This article focuses on identity construction and social structures within the Sāmoan community as represented in Sia Figiel’s novel Where We Once Belonged. I argue that however the post/colonial Sāmoan identity is hybridized, the essence of the individual is still connected to Fa’a Sāmoa-the Sāmoan traditions and ways. However rapid are the colonial vicissitudes, the Sāmoan literature and lifestyle are developed to be a resistance platform. This resistance platform is dedicated not only to expose the colonial impact but also to assist the social and political reconstruction of post/colonial Samoa. To this end, this article studies identity construction, and the challenges that women face within Sāmoan social structures.

The objective of study was determining the most prevalent Salmonella spp. and their antimicrobial susceptibility in broilers and laying chickens and their feed and drinking water in five chicken farms in Karbala, Iraq over the period from August to October 2020. A total of 289 samples, including 217 cloaca swabs, 46 water and 26 feed samples were collected. Salmonella spp. was identified firstly by routine diagnostic methods, followed by applying the API 20E kit, the Vitek2 system, and serology. There was significant differences in Salmonella prevalence among different types of samples, mainly cloaca swabs reported a high isolation rate (21.7%). In contrast, feed samples were completely free of contamination. The highest rate of isolation w

The leaves of globe artichoke, Cynara scolymus Family Asteraceae/ compositea have long – used in traditional medicine and now included in British and European Pharmacopeia, the British Harbal Pharmacopeia and complete German Commission E monographs.The plant originally comes from Mediterranean region and North Africa and cultivated around the world. The flowers are used worldwide for nutrition purposes and the leaves for medical purposes including hepatic affections. The plant wildly distributed in Iraq in the watery lines and boundary of the field.The plant contains many phytochemicals such as the bitter phenolic acids whose choleretic and hypocholestremic as these compounds are antioxidant. Other materials to h

In this research the results of applying Artificial Neural Networks with modified activation function to
perform the online and offline identification of four Degrees of Freedom (4-DOF) Selective Compliance
Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) manipulator robot will be described. The proposed model of
identification strategy consists of a feed-forward neural network with a modified activation function that
operates in parallel with the SCARA robot model. Feed-Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) which have
been trained online and offline have been used, without requiring any previous knowledge about the
system to be identified. The activation function that is used in the hidden layer in FFNN is a modified
version of the wavelet func

In this research the results of applying Artificial Neural Networks with modified activation function to perform the online and offline identification of four Degrees of Freedom (4-DOF) Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) manipulator robot will be described. The proposed model of identification strategy consists of a feed-forward neural network with a modified activation function that operates in parallel with the SCARA robot model. Feed-Forward Neural Networks (FFNN) which have been trained online and offline have been used, without requiring any previous knowledge about the system to be identified. The activation function that is used in the hidden layer in FFNN is a modified version of the wavelet function. This approach ha

This study discusses risk management strategies caused by pandemic-related (Covid-19) suspensions in thirty-six engineering projects of different types and sizes selected from countries in the middle east and especially Iraq. The primary data collection method was a survey and questionnaire completed by selected project crew and laborers. Data were processed using Microsoft Excel to construct models to help decision-makers find solutions to the scheduling problems that may be expected to occur during a pandemic. A theoretical and practical concept for project risk management that addresses a range of global and local issues that affect schedule and cost is presented and results indicate that the most significant delays are due to a

This study discusses risk management strategies caused by pandemic-related (Covid-19) suspensions in thirty-six engineering projects of different types and sizes selected from countries in the middle east and especially Iraq. The primary data collection method was a survey and questionnaire completed by selected project crew and laborers. Data were processed using Microsoft Excel to construct models to help decision-makers find solutions to the scheduling problems that may be expected to occur during a pandemic. A theoretical and practical concept for project risk management that addresses a range of global and local issues that affect schedule and cost is presented and results indicate that the most significant delays are due to a

In this paper, a new form of 2D-plane curves is produced and graphically studied. The name of my daughter "Noor" has been given to this curve; therefore, Noor term describes this curve whenever it is used in this paper. This curve is a form of these opened curves as it extends in the infinity along both sides from the origin point. The curve is designed by a circle/ ellipse which are drawing curvatures that tangent at the origin point, where its circumference is passed through the (0,2a). By sharing two vertical lined points of both the circle diameter and the major axis of the ellipse, the parametric equation is derived. In this paper, a set of various cases of Noor curve are graphically studied by two curvature cases;

Rapid worldwide urbanization and drastic population growth have increased the demand for new road construction, which will cause a substantial amount of natural resources such as aggregates to be consumed. The use of recycled concrete aggregate could be one of the possible ways to offset the aggregate shortage problem and reduce environmental pollution. This paper reports an experimental study of unbound granular material using recycled concrete aggregate for pavement subbase construction. Five percentages of recycled concrete aggregate obtained from two different sources with an originally designed compressive strength of 20–30 MPa as well as 31–40 MPa at three particle size levels, i.e., coarse, fine, and extra fine, were test

To promote sustainable steel-concrete composite structures, it is essential to develop special shear connectors that facilitate accelerated construction and deconstruction. A lockbolt demountable shear connector (LBDSC) was recently proposed. While the LBDSC has been evaluated using horizontal and vertical (standard) push-out tests, it is essential to further assess the disassembly mechanism and the positive flexural performance of prefabricated demountable composite beams (PDCBs) under both serviceability and ultimate limit states. Two full-scale test specimens of PDCBs with LBDSC were designed with partial shear connections and assessed using a three or four-point load beam setup under both cyclic and static monotonic loading conditions.