Evaluating the effect of sowing date and drought stress on morphological and functional characteristics of three genotypes of winter oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.)

To assess the effects of drought stress and sowing date on phenological, morphological, and yield traits of three different cultivars of winter oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.), this study was conducted in research farm of Sarayan agricultural college- University of Birjand in 2016-2017 growing season. Experiment was conducted in a split-factorial based on the randomized complete block design with drought stress in the main plots and three sowing date (September 22, October 6, and October 22) along with three cultivars of canola (‘Homolious’, ‘Hayola50’, and ‘DK7070CL’) in the subplots in three replications. The results of analysis of variance and means comparison analysis showed significant and negative effect of drought stress on seed yield and biological yield traits of investigated cultivars of canola. The interaction effect of drought stress × sowing date × cultivar was only significant on leaf twisting trait at 1 % probability level. ‘Homolious’ was assigned as the most drought tolerance cultivar, based on SI, SSI, RDI, TOL, MP, STI, GMP, YI, YSI, and HARM drought tolerance indexes, whereas ‘Hayola50’ was assigned as most drought sensitive cultivar of oilseed rape.</p

Enhancement of heavy metals sorption via nanocomposites of rice straw and Fe3O4 nanoparticles using artificial neural network (ANN)

The artificial neural network (ANN) modeling of adsorption of Pb(II) and Cu(II) was carried out for determination of the optimum values of the variables to get the maximum removal efficiency. The input variables were initial ion concentration, adsorbent dosage, and removal time, while the removal efficiency was considered as output. The performed experiments were designed into two data sets including training, and testing sets. To acquire the optimum topologies, ANN was trained by quick propagation (QP), Batch Back Propagation (BBP), Incremental Back Propagation (IBP), genetic algorithm (GA) and Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithms for testing data set. The topologies were defined by the indicator of minimized root mean squared error (RMSE) for each algorithm. According to the indicator, the IBP-3-9-2 was selected as the optimized topologies for heavy metal removal, due to the minimum RMSE and maximum R-squared

Rapid and high capacity adsorption of heavy metals by Fe3O4/montmorillonite nanocomposite using response surface methodology: preparation, characterization, optimization, equilibrium isotherms, and adsorption kinetics study

Fe3O4/montmorillonite nanocomposite (Fe3O4/MMT NC) was synthesized for removal of Pb2+, Cu2+ and Ni2+ ions from aqueous systems. The nanoadsorbent was characterized by X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy and mean diameter of magnetic nanoparticles was about 8.24 nm. The experiments were designed by response surface methodology and quadratic model was used to prediction of the variables. The adsorption parameters of adsorbent dosage, removal time, and initial heavy metal ions concentration were used as the independent variables and their effects were investigated on the heavy metal ions removal. Variance analysis was utilized to judge the adequacy of the chosen models. Optimum conditions with initial heavy metal ions concentration of 510.16, 182.94, and 111.90 mg/L, 120 s of removal time and 0.06 g/0.025 L, 0.08 g/0.025 L, and 0.08 g/0.025 L of adsorbent amount were given 89.72%, 94.89%, and 76.15% of removal efficiency Pb2+, Cu2+ and Ni2+ ions, respectively. Prediction of models was in good agreement with experimental results and Fe3O4/MMT NC was found successful in removing heavy metals from their aqueous solutions

Quasi-free limit in the deuteron-deuteron three-body break-up process

Detailed measurements of vector and tensor analyzing powers of the 2H(~d, dp)n breakup process are presented. The data were obtained using a polarized deuteron-beam with an energy of 65 MeV/nucleon impinging on a liquid-deuterium target. The experiment was conducted at the AGOR facility at KVI using the BINA 4 -detection system. The focus of this contribution is to analyze data of the dd scattering process in the regime at which the neutron acts as a spectator, which we refer to as the quasi-free (QF) limit. To achieve this, events for which the final-state deuteron and proton are coplanar have been analyzed and the data have been sorted for various reconstructed momenta of the missing neutron. In the limit of vanishing neutron momentum and at small deuteron-proton momentum transfer, the data match very well with measured and predicted spin observables of the elastic deuteron-proton scattering process. The agreement deteriorates rapidly with increasing neutron momentum and deuteron-proton momentum transfer. The results of coplanar configurations in four-body phase space are compared with the results of recent available theoretical calculations based on the Single-Scattering Approximation

Global systematic review of primary immunodeficiency registries

Introduction During the last 4 decades, registration of patients with primary immunodeficiencies (PID) has played an essential role in different aspects of these diseases worldwide including epidemiological indexes, policymaking, quality controls of care/life, facilitation of genetic studies and clinical trials as well as improving our understanding about the natural history of the disease and the immune system function. However, due to the limitation of sustainable resources supporting these registries, inconsistency in diagnostic criteria and lack of molecular diagnosis as well as difficulties in the documentation and designing any universal platform, the global perspective of these diseases remains unclear. Areas covered Published and unpublished studies from January 1981 to June 2020 were systematically reviewed on PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus. Additionally, the reference list of all studies was hand-searched for additional studies. This effort identified a total of 104614 registered patients and suggests identification of at least 10590 additional PID patients, mainly from countries located in Asia and Africa. Molecular defects in genes known to cause PID were identified and reported in 13852 (13.2% of all registered) patients. Expert opinion Although these data suggest some progress in the identification and documentation of PID patients worldwide, achieving the basic requirement for the global PID burden estimation and registration of undiagnosed patients will require more reinforcement of the progress, involving both improved diagnostic facilities and neonatal screening.Peer reviewe

Green closed-loop supply chain network design: a novel bi-objective chance-constraint approach

In this paper, a novel chance-constrained programming model has been proposed for handling uncertainties in green closed loop supply chain network design. In addition to locating the facilities and establishing a flow between them, the model also determines the transportation mode between facilities. The objective functions are applied to minimize the expected value and variance of the total cost CO2 released is also controlled by providing a novel chance-constraint including a stochastic upper bound of emission capacity. To solve the mathematical model using the General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) software, four multi-objective decision-making (MODM) methods were applied. The proposed methodology was subjected to various numerical experiments. The solutions provided by different methods were compared in terms of the expected value of cost, variance of cost, and CPU time using Pareto-based analysis and optimality-based analysis. In Pareto-based analysis, a set of preferable solutions were presented using the Pareto front; then optimality-based optimization was chosen as the best method by using a Simple Additive Weighting (SAW) method. Experimental experiments and sensitivity analysis demonstrated that the performance of the goal attainment method was 13% and 24% better that of global criteria and goal programming methods, respectively

Effect of Super Absorbent Polymer and Irrigation Deficit on Water Use Efficiency, Growth and Yield of Cotton

Sustainable use of water resources in agriculture is a necessity for many arid countries. In order to investigate the effect of water deficit, irrigation after 120 (control), 155 (moderate water stress) and 190 mm (sever water stress) pan evaporation and super absorbent polymer rates (SAP) (0, 30, 60 and 90 kg ha-1) on growth, yield and water use efficiency of cotton, an experiment was conducted as split plot based on a randomized complete block design with three replications. Moreover, the effect of water quality (distilled water and solutions of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1 and 1.25% NaCl) was investigated on water holding capacity by SAP. Results revealed that moderate water stress (irrigation intervals of aprox. 15 days) along with 60 kg ha-1 SAP application was the best treatment in terms of growth and yield indices of cotton. The results for plant height, plant dry weight, boll number per plant and fiber yield in this treatment were 16, 28, 42 and 10% higher than control treatment, respectively. Water deficit and SAP application improved the water use efficiency (WUE) of cotton. The amount of WUE in moderate water stress treatment along with consumption of 60 or 90 kg ha-1 SAP was 26% higher than for control treatment. In addition, water holding capacity by SAP in distilled water treatment was 7 times higher than in the case of 1.25% NaCl solution. The overall results showed that irrigation deficit and SAP application are two appropriate strategies for crop production in areas affected by drought stress, especially if low saline water sources are used