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Two essential steps in numerical simulation of a flow field are discretization of the computational space and discretization of the governing partial differential equations (pde’s). In the present work a triangular unstructured grid is utilized. Unstructured grids are recognized to be superior for complex geometries as well as for grid adaptation. For descritization of governing pde’s a finite element method is employed. This research presents a new implicit finite element method in a triangular unstructured grid. For convection term of Navier–Stokes equation a conservative upwind method is used, while a finite element method is used for viscous terms. Results are very promising for viscous flows inside a driven cavity.

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Backgrounds: This study aimed to analyse hybrid Entroaggregative/Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (EAEC/UPEC) isolates. To do so, the antibiotic resistance pattern and virulence genes were investigated in E. coli strains isolated from clinical specimens of patients hospitalized in Isfahan, Iran.
Materials & Methods: Disc diffusion method was used to determine the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of EAEC/UPEC isolates. Also, virulence determinants of these isolates were determinated by singleplex and multiplex PCR.
Findings: Overall, a total of 148 E. coli isolates were collected, of which 12 (8.1%) isolates were hybrid EAEC/UPEC strains, then antibiotic susceptibility examination was operated on these strains. The higest antibiotic resistance rate was related to ofloxacin (42%), followed by trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (41%), ceftriaxone and cefepime (33%), and cefoxitin (17%). All the isolates showed susceptibility to fosfomycin.
Conclusion: According to the current study, since resistance to fluoroquinolones has increased in hybrid strains, monitoring the drug susceptibility of hybrid strains seems critical in Iran. Fosfomycin is considered to be the drug of choise for infections caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Fortunately, 100% of the strains were sensitive to fosfomycin.

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 In order to introduce new chemical weed management program in maize weed control in Iran, a study was conducted during 2014 and 2015. Experiment were carried out in a randomized complete block design with three replications. 15 treatments of the common maize herbicides, including nicosulfuron, foramsulforon, eradicane and 2,4-D + MCPA were applied in their recommended doses, moreover the treatments related to cycloxydim with dicamba + tritosulfuron were used with different doses and in different times along with two control treatments (weedy and weed-free). Treatments contained 75-150 g a.i. ha^-1 of cycloxydim, showed similar results with the common treatments including nicosulfuron, foramsulforon, eradicane and 2,4-D + MCPA. However, treatments with high doses of cycloxydim, had a significant reduction in weed density and weed biomass. There were no significant differences between the effects of treatments on maize grain yield and biomass. Despite the acceptable weed control of the combined treatment of cycloxydim with dicamba plus tritosulfuron, maize canopy could overcome weed growth. Based on the results and by considering cycloxydim efficacy in controlling perennial grassy weeds in maize plantation, this chemical is a suitable option during different growing stages of weeds and maize. Finally, the application of 200-300 g a.i. ha^-1 of cycloxydim combined with dicamba plus tritosulfuron was the best option from an economic and environmental safety points of view.

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 Although, weed control in saffron farms is critical, no herbicide is registered for saffron fields. This experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design with three replicates during 2016-2017. Treatments included application of trifluralin, pendimethalin, metribuzin, bentazon, ioxynil, oxadiazon, oxyfluorfen, haloxyfop-r-methyl, sethoxydim, clethodim, cycloxydim, nicosulfuron, rimsulfuron, tribenuron methyl, foramsulfuron, paraquat, dicamba + triasulfuron, and dicamba + tritosulfuron herbicides at recommended and reduced doses. Mother corms were planted on 10th of September 2016 at 5 × 10 cm corms distance and planting depth of 15 cm. Measured indices included: number of flowers, fresh and dry weights of flower and stigma, number of replacement corms and total corms weight. Results showed that visual phytotoxic symptoms were not observed in pre emergence herbicides. Post emergence herbicides showed different levels of phytotoxicity from slight to severe. The application of paraquat, oxyfluorfen and oxadiazon, caused higher levels of phytotoxicity compared to other herbicides. Acetyl CoA carboxylase inhibitor herbicides caused the least injury to saffron, while acetolactate synthase inhibitor herbicides damaged saffron severely. The highest and the lowest dried stigma yield was obtained from control treatment (0.54 g.m^-2) and post application of tribenuron methyl (0.003 g.m^-2) respectively. Among pre emergence herbicides, the highest dried stigma yield was recorded for pendimethalin herbicide. The post application of metribuzin, oxadiazone and oxyfluorfen resulted in greater dried stigma yield than other broadleaf herbicides. By reducing herbicide dose saffron yield increased and phytotoxic levels were reduced significantly. Among the studied herbicides, trifluralin, oxyfluorfen, pendimethalin and metribuzin can be used as selected herbicides in saffron.
 

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Aims: This study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy on the pain metaphorical perception in patients with chronic pain.
Materials & Methods: The study method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design and control group. The population was all people with chronic pain in the first six months of 2024 in Tehran. Accordingly, 45 patients with chronic pain were selected voluntarily and randomly assigned to intervention and control groups (each group n=15). The Questionnaire of the study was Raiisi`s Pain Metaphorical Perception. The first experimental group received eight sessions of 90-minute cognitive-behavioral therapy, but the second group received eight sessions of 90-minute dialectical behavior therapy.
The control group did not receive any intervention. The data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance by SPSS-26.
Findings: The results indicated that cognitive-behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy significantly increased components of pain metaphorical perception (object, force, human, and causality) in patients with chronic pain (P<0.001).
Conclusion: The findings of this research emphasized the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy on the pain metaphorical perception. As a result, by changing the metaphors of pain in patients, the interpretation of pain can be changed.
 

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Efficiency of many herbicides can be increased by adding adjuvants to the spray solution. So, the addition of an appropriate adjuvant to foliar herbicides is important in weed control researches. To identify an appropriate adjuvant for sulfosulfuron and sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron-methyl herbicides against Japanese downy brome Bromus japonicus, two experiments were conducted in randomized complete block design with two factors under field condition separately in Zabol and Zahedan, Iran. Factor A was different doses of herbicide namely 0, 50, 75 and 100% of their recommended dose and factor B was adjuvants including: sweet almond oil, olive oil, sesame seed oil and D-Octil. Results showed that efficiency of sulfosulfuron and sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron-methyl herbicides increased by increasing their doses and adjuvant addition. The addition of sesame seed oil (followed by D-octil) had the highest effect on sulfosulfuron efficacy against Japanese downy brome control. In general, sulfosulfuron at 100% of its recommended dose (26.5 g ha^-1) plus sesame seed oil was the best formulation to control of Japanese downy brome. In addition, this formulation significantly improved wheat grain and biological yield. Adding of D-Octil had the highest influence on sulfosulfuron plus metsulfuron-methyl performance in Japanese downy brome control. The highest wheat grain and biological yield were mainly obtained at 100% recommended dose (40 g ha^-1) of sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron-methyl plus D-Octil followed by sesame oil.
 

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Aims: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of emotion focused therapy on the metaphorical perception of pain and time in patients with musculoskeletal pain.
Materials & Methods: The study method was semi-experimental with a pre-test-post-test design and control group. The population was all people with chronic pain in the 2024 in Tehran. According to this purpose, 30 patients with musculoskeletal pain were selected voluntarily and randomly assigned to intervention and control groups (experimental group=15, and control group=15). The Questionnaire of the study was Raiisi`s Pain Metaphorical Perception, and Raiisi`s Time Metaphorical Perception. The experimental group received twelve sessions of 90-minute emotion focused therapy. The control group did not receive any intervention. The data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance by SPSS-26.
Findings: The results indicated that emotion focused therapy significantly increased components of pain (object, force, human, and causality), and time metaphorical perception (matter, place, and object) in patients with musculoskeletal pain (P<0.001).
Conclusion: The findings of this research emphasized the effectiveness of emotion focused therapy on the pain, and time metaphorical perception. As a result, evidence-based psychotherapeutic approaches such as emotion focused therapy can influence metaphorical understanding.
 

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The plant symbiotic fungi, Arbuscular mycorrhizae (AM), increases host competency and causes partial control of Egyptian broomrape Phelipanche aegyptiaca (Orobanchaceae). In this study, a greenhouse experiment was designed to investigate the AM efficacy on the morphological and physiological traits in the association of cucumber and P. aegyptiaca. Findings showed that the broomrape contamination increased the activity of ascorbate, peroxidase, and catalase in cucumber. In contrast, AM decreased ascorbate, peroxidase activity and increased total phenolic compounds. However, AM in P. aegyptiaca-infected genotypes had no significant effect on malondialdehyde and hydrogen peroxide content. In AM inoculated treatments, the height and number of cucumber leaves were unaffected by P. aegyptiaca infestation. Also, AM decreased the harmful effects of the P. aegyptiaca by reducing the total dry weight and number of attachments, increasing the leaf area, the shoot, and the dry root weight of cucumber genotypes. Despite the positive effect of AM, about 35 and 50% reduction in shoot and dry root weight of cucumber indicated high susceptibility of the host. Overall, It seems that the AM cannot be effective as a primary broomrape control strategy in cucumber.

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 A greenhouse experiment was conducted to examine the influence of Phelipanche aegyptiaca on vegetative growth, rate of photosynthesis, chlorophyll fluorescence and leaf chlorophyll content of 35 cucumber genotypes. High demand of assimilates by P. aegyptiaca caused significant reductions in shoot and root dry weight, leaf number, leaf area and plant height in all cucumber genotypes. Once plants were infected by P. aegyptiaca, the leaf chlorophyll content, the photosynthesis rate and the maximum quantum yield of PSII chemistry were significantly less than control, thus implying a reduction in carbon assimilation, photosynthesis efficiency and susceptibility of infected plants to photoinhibition. P. aegyptiaca traits were significantly affected by cucumber genotypes. There was no correlation between P. aegyptiaca traits with the reduction percentage of cucumber shoot dry weight. However, there were correlations between underground attachments number plant^-1 (UAN) and percentage of cucumber root dry weight reduction (-0.58), total attachment number plant ^-1 (TAN) and the percentage of reduction of root dry weight (+0.39). In accordance with the results obtained, the genotypes were classified into 3 groups. It was demonstrated that the genotype number 22 (Khassib) behaved differently to other genotypes and, in particular, they suffered less damage from the presence of P. aegyptiaca.


 

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Temperature and water potential are the main determinants of the seed germination of plant species. Experiments were conducted to quantify the seed germination response of two sterile oat Avena sterilis subsp. ludoviciana (Durieu) Nyman biotypes susceptible and resistant to acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase inhibitor herbicides under six temperature regimes (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 °C), and five levels of drought stress (0.0,-0.3, -0.6, -0.9, and -1.2 MPa). The base temperature of seed germination in both biotypes was affected by drought stress. The base temperature changed from no stress to maximum stress in the susceptible biotype from 3.24 to 7.15 °C and in the resistant biotype from 3.12 to 7.43 °C. Thermal times required for 50% germination of the seed population at sub-optimal temperatures was increased from 26.2 to 87.8 °C day in the susceptible biotype and from 28.8 to 90.6 °C day in the resistant biotype. Increasing the temperature from 5 to 30 °C decreased the constant hydrotime from 10.92 to 1.66 MPa in the susceptible biotype and 11.52 to 1.98 MPa in the resistant biotype. The hydrothermal time constant for susceptible and resistant biotypes was 28.6 and 31.1 MPa. According to the hydrothermal time model, the herbicide-resistant biotype (-0.858 MPa) seeds require more water potential than the susceptible biotype (-0.905 MPa) to germinate at higher temperatures. Based on the parameters of the models, the germination response to temperature and water potential was similar in both susceptible and resistant biotypes. Consequently, maximum emergence of both biotypes is possible at 15 °C and without water stress conditions.


 

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Three dose-response experiments were conducted separately to study the effect of several adjuvants on nicosulfuron efficacy for controlling Amaranthus retroflexus L., Chenopodium album L. and Echinochloa crus-galli L. The experiments were arranged in a completely randomized block design with a factorial arrangement of the treatments and four replications. The treatments consisted of six doses of nicosulfuron at 0 (control), 5, 10, 20, 40, and 80 g a.i.ha^-1 of the recommended dose with and without the adjuvants of cotton oil, rocket oil, soybean oil, maize oil, Adigor®, Volck^®, HydroMax^™ at 0.5% (v/v), Cytogate, Trend^® 90, and D-octil^® at 0.2 % (V/V). The efficacy of nicosulfuron in control of A. retroflexus, C. album, and E. crus-galli increased significantly when the adjuvants were used. HydroMax^™ and Trend^® 90 were the best adjuvants, considering enhanced nicosulfuron efficacy for controlling C. album, E. crus-galli, and A. retroflexus. In the presence of HydroMax^™ nicosulfuron efficacy was raised by a factor of 4.02, 3.45, and 1.65-fold for controlling A. retroflexus, E. crus-galli, and C. album, respectively. In general, the efficacy of nicosulfuron to control A. retroflexus and E. crus-galli was higher than C. album.






 

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Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill.) benefits from a lot of useful medicinal properties. Iran is known as one of the main producers of fennel. In spite of high medicinal values, fennel’s cultivation is not economically feasible, mainly due to its low yield. It grows wild in different areas in Iran from where diverse ecotypes have evolved. Genetic variance and heritability estimates of traits in a plant’s primary germplasms are needed before planning of a new breeding program. In the present study the genetic diversity and broad sense heritability for 50 fennel ecotypes were assessed under field conditions for a duration of two years. Seed yield, essential oil content and some morphological traits were recorded during a two experimental years. Through stepwise regression, the yield affecting traits and essential oil content were determined. During the first and second experimental years the most effective traits affecting essential oil content were found to be the number of leaves per plant and days to 50% flowering, respectively. The weight of dry biomass affected seed yield the highest during any of the two years and for each separate year. The broad sense heritability during the two experimental years, for essential oil content and seed yield, were 0.46 and 0.63, respectively. However, some such traits as, days to 50% flowering and length of middle internodes showed higher comparative heritability (0.90 and 0.79, respectively). The high heritability of the studied traits in this germplasm indicates the germplasm’s high genetic potential to be made use of in breeding programs.

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Wild barley has invaded wheat fields ever since flamprop-isopropyl was outdated in Iran. Newly developed herbicides such as sulfosulfuron or sulfosulfuron plus metsulfuron-methyl can control it at higher than recommended dosages, but causing significant wheat injury. Hence, two dose-response experiments were conducted to evaluate their efficacy when tank-mixed with thirteen different vegetable oils, at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, during 2013. Moreover, a wheat cultivar (Gaskogen) was also treated with effective dose of 90% (ED₉₀) of both herbicides (21.44 grams active ingredient (g ai) of sulfosulfuron ha^-1 and 41.95 g ai of sulfosulfuron plus metsulfuron-methyl ha^-1) with and without each vegetable oil to check selectivity. Averaged over vegetable oils, the effective dose of 50% (ED₅₀) was decreased 2.6- and 3.0-fold with sulfosulfuron and sulfosulfuron plus metsulfuron-methyl, respectively. Among the evaluated vegetable oils, cottonseed and coconut oil were the best ones to enhance the efficacy of both herbicides. The castor oil had the least effect. A negative correlation was observed between the efficiency of vegetable oils and its unsaturated/saturated fatty acids ratio. No phytotoxic effect on wheat was observed when these herbicides were applied with or without the vegetable oils.

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Somatic embryos of Persian walnut were transformed with two strains of Agrobacterium tumefaciens i.e. LBA4404 and C58, and two plasmids, namely, pBI121 with nptII and gus genes for improving the transformation protocol, and p6u-ubi-FVTI plasmid containing the hpt and fld genes. The transformation frequency was 10%. PCR and RT-PCR analysis proved the presence and expression of the genes. The transgenic and non-transgenic somatic embryos of Persian walnut were exposed to four salinity levels (0, 50, 100, and 200 mM NaCl) and four osmotic stress (0, 1.5, 5, and 10% PEG) levels. After 20 days, the number of survived, secondary and cotyledonary somatic embryos, as well as fresh and dry weights of embryos were evaluated. In addition, the transgenic and non-transgenic regenerated plantlets with 3 leaves and 2.5 cm length were subjected to 200 mM NaCl. In both experiments, the main effects of fld-transformation and stress treatments on evaluated parameters were significant. Transgenic somatic embryos showed no significant differences at 0 and 200 mM NaCl and 0 and 1.5% PEG. Significant differences of transgenic vs. non-transgenic somatic embryos were observed at 50 and 100 mM NaCl and 5 and 10% PEG. Non-transgenic plantlets on medium containing 200 mM NaCl showed complete necrosis and died after 10 days, while transgenic lines continued growth until 45 days. Our results clearly showed that expression of fld gene increased stress tolerance in fld transformant lines of walnut, and also revealed that expression of this specific cyanobacterial protein may provide a powerful tool to improve tolerance to environmental stresses.