Hope and Despair in Amal Donqol and Siavash Kasraei’s Poems (A Semiotic Analysis of Time-Place and Myths Components)

IntroductionSemiotics has provided researchers in the immediate past years with a tool for analyzing, understanding, and criticism of literary texts and discovery of hidden meanings. Semiotics has tried to unveil, decipher, and discover the deep meanings behind the structure. Amal Donqol (a contemporary Egyptian poet) and Siavash Kasraei (an Iranian poet) lived in their turbulent times. Political and social disorders intensively influenced the content and structure of their poems. The comparative semiotic study investigates meticulously and in detail the works of the Egyptian and Iranian poets considering hope and despair. It hopes to have a better and deeper understanding of the poets’ thoughts and spirits and their influence on their poems. Moreover, the study makes the ground for better presenting of the similarities and differences of their attitudes, as they live in rather similar conditions.Using the semiotics of the application of time, place, and myths, the study investigated the duality of despair and hope  in some poems of the two poets regarding the structure and poetic language. It tried to answer the question that how despair and hope have been presented in the poems and in mentioned components and how their poetic and artistic manifestations are.  Method This descriptive-analytic study was done within the American framework of comparative literature.  DiscussionSemiology (or semiotics) is a new type of criticism that has had a great impact on literary studies and related research. This field of study interprets literary texts according to such criteria and layers as time, place, intertextuality, narration, character, etc. This study explored the place, time, and mythical characters to show the appearance of hope and despair in the selected poems. The components work as codes for the poet through which he shows his inner feelings and imposes positive or negative meaning upon them. The analysis of the signs unveils the hidden layers of meanings in a literary text and familiars readers with the world, thoughts, and feelings of its writer.Time and place as signs and their signified are various and wide in literary texts and important for reading texts. The poets have used many words showing place and time. In many cases, adverbs showing the place in Donqol and Kasraei's poems lose the characteristic of being adverb of place and become a signifier having specific signifiers. The time adverbs have also been used in this way as their poems shows the change many times. The words become positively or negatively marked as they convey the poets’ feelings.  These words convey meanings different from their place and time meanings, which engages the readership with one of the dualities of despair or hope. Myth is also an important component that imposes meaning on the meaning in works of both poets. Using and recreating the myths, the poets communicate their ideals and spirits to the audience.   Conclusion- The study investigated the duality of despair or hope in the poems of two poets based on the application of some components of the semiotics of time, place, and myths. The socio-political conditions that the two poets live in seem to be the same and their poems protest against their contemporary situation, but based on the mentioned examples one can say that when the poems have been composed, when death and despair were dominant in the mental space of poets, he optimistically expected a bright future, whereas death and despair are always dominant in Amal Danqol's poems.- As a result of the different views of the poets, time, place, and myth have a hopeful and liberating application in the poems. In Amal's poems, however, the place, time, and myth components become nightmares of fear and failure, as a result of his sad and desperate creations.- Finally, looking from semiotic analysis, it can be concluded that the fully optimistic and hopeful poems of Siavash Kasraei sometimes lack poetic fantasy and becomes similar to prose, making it a weakness of the poems. On the contrary, Amal Danqol's poems, though exaggerates in expressing darkness, they are totally strong and surprising sometimes regarding poetic beauties, creating new meanings, and linguistic deviations. 

B-glucosidase from trichoderma harzianum T12 as green fungicide against Macrophomina phaseolina in soybean (Glycine Max L.)

Macrophomina phaseolina (Tassi) Goid remains the prevailing causal agent of charcoal rot disease that can significantly suppress yields of a variety of crops. Its wide host range and survivability under arid conditions as well as the ineffectiveness of fungicides have spurred scientific endeavors in search of alternative avenues to control this phytopathogen. The present study is aimed to provide empirical evidence on the efficacy of β-glucosidase from Trichoderma harzianum T12 as a biological control agent against M. phaseolina. In-vitro pathogenicity tests on 60 isolates of M. phaseolina and 30 isolates of T. harzianum, collected from different areas of the Mazandaran province in Iran revealed the isolates, M2 of M. phaseolina and the T12 of T. harzianum were the most virulent and effective in inhibiting growth of M. phaseolina, respectively. The present study showed that biochemical and phylogenetic analyses and BIOLOG results confirmed the fungal antagonists and phytopathogen were T. harzianum (Rifai) and M. phaseolina (Tassi) Goid, respectively. Purified extracellular β-glucosidase of T. harzianum inhibited the growth of M. phaseolina as seen from the large halo zones, indicating its possible application as a green fungicide against M. phaseolina. The β-glucosidase had an optimum pH (7) and temperature 45˚C, respectively, remarkably stable up to 240 min with a half-live of t1/2 = 210 min at 40 ˚C to 60 ˚C. Zn2+, Mn2+, and Tween 80 enhanced its activity while was substantially inhibited by Fe3+. Enzyme activity was the highest when wheat bran and (NH4)2SO4 were used as carbon and nitrogen sources respectively. The kinetic parameters for β-glucosidase T12, Km, Vmax and kcat were estimated as 0.79 mM, 8.45 mM min-1 mg-1 protein and 10.69 s-1, respectively, to give a turnover number of 10.69 s-1. Optimization by the Box-Behnken Design (BBD) based on: temperature, carbon sources, inoculum size and pH (7), exhibited the highest β-glucosidase activity (1260 U/mL) at 45˚C, pH 7, using a carbon source 10 % (w/v) and inoculum size of 5 % (w/v). The BBD optimization for the application of the β-glucosidase formulation from T. harzianum to control infestation of M. phaseolina M2 was carried out on soybean plants grown under a greenhouse condition. Under an optimized condition, the lowest plant disease index (PDI) of 4.32% (R2 = 0.9676) was attained using 10 mM Zn2+, Tween 80 at 2 % (w/v) an enzyme concentration at 15 mg/L and an irrigation frequency of 2 times/week. A comparative study showed the developed formulation gave the lowest PDI (4.14 %) (p < 0.05) followed by the antagonist T. harzianum Rifai (26.13 %) and the commercial fungicide, Carbendazim (32.45 %). The assessments cost revealed that the enzyme formulation only costs at USD34/acre as compared to Carbendazim at USD240/acre. Hence, the findings affirmed that the novel use of crude β-glucosidase from the growth supernatant of T. harzianum was efficient in combating charcoal rot disease. Since the enzyme formulation was substantially cheaper and its application combines the practicality of an in-situ spraying for rapid control of M. phaseolina infestation, the technique proposed here was prospectively feasible to control such disease in crops

Struggle for supremacy between the Zands and the Qajars, 1193-1209 A.H. / 1779-1794 A.D. : a society in transition

This work is an attempt to study the turbulent and dark period of late 18th century Persia. We begin with the death in 1193 A.H./1179 A.D. of the Vakil, Karim Khan Zand, after nearly twenty years of rule. Immediately thereafter the conflicts and contradictions inherent in a semi-feudal monarchy came to the surface, giving rise to the most violent and chaotic anarchy. The Vakil's own tribe, the Zands, failed to grasp their only chance of survival which was to remain unified against their rivals. Instead, one after another Zand prince usurped supreme power and killed his own kinsmen. In this process the country was destroyed and eventually witnessed the final downfall of the Zands in 1209/1794. From the death of the Vakil, the Zand 's most formidable rival, .Ag.a Mohammad Khan Qajar, was consolidating his power in the northern provinces of the kingdom. By careful planning and patience, he contributed to the weakening and eventual tqtal annihilation of ·the Zand dynasty. In this thesis we also attempt to clarify the underlying currents behind these events. The dynamics of the society and social and economic forces are studied in detail. This period of history is of particular importance as it marks the end of a semi-feudal regime based on tribal military support. Before the advent of the 19th century, which witnessed the sedentarization of nomadic tribes and the formation of a regular and disciplined army under the Qaj ars. In this study of an important, but little known, period of transition, particular emphasis is laid on socio-economic aspects such as trade, religious life and the structure of late 18th century Persian society