Background: The release of lead dust during the processing of lead-gold ore has become an environmental threat. Therefore the protection of miners’ health and their environment required remediation which can be achieved by ranking the risk posed by lead in order to prioritize the allocation of resources during remediation. Methods: Soil and water samples were collected at BRC, BRG, BVC, BPA and BFA; BWE, BBH and BPO using stratified random and grab sampling methods. Lead concentrations in the samples were determined using AAS while health risk index (HRI) via ingestion was estimated using USEPA equations. The ranking of HRI was done using Detailed Quantitative Risk Assessment while the difference between the HRI and USEPA standard were determined using one sample t test. Results: The result showed that BRC/10, BRG/03, BVC/11, BPA/02 and BFA/08 were ranked highest in soil samples, while BWE/02, BBH/09 and BPO/04 were ranked highest in water samples as they posed elevated health risk effects to miners. One sample t test established that the BRC, BPA, BFA and BPO were significantly different from United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) standard. Conclusion: The study discovered that the users of both the lead contaminated soil and water were seriously exposed to potential health risk. It therefore suggested that decision makers should give priority in allocating resources to those sites with elevated lead concentrations during the remediation.

Background: Phenol as an aromatic hydroxyl compound are considered as a priority pollutant.  Because of their stability, solubility in water and high toxicity had health important. Methods: In the present experimental study, electrocoagulation reactor by iron electrodes are used in the presence of hydrogen peroxide to phenol removing from aqueous solutions. Effects of variables including H2O2 dosage, reaction time, pH, current density and initial phenol concentration were evaluated to estimate the efficiency of the process. Results: The results showed that pH and H2O2 have the most important role in the removal of phenol. Increasing of H2O2 concentrations from 0.0125 to 0.025 M increased removal efficiency from 74% to 100%. Maximum removal was achieved at pH=3. However, increasing the pH to 9 lead to reducing removal efficiency to 9.8%.  Also, by increasing of current density removal efficiency was increased. But with increasing initial concentration of phenol removal efficiency was reduced. Conclusion: Proxy-electrocoagulation process as an effective and robust process can be used for handling of phenol containing wastewater.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate antimicrobial effect of Zataria multiflora Boiss essential oil (EO) against six fish spoilage bacteria for evaluation of its potential utilization in the preservation of minimally processed fish products. Methods: Firstly, GC-MS analysis of the EO was performed to determine its chemical composition. Then, antibacterial effect of the EO in a range of 0.031 to 4 mg/ml was tested against different fish spoilage bacteria such as Aeromonas hydrophila, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas fluorescens, Shewanella putrefaciens, Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis by broth microdilution method to determine minimum inhibitory (MIC) and minimum bactericidal (MBC) concentrations. Results: GC-MS results showed that phenolic components such as carvacrol (51.55%) and thymol (25.49%) were predominant constituents of the EO. Zataria multiflora Boiss EO exhibited strong antimicrobial activity against all tested bacteria. Shewanella Putrefaciens was the most sensitive bacteria with MBC value of 0. 5 mg/ml. Conclusion: According to the results, this EO could be used as an important natural alternative to prevent bacterial growth in food specially seafood products to preserve them against bacterial spoilage.  

Background: The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiological characteristics of animal bite during 2011 -2016 years in Jahrom city. Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed using data from the Jahrom University of Medical Sciences. For analytical statistics, Chi-square test and multiple regression test were used. SPSS software version 21 was used for statistical analysis. Results: In total, 2010 people with an average age of 31.4 ±1.7 in the years 2011 to 2016 in the were biting. Of these, 429 were female (21.3%) and 1581 were male (78.7%). The results multiple showed that there was a positive correlation between (animal bites; Beta = 0.05, age; Beta = 0.02, location of ulcer; Beta = 0.01) with animal bites positive and direct correlation with animal bites. Animal type variables (Beta = -0.06), primary measures (Beta = -0.03), gender (Beta = -0.03), nationality (Beta = -0.03), wound size (Beta = -0.02) and location (Beta = 0.05) had a negative correlation with animal bites. Conclusion: Most cases of biting have been related to dogs, pets and rural areas. Therefore, the vaccination of dogs and cats is essential by preventing dogs from being exposed to humans.

Background: To determine the most usual resources that adolescents and teenagers are using to learn about sexual issues. A cross-sectional exploratory study implemented in June 2015 in Zahedan, the capital city of Sistan-va-Baluchestan Province, located in the southeast of Iran. Methods: Using convenient sampling method, from among student of two large universities in Zahedan, 134 students 18 to 22 years old, accepted invitation for filling a self-administered anonymized questionnaire containing, 8 semi-closed questions about sexual issues. Results: 44.9% of women and 41.6% of men mentioned one of their friends as their tutors. While 42.0% of women mentioned their mothers as one of their tutors, only 18.8% of them believed that more than 50% of their sexual knowledge came from their mothers. 23.1% of male participants and 36.2% of female ones alleged to know personally people of their own ages who had been subjected to sexual abuse or harassment earlier in their life. Conclusion: In Iran, educating sexual issues to adolescents is badly in need of organization and management. While the rule of a committed extra-family tutor (e.g. an officially appointed school teacher) might not be considered a solution, parents have to be prompted for filling the gap.  

Background: Proper nutrition is one of the important, essential and vital factors in providing individuals, family and society health and safety. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the nutritional behaviors of girl students in the school of paramedical and health of Zanjan University of medical sciences, Zanjan, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted during the winter and spring of 2016. Throughout all girl students in the school 196 students was selected randomly. A researcher made questionnaire was used for data collection.  Results: As nutritional behavior only 48% of students had breakfast every day and three main serving was daily schedule in 52% of students. At least 13.8% of them ate fast foods once a week. 17.4% of students ate cheeps, puff and snacks as routine. Just 23.5% of them never drank carbonated drink. Different herbal tea was in daily nutrition of 3.6%.  Conclusion: Due to the mentioned results and some wrong behavior and nutritional loss in the students, it seems important to designing suitable training programs to improve nutritional behaviors and avoiding from use of fast foods, poor quality food and in general, providing a healthy nutrition behavior for students is essential.  

Background: Natural organic matters (NOMs) have the main role in formation of trihalomethanes. These compounds are in natural water sources due to biological activities. In the presented study, adsorption and separation of humic acid as an index of natural organic matters using multi-walled carbon nanotubes is evaluated. Methods: The experiments were carried out in bath adsorption reactors with different concentrations of humic acid. The effects of pH, adsorbent dose, national concentrations of humic acid and contact time as study variables were tested in separated experiments, as well as, kinetic and isotherm models of the adsorption process were determined. Results: The results showed that the adsorption follows Freundlich isotherm model and pseudo second-order kinetic equation. The removal percent of humic acid reached to higher than 90% with dosage of 1g/l of nanotube. Conclusion: Adsorption of humic acid from water by multi-walled carbon nanotubes is an efficient alternative pretreatment method in water treatment plants.  

Background: Zataria multiflora boiss is a member of Lamiaceae family with antibacterial, antifungal, and antioxidant activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate chemical composition and antibacterial effect of Zataria multiflora essential oil against two foodborne pathogens in meat. Methods: The inhibitory effect of Zataria multiflora essential oil (Minimum inhibitory concentration and Minimum bactericidal concentration) was evaluated against Salmonella  typhimurium and Listeria monocytogenes, inoculated in ground beef meat after 3, 5, 7 and 9 days of storage. Results: Result revealed 26 various compounds, representing 96.27% of total oil. Thymol was the most abundant compound among all constituents (29.2%). A significant reduction was observed in Salmonella typhimurium when adding 1 and 2% Zataria multiflora (p<0.05) compared with 0.5% and 1% concentrations during 9 days of storage. Listeria monocytogenes significantly decreased in treatments with 0.5%, 1 and 2% of Zataria multiflora essential oil. Conclusion: Zataria multiflora has an inhibitory effect on the growth of L. monocytogenes and in higher concentrations on the growth of S. typhimurium and can be used as a natural preservative in order to retard the growth of food-borne pathogens.