Vol. 31 Issue 1

Noori Abdul-Nabi Nasir, and Shaker Abdul-Razak Khalid
This study is an attempt to study the fishery resources and fisheries in Basra province in Iraq, during 1990 to 2011. The declared catches by fishermen and fish market were used in this study. The total commercial catch peaked in 2009 at 4.390.775 and 152.445 ton for Marine and Freshwater fishes respectively. Species composition of catches was studied during the above period. About twenty nine marine and thirteen freshwater fish species were recorded. The total catch of the marine fishes was dominated by Tenualosa illisha. It accounted for about 45 % of the total catch during whole period. The freshwater fishes was mainly represented by (Silurus triostegus) which accounted for 32% of the total during whole period. Gill net’s fishing method was employed mainly for catching pelagic fish, trawling is single largest technology being practiced in the region for harvesting the demersal fishes. Overfishing was perceived as a serious problem and needs to, be taken into account in considering risks to the stock of the fishes. The weather patterns, market prices and environmental conditions (natural or human-made) have a significant effect on fish stock. Moreover, increases in water salinity and pollution level has also a significant impact on fish stock and therefore, the enforcement of the new standards for Environment Pollution Control in the province is required.

Oyku Bilgin and ALaattin Sakcali
Titanium known as a rare element is the most abundant sixth element in the earth crust. Titanium tend to be precious, due to its rare ore concentration and obtaining from metal ore. Most of ore is used TiO2 (titanium oxide) form. Titanium oxide is known as white painting material. Apart from that it is also widely used in many fields such as cosmetic industry, linoleum (cerecloth), synthetic silk, white ink, colored glass, ceramic glaze, leather and cloth dyeing, welding rod construction and paper industry. TiO2 is obtained from titanium ores, sulphate and chloride methods. The old sulphate method produces a lot of environmental pollution. On the other hand, Chloride method requires very high graded ores. As for titanium beneficiation methods, flotation, gravity beneficiation, magnetic separation and beneficiation via electrostatic separation methods are used. Rutile is the most important titanium mineral. It is considered that the most important titanium reserves in Turkey are in Manisa with 1.11% TiO2 tenor and 1.272.000 ton, total reserves are 100 million ton with 0.5-1% TiO2 tenor. Rutile samples used in this study were taken from region Manisa-Alasehir. Rutile samples with -106 μm grain size were subjected to agglomeration and flotation together with using different pH and reactives. According to the test results, the highest TiO2% tenor was obtained with 11.90% value in pH: 4, the highest recovery was obtained with 79% value in pH 7.

Maatoug Mohamed, Amirat Mokhtar, Zerrouki Dahbia and Ait Hammou Mohamed
The present work aimed at studying the possibility of decontaminating polluted soil by lead from traffic road, using Hordeum vulgare as a heavy metals hyperaccumulative plant. High concentrations of lead stored at the horizons of soil surface (1714.39 ± 512.62 μg g-1), have revealed that the traffic and road infrastructures are important outcomes of toxic heavy metals to the environment. In addition, we noticed that Hordeum vulgare may hold a total of 36.28 ± 14.90 μg g-1, which correspond to 2% of that to of that accumulated in the soil. Importantly, highest values were observed in the roots (18.32 ± 8.38 μg g-1), which means 50,50%, whereas, the rate of heavy metals in the stems and leaves were 10.83 ± 5.86 μg g-1 (29,95%) and 7.71±3.74 μg g-1 (21,25%), respectively. Otherwise, the accumulation of lead was influenced by physical and chemical properties of the soil (pH, cation-exchange capacity CEC, percentage of clay). A high content of lead was observed in the plant at low pH; in contrast, the CEC of the soil and the percentage of clay, positively correlated with plant Pb. However, a strong correlation between soil Pb and plant Pb was noticed. Accordingly, lead uptake by Hordeum vulgare seems to be influenced by its bioavailability in soil.

Micael Couceiro, Filipe Manuel Clemente; and Fernando Martins
Scientific cooperation is one the most important issues to improve the research quality. A multidisciplinary scientific group connection among different knowledge areas (e.g., engineering, mathematics, sports, sociology and others) can be a potential factor to build skilled manpower necessary for strong scientific research. Therefore, based on a case study from Robocop, a multidisciplinary group with researchers from several scientific fields, this paper presents the scientific cooperation between researchers through networking graph theory. These networks are addressed to answer a broad variety of questions about collaboration patterns, such as the number of papers authors write, with how many researchers they write and how researchers “connect” to make papers in specific areas. First, a weighted adjacency matrix is built based on papers published in accordance with international standards (e.g., ISBN, ISSN), in which it is possible to perceive the connectivity among researchers. Secondly, an easy-to-use Mat Lab script was developed to compute the data, thus presenting the scientific networks. Afterwards, in order to further study the sub communities inside the research group, a graph partition methodology was used to divide the graph into clusters. Moreover, several network concepts were used to evaluate the intra and inter-researchers performances as well as the collective performance of the whole group. Results showed that the research group is integrally connected when considering all published papers. However, dividing the networks by scientific areas, one can observe that some researchers ‘loses’ their connectivity, i.e., some authors only publishes on specific scientific categories or with specific researchers within the group.

Zahraa Adil Abdeen, Aayat Salah Jadallah, Maryam Haitham Al-Qahtani, Hafsa Awed Albashbishi and Randah Ribhi Hamadeh
Introduction: Good sleeping patterns have a positive effect on students’ performance and their mental and physical abilities. However, some students do not give themselves the proper rest with many not getting the proper eight hours of sleep at night. A recent study on the Arabian Gulf University (AGU) pre-clerkship medical students indicated that they had insufficient hours of sleep and late sleeping hours. The aim of this study was to provide baseline data of all AGU medical students’ sleeping patterns. Methods: A 50% sample of students registered during the academic year 2009-2010 was chosen proportional to medical year, gender and nationality by multistage stratified sampling technique. A self-administered questionnaire designed for the purpose of this study was used. Results: The study results indicate that AGU medical students’ sleeping patterns are not good as 42% of the students viewed their sleeping quality as “good”, and their sleeping hours are suboptimal. The majority (75%) of the students reported that their sleep is affected particularly by examination and assignments. over one fourth of the students attended AGU or AGU related outside activities without sleeping at night for at least once per week , with year 4 students having the highest proportion. Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that AGU medical students do not adopt a good sleeping pattern. Intervention for improving these habits would be mainly through The Student Affairs Office, Counseling Unit and advisory system. Emphasis on good sleeping habits and time management should start during the orientation week for year 1 and throughout the year for year 4 medical students.

Mahfouth Al-Bachir
The present study was conducted to evaluate the combined effect of gamma irradiation and refrigeration on the microbiological, chemical and sensorial characteristics of raw chicken meat. Chicken meat was irradiated at doses of 0, 2, 4 and 6 kGy of gamma irradiation, and kept in a refrigerator (1-4oC). General composition, microbial, chemical and sensory evaluation of chicken meat was done. Results showed that, all used doses of gamma irradiation reduced the total mesophilic aerobic plate counts (TPCs) and total coli forms of chicken meat. Shelf-life extension periods estimated on the basis of a limit of 6 log CFU/g for TPCs were 2, 4, 9, and more than 13 weeks for samples irradiated at 0, 2, 4, and 6 kGy, respectively. Irradiation had little or no effect on general composition (moisture, protein, and fat contents), total acidity, lipid peroxide and total volatile basic nitrogen. Sensory evaluation showed no significant differences between irradiated and non-irradiated chicken meats.

Kashif Ali and Muhammad Ashraf
In this paper, we present numerical investigation of the problem of steady laminar two dimensional boundary layer stagnation point flow and heat transfer of a Micropolar fluid towards a heated surface in the presence of viscous dissipation. The governing boundary layer partial differential equations are reduced to a set of ordinary ones using similarity transformations. The solutions for different values of Eckert number, Micropolar parameters and Prandtl number are computed, analyzed and discussed. The study reveals that the reverse flow of heat near the surface may occur due to viscous dissipation which may further be enhanced by the increasing values of the Prandtl number. It may be recommended that the viscous dissipation should not be simply ignored while studying the boundary layer stagnation point flows.