---

Pistachio psylla, Agonoscena pistaciae Burkhardt & Lauterer (Hem.: Psyllidae) is one of the most important pests of pistachio orchards in Iran. The application of chemical pesticides early in the growing season until harvest has affected farmers’ and consumers’ health. In this research, the efficacy of arugula Eruca sativa cold press seed oil, methanolic spinach Spinacia oleracea seed extract, and dayabon® (SL 10%) was studied against nymphs and adults of pistachio psylla in a laboratory at 26 ± 2 °C, 65 ± 5% RH, and photoperiod of 16: 8 (L: D) h. LC₅₀ values of nanoemulsion formulation (NEF) of spinach seed extract and its nonformulated extract on the early nymphal stage were 468 and 4381 mg/l, respectively. In contrast, the LC₅₀ value of arugula seed oil and dayabon was 2281 and 4380 mg/l, respectively. NEF of spinach seed extract (LC₅₀ = 124 mg/l) was significantly more toxic than other compounds against the 5^th nymphal stage. There was no significant difference in nonformulated spinach seed extract (LC₅₀ = 3946 mg/l), arugula seed oil (LC₅₀ = 3189 mg/l) and dayabon (LC₅₀ = 3930 mg/l) against 5^th instars. The efficiency of dayabon and arugula seed oil and a chemical pesticide fenitrothion was studied in the field located in Dehmolla County, Shahrood, Iran. Sampling was carried out before and after treatment. There were no significant differences between days after treatments. It means that the botanicals were effective until 21 days after treatment. Findings indicated that botanical pesticides used in this study could be effective against pistachio psylla.

---

Cell substrates play a crucial role in tissue engineering and biomaterial science. Various studies are performed to develop the appropriate cell substrates for using in vitro and in vivo. Therefore, a biocompatible substrate that mimics the native extracellular matrix properties with specified surface topography as a biomimicry factor is necessary under ''the novel cell substrates development'' approaches. Our aim in the current study was to design, synthesize, and characterize a substrate with aligned nanometric arrays on the surface. The rapid and easy capabilities of Polydimethylsiloxane to receive chemical and physical characteristics with simple modifications, make it a promised candidate for the cell substrate. The obtained results from the atomic force and scanning electron microscopy showed the formation of 305±19 and 571±141 nanometers wrinkled nanoarrays after regulating the substrate under lateral traction during the plasma treatment times of 100 and 200s. Then, the behavior of a human foreskin fibroblast cell, in terms of adhesion, growth, viability, and morphology on this substrate was investigated. Increasing the plasma treatment time increased both nanoarray size and surface hydrophilicity, resulting in improved 17 and 46% of cell attachment quality, respectively. Additionally, the presence of the designed nanowrinkles surprisingly improved the number of the attached cells. The nanowrinkles caused the cells to align perfectly through the substrate's surface due to the contact guidance phenomena. Consequently, the biocompatible Polydimethylsiloxane substrate of this study with suitable chemical, mechanical, and physical properties showed fit capacities as a novel aligned cell culture platform. 

---

Vitamins D and E are two common medicines for diabetes treatment. Among the main issues in this field is the release of insulin into the circulatory system. Increasing the stability of insulin hexamer is an evolving strategy in improving insulin secretion efficiency. Insulin protein is commonly found in three forms: monomer, dimer, and hexamer. In this study, for the first time, computational approaches were used to investigate the effect of vitamins D3 and E on the stability of insulin hexamer. The molecular docking results indicate six specific binding sites for these vitamins. These bind to the hydrophobic sites of insulin subunits due to their structural rings and hydrophobic properties. The G-mmpbsa analysis indicates the stabilizing role of both vitamins. The binding of these vitamins to the hexamer has significantly increased the binding energy between insulin subunits. Also, the number of hydrogen bonds between monomeric subunits of each insulin homodimer increased in the presence of the vitamins. It also significantly increases the number of internal hydrogen bonds of hexamer protein. Accordingly, vitamins D3 and E bind to and stabilize the insulin hexamer, resulting in a slower and more balanced insulin release as well as a longer half-life for the dimer in the bloodstream. These findings will pave the way to design a new strategy to regulate insulin release and increase its half-life in the blood for type II diabetes treatment. Besides, hexamer stabilization can be an effective treatment strategy for type I diabetes through slow release from an implanted biosensor system.

---

​Distillates are one of the most popular consumer products of medicinal plants. High essential oil and low methanol contents have always been considered as two desirable factors by experts in the food and pharmaceutical industries. In order to investigate the effect of harvest height on Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis L.) distillate quality, an experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Four harvesting heights of 15, 25, 35 and 45 cm (measured from the highest point of the plant), as well as the remaining stalk, were the treatments in this research. The measured traits were: methanol and essential oil content in the distillates. The results of statistical analysis showed a significant effect of treatments on the studied traits. It can be said that methanol values significantly increased with the harvesting height measured from the top. It varied from 71.64 ± 2.7 mg/l for the height of 15 cm to 219.77 ± 3.52 mg/l for 45 cm. In the remaining stalk, methanol values increased from 142.33 ± 1.34 mg/l for 15 cm height to 393.86±24.65 mg/l for 35 cm height. It should be mentioned that at 45 cm height of cut, there was no remaining stalk. The amount of essential oil in the distillate increased with harvesting height. The findings of this study showed that the harvesting height of 15 cm from the highest part of the plant is recommended for obtaining a higher distillate quality with lower methanol content, and the possibility of increasing the number of harvesting cuts for the production of medicinal and nutritional products.

---

Considering the importance and extent of industries related to food processing in human life and the key role of a raw material such as pectin in this industry, the use of innovative, more optimal and less expensive methods of extracting this material can be important. A semi-continuous rotary separator system for separating pulp from fluid containing pectin has been investigated in the present study. In this research, to evaluate the separation process with the help of semi-continuous separator by considering the rotational speed, fluid input flow rate and time in the separation process, on the efficiency and energy consumption at flow rates of 60, 90 and 120 ml/min and five levels of rotational speed 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000, rpm and time intervals 0-50, 51-100, 101-150, 151-200 and 201-250 seconds, according to the optimal energy consumption. The solution contains acid as a solvent for pectin and some solid fiber suspended in the fluid, in order to produce pectin, its solid particles must be separated first and a semi-continuous separator is used in this step. According to the obtained results, the input flow rate of 60 ml/min due to the longer retention time for better separation, the rotational speed of 6000 rpm due to the creation of the greatest rcf force, and finally the time interval of 0-50 seconds had the best separation quality. By considering the time and energy consumption and using the RSM, the optimal point with an efficiency of 99.12% in the conditions of a rotational speed of 3400 rpm, an input flow rate of 120 ml/min and a time of 50 seconds with a consumption of 6.48 W hours of energy consumption, by computer it was validated by testing the first 5 optimal points and with an error of 6% of the introduced optimal point.
 

---

Pectin, which is made from citrus peel and waste, is one of the most commonly used compounds in the food industry. For large scale production, a combination of membrane-vacuum filtering has been suggested as an alternative to traditional methods of purifying the acidic solution for pectin extraction. This study investigates the main factors involved in membrane filtering system for separation of fibrous materials from an acidic pectin solution under vacuum. These factors which include: filter-aid-particle size, amount of filter-aid (perlite) added to the solution, and the vacuum level, affect, separation quality, volumetric flow rate, and energy consumption . A vacuum separation device was developed for this purpose in order to separate the fibrous material dissolved in solution. The independent variables were examined at three levels, the data were analyzed, and the optimum value for each variable was determined using the response surface method (RSM). Results revealed that increasing the vacuum level from 0.2 to 0.4 bar increases the flow-rate 6.5 folds, while, further increase in the vacuum level decreases the flow-rate. This indicates clogging of the paper filter and decreased flow-rate at vacuum level of 0.6 bar and perlite particle size of 100 microns. The evaluation results showed that thickness of the perlite layer has the greatest effect on the separation efficiency and when increased from 1 to 2 cm,  increases the efficiency  2.5 folds. The maximum value of separation efficiency was obtained at a vacuum level of 0.2 bar, particle size of 20 microns and perlite thickness of 2 cm. The energy consumption of 60-micron perlite was 0.74 Wh in the optimal state, and the larger and smaller sizes of perlite had 4.5 times the energy consumption. These findings are applicable in the industrial scale implementation of a biomaterial separation system using vacuum membrane filtering.
 

---

Food security is a critical issue in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region due to its population growth, as well as geographical and climatic conditions. From one point of view, most of the countries in the region benefit from an abundance of natural resources centered on fossil fuels. From another point of view, environmental issues, particularly emissions caused by production activities, and the pressures caused by climate variability, highlight the importance of food security. Hence, the effects of climate change, energy consumption, environmental pollution and other control variables on food security in the MENA region were explored from 1990 to 2019. According to the cross-section dependency, the second-generation panel CS-ARDL (Cross-Sectional Autoregressive Distributed Lag) estimator was employed. The empirical results indicate that energy consumption, crop production land, CO₂ emissions, and precipitation have a significant positive effect on crop production index, as index of food security. Additionally, urbanization and mean temperature have detrimental effects. The findings from Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality tests indicated that crop land and precipitation have a unidirectional causal effect on food security, whereas energy consumption, CO₂ emissions, urbanization, and mean temperature have a bidirectional causal relationship with food security. These findings imply that while maintaining the level of agricultural production and increasing it, the climate effects and environmental aspects of production should not be overlooked.