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Habrobracon hebetor Say (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) as an ectoparasitoid of larval stage of lepidopterous pests is widely used in biological control programs. In the present research, the effect of field recommended doses of imidacloprid, indoxacarb and deltamethrin were studied on life table parameters of H. hebetor in pupal stage treatment. One hundred, two-day-old pupae were treated with 1 micro liter insecticide solution using topical method. The pupae were treated with acetone in the control. Thirty emerged adults in each treatment were transferred individually to a Petri dish along with a male for mating. Three last instar larvae of Anagasta kuehniella (Zeller) (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) were presented to each female wasp daily as host. The numbers of eggs produced per female per day were counted until all of the females were dead. The gross and net reproductive rates in control, imidacloprid, indoxacarb and deltamethrin were 204.6, 207.7, 209.1 and 112.1 and also 75, 41.3, 64.6 and 14.9, respectively. Intrinsic rates of increase were estimated to be 0.215, 0.154, 0.205 and 0.14 female offspring/female/day, respectively. Deltamethrin and imidacloprid had the most adverse effects on life table parameters of H. hebetor. Intrinsic rate of increase was not significantly affected by indoxacarb. These findings indicated that indoxacarb was relatively safe for H. hebetor and could be an appropriate candidate in integrated chemical and biological control.

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In graded structure aerogels, change of pores diameter through the thickness affects the effective thermal conductivity. As the pores diameter is reversely correlated to the density, the effective thermal conductivity of aerogel is often normalized to the density and it is expressed as the B parameter. Lower values of B would be the optimum conditions for the resulting aerogel. The objective of this work is to simulate the heat transfer of the homogenous structures and to compare it with structures that pore diameter vary through the thickness. For this purpose, the structure characteristics and properties of silica aerogel along with the effect of coupling thermal conductivity have to be taken into consideration. Using the COMSOLMultiphysics®software, the heat transfer was modeled for a number of cases, including homogenous structures with minimum density (L), maximum density (H) and for an optimum structure (OPT) having a minimum value of the B parameter. The results were compared to thestructurally graded aerogels in which the density was varied in two fashions, from higher values to lower (HtL) and from lower to higher values (LtH). The change of temperature with time was tracked for all the cases. Results indicated that the minimum value of heat transfer was obtained for the structurally graded aerogel of the type of LtH (a 2-percent increase of efficiency for LtH when compared to the optimum structure (OPT)). Therefore, this structure introduce as the best candidate for producing a thermal insulator.

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The fungus feeding genus Preeriella Hood is reported first time based on Preeriella armigera Okajima, collected on leaf litter from West Bengal, India. Another phlaeothripid species Hoplandrothrips ochraceus Okajima & Urushihara is recorded from India for the first time. Specimens of H. ochraceus were collected on Curcuma species (rhizomatous annual or perennial herb) belonging to family Zingiberaceae. Notes on the material examined, distribution, diagnostic characters and illustration for the new records are presented.

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Two species of family Thripidae, Hydatothrips onari Kudô, 1997 from subfamily Sericothripinae and Thrips alius Palmer, 1992 from subfamily Thripinae are collected on Guizotia abssinica and general vegetation respectively for the first time from India after their original description. Due to the addition of these two species in the Indian fauna, the number of species increased under the genus Hydatothrips from 10 to 11 and under the genus Thrips from 44 to 45. Species diagnosis with illustrations and distribution of the newly recorded taxa is also provided.

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In the present study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT 2000) model was tested on both a monthly and yearly basis and applied to the Kordan Watershed, located in Iran. The main objective of the research was to assess the accuracy of the model in sediment-yield and surface water bicarbonate concentration estimation. The attributes of sub-watersheds, tributary channels and the main channel in each sub-watershed were generated using the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and Geographical Information System (GIS) Arc View SWAT 2000 interface. The model was calibrated and validated for the period from 1990 until 2004. Calibration results revealed that the model predicted monthly and yearly sediment-yield, but not such good results were obtained for the bicarbonate concentration. Therefore, some efforts were made in order to find a solution for SWAT bicarbonate temporal modeling. Around 70 samples of the Kordan River water quality data were used and, upon doing statistical calculations, the best correlation between the average pH–EC of water and the bicarbonate concentration was obtained. The formula shall be tested at several watersheds, and it can also be defined to SWAT in order that the model is able to calculate bicarbonate concentration according to pH and EC of the river water, which are introduced to SWAT by the user as a stream water quality file (SWQ) .

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Regional impact studies of the future climate change effects are necessary because projected changes in meteorological variables differ from one region to another, and different climate systems can react in varied ways to the same changes. In this study, the effects of climate change on bioclimatic deficiency were compared in two cultivation methods (irrigated and rainfed) in a semi-arid region, Ahar (East Azarbaijan, IRAN). The agricultural land uses selected for evaluation were wheat (Triticum aestivum), alfalfa (Medicago sativa), sugar beet (Beta vulgaris), potato (Solanum tuberosum), and maize (Zea mays). In this way, Terraza model included in the land evaluation decision support system, called MicroLEIS DSS, was used. Terraza gives a quantitative prediction of a site bioclimatic deficiency. Soil morphological and analytical data were obtained from 44 sampling points based on a grid survey. Agro-climatic data, referred to temperature and precipitation, were collected from weather stations located in Ahar region, which benefits from more than 20 consecutive years of weather data. A future scenario of climate change was calculated according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on regions of Asia under scenario A1FI (highest future emission) for 2080s. Although, increasing of precipitation being available by climate change in the future scenario, humidity index will be reduced because of high temperature. The results showed that climate change is likely to cause severe water stress in irrigated cultivation of alfalfa, sugar beet, potato, and maize, the use of irrigation methods being essential to maintain agricultural productivity. Although irrigation is indicated as very important in this regime of semi-arid agriculture, cultivation of rainfed wheat can be possible instead of the irrigated one. Also, it is revealed that climate perturbation effects on rainfed conditions are more serious than those on the irrigated conditions in the area.

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In-Situ Combustion (ISC) is one of thermal heavy oil recovery methods in which the heat required to displace crude oil is generated by combustion of a small fraction of oil inside the reservoir. Because of presence of several processes such as combustion, phase change and reservoir fluids thermal expansion, in-situ combustion is regarded as a very complicated recovery method. In the present work, aiming acquiring a better understanding of ISC physics, the oil in place volume (expressing in terms of oil saturation) effects on performance of ISC is numerically investigated in 1D. In order to increase the model accuracy, a semianalytical model is used to account for heat loss to overburden and underburden. The numerical results show in reservoirs with high initial oil saturation, the mobilized oil is deposited in region near to production well during first days of ISC operation. Consequently, relative permeability of porous reservoir for gas phase considerably decreases. Moreover, combustion front propagation velocity reduces and the reservoir pressure significantly increases in the region upstream of the combustion front. As a result of the front velocity decrease, oil recovery rate decreases. Furthermore, if the pressure increasing is not considered in designing the air injection system, the air injection rate will be decreased and can lead to combustion front quenching. The results also show ignoring heat loss from the reservoir will lead to incorrect prediction of pore blockage.

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Microbial calcium carbonate, by bridging sand particles, can play an important role in sand dune stability. A study was carried out on the cementation of sand grains and infilling of pore spaces by CaCO₃. Two bacterial species (Sporosarcina pasteurii and Sporosarcina ureae), three reactant concentrations (0.5, 1 and 1.5M), and six reaction times (12, 24, 48, 96, 192 and 288 hours) were tested in factorial experiment. Bacterial inocula and reactant solutions were added daily to sandy soil columns (6.5 cm height and inner diameter of 7.7 cm), while precipitation of CaCO₃ being investigated within 0-1.5, 1.5-3, 3-4.5 and 4.5-6 cm intervals. Chemical and micromorphological analyses revealed that CaCO₃ formation, inorganic C sequestration, and depth of cementation were more profound for S. pasteurii as compared with S. ureae. Both microbial CaCO₃ precipitation and inorganic C sequestration increased with increase in reaction time from 12 to 288 hours. Increase in reactant concentration also caused an increase in CaCO₃ precipitation (by 12%). Micromorphological observations showed a high degree of calcite crystals’ bridging, coating on sand particles and as well infilling of pore spaces. S. pasteurii is thus recommended for being used in stabilization of sand dunes; due to its significant effects on CaCO₃ deposition and as well on sand grain cementation.

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Wind turbines are highly complex structures for numerical flow simulation. Today, developments and increasing the use of wind energy in the world has created a demand for increasingly accurate and efficient models for wind applications. Wind turbine wakes have significant effects on decreasing the produced power and blades fatigue loads. thus, the wakes study has great importance in wind turbine simulations. Actuator line model (ALM) is one of the most accurate models for characterization of the flow field and the turbulent wakes created by the turbines. AL model does not require boundary layer resolution and is thus significantly more efficient than the fully-resolved computations. this model can accurately simulate the wakes of wind turbines operating in a flow field without any need to create or import the CAD models of turbine and just by using turbine parameters. In this paper, AL method implemented in openFOAM solver and a new method used to spread forces on actuator lines. in order to validate the results, MEXICO rotor was modeled and large eddy simulation’s turbulence model is used to investigate the flow field around wind turbine. Simulation has been done for two different conditions include design conditions and stalled conditions. Results obtained for predicted wakes and performance parameters, were compared to experimental data and it was observed that the ALM results agree well with measured data. Stall condition’s results were in better agreement with experimental dada so that the thrust had 8.5% difference and the toque and power had 2.8 and 2.4% respectively.

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Fuel consumption, emissions and output power are some of the very important factors for automotive engine design. Since the combustion efficiency depends on the quality of the air-fuel mixture and mixture quality depends on the fuel injection parameters, the investigation of spray features is an overall goal in direct injection engines. In this paper, simulation of GDI spray is carried out in a constant volume chamber contains nitrogen in four different injection pressure using the AVL Fire software. The results are validated against the Istituto Motori-CNR experimental data. The log-normal probability distribution as an initial droplet diameter and Huh-Gosman model as secondary breakup were used. Then the combustion of EF7 Engine with direct injection was studied and wall film thickness was compared at different injection pressures and injector angles. Also, the effects of wall temperature and single-stage and two-stage fuel injection with different ratios of injected fuel mass were evaluated on the wall film. Since the fuel can be injected into the combustion chamber in both intake and compression stroke according to engine operating conditions in gasoline direct injection engines, the simulation was done for open cycle engine.

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The main aim of this paper is the numerical investigation of air-fuel mixture formation and spray and combustion characteristics of EF7 engine equipped with spray-guided direct injection system. For this purpose, first, a six-hole injector is simulated in three different injection pressures and to validate the fuel injection characteristics, the results are validated against the Istituto Motori-CNR experimental data. Then, the injector position is selected near the spark plug and by changing of injector angle relative to the axis of combustion chamber, the appropriate angle for optimization mixture formation is obtained. Then, the effect of injection pressure, start of first and second injection as well as the effect of two-stage fuel injection with different proportions of fuel mass at primary and secondary injection are studied on the mixture formation, wall film and engine emissions. The results showed that the injector angle is extremely effective on the mixture formation, pressure and the amount of unburned hydrocarbons due to its direct impact on wall film mass. Also, in the two-stage injection, relatively homogeneous lean mixture compared to the stratified mixture results better combustion at part load condition.

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In present work, heat transfer and flow pattern map of dimpled and horizontal tubes were studied during phases of boiling and condensation of mandatory convection of hydrocarbon R600-a. Empirical relationship will be expressed based on empirical data obtained by such experiments and fit the experimental results and Matlab software to show flow pattern map for such refrigerant with proper accuracy. The cycle consists of a pump, two preheaters, two testing parts, two condensers, flow meter and reversing valve. In this study, experimental evaporator is a copper tube with internal diameter of 8.7 mm and length of 1200 mm. the heat required for fluid evaporation is supplied by thermal element twisted around it. Such tube has been designed in forms of dimpled and straight models to evaluate effect of placement of dimples inside tubes. The test was conducted by refrigerant mass flow between 155 and 470 kg/m^2 s and vapor quality between 0.05 and 0.78. Moreover, flow patterns and their transitions for refrigerant R-600a during flow boiling inside a helically dimpled tube and a smooth tube were visually observed and analyzed. Annular, intermittent, and stratified-wavy flow were recognized for plain tube whereas there was no stratified-wavy flow in flow pattern visualization of dimpled tube. Investigation clearly shows that the dimples in evaporation significantly impact the two phase flow pattern. Inside the helically dimpled tube the intermittent/annular transitions occurs at lower vapor quality value than for the smooth tube.

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The detection of Genetically Modified (GM) organisms is becoming a legal necessity. This study was carried out to detect genetically modified events in soybeans imported into Iran using simplex and multiplex PCR. Therefore, five samples of imported soybean were obtained from Bandar Imam Khomeini customs. Modified CTAB method was used to extract DNA from soybean seeds. The result indicates that the modified method is suitable for DNA extraction from soybean seeds and probably can be used for other oilseeds. Using specific primers for CaMV 35S promoter, NOS terminator and epsps gene PCR reactions were performed. In this study soybean lectin gene was used as internal control. The results revealed that soybean samples imported from Canada and Paraguay were genetically modified and they had CaMV 35S promoter, NOS terminator and epsps gene in their genomes. The result of simplex PCR was the same as multiplex PCR, but multiplex PCR detected the GM soybeans very quickly and in a cost-saving and time-consuming way. Based on PCR analysis using GM soybean event-specific primers, it is suggested that the soybean plants may be GTS 40-3-2. No fragment was amplified when the DNA of US or Non-GM soybeans were used as template in the PCR reaction. This is the first report that shows GM soybeans imported to Iran without use of the "GMO" label in the shipment's documentation.

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                                                                                                The whole or part of contractual rights is transferred to the transferee through agreement between the transferee and the transferor in the course of transferring credit, and by that, the transferee is replaced with the transferor in terms of the right to claim his/her credit in the main contract. However, in some situations, the ability to invoke credit-transferring agreement is disrupted by the debtor, and he/she, through resorting to objections such as ignorance, correcting the main contract, contractual restrictions of transfer, etc. (as the case may be), causes exemption or the refusal right to pay his/her debt to the transferee. This issue is one of the circumstances in which a given right conflicts with the International Private Law problems, and therefore, is a place for the considering conflict of law rules. As a result, in this paper, we studied comparatively the rules governing the relationship between the transferee and the debtor in Iran’s law and The Uniform Commercial Code in the view of some International Instruments. It came to light that whereas in these two legal systems and International Instruments, the governing conflict of law rule and as a result, governing law is the same both on the main contract and the relationship between the transferee and the debtor, the obstacles to the invocability principle of credit-transferring are different with respect to this relationship in the mentioned legal systems and International Instruments as well.     * Corresponding author’s e-mail: Ma.sarmadi@yahoo.com

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Plant growth-promoting microbes are known for protection of plants against a number of phytopathogens. In the present study, we used Pseudomonas fluorescens OKC and Trichoderma asperellum T42 singly as well as in combination in chickpea (Cicer arietinum) under challenge of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris (Foc). Two cultivars of chickpea were used, viz., L550 susceptible to Foc and Avarodhi resistant to Foc. Root exudates obtained from the two cultivars of chickpea were analyzed and showed higher amount of Total Phenolic Content (TPC) accumulated in the microbe-treated plants compared to microbe un-treated control. Maximum phenolic content was observed in exudates of OKC treated plants in both cultivars. Interestingly, in OKC treated plants, TPC was higher in the exudates of the susceptible cultivar L550 compared to the resistant cultivar Avrodhi. Gallic acid content in the exudates also confirmed the pattern of TPC in the treatments. Wilting due to Foc was significantly reduced in the OKC and T42 treated plants compared to the untreated plants and thereby showed a positive correlation between TPC in exudates and reduction in Fusarium wilt. Higher TPC in the susceptible cultivar compared to the resistant cultivar clearly indicates the roles of OKC and T42 in reducing the wilt symptom whereas no wilting in the resistant cultivar may be explained due to genetic factor. High total chlorophyll content in the OKC and T42 treated plants of L550 also show the role of the microbes in maintaining a good health of the Foc challenged plants.

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 Optimum cropping pattern increases productivity where input resources are limited. An optimized cropping pattern was developed for a region in Moghan Plain, located in the northwestern Iran, to help water supplier in pre-season decision making on water and land allocation. AquaCrop simulation model was calibrated and executed for yield predictions for 11 different crops and 13 diverse soil types. Evaluation of AquaCrop model showed great robustness for a broad range of crops, even for the crops like canola and alfalfa that were undefined for the model. The precise generated crop water functions revealed the ideal conditions for water allocation by considering the impact of the existing limitation in monthly water availability on optimum cropping pattern without imposing any manipulation. Optimum cropping pattern based on water productivity (OCPWP) was identified by LINGO software. Integrating AquaCrop model and LINGO optimization problem solver created a Decision Support System (DSS) for technical analysis at the regional level. The created DSS is able to support the OCPWP in terms of the complex regional crop-mixture acreage. The ecological considerations introduced diverse winter crops to benefit from autumn precipitations. This strategy decreases irrigation requirement and saves some water for spring/summer high water-demanding crops like alfalfa and cotton, which generally enhances the system resiliency. The generated DSS revealed that 8,762 m³ water ha^-1 was required for optimum cropping pattern, which is 8% lower than the maximum and 3% more than the average available water.