The Journal of

 Background: Vitamins are organic compounds required as vital nutrients and vitamin deficiency is a venturesome condition for human body.Vitamin D deficiency is a world-wide epidemic and it’s widespread deficiency is a concern in Middle East countries. The major cause of vitamin D deficiency in many countries is the lack of sunexposure as a result of cultural norms of covering.

 The aim of this study was to determine the Yazd high school students’ knowledge, attitude and practice towards vitamin D effects on human health.

 Methods: A self-administered, structured, questionnaire, researcher made was conducted to investigate knowledge, attitude and practice of high school students. The questionnaires were given to 312 students (153boys and 159 girls) of 8 Yazd high schools. We used SPSS software and Paired t-test, ANOVA and chi² test for analyzing the data.

 Result: Of total participants, 49% were boys and 51% were girls. This study showed that among the 312 cases studied, 2.2% had good knowledge and 39.4% had average knowledge about vitamin D effects on human health. 21.5% of the cases had good attitude and 18.8% of them had goodpractice. Mean knowledge score was 15.11+- 4.83 of 31, mean attitude score was 18.94+-3.32 out of 28 scoreand, and mean practice score on vitamin D effects on human health was 13.69 +-2.71 of 20. There wasn’t a significant difference between knowledge and attitude among girls and boys but boys practice was better than girls and there was a significant difference in this case.

 Conclusion:Lack of knowledge,attitude and practice could endanger people's health so developing some training programs seems to be necessary.

  Background: The heavy metals are the most important pollutants their concentration of which in the environment is increasing in connection with cities and industrials development. One of these metals is chromium which, in the trivalent and Hexavalent oxidation state, is used in industries such as electroplating, glass, ceramic, tannery and leather. Hexavalent Chromium has proven several health hazards such as being carcinogenic. The aim of this study was to investigate nano-alumina modified with Schiff base ligands in removal of hexavalent chromium from aqueous solution in acidic conditions.

  Methods: This study is experimental which was performed in batch reactor at 20 ^° C temperature to investigate the effect of initial chromium concentration, adsorbent dose and reaction time on removal of chromium by nano-alumina. For adsorbent preparation, nano-alumina was purchased from Nano Kimia Pajoh company, and for increasing adsorption power, it was modified with Schiff base ligands in the presence of proper surfactant. The study was performed on the synthetic samples containing 2 and 5 mg/L concentration of chromium . The unknown concentration of Hexavalent Chromium was detected by spectrophotometer set (UV/VisibleSP-3000 Plus-Japan) at 540 nm.

  Results: According to the results, removal efficiency increases with increasing adsorbent dose and reaction time and decreases with increasing initial concentration of chromium. Results of this study indicated that Hexavalent chromium adsorption by nano-Alumina modified with Schiff base ligands reaches equilibrium at 30 minutes and maximum capacity will be obtained. The maximum removal efficiency, and adsorption capacity in optimum conditions (adsorbent dose=0.1mg/L ,pH=3), with chromium initial concentration of 5mg/L at 180 minute, were 83.4% and 4.17 mg/L respectively.

  Conclusion: Nano-alumina modified with Schiff base ligands is an effective adsorbent in removal of hexavalent chromium from aqueous solution.

Introduction: Pesticides used in agriculture in order to protect crops and plants from pests, diseases and weeds are regarded as one of the major sources of environmental pollution, with produce a negative effect on the health of living organisms, including humans.Therefore this study aimed to evaluate knowledge, attitude and practice of planting greenhouse operators in Yazd in regard with health hazards associated with pesticide use in 2012-2013.

Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study, which its population consisted of active nursery operators in Yazd. In this randomized study, 250 samples were selected out of 2233 greenhouse operators and then knowledge, attitudes and behavior of workers were measured using a questionnaire. After the study data were collected and codified, they ere entered into SPSS software. Moreover T-test and ANOVA tests were utilized to compare the average.

Results: The results of the present study revealed that out of all greenhouse operators, 134 (6/53%) had received pesticideuse training were trained. Education of 74 (29%) of the operaters were reported at the initial level. Experience of 104 operaters (9/41%) was revealed 6-10 years. 73 (2/29%) of operaters aged between 25 and 35 years. Moreover, the results showed, none of the officers receive the full credit(Maximum knowledge score is 13). Attitudes of 243 operaters towards the use of pesticides in greenhouses was reported at a high level. Performance of 138 operaters were moderate.

Conclusions: Although operaters nformation in such fields as precautions when working with pesticides lies relatively at a good level in some other contexts such as respiratory masks for spraying and special work uniform, lack of sufficient information was reported for indicating the need to develop and implement specialized training programs.