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
Hookah smoking has become very popular in Iraq among women and men. Hookah tobacco contains natural radioactive elements, such as radon, radium, and uranium, as well as toxic elements, such as polonium, which are released during the combustion of tobacco and are inhaled by smoking. Most reviews focus on hookah tobacco, and only a few have investigated the blood of hookah smokers. In this study, a CR-39 detector was used to measure radon, radium, and polonium concentrations and conduct risk assessments in female hookah smokers of different ages. The results show that the concentrations of radon-222, polonium-218, and polonium-214 varied between 61.62 and 384.80, 5.45–33.64 on the wal
Informativity, being an essential component of text/discourse, plays a significant role in highlighting the intended meaning and finally contributes to the overall process of rendering a text cross-culturally. It has, however, been overlooked by translators in doing their jobs. In poetic translation, informativity plays a particularly significant role as it sheds light on the ungraspable traits of meaning.
This study tries to explore this aspect in a translation of Emily Dickenson's Slant of Lights to see where the translator fell short in this aspect with attempts to produce an alternative translation taking into consideration the various orders of informativity. For this purpose, a model of informativity is forwarded t
... Show MoreAdvertising design is one of the arts of communication of various levels and one of the aspects of the fields of design arts, and that the construction of the design environment in the advertising is one of the important entry points in making the recipient feel this environment and feel as if being one of its elements. It is an entrance worthy of study and research and is a problem worth raising according to the following question: - What is the effectiveness achieved in the virtual design environment for digital advertising? The two researchers dealt with the research in three frameworks, the methodological framework which identified (the problem of research, its importance, purpose, limits, and the definition of ter
... Show MoreThe oil and gas industry relies heavily on IT innovations to manage business processes, but the exponential generation of data has led to concerns about processing big data, generating valuable insights, and making timely decisions. Many companies have adopted Big Data Analytics (BDA) solutions to address these challenges. However, determining the adoption of BDA solutions requires a thorough understanding of the contextual factors influencing these decisions. This research explores these factors using a new Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE) framework, presenting technological, organisational, and environmental factors. The study used a Delphi research method and seven heterogeneous panelists from an Oman oil and gas company
... Show MoreThe present study was set to investigate the potential association between the level of Interleukin-6 (IL-6), as a key component of the pro-inflammatory response, with different thalassemia’s biological and clinical features. For this purpose, one hundred fifty blood samples were collected from 100 beta-thalassemia patients, who attended the Genetic Hematology Centre at Ibn Al- Baladi Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, and 50 healthy subjects who were employed as a control group. IL-6 levels were estimated using an ELISA Kit, whereas other thalassemia-related clinical features (such as HbA, HbF, ferritin, blood transfusions, splenectomy status, and the history of frequent infection) were additionally assessed. The results of the present s
... Show MoreThis study focuses on evaluating the suitability of three interpolation methods in terms of their accuracy at climate data for some provinces of south of Iraq. Two data sets of maximum and minimum temperature in February 2008 from nine meteorological stations located in the south of Iraq using three interpolation methods. ArcGIS is used to produce the spatially distributed temperature data by using IDW, ordinary kriging, and spline. Four statistical methods are applied to analyze the results obtained from three interpolation methods. These methods are RMSE, RMSE as a percentage of the mean, Model efficiency (E) and Bias, which showed that the ordinary krigingis the best for this data from other methods by the results that have b
... Show MoreAbstract Background:Breast cancer is the most common female cancer worldwide. Although mastectomy is considered the treatment of choice for the majority of cases of breast cancer; a noticeable percentage of breast cancer survivors claim they were never advised about reconstruction. It has been proven that breast reconstruction helps breast cancer survivors to overcome the trauma of their diagnosis and improve their psychological well-being.Objectives: To assess the level of awareness and expectations regarding breast reconstruction surgery among female with breast cancer survivors in Baghdad, and to find if there is association between sociodemographic data and expectations of breast reconstruction.Methodology: This is a cross sectional stu
... Show MoreThe topic of the working of the secondary event structure in the embodiment of the film unity is related to the ability to produce a film of controlled events that strengthen each other. The researchers divided the subject topic into an introduction and two sections, as follows: The first section is the event and the action in drama construction wherein the relationship of the dramatic act with the events in general and the secondary event in particular were studied as it has a relationship in a synergistic building of the film unity.
The second section was the patterns of the secondary event in the film wherein the researchers dealt with the patterns, types and functions
... Show MoreSignification with its different aspects constitutes various aesthetic pictures for human and nature creations over different periods of time. It was a focal around which logical thinking loops on the interpretation level of the signification movement according to its structural context expresses its hidden entities with which a human being deals according to two symmetrical levels while interpreting to attain meaning. Sense was the first passing window for the picture of signification which thought deals with. While trying to decode it and because art in general and theatre in particular are considered as the basis of creating signification through its visual and aural elements, so it was necessary to consider one of the elements of cre
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