Purpose: The aim of this study was to gain insight into causes of time delays and cost overruns in a selection of thirty case projects in Iraq. Delay factors have been studied in many countries/contexts, but not much data exists from countries under the conditions characterizing Iraq during the last 10-15 years.Design/methodology/approach: A case study approach was adopted, with thirty construction projects selected from the Baghdad region, of different types and sizes. For the case of the study, the participants in the projects provided data about the projects through the data collection tool distributed through the questionnaire directed to them. Statistical data analysis was used to build statistical relationships between time and cost d

Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic infection that triggers immune cells to produce cytokines and inflammatory mediators that are responsible for abnormal or aborted immune responses. This study highlights the evaluation of the Dectin-1 receptor and cytokine IL-37 in the serum of 80 patients who had miscarried in the first trimester and were infected with toxoplasmosis, as well as 40 pregnant women in the first trimester who had a successful pregnancy (control groups). The serum was first screened for the T. gondii IgM and IgG antibodies by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and then the serum levels of IL-37 and Dectin-1 were determined. The results showed that the serum level of Dectin-1 was significantly increased in anti-

The efficiency evaluation of the railway lines performance is done through a set of indicators and criteria, the most important are transport density, the productivity of enrollee, passenger vehicle production, the productivity of freight wagon, and the productivity of locomotives. This study includes an attempt to calculate the most important of these indicators which transport density index from productivity during the four indicators, using artificial neural network technology. Two neural networks software are used in this study, (Simulnet) and (Neuframe), the results of second program has been adopted. Training results and test to the neural network data used in the study, which are obtained from the international in

In this study, the effects of different loading doses of cerium in the prepared NaY zeolite from Iraqi kaolin were investigated. Al-Duara  refinery atmospheric residue fluid catalytic cracking was selected as palpation reaction for testing the catalytic activity of cerium loading NaY zeolite.  The insertion of cerium in NaY zeolites has been synthesized by simple ion exchange methods. Three samples of modified zeolite Y have been obtained by replacing the sodium ions in the original sample with cerium and the weight percent added are 0.35, 0.64, and 1.06 respectively. The effects of cerium loading to zeolite Y in different weight percent on the cracking catalysts were studied by employing a laboratory fluidized

     Staphylococcus haemolyticus is one of the most frequently isolated coagulase-negative staphylococci. The ability to form biofilm is considered as one of the most important virulence factors of coagulase negative staphylococci. There is only limited knowledge of the nature of S. haemolyticus biofilms. This study was aimed at evaluating the ability of S. haemolyticus strains to produce biofilm in the presence of copper oxide nanoparticles (CuONPs). The biological synthesis of nanoparticles is an environmentally friendly approach for large-scale production of nanoparticles. Copper oxide nanoparticles were produced in the current study from the S. haemolyticus viable cell filtrate. UV-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, X-ray diffra

The effects of temperature on an exotic aquatic snail Pomacea canaliculata  (Lamarck, 1819) collected from the Shatt Al-Arab intertidal zone were investigated. A series of laboratory experiments were conducted during the summer period of 2017. Individuals of new born snails hatched in the laboratory from adult snails were collected from Shatt Al-Arab intertidal zone, and subjected to five fixed temperatures: 15, 25, 35, 40 and 45 Cº, after short term thermal acclimation. The heartbeats (HB) were counted at each temperature level. The results showed significant  direct increase of HB from 15 Cº (19.8 HB/min) up to 25 Cº (76 HB/min) (P<0.05)  as well as from 25 Cº to 35 Cº (93 HB/min). At 40 Cº the snail HB

Encouraging micro-enterprises for comprehensive economic development are crucial to achieve the ambitious vision 2030 of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

 Small and Medium enterprises are inputting around 15.5 per cent to GDP while 33 per cent contribution as a private sector to Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product (GDP). This study aims to identify the most important factors that affect the efficiency of small enterprises in Saudi Arabia. To accomplish this objective, the study was conducted for small projects via the comprehensive inventory method under the supervision of the Institute of Entrepreneurship. A total of 282 questionnaires were collected from entrepreneurs and the differentiation analysis

The partial level density PLD of pre-equilibrium reactions that are described by Ericson’s formula has been studied using different formulae of single particle level density . The parameter  was used from the equidistant spacing model (ESM) model and the non- equidistant spacing model (non-ESM) and another formula of  are derived from the relation between  and level density parameter . The formulae used to derive  are the Roher formula, Egidy formula, Yukawa formula, and Thomas –Fermi formula. The partial level density results that depend on  from the Thomas-Fermi formula show a good agreement with the experimental data.