f. alizadeh

Admixture is a common phenomenon in human populations, resulting from the mating of individuals from two or more previously isolated populations. This can lead to the formation of mosaic DNA segments, with each segment originating from a different ancestral population. Local ancestry inference methods are used to identify the ancestry of each segment, which can provide insights into the history of admixture in a population. Many local ancestry inference (LAI) methods require the determination of various parameters that may be difficult to obtain, which can hamper using LAI methods. In this paper, we present a novel method for identifying approximate boundaries of ancestry change (IABAC) in admixed haplotypes and then determining the ancestry between boundaries. Unlike many LAI methods, our method does not rely on many statistical or biological parameters, therefore more robust to variations in admixture patterns. We evaluate our method on human data, and show that it is more accurate than existing methods for ancestry detection. Our results suggest that IABAC is a promising new method for identifying ancestry boundaries in admixed haplotypes. This method could be used to study the history of admixture in human populations, and to identify genetic variants that are associated with different ancestral populations.

For a graph G=(V, E) of order n, a Roman {2}-dominating function f: V→E has the property that for every vertex v in V with f(v)=0, either v is adjacent to a vertex assigned 2 under f, or v is adjacent to least two vertices assigned 1 under f. In this paper, we classify all graphs with Roman {2}-domination number belonging to the set {2, 3, 4, n-2, n-1, n}. Furthermore, we obtain some results about Roman {2}-domination number of some graph operations.

The Iranian Ground Jay or Pleske's Ground Jay Podoces pleskei, belonging to the genus Podoces and the family Corvidae, is the only endemic bird species to Iran. The distribution of this species is restricted to isolated patches in arid and semi-arid areas of the central and eastern parts of the country. There is lack of information about the species distribution and preferred habitats in Kerman Province and there have only been identified low-density patches with high distribution here. In this study, we aimed mapping the species' preferred habitats and areas with high potentiality for the species distribution. This mapping process was based on the presence points and using biogeoclimatic variables that influence the distribution of the Iranian Ground Jay. Findings of this research indicated that the annual mean temperature and precipitation were the most influential variables and the slope had the most unique information on the distribution of this species in the study area. An area of 5.5 percent of the Kerman conservation areas, are suitable habitats for the Iranian Ground Jay. The most desirable temperature ranged from 5°C to 25°C and the most desirable range of precipitation was between 100 and 200 mm. Rangeland areas with low to medium quality and plant cover of 15 to 45% were preferred areas for the species and areas with 25 to 50 percent vegetation cover density had the most suitability for the Iranian Ground Jay. Habitat suitability has inversely related to the distance from roads. The logistic predicted potential distribution map indicated that more than 17 percent of the province, an area of about 31,000 km2 , is suitable habitat for the Iranian Ground Jay. According to the results, the significant parts of the species' suitable habitats were outside of the national protected areas and should be planned for the nature conservation purposes.

In areas with high rainfall distribution, proper irrigation management, including complementary irrigation, is one of the effective strategies to increase crop production. In order to investigate the effect of supplementary irrigation in different growth stages on the yield and water productivity of Autumn rapeseed, an experiment in the form of a complete randomized block design with five irrigation management treatments including rainfed (I1), single irrigation at flowering stage (I2), single Irrigation at pod filling stage (I3), two irrigation at pod filling stage and flowering (I4), three irrigation at flowering,  and pod filling and grain Filling stages (I5) was carried out at Lorestan University Research Field. Results showed that there was a significant difference between the effects of different irrigation treatments at 1% level. The lowest grain yield, biological yield and oil yield were obtained in I1 treatment with 44.62%, 50.95% and 53.58% decrease, as compared to I5 treatment. The results also showed that by applying irrigation at pod filling stage, grain yield and oil yield were increased by 13.22% and 20.23%, as compared to I1 treatment. The highest total productivity for the grain yield and oil yield was obtained in I5 treatment with 0.252 and 0.073 kg / m3. In general, due to the fact that drought stress in rapeseed calving stages reduces yield, the higher the number of irrigations in rapeseed calving stages, the more the yield.

Virtual Reality (VR) technology is an effective tool to teach various well-known skills and concepts. Teaching and integrating the traffic culture by using modern approaches is an essential fact to control and decrease the damages and costs caused by driving problems.  In the past few years, the element of virtual instructor has been added to the intelligent tutoring system to increase the interactivity and learning effectiveness of  the learners. Teaching via an instructor or the so-called ‘video modeling’ which is part of multimedia teaching content is referred to as the teaching samples in which an instructor explains how to do something. Examining the effects of using an intelligent virtual instructor in educational multimedia content is one of the special fields of research in education and learning to which enough attention has not been paid . On the other hand, in recent years, using technology and modern approaches in the field of traffic educating has become very popular and various countries have made considerable  investments  in this area. Based on this issue,  in this paper, with the development and testing of a simulator game of teaching traffic rules (traffic-sim)  the effect of the presence of an intelligent virtual instructor on the improvement of the users’ learning efficiency as well as enhancing their sense of presence were studied. The goal of this study is determining the effect of the presence of the intelligent virtual instructors in teaching the traffic rules  to the learners. We also aim to investigate to what extent the presence of the intelligent virtual instructors can enhance learning ability and the sense of presence in the learning scenarios.

For this aim, to provide the educational content in a game, the ‘traffic-sim’ simulator was designed and implemented in two versions including with a virtual intelligent instructor (instructor-based) and without a virtual intelligent instructor (visual-text).Using a comprehensive user study, we evaluated and compared the sense of presence and performance of players in the instructor-based mode and without the virtual instructor mode. In order to test the objective variables, the statistical population of 20 students from Tabriz Islamic Art University was selected and assigned randomly to either control or experimental groups. The experimental and the control group were respectively trained using the instructor-based simulator and the visual-text-based simulator. Participants were asked to play the simulator while learning the traffic rules.  To analyze the effect of the presence of virtual instructor on two variables, namely learning and sense of presence, the data regarding the number of the rules violated during playing the game and the results of the sense of presence questionnaire were used both for the experimental and the control groups, respectively. 

The analyses in two levels of descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics (independent t-test) confirm that the use of intelligent virtual instructor improves the users’ learning (M=5.00, SD=3.00, t(18) =0.043, p < 0.05) and enhances the sense of the presence in the participants (M=114, SD=6.00, t(18) =0.023, p < 0.05).

In the present study, ‘traffic-sim’ simulator was designed and developed to teach the traffic rules. as a serious game to train individuals by scenarios related to the real-world traffic rules. We tested the impacts of intelligent virtual instructor attendance on enhancing users’ learning and their sense of presence. The results of data analysis showed that the presence of the virtual instructor can enhance the participants’ sense of presence while enhancing the efficiency of the process of learning traffic rules. Our findings reveal that the learners would try to choose safer strategies  and improve their performance after they have made a mistake . Moreover, the presence of the virtual instructor would lead to social interactions between the user and the virtual instructor that can result in increasing the learners’ sense of presence. Based on the findings of the previous researchers and the present study, it can be concluded that the intervention of a virtual teaching factor can have a positive effect on learning as well as the sense of the learners’ presence in the process of driving traffic simulation. Therefore, virtual instructors can be used to improve the learning process in educational subjects.  

Plant Genetic Resources (PGRs) are one of the most valuable natural resources of anycountry. Biotechnology through genetic engineering of plants and the creation of new plantvarieties can increase the value of these resources. Different technical and legalmechanisms such as ex situ/in situ collection of PGRs, and Intellectual Property Rights(IPRs) indicate also an international institutional effort for sustainable use of biodiversity.Investigating international developments in the fields of exploitation and conservation ofPGRs is therefore essential. The main purpose of this manuscript is to explore criteria thatinternational legal instruments use for creating an appropriate interaction betweenconservation and exploitation of PGRs. These instruments have been especially developedin the two systems of international environmental law and intellectual property rights.Based on a descriptive analysis method, this research attempted to examine the provisionsof these two legal instruments. Research findings indicate that intellectual property rightsencourages the creation and development of green technologies, especially agrobiotechnology and protects Traditional Knowledge (TK) associated with PGRs as anappropriate tool for the sustainable exploitation of PGRs when implemented in aresponsible manner. International environmental law paves also the way for biodiversityconservation through creation of binding and non-binding obligations for preservinggenetic diversity on the planet. Sustainable conservation of PGRs requires an appropriateinteraction between the two legal systems.

To evaluate the histopathological changes of the cornea in rabbit corneas after accelerated collagen cross-linking.

Right eyes of 7 adult New Zealand albino rabbits weighing 1.5 to 2.0 kg were studied. Right eyes of all animals were in the treatment group and left eyes were in the control group. The epithelium of all right eyes was removed and was crossed-linked with riboflavin 0.1% solution (10 mg riboflavin-5-phosphate in 10ml 20% dextran-T-500) applied every 3 minutes for 30 minutes, and exposed to UVA (360 nm, 3 mW/cm2) for 10 minutes. All rabbits were humanely euthanized and examined histologically. Apoptosis was evaluated using TUNEL staining.

There was a significant difference in the mean percent of apoptotic cells in the treated and control groups. In both keratocyte and endothelial cells of the treated cornea, the number of apoptotic cells was significantly higher than the control group. In the evaluation of cornea totally (endothelial and keratocyte), the mean percent and standard deviation of apoptotic cells were 18.29 ± 3.2 in right eyes and 6.29 ± 1.7 in left eyes. In the evaluation of apoptosis in keratocytes separately, the mean percent and SD in right eyes were 15.29±2.56 that was significantly higher in comparison with the left eyes 5.71±1.5. The mean and SD of apoptotic endothelial cells in right and left eyes were 2.86±1.07, 0.53±0.43, respectively, that were statically significant (P= 0.026).

Although CXL is a safe procedure to arrest progression in keratoconus disease, due to endothelial cell damage in our study and others, there are some risks for endothelial cell damage and related complications; so, it needs for more studies.

Candida albicans infection is a problem of growing clinical importance, particularly in immunocompromised populations. This study aimed to investigate the inhibitory effect of carvacrol on the hyphae formation and expression of C. albicans HWP1. This cross-sectional study was done over a 6-month period in 2016-2017. Vaginal, mouth and skin surface swabs were obtained from immunocompromised patients. Colonizing clinical isolates of C. albicans were identified and drug susceptible isolates detected using WHONET software. The susceptibility test for carvacrol (range 6.25–300 μg/ml) were carried out with a broth microdilution according to the CLSI guidelines against drug susceptible C. albicans. The time kill assay of carvacrol (range 2 × MIC to ¼ × MIC) was determined. Hyphae inhibition was evaluated by light microscopy. We determined the expression levels of HWP1 implicated in hyphae formation of C. albicans ATCC 14053 cells by quantitative RT-PCR.
FINDINGS: Ten colonizing clinical isolates of drug susceptible C. albicans were identified. Carvacrol was inhibited the growth of all drugs susceptible isolates of C. albicans (MIC range, 25-200 µg/ml). Time kill curve assay demonstrated that carvacrol could significantly inhibit the growth of C. albicans (p≤0.05). Carvacrol efficiently prevented hyphae formation in drug susceptible C. albicans. The expression levels of HWP1 gene were down-regulated by 1.82- and 1.62-fold at concentrations of 2 × MIC and 1 × MIC of carvacrol, respectively. These results suggest that carvacrol could provide an improved and safe clinical approach in treating Candida infections by prevention of hyphae formation

It is estimated that four out of every five women treated for ovulatory hyper- menorrhea have no anatomic pathology, and more than one third of hysterectomies are carried out for the same symptom. The use of various medical therapeutic options for these women has potential for elimination of large number of surgeries and complications associated with them.

The Objective of this research is to determine efficacy of Mefenamic Acid and Tranexamic Acid on amount of menstrual bleeding of patients with hypermenorrhea presenting to Gynecologic Clinic of Booali Hospital.

Fifty patients with hypermenorhea were selected. Randomly 25 patients were managed with Tranexamic Acid and another 25 patients were managed with Mefenamic Acid during first 5 days of menstruation. Age range of patients was between 25 to 45 years old and their parity was less than 5 and their contraceptives were not OCP or IUD. Gynecologic study such as endometrial biopsy and fractional D & C were performed, if needed, to rule out organic causes. Patients suffering from other diseases such as peptic ulcer, inflammatory bowel disease, thromboembolic disease and coagulation disorders were not included in study. Efficacy of management were determined with number of pads that were used before and after management with both drugs during first 5 days of menstruation. and results were evaluated with statistical t-test method.

In this study, one patient from both groups was excluded because of incomplete history and continuation of the treatment. From twenty four patients in each group, seven patients from mefenamic acid group and 13 patients from Tranxamic acid responded completely to medical management, because the number of daily pads decreased to <5 sixteen patients in Mefenamic Acid group and ten patients in Tranxamic Acid responded partially because the number of daily pads decreased to 5-7. One patient in each group didn’t respond to medical treatment.

This study showed that both the mefenamic acid and tranexamic acid are effective in decreasing the menstrual blood loss and effect of tranexamic acid in decreasing the menstrual blood loss is little more than that of mefenamic acid.