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 se

Some major pollutants of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) those discharged as water produced (WP) from the AlAhdab oil field (AOF) in the ponds close to it may leak to the water resources around and eventually reaches the marshes which will affect its ecosystem. Thus, this work aims to track the availability of PAH in the water resources and the Main Outfall Drain (MOD) nearby. The determination of PAH was evaluated using “High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)”. The mean concentration of sixteen PAH in the produced water within the field was relatively high (0.01 to 10.89 g/ml) with standard deviations of (0.10.9). While, PAH outside the field were gradually diminishes down to (0.01-0.039) x10-2 g/ml which exceeds th

The dangerous and potentially blinding condition known as Acanthamoeba keratitis is caused by free-living amoebae of the genus Acanthamoeba. The prevalence of AIDS patients and contact lens wearers has increased in recent years, making cannaeba infections more significant. It's interesting to note that, depending on the parasite, host, and environmental conditions, the pathways linked to Acanthamoeba pathogenesis are frequently extremely complex. Notwithstanding our progress in antibiotic therapy and supportive care, the prevalence of Acanthamoeba keratitis has not decreased

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

This research aims to solve a problem in the field of accounting and financial knowledge in the world today, that is, the problem of creative accounting. Especially after the global financial crisis and the collapse of many large companies in the world, people find that they use creative accounting methods to distinguish them from reality, showing the results of their activities and their financial status. This research discusses the concept of creative accounting, the most important methods used in financial statements and its relationship with external auditing, and procedures to limit accounting creativity. This study uses descriptive analysis methods after confirming its theoretical aspects in practice. Using the statistical

The Vulnerable Indian Roofed Turtle Pangshura tecta (Gray, 1831) (Testudines: Geoemydidae) occurs in the Sub-Himalayan lowlands of India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Little is known about its natural history, no studies have been conducted revealing its natural predators. In this study, a group of Large-billed Crow Corvus macrorhynchos Wagler, 1827 (Passeriformes: Corvidae) was observed hunting and predating on an Indian Roofed Turtle carcass in the bank of river Kuakhai, Bhubaneswar, India. The first record of this predation behaviour is reported and substantiated by photographic evidence.