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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
Tue Jul 01 2003
Journal Name
Bulletin Of The Iraq Natural History Museum (p-issn: 1017-8678 , E-issn: 2311-9799)
RECORDING OF FIVE MONOGENETIC TREMATODES FOR THE FIRST TIME FROM FISHES OF IRAQ
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A total of 589 fishes, belonging to 23 species were collected from eight different localities
in north and mid Iraq during 1993. The parasitological inspection of such fishes revealed the
presence of 59 parasite species and two fungi. Among such parasites, five monogenetic
trematodes were recorded on the gills of some fishes for the first time in Iraq. These
included:- Ancyrocephalus vanbenedenii on Liza abu from Tigris river at Al-Zaafaraniya,
south of Baghdad; Dactylogyrus anchoratus on Cyprinus carpio from Tigris river at Al –
Zaafaranya D. minutus on C. carpio from both Tigris river at Al-Zaafaraniya and Euphrates
river at Al-Qadisiya dam lake; Discocotyle sagittata on L. abu from both the drainage system
at

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Publication Date
Sun Mar 30 2008
Journal Name
Iraqi Journal Of Chemical And Petroleum Engineering
Pyrolysis of High-density Polyethylene for the Production of Fuel-like Liquid Hydrocarbon
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Pyrolysis of high density polyethylene (HDPE) was carried out in a 750 cm3 stainless steel autoclave reactor, with temperature ranging from 470 to 495° C and reaction times up to 90 minute. The influence of the operating conditions on the component yields was studied. It was found that the optimum cracking condition for HDPE that maximized the oil yield to 70 wt. % was 480°C and 20 minutes. The results show that for higher cracking temperature, and longer reaction times there was higher production of gas and coke. Furthermore, higher temperature increases the aromatics and produce lighter oil with lower viscosity.

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Publication Date
Sun Jun 25 2017
Journal Name
Biomedical And Pharmacology Journal
The Impact of Toxoplasma gondii on Mitochondrial DNA of Sub-fertile Men Sperms
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Toxoplasmosis is the most common, widespread disease in the world which is caused by Toxoplasma gondii.The objective of the current study is to determine the effect of the Toxoplasma gondii infection on male sperm, especially on the mitochondria of sperm for men who suffer infertility and the possibility of a hereditary mutation. Sixty seminal fluid and serum samples were taken from sub- fertile patients who attended Teba center for in vitro fertilization / Babylon and similarly samples were also obtained from healthy individuals as a control group, their ages ranged from 20 to 60 years old during the period from 1st may /2016 till 25th January/2017. All samples subjected to the tests included Macroscopic and microscopic examination, molecu

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Publication Date
Sat Jan 25 2020
Journal Name
International Journal Of Research In Pharmaceutical Sciences
Determination of the Dissociation Constants of Metformin from a Second Derivative UV Spectrum
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An environmentally begnin second derivative spectrometric approach was developed for the estimation of the dissociation constants pKa(s) of metformin, a common anti-diabetic drug.  The ultraviolet spectra of the aqueous solution of metformin were measured at different acidities, then the second derivative of each spectrum was graphed. The overlaid second derivative graphs exhibited two isobestic points at 225.5 nm and 244 nm pointing out to the presence of two dissociation constants for metformin pKa1 and pKa2, respectively. The method was validated by evaluating the reproducibility of the acquired results by comparing the estimated values of the dissociation constants of two different strategies that show excellent matching. As we

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Publication Date
Sat Feb 01 2020
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
Analysis of the relationship of waste recycling to sustainable development objectives 2015-2030
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Waste recycling is one of the modern means of treating waste and minimizing its harmful effects that have caused problems for all countries of the world through the disposal of them in a safe and healthy manner as well as achieving economic and social benefits to the United Nations, and through the goals of sustainable development. 2015-2013 seeks to solve the environmental problems, including various peoples of the world, through various projects and programs, including waste recycling. Here is the question of whether there is a relationship between waste recycling and the goals of sustainable development, the research seeks to answer through five categories to determine the type of relationship between waste recycling and the g

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Publication Date
Fri Oct 30 2020
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
Application of Multi-Objective Optimization on the basis of Ratio Analysis (MOORA) Method
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The paper aims is to solve the problem of choosing the appropriate project from several service projects for the Iraqi Martyrs Foundation or arrange them according to the preference within the targeted criteria. this is done by using Multi-Criteria Decision Method (MCDM), which is the method of Multi-Objective Optimization by Ratios Analysis (MOORA) to measure the composite score of performance that each alternative gets and the maximum benefit accruing to the beneficiary and according to the criteria and weights that are calculated by the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The most important findings of the research and relying on expert opinion are to choose the second project as the best alternative and make an arrangement acco

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Publication Date
Mon May 22 2023
Journal Name
Journal Of Optics
The influence of gold nanoparticles on electro-optical properties of nematic liquid crystal
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Publication Date
Mon Mar 27 2023
Journal Name
8th Engineering And 2nd International Conference For College Of Engineering – University Of Baghdad: Coec8-2021 Proceedings
Evaluation of the capability of Shatt Al-Arab River to control flood discharge
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Abstract. Shatt Al-Arab River was the most important tide river in Iraq, it suffered from neglect and lack of maintenance in the past decades. The river embankment is constantly exposed to erosion processes due to several factors, one of the most important of these factors is the movement of water currents due to the tidal energy coming from the Arabian Gulf. In this study, one dimension unsteady-state model was implemented to study river flood capacity simulation by using HEC-RAS (5.0.7) software in Shatt Al Arab River and its tributaries. The data included flow rate, water level records were collected daily from 2018 to 2020 at different stations along the mentioned river and its feeders, additionally, the considered flood discharge data

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Publication Date
Mon Jun 12 2006
Journal Name
Iraqi Journal Of Laser
Effect of Preheating on the Parameters of Laser Keyhole Welding Process: Analytical Study
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In this work, results of a mathematical analysis of the role of workpiece preheating in laser keyhole welding were presented. This analysis considered the steady-state welding as well as certain range of boundary conditions over which preheating effect would be indicated. This work is an attempt to interpret the role of preheating to increase welding depth and perform keyhole welding with high quality using physical and thermal properties of steel alloys.

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Publication Date
Sun Mar 08 2015
Journal Name
All Days
Distribution of New Horizontal Wells by the Use of Artificial Neural Network Algorithm
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Abstract<p>It is an established fact that substantial amounts of oil usually remain in a reservoir after primary and secondary processes. Therefore; there is an ongoing effort to sweep that remaining oil. Field optimization includes many techniques. Horizontal wells are one of the most motivating factors for field optimization. The selection of new horizontal wells must be accompanied with the right selection of the well locations. However, modeling horizontal well locations by a trial and error method is a time consuming method. Therefore; a method of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) has been employed which helps to predict the optimum performance via proposed new wells locations by incorporatin</p> ... Show More
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