The use of improved queens with desirable functional and behavioral traits is one of the most important factors of success in beekeeping. The current study was conducted with the aim of evaluating the performance of improved Iranian honey bee queens with control ones in the private apiaries of Kurdistan province during 2017 to 2021.

In this study, the queens of the third layer, which were the result of the improved queens of the Iranian honey bee breeding project, along with unimproved native queens (as control) were evaluated in six private apiaries of Kurdistan province based on honey production, calmness, aggressive, swarming, and overwintering traits. To evaluate the queens, special questionnaires were designed and provided to the beekeepers to evaluate the improved queens along with the control ones in their private apiary during the years of the study.

Variance analysis results showed that the effect of the queen was significant at the 1% probability level on all studied traits. The effect of year was significant at the 1% probability level on honey production and swarming traits and on calmness on the frame trait at the 5% probability level, but it had no effect on the overwintering trait. Also, the effect of the city was significant on swarming trait (p<0.01). The interactions effect of queen type – year and year- city were significant for the trait of swarming and honey production triats at the 1 and 5 % probability level, respectively. The results of the present study showed that the colonies with improved queens were significantly superior to the colonies with native queens in terms of calmness on the frame, aggressive, swarming and overwintering traits (p<0.05). An acceptable relative superiority and progress were observed in terms of honey production trait in the improved queens in all the studied years compared to native queens, but this superiority and progress was not significant due to the low heritability of this trait.

In general, the results of this study showed the progress and improvement of the target traits and the superiority of improved Iranian honey bee queens compared to unimproved native queens in the climate conditions of Kurdistan province. Considering the superiority and significant improvements in the majority of studied traits in the improved queens of the Iranian honey bee breeding project, it can be concluded that the Iranian honey bee can improve genetically. Therefore, in the continuation of this research, it is suggested to deal with the new problems of the beekeeping industry through more efforts towards the genetic stabilization of resulting improvements, preventing the homozygosity of sex alleles (which has a direct effect on reducing the performance of the colonies) and also using new breeding methods.

Masonry infilled reinforced concrete frame buildings built prior to the introduction of modern seismic provisions have been observed to undergo damage in and around the masonry infill walls during most recent moderate to severe earthquakes. Considering interaction between masonary infill and frame is one of the challenges in the field of engineering research. Observation of past earthquake indicates that in the pre-damaged infill wall in the in-plane mode, the probability of out-of-plane failure of infill walls will increase. However various studies have shown that if the infill wall correctly restrained by the frame, there is a significant capacity, in terms of force and displacement against the out-of-plane demands. The prediction of interaction and effect of in-plane behavior on the out-of-plane beahaviour of infill, is one of the new issues in the field of seismic evaluation of masonary infills. This paper present comparative parametric review of the strength and displacement capacity models that predict the infills out-of-plane responses. Also, models that consider influence of in-plane damage on the out-of-plane capacity, it has also been investigated. The parametric comparison of different models in the capacity estimation of masonary infills in out-of-plane mode is shown that interaction of in-plane and out-of-plane beahviour of infills has a significant effect on capacity reduction of infills in out-of-plane mode and the model presented in FEMA360 for out-of-plane capacity of infills has a conservative results.

There are various design and construction deficiencies that exist in the contemporary moment resisting frames in Iran. This, of course, greatly increases the vulnerability of such structures. The most common defects observed in a real structure are as follows: cracks in welds due to the lack of complete penetration in groove welds and/or incomplete fusion, use of latticed built-up sections instead of standard wide-flange sections as columns, and misplacement of continuity plates at the column-girder joints. These defects have a negative impact on the behavior of connections and hence resulting in an unpredicted structural response. The rate of impact of such defects on structures can be estimated in a probabilistic analysis of the behavior of these frames. In this study, to investigate the probabilistic behavior of constructed structures in Iran, two existing frames with three and five stories having the above-mentioned deficiencies are considered. The mean annual loss and failure probability of these frames are obtained and compared with that of similar structures with no such defects. At first, the moment-curvature of different elements of the defected structure is estimated by an analytical method. The standard and defected connections are modeled in finite element software, and the hysteresis behavior of these connections is estimated using the standard SAC loading protocol. Based on these results, the backbone curve of connections is determined and employed for modeling of the frames. Then, the non-linear probabilistic behavior of the frames are evaluated by performing nonlinear dynamic analysis, when the frames are subjected to several earthquake records of soil type 2 in far- and near-field pulses. Thereby, the seismic fragility function of frames is estimated by applying the results of the probabilistic analysis. Using the seismic hazard curve of the location of the structure, the probability of failure of the studied frame in different damage states is estimated. In addition, the mean annual loss of the frames is calculated and compared. The results indicate that the presence of defects in connections cause a decrease in yielding and ultimate moment capacity of connections by 34 and 17.1 percent, respectively. Moreover, in three and five-story frames, the failure probabilities of the defected frames are 1.7 and 4.12 times of perfect frames, correspondingly. Similarly, the mean annual loss of defected three- and five-story frames are 1.76 and 2.36 times of perfect frames, respectively. It can be concluded that, first, the safety of constructed structures with defects in connections is significantly lower than that of code’s ideal frames. Second, the mean annual loss of defected frame is more than two times that of code’s complied frames; this demonstrates the significant vulnerability of existing structures. Third, the effect of deficiency on the reliability of mid-rise frames is higher than that of low-rise frames. This higher vulnerability of mid-rise frame indicates that particular attention should be paid to the construction of such structures. Besides, results have shown that the reliability of constructed steel frames with deficiencies is significantly lower than that of frames, which are constructed according to the requirements of the code, especially for high-rise buildings.

The present research was conducted with the aim of evaluating the performance of improved Iranian honey bee queens with unimproved native queens (control queen) in private apiaries of Kurdistan province during 1396 to 1400. In this study, improved Iranian honey bee queens along with unimproved native queens were evaluated in six private apiaries of Kurdistan province based on honey production, calmness, aggressiveness, swarming, and overwintering traits. The results showed that the improved Iranian honey bee queens in the climatic conditions of Kurdistan province had a significant superiority and acceptable progress over the unimproved native queens in terms of calmness, aggressiveness, swarming, and overwintering traits (P<0.05). An acceptable relative superiority and progress were observed in terms of honey production trait in the improved queens in all the studied years compared to native queens, but this superiority and progress was not significant due to the low heritability of this trait. In general, the results of this study showed the progress and improvement of the target traits and the superiority of improved Iranian honey bee queens compared to un improved native queens in the climate conditions of Kurdistan province. Therefore, the results indicated that Iranian honey bee breeding has been effective in improving the target traits. So, it is necessary to use modified improved queens in order to increase the performance of honey bee colonies in the country and preserve one of the most valuable genetic resources of our country.

In this study, the ductility reduction factor of Ordinary Concentrically Braced Frames (OCBFs) and special concentrically braced frames (SCBFs) which are braced concentrically in two end sides of frames, is evaluated. The results confirmed that, using SCBFs will reduce about 15 to 45 percent of total used material for one to 16 story frames respectively. In addition, for all of the 16 ordinary X-braced frames, which have 1 to 16 story height, calculated ductility reduction factor exceeds from ASCE7’s proposed one, except for 16 stories frame. For studied frames, which are braced in two end sides, using the X-bracing system, the results confirmed that ductility demand is achievable without any significant problem. In addition, results indicated that although the response modification factor which is proposed by Iranian seismic design code (2800 standard), is more logical than ASCE7’s one, for frames which are braced in the end sides, the response modification factor should be taken less than 5.5.

Although infill panels are considered as non-structural elements in analysis and design process of building frames, these members may significantly affect the seismic performance of the frames. Nowadays, tendency to design and construct the irregular buildings has increased. Behavior factor plays an important role in the seismic design of buildings. Seismic codes usually present the same Behavior factor for the regular and irregular lateral load-carrying systems. In this investigation, the influence of masonry infill walls on the behavior factor of the vertically irregular moment resisting reinforced concrete frames was evaluated. To do so, 3-, 6-, 9- and 12-story moment resisting reinforced concrete frames with various types of vertical irregularities were considered. These frames were assessed with/without considering the influence of infill walls. The capacity curves of the frames were derived using incremental dynamic analysis using 14 acceleration ground motions and then the behaviour factors were achieved. Outcomes demonstrated that infilled frames present higher response modification factors and more efficiently performance in lateral load-carrying rather than bare frames. Furthermore, it was shown that vertical irregularity affects the seismic responses and the behavior factor of moment resisting reinforced concrete frames. Eventually, two approximate relations were developed to acquire the response modification factors of bare- and infilled- vertically irregular moment resisting reinforced concrete frames.