The genus of Chrysobothris Eschscholtz, 1829 is one of the most diverse and widespread genera of the family Buprestidae of some 700 described species distributed throughout the world. In Iraq, particularly in the Kurdistan region, about 4 species had been recorded so far, many of these species are sympatric, share larval host plants, and are difficult to reliably separate morphologically. The current study investigates species limits and relationships among the recognized species occurring within the Erbil Province; mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase (COX I) molecular analysis confirmed the monophyly of two Chrysobothris species, Ch. affinis (Fabricius, 1794) and Ch. chrysostigma (Linnaeus, 1758). Implications of the resultant larval morphology and molecular techniques are discussed. Diagnostic characteristics that are depended to identifying the species within Chrysobothris in larval stage were illustrated and then compared with the molecular data.
Objective: Breast cancer is regarded as a deadly disease in women causing lots of mortalities. Early diagnosis of breast cancer with appropriate tumor biomarkers may facilitate early treatment of the disease, thus reducing the mortality rate. The purpose of the current study is to improve early diagnosis of breast by proposing a two-stage classification of breast tumor biomarkers fora sample of Iraqi women.
Methods: In this study, a two-stage classification system is proposed and tested with four machine learning classifiers. In the first stage, breast features (demographic, blood and salivary-based attributes) are classified into normal or abnormal cases, while in the second stage the abnormal breast cases are
... Show MoreThe weather of Iraq has longer summer season compared with other countries. The ambient temperature during this season reaches over 50 OC which makes the evaporative cooling system suitable for this climate. In present work, the two-stage evaporative cooling system is studied. The first stage is indirect evaporative cooling (IEC) represented by two heat exchangers with the groundwater flow rate (5 L/min). The second stage is direct evaporative cooling (DEC) which represents three pads with groundwater flow rates of (4.5 L/min). The experimental work was conducted in July, August, September, and October in Baghdad. Results showed that overall evaporative efficiency of the system (two coils with three pads each
... Show MoreThe taxonomy of Ficus L., 1753 species is confusing because of the intense morphological variability and the ambiguity of the taxa. This study handled 36 macro-morphological characteristics to clarify the taxonomic identity of the taxa. The study revealed that Ficus is represented in the Egyptian gardens with forty-one taxa; 33 species, 4 subspecies and 4 varieties, and classified into five subgenera: Ficus Corner, 1960; Terega Raf., 1838; Sycomorus Raf., 1838; Synoecia (Miq.) Miq., 1867, and Spherosuke Raf.,1838; out of them seven were misidentified. Amongst, four new Ficus taxa were recently introduced to Egypt namely: F. lingua subsp. lingua Warb. ex De Wild. & T. Durand, 1901; F. pumila L., 1753; F. rumphii Blume, 1825, and F. su
... Show MoreThe Life Cycle and Larval Development of Neoechinorhynchus iraqensis (Acanthocephala: Neoechinorhynchidae) in the Intermediate Host
For the first time, the life cycle of Neoechinorhynchus iraqensis, a parasite of Liza abu and other freshwater fishes in Iraq and its larval development in the intermediate host, the copepod Cyclops hyalinus was given. Hatching took place in the intestine of the copepod host within 10 minutes of exposure to the infective eggs. Motile acanthor penetrated the wall of the intestine within 2-4 hr. after exposure and was found free in the hemocoel where it metamorphoses through the acanthella stage. Acanthella stage revealed changes in the entoblast where the anterior section gave rise to brain, proboscis and proboscis receptacle. The posterior section differentiation gave rise to the genital system. By 12 days, development in the copep
... Show MoreThe current study is the identification and isolation dermatophyte species in clinical isolates by both Sabouraud’s Dextrose Agar (SDA) and on Dermatophyte Test Medium (DTM). Clinical specimens of hair, nails and skin scales were collected from patients with dermatophytosis and submitted to direct microscopic examination after immersion in 20% of potassium hydroxide solution. The clinical specimens were cultured on SDA containing chloramphenicol and cycloheximide, and on DTM. Tinea corporis showed the highest prevalent dermatophyte infection among patients (26.7%), followed by Tinea pedis (23.3%), whereas Tinea manuum exhibited the lowest fungal infection (6.7 %). Rural areas revealed the highest prevalence of dermatophyte in
... Show MoreIsolation and identification fungi of Emericella nidulans and Aspergillus flavus from a pinkish and yellowish artificial clay, by using potato dextrose agar (PDA). Results revealed that E. nidulans was the best for degrading anthracene (92.3%) with maximum biomass production (3.7gm/l), compared to A. flavus with the rate of degradation (89%) and biomass production of (1.2gm/l), when methylene blue was used as redox indicator after incubating in a shaker incubator 120rpm at 30Co for 8days. Results indicated that E. nidulans has a high ability of anthracene degradation with the rate of (84%), while A. flavus showed the lower level with (77%) by using HPLC.
Leishmaniasis is a group of parasitic diseases caused by Leishmania spp., an endemic infectious agent in developing countries, including Iraq. Diagnosis of cutaneous lesion by stained smears, serology or histopathology are inaccurate and unable to detect the species of Leishmania. Here, two molecular typing methods were examined to identify the promastigotes of suspected cutaneous leishmaniasis samples, on a species level. The first was species-specific B6-PCR and the second was ITS1-PCR followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) using restriction enzyme HaeIII. DNA was extracted from in vitro promastigote culture followed by amplification of kDNA by B6 or amplification and digestion of LITSR/L
... Show More