Phytophagous stink bugs (Hemiptera, Pentatomidae) are economically important insect pests of fruit, vegetable, nut and field crops. This study was carried out during the season of 2013 in orchards within Erbil city, to follow the stink bug Mustha spinulosa (Lefebvre, 1831) seasonal fluctuation on some fruit trees: olive, plum, apricot, pear, apple and almond.
The stink bug reaches its maximum abundance throughout the second week of August (38.2/tree) coinciding with mean temperature and relative humidity of 33.40C and 28.14% respectively, and the highest total mean of the number of the insect was recorded on the olive trees (181.8/tree). The study reveals that the stink bug attacked 22 trees (fruit and forest) while it has not atta

The main purpose of this investigation is to evaluate the concentrations of six essential metals (Na⁺, Mg²⁺, K⁺, Ca²⁺, Fe²⁺ and Zn²⁺) in saffron and a farm soil using the neutron activation analysis (NAA) as a nuclear spectrometry method. The stratified random sampling method was used here. The NAA results showed the well uptake of Mg²⁺, K⁺, Ca²⁺, Fe²⁺, and Zn²⁺ in saffron, which is lower than the toxicity range. Based on the contamination factor and geoaccumulation index, soil contamination levels were determined uncontaminated by Zn, moderately contaminated by Na⁺ and Fe²⁺, and strongly contamin

The manganese doped zinc sulfide nanoparticles were synthesized by simple aqueous chemical reaction of manganese chloride, zinc acetate and thioacitamide in aqueous solution. Thioglycolic acid is used as capping agent for controlling the nanoparticle size. The main advantage of the ZnS:Mn nanoparticles of diameter ~ 2.73 nm is that the sample is prepared by using non-toxic precursors in a cost effective and eco-friendly way. The structural, morphological and chemical composition of the nanoparticles have been investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersion spectroscopy (EDS) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The nanosize of the prepared nanoparticles was elucidated by Scan

Antibiotics present the greatest threat to soil and aquatic ecosystems among the different therapeutic groups of medicines (which include prescription drugs and treatments for cancer). The strongest drugs, antibiotics, have been utilized to stop the growth of microorganisms or eradicate them. Using high-performance liquid chromatography technology with fluorescence detection, the amounts of levofloxacin and tetracycline in the wastewater from three hospitals (Medical City, Al-Kindi, and Al-Yarmouk) were determined. Levofloxacin and tetracycline were chosen in this study because they are the most important water pollutants. These antibiotic residues were separated and measured using a gradient elution technique on a reverse-phase C18

Flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer (FAAS) was used in this study to determine the concentrations of heavy metals such as Ca, Fe, Mn, Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, Cu, Pb and Zn in some food additives of Iraq. The order of metal contents in food additives was found to be Ca ˃ Mn ˃ Fe ˃ Cu ˃ Zn ˃ Pb ˃ Cr ˃ Ni ˃ Co ˃ Cd. The concentration level of each metal was compared with that recommended by food agriculture organisation (FAO) and world health organisation (WHO). Calibration curves were linear for all standard solutions of heavy metals in the range starting from 0.02-0.4 mg/kg for Cd to 11-100 mg/kg for Ca. The correlation coefficients values (R2) of calibrations were investigated and ranged from 0.9971 for Cr to 0.9999 for Ca. Th

In the present study ten samples of bottled water from Baghdad conservative were taken to measure the concentration of radon gas by using nuclear track detector LR-115.The result obtained are varying from(0.033)to(0.007)pCi.l-1and these values are very low than the allowed limits (5) pCi.l-1, and specific activity from bottled water has been calculated which was vary from (0.00027)to(0.00126) Bq.l-1 and these values are very low than allowed limits (0.0123) Bq.l-1 that mean the bottled water was treated with good treatment to decrease the side effect of radon

Abstract

Due to the lack of previous statistical study of the behavior of payments, specifically health insurance, which represents the largest proportion of payments in the general insurance companies in Iraq, this study was selected and applied in the Iraqi insurance company.

In order to find the convenient model representing the health insurance payments, we initially detected two probability models by using (Easy Fit) software:

First, a single Lognormal for the whole sample and the other is a Compound Weibull  for the two Sub samples (small payments and large payments), and we focused on the compoun