Surface imprinting and adoption of a nano-sized physical form are two effective approaches to overcome the template transfer difficulty within molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). This work is an attempt to conquer the problem of template transfer difficulty within MIPs by using a nano-reactor as a substrate for the reaction between the monomer and the template. Negatively charged hexagonal nano-channels of SBA-15 can act as a support for attachment of positively charged aniline monomers and the 2,4-dinitrophenol (2,4-DNP) template. The imprinted and non-imprinted SBA-15/polyaniline nanocomposites were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms. The results showed that the synthesized polymer possessed a highly ordered mesoporous structure. The distribution coefficient values of 2,4-DNP, K(d (2,4-DNP)), were estimated as 301.4 ± 2.3 and 101.2 ± 1.0 mL g(-1) for imprinted and non-imprinted polymers (NIP), respectively. The MIP-solid-phase extraction (SPE) process was optimized by evaluating the type of washing solvent and the composition and volume of the eluting solvent. The prepared MIP was used as a selective sorbent for SPE of 2,4-DNP in the presence of phenolic compounds in tap and sea water. The experimental results indicated that the MIP-SPE and NIP-SPE column yielded recoveries higher than 96% and 38%, respectively. The R.S.D. values were also lower than 3.2% and 4.6% for MIP-SPE and NIP-SPE, respectively.

No abstract

Heart failure is the most common cardiovascular disease and its prevalence and incidence increase as the age goes up. This chronic situation affects the quality of life of patients and their family. The main objective of this study was to determine quality of life of elderly patients with heart failure. A cross-sectional study conducted among 150 patients with heart failure aged 50 and above who entered cardiovascular clinic and Coronary Care Unit (CCU) ward of Vali-Asr hospital of Fasa, Iran, from March to August 2013. Patients with a left ventricular ejection fraction below 50% entered. WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire was used to evaluate the quality of life of patients. All the statistical analyses were performed using the statistical package for social sciences version 16.0. Overall we enrolled 147 patients including 77 (52.3 %) males and 70 (47.7 %) females with the mean age ± standard deviation of 63±27 years. There was not any signifi cant relationship between NYHA class, ejection fraction, past medical history of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, renal failure, pulmonary hypertension in patients and variables of our questionnaire. Social and environmental aspects were the highest and lowest scores of this questionnaire, respectively (53.85 ±21.28 and 45.74 ±17.67). There was not any correlation between job of patients and any aspect of their quality of life (p-value = 0.49 for total).Our results indicated that the majority of heart failure patients had poor and undesirable quality of life and the women have weaker scores of quality of life variations than men. Therefore, controlling some available variables among these patients is suggested.