The phytoremediation technique has become very efficient for treating soil contaminated with heavy metals. In this study, a pot experiment was conducted where the Dodonaea plant (known as hops) was grown, and soil previously contaminated with metals (Zn, Ni, Cd) was added at concentrations 100, 50, 0 mg·kg-1 for Ni and Zn, and at concentrations of 0, 5, 10 mg·kg-1 for cadmium. Irrigation was done within the limits of the field capacity of the soil. Cadmium, nickel and zinc was estimated in the soil to find out the capacity of plants to the absorption of heavy and contaminated metals by using bioconcentration factors (BCFs), bioaccumulation coefficient (BAC) and translocation factor (TF). Additionally, BCF values of both Ni and Zn were l

Contours extraction from two dimensional echocardiographic images has been a challenge in digital image processing. This is essentially due to the heavy noise, poor quality of these images and some artifacts like papillary muscles, intra-cavity structures as chordate, and valves that can interfere with the endocardial border tracking. In this paper, we will present a technique to extract the contours of heart boundaries from a sequence of echocardiographic images, where it started with pre-processing to reduce noise and produce better image quality. By pre-processing the images, the unclear edges are avoided, and we can get an accurate detection of both heart boundary and movement of heart valves.

Background: Metal ions can be released from metallic orthodontic appliances due to corrosion in the oral cavity; prophylactic mouthwashes may have an effect on ion release from orthodontic wires. Materials and Methods: Thirty six orthodontic sets of half maxillary fixed appliance with 2 types of arch wires SS and NiTi(Morelli) were constructed and immersed in 2 types of mouthwashes; Claradone (non-fluoridated) and Silver Care (fluoridated) for 28 days at 37°C, then the released Ni and Cr ionswere measured using atomic absorption spectrophotometer and compared statistically. Results: Ni ion release was higher from NiTi wire group than SS wire group for both mouthwashes and also was higher for Silver Care group than for Claradone group.

A simulation study of using 2D tomography to reconstruction a 3D object is presented. The 2D Radon transform is used to create a 2D projection for each slice of the 3D object at different heights. The 2D back-projection and the Fourier slice theorem methods are used to reconstruction each 2D projection slice of the 3D object. The results showed the ability of the Fourier slice theorem method to reconstruct the general shape of the body with its internal structure, unlike the 2D Radon method, which was able to reconstruct the general shape of the body only because of the blurring artefact, Beside that the Fourier slice theorem could not remove all blurring artefact, therefore, this research, suggested the threshold technique to eliminate the

Enhancing quality image fusion was proposed using new algorithms in auto-focus image fusion. The first algorithm is based on determining the standard deviation to combine two images. The second algorithm concentrates on the contrast at edge points and correlation method as the criteria parameter for the resulted image quality. This algorithm considers three blocks with different sizes at the homogenous region and moves it 10 pixels within the same homogenous region. These blocks examine the statistical properties of the block and decide automatically the next step. The resulted combined image is better in the contras

This research aims to test the ability of glass waste powder to adsorb cadmium from aqueous solutions. The glass wastes were collected from the Glass Manufacturing Factory in Ramadi. The effect of concentration and reaction time on sorption was tested through a series of laboratory experiments. Four Cd concentrations (20, 40, 60, and 80) as each concentration was tested ten times for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, and 50 min. Solid (glass wastes) to liquid was 2g to 30ml was fixed in each experiment where the total volume of the solution was 30ml. The pH, total dissolved salts and electrical conductivity were measured at 30ºC. The equilibrium concentration was determined at 25 minutes, thereafter it was noted that the sorption

This work studies the performance of zeolite permeable reactive barrier in removing cadmium from a contaminated shallow aquifer. Batch tests have been performed to characterize the equilibrium sorption properties of the zeolite in cadmium-containing aqueous solutions. A 1D numerical finite difference model has been developed to describe pollutant transport within groundwater taking pollutant sorption on the permeable reactive barrier (PRB), which is performed by Langmuir equation, into account. Numerical results show that the PRB starts to saturate after a period of time (~120 h) due to reduction of the retardation factor, indicating a decrease in the percentage of zeolite functionality. However, a reasonable agreement between model predict

    A mounted specimen of a mustelid animal deposited in the Kurdistan Museum of Natural History, Salahaddin University, Erbil proved to be Mustela erminea (Linnaeus, 1758) and represents a new record for the mammalian fauna of Iraq. Its measurements and some biological noted are provided. Also, two passerine birds; the Red-headed bunting, Emberiza bruniceps Brandt, 1841(Family, Emberizidae) and the Variable wheatear, Oenanthe picata (Blyth, 1847) (Family, Muscicapidae) were recorded for the first time in Iraq. Furthermore, the tree frog Hyla savignyi Audouin, 1829 was found in two locations north east of Iraq with spotted dorsum and having interesting behavior in having the capabil