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The increasing demand for food, especially poultry products, highlights critical challenges to food security. In this context, agricultural entrepreneurship in the poultry sub-sector plays a vital role in addressing these challenges by enhancing food supply and contributing to economic growth and development. This study specifically focuses on fostering entrepreneurship within the poultry industry in Mashhad, emphasizing its pivotal role in Iran's economy and its contribution to food security. Using an exploratory research method along with SWOT and Ordinal Priority Approach (OPA) analysis, 18 factors influencing entrepreneurship in the poultry industry were identified and weighted, leading to the development and ranking of 14 strategies. The results indicate that strategies such as transferring the tasks related to the poultry industry from the government to the private sector (SO) and using the capacities of knowledge-based companies for innovation in the supply of poultry input (WT) have the highest scores. In contrast, strategies such as organizing workshops and training courses (WO) and hiring skilled labore (ST) have lower scores. The findings suggest practical concepts for poultry entrepreneurs, including branding, technology adoption, establishing international animal welfare standards, collaborating with knowledge-based companies, and privatization under government supervision. These strategies can foster regional development by promoting entrepreneurship, which in turn can increase employment, economic growth, and productivity, ensuring a balanced distribution of opportunities and resources

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The genus Euxoa Hübner, [1821] is regarded as the most highly evolved among the genera of the subfamily Noctuinae and contains by far the largest number of species of the subfamily in Europe and in the Palaearctic region. Fifty-four species of this genus has been already reported from Iran. In this paper a list of 17 already recorded species and subspecies of Euxoa from the north-east of Iran is given and discussed. Furthermore, E. acuminifera (Eversmann, 1854) is newly reported for the fauna of Iran. Figures of its adult male and female and their genitalia are provided together with bionomics and distribution of the species.

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The pink hibiscus mealybug Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Green) (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) is a serious economic pest in tropical and subtropical regions and causes damage to many agricultural, forestry and greenhouse crops. In order to identify the natural enemies of this pest, bi-weekly samplings were done in infested areas of Ahvaz, located at southwest Iran during 2011-2012. Samples were also taken from Chinese hibiscus shrubs, Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L. at two urban areas in Ahvaz to determine the pest population fluctuations. Other infested plants were also sampled for exploring natural enemies associated with M. hirsutus. The identified natural enemies in this study are as follows: Nephus arcuatus Kapur, Hyperaspis polita Weise, Hyperaspis vinciquerrae Capra, Exochomus nigripennis Erichson, Scymnus (Pullus) syriacus Marseul (Col., Coccinellidae) – Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens) (Neu., Chrysopidae) – Anagyrus sp. (Hym., Encyrtidae). Also one parasitoid of coccinellid larvae and three species of hyperparasitoids were identified as follows: Homalotylus quaylei Timberlake (parasitoid of coccinellid larvae), Prochiloneurus aegyptiacus (Mercet), Prochiloneurus bolivari Mercet (Hym., Encyrtidae) and Chartocerus kurdjumovi (Nikol’skaya) (Hym., Signiphoridae). The coccinellid H. vinciquerrae is new to the fauna of Iran. The natural enemies, i.e. N. arcuatus and Anagyrus sp. had the highest populations on the host plants throughout the year.

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Ants consume or store the honeydew which is secreted by aphids or other homopteran insects. Major benefit of ant attendance for aphids is protection against natural enemies. A study was carried out during 2009-2010, to determine the mutualistic association between ants and aphids on different host plants in some parts of Khuzestan and Esfahan provinces. A total of 20 ant species belonging to 12 genera and 3 subfamilies were collected and identified. Among them, four species are new to Iranian ant fauna as follows: Monomorium libanicum Tohme; Monomorium qarahe Collingwood & Agosti; Monomorium mayri Forel and Lasius paralienus Seifert. The collected myrmecophilous aphids were 33 species belonging to 3 families and 5 subfamilies. Details and mechanisms of such associations between ants and aphids are unknown to us. More detailed investigations are needed in each case to adequately understand them.

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Abstract
Research subject: Nanocomposites are a new class of materials that have at least one of their major constituents, at least in one dimension, in the range of one to one hundred nanometers. Typically, nanocomposites have different and superior properties in terms of mechanical and physical properties than conventional composites.
Research approach: In this study, polyvinyl acetate was prepared by emulsion polymerization for polymer matrix. Then the diamond nanoparticles were modified with silane agent. Finally, polyvinyl acetate / diamond nanocomposite was prepared and analyzed with 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2 wt% of modified diamond nanoparticles. To determine the properties and structure of the nanocomposite, FTIR, TGA, RMS, FESEM, oxygen permeation analysis was used in the films produced and contact angle measurements.
Main results: FTIR Analysis revealed that the modification of the diamond nanoparticles with the silane agent was well performed. FESEM images show that homogeneous nanocomposites were created. Oxygen permeability in polyvinyl acetate / diamond nanocomposite film decreases with increasing percentage of modified nanoparticles in nanocomposite. This is a valuable property if this nanocomposite is used as a fruit preservative coating. Contact angle measurement of polyvinyl acetate / diamond nanocomposite showed that by increasing the amount of modified diamond nanoparticles from 0.5 to 2 wt %, the hydrophobicity of nanocomposite film increased. Therefore, by increasing the specific amount of nanoparticles to the polymer matrix, the polymer properties such as heat resistance and tensile strength are increased which increases the efficiency of the polymer.

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The genus Agrochola s. l. Hübner, 1821 (Noctuidae, Xyleninae, Xylenini, Xylenina) include more than seventy described species, most of them have a quite typical external habitus. Due to recent revisions on this lineage in the Palaearctic, we decided to update the data of this group in Iran, according to the latest synonymy information and distribution data. A total of 18 taxa belonging to Agrochola s. l. of Iran was listed among them, three taxa namely Agrochola imitata Ronkay, 1984, A. consueta (Herrich-Schäffer, 1852) and A. helvola pallescens (Warren, 1911) are newly recorded for the fauna of Iran. A list of Agrochola s. l. taxa of Iran with their synonymy and distribution data is given together with some notes and illustrations of genitalia and wing pattern for the new records. It is suggested to do more intensive exploration and study the food plants of Iranian Agrochola in their habitats, especially in the Zagros range in western Iran.

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Pelopidas thrax (Hübner) (Lep.: Hesperiidae) is a widespread species in southwest Iran. We aimed to use geometric morphometric techniques to investigate the sexual dimorphism and allometric effects associated with the wings of P. thrax. Fore- and hind wings of 40 and 39 individuals, respectively, of each sex which were collected from Ahvaz city were digitized and analyzed.  Sexual dimorphism was observed in size and shape of fore- and hind wings of P. thrax and was graphically illustrated. Multivariate statistics confirmed significant differences in shape of fore- and hind wing between sexes. Centroid size of both wings showed greater values in females than males and visualized by boxplots. Various multivariate regressions of shape coordinates on centroid size were significant and visualized by the thin plate splines. Allometry explained shape variance in each case between 0.8% to 19.6%. The analysis demonstrated different allometric patterns for sexes in both fore- and hind wings. Significant shape differences between wings of males and females were still remained after removing allometric effects. The variation that is not related to size could be attributed to specific behaviors such as flight speed and performance in each sex. However, specific experiments are needed to confirm the association of the wing shape variation expressed in this study with the flight traits.

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This paper presents a fuzzy search controller approach along with the look-up tables, to optimize the efficiency of a pump-induction motor drive. The induction motor and the converter are modeled based on thermal loss; and for modeling the pump and the hydraulic system, which are non-linear and relatively complicated, the neural network is used. In the designed system, in order to optimize the efficiency of the pump and the hydraulic system, the amount of outflow is controlled by adjusting the pump’s rotating speed. Meanwhile by choosing the suitable switching frequency of the inverter and feeding the motor by proper amount of voltage and frequency, the loss amount of the drive system is minimized. Simulation results show that the proposed controller improving the efficiency of the drive system under flow-changing conditions, as well as it has improved the problems that existed in some of the classical efficiency optimization approaches, such as the slowness of the converging, and the oscillation around the optimal point.

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This paper is a part of a long-term study on the Noctuidae fauna of Kerman province. Here we report the newly identified species, which were collected mostly in the South of this province during the years 2015 and 2016. Totally, here we report 30 Noctuidae taxa from 13 genera and six subfamilies namely: Acronictinae (five taxa), Amphipyrinae (three taxa), Heliothinae (two taxa), Condicinae (two taxa), Bryophilinae (six taxa) and Noctuinae (12 taxa). Among these reports there are 12 new provincial records from Kerman. Amphipyra kitti Gaal-Haszler, Lödl, Ronkay, Ronkay & Varga, is recorded here as a new species for the fauna of Iran. Material examined is listed together with provincial distribution for each taxon. Wing pattern and male and female genitalia structures of A. kitti illustrated here. The female genitalia of this species describe here for the first time. According to this data, we concluded that despite the vast area of Kerman province, its fauna has been less explored compared to some of its neighboring provinces. We suggest to explore especially higher altitudes of this province.

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The larvae of certain species in the Noctuidae family cause significant economic damage annually. Due to the importance of this group, specimens of the subfamily Noctuinae, specifically from the tribe Leucaniini, collected from the Fars, Ilam, Kerman and Khuzestan provinces were studied. As a result, among the nine identified and studied species from the genera Mythimna and Leucania, four species from Khuzestan province, three species from Ilam province and one species from Fars province were registered as new provincial records. Additionally, the distribution of Leucania (Leucania) herrichii Herrich-Schäffer, 1849 was confirmed for the first time in Iran. Further studies on this tribe in different parts of Iran are recommended.

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The melon aphid, Aphis gossypii Glover (Hemiptera: Aphididae) is one of the important ornamental plant pests in urban regions. In this study, the microemulsion system was developed using cypermethrin insecticide as the active ingredient, xylene as the solvent, and surfactants including Tensiofix 8427 + SDS, and Tensiofix 8427 + SLS, and 1-butanol (cosurfactant), as stabilizer. The optimal microemulsion formulation was determined using a pseudo-ternary phase diagram using the water titration method. The microemulsions mean droplet sizes were in the range 11.2–22.8 nm. The droplets of all three formulations were spherical and uniformly dispersed in water. The mortality percentage was 66.66, 56.66, and 55.00% 24 h after aphids exposure to C_1-250 (cypermethrin: Tensiofix 8427 + SDS + 1-butanol: water, at the ratio of 10:20:70), C_2-250 (cypermethrin: Tensiofix 8427 + SLS + 1-butanol: water, at the ratio of 10:20:70), and C_3-250 (cypermethrin: Tensiofix 8427 + SLS + 1-butanol: water, at the ratio of 15:30:55), which increased to 92.86, 89.29, and 83.94%, 48 h after exposure, respectively. The results revealed that the microemulsion formulation containing cypermethrin 250 g/L was more effective in controlling A. gossypii than cypermethrin technical material and 150 g/L cypermethrin-based microemulsion.

 

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Complexity measures in academic writing have experienced a shift from clausal to phrasal indices in recent years. Drawing on a subset of Biber et al.’s (2011) hypothesized stages of writing development, we explored phrasal complexity across sections (part-genres) of research articles (RAs) in applied linguistics and clinical medicine. A 389,332-word corpus consisting of 80 randomly selected RAs from leading journals in applied linguistics and clinical medicine was compiled for the purposes of the present study.  One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent-samples t-test, as implemented in SPSS (version 25), were employed to find differences across the RA sections and between two groups of academic writers. The findings indicated that RAs in clinical medicine relied more heavily on noun phrase modifiers in all sections than those in applied linguistics, suggesting that the distributional pattern of these linguistic expressions is discipline-independent. The implications of the distributional pattern of phrasal complexity are discussed in relation to L2 writing pedagogy and the development of genre-based, discipline-specific academic writing.   

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Due to growth of energy consumption and depletion of fossil fuels sources, power generation of renewable energy sources such as wind energy has become one of the main interests of researchers. Among different types of wind turbines used for extracting electric power from wind flow, vertical axis wind turbines can be implemented in urban areas and in proximity of energy consumers because of their independence of wind direction, low sensitivity to wind turbulence and lower noise production. In this paper a straight-bladed vertical axis wind turbine has been simulated 3 dimensionally by use of a commercial CFD code. The numerical results have been validated against available experimental data. To improve the performance of the turbine, the effects of blade mount point offset and preset pitch have been investigated. The results show that appropriate blade offset and preset pitch for this case study leads to a 60 and 65 percent increase in the maximum performance coefficient respectively.

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The purpose of this study was to investigate physicochemical, rheological and sensory properties of stirred yoghurt fortified with fermented rice bran and lettuce extract. For lettuce extraction was performed by ultrasound method. Fermented rice bran (2,4,6 and 8%) and lettuce extract (0.5,1,2 and 3%) were added to sterile milk. Starter culture (Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus) were inoculated at 42 °C. After incubation, sensory evaluation was performed and then physicochemical tests including pH, acidity, synersis, and viscosity were performed on the specimens.The samples were stored (in the refrigerator) for 21 days and they were analyzed every 7 days. The results showed that samples containing fermented rice bran and lettuce extract had a lower pH (4.36 against 4.28) and acidity (92.8 against 96.4) than control samples. Also, by decreasing pH and increasing acidity, which weakened the gel structure of casein micelles, it increased synersis (2.64 against 20.26) and reduced viscosity (5510.52 against 3956.65 mPa.s) in the samples. Also, adding fermentation rice bran and lettuce extract caused changes in the chemical composition of the samples which increased the amount of dry matter and increased the amount of phenolic compounds. The results of sensory evaluation showed that adding lettuce extract to the samples resulted in a significant reduction in sensory evaluation. Yoghurt containing 6% fermented rice bran, and the sample containing 6% fermented rice bran and 2% lettuce extract had the highest sensory rating. The results revealed that yoghurt containing fermented rice bran can be considered as a functional product with good health properties.

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Development of wave energy convertors (WEC) is one of the main challenges that naval architectures have encountered, recently. One of the most important approaches before construction of WECs is the evaluation of their conceptual models in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software. Therefore, in the current article, an innovative model of wave energy convertor is presented and hydrodynamic performance of proposed model in Persian Gulf has been examined. For accurate simulation of dynamics of WEC, mesh morphing technique is utilized. Since the presented WEC is an innovative design and there is no experimental result for validation purpose, it is tried to verify the numerical setup using similar experimental problems which have the various characteristics of the considered problem. Then, several different geometries including flat and foil pedals, and big and small semi-spherical pedals as a part of WEC have been analyzed, numerically. Small semi-spherical pedal has been determined as the best possible geometry. Number of pedals has been another parameter which has been studied and eight pedals model has been recognized as optimum choice. Finally, optimum WEC has been simulated in nine different waves and the results have been presented.

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Propolis is a resinous substance collected by honeybees from various plant sources. This study was aimed to evaluate antioxidative activities of propolis extract in sunflower oil during the storage period. In this study, the antioxidant capacities of the propolis extracts (ethanol, methanol and aqueous extracts) were determined initially using DPPH and the best extract was selected to add to oil. The results stated that the methanolic extract of propolis had the highest antioxidant activity. Then, different concentrations of methanolic extract (0, 0.5 and 1 percentage) were added to sunflower oil and incubated for 60 days at 25°C. To compare the propolis extract with synthetic antioxidants, commercial sunflower oil containing TBHQ was prepared and incubated, too. Peroxide values (PV), acidity index and thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances (TBARS) levels were measured every 20 days during the period of the study. The abtained data were analysed using completely randomized design. Results showed that the addition of antioxidant to sunflower oil lead to decrease of PV, TBARS and acidity values of samples. In this respect, 1% methanolic extract of propolis was more potent than the 0.5% extracts and synthetic Antioxidant. During storage, the amounts of oxidative indexes of samples were increased gradually. The highest amount of oxidation was observed for crude oil. The sensory results showed no significant different between flavor, color, and overall acceptance scores of oil with propolis extract and commercial Sunflower oil, but the score of odor of oil with propolis extract was lower than the commercial oil. It seems that methanolic extract of propolis is a potent antioxidant, which makes it a potential antioxidant for oil and oily products during storage.

 

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Larvae of numerous Noctuidae and Nolidae species have significant annual economic losses in agriculture. DNA-based diagnostics have been proposed as an effective way to accelerate the identification and discovery of new species. This study aimed to determine the utility of up to 642 bp Cytochrome c Oxidase subunit I (COI) barcodes for identifying 12 major Iranian Noctuidae and Nolidae crop pests and confirming morphological identifications based on classical taxonomy. We combined molecular and morphological analysis to identify 53 specimens collected from populations throughout Iran. The results indicated the presence of a distinct barcode gap for different pest species. The mean interspecific sequence divergence (Kimura 2-parameter) was an order of magnitude (10.0%) greater than the mean intraspecific sequence divergence (0.29%). This combination of DNA and morphological analyses identified 13 species, one of which was previously unknown and may represent a new previously overlooked Earias species. There were no, or very few, sequences from Iran in international databases for some of the test species. Here, we increase the number of specimens from Iran and aid in taxonomic interpretation. The current study will aid in the identification of the most common Noctuidae and Nolidae major pest species in Iran, regardless of the observer’s taxonomic skills, developmental stage of the vouchers, as well as sex, or insect preservation condition. Our data enables researchers and practitioners involved in the bio-surveillance of insect pests to identify taxa based on simple DNA sequence comparisons quickly. DNA barcoding in conjunction with morphological identifications can provide secondary evidence supporting morphological identifications and improve taxonomic resolution.