Feasibility Of Using Super Absorbent Polymer And Nitrogen On The Yield, Biological Traits, And Nitrogen Percentage In Fields Pumpkin Seeds

This study performed to investigate the effect of nitrogen and moisture superabsorbent on yield, yield components, seed nitrogen and some biological traits in field pumpkin during two crop years in Kermanshah, Iran. The experiment was carried out as a split-plot based on randomized complete block design with three replications. The main plot factor were the application of moisture superabsorbent  in various levels at 0 (control), 40, 80, 160 kg ha-1 ,respectively; and nitrogen fertilization at the levels of 0, 50, 100 and 150 kg ha-1was considered as sub-factor. Results illustrated that treatments significantly affected all traits except for fruit number. In most traits, there was an increasing trend when nitrogen levels increased, although N2 levels of 100 and 150 kg ha-1 were not significantly different.. In addition, increasing the moisture superabsorbent enhanced the mentioned traits

Personal hygiene among military personnel: developing and testing a self-administered scale

OBJECTIVE: Good personal hygiene (PH) behavior is recommended to prevent contagious diseases, and members of military forces may be at high risk for contracting contagious diseases. The aim of this study was to develop and test a new questionnaire on PH for soldiers. METHODS: Participants were all male and from different military settings throughout Iran. Using a five-stage guideline, a panel of experts in the Persian language (Farsi) developed a 21-item self-administered questionnaire. Face and content validity of the first-draft items were assessed. The questionnaire was then translated and subsequently back-translated into English, and both the Farsi and English versions were tested in pilot studies. The consistency and stability of the questionnaire were tested using Cronbach’s alpha and the test–retest strategy. The final scale was administered to a sample of 502 military personnel. Explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses evaluated the structure of the scale. Both the convergent and discriminative validity of the scale were also determined. RESULTS: Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were >0.85. Principal component analysis demonstrated a uni-dimensional structure that explained 59 % of the variance in PH behaviors. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good fit (goodness-of-fit index = 0.902; comparative fitness index = 0.923; root mean square error of approximation = 0.0085). CONCLUSIONS: The results show that this new PH scale has solid psychometric properties for testing PH behaviors among an Iranian sample of military personnel. We conclude that this scale can be a useful tool for assessing PH behaviors in military personnel. Further research is needed to determine the scale’s value in other countries and cultures

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Can Superabsorbent Polymers Improve Plants Production in Arid Regions?

Superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) have shown to be quite effective and useful in acting as a reservoir for water and some nutrients in arid and semiarid regions. There are many studies in Iran that have been performed in relation to SAPs and their useful application in agriculture; however, there is still a lack of its applied definition in arid regions. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of doing a meta-analysis of the results of studies conducted in Iran and answering a general question about whether the application of SAPs has been effective in enhancing the production or not, and if so, how much of SAP is recommended. To conduct this research, articles published during 2006–2016 on the subject of the effects of different rates of SAP application on yield and yield components of crops (including cereals, legumes, and medicinal and grassland plants) were investigated. The results of the meta-analysis showed that the mean consumption rate of SAPs for cereals, legumes, and medicinal and grassland plants was 83, 322, 1031, and 210 kg ha−1, respectively, and that, at these SAP application rates, the mean seed yield in cereals, medicinal plants, and legumes increased by 15.2, 12.6, and 38% (equivalent to 1059, 345, and 452 kg ha−1), respectively, compared with the control. Dry matter response to superabsorbent application was slower compared with the seed yield response. The mean consumption of 83 kg ha−1 of superabsorbent for cereals increased seed yield by 15.2% on average. According to the results, it seems that the application of 100 kg SAP ha−1 is the most appropriate rate for increasing seed and dry matter yields and satisfying economic aspects. These study findings may shed light on the environment and socioeconomic concerns and improve efficacy and reduction of costs

The Effects of Soil Amendments and Bio-fertilizers Inoculation on Morphological Characteristics and Yield of Echium amoenum

Introduction: In recent years, the effect of ecological inputs on soil properties and plant growth characteristics has received renewed attention. Although the utilization of mineral fertilizers could be viewed as the best solution in plant productivity, this approach is often inefficient in the long-term in many ecosystems due to the limited ability of low-activity clay soils to retain nutrients. Intensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in agricultural systems is also known to have irreversible effects on soil and water resources. Maintenance of soil fertility as a permanent bed for continuous production of agricultural products is one of the most important issues affecting the sustainability of food production. In order to achieve healthy food production, application of ecological inputs such as soil amendments and bio-fertilizers is inevitable. Humic substances are a group of heterogeneous molecules that are bonded together by weak forces; therefore, they have a high chemical stability. This material included 65 to 80 percent of total soil organic matter. Application of bio-fertilizers is an appropriate alternative of chemical fertilizers to enhance soil fertility. In fact, bio-fertilizers include different types of free living organisms that convert unavailable nutrients to available forms and enhance root development and better seed germination. Mycorrhiza arbuscular fungi are coexist microorganisms that improve soil fertility, nutrients cycling and agroecosystem health. Mycorrhizal fungi are the most abundant organisms in agricultural soils. Many researchers have pointed to the positive roles of mycorrhizal fungi on plants growth characteristics. Echium amoenum is a perennial plant belongs to Boraginaceae family. This plant is native of North of Iran. Petal extract of E. amoenum have sedative, diaphoretic, anti-inflammatory and anti-depressant effects. These plants are wild perennial herbs and known in Iran as oxtongue. It is one of the most important medicinal plants in Iranian traditional medicine. Petals of Iranian oxtongue have been advocated for a variety of effects such as demulcent, anti-inflammatory and analgesic, especially for common cold, anxiolytic, sedative and other psychiatric symptoms including obsession in folk medicine of Iran. Despite many research on the effects of organic acids and bio-fertilizers on different crops, there is scarce information on the effects of these factors for many medicinal plants. Therefore, in this study effect of organic acids and bio-fertilizers on morphological characteristics and yield of Echium amoenum in a low input cropping system was studied. Materials and methods: In order to evaluate the effects of soil amendments and different bio-fertilizers on morphological characteristics and seed yield of Echium amoenum, an experiment was conducted based on randomized complete block design with three replications during 2011-2013 growing seasons, at the Research Farm of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. Treatments were eight different types of soil amendments and bio-fertilizers concluding: 1) Humic acid, 2) Fulvic acid, 3) Nitroxin® (Azotobacter spp. and Azospirillum spp.), 4) Biophosphorous® (Bacillus sp. and Pseudomonas sp.), 5) Biosulfur® (Thiobacillus spp.), 6) Mycorrhiza (Glomus mosseae), 7) Mycorrhiza (Glomus intraradices), and 8) no fertilizer as control. Result and Discussion: The results showed that mycorrhiza species increased flower yield compared with control, as the flower yield in treatments of G. mosseae and G. intraradices were 24 and 11 percent more than control, respectively. Soil amendments and different bio-fertilizers increased the number of flower cycle per plant compared with control. Although the effect of biophosphorous® was more pronounced, as the number of flower cycle per plant increased from 342 to 1322 cycles in control and biophosphorous® , respectively. Humic acid treatment increased seed yield, biological yield, seed weight and seed number per plant by 82, 66, 63 and 66 percent compared with control, respectively. It seems that different species of mycorrhiza improved morphological characteristics and yield of Echium amoenum, because of better conditions to absorption and transportation of nutrient to the plant. It has been reported that organic acids provide favorable conditions for plant growth and development through improvement of physical, chemical and biological properties of the soil. Therefore, it could be concluded that improvement of most studied traits in the present study was as a result of use of organic acids. Conclusions: Generally, our results showed that organic acids and biological fertilizers had positive effects on most of studied criteria. The highest flower and seed yields were obtained from G. mosseae and Humic acid treatments, respectively

The effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus and free living nitrogen fixing bacteria on growth, photosynthesis and yield of corn

In recent years, biological fertilizers have received special attention by scientists in sustainable and low input agriculture. In order to study the effects of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and free living nitrogen fixing bacteria on growth and photosynthesis characteristics of corn in conventional and ecological cropping systems, a field experiment was conducted at the Research Farm of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad during year 2006. A split plots arrangement based on randomized complete block design with three replications was used. Treatments consisted four cropping systems (1- High input conventional system, 2- Medium input conventional system, 3- Low input conventional system and 4- Ecological system) and four inoculations (1- Mycorrhiza fungus, Glomus intraradices, 2- Bacteria, Azotobacter paspali and Azospirillum brasilense, 3- Dual inoculation, Fungus plus bacteria, and 4- No-inoculation, control), which were allocated to main plots and sub plots, respectively. All agronomic practices and inputs application during planting and nursing for each of cropping systems were conducted according to regional traditions. Results showed that the effect of inoculation on photosynthesis rates of corn was significant, as the highest photosynthesis rate obtained in dual inoculation. Single inoculation (fungus or bacteria) was ranked second. The effect of all inoculations on corn dry matter production was significant and dual inoculation produced the highest dry matter yield. The cropping systems have significant effect on corn yield and the difference between medium input conventional system and high input conventional system was significant, but the high input, low input and ecological cropping systems showed no differences. Inoculants affected the SPAD readings, and dual inoculation showed the highest SPAD readings. This study showed that utilization of low input conventional and ecological systems in combination with use of dual inoculation of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus and free living nitrogen fixing bacteria could be a suitable replacement for high input conventional systems and chemical fertilizers

Unrelated Parallel Machine Scheduling Problem Considering Job Splitting, Inventories, Shortage, and Resource: A Meta-Heuristic Approach

This research aims to study a real-world example of the unrelated parallel machine scheduling problem (UPMSP), considering job-splitting, inventories, shortage, and resource constraints. Since the nature of the studied optimization problem is NP-hard, we applied a metaheuristic algorithm named Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO). The novelty of this study is fourfold. First, the model tackles the inventory problem along with the shortage amount to avoid the late fee. Second, due to the popularity of minimizing completion time (Makespan), each job is divided into small parts to be operated on various machines. Third, renewable resources are included to ensure the feasibility of the production process. Fourth, a mixed-integer linear programming formulation and the solution methodology are developed. To feed the metaheuristic algorithm with an initial viable solution, a heuristic algorithm is also fabricated. Also, the discrete version of the GWO algorithm for this specific problem is proposed to obtain the results. Our results confirmed that our proposed discrete GWO algorithm could efficiently solve a real case study in a timely manner. Finally, future research threads are suggested for academic and industrial communities

The effects of different cattle manure levels and branch management methods on organic production of Cucurbita pepo L.

To study the effects of different manure levels and two branch management methods on organic production of Schneider squash, a field experiment was conducted during 2005 and 2006. Treatments were four manure levels (10, 15, 20, 25 ton ha-1) and two branch management methods (with and without a wood pole), which were allocated to main plots and subplots, respectively. Results showed that the crop performed better in branch management without a wood pole than with a wood pole. Results showed that in the first year, manure level had a significant effect on fruit and seed yields. However, these traits were not significantly affected by manure levels in the second year. For both years, there were no differences in seed numbers due to manure levels. Seed oil content was slightly increased when the manure level was increased from 10 to 25 ton ha-1