Evaluation of heavy metals in cosmetic products and their health risk assessment.

Heavy metals' contamination in cosmetic products is a serious threat. Present study was conducted to evaluate the concentrations of heavy metals (HMs) in various brands of cosmetic products with special emphasis on their health risk assessment. Five heavy metals including Cd, Cr, Fe, Ni and Pb were quantified in different brands of lotions, foundations, whitening creams, lipsticks, hair dyes and sunblock creams using atomic absorption spectrometry. Risk to the consumer's health was determined using systemic exposure dosage (SED), margin of safety (MoS), hazard quotient (HQ), hazard index (HI) and lifetime cancer risk (LCR). On comparative basis, different brands of sunblock creams depicted highest concentration of Ni, Pb and Cr (7.99 ± 0.36, 6.37 ± 0.05 and 0.43 ± 0.01 mg/kg, respectively), whereas lipsticks had elevated levels of Fe at 12.0 ± 1.8 mg/kg, and Cd was maximum in lotions (0.26 ± 0.02 mg/kg). Multivariate analysis revealed strong associations among Cr, Ni and Pb, while Cd and Fe showed disparity in distribution and sources of contamination. MoS, HQ and HI values were within the permissible limit apart from for lotions and sunblock creams, while LCR value was higher than the permissible limit in all cosmetic products except lipsticks. Regular use of these products can cause serious threat to human health, particularly skin cancer on long time exposure. Therefore, continuous monitoring of cosmetic products, particularly with reference to HMs adulteration should be adopted to ensure the human safety and security.

Unsteady hybrid-nanofluid flow comprising ferrousoxide and CNTs through porous horizontal channel with dilating/squeezing walls.

The key objective of the present research is to examine the hybrid magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) nanofluid (Carbon-nanotubes and ferrous oxide-water) CNT-Fe3O4/H2 flow into a horizontal parallel channel with thermal radiation through squeezing and dilating porous walls. The parting motion is triggered by the porous walls of the channel. The fluid flow is time-dependent and laminar. The channel is asymmetric and the upper and lower walls are distinct in temperature and are porous. With the combination of nanoparticles of Fe3O4 and single and multi-wall carbon nanotubes, the hybrid nanofluid principle is exploited. By using the similarity transformation, the set of partial differential equations (PDEs) of this mathematical model, governed by momentum and energy equations, is reduced to corresponding ordinary differential equations (ODEs). A very simple numerical approach called the Runge-Kutta system of order four along with the shooting technique is used to achieve the solutions for regulating ODEs. MATLAB computing software is used to create temperature and velocity profile graphs for various emerging parameters. At the end of the manuscript, the main conclusions are summarized. Through different graphs, it is observed that hybrid-nanofluid has more prominent thermal enhancement than simple nanofluid. Further, the single-wall nanotubes have dominated impact on temperature than the multi-wall carbon nanotubes. From the calculations, it is also noted that Fe2O3-MWCNT-water has an average of 4.84% more rate of heat transfer than the Fe2O3-SWCNT-water. On the other hand, 8.27% more heat flow observed in Fe2O3-SWCNT-water than the simple nanofluid. Such study is very important in coolant circulation, inter-body fluid transportation, aerospace engineering, and industrial cleaning procedures, etc.

An ethnobotanical study of wetland flora of Head Maralla Punjab Pakistan.

BACKGROUND: Wetlands are biologically diverse and highly productive ecosystems that support one-third of all threatened and endangered plants of the world. Wetland plants have been studied ethnobotanically much less than terrestrial plants, including in Pakistan, thus information about the uses of local wetland plants in traditional healthcare system is scare. Head Maralla is a non-recognized wetland with diversified flora that has been focused of the current study. METHODS: The ethnobotanical data were collected from four sites viz., River Tavi, Upstream Chenab, River Manawarwala Tavi, and Bhalolpur through questionnaire and interviews during field trips. Quantitative indices including informant consensus factor (ICF), cultural significant indext (CSI), relative frequency of citation (RFC), and use value (UV) were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: On the whole, 119 plant species were identified belonging to 54 families, of which 87 species were dicot, 12 monocots, 11 aquatic, 5 ferns, and 4 species were bryophytes. Of these, 50% of the plant species were utilized for therapeutic purposes, followed by leaves which had more than 20% usage of total consumption. Herbs were the primary source of medicine (73 spp) followed by trees (22 spp), weeds (11 spp), shrubs (9 spp), foliose (2 spp) and thaloids (2 spp) in the area. Fic ranged from 0.66 to 0.93 for constipation and respiratory disorders with an average Fic of 0.87 reflecting a high consensus among the informants about the use of plants to treat particular ailment. Major ailments viz., urination (14%), cough (8.40%), cold (6.70%), stomach (5.90%), asthma (5.90%), skin infection (5%), constipation (5%), and diarrhea (4%) etc., were treated with local plant recipes. The highest CSI value was found for A. vesica (7.55) widely used in respiratory disorders and in digestive problems. RFC ranged from 0.92 to 0.15 with the maximum value obtained for R. communis (0.95). The use values ranged from 0.03 to 0.90 with the maximum use value for R. communis (0.90). A positive correlation was found between CSI and RFC (r = 0.29), and CSI and UV (r = 0.29). The JI values ranged from 7.14 to 0.14 indicating strong affinity with Samahani valley, Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. Unique species Osmunda regalis was first time reported from Pakistan with novel uses for renal and blood purifier. Fifteen percent (15%) plants contribute as fodder species consumed by local community for livestock while almost 6.7% species were utilized for timber and fuel purposes. CONCLUSION: The ecosystem of Head Maralla provide a complex habitat for aqauatic, terrestrial, and agriculture wetland vegetation. It is suggested that conservation efforts should be made to conserve the ethnoecological knowledge of these areas and pharmacological studies should be conducted for noval drug synthesis in future.