Alice Walker (1944) ranks among the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. Through her novels Meridian and the color Purple, Alice outlines many issues concerning the effect of authoritarian thinking upon its often innocent victims, and the possibility of meaningful, productive resistance. Walker's texts aim at giving a voice to those who have no voice especially those poor, rural black women who are robbed of power and the right to make decisions about their own lives by a range of forces standing against them. These texts also aim at clarifying how Walker's female protagonists, Meridian and Celia try to free themselves from oppression, misery , fear and underestimation

Background: The relation between insulin resistance ,leptin levels and other hormones in women with polycystic ovary syndrome(PCOS) is still controversial.Metformin therapy is proved effective in reducing insulin resistance and also in some studies it was seen to be effective in reducing leptin levels.
Al- Kindy Col Med J 2012 ; Vol .8 No. (2) p: 65
Objective: to study the effect of metformin on reducing leptin levels and enhancing ovulation in PCOS women.
Methods:metformin 500mg 3 times daily for 3 months was was given to 36 women
with proved PCOS, in addition to that, other parameters were included.
Results:28 women out of 36(77.78%) showed an evidence of ovulation ovulation after 3 months of metformin therapy(p<0.01)

Background: The excessive use and abuse of antibiotics contribute to bacterial resistance, raising the risk of complications and treatment failures. This study investigates adherence to antibiotic prescriptions among Iraqi dental patients, highlighting implications for antimicrobial resistance.Objective: To assess adherence levels and identify factors influencing antibiotic therapy compliance among dental patients.Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in which adult dental patients aged 18 and older, who had been prescribed antibiotics within the past year, participated. The modified Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 items was used to evaluate adherence, and data were analyzed with IBM SPSS Statistics software V26.Results: Amon

Background: A diverse group of bacteria live in biofilms in the oral cavity. On dental surfaces biofilms form plaque that is potentially involved in caries and periodontal diseases. Periodic studying of plaque microflora and their antimicrobial sensitivity patterns strongly affects the clinical practice in plaque-induced oral diseases. Materials and methods: Dental plaque samples were collected from 22 patients having ages ranged between 33 and 49 years with gingivitis that met the study criteria. Plaque, gingival and gingival bleeding indices (PI, GI, GBI) were measured for each patient. Laboratory procedures included microbiological examination of plaque samples followed by antibiotic sensitivity testing using disc diffusion method were

Staphylococcus Sp.is the most common type of bacteria found in contamination place, we design this
study to compare the contamination accident between two hospitals in Baghdad.One of them isthe Burns
Specialist Hospital in the Medical CityinRusafa and another one is Al-Karama Hospital in Karkh. The
samples were collected fromOperativeWard No1 (OW1), Operative Ward No2 (OW2), Consulting Pharmacy
(CP), Emergency Room (ER), Reception Room (RR), Women's Ward (WW) and Men's Ward (MW).The
samples were taken from inside each clinical unit, surfaces, food, and air. The results showed that the
number of samples containing Staphylococcus sp. bacteria is 81, including 45 belonging to Al-Karama Burns
Ward Ho

This paper is devoted to investigate the effect of internal curing technique on the properties of self-compacting concrete (SCC). In this study, SCC is produced by using silica fume (SF) as partial replacement by weight of cement with percentage of (5%), sand is partially replaced by volume with saturated fine lightweight aggregate (LWA) which is thermostone chips as internal curing material in three percentages of (5%, 10% and 15%) for SCC, two external curing conditions water and air. The experimental work was divided into three parts: in the first part, the workability tests of fresh SCC were conducted. The second part included conducting compressive strength test and modulus of rupture test at ages of (7, 28 and 90). The third part i

The main aim of this paper is studied the punching shear and behavior of reinforced concrete slabs exposed to fires, the possibility of punching shear failure occurred as a result of the fires and their inability to withstand the loads. Simulation by finite element analysis is made to predict the type of failure, distribution temperature through the thickness of the slabs, deformation and punching strength. Nonlinear finite element transient thermal-structural analysis at fire conditions are analyzed by ANSYS package. The validity of the modeling is performed for the mechanical and thermal properties of materials from earlier works from literature to decrea

This paper introduces experimental results of eighteen simply supported reinforced concrete beams of cross sections ( ) and length 3000 mm to study the effect of lacing reinforcement on the performance of such beams under static and fatigue loads. Twelve reinforced concrete beams (two of them are casted with vertical shear reinforcement used as control beams) are tested under four points bending loading with displacement control technique and six laced reinforced concrete beams were exposed to high frequency (10 Hz) by fixing the fatigue load in each cycle. Three parameters are used in the designed beams, which are: lacing bar diameter (4mm, 6mm, and 8mm), lacing bar inclination angle to horizontal , and lacing steel rat

The aims of this study are to measure the defect rate and analyze the problems of production of ready concrete mixture plant by using Six Sigma methodology which is a business strategy for operations improvement depending basically on the application of its sub-methodology DMAIC improvement cycle and the basic statistical tools where the process sigma level of concrete production in the case study was 2.41 σ.

Concrete is widely used in construction materials since early 1800's. It has been known that concrete is weak in tension, so it requires some addition materials to have ductile behavior and enhance its tensile strength and strain capacity to improve their uses. In this study reactive powder concrete (RPC) was used with steel fiber by using different types of cement; (Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and/or Portland- Limestone cement (PLC)) with three types of mixtures (OPC at the first mix, 50 % OPC and 50 % PLC at the second mix and PLC at the third mix). The behavior of RPC with steel fibers on compressive strength and tensile strength of concrete with different ages of curing (7, 14, 28 and 60) days and shrinkage have been studied. The clo