Heavy metal (HM) pollution has long been a significant source of environmental deterioration and a problem for the safety of food. Iraqis prefer rice over any other food, and since heavy metals have a direct impact on health, their traces in rice have drawn particular attention. Before cooking rice, it is usual in Iraq to wash and soak it. Some 55 varieties of imported and local rice were sampled from Erbil city markets in 2022 with the aim of determining the concentration of As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb before and after soaking. Standard procedure of acid digestions was applied on the raw and soaked samples. The solutions were analyzed using ICPE-9820 Shimadzu. The mean concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb (in mg/kg) in the rice samples before soaking was 0.655, 0.170, 0.160, 0.387, 0.489, respectively and after soaking 0.421, 0.109, 0.115, 0.124 and 0.336, respectively. The concentration of As and Pb was found to be beyond the optimum level of 0.2 mg/kg codex standards for rice; whereas Cd and Cr were within the proposed level of codex standards. Moreover, local rice showed higher concentration of (Cd and Cr), whereas (AS and Pb) concentration in imported rice was higher. Further, results validated that rice soaking can decrease levels of As, Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb (32.5%, 40.2%, 27.9%, 61.6% and 31.3%, respectively). These findings suggest that soaking as a kitchen practice has efficiency to evaporate metals and has a great influence on the reduction of toxic heavy metals and thus reduces exposure to toxic metals in rice
This study has been carried out to evaluate the expression level of beta 2 microglobulin gene on patients infected by hepatitis C virus before and after treatment with interferon. The study included 117 hepatitis C patients comprising as 63 pre-treated patients, the range of age was between 20-65 year with a mean age of 48.12 ± 16.1 and 54 post-treated patients with age range was between 23-63 year with the mean of 46.1 ± 18.1. Also it was found that more than half of patients were located within third and fourth decade i.e. 30-49 year, with a percentage of 52.4% and 55.6 % for pre-treatment and post-treatment patients respectively. Moreover , regarding both groups, males are more than females with the ratio of ( 3.2:1) among p
... Show MoreThe present study aimed to investigate the effects of alcohol and hot aqueous extracts for leaves of Adhatoda vasica on, first larval instars Musca domestica. They were exposed to the suggested concentrations of alcoholic extract which were (500, 1000, 1500, 2000) PPM while the suggested concentrations of the hot aqueous extracts (500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500)PPM. The alcoholic (Methanol) extract of leaves was much effective on to killing the first larval instars of the M. domestica than hot aqueous extract.
Composite steel-concrete sections have a broad benefit through increasing structural strength as well as minimizing the self-loads. All past researches were concerned with pre-installed shear connectors (PRSC) in the manufacturing of composite sections. A new fabrication technique for steel-concrete-steel composite sections were presented in the current study by the post-installation shear connectors (POSC) passed-through an embedded polymerizing vinyl chloride (PVC) pipes. The performance of normal strength concrete prisms with a specified strength of 32 MPa connected to square steel tubes (SST) was investigated. Six specimens were fabricated in both methodologies, PRSC and POSC were experimentally tested by Push-out test. The spac
... Show MoreThe importance of the research is evident in the use of exercises with the training device, which is one of the modern techniques in teaching the abilities of players, especially in teaching the skill of the backhand, and in improving the accuracy of the performance of players and increasing the contribution to the formation of a base for the game for players who have a good level of learning and upgrading the game to reach a certain achievement, and the research issue was represented in the lack of accuracy in sending balls to the required areas to achieve points, especially in the performance of the skill of the backhand due to the speed of play during the course of the match, and the study aimed to introduce modern technology usi
... Show MoreIn recent years, various methods have been developed to enhance the characteristics of asphalt pavement in order to face the continuous challenges of increasing traffic loads and changing climate conditions. One of the most popular and successful methods is modifying the asphalt mixtures or asphalt binder with the addition of polymers. Therefore, two types of Polyethylene (PE) polymer, High-Density PE (HDPE) and Low-Density PE (LDPE), are used in this research. Two methods were applied to prepare PE-modified asphalt mixtures: Semi-Wet Method (S-WM) and Dry Method (DM). The findings of the investigation indicated that the addition of PE polymer can reduce the wear loss of aggregate. In general, the experimental results revealed that asphalt
... Show MoreWe have presented the distribution of the exponentiated expanded power function (EEPF) with four parameters, where this distribution was created by the exponentiated expanded method created by the scientist Gupta to expand the exponential distribution by adding a new shape parameter to the cumulative function of the distribution, resulting in a new distribution, and this method is characterized by obtaining a distribution that belongs for the exponential family. We also obtained a function of survival rate and failure rate for this distribution, where some mathematical properties were derived, then we used the method of maximum likelihood (ML) and method least squares developed (LSD) to estimate the parameters an
... Show MoreThis research (The families of martyrs, victims of terrorism, war operations and military mistakes opinion about Al- Shuhada`a Establishment ) came to know and diagnose the mental image the martyrs victims of terrorism carries about the performance of Al- Shuhada`a Establishment and the services it provides to them, and to monitor the contents of that image that they had regarding their privileges and rights that Al- Shuhada`a Establishment supposed to give it to them, according to their law. The research problem was represented by the main question: (What is the image of Al- Shuhada`a Establishment among the families of martyrs, victims of terrorism, war operations and military mistakes), and this research was classified within the d
... Show MoreDouble hydrothermal method was used to prepare nano gamma alumina using aluminum nitrate nano hydrate and sodium aluminate as an aluminum source, CTAB (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide) as surfactant, and variable acids: weak acids like; citric, and acitic acids, and strong acids like; hydrochloric and nitric acids as a bridge between aluminum salts and surfactant. Different crystallization times 12, 24, 48, and 72 hrs were applied. All the batches were prepared at pH equals to 9. XRD diffraction technique was used to investigate the crystalline nano gamma alumina pure from surfactant. N2 adsorption-desorption (BET) was used to measure the surface area and pore volume of the prepared nano alumina, the average p
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