The Red Palm Weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier, 1790) is a devastating invasive pest of palm trees, invading the Iraqi date palm tree in 2015 for the first time in Safwan county, Basrah province. The Red Palm weevil has been categorized as a quarantine pest of date palm trees worldwide. In this study, a five years monitoring program has been achieved by scouting the invasive pest RPW population in Safwan county by using visual sampling and Pheromone baited traps.
The results indicated that the number of infested palms, increased from 12 trees in 2015 to 111 in 16 orchards in 2016. The number of the infested palms was minimized to 3 trees in the county in 2019 due to the management protocol of the Ministry of Agriculture

In subterranean coal seam gas (CSG) reservoirs, massive amounts of small-sized coal fines are released during the production and development stages, especially during hydraulic fracturing stimulation. These coal fines inevitably cause mechanical pump failure and permeability damage due to aggregation and subsequent pore-throat blockage. This aggregation behavior is thus of key importance in CSG production and needs to be minimized. Consequently, such coal fines dispersions need to be stabilized, which can be achieved by the formulation of improved fracturing fluids. Here, we thus systematically investigated the effectiveness of two additives (ethanol, 0.5 wt % and SDBS, 0.001 and 0.01 wt %) on dispersion stability for a wide range of condit

Knowledge of the distribution of the rock mechanical properties along the depth of the wells is an important task for many applications related to reservoir geomechanics. Such these applications are wellbore stability analysis, hydraulic fracturing, reservoir compaction and subsidence, sand production, and fault reactivation. A major challenge with determining the rock mechanical properties is that they are not directly measured at the wellbore. They can be only sampled at well location using rock testing. Furthermore, the core analysis provides discrete data measurements for specific depth as well as it is often available only for a few wells in a field of interest. This study presents a methodology to generate synthetic-geomechani

This research investigates manganese (Mn) extraction from Electric Arc Furnace Steel Slag (EAFS) by using the Liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) method. The chemical analysis was done on the slag using X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, and atomic absorption spectroscopy. This work consisted of two parts: the first was an extensive study of the effect of variables that can affect the leaching process rate for Mn element from slag (reaction time, nitric acid concentration, solid to liquid ratio, and stirring speed), and the second part evaluates the extraction of Mn element from leached solution. The results showed the possibility of leaching  83.5 % of  Mn element from the slag at a temperature of 25°C, nitric acid co

The blade pitch angle (BPA) in wind turbine (WT) is controlled to maximize output power generation above the rated wind speed (WS). In this paper, four types of controllers are suggested and compared for BPA controller in WT: PID controller (PIDC), type-1 fuzzy logic controller (T1-FLC), type-2 fuzzy logic controller (T2-FLC), and hybrid fuzzy-PID controller (FPIDC). The Mamdani and Sugeno fuzzy inference systems (FIS) have been compared to find the best inference system used in FLC. Genetic algorithm (GA) and Particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) are used to find the optimal tuning of the PID parameter. The results of500-kw horizontal-axis wind turbine show that PIDC based on PSO can reduced 2.81% in summation error of power

Thirteen isolates were collected from various clinical sources during the periodfrom 22/10/2017 to 22/12/2017. All the isolates were diagnosed based on the microscopic and biochemical propertiesby Vitek-2 Compact system. All isolates formed biofilm 100%, with 30% of isolatesbiofilm produced strongly and 70% on medium. The results of the present study have shown the presence of Curli fimbriae genes in E. cloacae bacteria from cases of urinary tract infections, infected patient with blood bacteremia and inflammation of wounds. Curli fimbriae is considered to be an important factor in the virulence of E.cloacae bacteria, which plays an important role in adhering and combining cells on solid surfaces to form the biofilmand helps in the adhesion

Periodontitis is a dysbiosis-driven inflammatory disease in which a pathogenic subgingival biofilm disrupts the host–microbe equilibrium and promotes progressive loss of tooth-supporting tissues. While periodontal destruction has traditionally been explained mainly through the host immune response, increasing experimental and clinical evidence suggests that epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT)-like changes in the gingival epithelium may contribute to barrier failure and tissue remodeling during disease progression. EMT is characterized by reduced epithelial adhesion and polarity, alongside a shift toward a mesenchymal-like phenotype with enhanced motility and impaired epithelial barrier function. This narrative review focuses

In this study, the flexural performance of a new composite beam–slab system filled with concrete material was investigated, where this system was mainly prepared from lightweight cold-formed steel sections of a beam and a deck slab for carrying heavy floor loads as another concept of a conventional composite system with a lower cost impact. For this purpose, seven samples of a profile steel sheet–dry board deck slab (PSSDB/PDS) carried by a steel cold-formed C-purlins beam (CB) were prepared and named “composite CBPDS specimen”, which were tested under a static bending load. Specifically, the effects of the profile steel sheet (PSS) direction (parallel or perpendicular to the span of the specimen) using different C-purlins c

Concrete columns with hollow-core sections find widespread application owing to their excellent structural efficiency and efficient material utilization. However, corrosion poses a challenge in concrete buildings with steel reinforcement. This paper explores the possibility of using glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) reinforcement as a non-corrosive and economically viable substitute for steel reinforcement in short square hollow concrete columns. Twelve hollow short columns were meticulously prepared in the laboratory experiments and subjected to pure axial compressive loads until failure. All columns featured a hollow square section with exterior dimensions of (180 × 180) mm and 900 mm height. The columns were categorized into