Investigating the impact of air pollution and temperature changes on emergency admissions (cardiovascular + respiratory) disease in the city of Bojnord, northeastern Iran.

Cardiovascular (CVD) + Respiratory diseases are recognized as the main cause of death worldwide. Fluctuations in temperature and air pollution have been reported as one of the most important causes of cardiovascular & respiratory diseases. Therefore, in the current study, we assessed the relationship between ambient air temperature and pollution on the number of total emergency hospital admission due to cardiovascular and respiratory conditions in the City of Bojnord, northeastern Iran. The meteorological data, including daily temperature, relative humidity and concentrations of five air pollutants CO, NO2, NOX SO2, and PM10 were obtained from online electronic sensors at the Bojnurd meteorological station from 21th March 2018 to 20th March 2020. Statistical analysis, penalized distributed lag non-linear method was applied using R Software. Also, sensitivity analysis test was calculated by using appropriate application. The results of the study revealed that the effect of higher and lower temperatures was observed immediately from the first day and the second week, respectively. Also result showed with increase and decrease temperature, significantly increased the risk of hospitalization by 36% (RR, 1.36; 95% CI (1), 0.95 to 1.95) and 17% (RR, 1.17; 95% CI (1), 0.88 to 1.55) until the lag 25th day, respectively. Based on the results, increasing temperature significantly increased the hospitalization rate of cardiopulmonary patients, but the effect of cold was not significant on the population as well as age and gender subgroups. Study have also proved that there is no significance correlation between air pollutant and Cardiovascular & respiratory diseases.

A comparative study of response surface methodology and artificial neural network based algorithm genetic for modeling and optimization of EP/US/GAC oxidation process in dexamethasone degradation: Application for real wastewater, electrical energy consumption.

Dexamethasone (DXM) is a broadly used drug, which is frequently identified in the water environments due to its improper disposal and incomplete removal in wastewater treatment plant. The inability of conventional treatment processes of wastewater causes that researchers pay a great attention to study and develop effective wastewater treatment systems. This work deals with the study of integrated electro-peroxone/granular activated carbon (EP/US/GAC) process in the degradation of dexamethasone (DXM) from a water environment and the remediation of real pharmaceutical wastewater. Two approaches of response surface methodology based on central composite design (RSM-CCD) and artificial neural network based on algorithm genetic (ANN-GA) were employed for modeling and optimization of the process. Both the models presented significant adequacy for modeling and prediction of the process according to statistical linear and nonlinear metrics (R2 = 0.9998 and 0.9996 and RMSE = 0.2128 and 0.1784 for ANN-GA and RSM-CCD, respectively). The optimization study provided the same outcomes for both ANN-GA and RSM-CCD approaches, where approximately complete DEX oxidation was achieved at pH = 9.3, operating time = 10 min, US power = 300 W/L, applied current = 470 mA, and electrolyte concentration = 0.05 M. A synergistic study signified that the EP/US/GAC process made an 82% synergy index as compared to the individual US and EP processes. The calculated energy consumption for the integrated process was achieved to be 2.79 kW h/gCOD. Quenching test by tert-butanol and p-benzoquinone revealed that HO• radical possessed the largest contribution in DEX degradation. The efficiency of EP/US/GAC process in the remediation of real pharmaceutical wastewater showed a significant decline in COD content (92% removal after 180 min), and the ratio of initial BOD/COD ratio of 0.27 was elevated up to 0.7 after 100 min treatment time. The performance stability of EP/US/GAC system showed no remarkable drop in removal efficiency, and leakage of lead ions from the anode surface was negligible and below WHO guideline for drinking water. Generally, this research work manifested that the integrated EP/US/GAC system elevated the degradation efficiency and can be proposed as a pretreatment step before biological treatment processes for the remediation of recalcitrant wastewaters.

Socioeconomic inequalities in prevalence, awareness, treatment and control of hypertension: evidence from the PERSIAN cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Elevated blood pressure is associated with cardiovascular disease, stroke and chronic kidney disease. In this study, we examined the socioeconomic inequality and its related factors in prevalence, Awareness, Treatment and Control (ATC) of hypertension (HTN) in Iran. METHOD: The study used data from the recruitment phase of The Prospective Epidemiological Research Studies in IrAN (PERSIAN). A sample of 162,842 adults aged > = 35 years was analyzed. HTN was defined according to the Joint National Committee)JNC-7(. socioeconomic inequality was measured using concentration index (Cn) and curve. RESULTS: The mean age of participants was 49.38(SD = ± 9.14) years and 44.74% of the them were men. The prevalence of HTN in the total population was 22.3%(95% CI: 20.6%; 24.1%), and 18.8%(95% CI: 16.8%; 20.9%) and 25.2%(95% CI: 24.2%; 27.7%) in men and women, respectively. The percentage of awareness treatment and control among individuals with HTN were 77.5%(95% CI: 73.3%; 81.8%), 82.2%(95% CI: 70.2%; 81.6%) and 75.9%(95% CI: 70.2%; 81.6%), respectively. The Cn for prevalence of HTN was -0.084. Two factors, age (58.46%) and wealth (32.40%), contributed most to the socioeconomic inequality in the prevalence of HTN. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of HTN was higher among low-SES individuals, who also showed higher levels of awareness. However, treatment and control of HTN were more concentrated among those who had higher levels of SES, indicating that people at a higher risk of adverse event related to HTN (the low SES individuals) are not benefiting from the advantage of treatment and control of HTN. Such a gap between diagnosis (prevalence) and control (treatment and control) of HTN needs to be addressed by public health policymakers.

Simultaneous determination of organophosphorus pesticides residues in vegetable, fruit juice, and milk samples with magnetic dispersive micro solid-phase extraction and chromatographic method; recruitment of simplex lattice mixture design for optimization of novel sorbent composites.

Dispersive micro solid-phase extraction procedure using a novel and selective sorbent prepared from four components was developed as a sample preparation strategy for extracting five organophosphorus pesticides, including fenitrothion, malathion, ethion, and chlorpyrifos, and diazinon in several vegetables, fruit juices, and cow's milk samples. Due to the high importance of the sorbent in the microextraction process, the percentages of sorbent components, including metal-organic framework (ZIF-67), chitosan, magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles, and silica nanoparticles, were optimized by a simplex lattice mixture design. After optimizing the sorbent composite, effective parameters on the extraction of organophosphorus pesticides were optimized using a definitive screening design and Box-Behnken design, respectively. A surfactant (Triton X100) as a dispersion agent with a low volume (10 µL) was utilized in the microextraction procedure to reduce the sorbent dispersion time and increase the sorbent dispersion efficiency. Under the optimal conditions, linearity for the determination of fenitrothion, malathion, ethion, chlorpyrifos, and diazinon was in the concentration ranges of 0.13-1100, 0.27-1000, 0.38-1000, 0.21-1200, and 0.11-1100 ng mL-1 with a determination coefficient higher than 0.9906, respectively. The quantitation limits, detection limits, and relative standard deviations (n = 5) were lower than 0.38 ng mL-1, 0.11 ng mL-1, and 4.59% for the determination of organophosphorus pesticides. The method application for measuring OPPs on cucumber, carrot, tomato, apple juice, orange juice, and cow's milk indicated the presence of residual amounts of malathion in a cucumber sample, diazinon in a carrot sample, and chlorpyrifos in a tomato sample.

Synthesis of modified ZnO nanorods and investigation of its application for removal of phthalate from landfill leachate: A case study in Aradkouh landfill site.

In this study, zinc oxide nanorods, co-doped with iron and silver, were synthesized in a co-precipitation method. Its properties were determined using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Dynamic light scattering (DLS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis. The results of FE-SEM and TEM showed that zinc oxide nanoparticles synthesized and co-doped with iron and silver were formed as separate nanorods. Also, the average values of DBP and DEHP amount of phthalates in the leachate from the landfill site of Aradkouh were obtained 52.5 and 94.69 mg/L, respectively. The highest removal efficiency in real samples for phthalates was found to be 52%. The highest removal efficiency of TOC were was 61%. The synthesized nanostructure could have proper efficiency in removal of phthalates from water sources under the visible light of LED lamp.

Modified wheat straw-derived graphene for the removal of Eriochrome Black T: characterization, isotherm, and kinetic studies.

A cost-effective and environment-benign adsorbent was prepared from an abundant agro-waste material. Wheat straw was reduced to graphene and then modified by crosslinking to epichlorohydrin. During the conversion process of wheat straw to graphene, the specific surface area increased more than 100 times (from 4 to 415 m2 g-1). The adsorption efficiency of raw wheat straw, graphene nanosheets, and modified graphene against Eriochrome Black T (EBT) were 8.0, 34.7, and 74.4%, respectively. The modified graphene was further investigated for the effect of environmental condition, i.e., pH (3 to 11), EBT concentration (25-100 mg L-1), adsorbent dosage (0.25-0.75 g L-1), contact time (5-60 min), and solution temperature (30-60 °C). The dye removal remained at a high level under a wide range of pH from 3 to 9. The EBT removal decreased from 87.3 to 54.5 by increasing dye concentration and increased from 38.2 to 85.4% by increasing adsorbent dose in the studied ranges. Dye removal also increased by mixing time from 5 to 30 min, whereas a slight drop was observed by continuing agitation up to 60 min. Conducting experiments at various temperatures revealed an endothermic process. Pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order models were adequate to represent the adsorption kinetics. Isotherm models suggest a multilayer adsorption of EBT molecules on heterogeneous modified graphene surface with a maximum adsorption capacity of 146.2 mg g-1. The present work demonstrated that the modified graphene obtained from available and low-cost agro-wastes could be used effectively as adsorbent against EBT from aqueous media.

Synthesis and characterization of an NH4CL-induced Eskanbil activated carbon (EAC) for the removal of penicillin G from contaminated water.

Penicillin G (PG) is one of the most widely used antibiotics around the world. The release of PG in an aqueous solution leads to contamination of water resources. This study aimed to determine the efficiency of modified Eskanbil activated carbon for the removal of PG from aqueous solutions. The NH4Cl-induced activated carbon was synthesized by a simple method and used for the degradation of PG in contaminated water. Activated carbon was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis. The four main reaction parameters optimized in this study were pH, time, the concentration of the EAC (Eskanbil Activated Carbon), and initial PG concentration. The synthesized carbon was characterized and the results showed it as a mesoporous material with the BET specific surface area of 1473 m2/g and pore volume of 0.81 cm3/g. The maximum PG adsorption onto EAC was observed at the pH of 6. The PG removal of 33% at an EAC concentration of 0.1 g/L increased to 99.98% at an activated carbon concentration of 0.5 g/L. The isotherm and kinetic studies of PG removal by EAC showed that the Freundlich model (R2 > 0.995) and the pseudo-second-order (R2 > 0.983) equation represented the best fit with the adsorption data. EAC is recommended as a suitable and cost-efficient adsorbent for removing poisons, pharmaceuticals, and other emerging contaminants from water resources.

Non-Carcinogenic Health Risk Assessment due to Fluoride Exposure from Tea Consumption in Iran Using Monte Carlo Simulation.

Excessive intake of fluoride can cause adverse health effects. Consumption of tea as a popular drink could be a potential source of fluoride exposure to humans. This research aimed to evaluate the fluoride concentration in tea among the Iranian people using the available data in the literature and to assess the health risk related to the consumption of tea in men, women, and children. The health risk assessment was conducted using the chronic daily intake and hazard quotient according to the approach suggested by the Environmental Protection Agency. The fluoride content in published studies varied noticeably, ranging from 0.13 to 3.27 mg/L. The results revealed that the hazard quotient (HQ) in age groups of women (21-72 years) and children (0-11 years) was within the safe zone (HQ < 1) which showed that there was no potential of non-carcinogenic risk associated with drinking tea in these groups. However, in one case of the men (21-72 years), the HQ > 1 which shows a probable risk of fluorosis. The order of non-carcinogenic health risks in the studied groups was in the order of men > women > children. The results of this can be useful for organizations with the responsibility of human health promotion.

Estimate the effective dose of gamma radiation in Iran cities: lifetime cancer risk by Monte Carlo simulation model.

Background radiation can be different in both indoor and outdoor places. Background radiation is always in the environment, and all people in the community are constantly exposed to it. The most important source of exposure to gamma ray is natural radionuclides. Gamma rays can have harmful effects on the human body. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the health risk of gamma-ray exposure and to simulate using the Monte Carlo simulation. In this study, gamma-ray data were extracted from the studies carried out at intervals January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2018. Iranian and international databases were used to search for the articles. A total of 11 studies were found. To determine the health effects of gamma-ray radiation, the annual effective dose and excess lifetime cancer risk were calculated. To determine the uncertainty, a health risk assessment was conducted via Monte Carlo simulation. In outdoor, the mean, highest, and lowest absorbed dose of gamma ray were 117.82 nSv/h, 295.17 nSv/h, and 49 nSv/h, respectively. Ardabil Province and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province have the highest and lowest gamma ray concentrations, respectively. In indoor, the mean, highest, and lowest absorbed dose of gamma ray were 118.22 nSv/h, 141 nSv/h, and 60.2 nSv/h, respectively. The last column, the mean, maximum, and minimum of excess lifetime cancer risk values for gamma-ray radiation were 2.45E-3, 4.17E-3, and 4.61E-4, respectively.

ASSESSMENT OF INDOOR GAMMA RADIATION AND DETERMINATION OF EXCESS LIFETIME CANCER RISK IN TEHRAN IN WINTER AND SPRING 2017.

Natural radiation is a feature of the environment in which we live. One of the contributions of human exposure to ionizing radiation due to natural sources arises from gamma radiation. Therefore, present study was aimed to evaluate and map indoor gamma dose rate in Tehran. The corresponding annual effective dose (AED) and excess lifetime cancer risk (ELCR) were also calculated. All measurements were performed by a Geiger Muller detector in 43 dwellings in Tehran. The average indoor gamma dose rate in Tehran was appointed as 343.2 nGy/h. AED and ELCR were calculated as 2.4 mSv and 10.3 × 10-3, respectively. The evaluated indoor gamma dose rate and calculated AEDs and lifetime cancer risk were found higher than the world average value.

Measurement and monitoring of anions, cations and metals in landfill leachate in Iranian metropolises.

Leachate generation is a major problem for municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills and causes significant threat to surface and groundwater. Samples were collected from the landfills of Iranian metropolises (Ahwaz, Mashhad, Tehran (before and after treatment plant), Isfahan, Tabriz, Hamedan, Rasht, Sanandaj and Qazvin) based on the standard sampling methods and transferred to the laboratory. Cr, Cd, Hg, Pb, Ni, As, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Na, K, Zn, Al, Ba, Li, Sr, Ti and V were analyzed. The pH values for the ten leachate samples obtained from 4.57 to 8.95. The results showed the amount of some metals in Iranian landfill sites higher than the DOE standards for agricultural irrigation and surface water.