The duration of sunshine is one of the important indicators and one of the variables for measuring the amount of solar radiation collected in a particular area. Duration of solar brightness has been used to study atmospheric energy balance, sustainable development, ecosystem evolution and climate change. Predicting the average values of sunshine duration (SD) for Duhok city, Iraq on a daily basis using the approach of artificial neural network (ANN) is the focus of this paper. Many different ANN models with different input variables were used in the prediction processes. The daily average of the month, average temperature, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, relative humidity, wind direction, cloud level and atmospheric pressure were used as input parameters in order to obtain the daily average of sunshine duration (SD) as the output. The eight-year data were divided into two categories. The first category covers whole years (annually) and the second category is seasonal. To recognize and assess the influence of different input parameters on sunshine duration, six models of ANN have been evolved. The findings showed that in the annual models, the outcomes of RMSE, MAE and R for the model with input parameters (Month, Cloud Level and Average Temperature) were the best results 1.82, 1.175 and 0.89, respectively. As for the season models, the outcomes of RMSE, MAE and R for the autumn season were the best results 1.450, 1.009 and 0.94, respectively. Accordingly, the performance of the artificial neural network is considerably effective in predicting the sunshine duration.
The study targets exploring the similarities and differences between Iraqi and Malaysian learners of English in refusing marriage proposals. Also, it examines the favored politeness strategies that learners use to protect their interlocutors’ face, heeding both their social distance and status. Data were gathered by a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) which contained six marriage situations. Responses were analyzed based on Beebe et al.’s (1990) refusal taxonomy and Scollon et al.’s (2012) politeness system. The findings indicated that both the Iraqi and Malaysian learners preferred the indirect refusal strategies in marriage proposals, as well as the hierarchical politeness in the form of independence strategies regardless of t
... Show Moreلخلاصة تشغل قضايا الهوية محور اهتمام الكثير من الباحثين والدارسين في بنية المجتمعات ومستقبل الدول, وفي كثير من الدراسات التي كتبها هؤلاء كان هناك ميل نحو دراسة الهوية وعلاقتها بحركة الدول تقدما وتراجعا ,فهناك من عزا تقدم دولة ما إلى نجاح نخبها السياسية في صناعة هوية جامعة لحالة التنوع الذي يميز مجتمعها, ويمكن ان تشير الى الولايات المتحدة الامريكية كأنموذج للنجاح في هذا الاطار.وهناك من ارجع
... Show MoreDespite efforts to contain and manage the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak which was declared a public health emergency of international concern in January 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO), the COVID-19 pandemic still remains a major global challenge. Patients who display the classical symptoms of the infection are easily identified, tested, isolated and monitored. However, many cases of infected asymptomatic patients have been documented. These patients are not easily identified even though many evidences suggest that they can spread the virus to others. How and why these COVID-19 asymptomatic presentations occur remain unclear. The many theories and views are conjectural, and supporting evidences are still needed. In this review, we
... Show MoreThe provision of safe water for people is a human right; historically, a major number of people depend on groundwater as a source of water for their needs, such as agricultural, industrial or human activities. Water resources have recently been affected by organic and/or inorganic contaminants as a result of population growth and increased anthropogenic activity, soil leaching and pollution. Water resource remediation has become a serious environmental concern, since it has a direct impact on many aspects of people’s lives. For decades, the pump-and-treat method has been considered the predominant treatment process for the remediation of contaminated groundwater with organic and inorganic contaminants. On the other side, this tech
... Show MoreTo maintain a sustained competitive position in the contemporary environment of knowledge economy, organizations as an open social systems must have an ability to learn and know how to adapt to rapid changes in a proper fashion so that organizational objectives will be achieved efficiently and effectively. A multilevel approach is adopted proposing that organizational learning suffers from the lack of interest about the strategic competitive performance of the organization. This remains implicit almost in all models of organizational learning and there is little focus on how learning organizations achieve sustainable competitive advantage . A dynamic model that captures t
... Show MoreIn this work, chemical oxidation was used to polymerize conjugated polymer "Polypyrrole" at room temperature Graphene nanoparticles were added by in situ-polymerization to get (PPY-GN) nano. Optical and Electrical properties were studied for the nanocomposites. optical properties of the nanocomposites were studied by UV-Vis spectroscopy at wavelength range (200 -800 nm). The result showed optical absorption spectra were normally determined and the result showed that the maximum absorbance wave length at 280nm and 590nm. The optical energy gap has been evaluated by direct transition and the value has decreased from (2.1 eV for pure PPy) to (1.3 eV for 5 %wt. of GN). The optical constants such as the band tail width ΔE was evaluated, the
... Show MoreThis study was conducted in Al-Salam station for Dairy cattle/private sector, for the period from 1-11-2016 to 1-11-2017, to determine the association between BTN1A1 gene polymorphism and reproductive efficiency indicator and heat tolerance in 50 Holstein cows. The results of BTN1A1 gene analysis showed a highly significant Different (P<0.01) between genotypes of BTN1A1 gene’s genotypes AA, AB the percentage were 72.00, 28.00 % respectively. Results showed that services per conception and days open was significantly (P<0.05) affected by polymorphism of BTN1A1 gene and for cows with AA genotype, there was also a significant difference (P<0.05) between the genotypes of BTN1A1 gene for IgG concentration in calves blood who belong to mother
... Show MoreThe study targets exploring the similarities and differences between Iraqi and Malaysian learners of English in refusing marriage proposals. Also, it examines the favored politeness strategies that learners use to protect their interlocutors’ face, heeding both their social distance and status. Data were gathered by a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) which contained six marriage situations. Responses were analyzed based on Beebe et al.’s (1990) refusal taxonomy and Scollon et al.’s (2012) politeness system. The findings indicated that both the Iraqi and Malaysian learners preferred the indirect refusal strategies in marriage proposals, as well as the hierarchical politeness in the form of independence strategies regardless of t
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