The aim of this study was to plan for sustainable development in western Azarbaijan cities through considering fifty indices (population, social, economic, cultural, health, infrastructure, transportation, and skeletal). Research method is descriptive-analytic. Qualitative planning models such as Topsis multi- criteria decision making model, Atrophy coefficient, and dispersion coefficient were used for ranking cities. Study showed that despite low level of development in some respects, Uromih with having 33/8 percent of population of the province has very high level of development. Mahabad, Khoy and Bukan cities have high rank of development. Miandoab, Nagadeh, Salmas, Piranshahr, Siah Cheshmeh and Sardasht which comprise 21/9 percent of the province population have developed to average level. Correlation coefficient between development of mixed indices and amount of population was 0.974 at significant level of 99%. The result indicates development of big cities and underdevelopment of small cities. Therefore spatial pattern of development in the province is core-peripheral; this is as we move toward big cities in terms of population, administrative and economic factors, rate of development increases.

West Azerbaijan province is the major producer of sugar beet in Iran. To reach the goals of self-sufficiency in the country and competitiveness in the market, increasing the production of sugar beet in this province through enhancing the efficiency of producers could have an important contribution. The purpose of this research was to measure the efficiency of sugar beet producers in West Azerbaijan. By selecting a random sample of sugar beet producers in this province, interviewing, and the questionnaire, the necessary data was collected. To measure the efficiency of sample producers, Frontier stochastic parametric approach was used. The results showed that mean efficiency of sample sugar beet producers was 69.5 percent, which ranged from 15.9 to 100 percent. The results indicate that with the available resources and technology there is a high potential to increase sugar beet production in the province. To determine policy measures for enhancing the efficiency of sugar beet producers there is a need for more detailed study, especially on the factors influencing the efficiencies.

IntroductionIncreasing concentration of population and activity in some regions, regional balance is disrupting. Such features can be disabled policies considered growing polarization that results in a major part of the country’s resources in one or more focus area and other regions such as the open development process. To create balance and order, spatial location, regional science planning and raised its target and eliminate regional inequalities is the area. In this regard, this paper analyzes the regional inequalities at the regional level (West Azerbaijan province) in terms of facilities and services in various fields. Research seeking to answer this question, which is different from development and regional inequalities in the cities of West Azerbaijan province, is to what extent? And whether the relationship between development and urbanization rates in the country there?

Background & Aims: Fascioliasis caused by Fasciola hepatica and Fasciola gigantica has medical and economic importance in the world. Traditional approaches are not accurate and reliable in identification of agent parasites. Thus the present study was designed to identify the Fasciola sppby molecular methods in West Azerbaijan province.Materials & Methods: In current study Fasciola isolates were collected from slaughterhouses in five districts in West Azerbaijan province, Northwestern Iran. Parasite species were identified using morphological and molecular tools, ribosomal DNA ITS1, 5.8s and ITS2 sequences. A number of 580 adult Fasciola worms were isolated from 90 infected livers (50 liver of cattle, 40 liver of sheep). Out of 110 DNA extracted specimens, 50 specimens were subject to direct sequencing.Results: Sequence analysis showed 100% similarity in ITS1 (428 bp), 5.8s (158 bp) and ITS2 (366 bp) regions of all sequences. The degree of identity between F. hepatica and F. gigantica sequences was 98% with 11 nucleotide mismatches. Based on rDNA-ITS1 and ITS2 sequences, only F. hepatica flukes are scattered among cattle and sheep population in West Azerbaijan province. Finally, 150 sequence of F. hepatica (50 sequences of each region of ITS) from West Azerbaijan province were recorded to GenBank.Conclusion: The results of this study showed no evidence of F. giganticain cattle and sheep in West Azerbaijan province. More studies are essential to design new molecular markers will be helpful in correct species identification and therefore, for control and prevention of this parasitic disease.

Background and Aim: Despite its rich natural and human capacities, the border regions of the Islamic Republic of Iran are not considered developed in many ways. Territorial training as an interdisciplinary science strives to contribute to sustainable development by linking and matching human, space, and activity components. This study attempts to examine the strategies of sustainable border development in West Azerbaijan Province from a security perspective. Method: After identifying the weaknesses, strengths, threats and security opportunities of the border regions of West Azerbaijan province, using Delphi method and with the help of 20 law enforcement experts, SWOT and AHP identified development strategies. Findings and Results: The study showed that the most appropriate development strategies in West Azerbaijan are: conservative strategies, defensive strategies, competitive strategies and offensive strategies, respectively.

In order to polymorphism study of honeybee colonies of west Azerbaijan Provinces, after sampling from apiaries, for study of diversity in population, 9 important loci of microsatellite were used. After loci amplifying in PCR and genotyping, Statistical analyses for determining various parameters were estimated by software. In this research, among the studied loci, A7 and B124 loci had the most and least alleles and A14 & A24 loci were monomorph. The most and the least level of polymorphic information content value were noticed in A7 and A35 loci, respectively. Considering the heterozygosity, the highest of observed and unbiased expected heterozygosity were noticed in A107 locus (1/000, 0/897) and the lowest of observed and unbiased expected heterozygosity were observed in B124 (0/000) and A35 (0/233) loci, respectively.

Rainfall erosion is a key factor in soil erosion processes. Determining the quantitative values of the rainfall erosion factor is assumed as a first step in sustainable management of soil and water resources. In terms of quantity, rainfall erosion is one of the characteristics that has the highest correlation with soil losses. Modified Fournier index (MF) is a simple rainfall erosion index which is widely used as a quantitative index in soil erosion projects. In this research, the spatiotemporal variation of the modified Fournier index was determined in west Azerbaijan province for a twenty-year period from 1993 to 2012. A total of 66 rain gauge data were used to determine the MF and precipitation concentration index (PCI). The spatial pattern of the MF and PCI were mapped by Kriging. The findings indicated that there was a wide range for MF, 28. 28-116. 22 mm, and the highest value of MF was observed in southwest of the region while the smallest values of the MF is located at the northeast of the region. Descriptive statistics of the PCI indicated that the 80 percent of the stations shows a seasonal pattern of rainfall distribution, while 20 percent of the stations have a moderate seasonal rainfall distribution pattern. There was a strong positive relationship between the annual rainfall and MF (r= 0. 934, p< 0. 001). A significant relationship was not observed between the PCI with annual rainfall and MF. The spatial patterns of the MF and annual rainfall showed a regular decreasing from south to the north of the region. Extended Abstract 1-Introduction Climate change in the current era is one of the most important environmental challenges. Precipitation is one of the most important climate elements directly affecting the availability of water resources. Low amount of precipitation and its extreme fluctuations in the daily, seasonal and annual scales is an inherent characteristic of Iran’ s climate. Due to significant impacts of rainfall on water resources such as groundwater, surface water, and snow reservoir, some indices, Standard Precipitation Index (SPI) and Precipitation Concentration Index (PCI), are applied to explain its changes. SPI index includes applicable indices that are used in most studies, while PCI index has been introduced in recent years. Different indices have been used to assess the density of precipitation, inwhich the Precipitation Concentration Index (PCI) is recommended, for it provides information on long-term total variability in the amount of received rainfall. Rain erosion is recognized as a key factor on erosion. Accurate knowledge of the amount of rainfall erosion in a region is considered as a primary step in the sustainable management of soil and water. Early indices (Fournier and modified Fournier) are one of the most important indicators of rainfall erosion, which have widely been used in soil erosion studies due to easy calculation compared with other indices. 2-Materials and Methods West Azerbaijan province with an area of 37210 square kilometers (including the Urmia Lake) is the thirstiness province of Iran in extent which is located at a geographic location of 44° 3' to 47° 23' East longitude and 35° 58' to 39° 3344' Northern latitude. In this study, rainfall data from gauge stations of West Azerbaijan (Iran) were used in order to investigate of Precipitation Concentration Index. Referring to Iran water resources management, information, including daily rainfall data, geographical coordinates of the stations and years of statistics, received. After reviewing, the stations with incomplete data were excluded and finally, 66 rain gauge stations were selected. Information on daily rainfall for a period of 20 years (1993-2012) was reviewed in terms of homogeneity and normality using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and was used for calculating of PCI index. The aim of this research is to establish a regression relationship between the early indices with the EI30 index for studying the spatial and temporal changes in the rainfall erosion index during the period of 1993-2012 in West Azerbaijan province. Therefore, the data of 66 rain gauges and 13 rain-fed stations were used and erosion indices and precipitation concentration index of the region were calculated and spatial changes map was mapped using the Kriging method. 3-Results and Discussion Average rainfall in the entire area during a twenty-year period is approximately 325 mm. The mean value of PCI was 16. 66 indicating the seasonal distribution of rainfall in the province. The minimum value of PCI for the area was 12. 36 demonstrating the fair distribution of rainfall and the maximum value of this index for the entire period as 22. 17 that represents the distribution of rainfall is very seasonal. The important note is the few differences in statistics related to Precipitation Concentration Index so that during the period of two decades, mean changes of PCI is less than 2%. The EI30 index has the highest correlation with the overall corrected Fournier index (R2 = 0. 9). The EI30 index variation is very high in the province and is located in a range of 62. 54 to 230. 05 mega Jules millimeter per hectare per hour per year. The maximum erosion was observed in the southwestern part of the province and in the forests of Piranshahr and Sardasht, and at least in the northern and eastern of the province. According to the precipitation concentration index, rainfall pattern in the province was observed as relatively seasonal and seasonal. In terms of statistical period, rainfall amount and erosion indices showed an increase during the second decade compared to the first decade. The results showed that the erosive indices and the amount of annual precipitation decrease regularly by moving to higher geographic latitudes. 4-Conclusion In general, in lower latitudes, rainfall is higher in parts of the western highlands and in the southwest of the province which is decreasing regularly by moving towards the northern and eastern regions. This is in line with the results of Jalali and Shafi'i (2012) investigations conducted for West Azarbaijan province. ). Examining the annual and seasonal changes of rainfall in different climate zones by Azarakhshi et al (2013), and Ghaderpour (2014) by the assessment of precipitation spatial trend in the watershed of Lake Urmia announced that the province has a rising and declining trend in rainfall on an annual basis and the results are in accordance with this study.

This study was performed for evaluation and comparison of 20 hawthorn genotypes from four different species, to introduce superior genotypes in terms of pomology in West Azerbaijan Province. The different treats such as weight, length and width of fruit, peduncle length, length and width of leaf, petiole length, weight, length and width of seed, fruit firmness and fruit color parameters were measured. The largest fruit was observed in Crataegus azarolus species whereas, the smallest fruit was observed in C. monogyna and C. aplosangouainea species. Leaf length and Leaf width had significant correlation with fruit weight, fruit size, seed length and seed width. The five main factors based on factor analysis were explained approximately 89.11 percent of the total variance. According to cluster analysis based on Ward's method, genotypes were divided into three main groups. Genotypes related to C. azarolus var azarolus and several genotypes related to C. aplosangouainea located in group A which had the highest fruit firmness and seed number. In the second group, the genotypes belonging to C. azarolus were located and these genotypes had the highest fruit length, fruit width and fruit weight. In the third group, the genotypes belonging to C. monogyna and several genotypes related to C. aplosangouainea were located and the fruit density, leaf length and a* color index had a significant role in the separation of this group. Results showed that grouping followed species distribution pattern of genotypes. Results obtained might be helpful for breeding programs and introducing of cultivar in hawthorn.

Regarding variety of mineral resources, reserves tonnage, economic potentials, and geographical conditions of West Azerbaijan province, there are substantial opportunities in the province. By analyzing and selecting proper strategies and their implementation, the mining sector could operate as the leading sector of the regional economy. Assessing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the mining sector in this region by employing the SWOT method were the main objectives of this research. To achieve the goals, these factors were evaluated by the contribution of elites of the sector in the beginning. By applying external and internal factor evaluation matrix, external and internal evaluation matrix and SWOT method, the most significant factors were evaluated. Subsequently, the strategy direction for the mining sector was determined, and the attractive strategies were developed. The different options were evaluated by implementing the QSPM matrix, and the superior strategies were selected. The results indicated that the strategy of joint ventures with foreign leading companies of dimension stone was recommended as the most attractive strategy due to new technologies transformation and variety in dimension stone products.