ALBERT

Description: The weed Phalaris brachystachys Link. severely affects winter cereal production. Acetyle-CoA Carboxylase (ACCase)-inhibiting herbicides are commonly used to control this weed in wheat fields. Thirty-six populations with suspected resistance to ACCase-inhibiting herbicides were collected from wheat fields in the Golestan Province in Iran. A rapid test performed in Petri dishes and whole-plant dose–response experiments were conducted to confirm and investigate the resistance level of P. brachystachys to ACCase-inhibiting herbicides. The seed bioassay results showed that 0.02 mg ai L−1 clodinafop-propargyl (CP) and 1.36 mg ai L−1 of the diclofop-methyl (DM) solution were the optimal amounts for reliably screening resistant and susceptible P. brachystachys populations. In the whole plant bioassay, all populations were found to be resistant to CP, resistance ratios ranging from 2.7 to 11.6, and all of the CP-resistant populations exhibited resistance to DM. Fourteen populations showed low resistance to cycloxydim, and thirteen of these populations were also 2-fold resistant to pinoxaden. The results showed that DM resistance in some P. brachystachys populations is likely due to their enhanced herbicide metabolism, which involves Cytochrome P450 monooxygenases, as demonstrated by the indirect assay. This is the first report confirming the cross-resistance of ACCase-inhibiting herbicides in P. brachystachys in Iran.

Description: Nowadays 90 percent of world exchange to be achieved by marine transport and it can be said that the sea is undeniable dimension of economic affairs for every country. Substructure of ports, harbor and formation of suitable and safe conditions for vessel movement is helpful and acceleration affair in loading and offloading of goods, and also is the effective and important factor for vessels movement, In this research by using the library study and the results of numerical modeling with the descriptive and analytic method the effective parameters in vessels safety traffic in the harbor basins to be explained. For this purpose eastern harbor of Jask port is selected. The result are explained in two categories; direct results and results of the numerical models, that including; wind, tide, wave and current.

Description: Pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) were constructed through chemical conjugation of pneumococcal capsules to immunogenic carrier proteins. The PCVs implementation in developing countries was prevented by their high manufacturing costs. This issue can be overcome by development of protein based vaccines against pneumococci. Antibody responses are necessary for protection against S. pneumoniae . Choline binding protein D (CBPD) was already identified as a pneumococcal surface protein able to elicit protection against S. pneumoniae and its most protective B-cell epitope region (MIBR) was determined. MIBR was highly conserved in common pneumococcal serotypes. Whole antigens are not as potent as epitope based vaccines and B-cell epitope based vaccines are more effective than whole antigen based vaccines in the prevention of infections. Bacterial flagellins are effective adjuvants that signal via Toll like receptor 5 (TLR5). The TLR5 binding site of flagellin located in the D1 domain and its proper conformation is critical for TLR5 recognition of flagellin. In the present study, therefore, we aim to design effective chimeric vaccines against pneumococci based on MIBR and flagellin of Salmonella Enteritidis (FliC) using bioinformatics tools. FliC was joined to MIBR at N-terminus (CFH), C-terminus (FCH) and the D3 domain (D3Gly202, D3Thr275). All of the constructs were immunoprotective regarding the VaxiJen score (0.8). The codon optimization for constructs was done using OPTIMIZER. Analysis of the mRNA secondary structures using Mfold tool revealed no stable hairpins at 5' ends of constructs and thus the antigens can be expressed appropriately. SCRATCH results indicated that the antigens can be expressed in the soluble form in Escherichia coli at more than 80% probability. The 3D models of antigens resulted from I-TASSER indicated the presence of alpha helix, beta sheet, turn, coil, and 3 10 helix as the protein structural elements. Superimposing 3D models of D1 domains of antigens with the D1 domain of FliC using FATCAT indicated no change in the D1 conformation. Therefore, FliC can exert its adjuvant effects in these constructs through TLR5 signaling. Inserting MIBR in Gly202 of FliC enhanced the protein beta sheet content remarkably, which can result in appropriate thermostability of the antigen. Our results, therefore, demonstrated that D3Gly202 is a suitable vaccine candidate, which can elicit protection against common S. pneumoniae serotypes causing invasive pneumococcal disease in children less than 5 years of age.

Description: The paper addresses the evaluation of the uncertainty sources of a test bed system for calibrating voltage transformers vs. temperature. In particular, the Monte Carlo method has been applied in order to evaluate the effects of the uncertainty sources in two different conditions: by using the nominal accuracy specifications of the elements which compose the setup, or by exploiting the results of their metrological characterization. In addition, the influence of random effects on the system accuracy has been quantified and evaluated. From the results, it emerges that the choice of the uncertainty evaluation method affects the overall study. As a matter of fact, the use of a metrological characterization or of accuracy specifications provided by the manufacturers provides respectively an accuracy of 0.1 and 0.5 for the overall measurement setup.