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"nBackground: Though many therapeutic modalities have been suggested but still no definite treatment for Cutaneous Leishmaniasis is available. Many compounds including Alkaloid, Quinones, Iridoids, Terpenes, Indole analogue have been documented to have antileishmania activity invitro. On the other hand, the aforementioned compounds can be found in the herbs including Thyme, Yarrow. Propolis is a brown color substance that is collected by honey bee from plants. Regarding the lack of data about the possible efficacy of these herbs against leishmaniasis, we have decided to evaluate and compare the efficacy of herbal extract of Thyme, Yarrow, Propolis and systemic glucantime against cutaneous leishmaniasis in Balb/c, and to formulate drugs without harmful chemical material and without side effect. "nMethods: During three weeks of inoculation of parasite in base tail of mice, lesions will appear in the inoculation site. The animals divided into seven groups. We used mix alchoholic extract solution two times a day, checked lesions weekly for six week and measured size of lesion in the base of tail with kulis- vernieh. "nResults: We observed significant difference between mean of lesion diameter before and after treatment in control, Yarrow and Thyme groups (p0.05). "nConclusion: Alchoholic extract to Thyme and Yarrow have good effect on lesions treatment, we suggest repeat of this study with Thyme and Yarrow extract in gel or cream base in first stage of lesions appearance.

As a communication link between suburban and urban roads, terminals prevent buses from entering the cities, thus, they play an important role in improving traffic flow, reducing urban environmental pollution. Clearly, proximity of te rminals to cities will bring about environmental pollution in different forms (soil, water, air and wastewater). The current study tries to investigate the environmental management solutions for Tehran West Terminal. For this purpose, all the environmental aspects of bus terminals, including air, water, soil and traffic were investigated. Then, with respect to the primary assessments, a questionnaire was prepared and distributed among drivers and terminal staff. According to the obtained results, a SWOT matrix was designed and implemented after completing the Analytic Hierarchy Process. The results of soil sampling showed that pollutants like heavy metals and volatile organic matters (Benzene and Toluene) were above the standards set by the Iran Department of the Environment. In terms of air pollutants, all the gases and particles were above the standards set forth by Iran Department of the Environment. According to SWOT analysis, the aggressive scenario strategies obtained the highest scores. They included periodic trainings for the managers, drivers and other terminal staff (5.31), constant monitoring by Iran Department of the Environment (4.72), establishing internal environmental regulations (4.44), forbidding unauthorized car repairs especially oil Chang outside the repair shops (3.93), and supervision of cooperative managers on controlling vehicles and their drivers (3.73), were selected as superior strategies, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Paying attention to the comfort of the patient during hospitalization is very important. Noise pollution can exacerbate a person's illness. Additionally, if the noise pollution exceeds the threshold limit, it will have negative effects on the staff and appropriate services. The aim of this study was to identify the sources and the level of noise pollution in the emergency and emergency care units and outside areas of educational hospitals at the 1st district of Tehran, in the winter of 2017. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive study, measurement of noise pressure level in emergency department, emergency care units and outdoors in four hospitals in working days and holidays was carried out at three times in the morning, noon and evening by the TES-1358 sound analyzer device. Data was analyzed using one-way ANOVA. Results: According to the results, the average and standard deviation of noise level in different sections of the hospitals on Saturday and Friday were respectively 62.79±7.32 and 57.98±6.43 dB during the morning shift, 66.15±8.09 and 65.16±7.82 dB during afternoon shift, 64.26±6.69 and 63.19±5.42 dB during the evening shift. There was no significant difference between the sound pressure levels on Friday and Saturday, among the rounds of measurements (morning, afternoon and evening) and among sections (the emergency department and the emergency care unit)(p>0.05). Conclusion: The results of the study showed that the rate of noise pollution in some parts of educational hospitals is higher than national and international standards. The necessary actions are recommended to be taken in order to decrease the noise and its causative factors for creating a more quiet environment for patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is considered as one of the most important ambient air pollutants in gas refineries. In this study, AERMOD dispersion model was applied for prediction of NO2 ambient concentrations and dispersion patterns from point sources, including 13 stacks and six flares in a gas refinery located in Asaluyeh, Iran. For this purpose, the NO2 concentrations exhausted from the stacks were measured by a portable emission analyzer and the NO2 concentrations resulted from the flares were estimated using the emission factors. Moreover, the amounts of ambient NO2 concentrations in 10 monitoring stations were measured in four seasons. Then, the ambient NO2 concentrations and dispersion patterns were predicted using the AERMOD model within a domain of 10 × 10 km², in 1-hr and 12 months averages and the unhealthy zones in the study area were defined. The results revealed that for both annual observed and predicted values, ambient NO2 concentrations were higher than WHO standard limits but they did not exceed the US EPA standard limits. However, the hourly observed and predicted concentrations were lower than the standard levels. Statistical methods were used for comparing the predicted and observed NO2 concentrations. Simulation results indicated that the predicted concentrations were underestimated by a factor of 20% in comparison to the measured ones which revealed the estimated contribution of other sources including mobile sources and neighbor sources located in the vicinity of the gas refinery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few methods directly transfer streamflow measurements for continuous prediction of ungauged catchments. Top-kriging has been used mainly to predict the statistical properties of runoff but has been shown to outperform traditional regionalization approaches of rainfall-runoff models. We applied the Top-kriging approach across the Loire River basin and compared predictions to a geomorphology-based approach. Whereas Top-kriging uses spatial correlation, the other approach has the advantage of being more physically based by using a well-known geomorphology-based hydrological model (WFIUH) and its inversion. Both approaches require an equal degree of calibration and provide similar performances. We also demonstrate that the Ghosh distance, which considers the nested nature of catchments, can be used efficiently to calculate weights and to identify the suitability of gauged catchments for use as donor catchments. This result is particularly relevant for catchments with Strahler orders above five, i.e., where donor catchments are more strongly nested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Daily water temperature was simulated at a regional scale during the summer period using a simplified model based on the equilibrium temperature concept. The factors considered were heat exchanges at the water/atmosphere interface and groundwater inputs. The selected study area was the Loire River basin (110 000 km2), which displays contrasted meteorological, hydrological and geomorphological features. To capture the intra-basin variability of relevant physical factors driving the hydrological and thermal response of the system, the modelling approach combined a semi-distributed hydrological model, simulating the daily discharge at the outlet of 68 subwatersheds (drainage area between 100 and 3700 km2), and a thermal model, simulating the average daily water temperature for each Strahler order in each subwatershed. Simulations at 67 measurement stations revealed a median root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.9°C in summer between 2000 and 2006. Water temperature at stations located more than 100 km from their headwater was adequately simulated (median RMSE < 1.5°C; −0.5°C < median biases < 0.5°C). However, performance for rivers closer to their source varied because of the averaging of geomorphological and hydrological features across all the tributaries with the same Strahler order in a subwatershed, which tended to mask the specific features of the tributaries. In particular, this increased the difficulty of simulating the thermal response of groundwater-fed rivers during the hot spells of 2003. This modelling by coupling subwatershed and Strahler order for temperature simulations is less time-consuming and has proven to be extremely consistent for large rivers, where the addition of streambed inputs is adequate to describe the effect of groundwater inputs on their thermal regime. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concentrations of dissolved and particulate organic carbon (DOC and POC), total suspended solids (TSS), were measured daily, and phytoplankton pigments (chlorophyll-a and pheopigments) were measured every 3 days at three strategic stations along the eutrophic Loire River between November 2011 and November 2013 marked by a high annual and seasonal variability in hydrological regimes. This unique high-frequency dataset allowed to determine the POC origin (autochthonous or allochthonous). Some strong relationships were evidenced between POC, total pigments and TSS and were tested on a long-term database with a lower frequency (monthly data) to reconstitute unmeasured algal and detrital POC concentrations and estimate annual total organic carbon (TOC) fluxes from 1980 onwards. The results were subjected to only ≈25% uncertainty and showed that the annual TOC fluxes at the outlet of the Loire River decreased from 520 103 tC year−1 (i.e. 4.7 t km−2 year−1) in the early 1990s to 150 103 tC year−1 (i.e. 1.4 t km−2 year−1) in 2012. Although DOC always dominates, the autochthonous POC represented 35 % of the TOC load at the basin outlet by the end of the 1980s and declined to finally represent 15 % only of the TOC. The control of phosphorus direct inputs and the invasion by Corbicula clams spp. which both occurred since the early 1990s probably highly reduced the development of phytoplankton. Consequently, the autochthonous POC contribution declined and TSS concentrations in summertime significantly decreased as well as a result of both less phytoplankton and less calcite precipitation. At the present time, at least 75 % of the POC has allochthonous origins in the upper Middle Loire but downstream, autochthonous POC dominates during summer phytoplanktonic blooms when total pigments concentrations reach up to 70 μg L−1 (equivalent to 75 % of the total POC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dust storm transportation and deposition in Bushehr, Iran, caused adverse effects on regional air quality and human health. To evaluate the impact of these phenomena, it is critical to clarify the chemical characteristics and trace the sources of heavy metals in a dust storm. In this paper, we give an overview of the spatial distribution and chemical properties of heavy metals by collecting deposited particulate matter samples at ten stations from August 2011 to July 2012. The samples were analyzed using inductively coupled plasma for Cd, Co, Fe, Pb, Ni, and V, and using hydride generation for As. Multivariate gap statistical analysis was used to investigate the concentration and source of metals. Based on the comparison between the original data and background levels, geostatistics, disjunctive kriging, and pollution index I techniques were used to quantify their geospatial patterns and assess the contamination levels of the heavy metals. Results of the fitted models with disjunctive kriging technique showed that As and V were fitted to the Gaussian model with a range of 1.95 and 4.74 km, respectively. Fe and Pb were fitted to the exponential model with a range of 1.37 and 1.06 km, Cd was fitted to the spherical model with a range of 4.74 km, Co was fitted to the rational quadratic model with a range of 1.44 km, and Ni was fitted to the circular model with a range of 14.98 km. Agglomerative hierarchical clustering and Gap statistic methods classify the sampling periods in two main groups; dust and non-dust. The results presented a wide range of metal pollution. In the non-dust period, the mean predominant values showed moderate pollution for Ni; while the dust period had extremely severe pollution for As and Ni, and very severe pollution for Fe and V. Overall, the I values in dust periods followed the sequence of As > Ni > V > Fe > Cd > Co > Pb. In the dust period, over 70 % of metals in the deposited particulate matter were from external origins. With exception of Fe, all the metals had weakly spatial dependence, indicating that entry of metals was by dust storm. Monitoring of the source of the deposited particles showed that in the periods of occurrence of dust, the dusts originated from Syria and Iraq, and entered Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seven Landsat Thermal InfraRed (TIR) images, taken over the period 2000-2010, were used to establish longitudinal temperature profiles of the middle Loire River, where it flows above the Beauce aquifer. Results showed that 75% of the temperature differences, between in situ observations and TIR image based estimations, remained within the ±1 °C interval. The groundwater discharge along the River course was quantified for each identified groundwater catchment areas using a heat budget based on the Loire River temperature variations, estimated from the TIR images. The main discharge area of the Beauce aquifer into the Loire River was located between river kilometers 630 and 650. This result confirms what was obtained using a groundwater budget and spatially locates groundwater input within the Middle sector of the Loire River. According to the heat budgets, groundwater discharge is higher during winter period (13.5m³ s-1) than during summer (5.3m³ s-1). Groundwater input is also higher during the flow recession periods of the Loire River. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trends and seasonality analysis since 1980 and longitudinal distribution from headwaters to estuary of algal pigment, nitrate and phosphate were investigated in the eutrophic Loire River. The continuous decline of phosphate concentrations recorded since 1991 both in the main river and in the tributaries led to a significant reduction in algal biomass across the whole river system. While eutrophication remained lower in the main tributaries than in the Loire itself, they were found to contribute up to 45 % to the total nutrient load of the main river. The seasonality analysis revealed that the river has always been under P limitation, explaining why reducing P inputs led to decreasing eutrophication in the whole Loire basin. The decline of seasonal amplitudes of algal pigments reduced the seasonal amplitude of phosphate and of daily variations of dissolved oxygen and pH but did not significantly affect the seasonal amplitude of nitrate. Thus, algal uptake responsibility on the summer nitrate loss seemed to be declining, questioning the exact role played by denitrification, terrestrial vegetation and fixed aquatic vegetation on the nitrogen cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In water quality monitoring programs, standard sampling frequency schemes tend to be applied throughout entire regions or states. Ideally, the common standard among monitoring stations ought not to be the sampling frequency but instead the level of uncertainty of the estimated water quality indicators. Until now, there was no obvious way of doing this. This article proposes, for the first time, guidelines to select appropriate sampling frequencies to harmonize the level of uncertainty in the case of yearly nitrate indicators for the regional river water quality monitoring network in Brittany, France. A database of 50 watershed-year datasets (nine watersheds of 4 to 252 km² in size) was used for which high temporal resolution data (hourly and daily) were available for flow and nitrate concentrations. For each dataset, the uncertainty levels were calculated by numerically simulating sampling intervals varying from 2 to 60 days. The precision limits of the uncertainties were successfully correlated to a hydrological reactivity index. The correlations were used to derive sampling frequency charts. These charts cat: be used by watershed managers to optimize the sampling frequency scheme for any watershed for a desired uncertainty level, provided that the dimensionless local hydrological reactivity can be calculated from previous records of continuous flow rates. The sampling frequency charts also suggest that, depending on the hydrological reactivity, expected uncertainties generated by monthly sampling range between ±6% and ±14% for the annual load and between -5% and +2.5% to +7.2% for the annual concentration average. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Bacterial vaginosis is one of the most common infections in women at reproductive age. Although metronidazole is recommended as the first-line treatment, it has various side effects which make it difficult for patients to continue the treatment. Thus, the need is felt for finding a medication with fewer side effects. The aim of this study is to compare the effects of micosin vaginal cream (made of garlic) and metronidazole vaginal gel on treatment of patients with bacterial vaginosis. Materials and Methods: This study was a clinical trial which was conducted on 100 married women, aged 18-44, whose infection with bacterial vaginosis was diagnosed through clinical Amsel criteria. The participants were randomly divided into two groups of 50 persons each: Micosin vaginal cream and metronidazole vaginal gel. Patients identified with tricamona or candidiadis infections were excluded from the study. Treatment period in each group lasted for seven days. Clinical Amsel criteria and patient complaints were again checked 2 to 7 days after completion of the treatment period, and the side-effects were registered. Results: Following the treatment with micosin vaginal cream and metronidazole vaginal gel, patient complaints and clinical Amsel criteria showed a significant decrease (p<0.05), in a way that clinical recovery rates in micosin and metronidazole groups were 80% and 70%, respectively. Conclusion: Micosin vaginal cream seems to be an appropriate alternative for metronidazole vaginal gel in treatment of bacterial vaginosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objectives of this study are to evaluate the uncertainty in annual nitrate loads and concentrations (such as annual average and median concentrations) as induced by infrequent sampling and by the algorithms used to compute fluxes. A total of 50 watershed-years of hourly to daily flow and concentration data gathered from nine watersheds (5 to 252 km²) in Brittany, France, were analyzed. Original (high frequency) nitrate concentration and flow data were numerically sampled to simulate common sampling frequencies. Annual fluxes and concentration indicators calculated from the simulated samples were compared to the reference values calculated from the high-frequency data. The uncertainties contributed by, several algorithms used to calculate annual fluxes were also quantified. In all cases, uncertainty increased as sampling intervals increased. Results showed that all the tested algorithms that do not use continuous flow data to compute nitrate fluxes introduced considerable uncertainty. The flow-weighted average concentration ratio method was found to perform best across the 50 annual datasets. Analysis of the bias values suggests that the 90th and 95th percentiles and the maximum concentration values tend to be systematically underestimated in the long term, but the load estimates (using the chosen algorithm) and the average and median concentrations were relatively unbiased. Great variability in the precision of the load estimation algorithms was observed, both between watersheds of different sizes and between years for a particular watershed. This has prevented definitive uncertainty predictions for nitrate loads and concentrations in this preliminary work, but suggests that hydrologic factors, such as the watershed hydrological reactivity, could be a key factor in predicting uncertainty levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excess nutrients from agricultural and urban development have created a cascade of ecological crises around the globe. Nutrient pollution has triggered eutrophication in most freshwater and coastal ecosystems, contributing to a loss in biodiversity, harm to human health, and trillions in economic damage every year. Much of the research conducted on nutrient transport and retention has focused on surface environments, which are both easy to access and biologically active. However, surface characteristics of watersheds, such as land use and network configuration, often do not explain the variation in nutrient retention observed in rivers, lakes, and estuaries. Recent research suggests subsurface processes and characteristics may be more important than previously thought in determining watershed-level nutrient fluxes and removal. In a small watershed in western France, we used a multi-tracer approach to compare surface and subsurface nitrate dynamics at commensurate spatiotemporal scales. We combined 3-D hydrological modeling with a rich biogeochemical dataset from 20 wells and 15 stream locations. Water chemistry in the surface and subsurface showed high temporal variability, but groundwater was substantially more spatially variable, attributable to long transport times (10-60 years) and patchy distribution of the iron and sulfur electron donors fueling autotrophic denitrification. Isotopes of nitrate and sulfate revealed fundamentally different processes dominating the surface (heterotrophic denitrification and sulfate reduction) and subsurface (autotrophic denitrification and sulfate production). Agricultural land use was associated with elevated nitrate in surface water, but subsurface nitrate concentration was decoupled from land use. Dissolved silica and sulfate are affordable tracers of residence time and nitrogen removal that are relatively stable in surface and subsurface environments. Together, these findings reveal distinct but adjacent and connected biogeochemical worlds in the surface and subsurface. Characterizing how these worlds are linked and decoupled is critical to meeting water quality targets and addressing water issues in the Anthropocene., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

While many efforts have been devoted to understand variations in food web structure among terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, the environmental factors influencing food web structure at large spatial scales remain hardly explored. Here, we compiled biodiversity inventories to infer food web structure of 67 French lakes using an allometric niche-based model and tested how environmental variables (temperature, productivity, and habitat) influence them. By applying a multivariate analysis on 20 metrics of food web topology, we found that food web structural variations are represented by two distinct complementary and independent structural descriptors. The first is related to the overall trophic diversity, whereas the second is related to the vertical structure. Interestingly, the trophic diversity descriptor was mostly explained by habitat size (26.7% of total deviance explained) and habitat complexity (20.1%) followed by productivity (dissolved organic carbon: 16.4%; nitrate: 9.1%) and thermal variations (10.7%). Regarding the vertical structure descriptor, it was mostly explained by water thermal seasonality (39.0% of total deviance explained) and habitat depth (31.9%) followed by habitat complexity (8.5%) and size (5.5%) as well as annual mean temperature (5.6%). Overall, we found that temperature, productivity, and habitat characteristics collectively shape lake food web structure. We also found that intermediate levels of productivity, high levels of temperature (mean and seasonality), as well as large habitats are associated with the largest and most complex food webs. Our findings, therefore, highlight the importance of focusing on these three components especially in the context of global change, as significant structural changes in aquatic food webs could be expected under increased temperature, pollution, and habitat alterations., (© 2023 The Authors. Global Change Biology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)