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This study aimed to measure telomere length in healthy children living next to Urmia Lake, Iran, which is exposed to salt dust from a drying lakebed. In this case-control pilot study, we recruited 39 sex- and age-matched healthy children from two different geographic regions to study the relative telomere lengths using qPCR. We categorized the study samples into high-impact and low-impact areas based on wind direction, aerosol particle level, and distance from the lake. Our main results revealed that children living in high-impact areas have shorter telomeres than those living in low-impact areas. Furthermore, according to our statistical model, parental age significantly affected telomere length in children, but inversely. When the father’s age impact was positive, the mother had a negative effect. Based on our results, to prevent Urmia Lake from dying out completely, national and international organizations should implement comprehensive visions and strategies for its restoration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: During the past few decades, many scoring systems have been developed to evaluate the severity of injury and predict the outcome in trauma patients. This study aimed to assess the capacity of three common trauma scoring systems: injury severity score (ISS), Glasgow coma scale (GCS), and revised trauma score (RTS) in predicting in-hospital mortality and ICU admission in patients with traumatic injury. Methods: This is a multicenter study of the hospital-based national trauma registry of Iran (NTRI), an ongoing registry-based trauma database. This study included trauma cases from 12 major trauma centers throughout the country admitted between July 2016 and November 2023. The inclusion criteria were all patients admitted to the emergency department due to trauma, hospitalized for at least 24 hours, deceased within the first 24 hours of admission, and patients transferred from the intensive care unit (ICU)s of other hospitals. Results: A total of 50,458 traumatic patients, with 38,740 (76.9%) being male, were included in this study. After adjustment for confounders, head, face, and neck injuries were associated with the highest odds of death (OR: 7.51, P-value<0.001), whereas abdominal injuries were associated with the highest odds of ICU admission (OR: 4.58, P-value<0.001). Each Unit increase in RTS score was accompanied by a 61% decrease in odds of death (OR: 0.39, P-value<0.001). The area under the ROC curve for predicting in-hospital mortality was 0.81 (0.79 to 0.82) in ISS, 0.78 (0.77 to 0.80) in GCS, and 0.75 (0.73 to 0.76) in RTS. There was a significant difference between RTS and GCS, aswell as RTS and ISS for in-hospital mortality prediction (P-values< 0.001). The area under the ROC curve for the prediction of ICU admission was 0.75 (0.74 to 0.75) in ISS, 0.63 (0.62 to 0.63) in GCS, and 0.62 (0.61 to 0.63) in RTS. There was a statistically significant difference between ISS and GCS, as well as ISS and RTS, for ICU admission prediction (P-value<0.001). Conclusion: ISS is the best predictor of in-hospital mortality and ICU admission, compared to GCS and RTS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, the performance of catalytic ozonation process (COP) with MgO@Fe3O4 magnetic nanocomposite for phenylamine removal from aqueous solution in a batch environment was evaluated. The features of the catalyst were determined by the FE-SEM, EDS, XRD, VSM and TEM techniques. The effect of several operating parameters such as solution pH, reaction time, catalyst dosage, ozone dose and the initial phenylamine concentrations was investigated in parallel with a single ozonation process (SOP). The effect of the scavengers was assessed. Possible mechanisms, by-products identification and pathway of degradation were also performed. The mineralisation rate was analysed with COD and TOC tests, respectively. The results indicated that the highest efficiency of phenylamine degradation (98.5%) and mineralisation with COD (74%) and TOC (51%) happens in the COP under the optimum conditions (pH = 11.0, reaction time = 30 min, catalyst dosage = 2.0 g/L, ozone dose = 0.38 g/h, phenylamine concentration = 10 mg/L), respectively. The experimental data were in good agreement with pseudo-first-order kinetic model. The toxicity of untreated phenylamine solution revealed that have higher acute toxicity for Daphnia magna than the phenylamine treated solution with COP. The hydroxyl radicals were dominant species during phenylamine degradation. The reusability of the catalyst was evaluated, indicating a 4.7% decrease in performance after six consecutive cycles of the process. As compared to SOP, a significant synergistic effect was observed between ozone and MgO@Fe3O4. It can be concluded that application of MgO@Fe3O4 in catalytic ozonation process is as a successful and promising method for phenylamine degradation of aqueous solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Human exposure to antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) is a public health concern which could occur in a number of ways. Wastewaters seem to play an important role in the dissemination of bacteria and antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) in our environment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the occurrence of three groups of ARB and their resistance genes in hospital and municipal wastewaters (MWs) as possible sources. Methods: A total of 66 samples were collected from raw MWs and hospital wastewaters (HWs) and final effluents of related wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). Samples were analyzed for the detection of three groups of ARB including gentamicin (GM), chloramphenicol (CHL) and ceftazidime resistant bacteria and their ARGs (aac (3)-1, cmlA1 and ctx-m-32, respectively). Results: The mean concentration of GM, CHL and ceftazidime resistant bacteria in raw wastewater samples was 1.24 ×107, 3.29 × 107and 5.54 × 107 colony forming unit/100 ml, respectively. There is a variation in prevalence of different groups of ARB in MWs and HWs. All WWTPs decreased the concentration of ARB. However, high concentration of ARB was found in the final effluent of WWTPs. Similar to ARB, different groups of ARGs were found frequently in both MWs and HWs. All genes also detected with a relative high frequency in effluent samples of MWs WWTPs. Conclusions: Discharge of final effluent from conventional WWTPs is a potential route for dissemination of ARB and ARGs into the natural environment and poses a hazard to environmental and public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Remaining pharmaceutical compounds cause environmental pollution. Therefore, refining these compounds has become a major challenge. In this study, the function of eliminating Cefixime (CFX) using rice starch was evaluated under controlled conditions. Methods: Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to design, analyze, and optimize experiments, and the interaction between four variables including pH (3-9), rice starch dose (0-300 mg/L), CFX initial concentration (0-16 mg/L) and time (20-120 min) was investigated on CFX removal. Results: The optimum pH, starch dose, initial concentration and time were 4.5, 225 mg/L, 7.9 mg/L and 95 min, respectively. The maximum efficiency of CFX removal was 70.22%. According to RSM, this study follows a quadratic model (R²=0.954). Conclusion: Rice starch has been successful in removing CFX from the aqueous solution. Therefore, it is recommended to utilize this process to remove CFX from aqueous solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]