This study was conducted to evaluate genetic diversity of durum wheat cultivars using Multivariate Analyses on agronomic and morphological traits. Thirty genotypes were planted in a randomized complete block design with three replications in 2003. Agronomic and morphological characteristics including days to flowering, days to pollination, days to maturity, plant height, spike length, grain weight per spike, number of grain per spike, number of spike per m2, grain yield, biological yield, 1000 grain weight, kernel weight and harvest index were assessed in the studied genotypes. Multivariate statistical Analyses including principal components analysis (PCA), principal co-ordinate analysis (PCO) and cluster analysis were used to assess the pattern of morphological variations and to group the genotypes. The obtained results from grouping 30 cultivars of durum wheat with 3 studied methods indicated that in the most cases the applied methods produced almost similar grouping among cultivars. Cluster analysis, however, used both genetic variations between genotypes and traits, and hence is considered as a superior method for grouping the genotypes.

Lentil (Lens culinaris), with its ability for nitrogen fixation, maintaining soil moisture and limiting soil erosion helps in increasing soil fertility. In order to compare and classify of 14 lentil genotypes, an experiment was carried out in the randomized complete block design with three replications during the cropping year of 2011-2012. Analysis of variance indicated remarkable diversities among genotypes under study and significant differences were obtained for seed yield, biological yield, 100-grain weight, number of the pod with couple seed and rain efficiency. Mean comparisons also showed the genotype G10 was the best genotypes for seed yield, biological yield, the pod with couple seed and rain efficiency, so this genotype is advisable for culture by farmers. As the per principal component analysis, first five principal components expressed 83% of total variation in which PC I, PC II, PC III, PC IV & PC V accounted for 41%, 14%, 12%, 8% and 6% of total variation, respectively. Cluster analysis, based on the traits studied, using Euclidean distance following Ward’ s method with Euclidean distance divided the genotypes into three groups and the maximum distance was between cluster I and III. Thus the genetically diverged genotypes of the clusters could be used as the parent in hybridization program to get desirable genotypes. It can be concluded that there is remarkable genetic variability among studied lentil genotypes, which could be utilized in the screening of desirable parents and genotypes for lentil breeding programs.

Background and Objectives: The most basic step in fruit tree breeding programs is the collection and evaluation of internal and external germplasm. The aim of this study was to evaluate the genetic diversity and grouping of the studied pear species based on 48 important quality traits of leaves, shoots, blossoms and fruits and to determine the genetic distance between them with identify cultivars suitable for cultivation and use them in breeding programs. Iran with more than ten species of pear and genetic diversity proximity centers to the product as an important source of genetic product is well-known in the world. Despite this privileged geographical location for pears in the country, so far, there is no accurate information about the genetic relationship between different pear genotypes in Iran, for the proper use of native genotypes for pear breeding purposes. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in 2018, with the evaluation of 13 pear species from eastern and western species in Karaj research institute for seed and seedling improvement and preparation of Lorestan university of horticultural sciences. In this study, three general traits of the tree, five traits of branches, 13 traits of leaves and petioles, six traits of blossoms and 20 traits of fruit were evaluated according to the national descriptor of differentiation, uniformity and stability (DUS) tests, which is a localized version of the international union for conservation of pear (UPOV) examination, uniformity and stability test instructions. In this study, cluster analysis was performed by Ward method. Results: The results of the evaluation of the studied traits showed that there was a high diversity in the characteristics of fruit size, the position of the largest fruit diameter, fruit shape, tip shape and leaf base among the studied species. In this study, cluster analysis was performed by Ward method using all the studied traits. The studied species were divided into three main groups at a distance of 400, so that Asian, native and European species were included in a separate group. The results of simple correlation of traits showed that leaf related traits such as length and width of the leaf had a positive correlation with the amount of fruit traits. Also, the highest negative and significant correlation was observed between the position traits of the largest fruit diameter and petal shape. The results of principal component analysis (PCA) showed, that the 11 main factors justify 97. 99% of the total variance. Among the components, the first and second factors, which were mostly related to trunk strength, fruit and leaf traits, justified nearly 50% of the variance. Conclusion: Based on the results, among the studied traits of fruit shape and size, leaf traits were the most important traits for detecting the diversity of pear species. This study showed that eastern and western pear species have significant diversity and are a valuable resource for plant breeding research.

The purpose of this work is to promote and facilitate forensic profiling and chemical analysis of illicit drug samples in order to determine their origin, methods of production and transfer through the country. The article is based on the gas chromatography analysis of heroin samples seized from three different locations in Serbia. Chemometric approach with appropriate statistical tools (multiple-linear regression (MLR), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and Wald-Wolfowitz run (WWR) test) were applied on chromatographic data of heroin samples in order to correlate and examine the geographic origin of seized heroin samples. The best MLR models were further validated by leave-one-out technique as well as by the calculation of basic statistical parameters for the established models. To confirm the predictive power of the models, external set of heroin samples was used. High agreement between experimental and predicted values of acetyl thebaol and diacetyl morphine peak ratio, obtained in the validation procedure, indicated the good quality of derived MLR models. WWR test showed which examined heroin samples come from the same population, and HCA was applied in order to overview the similarities among the studied heroine samples.

Cotton is the most important fiber plant in the world, and plays very important role in employment and expansion of textile industries. Selection of a suitable cultivar for the West Azerbaijan region, which is the origin of cotton in Iran, will be especially important. This study was conducted with the aims of selecting and proposing cultivar/s for this province among cotton cultivars obtained from different breeding methods which revealed one or more traits in their superiority to commercial cultivars. In this study 8 cultivars were evaluated along with Varamin and Sahel as check cultivars in form of complete randomized block design with 4 replications in 2014, 2015 and 2016 (three cropping seasons). Combined analysis of variance results showed that the interaction between treatments effect in the year to end-yield, yield per plant and boll weight (α =0. 05), as well as the number of bolls per plant probability level (α = 0. 01) were significant. In stepwise regression analysis two variables, the number of bolls per plant and boll weight entered in the model. Path analysis showed that the number of bolls per plant had direct impact on yield (0. 9934) and indirect effect of boll weight and number of bolls per plant on yield was higher than the rest of properties (-0. 2178), and as well as principal components analysis for two main components of the high-value variables to determine, the number of bolls per plant is present in both components (0. 314 and-0. 350).

The study has been carried out to assess surface water quality of Old Brahmaputra River from September 2015 to March 2016. DO, BOD5, COD, pH, EC, Chloride, Alkalinity, and Hardness concentrations in water samples have been found to range within 0. 66-2. 9 mg/L, 21-138 mg/L, 45-250 mg/L, 7. 1-7. 8, 185-1080 uS/cm, 10-98 mg/L, 85-197 mg/L, and 84-148 mg/L, respectively. Multivariate statistical Analyses such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Correlation Matrix (CM) reveal significant anthropogenic intrusion of pollutants in water, while Cluster Analysis (CA) gives decent results that render three different groups of resemblance between the two sampling sites, reflecting the different water quality indicators of the river system. Very strong positive linear relations have been found between Alkalinity vs. Chloride (0. 998), COD vs. BOD (0. 994), Chloride vs. EC (0. 981), Alkalinity vs. EC (0. 976), and Hardness vs. EC (0. 952) at the significance level of 0. 01, which direct their common origin from industrial effluents, municipal wastes, and agricultural activities. River Pollution Index (RPI) indicates that the water of the Old Brahmaputra River varies from low to high pollution.