Haruki Murakami (1949-present) is a contemporary Japanese writer whose works have been translated into fifty languages and won him plenty of Japanese and international awards. His short stories are well constructed in a weird realistic manner and are mixed with elements of surrealism. His novels and short stories fall under the genre of magical realism. One of the major revolving themes that Murakami wrote about was the haunting feeling of emptiness and disconnectedness in a world which seems to care much for materialism and self-interests.

    The paper explores two of Murakami’s short stories in his book After the Quake (2000) and the relevance of their themes and characters to Iraq after the q

     Compression for color image is now necessary for transmission and storage in the data bases since the color gives a pleasing nature and natural for any object, so three composite techniques based color image compression is implemented to achieve image with high compression, no loss in original image, better performance and good image quality. These techniques are composite stationary wavelet technique (S), composite wavelet technique (W) and composite multi-wavelet technique (M). For the high energy sub-band of the 3rd  level of each composite transform in each composite technique, the compression parameters are calculated. The best composite transform among the 27 types is the three levels of multi-wavelet

Compression for color image is now necessary for transmission and storage in the data bases since the color gives a pleasing nature and natural for any object, so three composite techniques based color image compression is implemented to achieve image with high compression, no loss in original image, better performance and good image quality. These techniques are composite stationary wavelet technique (S), composite wavelet technique (W) and composite multi-wavelet technique (M). For the high energy sub-band of the 3 rd level of each composite transform in each composite technique, the compression parameters are calculated. The best composite transform among the 27 types is the three levels of multi-wavelet transform (MMM) in M technique wh

Nanomaterials enhance the performance of both asphalt binders and asphalt mixtures. They also improve asphalt durability, which reduces resource consumption and environmental impact in the long term associated with the production and transportation of asphalt materials. Thus, this paper studies the effectiveness of Nano Calcium Carbonate (Nano CaCO3) and Nano Hydrated Lime (NHL) as modifiers and examines their impact on ranges from 0% to 10% through comprehensive laboratory tests. Softening point, penetration, storage stability, viscosity, and mass loss due to short-term aging using the Rolling Thin Film Oven Test (RTFO) were performed on asphalt binders. Results indicated a significant improvement in binder stiffness, particularly

ABSTRACT Background: This study aimed to study the effect of some acidic drinks (Vinegars and fresh Orange juice) and energy drinks (Red bull) on surface roughness of three types of bulkfill composite materials: Filtek posterior bulkfill (3M), Sonicfill (Kerr) and Filtek p60 (3M). Materials and Methods: Total number of 120 samples are prepared by using a mold of (12mm diameter and 3mm height), which were divided into three groups forty samples for each group: Group A: Filtek bulkfill posterior composite (3M), Group B: Sonicfill composite (Kerr), Group C: Filtek P60 (3 M) which then divided into four sub- groups (n=10) (1) samples were kept in distilled water as a control group (2) samples were immersed in Redbull (3) samples were immersed

Colors are universal, and throughout the ages, they have been associated with
various religious, social and spiritual meanings. They symbolize a galaxy of things
to designate certain ideas or symbols that are sometimes contradictory.
The present study is an attempt to investigate colors, their meanings and
symbolism, and the approaches to translating color idioms from English into
Arabic. It fathoms one of the thorny areas for translation theorists let alone
practitioners. Various definitions, classifications of types and symbolism across
cultures are provided. After reviewing idioms and methods of translating them, a
survey of 114 sentences that include color idioms was conducted to see which
method is mostly

<p>In this paper, a simple color image compression system has been proposed using image signal decomposition. Where, the RGB image color band is converted to the less correlated YUV color model and the pixel value (magnitude) in each band is decomposed into 2-values; most and least significant. According to the importance of the most significant value (MSV) that influenced by any simply modification happened, an adaptive lossless image compression system is proposed using bit plane (BP) slicing, delta pulse code modulation (Delta PCM), adaptive quadtree (QT) partitioning followed by an adaptive shift encoder. On the other hand, a lossy compression system is introduced to handle the least significant value (LSV), it is based on

Diabetes mellitus is a common health problem worldwide counting about 1.2 million cases in Iraq in 2015. Taking in account of the patient’s beliefs about the prescribed medication had been reported to be one of the most important factors that affects adherence where holding positive beliefs about medications is a prerequisite for intentional adherence. The aim of the current study was to investigate and assess beliefs about medicines among type 2 diabetic patients and to determine possible association between this belief and glycemic control as well as some patient-specific factors. This study is a cross-sectional study carried out on 380 (mean age 56.58± 10.06 years) already diagnosed T2DM patients who attended the National Diabetes

Removal of heavy metals from waste water has received a great deal of attention. The compare Cr
(VI) adsorption characteristics removing from wastewater by using thermally modified and non-modified
eggshells were examined