Assessment of Heavy Metals Concentrations in Roadside Canola Fields in Mazandaran Province, Iran

Contamination of agricultural products with heavy metals in soil and air is considered as serious threat to the quality and safety of these products. Cars and vehicles are among the major sources of heavy metals such as lead, iron and copper in the environment surrounding roads and highways. According to carcinogenic and destructive effects of these elements on human health, the aim of this study is to measure the concentrations of lead, iron and copper resulting from the traffic of vehicles available in the soil and canola plants growing in the central regions of MAZANDARAN province in Iran. In this research, sampling was conducted randomly and the values of mentioned elements were measured using flame atomic absorption device according to standard methods. The results showed that the levels of lead, iron and copper elements were higher in canola plant samples, including root, aerial parts and seeds, compared with the respective cultivated soils. The results indicated that the contamination of canola plant with mentioned pollutants has been mostly through aerial parts compared to the soil

Measurement and Comparison of Nitrate, Nitrite and Toxic Elements in First Harvest and Re-harvest Rice

Introduction Rice as a staple food, especially in Asian countries, can be a major source of heavy metals. Heavy metals also enter the soils where crops grow naturally and / or through human activities. Metals are absorbed and accumulated in the edible parts of the plant and enter the food chain. Toxic metals, which are present in nature due to industrialization, have polluted the environment, including soil, air, water and food, and have adverse effects on human health through food chains. The Codex Organization has set maximum levels for these elements in various cereals to protect trade and health. Nitrate and nitrite are naturally present in soil, water and food. But today, foods have higher levels of nitrate and nitrite. Excessive use of nitrogen fertilizers to achieve higher yields and improper disposal of human and animal wastes may lead to nitrate accumulation in agricultural products. Very few studies have been performed on the measurement of heavy metal and nitrogen indices in replanted rice. The aim of this study was to measure the amounts of heavy metals (lead, cadmium and arsenic) and the amounts of nitrate and nitrite in first harvest rice and re-harvest rice and compare it with the standard values of the World Health Organization. Methods and Materials In this study, a total of 18 rice samples were prepared from three selected farms in the first and second cultivation times and the amount of nitrite, nitrate and heavy metals lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury were evaluated.  Results and Discussion The results showed that in all farms in the second crop the concentration of lead decreased significantly (P<0.05). The concentration of lead in all treatments of the first crop Has been more than allowed and in the second cultivation, the treatment of field number one and two, is more than allowed (P<0.05). The concentration of cadmium in all treatments is within the allowable range and in the second crop compared to the first crop of fields number one and three has a significant decrease and in field number two has increased significantly (P <0.05). The highest amount of cadmium is related to field treatments number three. The highest amount of arsenic was observed in the first crop of farm number one and it is more than the allowable limit and in other treatments the amount of arsenic was less than the allowable level and in all three farms the concentration of arsenic in the second crop was significantly reduced compared to the first crop. Regarding mercury, in fields number one and two, with the change of cultivation, the amount of mercury increased significantly and in field number three, there was a significant decrease (P <0.05). Mercury concentration is less than the allowable limit only in the second culture sample of farm number three. Nitrite and nitrate concentrations were also low in all treatments and were considered zero. Experiments showed the amount of nitrite and nitrate in all samples to be negligible and undetectable. Due to the fact that the detection limit of the method (LOQ) used to measure nitrate and nitrite is 100 ppb, the amount of nitrate and nitrite in all samples can be less than 100 ppb. The permissible level of nitrate in food products and rice grains is set at 50 mg/kg according to national standard 16596. The results of the samples showed that all 18 samples had lower amounts of nitrate than the allowable limit. Therefore, rice samples prepared from the first and second crops, their nitrate content is less than the allowable limit and have a complete degree of health.  Conclusion According to the results obtained, all rice cultivated in the first and second crops have some arsenic, cadmium and lead, but the amount measured in some samples is less and in others, more than specified in the national standard of Iran.  their consumption may be dangerous for consumers. These results also indicate that due to the stability of the field and plant type, there is a positive and significant relationship between the amount of heavy metals studied in rice and the time of cultivation, and this requires further studies on heavy metal contamination in the region. Take place. Therefore, with the conducted studies, it can be concluded that there are concerns in the consumption of rice cultivated in the city of Mazandaran province, in terms of the possibility of endangering the health of consumers

Morphological segmentation analysis and texture-based support vector machines classification on mice liver fibrosis microscopic images

Background To reduce the intensity of the work of doctors, pre-classification work needs to be issued. In this paper, a novel and related liver microscopic image classification analysis method is proposed. Objective For quantitative analysis, segmentation is carried out to extract the quantitative information of special organisms in the image for further diagnosis, lesion localization, learning and treating anatomical abnormalities and computer-guided surgery. Methods in the current work, entropy based features of microscopic fibrosis mice’ liver images were analyzed using fuzzy c-cluster, k-means and watershed algorithms based on distance transformations and gradient. A morphological segmentation based on a local threshold was deployed to determine the fibrosis areas of images. Results the segmented target region using the proposed method achieved high effective microscopy fibrosis images segmenting of mice liver in terms of the running time, dice ratio and precision. The image classification experiments were conducted using Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM). The best classification model derived from the established characteristics was GLCM which performed the highest accuracy of classification using a developed Support Vector Machine (SVM). The training model using 11 features was found to be as accurate when only trained by 8 GLCMs. Conclusion The research illustrated the proposed method is a new feasible research approach for microscopy mice liver image segmentation and classification using intelligent image analysis techniques. It is also reported that the average computational time of the proposed approach was only 2.335 seconds, which outperformed other segmentation algorithms with 0.8125 dice ratio and 0.5253 precision

Assessment of Heavy Metals Concentrations in Roadside Canola Fields in Mazandaran Province, Iran

Contamination of agricultural products with heavy metals in soil and air is considered as serious threat to the quality and safety of these products.&nbsp; Cars and vehicles are among the major sources of heavy metals such as lead, iron and copper in the environment surrounding roads and highways. According to carcinogenic and destructive effects of these elements on human health, the aim of this study is to measure the concentrations of lead, iron and copper resulting from the traffic of vehicles available in the soil and canola plants growing in the central regions of MAZANDARAN province in Iran. In this research, sampling was conducted randomly and the values of mentioned elements were measured using flame atomic absorption device according to standard methods. The results showed that the levels of lead, iron and copper elements were higher in canola plant samples, including root, aerial parts and seeds, compared with the respective cultivated soils. The results indicated that the contamination of canola plant with mentioned pollutants has been mostly through aerial parts compared to the soil. Keywords: Lead, Iron, Copper, Canola, Roadside Field