Globally, Sustainability is very quickly becoming a fundamental requirement of the construction industry as it delivers its projects; whether buildings or infrastructures. Throughout more than two decades, many modeling schemes, evaluation tools, and rating systems have been introduced en route to realizing sustainable construction. Many of these, however, lack consensus on evaluation criteria, a robust scientific model that captures the logic behind their sustainability performance evaluation, and therefore experience discrepancies between rated results and actual performance. Moreover, very few of the evaluation tools available satisfactorily address infrastructure projects. The research introduces a system engineering model that abstracts the environment, the construction product, and its production system as three interacting systems that exchange materials, energy, and information. The model utilizes this setup to capture and quantify essential flows exchanged between such three systems, to evaluate sustainability. The research walks through the development of a generic case of the model, and then demonstrates its utility in evaluating the sustainability performance of civil infrastructure projects. The developed model will address an identified gap within the current body of knowledge by considering infrastructure projects. Through the ability to simulate different scenarios, the model will enable identifying which activities, products, and processes impact the environment more, and hence potential areas for optimization and improvement.
A novel fractal design scheme has been introduced in this paper to generate microstrip bandpass filter designs with miniaturized sizes for wireless applications. The presented fractal scheme is based on Minkowski-like prefractal geometry. The space-filling property and self-similarity of this fractal geometry has found to produce reduced size symmetrical structures corresponding to the successive iteration levels. The resulting filter designs are with sizes suitable for use in modern wireless communication systems. The performance of each of the generated bandpass filter structures up to the 2nd iteration has been analyzed using a method of moments (MoM) based software IE3D, which is widely adopted in microwave research and in
... Show MoreA true random TTL pulse generator was implemented and investigated for quantum key distribution systems. The random TTL signals are generated by low cost components available in the local markets. The TTL signals are obtained by using true random binary sequences based on registering photon arrival time difference registered in coincidence windows between two single – photon detectors. The true random TTL pulse generator performance was tested by using time to digital converters which gives accurate readings for photon arrival time. The proposed true random pulse TTL generator can be used in any quantum -key distribution system for random operation of the transmitters for these systems
Nanopesticides are novel plant protection products offering numerous benefits. Because nanoparticles behave differently from dissolved chemicals, the environmental risks of these materials could differ from conventional pesticides. We used soil–earthworm systems to compare the fate and uptake of analytical‐grade bifenthrin to that of bifenthrin in traditional and nanoencapsulated formulations. Apparent sorption coefficients for bifenthrin were up to 3.8 times lower in the nano treatments than in the non‐nano treatments, whereas dissipation half‐lives of the nano treatments were up to 2 times longer. Earthworms in the nano treatments accumulated approximately 50% more b
In Production and Operations Management the specialists have tried to develop a strategy to counter the risks arising from the activities of the organization and of waste of various types and therefore the risk management in the contemporary framework represents a phenomenon of new quality, and can not be this phenomenon to take practical dimensions, but the development of culture of the organization towards the risks and deal with all aspects and paint ways to address them within an integrated program, and requires new skills and systems provide accurate information capable of coordination between the various parties within the organization.
The research aims to develop a blu
... Show MoreInfrastructure, especially wastewater projects, plays an important role in the life of residential communities. Due to the increasing population growth, there is also a significant increase in residential and commercial facilities. This research aims to develop two models for predicting the cost and time of wastewater projects according to independent variables affecting them. These variables have been determined through a questionnaire distributed to 20 projects under construction in Al-Kut City/ Wasit Governorate/Iraq. The researcher used artificial neural network technology to develop the models. The results showed that the coefficient of correlation R between actual and predicted values were 99.4% and 99 %, MAPE was
... Show MoreThe subject of an valuation of quality of construction projects is one of the topics which it becomes necessary of the absence of the quantity standards in measuring the control works and the quality valuation standards in constructional projects. In the time being it depends on the experience of the workers which leads to an apparent differences in the valuation.
The idea of this research came to put the standards to evaluate the quality of the projects in a special system depending on quantity scale nor quality specifying in order to prepare an expert system “ Crystal “ to apply this special system to able the engineers to valuate the quality of their projects easily and in more accurate ways.
The governmental projects are considers the prevailing in Iraq, as most of the projects implemented by the Government, the major role played by governmental projects in the provision of services to citizens and improve the economic situation in the country in general, in addition to the huge number of these projects implemented by the governmental organizations and the large failure rates of it , and because of the fact that these projects are stumbled before they reach the stage of failure, The aim of this research to identify the main factors for the stumble projects in addition to identifying the most influential factor on the causes and consequences of it , like (cost overruns , time overruns , delay and scope
... Show MoreThe construction industry in Iraq suffers from many problems, perhaps the most important of which is the delay in time and the increase in costs. Therefore, it was necessary to try to adopt a new methodology that would help in overcoming these problems. It was suggested to combine building information modeling with the agile management approach because this technique and methodology is modern and helps in reducing time and cost and improving quality. This paper aims to know the status of using Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Agile Project management (APM) in Iraq and to shed light on the merging of this integration, explaining the benefits, difficulties, and workflow practices, finding the most influencing factors on the tim
... Show MoreThis study aims to identify how the Zakat Fund contributes to financing entrepreneurial projects; and the role that these projects play in achieving economic and social development, despite the importance that contracting projects have in most countries as the main engine of growth; however, they still face many challenges that In the forefront of which is the challenge of obtaining financing; in this regard, it is possible to resort to the use of Zakat funds in the Islamic economy as it is a funding source that is closely proportional to the characteristics and goals of entrepreneurial projects in achieving development;
 
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