Science Journal of University of Zakho

THE EFFECT OF FOLIC AND SALICYLIC ACID ON GROWTH OF COTTON (Gossypium hirsutum L.) UNDER DROUGHT CONDITIONS

Mohammed Basheer Ismael — 2025-04-06

This study was performed between February and August 2023 at a local farm affiliated with the Biology Department, College of Science, University of Zakho, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. It aimed to assess the influence of drought stress and the foliar application of salicylic and folic acid on certain growth parameters of two cotton cultivars (MAY 505 and MAY 455). A factorial experiment in the form of randomized complete block design (RCBD) was employed to evaluate the response of growth parameters of cotton cultivars to three concentrations of salicylic acid (0, 1, and 2 mM) and folic acid (0, 5, and 10 mM), either individually or combined, under different irrigation regimes. Additionally, the two cultivars were subjected to three different irrigation regimes: continuous irrigation (Ci), 10-day drought, and 15-day drought. The findings revealed significant differences in shoot length, branch number, longest branch length, leaf surface area, and flower number among cultivars, drought treatments, and spray treatments. Cultivar MAY505 consistently outperformed MAY455 in terms of growth parameters. Moderate drought stress (10 days) slightly enhanced shoot length, while prolonged drought significantly reduced general growth. Foliar application of Salicylic acid (SA) and Folic acid (FA), particularly the combination of 2 mM SA + 10 mM FA, significantly increased shoot length, branch number, and flower number in both cultivars. However, the response to folic and salicylic acids varied between cultivars. These findings suggest that cultivar selection and appropriate foliar spray applications can mitigate the adverse effects of drought stress on cotton plant growth and yield. Further research is needed to elucidate the underlying physiological mechanisms responsible for these responses and to optimize the use of foliar sprays for sustainable cotton production under water-limited conditions.

IMPACT OF COMMERCIAL STRIPED CATFISH (PANGASIANODON HYPOPHTHALMUS) FARMING ON FARMERS’ LIVELIHOOD AND ENVIRONMENT IN BANGLADESH

Khaleda Nasrin — 2025-04-06

Striped catfish, Pangasianodon hypothalamus (Sauvage, 1878), has gained popularity among the Bangladeshi commercial fish farmers because of its rapid growth and high tolerance of adverse ecological conditions. The study aims to examine the impact of farmers’ socio-economic and farming features on their livelihood outcomes of Pangas (LOP), considering the sustainable livelihood approach (SLA) and the negative impacts of commercial farming activities on the surrounding environment using a mixed-method approach. A quantitative survey was conducted using a pre-tested structured questionnaire, and qualitative data were explored through focus group discussions (FGDs), in-depth interviews (IDIs), and key informant interviews (KIIs) to assess the impact. Data were computed using descriptive statistics, rank order, correlation coefficient, and regression analysis. In terms of LOP, the highest progress was observed in human capital (87.5%), followed by physical capital (75.7%), financial capital (70%), social capital (55.7%), and natural capital (38%). The farmers’ education, experience, knowledge of fish farming, and adoption of modern farming technology correlated positively, whereas age correlated negatively with the LOP and significantly impacted the achievement of the outcomes. Farming intervention was encouraged to establish various upward and backward linkage industries and create employment opportunities, which contributed to economic progress. On the other side, rapid expansion of pangas farming impacted the surrounding environment by converting two or more croplands (37%) into a closed pond and discharging polluted water (52%) and bottom sludge (49%) into natural water bodies. Raising dikes of fish ponds caused waterlogging in the crop field during cultivation, which also hampered the navigation of aquatic animals during the breeding season. Moreover, harmful chemical discharges were blamed for the decline of aquatic animals. Therefore, it is necessary to implement sustainable aquaculture practices along with proper monitoring and evaluation processes to ensure safe aqua-food production in an environmentally friendly manner, thereby achieving sustainable development goals.

NUTRITIONAL/CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS, GROWTH PERFORMANCE AND ANTHROPOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF ADANSONIA DIGITATA LEAVE-BASED DIET IN FEMALE RATS

Oyegoke Rukayat Abiodun — 2025-04-07

The nutritional benefits of most of our extinction underutilized edible plants cannot be underrated. However, there is the need to quantity their nutrients and estimate the amount our body requires to function effectively. Therefore, the nutritional constituents and assessments of Adansonia digitata (A. digitata) leave-based diet were evaluated in rats. Fifty rats were grouped into five and were fed on a basal diet, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%- inclusion, respectively. The constituents, Feed Conversion Ratio (FCR), Body Weight Gain (BWG), Feed intake (FI), Body Mass Index (BMI), Abdominal, Arm Circumferences, and animal length were estimated using standard methods. Proximate revealed high fiber and carbohydrate contents. Calcium, Vitamin C/E, saponin, and tannins were the most abundant. No notable difference (p < 0.05) was observed in the BWG and FI when 25% and 50% inclusion were compared with the control. For the BMI, all groups showed significant differences when initial values were compared with the final. At the same time, for the abdominal circumference (AC), Arm Circumference (ArC), and naso-anal length, there was no notable difference between 75% and 100%. Overall, the results indicate that the leaves possess good nutritional constituents and can be incorporated into our diet at 25% and 50% inclusions to achieve excellent nutrition and body metabolism.

ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF SILVER NANOPARTICLES SYNTHESIZED BY HYDROTHERMAL TECHNIQUE

Shireen Taily Abduljabbar — 2025-04-07

In this work, Ag NPs were synthesized via a hydrothermal method using silver nitrate (AgNO₃) as precursor material. The impact of PVP concentration on the particle size distribution and surface morphology of Ag NPs in the hydrothermal reaction was studied. The obtained Ag NPs were characterized by UV–Vis, XRD, FESEM, and FTIR measurements. The calculated values of E_g from the absorption peaks of the UV/Vis- spectra were found to be increased from 1.70 eV to 1.87 eV with increasing the concentration of PVP from 0.2 mol/L to 0.5 mol/L. XRD measurements revealed that the Ag NPs are highly crystalline. The FESEM observation results indicated that the optimized synthesized Ag NPs are spherical with an average size of 140 nm. The FTIR results confirmed the Ag NPs formation with presence of several functional groups in Ag NP and pure PVP. The study evaluated the antibacterial activity of Ag NPs based on the diameter of the inhibition zone in the agar well diffusion method. The results indicated that the characteristics and antibacterial activity of Ag NPs could be optimized by altering the concentration of PVP used as a stabilizer. The Ag NPs synthesized without the addition of PVP showed antibacterial activity on both gram-negative bacterium Escherichia coli (11 to 12) mm and gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus (12 to 13) mm, meanwhile with using PVP, there is no inhibitory activity towards gram-negative bacteria but showed antibacterial activity on gram-positive (25) mm. The stability of Ag NPs has been investigated by measuring the absorption spectrum of the PVP-Ag NPs, which was found to be stable for nearly 3 months. Synthesis of stable Ag NPs is necessary for later use in the required application.

PHOTOCATALYTIC DEGRADATION OF FAST GREEN DYE IN AQUEOUS SOLUTION USING TITANIUM DIOXIDE AS PHOTOCATALYST

Reving Rashid — 2025-04-07

Research on the photocatalytic degradation of dyes and other organic pollutants become an interesting topic in the last two decades. Under UV irradiation, investigation and optimization of various experimental parameters were done for the photocatalytic degradation of fast green dye (FG) in the presence of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) suspension. Initial dye concentration, photocatalyst dosage, and solution pH were the study parameters. Results showed that the rate at which FG dye degraded was accelerated by increasing the TiO₂ dose. However, the degradation rate was adversely impacted by the rise in FG dye content from 3 to 9 mg/L. It was found that the highest percentage of color removal occurred when the pH of the medium was 6.5. FG was found to be degraded process reached equilibrium in 50 minutes using TiO₂ photocatalyst, proving that it is an effective catalyst for the process. Additionally, the kinetics of FG dye degradation was studied, and it was followed by the pseudo first-order kinetics.

BROWN SEAWEED (Sargassum ilicifolium) AS A NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENT: EFFECTS ON GROWTH AND HEMATOLOGY IN Labeo rohita

Rafia Zulfiqar — 2025-04-08

This experimental trial aimed to evaluate the impact of dietary supplementation with Sargassum ilicifolium on the growth performance and hematology of Labeo rohita. Fingerlings weighing an average of 2.36g were allocated into the control and three treatment groups (3%, 5%, and 7% BSW), each with triplicate (25 fingerlings/aquarium) for 90 days after acclimatized for two weeks. The results indicated that the highest growth rate (P<0.05) occurred in the T3 treatment group, with a final weight of 5.31±0.00a, followed by T2 (4.84±0.01b), and T1 (4.63±0.00c), while the lowest growth was observed in the control group (4.20±0.02d). Maximum weight gain was recorded in T3, which contained the highest level of Sargassum supplementation. Other treatments also showed higher weight gain than the control group. Specific growth rate and protein efficiency were also observed to be higher in treatment groups, particularly in T3, than in the control group. Hematological profiles, i.e., red blood cells (RBCs), white blood cells (WBCs), Hemoglobin (Hb), Hematocrit (HCT), blood indices and leukocytes count also showed better results in T3 and other treatments as compared to the control group. These findings suggest a high inclusion of sargassum is most effective for promoting the growth and enhancement of the hematology of Labeo rohita, and it is an environmentally sustainable way, as it is economical, environmentally friendly, and readily available alternative for aquaculture.

EFFECT OF HUMIC ACID, SEAWEED EXTRACTS AND ORGANIC FERTILIZER ON YIELD QUALITY OF BROCCOLI (Brassica oleracea) GROWN UNDER PLASTIC HOUSE

Salih Farhan Ismael — 2025-04-08

The research was carried out at the protected cultivation department in Zakho Technical Institute, Dohuk Polytechnic University, Kurdistan region of Iraq during growing season 2021-2022 aiming to investigate the effect of foliar application of humic acid and seaweed extract each at concentrations (0, 2, and 4) ml.L^-1 and soil addition of organic fertilizer (animal manure) at three rates (0, 5, and 10) ton.ha^-1 on yield quality of broccoli cultivar (Agassirz) grown in plastic house. The experiment was designed following a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replicates. The earned results showed that the humic acid, seaweed extract, and organic manure, either individually or interacted, caused a prominent amelioration in the head qualitative traits such as Chlorophyll content (SPAD), Total soluble solids (TSS %), Ascorbic acid (%), Vitamin B1 (µg. L^-1), and Total carotene (vitamin A) mg. L^-1as compared with control. The ever-highest values were obtainable from the treatment: humic acid at (4) ml. L^-1 + seaweed extract at (4) ml. L^-1 + organic fertilizer at (10) tons. donum^-1, which was superior to control and other treatments. The foliar application of humic acid and seaweed extract at a concentration of 4 ml. L^-1 and soil addition of organic manure at level 10 tons. donum^-1 is recommended for the organic production of broccoli cultivar (Agassirz).

MOLECULAR DETECTION OF DRUG-RESISTANT GENES AMONG Clostridioides difficile FROM DIARRHEIC CHILDREN IN DUHOK CITY -IRAQ

Bakhtyar Nader Ali — 2025-04-10

Clostridioides difficile, formerly known as Clostridium difficile is the most common cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea and colitis and is characterized by resistance to multiple drugs. This study amid to characterize antibiotic resistance genes in C. difficile among pediatric diarrheal cases from Duhok Governorate, Kurdistan regional Iraq, providing critical insights for regional infection control and treatment guidelines. Thirteen C. difficile-positive stool samples (from a cohort of 200 children aged between 6 months- 6 years) were analysed by PCR for detecting resistance genes CTX-M (cefotaxime), ermC (clindamycin), ere(A) (erythromycin), rdxA (metronidazole), vanR (vancomycin). The result illustrated that cefotaxime, CTX-M gene detected in 100% DNA samples, with high rates of resistance of clindamycin (ermC gene, 76.9%) and erythromycin (69.2%, ere(A) gene) while resistance to metronidazole (rdxA) and vancomycin resistance (vanR) remained rare (7,69% and 15.38%, respectively). Venn diagram analysis highlighted frequent co-occurrence of resistance to these genes, and six samples (46.2%) harbored three genes, CTX-M, ermC and ere (A), and also double other two samples harbored two genes, CTX-M and ermC and CTX-M and ere (A). In addition, one sample harbored only the CTX-M gene. This study underscores the prevalence of the alarming high rate of antibiotic resistance found in C. difficile among pediatric diarrheal cases such as against cefotaxime, clindamycin, and erythromycin. The persistence of susceptibility to vancomycin and metronidazole supports their continued use as first-line therapies for both community and hospital infections region

AN IMPROVED DEEP LEARNING TECHNIQUE FOR SPEECH EMOTION RECOGNITION AMONG HAUSA SPEAKERS

Martins E Irhebhude — 2025-04-10

This research addressed the challenge of recognizing emotions from speech by developing a deep learning-based speech-emotion recognition (SER) system. A key focus of the study is the creation of a new Hausa emotional speech dataset, aimed at addressing the linguistic and cultural imbalance in existing SER datasets, which predominantly feature Western languages. This study captured four emotions: happy, sad, angry, and surprise among native Hausa speakers. The self-captured dataset was recorded in an environment that is devoid of noise to ensure high quality and uniformity in the audio data. A public dataset; RAVDESS was used for benchmarking the proposed technique. CNN and Bi-Directional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) architectures were combined and used as proposed model for the SER experiment. The developed CNN architecture helped in extracting spatial features, while the BiLSTM without the attention mechanism captured temporal dependencies from the audio data. The approach reduced time complexity and improved performance to 100% and 96% recognition accuracies against 94% and 90% of the benchmark model for the local and benchmark datasets respectively. The results demonstrate the proposed approach's robustness to generalize across linguistic contexts.

THE ROLE OF SILICA NANOPARTICLES IN MODULATING GROWTH PERFORMANCE, ENZYME ACTIVITY, AND HEAVY METAL ACCUMULATION IN MUSCLE TISSUE OF COMMON CARP (Cyprinus carpio. L)

Muhammad Owais — 2025-04-13

This study investigated the effects of dietary supplementation with silicon nanoparticles (Si-NPs) on the growth performance, trace element concentrations, and serum enzyme activity of Cyprinus carpio (C. carpio) over a 90-day feeding trial. Four experimental diets with varying levels of Si-NPs were prepared: the first group (GRP1) was given 0 mg/kg, the second group (GRP2) received 1 mg/kg, the third group (GRP3) was supplemented with 2 mg/kg, and the fourth group (GRP4) had 3 mg/kg of Si-NPs. Results revealed that moderate levels of Si-NPs (1-2 mg/kg) significantly improved growth performance (p < 0.05), with GRP3 exhibiting the highest final weight (35 ± 0.44 g), weight gain (22.4 ± 0.5 g), and feed conversion ratio (1.269 ± 0.023). In contrast, GRP4 (3 mg/kg) showed reduced growth. Trace element analysis demonstrated that Si-NPs at 1-2 mg/kg enhanced the bioavailability of essential elements such as Sodium (Na), Iron (Fe), Magnesium (Mg), and Zinc (Zn), while higher doses disrupted trace element homeostasis. Serum enzyme activities, including Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT), Aspartate Aminotransferase (AST), Acid Phosphatase (ACP), Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP), and Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH), were significantly reduced in GRP2 and GRP3, suggesting a protective effect against oxidative stress and tissue damage. However, enzyme activities of GRP4 returned to control values, implying a threshold effect. The research indicates the beneficial effect of Si-NPs as a food supplement for growth enhancement, nutrient assimilation, and protecting the fish against oxidative stress if dosing is carefully adjusted to avoid toxicity.

A CHECKLIST OF VASCULAR PLANTS OF THE GARMIAN REGION IN KURDISTAN, IRAQ

Ahmed Habeeb Hameed — 2025-04-13

The current study is based on the fieldwork and study of the vascular plants of the Garmian region (Sulaimani district, Kurdistan, Iraq) from late April 2021 through September 2024, during which period 5,500 plant specimens was collected in 145 different waypoints. A total of 79 families (five each in ferns and gymnosperms, 15 in monocots, and 59 in dicots), 336 genera (two species in Pteridaceae and one species in each of Equisetaceae, Adiantaceae, and Aspleniaceae and one in gymnosperms families, 79 in monocots, and 250 in dicots), and 712 species (six of ferns and gymnosperms, 138 of monocots, and 568 of dicots) were identified. The five greatest families in this study are Asteraceae (47 genera, 107 species), Poaceae (39 genera, 83 species), Fabaceae (24 genera, 81 species), Brassicaceae (19 genera, 36 species), and Lamiaceae (15 genera, 34 species). These families account for 47.89% of the total vascular plant species collected in the region, and the richest genus is Astragalus L., with 15 species

MORPHOLOGICAL AND HISTOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF MALE DONKEY REPRODUCTIVE DUCTS: FROM DEFERENT DUCTS TO EJACULATORY PATHWAYS

Alaa Abou-Elhamd — 2025-04-14

The anatomical and histological characteristics of the terminal deferent ducts, excretory ducts of the seminal vesicles, and ejaculatory ducts were examined in detail. The terminal deferent duct, located ventromedially to the excretory duct of the seminal vesicle, exhibited a small, irregular lumen with cyst-like invaginations into the vascular, fibromuscular connective tissue. Its lumen was lined by bi-layered columnar epithelium, with principal cuboidal cells and occasional basal flat cells. The connective tissue of the cranial deferent duct contained collagen, elastic fibers, and smooth muscle, transitioning towards diminished smooth muscle at the duct's terminal region. The ducts from either side merged to form common ejaculatory ducts, which entered the urethra at the Colliculus seminalis. At this junction, the epithelium changed to either stratified columnar or cuboidal types. The ejaculatory ducts exhibited lumens characterized by branched folds, which were lined with stratified columnar epithelium and reinforced by a dense network of collagenous and elastic connective tissue. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the luminal surface of the ejaculatory duct was folded, irregularly oval, had nearly hexagonal epithelial cells with distinct borders, and abundant microvilli on the luminal surfaces. These findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the structural organization of these ducts and their role in the male reproductive system

LCD: IDENTIFYING INFLUENTIAL NODES IN COMPLEX NETWORKS WITH LAYERED CLUSTERING AND DEGREE

Abdulhakeem Othman Mohammed — 2025-04-14

Identifying influential nodes in networks is a key challenge in understanding how information spreads. While numerous algorithms have been proposed in the literature, many struggle with either limited spreading efficiency or high computational complexity. To address this challenge, we present Layered Clustering Degree (LCD), an effective method for identifying a set of well-distributed spreaders with high spreading ability, while maintaining a computational complexity of making it highly suitable for large-scale networks where both efficiency and computational complexity are essential. The LCD approach operates in three main steps: (1) Layering, which organizes nodes hierarchically based on their shortest distances from a designated starting node; (2) Clustering, which groups nodes within each layer into connected substructures to capture local connectivity patterns; and (3) Degree computation and ranking, where node degrees are computed within the entire network (globally) but ranked iteratively across clusters (locally) to ensure maximum coverage and minimal overlap among selected spreaders. The significance of layered clustering in LCD method, is iteratively distributing spreaders across clusters to avoid over-representation of high-degree nodes from a single region of the network. Experimental results using the SIR model on nine real-world networks show that LCD outperforms several popular methods, including VoteRank, K-shell, VoteRank++, ClusterRank, H-Index, EnRenew, and DegreeRank, in terms of spreading rate and final affected scale