Land use change, particularly the expansion of urban areas and associated human activities at the expense of natural and semi-natural areas, is a major ecological issue in urban areas around the world. Climate change being a very strong additional driver for changing the temperature and habitat in the cities. This also applies to Baghdad, Iraq, where urbanisation and climate change exerts a major pressure on the natural habitats of the city, and thus may affect the ability of city planners to adapt to future climate change scenarios. Here we present evidence of substantial growth in urban areas, increases in temperature, and degradation of natural vegetation within Baghdad city by using Remote Sensing techniques and an assessment for the

Furfural is a toxic aromatic aldehyde that can cause a severe environmental problem especially the wastewater drown from petroleum refinery units. In the present work, a useless by-product from local furniture manufacturing industry; sawdust was used as raw material for the preparation of activated carbon which is chemically activated with phosphoric acid. The effect of adsorption variables which include initial pH of solution (2-9), agitation speed (50-250) rpm, agitation time (15-120) min, initial concentration of furfural (50-250) ppm, and amount of adsorbent material (0.5-2.5) g for the three adsorbents used (prepared activated carbon, commercial activated carbon and raw sawdust) were investigated in a batch process

Sorption is a key factor in removal of organic and inorganic contaminants from their aqueous solutions. In this study, we investigated the removal of Xylenol Orange tetrasodium salt (XOTS) from its aqueous solution by Bauxite (BXT) and cationic surfactant hexadecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide modified Bauxite (BXT-HDTMA) in batch experiments. The BXT and BXT-HDTMA were characterized using FTIR, and SEM techniques. Adsorption studies were performed at various parameters i.e. temperature, contact time, adsorbent weight, and pH. The modified BXT showed better maximum removal efficiency (98.6% at pH = 9.03) compared to natural Bauxite (75% at pH 2.27), suggesting that BXT-HDTMA is an excellent adsorbent for the removal of XOTS from water. The equ

Background: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) and their complications such as Bladder cancer (Bl. C.) are a health growing problem worldwide. Objective: To shed light on this subject, present study was done to investigate relationship between recurrent urinary tract infection (RUTI) due to Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Bl. C.Type of study: Cross-sectional study. Methods: This study included 130 patients with RUTI, 50 patients with Bl. C. and 50 control of both sexes (aged 7-85 years) attending Al-Zahra Teaching Hospital in Al-Kut/Wassit governorate and Al-Harery Teaching Hospital of specialized surgeries/Baghdad. The patients were divided into two groups: the first group (n=130) included those who were suffering from recurrent UTI without

Awsaj (Lycium barbarum) is a plant belong to family Solanaceae serves as a good source of bioactive compounds like phytosterols which have many important biological activity. Literature survey available so far revealed that there was no studies about Iraqi wild Awsaj phytosterols especially B-sitosterol, there for the objective of this study was to examine the efficiency of ultrasound assisted extraction (probe and bath) as compared to the conventional (Soxhlet) extraction method for extraction of phytosterols especially B-sitosterol from fruits, leaves, stems and roots of Iraqi wild Awsaj plant. This goal was achieved by comparing the extraction mass yield, also by a quick and easy approach for identification and quantification of bioac

We have investigated the impact of laser pulse wavelength on the quantity of ablated materials. Specifically, this study investigated the structural, optical, and morphological characteristics of tungsten trioxide (WO3) nanoparticles (NPs) that were synthesized using the technique of pulsed-laser ablation of a tungsten plate. A DD drop of water was used as the ablation environment at a fixed fluence at 76.43 J/cm2 and pulse number was 400 pulses of the laser. The first and second harmonic generation ablations were carried out, corresponding to wavelengths of 1064 and 532 nm, respectively. The Q-switched Nd: YAG laser operates at a repetition rate of 1 Hz and has a pulse width of roughly 15 ns. These parameters are applicable to both wavelen