A joke is something that is said, written, or done to cause amusement or laughter. It could be a short piece or a long narrative joke, but either way it ends in a punchline, where the joke contains a second conflicting meaning. Sometimes when we read a joke, we understand it directly and fully, but this is not always the case. When a writer writes a joke, he intends to manipulate the reader in a way that the reader doesn’t get the joke at once. He does that by using pun on words or any other word play. We, as listeners to the joke, try to get the message depending mostly on the tone of the voice, in addition to other factors concerning vocabulary and grammar. But as readers of the joke, we need more other factors in order to get to the intended meaning of the joke. One of these important factors is punctuation. Punctuation is the use of certain signs which help understand a piece of writing. It is used to create clarity, sense, and stress in contexts, because using the correct punctuation helps us to convey our thoughts as we intend them to. So is the use of punctuation marks in writing a joke is essential in order to understand it? Or is it just helpful sometimes? What happens if the writer doesn’t use punctuation marks when writing the joke? Would this affect us in getting the meaning of the joke? In this study we try to answer these rising questions.
The operation and management of water resources projects have direct and significant effects on the optimum use of water. Artificial intelligence techniques are a new tool used to help in making optimized decisions, based on knowledge bases in the planning, implementation, operation and management of projects as well as controlling flowing water quantities to prevent flooding and storage of excess water and use it during drought.
In this research, an Expert System was designed for operating and managing the system of AthTharthar Lake (ESSTAR). It was applied for all expected conditions of flow, including the cases of drought, normal flow, and during floods. Moreover, the cases of hypothetical op
... Show MoreBackground: The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor historically recognized for its role in the regulation of toxicity mediated by environmental chemicals. Recent research points to AhR's critical participation in male reproductive physiology, particularly in spermatogenesis, hormone signaling, and the maintenance of sperm quality. Both endogenous ligands (e.g., dietary and gut microbiota-derived metabolites) and exogenous pollutants (e.g., dioxins and benzo-α-pyrene) influence AhR-mediated pathways, making it a key link between environmental exposures and male fertility. Results: This review highlights AhR's influence on the male reproductive system, emphasizing the role of endogenous AhR ligands an
... Show MoreWater pollution is an issue that can be exacerbated by drought as increased concentrations of unwanted substances are a consequence of lower water levels. Polluted water that flows into natural marshlands leads to the deposition of pollutants in the interior of the marsh. Here we present evidence that the interior of the Central Marsh (CM) in southern Iraq suffers from higher levels of pollution than areas closer to the source of water entering the marsh (the Euphrates River). A 1.7m embankment that halts the flow of the Euphrates is only infrequently breached and so the CM is effectively the terminal destination of the waters (and their associated pollutants and agricultural waste) flowing from the West of Iraq.
A range of water
... Show MoreThe most used material in the world after water is concrete, which depends mainly on its manufacture of cement leading to the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), flying dust, and other greenhouse gasses (GHGs) resulting in pollution of the atmosphere. The emission of CO2 from cement production is approximately 5% of the global anthropogenic CO2. This research focuses on investigating the amount of CO2 emission from the Iraqi General Cement Company plants includes the cement factories of Kirkuk, Al-Qa’em, Fallujah, and Kubaisa, using the GHGs Protocol Measures Program (specifically cement based-method).
The interplay of predation, competition between species and harvesting is one of the most critical aspects of the environment. This paper involves exploring the dynamics of four species' interactions. The system includes two competitive prey and two predators; the first prey is preyed on by the first predator, with the former representing an additional food source for the latter. While the second prey is not exposed to predation but rather is exposed to the harvest. The existence of possible equilibria is found. Conditions of local and global stability for the equilibria are derived. To corroborate our findings, we constructed time series to illustrate the existence and the stability of equilibria numerically by varying the different values
... Show MoreThe general assumption of linear variation of earth pressures with depth on retaining structures is still controversial; investigations are yet required to determine those distributions of the passive earth pressure (PEP) accurately and deduce the corresponding centroid location. In particular, for rigid retaining walls, the calculation of PEP is strongly dependent on the type of wall movement. This paper presents a numerical analysis for studying the influence of wall movement on the PEP distribution on a rigid retaining wall and the passive earth thrust location. The numerical predictions are remarkably similar to existing experimental works as recorded on scaled test models and ful
Polycystic ovarian syndrome, additionally called PCOS is the most widespread endocrine illness amongst women. The aetiology of PCOS is attributed to a multi-factorial interplay among environmental and genetic effects. The overarching goal evaluates the correlation among blood concentrations of total testosterone, sex-hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), estradiol (E2), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) in ladies with PCOS and the impact of obesity, age, marital popularity on the obtained results. This study was conducted at the National Center for Educational Laborites /Medical City/ Baghdad. The study comprised of a sample of 83 women, elderly between 17 -45 years, who had been selected in a random manner
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