Land use change, particularly the expansion of urban areas and associated human activities at the expense of natural and semi-natural areas, is a major ecological issue in urban areas around the world. Climate change being a very strong additional driver for changing the temperature and habitat in the cities. This also applies to Baghdad, Iraq, where urbanisation and climate change exerts a major pressure on the natural habitats of the city, and thus may affect the ability of city planners to adapt to future climate change scenarios. Here we present evidence of substantial growth in urban areas, increases in temperature, and degradation of natural vegetation within Baghdad city by using Remote Sensing techniques and an assessment for the Jadriyah and Umm Al-Khanazeer site (JUKI). These changes were associated with loss of bird species richness within the area, which was previously the only Important Bird Area (IBA) within the city. A standardised scoring system (following Birdlife International global framework) was used to assess Pressure-State-Response: JUKI site scored 3-5 for pressure (Medium), two for the state (Moderate), and two for the response (Low). Despite the degradation highlighted in Baghdad city, the JUKI site still has 88% intact habitat to support bird trigger species. We conclude that the site urgently needs a detailed management plan to ensure the protection of its habitats and avian fauna, and that the area should be declared as a protected area according to the “IUCN Category IV: Habitat/Species Management Area; to provide a means by which the urban residents may obtain regular contact with nature”, and re-designated JUKI as an IBA site. The study also identifies the most affected areas in the city of Baghdad, which should take the priority of the afforestation efforts and any future restoration campaigns.
The aim of this research is to know the effect of two strategies of active learning, the five fingers and traffic signals, on the first grade intermediate level student's achievement and personal intelligence. The research sample was chosen from the Al- Mansour intermediate school for boys, including (101) students divided into three groups chosen randomly which represented the first experimental group (32) students, the second experimental group (34) students, and the control group (33) students. To achieve the research aims, the research prepared a physics achievement test containing (26) items, and a personal intelligence test containing (20) items. The psychometric characteristics, of the tests were checked up the following results were
... Show MoreIn the present work, the nuclear shell model with Hartree–Fock (HF) calculations have been used to investigate the nuclear structure of 24Mg nucleus. Particularly, elastic and inelastic electron scattering form factors and transition probabilities have been calculated for low-lying positive and negative states. The sd and sdpf shell model spaces have been used to calculate the one-body density matrix elements (OBDM) for positive and negative parity states respectively. Skyrme-Hartree-Fock (SHF) with different parameterizations has been tested with shell model calculation as a single particle potential for reproducing the experimental data along with a harmonic oscillator (HO) and Woods-Saxo
... Show MoreStrengthening of composite beams is highly needed to upgrade the capacities of existing beams. The strengthening methods can be classified as active or passive techniques. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to provide detailed FE simulations for strengthened and unstrengthened steel–concrete composite beams at the sagging and hogging moment regions with and without profiled steel sheeting. The developed models were verified against experimental results from the literature. The verified models were used to present comparisons between the effect of using external post-tensioning and CFRP laminates as strengthening techniques. Applying external post-tensioning at the sagging moment regions is more effective because of the e
... Show MoreTwo simple, rapid, and useful spectrophotometric methods were suggest or the determination of sulphadimidine sodium (SDMS) with and without using cloud point extraction technique in pure form and pharmaceutical preparation. The first method was based on diazotization of the Sulphdimidine Sodium drug by sodium nitrite at 5 ºC, followed by coupling with α –Naphthol in basic medium to form an orange colored product . The product was stabilized and its absorption was measured at 473 nm. Beer’s law was obeyed in the concentration range of (1-12) μg∙ml-1. Sandell’s sensitivity was 0.03012 μg∙cm-1, the detection limit was 0.0277 μg∙ml-1, and the limit of Quantitation was 0.03605μg
... Show MoreTriticale is a hybrid of wheat and rye grown for use as animal feed. In Florida, due to its soft coat, triticale is highly vulnerable to Sitophilus oryzae L. (rice weevil) and there is interest in development of methods to detect early-instar larvae so that infestations can be targeted before they become economically damaging. The objective of this study was to develop prediction models of the infestation degree for triticale seed infested with rice weevils of different growth stages. Spectral signatures were tested as a method to detect rice weevils in triticale seed. Groups of seeds at 11 different levels (degrees) of infestation, 0–62%, were obtained by combining different ratios of infested and uninfested seeds. A spectrophotometer wa
... Show MoreA simple analytical method was used in the present work for the simultaneous quantification of Ciprofloxacin and Isoniazid in pharmaceutical preparations. UV-Visible spectrophotometry has been applied to quantify these compounds in pure and mixture solutions using the first-order derivative method. The method depends on the first derivative spectrophotometry using zero-cross, peak to baseline, peak to peak and peak area measurements. Good linearity was shown in the concentration range of 2 to 24 µg∙mL-1 for Ciprofloxacin and 2 to 22 µg∙mL-1 for Isoniazid in the mixture, and the correlation coefficients were 0.9990 and 0.9989 respectively using peak area mode. The limits of detection (LOD) and limits of quantification (LOQ) were
... Show MoreBackground: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder that involves autoantibodies attacking and weakening joints. RA is characterized by leukocyte (Monocyte, Lymphocyte mast cell .etc) infiltrations into the synovial compartment leading to inflammation in the synovial membrane. Synovitis leads to the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, matrix metalloproteinases, chemokines, complement proteins, and growth factors. Objective: The current study pointed to verify the diagnostic values of interleukin -17 A and interleukin -18 in Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and the effect of treatment thereon. Study subjects and methods: A total of 88 samples with RA were selected from the health clinics of AL-Yarmouk
... Show MoreThe importance of the present work falls on the pitting corrosion behavior investigation of 304 SS and 316 SS alloys in 3.5 wt% of aqueous solution bearing with chloride and bromide anion at different solutions temperature range starting from (20-50)oC due to the pitting corrosion tremendous effect on the economic, safety and materials loss due to leakage. The impact of solution temperatures on the pitting corrosion resistance at 3.5wt% (NaCl and NaBr) solutions for the 304 SS and 316 SS has been investigated utilizing the cyclic polarization techniques at the potential range -400 to1000 mV vs. SCE at 40 mV/sec scan rate followed by the surface characterization employing Scanning Electron&nbs
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