Drought Monitoring Using the Multivariate Standardized Precipitation Index (MSPI)

One major characteristic of the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) is its flexibility to be calculated in a variety of time scales and hence being aware of different types of droughts. However, various time scales may result in confusion of the water resources’ researchers, decision makers and users in identifying and specifying drought periods in a certain region. To solve this problem in this article, a multivariate approach has been utilized having the ability to aggregate a variety of the SPI time series into a new time series called the Multivariate Standardized Precipitation Index (MSPI). The MSPI is based on the principal components analysis (PCA) of the SPI time series in a certain location. Having specified the first principal component’s (PC₁’s) scores, the MSPI would be simply attained by dividing PC₁’s values by the monthly standard deviation. In this article, MSPI’s capability in depicting the variability of the SPI time series (in five ranges of time scales, including 3–6, 6–12, 3–12, 12–24, and 24–48 months) was studied at four weather stations representing the four different climates in Iran from the driest to the wettest climates. The results showed that the PC₁ is able to justify more than 74 % of the variability for the selected sets of the SPI time scales in the studied climates. Also, it became clear that the drought and wet severity classes monitored by MSPIs matched very satisfyingly to those of the five sets of the SPI time scales. Therefore, in cases where the aggregation time scales for calculating the SPI are not previously known, this study recommends the researchers use the MSPI.     

Dipyridamole recognition and controlled release by uniformly sized molecularly imprinted nanospheres

We used novel synthetic conditions of precipitation polymerization to obtain uniformly sized molecularly imprinted nanospheres of dipyridamole for application in the design of new drug delivery systems. In addition, the morphology, drug release, and binding properties of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) were studied, and the effects of morphology on other properties were investigated. The MIPs prepared by acetonitrile/chloroform (19:1, v/v) were uniformly sized nanospheres with an average mean diameter of approximately 88 nm at a wetted state, 50 nm at a dry state, and a polydispersity index of 0.062. The imprinted nanospheres showed excellent binding properties and had 62.7% of template binding compared with 17.1% of its blank polymer. The imprinted nanospheres with 67.5 (mg template/of polymer) of binding capacity had better imprinting efficiency than the 50.5% of binding capacity shown by irregularly shaped MIP particles that were prepared by chloroform. The molecular binding abilities of imprinted nanospheres in human serum were evaluated by HPLC analysis (binding about 77% of dipyridamole). Results from release experiments of MIPs showed a very slow, controlled, and satisfactory release of dipyridamole. The loaded drug was released up to 99% in 17 days for nanospheres and 22 days for irregularly shaped particles.     

Qualitative analysis of ganoderic acids in Ganoderma lucidum from Iran and China by RP-HPLC and electrospray ionisation-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS)

Ganoderma lucidum is used as a health food and medicine in Far East and produces different ganoderic acids which are well known for their valuable bioactivities. In this study, two different strains of G. lucidum from Iran and China were investigated for ganoderic acids, using reversed phase HPLC (RP-HPLC) in combination with UV and electrospray ionisation-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). The results showed a relatively low intensity ganoderic acid C2 peak in the chromatogram of the Iranian sample. However, three high intensity peaks attributed to the well known ganoderic acids including ganoderic acids T, Me and H from the Chinese strain. These findings clearly indicated that different strains of G. lucidum could posses a range of active compounds and hence, bioactivities. Moreover, the variation in the triterpenoid components encourages more studies on the rest of bioactive molecules, and also different strains grown in a variety of climatic and geographical conditions.     

A novel low-power full-adder cell for low voltage

This paper presents a novel low-power majority function-based 1-bit full adder that uses MOS capacitors (MOSCAP) in its structure. It can work reliably at low supply voltage. In this design, the time-consuming XOR gates are eliminated. The circuits being studied are optimized for energy efficiency at 0.18-μm CMOS process technology. The adder cell is compared with seven widely used adders based on power consumption, speed, power-delay product (PDP) and area efficiency. Intensive simulation runs on a Cadence environment and HSPICE show that the new adder has more than 11% in power savings over a conventional 28-transistor CMOS adder. In addition, it consumes 30% less power than transmission function adder (TFA) and is 1.11 times faster.     

Influence of applied time and power of ultrasonic pretreatment on convective drying of potato slices

Food Science and Biotechnology - Ultrasound is a novel technology that can be applied as a pretreatment for the convective drying in order to reduce its undeniable shortcomings. The objectives of...     

Foliar and stem epidermal anatomy of the tribe Cynoglosseae (Boraginaceae) and their taxonomic significance

Foliar and stem epidermal anatomical features of the tribe Cynoglosseae have been studied in detail for the taxonomic identification using light microscopy (LM) and scanning electron microscopic (SEM) techniques. A comparative study was conducted on different plant parts (leaf and stem epidermal anatomy) of 25 species belonging to eight genera of the tribe Cynoglosseae (Boraginaceae) collected from different phytogeographical regions of Iran for the first time. Different qualitative and quantitative characteristics were observed in detail using LM and SEM. Results showed that although generally the stem and leaf anatomical traits were similar, but some diagnostic features were examined for distinguishing the closely related genera in the tribe. The ratio of cortex/diameter of stem and phloem/xylem, the average row number of collenchyma, palisade and spongy cells, structure of trichomes, type of indumentum and palisade arrangement were found taxonomically important. The anatomical characters were statistically analyzed using cluster analysis and principal component analysis. The study found that stem and leaf eccentrics are variable in the genus but constant within species of the same genus. Most species had typical isobilateral leaves, but some showed an incipient dorsoventrally symmetry with a layer of abaxial palisade tissue. Eglandular trichomes were observed found in all the studied species, which were recognized based on structure and function. In present study some novel characters have been observed which are of great interest to the taxonomist for the correct identification some genera delimitations. The characters studied here are of less taxonomic value and delimitating at species level.     

Fe2MoO4 magnetic nanocomposite modified screen printed graphite electrode as a voltammetric sensor for simultaneous determination of nalbuphine and diclofenac

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - This study applied screen printed graphite electrode (SPGE) modified with the Fe2MoO4 magnetic nanocomposite for simultaneously determining...