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.
Despite the importance of sustainable development and its dimensions in developing performance and supporting competitive advantage in economic units, there is a gap and lack of coordination between Combined Assurance providers (management, internal audit, external audit) to report on sustainable development, and the research aims to propose a model for the Combined Assurance report to achieve development sustainable development in the Iraqi economic units, especially the Baghdad Municipality, enables assurance providers to coordinate efforts that lead to the achievement of Combined Assurance, The research found the proposed model for the Combined Assurance report in achieving sustainable development in the Iraqi economic units, es
... Show MoreSorghum cultivation is often accompanied by low field emergence rates and weak seedlings, which may be due to genetic or environmental stress. A factorial experiment was conducted in the spring and fall seasons of 2022 using a randomized complete block design with split-plot arrangement and four replications. Planting dates (spring season: Feb. 15th, Mar. 1st, 15th, and Apr. 1st, 15th; fall season: Jun. 15th, Jul. 1st, 15th, and Aug. 1st, 15th) were allocated to the main plots. Seeds stimulation treatments (35% banana peel extract + 100 mg L-1 citric acid and distilled water soaking treatment only) were allocated to the subplots. The interaction treatment (banana peel extract + citric acid) with the planting date of April 15 showed the high
... Show MoreThe research aims to analysis the future profits of companies listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange through analyzing the relationship between Actual Growth and Sustainable Growth, The study was applied to the sample of companies included in the Iraq Stock Exchange for the period (2010- 2014), The Internal Growth Rate has been used as a measure for the Actual Return Rate but the Sustainable Growth Rate has been measured under the Rose model, The research showed group of conclusions, the most important are:1. From the analysis of sustainable growth for the banks sample and the variables involved in its measure shows that investment in the investors amounts have achieved a significant return, which demonstrates the company's efficiency at gene
... Show MoreThe aim of this research is to analyze the content of the science textbook for 7th grade Iraqi schools in the light of the educational concepts of sustainable development, the science textbook (1st edition), for the academic year 2017-2018. To this end, the researchers prepared list of issues in the light of the educational concepts of sustainable development, consisted of (13) issues, branched to (51) subissues, presented to a group of arbitrators and specialists in science curriculum and methods of teaching. The researchers analyzed the content of the 7th grade science textbook, in the light of the list that is built, the idea has been adopted as a unit of analysis. One of the most important findings is attention to neglected sub-issues o
... Show MoreThe Tigris River, a vital water resource for Iraq, faces significant challenges due to urbanization, agricultural runoff, industrial discharges, and climate change, leading to deteriorating water quality. Traditional methods for assessing irrigation water quality, such as laboratory testing and statistical modeling, are often insufficient for capturing dynamic and nonlinear relationships between parameters. This study proposes a novel application of the Gravitational Search Algorithm (GSA) to estimate the Irrigation Water Quality Index (IWQI) along the Tigris River. Using data from multiple stations, the study evaluates spatial variability in water quality, focusing on key paramete
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
There has been a growing interest in the use of chaotic techniques for enabling secure communication in recent years. This need has been motivated by the emergence of a number of wireless services which require the channel to provide very low bit error rates (BER) along with information security. As more and more information is transacted over wireless media, there has been increasing criminal activity directed against such systems. This paper investigates the feasibility of using chaotic communications over Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) channels. We have studied the performance of differential chaos shift keying (DCSK) with 2×2 Alamouti scheme and 2×1 Alamouti scheme for different chaotic maps over additive white Gaussian noise (
... 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
Many isolated rural communities are located in regions where there is an abundant and reliable supply of solar energy, but where the distance to the nearest power station is many tens or even hundreds of kilometre. It is therefore mainly in these areas that rural electrification is now being provided by PV generators. since Stand-Alone PV generator can offer the most cost-effective and reliable option for providing power needed in remote places. Accordingly these isolated rural canters are fitted with PV for lighting, a refrigerator, a television and socket to supply kitchen appliances