Humor is an interesting phenomenon that has been studied widely, yet it is considered a universal trait that cannot be an old subject for a study. This study is conducted to investigate humor from a universal pragmatic lens in a stand-up comedy show, namely, You Wanna Hear Something Crazy?. It aims to study humor as a coin with two sides, the production side and the understanding side. To achieve the aim of the study, the researchers use an eclectic contains Grice’s CP model (1975) and Habermas’s UP model (1979, 1984, 1987, 1998). The study has noted that while using the observance and the non-observance of the cooperative maxims to produce humor, the universal validity claims of truth, sincerity, and normative rightness for rea

This paper studies the combination fluid viscous dampers in the outrigger system to add supplementary damping into the structure, which purpose to remove the dependability of the structure to lower variable intrinsic damping. It works by connecting the central core, comprising either shear walls or braced frames, to the outer perimeter columns.

     The modal considered is a 36 storey square high rise reinforced concrete building. By constructing a discrete lumped mass model, and using frequency-based response function, two systems of dampers, parallel and series systems are studied. The maximum lateral load at the top of the building is calculated, and  this load  w

Background: The adverse effects of drugs can damage various organs, especially the liver, leading to a hepatic injury known as hepatotoxicity. Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is challenging nowadays because of the large number of different drugs used, one of the offending medications that cause DILI is carbamazepine (CBZ), since the liver has an array of functions including detoxification, it will deal with several damages caused by exposure to the drugs. Objective: investigate the effect of (CBZ) 20mg/kg/day on female mice liver after 14 and 30 days of treatment on morphological and histopathological levels. Materials and Methods: 20mg/kg/day of CBZ was administered orally for (14) days to (10) female mice, another (10) mice were taking t

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

Curing of concrete is the maintenance of a satisfactory moisture content and temperature for a
period of time immediately following placing so the desired properties are developed. Accelerated
curing is advantages where early strength gain in concrete is important. The expose of concrete
specimens to the accelerated curing conditions which permit the specimens to develop a significant
portion of their ultimate strength within a period of time (1-2 days), depends on the method of the
curing cycle.Three accelerated curing test methods are adopted in this study. These are warm water,
autogenous and proposed test methods. The results of this study has shown good correlation
between the accelerated strength especially for

Low serum total adiponectin is associated with a high incidence of type 2 diabetes or coronary artery disease in the general population. Paradoxically, serum total adiponectin is elevated in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), such as overt diabetic nephropathy. The current study aimed to investigate whether or not  anemia to be dependently associated with serum level of total adiponectin in  non-albuminuric male patients with type 2 diabetes . The study included 42 type 2 diabetic male patients. Anemia was defined as hemoglobin (Hb) below 14.0g/dL. All the patients were without microalbuminuria, to exclude diabetic nephropathy. The diabetic patients were divided into 2 groups according to the hemoglobin level in ad

Background: Understanding Middle Eastern Culture in literature is essential for engaging readers worldwide. A society's culture can be reflected through literature. To this end, this study aims to identify the stylistic patterns that reflect Middle Eastern culture in the selected data and to examine how the multilevel approach of this study helps to locate these patterns. Ibtisam Barakat’s Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (2007) memoir is selected as the data of the study. Methodology: the cognitive corpus stylistic approach is applied to identify language patterns and stylistic features in the selected data. The multilevel method targets the language patterns that reflect the culture of the Middle East in th

Background: Worldwide gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer with poor prognosis. In early stages, it is hard to distinguish gastric cancer from benign gastric diseases, resulting in delayed diagnosis. There is a need to develop a biomarker for differentiating between gastric cancer and benign gastric diseases. Serum cholinesterase is synthesized in liver and released into plasma, and it has an important role in oncogenesis.

Objectives: To determine the correlation between serum cholinesterase activity and gastric cancer, in comparison to benign gastric diseases.

Subjects and Methods: A case control study carried out at Medical City Direct