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Numbness of the Mind Paradigm in Haruki Murakami’s After the Quake and Iraq’s After the Quake
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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 quake. Literally, Iraq may never have witnessed a real earthquake, but one can say its metaphorical meaning has a great implication upon the lives of its people. The reference to Iraq after the quake in this paper would focus on the aftermath of the 2003 War such as: the feeling of disconnection among people, disinclination in life, feelings of deprivation and depreciation, and the corruption of leaders and politicians. Likewise, though Murakami’s short stories chosen in this paper do not deal with the actual earthquake, its implications can be felt as we read the stories. His characters witness a sense of disconnectedness and the feeling of being unappreciated even when they do the hardest and most dangerous jobs.

    Two of Murakami’s short stories “UFO in Kushiro” and “Super Frog Saves Tokyo” are tackled to show the paradigm and comparison between the lives of these characters (that are actually a reflection of Japanese lives in mid 1990s) and the restricted depressing life of the Iraqis in the postwar era of the 2003 War. Both have experienced fragmentation, despair and lack of self-worth due to the reasons that are explained in this paper. The Iraqis however, may have experienced a deeper suffering where one can say they have reached a state of the numbness or enslavement of the mind and feelings. The paper also highlights that animosity should be dissipated from the hearts of people specifically in politicians and top leaders. Though it is a complicated world, man should conceive that the prosperity of mankind rests in his own hands. Cherishing the diversity of cultures and understanding each other’s moral principles are the means to diminish evil in order to reach the desired bliss.

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Publication Date
Sat Dec 13 2014
Journal Name
Environmental Monitoring And Assessment
Estimating the health risks associated with air pollution in Baghdad City, Iraq
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Publication Date
Mon Aug 18 2025
Journal Name
Journal Of Almaarif University College
Land Cover Change in Al-Jadriya Twist For the Period (1976-2024)
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The study addressed the change in the nature of the land cover of the Al-Jadriya Twist area for the period from 1976-2024 with an area of (140 km2)and for a period of (48 years) based on satellite images and their analysis using geographic information systems. The main classifications of the area were reached (water cover, residential areas, vegetation cover, in addition to empty, unused areas). The extracted data indicate a decrease in the water cover and the change rate reached (-14.29) and the residential areas increased with a change rate of (28.26), while the vegetation cover rate was recorded from (45 km2) to (66 km2) and the empty areas had a change rate of (-78.57).

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Publication Date
Tue Dec 15 2020
Journal Name
Aip Conference Proceedings
Land cover change for Baghdad City in the period 1986 to 2019
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Earth cover of the city of Baghdad was studied exclusively within its administrative border during the period 1986-2019 using satellite scenes every five years, as Landsat TM5 and OLI8 satellite images were used. The land has been classified into ten subclasses according to the characteristics of the land cover and was classified using the Maximum Likelihood classifier. A study of the changing urban reality of the city of Baghdad during that period and the change of vegetation due to environmental factors, human influences and some human phenomena that affected the accuracy of the classification for some areas east of the city of Baghdad is presented. The year 2019 has been highlighted because of its privacy in changing the land cover of th

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Publication Date
Wed Jan 01 2025
Journal Name
Journal Of Animal Health And Production
Resveratrol Administration Reverses the Endometriosis-Mediated Outcomes via Tgfβ Signaling in Rats
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Endometriosis (END) is a chronic inflammatory disorder marked by the existence of endometrial-like tissue in the abnormal sites, resulting in immunological and inflammatory dysregulation. This study was to examine the impact of resveratrol and the AhR antagonist, CH223191, on the modulation of inflammatory and immunological responses in an experimental rat model of endometriosis. Adult female rats and adult male rats were employed in the current study. The female rats were randomly divided into the following: Naïve rats, donor rats for endometrial tissue transplantation, recipient endometriotic rats, and fertile male rats utilized for fertility tests. All endometriotic rats were equally divided into four groups, as follows: END group: Rats

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Publication Date
Tue Oct 12 2021
Journal Name
Innovative Infrastructure Solutions
Facilitating claims settlement using building information modeling in the school building projects
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Publication Date
Sun Jul 09 2023
Journal Name
Journal Of Engineering
Gas Flow Formation in the Inertial Filtering (IF) Gas Separators Curvilinear Channels
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This paper deals with an up to date problem for oil and gas industry- separation of the gas -fluid fogs. Here is described the worked out physical model of the gas movement process in the sections of the inertial filtering (IF) gas separators. One can find the mathematical model for research of the fields of velocities and pressures in the inertial curvilinear channel. The main simplifications and assumptions are explained. This mathematical model has been made using mathematical program Maple and it is received the 3-d graphic of the distribution componential speed parts in the channel and also 2-d graphics at the channel sectional view when the flow is flat. The new method for gas - fluid systems separation is suggested.

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Publication Date
Fri Dec 22 2006
Journal Name
Journal Of Planner And Development
The productive partnership in development communication is an effective strategy for change
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This study can be considered as un introduction to the idioms and the strategy about the productive partnership development connection, that helps the researcher and the organization in their work in to activate development and the natural sources,manegment,to improve the two sides active connected to the local society, and to use it as easier and smoother participation of the people who work in development field and the natural sources management research, That connection depends mostly upon the capability of researcher and the development worker to increase the ability of individual and local society to specify and analyzing their problems and to try solutions to make their life better with good income.   

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Publication Date
Sun Dec 26 2021
Journal Name
Sultan Qaboos University Journal For Science [squjs]
The Deubiquitylase USP5 Knockdown Reduces Semliki Forest Virus Replication in HeLa Cells
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Semliki Forest Virus (SFV), a member of the Alphavirus genus in the Togaviridae family, is a small-enveloped, positive-sense single-stranded RNA (+ssRNA) virus. The virus is spread by mosquitos and can infect humans, resulting in mild febrile disease with symptoms that include fever, myalgia, arthralgia, persistent headaches and asthenia.  Virulent strains of SFV in mice cause lethal encephalitis by infecting neurons in the central nervous system. In on-going experiments in the research group using a focused siRNA screen we have investigated the role of deubiquitylases (DUBs) during SFV infection (as a model alphavirus) and monitored the effect of DUB depletion on cell viability after infection. We identified a group of DUBs that h

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Publication Date
Sun Mar 01 2020
Journal Name
Ama, Agricultural Mechanization In Asia, Africa And Latin America
Could conservation tillage farming be the solution for agricultural soils in Iraq?
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Soil is the cardinal resource for agricultural crops. Healthy soil will produce healthy plants. Since healthy soil is the important goal for the farmers, they need to select the best tillage system to achieve that goal. There are two main types of tillage systems. Conservation tillage (no-tillage farming) uses agricultural machinery that performs a double function; tillage and seed farming simultaneously. In contrast, conventional tillage farming uses multiple agricultural machines to till and seed the soil. The farmers in the northern governorates of Iraq have used the conservation farming system for a long time. However, the farmers who live in the middle and southern governorates in Iraq use conventional tillage farming. Because most of

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Publication Date
Mon Jun 05 2023
Journal Name
Journal Of Engineering
An Investigation to the Abrasive Wear in Pipes Used for Oil Industry
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The work reported in this study focusing on the abrasive wear behavior for three types of pipes used in oil industries (Carbone steel, Alloy steel and Stainless steel) using a wear apparatus for dry and wet tests, manufactured according to ASTM G65. Silica sand with
hardness (1000-1100) HV was used as abrasive material. The abrasive wear of these pipes has been measured experimentally by measuring the wear rate for each case under different sliding speeds, applied loads, and sand conditions (dry or wet). All tests have been conducted using sand of particle size (200-425) µm, ambient temperature of 34.5 °C and humidity 22% (Lab conditions).
The results show that the material loss due to abrasive wear increased monotonically with

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