Iranian Journal of

Background and Objectives: Conducted studies about arsenic have shown that consumption of water contaminated with arsenic can causes different adverse health effects in consumers. World Health Organization (WHO) has enacted 10µg/L arsenic in drinking water as a guideline value. Regarding some reports about arsenic presence in a village of Hashtrood county and related health effects and also considering this fact that determination of arsenic as a poisoning chemical is not included in routine monitoring of water by responsible organizations, in present study all of drinking water sources in Hashtrood county in East Azerbaijan province were studied for arsenic presence.
Materials and Methods: Water supply and its sanitation situation were studied in all of cities and residential villages (200 villages) by field visiting. Arsenic content of water samples were determined using Ez arsenic test kit, a product of Hach Company. For assurance of the kit results, 20 water samples with different concentration of arsenic were analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) method and then achieved results was compared together.
Results: Arsenic was present in drinking water of 50 villages that in 9 villages its level was higher than Iranian standard (50µg/L). During the study totally 11087 persons (21.96% of rural areas population) in Hashtrood county were exposed to different levels of arsenic via drinking water. Correlation between kit and ICP results was significant (R² = 0.9715)
Conclusion: Studied region in present study is a polluted area to arsenic by geogenic sources. It is necessary to replace water source of villages with higher level than national standard with safe drinking water. Annually measurement of arsenic in drinking water of all villages spatially polluted villages should be considered by responsible organization e.g. Health Network and Rural Water and Wastewater Company. Used kit in our study is recommendable for this purpose.

Background & Objective: Hairdressing is one of the most public places and most important from the health issues (personal and environmental) point of view. In such places, non-observance of sanitary and non-normative activities are detrimental to the health of the community. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of disinfectants to control infectious diseases transmitted through hairdressers and infection control, as well as to determine the knowledge, attitude, and practice of barbers with reference to the infectious diseases. Materials & Methods: The study included all female hairdresser (150 hairdresser) having official work in Gorgan City. The data required were collected through a questionnaire consisted of four parts: demographic information, knowledge, attitude, and practice questions (13 questions each) respectively. Disinfectants used were assessed using a checklist. Results: It was found that the most used disinfectant was bleaching powder (74.4%). The weekly and daily disinfection frequencies were 52.63 and 33.3% respectively. The research revealed that 49.45% had not have oven or autoclave to sterilize their dressing tools. The most used antiseptic for skin and hair was alcohol. Regarding infectious diseases, the barbers mean awareness was 10.83 ± 2.03, mean attitude 54.71 ± 3.99, and the mean performance was 12.44± 1.07. There were a significant positive correlation (p<0.01) between the variables of knowledge and attitude, knowledge and behavior, and attitude and performance. Conclusion: Barbers awareness about disinfection was moderate indicating the need for education and training about the types of disinfectants and how to use them. Nevertheless, the knowledge, attitude, and practices of barbers about the disease was moderate to high. Existence of the mandatory training courses on public health and having valid certificate conducted by private sector are the main reasons for increased awareness and attitude of the barbers and beauty salon dressers about infectious diseases.

Background and Objectives: In order to optimize wastewater nitrogen removal and to reduce the problems of entering nutrients in final receptors, for example, a lake, partial nitrification, as a novel nitrogen removal method, was studied.

Materials and Methods: The efficiency of simultaneous nitrification and denitrification (SND) in partial nitrification through nitrification/denitrification in fixed-film reactor was surveyed. In this process, ammonium was converted to nitrite by ammonium oxidizing bacteria (AOB) but the activity of nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB) was limited at low dissolved oxygen (DO) level. The inflection points of oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) profile were used as the indicators of process optimization.

Results: This research showed that in period 2 at fixed DO level of 0.5 mg/L, nitrite accumulation rate (NAR) was higher than period 1 in which DO was declined from 1 to 0.5 mg/L. In contrast to period 1, SND efficiency was reduced in period 2. In period 3, by increment of the carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N) to 12.5, NAR increased to 71.4 % and SND efficiency increased to 96.7%. In the long term analysis of proposed method, SND efficiency was, at least, 90%.   

Conclusion: Proper C/N ratio and minimum DO level resulted in higher nitrogen removal efficiencies than the operation in which DO was decreased during aerobic phase. By using a fixed-film reactor and without considering an anoxic step, at DO level of 0.5 mg/L, maximum SND efficiency and maximum NAR would be achieved.