ABSTRACT\nBACKGROUND: To investigate prevalence, clinicopathological and inflammatory correlates of non-diabetic \nnephropathy and diabetic nephropathy in patients with type 2 diabetes \nMETHODS: A total of 138 patients with type 2 DM who underwent renal biopsy in a tertiary care nephrology clinic \nfrom 1990 to 2008 were analyzed retrospectively. Patients were divided into three groups based on renal biopsy findings \nincluding isolated nondiabetic nephropathy (NDN), isolated diabetic nephropathy (DN) and diabetic plus nondiabetic \nnephropathy (Mixed). Data on patient demographics, co-morbidities, duration of diabetes, indications and findings of \nrenal biopsy, serological markers, renal function, diabetic retinopathy (DRP), hemogram, blood biochemistry, urinalysis \nand inflammatory markers were recorded.\nRESULTS: Renal biopsy revealed NDN in 75.4% of patients (isolated in 66.7%) with FSGS (52.2%), membranous \nnephropathy (13.0%) and Ig A nephropathy (13.0%) as the most common diagnoses. DN was evident in 24.6% of \npatients. Mixed was evident in 10.1% of patients including DN superimposed with membranous nephropathy (28.6%), \nFSGS (21.4%), ATN (14.3%) or lupus nephritis (14.3%). In comparison with isolated DN and mixed nephropathy groups, \npatients in the isolated NDN group had significantly shorter diabetes duration, lower likelihood of DRP, lower serum \nlevels for creatinine and higher eGFR and LDL. Isolated NDN was also associated with significantly lower median NLR \nand and PLRvalues compared to isolated DN and mixed nephropathy groups, respectively.\nCONCLUSIONS: Our findings revealed the high prevalence of non-diabetic nephropathy, as presented mainly in the \nform of primary glomerular disease in isolated non-diabetic nephropathy. The shorter duration of diabetes, better renal \nfunction), lower likelihood of DRP seem to indicate the higher likelihood of isolated non-diabetic nephropathy.

The methodology was developed for designing farmland zones with possible utilization in the projection of complex land adjustment or in the follow-up activities related to landscape forming and protection. The theory is based on the method of anthropo-ecological stabilization of landscape. The implementation of the method involves the delimitation of new landscape units within the study territory (AELU-landscape units, Os-objective subsystems, GES-geoecological sites). This was carried out according to earlier methodologies which were already published, and the spatial and functional projection is computer-aided and digitized. Each landscape unit determined this way contains three basic structures, which are represented in different proportion – natural scientific (P), anthropogenic (AG) and anthropic (AN). The representation of these structures determines the delimitation of four basic zones: A zone (the most valuable zone from the viewpoint of natural science), B zone (with the prevalence of biotic and abiotic elements), C zone (with anthropogenic activities) and D zone (the anthropogenic and anthropic structures are dominant in this zone). The A-D and A-C zone borders are solved by the proposals of biological, agricultural or technical character in order to achieve complex protection of A and B zones with the aim to strengthen the stability of the territory in question. The study presents the results from two model territories, namely the Jenín-Babí catchment and the Ostřice-Šumava catchment, where the methodology was successfully verified.

To study the effect of different fertilizers (chemical, manure and mixed) on quantitative and morphological traits of German chamomile (Matricaria chamomile), an experiment was carried out based on factorial randomized complete blocks design (RCBD) with three replications. Results indicated that the quantitative and morphological traits were significantly affected by different fertilizer treatments and ecotypes. The maximum of flower head diameters, length of flower head, number of lingual flowers and flower heads were obtained by application of mixed fertilizers in fall planting. The highest diameter of flower head was gained by Zabol ecotype in 100 % flowering stage in fall planting, however, the lowest flower head diameters was obtained by Isfahan ecotype in 50 % flowering stage in spring planting. The highest and lowest number of lingual flowers was gained by Isfahan ecotype (in 100% flowering stage in fall planting) and Zabol ecotype (in 50% flowering stage in spring planting). Dry weight of flower heads and amount of essence and essence yields were significantly affected by utilization of different fertilizer treatments and the highest dry weight of flower heads, amount of essence and essence yield was obtained by mixed fertilizers in compare with other treatments. The highest and the lowest essence yield were gained by Isfahan ecotype in fall planting and Tehran ecotype in spring planting.

RFID is a technology used for automatic identification. Since RFID information is transmitted through the air, it is vulnerable to modification, interception, or eavesdropping by radio frequency. Most researches focus on the security and privacy issue in RFID, regardless whether the reader should be able to identify multi-tags simultaneously in real-time or not. In 2010, Li et al. proposed a secure and efficient authentication protocol which enhances scalability function by using simple index. This study further demonstrates that their scheme could not resist denial of service attack. An improved protocol is proposed with the original advantage, and ability to prevent possible attacks in applications that requires high level of security.

Anionic detergents can be introduced into the environment by industrial wastewater. They causes water and soil pollution and are harmful to human beings. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Fenton and photo-Fenton process for removal of anionic surfactants from the aqueous solutions. The study was conducted on 200 mgL-1 Linear Alkyl benzene Sulfonate (LAS) as a model of anionic surfactants. Also, experiments were conducted on 100 to 800 mgL-1 hydrogen peroxide and 20 to 120 mgL-1 on ferrous ion at constant PH=3. All analysis of LAS test was performed based on Methylene Blue Active Substances (MBAS) method according to standard method book. The results of our study is shown that the mean removal efficiency of LAS in Fenton and photo-Fenton at 20 minutes reaction time for 100 mgL-1 constant concentration of hydrogen peroxide and 20 mgL-1 ferrous ion is 20.16 and 22.47% respectively which indicates the least removal, whereas, at 80 minutes reaction time for constant concentration of 800 mgL-1 hydrogen peroxide and 120 mgL-1 ferrous ion is 69.38 and 86.66% respectively which indicates the most removal. Also, LAS removal percentage for Fenton and photo-Fenton processes increases regard to H2O2, Fe2+concentration and contact time. It is concluded that LAS removal efficiency of photo-Fenton process is higher than Fenton. Also, in both processes anionic surfactants removal has serious dependence to reaction time and slight dependence to H2O2 and Fe2+ concentration. In conclusion, Fenton and photo-Fenton processes may be used for treating wastewaters containing high anionic surfactant concentration before discharging to environment.

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is considered as a food source in many countries as it particularly rich in carbohydrates. Sugars, especially fructose, glucose, mannose, maltose, and other non-reducing sugars such as sucrose, represent over 80% of the dry matter. There are differences in sucrose concentrations between the different date palm cultivars, this may be returned to the expression and activities of the sucrose synthesize gene. So this study aims to estimate the level of expression and activates of this gene and measure the level of different sugars in some cultivars widespread in Saudi Arabia. Leaf samples were collected from different Saudi Arabia date palm cultivars; Rushodia, Barhi, Khadry, Nabtatali, khalas, Ruthana, Wannana, Yellow Sakkari and Red Sakkari from different areas in the Kingdom to estimate the activity and gene expression of sucrose synthase (SS), Sucrose Phosphate Phosphotase (SPP) and Sucrose Phosphate Synthase (SPS). The date showed that sucrose concentrations were significantly defer between the different cultivars except Barhi, Khadry and Khalas. The highest activities of previous enzymes were observed in Red and yellow sakkari while Khalase and Barhi revealed the lowest activities. Also, based on a semi-quantitative RT-PCR, the highest expressions of these enzymes were observed in Red and yellow sakkari while Khalase and Khadry revealed the lowest activities. Low or high level of sucrose concentration in some cultivars can be explained by the environmental and genetic factors that may affect the qualitative and quantitative composition of the sugar fraction by altering the activity of the enzymes involved in synthesis and breakdown processes.

In the recent past, the development of statistical methods for high-dimensional problems has greatly advanced leading to methods for model selection such as the lasso. However, the question of error control in high-dimensional settings has proven to be difficult. Recently, an approach called stability selection has been proposed to tackle the problem. It combines a method for model selection and sub sampling to deliver a form of error control. \nIn this paper, some variants of stability selection are introduced. It was tested if error control would actually hold up. Furthermore, some conditions were isolated where using these variants might have beneficial effects.

A Beam former is an array of sensors which can do spatial filtering. The objective is to estimate the signal arriving from the desired direction in the presence of noise and other interfering signals. A beam former does spatial filtering in the sense that it separates two signals with overlapping frequency content originating from different directions. The aim of the paper was to study the different beam forming techniques and use the Constrained Least Mean Squares (LMS) filter for spatial filtering. An array of microphones was simulated in MATLAB and a simple delay and sum beam former was implemented. The results were compared with that of a single microphone and it was observed that beam forming definitely gives a significant SNR improvement. A Constrained least mean square algorithm (also known as Frost Beam former) was derived which is capable of iteratively adapting the weights of the sensor array to minimize noise power at the array output while maintaining a chosen frequency response in the look direction. The adaptive version of the Frost beam former was simulated in MATLAB and it was observed that there was a significant improvement in the SNR as compared to the simple delay and sum beam former.