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 disruptions in supply chains have put small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in dire need of resilient supply chains through which they can improve their performance. Based on the resource dependence theory, this study proposes a mediation model to improve the environmental performance (EP) of SMEs. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of supply chain resilience (SCR) on EP mediated by ambidextrous green innovation (AMGI). We proved a structural equation model based on questionnaire data from 261 companies in Iraq to test our hypotheses. The results show that SCR has a positive effect on AMGI for proactive and exploitative green innovation dimensions and positive impact on SMEs’ EP. AMGI plays a media
... Show MoreInvestigation of the adsorption of Chromium (VI) on Fe3O4 is carried out using batch scale experiments according to statistical design using a software program minitab17 (Box-Behnken design). Experiments were carried out as per Box-Behnken design with four input parameters such as pH (2-8), initial concentration (50–150mg/L), adsorbent dosage (0.05–0.3 g) and time of adsorption (10–60min). The better conditions were showed at pH: 2; contact time: 60 min; chromium concentration: 50 mg/L and magnetite dosage: 0.3 g for maximum Chromium (VI) removal of (98.95%) with an error of 1.08%. The three models (Freundlich, Langmuir, and Temkin) were fitted to experimental data, Langmuir isotherm has bette
... Show MoreA comparison of double informative and non- informative priors assumed for the parameter of Rayleigh distribution is considered. Three different sets of double priors are included, for a single unknown parameter of Rayleigh distribution. We have assumed three double priors: the square root inverted gamma (SRIG) - the natural conjugate family of priors distribution, the square root inverted gamma – the non-informative distribution, and the natural conjugate family of priors - the non-informative distribution as double priors .The data is generating form three cases from Rayleigh distribution for different samples sizes (small, medium, and large). And Bayes estimators for the parameter is derived under a squared erro
... Show MoreIn this work, magnesium aluminate spinel (MA) (MgO 28 wt%, Al2O3 72 wt%) stoichiometric compound , were synthesized via solid state reaction (SSR) Single firing stage, and the impact of sintering on the physical properties and thermal properties as well as the fine structure and morphology of the ceramic product were examined. The Spinel samples were pressed at of (14 MPa) and sintering soaking time (2h). The effect of adding oxide titania (TiO2) was studied. The obtained powders were calcined at a temperature range of 1200 and 1400 °C. The calcined samples spinel were characterized by XRD, it showed the presence of developed spinel phase end also showed that the best catalyst is titania. The SEM image showed the high sintering temperat
... Show MoreBackground: Vibration decreases the viscosity of composite, making it flow and readily fit the walls of the cavity. This study is initiated to see how this improved adaptation of the composite resin to the cavity walls will affect microleakage using different curing modes
Materials and methods: Standard Class V cavities were prepared on the buccal surface of sixty extracted premolars. Teeth were randomly assigned into two groups (n=30) according to the composite condensation (vibration and conventional) technique, then subdivided into three subgroups (n=10) according to light curing modes (LED-Ramp, LED-Fast and Halogen Continuous modes). Cavities were etched and bonded with Single Bond Universal
... Show MoreIn this work, the effect of partial amounts of gases in gas mixture of a CW CO2 laser on the output power was investigated. Also their effect on the condition determining the glow-discharge self-sustaining required for pumping the active medium was studied. Two fit relations were derived to predict the output laser power and the electric field to unit pressure ratio as functions to the partial amounts of gases. Results presented in this work could be used fruitfully to determine some of the optimum operational conditions of glow-discharge low-power CW CO2 lasers.
Background: Impacted teeth are frequent problem and one of the most affected teeth is the maxillary canine. The early diagnosis of impacted canines by radiographic evaluation is imperative. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of impacted maxillary canines in patients attending the Oral diagnosis and Radiology clinic in College of Dentistry, University of Al-Basrah. Materials and Methods: 1280 patients attending the Oral Diagnosis and Radiology clinic in College of Dentistry University of Al-Basrah, between October 2013 and March 2015 were examined for the study. The age of the patients ranged from 15 to 55 years, with a mean age of 22.2 years. Results: The prevalence for maxillary impacted canines in all the cases was fo
... Show MoreThe species Vitex agnus-castus is an important medicinal plants and it is one of the cultivated and dicotyledon plants in Iraq. The anatomical of stem, petiole, midrib area, epidermis, veins, type of leaf stomata and seeds were studied by light microscope. In this research, shows the knowledge of anatomical characteristics of the studied plant, showing its importance as taxonomic characteristics through the sections of the stem, petiole, the midrib and the petals.
Abstract:The optimum design of the magnetic deflector with the lowest values of the radial and spiral distortion aberration coefficients was computed. The optimized calculations were made using three models, Glaser bell-shaped, Grivet-lenz and exponential models. By using the optimum axial field distribution, the pole pieces shape which gave rise to those field distributions was found by using the reconstruction method. The calculations show that the results of the three models coincide at the lower values of the excitation parameter. In general the Glaser- bell shaped model gives the optimum results at the whole range of the excitation parameter under investigation.The negative values of the spiral distortion aberration coefficient appears
... Show MoreDensity Functional Theory at the generalized-gradient approximation level coupled with large unit cell method is used to simulate the electronic structure of (II-VI) zinc-blende cadmium sulfide nanocrystals that have dimensions 2-2.5 nm. The calculated properties include lattice constant, conduction and valence bands width, energy of the highest occupied orbital, energy of the lowest unoccupied orbital, energy gap, density of states etc. Results show that lattice constant and energy gap converge to definite values. However, highest occupied orbital, lowest unoccupied orbital fluctuates indefinitely depending on the shape of the nanocrystal.