Cropping Pattern and Comparative Advantage of Agricultural Products in Ilam Province

I n this study, the comparative advantage of main agricultural products and its relation to cropping pattern was studied in Ilam Province. For data analyzing the comparative advantage and government policies effects indices, Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) were used. The obtained results for the comparative advantage indices of Domestic Resource Cost (DRC), Social Cost Benefit (SCB) and Net Social Profitability (NSP) show that production of irrigated wheat, dry-farming wheat and dry-farming barely has not comparative advantage in Ilam Province but the production of irrigated barely, corn, dry-farming pea, dry-farming lentil, watermelon, cucumber and tomato have comparative advantage in Ilam Province. In addition, the obtained results for NPIC index show the Nominal Government Protection of inputs in all products. Also, Nominal Protection Coefficient index indicated that nominal market protection of products like wheat (irrigated and dry-farming) and barely (irrigated and dry-farming) was positive and those of other products were negative and the Effective Protection Coefficient for wheat and barley had the highest values. The results showed that the existing cropping pattern was not allotted with comparative advantage but is related to the effective protection coefficient

Efficiency of treatment with vitamin D on biochemical indexes, lipid profile, and fatty liver indexes in type 2 diabetic patients with vitamin D deficiency and nonalcoholic fatty liver

Prevalence of metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and non alcoholic fatty liver has been recently on rise in worldwide. This study was conducted to explore the association between vitamin D deficiency and incidence of fatty liver disease in type 2 diabetes patients and also to examine the efficacy of treatment with vitamin D in type 2 diabetes patients with vitamin D deficiency and non alcoholic fatty liver referring a specialty clinic in Shahrekord. In the first step (cross-sectional phase) of this two-step study, 108 patients with type 2 diabetes were examined for vitamin D level, biochemical indexes, lipid profile, and fatty liver indexes. In the second step (clinical trial phase), individuals with nonalcoholic fatty liver and vitamin D deficiency as treatment group underwent treatment with 50000 vitamin D units a week for 12 weeks. 3.96% of patients had fatty liver and 1.61% of patients had vitamin D deficiency of different severities. There was no significant association found between vitamin D deficiency and presence or severity of nonalcoholic fatty liver in patients (P > 0.05). Treatment with vitamin D had no significant effect on biochemical indices, liver function, fasting blood sugar, and hemoglobin A1c (P > 0.05), but serum level of cholesterol and low density lipoprotein (LDL) decreased in treatment patients compared to control group (P < 0.001). No significant association was found between vitamin D deficiency and presence or severity of nonalcoholic fatty liver; but treatment of type 2 diabetes patients with vitamin D supplementation decreased the serum level of cholesterol and LDL

Development Strategies for Rural Tourism in Mishkhas Village

Rural tourism is a factor in multidirectional development of rural areas and its most important consequences are population stability, unemployment problem alleviation, and immigration reduction. The present survey was set to investigate the strategies of developing rural tourism in Mishkhas Village in Ilam Province using the SWOT technique. A questionnaire was used as the data gathering instrument and the sample size was determined to be 368 based on the Krejcie and Morgan table. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was used to show the reliability of research instrument which came out to be 0.87. In this research, the internal (strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (threats and opportunities) of the region were ranked by the SWOT technique. It was indicated that the amount of advantages with the obtained value of 5.87 (strengths and opportunities) was higher than limitations rate of weaknesses and threats (4.531). Thus, according to the results, the strategy of developing rural tourism was applied in this region

Lithium-ion battery prognostics through reinforcement learning based on entropy measures

Lithium-ion is a progressive battery technology that has vastly been used in different electrical systems. Failure in the battery can lead to failure in the entire system where the battery is embedded and cause irreversible damage. To avoid the probable damages, research is actively conducted, and data-driven methods are proposed based on prognostics and health management (PHM) systems. PHM can use multiple time-scale data and stored information from battery capacities over cycles to determine the battery state of health (SOH) and its remaining useful life (RUL). This results in battery safety, stability, reliability, and longer lifetime. In this paper, we propose different data-driven approaches to battery prognostics that rely on: Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) based on the Permutation Entropy of battery voltage sequences at each cycle since they take into account the vital information from the past data and result in high accuracy

Impact of Sumac on postprandial high-fat oxidative stress

Background and Objective: High-fat diet causes a sudden increase in blood lipids and oxidative stress after each meal, which can affect the trigger mechanisms of atherosclerosis and cause some acute changes in the function of vessels' endothelial cells. With respect to the antioxidant properties of Sumac (Rhus coriaria), the present research was conducted to determine the effect of taking Sumac along with food on some atherosclerosis risk factors resulting from high-fat diet in hypercholesterolemic rabbits. Methodology: In this experimental study, 24 New Zealand rabbits were randomly designated into three eight-member groups as follows: normal diet, high-cholesterol diet (1%), high-cholesterol diet and Sumac powder 2%. Oxidative stress factors and those influencing atherosclerosis or arterial function including glucose, total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), Apo lipoprotein B (Apo B), low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C), nitrate, nitrite, fibrinogen and factor VII, and also liver enzymes (ALT, AST) were measured and compared in each group. Results: High cholesterol diet significantly increased total cholesterol, fibrinogen, triglycerides, glucose, nitrate, LDL-C and the liver enzymes ALT and AST (p 0.05). Conclusions: This study demonstrates the protective effect of consuming Sumac with food on some risk factors of atherosclerosis and oxidative stress (glucose, LDL-C, total cholesterol and fibrinogen) and also liver enzymes induced by high fat food

CMOS-compatible multi-band plasmonic TE-pass polarizer

A CMOS-compatible plasmonic TE-pass polarizer capable of working in the O, E,S, C, L, and U bands is numerically analyzed. The device is based on an integrated hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPW) with a segmented metal design. The segmented metal will avoid the propagation of the TM mode, confined in the slot of the HPW, while the TE fundamental mode will pass. The TE mode is not affected by the metal segmentation since it is confined in the core of the HPW. The concept of the segmented metal can be exploited in a plasmonic circuit with HPWs as the connecting waveguides between parts of the circuit and in a silicon photonics circuit with strip or slab waveguides connecting the different parts of the circuit. Using 3D FDTD simulations, it is shown that for a length of 5.5 μm the polarization extinction ratios are better than 20 dB and the insertion losses are less than 1.7dB over all the optical communication bands

Experimental parametric study of 128 Gb/s PAM-4 transmission system using a multi-electrode silicon photonic Mach Zehnder modulator

We present an experimental study and analysis of a travelling wave series push-pull silicon photonic multi-electrode Mach-Zehnder modulator (ME-MZM) and compare its performance with a single-electrode travelling wave Mach-Zehnder modulator (TWMZM). Utilizing the functionality of the ME-MZM structure plus digital-signal-processing, we report: 1) the C-band transmission of 84 Gb/s OOK modulated data below the KP4 forward error correction threshold with 2 Vpp drive voltage over a distance of 2 km; 2) the transmission of a 128 Gb/s optical 4-level pulse amplitude modulated signal over 1 km of fiber; and 3) the generation of a 168 Gb/s PAM-4 signal using two electrical OOK signals. By comparing the transmission system performance measurements for the ME-MZM with measurements performed using a similar series push-pull TWMZM, we show that the ME-MZM provides a clear advantage in achieving higher baud PAM-4 generation and transmission compared to a TWMZM

An assessment of development level of villages in Lorestan province using numerical taxonomy method

In today’s society, achieving development and reducing regional inequalities is one of the most important challenges facing governments. The role and position of villages in the process of economic, social and political development on a local, regional and national scale and the consequences of underdevelopment of rural areas such as widespread poverty, growing inequality, rapid population growth, unemployment, migration, and urban marginalization has attracted attention to rural development, and many experts believe that the cause of urban problems in developing countries is underdevelopment of rural areas. In the current research, in order to determine the degree of development of villages in Lorestan province, various economic, social and cultural sectors were considered and their ranking based on the development level using numerical taxonomic analysis method has been done. To do this, we using the latest statistics and information related to 2016, and 101 variables in the form of 8 indicators (educational, demographic, infrastructure, economical, health, service, cultural, welfare and agricultural performance) have been evaluated. According to our results, it was observed that the distribution of facilities and services in the villages of Lorestan province is unbalanced, as out of 87 villages of Lorestan province, four villages were identified as heterogeneous areas and Bazvand village has a development coefficient of 0;765 as a most provided village in this province. The rest of the villages in Lorestan province are being deprived as semi-provided and deprived villages. In conclusion, it has been said that most of the villages in this province need proper management and planning to develop and increase facilities and services

Suppressive impact of anethum graveolens consumption on biochemical risk factors of atherosclerosis in hypercholesterolemic rabbits

Background: We aimed to determine the effects of Anethum graveolens (Dill) powder on postprandial lipid profile, markers of oxidation and endothelial activation when added to a fatty meal. Methods: In an experimental study, 32 rabbits were randomly designated into four diet groups: normal diet, high cholesterol diet (1), high cholesterol diet plus 5 (w/w) dill powder and high cholesterol diet plus lovastatin (10 mg/kg, bw). The concentrations of glucose, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoproteins-cholesterol (LDL-C), alanine aminotransferase (alt), aspartate aminotransferase (ast), fibrinogen, factor VII, apolipoprotein B (ApoB), nitrite and nitrate were measured in blood samples following 15 h of fasting and 3 h after feeding. Results: Concurrent use of A. graveolens powder or lovastatin significantly decreased ALT, TC, glucose, fibrinogen and LDL-C values in comparison with hypercholesterolemic diet group (P < 0.05). Consumption of A. graveolens or lovastatin did not change factor VII, ApoB, nitrite and nitrate levels significantly in comparison with hypercholesterolemic diet group. Intake of A. graveolens significantly decreased serum AST compared to hypercholesterolemic diet. Conclusions: A. graveolens might have some protective values against atherosclerosis and that it significantly affects some biochemical risk factors of this disease. Our findings also confirm the potential harmful effects of oxidized fats and the importance of dietary polyphenols in the meal

Glucoherb versus metformin on glycemic markers and glycosylated hemoglobin in prediabetes patients; a clinical trial study

Introduction: There is a high risk of diabetes mellitus in pre-diabetic patients. Objectives: The aim of the study was to compare the effect of the extracts of these herbs in the formulation of Glucoherb supplementation versus metformin in pre-diabetes patients on glycemic markers and glycosylated hemoglobin. Patients and Methods: Pre-diabetic patients who had indication of drug treatment according to the criteria of the American Diabetes Association, were selected and randomly divided into two groups of Glucoherb and metformin. Body mass index (BMI), fasting blood sugar (FBS), 2 hours postprandial blood glucose (BS2PP) and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) were measured before and after the intervention. Results: The mean BMI, FBS, BS2PP and HbA1c levels were significantly decreased after intervention in both Glucoherb and metformin groups (P < 0.05) without any significant difference between them (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Glucoherb showed similar efficacy to metformin in reducing blood glucose, BMI and HbA1c in pre-diabetic patients