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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
Fri Jan 02 2026
Journal Name
Journal Of Baghdad College Of Dentistry
The Effect of Plasma Treatment on Shear Bond Strength of High Impact Acrylic Resin Denture Base Lined with Two Types of Soft Lining Materials after Immersion in Distilled Water and Denture Cleanser
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Background: In dentistry, dentist takes the advantages of soft lining materials due to the viscoelastic properties. The major problem is the adhesion of the soft liner with the denture base material. Materials and Methods: Heat cured of high impact acrylic resin specimens prepared with dimensions 75x13x13mm for shear bond strength test, soft lining material (Refit and Mollosil) with a 3-mm thickness and used to join each two acrylic blocks. Also four specimens with the same previous dimensions utilized for chemical and physical surface analysis. The specimens grouped as control (without plasma) and experiment (with oxygen plasma) treated high impact acrylic specimens. Results: Plasma treatment increased the shear bond strength for both Refi

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Publication Date
Mon Feb 04 2019
Journal Name
Journal Of The College Of Education For Women
The Effect of Using tow Methods of Pronounced and written Feed Back in Academic acquisition of students of technical medicine institute in philosophy curriculum
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The world faces, in the last years of the last century and the beginning
of the current century i.e. the 21st century, a great expansion and a large
openness on new worlds in studies differ in their development, detection of
thinking methods and practice of mental processes.
The recent studies have proved an increase in the scientific
achievement among students through the presence of new techniques one of
which is Landa Organizing and Exploring Model concerning Physiology that
deals with various body organs.
This research aims at identifying the effectiveness of Landa Model on
the achievement of the Technical Medicine Institute students in Physiology so
as to be sure of the following nil hypothesis: there i

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Publication Date
Tue Dec 31 2019
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
Measuring the Range Application of Internal Marketing for HRM Philosophy in the Public Company for Electrical and Electronic Industries
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The reason behind choosing this topic " internal marketing (IM) of human resource management (HRM)" is to highlight the advantages of using IM in the organization framework. The problem of the research paper lies in not paying enough attention to employees genuine needs as they interact with each other in the sake of organization prosper. This research paper can be used as indictor to expose the weaknesses that the organization encounters daily. The current research paper attempts at examining the possibility of developing philosophy of internal marketing of human resources and its most practices, empowering staff, training courses, motivations and recognitions, and within departments communication, in order to reach targeted res

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Publication Date
Thu Oct 30 2008
Journal Name
College Of Islamic Sciences
Return in the gift and its contraindications in Islamic jurisprudence and Iraqi law
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In his life, a person engages in different types of verbal and actual dispositions that result in various effects, some of which are necessary and not valid, such as selling, and some are not necessary for one of the two contracting parties, such as a mortgage or both, such as lending and agency. However, there are some actions that are sometimes necessary and not necessary at other times, such as a gift that indicates in its simplest sense. Owning money for another without compensation, it is one of the doors of benevolence and benevolence, and it is one of the attributes of perfection with which God, may He be glorified and exalted be He, described Himself. - And if this analogy is the difference - and distanced himself from greed, the

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Publication Date
Sat Dec 01 2018
Journal Name
Journal Of Accounting And Financial Studies ( Jafs )
Evaluating the supervision tools of the Central Bank of Iraq to verify the continuity of private banks: An applied research in the Central Bank of Iraq
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The aim of the research to highlight the calendar of the most important tools used by the Central Bank of Iraq, in the implementation of the function of supervisory oversight, to verify the stability of the banking system, and protect the funds of shareholders, and depositors in general and the absence of any raises the risks of default and financial failure in particular, for commercial banks. The most important flaws and weaknesses in these tools, in the early detection of the risks of continuity in a timely manner, The study concluded a set of conclusions, including the weakness of the tools used in the performance of the function of supervisory oversight in detecting cases of default and financial failure in the early time as well as

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Publication Date
Mon Oct 22 2018
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
The role of organizational learning ability to improve the performance of hospital organizations under the accumulation of intellectual capital Study hospital enterprise sector in Algeria
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        This study aims to identify the amount of the effect of the ability to learn the individuals within the organization on the accumulation of intellectual capital and the role it plays in improving the performance of the organization, and to achieve that, the researcher designed a questionnaire to collect data and information from the surveyed respondents and analyzed using SPSS software, the study concluded after testing hypotheses to have a direct impact between the capacity for organizational learning and the accumulation of intellectual capital, which in turn affects the accumulation of intellectual capital as a positive and direct impact on the performance of the organization, al

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Publication Date
Wed Dec 15 2021
Journal Name
Al-academy
The communicative education of fine arts in the COVID-19 crisis and its manifestations in the modernization of the works of the Iraqi painter "Nabil Ali as a model"
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 This study attempts to address the importance of communicative digitization in the field of various arts for the sake of continuity of shopping and aesthetic, artistic and intellectual appreciation of artistic achievements by the recipient on various places of their residence in light of the COVID 19 crisis, and to highlight the importance of the plastic arts of the Iraqi painter exclusively and how it expresses in a contemporary way the environment or life reality in Iraq in light of this crisis. With all its implications affecting the life reality from various aspects and methods of its negative and positive employment. As for the research procedures, the researcher reviewed the research methodology represented by the descriptive ana

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Publication Date
Sat Dec 31 2022
Journal Name
Iraqi Journal Of Market Research And Consumer Protection
THE ROLE OF COMMODITY DUMPING IN ENCOURAGING THE IRAQI CONSUMER TO BUY NON- ESSENTIAL GOODS: THE ROLE OF COMMODITY DUMPING IN ENCOURAGING THE IRAQI CONSUMER TO BUY NON- ESSENTIAL GOODS
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ABSTRACT

The research aims to study the effect of the commodity dumping phenomenon that Iraq suffered after 2003 on the consumption pattern of individuals, towards the acquisition of non-essential goods (luxury). To achieve our goal we relied on the questionnaire as a main tool for obtaining information related to the research, and it was distributed on a random sample of consumers in the city of Baghdad with 250 questionnaires. The answers of the research sample were analyzed using the statistical program (SPSS). The percentage weights and the factorial analysis method were used also to arrange the variables that affected on changing consumption patterns. The research reached a set of conclusions:

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Publication Date
Sat Dec 01 2018
Journal Name
Journal Of Economics And Administrative Sciences
Comparison of the method of partial least squares and the algorithm of singular values decomposion to estimate the parameters of the logistic regression model in the case of the problem of linear multiplicity by using the simulation
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The logistic regression model is an important statistical model showing the relationship between the binary variable and the explanatory variables.                                                        The large number of explanations that are usually used to illustrate the response led to the emergence of the problem of linear multiplicity between the explanatory variables that make estimating the parameters of the model not accurate.    

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Publication Date
Fri Jan 02 2026
Journal Name
Journal Of Baghdad College Of Dentistry
Evaluation of shear bond strength of zirconia to tooth structure after different zirconia surface treatment techniques
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Background: This study aimed to evaluate the effect of zirconia different surface treatments (primer, sandblast with 50μmAl2O3, Er,Cr:YSGG laser) on shear bond strength between zirconia surface and resin cement. Material and methods: Sixty presintered Y-TZP zirconia cylinder specimens (IPS e.max ZirCAD, Ivoclar vivadent) will be fabricated and sintered in high temperature furnace of (1500 C for 8 hours) according to manufacturer’s instructions to the selected size and shape of (5mm. in diameter and 6mm in height). All specimens were ground flat using 600.800.1000.1200, aluminum oxide abrasive paper to obtain a standardized surface roughness. Surface roughness values were then recorded in µm using surface roughness tester (profi

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