Lead Toxicity Resulting from Chronic Ingestion of Opium

A 32-year-old man presented to the emergency department (ED) with lower abdominal pain and constipation. He related chronic ingestion of large amounts of opium. Physical examination showed mild abdominal tenderness and gingival discoloration. Diagnostic studies showed a mild hypochromic, microcytic anemia with basophilic stippling of the red blood cells. Abdominal imaging showed no intra-abdominal pathology. A diagnosis of lead toxicity was confirmed through serum lead levels. The patient was put on chelation therapy and his signs and symptoms started to resolve. As a comprehensive search for other sources of lead was unsuccessful, opium adulterants were considered as the culprit. Chemical analysis of the opium confirmed this. Contaminated drugs have been reported as a source of exposure to toxins such as arsenic or lead. While other reports deal with patients from clinics, this report illustrates lead toxicity from ingestion of contaminated opium in the ED

Design and implementation of location-based service for targeted advertising

Nowadays, mobile phones have been increasingly advertised. These performance advertisement tools altered to be one of the beneficial factors in order to promote products and services in national or local companies. One of the outstanding features of mobile phones is that everybody has accessibility in different circumstances and times. Companies struggle to draw customers attention by providing information, stimulating text or image to advertise their products by which high cost have been consumed. In this study, a system is designed and implemented for efficient and effective interaction between companies and customers. It is worth mentioning here this system has some great feature like being aware of text, owning mobile user Interface and presenting location-based service. These features enable companies to design an advertisement in a purposeful way. Such these advertisements can effectively be sent to the population company which are on target. Finally, the system was evaluated. Reduction in cost and effectiveness of advertising are grounded in the result of the study

Volunteered geographic information in crisis management

During the disaster, rescue groups are responsible for tasks that require different types of information to optimize their activities. Preparation and distribution of information are very sensitive. The acquisition of new data and events such as degraded buildings and injured people in some cases using conventional methods is very difficult. With the advancement of technology, people familiar with social networks and smartphones, people produce and generate large amounts of data. This phenomenon is called Volunteered geographic information. Today, this data collected and shared with sites and social networks for free. This paper pays service that Volunteered geographic information provided to crisis management. Experience has shown that the system cannot work without regard to environmental considerations. The current system of data collection, updating and spatial data infrastructure, cannot consider emergency situations. In particular, companies such as Ushahidi and OSM's activities will be described. This article is based on articles and activities conducted in this field and provides the category and in the end, discussed and determine the factors affecting the performance of them

Effect of calcium alginate coating on shelf life of frozen lamb muscle

Considering the potential benefits of edible coatings and films for storage of food materials, effect of edible calcium alginate film on shelf life of frozen lamb muscles was studied in the present research. Microbial analyses including total microorganisms count and psychrophilic bacteria count and chemical analyses such as total volatile nitrogen (TVN) and moisture content determination were performed. Coated and uncoated samples had not statistically significant difference in total microbial count, total volatile nitrogen level and moisture content. However, there was statistically significant difference between the coated and uncoated samples in terms of psychrophilic bacteria count (p<0.05). Considering the role of psychrophilic bacteria in meat spoilage, results of the current research confirmed that calcium alginate films may be to some extent effective in shelf life extension of frozen lamb muscle.

Adsorption of Copper from aqueous solution by chitosan using molecular imprinting technology

In nature chitosan is a plentiful polymer with high heavy metal ion uptake capacity due to chitosan’s functional groups that chelate with the positive surfaces of heavy metal ions. In this study, epichlorohydrin was used as a crosslink to prepare the copper-imprinted chitosan as a pattern to enable the selectivity property and increase adsorption capacity. The effects of the cross-linker, PH, initial concentration and time were examined in this study to identify the optimum amount of each to remove copper metal ions from waste water by imprinted chitosan. This composite was characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) test to determine the existence of copper ions in chitosan crosslinked with epichlorohydrin. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tests were also done to compare the surfaces of crosslinked chitosan and the removal of copper by imprinted chitosan. PH adsorption was tested from 3 to 7 and the initial concentration and time investigated were between 10 and 100 mg/l and 0 and 120 minutes respectively. The maximum capacity to adsorb was found to be at PH 7, initial concentration of 100mg/l at 90 minutes with 0.1 gr chitosan. Ultimately, the maximum adsorbent amount achieved for effective Cu(II) removal was 74.37 mg/g

Removal of cadmium (II) from aqueous solution by graphene oxid

Heavy metal ions are one of the principal contamination source and cause of difficulties in wastewater processing that requires being eliminated before discharging into the eco-system. Adsorption of cadmium (II) from an aqueous solution by graphene oxide has been considered. Recently, graphene oxide (GO) has taken a large amount of attention because of high mechanical strength and appropriate surface area that has provided to apply as strengthened materials, various oxygen functional groups on its surface and π-electron system. In this investigation, graphene oxide was employed as an effective and proper adsorbent for separating the cadmium (II) from aqueous solution. TEM, Raman, FT-IR, and SEM tests have been used for characterizing the graphene oxide. In the adsorption process, initial concentrations of aqueous solution examined from 20 to 100 mg/l; pH and contact time were investigated from 3 to 8 and 5 to 100 minutes respectively. Adsorption isotherm obeyed Langmuir, Freundlich, and Temkin that the maximum cadmium adsorption capacity has been taken from Langmuir fitting with 135.14 mg/g. Also, the kinetic considerations explained that the adsorption manner followed the pseudo-second-order kinetic model with R2. Thermodynamic investigations and parameters show the exothermic and spontaneous of adsorption

Removal of cadmium (II) by graphene oxide-chitosan adsorbent from aqueous solution

Pollution has a negative influence on the environment and is necessary to eliminate from wastewater and aqueous solution. There are several adsorbents for removing the pollution, among them Graphene oxide and Chitosan are proper elements with great uptaking ability. In this investigation, graphene oxide surface was coated with chitosan paricles to remove the Cadmium (II) from aqueous solution. The impact of concentration, pH and time were studied to achieve the optimum conditions of adsorption. The adsorbent was analyzed by TEM, FT-IR, XRD, and SEM analysis. The outcomes presented that the adsorbent was prepared successfully. The concentration item was tested from 10 to 120 ppm. The pH and time items were studied from 3 to 8 value and from 5 to 140 minutes for eliminating cadmium (II) respectively. Freundlich and Langmuir's models was used and the pseudo-second-order was the best fitted kinetic model in this investigation. Conclusively, the maximum adsorption ability of the made adsorbent was achieved at 107.8 mg/g based on Langmuir isotherm

Hydrogen Production Using bacteria of Thermotoga maritime

ABSTRACT Hydrogen production from renewable sources such biomass derived from agricultural waste and municipal alternative ways require to reduce energy costs and consumption of oil and methane gas. Subscribe anaerobic organisms in the environment, such as landfills and cow rumen, methane and hydrogen as well as hydrogen sulfide is a gas stream is suitable for hydrogen fuel cells

On-line monitoring of brewery fermentation via isotopic analysis of the evolved CO2

Brewer's yeasts metabolize sugars and produce ethanol and CO2. This study aimed to investigate the relation between the assimilation of sugars in all-malt wort and isotopic signature of carbon and oxygen in the evolved CO2 from brewery fermentations. The isotopic composition of CO2 was measured by a tunable diode laser absorption spectrometer. The isotopic data obtained with automatic sampling, on-line, and in real-time. Wort samples were collected with 3 h intervals to quantify the residual sugars by high-performance liquid chromatography. Patterns of changes in δ13C and δ18O values were unique to experiments with each yeast type. The common overall ascending trend in δ13C and δ18O values in all experiments can be described by kinetic fractionation of isotopes, which explains that in a bioreaction the lighter isotopes participate in the reaction more readily than the heavier ones. Therefore, the early emergence of light isotopologues of CO2 may be a consequence of the fermentation of light isotopologues of sugars. A sudden decrease and then increase in delta values were observed in all experiments before the residual concentrations of glucose and fructose reach their lowest levels. This can be an indicator of the complete assimilation of monosaccharides by yeast. In the fermentations that yeast was able to consume maltose, δ13C and δ18O values raised considerably in a short period. Concurrently, maltose approached its eventual residual concentrations indicating an endpoint for its utilization by yeast. Our results confirm the hypothesis of a connection between the assimilation of sugars and the isotopic signature of evolved CO2 during brewery fermentations. The findings support the potential of off-gas isotopic analysis to monitor sugar assimilation in brewery fermentations

Lead Toxicity Resulting from Chronic Ingestion of Opium

A 32-year-old man presented to the emergency department (ED) with lower abdominal pain and constipation. He related chronic ingestion of large amounts of opium. Physical examination showed mild abdominal tenderness and gingival discoloration. Diagnostic studies showed a mild hypochromic, microcytic anemia with basophilic stippling of the red blood cells. Abdominal imaging showed no intra-abdominal pathology. A diagnosis of lead toxicity was confirmed through serum lead levels. The patient was put on chelation therapy and his signs and symptoms started to resolve. As a comprehensive search for other sources of lead was unsuccessful, opium adulterants were considered as the culprit. Chemical analysis of the opium confirmed this. Contaminated drugs have been reported as a source of exposure to toxins such as arsenic or lead. While other reports deal with patients from clinics, this report illustrates lead toxicity from ingestion of contaminated opium in the ED.[West J Emerg Med. 2009;10(4):244-246.