Genetic and antigenic analysis of type O and A FMD viruses isolated in Iran,

ABSTRACT FMD is one of the most highly contagious diseases of animals, caused by RNA virus belong to Picornaviridae family and Aphtovirus genus. A broad host range and occurrence of FMDV as seven serotypes and also intratypic antigenic variation without clear cut demarcations, which interferes with a concept of sub typing these factors make difficult conditions to diagnosis, control and eradication of disease. Therefore it is very important to characterize virus strains and monitoring the field virus to determine the relationship between field viruses and vaccine strains. The objective of this study was to characterize FMD type O, A, virus isolated from Iran between 2005 and 2006. 13 FMD type A and 6 type O viruses isolated from Iran between 2005 and 2006 were used in this study. All viruses adapted to IBRS2 cells and the clarified infected cell culture supernatants were used for typing by sandwich capture ELISA and extraction of viral RNA for RT-PCR reaction with the specific primer for each type. The PCR products were purified for sequencing. Sequence of 600 nucleotides at the 3` end of 1D gene of all samples subjected to phylogenic analysis and determine the antigenic relationship ("r" Value). All type A viruses that isolated from different province of Iran, sequenced in this study, were closely related to each other and A/iran/05 virus group. The sequencing results of type O isolated from Iran between 2005 and 2006 showed the close genetic relationship between field isolates and the Iranian vaccine strain. The result of average "r" Value detected by two dimensional virus neutralization test, for type A87IR was 0.46 (46%), type A05IR 0.78 (78%), type O Shabestar 0.81 (81%) and type O967 0.90 (90%)

Pattern Spectra from Different Component Trees for Estimating Soil Size Distribution

We study the pattern spectra in context of soil structure analysis. Good soil structure is vital for sustainable crop growth. Accurate and fast measuring methods can contribute greatly to soil management decisions. However, the current in-field approaches contain a degree of subjectivity, while obtaining quantifiable results through laboratory techniques typically involves sieving the soil which is labour- and time-intensive. We aim to replace this physical sieving process through image analysis, and investigate the effectiveness of pattern spectra to capture the size distribution of the soil aggregates. We calculate the pattern spectra from partitioning hierarchies in addition to the traditional max-tree. The study is posed as an image retrieval problem, and confirms the ability of pattern spectra and suitability of different partitioning trees to re-identify soil samples in different arrangements and scales

Economic Profit Enhancement of a Demand Response Aggregator Through Investment of Large-scale Energy Storage Systems

To provide flexibility for the operation of smart electricity networks, a large number of scattered demand response resources are managed by a demand response aggregator (DRA). Increasing the economic viability of this new entity, i.e., DRA, has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. Following this direction, this paper proposes stochastic model of multiple large-scale energy storage system (LESS) investments from the perspective of a DRA. A LESS directly connects to smart distribution networks and provides the possibility to save energy costs and thereafter increase the energy efficiency of the DRA. In this paper, a novel mixed-integer model is proposed to determine the optimal capacity and operation of a LESS in coordination with a DR scheme. The model, as a main contribution to literature, comprises novel managerial options, such as the number of allowed DR actions, the number of allowed charging and discharging. Moreover, the model is designed to be capable enough to exclude the hours in which the demand side is not allowed to participate in DR. The proposed model is tested through a numerical example with various case studies. The simulation results show the substantial economic impacts of considering the introduced managerial options in the coordination of a LESS operation with DR