JWSS - Journal of Water and Soil Science

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In Iran, about 75% of national rice production is supplied in Gilan and Mazandaran proviences which have the highest amount of precipitation. Seasonal prediction of rainfall induces significant improvement on yield production and on preventing climate hazardz over these feritle areas. Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) model was carried out evaluates the possibility of the prediction of winter rainfall according to the states of ENSO events. The time series of (southern oscilation index (SOI) and SST (sea surface temperature) over Nino's area (Nino's SST) are used as the predictors, and precipitation in Bandar Anzali and Noushahr are used as the predictands. Emperical orthogonal functions (EOF) were applied for reducing the number of original predictors variables to fewer presumably essential orthogonal variables. Four modes of variations (EOF1, EOF2, EOF3, EOF4) which account for about 92% of total variance in predictors field were retained and the others were considered as noise. Based on the retained EOFs and precipitation time series, the canonical correlation analysis (CCA) was carried out to predict winter precipitation in Noushahr and Bandar Anzali. The results indicated that the predictors considered account for about 45% of total variance in the rainfall time series. The correlation coefficents between the simulated and observed time series were significant at 5% significant level. For 70% of events the anomalies of observed and simulated values have the same sign indicating the ability of the model for reasonable prediction of above or below normal values of precipitation. For rainfall prediction, the role of Nino's SST (Nino4 in particular) was found to be around 10% more influential than SOI. .

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Bread is widely consumed as a staple food all over the world. The major ingredient of bread is wheat flour which suffers of a couple of shortcomings, such as essential amino acids. To overcome of this problem, a great deal of attention has been made by fortification of bread with different cereal and legume flours. In this study, wheat flour was replaced with 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40% of oat flour to investigate of its effects on dough texture and sensory attributes at room and lower temperatures for 0, 24, 48, 72 h in improved and unimproved breads. Improved formula containing levels of blanched oats, 1.5% fat and 60 ppm ascorbic acid. Addition of oat flour improved bread shelf life. Breads baked with up to 20% oat flour, were considered to be stable along over the time as indicated by sensory evaluation. Samples substituted with 30% and 40% oat flour had the high intensities of bitterness.

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In order to determine the effects of emulsifiers (Lecithin, E471 and E472) and their levels (0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1%) and also addition of fungal α-amylase (0, 5, 10 and 20 g/100 kg flour) on bread staling, a completely randomized experiment with factorial design and 3 replications was conducted. Bread staling was determined after 0, 24, 48 and 72 hours of storage. Correlation between variables was analyzed by simple and multivariate regression. Results indicated that addition of emulsifiers reduced the firmness of bread. E472 had the most and E471 had the least effect on bread firmness after 72 hours of storage. Addition of α-amylase reduced the bread firmness and this effect was less pronounced after 72 hours of storage. Correlation between variables based on the development of a model showed that in the first day of bread production, optimal levels of emulsifiers were 1%, 0.25% and 0.5% for Lecithin, E471 and E472, respectively. In case of simultaneous application of emulsifiers and enzyme, the optimal level of enzyme was 5 g/100 kg flour.

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In order to evaluate the capability of ETM+ remotely- sensed data to provide "Forest- shrub land- Rangeland" cover type map in areas near the timberline of northern forests of Iran, the data was analyzed in a portion of nearly 790 ha located in Neka- Zalemroud region. First, ortho-rectification process was implemented to correct the geometric errors of the image, which yielded 0/68 and 0/69 pixels of RMS error toward X and Y axis, respectively. The original multi-spectral bands were fused to the panchromatic band using PANSHARP Statistical module. The ground truth map was prepared using 1 ha field plots in a systematic- random sampling grid. Vegetative form of trees, shrubs and rangelands was recorded as a criterion to allocate the plots. A set of channels including original bands, NDVI and IR/R indices, and first components of PCA was used for classification procedure. Automatic band selection command was used to select the appropriate channel set.. Classification was carried out using ML classifier on both original and fused data sets. It showed 67% of overall accuracy and 0/43 of Kappa coefficient in original data set. Due to the results present presented above, it's concluded that ETM+ data has an intermediate capability to fulfill the spectral variations of 3 form- based classes, in the studied area. Furthermore, applying complementary methods to minimize the background spectral effect is proposed for future studies.

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Homogenized milks at 0.5 and 2.5% fat content were each fortified with three levels of Vitamin A palmitate at 3000, 4000 and 5000 IU/L. Vitamin was added just before homogenization and then pasteurized milks were packed in polymeric pouches and glass bottles. All samples were refrigerated at 4-5 °C for 48 hours. Any reduction in vitamin A level was monitored using HPLC, while sensory evaluation was conducted in order to rank the samples. ANOVA and Friedman analyses indicated that fat content along with package type had a significant effect on the residue of vitamin A. The loss of vitamin A was significantly higher in 0.5% milk either packed in polymeric pouch or glass bottle. However, besides fat concentration, more vitamin A was lost in glass bottles rather than polymeric pouches. Sensory evaluation showed that milk fortification had no adverse effects on color and flavor of the product.

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One of the most important goals of precision farming is preparing yield map. Recently in Iran, planting of corn has received special attention. Therefore, among the different methods of yield measurement such as using impact sensor at the outlet port of forage harvester (chopper), displacement sensors at feed rollers of forage harvester, continuous measurement of discharged material to trailing wagon and using the torque meter, the present study made use of the torque meter method. This method consisted of a torque transmitting shaft equipped with laser-based encoders to monitor twist in a real time mode. The unit output could be exported to a computer via a microcontroller installed into the interface device. For calibration of the torque meter output with material feed rate in lab conditions, a conveyor was used to feed homogenous amount of material at a specific rate to the chopper. The experiment was conducted at 3 feed rates of silage corn and at 3 feed roll speeds of the chopper with 3 replications. Correlation between the feed rate and recorded power at different gears of the chopper was established. Relationships between feed rate and recorded power of the chopper at gears 1, 2 and 3 were linear with calculated R2 of 0.95, 0,98 and 0.98, respectively.

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In this study, the effect of “Osmodehydrofrozen” fruit addition on sensory, physical, chemical and microbiological properties of concentrated yoghurt and its quality during storage was evaluated. This research was done in two stages. At the first stage, fruit percentage, type and addition time (before and after fermentation) was determined. The results indicated yoghurts containing 10% apple or 13% strawberry, which was added before fermentation had a better quality. Because of high osmotic activity of apple, the synersis was lower in apple yoghurt in comparison with strawberry yoghurt. According to osmotic activity of both fruits, the synersis value was much lower than that of fruit yoghurts, which contained untreated fruits. Taste value was higher in strawberry yoghurt and texture and mouth feel values were higher at low percentages of fruit. The results of the second stage (quality evaluation during storage) indicated that storage had a significant effect on pH, acidity, synersis, taste and texture (P<0.05). In samples which contained apple, coli forms disappeared after 7 days of storage. In samples that contained strawberry, coli forms disappeared after 7 days of storage.

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Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and Sea Surface Temperature (SST) patterns affect rainfall in many parts of the world. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between monthly and seasonal rainfall of Iran versus SOI and Pacific and Indian sea surface temperature. Monthly rainfall data, from 50 synoptic stations with at least 30 years of records up to the end of 2007, were used. Monthly and seasonal time series of each station were divided to several groups by four methods (Average SOI, SOI Phases, Indian SST Phases and Pacific SST Phases) using Rainman software and with regard to 0-3 months lead-time. Significant differences among rainfall groups in each method were assessed by the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests, and the significant relationship was validated using Linear Error in Probability Space (LEPS) test. The results showed that SOI during summer (July-September) was related to autumn (October-December) and October rainfall in the west and northwest of Iran and the west Caspian Sea coast. The El Niño (negative) phase was associated with an increase in rainfall and the La Niña (positive) phase was associated with a decrease in rainfall in these regions. Average SOI is a useful index for rainfall forecasting in the above-mentioned areas. However, Indian and Pacific SST phases are not suggested for rainfall forecasting in Iran, duo to weak or non-persistence relationships. In conclusion, Iran rainfall is not limited to SOI, Pacific and Indian SST therefore, Rainman could not be used as an aid to water resources management over a year in Iran. It is suggested that we study the teleconnection between Iran rainfall and other ocean-atmospheric oscillations developing a model similar to Rainman in order to that we investigating the variation in Iran rainfall with aid of other effective ocean-atmospheric indicators

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