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Exposure of infants to chemicals during their development will have major effects on their health. One of the major exposures of infants to chemicals is through their food. The main structure of infant food is milk, which is high in fat. There is a possibility of accumulation of environmental pollution, including benzo (a) pyrene (BaP). In this systematic review, the amount of BaP in infant milk was surveyed for this purpose. The chosen keywords were: benzo (a) pyrene, BaP, Infant formula, dried milk, powdered milk, and baby food. A total of 46 manuscripts were found in the scientific database. After initial screening and quality assessment, 12 articles were selected for extraction of data. By meta-analysis, the total estimate of BaP in baby food was calculated to be 0.078 ± 0.006 μg/kg. Estimation of daily intake (EDI) and Hazard Quotient (HQ) for noncarcinogenic risk and Margin of exposure (MOE) for carcinogenic risk were also calculated for three age groups 0–6 months, 6–12 months, and 1–3 years. HQ was lower than 1 and MOE was more than 10,000 for three age groups. Therefore, there is no potential carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risk for infant health.

The contamination of water due to heavy metals (HMs) is a big concern for humankind; particularly in developing countries. This research is a systematic review, conducted by searching google scholar, Web of Science, Science Direct, PubMed, Springer, and Scopus databases for related published papers from 2010 to July 2021, resulting in including 40 articles. Among the analyzed HMs in the presented review, the average content of Cr, Pb, Ba, Al, As, Zn, and Cd exceeded the permissible limits suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) and 1,053 Iranian standards. Also, the rank order of Hazard Quotient (HQ) of HMs was defined as Cd>As>Cr>Pb>Li for children which means Cd has the highest non-carcinogenic risk and Li has the least. This verifies to the current order As>Cr>Pb>Fe=Zn=Cu>Cd for adults. The corresponded values of HQ and Hazard Index (HI) in most cities and villages were investigated and the results indicated a lower than 1 value, which means consumers are not at non-carcinogenic risk (HQ). Carcinogenic risk (CR) of As in the adult and children consumers in most of the samples (58.82% of samples for both groups) were investigated too, and it was more than>1.00E-04 value, which determines that consumers are at significant CR.

This article surveys recent progress and discusses future opportunities for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) in extreme underground environments. SLAM in subterranean environments, from tunnels, caves, and man-made underground structures on Earth, to lava tubes on Mars, is a key enabler for a range of applications, such as planetary exploration, search and rescue, disaster response, and automated mining, among others. SLAM in underground environments has recently received substantial attention, thanks to the DARPA Subterranean (SubT) Challenge, a global robotics competition aimed at assessing and pushing the state of the art in autonomous robotic exploration and mapping in complex underground environments. This article reports on the state of the art in underground SLAM by discussing different SLAM strategies and results across six teams that participated in the three-year-long SubT competition. In particular, the article has four main goals. First, we review the algorithms, architectures, and systems adopted by the teams; particular emphasis is put on light detection and ranging (LIDAR)-centric SLAM solutions (the go-to approach for virtually all teams in the competition), heterogeneous multirobot operation (including both aerial and ground robots), and real-world underground operation (from the presence of obscurants to the need to handle tight computational constraints). We do not shy away from discussing the “dirty details” behind the different SubT SLAM systems, which are often omitted from technical papers. Second, we discuss the maturity of the field by highlighting what is possible with the current SLAM systems and what we believe is within reach with some good systems engineering. Third, we outline what we believe are fundamental open problems, which are likely to require further research to break through. Finally, we provide a list of open-source SLAM implementations and datasets that have been produced during the SubT challenge and related efforts and constitute a useful resource for researchers and practitioners.

A new belief space planning algorithm, called covariance steering belief roadmap (CS-BRM), is introduced, analyzed, and numerically and experimentally tested. CS-BRM is a multiquery algorithm for motion planning for dynamical systems under simultaneous motion and observation uncertainties. CS-BRM extends the probabilistic roadmap approach to belief spaces based on the recently developed theory of covariance steering (CS) that enables guaranteed satisfaction of terminal belief constraints in finite time. The nodes in the CS-BRM are sampled in the belief space and represent distributions of the system states. A covariance steering controller steers the system from one BRM node to another, thus acting as an edge controller of the corresponding belief graph that ensures belief constraint satisfaction. After the edge controller is computed, a specific edge cost is assigned to that edge. The CS-BRM algorithm allows the sampling of nonstationary belief nodes, and thus, is able to explore the velocity space and find much more efficient trajectories than previous BRM methods. The performance of CS-BRM is evaluated and compared to previous belief space planning approaches using several numerical examples and experimental demonstrations, illustrating the benefits of the proposed approach.

The quantity and quality of surface waters are affected by climate change. Therefore, the study of the impact of climate change on surface water is very important. In the first part of the study, the output of the HadGM2-ES model was used to generate a future climatic pattern under two Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios: RCP2.6 and RCP8.5. The atmospheric circulation data from the model were utilized for this purpose. In the second part of the study, the climate model Long Ashton Research Station Weather Generator (LARS-WG) was employed to downscale climate data, including precipitation flow, temperatures, total solids (TS), and electrical conductivity (EC) parameters of the Ghezel Ozan River until 2050. In the final section, we evaluated the NARX neural network model for simulating the quality and quantity parameters. The results proved that the LARS-WG software has an extraordinary ability to downscale and generate synthetic series of climatic variables. According to the emission scenarios RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, an increasing trend in minimum and maximum temperature was predicted over the future time period. The highest temperature was obtained under the worst situation of RCP8.5. Additionally, the results showed that the highest decrease in precipitation is estimated as 15.38% in mid-winter and 18.68% in early spring during the future period. With the decrease in precipitation, the river flow is projected to decrease by 42.59% in late winter and 76.32% in early spring compared to the observation period. As a result of decreased precipitation and discharge, the EC parameter is expected to increase by 52.06% in late winter and 81.27% in early spring compared to the base period. Overall, our findings indicate that these parameters are strongly influenced by climate change, posing a risk of water shortage and drought to the ecosystem of many aquatic organism’s dependent on this river.

This article develops an impact-resilient aerial robot (s-ARQ) equipped with a compliant arm to sense contacts and reduce collision impact and featuring a real-time contact force estimator and a nonlinear motion controller to handle collisions while performing aggressive maneuvers and stabilize from high-speed wall collisions. Further, a new collision-inclusive planning method that aims to prioritize contacts to facilitate aerial robot navigation in cluttered environments is proposed. A range of simulated and physical experiments demonstrate key benefits of the robot and the contact-prioritized (CP) planner. Experimental results show that the compliant robot has only a 4% weight increase but around 40% impact reduction in drop tests and wall collision tests. s-ARQ can handle collisions while performing aggressive maneuvers and stabilize from high-speed wall collisions at 3.0 m/s with a success rate of 100%. Our proposed compliant robot and CP planning method can accelerate computation time while having shorter trajectory time and larger clearances compared to A$^\ast$ and RRT$^\ast$ planners with velocity constraints. Online planning tests in partially known environments further demonstrate the preliminary feasibility of our method to apply in practical use cases.

Self-immolation is considered among the most rigorous acts of suicide. Lately, this act has increased in children. We evaluated the frequency of self-immolation among children in the largest burn referral center in southern Iran. This cross-sectional study was conducted from January 2014 to the end of 2018 at a tertiary referral burn and plastic surgery healthcare center in southern Iran. Subjects were pediatric self-immolation burn patients registered as outpatients or inpatients. The patients’ parents were contacted regarding any incomplete information. Among 913 children admitted due to burn injuries, 14 (1.55%) were admitted with an impression of suicidal self-immolation. Among self-immolation patients, the ages ranged from 11 to 15 years (mean: 13.64 ± 1.33), and the average burnt percentage of total body surface area was 67.07 ± 31.19%. The male-to-female ratio was 1:1, and the majority were from urban areas (57.1%). The most frequent cause of burn injury was fire (92.9%). There was no history of family mental illness or suicide among the patients, and only one of the patients had an underlying disease of intellectual disability. The mortality percentage was 64.3%. The percentage of childhood suicidal attempts by burn injuries was alarmingly high among children aged from 11 to 15. While contrary to many reports, we reported this phenomenon to be relatively similar between genders, and also between urban and rural patients. Compared with accidental burn injuries, the self-immolation group had significantly higher age and burn percentage, and were more frequently caused by fire, occurred outdoors, and resulted in mortality.

In this article, we propose a novel LiDAR and event camera fusion modality for subterranean (SubT) environments for fast and precise object and human detection in a wide variety of adverse lighting conditions, such as low or no light, high-contrast zones and in the presence of blinding light sources. In the proposed approach, information from the event camera and LiDAR are fused to localize a human or an object-of-interest in a robot's local frame. The local detection is then transformed into the inertial frame and used to set references for a Nonlinear Model Predictive Controller (NMPC) for reactive tracking of humans or objects in SubT environments. The proposed novel fusion uses intensity filtering and K-means clustering on the LiDAR point cloud and frequency filtering and connectivity clustering on the events induced in an event camera by the returning LiDAR beams. The centroids of the clusters in the event camera and LiDAR streams are then paired to localize reflective markers present on safety vests and signs in SubT environments. The efficacy of the proposed scheme has been experimentally validated in a real SubT environment (a mine) with a Pioneer 3AT mobile robot. The experimental results show real-time performance for human detection and the NMPC-based controller allows for reactive tracking of a human or object of interest, even in complete darkness.

The task of establishing and maintaining situational awareness in an unknown environment is a critical step to fulfil in a mission related to the field of rescue robotics. Predominantly, the problem of visual inspection of urban structures is dealt with view-planning being addressed by map-based approaches. In this article, we propose a novel approach towards effective use of Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) for obtaining a 3-D shape of an unknown structure of objects utilizing a map-independent planning framework. The problem is undertaken via a bifurcated approach to address the task of executing a closer inspection of detected structures with a wider exploration strategy to identify and locate nearby structures, while being equipped with limited sensing capability. The proposed framework is evaluated experimentally in a controlled indoor environment in presence of a mock-up environment validating the efficacy of the proposed inspect-explore policy.

Subterranean exploration and mapping for search and rescue robotics have become an emerging research direction since the DARPA organized Subterranean Challenge. As part of development efforts within the team CoSTAR (Collaborative SubTerranean Autonomous Robots) in the Sub-T challenge, this work establishes a novel traversable graph-based exploration strategy that utilizes frontiers for local navigation and a fast collision risk-aware graph building for global navigation. The exploration strategy extracts frontiers in an unknown area that contribute to safe navigation while maximizing information gain for the robot. The exploration problem is further bifurcated into local and global exploration for faster decision-making at junctions with the goal of rapidly exploring the area. The local exploration guarantees collision-free straight-line paths to informative frontiers for rapid forward navigation, while global re-positioning utilizes a traversable graph subject to geometrical collision checks within the occupancy map. The pathfinding in a graph is addressed using a heuristic, which combines risk margins and travel costs to assist in short yet safe paths to the global frontier in case of a dead end in local exploration. The presented exploration strategy is developed with the goal of making exploration algorithms platform agnostic in order to be able to use it with aerial, as well as ground robots. The proposed method is also evaluated against different state-of-the-art exploration planners in simulated fixed-time budget-based exploration missions on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in order to benchmark the capabilities and highlight the novelty.

Burn injuries are among the most traumatic incidences which could be associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. The incidence of these injuries differs based on population socioeconomic characteristics. In this study, we aim to evaluate the distribution of burn injuries based on socioeconomic and causative factors. Relative features from the targeted population were obtained and evaluated. Data were extracted in August 2019 and statistical analysis of the data was conducted from February 2020 to April 2020. This cross-sectional record-based study was conducted from 2008 to 2016 in a main referral center for burn injuries in the southern Iran. Participants included burn survivors and burn patients who were registered as outpatients or inpatients. A total of 4919 burn cases with a mean age of 31.91 ± 17.33, including 2926 (59.5%) males and 1993 (40.5%) females was reported. The majority of our cases had an educational level of under diploma (40.72%). A significant correlation between age, gender, and percentage of burn with the level of education was recorded (P< .001). The most frequent cause of burn injuries was flame with 2537 (51.9%) cases. The most susceptible population to burn injuries were reported to be poorly educated individuals, which emphasizes the preventive role of education.

Groundwater is the world’s considerable resource for providing drinking water to millions of people worldwide. It is essential to assess groundwater quality for drinking water purposes due to the increasing trend of contaminants in this water. Therefore, this research has been carried out to study groundwater quality for 22 different village’s well locations of Barauli Ahir block rural areas of Agra region, India, using the water quality indexing method. A total of sixty-six groundwater samples from identified areas were collected, selected as polluted ones. Twelve physico-chemical parameters were estimated to assess its eligibility for drinking purposes based on the drinking water quality index (WQI). The result shows that the groundwater was brackish, and the total dissolved solids ranged from 340–1,503 mg/L. The alkalinity varied between 142–531 mg/L, considered for the concentration of bicarbonate ions. The range of fluoride concentration is from 0.33 to 4.88; more than 45.4% of samples have a concentration of fluoride more significant than the WHO acceptable limit, that is, 1.5 mg/L. The water quality of drinking purposes was plotted in the Piper trilinear diagram, revealing that the water type at this study area was categorized as Na+/HCO3–or Na+/Cl–type followed by Ca+/HCO3–type. Schoeller’s diagram reveals that the concentration of magnesium and sulfate ions was least present among all cations and anions, which reveals that the hardness in water is low. The maximum and minimum value of the water quality index was found to be 233.16 and 49.80. The result of WQI showed that 41% of collected samples lie in the unfit water category, 45.5% of samples lie in the very poor category, 9% of samples lie in the poor category, and 4.5% of samples lie in the excellent category. This water quality index proved that it is necessary to treat water before using and protect the area from health hazards at Barauli Ahir block.

This paper focuses on applying artificial neural network (ANN) models to predict total hardness from groundwater. The input parameters of the neural network are electrical conductivity (EC) and pH, which are considered fast, measurable water quality factors. ANN-based Levenberg–Marquardt (trainlm) training algorithm has demonstrated exceptional ability to predict all data; in parallel, the excellent prediction was displayed by a different test dataset with R of 0.986 and 0.98079, respectively. The mean square error and mean absolute error for all datasets were considered to be 0.0011 and 0.0265, respectively; besides, their values for the other test dataset were acquired 0.0008 and 0.0243. Sensitivity analysis represented that EC plays a catch-all role in ANN models with the relative importance of 71%, while in contrast with the less important for pH by 29%.

When operating in confined spaces or near obstacles, collision‐free path planning is an essential requirement for autonomous exploration in unknown environments. This study presents an autonomous exploration technique using a carefully designed collision‐free local planner. Using LiDAR range measurements, a local end‐point selection method is designed, and the path is generated from the current position to the selected end‐point. The generated path showed the consistent collision‐free path in real‐time by adopting the Euclidean signed distance field‐based grid‐search method. The results consistently demonstrated the safety and reliability of the proposed path‐planning method. Real‐world experiments are conducted in three different mines, demonstrating successful autonomous exploration flights in environment with various structural conditions. The results showed the high capability of the proposed flight autonomy framework for lightweight aerial robot systems. In addition, our drone performed an autonomous mission in the tunnel circuit competition (Phase 1) of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge.

This work establishes a novel robocentric Non-linear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) framework for fast fully autonomous navigation of quadrotors in featureless dark tunnel environments. Additionally, this work leverages the processing of a single camera to generate direction commands along the tunnel axis, while regulating the platform’s altitude. The extracted visual dynamics are coupled in the sequel with the NMPC problem, structured around the Proximal Averaged Newton-type method for Optimal Control (PANOC), which is a fast numerical optimization method that is not sensitive to ill conditioning and is suitable for embedded NMPC implementations. Multiple fully realistic simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in challenging environments.

Because of high variations in fluoride concentration and many contaminated areas, Iran has been known as an interesting country regarding different fluoride studies. However, researches on fluoride concentration and its effects in northern strip of Iran are limited; moreover, risk assessment studies have been neglected in these areas. Therefore, this study focused on the measurement and risk assessment of fluoride in water supplies of villages around Babol County in north of Iran. Therefore, this descriptive cross-sectional research was performed in the city of Babol, Iran, 2017. Eighty water samples were taken from 40 wells in the rural areas (40 and 40 samples in cold and warm seasons). The SPANDS method was used for the measurement of fluoride concentration. The non-carcinogenic risk of fluoride was assessed in four age groups (infant, children, teenager and adult). The risk of dental and skeletal fluorosis was counted based on the international standard. From all villages (n = 24), respectively, 4 and 3 villages in cold and warm seasons had proper fluoride concentrations according to the WHO standard; fluoride concentration of other villages was lower than the WHO minimum standard of. Any observable risk of dental and skeletal fluorosis in all studied villages for the whole age groups was not observed; the HQ of all the villages was lower than 1 except for Kalhu Dasht because its HQ was higher than 1 in infants and children in cold season. Infant and children of this village were exposed to risk of dental fluorosis. In northern areas of Iran, not only there is not a risk of dental or skeletal fluorosis, which is related to high concentration of fluoride, but also there is a risk of dental decay due to low fluoride concentration in water drinking water. However, this hypothesis needs to further study.

Granular ferric hydroxide was used in the present study to evaluate the efficiency of phosphate removal from aqueous solutions using central composite design and optimization by response surface methodology (RSM). The interaction of important parameters including pH, contact time, adsorbent dose and initial concentration of phosphate was used on the phosphate removal process and optimization of the removal process. The design of this research was based on central composite, which is one of the methods of RSM. The number of standard samples in this study was 35. The results of optimization of the variables derived by solver command in the initial phosphate concentration were 1.78 mg L–1, pH = 5.81, contact time = 82 min, and adsorbent dosage = 4.03 g, maximum removal efficiency of 92.14%. Experimental results of phosphate removal with three repetitions indicated that maximum removal efficiency of phosphate in optimal conditions was 91.6%. Also, the experimental adsorption data indicated that the data follow the pseudo-second-order kinetic model (R2= 0.979) and Freundlich isotherm model (R2= 0.997). Based on the Langmuir model, the maximum phosphate adsorption (Qmax) was 6.541 mg g–1. In general, it can be concluded that granular ferric hydroxide with a good quality and low operating cost has high efficiency in removal of phosphate from various aqueous solutions.

Fluoride in drinking water is an important chemical species with regard to public health considerations, although a fluoride concentration of about 1.5 mg L–1in drinking water can decrease tooth decay and higher concentrations cause health problems. The concentration of fluoride in water is affected by some chemical characteristics. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between fluoride and other chemical parameters (pH, Turbidity, EC, TDS, TH, ALK, Cl–, SO42–, NO3–, NO2–, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+, K+, PO43–) in water bodies located in Showt, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. Sample preparation and analysis were performed according to standard methods. A wide range of fluoride concentrations was measured in this study (0.0–5.5 mg L–1). The results indicated that alkalinity and Na+have a significant positive relationship with fluoride concentrations in water wells. Nevertheless, total hardness (TH) showed an inverse relationship with fluoride concentration. In addition, for a one-unit increase in alkalinity and Na+concentration, the average amount of fluoride in water increased by 0.0028 and 0.16, respectively. Furthermore, for a one-unit increase in total hardness, the average amount of fluoride in water decreased by 0.005. In conclusion, fluoride concentration was affected by numerous factors such as hardness, alkalinity, and Na+concentration. The findings of this study suggest that a suitable treatment of the groundwater is needed in contaminated areas before its use for drinking.

Spatial and temporal variability of fluoride and nitrate in groundwater resources of rural area of Saravan county, Iran were analyzed 2013–2017 using GIS (V10.3). The results were used for human health risk assessment, using probabilistic techniques. The annual mean concentration of fluoride during 2013 to 2017 in villages of Saravan county was 0.42, 0.62, 0.67, 0.57, and 0.55 mg L–1, and the maximum values were 1.1, 1.42, 1.76, 1.46, and 1.3 mg L–1, respectively. Also, the annual mean concentration of nitrate during 2013 to 2017 in Saravan county villages were 12.53, 14.1, 15.43, 14.34, and 14.02, and the maximum values were 66.1, 80, 35.6, 76.12, and 40 mg L–1, respectively. Spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal variability of fluoride and nitrate in groundwater resources were relatively not constant over the years. The calculated HQ value of fluoride was for groups of infant (0.013–0.235), children (0.035–1.83), teenagers (0.067–1.1), and adults (0.053–0.94). The maximum HQ value was >1 for children and teenagers during the study period. Meanwhile, the HQ values of nitrate were (0.005–0.4) for infants, (0.035–2.69) children, (0.025–2) teenagers, and (0.02–1.6) for adults. Hence, the maximum HQ value was >1 for children, teenagers, and adult during the study period. This study showed that children, teenagers, and adult are vulnerable groups at risk of non-carcinogenic hazards for being exposed to drinking water with high fluoride and nitrate concentration.

The objectives of this research were to assess the chemical and microbial quality of drinking water in Maku, Iran, and compare it with the national standard, as well as determine the spatial distribution of the chemical quality parameters of drinking water for warm and cold seasons using the geographical information system software. In this study, 136 drinking water samples were collected from 36 points of the distribution network in two successive years of 2016 and 2017 in warm and cold seasons. Paired-samples and Pearson correlation tests were used to examine the correlation between residual chlorine values and microbial parameters. Based on the findings of this study, the average concentration of all parameters in Maku distribution network falls within the national standard, except for turbidity. According to the zoning maps of drinking water, turbidity and hardness concentration are greater in warm than cold seasons. Results revealed that the mean heterotrophic bacteria (HPC) of samples in cold and warm seasons equaled 7 ± 11 cfu/ml and 29 ± 61 cfu/ml, respectively. According to the results of the paired-samples test, there was a significant correlation between the HPC values measured in two cold seasons and years for the samples (p-value = 0.012). It is recommended that respective agencies ensure the availability of chlorine residual at the consumer end.

An effort has been made in the present research to evaluate the agro-based adsorbents such as coconut shell, walnut shell, and almond shell for the removal of cadmium from electroplating industrial effluent. Adsorption experiments were conducted to evaluate the performance. The highest removal efficiency for Cd(II) is 83.7% at pH 6.5 for coconut shell-activated carbon. The percentage removal of cadmium increases with the decrease in metal concentration. The extent of removal depends on the metal ion concentration, adsorbent dose, contact time, and particle size. Coconut shell is found to be more effective with respect to removal efficiency. Cadmium adsorption follows second-order rate equation for coconut shell. The isotherm data obtained more closely follow the Freundilch adsorption isotherm for coconut shell, while walnut shell and almond shell follow the Langmuir adsorption isotherm better. The coconut shell has the highest potential to remove cadmium ion from electroplating wastewater.

Having unique properties, metal–organic frameworks are recognized as interesting materials for many applications. Leaf-shaped zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (L-ZIF-8) with a 16.66 m2/g Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area and total pore volume of 0.0572 cm3/g was synthesized in aqueous medium and room temperature. L-ZIF-8 then used for P removal from aqueous solutions and a polynomial prediction model for phosphate (P) removal was developed by designing the experiments using central composite design. The model terms showed an increase in P removal with adsorbent dosage and contact time and also by decreasing pH. The highest P removal after model optimization determined to be at pH 4, L-ZIF-8 dosage 0.6 g/L, and 84 min contact time. The isotherm models indicated a monolayer adsorption of P onto L-ZIF-8 with a maximum 51.24 mg P/g of adsorbent. Study of P removal dynamic revealed that the process controlled by chemisorption.

The aim of this study was to assess patients’ satisfaction and functional outcome of dorsal hand unit reconstruction in burn patients in Shiraz, southern Iran.From September 2013 to February 2017, 11 patients (15 hands) with hand aesthetic complaint who were unhappy with their hand appearance were included for dorsal hand unit reconstruction. Under general anesthesia and tourniquet control, the burned tissue on dorsal surface of the hands was excised and a thick partial thickness skin graft was used for coverage, whereas the fingers were fixed by sutures to the palm. After 1 year, the five-points scale was used for evaluation of patients’ satisfaction regarding the five major activities considered for hand function before and after operation. The mean age of the patients was 25.8 ± 5.17 years. The skin grafts were well taken. Six (40%) and eight patients (53%) reported the result of operation as completely satisfied and satisfied, respectively. Dorsal hand unit reconstruction in patients with dorsal hand contracture and significant dorsal scar was shown to simultaneously improve the function and aesthetic outcome of the surgery.

One of the serious challenges in ensuring and promoting community health is gradual increase in contamination levels of drinking water of communities across the world. The purposes of this study were (1) to evaluate the chemical quality of groundwater in the Bandar-e Gaz city and (2) to determine spatial distribution of groundwater quality parameters (total hardness (TH), chloride, nitrate and fluoride concentrations, and (3) mapping the quality of groundwater using Geographical Information System (GIS) software. In this study 20 groundwater samples were collected from 5 wells in two successive 2010–2011, in the rainy and dry seasons. Sample preparation and analysis, according to standard methods were done. Based on the findings of this study, it can be expressed that the average concentration chloride and nitrate parameters in Bandar-e Gaz drinking water is within the 1053 standard limit in Iran, except fluoride content is lower than the standard and hardness was high in majority of water sample groundwater. According to the zoning maps of groundwater, in the dry season’s nitrate and hardness concentration is greater than rainy seasonal. The data showed falling and rising trend in CL concentrations, respectively. This study indicated that all parameter within the standard except fluoride then, its necessity to addition fluoride in that’s regions population food chain and drinking water. Management of the utilization and protection greed underground waters should be as a basic principle in the planning Bandar-e Gaz city.

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine effects of probiotic yogurt and multispecies probiotic capsule supplementation on mental health and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis in petrochemical workers.Methods: The present randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted on 70 petrochemical workers. Subjects were randomly divided into three groups to receive 100 g/day probiotic yogurt + one placebo capsule (n = 25) or one probiotic capsule daily + 100 g/day conventional yogurt (n = 25) or 100 g/day conventional yogurt + one placebo capsule (n = 20) for 6 weeks. Mental health parameters including general health questionnaire (GHQ) and depression anxiety and stress scale (DASS) scores were measured. Fasting blood samples were obtained at the beginning and 6 weeks after the intervention to quantify hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis.Results: After 6 weeks of intervention, a significant improvement of GHQ was observed in the probiotic yogurt (18.0 ± 1.5 vs. 13.5 ± 1.9, P = 0.007) and in the probiotic capsule group (16.9 ± 1.8 vs. 9.8 ± 1.9, P = 0.001), as well as a significant improvement in DASS scores in the probiotic yogurt (23.3 ± 3.7 vs. 13.0 ± 3.7, P = 0.02) and the probiotic capsule group (18.9 ± 3.2 vs. 9.4 ± 4.0, P = 0.006). However, there was no significant improvement in the conventional yogurt group (P = 0.05 for GHQ and P = 0.08 for DASS).Discussion: The consumption of probiotic yogurt or a multispecies probiotic capsule had beneficial effects on mental health parameters in petrochemical workers.

Nearly half a century ago, two papers postulated the likelihood of lunar lava tube caves using mathematical models. Today, armed with an array of orbiting and fly‐by satellites and survey instrumentation, we have now acquired cave data across our solar system—including the identification of potential cave entrances on the Moon, Mars, and at least nine other planetary bodies. These discoveries gave rise to the study of planetary caves. To help advance this field, we leveraged the expertise of an interdisciplinary group to identify a strategy to explore caves beyond Earth. Focusing primarily on astrobiology, the cave environment, geology, robotics, instrumentation, and human exploration, our goal was to produce a framework to guide this subdiscipline through at least the next decade. To do this, we first assembled a list of 198 science and engineering questions. Then, through a series of social surveys, 114 scientists and engineers winnowed down the list to the top 53 highest priority questions. This exercise resulted in identifying emerging and crucial research areas that require robust development to ultimately support a robotic mission to a planetary cave—principally the Moon and/or Mars. With the necessary financial investment and institutional support, the research and technological development required to achieve these necessary advancements over the next decade are attainable. Subsequently, we will be positioned to robotically examine lunar caves and search for evidence of life within Martian caves; in turn, this will set the stage for human exploration and potential habitation of both the lunar and Martian subsurface. We have now acquired cave data across our solar system—including the identification of potential cave entrances on the Moon, Mars, and at least nine other planetary bodies. These discoveries gave rise to the study of planetary caves. To help advance this field, we conducted an expert‐opinion based social survey to identify a strategy to explore caves beyond Earth. We focused primarily on astrobiology, the cave environment, geology, robotics, instrumentation, and human exploration. First, we assembled a list of 198 science and engineering questions. Then, through a series of social surveys, 114 scientists and engineers winnowed down the list to the top 53 highest priority questions. This exercise resulted in identifying emerging and crucial research areas that require robust development to ultimately support a robotic mission to a planetary cave—principally the Moon and/or Mars. With the necessary financial investment and institutional support, the research and technological development required to achieve these necessary advancements over the next decade are attainable. Subsequently, we will be positioned to robotically examine lunar caves and search for evidence of life within Martian caves; in turn, this will set the stage for human exploration and potential habitation of both the lunar and Martian subsurface. Robotics and instrument advancements identified as linchpin focal areas for in situ study of planetary cavesResearch and technological development required for lunar and/or Martian cave exploration is achievable in next decade with proper investmentFirst application of systematic and statistically rigorous social survey to identify science and engineering requirements in planetary science Robotics and instrument advancements identified as linchpin focal areas for in situ study of planetary caves Research and technological development required for lunar and/or Martian cave exploration is achievable in next decade with proper investment First application of systematic and statistically rigorous social survey to identify science and engineering requirements in planetary science

Burn patients have the highest metabolic rate among critically ill or injured patients. Because propranolol decreases energy expenditure and muscle protein catabolism, in this study, we hypothesized that propranolol would improve healing process and decrease wound-healing time. This study was a double-blind randomized clinical trial; a total of 79 burn patients who referred to this center from January 2006 to January 2007 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Thirty-seven patients were randomly placed in propranolol group and 42 in control group. The propranolol group received propranolol orally with the dose of 1 mg/kg/d and maximum dose of 1.98 mg/kg/d given in six divided doses. This dose was adjusted to decrease the resting heart rate by 20% from each patient's baseline value. The control group received placebo. The most common cause of burn in both groups was flame followed by flash. Patients with superficial burns in the propranolol group needed less time to heal for acceptable wound healing in superficial burns (16.13 ± 7.40 days vs 21.52 ± 7.94 days; P= .004). We also found that patients with deep burn injury needed less time to be ready for skin graft (28.23 ± 8.43 days vs 33.46 ± 9.17 days; P= .007) when compared to that of the control group. The use of propranolol decreased the size of the burn wound that finally needed skin graft. Patients in the propranolol group with an average burn size of 31.42% TBSA finally needed 13.75% of TBSA skin graft compared with that of control patients with an average burn size of 33.61% TBSA who needed 18.72% of TBSA skin graft, and patients in the control group with an average burn size of 33.61% TBSA finally needed 18.72% of TBSA skin graft (P= .006). Patients in the propranolol group had a shorter hospital stay period than the control group (30.95 ± 8.44 days vs 24.41 ± 8.11 days; P= .05). Administration of propranolol, improved burn wound healing, and decreased healing time and hospital stay period. The use of propranolol decreased the surface area of wounds that needed to be skin grafted.

Self-inflicted burns are among the most devastating of all burn injuries with serious physical, psychological, and financial effects on the individual, the patient's family, and society. This study was carried out to analyze the epidemiology, mortality, and current etiological factors of burn patients who were admitted to a major burn center in the Fars province. In a longitudinal prospective design, from April 2003 to March 2005, all burn patients that were admitted to Ghotb-eddin Shirazi Hospital were evaluated. Data in regard to patients' social demographics, burn injury, and outcome measures were collected. Suicide attempts by burning accounted for 231 (24.8%) of all burn patients admitted to hospital. Suicidal burns occurred predominantly in the age group 15 to 24 years (49.1%). Most (71.4%) self-burning cases were female. Deliberate self-burn patients have significantly larger burned body surface area than accidental burn patients [70% (4–100) vs 28% (1–100); P< .0001]. The case fatality rate for self-inflicted burns (62.3%) was significantly higher than the 27.7% rate observed for accidental burns (P< .0001). Burned body surface area >40% and self-inflicted burns strongly and independently predicted mortality. Self-inflicted burns continue to be a major health problem in this region. Special burn preventive programs should be implemented in primary health care system. A National Committee for Injury and Burn Prevention and Control should be established urgently to coordinate all burn prevention programs and collaborate between different sectors of the society.

This inquiry focuses on acquiring empirical models to predict ciprofloxacin removal using magnetization of functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (FMWCNTs-Fe3O4) from an aqueous solution. The response surface methodology (RSM) and support vector regression (SVR) as data mining techniques were adopted to develop models. Critical parameter effects comprising pH (3−10), adsorbent dose (0.2–1 g/L), contact time (5–60 min) and ciprofloxacin concentrations (30–100 mg/L) were analysed. The Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich isothermal models were utilized to fit the empirical data. FMWCNTs-Fe3O4prepared by chemical co-precipitation method was loaded by Fe3O4nanoparticles (using sonication) to synthesize functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes to remove ciprofloxacin (CIP). FMWCNTs-Fe3O4were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-Ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) methods. The Langmuir model was utilized to precisely describe the maximum adsorption capacity(qmax) of 107.66 mg/g with R2= 0.998. In this study, the pseudo-second-order model exactly described the adsorption process(R2= 0.99). The results illustrated that the LSSVM (least squares support vector machine) model efficiently predicted the CIP removal percentage with very high accuracy in the training phase (R2= 0.975) and the test phase (R2=0.970). Moreover, the highest removal percentages in optimized step were achieved for RSM (pH 5.4, dose 0.78 g/L, time of 24.5 min, and CIP concentrations of 59 mg/L) and GA (genetic algorithm) (pH 4.4, dose 0.74 g/L, time of 42 min, and CIP concentrations of 38 mg/L) techniques by 88% and 99.1%, respectively. The FMCNTs-Fe3O4efficiency has decreased by 12% even after five used cycles relative to the optimal conditions (regeneration). Therefore, FMWCNTs-Fe3O4adsorption was considered to be an effective technique for CIP removal in the aqueous environment.