Public-private partnership (PPP) has been used over the past 20-30 years by governments in developed countries to meet the public demand for infrastructural services. In Iraq, the PPP concept is comparatively new to the Government of Iraq (GoI), where the government has historically taken most of the responsibility for providing public services. There are few PPP projects in Iraq. However, the number is increasing. Recently the Iraqi market has experienced a number of attempts of PPP in different sectors, especially after the new investment law in 2006. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the investment environment in Iraq and to indicate the main factors affecting PPP in particular for infrastructure projects. Some literature review and

Water pollution is an issue that can be exacerbated by drought as increased concentrations of unwanted substances are a consequence of lower water levels. Polluted water that flows into natural marshlands leads to the deposition of pollutants in the interior of the marsh. Here we present evidence that the interior of the Central Marsh (CM) in southern Iraq suffers from higher levels of pollution than areas closer to the source of water entering the marsh (the Euphrates River). A 1.7m embankment that halts the flow of the Euphrates is only infrequently breached and so the CM is effectively the terminal destination of the waters (and their associated pollutants and agricultural waste) flowing from the West of Iraq.

A range of water

AbstractBackgroundLeishmaniasis is endemic in Iraq, where both cutaneous and visceral forms of the disease are reported.ObjectivesTo determine the prevalence of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) and to identify associations of CL with age, sex, season, and provinces depending on some demographic and climatic aspects.MethodsThis study is retrospective and includes reported cases of infections using the available surveillance database taken from the Iraqi Ministry of Health for the years 2011, 2012, and 2013 for all provinces of Iraq.ResultsMen and boys were found to be at higher risk for CL compared with women and girls. The majority of cases were recorded among those in age groups 5–14 and 15–45 years old. Most cases were recorded from lowla

Some methods recommended abroad to control the oriental hornet, Vespa orientalis L., attacking the honey bee, Apis mellifera L., colonies were tested, with some modifications, for the first time under the Iraqi conditions. One of these methods was carried out by covering the hive entrance with a piece of queen excluder to prevent the hornet from entering the hive. Also, the position of hive stand was reversed to deprive the hornet from using the flight board as a stage for waiting and creeping toward the defending bees. The second method was carried out by fixing a cardboard cone as a bee passage at the hive entrance to hinder the entry of the hornet into the hive. Both of these methods were found to be unsuccessful to

This Paper introduces a new local function ϕSζ∗ in a Grill topological space (Ẋ, ζ, τ) by using a semi open set, which is a superset of the local function ϕζ. Additionally, two equivalent operators, Ψs and ΓS that define topology τSζ, were devised based on ϕSζ∗, along with the presentation of various characteristics and properties ofϕ∗Sζ and the two equivalent operators, Ψs and ΓS. Additionally, newly created sets with weakly open properties (ϕSζ∗.open,ζ s.α-open, ζ s.pre.open, ζ s.semi.open) were established and their interrelations were proofed and diagrams that illustrate the relationship between them. For speed and accuracy of completing counterexamples, creating a computer program with original codes we

Keys for 22 species representing ten genera Thripidae collection carried out during 1999-2001 in different localities in the middle of Iraq. Of them four species are described as new to science, Frankliniella megacephala sp. nov; Retithrips bagdadensis sp. nov; Chirothrips imperatus sp. nov; Taeniothrips tigridis sp. nov; Another thirteen species are recorded for the first time in Iraq; Thrips meridionalis (Pri.); Microcephalothrips abdominils (Crawford); Scolothrips pallidus (Beach); Scritothrips mangiferae Pri.; Frankliniella tritici Bagnall; Frankliniella schultzie Trybom; Frankliniella unicolor Morgan; Retithrips aegypticus Mar

Since the Internet has been more widely used and more people have access to multimedia content, copyright hacking, and piracy have risen. By the use of watermarking techniques, security, asset protection, and authentication have all been made possible. In this paper, a comparison between fragile and robust watermarking techniques has been presented to benefit them in recent studies to increase the level of security of critical media. A new technique has been suggested when adding an embedded value (129) to each pixel of the cover image and representing it as a key to thwart the attacker, increase security, rise imperceptibility, and make the system faster in detecting the tamper from unauthorized users. Using the two watermarking ty