Water resources management in semiarid regions with low precipitation and high potential of evapotranspiration is a great challenge for managers and decision makers. In those regions, both sources of water should be managed conjunctively so as to minimize shortages of water in dry seasons. In conjunctive use, the difficulty increases as one must represent the response of both systems interactions, and develop management strategies that simultaneously address surface water and aquifer regulation. This paper focuses on the simulation-optimization for conjunctive use of surface water and groundwater on a basin-wide scale, the Najafabad plain in westcentral Iran. A trained artificial neural network model is developed as a simulator of surface water and groundwater interaction while a genetic algorithm is developed as the optimization model. The main goal of the simulation-optimization model is to minimize shortages in meeting irrigation demands for three irrigation systems subject to constraints on the control of cumulative drawdown of the underlying water table and maximum capacity of surface irrigation systems. To achieve the main goal, three scenarios are presented. Results of the proposed model demonstrate the importance of the conjunctive use approach for planning the management of water resources in semiarid regions.

Background: The characterization of Leishmania species is important for clinical management of the diseases and the epidemiological control of the parasite distribution. Most of the published polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification methods lack the ability to identify all species complexes, have low performance and usually need post-PCR procedures. There is a need for improving the diagnosis of CL by development of an accurate affordable PCR method to identify all Leishmania species in clinical specimens. Methods: We designed an optimized a PCR amplifying the internal transcribed spacer 2 sequence of the ribosomal RNA gene (ITS2) aligned from different strains of CL-causing Leishmania species in the Old World. The performance of the method was evaluated on lesion samples from several CL suspected patients and the limit of detection (LOD) was determined on DNA of promastigotes from reference strains. Results: The universal PCR enabled simultaneous discrimination of L. major, L. tropica and L. infantum using one primer pair in one reaction. Stained smear microscopy and Novy-MacNeal-Nicolle (NNN) medium culture alone detected 77.27% (17/22) and 72.73% (16/22) of the positive CL samples, respectively. The PCR assay showed 100% sensitivity (22/22) (95% CI: 84.56-100%) and 100% specificity (3/3) (95% CI: 29.24-100%) for species identification on isolates from lesion scraping/exudate and 100% sensitivity (13/13) (95% CI: 75.29-100%) and 100% specificity (11/11) (95% CI: 71.51-100%) for species identification on biopsy samples of CL patients, while being capable to successfully amplify as little as 0.01-0.1 pg of Leishmania DNA from cultured promastigotes. Conclusions: We present a validated easy-to-use affordable universal PCR assay to identify the most common Old World Leishmania species causing CL. This PCR assay could be used as a sensitive/specific technique to diagnose CLcausing Leishmania species in clinical samples with high accuracy.

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Background: Anthroponotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL) due to Leishmania tropica and zoonotic CL (ZCL) due to L major have different clinical and epidemiological features. Objectives: To determine whether pro-inflammatory cytokines are involved in diverse pathogenicity of Leishmania species causing CL. Patients/Methods: The capacity of L major/L tropica to modulate expression of IL-1β, IL-8 (CXCL8), IFNγ, TNFα and MCP-1 (CCL2) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs) was evaluated by real-time RT-PCR technique.Results: PBMCs from both ZCL and ACL cases expressed significantly higher IFNγ (P < .001) and TNFα (P < .05) compared with healthy controls (HC). PBMCs from ACL patients expressed significantly higher IL-1β and IL-8 compared with ZCL patients and HC when stimulated with live L major or L tropica promastigotes (P < .001).After 4 and 10 hours, L major-infected MDMs expressed significantly higher IFNγ (P < .05), and after 10 hours, L tropica-infected MDMs expressed significantly higher IL-1β, IFNγ and IL-8 compared with noninfected cells (P < .05). Conclusions:This study shows differential parasite-mediated stimulations of the inflammatory response with L major vs L tropica ex vivo. Pro-inflammatory cytokines particularly IL-8 (CXCL8) and IL-1β might contribute in diverse clinical features of CL such as longer duration of lesion persistence in ACL patients.

Background and aims Acinetobacter baumannii is among the most concerning cause of nosocomial infections due to its high level of antibiotic resistance and high mortality. The aim of this study was to determine the role of efflux pumps in resistance of A. baumannii strains to three disinfectants, including MICROZED ID‐MAX, NANOSIL D2, and OPIDEX OPA. Methods Twenty‐eight environmental and clinical isolates of A. baumannii were collected from selected hospitals of central Iran. The minimum inhibitory concentrations of the disinfectants were determined and real time reverse transcriptase‐PCR was performed to investigate the expression level of qacEΔ1 , amvA , abeM , and adeB efflux pump genes. Results Considering both clinical and environmental isolates, there was a significant difference in the mean expression level of qacEΔ1 gene between susceptible and resistant strains to MICROZED ID‐MAX disinfectant, of amvA and abeM genes between susceptible and resistant strains to NANOSIL D2 disinfectant and of abeM gene in susceptible and resistant strains to OPIDEX OPA disinfectant (all P ˂ .05). The expression levels of abeM and amvA genes were higher in the environmental isolates that were resistant to NANOSIL D2 disinfectant compared to those that were susceptible ( P ˂ .05). Conclusions This study provided evidence for the role of abeM and amvA genes in the resistance of environmental isolates to disinfectants, particularly hydrogen peroxide derivatives.