Heavy Metal Contamination in the Sediments of Anzali International Wetland, Northern Iran Based on Type Regional Development

Background: The most important factors and problems threatening the Anzali Wetland are the contaminant load and sediments entering the wetland, as well as lack of an integrated management plan for this wetland. The main objectives of the current research were to explore whether there are significant differences in concentrations of Zn, Cd, and Pb in surface sediments among different sites (based on type region development) of the Anzali Wetland, Northern Iran. Methods: Through a field study, samples were collected from 10 stations based on the type of regional development and contaminant source inputs of Anzali Wetland in 2015. Using a hot-block digester, the sediment samples were digested with a 4:1 combination of nitric acid (HNO3) and perchloric acid (HCLO4) for one hour at 40 °C, followed by 3 h at 140 °C. Afterwards, samples were filtered with Whatman 42, filter paper and the filtrate was kept in polyethylene containers at 4 °C, until analysis by atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS). Results: Mean ± SD levels of metals in the sediments of different stations were 26.7 ± 3.49 (lead), 4.36 ± 0.47 (cadmium), and 88.44 ± 10.06 (zinc) μg g-1 dw. There was a significant difference between the stations of the wetland (P < 0.05). This difference could be due to the variations in the input of contaminant sources into the Anzali Wetland. Conclusions: The areas, affected by urban and industrial developments, had the highest level of contamination while the agricultural and less-developed areas had the lowest level of contamination, and therefore, protective plans must be implemented in developed areas in order to lower the level of heavy metals

O OR RI IG GI IN NA AL L A AR RT TI IC CL LE E Chemical composition of Ziziphoratenuiar of Kahnooj in Iran

ABSTRACT The increasing demands of consumers for using less chemical preservatives has led to increasing number of researches to produce natural compounds with antimicrobial properties.Fresh aerial parts of wild Ziziphoratenuiar were collected in Eastern IranZ.tenuior samples were collected after initial preparation isolated from the aboveground plant parts and plant samples preparation by water distillation using Clevenger apparatus after determining the optimal conditions for making essential oil was obtained. Essential oil with an efficiency of 1/1 percent (g/g) was obtained and by GC-MS to determine the composition of the essential oils was analyzed and indicates 21 compounds. Key combinations were as: pulegone (82.6 %) and limonene (6.8%) which was extracted. the studied essential oil would exhibit good antimicrobial properties, but this was not evaluated and further investigation should be carried out for use of this essential oil in various industries

Lockr: Better Privacy for Social Networks

Today’s online social networking (OSN) sites do little to protect the privacy of their users ’ social networking information. Given the highly sensitive nature of the information these sites store, it is understandable that many users feel victimized and disempowered by OSN providers ’ terms of service. This paper presents Lockr, a system that improves the privacy of centralized and decentralized online content sharing systems. Lockr offers three significant privacy benefits to OSN users. First, it separates social networking content from all other functionality that OSNs provide. This decoupling lets users control their own social information: they can decide which OSN provider should store it, which third parties should have access to it, or they can even choose to manage it themselves. Such flexibility better accommodates OSN users ’ privacy needs and preferences. Second, Lockr ensures that digitally signed social relationships needed to access social data cannot be re-used by the OSN for unintended purposes. This feature drastically reduces the value to others of social content that users entrust to OSN providers. Finally, Lockr enables message encryption using a social relationship key. This key lets two strangers with a common friend verify their relationship without exposing it to others, a common privacy threat when sharing data in a decentralized scenario. This paper relates Lockr’s design and implementation and shows how we integrate it with Flickr, a centralized OSN, and BitTorrent, a decentralized one. Our implementation demonstrates Lockr’s critical primary benefits for privacy as well as its secondary benefits for simplifying site management and accelerating content delivery. These benefits were achieved with negligible performance cost and overhead. Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.0 [General]: Security and protectio

Photocatalytic Degradation of Ciprofloxacin pharmacy pollutant in Batch Photoreactor

Background & Aims of the Study: Pharmaceutical compounds have a variety of forms and applications. Specific amounts of toxic organic compounds in the process of their manufacturing and utilization cause environmental pollution problems. So, degradation and removal these compounds are necessary. The aim of this paper is the study photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin drug in aqueous solution using photo-Fenton process in a batch photoreactor. Materials and methods: This is an experimental study on a laboratory scale. Fe2+ ions as a homogeneous catalyst applied for the degradation of ciprofloxacin in aqueous solution. The study was performed on synthetic wastewaters that contain ciprofloxacin as a pollutant. The effect of operational parameters such as pH, Fe2+ concentration and H2O2 concentration on reaction kinetics were studied and the optimum conditions were determined for the photocatalytic degradation of ciprofloxacin using one factor at the time (OFAT) experimental design method. Results: The optimal conditions were obtained at pH =3, Fe2+ concentration at 35 ppm and H2O2 concentration at 25 ppm. A first order reaction with rate constant (k=0.0291 min−1) was observed for the photocatalytic degradation reaction. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) analysis of the ciprofloxacin under optimum conditions showed 92% reduction COD in a 49 min period. Conclusions: The results showed that the photo-Fenton process can be a suitable alternative method to degradation of pharmaceutical compounds from synthesis wastewaters