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.
After harvesting, Alfalfa plant was washed, dried and ground to get fine powder used in treatment water. We used alfalfa plant with ethanol to made alcoholic extract and characterized it applying (GC-Mass, FTIR, UV) spectroscopy to determine active compounds. Alcoholic extract was used to prepare zinc nanoparticle. We characterized Zinc nanoparticles by using FTIR, UV, SEM, EDX Zeta potential and AFM. Zinc nanoparticle with Alfalfa extract and alfalfa powder was used to treat pollutant water with pesticides and negative ions by two methods, namely Batch and continuous processing. Batch process was used two times firstly, with Alfalfa plant to treat water affected by pesticides and negative ions, after 1h pesticides (glyphosate 44.76%, sulfo
... Show MoreThis research explores the obstacles teachers encounter in executing the smart schools initiative within the framework of Iraq, where educational facilities and digital preparedness are still at an early stage. Although worldwide trends reveal the growing use of smart technologies in education, Iraq has been hindered by systemic barriers, such as archaic curricula, restricted access to technologies, and an unqualified teaching staff. Data were collected using a validated questionnaire on 122 public school teachers working in Baghdad with a descriptive-analytical methodology. The study divided challenges into five areas: infrastructure, teacher preparedness, administrative support, curricular adaptation and cultural resistanc
... Show MoreThis research aims to the possibility of evaluating the strategic performance of the State Board for Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) using a balanced scorecard of four criteria (Financial, Customers, Internal Processes, and Learning and Growth). The main challenge was that the State Board use traditional evaluation in measuring employee performance, activities, and projects. Case study and field interviews methodology has been adopted in this research with a sample consisting of the Chairman of the State Board, 6 General Managers, and 7 Department Managers who are involved in evaluating the strategic performance and deciding the suitable answers on the checklists to analyze it according to the 7-points Likert scale. Data analysis re
... Show MoreThis research aims to the possibility of evaluating the strategic performance of the State Board for Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) using a balanced scorecard of four criteria (Financial, Customers, Internal Processes, and Learning and Growth). The main challenge was that the State Board use traditional evaluation in measuring employee performance, activities, and projects. Case study and field interviews methodology has been adopted in this research with a sample consisting of the Chairman of the State Board, 6 General Managers, and 7 Department Managers who are involved in evaluating the strategic performance and deciding the suitable answers on the checklists to analyze it ac
... Show MoreThe number of infections caused by microorganisms is increasing significantly over the last few years. A total of 140 patients admitted to the central teaching hospital of pediatrics from the 1st of Jun 2017 to 31 October 2017. The Clinical samples was processed from culture and sensitivity testing. Antibiotic discs used for gram negative isolates. The most prevalent gram negative isolates included Escherichia coli 63 (45.0 %), Pseudomonas spp. 21 (15.0 %), Klebsiella spp. 19 (13.6 %) predominantly. Escherichia coli were the most prevalent isolates from urine 45 (71.4 %), Klebsiella spp. 11 (57.9 %) and Enterobacter spp. 11 (68.8 %) followed by Escherichia coli 10 (15.9 %) predominant from blood. 68 (48.6 %) of specimens were urine, 47 (33.
... Show MoreBackground: Imaging techniques play a very important role in the specialty of endodontic. The ultrasonographic technique is non-expensive procedure, safe, and reproducible. The aim of the study was to determine the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of ultrasound and color Doppler ultrasonography in evaluation of periapical lesions (cyst, granuloma, mixed lesion “cyst within graulomas mass”, and abscess. Subject, Material and method: The sample consists of prospective study for 64 Iraqi participants who attended Karbalaa Specialized Center for Dentistry (males & females). Those patients were diagnosed clinically and radiographically as having periapical lesions of dental origin. They were examined by real time ultrasound and color
... Show MoreThe research aims to find out the impact of Lee’s cognitive strategy on the achievement of fifth-grade literary students in the module of history. The research community consists of the secondary female day schools of Al-Karkh Al-Oula Directorate General of Education. The size of the research sample comprises (45) female students of the fifth grade of the literary brunch, (21) students for the experimental group and (24) students for the control group. The researchers have chosen an experimental design with partial control to suit the current research and its goal. They used a unified tool to measure the achievement of female students, which consisted of (50) items characterized by sincerity and they extracted the stability of t
... Show MoreThermal properties of soils are important in buried structures contact problems. Although laboratory is distinctly advantageous in measuring the thermal conductivity of soil under ideal condition, given the ability to simulate relatively large-scale in place of soil bed, the field thermal conductivity of soil is not yet commonly used in many types of research. The use of only a laboratory experiment to estimate thermal conductivity may be the key reason for overestimation or underestimation it. In this paper, an intensive site investigation including field thermal conductivity tests for six different subsoil strata were performed using a thermal probe method (TLS-100) to systematically understanding the effects of field dry density, water c
... Show MoreThe implementation of decentralization in Iraq was asymmetrical, leading to different forms and paces of implementation. Comparing four cases of Basra, Kirkuk, Nineveh, and Sulaymaniyah indicate that these cases differ in their political stability and autonomy in a way that led to a different forms of decentralization. This paper argues that the higher the level of political autonomy from the federal government, the more efficient the governance model, and the more efficient the governance model, the more legitimate the system (trust), and the more legitimate a system, the more accountable elected officials. Therefore, it recommends reforming the institutional setup of decentralization by having districts, instead of provinces, as t
... Show MoreGaining economic policy of exceptional importance in severe unilateral Iraqi economy such as the economy, as oil revenues constitute the center of gravity in the internal and external balances, Economic policy have seen in Iraq beyond 2003 in absentia economic strategic vision and failure in the application of policies to achieve economic development, as there was a disconnect and lack of integration and coordination between macro policies of monetary policy and fiscal policy, especially as if they were floating two policies are not linked by a link