John Updike’s use of setting in his fiction has elicited different and even conflicting reactions from critics, varying from symbolic interpretations of setting to a sense of confusion at his use of time and place in his stories.  The present study is an attempt at examining John Updike’s treatment of binary settings in Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories (1962) to reveal theme, characters’ motives and conflicts.  Analyzing Updike’s stories from a structuralist’s perspective reveals his employment of two different places and times in the individual stories as a means of reflecting the psychological state of the characters, as in “The Persistence of Desire”, or expressing conflicting views on social and political is

Introduction: Selenium is an essential trace element involved in different physiological functions of the human body. An inverse relationship between serum selenium levels and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia has been reported. cervical intraepithelial neoplasia is regarded as a potentially premalignant transformation of squamous cells of the cervix. Objectives: To evaluate the relationship between the serum level of selenium and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. Methods: A case-control study was conducted at Baghdad Teaching Hospital and Iraqi National Cancer Research Center in the University of Baghdad during the period from July 2021 to July 2022. A convenient sample of 100 women was enrolled in the current study and included

Water quality planning relies on Biochemical Oxygen Demand BOD. BOD testing takes five days. The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is increasingly used for water resource forecasting. This work designed a PSO technique for estimating everyday BOD at Al-Rustumiya wastewater treatment facility inlet. Al-Rustumiya wastewater treatment plant provided 702 plant-scale data sets during 2012-2022. The PSO model uses the daily data of the water quality parameters, including chemical oxygen demand (COD), chloride (Cl^-), suspended solid (SS), total dissolved solids (TDS), and pH, to determine how each variable affects the daily incoming BOD. PSO and multiple linear regression (MLR) findings are compared, and their perfor

Multipoint forming process is an engineering concept which means that the working surface of the punch and die is produced as hemispherical ends of individual active elements (called pins), where each pin can be independently, vertically displaced using a geometrically reconfigurable die. Several different products can be made without changing tools saved precious production time. Also, the manufacturing of very expensive rigid dies is reduced, and a lot of expenses are saved. But the most important aspects of using such types of equipment are the flexibility of the tooling. This paper presents an experimental investigation of the effect of three main parameters which are blank holder, rubber thickness and forming speed th

Background: Diabetes mellitus consists of a group of diseases characterized by abnormally high blood glucose levels. Glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) is a form of haemoglobin used to identify the average concentration of plasma glucose over prolonged periods of time. It is formed in a non-enzymatic pathway by normal exposure of hemoglobin to high levels of plasma glucose, The main alterations observed in the saliva of Type 1 diabetic patients are hyposalivation and alteration in its composition, particularly those related to the levels of glucose. The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of Glycated haemoglobin level on the level of salivary glucose which may have an effect on oral health condition. Materials and methods

This study was conducted to test the effectiveness of Agaricus bisporus inoculums (spawn) in the ratio of (0.25, 0.5 and 1%) v/v to control Pythium aphanidermatum fungus the causal agent of damping- off disease of cucumber plant. results showed the ability of A. bisporus fungus to protect the seedlings from incidence by P. aphanidermatum . all treatments of edible fungus inoculums were significantly different from pathogen treatment after 15 day of planting and there was no significant difference found from control treatment (without pathogen) . the successful of A. bisporus was continued to protect the seedlings after 30 and 45 day after planting. The numbers of seedlings were (8, 7.25 & 7.25) respectively compared to 5.5 seedlings in con

The cathodic deposition of zinc from simulated chloride wastewater was used to characterize the mass transport properties of a flow-by fixed bed electrochemical reactor composed of vertical stack  of stainless steel nets, operated in batch-recycle mode. The electrochemical reactor employed potential value in such a way that the zinc reduction occurred under mass transport control. This potential was determined by hydrodynamic voltammetry using a borate/chloride solution as supporting electrolyte on stainless steel rotating disc electrode. The results indicate that mass transfer coefficient (K_m) increases with increasing of flow rate (Q) where .The electrochemical reactor proved to be efficient in removing zinc and was abl

The - M ultiple mixing ratios of -transitions from levels of 56Fe populated in 56 56 Fe n n Fe ( , )  reactions are calculated by using const. S.T.M. This method has been used in other works [3,7] but with pure transition or with transitions that can be considered as pure transitions، in our work we used This method for mixed  - transitions in addition to pure  - transitions. The experimental angular distribution coefficients a2 was used from previous works [1] in order to calculet - values. It is clear from the results that the - values are in good agreement or consistent, within associated errors, with those reported previously [1]. The discrepancies that occur are due to inaccuracies existing in the expe

The expansion of building blocks at the expense of agricultural land is one of the main problems causing climate change within the urban area of a city. The research came to determine these indicators, as a study was conducted on the expansion of the building blocks in three municipalities in the city of Baghdad for a period of four decades extended in the form of time cycles for the period (1981-2021) and using ArcMap GIS 10.7 technology. Then, the impact of this expansion on temperature rates was evaluated, as they are the most important climatic elements due to their significant effect on the rest of the elements. The results showed a clear, direct relationship between the increase in urban expansion rates and the corresponding r