Postmodern narrative in Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse-Five

This article explores Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) as a postmodern critique of modern literary modes. As a novel recapitulating within itself a postmodern relative perspective of reality, it elucidates one aspect of postmodernism, that of literary experimentation. Vonnegut experiments with the narrator,setting and characters of the novel to provide a fictional critique of the literary exhaustion prevailing in modern literary modes. Experimentation is thus remedial replenishment for such exhaustion through authorial metafictional intrusion into the text. Accordingly, the article uses Patricia Waugh, Gérard Genette and Mikhail Bakhtin’s narrative theory to examine the experimental technique in the novel. What makes the majority of metafictional style unique is not only its presence in the novel, but also its conflated depiction of the American individual’s suffering after the Second World War.For this later style, the self-justifying manner in the novel extrapolates textual dialogic relations to accentuate the author’s critical voice. Such voice originates in the main narrative point of view in the text and is known as focalization

Translating the Ten Arabic Verb Patterns into English: A Morpho-Semantic Study

هدفت هذه الدراسة إلى استكشاف الصعوبات التي يواجها طلاب الترجمة عند ترجمة الأوزان العشرة للفعل في اللغة العربية إلى الإنجليزية. ولتحقيق ذلك، تم اتباع المنهج الوصفي الكمي والنوعي من خلال استخدام اختبار مكون من 16 جملة تحتوي على الأوزان العشرة وتطبيقها على 112 طالبا وطالبة تم اختيارهم عشوائياً من خمس جامعات يمنية. وقد أظهرت نتائج الدراسة أن المقاطع الملحقة بالفعل يمكن أن تحدث تغييراً ذات دلالة متعددة يصعب على الطلبة ترجمتها، حيث تُعزى هذه الصعوبات إلى افتقار الطلبة للمعرفة والفهم الأساسيين لمعاني هذه المقاطع الدالة وما يتبعها من تغيير دلالي مما يؤدي إلى عدم قدرة الطلبة على إدراك وظائفها المتعددة. كذلك، أظهرت نتائج الدراسة أنه كلما زاد عدد المقاطع الدلالية المضافة للفعل زادت صعوبة ترجمتها. وتوصلت الدراسة أيضاً إلى نتائج مهمة، منها أن المقاطع المضافة الى وسط الفعل تشكل تحديا أكثر من تلك المقاطع المضافة في بداية الفعل. وأوصت الدراسة بضرورة إضافة الأوزان العشرة للفعل في اللغة العربية إلى المقررات الدراسية لطلبة الترجمة مع التركيز على العلاقة بين تركيب الأفعال ووظائفها المختلفة. الكلمات المفتاحية: اللواحق، خصائص المقاطع الدلالية، الجذر، الترجمة، أوزان الأفعال.This study aimed to investigate the difficulties encountered by translation students when translating the ten Arabic verb patterns into English. To achieve this objective, the descriptive quantitative and qualitative method was followed. A translation test consisting of 16 sentences which included the ten Arabic verb patterns was administered to a sample of 112 participants who were randomly selected from five Yemeni universities. The findings revealed that the additions associated with the Arabic verb root can create multiple semantic changes which are fraught with difficulties for student translators. The difficulties may lie in the fact that student translators lack basic knowledge and understanding of the multiple functions of the morpho-semantic features which might be due to the translators' unfamiliarity of the multiple and underlying meanings of the morphemes affixed to the root form. The findings revealed that the more features the pattern takes, the more difficult it is for student translators. Furthermore, the pattern with infixed morphemes was more difficult to be recognized than the one with prefixed morphemes. The findings also provide further insights on the importance of integrating the Arabic verb patterns into the translation modules with a focus on the link between form and functions of each morpho-semantic feature affixed to each pattern. Keywords: affixes, morpho-semantic features, root, translation, verb patterns

Effect of Some Anti-Inflammatory Drugs on The Corrosion Behavior of Implant Biomaterials in Human Body Fluid

The aim of this research is to compare the electrochemical behavior of two surgical implant biomaterials alloys, SS 316L and Co–Cr–Mo alloy in simulated body fluid. This comparison is focused on the influence of presence of three anti-inflammatory drugs, aspirin (C9H8O4), paracetamol (C8H9NO2), and mefenamic acid (C15H15NO2) with three concentrations of each drug (0.00303, 0.00606, and 0.01212), (0.0086, 0.0172, and 0.0344), and (0.00111, 0.00156, and 0.00201) g/300ml respectively at pH=7.4 and 37oC using electrochemical techniques, potentiodynamic curves and potentiostatic tests. Influence of these drugs on both biomaterials depends on the formation of organometallic complexes between released metals ions from implant alloys and drugs molecules. The study shows that the drugs behave as inhibitors for SS 316L through the measured corrosion parameters, while gives irregular behavior in the case of Co – Cr – Mo alloy. However, difference between two alloys appear with different affinity of released metal ions to binding with other molecules inside human body

Coal-Based Activated Carbon via Microwave-Assisted ZnCl2 Activation for Methyl Violet 2B Dye Removal: Optimization, Desirability Function, and Adsorption Mechanism

© 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).The Researchers Supporting Project No. (RSP2023R1), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaPeer ReviewedIn this work, activated carbon (referred to as MCAC) was produced by microwave radiation assisted ZnCl2 activation using Malaysian coal (MC) as a precursor. The Brunauer–Emmett–Teller findings indicate that the MCAC has a relatively large surface area (798.18 m2/g) and a mesoporous structure (average pore diameter of 3.67 nm). The removal of Methylene Violet (MV 2B) a cationic dye model, was employed to investigate the adsorption properties of MCAC. A numerical desirability function in the Box–Behnken design (BBD) was employed to optimize the independent crucial adsorption variables as follows: A: MCAC dose (0.02–0.1 g); B: pH (4–10); and C: time (5–25 min). The results of equilibrium and dynamic adsorption showed that the adsorption of MV 2B followed Freundlich and pseudo-second order models, respectively. The maximum amount of MV 2B dye that the MCAC could adsorb (qmax) was 134.1 mg/g. Electrostatic interactions, π-π stacking, H-bonding, and pore diffusion contribute to the adsorption of MV 2B dye onto the MCAC surface. This study demonstrates the potential to utilize MC as a low-cost precursor for the efficient synthesis of MAC and its utility for the removal of pollutants

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Experimental Investigation of the Behavior of Self-Form Segmental Concrete Masonry Arches

This research aims to introduce a new technique—off-site and self-form segmental concrete masonry arches fabrication, without the need of construction formwork or centering. The innovative construction method in the current study encompasses two construction materials forms the self-form masonry arches, wedge-shape plain concrete voussoirs, and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. The employment of CFRP fabrics was for two main reasons: bonding the voussoirs and forming the masonry arches. In addition, CFRP proved to be efficient for strengthening the extrados of the arch rings under service loadings. An experimental test was conducted on four sophisticated masonry arch specimens. The research parameters were the Keystone thickness and the strengthening of the self-form arch ring at the intrados. The major test finding was that the use of thicker Keystone alters the behavior of the self-form arch and considerably increases the load carrying capacity by 79%. Partial strengthening of the intrados with CFRP fabrics of typical arch ring Keystone resulted considerable increase in the debonding load of fabrication CFRP sheets by 81%, increase in the localized crushing load by 13% and considerably increase voussoir sliding load by 107%

Calibration of a New Concrete Damage Plasticity Theoretical Model Based on Experimental Parameters

The introduction of concrete damage plasticity material models has significantly improved the accuracy with which the concrete structural elements can be predicted in terms of their structural response. Research into this method's accuracy in analyzing complex concrete forms has been limited. A damage model combined with a plasticity model, based on continuum damage mechanics, is recommended for effectively predicting and simulating concrete behaviour. The damage parameters, such as compressive and tensile damages, can be defined to simulate concrete behavior in a damaged-plasticity model accurately. This research aims to propose an analytical model for assessing concrete compressive damage based on stiffness deterioration. The proposed method can determine the damage variables at the start of the loading process, and this variable continues to increase as the load progresses until complete failure. The results obtained using this method were assessed through previous studies, whereas three case studies for concrete specimens and reinforced concrete structural elements (columns and gable beams) were considered. Additionally, finite element models were also developed and verified. The results revealed good agreement in each case. Furthermore, the results show that the proposed method outperforms other methods in terms of damage prediction, particularly when damage is calculated using the stress ratio. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-02-03 Full Text: PD