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
Games engagement has become one of the main concerns in game industry. Early study revealed that Malaysian digital traditional games are suffering with the same issue due to several factors. One of it is the lack of the game itself. Although many Malaysian traditional games have been digitized, none of them has incorporated rewards despite its importance in games engagement. Realizing the importance of rewards in games engagement, one of Malaysian traditional Congkak has been chosen to be enhanced by incorporating rewards. Experiments have been conducted among 50 gamers among the Millennials. Prior interview, game demo and human test are conducted. Experiments focused on the influence of rewards on games flow, games challenge, and its ef
... Show MoreCadmium sulfide (CdS) nanocrystalline thin films have been prepared by chemical bath deposition (CBD) technique on commercial glass substrates at 70ºC temperature. Cadmium chloride (CdCl2) as a source of cadmium (Cd), thiourea (CS(NH2)2) as a source of sulfur and ammonia solution (NH4OH) were added to maintain the pH value of the solution at 10. The characterization of thin films was carried out through the structural and optical properties by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-VIS spectroscopy. A UV-VIS optical spectroscopy study was carried out to determine the band gap of the nanocrystalline CdS thin film and it showed a blue shift with respect to the bulk value (from 3.9 - 2.4eV). In present w
... Show MoreSurgical site infections are the second most common type of adverse events occurring in hospitalized patients. Surgical antibiotic prophylaxis refers to the use of preoperative and postoperative antibiotics to decrease the incidence of postoperative wound infections. The objective of this study was to evaluate the antibiotic administration pattern for surgical antibiotic prophylaxis and the adherence to American Society of Health-System Pharmacists surgical antibiotic prophylaxis guideline in Medical City Teaching Hospitals/Baghdad. The medical records of one hundred patients who underwent elective surgical procedures were reviewed. Adherence to the recommendations of American society of health‑system pharmacists guideline was ass
... Show MoreThe service system has become a necessity of life in modern cities to be the most basic necessities of modern humans, they constitute a major base, which is based on the sustainability of life in the city and a standard measured through the degree of well-being and progress of civilized peoples and their interaction with the surrounding environment, making the services sector as a need not be an option, whenever the cities widened in population and space whenever provision of services and upgrading the quality and quantity more pressing, which made the subject of the services takes the biggest area of the trends and thinking of urban planners and those who in charge of drawing the cities policies. Consideri
... Show MoreThe effect of thermal treatment on optical constants of pure PMMA and with addition (15 and 35) ml of coumarin at different temperatures (100, 110 and 120) C0 for 1 hour were investigated. Cast method used to prepares films of pure PMMA and PMMA with (15 and 35) of coumarin. UV/VIS spectrometer technique used to measure the absorption spectra for these films. The optical constant (absorption spectra and absorption coefficient) don’t changes after applied temperatures in pure PMMA film but the optical constant (absorption spectra and absorption coefficient) in PMMA with (15 and 35) ml of coumarin increased with applied temperatures. The optical energy gap of pure PMMA and PMMA with (15 and 35) ml of coumarin sl
... Show MoreIn this research, the degradation of Dazomet has been studied by using thermal Fenton process and photo-Fenton processes under UV and lights sun. The optimum values of amounts of the Fenton reagents have been determined (0.07g FeSO4 .7H2O, 3.5µl H2O2) at 25 °C and at pH 7 where the degradation percentages of Dazomet were recorded high. It has been found that solar photo Fenton process was more effective in degradation of Dazomet than photo-Fenton under UV-light and thermal Fenton processes, the percentage of degradation of Dazomet by photo-Fenton under sun light are 88% and 100% at 249 nm and 281 nm respectively, while the percentages of degradation for photo-Fenton under UV-light are 87%, 96% and for thermal Fenton are 70% and 66
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