Photocatalytic Oxidation of Carbofuran Pesticide Using Zinc Oxide

In recent years, the application of ultraviolet irradiation and zinc oxide (UV/ZnO) process water and wastewater treatment has gained removal activity of the persistence organic compounds. The degradation of carbofuran pesticide was investigated under ultraviolet irradiation and zinc oxide (UV/ZnO) process. Likewise, the effect of the operational parameters such as reaction volume, initial concentration of catalyst, initial carbofuran concentration, light intensity and pH were studied. In this study the (UV/ZnO) process at different initial concentrations (50-250 mg/L), 5 different initial pH and 5 different initial concentration of catalyst was investigated. Analyses were performed by gas chromatography mass spectroscopy. Results showed that the carbofuran initial concentration of 50 mg/L, ZnO concentration of 300 mg/L, pH of 8, light intensity of 125 watts and reaction volume of 150 mL, were the optimum condition for degradation of carbofuran by UV/ZnO system. This study demonstrated that carbofuran could be effectively degraded by ultrasonic irradiation

Tracking of Hepatopancreatic parvo-like virus (HPV) disease in Litopenaeus vannamei of the hatcheries in the Bushehr Province

Presence of hepatopancreatic parvo-like vines (HPV) disease was assessed from June until October 2009 in Litopenaeus vannamei hatcheries and grow-out farms of the Bushehr province. Samples were collected from 6 hatcheries and 6 grow-out farms located in coasted areas. From each hatchery, 100 PL samples with average age PL5-PL8 and 20-30 samples from each grow-out farm with average age 105 to 120 days were collected. The samples were divided into three groups one used for gross sign and wet mount with Gimsa, the second group was preserved in Davidson Fixative and used for histopathology and the third group was fixed in ethyl alcohol 95% and used for polymerase chain Reaction (PCR). In gross sign 30%- 40% of the shrimp showed different sizes and some were smaller than the others. In the wet mount group with Gimsa staining of hepatopancrease, the inclusion body with basophilic color was seen. The histopathology indicated that the hepatopancreatic cell was infected and the basophilic inclusion body observed in many samples. The PCR examined with IQ 2000 Kit was negative. The rate of infection (ROI) was 1.1% for hatcheries and 32% for grow-out farms

The efficacy of psycho training on improvement of organizational behavior and mental health

Introduction: One of the most important issues of organizations in the modern age is to maximize their efficiency via improvement of organizational behavior. Organizational behavior is directly linked to mental health and recent studies have shown the major role of religion in maintaining mental health of people. The aim of the study was to investigate the efficacy of psycho-religious training on improvement of the organizational behavior and mental health.Method: A group of 120 white collar personnel (60 females and 60 males) chosen by cluster sampling & divided randomly into two equal experimental and control groups (n=60; 30 female & 30 male). The experimental trial was the administration of the psycho-religious training for three weeks, which consisted of twelve 120-minute discussion-group sessions during 12 weeks. In order to assess the mental health, GHQ-28 was administered as pre-test and post-test in both groups.Findings: The results of the independent and dependent t-test indicate the positive effect of psycho-religious training on the mental health of the participants in the experimental group in indices of anxiety/insomnia, severe depression, and total health (p<.05). There were no significant gender differences.Discussion and conclusion: These findings suggest that incorporation of religious training within the usual modalities of psychological interventions would be beneficial and increase the levels of mental health and organizational behavior. Implications and suggestions are discussed.Keywords: Psycho-religious education, psychoeducation, religion, organizational behavior, mental health, white collar, labor forc

Hairy rotating black string in the Einstein-Maxwell-Higgs system

We show numerically that the Abelian Higgs field equations in the background of a four-dimensional rotating charged black string have vortex solutions. These solutions which have axial symmetry show that the rotating black string can support the Abelian Higgs field as hair. We find that one encounters with an electric field coupled to the Higgs scalar field for the case of rotating black string. This electric field is due to an electric charge per unit length, which increases as the rotation parameter becomes larger. We also find that the vortex thickness decreases as the rotation parameter grows up. Finally we consider the self-gravity of the Abelian Higgs field and show that the effect of the vortex is to induce a deficit angle in the metric under consideration which decreases as the rotation parameter increases.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures, references added, some minor corrections don

Lived experiences of patients suffering from acute Old World Cutaneous Leishmaniasis: A qualitative content analysis study from Iran

Background: The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of patients who suffer from acute cutaneous leishmaniasis in Iran, focusing on quality of life. Methods: The study was conducted at two different sites in Iran in 2010-2011. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with six men and six women parasitologically confirmed acute cutaneous leishmaniasis. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and translated into English. Qualitative content analysis was used for data analysis. Results: The participants, aged 23 to 63yr, had mild to severe disease. Based on the analysis four main themes were developed. "Fearing an agonizing disease" reflects patients' experiences of disease development resulting in sadness and depression, "struggling to cope" and "taking on the blame" both illustrate how patients experience living with the disease, which included both felt and enacted stigma as major social concerns. "Longing for being seen and heard" refers to patients' experiences with healthcare as well as their expectations and demands from communities and healthcare to be involved in closing the knowledge and awareness gap. Conclusion: Mental and social dimensions of cutaneous leishmaniasis were complex and adversely affected patients' lives by causing psychological burden and limiting their social interactions. Health authorities have to plan programs to increase the disease awareness to prevent the existing stigma to improve patients' social condition and medical care. © 2018, Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Correction to: Improved Butterfly Optimization Algorithm for Data Placement and Scheduling in Edge Computing Environments (Journal of Grid Computing, (2021), 19, 2, (14), 10.1007/s10723-021-09556-0)

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10723-021-09562-2. © 2021, Springer Nature B.V

Vaccination with recombinant 4×M2e.HSP70c fusion protein as a universal vaccine candidate enhances both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses and decreases viral shedding against experimental challenge of H9N2 influenza in chickens

As cellular immunity is essential for virus clearance, it is commonly accepted that no adequate cellular immunity is achieved by all available inactivated HA-based influenza vaccines. Thus, an improved influenza vaccine to induce both humoral and cell-mediated immune responses is urgently required to control LPAI H9N2 outbreaks in poultry farms. M2e-based vaccines have been suggested and developed as a new generation of universal vaccine candidate against influenza A infection. Our previous study have shown that a prime-boost administration of recombinant 4 × M2e. HSP70c (r4M2e/H70c) fusion protein compared to conventional HA-based influenza vaccines provided full protection against lethal dose of influenza A viruses in mice. In the present study, the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of (r4M2e/H70c) was examined in chickens. The data reported herein show that protection against H9N2 viral challenge was significantly increased in chickens by injection of r4M2e/H70c compared with injection of conventional HA-based influenza vaccine adjuvanted with MF59 or recombinant 4 × M2e (r4M2e) without HSP70c. Oropharyngeal and cloacal shedding of the virus was detected in all of the r4M2e/H70c vaccinated birds at 2 days after challenge, but the titer was low and decreased rapidly to reach undetectable levels at 7 days after challenge. Moreover, comparison of protective efficacy against LPAI H9N2 in birds intramuscularly immunized with r4M2e/H70c likely represented the ability of the M2e-based vaccine in providing cross-protection against heterosubtypic H9N2 challenge and also allowed the host immune system to induce HA-homosubtype neutralizing antibody against H9N2 challenge. This protective immunity might be attributed to enhanced cell-mediated immunity, which is interpreted as increased lymphocytes proliferation, increased levels of Th1-type (IFN-γ) and Th2-type (IL-4) cytokines production and increased CD4+ to CD8+ ratios, resulting from the injection of four tandem repeats of the ectodomain of the conserved influenza matrix protein M2 (4×M2e) genetically fused to C-terminus of Mycobacterium tuberculosis HSP70 (mHSP70c). © 2014 Elsevier B.V

Search for the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV

A search for a Higgs boson decaying into two photons is described. The analysis is performed using a dataset recorded by the CMS experiment at the LHC from pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, which corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.8 inverse femtobarns. Limits are set on the cross section of the standard model Higgs boson decaying to two photons. The expected exclusion limit at 95% confidence level is between 1.4 and 2.4 times the standard model cross section in the mass range between 110 and 150 GeV. The analysis of the data excludes, at 95% confidence level, the standard model Higgs boson decaying into two photons in the mass range 128 to 132 GeV. The largest excess of events above the expected standard model background is observed for a Higgs boson mass hypothesis of 124 GeV with a local significance of 3.1 sigma. The global significance of observing an excess with a local significance greater than 3.1 sigma anywhere in the search range 110-150 GeV is estimated to be 1.8 sigma. More data are required to ascertain the origin of this excess.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters

Search for a W' boson decaying to a bottom quark and a top quark in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

Results are presented from a search for a W' boson using a dataset corresponding to 5.0 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity collected during 2011 by the CMS experiment at the LHC in pp collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The W' boson is modeled as a heavy W boson, but different scenarios for the couplings to fermions are considered, involving both left-handed and right-handed chiral projections of the fermions, as well as an arbitrary mixture of the two. The search is performed in the decay channel W' to t b, leading to a final state signature with a single lepton (e, mu), missing transverse energy, and jets, at least one of which is tagged as a b-jet. A W' boson that couples to fermions with the same coupling constant as the W, but to the right-handed rather than left-handed chiral projections, is excluded for masses below 1.85 TeV at the 95% confidence level. For the first time using LHC data, constraints on the W' gauge coupling for a set of left- and right-handed coupling combinations have been placed. These results represent a significant improvement over previously published limits.Comment: Submitted to Physics Letters B. Replaced with version publishe