Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is one of the world’s oldest cultivated fruit crops and belongs to the Arecaceae family. It originated in Mesopotamia (Iraq) in 4000 BC. Large areas of palm groves in Iraq produce various types of dates for internal consumption and export. Their cultivation has spread and has become a significant crop in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Middle East. Date fruits are widely consumed in Iraq, and radiological monitoring of this crop is necessary as activity concentrations of 238U, 232Th, 40K, and 137Cs were measured in 12 soil samples and 12 date samples from 12 palm groves on the AL-Karkh side, west of Baghdad governorate, Iraq. Using gamma spectrometry HPGe detector, it was found that the average activity concentrations of natural radionuclides in the soil samples for 238U, 232Th, 40K, and 137Cs were 34 ± 1, 26 ± 7, 653 ± 121, and 4 ± 2 Bq kg−1, respectively. And on the date fruits sample were 1 ± 1, 1 ± 1, 310 ± 39, and 1 ± 1 Bq kg−1, respectively. Also, radiation hazard indicators were calculated. All results were within the recommended approximate values for UNSCEAR and below the safety standards of the IAEA.
The efficiency of solar energy absorption in solar heaters is increased by the use of selective absorption coating that possesses high absorption of solar radiation in the UV-visible spectrum as well as low emission at the operating temperature in the infrared region. In this work, novel selective coatings were synthesized by improving the selectivity of chromium oxide (Cr2O3) nanoparticles by doping with carbon nanoparticles using the exploding wire technique for carbon rods by high current in suspended Cr2O3 particles. The structural properties and surface topography were studied by XRD and FE-SEM, which illustrate the carbon-coated Cr2O3 nanoparticles. The prepar
... Show MoreMost companies use social media data for business. Sentiment analysis automatically gathers analyses and summarizes this type of data. Managing unstructured social media data is difficult. Noisy data is a challenge to sentiment analysis. Since over 50% of the sentiment analysis process is data pre-processing, processing big social media data is challenging too. If pre-processing is carried out correctly, data accuracy may improve. Also, sentiment analysis workflow is highly dependent. Because no pre-processing technique works well in all situations or with all data sources, choosing the most important ones is crucial. Prioritization is an excellent technique for choosing the most important ones. As one of many Multi-Criteria Decision Mak
... Show MoreThe effects of nutrients and physical conditions on phytase production were investigated with a recently isolated strain of Aspergillus tubingensis SKA under solid state fermentation on wheat bran. The nutrient factors investigated included carbon source, nitrogen source, phosphate source and concentration, metal ions (salts) and the physical parameters investigated included inoculum size, pH, temperature and fermentation duration. Our investigations revealed that optimal productivity of phytase was achieved using wheat bran supplemented with: 1.5% glucose. 0.5% (NH4)2SO4, 0.1% sodium phytate. Additionally, optimal physical conditions were 1 × 105 spore/g substrate, initial pH of 5.0, temperature of fermentation 30˚C and fermentation dura
... Show MoreActivated carbon prepared from date stones by chemical activation with ferric chloride (FAC) was used an adsorbent to remove phenolic compounds such as phenol (Ph) and p-nitro phenol (PNPh) from aqueous solutions. The influence of process variables represented by solution pH value (2-12), adsorbent to adsorbate weight ratio (0.2-1.8), and contact time (30-150 min) on removal percentage and adsorbed amount of Ph and PNPh onto FAC was studied. For PNPh adsorption,( 97.43 %) maximum removal percentage and (48.71 mg/g) adsorbed amount was achieved at (5) solution pH,( 1) adsorbent to adsorbate weight ratio, and (90 min) contact time. While for Ph adsorption, at (4) solution pH, (1.4) absorbent to adsorbate weight ratio, and (120 min) contact
... Show MoreBackground: Suppression of quorum sensing (QS) that regulates many virulence factors, including antimicrobial resistance, in bacteria may subject the pathogenic microbes to the harmful consequences of the antibiotics, increasing their susceptibility to such drugs. Aim: The current study aimed to make an aqueous crude extract from the soil Proteus mirabilis isolate with the use of the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique for its analysis, and then, study the impact of the extract on clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Methods: Preparation of crude extracts from P. mirabilis (both organic and aqueous), which were then analyzed by GC-MS to detect the bioactive ingredients. Furthermore, the extract’s capability to i
... Show MoreThe research studied and analyzed the hybrid parallel-series systems of asymmetrical components by applying different experiments of simulations used to estimate the reliability function of those systems through the use of the maximum likelihood method as well as the Bayes standard method via both symmetrical and asymmetrical loss functions following Rayleigh distribution and Informative Prior distribution. The simulation experiments included different sizes of samples and default parameters which were then compared with one another depending on Square Error averages. Following that was the application of Bayes standard method by the Entropy Loss function that proved successful throughout the experimental side in finding the reliability fun
... Show MoreA new Turbidimetric method characterized by simplicity, accuracy and speed for determination of Hydronium ion by continuous flow injection analysis. The method was based on the formation of complex Zn3[Fe(CN)6] for Zinc(II) that was eluted by Hydronium ion from cation exchanger column with Potassium hexacyanoferrate(III) for the formation of a pale yellow precipitate and this precipitate was determined using homemade Linear Array Ayah-5SX1-T-1D continuous flow injection analyser. The optimum parameters were 2.7 mL.min-1 flow rate using H2O as a carrier stream, 1.7 mL.min-1 reagent stream, 110 L sample volume and open valve for the purge of the sample segment. Data treatment shows that linear range 0.01-0.1 mol.L-1 for each acids (HClO
... Show MoreThis study reports on natural convection heat transfer in a square enclosure of length (L=20 cm) with a saturated porous medium (solid glass beads) having same fluid (air) at lower horizontal layer and free air fill in the rest of the cavity's space. The experimental work has been performed under the effects of heating from bottom by constant heat flux q=150,300,450,600 W/m2 for four porous layers thickness Hp (2.5,5,7.5,1) cm and three heaters length δ(20,14,7) cm. The top enclosure wall was good insulated and the two side walls were symmetrically cooled at constant temperature. Four layers of porous media with small porosity, Rayleigh number range (60.354 - 241.41) and (Da) 3.025x10-8 has been investigated. The obtained data of temperatu
... Show MoreThe research aims to identify the effect of teaching according to the augmented reality on the technique of the visual thinking skills among scientific fifth-grade students in a biology course. In order to achieve the goal of the research, the researcher adopted the experimental approach with the partial set of the two equal groups with the dimensional test of visual thinking skills, The research population represented all the scientific students of the fifth grade for morning government schools affiliated to the General Directorate of Education of Baghdad / Karkh II, alshakerin preparatory for boys was chosen intentionally, in which two groups were chosen for this study, one group is chosen randomly as the control group via lottery, whe
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