The present study was performed to spotlight the potential role of soil bacteria in the Al-Rumaila oil field as a bioindicator of heavy metals pollution. For this purpose, nine soil samples were collected from different sites, with 20cm depth, to assess the pollution status depending on the total and available concentrations of heavy metals.  The result indicates pollution of the studied soils with the following metals: Cd, Cu, Fe, Zn, and Pb. The mean of total concentration for all studied metals was higher than the allowed maximum limit based on the international limit:(3.394, 3.994, 39.993, 8844.979,150.372, and 103.347 µg/g), respectively. While measuring the total Metal concentration is important in determining the de

The detection of fungi contaminating maize grain and the effect of four plant extracts Azadirachta indica, Eucalyptus globulus Glycyrrhiza glabra and Zingiber officinale on the growth of A. flavus and its ability to produce AflatoxinB1. The results showed that the incidence of Aspergillus spp., was 52.75% of the isolated fungi, of which 29.50% was due to Aspergillus flavus, followed by Penicillium spp., with an incidence of 21.06%, and then Fusarium spp., with a rate of 18.13%. The percentage of toxin-producing A. flavus isolates reached 70.8% out of 24 isolates. The results showed the effect of alcoholic plant extracts at a concentration of 10 mg/ml on the fungal growth activity of A. flavus, the alcoholic extract of neem leaves was superi

This study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of Saccharomyces cerevesiae as a growth promoting agent in tomato. Soaking the seeds in yeast suspension at 5 g/L for 12h increased germination percentage, root length, root fresh and dry weight, plant height, foliage fresh and dry weight, attained 88.5% ; 8.1 cm ; 84.3 mg ; 7.03 mg ; 10.75 cm ; 839 mg and 37.75 mg compared with 80% ; 5.33 cm ; 39 mg ; 4.8 mg ; 7.35 cm ; 608 mg and 25.5 mg in seedlings grown from non treated seeds respectively. Similar results were obtained with seedling from seeds soaked in S. cerevesiae filtrate for 12 hrs. with values of 77.5% ; 6.875 cm ; 91.5 mg ; 7.5 mg ; 9.5 cm ; 777 mg and 40.35 mg compared to 66% ; 5.8 cm ; 57.7 mg ; 5.03 mg ; 5.9 cm ; 493 mg

This research was conducted to measure the safety of heat stable enterotoxin a (STa) produced by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, through studying its toxic effect on mice since it showed a promising effect in reducing the proliferation of colorectal cancer cells. The cytogenetic effect was determined after giving five different doses (100, 200, 400, 800 and 1600)μg/Kg in comparison with negative (phosphate buffer saline / PBS) and positive (mitomycin C/ MMC, at doses of 2 and 5μg/Kg) controls on mouse bone marrow cells by employing the following parameters: mitotic index, chromosomal aberrations and micronucleus, also, the serum level of liver functional enzymes (GOT, GPT, ALP) was recorded. In addition, lethal dose 50 (LD 50) with cert

The CdSe pure films and doping with Cu (0.5, 1.5, 2.5, 4.0wt%) of thickness 0.9μm have been prepared by thermal evaporation technique on glass substrate. Annealing for all the prepared films have been achieved at 523K in vacuum to get good properties of the films. The effect of Cu concentration on some of the electrical properties such as D.C conductivity and Hall effect has been studied.
It has been found that the increase in Cu concentration caused increase in d.c conductivity for pure CdSe 3.75×10-4(Ω.cm)-1 at room temperatures to maximum value of 0.769(Ω.cm)-1 for 4wt%Cu.All films have shown two activation energies, where these value decreases with increasing doping ratio. The maximum value of activation energy was (0.319)eV f

   Asphaltenes are a solubility class described as a component of crude oil with undesired characteristics. In this study, Sharqy Baghdad heavy oil upgrading was achieved utilizing the solvent deasphalting approach as asphaltenes are insoluble in paraffinic solvents; they may be removed from heavy crude oil by adding N-Hexane as a solvent to create deasphalted oil (DAO)of higher quality. This method is known as Solvent De-asphalting (SDA). Different effects have been assessed for the SDA process, such as solvent to oil ratio (4-16/1 ml/g), the extraction temperature (23 ºC) room temperature and (68 ºC) reflux temperature at (0.5 h mixing time with 400 rpm mixing speed). The best solvent deasphalting results were obtained at room temp

Background: This study was conducted to assess the effects of various beverages on the shear bond strength of light-cured orthodontic composite used to bond stainless steel orthodontic brackets on human teeth and to determine the site of bonding failure of this material. Materials and Methods: Fifty extracted human premolars were selected and randomly divided into five equal groups each with 10 teeth according to the beverage type (Control, One Tiger, Milk, Green tea and Coffee). After bonding, the teeth were immersed in specific beverages for 5 minutes twice daily with equal intervening intervals then washed and stored in distilled water at 37º C for the reminder of the day. The process was carried out for 30 days. The samples were then

The study involved 45 male and 45 females of diabetic patients type- ?? aged from 40-69years , and with the same numbers of males and females for control , all the patients and controls were without any periodontal diseases and without any systemic disease. Diabetic patients were divided in to three groups according to the degree of periodontitis , and the inflamed gingiva of all groups of diabetic patients were treated with the dried fruits powder (crude) of medicinal plants Quercus robur , Thuja occidenalis , Terminalia chebula, Anethum graveolens , respectively and mixture. Some immunological and antimicrobial factors (IgA, Lactoferrin , Lysozyme ) , were detected in serum and saliva of diabetic patients and the control

The cyanobacterial neurotoxinβ-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) is considered to be an “excitotoxin,” and its suggested mechanism of action is killing neurons. Long-term exposure to L-BMAA is believed to lead to neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Objectives of this study were to determine the presumptive median lethal dose (LD₅₀), the Lowest-Observed-Adverse-Effect Level (LOAEL), and histopathologic lesions caused by the naturally occurring BMAA isomer, L-BMAA, in mice. Seventy NIH Swiss Outbred mice (35 male and 35 female) were used. Treatment group mice