Nano-sized molecularly imprinted polymer for selective ultrasound-assisted microextraction of pesticide Carbaryl from water samples: Spectrophotometric determination.

Ultrasound-assisted dispersive solid phase microextraction followed by UV-Vis spectrophotometry (UA-DSPME UV-Vis) was designed for the extraction and preconcentration of Carbaryl using nano-sized molecularly-imprinted polymer (MIP-NP). Nano-sized Carbaryl-imprinted polymer was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. A preliminary Plackett-Burman design was applied for screening. Subsequently, central composite design under response surface methodology was used to investigate and model the Carbaryl adsorption as response as well as to optimize this response versus variables such as Carbaryl MIP-NP mass, sonication time, temperature, eluent volume, pH and vortex time. At optimum experimental conditions, UAMSPE-UV-Vis exhibited a linear range of 0.1-1.2mgL-1. The enhancement and preconcentration factors were obtained to be 30.6 and 25.0, respectively, for the extraction of Carbaryl by MIP-NP. In addition, the values of 0.033 and 0.11mgL-1 were obtained for limit of detection and limit of quantification, respectively. The value of 4.3% determined for relative standard deviation for the separation and preconcentration of Carbaryl after 5 repetitions shows the acceptable repeatability of the process. Finally, the developed method was successfully applied for the determination of Carbaryl in water samples.

The trend of governmental support from post-graduated Iranian students in medical fields to study abroad.

BACKGROUND: To explore the trend and composition of post-graduate Iranian students who received governmental scholarship during the last two decades. METHOD: Detailed information about the awarded scholarships and also about the number of post graduate students in clinical and basic sciences in domestic universities were collected from the related offices within the ministry of health and medical education and their trends were triangulated. RESULTS: A sharp drop was observed in the number of awarded scholarships, from 263 in 1992 to 46 in 2009. In the beginning, almost all of scholarships fully supported students for a whole academic course; while in recent years most of scholarships supported students for a short fellowship or complementary course (more than 80%). Students studied in a wide range of colleges within 30 countries; more than 50% in Europe. Although one third of students studied in UK in the first years, only 4% of students selected this country in recent years. conversely, the number of scholarships to Germany and sweden have increased more than 10 and 3 times during this period. In parallel, the capacity of domestic universities for training of post-graduate students has been expanded dramatically. CONCLUSION: Although expanding post-graduate education has been one of the main strategic objectives of the ministry of health and medical education in last two decades, it was obtained using different approaches. By time, more attention was to expanding the capacities of Iranian universities, and choosing less but more targeted students to continue their studies abroad.