Separating hydrothermal alteration zones is a main challenge in remote sensing science. The results showed that application of conventional methods based on spectral properties could not exactly separate hydrothermal alterations. Therefore, this research attempted to identify hydrothermal alteration zones in the study area by combining principal component analysis and concentration-area fractal model. The developed model was evaluated by confusion matrix, commission and omission error and total accuracy. The commission and omission error of phyllic zone is 4.51 and 9.13 percent, respectively, and the omission error of argillic zone is equal to 54.16 percent. The results indicated that concentration-area fractal model is able to identify phyllic, argillic and propylitic zones in the study area. Because of the same spectral signature of phyllic and argillic minerals, the concentration-area fractal model could not exactly discriminate these two alteration zones.

In human fertilization, the sperm centrosome nucleates a radial array of microtubules called the sperm ASTER. The sperm ASTER is responsible for apposition of male and female pronuclei, and later gives rise to the first meiotic spindle. The objective of this study was to determine microtubule assembly and chromatin configuration in rabbit oocytes following intracytoplasmic injection with human sperm by piezo-driven pipette. Oocytes were collected from superovulated dose 14-15 h after hCG injection and were fertilized by injection of a single human sperm into the ooplasm of each oocyte without additional activation treatment. Four hours post heterologous intracytoplamic sperm injection (ICSI), rabbit eggs were fixed and microtubule organization and chromatin configuration were examined by immunofluorescence microscopy. In unfertilized oocytes, microtubules were present only in the metaphase-arrested second meiotic spindle. Following human sperm injection, an ASTER of microtubules formed adjacent to the sperm head, around mid-piece, and sperm ASTER was enlarged and assembled around male and female pronuclei. During pronuclear centration, male and female pronuclei were surrounded by a microtubule array without nucleation sites. With fertile human sperm, the sperm ASTER formation rate was 54.6%. From our data we concluded that human spermatozoa can be injected successfully into rabbit oocytes, resulting in a reasonable survival rate, and that rabbit oocytes provide a reliable tools for assessing human sperm centrosomal function using the Piezo-ICSI system.

In a 1998-2000 survey, witches' broom disease of sugar beet (Beat vulgaris) was found in several fields in Chahgeer region in Abarque (Yazd Province). The associated agent was transmitted from sugar beet to sugar beet, periwinkle and eggplant and from periwinkle to sugar beet via dodder inoculation and from periwinkle to periwinkle and from eggplant to eggplant, ornamental eggplant and tomato by grafting. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using universal phytoplasma primer pairs P1/P7 and R16F2 / R16R2 consistently amplified segments of expected size (1.8 and 1.2kb, respectively) when DNA extracts of midrib samples of affected sugar beet plants were used as template. Phylogenetic and putative restriction site analyses and percent similarity values showed that sugar beet witches' broom phytoplasma is closest to yet distinct from members of peanut witches' broom phytoplasma group (16Srll). It is related only distantly to two phytoplasmas reported from sugar beet, i. e., the phytoplasma associated with low sugar disease in France (stolbur group, 16SrXII) and another phytoplasma associated with a similar but distinct disease in Hungary (ASTER yellows group,16SrI). This is the first report of a 16Srll related phytoplasma group in sugar beet.