Bacteria strain H8, which produces high amount of exopolysaccharide (EPS), was isolated from soil, and identified as strain of Azotobacter chrococcum by its biochemical /physiological characteristics, EPS was extracted, partially purified and used as bioflocculant. The biochemical analysis of the partially purified EPS revealed that it was an alginate. analysis of EPS by Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) show that the -OH groups present in bioflocculant are clearly seen at 3433.06 cm-1, the peaks attributed to the -CH3 groups present at 2916.17 cm-1 , and some distinct peaks such as carboxyl group showed strong absorption bands at 1604.66 cm-1, 1411.80 cm-1 and 1303.79 cm-1 indicate the chemical structure of alginate. The effects of various salts, temperature, bioflocculant dosage and pH on the flocculation activity (turbidity removal) were evaluated. When various salts, were used as cation, results showed that CaCl2 and ZnSO4.7H2O enhanced flocculation activity 57.3% and 55.3% respectively compared with CuSO4 and MnCl2 which was 37.5% and 10 % respectively. The bioflocculant had strong thermal stability within the range of 20-100 °C, and the flocculating activity was over 50 %, the maximum flocculation activity was observed at an optimum bioflocculant dosage of 0.25 mL /10 mL (60.8%)., the bioflocculant had highest flocculating activity at alkaline condition pH 10 (77.7 %). After optimization of flocculation conditions, bioflocculant produced was applied to deal with river water and the flocculating activity (turbidity removal) increased to 81%.
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Iron is one of the abundant elements on earth that is an essential element for humans and may be a troublesome element in water supplies. In this research an AAN model was developed to predict iron concentrations in the location of Al- Wahda water treatment plant in Baghdad city by water quality assessment of iron concentrations at seven WTPs up stream Tigris River. SPSS software was used to build the ANN model. The input data were iron concentrations in the raw water for the period 2004-2011. The results indicated the best model predicted Iron concentrations at Al-Wahda WTP with a coefficient of determination 0.9142. The model used one hidden layer with two nodes and the testing error was 0.834. The ANN model coul
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Freshwater mussels are a guild of stationary, suspended-feeding species; they perform significant ecological functions like nitrogen cycling, bioturbation that gives oxygen and habitat that other creatures need to survive, and increasing water clearance by filtration. Knowledge of the freshwater mussel Unio tigridis Bourguignat, 1852, distribution, and molecular study in Iraq was inadequate. In the current study, this species of freshwater Mussels belonging to the family Unionidae was collected from different locations in the Greater Zab River, from April 2022 to November 2022. The average water temperature of the site was arranged between (17.8 to 36.1 C°). All previous studies in the Kurdistan Region and Iraq were based on morphologic
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Several toxigenic cyanobacteria produce the cyanotoxin (microcystin). Being a health and environmental hazard, screening of water sources for the presence of microcystin is increasingly becoming a recommended environmental procedure in many countries of the world. This study was conducted to assess the ability of freshwater cyanobacterial species Westiellopsis prolifica to produce microcystins in Iraqi freshwaters via using molecular and immunological tools. The toxigenicity of W. prolifica was compared via laboratory experiments with other dominant bloom-forming cyanobacteria isolated from the Tigris River: Microcystis aeruginosa, Chroococcus turigidus, Nostoc carneum, and Lyngbya sp. signifi
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Calculating the Inverse Kinematic (IK) equations is a complex problem due to the nonlinearity of these equations. Choosing the end effector orientation affects the reach of the target location. The Forward Kinematics (FK) of Humanoid Robotic Legs (HRL) is determined by using DenavitHartenberg (DH) method. The HRL has two legs with five Degrees of Freedom (DoF) each. The paper proposes using a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to optimize the best orientation angle of the end effector of HRL. The selected orientation angle is used to solve the IK equations to reach the target location with minimum error. The performance of the proposed method is measured by six scenarios with different simulated positions of the legs. The proposed
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The aim of this study was the discrimination of Salmonella isolated from chicken and their feed and drinking water for the epidemiological control of salmonellosis. Totally, 289 samples, including 217 chicken cloaca swabs, 46 water, and 26 feed samples were collected from five different farms in Karbala governorate, Iraq. Conventional bacteriology tests, API 20E, Vitek 2, and serology were used for bacterial identification. Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was applied to analyze the genetic relationships among Salmonella isolates. The isolation rate of Salmonella spp. was 21.1% (61/289). While the water samples constituted the highest rate (30.4%), a rate of
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Bis-anthraquinones with a unique molecular backbone, (+)-2,2’-epicytoskyrin A (epi) and (+)-1,1′-bislunatin (bis), was produced by endophytic fungi Diaporthe sp GNBP-10 associated with Gambir plant (Uncaria gambier). Epi and bis possess robust antimicrobial activity toward various pathogens. This study focus on knowing the optimum condition of epi and bis production from Diaporthe sp GNBP-10. A series of culture media with various nutrient compositions was investigated in epi and bis production. The content of epi and bis was determined by measuring the area under the curve from TLC-densitometric (scanner) experiment. The linear regression analysis was then applied to obtain the results. The optimi
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