Criticism is inherently impolite and a face-threatening act generally leading to conflicts among interlocutors. It is equally challenging for both native and non-native speakers, and needs pre-planning before performing it. The current research examines the production of non-institutional criticism by Iraqi EFL university learners and American native speakers. More specifically, it explores to what extent Iraqi EFL learners and American native speakers vary in (i) performing criticism, (ii) mitigating criticism, and (iii) their pragmatic choices according to the contextual variables of power and distance. To collect data, a discourse-completion task was used to elicit written data from 20 Iraqi EFL learners and 20 American native speakers. Findings revealed that though both groups regularly used all strategy types, Iraqi EFL learners criticized differently from American speakers. When expressing criticism, Iraqi learners tended to be indirect whereas American speakers tended to be direct. In mitigating their criticism, Iraqi learners were significantly different from American speakers in their use of internal and external modifiers. Furthermore, both groups substantially varied their pragmatic choices according to context. The differences in their pragmatic performance could be attributed to a number of interplaying factors such as EFL learners’ limited linguistic and pragmatic knowledge, the context of learning and L1 pragmatic transfer. Finally, a number of conclusions and pedagogical implications are presented.
Two unsupervised classifiers for optimum multithreshold are presented; fast Otsu and k-means. The unparametric methods produce an efficient procedure to separate the regions (classes) by select optimum levels, either on the gray levels of image histogram (as Otsu classifier), or on the gray levels of image intensities(as k-mean classifier), which are represent threshold values of the classes. In order to compare between the experimental results of these classifiers, the computation time is recorded and the needed iterations for k-means classifier to converge with optimum classes centers. The variation in the recorded computation time for k-means classifier is discussed.
The current study included a review of the registration and description of the Theretra alecto Boi, 1827 (Levant hawk moth), samples were collected from various areas of the Baghdad belt and the provinces of the Middle Euphrates, confirmation in the description was on the most important parts of the body included the head and it's appendages, pronotum, wings as well as male and female genitalia. The morphological characteristics under study were enhanced by illustrations and images. Information on the locations and date of the collection was also confirmed. This study aims to identify the most important characteristics of the diagnosis of the species and the review of appearance variations, especially the analytical style of wings, coupling
... Show MoreThis paper deals with the subjective reflections of consumer values on fashion design. The consumer self is determined by the consumer's idea of himself, according to the intellectual, spiritual and social values, and these values take their intellectual reflection in the form of material values that the consumer finds in fashion design. These values are based on considerations between what is intellectual represented by the values of the consumer, and what is material determined by the fashion design, which also proceed from values that are visible or implied in costume design, such as the function, beauty and symbol. The consumer self gets its material image represented in the
... Show MorePseudomonas aeruginosa, a ubiquitous environmental organism, is a difficult-to-treat opportunistic pathogen due to its broad-spectrum antibiotic resistance and its ability to form biofilms. In this study, we investigate the link between resistance to a clinically important antibiotic, imipenem, and biofilm formation. First, we observed that the laboratory strain P. aeruginosa PAO1 carrying a mutation in the oprD gene, which confers resistance to imipenem, showed a modest reduction in biofilm formation.We also observed an inverse relationship between imipenem resistance and biofilm formation for imipenem-resistant strains selected in vitro, as well as for clinical isolates.We identified two clinical isolates of P. aeruginosa from the sputum
... Show MoreIn the field of data security, the critical challenge of preserving sensitive information during its transmission through public channels takes centre stage. Steganography, a method employed to conceal data within various carrier objects such as text, can be proposed to address these security challenges. Text, owing to its extensive usage and constrained bandwidth, stands out as an optimal medium for this purpose. Despite the richness of the Arabic language in its linguistic features, only a small number of studies have explored Arabic text steganography. Arabic text, characterized by its distinctive script and linguistic features, has gained notable attention as a promising domain for steganographic ventures. Arabic text steganography harn
... Show MoreThe research aimed: 1. Definition of family climate for the university students. 2. Definition of statistical significance of differences in family climate variable depending on the sex (males - females) and specialization (Scientific - humanity). 3. Definition of academic adjustment for university students. 4. Definition of correlation between climate and academic adjustment. The research sample formed of (300) male and female students by (150) male of scientific and humanitarian specialization and (150) female of scientific and humanitarian specialization randomly selected from the research community. To achieve the objectives of the research the researcher prepared a tool to measure family climate. And adopted the measure (Azzam 2010)
... Show MoreThe paper deals with a study of peculiarities of gluttonic text structures in the Arabic-Russian language pair at the sociolinguistic, system structural, functional-stylistic and lexico-semantic aspects from the standpoint of view at functional approach to the phenomena of language systems and the gluttonic discourse as a special type of ver bal and social discourse. Profound attention is paid to the consideration of lexical and grammatical means of explication of glutton discourse on the examples of identi cal Arabic and Russian literary texts as well as language situations in Arab countries and Russia, features of which are due to the characteristics of gluttonic discourses that reflect the features of the two different ethnolingual cu
... Show MoreIn this study, a different design of passive air Solar Chimney(SC)was tested by installing it in the south wall of insulated test room in Baghdad city. The SC was designed from vertical and inclined parts connected serially together, the vertical SC (first part) has a single pass and Thermal Energy Storage Box Collector (TESB (refined paraffin wax as Phase Change Material(PCM)-Copper Foam Matrix(CFM))), while the inclined SC was designed in single pass, double passes and double pass with TESB (semi refined paraffin wax with copper foam matrix) with selective working angle ((30o, 45o and 60o). A computational model was employed and solved by Finite Volume Method (FVM) to simulate the air i
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