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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 01 2018
Journal Name
Al-khwarizmi Engineering Journal
Enhancement of Hybrid Solar Air Conditioning System using a New Control Strategy
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Enhancement of the performance for hybrid solar air conditioning system was presented in this paper. The refrigerant temperature leaving the condenser was controlled using three-way valve, this valve was installed after the compressor to regulate refrigerant flow rate towards the solar system. A control system using data logger, sensors and computer was proposed to set the opening valve ratio. The function of control program using LabVIEW software is to obtain a minimum refrigerant temperature from the condenser outlet to enhance the overall COP of the unit by increasing the degree of subcooled refrigerant. A variable load electrical heater with coiled pipe was used instead of the solar collector and the storage tank to simulate the sola

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Publication Date
Wed May 10 2023
Journal Name
Journal Of Engineering
Vibration Control Analysis of a Smart Flexible Cantilever Beam Using Smart Material
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This paper features the modeling and design of a pole placement and output Feedback control technique for the Active Vibration Control (AVC) of a smart flexible cantilever beam for a Single Input Single Output (SISO) case. Measurements and actuation actions done by using patches of piezoelectric layer, it is bonded to the master structure as sensor/actuator at a certain position of the cantilever beam.
The smart structure is modeled based on the concept of piezoelectric theory, Bernoulli -Euler beam theory, using Finite Element Method (FEM) and the state space techniques. The number of modes is reduced using the controllability and observability grammians retaining the first three
dominant vibratory modes, and for the reduced syste

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Publication Date
Thu Jun 01 2023
Journal Name
Iraqi Journal Of Physics
Preparation of SiO2:TiO2 for High-Performance Double Layer Anti-Reflection Coating
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        In this work, an anti-reflection coating was prepared in the region (400-1000) nm of wavelength, with a double layer of silicon dioxide (SiO2) as an inner layer and the second layer of the mixture (SiO2) and titanium dioxide (TiO2) with certain ratios, as an outer layer using the chemical spraying method with a number of 6 sprays of layer SiO2 and 12 sprays of layer SiO2 - TiO2. Using the method of chemical spraying deposited on the glass as a substrate with a different number of sprays of SiO2, and a fixed number of TiO2-SiO2. The optical and structural properties were determined using UV-Vis spectroscopy and atomic force mi

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Publication Date
Sun Nov 01 2020
Journal Name
Iraqi Journal Of Laser
TREATMENT OF SYMPTOMATIC CERVICAL ECTOPY USING CO2 LASER (10600 nm) – Case Study
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Background: Cervical ectopy advanced to erosion is one of the common conditions in gynecological and pathological study. It is considered as a physiologic condition resulting from columnar epithelium migration from the cervical canal into the vaginal portion of the cervix, in which no treatment for asymptomatic cervical ectropion can be given. Treatment can be accomplished via thermal cauterization (Electro cautery), Cryosurgery. CO2 laser therapy is another modality of treatment.

Objective: To study the effectiveness of CO2 laser therapy and evaluate it as a biomedical tool for the treatment of cervical ectropion. The study was done at Laser Medicine Research Clinic at the

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Publication Date
Thu Mar 30 2017
Journal Name
Iraqi Journal Of Pharmaceutical Sciences ( P-issn 1683 - 3597 E-issn 2521 - 3512)
Formulation of Metoprolol Bilayer Tablets as an Oral Modified Release Dosage Form
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Metoprolol is a β1 adrenergic blocker used in treatment of heart diseases. Metoprolol (100mg) tablets was formulated as a modified release oral system utilizing the concept of bilayer system, first layer contained (30mg) as immediate release and the other (70mg) in the sustained release matrix.  The immediate release layer consisted of lactose or microcrystalline cellulose as diluents with sodium starch glycolate or sodium croscarmellose as disintegrants. The result showed that the layer contains microcrystalline cellulose and 2% sodium starch glycolate gave disintegration time similar to that of conventional metoprolol tartrate tablet. This result was subjected in the subsequent preparation of the bilayer tablet. The

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Publication Date
Thu Mar 21 2019
Journal Name
J. Eng. Appl. Sci
Developing an Arabic handwritten recognition system by means of artificial neural network
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The matter of handwritten text recognition is as yet a major challenge to mainstream researchers. A few ways deal with this challenge have been endeavored in the most recent years, for the most part concentrating on the English pre-printed or handwritten characters space. Consequently, the need to effort a research concerning to Arabic texts handwritten recognition. The Arabic handwriting presents unique technical difficulties because it is cursive, right to left in writing and the letters convert its shapes and structures when it is putted at initial, middle, isolation or at the end of words. In this study, the Arabic text recognition is developed and designed to recognize image of Arabic text/characters. The proposed model gets a single l

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Publication Date
Wed Mar 29 2017
Journal Name
Iraqi Journal Of Pharmaceutical Sciences ( P-issn 1683 - 3597 E-issn 2521 - 3512)
Application of Seed Mucilage Extracted from Lallemantia royleana as a Suspending Agent
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The mucilage from the seeds of Lallemantia royleana family Labiatae was extracted and subjected to preformulation study for evaluation of its suitability for use as suspending agent. Furosemide suspensions were prepared using (1.5% w/v) of the extracted Lallemantia royleana mucilage, (1.5% w/v) chitosan and (0.35% w/v) xanthan gum. The mucilage was white in color and the average yield of dried mucilage obtained from L.royleana nutlets was 14 % w/w of the seeds used. It is sparingly soluble in water but swells in contact with it, giving a highly viscous solution. It is slightly acidic to neutral. It was found that the extracted natural mucilage of Lallemantia royleana exhibited a higher viscosity profil

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Publication Date
Fri Oct 01 2010
Journal Name
Iraqi Journal Of Physics
Mechanical Strength of Alumina Compacts Lubricated with Poly (methacrylic acid esters) Copolymers
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In recent years, there has been a rapid development in research on high performance ceramics for mechanical, electrical and medical industries. This development will be shown for alumina as a representative for oxide ceramics powders.
Dry–pressing forming technique was used to prepare different ceramic compacts for alumina grafted by polymethacrylate polymers. All Alumina compact were fired firstly at 1200 ◌ْ C, then
at 1600 ◌ْ C.
Mechanical strength was examined in different means, some
depends on compression and other depends on impact. Hardness was
also measured .The results obtained were compared with that of
Alumina compact prepared under the same condition from Alumina
especially made for pressing .

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Publication Date
Fri Jan 01 2016
Journal Name
Aip Conference Proceedings
Application of simulated annealing to solve multi-objectives for aggregate production planning
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Aggregate production planning (APP) is one of the most significant and complicated problems in production planning and aim to set overall production levels for each product category to meet fluctuating or uncertain demand in future. and to set decision concerning hiring, firing, overtime, subcontract, carrying inventory level. In this paper, we present a simulated annealing (SA) for multi-objective linear programming to solve APP. SA is considered to be a good tool for imprecise optimization problems. The proposed model minimizes total production and workforce costs. In this study, the proposed SA is compared with particle swarm optimization (PSO). The results show that the proposed SA is effective in reducing total production costs and req

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Publication Date
Thu Apr 18 2019
Journal Name
Al-kindy College Medical Journal
Congenital Club Foot Treated By Of Ponseti Method : A Short-Term Results
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Background: Congenital club foot is a complex deformity of foot .It is a collection of different abnormalities, with different etiologies. Consequently, Severity varies with   difficulties in evaluating treatment strategies with outcome results. The treatment of congenital club foot remains controversial. Usually, the orthopedist's goal is to obtain anatomically and functionally normal feet in all patients.                                Objective: To asses short term follow up result of conservatively treated club feet in relation to the age

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