In vitro regeneration ability of diploid and autotetraploid plants of Cichorium intybus L.

Polyploidy has played a significant role in the evolutionary history of plants and is a valuable tool for obtaining useful characteristics. Because of the novelty of polyploids, comparison of their in vitro culture responses with diploids would be notable. In this study, leaf explants from diploid, autotetraploid and mixoploid plants of Cichorium intybus L. were cultured in vitro on the similar media and under same conditions. The ploidy level of the obtained calluses and regenerants were determined by flow cytometry analysis. The callogenic response of leaf explants cultured on the callus induction medium did not depend on the ploidy level of their parental plants. According to the flow cytometry analysis, the increased ploidy levels (4x) and (8x) were observed in the callus cultures with diploid and tetraploid origin, respectively. A considerable difference was observed between the ploidy level of mixoploid plants and their calluses, indicating the dominance of diploid cells in the callus tissue. The results showed that polyploidy led to the loss of organogenic potential as the tetraploid origin calluses failed to regenerate, while the diploid origin calluses successfully regenerated to whole plants.Полиплоидия сыграла значительную роль в эволюционной истории растений как ценный инструмент получения полезных признаков. В настоящей работе приведено сравнение культурального ответа in vitro полиплоидов с диплоидами. Листовые экспланты диплоидных, автотетраплоидных и миксоплоидных растений Cichorium intybus L. культивировали на одних и тех же средах в одинаковых условиях. Уровень плоидности индуцированных каллусов и регенерантов определяли с помощью жидкостной цитометрии. Способность листовых эксплантов к каллусообра-зованию на среде для индукции каллуса не зависела от уровня плоидности исходных растений. По данным жидкостной цитометрии в каллусных культурах диплоидного и тетраплоидного происхождения на блюдалось увеличение уровней плоидности (4x и 8x соответственно). Значительные отличия в уровнях плоидности обнаружены у миксоплоидных растений и их каллусов, при этом в каллусной ткани доминировали диплоидные клетки. Показано, что поли плоидия приводила к потере органогенного потенциала, так как тетраплоидные каллусы не были способны к регенерации, а в каллусах диплоидного происхождения успешно происходила регенерация растений

Global Business Textbook Evaluation: Task Types in the Spotlight

Textbook evaluation, with the aim of assisting the choice of the most suitable book for a specific context, has become a needed practice in the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). During recent years, with the rapid spread of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and its concern for tasks and activities that enhance learners’ interaction, more researchers have become interested in exploring the different task types in textbooks in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT). The present study sought to evaluate the two most popular global business English textbook series (English Business Result and Market Leader) that are taught in Iranian institutes, in terms of their task types according to Nunan’s (1999) classification of tasks. The results revealed that linguistic tasks and creative tasks were respectively the most and the least common task types presented in these textbooks. The results also indicated a significant difference among the frequency of task types in the textbooks. It was evident that these ESP textbooks covered all of the macro tasks and most of the micro tasks specified by Nunan (1999), but some of them significantly focused on specific types of tasks

Stabilization of Contaminated Soil by Dicalcium Phosphate

Stabilization of heavy metals contaminated soils using phosphate amendments is relatively a simple, quick and cheap method to reduce the transport of contaminants in the environment. The objective of this study is to stabilize the polluted soil using dicalcum phosphate (DCP). In this study a series of leachate column tests were conducted to find out the effect of DCP on Pb and Cu polluted soil. In addition, to understand the concentration of DCP on the efficiency of the method, different samples with different polluted soils were tested. DCP with 0.1, 0.2 and 0.5 mg/kg dry soil were added to the polluted soil and the samples were kept for 1 month. Break through curves were prepared to analyze the results. The results show that DCP may stabilize heavy metals in the soil. Increasing the concentration of DCP, decreases the concentration of metals in the effluent, means more stabilized metals in the soils. The results also show that 0.2 mg/kg dry soil of DCP is enough to stabilize the metals from the first stages of the tests

Information-Seeking Behavior of the Elderly in the Health Area: A Case Study in Golestan Province

Introduction: The information-seeking behavior of the elderly, the information needs of this group regarding health, and the problems and barriers to accessing this information are of great importance and play an influential role in the self-management process of the elderly. This study aims to investigate the health information-seeking behavior of the elderly in Golestan Province. Methods: In this survey study, 239 elderly individuals from Golestan Province were included. The Medlock questionnaire used for data collection. The study participants were selected using a convenience sampling method. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis, including correlation and Poisson regression tests. All analyses were performed using SPSS 26 software at a significance level of 0.05. Results: The results revealed that the most used and reliable sources by the elderly were “Direct contact with health professionals” (29.29%) and “Television” (19.75%). The highest information searches were in scientific care, nutrition, physical activities, specific disease symptoms and causes, prescribed medications, coping with a disease, side effects of treatment, disease prediction, and treatment methods. A high correlation was found between Trust in Friends/Acquaintances (0.656), Television (0.641), and Radio (0.632) as sources of health information. In contrast, a low correlation was observed between Trust in educational courses and lectures (0.324) and Books/Encyclopedias (0.274) for obtaining health information. Conclusion: It is necessary to establish a direct communication infrastructure between health professionals and the public through expanding programs such as family physicians and developing evidence-based television programs with a knowledge translation approach

Native and Non-native English Teachers’ Rating Criteria and Variation in the Assessment of L2 Pragmatic Production: The Speech Act of Compliment

Pragmatic assessment and consistency in rating are among the subject matters which are still in need of more profound investigations. The importance of the issue is highlighted when remembering that inconsistency in ratings would surely damage the test fairness issue in assessment and lead to much diversity in ratings. Our principal concern in this study was observing the criteria that American and Iranian EFL/ESL teachers consider when rating Iranian EFL learners’ pragmatic productions regarding the speech act of compliment. The instrument utilized in this study was WDCTs and a speech act rating questionnaire administered to sixty American and sixty Iranian EFL/ESL teachers. In order to come up with the criteria, the reasoning and justifications of the raters when rating learners’ pragmatic productions were analyzed carefully through content analysis. The results showed that overall the raters considered nine general criteria when rating. They included: “Strategy use”, “Affective factors”, “Politeness”, “Interlocutors’ relationships”, “Linguistic accuracy”, “Sincerity”, “Authenticity”, “Fluency”, and “Cultural issues”. Also, the most frequent criterion among the native and non-native raters was “Strategy use” and “Politeness” respectively. Finally, it was concluded that due to some inconsistencies and variations in the ratings and criteria of both native and non-native raters, it seems that both groups are in need of pragmatic workshops and training sessions. The results of this study can have important implications for EFL/ESL teacher educators who are considerate of the importance of pragmatic training and instruction

Anxiety Reduction and RALL Implementation in English Grammar Acquisition among EFL Learners

The study is a part of a larger study on the impact of Robot-Assisted Language Learning (RALL) on English grammar acquisition and retention of adolescent English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. More specifically, the primary aim of the paper at hand was to examine the impact of RALL on adolescent EFL learners’ anxiety levels. In this regard, three intact classes (N=45) in a private language institute in Tehran were evenly divided into two experimental groups of RALL and Game-based Language Learning (GBLL) and one control group. The participants were adolescent male EFL learners between 11 to 15 years old with a mean age of 13. While the teacher, the textbook, and the teaching materials were identical in all groups, a kid-sized humanoid social robot was exclusively used in the RALL group. The data were collected through questionnaires in the final session for each group, and the results of descriptive statistics and ANOVA indicated that lower anxiety rates were observed in the RALL group. Our findings could clearly be proof of the efficiency of socially assistive robots in the instruction of language skills in a more favorable teaching context

Measuring Symmetry in Real-World Scenes Using Derivatives of the Medial Axis Radius Function

Symmetry has been shown to be an important principle that guides the grouping of scene information. Previously, we have described a method for measuring the local, ribbon symmetry content of line-drawings of real-world scenes (Rezanejad, et al., MODVIS 2017), and we demonstrated that this information has important behavioral consequences (Wilder, et al., MODIVS 2017). Here, we describe a continuous, local version of the symmetry measure, that allows for both ribbon and taper symmetry to be captured. Our original method looked at the difference in the radius between successive maximal discs along a symmetric axis. The number of radii differences in a local region that exceeded a threshold, normalized by the number of total differences, was used as the symmetry score at an axis point. We now use the derivative of the radius function along the symmetric axis between two contours, which allows for a continuous method of estimating the score which does not need a threshold. By replacing the first derivative with a second derivative, we can generalize this method to allow pairs of contours which taper with respect to one another, to express high symmetry. Such situations arise, for example, when parallel lines in the 3D world project onto a 2D image. This generalization will allow us to determine the relative importance of taper and ribbon symmetries in natural scenes