The genus Latrodectus Walckenaer, 1805 (Araneae: Theridiidae) is a worldwide distribute genus (Graudins et al., 2001), it includes a group of species commonly referred to as widow spiders. It's considered a taxonomically complex genus as the status of several forms had not been properly evaluated and specific boundaries are not well defined or understood (Levi, 1959; 1967; Garb et al., 2001), therefore, in multiple cases, populations has been uncritically referred to as different taxa. Discriminating between Latrodectus species using morphology has always been problematic (Levi, 1983), it is difficult taxonomically and readily separated from members of other Theridiid genera (Mirshamsi, 2005). The Genus Asagena Sundevall, 1833 was revalidated by Wunderlich (2008), this genus was earlier considered as a junior synonym of Steatoda Sundevall, 1833. The information and knowledge about the widow spiders in Iraq are very limited; in general spider in Iraq was neglected and rarely studied until the last few years, recently the interest in studying of this group was increased because of the emergence of several cases of bites, which was supposed to be caused by black widow spiders, researchers have revealed the existence of three Latrodectus species in Iraq, L. scelio (Abdul-Rassoul et al., 2012), L. hasselti (Al-Hadlag and Najim, 2015), while Zamani and El-Hennawy (2016) rejected these two species from the list of Iraqi spiders fauna and attributed them to L. renivulvatus. The difficulties of diagnosis underlines the importance of molecular characters in creating a valid phylogeny for this genus, this study characterizes the first phylogenetic …
The aim of this paper is to present the first record of ctenophore species Pleurobrachia pileus (O. F. Müller, 1776) in the coral reef as was recently found in Iraqi marine waters. The specimens were collected from two sites, the first was in Khor Abdullah during May 2015, and the second site was located in the pelagic water of the coral reef area, near the Al-Basrah deep sea crude oil marine loading terminal. Three samples were collected at this site during May 2015, February and March 2018 which showed that P. pileus were present at a densities of 3.0, 2.2 and 0.55 ind./ m3 respectively. The species can affect on the abundance of other zooplankton community through predation.
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This paper investigated the fatigue life behavior of two composite materials subjected to different times of shot peening (2, 4 and 6 min).The first material prepared from unsaturated polyester with E-glass reinforcement by 33% volume fraction. While, the second one was prepared from unsaturated polyester with aluminum powder by2.5% volume fraction. The experimental results showed that the improvement in endurance limit was obtained (for the first material) at 2, 4 and 6 min shot peening times where the percentage of maximum improvement was 25% at shot peening time of 6 min. While, the endurance limit of the second material decreased at shot peening times of 2, 4 and 6 min where the percentage of maximum reduction was 29 % at shot peenin
... Show MoreThe complexity and partially defined nature of jet grouting make it hard to predict the performance of grouted piles. So the trials of cement injection at a location with similar soil properties as the erecting site are necessary to assess the performance of the grouted piles. Nevertheless, instead of executing trial-injected piles at the pilot site, which wastes money, time, and effort, the laboratory cement injection devices are essential alternatives for evaluating soil injection ability. This study assesses the performance of a low-pressure laboratory grouting device by improving loose sandy soil injected using binders formed of Silica Fume (SF) as a chemical admixture (10% of Ordinary Portland Cement OPC mass) to di
... Show MoreAs a result of rapid industrialization and population development, toxic chemicals have been introduced into water systems in recent decades. Because of its excellent efficiency and simple design, the three-dimensional (3D) electro-Fenton method has been used for the treatment of wastewater. The goal of the current study is to explore the efficiency of phenol removal by the 3D electro-Fenton process, which is one of the advanced oxidation processes (AOPs). In the present work, the effect of the addition of granular activated carbon (GAC) particles to the electro-Fenton system as the third electrode would be investigated in the presence of graphite as the anode and nickel foam as the cathode, which is the source of electro-generated hydrogen
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The problem of missing data represents a major obstacle before researchers in the process of data analysis in different fields since , this problem is a recurrent one in all fields of study including social , medical , astronomical and clinical experiments .
The presence of such a problem within the data to be studied may influence negatively on the analysis and it may lead to misleading conclusions , together with the fact that these conclusions that result from a great bias caused by that problem in spite of the efficiency of wavelet methods but they are also affected by the missing of data , in addition to the impact of the problem of miss of accuracy estimation
... Show MoreThe modified Hummers method was applied to prepare graphene oxide (GO) from the graphite powder. Tin oxide nanoparticles with different loading (10-20 wt.%) supported on reduced graphene oxide were synthesized to evaluate the oxidative desulfurization efficiency. The catalyst was synthesized by the incipient wetness impregnation (IWI) technique. Different analysis methods like FT-IR, XRD, FESEM, AFM, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) were utilized to characterize graphene oxide and catalysts. The XRD analysis showed that the average crystal size of graphene oxide was 6.05 nm. In addition, the FESEM results showed high metal oxide dispersions on the rGO. The EDX analysis shows the weight ratio of Sn is close to its theoretical weight.
... Show MoreThe objective of this paper is to improve the general quality of infrared images by proposes an algorithm relying upon strategy for infrared images (IR) enhancement. This algorithm was based on two methods: adaptive histogram equalization (AHE) and Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE). The contribution of this paper is on how well contrast enhancement improvement procedures proposed for infrared images, and to propose a strategy that may be most appropriate for consolidation into commercial infrared imaging applications.
The database for this paper consists of night vision infrared images were taken by Zenmuse camera (FLIR Systems, Inc) attached on MATRIC100 drone in Karbala city. The experimental tests showed sign