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.
This study focuses on the slab-beam interaction in one-way systems. In the context of this study, slab-beam interaction means how beam deflection can affect moment distribution in one-way slabs. This interaction is usually neglected in the traditional approximate analysis that is adopted in engineering practice and design codes. Slab positive moments have been considered as indicators on the accuracy of approximate methods, as they overestimate negative moments while underestimating positive moments.
After proposing of effecting parameters in slab-beam interaction including of panel length and width, beam dimensions, and slab thickness, Buckingham’s theorem has been adopted to transform the dimensional-mo
... Show MoreThis study is concerned with the evaluation of the effect of Euphrates River water quality in Al-Samawa region during
the period 1984-2003 on efficiency and reliability of reverse osmosis desalination systems by calculating the calcium
sulfate scaling index depending on the following indicators: - TDS, Ca+2, Mg+2, Na+1, Cl-1, So4-2, HCO3-1. It was
found from data analysis that this index for these units is greater than permissible limit. Also, the fitted relationship
between this index and TDS is logarithmic, i.e. this index varies more rapidly than TDS, and consequently it is more
representative to the water quality than TDS.
Deaf and dumb peoples are suffering difficulties most of the time in communicating with society. They use sign language to communicate with each other and with normal people. But Normal people find it more difficult to understand the sign language and gestures made by deaf and dumb people. Therefore, many techniques have been employed to tackle this problem by converting the sign language to a text or a voice and vice versa. In recent years, research has progressed steadily in regard to the use of computers to recognize and translate the sign language. This paper reviews significant projects in the field beginning with important steps of sign language translation. These projects can b
Conventional dosage forms for topical and transdermal drug delivery have several disadvantages related mainly to its poor skin permeation and patient compliance. Many approaches have been developed to improve these dosage forms. Film forming drug delivery systems represents a recent advancement in this field. It provides improved patient compliance with enhanced skin permeation of drugs. In its simplest form, these consist of a polymeric solution, usually in a supersaturated state, in a suitable solvent. A plasticizer is usually added to improve the flexibility and enhance the tensile strength to the film. It is also possible to control and sustain the drug release from the films by controlling the polymeric content, concentration o
... Show MoreThe systems of governance in Europe are characterized by ancient democratic systems that have developed and developed through a long history of political conflicts that have emerged from a social reality that feeds them and receives the resulting effects. This is an achievement that has been achieved after the sacrifices and great efforts in formulating models of good governance through which to realize the aspirations of their peoples. . The democratic system operates within a balanced mechanism of two competing parties to manage and direct the work of the government and the parliament. The parties that achieve the majority in the elections carry out the functions of the government supported by their parliamentary base belonging to one
... Show MoreThe challenge in studying fusion reaction when the projectile is neutron or proton rich halo nuclei is the coupling mechanism between the elastic and the breakup channel, therefore the motivation from the present calculations is to estimate the best coupling parameter to introduce the effect of coupled-channels for the calculations of the total cross section of the fusion , the barrier distribution of the fusion and the average angular momentum 〈L〉 for the systems 6He+206Pb, 8B+28Si, 11Be+209Bi, 17F+208Pb, 6He+238U, 8He+197Au and 15C+232Th using quantum mechanical approach. A quantum Coupled-Channel Calculations are performed using CC code. The predictions of quantum mechanical approach are comparable with the measured data that is
... Show MoreThe challenge in studying fusion reaction when the projectile is neutron or proton rich halo nuclei is the coupling mechanism between the elastic and the breakup channel, therefore the motivation from the present calculations is to estimate the best coupling parameter to introduce the effect of coupled-channels for the calculations of the total cross section of the fusion , the barrier distribution of the fusion and the average angular momentum 〈L〉 for the systems 6He+206Pb, 8B+28Si, 11Be+209Bi, 17F+208Pb, 6He+238U, 8He+197Au and 15C+232Th using quantum mechanical approach. A
... Show MoreGlobally, buildings use about 40% of energy. Many elements, such as the physical properties of the structure, the efficiency of the cooling and heating systems, the activity of the occupants, and the building’s sustainability, affect the energy consumption of a building. It is really difficult to predict how much energy a building will need. To improve the building’s sustainability and create sustainable energy sources to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion, estimating the building's energy use is necessary. This paper explains the energy consumed in the lecture building of the Al-Khwarizmi College of Engineering, University of Baghdad (UOB), Baghdad, Iraq. The weather data and the building construction informati
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