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Backgrounds: The ever-increasing incidence of multidrug resistance in ESBL-producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa is one of the most serious public health threats. This study aimed to investigate the antibiotic resistance profile and molecular characteristics of ESBL-producing P. aeruginosa isolates.
Materials & Methods: Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed for 120 P. aeruginosa clinical isolates using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion and broth microdilution assays. Combined disk test (CDT) was applied to screen for ESBL production among P. aeruginosa isolates. PCR assays determined the presence of bla_GES, bla_PER, and bla_VEB genes in all isolates.
Findings: The clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa showed the highest resistance to cefotaxime (86.7%) and gentamicin (65.8%). Of 120 P. aeruginosa isolates, 60.8% were MDR, and 53.3% were XDR. The prevalence of these strains was significantly higher in hospitalized patients than in out-patients (p<.001). Also, 58 P. aeruginosa strains (48.3%) were considered as phenotypic ESBL producers. Furthermore, 15, 35, and 24.2% of P. aeruginosa isolates harbored bla_GES, bla_VEB, and bla_PER, respectively. The incidence of MDR (71.4% vs. 41.9%, p= .001) and XDR (63.6% vs. 34.9%, p= .002) was significantly higher in ESBL-producing P. aeruginosa isolates compared to non-ESBL producers. The highest incidence rate of MDR was reported in bla_VEB gene-positive P. aeruginosa isolates (95.2%), followed by isolates harboring bla_PER (79.3%) and bla_GES (55.6%) genes.
Conclusion: This study findings show a high prevalence of MDR ESBL-producing P. aeruginosa isolates, indicating the importance of correct identification of these superbugs and judicious use of various antibiotics to prevent their spread.

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    The Islamic Revolution, by transforming the political, social, and cultural foundations of the society, paved the way for experimenting with new modes of novel-writing. In the 1990s, postmodernism became a dominant trend in the Persian novel. Refusing to obey the standard form of the novel as a genre, both in the content and style, the postmodern Iranian novelists have tried to keep pace with their international counterparts and to experiment with new forms. The epistemic background for this literary movement has been the postmodern philosophy. Postmodernism, against Enlightenment rationalism and the concept of an autonomous subject, concentrates on the questions of language and discourse. In addition to describing the position of language in postmodernism, the present study attempts to explain the rhetoric and ideological techniques in the postmodern Persian novels. Studying the linguistic components of these novels at the two levels of ideology and rhetoric, our research reveal that these works of art more frequently employ rhetoric techniques and that there is not a single ideology ruling over them.

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It is evident that the most important competence emphasized by any translation competence model (TCM) is mastery of source and target languages and cultures. On the other hand, languages and cultures are always closely tied, a fact highlighted more than ever by Agar’s (1994) proposed concept of ‘languaculture’. The present two-phase qualitative study was conducted with the purpose of investigating how the curricula of B.A. and M.A. English translation programs offered by Iranian state universities cover language and culture competence as compared to overseas peer programs and how they can be improved in terms of the said competence. To this end, content analysis of the relevant curricula as well as semi-structured interviews with Iranian experts were used to gather the required data. The principal finding of the present research is that it emphasizes the necessity of revising the current curricula in line with the maximum coverage of topics contained in a proposed list of Persian language and culture topics, English language and culture topics, and joint language and culture topics. The said list of language and culture topics, being another valuable finding of the study, may also be used for designing new autonomous translator, interpreter, and audiovisual translator training programs, or at least concentrations with specialized tracks and strands. Further, the detailed findings of the study, gained through an atomistic approach to language and culture competence, may be availed of by researchers who intend to conduct further studies on each and every element of this competence.

1. Introduction
A close look at various translation competence models (TCMs) shows that they all cover languaculture (LC) competence one way or another. As regards the language side of the coin, knowledge of two languages has been pinpointed using different terms, including ‘linguistic competence’ by Bausch (as cited in Rothe-Neves, 2007), ‘source and target language competences at discourse and style levels’ (Honig, 1991), ‘source and target texts processing’ (Hatim & Mason, 1997; Stolze, 1997), ‘source and target language knowledge’ (Bell, 1991; Kastberg, 2007; Kiraly, 2000; Russo, 2000; Schäffner, 2000; Sim, 2000), ‘grammatical competence’ (Beeby, 1996), ‘language competence’ (EMT Expert Group, 2009; Neubert, 2000), ‘language awareness’ (Fox, 2000), ‘proficiency, being related to certain special bilingual skills’ (Campbell, 1991), ‘communicative and textual sub-competence’ by Kelly (as cited in Brala-Vukanovic, 2016, p. 226), ‘bilingual sub-competence’ (PACTE, 2005, p. 611), ‘communicative competence in at least two languages’ (Göpferich, 2009), ‘comprehension and production strategies’ (Forte, 2012), ‘listening and analysis of source speech and production of target speech’ (Gile, 2009), ‘absolute command of the source and target languages’ (Gouadec, 2007, p. 150), ‘language skills’ (Pöchhacker, 2000), ‘pre-process competence, including language proficiency and terminology management’ (Albl-Mikasa, 2013), ‘perception, decoding, recoding, encoding, and expressing skills’ (Ma, 2013), and more recently ‘language and culture competence’ (Beikian, 2020; EMT, 2017).
Along the same vein, culture sub-competence, albeit variously termed again, goes hand in hand with language sub-competence in most of the models having been examined in the course of the present study. Some terms used by scholars to mention culture sub-competence in their proposed TCMs include ‘communicative competence in source and target language cultures’ (Bell, 1991), ‘cultural knowledge’ by Stolze (1992), ‘cultural knowledge of the source and target language’ (Kiraly, 1995), ‘sociolinguistic and discourse competence’ (Beeby, 1996), ‘cultural competence’ (Kastberg, 2007; Neubert, 2000; Pöchhacker (2000), ‘cultural competence, including knowledge about cultural, historical, political, economic, etc. aspects in the respective countries’ (Schäffner, 2000), ‘sociocultural competence’ (Fox, 2000), ‘source and target culture controls’ (Sim, 2000), ‘cultural sub-competence’ by Kelly (as cited in Brala-Vukanovic, 2016, p. 226), ‘extra-linguistic sub-competence, made up of encyclopedic, thematic and bicultural knowledge’ (PACTE, 2005, p. 611), ‘intercultural competence, consisting of sociolinguistic and textual dimensions’ (EMT Expert Group, 2009, pp. 4-7), ‘multi-cultural competence’ (Gouadec, 2007), and finally ‘language and culture competence’ (Beikian, 2020; EMT, 2017).

2. Purpose
One of the most apparent applications of some of the given TCMs is as valid frameworks, the aim of which is to shape curriculum proposals in higher education (Campbell, 1998; Schäffner, 2000; Kelly, 2002; Pym, 2003; Colina, 2003; Kearns, 2006; Morón, 2009, Beikian, 2020). The present two-phase qualitative study was conducted with the purpose of investigating how the curricula of B.A. and M.A English translation programs offered by Iranian state universities cover LC competence as compared to overseas peer programs and how the said national programs can be improved in terms of covering this pivotal competence.

3. Research Method
The first phase of the study aimed at finding how LC competence is covered by Iranian state universities offering B.A. and M.A. translation programs in English and their overseas peer programs. Since Iranian state universities are not ranked officially, all 23 B.A. translator training programs and 8 M.A. translation studies programs offered in English by Iranian state universities were included in the study. As regards overseas peer programs, based on U21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems in 2020, translation programs offered in 49 countries enjoying top systems of higher education were included in the study, which resulted in examining 20 B.A. programs and 73 M.A. programs. In order to access the curriculum of each program, first we consulted the program website; and if the required data were not found, we used personal communication with the program contact person. Then the contents of the national and overseas curricula were analyzed and all language and culture courses were extracted. Afterward, the said courses were categorized based on the themes which the researchers had extracted from the relevant literature. In addition, the courses extracted from the national and overseas curricula were further compared and contrasted for the purpose of finding the similarities and differences among them.
In the second phase, we interviewed 55 Iranian experts who had been defined to be either university teachers having taught translation and/or interpreting courses at Iranian state universities for at least 3 years or translation studies Ph.D. candidates being graduates of both B.A. and M.A. translation programs offered in English by Iranian state universities. Then semi-structured interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the ‘structuring’ form of qualitative content analysis method. To this end, first of all, tentative categories were defined and explained in the coding agenda; and for the purpose of differentiating the categories, coding rules were defined. Subsequently, the transcript of each interview was read and every statement seeming relevant at a first glance was underlined. After reconsidering the developed categories, the content of each transcript was structured using a color scheme. Then statements, opinions, and quotes were taken out by order of their color and summarized into the category system, although some were quoted directly. In the end, the categories and subcategories were analyzed by tallying their frequencies, which were then represented using tables.


4. Findings and Discussion
As regards language sub-competence, while Iranian programs mostly focus on receptive and productive skills as well as such components as grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, foreign peer programs offer quite variegated courses such as etymology, text analysis, appreciating written texts, language consolidation for translation and interpreting purposes, business communication, communication skills, language and communication studies, health communication, characteristics of specialized texts, text analysis for translation, creative writing, intensive writing, advanced native language, native language skills for translation, multilingual debate, conversation analysis, analysis of persuasive texts, language fluency for interpreters, native language for conference interpreters, native language fluency enhancement, editing in native language writing, native language in audio-visual translation, documentation and terminology for translation, lexicology, applied terminology, and foreign language semantic factoring.
When it comes to culture sub-competence, there are only a total number of 6 culture courses contained in the curricula of Iranian B.A and M.A. programs. What adds fuel to this flame of failure to cover culture adequately is that some of the courses (e.g., ‘cultural elements in two languages’ and ‘culture and sociology in translation) are electives, allowing Iranian universities either not to offer them at all or, in the best scenario, suffice to offering only one (Rezvani &Vakilinejad, 2012). This is while foreign peer programs offer a multitude of various courses intended to form students’ cultural competence, such as communication across cultures, subjects in culture and communication, variation and change, discourse analysis, discourse and power, language and power, language and culture, culture and conflict, intercultural studies, intercultural communication, cross-cultural perspectives on society, representation of cultures, intercultural perspectives on sustainable development, institutional discourse, changing topics from the intercultural communication area, culture and business, advanced intercultural communication/negotiations, advanced political and legal communication, and advanced health communication.
According to the Iranian experts, national B.A. programs are afflicted with such problems as applicants’ not having good commands of English language proficiency (agreeing with Behafarin, 2015; Hadipour, 2017; Riazi & Razmjou, 2004; Yousefi, 2014; Ziahosseiny, 2003) and Persian language proficiency (consistent with Behafarin, 2015; Miremadi, 2003; Riazi & Razmjou, 2004) and their ill-informedness about the nature and requirements of the program. The said experts argued that Iranian M.A. programs suffer from such deficiencies as admission of applicants who are mostly ill-informed about the nature and requirements of the program (consistent with Birjandi & Nosratinia, 2009), unsatisfactory admission system, applicants’ not having good commands of Persian and English proficiency (compatible with Miremadi, 2003), and inadequate prerequisite courses for the students not having done their B.A. in translation. Added to these are out-of-date curricula and departments’ lack of adequate autonomy to determine admission criteria.
When asked about how the B.A. situation could be improved, the interviewees suggested that admission criteria be made stricter (confirming Hadipour, 2017; Khazaee Farid & Khoshsaligheh, 2010) by adding independent English and Persian proficiency tests to the current entrance exam and including English and Persian writing competence tests in the same; departments be given autonomy on admitting applicants using admission interviews; applicants be required to provide an acceptable TOEFL or IELTS score; an English proficiency placement test be given to newly admitted students (compatible with Ziahosseiny, 2003); courses on Persian language reading, writing, and editing (consistent with Khoshsaligheh, 2014; Miremadi, 2003; Riazi & Razmjou, 2004; Sohrabi, Rahimi & Arjmandi, 2015) as well as courses on English and Persian cultures (in agreement with Behafarin, 2015; Khoshsaligheh, 2010; Salari & Khazaee Farid, 2015) be added to the curricula; the present curricula be revised by modeling successful leading programs worldwide (agreeing with Heydarian, 2003; Khazaee Farid, 2001; Miremadi, 2003); and textbooks be localized.
As a way out of the current M.A. situation, the Iranian experts proposed that the current entrance exam be made stricter by adding an admission interview and a practical translation aptitude test in the form of essay questions; stricter language proficiency criteria be established by requiring applicants to provide an acceptable TOEFL or IELTS score; applicants not having done their B.A. in translation either not be admitted or be required to provide an English proficiency certificate; courses directed at training political and journalistic text translators and localization experts be included in the curriculum; courses be directed at training specialized translators and interpreters; courses such as Localization, Foundations of History, Editing and Proofreading, CDA and Translation, and Foundations of Culture and Sociology be included in the curriculum; the course Sociocultural Studies in Translation be offered as a compulsory course; and the present curricula be revised by modeling successful leading programs worldwide (confirming Heydarian, 2003; Khazaee Farid, 2001; Miremadi, 2003).

5. Innovation and Contribution
Upon integrating the findings of the two phases of the study, we prepared a list of course topics jointly recommended by the interviewees and extracted from the curricula of peer overseas programs. The principal contribution of the present research is that it emphasizes the necessity of revising the current curricula in line with maximum coverage of topics proposed as a list of Persian LC topics, English LC topics, and Joint LC topics. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that this list is based both on Iranian experts’ views and the insights gained from the curricula of a total of 93 foreign peer programs offered by leading universities worldwide. The said list can prove very useful for both revising the current curricula and devising new ones. It is axiomatic that the proposed LC course topics are too many to be assigned individual courses. This is why they have been labeled ‘course topics’, which implies that when revising the exiting curricula or devising new ones, curriculum designers need to merge several related course topics in one single course. In addition, these course topics have been proposed with an eye to designing autonomous translation, interpreting, and audiovisual translation programs, concentrations, and specialized tracks.


 

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  The use of productive microorganisms in the production of primary and secondary metabolites is part of the knowledge of microbial biotechnology, which is carried out with the aim of using huge cellular factories and considering their inherent and latent ability to produce products. Investigating and optimizing the factors affecting the synthesis of metabolites will increase the growth of the strain and the yield of the product. In this regard, in this research, by using the response surface method (RSM) and Box-Behnken design, the fermentation production of cephalosporin C by Acromonium chrysogenum PTCC 5271, and the effect of three factors on the fermentation process, including pH of Fermentation culture media, rice bran and magnetite iron oxide nanoparticles have been measured at three levels. The obtained results showed that changes in the concentration of magnetite iron oxide nanoparticles and rice bran in the fermentation media significantly affect the amount of antibiotics produced. The highest amount of Cephalosporin C produced (224 mg/l) was obtained in the culture containing 0.04 mg/l magnetite iron oxide nanoparticles, 2.5 g/l rice bran and pH of 6.5. The optimized values ​​for the factors were calculated as 0.0325 mg/l, 2.6162 g/l, and 6.4545 respectively by the Mini Tab program, and finally the mathematical model for the response variable was obtained. Based on the results of this research, magnetite iron oxide nanoparticles and rice bran are suitable substrates in fermentation culture media and biological processes.

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Single-walled carbon nano tube (SWCNT) is used as a buffer layer to improve the performance of polymer solar cells. The buffer layer is located between the active layer and the cathode electrode in the solar cell structure such as PET/ITO/PEDOT:PSS/MEH-PPV:C60 (1:2)/SWCNT/Al. SWCNTs act as tunnels to help electron collection by cathode electrode, prevent the randomly movement of electrons, leading to the reduction of recombination at the interfaces after dissociation. By implementing this method, the short circuit current (J_sc) of fabricated solar cells increases from 20% to 40% depending on the solvent and the open circuit voltage (V_oc) reduces slightly. Since the type of solvent has an important effect on the properties of fabricated solar cells, the active layer was spin coated using three different solvents which were Chlorobenzene, 1, 2-Dichlorobenzene and Toluene. The best performance was achieved for the device fabricated using Chlorobenzene. The resulted output powers using Chlorobenzene, 1, 2-Dichlorobenzene and Toluene were 10.04 µW/cm², 7.59 µW/cm² and 1.74 µW/cm² respectively.  

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The investigation of failure modes of plates and behavior of various resistive structures to destructive effects of explosive waves, due to its importance in design of blast resistive structures, has been of interest to researchers for a long time. In this study, three different methods of numerical simulation of blast wave issues were carried out to evaluate and compare with the experimental results. As a consequence, by the means of study of clamped isotropic square plates under shock wave loading from various weight and distance of charges, the couple of ALE and ConWep methods were approved to have 8.54 per cent error in comparison with ALE and ConWep methods individually. Given that in the coupled approach and ConWep method, the equivalent weight of TNT for different types of explosives is needed, the equivalent weight of TNT for C4 was estimated by 1.14, and according to the empirical pressure-time chart and empirical equation for pressure in the air, this coefficient was proved to be right and the pressure and impulse charts for TNT and C4 explosives with the same weights was studied.

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Baluchi sheep is considered as the most common breed in Iran, constituting about 30% of total sheep population, approximately 15 million heads. This research was designed to study the incidence of mutation in two loci of IGF-I (Exon 3) and ADRB3 (Intron) along with their association with body weight traits in Baluchi sheep population. Following DNA extraction from 190 Baluchi sheep, two pairs of primers were designed to amplify each gene. PCR-SSCP (Single-Strand Conformation Polymorphism) and DNA sequencing were employed to detect polymorphism of the mentioned genes. Two banding patterns were detected for IGF-I locus. The frequencies of AA, AB were recorded as 0.89, 0.11, respectively in IGF-I locus. As for ADRB3, two patterns corresponding with two genotypes (their frequencies mentioned in parentheses) of AA (0.85) and AB (0.15) were identified. One SNP change was observed in ADRB3, and one in IGF-I. A previously reported SNP was detected in exon 3 of IGF-I. The effects of IGF-I and ADRB3 polymorphism on the corrected phenotypes for body weight at birth (BW), weaning (WW), 6 months of age (6MW), 9 months of age (9MW) and 12 months of age or Yearling Weight (YW) were examined using least square methods. No significant association was detected between the polymorphism of IGF-I and body weights. As for ADRB3, the genotype AA was found out to exert a significant positive effect on 6MW (AA, 30.20±1.85 kg day^-1; AB, 27.67±1.98 kg day^-1; P<0.05).

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Spirulina platensis is biomass rich in protein, iron and amino acids, vitamins, unsaturated fatty acids, antioxidants, and minerals. The aim of producing dairy desserts with Spirulina platensis is to create varieties in consumer food products, develop dairy products, and create enjoyable foods with nutritional characteristics appropriate for various age groups, especially children. The effect of multiple levels of spirulina (1-3% by weight), stevioside sweetener (0.5-1.5% by weight), and corn starch (1-3% by weight) on the characteristics of a dairy dessert were examined. Moreover, formulation optimization with variables at different levels was determined by applying the response surface method (RSM). The results indicated that the most influential parameter in the color, protein, and iron of dessert samples was the amount of spirulina. The amount of corn starch significantly affected the dessert tissuechr('39')s springiness, gumminess, chewing ability, stiffness, and viscosity in all samples (p<0.05). According to the results, the optimal sample formulation was selected with stevia composition at 0.05%, Spirulina platensis at 3%, and corn starch at 1% with a utility coefficient of 0.96. The optimal sample in the production laboratory and chemical, rheological, and color parameters were also evaluated. The results showed that the difference between the samples produced based on the optimal formulation and the values predicted by the software was not significant, indicating the modelchr('39')s high efficiency in predicting the quality properties of the produced dessert.