Aeolian dust deposition rates in south-western Iran

The annual atmospheric dust-load originating in the so-called Dust Belt ‎, which ranges from the ‎Sahara desert and the Arabian peninsula to the arid lowlands of Central Asia and the deserts of ‎northern China, impacts the air quality and the climate worldwide. Iran as a whole, and especially the ‎southwestern regions of the country, most affected by dust, with frequent dust storms characterized ‎by annual mean concentrations of more than 100 µg/m³ of suspended dust. Although aeolian dust is a ‎highly relevant problem in Iran, there is a lack of comprehensive regional studies on this topic. The ‎central aim of the study presented here is therefore the spatiotemporal analyses and classification of ‎dust events, the chemical composition of the dust, and the connections between regional and seasonal ‎climate variation and dust deposition rates in four sub-regions of Iran. This comprehensive approach is ‎based on the maximum mean dust concentration and the seasonality of dust events. The results are ‎provided new and valuable insights into the dust deposition and its related processes in the study area.‎ The study area covers 8.43% of Iran (about 117,000 km2), located between 45°30′00″ E 35°00′00″ N ‎and 49°30′00″ E 30°00′00″ N including Kermanshah, Lorestan and Khuzestan. The fieldwork area is ‎characterized by the rolling mountainous terrain about 4000 m above sea level (a.s.l) in the north and ‎east, plains and marshlands in the south. Study area has also located in dry climate and hot summer ‎conditions in the south, cold and hot desert climates in the west. The studies on aeolian dust in ‎southwestern Iran are based solely on ground deposition rates from 2014 to 2017‎‏.‏ To address the connections between the Ground observation of dust Deposition Rates (GDR), climate ‎zones, and weather patterns, a comparative analysis with various data sets was conducted. Both ‎gravimetric and directional dust samplers (10 each) were installed to record the monthly GDR between ‎‎2014 and 2017. The sampler design was deliberately kept simple to ensure long-term durability and ‎easy maintenance. The collected dust samples were analyzed for their chemical composition using ‎Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The ten sampling sites were also classified ‎by their land use / land cover (LULC) for a more detailed data interpretation. The observation data ‎during two typical dust cases (spring 2014 and winter 2015), have furthermore been compared with ‎the spatiotemporal dust concentration and dust load over the study area. Comparing the results of the ‎monthly mean Aerosol Optical Thickness (AOT) derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging ‎Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and GDR data, using enhancement algorithms were applied in order to ‎investigate the spatiotemporal distribution of dust events. To demonstrate the aerosol movement, a ‎HYbrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model was used for tracing the ‎investigated dust events. The time-space consistency between AOT and GDR, in agreement with the ‎HYSPLIT model output was the basis for an improved estimation of the dust deposition rate from ‎separate thickness layers. Finally, by comparing the high temporal and maximum seasonal deposition ‎rates, using MODIS and GDR data, the impact of the regional climate on the deposition rates of ‎aeolian dust was assessed, which allows insights in potential future dust emission scenarios in times of ‎climate change. ‎ A major finding shows the impact of dust events on the environment and considers the influence of ‎geographical factors, such as weathering, and climate pattern over aeolian dust deposition rates. In ‎more detail, finding to address the first objective suggested that contributors of the elemental ‎concentrations are associated with elements emanating from local industrial and commercial activities ‎‎(Cr, V, and Cd). The dominant variables (K, Zn) strongly influence the aerosol composition values and ‎represent the dust transport route. Inter –element relationships shows that the highest proportion (80%) ‎of dust samples subjected to Airborne Metals Regulations are formed under local and regional ‎conditions. Besides, the analyses indicate that the WRF-Chem model adequately simulates the ‎evolution, spatial distribution and load of dust over the study area. Hence, the model performance has ‎been evaluated by GDR. It showed different values of GDR highly depending on LULC pattern. Due to ‎the fact, that there is no way to isolate each individual area from the effects of either anthropogenic ‎sources or natural weathering processes, developing guidance on the priorities of expanding projects ‎and preventative actions towards potential dust deposition from natural and dominant sources may be ‎a subject of institutional interest. ‎ The results of direct measurements of dust deposition, which are typically made by passive sampling ‎techniques (ground-based observations), along with analyzed data from AOT, represent the second ‎objective to understand the spatiotemporal pattern of the points with the same variation. The ‎corresponding points headed to find moving air mass trajectories, using HYSPLIT were proven to be a ‎discriminator of their local and regional origin of aeolian dust. Furthermore, the seasonal deposition rate ‎varied from 8.4 g/m2/month in the summer to 3.5 g/m2/month in the spring. Despite all the advances ‎of AOT, under certain circumstances, the ground-based solutions were able to represent aerosol ‎conditions over the research area, tested in the southwestern regions of Iran. And that is when the low ‎number of observations is a commonly acknowledged drawback of GDR.‎ In addition, the peak of the seasonal deposition rates (t/km2/month) occurred in [arid desert hot-BWh, ‎‎8.4], [arid steppe hot-BSh, 6.6], and [hot and dry summer-Csa, 3.5] climate regions. Thus, the third ‎objective response was‏ ‏detected as the highest deposition rates of dust BWh >BSh >Csa throughout ‎the year, once the annual mean deposition rates (t/km2/year) are 100.80 for [BWh], 79.27 for [BSh], ‎and 39.60 for [Csa]. The knowledge gained on the dust deposition processes, together with the ‎feedback from the climate pattern, will provide insights into the records of data for developing new ‎sources, deposition rates and their climate offsets. Taking this in mind, having information about the ‎ground deposition rates in the study region could make the estimations more accurate, while finding an ‎appropriate algorithm is necessary to enhance the affected areas exposed to the dust. In order to ‎assess the impact of dust events on human health, environment and the damage to the various ‎business sectors of the country’s economy, additional studies with adequate modelling tools are ‎needed. ‎ Due to this date, the data holding organizations are somewhat reluctant to make their data available to ‎other parties. This work is also a step toward an institutional suggestion to gain benefit from information ‎exchange amongst data holding organizations, providers and users. The need for capacity building and ‎strong policy for implementing user-friendly geo information portal‏ ‏is essential.

(4,7-Diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline-κ2 N,N′)diiodidomercury(II)

In the mol­ecule of the title compound, [HgI2(C24H16N2)], the HgII atom is four-coordinated in a distorted tetra­hedral configuration by two N atoms from the bidentate 4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline and two iodide ligands. There is a π–π contact between the pyridine and phenyl rings [centroid-to-centroid distance = 4.2387 (4) Å]

Bureaucratization of Iran's Health Structure during the Pahlavi I Era

زمینه و هدف: روند تغییر ساختار اداری، اجتماعی و اقتصادی ایران در دوره پهلوی اول گرایش به نوسازی داشت. ساختار بهداشتی و پزشکی ایران در این دوره دچار تغییر و تحول اساسی شد. نهادهای متولی بهداشت زیر نظر اداره کل صحیه مملکتی و بعداً اداره کل صحیه مدیریت می‌شد. مدارس دندان‌سازی، داروسازی، مدرسه طب و مدرسه قابلگی زیر نظر دانشکده پزشکی اداره می‌شدند. بیمارستان‌ها و سایر مراکز درمانی زیر نظر اداره صحیه به کار خود ادامه دادند و با تأسیس وزارت بهداری در سال 1320 متولی امر بهداشت در جامعه از اداره کل صحیه به وزارت بهداری منتقل شد. این تغییرات در راستای نوسازی ساختار پزشکی ایران بود. روش: این پژوهش با روش توصیفی ـ تحلیلی و با استفاده از منابع کتابخانه‎ای در پی یافتن پاسخ در مورد نحوه بوروکراتیزه‌شدن ساختار پزشکی ایران در دوره پهلوی اول است. ملاحظات اخلاقی: این پژوهش صرفاً با تکیه بر منابع کتابخانه‌ای و اسناد آرشیویی انجام شده و اصل امانتداری و صداقت استناد به متون مورد استفاده، اصالت منابع و پرهیز از جانبداری در مراجعه به متون یا تحلیل‌ها، رعایت شده است. یافته‌ها: در دوره پهلوی اول اصلاحات ساختاری در زمینه‌های سیاسی، اداری، اقتصادی و فرهنگی انجام شد و این اصلاحات در زمینه تجمیع و نوسازی نهادهای بهداشتی و پزشکی در ایران نمود بیشتری یافت. نوسازی و تجمیع نهادهای بهداشتی در ایران دوره پهلوی اول نه تنها منجر به بهسازی و افزایش کارایی این نهادها شد، بلکه به روندی بیش از پیش ادامه یافت و در دوره پهلوی دوم این روند ادامه یافت و نهادها و سازمان‌های بیشتری در این زمینه تأسیس شد. نتیجه‌گیری: به نظر می‌رسد که با تجمیع نهادهایی مانند (مدرسه داروسازی، مدرسه دندان‌پزشکی و مدرسه قابلگی) در نهادی مانند دانشکده پزشکی و اداره بیمارستان‌ها زیر نظر اداره کل صحیه، نهادهای متولی بهداشت و علوم پزشکی سر و سامان گرفت.Background and Aim: The process of changing the administrative, social and economic structure of Iran in the Pahlavi I era tended towards modernization. The health and medical structure of Iran underwent fundamental changes during this period. Institutions in charge of health were managed under the supervision of the General Directorate of Health and later the General Directorate of Health. Schools of dentistry, pharmacy, school of medicine and school of midwifery were managed under the supervision of the medical school. Hospitals and other medical centers continued to work under the supervision of the Health Department, and with the establishment of the Ministry of Health in 1320, the person in charge of public health was transferred from the General Department of Health to the Ministry of Health. These changes were aimed at modernizing Iran's medical structure. Methods: This research, using the descriptive-analytical method and using library sources, seeks to find an answer about the bureaucratization of the medical structure of Iran during the Pahlavi I era period. Ethical Considerations: This research was conducted solely by relying on library sources and archival documents, and the principles of trustworthiness and honesty of citing the used texts, originality of sources and avoiding bias in referring to texts or analyzes were observed. Results: During the Pahlavi I era, structural reforms were carried out in political, administrative, economic and cultural fields and these reforms were more manifested in the field of consolidating and modernizing health and medical institutions in Iran. Renovation and consolidation of health institutions in Iran during the  Pahlavi I era not only led to the improvement and increase of the efficiency of these institutions, but also continued to a higher trend and in the  Pahlavi II era, this process continued and more institutions and organizations were established in this field. Conclusion: It seems that by consolidating institutions such as (school of pharmacy, school of dentistry and school of midwifery) in an institution such as medical school and administration of hospitals under the supervision of the General Directorate of Health, the institutions in charge of health and medical sciences were organized. Please cite this article as: Ahmadi M, Aghamiri SS, Sadeghi S. Bureaucratization of Iran's Health Structure during the Pahlavi I Era. Tārīkh-i pizishkī, i.e., Medical History. 2022; 14(47): e19

DroidSieve:Fast and Accurate Classification of Obfuscated Android Malware

With more than two million applications, Android marketplaces require automatic and scalable methods to efficiently vet apps for the absence of malicious threats. Recent techniques have successfully relied on the extraction of lightweight syntactic features suitable for machine learning classification, but despite their promising results, the very nature of such features suggest they would unlikely-on their own-be suitable for detecting obfuscated Android malware. To address this challenge, we propose DroidSieve, an Android malware classifier based on static analysis that is fast, accurate, and resilient to obfuscation. For a given app, DroidSieve first decides whether the app is malicious and, if so, classifies it as belonging to a family of related malware. DroidSieve exploits obfuscation-invariant features and artifacts introduced by obfuscation mechanisms used in malware. At the same time, these purely static features are designed for processing at scale and can be extracted quickly. For malware detection, we achieve up to 99.82% accuracy with zero false positives; for family identification of obfuscated malware, we achieve 99.26% accuracy at a fraction of the computational cost of state-of-The-Art techniques

Troxerutin affects the male fertility in prepubertal type 1 diabetic male rats

Objective(s): Diabetes can gradually cause damage to the function and structure of male gonads. This survey was conducted to investigate the effect of troxerutin on hormonal changes, serum oxidative stress indices, and testicular function and structure in prepubertal diabetic rats.Materials and Methods: Fifty prepubertal (6 weeks old) male Wistar rats were divided into five groups including Control, Troxerutin, Diabetic, Diabetic+Troxerutin, and Diabetic+Insulin. Type I diabetes was induced by 55 mg/kg of streptozotocin intraperitoneally. The groups were treated with 150 mg/kg/day troxerutin via oral gavage or 4-6 IU/day insulin via subcutaneous injection for 4 consecutive weeks. Blood sugar (BS) and serum levels of insulin, FSH, LH, testosterone, glutathione peroxidase (GPX), superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) were analyzed. Testis and epididymis were removed for histopathologic study and analysis of sperm parameters.Results: Troxerutin significantly reduced the BS in the diabetic group similar to insulin but could not affect insulin, FSH, or LH significantly. Troxerutin caused a significant increase in testosterone and GPX but had no significant effect on serum MDA, TAC, and SOD levels. In addition, troxerutin had a better effect than insulin on diabetes-induced testicular structural damage. Sperm analysis results also revealed that troxerutin and insulin could improve sperm number, motility, and viability in diabetic rats.Conclusion: According to these results, it can be derived that administration of troxerutin is a suitable protective strategy for side effects of diabetes in testis of prepubertal diabetic male rats

The worldwide prevalence of anxiety in acquired immune deficiency syndrome patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Anxiety affects social, economic, and physical aspects of daily life in patients with AIDS. Therefore, it is necessary to take preventive measures and design plans to maintain their general health. The present study was the first comprehensive systematic literature review research that examined the worldwide prevalence rate of anxiety in patients with AIDS. Methods: We searched for papers published in the English language in the major databases including Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane, and Google Scholar from 2000 to October 2018. There were 40 studies which found to be eligible. These studies were independently evaluated and the collected data were entered in a data extraction form, which was then analyzed by two authors and a third author if necessary. Der Simonian-Laird model was used to estimate the prevalence rate on a Forest plot at the interval confidence of 95%. Results: The total sample size was 24111, and the total number of people with anxiety was 5546. The results based on the random-effects model showed that the rate of anxiety prevalence in the patients was 25% (CI: 95%, 21% -30%) with heterogeneity of 97.9% and a significance level of p<0.001. The South America continent with a prevalence f 38% (95% CI, 34%-42%) had the highest anxiety prevalence rates and Africa with 19% (95% CI, 12% -29%) had the lowest anxiety prevalence rates. Conclusion: Based on findings, the prevalence of anxiety in developed countries was partially higher than in underdeveloped countries and the obtained mean in the present study. It can be a significant point for policymakers. Therefore, WHO and the world community should have special plans for these countries