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The present study aims to investigate the distribution of meaning in the narrative space of Abu Torab Khosravi's novel "Rood Ravi" drawing on the views of Yuri Lotman (1922-1993), a prominent semiotician and founder of the Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics. Lotman posits that active sign systems within specific social and geographical contexts derive their significative power from their interaction with a large body of signs present in the collective memory of the people of that context. In his book “Universe of the Mind” (Lotman, 1990), he refers to this conglomeration of signs as the "semiosphere," which he characterizes by features such as boundary, heterogeneity, and centrality. According to Lotman, significative density within the semiosphere is not uniform, and the density of meaning increases as one moves from peripheral regions to the center with cultural meta-structures charging more elements with meanings in the central regions. The study adopts a descriptive-analytical approach to investigate how temporal-spatial elements and character actions acquire meaning in the narrative space as the story progresses towards the center of Dar al-Miftah. The findings suggest that cultural meta-structures load more elements with signification in the central regions, resulting in a higher concentration of meanings in these areas.

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Virtual platforms can be an effective tool for evaluating students' performance. However, their success depends on the effective use of digital tools, teacher preparedness, and the adoption of appropriate communication approaches. The current research aimed at scrutinizing the relation between the digital competencies of English Language Teachers (ELT) of three Universities of Misan, Baghdad, and Mustansiriyah with the usage of digital tools for distance teaching during the contingency of COVID-19 in the academic year 2020-2021. The study is a quantitative type accompanied with a correlational scope and a non-experimental cross-sectional design. 98 ELT teachers participated in the study. Two instruments were applied to carry out the gathering of information; these instruments were Likert surveys sent through Google Forms, one had 17 items and was aimed to measure the use of the digital tools, while the other had 20 items and was aimed to measure the digital competencies. The overall conclusions of the study revealed the existence of a strong positive correlation between the level of digital competencies and the use of digital tools in the professors of the University of Misan, University of Baghdad, and University of Mustansiriyah, the professors of these schools mentioned a strong trend to always use the digital tools in their pedagogical tasks. The differences found probably were influenced by other variables that are not part of the target in this study such as age, working experience, among others.

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Evaluation of Liver Enzymes’ Level in Blood Serum of Crystal Addicts Introduction: Crystal or dimetamphetamine is one of the harmful substances which are imported to Iran in the last few years. Crystal is made of pure heroin. Its harmful effects are more than heroin. Addiction to crystal can produce psychological and organ damage. In order to find out which part of body could be affected, examination of enzymes is useful. Liver is one of the organs which can be infected by drug abuse. Liver function test can be used to show these harmful effects. The aim of the present study is to exanimate of the effects of crystal abuse on liver enzymes such as Aspartat transaminase, Alanine transaminase and Alkaline phosphatase in crystal abusers. Materials & Methods: The current study is a case-control and cross-sectional study on 105 crystal addicted as case group who had referred to addiction treatment center for the first time and 100 healthy people as control group. The activity of enzymes was measured by callorimetery-spectrophotometry method. Results were analyzed by T-test exam and SPSS-16 software. Results: results show that using crystal increases the level of AST, ALT and ALP and there is a significant relationship between crystal abuse and the level of ALP (p=0.027). In addition, there is a significant relationship between duration of crystal use and the level of ALP (p<0.05). Conclusion: comparing with AST and ALT levels, ALP level is more affected by crystal abuse.

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The list of forty one subgenera of the genus Andrena from Iran is given. The list provided here is based on a detailed study of all available published data. Four subgenera and five species are recorded for the first time from Iran, including Andrena (Cnemidandrena) fuscipes (Kirby, 1802), Andrena (Lepidandrena) curvungula (Thomson, 1870), Andrena (Lepidandrena) pandellei (Pérez, 1895), Andrena (Parandrena) sericata (Imhoff, 1868) and Andrena (Platygalandrena) tecta (Radoszkowski, 1876). Ecological notes on the newly recorded species are briefly discussed.

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Race-specific resistance of wheat to yellow rust caused by Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici has been reported as short-lived. Partial resistance, a kind of quantitative resistance, has been reported to be more stable. Partial resistance in terms of slow rusting parameters including final rust severity (FRS), apparent infection rate (r), relative area under disease progress curve (rAUDPC), and coefficient of infection (CI) was evaluated in a set of twenty six wheat genotypes along with susceptible control during 2010-2011 cropping year. This study was conducted in field plots at Ardabil Agricultural Research Station (Iran) under natural infection conditions with twice artificial inoculation. Artificial inoculation was carried out by yellow rust inoculum having virulence against Yr2, Yr6, Yr7, Yr9, Yr22, Yr23, Yr24, Yr25, Yr26, Yr27, YrA, and YrSU. Seedling reaction was also evaluated in greenhouse by using race 66E0A+, Yr27+. Results of mean comparison for resistance parameters showed that, lines C-89-4, C-89-17 and C-89-16 along with susceptible had the highest values of FRS, CI, r and rAUDPC, therefore were selected as moderately susceptible or susceptible lines. The lines C-89-7, C-89-8, C-89-9, C-89-10, C-89-13, C-89-14 and C-89-20 had susceptible reactions at seedling stage and low level infection at adult plant stage. Accordingly these lines with low level of different parameters supposed to be having gene/s for varying degrees of partial resistance or high temperature adult plant resistance (HTAP) that can be used for future manipulation in wheat improvement program after confirmatory studies. The remaining lines (except for C-89-2) were immune or had low level of infection. Thus, these were selected as resistant lines. In this study correlation coefficient between different parameters of slow rusting was highly significant. Based on the results, the reaction of the studied genotypes to stripe rust varied from sensitive to immune.

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Background and Aim: Problems such as less working and aggression in organizations force organizations to reduce these behaviors and increase behaviors that are beneficial such as productivity for organization. One of the elements that create benefits like productivity in organization is Organizational Citizenship Behavior. The purpose of this research is Organizational Citizenship Behavior factor linkage appointment with human resources productivity among selected Hospitals of Tehran Medical Sciences University and Shahid Beheshti Medical Sciences University. Method and material: This research is done in six selected Hospitals of Tehran Medical Sciences University and Shahid Beheshti Medical Sciences University .The data are collected by distributing questionnaires among 429 staff of the hospitals via random 2-stage Sampling method. The research methodology is cross-sectional- descriptive and the type of research is a field study. In order to confirm or reject research hypotheses, we use Spearman Correlations and regression in SPSS software [version 16]. Results: The findings show that in personnels’ point of view, there is a significant correlation between Organizational Citizenship Behavior and staff's productivity in  

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The attitude or behavior, which is not based on logical actions- and cause and effect relations, has irrational origins;  it happens due to a person's fear, threat, habits, and the unknown factors which he she believes to prevent the unbecoming events, called “superstition”. An increase in the literacy level and the popular culture in the society leads to a decrease in superstitious beliefs. It must be acknowledged that even modern people cannot reject superstitions, or get rid of them actually. This study has examined the causes of these prevalent beliefs and the way people apply them, via content analysis. Although the prevalence of superstition origins is established on irrational bases, people have applied them to gain benefit by impelling and propagating the folklore, preventing harm by inhibition, alleviation, turning the evil (scapegoat), and empathy.

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  Morphological and morphometric characters of two species of superfamily Sphaerularioidea, recovered in southwestern Iran namely Deladenus durus and Prothallonema obtusum are given. The recovered specimens of D. durus are characterized by having a valvular chamber in metacorpus and excretory pore posterior to the hemizonid.The Iranian population of P. obtusum is characterized by having four lines in the lateral field, excretory pore anterior to the end of pharynx, not bulgy vulva region and short subcylindrical tail.

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Little is known about the levels and physiological role of endogenous abscisic acid (ABA) during after-ripening and germination. Genetic variants for ABA content were investigated to account for the role of ABA in the persistence of seed dormancy. In this study, genotypic variation in ABA contents at Zadok’s Growth Stage 92 (ZGS 92), temporal changes in ABA during two physiological stages (after-ripening and water uptake), and responsiveness of wheat seed to applied ABA at different concentrations, of two tetraploid and two hexaploid wheat genotypes were examined during 1996 and 97. A combined analysis of variance indicated no significant differences in ABA among genotypes at ZGS 92. During the early stages of germination, endogenous ABA in the caryopses of the four wheat genotypes was analyzed. The results showed a transient increase in ABA content (up to 4 hours) occurring first during imbibition, followed by a decline up to 12 hours and an increase thereafter. ABA declined in all genotypes during seven weeks of after-ripening (dry storage). The four genotypes had reductions in ABA up to 4 weeks of after-ripening. An increase in ABA was observed during the fourth and fifth weeks of after- ripening with a decline after seven weeks. ABA had a little effect on germination index at the lower temperature (10 °C). Our results suggested that wheat grains are able to synthesize ABA during imbibition. However, no significant differences between dormant and non-dormant genotypes were detected. A decrease in ABA during after-ripening could have a role in loss of seed dormancy.

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Pseudoparasitus talebii Nemati, Malekshah-koohi & Afshari n. sp. is described and illustrated based on female specimens collected from soil in Golestan province, Gorgan region, Iran. The definition of Pseudoparasitus oudemans is revised and new definition is presented.    

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Proper solubilization after precipitation and keeping the purified proteins in solution during the whole separation process are very critical to achieve accurate and high resolution patterns in two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE). Chaotropes and detergents are embedded in the sample and rehydration buffers in order to prevent hydrophobic interactions between the hydrophobic protein domains and avoid loss of proteins due to aggregation and precipitation. Unfortunately, detergents used for IEF must bear no net electrical charge and only week nonionic and zwitterionic detergents may be used in this process. Because of the low solubility of proteins at or very close to their isoelectric point, it seems that choice of chaotropes and detergents can dramatically affect on2D separations, especially in the case of very hydrophobic proteomes. Considering the physico-chemical heterogeneity of tear film protein content, it is deemed that solubilization can play an important role in 2D tear proteome analysis. So herein, we investigated the effect of some various detergents and chaotropes on the solubility of tear proteome during the sample preparation and IEF process. The results illustrated a very poor performance of non-ionic detergents (Triton­X-100 and Tween­80). Zwitterionic detergents (CHAPS and SB­3-10) had a better solubilization power and provided more reliable 2D maps. Last of all a great improvement in spot number and 2D resolution is achieved using a combination of urea/Thiourea in rehydration buffer and application of SDS in the sample buffer with a modified protocol, which ensures complete removal of anionic detergent during the first step of IEF and its replacement with the zwitterionic CHAPS.  

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Since his creation, the human has been concerned with the protection of his life and properties by any means possible such as exploring the surrounding environment, fighting against the threats facing him, and using a variety of tools and instruments. Among these tools was scorching. Scorching has been ever used for two main purposes by the human: marking and treatment. However, one cannot claim with certainty which application was the dominant one. In this study, the author has first dealt with the marking aspect and then with the treatment function. In its former function, scorching was practiced on the body organs of the slaves, enemies, and animals in order to distinguish and take ownership of them, and with criminals as a sign of guilt. In the latter function, it was used, according to some reports, as the last treatment possible for curing different diseases in both humans and animals. The most important therapeutic application of scorching was on wounds to stop bleeding and prevent infection. In the present research, both functions have been examined and classified with reference to the Persian literature, history, and folk culture.

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The role of sports sociology is to explain and better understand the phenomenon of sports and its function. There are many researches in the field of sports sociology in Iran. But, a general look at these researches' status, findings, and approaches is needed. This study was conducted with the aim of a systematic review of sports sociology research in Iran. The research method was qualitative and developmental. This research, as a secondary study, has been done with a systematic review approach. The research sample consisted of 19 articles published in domestic scientific research journals between 1390 and 1400, which were extracted from "Noormags," "Magiran," "SID," and "Ensani" databases. The research results showed that the conducted studies can be categorized in the two general categories of social function of sports in 28 subcategories and social participation of sports in 119 subcategories. The subcategories such as social order, social cohesion, aggression, abnormal behavior, moral behavior, social policy, social trust, and hooliganism can be classified under a more general category called the social function of sports. Also, subcategories such as culturing sports for all, sports participation of women based on gender norms, sports participation of the disabled, participation in sports activities of women and men, social consequences of participation in sports, sports participation of the elderlies are categorized in the concept of "social participation in sports." The most important research gap observed in the studies of the sociology of sports is related to the field of cultural behaviors, including the cultural behaviors of spectators, such as slogans and activities of spectators in sports venues.
 

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In the domain of the Ezafe construction in Persian, sometimes, there is found a DP known as the possessor. This article aims at establishing the process of possessor raising in Persian within the Minimalist program (Chomsky 1995).  To do this, it is argued that in the domain of the Ezafe construction in Persian, a syntactic constituent may be merged in the spec of the nP where it receives its possessor theta role. This constituent, then, raises to the spec of the dominating DP to get its [+definite] feature checked along the lines of Ritter (1991, 1992). This is a novel proposal for Persian and is important in that it takes the possessor DP as bearing a theta role and leads to the classification of Persian as a language with definite like possessive construction.  

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Biological and demographic parameters of the mealybug ladybird, Cryptolaemus montrouzieri (Mulsant) were evaluated on citrus mealybug, Planococcus citri (Risso) and obscure mealybug, Pseudococcus viburni (Signoret) under 24 ± 2 ºC, 80 ± 5% relative humidity and a photoperiod of 16:8 (L: D) h. The mealybugs had a significant effect on developmental time and reproductive and demographic parameters of the ladybird. Life span (egg to adult death) was obtained 220.85 ± 5.78 and 119.44 ± 2.1 days when fed on Pl. citri and Ps. viburni, respectively. However, mean number of eggs per female (fecundity) and mean percent of egg hatching were significantly higher on Ps. viburni than on Pl. citri. In addition, values of intrinsic rate of increase (r_m), finite rate of increase (λ) andnet reproductive rate (R₀) were significantly higher on Ps. viburni than on Pl. citri.The values of intrinsic rate of increase were estimated 0.081and 0.094 day^-1 on Pl. citri and Ps. viburni, respectively. Results of this study suggested that the obscure mealybug is a more suitable prey than the citrus mealybug as the ladybird displayed shorter developmental time, and higher fecundity and growth rate when fed with obscure mealybug.  

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Culture filtrates (CF) of two species of the nematophagous fungi, Arthrobotrys oligospora and Arthrobotrys conoidesat three concentrations (25%, 50% and 100%) of stock, were tested on the mortality of second stage juveniles (J2) and egg hatching rate of Meloidogyne incognita and Meloidogyne javanica. Results showed that the percent juvenile mortality was directly proportional to concentration of the filtrates. Egg hatching rate of these nematodes was inversely affected by increasing concentrations. Also CFs had various impacts on the mortality of J2 and egg hatching rate. In case of M. incognita maximum J2 mortality (28.98%) occurred after 24 hours of exposure to A. conoides filtrate at concentration of 100%. The minimum toxicity (12.5% J2 mortality) was recorded for A. oligospora at 25% filtrate concentration. At the same time, the highest rate of J2 mortality of M. javanica (19.18%) belonged to the 100% concentration of A. conoides, while minimum toxicity belonged to 25% concentration of A. oligospora causing 9.09% mortality. Maximum egg hatching rate for M. incognita (30.75%) belonged to control and minimum hatching rate (1.25%) belonged to 100% concentration of A. conoides. The highest hatching rate of M. javanica (36.25%)belonged to control and minimum hatching rate (1.25%) occurred at 100% concentration of A. conoides.

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Research subject: In this study, EDTA-functionalized Fe₃O₄@SiO₂ magnetic nanocomposites with core-shell structure were synthesized to remove divalent cadmium ions from aqueous solutions.
Research approach: During the first step, Fe₃O₄@SiO₂ nanosphere core-shell is synthesized using nano Fe₃O₄ as the core, TEOS as the silica source and PVA as the surfactant. This strategy relies on the covalently bonding of ethylendiaminetetraacetic acid to bis(3-aminopropyl)amine and cyanuric chloride functionalized magnetic nanoparticles. In the next step, characteristics of surface functional groups, crystal structure, magnetic properties, size and surface morphology of these nanoparticles were investigated, identified and analyzed using physico-chemical characterization techniques including fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), dynamic light scattering (DLS), vibration sample magnetometry (VSM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analyzer.  The adsorbent, due to its magnetic property, could be simply separated from the reaction mixture by a permanent magnet and reused in five consecutive cycles without considerable loss in its activity.
Main results: To probe the nature of the adsorbent, various experiments were investigated like adsorbent dose and contact time were optimized. Kinetic studies and the effect of different amounts of adsorbent to remove divalent cadmium ions from aqueous solutions show a maximum adsorption of 94% at ambient temperature. Moreover, the recyclability of Fe₃O₄@SiO₂-EDTA was investigated in order to remove the divalent cation for successive adsorption-desorption cycles. All the results of studies show that the synthetic nanocomposite Fe₃O₄@SiO₂-EDTA is an effective, recyclable adsorbent with excellent performance for the removal of divalent cadmium.

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Background and purpose:
As protective elements are related to human life, the elements of Amulet are important in all cultures. In any society, people determine some elements for self-preservation and also to preserve their family and properties_ elements that are mostly supernal. One of these solutions is the use of Amulets. Mysterious aspects of Amulets puts them in the center of mythological and semantic connotation so that the elements are sometimes considered as a taboo or as a holy object and totem. Signs of this duality are seen among nations which is the reason of sacredness and mysteriousness of this elements. The Amulet has a great importance in the universal system of beliefs where  Iranian people’s culture is not the case of exception . The most important function of Amulets is still related to their protective role. Elements that are used to fight demons away, to enslave or kill evil forces and attract the positive and beneficial forces. Believers use various elements of Amulet depending on the kind of problems and injuries; so sometimes even profane and impure elements are used to ward off evil forces and beings. Several studies about the Amulet are adopted from foreign travelogues. Some of these investigators who have noted sporadically to Amulets and other magical elements include: Wishard in "Twenty years in Iran", Wales in "Iran a century ago", Layard in "Layard’s travelogue", Rice in "Iranian women and their way of life", Olivie in "Olivie’s travelogue", Willem Floor in "Social history of Iran during the Qajar era", Pollock in "Pollock’s travelogue", Henry Patnchr in "Traveling in Sindh and Balochistan." In addition to the above-mentioned researchers in the field of 
Amulets, some studies have been conducted amongst them it can refer to: "Magic, Amulet and Amulet and Women's World in Qajar era" by Dariush Rahmaniyan and Zahra Hatami, “Amulet in Khaghani’s poetry" by Abbas Mahyar, and "Bātel-o-ssehr" encyclopedic entry by Ali Bolukbashi.
 
Materials and methods:
Using documents and observations of the authors, in this study, the authors have tried to explore the beliefs of the people in Kerman and identify elements of Amulet and determine their functions as influential elements in people’s life, and in the end, they have showed their supernatural position.
Findings:
In this study, all kinds of Amulet, their classification and mechanisms of Amulets influence in the belief system of the research community are studied. The studied community accepts Amulets to ward off evil and as one of the most important mediators to benefit attraction, so that they are an integral aspect of their lives. Most of the Amulets used, are sacred and play a role as an absorber or mediator to absorb disasters and attract benefits, so they are victims to ward off disaster from the injured person. In general, we can express the mechanisms of effect of the Amulets in the studied community as follows: The Amulets, because of their sacredness, attract benefits and goodness and transfer them to the person utilizing them and ,on the other hand, because of their special power, they ward off the disasters and evil and  prevent them from passing to and hurt the utilizer. Contempt of a Amulet, reverses the mechanism of its effects: Benefits are prevented and the evil is attracted. Benefiting and harming mechanisms of Amulets act according to distance, i. e., Amulets benefit or harm the closest person.
 
Discussion and conclusion:
This study showed that Amulet elements can have an important role in creating a sense of physical and psychological security for mankind. According to authors, the function of the Amulet, is not only an attempt to survive but also a concept beyond that including the worldly and otherworldly life of the believers.

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Tenothrips hispanicus (Bagnall) was collected from Fars province, south of Iran. This is the first report of the species from Iran. Characterization of the species, comparison with its close species, T. frici (Uzel) as well as their illustrations are provided.