Ecosystems provide humans with services that include benefits from food, fresh water, climate regulation, and socio-economic assets. The Mesopotamian marshlands are among the largest wetlands in the Middle East and they provide various benefits. However, ecosystem services of the Marshlands are consistently undervalued in national economic analysis and decision making. This study focusses on the Central Marshes, the first National Park in Iraq, and is the first attempt at valuing a series of ecosystem services from a valuable natural ecosystem in Iraq. We adopted the Toolkit for Ecosystem Services Site-Based Assessment (TESSA) for the determination of biophysical and economic values of services at the site level. Data on key ecosystem services (as determined by 30 interviews with residents of the Marshes) included the trading of fish, harvested plants, water buffalo milk, and fodder were collected across six months in 2014. We valued the ecosystem services within the CM (40,000 ha) over a 6-month period to have a total value of 860,078.23 USD. This estimated total value was the sum of 86,637.25 USD from harvested plants, 551,334.80 USD from trading fish, 167, 303.70 USD from trading water buffalo milk, and 54,804.00 USD from trading fodder. The average income per individual in Iraq in 2014 was 6720 USD (World Bank data - https://data.worldbank.org/country/iraq): thus, the CM provided an average salary for 256 people. Our results provided greater understanding of the ecosystem services contributed by the Central Marshes and has highlighted the crucial role of nature in supporting sustainable well-being for humans living in the area. In addition, the results can be used to enhance local policy, to aid management plans of the National park, and to estimate lost and damage that could result from impact of climate change on the area.
Many researchers consider Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine mode as a promising alternative to combustion in Spark Ignition and Compression Ignition Engines. The HCCI engine runs on lean mixtures of fuel and air, and the combustion is produced from the fuel autoignition instead of ignited by a spark. This combustion mode was investigated in this paper. A variable compression ratio, spark ignition engine type TD110 was used in the experiments. The tested fuel was Iraqi conventional gasoline (ON=82).
The results showed that HCCI engine can run in very lean equivalence ratios. The brake specific fuel consumption was reduced about 28% compared with a spark ignition engine. The experimental tests showed that the em
... Show MoreAqueous Two Phase System (ATPS) or liquid-liquid extraction is used in biotechnology to recover valuable compounds from raw sources. In Aqueous Two-Phase Systems, many factors influence the Partition coefficient, K, (which is the ratio of protein concentration in the top phase to that in the bottom phase) and the Recovery percentage (Rec%). In this research, two systems of ATPS were used: first, polyethylene glycol (PEG) 4000/Sodium citrate (SC), and the second, PEG8000/ Sodium phosphate (SPH), for the extraction of Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA). The behavior of Rec% and K of pure (BSA) in ATPS has been investigated throughout the study by the effects of five parameters: temperature, concentration of polyethylene glycol (P
... Show MoreNanoparticles (NPs) based techniques have shown great promises in all fields of science and industry. Nanofluid-flooding, as a replacement for water-flooding, has been suggested as an applicable application for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The subsequent presence of these NPs and its potential aggregations in the porous media; however, can dramatically intensify the complexity of subsequent CO2 storage projects in the depleted hydrocarbon reservoir. Typically, CO2 from major emitters is injected into the low-productivity oil reservoir for storage and incremental oil recovery, as the last EOR stage. In this work, An extensive serious of experiments have been conducted using a high-pressure temperature vessel to apply a wide range of CO2-pres
... Show MoreIn this study , Iraqi Bentonite clay was used as a filler for polyvinyl chloride polymer. Bentonite clay was prepared as a powder for some certain particle size ,followed by calcinations process at (300,700,900) OC ,then milled and sieved. The selected sizes were D ~75 µm and D ~150. After that polyvinyl Al-Cohool solution prepared and used as a coated layer covered the Bentonite powder before applied as a filler ,followed by drying , milling and sieving for limited recommend sizes. polyvinyl chloride solutions were prepared and adding of modified Bentonite power at certain quantities were followed .Sheet of these variables on the mechanical and thermal properties of the prepared reinforced particular polyvinyl chloride composite
... Show MoreAbstract Portable communication devices such as WLAN, WiMAX, LTE, ISM, and 5G utilize one or more of the triple bands at (2.32.7 GHz,3.4–3.6GHz,and5–6GHz)andsufferfromtheeffectofmultipathproblemsbecausetheyareusedinurbanregions.To date, no one has performed a review of the antennas used for these types of wireless communications. This study reviewed two types of microstrip antennas (slot and fractal) that have been reported by researchers (as a single element) using a survey that included the evaluation of several important specifications of the antennas in previous research, such as operating bandwidth, gain, efficiency, axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW), and size. The weaknesses in the design of all antennas were carefully identified to de
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ABSTRUCT
The main aim of this research has been associated with the study of relationship between competitive intelligence and strategic risk, and to deduct their specific trends, which are interpreted as predicted by research hypotheses according to a review of literature including prior studies. The basic theme of these hypotheses is related to the probability that declining levels of strategic risk and competitive positions of industrial companies is dependent upon the growing capacity to stay ahead of competitors in the market.
A purposive non-random
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