Characterization of Aqueous Dispersions and Gels Made of Sodium Caseinate and Basil Seed Gum: Phase Behavior,Rheology, and Microstructure

The interactions between sodium caseinate (NaCas) and basil seed gum (BSG) in the presence of calcium chloride (CaCl₂) were investigated. The phase behavior of the mixed aqueous dispersions and their gels revealed a homogeneous mixture, obtained at the higher concentrations of both CaCl₂ and BSG. The Herschel-Bulkley model sufficiently fitted the flow behavior of the mixture solution data. Apparent viscosity increased significantly (p < 0.05) by increasing the concentration of BSG, where the addition of CaCl₂ had no significant effect on the viscosity of the samples (p > 0.05). Furthermore, there was an increase in thixotropy due to the higher concentrations of BSG and CaCl₂. Based on the frequency sweep test, at the low frequencies, a more gel-like behavior was observed in the case of the higher concentrations of either BSG or CaCl₂. The rheological and SEM data suggested that the stronger structure of NaCas-BSG gel in the presence of the higher concentrations of CaCl₂ was related to the induction of complex formation between the two biopolymers.

     

Chemical Diversity among the Essential Oils of Wild Populations of Stachys lavandulifolia Vahl (Lamiaceae) from Iran

The variation of the essential‐oil composition among ten wild populations of Stachys lavandulifolia Vahl (Lamiaceae), collected from different geographical regions of Iran, was assessed by GC‐FID and GC/MS analyses, and their intraspecific chemical variability was determined. Altogether, 49 compounds were identified in the oils, and a relatively high variation in their contents was found. The major compounds of the essential oils were myrcene (0.0–26.2%), limonene (0.0–24.5%), germacrene D (4.2–19.3%), bicyclogermacrene (1.6–18.0%), δ‐cadinene (6.5–16.0%), pulegone (0.0–15.1%), (Z)‐hex‐3‐enyl tiglate (0.0–15.1%), (E)‐caryophyllene (0.0–12.9), α‐zingiberene (0.2–12.2%), and spathulenol (1.6–11.1%). For the determination of the chemotypes and the chemical variability, the essential‐oil components were subjected to cluster analysis (CA). The five different chemotypes characterized were Chemotype I (germacrene D/bicyclogermacrene), Chemotype II (germacrene D/spathulenol), Chemotype III (limonene/δ‐cadinene), Chemotype IV (pulegone), and Chemotype V (α‐zingiberene). The high chemical variation among the populations according to their geographical and bioclimatic distribution imposes that conservation strategies of populations should be made appropriately, taking into account these factors. The in situ and ex situ conservation strategies should concern all populations representing the different chemotypes.     

Widely distribution of hematological parameters in thalassemia patients with similar α-globin genotype

Background

Thalassemia is known as the commonest monogenic disorder with an imbalanced rate of globin chains production of adult hemoglobin. Despite the available information about the thalassemia etiology, its phenotype varies from each patient to another. This study aimed to evaluate the hematological parameters of patients with the same -α3.7 homozygote and heterozygote genotypes to amend screening programs.

Methods

In this observational study, we evaluated 1301 thalassemia suspected patients who referred to the Thalassemia and Hemoglobinopathy Research Center of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences, Khuzestan, Iran during 2014–2016. According to the genotyping studies, patients divided into 2 groups with -α3.7/αα (n = 646) and -α3.7/-α3.7 (n = 181) genotypes. Thereafter, distribution of hematological parameters evaluated in both groups.

Results

The mean age in heterozygous and homozygous groups was 25.7±4.5 and 26±4.4 years old, respectively. The degree of anemia was considerably varied in patients with the same genotype. MCV, RBC and MCH showed a wide distribution in patients.

Conclusion

The findings presented here suggest that other molecular mechanisms along with α-globin gene mutations could be involved in determining the phenotypes of alpha thalassemia patients.

     

Environmental risk assessment of heavy metals pollution in aquatic ecosystem—A case study: Sediment of Kor River,Iran

A comprehensive investigation of fractionation and environmental risk of nine heavy metals is carried out for 12 sediment samples collected from Kor River, Iran. For this purpose, the 5-stage sequential extraction method, along with individual contamination factor, global contamination factor, and Environmental Risk Index (ERI), is used. Total concentrations of Cr, Hg, Ni, and Zn were found to be beyond the threshold effect level. The results of fractionation patterns indicate that As, Cr, Ni, Pb, and Zn are mostly associated with Fe-Mn oxide fraction, organic fraction, and residual fraction, while Cd and Mo are predominantly associated with carbonate fraction. Cu and Hg are mostly associated with organic and exchangeable fractions. The results of ERI revealed High to Dangerous risks in 40% of Kor River stations. The applied approach in this study is beneficial to other environmental studies that require analysis of complex data.     

G4 motifs affect origin positioning and efficiency in two vertebrate replicators

DNA replication ensures the accurate duplication of the genome at each cell cycle. It begins at specific sites called replication origins. Genome‐wide studies in vertebrates have recently identified a consensus G‐rich motif potentially able to form G‐quadruplexes (G4) in most replication origins. However, there is no experimental evidence to demonstrate that G4 are actually required for replication initiation. We show here, with two model origins, that G4 motifs are required for replication initiation. Two G4 motifs cooperate in one of our model origins. The other contains only one critical G4, and its orientation determines the precise position of the replication start site. Point mutations affecting the stability of this G4 in vitro also impair origin function. Finally, this G4 is not sufficient for origin activity and must cooperate with a 200‐bp cis‐regulatory element. In conclusion, our study strongly supports the predicted essential role of G4 in replication initiation.     

Assessment of genetic and chemical variability in Thymus caramanicus

Thymus caramanicus is an endemic species grown in Iran with interesting pharmacological and biological properties. In the present work, essential oil compositions and inter-simple sequences repeat (ISSR) markers were used to estimate the relationships among and within seven populations of T. caramanicus, belonging to three provinces in Iran. The studied individuals were distinguished on the basis of ISSR markers and constituents of essential oil. A total of 127 band positions were produced by 12 ISSR primers, of which 105 were found polymorphic with 82.68 % polymorphism. Genetic similarity values among individuals ranged between 0.15 and 0.82 which was indicative of a high level of genetic variation. On the basis of their genetic similarities, ISSR analysis allowed to group the samples into two main clusters. One of these included populations originated from Kerman and Isfahan provinces, and the other cluster consists of populations from Semnan province. Chemical compounds of essential oils were found variable in the various individuals and all samples were principally composed of phenolic constituents (carvacrol and/or thymol). As a consequence, the plants were classified into two major chemotypes including carvacrol and thymol/carvacrol. A relationship between genetic and chemical variability and geographic distribution has been observed in studied populations of T. caramanicus.     

Multivariate analysis of motherwort germplasm in Iran using morphological variables and essential oil content

The morphological variation and essential oil content of 150 individuals of motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) from six natural regions of Iran were examined biometrically based on multivariate analysis. The highest variation was observed in plant height, length of main stems, main inflorescence length, floral cycles of main stem, lateral branches length, basal leaf length, floral leaf length width, flower length, and calyx color. Results of simple correlation analysis showed the existence of significant positive and negative correlations among some important parameters. The highest correlation was observed between plant height and length of main stems and between lateral branch length and lower surface color of leaf. Populations were clustered in two groups representing subspecies cardiaca and persicus. The subspecies cardiaca populations were closely related with each other and differentiated from the subspecies persicus by pubescence stems and leaves, more number of floral cycles, higher compaction of floral cycles, lower number of lateral branches, shorter length of petioles and leaves and smaller floral leaves. Essential oil yields varied from 0.02 (for Taleghan population) to 0.053 mg/100 g dry mater (for Kerman population). The conservation of the highly diverse native populations of Iranian motherwort germplasm is recommended.     

Design Pattern Mining Using Distributed Learning Automata and DNA Sequence Alignment

Context

Over the last decade, design patterns have been used extensively to generate reusable solutions to frequently encountered problems in software engineering and object oriented programming. A design pattern is a repeatable software design solution that provides a template for solving various instances of a general problem.

Objective

This paper describes a new method for pattern mining, isolating design patterns and relationship between them; and a related tool, DLA-DNA for all implemented pattern and all projects used for evaluation. DLA-DNA achieves acceptable precision and recall instead of other evaluated tools based on distributed learning automata (DLA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequences alignment.

Method

The proposed method mines structural design patterns in the object oriented source code and extracts the strong and weak relationships between them, enabling analyzers and programmers to determine the dependency rate of each object, component, and other section of the code for parameter passing and modular programming. The proposed model can detect design patterns better that available other tools those are Pinot, PTIDEJ and DPJF; and the strengths of their relationships.

Results

The result demonstrate that whenever the source code is build standard and non-standard, based on the design patterns, then the result of the proposed method is near to DPJF and better that Pinot and PTIDEJ. The proposed model is tested on the several source codes and is compared with other related models and available tools those the results show the precision and recall of the proposed method, averagely 20% and 9.6% are more than Pinot, 27% and 31% are more than PTIDEJ and 3.3% and 2% are more than DPJF respectively.

Conclusion

The primary idea of the proposed method is organized in two following steps: the first step, elemental design patterns are identified, while at the second step, is composed to recognize actual design patterns.