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Background: Concentrations of 4 toxic metals, viz. Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn in the soil and alfalfa samples collected from Borujerd, Iran, was determined. The capability of alfalfa to accumulate heavy metals from soils was assessed in terms of Biological Concentration Factor. Materials and Methods: The alfalfa and soil samples were collected from 20 different farms, including 13 wastewater-irrigated and seven underground-irrigated farms. After acid digestion, the samples were analyzed using atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Results: The levels of Cd, Pb, and Zn in the soils of wastewater-irrigated farms were higher than those from the groundwater-irrigated farms. With the exception of Cu, concentrations of heavy metals in the alfalfa crop were higher in wastewater-irrigated farms compared to well water. Also, in the case of BCF, both Cd and Cu values decreased with increasing metal concentration in soil. The order of BCF of heavy metals in alfalfa was in order of Cu>Cd>Zn>Pb in well water-irrigated and Zn>Cd>Cu>Pb in wastewater –irrigated samples. Discussion and Conclusions: The findings remarked that the levels of Cu, Cd, and Pb in alfalfa were exceeding the permissible levels suggested by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives. These outcomes propose that the consumption of alfalfa plants is potentially threatening both animal and human health.

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Abstract Prestressing techniques are generally used for the construction of large containment shells to overcome tension and to ensure tightness. Thus, the evaluation of the prestressing force variations considering the geometry and mechanical characteristics of tendons becomes an important matter. This paper considers the effects of time dependent deformations of materials on the circumferential prestress force in prestressed concrete cylindrical containments. Numerical studies are performed using creep and relaxation models presented in different codes of practice after checking the numerical model by experimental data reported elsewhere about a prestressed concrete beam. The effects of vertical prestressing and wall thickness are also studied. Obtained results show an amount of 15% to 22% of prestress loss in tendons, specially in those located around wall’s mid-height , on which relaxation of steel has a dominant effect. Furthermore, the minor effect of vertical prestresssing might be mentioned. Besides, the creep model of Iranian concrete code is studied and some suggestions are made for the modification of the coefficient used for the prestress losses due to relaxation effects.

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According to the formation and evolution of life along with static magnetic fields,the permanent exposure has given adaptive ability to beings. Therapeutic magnetism is one of the branches of complementary medicine which uses  the low intensity and non-harmful magnetic fields to the body. By studying in infertile couples (20% male factor), the only cause of infertility and in 50% of cases it is considered as an intermediate factor. One of the influential factors in infertility in men is sperm. In the present study, normal specimens in the magnetic field under the intensities of 1,6 and 12 millitesla and at 1,3 and 5 h intervals.
Sperm movement rate was evaluated by CASA, as well as sperm viability, by eosin staining of necrosin and morphology by staining Papanicula. The results of this step on normal sperm showed a significant reduction in the sperm movement ,which  that was not affected by the field.
Morphological studies also show that sperm motility is not affected by magnetic field.. the survival rate of sperm  was affected by the magnetic field was significantly reduced, and the sperm morphology remained unchanged

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La langue persane fait partie des langues dont le groupe consonantique finale de la syllabe CVCC est soumise à certaines contraintes du point de vue de la succession des sons. Le présent article se fixe, comme objectif, d’étudier les emprunts lexicaux qui, dans les groupes consonantiques en position finale, comprennent une consonne labiale non appartenant au persan contemporain mais qui y ont trouvé leur place. Pour ce faire, toutes les syllabes en CVCC ayant une consonne labiale en position de C₁ ou C₂ seront étudiées. Elles seront ensuite comparées en fonction de leur statut (lexique pur ou empreint) dans la langue. Seront ainsi étudiés la fréquence d’occurrence de chaque consonne, tous les ordres possibles de leur apparition ainsi que l’ordre de leur succession. Cette recherche s’inscrit dans le cadre des recherches descriptives et analytiques basées sur des données statistiques. Le dictionnaire Mochiri comprenant 40.000 entrées, a été utilisé comme source principale pour l’extraction des données de cette recherche. L’article est présenté dans le cadre théorique des principes de phonématique et du principe de l’ordre (de la succession) des phonèmes en fonction de leur degré de sonorité. Les résultats de cette recherche montrent que le lexique purement persan a un comportement totalement différent du lexique emprunté en ce qui concerne le type de succession dans le groupe consonantique, l’ordre de la succession sonnante et la sélection du noyau de la syllabe. En persan pur, la consonne /f/ en tant que premier élément constitutif du groupe consonantique et la consonne /m/ en tant que deuxième membre de ce groupe, sont les plus fréquemment employées, parmi les consonnes labiales.
 

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This paper investigated the imitation of human motions by a NAO humanoid robot which can be regarded as a human-robot interaction research. In this research, first, human motion is captured by a Kinect 3-dimentional camera through a Robot Operating System (ROS) package. Captured motion is then mapped into the robot’s dimension due to the differences between human and humanoid robot dimensions. After performing the mapping procedure, the solution of both forward and inverse kinematic problem of the robot are solved. To this end, a “Distal” form of forward kinematics solution of the NAO humanoid robot is computed and based on the latter form an analytical inverse kinematics solution for the whole-body imitation purpose is used. The foregoing issue, as one of the contributions of this paper, can be regarded as one of the main reason for obtaining a smooth imitation. In order to keep the robot’s stability during the imitation, an ankle strategy based on a Linear Inverted Pendulum Model (LIPM) and the Ground projection of the Center of Mass (GCoM) criteria is introduced. Moreover, the latter LIPM is controlled by a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller for two cases, namely, double and single support phases. Considering the limitation on the motion capture device, from experimental and simulation results obtained by implementing the proposed method on a NAO-H25 Version4 it can be inferred that the robot exhibits an accurate, smooth and fast whole-body motion imitation.

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Considerable age of numerous concrete structures and due to some reasons like changes in design philosophy, increase in applied loads, etc., have made strengthening and maintenance compulsory. Shear failure in reinforced concrete beams is frequently sudden and brittle. For this reason, efforts are made to avoid this type of failure by strengthening them, especially in structures that were made with engineering mistakes and damaged structures. Steel, fiber-reinforced polymers, and carbon fiber-reinforced polymers are used as conventional solutions, but these methods have some drawbacks. For instance, prestressing them is hardly applicable, and the prestressing force decreases over time. Therefore, nowadays, as an alternative, shape memory alloys (SMAs) are investigated as new strengthening methods owing to their unique features. Shape memory alloys are novel and smart material groups that have been considered in civil engineering for many purposes, including active and passive control of structures, dampers, and strengthening of structures like reinforced concrete structures and bridges, etc., due to unique features such as pseudo-elasticity and shape memory effect. They have the particular property of returning to their initial shape by heating which is called the shape memory effect. If the SMAs prevented from returning to their initial shape by using mechanical fixation, a prestress force develops owning to the shape memory effect property. NiTi or Nitinol has been used for damping applications in civil engineering, and it has been investigated in the literature. Iron-based shape memory alloys (Fe-SMAs) have attracted much attention in civil engineering applications due to their shape memory effect. Particularly for strengthening applications, iron-based shape memory alloys have some benefits such as wide transformation hysteresis, high elastic modulus, and lower cost compared to conventional NiTi alloys. The advantage of shape memory alloys over fiber-reinforced polymer is that they can be prestressed more easily than FRP, and the prestressing force will not reduce over time. In addition, it does not require any mechanical and hydraulic jacks. Prestressing these materials has some advantages in strengthening. For example, cracks and deformations can be reduced or at least prevented from further growing, and the stresses in internal stirrups are reduced. The usage of prestressing for shear strengthening is rare because it is very complex from a practical standpoint. This study aims to assess the behavior of RC beams strengthened in shear with iron-based shape memory alloys. For this purpose, based on experiments in the literature, T-beams with 5.2-meter long are investigated numerically by using finite-element analysis software, ABAQUS. Three-dimensional finite element models were developed using the concrete damage plasticity and were verified with experimental results. Comparison between the results from the FE models and experimental test results confirmed the accuracy of the proposed models. Furthermore, the effects of parameters such as shape memory alloy diameters, prestressing force, and shotcrete thickness on beams' shear behavior are also investigated. The results of the analysis indicate a notable increase in the final shear strength of the strengthened beams and a reduction in stirrups' stresses. The prestressing ability of shape memory alloys delays the yielding of stirrups and the appearance of shear cracks and reduces the thickness of the cracks.