The absolute chronology of East Chia Sabz: a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Western Iran

East Chia Sabz is a PPN site located in the Seimareh Valley, western Iran. 14C dating results indicated that the site was occupied from the early 9th millennium to the early 7th millennium BC. As we have very little information about early Neolithic sites in Iran in comparison with the other regions of the Near and Middle East, the site of East Chia Sabz will provide a new benchmark for investigating the Neolithisation process in Iran. It is important to note that further investigation of Chia Sabz will certainly provide more secure information about how and when the Epipaleolithic transition to the Neolithic started in the region. This paper will present the recent excavations at the site, and then, based on the 14C dates, will discuss the site’s importance in western Iran.Vzhodni Chia Sabz je najdišče, ki je locirano v dolini Seimareh v zahodnem Iranu in datira v obdobje predkeramičnega neolitika. Rezultati radiokarbonskih datacij so pokazali, da je bilo najdišče poseljeno od začetka 9. do začetka 7. tisočletja pr.n.št. Glede na to, da imamo le malo podatkov o zgodnjeneolitskih najdiščih v Iranu v primerjavi z drugimi regijami na Bližnjem in Srednjem vzhodu, bo najdišče Vzhodni Chia Sabz postavilo nova merila za preiskovanje procesa neolitizacije v Iranu. Opozarjamo, da bodo nadaljnje preiskave najdišča Chia Sabz ponudile bolj zanesljive podatke o tem, kako in kdaj se je začel prehod iz epipaleolitika v neolitik v tej regiji. V članku predstavljamo nedavna izkopavanja na najdišču in razpravljamo o pomenu najdišča v zahodnem Iranu na podlagi radiokarbonskih datumov

Effect of hyperglycemic condition on observed surface area to volume ratio of human cancerous cells

The human blood basal glucose level is a completely controlled range. Information on the relationship between culture glucose concentration and changes in the cell's surface area, volume and surface area to volume (S/V) ratio are lacking. Cancerous epithelial-like cell lines SW480, SW742 and T-47D were cultured in mediums nourished with 4.7 mM per liter of glucose as the control group and three other groups with glucose concentrations of  9.4, 14.1 and 18.8 mM at 37 °C for 48hr. Digital images of cells were analyzed using the ImageJ software. Observed changes in surface area, volume, and surface area to volume (S/V) ratio were significantly (P<0.05) different between the control group and the X4 group (18.8 mM glucose) in the three cell lines tested. Cultured cells responded delicately but sharply to glucose elevation. The goal of this research is to show the dictating of changes via pathologic conditions in cellular levels that could be a good answer to changing the body metabolic parameters. Besides the S/V ratio could be studied as a variant parameter in other metabolic challenges

Removal of Nickel (II) ions from Aqueous Solutions Using Chicken Feather Nanoparticles: Study of Kinetic, Isotherm and Thermodynamic Models

Nickel is highly toxic and directly associate with health risk such as damage to kidney, liver and central nervous system. This study evaluated the potential of a chicken feather for the removal of nickel from aqueous solutions. Freundlich, Langmuir and Temkin isotherm models were used to characterize the bio sorption of the mentioned metal onto the chicken feather. In the batch system, parameters of pH (4-8), adsorbent dosage (0.01- 0.06 g/l), contact time (15-120 min), nickel initial concentration (5-200 mg/l), and temperature (15-40 °C) were studied. Studies have shown that the maximum Nickel uptake efficiency occurred at pH = 6, concentration of 50 mg / g, contact time of 60 minutes, ambient temperature of 25 ° C and adsorbent mass of 0.03 g. The thermodynamic parameters such as Gibb's Free Energy (ΔG), Enthalpy (ΔH) and Entropy (ΔS) indicated that the adsorption of nickel ion were spontaneous and endothermic at 288–313 °K. Comparing the determination coefficients between measured data and obtained value from pseudo- second-order model (R2 = 0.95) and pseudo- first-order model (R2 = 0.65) showed that the pseudo- second-order model describes experimental data better. Also, comparing the Langmuir, Freundlich and Temkin isotherm for nickel adsorption by chicken feather nanoparticles showed that Freundlich isotherm (R2 = 0.87) was more proper than Langmuir isotherm (R2 = 0.82) and Temkin isotherm (R2 = 0.67) in describing adsorption process. According to the results of this study, chicken feather nanoparticles adsorbent with a high efficiency of 96.8% can be used to remove Nickel from aqueous solutions

A hybrid quantum-classical approach for inference on restricted Boltzmann machines

Boltzmann machine is a powerful machine learning model with many real-world applications, for example by constructing deep belief networks. Statistical inference on a Boltzmann machine can be carried out by sampling from its posterior distribution. However, uniform sampling from such a model is not trivial due to an extremely multi-modal distribution. Quantum computers have the promise of solving some non-trivial problems in an efficient manner. We explored the application of a D-Wave quantum annealer to generate samples from a restricted Boltzmann machine. The samples are further improved by Markov chains in a hybrid quantum-classical setup. We demonstrated that quantum annealer samples can improve the performance of Gibbs sampling compared to random initialization. The hybrid setup is considerably more efficient than a pure classical sampling. We also investigated the impact of annealing parameters (temperature) to improve the quality of samples. By increasing the amount of classical processing (Gibbs updates) the benefit of quantum annealing vanishes, which may be justified by the limited performance of today's quantum computers compared to classical.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figure

Colonic basidiobolomycosis in a child: report of a culture-proven case

SummaryBasidiobolomycosis is a rare fungal disease caused by Basidiobolus ranarum, which is endemic in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Gastrointestinal basidiobolomycosis poses diagnostic difficulties due to the non-specific clinical presentation and absence of predisposing factors. Eight pediatric cases of the disease have been reported recently from Iran, but none of these, or most of the other cases reported in the literature, has been proven by culture, which is the gold standard method for diagnosis. We present a case of culture-proven colonic basidiobolomycosis that occurred in a 3-year-old boy. The outcome was successful following surgical excision and antifungal therapy with posaconazole

Application of Chitosan and Activated Carbon Nano-composite in Removal of Nitrite, Phosphate, and Ammonia From Aquaculture Wastewater

Developing an adsorbent with natural components is one of the effective methods to reduce the amount of wastewater pollutants. Wastewater reuse can improve the quality of water prior to entering the natural environment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of chitosan nano-composite and activated carbon adsorbent in the removal of nitrite, phosphate, and ammonia pollutants from fish farms of Aq-Qala. To prepare the adsorbents, the shrimp shells were converted to nano-chitosan. The date palm kernel was prepared and activated with oxalic acid in pyrolysis furnace by injecting nitrogen gas into activated carbon, then, the nano-composite was prepared from nanochitosan and activated carbon. A field-laboratory study was conducted during the winter of 2018, and then, batches of synthesized nano-composite were investigated and the effects of pH, initial effluent concentration, and adsorption time were investigated. The experiments were performed in the pH range of 5-8, effluent concentration of 25-100 mg/L, and contact time of 15-90 minutes. The results showed that at optimum conditions (pH of 7, effluent concentration of 50 mg/L, and contact time of 60 minutes), the highest removal percentage and adsorption capacity for nitrite, phosphate, and ammonia contaminants were 99.98%, 99.77%, and 65.65%, and 6.65, 6.14, and 7.32 mg/g , respectively. Due to the high removal percentage (99.98%) of the chitosan and activated carbon nano-composite, the adsorbent was highly capable of removing pollutants (nitrite, phosphate, and ammonia)

Identification, density and physio-graphic characteristics of Dolans in different altitude classes (Zagros karst areas)

Doline is one of the most characteristic and basic surface and morphological forms of karst, as a result of the chemical effect of water on limestone that occurs in different shapes and sizes. Dolines differ in morphological characteristics. In the present study, after identifying the valleys in the karst areas of the Zagros, their dispersion and change of morphological characteristics such as length, width, area and depth in relation to altitude and climate, citing documentary sources such as geological maps 1: 100000, digital elevation model layer with strength 12.5 m resolution, satellite imagery, 1: 50,000 topographic maps, and 49-year-old Esfzari temperature and precipitation databases were analyzed in Arc GIS, Mapper Global, and Excel software. The study of different parameters of Zagros valleys in different altitudes and climates indicates that their shape and depth have been affected by Quaternary climate change. At lower altitudes, where water is more involved in dissolution than low temperatures, the dolines are nearly circular in shape and stretch at higher altitudes and the lower the temperature and the greater the likelihood of the doline turning into a glacial-doline circus, the more elongated the doline becomes. The compression coefficient of the dolines also indicates that their elongation and length increase with increasing height; in this way, at an altitude distance of 500-1000 meters, the ratio of circles for every 1000m increase in height increases by 0.8 and the compression coefficient decreases by 0.9. At an altitude distance of 1000-2000m, with each increase of 100m, the ratio of circles is 0.44 and the compression coefficient is 0.1. In the 3700-3000m floor, the circular ratio decreases by 1.2 with each elevation of 1000m, and the compaction increases by 1.3