was declined. The results showed that the breakthrough time and the exhaustion point time at the optimal conditions are 65 and 95 minutes, respectively. Adsorption capacity of clinoptilolite was obtained as 1.69 mg xylene/g zeolite.. Experimental results showed that clinoptilolite is a potential sorbent for xylene in the range of ppm and the breakthrough time was reduced by increasing the concentration. Adsorption rate were increased by increasing concentration of xylene. Presence of xylene molecules in high concentration enhances their transfer and contact with adsorbent; as a result, by increasing gas concentration, breakthrough time in zeolite will be shorter.