Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection among Children under 2 Years Old in Hillah City, Iraq

Objective: To reveal the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) associated with lower respiratory system infections (LRI) in children under 6 years old. Methods: RSV antigen was detected in the children aged less than 2 years by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), performed on nasopharyngeal specimens from children admitted to children and maternity hospital in addition to those who came to outer clinic in Al-Hillah city, Iraq. Results: Among children aged < 2 years, the incidence of RSV-associated LRI per 350 child-years was 68 positive cases. The majority of RSV cases occurred in infants. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that RSV contributes to variable burden of LRI in children aged < 2 years in Al-Hillah city, Iraq. The probable descriptions for this deviation are social factors, patterns of seeking health care and differences in clinical characterizations used for obtaining samples. The age distribution of cases indicates the need for an RSV vaccine that can protect children early in life. Keywords: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV); Respiratory tract infections (RTI); Infant

Antibacterial Activity of the Crude Phenolic, Alkaloid and Terpenoid Compounds Extracts of Lactuca serriola L. on Human Pathogenic Bacteria

Objective: To reveal the effect of the crude phenolic, alkaloid and terpenoid compounds extracts of Lactuca serriola L. on some Human Pathogenic Bacteria.Methods: Antibacterial activities of the crude Phenolic, Alkaloid and Terpenoid of medicinal plant were determined by in vitro by agar diffusion-method against some human pathogenic bacteria.Results: obtained results showed that among nine pathogenic bacteria, only Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus saprophyticus Gram-positive were susceptible for Terpenoid, Alkaloid and Phenolic compounds while Staphylococcus epidermidis was resistant to active compounds.Conclusion: This study demonstrates that we can conclude that the effect of active compounds in same plant has different effect on different pathogenic organisms in different concentration. Keywords: Antibacterial Activity; Lactuca serriola L; Pathogenic Bacteri

Kurdistan’s Erbil Mine Action Center

The Erbil Mine Action Center (EMAC) of the Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency increases mine risk education efforts in the spring to reduce high casualty rates during this season. EMAC also conducts landmine clearance in Iraqi Kurdistan

An analysis of the efficiency and competitiveness of Umm Qasr port in Iraq

The dissertation is a study of the importance of cost/time of a ship related to the problems and constraints in port facilities and the quality of services that are hampering Umm Qasr Port (‘UQP’) to be a competitive and efficient port. It develops and asks the composite research question: “Can UQP improve its competitiveness by modifications to its facilities, and if so, which modifications are necessary?” Under the Port User Cost concept it analyses the turnaround time of vessels in the port as the most important element concerning the users of the port. Therefore, subsequent analysis of outcomes aims to solve the problems which influence and hinder the competitive level of UQP. The reasons behind this topic are results of the competition of neighbouring ports in the same region in attracting cargo owners and shipping lines to transport their cargo over land to Iraq as a way to increase the Iraqi economy and projects relating to the reconstruction of infra- and superstructures of the country after several wars. Analytical techniques will be applied to port operations involving the port facilities, and quality of services. It will also refer to the geographical location in connection with hinterlands of neighbouring port countries, for example Kuwait, Syria, Turkey and Jordan to measure UQP’s efficiency to identify the problems that need to be solved in order to place UQP in line with increasing Iraqi cargo volume, and development in the maritime sector in Iraq’s neighbouring countries. Considering the damage of years of wars in Iraq followed by huge budgets for several projects to rehabilitate the country, the need of Iraqi ports, in particular Umm Qasr Port, is to be more effective and efficient in receiving vessels with attractive services, with fewer delays and lower costs by improving UQP’s competitiveness and performance in terms of service time

Welfare Impacts of the Mexico Potato Quarantine

Under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) tariffs on U.S. potato imports to Mexico were phased out by 1993. Citing phytosanitary issues, in 1996, the Mexican government placed quantitative restrictions on U.S. potato imports and restricted their import only to designated border areas. This article estimates the welfare cost of restricting U.S. potato imports into Mexico. We find that removing trade restrictions may lead to over 1.8 million tons of new imports into Mexico, a gain of consumer surplus of 4.0 billion pesos per year, and a loss of 2.9 billion pesos of producer surplus.international trade, non-tariff barriers, potatoes, quarantine, sanitary and phytosanitary barriers, welfare loss, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Crop Production/Industries, Environmental Economics and Policy, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade, Political Economy, F13, L13, Q13, Q17, C35,

Chaotic behavior of the Compound Nucleus, open Quantum Dots and other nanostructures

It is well established that physical systems exhibit both ordered and chaotic behavior. The chaotic behavior of nanostructure such as open quantum dots has been confirmed experimentally and discussed exhaustively theoretically. This is manifested through random fluctuations in the electronic conductance. What useful information can be extracted from this noise in the conductance? In this contribution we shall address this question. In particular, we will show that the average maxima density in the conductance is directly related to the correlation function whose characteristic width is a measure of energy- or applied magnetic field- correlation length. The idea behind the above has been originally discovered in the context of the atomic nucleus, a mesoscopic system. Our findings are directly applicable to graphene.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. Contribution to: "4th International Workshop on Compound-Nuclear Reactions and Related Topics (CNR*13)", October 7-11, 2013, Maresias, Brazil. To appear in the proceeding

Performance Evaluation of Multi-gigabit Indoor Visible Light Communication System

This paper presents a performance evaluation of a mobile multi-gigabit visible light communication (VLC) system in two different environments. The VLC channel characteristics and links were evaluated under the diverse situations of an empty room and a room with very strong shadowing effects resulting from mini cubicle offices. RGB laser diodes (LDs) were used to mitigate the low modulation bandwidth of conventional transmitters (light emitting diodes, LEDs) in the VLC system. In addition, an angle diversity receiver (ADR) was introduced to mitigate intersymbol- interference (ISI). Furthermore, a delay adaptation technique was used to further reduce the effect of ISI and multipath dispersion. The combination of delay adaptation and ADR (DAT ADR system) added a degree of freedom to the link design, which resulted in a VLC system that has the ability to provide high data rates (i.e. 5 Gbps) in the considered harsh indoor environment. Our proposed system used a simple on-off keying (OOK) modulation format and it was able to provide data rates of 5 Gbps and a bit-error-rate (BER) of 10-3 in the worst case scenario in the considered realistic indoor environment

High-Speed Indoor Visible Light Communication System Employing Laser Diodes and Angle Diversity Receivers

The two main challenges facing high data rate visible light communication (VLC) are the low modulation bandwidth of the current transmitters (i.e. light emitting diodes, LEDs) and the inter symbol interference (ISI) caused by multipath propagation. In this paper, we evaluate laser diodes (LDs) as a source of illumination and communication instead of LEDs for a VLC system in conjunction with an angle diversity receiver (ADR). The main advantage of using LDs is their high modulation bandwidth that enables communication at data rates of multi gigabits per second for VLC when using a suitable receiver, such as an ADR, which mitigates the ISI. Our proposed system uses simple on-off keying (OOK) modulation, and it is able to provide data rates of 5 Gbps and a bit-error-rate (BER) of 10-6 in the worst case scenario

Improved WKB approximation for quantum tunneling: Application to heavy ion fusion

In this paper we revisit the one-dimensional tunneling problem. We consider Kemble's approximation for the transmission coefficient. We show how this approximation can be extended to above-barrier energies by performing the analytical continuation of the radial coordinate to the complex plane. We investigate the validity of this approximation by comparing their predictions for the cross section and for the barrier distribution with the corresponding quantum mechanical results. We find that the extended Kemble's approximation reproduces the results of quantum mechanics with great accuracy.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, in press, in European. Phys. Journal A (2017