The covid-19 global pandemic has influenced the day-to-day lives of people across the world. One consequence of this has been significant distortion to the subjective speed at which people feel like time is passing. To date, temporal distortions during covid-19 have mainly been studied in Europe. The current study therefore sought to explore experiences of the passage of time in Iraq. An online questionnaire was used to explore the passage of time during the day, week and the 11 months since the first period of covid-19 restrictions were imposed in Iraq. The questionnaire also measured affective and demographic factors, and task-load. The results showed that distortions to the passage of time were widespread in Iraq. Participants consistently reported a slowing of the passage of time for the day and the week during the pandemic in comparison to normal (i.e. before the pandemic). Participants also reported that it felt like longer than 11-months since the first lockdown began. The passage of time during the day and week were not predicted by any demographic, affective or task-load measures taken in the study. The perceived length of time since the first lockdown was however predicted by stress and change of life due to covid, with greater stress and greater change of life being associated with greater subjective lengthening of the pandemic. The findings indicate that whilst distortions to the passage of time during covid-19 appear to be a global phenomenon, the factors which predict temporal experience during the pandemic differ between countries and cultures.
Embracing digital technological advancements in media and communication has led government entities to adopt communication practices fully aligned with the digital and networked system in government communication. Traditional media practices within the government environment increasingly rely on the ability to utilize digital tools and systems for content creation, communication, evaluation, and the management of the entire communication process within an electronic and intelligent framework for government services. Naturally, this transformation has caught the attention of communication and public relations researchers worldwide, as the digital and networked aspects of government communication now form an intelle
... Show MoreAs they are the smallest functional parts of the muscle, motor units (MUs) are considered as the basic building blocks of the neuromuscular system. Monitoring MU recruitment, de-recruitment, and firing rate (by either invasive or surface techniques) leads to the understanding of motor control strategies and of their pathological alterations. EMG signal decomposition is the process of identification and classification of individual motor unit action potentials (MUAPs) in the interference pattern detected with either intramuscular or surface electrodes. Signal processing techniques were used in EMG signal decomposition to understand fundamental and physiological issues. Many techniques have been developed to decompose intramuscularly detec
... Show MoreArtificial Neural networks (ANN) are powerful and effective tools in time-series applications. The first aim of this paper is to diagnose better and more efficient ANN models (Back Propagation, Radial Basis Function Neural networks (RBF), and Recurrent neural networks) in solving the linear and nonlinear time-series behavior. The second aim is dealing with finding accurate estimators as the convergence sometimes is stack in the local minima. It is one of the problems that can bias the test of the robustness of the ANN in time series forecasting. To determine the best or the optimal ANN models, forecast Skill (SS) employed to measure the efficiency of the performance of ANN models. The mean square error and
... Show MoreIn this paper, the reliability and scheduling of maintenance of some medical devices were estimated by one variable, the time variable (failure times) on the assumption that the time variable for all devices has the same distribution as (Weibull distribution.
The method of estimating the distribution parameters for each device was the OLS method.
The main objective of this research is to determine the optimal time for preventive maintenance of medical devices. Two methods were adopted to estimate the optimal time of preventive maintenance. The first method depends on the maintenance schedule by relying on information on the cost of maintenance and the cost of stopping work and acc
... Show MoreAbstract— The growing use of digital technologies across various sectors and daily activities has made handwriting recognition a popular research topic. Despite the continued relevance of handwriting, people still require the conversion of handwritten copies into digital versions that can be stored and shared digitally. Handwriting recognition involves the computer's strength to identify and understand legible handwriting input data from various sources, including document, photo-graphs and others. Handwriting recognition pose a complexity challenge due to the diversity in handwriting styles among different individuals especially in real time applications. In this paper, an automatic system was designed to handwriting recognition
... Show MoreBackground: Iron homeostasis is crucial to many physiological functions in the human body, such as cellular activity, erythropoiesis, and the innate immune response. Iron deficiency anemia may occur from obesity's ability to disturb iron homeostasis. Obesity may be seen as a pre-inflammatory condition with mild, ongoing systemic inflammation. Additionally, an increase in hepcidin levels by chronic inflammation causes iron insufficiency in obese people. For this reason, this current experiment is designed to investigate the iron profile and some hematological and inflammatory parameters in obese adults in the Kurdistan region-Iraq.
Subjects and Methods: The cross-sectional study w
... Show MoreBackground: Implant stability is considered one of the most important factors affecting healing and successful osseointegration of dental implants. The aims of the study were to measure the implant stability quotient (ISQ) values during the healing period and to determine the factors that affect implant stability. Materials and methods: Thirty patients enrolled in the study (17 female, 13 male). They received 44 Implantium® Dental Implants located as the following: 22 implants in maxillary jaw, 22 implants in mandibular jaw from them 17 implants in anterior segment and 27 in posterior segment. The bone density determined using interactive CT scan and classified according to the Misch bone density classification (29 implants in (D3), 15 i
... Show MoreHigher education is important because it creates and develops human capital and provides qualified human cadres, which requires restructuring government spending so that an increase in funding allocated to education is brought about. During the period 1990-2020, government spending was weak on educational institutions in Iraq, which led to a decline in The role of these institutions in the economic development of the country. The highest percentage of spending on higher education of GDP was 0.47% in 2007 and the lowest was 0.01% in 2005. The number of public universities reached 35, and the number of private universities and colleges reached 64 universities and private colleges in 2020. This was accompanied by an increase in the number of s
... Show MoreThe stratigraphic sequence of Cenomanian-Early Turonian is composed of Ahmadi, Rumaila, and Mishrif formations in the Rifai, Noor and Halfaya Oil Fields within the Mesopotamian Zone of Iraq, which is bounded at top and bottom by unconformity surfaces. The microfacies analysis of the study wells assisted the recognition of five main environments (open marine, basinal, shallow open marine, Rudist biostrome, and lagoon); these microfacies were indicative of a normal lateral change facies from shallow water facies to deeper water and open marine sediments.
Ahmadi Formation (Early Cenomanian) is characterized by open marine sediments during the transgressive conditions, and would be
... Show More