An Improved Ant Colony Optimisation Algorithm for Type-I Parallel Two-Sided Assembly Line Balancing Problem

Publishedn/aThe first author wishes to thank the Balikesir University and University of Exeter for their financial supports

Incontinence Impact Questionnaire (IIQ-7) and Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI-6): Translation and Psychometric Validation of the Iranian Version

Introduction: Urinary incontinence is a common health, physical, and social problem in the world. There is an urgent need of effective questionnaires for its evaluation in Iranian women. Aim: The present study aimed to assess validity and reliability of the adapted and translated version of the Incontinence Impact Questionnaire (IIQ-7) and the Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI-6) in the Persian language. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted from April to October 2015. A sample of 200 consecutive women who participated in this study filled the final version of the questionnaires. Eligible samples were divided into two groups (with and without UI). Standard forward-backward procedure was applied for translating the questionnaires into Persian. Reliability was assessed using test/retest reliability and internal consistency. In addition, validity was evaluated using face and content validity, comparison with known groups, and convergent validity. Results: Two hundred women participated in this study and filled both the questionnaires. Both the normal and incontinent groups had 100 subjects. Mean age of the respondents was 47.52 +/- 9.84 years. The content validity analysis produced favourable results. IIQ and UDI successfully discriminated the two groups. There was a significant negative correlation between the two questionnaires and all subscales of the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for UDI-6 and IIQ-7 was 0.88 and 0.95, respectively. The Intraclass Correlations (ICC) scores for the Persian language versions were 0.96 for UDI-6 and 0.97 for IIQ-7. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that the newly developed Persian language version of IIQ-7 and UDI-6 are short, valid, and reliable methods for assessing the quality of life of women with UI

Biological control of Phytophthora drechsleri Tucker, the causal agent of pistachio gummosis, under greenhouse conditions by use of Actinomycetes

Actinomycetes enhance soil fertility and have antagonistic activity against wide range of plant root-pathogens. These microorganisms were isolated from agricultural soils of Kerman as pure cultures. Phytophthora drechsleri Tucker, causes gummosis and root rot of pistachio trees worldwide. From 130 Actinomycetes isolates, 12 inhibited growth of the pathogen of pistachio gummosis in culture plates and four of the most active isolates exhibited biological control of the pathogen under greenhouse conditions. When plants were grown in sterile soil mix and treated both with Actinomycetes and the pathogen, the number of healthy plants increased dramatically and the symptoms on diseased plants were less severe in comparison with seedlings treated with the pathogen alone. From the collected data it was well conclusive that in greenhouse tests, soil applications of Actinomycetes controlled causal agent of root rot of pistachio seedlings. Antifungal activity was of fungicidal type on the pathogen mycelia. From the stand point of biotechnological goals, the results indicate that the active isolates can be investigated for use as biofertilizers, biofungicides and use in future development of recombinant DNA in pistachio trees bearing elevated resistance to gummosis. Field trials of the active isolates are under investigatio