The construction sector in Iraq has faced many challenges. One of the major challenges is the lack of productivity of laborers who are working construction sites. Although research studies have been conducted to investigate, explore, and identify factors influencing labor productivity in the Middle-east region, the lack of such research studies to address these challenges in Iraq. This motivates the researcher to explore and identify the key factors affecting labor productivity in construction sites across different organizational structures (Matrix, Projectized, and functional). A survey questionnaire has been conducted using Delphi technique in order to achieve a concrete and reliable view of the major factors influencing labor productivity in Iraq. Twenty-four experts from different construction sectors have participated in Delphi rounds. In addition, a total of 110 factors affecting labor productivity is considered in this study. The main findings of this study show a correlation between some of the identified factors and characteristics of the organizational structures. The poor communication and management of the construction site, lack of communication and coordination between construction parties, size and arrangement of the construction crew, on-time payment, and motivational program factors were found to be highly correlated with the characteristics of the selected organizational structures. Also, the study shows that explosive remnants and dangerous construction sites due to terrorist attacks are very influential factors on labor productivity.
A numerical simulation is made on the thermal lensing effect in an laser diode end-pumped Nd:YAG laser rod. Based on finite element method (FEM), the laser rod temperature distribution is calculated and the focal length is deduced for a Gaussian and super-Gaussian pump beam profiles.
At the pump power of 20W, the highest temperature located at the center of end-pumped face was 345K, and the thermal lens focal length was 81.4mm along the x-z axis.
The results indicate that the thermal lensing effect sensitively depend on the pump power, waist radius of the pump beam and the pump distribution in a laser rod geometry.
Building numerical reservoir simulation model with a view to model actual case requires enormous amount of data and information. Such modeling and simulation processes normally require lengthy time and different sets of field data and experimental tests that are usually very expensive. In addition, the availability, quality and accessibility of all necessary data are very limited, especially for the green field. The degree of complexities of such modelling increases significantly especially in the case of heterogeneous nature typically inherited in unconventional reservoirs. In this perspective, this study focuses on exploring the possibility of simplifying the numerical simulation pr
BACKGROUND: Enteric fever caused by Salmonella Typhi is an endemic disease in Iraq. Variations in presentations make it a diagnostic challenge. If untreated or treated inappropriately then it is a serious disease with potentially life-threatening complications. The recent emergence of drug resistant strains of S. Typhi is a rising public health problem and a clinical concern to the physician. AIM: The objectives of the study were to assess and describe the patterns of antimicrobial resistance, clinical characteristics, epidemiological distribution, and complications of typhoid fever. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Fifty cases of typhoid fever (culture proven) were collected during the period from February 2019 to November 2019 in the me
... Show MoreBackground: Diabetes and periodontitis are considered as chronic diseases with a bidirectional relationship between them. This study aimed to determine and compare the severity of periodontal health status and salivary parameters in diabetic and non-diabetic patients with chronic periodontitis. Materials and Methods: Seventy participants were enrolled in this study. The subjects were divided into three groups: Group I: 25 patients had type 2 diabetes mellitus with chronic periodontitis, Group 2: 25 patients had chronic periodontitis and with no history of any systemic diseases, Group 3: 20 subjects had healthy periodontium and were systemically healthy. Unstimulated whole saliva was collected for measurement of salivary flow rate and pH.
... Show MoreThere are many animal models for polycystic ovary (PCO); using exogenous testosterone enanthate is one of the methods of induction of these models. However, induction of insulin resistance should also be studied in the modeling technics. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the expression of insulin receptor substrate (Irs)-2 mRNA in the liver tissue of rat PCO model. Nineteen Wistar rats were divided into three groups; (1) PCO modeling group (N =7) received daily 1.0 mg/100g testosterone enanthate solved in olive oil along with free access dextrose water 5%, (2) vehicle group (N =6), which handled like the PCO group, but did not receive testosterone enanthate, (3) control group (N =6) with standard care. Al
... Show MoreThe aim of this paper is to derive a posteriori error estimates for semilinear parabolic interface problems. More specifically, optimal order a posteriori error analysis in the - norm for semidiscrete semilinear parabolic interface problems is derived by using elliptic reconstruction technique introduced by Makridakis and Nochetto in (2003). A key idea for this technique is the use of error estimators derived for elliptic interface problems to obtain parabolic estimators that are of optimal order in space and time.
The intelligent buildings provided various incentives to get highly inefficient energy-saving caused by the non-stationary building environments. In the presence of such dynamic excitation with higher levels of nonlinearity and coupling effect of temperature and humidity, the HVAC system transitions from underdamped to overdamped indoor conditions. This led to the promotion of highly inefficient energy use and fluctuating indoor thermal comfort. To address these concerns, this study develops a novel framework based on deep clustering of lagrangian trajectories for multi-task learning (DCLTML) and adding a pre-cooling coil in the air handling unit (AHU) to alleviate a coupling issue. The proposed DCLTML exhibits great overall control and is
... Show MoreThe electrochemical polymerization of the monomer sulfanilamide (SAM) in an aqueous solution at room temperature produces polysulfanilamide (PSAM). The Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) was used to investigate the properties of the prepared polymer layer that generated on the stainless steel (St.S) surface (working electrode) and Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) was used to characterize the morphology, topology, and detailed surface structure of polymer layer that generated on the surface. The corrosion behavior of uncoated and coated St.S were evaluated by using the electrochemical polarization method in a 0.2 M HCl solution and a temperature range of 293–323 K, the anticorrosion action of the polymer coating on stainless steel
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