Zafirlukast (ZAF) is a leukotriene receptor antagonist used in the treatment of chronic asthma. In this study, a simple and sensitive reversed-phase, high-performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the determination of ZAF in pharmaceutical formulations and human plasma. Piribedil was used as an internal standard. Analysis was carried out on a Nucleosil C18 100 A (150 mm x 4.6 ...

Life-detection instruments on future Mars missions may use surfactant solutions to extract organic matter from samples of martian rocks. The thermal and radiation environments of space and Mars are capable of degrading these solutions, thereby reducing their ability to dissolve organic species. Successful extraction and detection of biosignatures on Mars requires an understanding of how degrada...

The investigation of the environmental radioactivity around the radioactive waste disposal site in Gyeongju is being carried out. The radioactivity of I in groundwater and seaweed are to be measured. The analytical method to measure the radioactivity of I in aqueous media was established. This method contains oxidation-reduction reaction, anion-exchange separation and palladium precipitation. T...

Cucumber is one of the main vegetables in Iranian food basket. A wide range of pesticides are used for crops protection during the cultivation of vegetables such as cucumber due to heavy pest infestation. Analysis of pesticide residues in food and other environmental commodities have become essential requirement for consumers, producers, and food quality control authorities. This study was aime...

Urinary 1-hydroxypyrene is frequently used as a major metabolite and biological indicator of the overall exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. In this study, solid phase extraction was appropriately conditioned with regard to sample pH, sample concentration, loading flow rate, elution solvent, washing solvent, sample volume and sorbent mass. Octadecyl silica cartridge (C<su...

Background: Lack of farmers&rsquo; knowledge, illegal production and import, and economical situation are the main reasons for non-authorized usage. In this study, one of the major center of cucumber cultivation at south west of Iran, Darreh shahr City in Ilam Province were studied for non-authorized pesticides usage, which health authorities and national standard organization do not recommend....

Cryptosporidium parvum can be found in both source and drinking water and has been reported to cause serious waterborne outbreaks which threaten public health safety. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed method 1622 for detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts present in water. Method 1622 involves four key processing steps: filtration, immunomagnetic separation (IMS), fluorescent...

The protistan parasite Perkinsus marinus is a severe pathogen of the oyster Crassostrea virginica along the east coast of the United States. Very few data have been collected, however, on the abundance of the parasite in environmental waters, limiting our understanding of P. marinus transmission dynamics. Real-time PCR assays with SybrGreen I as a label for detection were developed in this stud...

The neurotoxin β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) is suspected to play a role in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Because BMAA seems to be produced by cyanobacteria, surface waters are screened for BMAA. However, reliable analysis of BMAA requires specialized and expensive equipment. In 2012, a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for det...