The effects of temperature on an exotic aquatic snail Pomacea canaliculata (Lamarck, 1819) collected from the Shatt Al-Arab intertidal zone were investigated. A series of laboratory experiments were conducted during the summer period of 2017. Individuals of new born snails hatched in the laboratory from adult snails were collected from Shatt Al-Arab intertidal zone, and subjected to five fixed temperatures: 15, 25, 35, 40 and 45 Cº, after short term thermal acclimation. The heartbeats (HB) were counted at each temperature level. The results showed significant direct increase of HB from 15 Cº (19.8 HB/min) up to 25 Cº (76 HB/min) (P<0.05) as well as from 25 Cº to 35 Cº (93 HB/min). At 40 Cº the snail HB shows only slight insignificant increase (79 HB/ min). At 45 ºC the HB became irregular and showed negative thermo cardiac activity (HB dropped to 50.4/min). The minimum HB rate of 11/min was recorded at 15 Cº and the maximum value of 119 HB/min was recorded at 40 Cº. The study concluded that P. canaliculata can be highly stressed when exposed to extreme temperature experienced during the prolonged summer months and will no longer tolerate living in the intertidal zone of Shatt Al-Arab.
Nowadays, there is increased interest in the biosynthesis of microbial melanin related to their numerous biological functions and applications in many fields, especially in medical fields, including immune-modulating, antimicrobial antibiotic, antiviral antivenin, anticancer, antitumor activity, and anti-biofilm activity. Pyomelanin is a hydrophobic macromolecule that is typically dark brown or black in color, formed by the oxidative polymerization of phenolic or indolic compounds. Pyomelanin is reported to be safe for consumption, thus providing a crucial strategy for biocontrol of biofilm. Furthermore, natural pyomelanin is known as a potent antioxidant, photoprotective, and free radical scavenging. Objective: This study focuses on the
... Show MoreThe main objective of this research is to find out the effect of deviation in the aggregate gradients of asphalt mixtures from the Job Mix Formula (JMF) on the general mixture performance. Three road layers were worked on (wearing layer, binder layer, and base layer) and statistical analysis was performed for the data of completed projects in Baghdad city, and the sieve that carried the largest number of deviations for each layer was identified. No.8 sieve (2.36mm), No.50 sieve (0.3mm), and 3/8'' sieve (9.5mm) had the largest number of deviations in the wearing layer, the binder layer, and the base layer respectively. After that, a mixture called Mix 1, was made. This mixture was selected from a number of completed mixtures, and it
... Show MoreAbstract A total of 207 specimens were collected from different sources including patients, health care staff and hospital environment in Ibb city, Yemen. The study used the bacteriocin produced from active producer strains in typing of Staphylococcus aureus. Depending on the morphological, cultural and biochemical characteristics, 54 (26.09%) isolates of Staphylococcus aureus were identified. An antibiotic sensitivity test was done for the bacterial isolates, and the results showed that there were multiple resistant antibiotics. The Staphylococcin production of these isolates has been detected by using wells assay. Fifty one isolates were Staphylococcin producer. Four isolates (staph19, staph25, staph28 and staph43) were chosen as go
... Show MoreAdsorption techniques are widely used to remove certain classes of pollutants from wastewater. Phenolic compounds represent one of the problematic groups. Na-Y zeolite has been synthesized from locally available Iraqi kaolin clay. Characterization of the prepared zeolite was made by XRD and surface area measurement using N2 adsorption. Both synthetic Na-Y zeolite and kaolin clay have been tested for adsorption of 4-Nitro-phenol in batch mode experiments. Maximum removal efficiencies of 90% and 80% were obtained using the prepared zeolite and kaolin clay, respectively. Kinetics and equilibrium adsorption isotherms were investigated. Investigations showed that both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms fit the experimental data quite well. On the
... Show MoreA liquid membrane process of Alkaloids extraction from Datura Innoxia solution was studied applying pertraction process in rotating discs contactor (RDC). Decane as a liquid membrane and dilute sulphuric acid as stripping solution were used. The effect of the fundamental parameters influencing the transport process, eg type of solvent used, effect of disks speed, amount of liquid membrane and effect of pH for feed and strip solution. The transport of alkaloids was analysed on the basis of kinetic laws of two consecutive irreversible first order reactions. Thus, the kinetic parameters (k1, k1,, tmax, and) for the transport of alkaloids were determined. The effect of organic membrane type on percentage of Alkaloids transport was found to be i
... Show MoreBackground: Differentiation between malignant and benign vertebral compression fracture is often problematic. This is precisely difficult in elderly who are predisposed to benign compression caused by osteoporosis .Establishing correct diagnosis is of great importance in determining the treatment andprognosis.A study was performed to determine which magnetic resonance imaging findings are useful in discrimination between metastatic and acute osteoporotic compression fractures of the spine. Recently MRI is being increasingly used for evaluation of these fractures.Objectives: The aim of this study is to establish the correct diagnosis of malignant and benign compression vertebral fracture by MRI to determine treatment and prognosis.Methods
... Show More<p>Analyzing X-rays and computed tomography-scan (CT scan) images using a convolutional neural network (CNN) method is a very interesting subject, especially after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In this paper, a study is made on 423 patients’ CT scan images from Al-Kadhimiya (Madenat Al Emammain Al Kadhmain) hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, to diagnose if they have COVID or not using CNN. The total data being tested has 15000 CT-scan images chosen in a specific way to give a correct diagnosis. The activation function used in this research is the wavelet function, which differs from CNN activation functions. The convolutional wavelet neural network (CWNN) model proposed in this paper is compared with regular convol
... Show MoreThe ligand Schiff base [(E)-3-(2-hydroxy-5-methylbenzylideneamino)- 1- phenyl-1H-pyrazol-5(4H) –one] with some metals ion as Mn(II); Co(II); Ni(II); Cu(II); Cd(II) and Hg(II) complexes have been preparation and characterized on the basic of mass spectrum for L, elemental analyses, FTIR, electronic spectral, magnetic susceptibility, molar conductivity measurement and functions thermodynamic data study (∆H°, ∆S° and ∆G°). Results of conductivity indicated that all complexes were non electrolytes. Spectroscopy and other analytical studies reveal distorted octahedral geometry for all complexes. The antibacterial activity of the ligand and preparers metal complexes was also studied against gram and negative bacteria.
In this research, the removal of cadmium (Cd) from simulated wastewater was investigated by using a fixed bed bio-electrochemical reactor. The effects of the main controlling factors on the performance of the removal process such as applied cell voltage, initial Cd concentration, pH of the catholyte, and the mesh number of the cathode were investigated. The results showed that the applied cell voltage had the main impact on the removal efficiency of cadmium where increasing the applied voltage led to higher removal efficiency. Meanwhile increasing the applied voltage was found to be given lower current efficiency and higher energy consumption. No significant effect of initial Cd concentration on the removal efficiency of cadmium b
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