One third of the worldwide disease burden – number of years lost due to disease – is caused by brain diseases, such as dementia, Parkinson’s and brain cancer (DiLuca and Olesen 2014). With an aging population, this burden is expected to rise. Despite the global effort to develop new treatments, there are still no effective drugs for these diseases. One of the major reasons for the lack of succe...

Reliability acceptance sampling plans (RASPs) are used to determine the acceptability of a collection of units (e.g., a lot) with respect to lifetime. Most of the previous works on RASPs assume that life tests are conducted at the use or accelerated conditions. For high-reliability units, however, adopting life tests may easily turn out to be impractical in terms of the sample size and the amou...

During a survey of soil nematodes in Iran, three species of predatory nematodes, including a new species of the genus Mylonchulus Cobb, 1916 were recovered. Mylonchulus kermaniensis sp. n. is characterised by its body length (1.2-1.4 mm), six rows of rasp-like denticles, the sixth line consisting of four denticles, female tail slightly sigmoid, sharply bent ventrad with digitate posterior porti...

Mormyrid electric fish rely on the waveform of their electric organ discharges (EODs) for communicating species, sex, and social status, while they use the sequences of pulse intervals (SPIs) for communicating rapidly changing behavioral states and motivation. Little is known of electric signaling during courtship behavior because of two major difficulties: (1) the fish are not easily bred in c...

1. Rhythmic fictive feeding was recorded from the motoneurones of the buccal ganglia of Lymnaea stagnalis. The times of the action potentials were recorded by microcomputer and the lengths of the three phases (Nl, N2 and N3) making up each feeding cycle were determined. 2. During spontaneous rhythmic fictive feeding in Lymnaea stagnalis the cycle period varied randomly. 3. Most of the variation...

Thrips (Order: Thysanoptera; Family: Thripidae) are insects that suck epidermal lymph after biting and are endowered with raspingsucking mouthparts. They live in huge niches and include phytophagous, fungivorous and predacious species. Thrips are often overlooked as they are small in size, move rapidly and are light in colour. However, thrips may become a nuisance when they swarm and land on ex...

Phylogenetic relationships of Iranian Acanthodactylus species were investigated using 1407 bp of mitochondrial DNA including 606 bp of cytochrome b and 801 bp of NADH dehydrogenase subunit 4 (ND4). Analyses done with maximum parsimony, maximum-likelihood, and Bayesian inference included 67 specimens from 27 geographically distinct localities in Iran. Our molecular results proposed three clear a...

Two new species of particular biogeographic significance are described from the upper rio Paraguay basin, one genus Paracanthopoma (Trichomycteridae, Vandelliinae) and other Ernstichthys (Aspredinidae, Hoplomyzontinae). The two occur sympatrically in Rio Taquarizinho, tributary Taquari, system. saci is distinguished its only congener, P. parva, by a spatulate caudal peduncle; minuscule premaxil...

cumin is an annual plant suitable for dry and semi-dry regions. it is harvested at two stages to prevent seed shedding. first, the cumin bushes are harvested by hand or using a scythe. after drying, the cumin bushes are beaten with a stick or trampled using animals or a small tractor. this harvesting method is time consuming, requires intensive labor and is an incomplete threshing process resul...