Keratin is a fibrous, insoluble structural protein that is highly cross-linked with hydrophobic, hydrogen, and disulfide bonds. Keratinases are enzymes that belong to the category of serine hydrolases that are capable of breaking down keratin. The results of the determination of the better fermentation system showed that the production of keratinase from local A.terreus A13 isolate by submerged fermentation (SmF) system was the best system to give the highest specific activity (113.4 U/mg) of keratinase compared with solid-state fermentation (SSF). The optimum conditions for keratinase production by SmF, were determined via cultivation conditions, including carbon source, nitrogen source, temperature, pH of the medium,

The swarm intelligence and evolutionary methods are commonly utilized by researchers in solving the difficult combinatorial and Non-Deterministic Polynomial (NP) problems. The N-Queen problem can be defined as a combinatorial problem that became intractable for the large ‘n’ values and, thereby, it is placed in the NP class of problems. In the present study, a solution is suggested for the N-Queen problem, on the basis of the Meerkat Clan Algorithm (MCA). The problem of n-Queen can be mainly defined as one of the generalized 8-Queen problem forms, for which the aim is placing 8 queens in a way that none of the queens has the ability of killing the others with the use of the standard moves of the chess queen. The Meerkat Clan environm

In this paper, a new idea to configure a special graph from the discrete topological space is given. Several properties and bounds of this topological graph are introduced. Such that if the order of the non-empty set equals two, then the topological graph is isomorphic to the complete graph. If the order equals three, then the topological graph is isomorphic to the complement of the cycle graph. Our topological graph has  complete induced subgraphs with order  or more. It also has a cycle subgraph. In addition, the clique number is obtained. The topological graph is proved simple, undirected, connected graph. It has no pendant vertex, no isolated vertex and no cut vertex. The minimum and maximum degrees are evaluated. So , the radius 

     In this work, thin films of cadmium oxide: nickel oxide (CdO: NiO) were prepared by pulsed laser deposition at different pulse energies of Nd: YAG laser. The thin films' properties were determined by various techniques to study the effect of pulse laser energy on thin films' properties. X-ray diffraction measurements showed a mixture of both phases. The degree of crystallinity and the lattice constant increase with the laser energy increase, while the lattice strain decreases. FE-SEM images show that the substrates' entire surface is uniformly covered, without any cracks, with a well-connected structure consisting of small spherical particles ranging in size from 15 to 120 nm. Increasing the laser power causes to increase the pa

      The Mannich reaction is one of the most important types of organic chemistry fundamental reactions. It is a crucial stage in the production of various medicines, natural goods, and industrial chemicals. Chemists' imaginations have always been piqued because of this. In general, the Mannich reactions can be used as part of a tandem reaction sequence to produce complex target molecules in an elegant and often easy manner. The following article examines and summarizes methods for synthesizing Mannich derivatives, in addition to offering a survey of recent advancements in several fields’ applications of the Mannich reaction, such as biological applications, antimicrobial activity, anticancer activity, anti-inflammation and antio

Interleukin-35 (IL-35) is a new member of IL-12 family of cytokines, and its role in pathogenesis of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection has been recently suggested. Accordingly, a case-control study was conducted during June - October 2018 to determine IL-35 serum level in Iraqi patients with chronic HBV infection. The results revealed that IL-35 level was significantly decreased in patients as compared to control (163 vs. 301 pg/ml; p < 0.001). However, such decreased level was more pronounced in patients at the age groups < 40 and 40 – 50 years (165 and 145 pg/ml, respectively) as compared to the corresponding age groups in control (482 and 234 pg/ml, respectively). In the case of gender groups, both male

In this paper, we introduce and study the notion of the maximal ideal graph of a commutative ring with identity. Let R be a commutative ring with identity. The maximal ideal graph of R, denoted by MG(R), is the undirected graph with vertex set, the set of non-trivial ideals of R, where two vertices I₁ and I₂ are adjacent if I₁ I₂ and I₁+I₂ is a maximal ideal of R. We explore some of the properties and characterizations of the graph.

     The main aim of the present paper is to study the electric breakdown in a uniform electric discharge system. The system consists of two spheres separated by a dielectric. The dielectric is dry air. Certain boundary conditions are taken into consideration as applied voltage, pressure, and domain. The formation of discharge types as Townsend and streamer under different distance gaps (1, 0.9,0.8, 0.6, 0.4, 0.2, 0.1) mm was sudied. The temperature effect on the breakdown voltages for the discharge process is also included. Seven different temperature steps are chosen in the study.  Comsol Multiphysics software is used for the simulation model as a plasma model. Results show that as the gap distance increases the breakdown voltage

In this work, polypyrrole (PPy) composites were chemically prepared by a chemical oxidation method. Also, Tungsten Trioxide (WO₃) nanoparticles were prepared and added in certain proportions to PPy. The structure properties were studied for the polypyrole and tungesten trioxide separately before mixing them together. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis revealed a hexagonal WO₃ and a triclinic PPy. It was observed that the nano-composite prepared by the addition of WO₃  with 10 and 20% volume ratios to PPy shows a triclinic phase with the presence of hexagons. The molecular structures of PPy, WO₃, and PPy–WO₃ nano composites were depicted by Fourier-transform infrare

    In this paper a method  to determine whether an image is forged (spliced) or not is presented. The proposed method is based on  a classification model to determine the authenticity of a tested image. Image splicing causes many sharp edges (high frequencies) and discontinuities to appear in the spliced image. Capturing these high frequencies in the wavelet domain rather than in the spatial domain is investigated in this paper. Correlation between high-frequency sub-bands coefficients of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) is also described using co-occurrence matrix. This matrix was an input feature vector to a classifier. The best accuracy of 92.79% and 94.56% on Casia v1.0 and Casia v2.0 datasets respectively was achieved. This pe

In the present paper, new concepts of generalized continuous mappings, namely Е_c and δ-ß_c-continuous mappings have been introduced and studied by using a new generalized of open sets Е_c and δ-ß_c-open sets ,respectively. Several characterizations and fundamental properties of these forms of generalized continuous mappings are obtained. Moreover, the graphs of Е_c-continuous and δ-ß_c-continuous mappings have been investigated. In addition, the relationships among Е_c-continuous and δ-ß_c-continuous mappings and other well-known forms of g

      Skin cancer is the most serious health problems in the globe because of its high occurrence compared to other types of cancer. Melanoma and non-melanoma are the two most common kinds of skin cancer. One of the most difficult problems in medical image processing is the automatic detection of skin cancer. Skin melanoma is classified as either benign or malignant based on the results of this test. Impediment due to artifacts in dermoscopic images impacts the analytic activity and decreases the precision level. In this research work, an automatic technique including segmentation and classification is proposed. Initially, pre-processing technique called DullRazor tool is used for hair removal process and semi-supervised mean-shift

Background: The present study was conducted to highlight the importance of environmental pollution and its negative impacts on aquatic, plants and animals lives, especially in industrial areas.

Objective: This research involved studying the hydrogeochemistry of the groundwater and assessing its quality for irrigation and domestic purposes using quality parameters.  In this study, 33 groundwater samples were collected from wells during May 2013 and were analyzed for major ions and TDS.

Results: The hydrogeochemical facies of groundwater were identified using the Gibbs model and Chloro – alkaline  indices. The results of the Gibbs graph suggest that groundwater

     Recently, Human Activity Recognition (HAR) has been a popular research field due to wide spread of sensor devices. Embedded sensors in smartwatch and smartphone enabled applications to use sensors in activity recognition with challenges for example, support of elderly’s daily life . In the aim of recognizing and analyzing human activity many approaches have been implemented in researches.  Most articles published on human activity recognition used a multi -sensors based methods where a number of sensors were tied on different positions on a human body which are not suitable for many users. Currently, a smartphone and smart watch device combine different types of sensors which present a new area for analysi

Let  be a commutative ring with an identity and be a unitary -module. We say that a non-zero submodule  of  is  primary if for each with en either or  and an -module  is a small primary if   =  for each proper submodule  small in. We provided and demonstrated some of the characterizations and features of these types of submodules (modules).  

     There has been an increase in demand for nanocomposite, which has resulted in large-scale manufacturers employing high-energy processes and harmful solvents. Because of this, the need for environmentally benign "green" synthesis processes has grown. Other methods for making nanocomposite include using plants and plant products, bacteria, fungi, yeast, and algae. Green synthesis has minimal toxicity and is safe for human health and the environment compared to other processes, making it the ideal option for creating nanocomposite materials. This work reveals an environmentally friendly synthesis method for magnetic nanocomposites. In particular, they were using an aqueous extract of Artemisia to obtain ZnO/Fe₃O₄

     The aim of the study is the measuring of changes in the spectral reflectivity water quality, analyzing the seasonal difference of Tigris River within Mosul City in the north of Iraq using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing techniques during the period (2014-2018). For this paper, Satellite images of the 8 Landsat in 2018 for four seasons have been selected in order to study the seasonal changes on the river they took place during 2018.  A total of ten sample datasets were taken at the upstream, midstream and downstream along the Tigris River. This research focuses on analyzing the locational variance of reflectance, analyzing seasonal difference, and finding modeling algal amount change.

Meta-heuristic algorithms have been significantly applied in addressing various real-world prediction problem, including in disease prediction. Having a reliable disease prediction model benefits many parties in providing proper preparation for prevention purposes. Hence, the number of cases can be reduced. In this study, a relatively new meta-heuristic algorithm namely Barnacle Mating Optimizer (BMO) is proposed for short term dengue outbreak prediction. The BMO prediction model is realized over real dengue cases data recorded in weekly frequency from Malaysia. In addition, meteorological data sets were also been employed as input. For evaluation purposes, error analysis relative to Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Mean Square Err

     Radon and its daughters are of the natural radioactive decay of the uranium series. Exposure to radon gas leads to lung cancer, so the risks are significantly higher for smokers than for non-smokers. Therefore, the risk of radon increases for both active and passive smokers. The radioactivity of alpha particles emitted by radium 226, the main source of radon 222, has become harmful because its prevalence and inhalation increase with increased smoking. In this study, a CR-39 detector was used to measure radon, radium, and uranium concentrations and then calculate risk parameters in seven cigarette-smoking females in vitro study of human blood samples, and three normal females with no actual and passive cigarette smoking. The rado

    Multiple applications use offline handwritten signatures for human verification. This fact increases the need for building a computerized system for signature recognition and verification schemes to ensure the highest possible level of security from counterfeit signatures. This research is devoted to developing a system for offline signature verification based on a combination of local ridge features and other features obtained from applying two-level Haar wavelet transform. The proposed system involves many preprocessing steps that include a group of image processing techniques (including: many enhancement techniques, region of interest allocation, converting to a binary image, and Thinning). In feature extraction and

The spectrum known represented as a relationship that’s plotted between the magnitudes or energy for a specific parameter vs. its frequency, the wind spectrum is presented as the sum of wind speed created by events divided either in space, in time, or both. This paper presents a wind speed spectrum demonstration in
Ali Al-Gharbi location in Iraq. The aim of the present paper is to analysis the wind speed and direction by employing the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) therefore field measurement of wind speed and direction were collected for one year from Dec 2014 to Dec 2015 in the time interval of 10 minutes at heights of 10, 30 and 50
meters. From the performance of the FFT it was found that the v

The population of Ephemeroptera was studied in three selected stations of Rawanduz River (Gali Ali Beg water fall, Rawanduz River and after the junction of these two waters) during the three seasons of spring, summer and autumn in 2016. In addition,sixteen physicochemical parameters (pH, EC, turbidity, DO, BOD₅, NO₃, TDN, TDP, HCO₃^-, Hardness, Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺, Na⁺, K⁺, Cl^-, SO₄^2-, Na% and SAR) of water in these stations were estimated and used to calculate the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME WQI). Eleven species of aquatic insects were identified,which belong to four families of th

     The method of operational matrices is based on the Bernoulli and Shifted Legendre polynomials which is used to solve the Falkner-Skan equation. The nonlinear differential equation converting to a system of nonlinear equations is solved using Mathematica^®12, and the approximate solutions are obtained. The efficiency of these methods was studied by calculating the maximum error remainder ( ), and it was found that their efficiency increases as  increases. Moreover, the obtained approximate solutions are compared with the numerical solution obtained by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method (RK4), which gives  a good agreement.

     Background: ¹⁸F-FDG positron emission tomography (PET) has established itself in the field of oncology and it is useful in the initial staging and follow-up of a variety of malignancies. Significant thyroid uptake is often identified as an accidental finding on whole-body positron emission tomography for non-thyroid disease.

Aim of this study: to investigate the effect of ¹⁸F-FDG on thyroid gland function after performing PET scan compared to thyroid function prior to scan.

Materials and Methods:  43 subjects who had an ¹⁸F-FDG PET scan as part of a cancer screening program participated in this study. All cancers  are diagnosed using ¹⁸F-FDG, except for prostate cancer,

     The influence of ambient temperature on the various parameters of negative corona discharge in atmospheric dry air with coaxial cylindrical electrodes is investigated. The calculations are achieved using the finite element method by COMSOL Multiphysics software. The investigation aims to notice the effect many of working temperatures on the I-V characteristic curve of negative corona discharge in the air. The calculations of several parameters (electron density, temperature, ...) are presented visually and discussed. The results of the work are compared with theoretical and experimental data and they are in a good agreement.

The spread of Coronavirus has forced populations around the globe to adopt strict measures such as lockdown, home quarantine, and home office. Moreover, in the current development of network communications, people can exploit internet and intranet features in many systems that need to be faster, more efficient, and available on time. Furthermore, with the benefits of using internet-of-things (IoT), through which things are generated, gained, discovered, and proposed without interference, the user could receive the last status without exertion and direct contact (i.e., in a contactless manner). These specifications can be used in a transaction system. This paper proposes an electronic transaction system (ETS) as a replacement for the curr

      A seismic study was conducted to re-interpret the Qasab and Jawan oil field in northern Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, by reprocessing and interpreting many seismic sections of a number of field surveys that included the field area. Two reflectors are detected, represented by Hartha Formations which were deposited during the Cretaceous age and Euphrates Formation which was deposited during the Tertiary age in order to stabilize the structural image of this field. The study was achieved by reinterpreting seismic sections using the Petrel program, where time, velocity  and depth maps were prepared for the two formations.

The study showed that the Qasab and Jawan fields generally consist of a s

     MWCNTs-OH was used to prepare a flexible gas sensor by deposition as a network on a filter cake using the method of filtration from suspension (FFS). The morphological and structural properties of the MWCNTs network were characterized before and after exposure to Freon gas using FTIR spectra and X-ray diffractometer, which confirmed that the characteristics of the sensor did not change after exposure to the gas. The sensor was exposed to a pure Freon134a gas as well as to a mixture of Freon gas and air with different ratios at room temperature. The experiments showed that the sensor works at room temperature and the sensitivity values increased with increasing operating temperature, to be 58% unt

     In a previous work, Ali and Ghawi studied closed Rickart modules. The main purpose of this paper is to define and study the properties of y-closed Rickart modules .We prove that, Let  and   be two -modules such that  is singular. Then  is -y-closed Rickart module if and only if   Also, we study the direct sum  of  y-closed Rickart modules.

      Iron deficiency is considered as a common problem facing the general world population. In the current research, experiments were conducted to evaluate the effects of aqueous extracts of Acacia senegal (Gum Arabic, GA), Spinacia oleracea (spinach), Zea mays (corn), and Capsicum annuum (red chili pepper) on iron and ferritin levels in rats. Vitamin C and fructose levels were first estimated in these plants by using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). The results showed that the GA extract contained the highest level of fructose (853 mg.L^-1), followed by red chili pepper (635 mg.L^-1), corn (521 mg.L^-1), and spinach (271 mg.L^-1