Iranian Journal of Health Sciences
Volume:3 Issue: 1, Winter 2015

Background and Recently, release of pollutants such as heavy metal ions to the environment becomes one of the most important problems for soil and water. The present study was conducted to introduce modified rice husk (RH) as a new low-cost adsorbent. In this study, tartaric acid modified RH (TARH), was used as an adsorbent for removal of Ni(II) and Cd(II) from water samples. This study was conducted in laboratory scale. Employing batch method, solution pH, adsorbent dose, contact time, and initial metals concentration were optimized. The optimum pH for removing of both the investigated metal ions from water solutions was found to be 4.0. The process of Ni(II) and Cd(II) adsorption on TARH reached equilibrium within 45 min. The isotherm evaluations revealed that the Langmuir model attained better fits of the experimental equilibrium data than the Freundlich model. In addition, adsorption kinetics data were well-fitted by the pseudo-second-order rate model with high regression coefficients. It was found that TARH is a highly efficient adsorbent for Ni and Cd from aqueous solution, and the maximum predicted adsorption capacities for Ni(II) and Cd(II) were obtained as 55.5 and 45.5 mg/g, respectively.

Background and According to the reported problems in area of the inappropriateness of water quality which used for washing and staining of car apparatuses in a car factory, this research was carried out for identification of physical, chemical, and microbiological characteristics of the consumed water in Babol car factory, Iran. Physical and chemical parameters of water such as total solids, total dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity, pH, electrical conductivity, total alkalinity, total hardness (TH), cations (Ca2+, Mg2+, Fe2+, Mn2+, Zn2+), and anions (SO42−, Cl−, NO3−) were analyzed based on standard methods for examination of water and wastewater. The samples were taken from five units and were precipitated and plated on Sabouraud dextrose agar supplemented with chloramphenicol and blood agar and eosin methylene blue media. TDS, turbidity, pH, TH and ammonium ion were 402 mg/L, 10 NTU, 7.8, 208 mg/L and 0.04 mg/L, respectively. Ten genera of fungal colonies were isolated from these units, which from them yeast; Penicillium and Cladosporium were the most prevalent. Five genera of bacteria were isolated from these samples. Entrobacteriaceae, Pseudomonas, and Bacillus were the most prevalent bacteria in water. Water quality in the activation and fixation units were the most contaminated with fungi and bacteria, respectively. Some of these units were without fungal and bacterial contaminations. The fungal and bacterial contaminations can be changed the quality of consumed water in the different processes such as color and turbidity. Thus, we need to use some water

Background and Determination of heavy metals in oils is necessary to establish quality standards on a country level. This study aimed to determine of heavy metal contents (Cr, Ni, As, Cd, Hg, Pb, Sb, Sn, Sr, Al) in 12 seed oil samples in Iran by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The concentrations of heavy metal were determined by wet acid digestion methods with nitric acid (65%) and 4 ml peroxide hydrogenate on same samples using ICP-OES. Results showed that the average of most important toxic metals detected in apricot oil samples was as follows; 721.72 μg/kg for Al 15 μg/kg for Cd, 18 μg/kg for Pb, 14 μg/kg for As and <1 μg/kg for Hg. Furthermore, The average of heavy metals detected in almond oil samples were as follows; 1019.73 μg/kg for Al, 10 μg/kg for Cd, 21 μg/kg for Pb and 11 μg/kg for As and <1 μg/kg for Hg. Also in the studied samples, Al was the highest concentrations among all metals. Most of the samples of oils were found to be contaminated with notable amounts of toxic metals which could be a threat to oil quality and human health.

Background and Eutrophication is one of the major environmental problems in waterways causing substantial adverse impact on domestic, livestock and recreational use of water resources. Aras Dam, Iran which provides Arasful city with drinking water, has chronic algal blooms since 1990. Levels of up to 900,000 cells/mL of toxic cyanobacteria (mainly Anabaena and Microcystis) have been recorded in the dam. In this study, artificial neural network (ANN) model was investigated to predict the chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration in water of dam reservoir. Water samples were collected from 5 stations and analyzed for physical quality parameters including; water temperature, total suspended solids, biochemical oxygen demands, orthophosphate, total phosphorous and nitrate concentrations using standard methods. Chl-a was also measured separately in order to investigate the accuracy of the predicted results by ANN. The results showed that a network was highly accurate in predicting the Chl-a concentration. The mean squared error and coefficient of correlation (R2) between experimental data and model outputs were calculated. A good agreement between actual data and the ANN outputs for training was observed, indicating the validation of testing data sets. The initial results of the research indicate that the dam is enriched with nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) and is on the verge of being eutrophic. The Chl-a concentration that was predicted by the model was beyond the standard levels; indication the possibility of eutrophication especially during fall season.

Background and Textile effluents are very difficult to treat satisfactorily due to high variations in their compositions. Strong color is one of the main characteristics of textile effluent and, if not eliminated, it can cause serious problems to the environment. In the present study, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were used as an adsorbent for the removal of Reactive Red-120 (RR-120) textile dye from aqueous solutions. The influence of key parameters including pH (2-12), concentration of dye (10 to 200 mg/L), contact time (30-270 min), adsorbent dosage (0.01-0.07 g/L) have been investigated in order to find the optimum adsorption conditions (sample size = 48). Optimum pH for removing of RR-120 dye was found to be 5 and for this condition maximum adsorption capacity was obtained as 3453.4 mg/g. Experimental results have shown that by increasing the adsorbent dosage, the rate of dye removal was increased, but the amount of adsorbed dyes per mass unit of MWCNTs was declined. It was found that the data fitted to Langmuir better than BET and Freundlich model. Results suggest the potential of using the MWCNTs as an adsorbent for effective treatment of dye-contaminated wastewaters.

Background and Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is the most common metabolic disorder in pregnancy. It was known one of the complications of this period. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between some risk factors with GDM in pregnant women in Zahedan, Iran. In a descriptive-analytical study, 70 pregnant women with GDM and 140 healthy pregnant women were selected referring to health and treatment centers in Zahedan by multistage sampling method. Weight and height were measured, and body mass index (BMI) was calculated using standard method. Other data were recorded by clinical examination, health record of anybody and interview in health centers. SPSS for Windows was used for statistical analysis. ttest and Chi-square test were used for comparison of two groups. P < 0.0500 was considered as a significant difference between groups. As compared to controls the prevalence of GDM was more common in pregnant women who were older (P = 0.0001), high BMI (P = 0.0020), and more parity (P = 0. 0200), family history of diabetes (P = 0.0001) and macrosomia (P = 0.0100). There was significant difference between GDM with age (P = 0.0080), BMI (P = 0.0020), family history of diabetes (P = 0.0001), history of macrosomic infant’s birth (P = 0.0300). But it was not observed significant differences between GDM with smoking, history of hypertension, abortions, stillbirth, and preeclampsia. This study emphasizes to do GDM screening in the population of this area. It can be determined risk factors of GDM as moderate and severe status. Because; GDM during pregnancy is associated with adverse outcomes.

Background and Overweight and obesity are the health problem in adolescents and the main purpose of this study was to evaluate this problem and some socio-demographicrelated factors among two ethnic groups in Iranian northern primary school children in 2010. This was a descriptive and cross-sectional study that performed on 4165 students (Turkman = 2852and Sisstani = 1313) from 112 schools in urban and rural area. The schools and students were chosen by cluster nad random sampling, respectively. Data collected by questioner which contain, questions on the social-economical condition of school children specially ethnicity, gender, location area, and economic status, for all samples through interview. Overweight and obesity classified based on the body mass index (BMI) cut off points of Centers for Disease Control values (in excess of the 85th and 95th percentiles, respectively). Spss.win16 software was used for analysis. Linear regression analyzes revealed that weight, height, and BMI increase 2.70 kg, 4.62 cm and 0.42 kg in boys (P < 0.001) and 3.12 kg, 5.19 cm and 0.52 kg in girls (P < 0.001) every year, respectively. In total, overweight was common in 8.4% and obesity was common in 11.9% of students and they were statistically significant among two ethnic groups (P = 0.001) so, in Turkman group (14.1%) is more than in Sisstanish ethnic group (10.6%). As a result of logistic regression analyzes, the risk of overweight and obesity was 1.847 (1.546-2.208, confidence interval [CI] 95%) in Turkman group compared to Sisstanish ethnic group and it was 2.297 (1.911-2.761, CI 95%) in good economic group compared to poor economic group. Totally, one to seven of schoolchildren suffer from obesity and overweight and they were in Turkman ethnic group more than in Sisstanish ethnic groups. The important public health training about obesity for children especially in the urban area and high-income families emphasizes in this study.

Background and Satisfaction with marital life is the most important issue in the joint life, which has the greatest effect on durability and failure of couple’s lives. Based on this, the main goal of the present research is to study the effectiveness of teaching intervention based on internal locus of control in increasing marital adjustment and satisfaction has been investigated. The research design was pre- and post-test with control group. Statistical population of this research includes 100 married students of Farhangian University of Babol, Iran. To determine the sample, initially 100 questionnaires of Rotter’s locus of control and Spanier’s marital adjustment were distributed among the married students. Among this population, 42 couples both had external locus of control and suffered marital maladjustment, 20 couples were selected by simple randomized method and were placed into two experimental and control groups, such that 10 couples were placed in the experimental group and 10 couples were placed in control group. Data were analyzed using the independent t-test method. Research results showed that, since effectiveness of training communicational skills based on internal locus of control on increasing marital attachment of couples was calculated t-value (t = 6.04) and (t= 4.71) for women and men, respectively with degree of freedom of 19 is bigger than t-value in the table (t = 2.53); therefore, null hypothesis is rejected and with confidence degree of 99%. Teaching intervention based on internal control can be used as one of the intervention models for couples who suffer from marital dissatisfaction and think of divorce.