Evaluate the Climatic Conditions for the Al-Najaf –Ain-Al-Tamur Area (Middle of Iraq)

تضمنت هذه الدراسة تحديد الظروف المناخية وطبيعة الخزانات في المنطقة مع تحديد اتجاه الجريان للخزان الجوفي . بيانات الارصاد الجوية لمحطة كربلاء للفترة من (1976-2016) تبين ان قيم المعدلات الشهرية لدرجة الحرارة والامطار والتبخر والرطوبة النسبية وسرعة الرياح ومدة السطوع الشمسي هي(24.19 C◦), (95.5 mm), (2828.6mm), (46.75%), (2.76 m/sec), و(8.61h )على التوالي. تم حساب قيم التبخر- نتح الكامن (PE) بحسب طريقة ثورنثويت ثم تحديد قيمة الزيادة المائية السنوية (WS) وهي(28.11mm), والنقصان المائي السنوي (WD) وهي 941.94mm) ) سجل المعدل الشهري للزيادة المائية في منطقة الدراسة في الفترة )1976(2016- بحوالي (9.36 mm) و (13.11mm) و (5.64mm) في الاشهر كانون الاول وكانون الثاني وشباط على التوالي والتي تساوي29.34) ) من المجموع الكلي للامطار. وان خارطة شبكة الجريان تبين وبشكل رئيسي ان اتجاه جريان المياه الجوفية هي من الاجزاء الشمالية الغربية باتجاه الاجزاء الشرقيه والجنوبيه الشرقيه    This study includes determining the climatic conditions of the study area and the nature of the reservoirs in the region with the determination of the flow direction of the aquifer. The meteorological data for the Karbala station for the period 1976-2016 showed that the values of the monthly rates of temperature, precipitation, evaporation, relative humidity, wind speed and Sunshine duration are (24.19 C◦), (95.5 mm), (2828.6mm), (46.75%), (2.76 m/sec), and (8.61 h/day) respectively. Thorenthwait method was used to calculate the values of Potential Evapotranspiration (PE) then determine the annual value of Water Surplus( WS) and  Water Deficit (WD) which equal( 28.11mm) and (941.94mm) respectively. Mean monthly water surplus for the period (1976-2016) was recorded about (9.36mm) in December, (13.11mm) in January and (5.64mm) in February of the whole amount of Rainfall and Equal to (29.34mm) of the total rainfall. The flow net map is shown by mainly that the groundwater flow in the area, it is from the northwestern parts towards the Eastern and southeastern parts

A full-length enriched cDNA library and expressed sequence tag analysis of the parasitic weed, Striga hermonthica

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The obligate parasitic plant witchweed (<it>Striga hermonthica</it>) infects major cereal crops such as sorghum, maize, and millet, and is the most devastating weed pest in Africa. An understanding of the nature of its parasitism would contribute to the development of more sophisticated management methods. However, the molecular and genomic resources currently available for the study of <it>S. hermonthica </it>are limited.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We constructed a full-length enriched cDNA library of <it>S. hermonthica</it>, sequenced 37,710 clones from the library, and obtained 67,814 expressed sequence tag (EST) sequences. The ESTs were assembled into 17,317 unigenes that included 10,319 contigs and 6,818 singletons. The <it>S. hermonthica </it>unigene dataset was subjected to a comparative analysis with other plant genomes or ESTs. Approximately 80% of the unigenes have homologs in other dicotyledonous plants including <it>Arabidopsis</it>, poplar, and grape. We found that 589 unigenes are conserved in the hemiparasitic <it>Triphysaria </it>species but not in other plant species. These are good candidates for genes specifically involved in plant parasitism. Furthermore, we found 1,445 putative simple sequence repeats (SSRs) in the <it>S. hermonthica </it>unigene dataset. We tested 64 pairs of PCR primers flanking the SSRs to develop genetic markers for the detection of polymorphisms. Most primer sets amplified polymorphicbands from individual plants collected at a single location, indicating high genetic diversity in <it>S. hermonthica</it>. We selected 10 primer pairs to analyze <it>S. hermonthica </it>harvested in the field from different host species and geographic locations. A clustering analysis suggests that genetic distances are not correlated with host specificity.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our data provide the first extensive set of molecular resources for studying <it>S. hermonthica</it>, and include EST sequences, a comparative analysis with other plant genomes, and useful genetic markers. All the data are stored in a web-based database and freely available. These resources will be useful for genome annotation, gene discovery, functional analysis, molecular breeding, epidemiological studies, and studies of plant evolution.</p

Non-factorizable long distance contributions in color suppressed decays of B mesons

$\bar B \to D\pi$, $D^*\pi$, $J/\psi\bar K$ and $J/\psi\pi$ decays are studied. Their amplitude is given by a sum of factorized and non-factorizable ones. The latter which is estimated by using a hard pion approximation is rather small in color favored $\bar B \to D\pi$ and $D^*\pi$ decays but still can efficiently interfere with the main amplitude given by the factorization. In the color suppressed $\bar B \to J/\psi\bar K$ and $J/\psi\pi$ decays, the non-factorizable contribution is very important. The sum of the factorized and non-factorizable amplitudes can reproduce well the existing experimental data on the branching ratios for the color favored $\bar B \to D\pi$ and $D^*\pi$ and the color suppressed $\bar B \to J/\psi \bar K$ and $J/\psi\pi$ decays by taking reasonable values of unknown parameters involved.Comment: 19 pages, Revte

Effective EEG channels for emotion identification over the brain regions using differential evolution algorithm

The motivation of this study was to detect the most effective electroencephalogram (EEG) channels for various emotional states of the brain regions (i.e. frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital). The EEGs of ten volunteer participants without health conditions were captured while the participants were shown seven, short, emotional video clips with audio (i.e. anger, anxiety, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise and neutral). The Savitzky-Golay (SG) filter was adopted for smoothing and denoising the EEG dataset. The spectral features were performed by employing the relative spectral powers of delta (δRP), theta (θRP), alpha (αRP), beta (βRP), and gamma (γRP). The differential evolution-based channel selection algorithm (DEFS_Ch) was computed to find the most suitable EEG channels that have the greatest efficacy for identifying the various emotional states of the brain regions. The results revealed that all seven emotions previously mentioned were represented by at least two frontal and two temporal channels. Moreover, some emotional states could be identified by channels from the parietal region such as disgust, happiness and sadness. Furthermore, the right and left occipital channels may help in identifying happiness, sadness, surprise and neutral emotional states. The DEFS_Ch algorithm raised the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) classification accuracy from 80% to 86.85%, indicating that DEFS_Ch may offer a useful way for reliable enhancement of the detection of different emotional states of the brain regions

Spectro-spatial Profile for Gender Identification using Emotional-based EEG Signals

&nbsp;Identifying gender has become essential specially to support automatic human-computer interface applications and to customize interactions based on affective responses. The electroencephalogram (EEG) has been adopted for recording the neuronal information as waveforms from the scalp. The objective of this study was twofold. First, to identify genders from four different emotional states using spectral relative power biomarkers. Second, to develop Spectro-spatial profiles that afford additional information for gender identification using emotional-based EEGs. The dataset has been collected from ten healthful volunteer students from the University of Vienna while watching short emotional audio-visual clips of angry, happiness, sadness, and neutral emotions.&nbsp;Wavelet (WT) has been used as a denoising technique, the spectral relative power features of delta&nbsp;(), theta (), alpha (), beta () and gamma () were extracted from each recorded EEG channel. In the subsequent steps, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Pearson’s correlation analysis were performed to characterize the emotional-based EEG biomarkers towards developing the Spectro-spatial profile to identify gender differences. The results show that the spectral set of features may provide and convey reliable biomarkers for identifying Spectro-spatial profiles from four different emotional states. EEG biomarkers and profiles enable more comprehensive insights into various human behavior effects and as an intervention on the brain.&nbsp;The results revealed that almost high relative powers from all emotional states appear in females compared to males. Particularly, &nbsp;was the most prominent for anger, &nbsp;and &nbsp;were widely observed in happiness, &nbsp;was the most appears in sadness, &nbsp;and &nbsp;were the powers that appears widely in neutral. Moreover, in females, neut was correlated with and _ang, _neut was mostly correlated with _ang. Besides, _neut was correlated with _ang, _neut was correlated with _ang, _neut was mostly correlated with _sad. Moreover, in males, _neut showed a very strong correlation with _sadness whereas _neut was correlated with _hap and _neut was correlated with _hap. Therefore, the proposed system using the WT denoising method, spectral relative power markers, and the spectro-spatial profile plays a crucial role in characterizing the emotional-based EEGs towards gender identification. The classification results were 89.46% for SVM and 90% for the KNN. Therefore, the proposed system using the WT denoising method, spectral relative powers features, SVM, and KNN classifiers were crucial in gender identification and characterizing the emotional EEG signals

Exposure rates and radiation doses due to ambient gamma rays/Anbar governorate.

Radiation exposure rates and radiation doses were measured in 174 locations in the Western Desert. Exposure rates were measured 1m above the ground with NaI (Tl) scintillation detector. Total radiation doses due to external exposure to the ambient gamma ray in the same previous locations were measured with FAG-FH 40 F2. The radioactivity concentrations of 238U, 232Th and 40K in selected soil and rocks samples were measured using gamma spectroscopy system based on high purity Germanium detector. Then, absorbed doses due to presence of 238U, 232Th and 40K in the samples were estimated. The exposure rates ranged between (5.0-71.7) ىR/h, while the average of radiation dose due to the exposure to ambient gamma ray ranged between (0.7-3.32) mSv/y. Doses due to expose to the concentrations of 238U, 232Th and 40K in the soil and rocks of the Western Desert were calculated. The average of these exposure doses ranged between (0.03-1.84)mSv/y

Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia: 10-Year Evaluation of Survival, Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, and Foetoscopic Endotracheal Occlusion in Four High-Volume Centres

Background: Congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH) is a severe congenital anomaly with significant mortality. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine if there were trends in survival over the last decade and to compare patient populations, treatment options, and survival rates between 4 high-volume centres, and hence determine which factors were associated with survival. Methods: In 4 high-volume CDH centres from the CDH EURO Consortium, data from all CDH patients born between 2004 and 2013 were analysed. The predictive value of variables known at birth and the influence of centre-specific treatments (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, ECMO, and foetoscopic endotracheal occlusion, FETO) on survival were evaluated in multivariable logistic regression analyses. Results: Nine hundred and seventy-five patients were included in the analysis, of whom 274 (28.1%) died. ECMO was performed in 259 patients, of whom 81 (31.3%) died. One hundred and forty-five patients (14.9%) underwent FETO, and from those 76 patients (52.4%) survived. Survival differed significantly between years (p = 0.006) and between the 4 centres (p < 0.001). In the multivariable logistic regression analysis, lung-to-head ratio, gestational age at birth, ECMO, centre of birth, and year of birth were significantly associated with survival, whereas FETO was not. Conclusions: The patient populations were different between centres, which influenced outcomes. There was a significant variability in survival over time and between centres, which should be taken into consideration in the planning of future trials

Atud Gabbro-Diorite Complex: Glimpse of the Cryogenian Mixing, Assimilation, Storage, and Homogenization Zone beneath the Eastern Desert of Egypt

We analysed gabbroic and dioritic rocks from the Atud igneous complex in the Eastern Desert of Egypt to understand better the formation of juvenile continental crust of the Arabian–Nubian Shield. Our results show that the rocks are the same age (U–Pb zircon ages of 694.5 ± 2.1 Ma for two diorites and 695.3 ± 3.4 Ma for one gabbronorite). These are partial melts of the mantle and related fractionates (εNd₆₉₀ = +4.2 to +7.3, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_i = 0.70246–0.70268, zircon δ¹⁸O ∼ +5‰). Trace element patterns indicate that Atud magmas formed above a subduction zone as part of a large and long-lived (c. 60 myr) convergent margin. Atud complex igneous rocks belong to a larger metagabbro–epidiorite–diorite complex that formed as a deep crustal mush into which new pulses of mafic magma were periodically emplaced, incorporated and evolved. The petrological evolution can be explained by fractional crystallization of mafic magma plus variable plagioclase accumulation in a mid- to lower crustal MASH zone. The Atud igneous complex shows that mantle partial melting and fractional crystallization and plagioclase accumulation were important for Cryogenian crust formation in this part of the Arabian–Nubian Shield