Anthropogenic activities cause soil pollution with different serious pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) compounds. This study assessed the contamination of PAHs in soil samples collected from 30 sites divided into eight groups (residential areas, oil areas, agricultural areas, roads, petrol stations, power plants, public parks and electrical generators) in Basrah city-Iraq during 2019-2020. The soil characteristics including (moisture, pH, EC and TOC) were measured. Results showed the following ranges (soil moisture (0.03-0.18%),pH (6.90-8.16), EC (2.48-104.80) mS/cm and TOC (9.90-20.50%)). Gas Chromatography (GC) was used to measure PAHs in extracted soil samples. The total PAH range (499.96 - 5864.86) ng/g dry weight (DW). The most dominant percentage of PAHs in (residential areas, oil areas, agricultural areas, roads, petrol stations, power plants, public parks and electrical generators) in dry season were (BghiP 36% , Chy 29% ,BkF 26% , BaP 18% ,BghiP 27% , InP 40% , BbF 19% and BbF 12%) respectively, while in wet season the most dominant PAHs were (Pyr 22% , BbF 16%, BkF 32% , BbF 36% , BkF 38% , Pyr 26% , BbF 43% and Pyr 35%) respectively. According to some calculated ratios, the sources of PAHs in Basrah soil were mixed between petrogenic and pyrogenic origins. The soil is classified from weakly to heavily contaminated with PAHs.
Shumblan (SH) is one of the most undesirable aquatic plants widespread in the irrigation channels and water bodies. This work focuses on boosting the biogas potential of shumblan by co-digesting it with other types of wastes without employing any chemical or thermal pretreatments as done in previous studies. A maximum biogas recovery of 378 ml/g VS was reached using shumblan with cow manure as inoculum in a ratio of 1:1. The methane content of the biogas was 55%. Based on volatile solid (VS) and C/N ratios, biogas productions of 518, 434, and 580 ml/g VS were obtained when the shumblan was co-digested with food wastes (SH:F), paper wastes (SH:P), and green wastes (SH:G) respectively. No significant changes of methane contents were observ
... Show MoreThe cytotoxicity of different concentrations of purified methionine γ- lyase from Pseudomonas putida on cancer cell lines (RD, AMN3 and AMGM) at 96 hr was studied. The bacterial enzyme with concentration 1000µg/ml was revealed highly cytotoxicity against cancer cell lines in comparison with other concentrations whereas slight cytotoxicity was observed on normal cell (REF).
Objective(s): Assess the effectiveness of osteoporosis prevention instruction program on nursing college students’
knowledge at Baghdad University.
Methodology: A quasi-experimental design was used to assess the effectiveness of osteoporosis prevention
instruction program on nursing college students at University of Baghdad from April 2011 to September 2011. A
random sample consisted of (40) females students from first year of Nursing College \ Baghdad University. The data
was collected by using constructed questionnaire, which consists of three parts. Part one: consists of demographic
information and health characteristics .Part two: consists of students’ daily life behaviors which include, dietary
behaviors, an
Cultural awareness is becoming increasingly important in an effort to reinvigorate local urban heritage into modern production. Considering that, one of the most significant aspects of sustainability is preserving socio-cultural and environmental specificities and restoring local heritage. The aim is influencing the local identity by promoting sustainability through the revival of Islamic geometric patterns (IGP) and their performance as effective components in local urban facades. A set of indicators related to the purposes for reusing IGP in facades within three main performances (decorative, structural, and functional). Their sustainability was studied and extrapolated, and a checklist has developed and tested by Likert scale on
... Show MoreAn integrated GIS-VBA (Geographical Information System – Visual Basic for Application), model is developed for selecting an optimum water harvesting dam location among an available locations in a watershed. The proposed model allows quick and precise estimation of an adopted weighted objective function for each selected location. In addition to that for each location, a different dam height is used as a nominee for optimum selection. The VBA model includes an optimization model with a weighted objective function that includes beneficiary items (positive) , such as the available storage , the dam height allowed by the site as an indicator for the potential of hydroelectric power generation , the rainfall rate as a source of water . In a
... Show MoreIn the present work, the behavior of thick-walled cylinder of elasto-plastic material (polymeric material) has been studied analytically. The study is based on modified Von-Mises yield criterion (for non metallic material). The equations of stress distribution are obtained for the cylinder under general cases of elastic expansion, plastic initiation and elastic-plastic expansion.
A computer program is developed for evaluating the stress distribution. The solution is carried out for worst boundary conditions when the cylinder is subjected to the combination of pressure load, inertia load, and temperature gradient.
The results are presente
... Show MoreThe university course timetable problem (UCTP) is typically a combinatorial optimization problem. Manually achieving a useful timetable requires many days of effort, and the results are still unsatisfactory. unsatisfactory. Various states of art methods (heuristic, meta-heuristic) are used to satisfactorily solve UCTP. However, these approaches typically represent the instance-specific solutions. The hyper-heuristic framework adequately addresses this complex problem. This research proposed Particle Swarm Optimizer-based Hyper Heuristic (HH PSO) to solve UCTP efficiently. PSO is used as a higher-level method that selects low-level heuristics (LLH) sequence which further generates an optimal solution. The proposed a
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