Metal contents in vegetables are interesting because of issues related to food safety and potential health risks. The availability of these metals in the human body may perform many biochemical functions and some of them linked with various diseases at high levels. The current study aimed to evaluate the concentration of various metals in common local consumed vegetables using ICP-MS. The concentrations of metals in vegetables of tarragon, Bay laurel, dill, Syrian mesquite, vine leaves, thymes, arugula, basil, common purslane and parsley of this study were found to be in the range of, 76-778 for Al, 10-333 for B, 4-119 for Ba, 2812-24645 for Ca, 0.1-0.32 for Co, 201-464 for Fe, 3661-46400 for K, 0.31–1.53 for Li, 860-14330 for Mg, 16.20-71.5 for Mn, 612-4725 for Na and 15.8-46 µg g-1 for Zn. The results revealed that the concentration of Al, B except in Syrian mesquite, Ba, Ca, Fe, K, Mg and Mn in all analysed vegetables is higher than the recommended value, Li is well-within the safe limit, and Co, Na except in dill, arugula and common purslane, Zn are lower than the recommended intake of these elements. From health point of view, the HQ values for Al, Fe (for all vegetables) and Ba (in dill, vine leaves, thymes, arugula, basil, common purslane and parsley) were higher than one, indicating potential non-cancer health risk due to exposure to these metals. Furthermore, the HI value for all vegetables was higher than one, indicating potential non-cancer health risk due to long-term exposure to these metals.
Steganography is one of the most popular techniques for data hiding in the different media such as images, audio or video files. This paper introduced the improved technique to hide the secret message using the LSB algorithm inside the RGB true color image by encrypting it using the secret key transformation function. The key is selecting randomly in the GF (2n) with condition it has an inverse value to retrieve the encrypted message. Only two bits are used for the low byte in each pixel (the blue byte) to hide the secret message, since the blue color has a weak effect on human eyes. The message hidden by the suggested algorithm is less vulnerable to be stolen than other similar applications.
The increase in obesity and the many accompanying diseases is attributed to the increased production and consumption of foods made of non-nutritive sweeteners without regard to the risks of consuming additional calories, and this in turn leads to hormonal imbalance and metabolic disorders and the resulting imbalance and ill health that have spread to all segments of society. During the research, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04 and 0.05 % of stevia sweetener was added to the cream instead of the sugar used. Physical and chemical tests were performed for the stevia extract and the microbial content in the cream, as well as the sensory evaluation. It was noted that fortifying the cream with calorie-free stevia sugar led to the production of
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The grey system model GM(1,1) is the model of the prediction of the time series and the basis of the grey theory. This research presents the methods for estimating parameters of the grey model GM(1,1) is the accumulative method (ACC), the exponential method (EXP), modified exponential method (Mod EXP) and the Particle Swarm Optimization method (PSO). These methods were compared based on the Mean square error (MSE) and the Mean Absolute percentage error (MAPE) as a basis comparator and the simulation method was adopted for the best of the four methods, The best method was obtained and then applied to real data. This data represents the consumption rate of two types of oils a he
... Show MoreAir pollution means the release of pollutants into the atmosphere, which are harmful to human health and the planet as a whole. Almost all air pollutants come from production and energy use. In the present work, an assessment of some heavy metals, natural radioactivity and the quantity of dust fallen in three sites (Tessen, Rahemawa, and Laylan) in Kirkuk Governorate, northern Iraq. Three dust samples were collected from three locations (residential, commercial and industrial areas). The collected samples were analyzed for Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, and radioactivity (Gamma rays). The studied heavy metals (Fe, Ni, Pb, and Zn) exceeded their limits in the atmosphere due to the increase in the number of automobiles, which
... Show MoreGovernment spending is the tool that the state uses to achieve its various goals. The research aims to identify the most important determinants of government spending in Iraq and to indicate the type and nature of the relationship between government spending and its determinants, which will contribute to understanding the movement of government spending. The results of the co-integration test using the border test methodology showed that the variables of population growth and oil prices have a long-term effect on government spending while inflation is not significant in the long run, and that 47% of the equilibrium imbalance (short-term imbalance) in government spending in the previous period (t-) can be corrected in the current period (t)
... Show MoreRecognizing cars is a highly difficult task due to the wide variety in the appearance of cars from the same car manufacturer. Therefore, the car logo is the most prominent indicator of the car manufacturer. The captured logo image suffers from several problems, such as a complex background, differences in size and shape, the appearance of noise, and lighting circumstances. To solve these problems, this paper presents an effective technique for extracting and recognizing a logo that identifies a car. Our proposed method includes four stages: First, we apply the k-medoids clustering method to extract the logo and remove the background and noise. Secondly, the logo image is converted to grayscale and also converted to a binary imag
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