This paper comprehensively analyzes the Pegasus spyware and its implications for digital privacy and security. The Israeli cyber intelligence company NSO Group's Pegasus has gained recognition as a potent surveillance tool capable of hacking into smartphones and extracting data without the user's knowledge [49], [50]. The research emphasizes the technical aspects of this spyware, its deployment methods, and the controversies surrounding its use. The research also emphasizes the growing worries surrounding digital privacy and security as a result of the prevalent use of advanced spyware. By delving into legal, ethical, and policy issues, the objective of this study is to deliver a holistic understanding of the challenges posed by Pegasus and similar spyware tools. Through a comprehensive examination of the subject, the paper presents potential solutions to mitigate the threats and protect users from invasive surveillance techniques.

Nowadays, Natural Language Processing (NLP) is an important tool for most people's daily life routines, ranging from understanding speech, translation, named entity recognition (NER), and text categorization, to generative text models such as ChatGPT. Due to the existence of big data and consequently large corpora for widely used languages like English, Spanish, Turkish, Persian, and many more, these applications have been developed accurately. However, the Kurdish language still requires more corpora and large datasets to be included in NLP applications. This is because Kurdish has a rich linguistic structure, varied dialects, and a limited dataset, which poses unique challenges for Kurdish NLP (KNLP) application development. While several studies have been conducted in KNLP for various applications, Kurdish NER (KNER) remains a challenge for many KNLP tasks, including text analysis and classification. In this work, we address this limitation by proposing a methodology for fine-tuning the pre-trained RoBERTa model for KNER. To this end, we first create a Kurdish corpus, followed by designing a modified model architecture and implementing the training procedures. To evaluate the trained model, a set of experiments is conducted to demonstrate the performance of the KNER model using different tokenization methods and trained models. The experimental results show that fine-tuned RoBERTa with the SentencePiece tokenization method substantially improves KNER performance, achieving a 12.8% improvement in F1-score compared to traditional models, and consequently establishes a new benchmark for KNLP.

Members of the Rumex genus possess allelochemical compounds that vary depending on the plant part and extract concentrations. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the allelopathic effects of extracts from the roots, stems, and leaves of Rumex azoricus at concentrations of 0%, 25%, 50%, and 100% on the seed germination of a lettuce plant in a laboratory setting. The results indicated that stem extract was most effective for enhancing germination percentage (68.67%), germination speed (5.12 seeds/time interval), and subsequent traits related to germination percentage (50%), germination speed (3.6 seeds/time interval), as well as subsequent traits in control seeds. The 25% extract concentration improved germination percentage (68%) and germination speed (5.05 seeds/time interval), along with subsequent traits compared to control (0%), which exhibited the lowest germination percentage (50%), germination speed (3.6 seeds/time interval), and related traits. The combined results also demonstrated that 25% stem extract significantly increased germination percentage (80%), speed (5.85 seeds/time interval), root length (1.2 cm), root fresh weight (0.032 mg), shoot length (2.2 cm), and shoot fresh weight (0.06 mg) in contrast to control seeds, which showed the minimum germination percentage (50%), speed (3.6 seeds/time interval), root length (0.17 cm), root fresh weight (0.006 mg), shoot length (0.95 cm), and shoot fresh weight (0.03 mg). The allelopathic effects of R. azoricus extract varied depending on the plant part and concentration; both stem and leaf extracts at low concentrations were the most effective, whereas root extracts at all concentrations produced results similar to those of control seeds.

Reconfigurable intelligent surfaces have been recently investigated for their potentials to offer significant performance improvements in the next generation wireless telecommunication systems (5G and beyond / 6G). Intelligent surfaces are programmed to control the electromagnetic propagation and obtain the desired wavefront by tuning the local reflection phase of unit elements. Predicting the electromagnetic propagation in the RIS-assisted wireless channel accurately is a significant challenge for researchers and becomes crucial for Telecom operators to properly allocate the radio resources. We propose the use of an Eulerian ray-tracing method, the Dynamical Energy Analysis (DEA), as a coverage planning tool capable of account for the EM interaction between reconfigurable intelligent surfaces and the surrounding environment. The main characteristics that make DEA suitable for this purpose are discussed and some preliminary results of the reflective surface integration within the DEA code will be presented.

This paper addresses copyright protection as a major security demand in digital marketplaces. Two watermarking techniques are proposed and compared for compressed and uncompressed video with the intention to show the advantages and the possible weaknesses in the schemes working in the frequency domain and in the spatial domain. In this paper a robust video watermarking method is presented. This method embeds data to the specific bands in the wavelet domain using motion estimation approach. The algorithm uses the HL and LH bands to add the watermark where the motion in these bands does not affect the quality of extracted watermark if the video is subjected to different types of malicious attacks. Watermark is embedded in an additive way using random Gaussian distribution in video sequences. The method is tested on different types of video (compressed DVD quality movie and uncompressed digital camera movie). The proposed watermarking method in frequency domain has strong robustness against some attacks such as frame dropping, frame filtering and lossy compression. The experimental results indicate that the similarity measure before and after certain attacks is very close to each other in frequency domain in comparison to the spatial domain.

Study two cut patterns in hardwood cuttings of (Cydonia oblonga), (Punica granatum) and (Ficus carica). The cuttings have been cut either straight with different internode stub lengths [0 (just onto the basal node as control), 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0 cm below the basal node], or slant with 45 degree angle for each length mentioned above (except the first length (0 cm). Effect of the basal cut directions on rooting percentage and other shoot and root characteristics were not significantly different, while the effect of slant cut pattern on one-side rooting at the basal margin observed in some quince cuttings but it was rarely observed in pomegranate and fig cuttings. Quince cuttings gave no different rooting percentage and other shoot and root characteristics significantly with different internode stub lengths. While, internode stub 1 and 2 cm in pomegranate cuttings, and 0 cm in fig cuttings gave the best rooting percentages 44.44% and 100%, respectively. Also, interaction effects of the two factors on rooting percentage and other shoot and root characteristics were just significantly different in pomegranate and fig cuttings. The best rooting capacity achieved in pomegranate cuttings (49.99%) in those were cut straightly at the base with 1 and 2 cm basal internode stub lengths, and fig cuttings straightly cut at the base with 0 and 1 cm basal internode stub lengths gave the highest rooting capacity (100%).

This factorial experiment was conducted in a greenhouse during the period of May 3, 2021 to August 5, 2021 at the research farm belongs to the Horticulture Department, College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Sulaimani, Sulaimani, Iraq. The experiment was designed to study the effect of some biostimulants, individually and their combinations, on cucumber plants performance under greenhouse conditions; in addition to compare the results with of chemical fertilizers application. The treatments consisted of control (without adding any kinds of biostimulants) recommended dose of 100% chemical fertilizers (RDCF), seaweed extracts (SE), moringa leaf extract (MLE), bacterial-based biostimulant of Fulzym-plus (FP), that contains Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas putida, (SE+MLE), (SE+FP), (MLE+FP), and (SE+MLE+FP). The experiment was laid out in simple RCBD with 3 replications. The results showed that the application of different biostimulants, individually and their combinations, significantly improved the root growth characteristics. However, the highest values of lateral roots number per plant, lateral root length, lateral root diameter and root system dry weight were recorded by the application of recommended dose of chemical fertilizer (RDCF). While, this treatment was not different substantially with the triple combination of the tested biostimulants (SE+FP+MLE) in all studied root characteristics. In addition, untreated plants registered the minimum value of all the mentioned characters.

In a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in a periodic lateral superlattice subjected to an external homogeneous magnetic field and in a cylindrical far-infrared photon cavity we search for effects of broken symmetries: Static ones, stemming from the unit cell of the system, and the external magnetic field together with the dynamic ones caused by the vector potential of the cavity promoting magnetic types of transitions, and the chirality of the excitation pulse. The Coulomb interaction of the electrons is described within density functional theory, but the electron-photon interactions are handled by a configuration interaction formalism within each step of the density functional approach, both for the static and the dynamic system. In the dynamical calculations we observe weak chiral effects that change character as the strength of the electron-photon interaction and the external magnetic field are increased. From the analysis of the chiral effects we identify an important connection of the para- and diamagnetic electron-photon interactions that promotes the diamagnetic interaction in the present system when the interaction strength is increased. Furthermore, the asymmetric potential in the unit cell of the square array activates collective oscillation modes that are not present in the system when the unit cell has a higher symmetry.

The study was conducted at the Collage of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region-Iraq so as to investigate response hardwood cuttings of Callistemon viminalis to some plant extracts. The hardwood cuttings were taken on 11 March 2021 and soaked separately in 3 and 6 g/L aqueous extracts of moringa leaf, licorice root, willow shoot, fenugreek seed and cinnamon bark for 1 hour. They were compared to the cuttings dipped in 3000 ppm IBA for 10s and control cuttings which were soaked in distilled water for 1 hour. The experiment laid out in CRD with three replications in a greenhouse, and each replication included six cuttings which planted in a mixture of sand and rice husk medium. The results showed that the highest (86.66%) rooting was achieved in the cuttings treated with 6 g/L licorice extract and they were significantly different with control cuttings (53.33%), but they were not significantly different with 3000 ppm IBA (66.66%). Cinnamon 3g/L and fenugreek 3g/L extracts gave the lowest (6.66% and 33.33%, respectively) rooting and other studied parameters. The cuttings dipped in 3000 ppm IBA gave the highest (18.91) root number and the highest (66.66%) survival cuttings after transplanting. The longest root (15.54 cm) was found in cuttings were treated with 6 g/L moringa extract. The longest (5.83 cm) shoot was observed in treated cuttings with 3 g/L willow extract. The highest chlorophyll a and b (10.08 and 4.62 mg/L, respectively) were observed in cuttings treated with 6 g/L willow extract. Moreover, 3000 ppm IBA gave the highest (20.23%) total carbohydrate and (1.77 mg/g) IAA content along with 6 g/L licorice, moringa and fenugreek extracts, after 30 days from planting of the cuttings. Licorice root extract at 6 g/L fairly improved the measurements similar to 3000 ppm IBA throughout the study.

Onion routing networks, also known as darknets, are private networks that enable anonymous communication over the Internet. They are used by individuals and organizations to protect their privacy, but they also attract cybercriminals who exploit the anonymity provided by these networks for illegal activities. This paper comprehensively analyzes cybercrime threats and countermeasures in onion routing networks. We review the various types of cybercrime that occur in these networks, including drug trafficking, fraud, hacking, and other illicit activities. We then discuss the challenges associated with detecting and mitigating cybercrime in onion routing networks, such as the difficulty of tracing illegal activities back to their source due to the strong anonymity guarantees provided by these networks. We also explore the countermeasures that have been proposed and implemented to combat cybercrime in onion routing networks, including law enforcement efforts, technological solutions, and policy interventions. Finally, we highlight the limitations of existing countermeasures and identify potential directions for future research in this area, including the need for interdisciplinary approaches that combine technical, legal, and social perspectives to effectively combat cybercrime in onion routing networks.

The aqueous extract of Salix spp contains many compounds which may act as root-promoting agents in cuttings. S. alba is a deciduous tree containing variable phytochemicals which are variable throughout the year. So, in this study, one- and two-year-old shoots of S. alba were collected on the 15th of each month in the year 2022, extracted in 2% ethanol at 9 g.L-1, and placed in a water bath at 35 °C, then they applied to thornless blackberry cuttings for 1.5 hr. The results explained that the highest rooting percentage (66.67%) was obtained in the cuttings soaked in the extract of willow shoots collected on 15th of January. They were not significantly different from control cuttings, but they were different from the cuttings soaked in the extract of willow shoots collected on 15th of August and October (33.33%). The majority of other shoot and root traits were high in the cuttings soaked in the extract of willow shoots collected on 15th of December. The willow shoots collected on 15th of January contained the lowest total phenols (51.4 {\mu}this http URL-1) and total flavonoids (29.07 {\mu}this http URL-1). Moreover, the highest total phenols (57 {\mu}this http URL-1) and IAA (365.17 {\mu}this http URL-1) were recorded in the willow shoots collected on 15th of March, however each total flavonoids (44.96 {\mu}this http URL-1) and salicylic acid (492.61 {\mu}this http URL-1) were the highest in the willow shoots collected on 15th of April. Generally, based on rooting percentage, it is advisable to collect willow shoots on 15th of January and February for extraction and application to the thornless blackberry cuttings.

The study was conducted to determine the best irrigation frequency for rooting hardwood cuttings of some pomegranate genotypes that are cultivated in Halabja province, Kurdistan Region, Iraq. The hardwood cuttings were collected from 11 genotypes, which were 'Salakhani Trsh' (G1), 'Salakhani Mekhosh' (G2), 'Amriki' (G3), 'Twekl Sury Trsh' (G4), 'Twekl Astury Naw Spy' (G5), 'Hanara Sherina' (G6), 'Kawa Hanary Sherin' (G7), 'Kawa Hanary Trsh' (G8), 'Malesay Twekl Asture' (G9), 'Malesay Twekl Tank' (G10), and 'Sura Hanary Trsh' (G11). The genotypes were subjected to irrigation applications by 1-day, 2-day, 7-day, or 10-day frequencies. Among pomegranates, G11, G6, and G7 produced 95, 90, and 83% rooting percentages, which were significantly higher than the rest of other genotypes. The lowest rooting percentages (28, 36, 38, and 40%) were found in G1, G5, G3, and G10, respectively. The effect of irrigation frequencies on the genotypes confirmed that a 7-day frequency was the best irrigation frequency to achieve the maximum rooting percentages (93, 86, 80, 73, 53, and 40%) in G6, G9, G2, G4, G3, and G1, respectively. In contrast, the minimum rooting percentage (20%) was recorded in G3 with a 1-day frequency and in G1 with 10-day frequency. In this study, it was found that the cuttings of G11, G6, and G7 had the best ability to form roots, and irrigation with a 7-day frequency was the best for the cuttings of all the 11 pomegranate genotypes investigated.

We employ a ``real-time'' excitation scheme to calculate the excitation spectra of a two-dimensional electron system in a square array of quantum dots placed in a circular cylindrical far-infrared photon cavity subjected to a perpendicular homogeneous external magnetic field. The Coulomb interaction of the electrons is handled via spin density functional theory and the para- and the diamagnetic parts of the electron-photon coupling are updated according to a configuration interaction method in each iteration of the density functional calculation. The results show that an excitation scheme built on using the symmetry of the lateral square superlattice of the dots and the cylindrical cavity produces both para- and diamagnetic resonance peaks with oscillator strengths that can be steered by the excitation pulse parameters. The excitation method breaks the conditions for the generalized Kohn theorem and allows for insight into the subband structure of the electron system and can be used both in and outside the linear response regime.

Experiment 1. Rooting of quince hardwood cuttings: Rooting success was influenced by both the concentrations of IBA and the selection of rooting media. However, the control group (without IBA) notably enhanced rooting when compared to the various IBA concentrations. Cuttings in the control group (without IBA) and those planted in river sand exhibited notably high percentages of successful rooting, underscoring the importance of the selected planting medium. Experiment 2. Bench grafting of loquat: The success of grafting loquat cutting stocks varied based on grafting dates, types of cuttings, and concentrations of IBA. However, IBA at different concentrations did not have a significant impact. Notably, certain interactions such as grafting on February 20 with loquat stock cuttings, yielded higher percentages of successful graft bud sprouting. Experiment 3. Performance of grafting loquats onto different rootstocks: Grafting success was notably influenced by the selection of rootstock, with loquat rootstock demonstrating superior performance compared to quince. The highest significant levels of successful grafting were attained on February 20, underscoring the crucial role of grafting dates. Experiment 4. Impact of tree stock types on grafting success: Grafting success percentage was higher in loquat tree stock when compared to quince. The consistency of grafting success percentages across three dates underscores the significant influence of rootstock type. Experiment 5. Bench grafting of loquat cutting stocks: Graft bud sprout percentages exhibited variations, with loquat stock cuttings surpassing quince. Grafting success demonstrated a consistent increase from February 20 to March 30, underscoring the importance of selecting appropriate grafting dates.

The study was carried out during 2017 to 2019 growing seasons at four locations in Sulaimani governorate and one location in Halabja governorate, in the Iraqi Kurdistan region including SH, M, Q, B and H. A huge number almond trees were observed for all locations, among them 38 trees were selected with the best morphological characteristics which were chosen 9,3,5,7 and 14 trees depending on the locations, respectively. A simple experiment was conducted using RCBD for this experiment and means was separated by Duncans test. In order to evaluate their tolerances to drought in glass house, an experiment was conducted at Department of Horticulture, College of Agricultural Engineering Sciences, University of Sulaimani, that seeds were taken from those genotype trees and stratified then sown in pots. A factorial RCBD experiment was used with two factors genotypes and irrigation intervals. Therefore, thirty eight seedling genotypes grown in pots under glasshouse condition were exposed to three irrigation intervals 10,20 and 40 days after 10 days from seedling emergence. Therefore, the number of treatment combinations was 114 seedlings for each replicate and with a total 342 seedlings for the whole experiment. Analysis of variance was carried out and the means were compared according to LSD 0.05. As a result of the study, the seedlings showed different levels of adaptation to drought that can be used to future breeding programs as rootstocks. The objectives of this study were to identify morphological, phytochemical and genetic diversity with relatedness among the most important almond genotypes in Sulaimani Region which related to drought tolerance to and relationship between morphological, biochemical and molecular data.

In today's digital age, information systems (IS) are indispensable tools for organizations of all sizes. The quality of these systems, encompassing system, information, and service dimensions, significantly impacts organizational performance. This study investigates the intricate relationships between these three quality dimensions and their collective influence on key performance indicators such as customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. By conducting a comparative analysis of various quality metrics, we aim to identify the most effective indicators for assessing IS quality. Our research contributes to the field by providing actionable insights for researchers or practitioners to develop the implementation, evaluation and design of information systems. Also, a quantitative study employing a structured questionnaire survey was conducted to achieve primary data from respondents across various sectors. Statistical analysis, including Cronbach's Alpha (0.953) and factor analysis (KMO = 0.965, Bartlett's Test p < 0.000), revealed strong interdependencies among System Quality (SQ), Information Quality (IQ), and Service Quality (SerQ). The results demonstrate that high SQ leads to improved IQ, which in turn contributes to enhanced SerQ and user satisfaction. While all three qualities are crucial, SerQ emerges as the most relevant indicator of overall system performance due to its broader representation of quality dimensions

Metaheuristic algorithms are optimization methods that are inspired by real phenomena in nature or the behavior of living beings, e.g., animals, to be used for solving complex problems, as in engineering, energy optimization, health care, etc. One of them was the creation of the Fitness Dependent Optimizer (FDO) in 2019, which is based on bee-inspired swarm intelligence and provides efficient optimization. This paper aims to introduce a comprehensive review of FDO, including its basic concepts, main variations, and applications from the beginning. It systematically gathers and examines every relevant paper, providing significant insights into the algorithm's pros and cons. The objective is to assess FDO's performance in several dimensions and to identify its strengths and weaknesses. This study uses a comparative analysis to show how well FDO and its variations work at solving real-world optimization problems, which helps us understand what they can do. Finally, this paper proposes future research directions that can help researchers further enhance the performance of FDO.

We study electron transport properties through a double quantum dot (DQD) system coupled to a single mode photon cavity, DQD-cavity. The DQD system has a complex multilevel energy spectrum, in which by tuning the photon energy several anti-crossings between the electron states of the DQD system and photon dressed states are produced, which have not been seen in a simple two level DQD system. Three different regions of the photon energy are studied based on anti-crossings, where the photon energy ranges are classified as "low", "intermediate", and "high". The anti-crossings represent multiple Rabi-resonances, which lead to a current dip in the electron transport at the "intermediate" photon energy. Increasing the electron-photon coupling strength, $g_\gamma$, the photon exchanges between the anti-crossing states are changed leading to a dislocation of the multiple Rabi resonance states. Consequently, the current dip at the intermediate photon energy is further reduced. Additionally, we tune the cavity-environment coupling, $\kappa$, to see how the transport properties in the strong coupling regime, g$_{\gamma}>\kappa$, are changed for different directions of the photon polarization. Increasing $\kappa$ with a constant value of $g_\gamma$, a current enhancement in the intermediate photon energy is found, and a reduction in the current is seen for the "high" photon energy range. The current enhancement in the intermediate photon energy is caused by the weakening of the multiple Rabi-resonance in the system.