THE IMPACT OF CULTURAL IMPERATIVES ON ACADEMIC WRITING IN ARAB CONTEXTS

EFL Arab students have experienced difficulties in replicating the cultural thought patterns of L1 English users (Kaplan, 1966; Hirose, 2003). Also, they experience difficulties in replicating the textual expectations of academic genre in the English-speaking discourse community (Al- Khuweileh &Al-Shoumali, 2000; Al-Hazmi & Schofield, 2007) at the tertiary level. However, two factors diminish their ability to produce an effective and efficient written product in academia. To this end, the purpose of this study is to answer the following question “Can a modified integrated process-genre model (MIM) extend and enrich the repertoire of Iraqi undergraduates’ writing competence to encounter the challenges of academic writing?” Third-year EFL students English majors were the targeted research population. The participants of this study were 92 students. They were randomly assigned to two relatively comparable groups. These groups include the non-intervention being taught by the current product-based approach, and the intervention being taught by the MIM. All the participants were pre-tested for their proficiency in academic argumentative writing before the commencement of the intervention. Following the treatment, a post-test was administered to them. A mixed methods research methodology was adopted. An Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Research Design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) was employed to analyse the data coming from the students’ pre-and posttest’s written essays. The pre-test results had the evidence to suggest that the two groups were relatively similar and there were no statistically significant differences in their performance. The finding showed that most of the intervention group students achieved improvements in the quality of their argumentation as compared to peers in the non-intervention group

Nanofluids based on ionic liquids for enhanced oil recovery

During the ecological transition the full exploitation of, in principle, exhausted oil reservoirs is required to maintain current standards of living. The main objective of this thesis was the design of formulations containing surface-active ionic liquids and nanoparticles as the basis of an improved enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method. A state-of-the-art study regarding the use of nanoparticles as a method of EOR was carried out. This review provided the basis of the experimental work conducted. Two formulations were designed containing aluminum oxide nanoparticles and 1-dodecylpyridinium chloride or 1-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride, for carbonate reservoirs containing low and high salt concentration, respectively. Low chemicals adsorption and good oil recovery performance were achieved. The main conclusion of this thesis is that the cuttingedge EOR method proposed here must be further explored

Operation and Preliminary Energy Balance of a Portable Kelp Dryer in Maine

Seaweed (macroalgae) is a marine resource that has a high economic value. Seaweeds are important commodities as raw material for food or additives and as a source of biomass. One popular species of seaweed is Sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) – a brown algae that is native to the Maine coast and also a commonly farmed species. It is a rich source of fibers, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Seaweeds are highly perishable due to their high moisture content and will spoil quickly if not preserved, therefore a common practice is to dry the product to prolong storage life and to minimize the cost for transportation. A drying method using warm (not hot) air will extend seaweed shelf life and also retain many of the valuable bioactive components that are heat and/or UV sensitive. Thus, a controlled drying environment can best retain product and nutritional value and prevent degradation of the food quality. A first of a kind drying system with controlled temperature, air flow and exit humidity has been developed and assembled in the advanced manufacturing center (AMC) at the University of Maine. The drying system is built within a 40-foot-long shipping container. vi Inside the container, the seaweed is suspended from an oval shaped overhead conveyor system, where it slowly rotates around the length of the chamber. A utility room at one end of the container houses two parallel propane powered heaters with integral blowers, an exhaust fan and a control system. My project is looking at examining the drying time, the temperature and humidity within the drying process, the drying rate, and energy efficiency of the process. Several experiments were run during early and late springtime 2020 using wet towels or fresh Sugar kelp in the dryer. The drying system is equipped with five temperature and humidity sensors which logged data every 0.5 seconds. Examination of the drying runs shows that as air passes through the drying chamber it decreases in temperature and gains humidity, as expected. It became apparent that partial recycling of the air was important for achieving high exit humidity and lower energy cost. In early runs, the data showed that air was short circuiting through the dryer and circumventing the hanging material being dried. This flaw was partly resolved by adding some sheeting at the top of the conveyor and partially blocking two ventilation ports. We also noted that the temperature measurement of the incoming air was being affected by the level of recycle and furnace activity. It can also be seen that through the duration of the drying work, the exiting air shows a steady trend of rising temperature and decreasing RH. Analysis of the energy dynamics for the system shows that more data are needed to consistently close the energy balance, particularly with respect to metering the propane used, determining the temperatures of different surfaces of the dryer, the rate of air flow into and out of the system, as well as weather conditions, insolation rate and orientation to the sun. Estimated values for these variables suggest that insulating the walls of the container, except on bright sunny days, will likely be cost effective

Structural performance and failure analysis of bubbledeck concrete slabs in construction

In this research paper, as the concrete material is eliminated from the locations situated around the middle of the cross-sections of bubbledecks (BDs), the BD type slabs are lighter than the traditional slabs. In the recent researches, the performance analysis (PA) is generally determined for the reinforced concrete (RC) structures with the moment-resisting frame (MRF) and dual systems. The dual system comprises mainly the MRF with shear wall of building under construction, as well as the flat slab having chiefly the BD system. In this paper, the evaluation of values of the performance and failure analysis of RC structures using BD system are submitted. We recorded a maximum load of 6.48, maximum stress of 75.00, macimum strain of 7.80, with minimum force of 0.83, while minimum slab length of 9.62 and lastly the maximum slab span of 27 for our bubbledeck concrete slab experiment in comparison with reinforced concrete slab to get the best results. The obtained results indicate that the lateral strengths of buildings increase by increasing the span length to story height ratio. Besides, the variations of the span length and the number of the story have more effects than the variation of the usage category buildings on the performance of structures. Furthermore, the span length has more effect than the number of stories in determining performance in an MRF. We observed that the bubbledeck concrete slabs are more lightweight and resistant in comparison with reinforced concrete

Gamma Background Radiations and Measurements with Applications

This chapter deals with gamma background radiation that is exposed to two major natural sources: normal sources that are earthly gamma rays and astronomical rays. Earthbound gamma rays from radionuclide elements such as thorium, potassium, and uranium. Also, in building and enhancing materials such as medical plants, building purposes, some vegetables and fruits commonly used in markets and soil. The measurements of gamma background radiation differ according to the purpose. So, there are many instruments used such as HPGe detector, NaI (TI) detector, CR-39, a dosimeter, and SSNDT detector. This research will explain in detail the studies and the mechanism for each detector and how it works and the application (practical) studies for each one. The purpose of calculating gamma background radiation is to be in the safe side for human being according to the international union specified with a standard limitation of world average value or with a specific value ranged (standard values) according to the case study in medical, food, or building materials

CITY: MAPS, AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM BETWEEN PASCAL AND AUTOCAD

...... يتناول هذا البحث تصميم نظام يتعامل مع الخرائط السكنية للمدن , اعتمد على اسلوب التكامل بين اكثر من تطبيق او لغة ذات اغراض مختلفة للعمل في وقت In this papar ,we designed a system that deals with comnmintymaps for cities. It depend on the integration style amon. It depend on the integration style amongest more than one application Language of different purposes to be used at run time to perform acommon task . we made use ofthe available facilities in the autocad system and its grand potentials to draw the map elements and processes them for the enlargement and zomming It makes use of the facilities in programmibg language pascal on dealing with files to form a data base system where a special use has been made of operating system shell to achieve integration and communication to tl'ansfere beteeen autocad and pascal according to system needs

Effect of zinc oxid on the bentonite ability for removing Methylene blue from solution

A batch adsorption system was applied to study the adsorption of methylene blue from aqueous solution by Iraqi bentonite and treated bentonite with different amount of zinc oxide (ZnO). The adsorption capacities of methylene blue onto bentonite were evaluated. The equilibrium between liquid and solid phase was described by Langmuir model better than the Freundlich model. Langmuir and Freundlich constants have been determined. The separation factor or equilibrium parameter, RL which is used to predict if an adsorption system is favourable or unfavourable was calculated for all cases

Day of admission and risk of myocardial infarction mortality in a cardiac care unit in Basrah, Iraq

Background: Among many factors that may affect the in.hospital mortality among acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients admitted to the cardiac care unit (CCU), the day and time of admission have been reported to play some role, but such relationship is controversial.Objective: The objective of the following study is to assess the effect of the day and time of admission on in-hospital mortality of patients with AMI.Subjects and Methods: Retrospective analysis of data of all patients with AMI who were admitted to the CCU in Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital, Basrah, Iraq during 2010 was conducted.Results: A total of 419 patients were included in this analysis. The mean age of patients was 62.4 } 11.6 years, 64.9% of them were men. Admission during weekdays was greater than that during weekends (63.2% vs. 36.8%). Admission during off hours was greater than that during regular-hours (59.9% vs. 41.1%). Weekend admissions were more likelyto be presenting with ST elevation myocardial infarction, complications and hypotension. A likewise pattern of baseline characteristics was found among patients admitted at the off-hours time. The overall in-hospital mortality rate was 16.5%. The weekend admission was associated with a higher unadjusted hospital mortality rate than that for weekday admission (23.4% vs. 12.5%, respectively; odds ratio [OR], 2.14; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.27.3.61; P = 0.004). In multivariate analyzes, no statistically significant difference in mortality was found between weekend and weekday admissions (OR, 0.658; 95% CI,  0.311.1.392). Whereas, off.hours admission was significantly associated with a higher mortality (25.5% vs. 3%; P < 0.001), adjusted OR, 12.178; 95% CI, 3.846.38.442.Conclusion: Of predictors for the in-hospital outcome of AMI, day of admission had no significant influence on mortality, whereas off-hour admission was associated with an increased risk of AMI in-hospital mortality.Key words: In-hospital mortality, myocardial infarction, weeken

Teaching academic writing to Iraqi undergraduate students: An investigation into the effectiveness of a genre-process approach

A modified integrated process-genre approach (MIM) was implemented with EFL undergraduate students in Iraq. Some students subject to the MIM were better able to construct structurally complex and reasonably-grounded arguments and to employ a wider range of informal reasoning patterns group.Combining the merits of both the process and genre approaches has the potential to develop a more coherent model of writing by taking into account cognitive and social demands