The aim of this paper is to present the first record of ctenophore species Pleurobrachia pileus (O. F. Müller, 1776) in the coral reef as was recently found in Iraqi marine waters. The specimens were collected from two sites, the first was in Khor Abdullah during May 2015, and the second site was located in the pelagic water of the coral reef area, near the Al-Basrah deep sea crude oil marine loading terminal. Three samples were collected at this site during May 2015, February and March 2018 which showed that P. pileus were present at a densities of 3.0, 2.2 and 0.55 ind./ m³ respectively. The species can affect on the abundance of other zooplankton community through predation.

Introduction and Aim: Cancers are a complex group of genetic illnesses that develop through multistep, mutagenic processes which can invade or spread throughout the body. Recent advances in cancer treatment involve oncolytic viruses to infect and destroy cancer cells. The Newcastle disease virus (NDV), an oncolytic virus has shown to have anti-cancer effects either directly by lysing cancer cells or indirectly by activating the immune system. The green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been widely used in studying the anti-tumor activity of oncolytic viruses. This study aimed to study the anticancer effect of a recombinant rNDV-GFP clone on NCI-H727 lung carcinoma cell line in vitro.   Materials and Methods: The GFP gene was inserted t

This survey investigates the thermal evaporation of Ag2Se on glass substrates at various thermal annealing temperatures (300, 348, 398, and 448) °K. To ascertain the effect of annealing temperature on the structural, surface morphology, and optical properties of Ag2Se films, investigations and research were carried out. The crystal structure of the film was described by Xray diffraction and other methods.The physical structure and characteristics of the Ag2Se thin films were examined using X-ray and atomic force microscopy (AFM) based techniques. The Ag2Se films surface morphology was examined by AFM techniques; the investigation gave average diameter, surface roughness, and grain size mutation values with increasing annealing temperature

The effective insulation design of the stress grading (SG) system in form-wound stator coils is essential for preventing partial discharges and excessive heat generation under pulse-width modulation excitation. This paper proposes a method to find the optimal insulation design of the SG system aimed at reducing the dielectric and thermal stresses in the machine coil. The non-uniform transmission line model is used to predict the voltage propagation along the overhang, SG, and slot regions considering the variation in the physical properties of the insulation layers. The machine coil parameters for different insulation materials are calculated by using the finite element method. Two optimization algorithms, fmincon and particle swarm optimiz

The manganese doped zinc sulfide nanoparticles were synthesized by simple aqueous chemical reaction of manganese chloride, zinc acetate and thioacitamide in aqueous solution. Thioglycolic acid is used as capping agent for controlling the nanoparticle size. The main advantage of the ZnS:Mn nanoparticles of diameter ~ 2.73 nm is that the sample is prepared by using non-toxic precursors in a cost effective and eco-friendly way. The structural, morphological and chemical composition of the nanoparticles have been investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersion spectroscopy (EDS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The nanosize of the prepared nanoparticles was elucidated by Scan

Photonic Crystal Fiber Interferometers (PCFIs) are widely used for sensing applications. This work presents the fabrication and the characterization of a relative humidity sensor based on a polymer-coated photonic crystal fiber that operates in a Mach- Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) transmission mode. The fabrication of the sensor involved splicing a short (1 cm) length of Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF) between two single-mode fibers (SMF). It was then coated with a layer of agarose solution. Experimental results showed that a high humidity sensitivity of 29.37 pm/%RH was achieved within a measurement range of 27–95%RH. The sensor also showed good repeatability, small size, measurement accuracy and wide humidity range. The RH sensitivity o

Pharmaceuticals have been widely remaining contaminants in wastewater, and diclofenac is the most common pharmaceutical pollutant. Therefore, the removal of diclofenac from aqueous solutions using activated carbon produced by pyrocarbonic acid and microwaves was investigated in this research. Apricot seed powder and pyrophosphoric acid (45 wt%) were selected as raw material and activator respectively, and microwave irradiation technique was used to prepare the activated carbon. The raw material was impregnated in pyrophosphoric acid at 80◦C with an impregnation ratio of 1: 3 (apricot seeds to phosphoric acid), the impregnation time was 4 h, whereas the power of the microwave was 700 watts with a radiation time of 20 min. A series o