A lack of adequate building maintenance is a significant obstacle faced by governmental hospitals. This paper evaluates factors that negatively impact building-maintenance practices in Iraq. A literature review was conducted to identify factors affecting maintenance. A list of 42 factors affecting hospital-buildings was collected from previous studies and tested using a structured questionnaire distributed to hospital-maintenance experts. During the data analysis, 76 valid questionnaires were used. Based on the respondents’ ratings, the relative-importance index (RII) was used to determine the level of importance of each factor. From the results, it was concluded that twelve factors affect maintenance practices in hospital buildings: faulty design (0.889), lack of funding (0.874), inadequate training (0.871), misuse of building facilities (0.866), construction errors (0.863), lack of work experience (0.858), building age (0.826), individual modifications carried out by the hospital staff (0.826), shortage of maintenance staff (0.824), administrative corruption (0.821), selection of unqualified maintenance contractors (0.816) and unavailability of skilled appointed maintenance personnel (0.808). Understanding these factors’ effects is essential for maintenance-department managers to develop strategies for maintaining hospital buildings in Iraq by controlling them, as well as identifying problems and finding appropriate solutions to avoid them. KEYWORDS: Governmental hospitals, Maintenance, Iraq, Building maintenance, Maintenance practices, Factors affecting maintenance
Haruki Murakami (1949-present) is a contemporary Japanese writer whose works have been translated into fifty languages and won him plenty of Japanese and international awards. His short stories are well constructed in a weird realistic manner and are mixed with elements of surrealism. His novels and short stories fall under the genre of magical realism. One of the major revolving themes that Murakami wrote about was the haunting feeling of emptiness and disconnectedness in a world which seems to care much for materialism and self-interests.
The paper explores two of Murakami’s short stories in his book After the Quake (2000) and the relevance of their themes and characters to Iraq after the q
... Show MoreThis study aims to preparation a standards code for sustainability requirements to contribute in a better understanding to the concept of sustainability assessment systems in the dimensions of Iraqi projects in general and in the high-rise building. Iraq is one of the developing countries that faced significant challenges in sustainability aspects environmental, economic and social, it became necessary to develop an effective sustainability building assessment system in respect of the local context in Iraq. This study presented a proposal for a system of assessing the sustainability requirements of Iraqi high rise buildings (ISHTAR), which has been developed through several integrated
Energy use is second to staffing in building operating costs. Sustainable technology in the energy sector is based on utilizing renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind, glazing systems, insulation. Other areas of focus include heating, ventilation and air conditioning; novel materials and construction methods; improved sensors and monitoring systems; and advanced simulation tools that can help building designers make more energy efficient choices. The objective of this research is studying the effect of insulations on energy consumption of buildings in Iraq and identifying the amount of energy savings from application th
... Show MoreThis research aimed at identifying the factors that affecting in the recruitment of a teaching staff for the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in university teaching at the University of Khartoum. The descriptive method was followed. The questionnaire was used as a tool for data collection,, which was distributed directly to a sample of (181) respondent of the teaching staff members of the senate at University of Khartoum from those who were attend at the senate meeting No. (409) which was held on 22 August 2016 Of (272). The researcher followed for the distribution the chance method, where each questionnaire was distributed to each of a teaching staff from different faculties at the University of Khartoum, according to his willingness
... Show MoreAThe Bridge Maintenance Management System (BMMS) is an application system that uses existing data from a Bridge Management System database for monitoring and analysis of current bridges performance, as well as for estimating the current and future maintenance and rehabilitation needs of the bridges. In a transportation context, the maintenance management is described as a cost-effective process to operate, construct, and maintain physical money. This needs analytical tools to support the allocation of resources, materials, equipment, including personnel, and supplies. Therefore, Geographic Information System (GIS) can be considered as one tool to develop the road and bridge maintenanc
Malaysia is linked to the countries of the Middle East by a historical relationship identified by a number of factors and determinants that affected the developments of that relationship, especially its relentless endeavor to preserve its Islamic identity with the leadership of the rest of the other ethnicities, in addition to those factors and international determinants that directly affected the typicality of this relationship and perhaps the United States stands At the forefront of who represents this international variable, as it is considered the Middle East region as a core region and within its vital field, and therefore any analog relationship in the field of international relations and one of its parties is the countries of the
... Show MoreInstitutions and companies are looking to reduce spending on buildings and services according to scientific methods, provided they reach the same purpose but at a lower cost. On this basis, this paper proposes a model to measure and reduce maintenance costs in one of the public sector institutions in Iraq by using performance indicators that fit the nature of the work of this institution and the available data. The paper relied on studying the nature of the institution’s work in the maintenance field and looking at the type of data available to know the type and number of appropriate indicators to create the model. Maintenance data were collected for the previous six years by reviewing the maintenance and financial dep
... Show MoreOpenStreetMap (OSM) is the world’s biggest publicly licensed geographic data collection. Because OSM is rapidly being used in a wide range of applications, researchers have focused their efforts on determining its quality. The OSM buildings data quality is still ambiguous, due to the limitations, and a few researchers have evaluated the OSM buildings data quality through difficulties where the authoritative data are not obtainable. The focus of this research is to analyze and assess the accuracy of OSM buildings including completeness, and positional accuracy methods. Two different study areas in Baghdad city-Iraq have been investigated: Al-Rasheed and Al-Karrada. The process of the (OSM) data evaluation involved identifying the correspon
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