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Freshwater scarcity and soil salinity are amongst the main obstacles for sustainable development of irrigated agriculture, particularly in arid regions. A 2-year field investigation was conducted at an experimental field in south-east Iran during the 2017 and 2018 growing seasons to evaluate the individual and integrated effects of water-saving irrigation strategies and organic soil amendment (OSA) applications on yield and water productivity of ajwain (Trachyspermum ammi), which is known as an important medicinal plant in Iran. A split-plot design with 16 treatments was used in the field trial. Treatments were created by combining four irrigation strategies, including full irrigation with freshwater [FF], partial root-zone drying (PRD) with freshwater (PF), PRD with saline water (PS), and PRD with alternating application of fresh and saline water (PFS), were combined with four types of soil amendments, including no amendment (control), charcoal nano-biochar (NB), composted cow manure (CM), cow manure vermicompost (VM). Results showed that in the absence of OSA application, exposing crops to salinity/water stresses caused 3.7–17.6% and 4.5–17.7% reduction in the crop’s seed yield and above-ground biomass, respectively, while enhancing the crop’s oil concentration and oil yield by 9.1–30% and 1.4–18.3%, respectively. Along with a 34–63% freshwater saving, a 24.9–91.2% increase occurred in the crop’s water productivities compared to the FF treatments. Integrating OSA application with freshwater-saving irrigation caused up to 58, 27.1, 60, 138, and 285% increase in the crop’s seed yield, biomass, oil concentration, oil yield, and water productivity, respectively, compared to the FF-control treatment. However, VM performed best, and CM took second place. Based on the results, it can be concluded that such integrations provide opportunities for developing Ajwain’s production in arid regions with limited access to freshwater resources.

The present study focuses on the strategy of employing an electrochemical sensor with a porous polyethylenimine (PEI)-functionalized Co

Accumulative roll bonding (ARB) is a new and cost-effective process for the production of ultrafine-grained sheets by applying severe plastic deformation. Various mechanical properties of sheets improve after ARB process. However, the material formability severely decreases in the ARBed sheets restricting their usage in industrial applications. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the high strain rates on the formability improvement of ultrafine-grained sheets manufactured by the ARB process. For this purpose, the electromagnetic forming (EMF) has been performed for applying high strain rates on ARBed pure copper sheets and its capability to resolve the low toughness issue of the ultrafine-grained products of the ARB process has been investigated. In the first step, several sheet samples have been subjected to one, two, and three ARB passes, and their mechanical properties such as microhardness, mechanical strength, and formability have been determined after each pass. The results have indicated a substantial increase in the sheets hardness and mechanical strength and a significant decrease in their formability especially after the first pass. Afterwards, the Nakazima test and the EMF have been used to form the ARBed sheet samples in the quasi-static and high strain rate conditions and then the forming limit diagram and formability of formed samples have been compared in these conditions. It has been found that the formability of the one-, two-, and three-pass ARBed sheets in plane strain conditions have been, respectively, increased 102%, 113%, and 99% in the high strain rate with respect to the quasi-static condition.

This paper describes a group of recently discovered structures identified during survey activities carried out in 2019 by the authors. All the newly discovered sites are located in the Shepiran Rural District of the Kohsar District, which is part of Salmas County in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. The group of buildings exhibits interesting and unusual features. To date we have had the opportunity to study eighteen specimens of this type of building. These buildings are very similar in size and shape to the so-called ‘Giants’ Houses’ well attested in south-eastern Turkey, especially in the southern part of Lake Van, and in Armenia. Although the architectural simplicity of these structures, some suggestions regarding their functional interpretation have been proposed.

This study is an attempt to evaluate and check that how Muslims and Islam are represented /portrayed in western media through in the light of the relationship between Culture, belief, language, religion, ways of life and ideology. For finding that, headlines of larger circulated print media of the west the Independent, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times, were selected w-e-f January2016 to December 2017 and Muslim and Islam representation was studied. This study explores the image of Muslims and Islam in Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun times Newspapers selected news headlines during the period 2016 to 2017. And found that the overall coverage regarding Muslims and Islam remain Negative in both newspapers. It is based on hypothesis that “the overall ratios of unfavorable coverage about Muslims and Islam would be greater than favorable coverage in Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun times” and tested through content analysis and two communication theories and media framing theory is applied. 200news items published regarding Muslims and Islam during proposed period of study in both newspapers in which in Chicago Sun times the result was (31 % coverage remained Positive 61 % remained Negative and 8 % remained Neutral) and in Chicago Tribune Positive (37 % coverage remained Positive 56 % remained Negative and 7 % news items were Neutral).The above mentioned analysis proved that Muslims and Islam are represented negatively and it proved that the western media presents a bad image of Muslims.

This paper presents a numerical analysis of the natural convective heat transfer of magnetite/graphite slurry non-Newtonian ferrofluid in a square enclosure under a variable external magnetic field...

Nowadays, the Beerkan computational algorithms (BESTslope and BESTsteday) are known as the suitable indirect methods for estimating soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) and sorptivity (S), as well as the scale parameter (hg) in van Genuchten soil water retention equation through the data collected in the Beerkan infiltration experiment and other required data. The purpose of this study was to compare these algorithms in estimating Ks and S, as well as the soil water content corresponding to the suctions of 33 kPa, 100 kPa, 200 kPa, 300 kPa and 1500 kPa. For this purpose, a total of 40 Beerkan infiltration experiments were carried out in Sistan dam research field. From all Beerkan experiments, 30 tests in loam and sandy loam textures having a relative error less than 5.5% (Er

The effects of Joule heating, Hartman, Brinkman, and Reynolds numbers on the flow pattern and thermal characteristics of force convection flow through a parallel-plate microchannel are inve...

Afrasiab Ahmed Rana is an advocate High Court and LLM Scholar at IIUI.

Afrasiab Ahmed Rana is an LLM (Corporate Law) Scholar at International Islamic University, Islamabad. He graduated in Law from University of Sargodha. He is working as an Advocate High Court.

International audience; Located in the Khoy plain, in North-western Iran, the salt mine of Tappeh Doozdaghi lies at the crossroads of major interregional circulation routes linking the Urmiah and the northern Araxes basins. This area is rich in prehistoric and protohistoric settlements dating from the Late Neolithic to the Iron Age; a high concentration of pottery sherds related to the Early Bronze Age (3500−2500/2400 BC) is particularly noteworthy, which suggests that this region was fairly densely occupied during that time. Among the sites identified during the numerous surveys conducted in the area, Doozadghi is one of the largest, extending over 16 hectares and culminating about 24 meters above the surrounding landscape. The first sounding campaign, led in 2016 under the aegis of the West Azerbaijan Province Cultural Heritage Organisation and the Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research (ICAR), has revealed a breadth of materials attributed to the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. The 40 obsidian artefacts that were collected in the later levels (EBA) have been geochemically characterised to identify their geological origin. The provenance results indicate a high diversity of obsidian sources, with the use of seven different outcrops located in both the Southern Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia (Arteni, Geghasar-Gegham, Gügürbaba-Meydan, Gutansar, Sevkar-Syunik, Sicaksu-Nemrut-Dag, and one unknown source). This diversity suggests that the Khoy plain during the EBA attracted populations from various horizons, probably drawn by the presence of salt and other numerous resources available in the area (e.g., arable land, winter pasturelands, abundant water sources). The dynamism that seems to characterise the Khoy plain during the EBA is akin to what has been observed on the salt mine of Duzdaghi in Nakhchivan for the same period; this highlights the key role of natural resources in creating central places where populations from diverse horizons have interacted with one another and thus participated in the redistribution of materials (e.g., salt and obsidian) at an intra- and inter-regional level.

In this paper, the effect of mechanical anisotropy on the energy absorption capacity of thin-walled tubes was evaluated using experimental tests and numerical simulations. The paper shows that the plastic anisotropy could influence the energy absorption capacity of thin-walled tubes while the tube dimensions remain the same. The effect of anisotropy on energy absorption behavior and collapse modes was studied. The aims are control of the buckling modes and increase of energy absorption capacity of the tubes by varying the tubes anisotropic properties. The results indicate the possibility of controlling the load-displacement curve and energy absorption improvement by changing the anisotropy coefficients. Also, a rise of the anisotropy coefficient leads to an increase of the energy absorption and to a movement of the force-displacement diagram peak to the right side.

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the major global public health concern particularly affecting population of low-income countries. Early detection of disease coupled with other parameters help in treatment and reducing disease transmission. Methods: The current study was conducted to assess the sensitivity and specificity of the GeneXpert MTB/RIF (Cepheid Sunnyvale, CA, United States) in comparison to conventional techniques used for the diagnosis of TB. Our study is one of the first ones from Pakistan investigating and assessing the performance of GeneXpert. We recruited eight hundred clinically TB suspects initially and included seven hundred and sixteen clinically TB suspects in the final analysis. Results: The results of GeneXpert were compared with Mycobacteria Growth Indicator Tube (MGIT) and Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) staining. In comparison to MGIT and ZN staining the sensitivity of GeneXpert with 95 % confidence interval (CI) was (99.7 %, CI 0.98-0.99) and (95.1 %, CI 0.92-0.97) respectively. The positive and negative predictive values with 95 % CI were (97.1 %, CI 0.94-0.98) and (99.7 %, CI 0.98-0.99) when results of GeneXpert were compare with MGIT results. Conclusion: The results of this study confirms the performance of GeneXpert. With high sensitivity and rapid detection, GeneXpert is ready to be considered as preferred diagnostic tool for TB.