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
Deep beams are used in wide construction fields such as water tanks, foundations, and girders in multi-story buildings to provide certain areas free of columns. In practice it is quite often occurring to create web opening in deep beams to supply convenient passage of ventilation ducts, cable channels, gas and water pipes. Experimental studies of ten 10 deep beams were carried out, where two of them are control specimens without openings and eight with large web openings in the shear spans. The variables that have been adopted are the ratio of the shear span to the overall depth of the member cross-section, location and dimensions of the opening. Test results showed that there was a decrease in the load carrying capacity of deep bea
... Show MoreThis study investigated the shear performance of concrete beams with GFRP stirrups vs. traditional steel stirrups. Longitudinal glass fiber‐reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars were used to doubly reinforce the tested beams at both the top and bottom of their cross sections. To accomplish this, several stirrup spacings were provided. Eight beam specimens, measuring 300 × 250 × 2400 mm, were used in an experimental program to test under a two‐point concentrated load with an equal span‐to‐depth ratio until failure. Four beams in Group I have standard mild steel stirrups of 8 mm diameter, while four beams in Group II have GFRP stirrups with the same adopted diameter. The difference betwe
Introduction: Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a common protozoan disease in Iraq characterized by localized ulcers, primarily on exposed skin. This study aimed to investigate the hematological parameters of infected patients using a complete blood count (CBC) in the endemic area of Diyala Governorate, northeast of Baghdad. This has been studied in newly diagnosed, untreated individuals and patients receiving sodium antimony gluconate. Methodology: Hematological screening was performed on blood samples from 161 patients with microscopically diagnosed cutaneous leishmaniasis before and after treatment. Anti-Leishmania IgG was also assessed by ELISA in seropositive and seronegative subjects. Results: The newly diagnosed, untreated pati
... Show MoreThe OpenStreetMap (OSM) project aims to establish a free geospatial database for the entire world which is editable by international volunteers. The OSM database contains a wide range of different types of geographical data and characteristics, including highways, buildings, and land use regions. The varying scientific backgrounds of the volunteers can affect the quality of the spatial data that is produced and shared on the internet as an OSM dataset. This study aims to compare the completeness and attribute accuracy of the OSM road networks with the data supplied by a digitizing process for areas in the Baghdad and Thi-Qar governorates. The analyses are primarily based on calculating the portion of the commission (extr
... Show MoreOur aim was to investigate the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) topics in medical curricula and the perceived need for, feasibility of, and barriers to teaching SRHR. We distributed a survey with questions on SRHR content, and factors regulating SRHR content, to medical universities worldwide using chain referral. Associations between high SRHR content and independent variables were analyzed using unconditional linear regression or χ2 test. Text data were analyzed by thematic analysis. We collected data from 219 respondents, 143 universities and 54 countries. Clinical SRHR topics such as safe pregnancy and childbirth (95.7%) and contraceptive methods
Markov chains are an application of stochastic models in operation research, helping the analysis and optimization of processes with random events and transitions. The method that will be deployed to obtain the transient solution to a Markov chain problem is an important part of this process. The present paper introduces a novel Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) approach to solve the Markov chain problem. The probability distribution of a continuous-time Markov chain with an infinitesimal generator at a given time is considered, which is a resulting solution of the Chapman-Kolmogorov differential equation. This study presents a one-step second-derivative method with better accuracy in solving the first-order Initial Value Problem
... Show MoreThe aim of this study is to investigate the effect of environmental management accounting information (EMAI) on the design process of environmental and sustainable products of Iraqi industrial companies. This process has five different sub-processes: research process, analysis process, conceptual design process, detailed design process and design production process. The study uses the quantitative approach as the questionnaire was designed and distributed to 87 quality managers, production managers, design managers and financial managers. The MANOVA analysis shows that EMAI has a positive and significant effect on three of these processes, namely research process, analysis process and detailed design process, while EMAI has an insi
... Show MoreBreast cancer is the most diagnosed form of malignant tumour in Iraqi women. Tamoxifen and trastuzumab are highly effective adjuvant therapy for breast cancer.
This study's objectives were to define the patient's belief in tamoxifen or trastuzumab when used as adjuvant therapy and to determine the variation in belief between the two medications in a sample of Iraqi breast cancer patients.
The cross-section survey was conducted using the BMQ-Specific questionnaire. Ninety-seven participants (sixty-seven tamoxifen, thirty trastuzumab) participated in this study.
The mean of specific-necessity scale for tamoxifen was (3.7) and for trastuzumab (4). The findings showed a high necessity for both medicines, and there wer
... Show MoreThe OpenStreetMap (OSM) project aims to establish a free geospatial database for the entire world which is editable by international volunteers. The OSM database contains a wide range of different types of geographical data and characteristics, including highways, buildings, and land use regions. The varying scientific backgrounds of the volunteers can affect the quality of the spatial data that is produced and shared on the internet as an OSM dataset. This study aims to compare the completeness and attribute accuracy of the OSM road networks with the data supplied by a digitizing process for areas in the Baghdad and Thi-Qar governorates. The analyses are primarily based on calculating the portion of the commission (extra road) and
... Show MoreThe aim of the currnet study to examine the effect of subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) in diabetic patients on coagulation parameters. This retrospective case–control study involves 130 patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), divided into 65 T2DM with newly diagnosed SCH and 65 euthyroid (EUT) T2DM patients without SCH. Fibrinogen (FIB) was significantly higher in SCH (508.2 ± 63.0 mg/dL) than EUT (428.1 ± 44.8 mg/dL). In the SCH patients, FIB correlated with several parameters, such as age (β = 0.396), body mass index (β = 0.578), glycated hemoglobin (β = 0.281), and activated partial thromboplastin time (β = 0.276). In conclusion SCH in DM patients appears to increase the magnitude of coagulopathy.
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