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Background and Objective: Hypertension in long time can cause cardiovascular disorders and increase chance of stroke. This study was done to determine the association between some dietary factors and risk of hypertension. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on the fourth phase (2008-11) of Tehran lipid and glucose study (TLGS). In this study 6089 subjects (2807 males and 3282 females), aged 19-70 years, were participated and dietary, demographic, anthropometric and blood pressure of each subject were collected. Dietary intake was assessed using a validated and reliable food frequency questionnaire with 147-items. Odds ratio for hypertension according to quartiles of dietary factors was determined using logistic regression with adjustment for confounder variables. Results: The rate of hypertension was 29.8%. Mean of weight, body mass index, waist circumference, prevalence of abdominal obesity and alliteration in the hypertensive subjects were significantly higher than normotensive subjects (P<0.05). There was a non significant direct relationship between energy density, total fat and saturated fat. Higher consumption of fiber was associated with lower risk of hypertension (OR: 0.62, 95% CI: 0.37-0.97). The risk of hypertension increased in the highest quartiles of dietary protein (OR: 1.20, 95% CI: 1.02-1.43). Odds ratio for hypertension was higher among subjects whom consumed lower fruits and nuts than those subjects with higher fruits consumption (OR: 1.33, 95% CI: 1.15-1.85) and nuts (OR: 1.21, 95% CI: 1.02-1.42). Conclusion: High consumption of fiber could protect against hypertension while some dietary factors such as high consumption of protein could increase risk of hypertension.

Pharmaceutical Industry in Iran has difficulties such as inappropriate distribution, expired drugs and late drug delivery to patients. To overcome these issues and reach a sustainable development, the environmental and social aspects must be considered beside the economic aspects. In this paper, we address the Pharmaceutical distribution network and design a novel model that helps the distributing companies to decide strategic (determining the main and local distribution centers) and tactical decision (determining the flow) according to the three aspects of sustainability. The solution through the evolutionary algorithms presents the best selection of local distribution centers and the optimum amount of flow of medicine through the network with respect to three aspects of sustainability.  Introduction: In order to compete in the universal market, pharmaceutical companies must amend their competency. This coemption market needs to select the certain level of commitment for sustainability aspects to reach the sustainable supply chains. For this purpose, this study considers three aspects of sustainability (i.e. economical, environmental, and social pillars) to design the pharmaceutical distribution network. So, the model has three objective functions. The first function is to minimize the cost of transportation through the network, the second is to minimize the CO2 emissions through the network and the third is to maximize the job creation through the network. Carter and Rogers (2008) used the concept of ‘true sustainability’. They suggested that the consideration of environmental and social issues should be “coupled with economic objectives” and assist the company’s strategic long-term planning. Mota et al. (2014) considered this research question: “How can sustainability be integrated in to supply chains' design and planning decisions?” Several methods and frameworks have been proposed to evaluate environmental effects. Materials and Methods: This model is a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming (MILP) and is NP-hard. We have used the evolutionary algorithms (NSGA-II, MOPSO) to solve the problem and achieve the Pareto frontier. The Taguchi design experimental design has been used in order to tune the parameters of the algorithm. For comparing two evolutionary algorithms’ performance indicators of spacing (S), mean ideal distance (MID), Time and number of solutions (NOS) have been calculated. Results and Discussion: As a real case study, the proposed model is used in Darupakhsh. This company is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Iran. The model has been customized with Darupakhsh’s features for selected medicine. This company has a main distribution center and twenty local distribution centers. Twenty important customers have been assumed in this research. Solving the model with the evolutionary algorithms of NSGA-II and MOPSO and comparing to traditional method of weighted sum, highlighted the superior of MOPSO in economical and environmental aspects. The weighted sum method had a better answer in the social aspect. Overall, the power of evolutionary algorithms have been proved because of the Pareto frontier present to the researcher. Conclusion: This research focused on designing the sustainable pharmaceutical distribution network. The proposed model is a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming (MILP). This model was tested in Darupakhsh Company. In this case, MOPSO had better performance than NSGA-II. The solution presents the best selection of local distribution centers and the optimum amount of flow of medicine through the network with respect to three aspects of sustainability.For further research, studying the uncertain parameters in this model and a suitable approach to deal with uncertainty could be proposed. References Ahmadi, A., Mousazadeh, M., Torabi, S. A., & Pishvaee, M. S. (2018). “OR Applications in Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Management”. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science. 262,461–491. Mota,B., Gomes, Ke., Carvalho, A., & Barbosa-Povoa, A. (2014). “Towards supply chain sustainability: economic, environmental and social design and planning”. Journal of Cleaner Production, 107, 14–27. Mousazadeh, M., Torabi, S.A., & Zahiri, B. (2015). “A robust Possibilistic Programming approach for pharmaceutical supply chain network design”, Computers and Chemical Engineering, 82, 115- 128.

Background and aims: Inappropriate solid waste management industry in recent years has created a lot of risks. As a result, the health, safety and the humans environment is at risk for it. main objective of this study is solid waste management assessment of 10 large food industries in Tehran. Methods: This study is descriptive and sectional based on field visits, questionnaires, preparation of the database and the analysis of the results. The selected units were categorized based on ISWMI scale. The questionnaire consisted of 47 questions related with key elements of industrial solid waste management. This questions consist of 10 separate areas. 10 large industrial units of the food industry in Tehran were randomly selected. Results: The results showed that the index of selected industrial units based on ISWMI scale (based on100) is: 96 for J company (very good), 49 for A company (week), 85 for H and I company (very good), 72 for E, 77 for F and 80 for G (good), 57 for B, 63 for C and 64 for D company (moderate). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, industrial waste management situation in most of the selected units are above average. However it seems that factors such as a lack of senior management commitment and belief to implementation of the waste management system, the lack of requirement industrial units to employ an expert in environmental or environmental health and the lack of a comprehensive at the national level plan for waste management of the most effective factors to determine ISWMI values in industries.

Background and Aim: Among the medical wastes, dental wastes have a high diversity and due to its high contents of hazardous, toxic, and pathogenic agents, therefore these wastes are of great importance. The aim of this study was to investigate and analyze the amount of waste produced in dentistry offices in Birjand. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 48 dental offices in the city of Birjand were studied. Sampling was carried out by environmental health experts in three consecutive working days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) from every center. The Samples were divided into 5 categories such as semi-domestic, infectious, chemical-pharmaceutical, toxic and sharp material, Separated and weighed using a laboratory scale. Information was expressed as percentage by weight. Results: Based on the results, the total amount of waste produced in dental offices in Birjand was 7848.02 kg / year. percentages of semi-domestic, infectious, chemical-pharmaceutical, sharp material, and toxic wastes were 54.3%, 29.7%, 11.8%, 3.9% and 0.11% respectively. Conclusion: Considering the high volume of dental waste, especially infectious and hazardous materials, the need for separation and recycling in the office is evident. It is necessary to manage the wastes and their separation and recycling in source place.

In order to study the tolerance mechanism of spring bread cultivars to wild oat competition, an experiment was conducted in research farm of Ramin Agricultural and Natural Resources University of Khouzestan as strip block with three replications during 2010-2011 growing season. Experimental factors were wild oat densities includ 0 (as control) and 80 plant/m2 as horizontal plots and ten wheat cultivars include Chamran (Atila), Baz, Atrak, Arvand, Maroon, Shoeleh, Chenab, Veree/Nak and Falat (Seri 82) as vertical plots. By using competition index, cultivars divided in four groups of mid-susceptible, medium, mid-tolerant and tolerant. Also modeling of competition of wheat cultivars with wild oat, between measured traits, trait of weed biomass has highest direct reduction effect (-0.609) on competition index. Also, wheat traits such as grain number in spikelet has highest direct reduction effect (0.498) and death plant percent has highest indirect reduction effect (-0.307) on competition effect. But wheat biomass although indirect increase effect by effect on weed biomass and thousand grains weight of wheat, has highest direct and positive effect (-0.395) on competition index. Other effective trait was thousand grain weight of wheat that by direct and positive effect (0.270) resulted in increase in competition effect of cultivars.

Iran is located in the dry belt of the earth and is predicted to face water stress in the next half-century. Currently, the area of sugarcane cultivation in Khuzestan is over 85,000 hectares and due to the high water needs of sugarcane and drought conditions, optimization of water consumption and irrigation management is necessary to continue production. Therefore, in this study, the values of soil moisture, canopy cover, biomass yield in five treatments and irrigation levels (start of irrigation at 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, and 80% soil moisture discharge) during 2 planting dates in the crop year 2015-2016 on sugarcane cultivar CP69-1062 in Amirkabir sugarcane cultivation and industry located in the south of Khuzestan was simulated by AquaCrop model. The measured data on the first culture date (D1) and the second culture date (D2) were used to calibrate and validate the model. The results of NRMSE statistics in canopy cover simulation in calibration and validation sets with values of 2.1 to 15.6% and 3.8 to 18.3%, respectively, and in biomass simulation with values of 6.2 to 15.2%, and 9.5 to 12.6%, respectively and coefficient of determination (R2), range 0.98 to 0.99 indicated that the high ability of the AquaCrop model in simulation canopy cover and biomass yield. whereas, the values of NRMSE of soil depth moisture in the calibration and validation sets ranged from 11.6 to 23.8, and 12.2 to 22.7, respectively, with a coefficient of determination (R2), 0.73 to 0.96 (calibration) 0.8 to 0.93 (validation) showed less accuracy of the model in the simulation. The best scenario is related to the third proposal that water consumption, water use efficiency, and yield are 1710 mm, 1.53, and 42.27 tons per hectare, respectively, which shows a reduction in water consumption of 360 mm.

The rural community in Mazandaran is characterized by agricultural traits and rice cultivation. Indeed, agriculture plays an important role in the social, cultural, economic and environmental relations of rural communities in this province. Considering two types of agriculture, this study aims at the relationship between them and a sustainable system which farmers believe can be achieved in farming. The research method was both quantitative and qualitative. In the quantitative part, a questionnaire was used to collect the data. The farmers that were selected were those who had experience with modern agriculture under the influence of agricultural development programs. In the qualitative part, interviews were conducted with a sample of 20 farmers until data saturation. In this research, a sample of three villages around the city of Amol was selected where the farmers had experience with both traditional and modern agricultural systems. The findings show that, in terms of sustainability, there is a fundamental difference between traditional and modern agricultural practices. Based on the results of the analysis, traditional agriculture has a direct impact on sustainability, and farmers are aware of this. However, where the economy is prevailed by profit attitudes and the other sectors are not involved in agriculture, circumstances are not in line with sustainability.

This research investigates the existence and direction of Granger causality between economic growth, energy consumption, and carbon emissions in Iran. A multivariate model including economic growth, energy consumption, carbon emissions, capital stock, labor force, and urban population is used to determine eventual causality between variables according to Toda-Yamamoto Approach. Results indicate that there is a bi-directional causality relationship between gross domestic product and CO2 emissions. Also, there is a uni-direction causality relationship from energy consumption to CO2 emissions. Finally, the results maintain that the EKC hypothesis for GDP and CO2 emissions is relevant in the period of study.

Nowadays, greenhouse gas emissions and consumption of fossil fuels has led to environmental problems such as global warming which result in using low carbon energy sources and renewable energy as a potential substitute for fossil fuels and nonrenewable energy. This study is going to investigate Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) for 11 elected OPEC countries, from 1980 to 2013 by using nonlinear quadratic model. The consumption of renewable and nonrenewable energy are considered together in this model which has been carried out by PMG (Pooled Mean Group). According to the outcomes of the research the Environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is confirmed in these selected countries and studied period. The coefficient of nonrenewable energy consumption is statistically significant at the 0.01 significance level. Its estimated coefficient is 0.67 and states a 1% increase in nonrenewable energy consumption which leads to CO2 emission rise by 0.67%. It indicates that overusing of nonrenewable energy and fossil fuels increases environmental and air pollution. Also, the coefficient of renewable energy consumption is -0.005 that it is not statistically significant.

IntroductionThe medicinal plant Dragon's head (Lallemantia iberica, Lamiaceae family), is more commonly known as “Gara Zayrah” in most parts of Iran, particularly in Azarbaijan region. It is one of the most important spring herbaceous plants in rainy and dryland farming areas cultivated in most parts of Azerbaijan. The ever-expanding soil salinity under the influence of human activities restricts crop production worldwide, especially in arid and semiarid regions. One of the strategies to enhance the crop yield is increasing in off-farm inputs like application of fertilizers. Managing or adding fertilizer can severely affect crop production in saline conditions. Therefore, nutrient addition can increase or decrease plant resistance to salinity or it may not be affected by salinity at all. Accordingly, due to the importance of Dragon's head as a climate-adapted medicinal plant in Iran, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of nitrogen fertilizer sources (urea and Azotobacter) on the morphological characteristics of Lallemantia under salinity conditions.Materials and MethodsAn experiment was conducted as factorial layout based on randomized complete block design with three replications in 2018 at Urmia University (latitude 44° 58' East, latitude 37 ° 39' North and altitude 1363 m above sea level). Treatments consisted of four levels of nitrogen fertilizer (urea fertilizer, 50 kg/ha), Azotobacter as a foliar spraying and Azotobacter as a seeds inoculant (population of 109 per g) and no-fertilizer as control), and two soil salinity (saline was 6.70 and non-saline was 0.91 dS.m-1). The seed yield, biological yield, leaf relative water content, leaf area, leaf perimeter, leaf area index, sodium, potassium and phosphorus content in root and shoot, glycine betaine, osmolytes (osmotic regulators), leaf chlorophyll and carotenoids of Dragon's head were measured. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed using GLM procedure (SAS 9.1.3, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA), with the means compared by LSD at P≤0.05.Result and DiscussionThe results showed that in non-saline conditions, the biological yield (regardless of root, as well as root included) treated by Azotobacter seed inoculant were decreased compared with control, while the biological yield of untreated control plants were identical with the application of other nitrogen treatments. However, biological yield increased by Azotobacter seed inoculant in saline soil. In contrast to the decrease in stem length in saline soils, especially with the Azotobacter foliar application, the flower weight gain was significantly higher with urea fertilizer even under saline conditions. The highest crop growth rate (regardless of root, as well as root included) was related to plants grown in saline soils without fertilizer application. In other words, except for seed treatment, Azotobacter had no significant effect on crop growth rate under salinity. Moreover, the greatest amount of root potassium was obtained from plants in non-saline conditions with urea fertilizer. Despite the decrease in aerial phosphorus under salinity stress, root phosphorus was not affected by salinity, whereas urea increased shoot and root phosphorus. The plants had the highest concentration of total chlorophyll and carotenoids under salinity and foliar application of Azotobacter. The highest reduction of carotenoid was observed in saline soils in control plants, urea and Azotobacter seed treatments, respectively. Despite increasing proline concentration in plants grown in saline soil, urea and seed inoculation lead to decreasing the leaf proline. Other osmotic regulators, glycinebeta and water-soluble carbohydrates were not affected by soil salinity and nitrogen fertilizer sources. Shoot and root sodium were increased in saline soils, and applying urea fertilizer caused more increases. Root potassium was not changed in saline soils, but potassium content of aerial parts was decreased. This resulted in a decrease in the potassium to sodium ratio of both aerial parts and the root.ConclusionIn general, despite some minor changes, salinity caused decreasing the level of morphological and physiological responses related to the yield of Dragon's head plant. However, applying nitrogen fertilizers reduced salinity damages by seed inoculation of Azotobacter and urea, respectively. Azotobacter foliar application showed no advantage over saline and non-saline conditions over control treatment (without receiving fertilizer).