Farming increases the spore population of AM fungi in central deserts of Iran

Non-Peer ReviewedMycorrhizal symbiosis is a key component of natural and agricultural ecosystems. It enhances the mineral nutrition and increase tolerance of host plants to environmental and biological stress particularly in extreme environments. In this study, the changes in spore abundance of AM fungus Paraglomus occultum was compared in two neighbouring habitat in central deserts of Iran. Farming practice applied over 12 years sharply increased P. occultum spore population in this region

Coordination chemistry of amide-functionalised tetraazamacrocycles: structural, relaxometric and cytotoxicity studies

Three different tetraazamacrocyclic ligands containing four amide substituents that feature groups (namely allyl, styryl and propargyl groups) suitable for polymerisation have been synthesised. Gadolinium(III) complexes of these three ligands have been prepared as potential monomers for the synthesis of polymeric MRI contrast agents. To assess the potential of these monomers as MRI contrast agents, their relaxation enhancement properties and cytotoxicity have been determined. A europium(III) complex of one of these ligands (with propargyl substituents) is also presented together with its PARACEST properties. In addition, to gain further insight into the coordination chemistry of the tetra-propargyl substituted ligand, the corresponding zinc(II) and cadmium(II) complexes have been prepared. The X-ray crystal structures of the tetra-propargyl ligand and its corresponding gadolinium(III), zinc(II) and cadmium(II) complexes are also presented

Effect of pot size, planting date and genotype on minituber production of Marfona potato cultivar

This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of pot size, planting date and type of genotype on mini-tuber production of Marfona potato cultivar (Solanum tuberosum L.) in greenhouse conditions.Four genotypes (M-129, M-128P, M-127P and M-124P) originated from virus free sprouts and a genotype of the same cultivar (Marfona) originated from apical meristem, in 3 sizes of pot and 3 planting datewere investigated. The results showed that using larger pots of 3-liter has no advantage and pots smaller than 2-liter is not suitable for mini-tuber production. Also, time of Nov 18 was the best of datefor planting of potato in studied conditions and delay in date of planting reduced the mini-tuber production. The reduction in number of mini-tubers and growing period was greater for the genotype M-129 compared with the other potato genotypes. Furthermore, higher numbers of mini-tubers were produced by the M-127P and M-124P genotypes and M-127P had the highest total weight of mini-tubers.However the number of mini-tubers per plant was higher for genotypes originated from meristem culture than genotypes obtained from sprouts. It seems that genotypes originated from potato sprouts are not as efficient as the apical meristem ones. On the other hand, later genotype showed more homogenous in growth rate and phenotype

A Supervised Approach to Predict the Hierarchical Structure of Conversation Threads for Comments

User-generated texts such as comments in social media are rich sources of information. In general, the reply structure of comments is not publicly accessible on the web. Websites present comments as a list in chronological order. This way, some information is lost. A solution for this problem is to reconstruct the thread structure (RTS) automatically. RTS predicts a semantic tree for the reply structure, useful for understanding users’ behaviours and facilitating follow of the actual conversation streams. This paper works on RTS task in blogs, online news agencies, and news websites. These types of websites cover various types of articles reflecting the real-world events. People with different views participate in arguments by writing comments. Comments express opinions, sentiments, or ideas about articles. The reply structure of threads in these types of websites is basically different from threads in the forums, chats, and emails. To perform RTS, we define a set of textual and nontextual features. Then, we use supervised learning to combine these features. The proposed method is evaluated on five different datasets. The accuracy of the proposed method is compared with baselines. The results reveal higher accuracy for our method in comparison with baselines in all datasets

Inflammatory responses bridge comorbid cardiac disorder in experimental model of IBD induced by DSS: protective effect of the trigonelline

Pathogenesis of the inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) involves the combination of immunological and inflammatory factors. IBD is associated with several extra-intestinal manifestations. The exact underlying bridge between the probable cardiac diseases in IBD patients is undetermined. Trigonelline is an alkaloid with several therapeutic potential properties. In this study, we aimed to assess the probable underlying mechanisms of this comorbidity as well as protective effect of trigonelline focusing inflammatory response and oxidative state in mouse model of colitis. Dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) was used for induction of colitis in mice. Trigonelline (10, 50 and 100 mg/kg) was administrated via intraperitoneal rout (i.p.) for 14 continuous days. Heart, intestine and serum samples were taken for assessment of total antioxidant capacity, malondialdehyde (MDA), gene expressions of inflammatory markers including tumor necrosis factor alpha (Tnf-α), interleukin 1-beta (Il/1β), toll- like receptor 4 (Tlr4) as well as for evaluation of histopathological alterations. Results demonstrated that trigonelline effectively attenuated the cellular/molecular and histopathological adverse effects of colitis in the intestine and heart tissues. In this regards, we found that trigonelline decreased the MDA level, attenuated the expression of Tnf-α, Il/1β and, Tlr4 as well as modulated the histopathological alterations in the intestine. Furthermore, trigonelline increased the antioxidant capacity in the related experimental groups. We concluded that IBD (colitis) is associated with comorbid cellular/molecular modifications in the heart and for the first time, we found that trigonelline has potential therapeutic effects (at least partially) to attenuate the cardiac manifestations of the colitis