The doctrine that the content of the conclusion of a deductively valid argument is included in the content of its premises, taken jointly, is a familiar one. It has important consequences for the question of what value valid arguments possess, since it indicates the poverty of three traditional answers: that arguments may and should be used as instruments of persuasion, that they may and should be used as instruments of justification; and that they may and should be used to advance knowledge. The truth is, however, that in each of these cases the argument has only a managerial role and, if there is any work done, it is the premises that do it. It will be maintained that this point has little force against the critical rationalist answer, which I shall defend, that the principal purpose of deductive reasoning from an assemblage of premises is the exploration of their content, facilitating their criticism and rejection. That said, the main aim of the present paper is not to promote critical rationalism but to consider some published objections to the doctrine that a statement asserts every statement that is validly deducible from it. The alleged counterexamples to be considered fall roughly into two groups: statements that emerge with time from a rich mathematical or empirical theory, but were originally unformulated and are deducible from the theory only in a non-trivial way (Frederick 2011, 2014; Williamson 2012); and statements, notably disjunctions, that are easily formulated and are deducible from a theory in a trivial way (Schurz & Weingartner 1987; Mura 1990, 2008; Gemes 1994; Yablo 2014). Each of these counterexamples will be evaluated and dismissed.

Addition of fine and plastic clays such as bentonite to sandy soils is one of the methods of reducing soil hydraulic conductivity and making it suitable for seepage barriers. Also, in nature, soil mixtures such as clayey sands, silty sand and clayey silts are found much more than pure soils such as clean sand, clay or silt. Thus, in this paper, the effects of adding bentonite particles on the shear behavior of a sandy soil were studied by performing series of consolidated un-drained triaxial tests. In these experiments, different amounts of weight contents of bentonite such as 0, 5 and 10% were added to a sandy soil named Firoozkooh sand. Generally, obtained results showed that addition of bentonite led to changes in the shear behavior and strength of sand. These changes depend on the relative density of soil, confining stress and bentonite content. As an example, in loose samples of sand, addition of bentonite reduced the maximum deviator stress of the soil; on the other hand, in dense samples, addition of 5% bentonite reduced the deviator stress. However, addition of 10% bentonite increased the deviator stress. Generally, addition of bentonite reduced the secant modulus of elasticity and increased the positive pore water pressure at phase transition point. It is worth noting that, in dense samples, the effectiveness of bentonite content was not as high as that in loose samples and, in some conditions, the results did not follow a specific trend.

Soil water content is measured by different methods, such as oven, gamma ray, and time reflectometry methods. Direct methods are time-consuming and lead to disturbance of the soil sample, and some indirect methods have risks of radioactive materials. Among these methods, the TDR method, which is one of the reflectometry methods, is a quick and safe method, and has received attention for this reason and gives acceptable results in soils with normal conditions. However, for saline soils, this method cannot measure water content accurately. The objective of this research was to make TDR sensors that can measure the water content of saline and fine-textured soils. By making these sensors, it would be possible to measure water content of saline soils by a TDR; and if an error is observed, the actual amount of soil water content can be obtained by providing suitable calibration models. For this purpose, a fine-textured soil was obtained from Tikmehdash Research Station and by adding different amounts of salt, soil  samples with electrical conductivity of 20, 35 and 50 dS/m with natural density were prepared. Through trial and error, the type of coating suitable for covering the moisture sensor rod, which is a polymer material, was determined. Then, the length of the coating used in the middle moisture sensor rod was determined for the mentioned soil that had the prescribed salinities and water content. This length was equal to the length of the moisture sensor rod. Then, the coated sensors were tested to measure other soil water contents, and suitable calibration models were presented. Thus, by entering into the models the volumetric moisture content measured by TDR, the moisture content of fine-textured saline soils can be estimated with good accuracy.

To investigate the effect of water content on the mechanical behavior of fine-grained sedimentary rocks three different types of shales; clayshale, mudshale and mudstone,from different locations were studied. The samples were tested at different water content conditions ranging from oven-dried to saturated condition. Preparing samples of standard size for testing was a troublesome task. Many samples break during coring, cutting, grinding and storing because of disintegration of these rocks when subjected to change in water content. This nondurable behavior of these rocks is responsible for numerous slope instability problems, underground excavation problems and embankment failures.Water content has been demonstrated to have a marked influence on the strength and deformation properties. The uniaxial compressive strength and modulus of elasticity decrease significantly as the water content increases. The results show a reduction of more than 90% in uniaxial compressive strength from oven-dried to saturated condition. This strength reduction due to moisture content for the rocks studied is significantly higher than the values reported by other researchers. A general equation was developed for this type of fine-grained sedimentary rocks that may be used for predicting uniaxial compressive strength from the available information on water content.The modulus of elasticity was found to be influenced by anisotropy, but the most significant influence, regarding reduction of the modulus of elasticity, was the change from dry to saturated condition. Test results show a significant reduction in the static modulus of elasticity from oven-dried condition to saturated condition. The results of these tests show an average reduction in modulus of elasticity, from that in dry state, of about 84% for the shales studied.

One of the most common methods of soil improvement is to use additives in order to improve strength properties and permeability of the soil. Cements or chemicals are usually used as binders for soil particles, which lead to increase the soil shear strength and reduce its hydraulic conductivity (i. e. permeability). Nevertheless, these materials are not suitable for soil improvement in the long term because they require significant natural resources. The use of cement and chemicals for soil improvement is expensive and time-consuming. Management of renewable natural resources (microorganisms and their products) could lead to solve geotechnical and environmental problems and achieve great economic benefits in the building industry. In addition, the application of microbial biotechnology in the building industry make easier some of the existing methods of construction. Using the latest microbial biotechnology, a new type of building materials, namely biocement, has been produced as an alternative to cement or chemicals. Biocementation is the improvement of strength and stiffness of rock and soil by using microbial activity and their products. The process of the formation of precipitates or biocement in the presence of microorganisms is called microbialy induced calcium precipitation (MICP). Biocement can be used in solid and liquid states. In the liquid state, biogrout can flow like water with very low viscosity. Therefore, compared to cement and chemicals, it will be transmitted into the soil, more easily. Naturally, biocement is formed in the presence of microorganisms in ambient temperature and thus, it requires less energy. Because of the abundance of microorganisms in the nature and easy to reproduce with low cost, this type of cement is sustainable. The Microorganisms that are suitable for the production of biocement are usually non-pathogenic and environment friendly. In addition, unlike cement, soil can be improved without disturbance of ground and the environment; since microorganisms can penetrate into the soil and grow in it. This dissertation aims to realize the effect of ground condition on the MICP process in non-cohesive soils. Since this method is still in the laboratory stage, for being used in practical projects, it is required to carry out laboratory experiments, including relative density and particle size distribution, to evaluate the performance of this method in different ground conditions. For this purpose, it was used from Sandy soil with different silt contents of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% in two states of Loose (Dr = 40%) and dense (Dr = 100%) conditions in this research. The high urease activity and non-pathogenic bacteria S. Pasteurii was also used in the MICP process. In order to consider the soil conditions on the efficiency of this type of improvement method, uniaxial compressive test parameters and precipitated calcium carbonate content were investigated. According to the results, increasing of silt content from 0% to 20%, leads to reductions of 40% and 46% in precipitated calcium carbonate content, increases of 57% and 41% in the uniaxial strength and increases of 79% and 71% in the elasticity modulus of the samples in two loose and dense conditions, respectively. It seems that these changes were resulted from shrinking of the empty space and increasing of the contact area between the soil particles.

Background and Aim: Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy is an effective diagnostic method in the field of medical pathologies. Easiness, accuracy, validity and usefulness of this method have been verified frequently. This method is useful not only for soft tisse or even intraosseous lesions, but also recurrence of tumors (metastasis), resistence to treatment, verification of malignancy, differentiation between malignancy and benignment and determination of organisms causes infection. Unfortunately the use of this method is not common in dental pathology. So this study intendes to show the diagnostic value of FNA specially for intraosseous lesions causing jaw radiolucency.Methods and Materials: This investigation consisted of 80 patients who were referred to Taleghani General Hospital who were then referred to the pathology or surgery departments at Shahid Beheshti dental school.Cases consist of 29 females (36.25) % and 51 males (63.75%). Sampletaking was conducted using a 10 cc, gauge 19 syringe.Results: Results show 90% sensitivity and 75% specificity for jaw radiolucent lesions in FNA method. Correlation between FNA and jaw radiolucencies was significant (P<0.001) and it's power was at equal accepctable level according to cramer's V (phi - cramer's =0.623). Based on FNA cytology power, lesions with positive predictive value of 78.30 had a microscopic view compatible to the findings of other similar studies.Conclusion: FNA can be used as a reliable method for rapid, early and in expensive diagnosis, resulting in an on time, and appropriate treatment plan.

Recently, many infrastructures, such as buildings, highways, petrochemical, and refinery facilities have been constructed on seaboards of the Persian Gulf region. In this area, for many geotechnical projects, the improvement of the engineering properties of soft and loose soils is necessary. In the area, the use of freshwater to obtain the required properties of soils for structures such as roads and highways is costly and not economically feasible. Therefore, the idea of using sea/saltwater instead of freshwater has significant benefits to the community, as it decreases the amount of freshwater being used which is of high importance. In this study, Saline water has replaced fresh water. Compaction, unconfined compression, and California bearing ratio (CBR) tests have been performed on sand samples with different fine contents. In addition to major changes in soil microstructure, the results showed that the stabilization of samples with saline water causes more bearing capacity and strength. The CBR and unconfined compressive strength (UCS) have been improved up to 11. 3% and 12. 2%, respectively. With increasing in salinity of water, the maximum dry density (MDD) of the soil samples increased up to 4. 4% but optimum moisture content (OMC), liquid limit (LL), and plastic limit (PL) decreased up to 36. 2%, 4. 0%, and 6. 6%, respectively. The results displayed that the lower the percentage of fine content, the higher the value of CBR and UCS.