Russian ( Acipenser gueldenstaedtii), Persian ( A. persicus) and Siberian ( A. baerii) sturgeons are closely related 'Ponto-Caspian' species. Investigation of their population structure is an important problem, the solution of which determines measures for conservation of these species. According to previous studies, 'baerii-like' mitotypes were found in the Caspian Sea among 35% of Russian stu...

This study was conducted at the Bukhara breeding centre (Ouzbekistan, Central Asia) on Persian gazelles (Gazella subgutturosa subgutturosa) and at Thumammah (Saudi Arabia) on sand gazelles (Gazella subgutturosa marica). Plasma prolactin (PRL) and progesterone were determined in groups of females. Because these females were under two different photoperiods (20 degrees N in Saudi Arabia and 40 de...

BACKGROUND Neonatal adrenoleucodystrophy (NALD) is a rare disorder resulting from abnormal peroxisomal biogenesis. Affected patients present in infancy with developmental delay, hypotonia, and seizures. Blindness and nystagmus are prominent features. The authors suggest a characteristic leopard spot pigmentary pattern in the peripheral retina to be diagnostic. METHODS Three patients are repor...

We collected semen from a male Amur leopard cat using the transrectal electroejaculation method and investigated the semen qualities for about four years. In addition, the influence of the season on the spermatogenic function of the Amur leopard cat was investigated with regard to the semen qualities, testicular volume and serum testosterone level. As a result, we could collect semen with good ...

In this paper, we address the shortage of evaluation benchmarks on Persian (Farsi) language by creating and making available a new benchmark for English to Persian Cross Lingual Word Sense Disambiguation (CL-WSD). In creating the benchmark, we follow the format of the SemEval 2013 CL-WSD task, such that the introduced tools of the task can also be applied on the benchmark. In fact, the new benc...

Phylogenetic relationships among the species of true frogs (Rana) from North, South, and Central America were investigated based on the sequences of approximately 2 kb from the mitochondrial genome, sampled from most of the described species, as well as eight undescribed species. This analysis, combined with previous studies of the phylogeny of New World Rana, served as the basis for a revised ...

Classification evaluation metrics are often used to evaluate adaptive tutoring systems— programs that teach and adapt to humans. Unfortunately, it is not clear how intuitive these metrics are for practitioners with little machine learning background. Moreover, our experiments suggest that existing convention for evaluating tutoring systems may lead to suboptimal decisions. We propose the Learne...

We characterized 15 microsatellite loci for the lowland leopard frog (Rana yavapaiensis) and the relict leopard frog (R. onca) for future studies of population genetic structure and relatedness. Analysis of 20 individuals from single populations of each species showed that all markers were polymorphic in at least one species. Observed and expected heterozygosities ranged from 0 to 0.94 and from...

BACKGROUND Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a gastrointestinal disease that is accompanied by pain, diarrhea, constipation and abdominal bloating. Hence, IBS has a major effect on patients' quality of life. OBJECTIVES The present study aimed to examine validity and reliability of the Persian version of the IBS-QOL questionnaire in Iran. PATIENTS AND METHODS The original 34 items of the IBS...