Ecosystems provide humans with services that include benefits from food, fresh water, climate regulation, and socio-economic assets. The Mesopotamian marshlands are among the largest wetlands in the Middle East and they provide various benefits. However, ecosystem services of the Marshlands are consistently undervalued in national economic analysis and decision making. This study focusses on the Central Marshes, the first National Park in Iraq, and is the first attempt at valuing a series of ecosystem services from a valuable natural ecosystem in Iraq. We adopted the Toolkit for Ecosystem Services Site-Based Assessment (TESSA) for the determination of biophysical and economic values of services at the site level. Data on key ecosystem services (as determined by 30 interviews with residents of the Marshes) included the trading of fish, harvested plants, water buffalo milk, and fodder were collected across six months in 2014. We valued the ecosystem services within the CM (40,000 ha) over a 6-month period to have a total value of 860,078.23 USD. This estimated total value was the sum of 86,637.25 USD from harvested plants, 551,334.80 USD from trading fish, 167, 303.70 USD from trading water buffalo milk, and 54,804.00 USD from trading fodder. The average income per individual in Iraq in 2014 was 6720 USD (World Bank data - https://data.worldbank.org/country/iraq): thus, the CM provided an average salary for 256 people. Our results provided greater understanding of the ecosystem services contributed by the Central Marshes and has highlighted the crucial role of nature in supporting sustainable well-being for humans living in the area. In addition, the results can be used to enhance local policy, to aid management plans of the National park, and to estimate lost and damage that could result from impact of climate change on the area.
The study entitled (Anthropometric Treatments of the Study Seat Units Used in Elementary stages) highlighted the relations between the sizes of dimensions of the study seats and the different anthropometric sizes of the students. The study problem is manifested in the following question: what are the anthropometric treatments used in the design of the study seats in the elementary stages? The research aims at finding design treatments for the anthropometric variables of the study seats used in the elementary stages, because the study seats have to do with preserving students health and safety through providing an ideal seating mechanism compatible with the anthropometric variables which enhances comfort, safety and focus in the mo
... Show MoreThe evaluation of the Nfayil limestones in Bahr Al-Najaf Depression as construction materials was done on 15 sites distributed over a region. The study included field and laboratory aspects. The field side included collecting information about the study area and samples. As for the laboratory side, laboratory tests were conducted to study the thermal conductivity of samples by a device called Lee’s disc in the Tikri University. The thermal conductivity results ranged between 2.34 and 0.27. The rocks are of high thermal insulation at low temperatures and low insulation at high temperatures according to the specifications of the suitability of limestone for thermal conductivity standards (ASTM C 1057-03-2010).
Susceptibility to the pandemic coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has recently been associated with ABO blood groups in patients of different ethnicities. This study sought to understand the genetic association of this polymorphic system with risk of disease in Iraqi patients. Two outcomes of COVID-19, recovery and death, were also explored. ABO blood groups were determined in 300 hospitalized COVID-19 Iraqi patients (159 under therapy, 104 recovered, and 37 deceased) and 595 healthy blood donors. The detection kit for 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) RNA (PCR-Fluorescence Probing) was used in the diagnosis of disease.
Because of their Physico‐chemical characteristics and its composition, the development of new specific analytical methodologies to determine some highly polar pesticides are required. The reported methods demand long analysis time, expensive instruments and prior extraction of pesticide for detection. The current work presents a new flow injection analysis method combined with indirect photometric detection for the determination of Fosetyl‐Aluminum (Fosetyl‐Al) in commercial formulations, with rapid and highly accurate determination involving only construction of manifold system combined with photometric detector without need some of the pre‐treatments to the sample before the analysis such a
Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease of human joints, especially the knee joint, due to significant weight of the body. This disease leads to rupture and degeneration of parts of the cartilage in the knee joint, which causes severe pain. Diagnosis of this disease can be obtained through X-ray. Deep learning has become a popular solution to medical issues due to its fast progress in recent years. This research aims to design and build a classification system to minimize the burden on doctors and help radiologists to assess the severity of the pain, enable them to make an optimal diagnosis and describe the correct treatment. Deep learning-based approaches, such as Convolution Neural Networks (CNNs), have been used to detect knee OA usin
... Show MoreEight-hydroxyguanosine (8-OHdG) is considered as one of the principle forms of oxygen radicals that stimulated the oxidative stress and has been extensively utilized as a biomarker for oncogenesis. The primary goal of the present study was to investigate the alteration in the levels of 8-OHdG, antioxidant profile and proinflammatory cytokines levels in patients with lung carcinoma. Blood samples were collected from 40 cases with lung cancer (stage III) admitted before the treatment, for health examination at the Nanakaly Hospital in Erbil city and 45 healthy samples of controls with ages ranging between 38-69 years for both groups. Circulating concentration of 8-OHdG, tumor necrosis factor and interleukin-6 were evaluated by
... Show MoreType 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is the furthermost common form of DM which is identified by hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, and relative insulin deficiency. This study aims to detect the role of interleukin-17 (IL-17) in patients with T2DM compared with the healthy control and to investigate the relationship between IL-17 and insulin resistance. The study involved 50 Iraqi T2DM patients, randomly selected with an age range of 33-71 years .For the purpose of comparison, 30 Iraqi healthy persons with an age range of 33-71 years were also included. Patients and control groups were characterized in terms of gender, age, body mass index (BMI), homeostatic model assessment-insulin resistance(HOMA-IR),fasting serum glucose (FSG) and lipid pr
... Show MoreThe current research aims to identify the risk management and its impact on the quality of service in the Salahalddin Sewerage Directorate, This is due to the great impact that the service provided by this institution plays in preserving health and the environment in the community, which has faced many administrative challenges, problems and issues as a result of the rapid and continuous environmental changes, and therefore, the adoption of administrative concepts such as risk management and knowledge of their impact on the quality of the municipal service is necessary to reach this service To the required levels. To achieve the research objectives, two main hypotheses have been formulated, the first of which is to find the extent of the li
... Show MoreThis research has been performed on the vegetative parts of the
Horsetail Equisetum arvense L. v.ilich grows naturally in Haj Umran , north of Iraq , to determine and estimate some active chemical compounds , besides studyi ng their inhi bitory effe(;tS upon some urinary tracts infections (UTI) bacteria through the
investigation on the inhibitory effects of water and ethanolic extracts of this plant .
The results revealed presr.:nr.:t: of some active chemical compounds such as: tannins, saponins, resins,
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