Importance of Price for Buying Environmentally Friendly Products

This study considered price as an important indicator, which could affects customers’ decisionmaking about buying an environmentally friendly product and investigated the intention of buyers for buying ecological product in comparison with non-environmentally friendly products with regard to price. For such a reason products have been categorized in three different categories such as: Short term, Middle term and Long-term products. The respondents were asked to answer whether they are interested to buy environmentally friendly products when the normal products exist in the market or they have no intention to buy these kinds of products. More over it has been tried to explore that how much the buyers will accept to pay more for environmentally friendly products rather than nonecological products in each category (short term, middle term and long term). Consequently, each category has been divided to six different percentage levels of price to indicate the percentage of acceptance by customers to pay more for the specified categories of eco-friendly products in comparison to non-environmentally friendly products. The result of this research shows that the majority of customers agree to pay certain percentage more to buy environmentally friendly products with eco labels and ecological characteristics rather than non-environmentally products when these green products are available in the market

FDI Effects on Economic Growth: The Role of Natural Resource and Environmental Policy

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a crucial ingredient of the global economy. In the Persian Gulf, FDI is a major source of economic growth, employment, technology, and productivity. Because of these benefits, attracting FDI in the Persian Gulf region has become a key element of strategies promoting economic development. Natural resources and environmental policy in host countries may affect the FDIeconomic growth relationship. There has been much dispute as to whether economies that are open and those with more natural capital and lax environmental policy grow faster. This paper examines whether natural resources and environmental policy in Persian Gulf countries alter the relationship between FDI and Persian Gulf’s economics growth. We estimate a linear dynamic panel-data model using data from Persian Gulf countries over the period 1980–2012.The results show that the impact of arable land, forest area and the interaction between FDI and environmental policy on economic growth is negative, but renewable internal freshwater resources flows, mineral depletion and energy use have a positive effect

Absorption Cooling for Data Centers powered by Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Waste Heat

Thermal integration of a solid oxide fuel cell and a lithium bromide absorption chiller is proposed for air conditioning at data centers. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) can be effectively implemented as primary energy producers at data centers due to their efficiency, environmental friendliness, and fuel flexibility. This study focuses on row-level SOFC power in the range of 150 – 200 kW. Operating at temperatures greater than 700°C, SOFC systems can produce high quality heat that can be utilized by absorption technology to provide supplemental cooling for the servers. This study investigates the operation of a triple-effect absorption chiller (AC) in two possible configurations of a data center. The first configuration corresponds to traditional air-cooled servers. This configuration offers row-level cooling using a large-scale triple-effect lithium-bromide absorption chiller to provide cooling using traditional air handling units. The second configuration corresponds to newer liquid cooled servers, which can use chilling at higher temperatures. The study theoretically investigated the SOFC system and the useful heat within the exhaust stream. Exercising a mathematical model, we find that SOFC exhaust temperatures range from 250-350°C. Combining the exhaust heat characterization with waste heat recovery (WHR) from a triple-effect AC, we verify that the useful heat in the exhaust ranges between 80 and 120 kW. A mathematical model of a triple-effect AC investigates the operation of the AC between the varying exhaust temperatures and chilling temperatures. We concluded that at higher chilling temperatures, the integrated SOFC/AC system can fully offset the chilling and power demand of the server row in the data center

The reliability and validity of the persian version of sinonasal outcome test 22 (Snot22) questionnaires

Background: The quality of life (QOL) is an important indicator for disease-severity classification and outcome measurement in obtaining treatment sinonasal diseases. The sinonasal outcome test 22 (SNOT 22) questionnaire has been introduced as the best specific sinonasal instrument for QOL measurement. Objectives: To prepare a valid and reliable Persian language version of SNOT 22 questionnaire. Patients and Methods: After forward and backward translation of the original version of SNOT 22 questionnaire from English to Persian, a group of patients with nasal septal deviation who need septal surgery and another group of healthy volunteers answered the Persian version of the questionnaire. The responsiveness rate, validity (Pearson correlations and differential validity) and reliability (internal consistency and test-retest reliability) of the 22 items of the questionnaire was calculated. P value < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Thirty adults with nasal septal deviation need surgical correction and 30 healthy volunteers were included (mean age 30.4 ± 7.1 vs. 33 ± 6.7, P value = 0.148). The questionnaire was introduced to subjects two times with a two-week-period gap. Total responsiveness rate for 22 items was more than 97%. The total Cronbach's Alfa coefficient was 0.898 (ranging 0.890-0.903). The Pearson correlations were 0.85 and 0.96 for patients and healthy volunteers, respectively. The mean total score were 25.6 ± 13.3 (range 6-52) and 7.6 ± 9.1 (range 0-45) in patients and healthy volunteers, respectively (P < 0.0001). The subscales scores were also significantly different between two groups. Conclusions: The Persian version of SNOT 22 questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument for accessing sinonasal diseases in Persianspeaking people

Ionic liquid-based single drop as a simple and efficient microextraction method for simultaneous determination of aminophenol isomers in human urine, hair dye and water samples using HPLC

A user-friendly and inexpensive ionic liquid-based single-drop microextraction (IL-SDME) method was developed to preconcentrate trace amounts of aminophenol isomers (APs) from human urine, hair dye and water samples prior to analysis by high performance liquid chromatography-ultraviolet spectrophotometry detection (HPLC-UV). Under optimum conditions (i.e., 3.5 µL of 1-hexyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate [C6MIM][PF6], 10 mL of sample, NaCl free adjusted to pH 5.5, 15 min extraction time and 800 rpm agitation speed at room temperature) enrichment factors and limits of detection were ranged from 348 to 364 and 0.06 to 0.14 depending on the target analytes. The method gave good levels of repeatability with relative standard deviations varying between 3.6 and 4.2 % (n = 5). Recoveries of the analytes were ranged between 87.3 and 99.3 %, showing that the matrix had a negligible effect upon extraction. Finally, the proposed method was successfully applied to the analysis of different real samples such as human urine, hair dye and water samples

Investigation of photo-catalytic effect of SnO2/AC nanocomposite on photo-degradation of basic yellow 13 and rodamin b dyes

AbstractIn this study, the degradation of the two dyes basic in their binary mixture is examined under the light irradiation in the presence of catalyst. A mercury lamp, which was located at a distance 30 cm from the solution surface, was used as the UV irradiation source. The first-order derivative spectra was used to obtain the residual concentration of each dye in mixtures after a given time of photo-degradation. The and techniques are employed to confirm the nanocomposite prepared. The effects of the parameters involved in the photo-catalytic activity including the solution, catalyst dosage, and concentrations of the two dyes are studied. The results obtained show that under the optimum experimental conditions and after 60 minutes of the UV light irradiation in the presence of the 8 mg catalyst and in the of 5.5, the percentage degradation of the two dyes are more than 90%

Effect of Chaerophyllum macropodum extracts on Trichomonas vaginalis in vitro

Introduction: Trichomonas vaginalis (T. vaginalis) is a protozoan parasite causing trichomoniasis or trichomonal vaginitis. The infection is considered as non-viral sexually transmitted disease (STD). Metronidazole and Tinidazole are now the drugs of choice for the treatment of this infection. However, resistant to these drugs has also been reported. So it is necessary to search for effective alternative drugs with fewer side effects. Chaerophyllum macropodum (C. macropodum) plant have been used against some parasites. Therefore, in this study the effects of different extracts of this plant on T. vaginalis in culture media have been investigated. Methods: In this experimental study hydro-ethanol extracts of C. macropodum leaves were prepared. Anti-T. vaginalis activities of the extracts were tested in concentrations of 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 40, 50, 60, 80, 100 and 150 mg/ml following 24, 48 and 72 hours of incubation of cultured media. Results: All extract concentrations showed some degrees of growth inhibition activity on T. vaginalis. However crude extract was more efficient. Conclusion: C. macropodum showed an anti-T. vaginalis activity. More investigations are recommended to use this plant as an antiparasitic drug

Risk Factors and Prevention of Pulmonary Embolism in Young Adults

Objective: Pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) importance is due to some reasons, first, it is one of the most common cardiovascular diseases, second it has high mortality and morbidity especially in some situations and third, prevention of this event is applicable and effective in most cases. The aim of this study was evaluation of predisposing factors of pulmonary emboli in young patients and defining preventive strategies in this age group. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study, recorded data including age, sex, presentation month, chief complaint, vital signs at admission, positive findings of physical examination, venous thromboembolism (VTE) risk factors, laboratory and imaging findings of patients with pulmonary embolism diagnosis who had 45 years old or less from March 2008 to March 2014 in Shahid Madani Heart hospital, Tabriz, Iran were evaluated. Statistical analysis was done via SPSS version 21. Results: Eight hundred seventy patients had pulmonary emboli diagnosis during study period, 101 of them were ≤ 45 years old. Fifty-three patients were men and 48 of them were women. Mean age of patients was 33.6 years. Abnormal lower limb was the most frequent positive finding at physical examination. The important risk factor in women was hormonal change due to pregnancy or oral contraceptive pill use which was present in 50% of females. Smoking and immobilization due to surgery or trauma were the most common risk factor in men. Women had higher pulse rate (113.53± 21.84 vs 101.33 ± 20.27, P = 0.005) and lower hemoglobin (11.76 ± 2.00 vs 13.52 ± 2.21, P = 0.000) than men. The overall mortality rate was 10.8%. Conclusion: Although all the risk factors of pulmonary emboli were not evaluated in our patients but the determined ones seem to be modifiable in majority of cases