Death is undoubtedly the theme of Don DeLillo’s White Noise. Murray Siskind, a College-on-the-Hill professor who is obsessed with the exploration and reinterpretation of American popular culture, talks about the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and the German mentor of Jack Gladney has been using the Egyptian Book of the Dead, translated into German. The core episode of the story is the Airborne Toxic Event, the associate of Heinrich (Jack’s teenage son), Orestes Mercator, dreams of becoming one of the great figures in the Guinness Book by challenging and confronting death by enclosing himself in a glass pen jam-packed with poisonous snakes, and Heinrich challenges an imprisoned mass murderer in a chess game. The scholarly expertise of Jack centers on the leading organizer of mass slaughter—Hitler—whereas Murray Siskind and his associates in the American Environments movement are fascinated with the melancholy related to the passing away of superstars and the killing of political figures, and the image of death in mainstream culture. In this paper, Don DeLillo’s White Noise is analyzed in relation to the fear of death with the guidance of the characters of the novel. Similar to others, Jack, who is the head of the Hitler course at the College-on-the-Hill and the storyteller of the narrative, and Babette, the wife of Jack who takes care of an old blind man and gives lecture on adult education, have been preoccupied with the concept of death due to their inexplicable fear of it. They are unable to admit or recognize death as a normal part of human existence. They are too absorbed by their fear of death that their emotions, thoughts, and everyday interactions are frequently disrupted by the uncertainty of death. Both of them assert their desire to die before the other because neither of them can endure the difficulty of surviving without the other. Yet, it is absurd that neither of them wishes to pass on first since the two of them dread death extremely.
This paper presents an experimental study of cooling photovoltaic (PV) panels using evaporative cooling. Underground (geothermal energy) water used to extract heat from it during cooling and cleaning of PV panels. An experimental test rig was constructed and tested under hot and dusty climate conditions in Baghdad. An active cooling system was used with auxiliary an underground water tank to provide cold water as a coolant over both PV surfaces to reduce its temperature. The cellulose pad has been arranged on the back surface and sprays cooling on the front side. Two identical PV panels modules used: without cooling and evaporative water cooling. The experiments are comprised of four cases: Case (I): backside cooling, Ca
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The introduction of concrete damage plasticity material models has significantly improved the accuracy with which the concrete structural elements can be predicted in terms of their structural response. Research into this method's accuracy in analyzing complex concrete forms has been limited. A damage model combined with a plasticity model, based on continuum damage mechanics, is recommended for effectively predicting and simulating concrete behaviour. The damage parameters, such as compressive and tensile damages, can be defined to simulate concrete behavior in a damaged-plasticity model accurately. This research aims to propose an analytical model for assessing concrete compressive damage based on stiffness deterioration. The prop
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As one type of heating furnaces, the electric heating furnace (EHF) typically suffers from time delay, non-linearity, time-varying parameters, system uncertainties, and harsh en-vironment of the furnace, which significantly deteriorate the temperature control process of the EHF system. In order to achieve accurate and robust temperature tracking performance, an integration of robust state feedback control (RSFC) and a novel sliding mode-based disturbance observer (SMDO) is proposed in this paper, where modeling errors and external disturbances are lumped as a lumped disturbance. To describe the characteristics of the EHF, by using convection laws, an integrated dynamic model is established and identified as an uncertain nonlinear second ord
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Reinforced concrete (RC) beams containing a longitudinal cavity have become an innovative development and advantage for economic purposes of light-weight members without largely affecting their resistance against the applied loads. This type of openings can also be used for maintenance purposes and usage space of communication lines, pipelines, etc. RC beams are primarily loaded in the plane of the members, which are two-dimensional in a plane stress state and the dominant structural behaviours include bending, shear, or combination of both. In the present study, six numerical models of RC beams with and without openings were simulated by using commercial finite element software ANSYS to evaluate the structural behaviours of those b
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In this study, the acid-alkaline transesterification of refined coconut seed oil (RCOSO) to fatty acid methyl ester was followed by the production of a trimethylolpropane-based thermosensitive biolubricant using potassium hydroxide, and its physicochemical characteristics were evaluated. The American Standard Test for Materials (ASTM) was employed to ascertain the biolubricant's pour point and index of viscosity, which were found to be -4 oC and 283.75, respectively. The opposite connection between lubricant viscosity and temperature was shown by the measured viscosities at varied transesterification to be transformed into biodiesel. Following this, a biolubricant was created by further transesterifiedtemperature. The ester gr
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Background and Objectives: Dyspepsia is a disorder characterized by difficulty in digestion and represents a major health concern. Therefore, it is crucial to identify functional dyspepsia linked to Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). This research aimed to determine the prevalence of H. pylori among patients with dyspepsia and to examine the potential risk factors associated with the infection. Materials and Methods: From August 14th to September 21st, 2024, a total of 105 patients with dyspepsia, who attended the Central Laboratory of Baghdad Medical City Complex (Iraq), were enrolled in this study. Data on nonsteroidal anti-inflam- matory drugs (NSAIDs), smoking, family history, fasting habits and frequent fast food consumption wer
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