Fourteen bed sediments samples were collected from the Euphrates River in order to determine concentrations, seasonal, spatial and contamination assessment of heavy metals such as Pb, Cd, Zn, Cu, Ni, Co, Fe, Mn and Cr. The mean concentrations are as follows: 2249.47 mg/kg for Fe, 228.18 mg/kg for Mn, 67.08 mg/kg for Ni, 58.4 mg/kg for Cr, 48.00 mg/kg for Zn, 28.16 mg/kg for Co, 22.56 mg/kg for Pb, 18.91 mg/kg for Cu and 1.87 mg/kg for Cd. To assess metal contamination in sediments, sediment quality guidelines were applied. The mean concentration of Cd, Cu, Ni, Fe, Mn, and Cr exceeded the USEPA guideline. The metal contamination in the sediments was also evaluated by appling enrichment factor (EF), contamination factor (CF), geo-accumulation index (Igeo) and pollution load index (PLI). Based on enrichment factor (EF), the Euphrates River sediments have very high enrichment for Pb, extremely high for Cd, moderate for Zn, significant to very high for Ni, very high to extremely high for Co, moderate to significant for Mn and significant to very high for Cr. According to contamination factor (CF), Cd and Cr are responsible for very high contamination. According to Igeo, the Euphrates River sediments are moderately to strongly polluted by Cd. Based on PLI, all sampling sites suggest no overall pollution of site quality

This study aims to biosynthesize zinc nanoparticles from the aqueous extract of Panax ginseng (Red Ginseng) roots. The characteristics of ZnNPs were checked using change in color, UV-Vis, SEM, SPM, AFM, FT-IR, and EDS analyses, and assessed their cytotoxicity against L20B tumor cell line using MTT assay. The change in the solution color after 3 hr on 70 °C is from yellow to the brownish color with whitish sediments. The adsorption peak of UV-vis is 340 nm as evidence of formation the Zn nanoparticles. AFM, SEM and EDS observe shapes of zinc nanoparticles which are spherical to irregular particles with rate of size 59.76 nm. The concentration 100% Zinc nanoparticles significantly (p<0.01) recorded best inhibition percentage 41.70% against murine fibroblast cells (L20B) which have receptors of human polioviruses. Thus, this work is considered as an auspicious first test to reduce the growth of cancers using green ZnNPs of Ginseng (Panax ginseng) in vitro.

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The groundwater is a substantial source of fresh water and has been used for various anthropogenic uses. The aim of this work is to investigate groundwater quality and type in kubaysa and AL-Waffa areas, Anbar, Iraq using multivariate statistics approach. The groundwater was sampled from ten wells for each region during the period from October 2018 to March 2019. The levels of T, TUR, pH, EC, TDS, DO, COD, TH, Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, NH4+, Cl-, F-, SO42-,, NO3-, HCO3-, S-2 and SiO2, were measured. The majority of the physicochemical parameters exceed the permissible guidelines. Pearson’s Correlation technique, multivariate statistical tools such as cluster analysis and principle component analysis were applied to determine the groundwater type. For Al –Waffa area, the EC had a positive strong correlation with TDS, Na+, Cl-. The TDS had positive strong correlations with NO3-. TH and Ca2+ possess a very good positive correlation between each other and positive strong correlations with SO42-. Sodium has positive strong correlations with k+ and Cl-. For the kubaysa area, the EC has positive strong correlations with TDS, Na+, K+ and Cl-. The TDS have positive strong correlations with TH, Ca2+, Na+, K+, Cl-, and SO42-. The piper diagram indicates that the groundwater types in AL-Waffa and kubaysa regions are Ca2+, Mg2+, SO42- and Ca2+, Mg2+,Cl-, SO42 respectively. The results showed unsuitable water for drinking purposes and need to be treated. The main finding of the current study is a suggestion to use the multivariate statistics technique in determining the groundwater classification type as an alternative method for the piper diagram.

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