Abstract Background Infections with helminths are associated with deficient sanitary facilities, unsafe human waste disposal, inadequate and lack of safe drinking water, and low socioeconomic status. Objective To determine the prevalence of some gastrointestinal helminths among Iraqi people, and association of infections with age, sex, and region in Iraq. Method This study is retrospective, including reported cases of infections using an available surveillance database from January 2013 to December 2013 of all provinces of Iraq by the Ministry of Health. Result The overall prevalence of gastrointestinal helminthiasis was 1.39%. Enterobius vermicularis found to be the predominant helminth parasite. No significant (P < 0.05) relationship was found between sex and infection, although male individuals tended to show greater helminthiasis, while a significant relationship was found between age and infection. The common infections were more frequent among the 5-14 year age group. We found a lower prevalence of helminth infections in the northern (Ninevah, Suleimaniyah, Ta’mim, Erbil, and Dohuk) and middle Euphrates (Babil, Karbala, Najaf, Qadisiyah, and Muthanna) region provinces, compared with the middle (Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala, and Salahuddin) and southern (Wasit, Dhi-qar, Misan, and Basrah) region provinces where the prevalence was higher. Conclusion In this study, we found lower prevalence of infections in Iraq than similar studies conducted in other parts
The present paper addresses cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris microalgae using airlift photobioreactor that sparged with 5% CO2/air. The experimental data were compared with that obtained from bioreactor aerated with air and unsparged bioreactor. The results showed that the concentration of biomass is 0.36 g l-1 in sparged bioreactor with CO2/air, while, the concentration of biomass reached to 0.069 g l-1 in the unsparged bioreactor. They showed also that aerated bioreactor with CO2/air gives more biomass production even the bioreactor was aerated with air. This study proved that application of sparging system for cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris microalgae using either CO2/air mixture or air has a significant growth rate, since the biorea
... Show MoreTime-domain spectral matching commonly used to define seismic inputs to dynamic analysis in terms of acceleration time history compatible with a specific target response spectrum is used in this study to investigate the second-order geometric effect of P-delta on the seismic response of base-isolated high-rise buildings. A synthetic time series is generated by adjusting reference time series that consist of available readings from a past earthquake of the 1940 El Centro earthquake adopted as an initial time series. The superstructure of a 20-story base isolated building is represented by a 3-D finite element model using ETABS software. The results of the base isolated building show that base isolation technique significantly reduces inter-s
... Show MoreThis study investigated the bioethanol production from green algae Chlorella vulgaris depending on its carbohydrate-enriched biomass. Four different phosphorous concentrations were employed to stimulate bioethanol production from Chlorella vulgaris. The impact of various phosphorous values on Chlorella vulgaris growth rate as well as primary product (carbohydrate) were evaluated. High performance liquid chromatography was utilized in this work. The stationary phase was identified as day 14, 12, 10 and 6 in treatments 6, 4, 2 and g/L, respectively. The findings suggest that the treatment without phosphorous addition had the highest record of carbohydrate content (22.64% dry weight) as well as the highest bioethanol yield (20.66% dry weight).
... Show MoreIndustrial dyes are major pollutants in wastewater and river water with an initial visible concentration of 1 mg/L. Recent studies have shown the possibility of using polyphenol oxidase in catalytic biological treatment due to its ability to oxidize a large number of dyes and pollutants in wastewater and the flexibility to work in wide ranges of temperature, pH and salinity. It is easy availability as well as the low economic cost resulting from its use in biological treatments, this enzyme polyphenol oxidase was used. The findings in this study showed that the extraction of polyphenol oxidase (PPO) from potato peel was homogenized with potassium phosphate buffer (0.1 M, pH 7) at a ratio of 1:10 (weight: volume) for two min. The res
... Show MoreCommercial, industrial, and military activity, largely in the 19th and 20th centuries, have led to environmental pollution that can threaten human health and ecosystem function, liquid gas petroleum (LPG) products are the major sources of energy for industry and daily life that cause environmental contamination during various stages of production, transportation, refining and use. Screening of bacterial isolate by using clear zone techniques and biomass and optical density. Results revealed that isolate Burkholdaria cepatia showed a high ability for hydrocarbons biodegradation and this isolate identified depending on morphological cultural, gram stain, microscopic features, biochemical tests, and VITEK2 compact. In this study,
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