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
Abstract
The government spending in Iraq and witnessed the changes and developments, especially after 2003, which outweighed consumer spending at the expense of capital expenditure and increased support and diversity of trends towards improving pension conditions for member
... Show MoreThe current research seeks to achieve several objectives, including knowing the extent of the audit directorate of the Ministry of Construction, Housing and General Municipalities of the International Standard (ISO19011:2018) regarding determining the efficiency and evaluation of auditors and diagnosing the gap between requirements and application and knowing the reasons for not applying some of the items in the standard, starting from the problem, The field raised the following question (Does the audit directorate determine the efficiency and evaluation of auditors according to the standard ISO19011:2018?), and the importance of research lies in determining the return that can be achieved by the directorate through its application of stand
... Show Moreγ-Al2O3–NPs were synthesized by a green synthesis process based on Boswellia carterii resin extract and aluminum sulphate in an alkaline medium. Boswellia carterii resin extract is a significant reducing and stabilizing agent for synthesizing γ-Al2O3–NPs.Several techniques, including Fourier–transform infrared (FT-IR), UV–visible spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, electron microscopy (XRD), energy dispersive x-ray (EDX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM), were utilized to investigate the final product. XRD and SEM confirmed a plate-like crystalline structure with an average size of 17.5 nm. FT-IR analysis identified aluminum oxide stretching vibrations (655,
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... Show MoreIn this study, nanoparticles were synthesized using the pulsed laser ablation technique, employing an Nd:YAG laser with a wavelength of 1064 nm. The ablation process was carried out at room temperature under varying laser energy of 950 mJ. The structural characteristics of the resulting nanoparticles were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The biological impact of the synthesized nanoparticles was assessed by administering two different doses (1 ml/kg and 4 ml/kg) to experimental animal models. The study evaluated changes in thyroid hormone levels, specifically thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), triiodothyronine (T[Formula: see text] and thyroxine (T[Formula: see text]
... Show MoreIn this work, the effects of solvent properties on the characteristics of absorption and fluorescence for two laser dyes was studied. Dyes used in this work include Coumarin 5400 and DCM, while the solvents include ethanol, methanol, acetone, propanol and chloroform. Coumarin 5400 dye shows sharp fluorescence peaks in the green band of visible region while the DCM dye shows relatively wide band within 590-630 nm. Therefore, the selection of any dye for random gain medium applications should be performed after determining the most appropriate solvent as the optimum fluorescence characteristics are obtained.
This research aims to study the effect of microwave furnace heat on the mechanical properties and fatigue life of aluminum alloy (AA 2024-T3). Four conditions were used inside microwave furnace (specimens subjected to heat as dry for 30 and 60min. and specimens subjected to heat as wet (water) for 30 and 60 min.), and compared all results with original alloy (AA 2024-T3). Tensile, fatigue, hardness and surface roughness tests were used in this investigation. It is found that hardness of dry conditions is higher than wet conditions and it increases with increasing of time duration inside microwave furnace for dry and wet conditions. Also, tensile strength has the same behavior of hardness, but it increases with decreasing
... Show MoreThree isolates of P. aeruginosa were isolated from burnt patients. The ability of these isolates for adhesion and formation of slime layer were tested, the result showed that all isolates were able to adherence on the smooth surface. The sensitivity of P. aeruginosa isolates for antibiotics were tested , all isolates were sensitive to Gentamycin, Piperacillin and Amikacin Ciprofloxacin, and resist to Tetracyclin, Amoxicillin, Cephalexine , Ceftriaxone. Ciprofloxacin and Amikacin were found effective against P. aeruginosa isolates with MIC values of 3.8 μg/ ml for Ciprofloxacin and 0.244 μg/ ml for Amikacin The antibacterial effect of Different concentrations of Aloe
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