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In this study, 13 different biotypes of Praon exsoletum were investigated based on selected morphological characteristics. This species is specialized parasitoid of Therioaphistrifolii on alfalfa and clover. Traditional morphometric analysis was used to obtain three meristic and 15 continuous characters. The analysis of variance showed that P. exsoletumbiotypes differ in many morphometric traits. Moreover, all biotypes displayed their maximum differences in six morphological characters as follows:(1) number of antennal segments;(2) inter-tentorial/tentorio-ocular distance;(3) length/width of ovipositor sheath;(4) length/width of second flagellar segment; (5)length/width of third flagellar segment and (6) number of longitudinal placodes on second flagellar segment. The discriminant function analysis indicated45.23% of correct assignment of specimens to the a priori designated groups of specimens. The results indicated an overlapping of analyzed biotypes according to selected morphological characters. On the other hand, geometric morphometrics analysis applied on forewings, the size and the shape revealed statistically significant differences. Eleven homologous landmarks were selected. The ANOVA (p < 0.000) and MANOVA (P= 0.000) showed that there were significant differences in size and shape of forewings. Visualization of the distribution of individuals was presented using Principal component analysis and Canonical variate analysis. On whole, the result of this investigation showed that R1 and the radial veins (end of Rs and M) tend to be short. Furthermore, the USAbiotype introduced is positioned near all other analyzed biotypes of P. exsoletum. Among the selected morphological characters, four characters namely (1) length of wing/length of R1; (2) length of wing/length of stigma; (3) length of first/third flagellar segment and (4) width of first/third flagellar segment were first considered for morphometric study in Praon and P. exsoletum species. Our results showed lack of subspecies for P. exsoletum.

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PhD Student of TEFL, English Department, Faculty of Foreign Languages and The available empirical evidence on the long-term efficacy of written corrections is limited to the studies that have investigated the effect of focused feedback on improving grammatical accuracy of two specific aspects of English articles. It is clear that focused corrections, which target only one or two grammatical error types at a time, lack ecological validity in writing courses. The aim of the present study is to investigate the reaction of different structures to corrections which enjoy more validity in writing classes. Using a pretest-posttest design, the long-term reaction of three features of English grammar (articles, the infinitive, and the present unreal conditional) to mid-focused and unfocused written feedback and revision were investigated. The results showed that on the delayed posttest, which was administered one month after the feedback treatment, the performance of the students in the experimental groups was not significantly different from the control group and that there were no significant absolute gains in any of the groups compared with pretest scores. 

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Each language has a certain canonical word order. In English, for example, the SVO canonical word order mandates that the object follow the verb and, with non-alternating dative verbs (Mazurkewich, 1984; Pinker, 1989) like donate, the direct object (DO) precede the indirect object (IO):

1. I donated the books to the library.
2. *I donated to the library the books.

However, it has been widely documented that in situations where the DO is longer, this unmarked word order undergoes a change. For example, sentence 4 below is much more acceptable than sentence 3:

3. I donated the books that I had bought several years ago to the library.
4. I donated to the library the books that I had bought several years ago.

This phenomenon, known as the “short-before-long” principle or heavy NP shift (Arnold et al. 2000, Ross, 1967, Stallings et al. 1998, Wasow, 1997), was initially thought to be universal since incremental models of sentence production (e.g., Bock & Levelt, 1994; Garrett, 1980), which were in vogue when this phenomenon was initially observed, claimed that short constituents are easier to retrieve and are thus placed before longer and heavier ones. However, investigating other non-Germanic languages, especially through corpus studies, researchers realized that in OV languages like Japanese (Chang, 2009; Yamashita & Chang 2001) and Korean (Choi, 2007) the inverse of the short-before-long tendency is true, i.e., it is the longer constituent that tends to precede the shorter one in the pre-verbal domain.
The issue of what factors influence the relative order of objects in Persian sentences, and how the length factor can affect this ordering has been tackled only recently in the literature. Faghiri and Samvelian (2014) conducted a corpus analysis of Persian sentences and concluded that the relative order of the DO and the IO in this language corresponds, to a large extent, to the nature of the DO. To corroborate this finding, Faghiri, Samvelian and Hemforth (2014) carried out a web-based sentence completion task and demonstrated that in Persian the relative order of the DO and the IO depends mainly on whether the DO is definite or indefinite and, to a lesser degree, on the DO’s length, with higher likelihoods of the DO-IO-V order as the DO gets longer. These two studies, therefore, seem to suggest that in Persian the relative length of the objects is of secondary importance, and conceptual and/or discourse accessibility of the objects determines their order in the pre-verbal domain (Karimi, 2003).
What remains missing in this growing literature on heavy NP shift in Persian, however, is looking into the Persian native speaker’s intuition or “knowledge of language” (Newmeyer, 2003, p. 682) through judgment data. Newmeyer (2003) argues that collecting corpus data, which reflect language usage, is by no means enough to draw definitive conclusions in a linguistic analysis, and native speaker judgments should also be solicited to obtain a better picture of the phenomenon under investigation (see also Manning (2003) who used corpus data to provide counterexamples to data obtained by Pollard and Sag (1994) through judgment tests regarding verb subcategorization in English). In this spirit, the present study seeks to examine heavy NP shift in Persian from a new angle; namely, it intends to examine, primarily through a grammaticality judgment test (GJT), how Persian speakers rate DO-IO and IO-DO sentences, and to what extent the length of the DO affects their ratings. The findings of the GJT are also coupled with a prompted sentence recall task (PSRT), which in turn helps us draw better conclusions about the status of the heavy NP shift phenomenon in Persian.                        
 

 

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The present study attempts to investigate parsing preferences (early vs. late closure) of native and L2 learners of both English and Persian when they read ambiguous relative clauses. The purpose is to find out if L2 learners process L2 linguistic input in the way monolingual speakers of that language do. The participants took tests including 10 test sentences plus 10 distractors, each followed by a comprehension question. Monolingual speakers of Persian and English were provided with tests in their own language, while bilinguals were provided with tests in their second language. Results showed a significant preference of monolingual Persian speakers for high attachment to relative clause (early closure), whereas monolingual English speakers showed a high preference for low attachment (late closure). The results also indicated that bilinguals adopted the same parsing strategy used in their L1, suggesting that their L1 might be influencing their L2 processing. The results are discussed in terms of the implications they may have for ultimate attainment in L2.

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Abstract: Assessment of the remaining load carrying capacity of masonry arch bridges has been studied by many researchers in the recent years. Most of the masonry bridges have been built several decades ago, and have been designed for live loads and service conditions that have been changed over time. The residual strength of those structures cannot be predicted, in a reliable manner, because of time dependent effects such as fatigue and creep, environmental defects such as cracking and corrosion, participation of non-structural elements such as fill material and pavement layers, variation in restrain conditions, and differences between as-built and design specifications. To overcome such restrictions, field tests provide a dependable solution. On the basis of construction material, masonry arch bridges may be divided into three groups, namely, brickwork arch, stone arch, and plain concrete arch. Numerical and experimental studies of brickwork and stone arches have been reported frequently. Despite frequent study of brick masonry arches, load test of plain concrete arches have been published only in a few documents. There are a large number of old arch bridges in Iran that have been serving as railway bridges for more than seventy years. Field load testing of an old railway bridge in km 24 of Tehran-Qom railway has revealed important characteristics of the bridge and has proven that there is still large capacity under service load. This paper reports results of a study to predict the maximum and yield load capacity of a plain concrete arch bridge. The bridge has already been tested under vertical load static up to 5000 KN. For figure out the behavior of these types of structures, model updating is necessary. Appropriate modeling of arch bridges is the subject that is highly regarded by researchers in recently year. The complexity in the behavior of these structures will seek more accurate studies and researches, so the field tests are an integral part. In this article, uses numerical modeling in order to determine yield strength and ultimate strength of Akbar Abad Bridge. This bridge is a plain concrete arch and consists of five identical 6m and formerly has tested, due to operational and field limitation, possibility of loading until limit ultimate and Set maximum load capacity and yield strength has not been possible. In this paper with ANSYS software, an accurate modeling has done. In this model has used strain analysis. Considering the existence of initial cracks in bridge, they have been modeled as empty space. Behaviors of the material are assumed nonlinear and have used Dracker-Prager criterion. Finally, according to pattern of cracks appeared in test and result of field testing of a similar bridge (km-23 of Tehran-Qom railway), the ultimate load and yield strength is estimated and The pattern of formation of plastic hinges conforms to the patterns reported in the literature for arch masonry bridges.

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In recent years, biocatalysts have widespread application in industry because they can do chemical reactions with the lowest energy and highest efficiency. Bacterial enzymes are more useful in this field due to simple cloning and expression process in the manipulated host. By considering specific role of endoglucanase enzymes in cellulose hydrolyzing reactions, these types of enzymes are more applicable in related industries. The produced glucose through enzymatic hydrolysis could be used in different industries such as biofuel and ethanol production and in the food industry as sweetener. Therefore, cloning and production of Endoglucanase in manipulated hosts has been developed in recent years. This study was performed to isolate, screen and identify native endoglucanase -producing strains from soil around the roots of the maple tree. Isolated strains were identified using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. After identifying of the bacteria (Enterobacter hormaechei), Endoglucanase enzyme gene was amplified using degenerate primers at first and then by specific primers with restriction enzymes sequences. DNA fragment and plasmid vector were treated by specific restriction enzymes and then ligated to each other. Then recombinant plasmid transferred to the E. coli BL-21 as expression host and kinetic properties of recombinant enzyme were evaluated. Expression of the target protein was done by stimulating the Lac operon by using 1 mM of IPTG and the kinetic features of the recombinant enzyme such as Vmax and Km evaluated as 45 µmol/min and 1.4 mg/ml respectively. The optimum conditions for enzyme activity tend to be 37°C at a pH of 7.

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Differences in the persons’ individual parameters such as age, gender, weight, height and basal metabolic rate have a significant effect on the human body thermoregulation. Therefore, using the human thermal models that developed on the basis of large humanity population cannot lead to accurate results for specific individuals. Because, the individual parameters have not been considered in standard thermal comfort models and also available individual and local models are so complicated in applications; nowadays, the necessity of developing a simple and accurate individualized model is felt. In this study, some physiological parameters such as: body fat percentage, subcutaneous fat layer thickness, body heat capacity coefficient and tissue conductive resistances have been modeled from readily-available external measurement of individuals and these parameters are incorporated into three node-model algorithm structure to predict individual variations in thermal response between individuals. Three-node thermal comfort model is based on Gagge’s standard model that has been accurately estimated thermal sensation of the bare and clothed parts of the body. The model has been verified against the analytical and experimental results where a good agreement was found. In conclusion, the results indicate that the mean error in prediction of skin temperature is decreased from 1.2℃ for three-node model to 0.4℃ for the new individual model.

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In this paper a nonlinear controller is going to be designed for micro-beam’s deflections under mechanical shock effects. The micro-beam is supposed to undergo mechanical shocks. Mechanical shocks are one of the failure sources and the controller is to considerably suppress shock’s unfavorable effects. Half-Sine, rectangular and triangular pulses are chosen as reference shock signals to represent true complicated shock signals in nature which consist of different harmonics. Two layers of electrodes are placed in both sides of the micro-beam and they are used to actuate the micro-beam by different voltage levels. Upper layer is specifically meant for control purpose. Nonlinear equations governing micro-beam’s deflection dynamics are derived, discretized by Galerkin method to a set of nonlinear duffing type ODE and used to investigate micro-beams response to each shock input signal. Controller design is based on a simple nonlinear model formed by micro-beam’s first mode shape. Proper second order behavior is generated by feedback linearization method as controller logic. Finally controller performance and shock rejecting capability is evaluated by numerical simulations. Controller is shown to be very effective in diminishing shock unfavorable effects and postponing pull-in instability by numerical simulations.

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Estimating indoor air pollutants to ensure the air quality is very important. In this study, a conventional residential space is numerically simulated in order to investigate the behavior of pollutants. Using the numerical results and the experimental results of other references, proposed the analytical relation to estimate the concentration of CO2 in term of factors such as CO2 produced by breathing residents or combustion equipment, the volume of space and ventilation rate. The results of the analytical relation are full compliance with experimental and numerical results and it can be used to estimate indoor air quality. Proposed relation can be used in all the same cases.

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In this paper, reliability of missile system in its total life cycle is evaluated in terms of its subsystems’ reliability, using Continuous Time Markov Chains (CTMC) and Monte Carlo simulation method, finally results of both methods are compared. Missile system’s life cycle includes storage, pre-launch and operation states. Missile system is composed of variety of components and materials, hence different environmental conditions and various stresses imposed on missile system in each state during its life cycle, stimulates diverse failure modes and mechanisms. Therefore, failure probability distribution function differs for each subsystem in each state. Flight control, mechanical parts and equipment, engine and warhead are four main subsystems of the missile system. They are linked in series therefore each one’s failure will result in system’s failure. Exponential, Weibull, Lognormal and Gompertz distributions are used for subsystems’ modeling in different life cycle states. Unlike many other researches in this field, failure rates are time variant. System is supposed to be unrepairable during life cycle. Finally, Continuous Time Markov Chain’s superiority in comparison with Monte Carlo method, both in accuracy and required amount of calculations is demonstrated and a few suggestions, based on obtained results, are presented for system reliability improvement.