Wheat GROUND beetle Zabrus tenebrioides (Goeze) (Coleoptera: Carabidae) is an important wheat pest in Iran and some regions of the world. This pest causes damage to wheat by feeding on the root, stalk, and leaves. Farmers try to control this pest by the foliar application of different insecticides, but this method causes damage to the environment. To find an effective method to control this pest, the thiamethoxam insecticide (Cruiser®) efficiency was evaluated using seed treatment in this study. An experiment based on a randomized complete block design with four treatments and four replications was conducted in a field in Ramhormoz city, Khuzestan province (Iran). The treatments were 150 and 200 ml of thiamethoxam plus 2350 ml of water for seed treatment, 2,000 ppm of diazinon by field spraying at the wheat tillering stage, and a control. The results indicated that the average plant density in 150 and 200 ml of thiamethoxam (333.58 and 333.28 plant/m2, respectively) was more than those of diazinon (258.28 plant/m2) and the control (182.12 plant/m2). The average ear density in 150 and 200 ml of thiamethoxam (513.78 and 506.12 plant/m2, respectively) was more than those of diazinon (321.22 plant/m2) and the control (260.86 plant/m2). According to the present results, farmers can use 150 ml of thiamethoxam plus 2350 ml of water for 100 kg of seeds to control this pest by seed treatment.

Most of the megacities are located near the active FAULTs. GROUND motions in the vicinity of the active FAULTs are associated with two main phenomena so called rupture directivity and fling effects. Therefore, it is important for earthquake resistance design and seismic hazard mitigation to evaluate the characteristics of near-FAULT GROUND motions in the megacities. In this paper, the near-FAULT GROUND motion was simulated using kinematic model for Tehran City, the capital of Iran. Tehran city was developed along the North Tehran FAULT (NTF), which assumed to be the most probable seismic source for the city. Kinematic models are efficient tools to simulate long-period GROUND motions including slip heterogeneity (Asperities) on the FAULT and underGROUND geology. Here, the near-FAULT GROUND motions are generated assuming NTF scenario using kinematic finite FAULT model. Then, the variations of FAULTing parameters such as rise time, maximum slip, rupture velocity, and site to FAULT distance on the near-FAULT pulse characteristics are numerically examined and discussed.

LINE-to-LINE FAULT (LLF) is one of the most important FAULT occurring in photovoltaic (PV) systems. necessitating comprehensive investigation and analysis to develop optimal FAULT detection methodologies. This study focuses on analyzing a specific LLF variant known as intrastring LINE-to-LINE FAULT (ISLLF), wherein one or more modules within individual strings are short-circuited. The power-voltage (P-V) and current-voltage (I-V) curves of PV systems contain extensive data valuable for FAULT detection. Thus, exact analysis of these curves to extract various features is essential. The extremum points of P-V curve indicate the severity of occurred FAULTs in PV system. In this paper, different states of triple and quadruple ISLLF are simulated and according to the obtained result, mathematical equations are presented for extremum values. Additionally, the performance of the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controller is evaluated, and the requisite constraints for optimal power selection using MPPT across different states of the P-V curves are presented. The derived equations suggest insights into accurately determining the severity and location of LLF occurrences.

In this paper a simple model of a three story building with incLINEd first-story columns has presented. The stories are supposed to be rigid and are connected to axially rigid mass less columns by elasto-plastic rotational springs and LINEar rotational dampers. The considered model is subjected to horizontal component of FAULT normal pulse with different magnitudes and the governed nonLINEar differential equations of motion have been solved by the forth order Runge-Kutta method. Results indicate that the inclination of the first-story columns stiffens the system. However, the change of the frequency of the first mode is small. The deformation of the first story with incLINEd columns is such that it forces the building in a pendulum-like motion. So it would be possible to reduce the relative building response. Results indicate that an optimum value of inclination angle of the first-story columns is. Under this condition the first-story drift decreases while upper-story drift increases, respect to the common building with. For larger inclination angles the gravity effect leads to increase the first-story drift as well. This solution would be useful in earthquake resistant design of buildings which have architectural limitations at the first story.

In this study, we assessed the performance of a concrete bridge under the dynamic strain of an earthquake in the near and far domain of earth’s FAULTs. With respect to available data and showing the effects of key factors and variables, we have examined the bridge’s performance. The modelling of a double span bridge has been done in CSI Bridge software and has been compared and examined to assess the capability of a bridge under the strain of a close-to-FAULT-LINE earthquake and a far-from-FAULT-LINE earthquake. TimeLINE interpretation was done on the resulting models and from 7 records from the past earthquakes and it was observed that the close to FAULT LINE earthquakes caused much bigger displacements when compared to far from FAULT LINE earthquakes. Bridges which are separated by a quake separator, have an acceptable response to far from FAULT LINE earthquakes. This means that by disassembling these bridges, the acceleration rate on the deck, the cut of the base, as well as the relative displacement of the deck relative to the undivided bridge, is reduced. This issue is not reflected in the response of the bridges to FAULTs near earthquakes. By investigating the record of near-earthquakes, it was observed that these earthquakes produced large displacements to earthquakes that are far from FAULTs, which could make the isolation system more critical, so, to avoid this event, it FDGM should be used to reform the response these bridges have to the earthquake.Based on these results, it can be stated that the displacements near the FAULT and with the effect of progressive movement will be greater than the distances from the FAULT, so that for the ratio of different distances from the FAULT, the lower this ratio is, the maximum displacement of the bridge and the maximum cutting force will also be greater.

The effect of near-field earthquake records on the strain input energy of structures is investigated in this paper. Near-field records differ from other types of record by special characteristics. Long-period pulses, which are added to backGROUND records, are examples of those special features that are studied in this paper. Although both pulses and backGROUND records are statistical objects, the pulses usually behave more deterministically than underlying records. Considering this point, it is reasonable to compute the response of a structure to such earthquakes in two steps (i.e. deterministic and probabilistic phases) and, then, superimpose the results. Handling responses to near-field records in this way leads to more accurate response evaluations, because of extracting the deterministic part of the results from the statistical procedure. For this purpose, the response of different structures to near-field records is evaluated and the results are proposed in the form of energy spectra. The findings show that, in near-FAULT zones, an increase in GROUND motion magnitude results in higher spectral peak strain energy and, also, a higher period of occurrence, respectively. It is found that, close to the FAULT, the response is primarily governed by the pulse characteristic rather than by the backGROUND record. This trend inverts gradually as the distance to the FAULT increases. In intermediate regions, the energy spectra experience two major peaks, which correspond to the site dominant period and the pulse period, correspondingly.

In the last two decades, stochastic modeling and simulation of earthquake GROUND motions have been used for dynamic design of the structures. The most currently applicable method is ARMA processes. The advantage of this method is in nonLINEar response of the structure and the relation of the physical parameters to the modeling parameters. Ten stations with three components were considered for this research to simulate strong motion accelerograms from the Manjil earthquake in 1999. The accelerograms which were generated from a given set of physical parameters were compared with the original set of the recorded one. The similarities between these two-time and frequency domain shows the effectiveness of the model. The accelerograms which are needed for dynamic design of the structure can be generated by knowing the probable FAULT distance and soil type.

The phenomenon of broken conductor FAULTs (BCFs) in power transmission LINEs and, consequently, the suspension of the hot-LINE with no connection to GROUND, tower, or other conductive/non-conductive bodies is amongst special FAULTs in terms of FAULT detection and location in the protection industry. Once such a failure occurs, the current of the FAULTy phase does not increase, which leads to the inability of standard FAULT detection functions in detecting the event. On the other hand, the variable nature of transmission LINE parameters due to weather conditions leads to misoperation and malfunction of FAULT detection and protection schemes of industrial relays in some cases. This paper, for the first time, presents a BCF location scheme without requiring LINE parameters data and only using magnitudes of current and voltage phasors of a SINGLE terminal based on Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH). In this method, a function is interpolated, the inputs of which are the current and voltage of the FAULTy phase, and its output are the accurate location of the FAULT. The function can be developed for all topologies of transmission LINEs. The proposed method is implemented in the MATLAB software and the obtained results verify the solidity and perfect performance of the method for different FAULT conditions.