Locating Water Desalination Facilities for Municipal Drinking Water Based on Qualitative and Quantitative Characteristics of Groundwater in Iran's Desert Regions

Groundwater resources have become the main resources for water supply due to the unavailability of surface water in arid zones. Arid zone's damage to groundwater resources will have a high impact on human life in arid zones comparing to other regions. Due to the lack of surface water resources in these arid zones, groundwater is used as a resource for drinking and sanitation purposes due to the lack of surface water resources in these arid zones. Water desalination facilities are set up in locations where there is both sufficient amount of water (quantitative criteria) and the extracted water has adequate quality (qualitative criteria). Therefore, an optimization model should be used to locate optimal places for water desalination facilities. Multi-criteria decision-making models are mathematical techniques that, by using the geographic information system, are able to evaluate the options under complicated and indefinite geographic conditions. This research prepares information and factor maps to assign weights to qualitative water maps which were combined in the form of an inductive network. Therefore, by employing the concept of fuzzy fusion models, this article presents a method for solving multi-criteria geographically-indeterminate problems, and finally finds an appropriate location for the construction of a water desalination system in the desert region of Birjand in Iran

Identification and Purification of two mammalian nourotoxins from Iranian Scorpion (Buthotus schach) venom

ABSTRACT Scorpion venoms contain of variety of peptides toxic to mammals، insects and crustaceans. Toxic peptides are the main factors in scorpion venom causing toxicity, (their amount being 1-3%of total venom.). Most of the scorpion toxins have been isolated from the venoms of scorpions in the family Buthidae. The scorpion Buthotus Schach belonging to the Buthidae family is widely found in the western region of Iran, but no published articles has been found to date on its venoms. Therefore in this study, we aimed to isolate and purify mammalian toxins from the venom of the scorpion Buthotus Schach present in Iran. For this study the crude venom was dialyzed against deionized water for 48 hrs., and centrifuged in order to separate soluble proteins from the insoluble mucoproteins and the soluble proteins was applied on a sephadex G-50 gel filtration. The toxicity of each fraction was determined by I.V injection to mice and toxic fractions were further purified by two steps ion-exchange (anion) and RP-HPLC chromatography. The purity of the final toxic protein fractions was checked and confirmed by RP-HPLC column & SDS-PAGE. Finally two neurotoxins, termed BS311 and BS313 were purified. Results in this study showed that the LD50 of crude venom on mice is 84µg/mice and contain at least 20 peptides from high molecular weight to low molecular weight out of which two of the peptides which showed toxicity to mice were isolated and purified. LD50 of these toxins were determined to be 3 and 2.17µg/mice respectively. The molecular weight of the purified toxins BS311 and BS313 were 7860and 7600 Da, respectively, as determined by SDS-PAGE. In conclusion this study showed that the main factor in the toxicity of scorpion (Buthotus Schach) venom is low molecular weight peptides

The Effect of Trans-Chalcone on Amylase Activity, Blood Glucose and Lipid Levels in Diabetic and Non Diabetic Rats

Introduction & Objective: Alpha amylase is the most important decomposing enzyme in starch. Digestion and absorption of starch in the intestine can be prevented and also the blood sugar levels can be controlled by restrain and control of alpha amylase. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of trans-chalcone on amylase activity, blood glucose and lipid levels in diabetic and non diabetic rats. Materials & Methods: This experimental study was conducted in 1388 at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Sixty rats were randomly divided to ten equal groups: non diabetic control, diabetic control, four non diabetic experiments and four diabetic experiments. Control groups received grape seed oil and experimental groups received 2, 8,16 and 32 mg/kg of body weight in a period of 24 days with a gastric cannula. Blood sugar, every two days, serum insulin levels in days 0,12, and 24 and at the end of the experiment, lipoproteins and alpha amylase activity were measured.The data were analyzed by one way analysis of variance, ANOVA, followed by Turkey,s test with SPSS soft ware . Results: On average Chalcone reduced 25.5% of blood sugar in normal and diabetic rats. IT also decreased the serum insulin level. On average, chalcone decreased 34.9% of alpha amylase activity in normal and diabetic rats. Following disturbances in lipids metabolism caused by diabetes, this drug improved lipoproteins metabolism and reduced water, food and urine volume. Conclusion: This study shows that trans-Chalcone reduces blood sugar and body weight via inhibition of alpha amylas. Moreover, improvement of lipoprotein metabolism may happen via the inhibitory effect of this drug on hydroxyl methyl glutaryl -COA reductase and phosphodiesterase

Silver nano particles ameliorate learning and spatial memory of male Wistar rats by prevention of amyloid fibril-induced neurotoxicity

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronic degenerative disease characterized by the presence of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), which results into memory and learning impairments. In the present study, we showed that the aggregates formed by a protein that has no link with Alzheimer's disease, namely the hen egg white lysozyme (HEWL), were cytotoxic and decreased spatial learning and memory in rats. The effect of Ag-nano particles (Ag-NPs) was investigated on disruption of amyloid aggregation and preservation of cognitive behavior of rats. Twenty-four male Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups including a control group, and injected with either scopolamine, lysozyme or aggregates pre-incubated with Ag-NPs. Rats' behavior was monitored using Morris water maze (MWM) twenty days after injections. HEWL aggregation in the presence and absence of the Ag-NPs was assayed by Thioflavin T binding, atomic force microscopy and cell-based cytotoxicity assay. Ag-NPs were capable to directly disrupt HEWL oligomerization and the resulting aggregates were non-toxic. We also showed that rats of the Ag-NPs group found MWM test platform in less time and with less distance traveled, in comparison with lysozyme group. Ag-NPs also increased the percentage of time elapsed and the distance swum in the target quadrant in the rat model of AD, in probe test. These observations suggest that Ag-NPs improved spatial learning and memory by inhibiting amyloid fibril-induced neurotoxicity. Furthermore, we suggest using model proteins as a valid tool to investigate the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. PMID: 2922086

Curvature tuning through defect-based 4D printing

Abstract Emerging 4D printing techniques have enabled the realization of smart materials whose shape or properties can change with time. Two important phenomena play important roles in the 4D printing of shape memory polymeric materials. First, the anisotropic deformation of the printed filaments due to residual stresses can be harnessed to create out-of-plane shape transformations. Second, the unavoidable formation of micro-defects during the printing processes often affects the programmability of the printed object. Here, we propose a design approach that harnesses these two effects occurring during fused deposition modeling to create tailor-made curved geometries from initially 2D flat disks. We first determined the size and distribution of the imperfections formed within printed structures by varying two printing parameters namely the printing speed and the number of printed materials. Spatially varying the printing speed and combining polylactic acid filaments with a softer material without shape memory properties allowed us to cover a variety of shapes from negative to positive values of the mean and Gaussian curvature. We propose an analytical model to calculate the magnitude of the maximum out-of-plane deformation from the anisotropic expansion factor of the constituting microstructures. Furthermore, we develop computational models to predict the complex shape-changing of thermally actuated 4D printed structures given the distribution of rationally introduced imperfections and we demonstrate the potential applications of such defect-based metamaterials in drug delivery systems