This study was set out to investigate factors affecting labor productivity on construction in the north of Iraq (Kurdistan) and to rank all the factors based on engineers, contractors, and designer’s opinions. 76 factors were analyzed based on previous literature and a pilot study. Next, by using online Google Form, a questionnaire form was created and sent to people who have experience in the construction industry. Afterward, the questionnaire form was sent to targeted people by email and social media apps. Factors were divided into nine groups “Management, Technical and Technology, Human and Workforce, Leadership, Motivation, Safety, Time, Material and Equipment, and External”. However, 202 respondents participated in this study,

Experimental study of heat transfer coefficients in air-liquid-solid fluidized beds were carried out by measuring the heat rate and the overall temperature differences across the heater at different operating conditions. The experiments were carried out in Q.V.F. glass column of 0.22 m inside diameter and 2.25 m height with an axially mounted cylindrical heater of 0.0367 m diameter and 0.5 m height. The fluidizing media were water as a continuous phase and air as a dispersed phase. Low density (Ploymethyl-methacrylate, 3.17 mm size) and high density (Glass beads, 2.31 mm size) particles were used as solid phase. The bed temperature profiles were measured axially and radially in the bed for different positions. Thermocouples were connecte

 The distribution of chilled water flow rate in terminal unit is a major factor used to evaluate the performance of central air conditioning unit. In this work, a theoretical chilled water distribution in the terminal units has been studied to predict the optimum heat performance of terminal unit. The central Air-conditioning unit model consists of cooling/ heating coil (three units), chilled water source (chiller), three-way and two-way valve with bypass, piping network, and pump. The term of optimization in terminal unit ingredient has two categories, the first is the uniform of the water flow rate representing in statically permanents standard deviation (minimum value) and the second category is the maximum heat transfer rate fro

In this paper, two new simple, fast and efficient block matching algorithms are introduced, both methods begins blocks matching process from the image center block and moves across the blocks toward image boundaries. With each block, its motion vector is initialized using linear prediction that depending on the motion vectors of its neighbor blocks that are already scanned and their motion vectors are assessed. Also, a hybrid mechanism is introduced, it depends on mixing the proposed two predictive mechanisms with Exhaustive Search (ES) mechanism in order to gain matching accuracy near or similar to ES but with Search Time ST less than 80% of the ES. Also, it offers more control capability to reduce the search errors. The experimental tests

Total quality management  considers one of the modern scientific entrances  which practiced by productivity service organizations alike to provide appropriate quality required outputs according to the needs and desires of customers manage , enable the organization seeking to continue and grow in light of the increasing competition from the satisfy and provide the appropriate total quality management requirements whenever led to face risks that they may have  in a manner in which they can be addressed and find ways to avoid them in the future when repeated.                          &n

Software Defined Network (SDN) is a new technology that separate the ‎control plane from the data plane. SDN provides a choice in automation and ‎programmability faster than traditional network. It supports the ‎Quality of Service (QoS) for video surveillance application. One of most ‎significant issues in video surveillance is how to find the best path for routing the packets ‎between the source (IP cameras) and destination (monitoring center). The ‎video surveillance system requires fast transmission and reliable delivery ‎and high QoS. To improve the QoS and to achieve the optimal path, the ‎SDN architecture is used in this paper. In addition, different routing algorithms are ‎used with different steps. First, we eva

In general, path-planning problem is one of most important task in the field of robotics. This paper describes the path-planning problem of mobile robot based on various metaheuristic algorithms. The suitable collision free path of a robot must satisfies certain optimization criteria such as feasibility, minimum path length, safety and smoothness and so on. In this research, various three approaches namely, PSO, Firefly and proposed hybrid FFCPSO are applied in static, known environment to solve the global path-planning problem in three cases. The first case used single mobile robot, the second case used three independent mobile robots and the third case applied three follow up mobile robot.  Simulation results, whi

The majority of Iraqi translator-student have problems at two main levels: the conceptual level and the productive level. From different perspectives, such problems are either related to ‘language’ or to ‘cognition’. This binary view is an indication to the implicit and interchangeable relationship between language and cognition. The relationship between cognition language and translator starts with the first language and its effect on the Iraqi translators. Identifying the effect is the aim of the present study. It is hypothesized that Iraqi students are negatively influenced by the problems and weaknesses of first language schema. This reflects the major claim and later concludes that first language instruction in the Iraq