In order to assessment of relationship among grain yield and different traits and determination of the best indirect selection criteria for genetic improvement of grain yield in canola a randomized complete block design with three replications was conducted using 17 cultivars. Correlation coefficient analysis of grain yield showed positive and significant relationship between selected trait with traits days to shooting, days from planting to full flowering, plant height, number of grain/pod, 1000 grains weight, biological yield, harvest index, grain oil percent and oil yiel. Step-wise regression of grain yield as dependent variable and the other traits as independent variables revealed that 98.9% of variation exists in grain yield accounted for by the traits biological yield, harvest index, days to flowering initiation and number of grain/pod. Path analysis for grain yield based on traits that correlated positively and significantly with this trait designed high efficiency of traits 1000 seeds weight, biological yield, harvest index, days to shooting and number of grain/pod as indirect selection criteria for genetic improvement of this trait in canola cultivars especially in early generations of breeding programs.

In order to determine the appropride traits for indirect selection of com cultivars, 7 inbred lines and 7 hybrid progenies from their crossing together with 4 F2 progenies from their self-pollination were used in an experiment based on imbalance grouped design with three replication conducted in Hamedan Agricultural Research Center in 2005-06. The results indicated that positive and high significant phenotypic correlation was existed between grain yield and weight of cob without husk in all three groups. Path coefficient analysis revealed that stalk diameter and width of ear leaf had the greatest direct effect on grain yield in inbred lines, while, weight of cob without husk, width of ear leaf and cob diameter traits had high and positive direct effects on grain yield in hybrids. In F2, the weight of cob with husk and number of kernels per row had high and positive direct effects on grain yield. According to this study, it can be concluded that any group had independent traits for indirect selection toimprove grain yield, and only the width of ear leaf could be used as a common trait for selection both in inbred lines and hybrids.

To improve a complex character such as yield with low heritability, the use of indirect selection through other characters and a selection index based on different effective traits is recommended. This study was conducted to evaluate different selection methods by using 23 F2:4 wheat lines derived from the cross of Virmarin (susceptible cultivar) and Sardari (tolerant cultivar) at Research Farm of Isfahan University of Technology. A randomized complete block design with three replications was used in two irrigation treatments (i.e. irrigation after 70±3 and 120±3 mm evaporation from class a pan). For each irrigation treatment, different selection indices were constructed based on the number of spike per m2, days to heading, number of grain per spike and 1000 - kernel weight. Also direct and correlated responses were calculated for these traits. The results of the response to selection and correlated response indicated that in the same conditions of this study, early heading cultivars with high number of spikes and low number of grain per spike with high 1000 - kernel weight will have more yield potential. Number of spike per m2 and 1000 - kernel weight exhibited positive response in most of the indices and both irrigation treatments, while days to heading and number of grain per spike revealed negative responses. Thus selection based on these indices would result in early heading cultivars with high spike per m2, low number of grain per spike and high 1000 - kernel weight. It was also found that Smith-Hazel and Brim-Williams indices had the highest efficiencies.

This study was carried out to investigate the direct and indirect responses to selection for four-week body weight (4 week body (wk BW)) and four-week breast weight (4 week breast weight (wk BRW)) and to determine the genetic contribution of reminder founders to the last generation. A total number of 351 birds were equally allocated to three lines, including two selected lines (S1 and S2 for BW and breast weight, respectively) along with a control (C) line. Total net genetic improvement for BW and BRW in S1 and S2 lines were 31.6, 7.6 and 28.0 and 7.3 g, respectively. Genetic correlations between 4 wk BW and carcass traits (0.85 to 0.95) and phenotypic correlations (0.43 to 0.93) were positively high in S1 and S2 lines. The mean percentage of inbreeding for population and inbred birds in S1 and S2 lines were 0.95, 7.75 and 0.64 and 11.3, respectively. The number of retained founders to the last generation of S1 was more than S2. However, more balance genetic contribution to the last generation was outlined by the founders in S2 line. The BW can be used as a selection criterion to improve the carcass traits because there is a strong correlation between BW and carcass traits, selection for BW is easier to record and also its improvement costs are lower than selection for BRW. Meanwhile, long term response to selection is needed to preserve alleles from the lowest contributed founders.

Purpose: Managers are one of the important elements of an organization, for this reason, in order to draw the future of the organization, it is necessary for the planners to specify the conditions of their selection and appointment. Therefore, the current research has been done with the aim of identifying and analyzing the components of selecting future principals.Method: In this research, comparative and benchmarking method is used as a prospective approach. This approach is based on the belief that today's advanced organizations/countries can be considered as a model for the future of another organization/countries in their respective subjects. For this, first, the fields of comparison and benchmarking were determined using Brody's four-step comparison method; then the countries of Canada, Finland, Australia, South Africa, and Japan were selected according to the qualitative balance value in the international advanced TEAMS test, human development index, life quality index(health, instruction, and welfare), education quality index, and other scientific-scholarly indexes; finally, by extracting the criteria for the selection and appointment of principals through content analysis and comparison with Iran, the proposed framework for Iran has been presented.Findings: A total of 61 components for the selection of secondary school principals were identified from among the studies conducted in the selected countries in this article. By extracting the commonalities and differences of each of the components among the countries, it was found that the highest index of manager selection and appointment belongs to Japan and the lowest one is related to Finland.Conclusion: There are similarities between the components of selection of principals of secondary schools in Iran and selected countries. In Iran, special attention should be paid to important components such as adherence to religious principles, appropriate personality traits, creativity and innovation, motivation to develop capabilities, professional growth, power of supervision and accountability, social image, leader skills, and purposefulness and foresight.

Background & Aim: German chamomile is one of the most important medicinal plants. So, assessment of genetic diversity and relationship among the traits are very essential in chamomile breeding programs. Determination of the best indirect selection criteria for genetic improvement of essence percent and dry flower yield of German chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla L.) populations was investigated using some morphological, agronomical and phonological characteristics.Experimental: In this experiment, statistical design of RCBD with three replications was used. Number of flower plant-1, fresh flower yield plant-1, days to budding, days to 50 and 100% of flowering, number of flowering stem, plant height, number of tiller plant-1, dry flower yield plant-1 and essence percent were measured.Results & Discussion: Analysis of variance showed highly significant differences among chamomile populations for all the studied traits. This assigns genetic diversity for mentioned traits and possibility of genetic improvement of these via selection. Assessment of correlation coefficients revealed positive and significant relationship of the majority of traits with dry flower yield as well as some traits with essence percent. Path analysis indicated applicability of indirect selection through the traits days to 50% flowering, No. flower plant-1, fresh flower yield plant-1 and days to budding for genetic improvement of dry flower yield specifically in early breeding generations.Industrial and practical recommendations: The traits 50% flowering and No. flower plant-1 also were introduced as the best indirect selection criteria for improvement of essence percent based on path analysis results.

Multi-label classification aims at assigning more than one label to each instance. Many real-world multi-label classification tasks are high dimensional, leading to reduced performance of traditional classifiers. Feature selection is a common approach to tackle this issue by choosing prominent features. Multi-label feature selection is an NP-hard approach, and so far, some swarm intelligence-based strategies and have been proposed to find a near optimal solution within a reasonable time. In this paper, a hybrid intelligence algorithm based on the binary algorithm of particle swarm optimization and a novel local search strategy has been proposed to select a set of prominent features. To this aim, features are divided into two categories based on the extension rate and the relationship between the output and the local search strategy to increase the convergence speed. The first group features have more similarity to class and less similarity to other features, and the second is redundant and less relevant features. Accordingly, a local operator is added to the particle swarm optimization algorithm to reduce redundant features and keep relevant ones among each solution. The aim of this operator leads to enhance the convergence speed of the proposed algorithm compared to other algorithms presented in this field. Evaluation of the proposed solution and the proposed statistical test shows that the proposed approach improves different classification criteria of multi-label classification and outperforms other methods in most cases. Also in cases where achieving higher accuracy is more important than time, it is more appropriate to use this method.

The aim of this study was a strain-improvement program for Trichoderma reesei PTCC 5142 by using a combination of UV light and NTG (N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine) for enhanced cellulase production. Following mutagenesis after several rounds, mutant A6: 2 was selected from a total of 6500 colonies. Results obtained after 4 days were: Enzyme activity 1.26 U/ml and 0.82 U/ml for exoglucanase and endoglucanase, respectively. The comparative results showed increased production exoglucanase and endoglucanase by mutant A6: 2 than Trichoderma reesei PTCC 5142 to amount 130% for exoglucanase and 156% for endoglucanase.