The Red Palm Weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier, 1790) is a devastating invasive pest of palm trees, invading the Iraqi date palm tree in 2015 for the first time in Safwan county, Basrah province. The Red Palm weevil has been categorized as a quarantine pest of date palm trees worldwide. In this study, a five years monitoring program has been achieved by scouting the invasive pest RPW population in Safwan county by using visual sampling and Pheromone baited traps.
The results indicated that the number of infested palms, increased from 12 trees in 2015 to 111 in 16 orchards in 2016. The number of the infested palms was minimized to 3 trees in the county in 2019 due to the management protocol of the Ministry of Agriculture

    The current study performed in order to detect and quantify epicatechin in two tea samples of Camellia sinensis (black and green tea) by thin layer chromatography (TLC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Extraction of epicatechin from black and green tea was done by using two different methods: maceration (cold extraction method) and decoction (hot extraction method) involved using three different solvents which are  absolute ethanol, 50% aqueous ethanol and water  for both extraction methods using room temperature and direct heat respectively. Crude extracts of two tea samples that obtained from two methods were fractionated by using two solvents with different polarity (chloroform and

Fourteen morphologically varied Ricinus communis L. seeds were collected from different localities in Egypt, El-Sudan and Saudi Arabia. Seed morphology and ITS barcoding analysis were performed to assess their diversity and phylogenetic relationship. Sequence’s alignment of nrITS region from different accessions display high levels of genetic similarities. Cluster analysis could not group different accessions according to their geographical distribution. Nevertheless, the genetic barcodes are interestingly matched with the morphological features of the Ricinus seeds. In conclusion, seed morphology proved to be a valuable tool in evaluating biodiversity and phylogenetic relationship in plant species with different loca

The current study included the isolation, purification and cultivation of blue-green alga Oscillatoria pseudogeminata G.Schmidle from soil using the BG-11liquid culture medium for 60 days of cultivation. The growth constant (k) and generation time (G) were measured which (K=0.144) and (G=2.09 days).

Microcystins were purified and determined qualitatively and quantitatively from this alga by using the technique of enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (Elisa Kits). The alga showed the ability to produce microcystins in concentration reached 1.47 µg/L for each 50 mg DW. Tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum) aged two months were irrigated with three concentrations of purified microcystins 0.5 , 3.0 and 6.0

Knowledge of the distribution of the rock mechanical properties along the depth of the wells is an important task for many applications related to reservoir geomechanics. Such these applications are wellbore stability analysis, hydraulic fracturing, reservoir compaction and subsidence, sand production, and fault reactivation. A major challenge with determining the rock mechanical properties is that they are not directly measured at the wellbore. They can be only sampled at well location using rock testing. Furthermore, the core analysis provides discrete data measurements for specific depth as well as it is often available only for a few wells in a field of interest. This study presents a methodology to generate synthetic-geomechani

Metal nanoparticles can serve as an efficient nano-heat source with confinement photothermal effects. Thermo-plasmonic technology allows researchers to control the temperature at a nanoscale due to the possibility of precise light propagation. The response of opto-thermal generation of single gold-silica core-shell nanoparticle immersed in water and Poly-vinylpyrrolidone surrounding media is theoretically investigated. Two lasers (CW and fs pulses) at the plasmonic resonance (532 nm) are utilized. For this purpose, finite element method is used via COMSOL multiphysics to find a numerical computation of absorption cross section for the proposed core –shell NP in different media. Thermo-plasmonic response for both lasers is studied. The

Expanded use of antibiotics may increase the ability of pathogenic bacteria to develop antimicrobial resistance. Greater attention must be paid to applying more sustainable techniques for treating wastewater contaminated with antibiotics. Semiconductor photocatalytic processes have proven to be the most effective methods for the degradation of antibiotics. Thus, constructing durable and highly active photocatalytic hybrid materials for the photodegradation of antibiotic pollutants is challenging. Herein, FeTiO3/Fe-doped g-C3N4 (FTO/FCN) heterojunctions were designed with different FTO to FCN ratios by matching the energy level of semiconductors, thereby developing effective direct Z-type heterojunctions. The photodegradation behaviors of th

Synthesis of new Fe+3, Co+2, Cu+2, Ru+3, and Rh+3 complexes of azo ligand; [5-((2-(3 H-1 indol-3-yl) ethyl) diazenyl) quinolin-8-ol], of 1:2 (M: L) and characterized through various techniques. The complexes exhibited octahedral geometries. Thermogravimetric (TGA and DSC) analysis is utilized to study the thermal properties of various compounds and reveal the presence of coordinated water molecules in the complexes. The multi-stage thermal decomposition mechanisms, where the thermal breakdown is ended by the formation of metal oxide as the final stable residue. The antioxidant activity of the ligand and its metal complexes was evaluated using the DPPH free radical scavenging assay and Gallic acid as a standard substance. Among the tested co