Controlling cost in construction projects is an essential issue. This study investigates the most critical problems that cause weakness in cost control in Iraqi construction projects. The quantitative technique was used by conducting a survey directed to professionals who work on construction projects. One hundred and sixty-four questionnaire forms were distributed to private sector companies, government companies, and government institutions, and the responses were subjected to the required statistical analysis. The results indicate that the most influential factors are the weakness in keeping up with the use of modern concepts, methods, and technologies, the delay in receiving the amounts due for work done from the owner, fluctuat

Abstract

Robust controller design requires a proper definition of uncertainty bounds. These uncertainty bounds are commonly selected randomly and conservatively for certain stability, without regard for controller performance.  This issue becomes critically important for multivariable systems with high nonlinearities, as in Active Magnetic Bearings (AMB) System. Flexibility and advanced learning abilities of intelligent techniques make them appealing for uncertainty estimation. The aim of this paper is to describe the development of robust H₂/H_∞ controller for AMB based on intelligent estimation of uncertainty bounds using Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS).  Simulatio

This paper represents an experimental study on the application of smart control represented by the use of the fuzzy logic controller. Two-link flexible manipulators that are used in airspace and military applications are made of flexible materials characterized by low frequency and damping ratio. To solve this problem, this paper proposes the use of smart materials (piezoelectric transducers), where each link is bonded with a pair of piezoelectric transducers that act as a sensor and another as an actuator. As the arm vibrates because of the movement generated by the motor, this voltage is controlled by a regulator inside the LABVIEW® 2020 software and sends the output control voltage to the piezoelectric actuator. Experimental results

Database is characterized as an arrangement of data that is sorted out and disseminated in a way that allows the client to get to the data being put away in a simple and more helpful way. However, in the era of big-data the traditional methods of data analytics may not be able to manage and process the large amount of data. In order to develop an efficient way of handling big-data, this work studies the use of Map-Reduce technique to handle big-data distributed on the cloud. This approach was evaluated using Hadoop server and applied on EEG Big-data as a case study. The proposed approach showed clear enhancement for managing and processing the EEG Big-data with average of 50% reduction on response time. The obtained results provide EEG r

In this study, plastic wastes named (PET and PVC) were used to prepare polymer matrix composite (PMC) which can be used in different applications. Composite materials were prepared by mixing unsaturated polyester resin (UP) with plastic wastes, two types of plastic waste were used in this work included polyethylene-terephthalate (PET) and Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) with various weight fractions (0, 5,10,15, 20 and 25%) added as a filler in flakes form. In this work, some of the tests that were carried out included (tensile, bending, and compressive strength) as mechanical tests, in addition to (thermal conductivity and water absorption) as physical tests. The values of tensile, compressive strength and Young's modulus of UP increased after

  The purpose of the study is to analyze the extent of the impact of liquidity as an independent variable on profitability as an intermediate variable and the value of banks listed in the Iraq Stock Exchange as a dependent variable, as the research problem is summarized by the fact that most banks focus on profitability as a phased goal without focusing on maximizing its value as a strategic goal by enhancing the wealth of owners and shareholders. On the long term, the research community is represented by the banks listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange, while the research sample was deliberately chosen, which included three private banks such as Baghdad Commercial Bank, the Iraqi Commercial Bank and the Iraqi Investment Bank, an

The objective of this study is to apply Artificial Neural Network for heat transfer analysis of shell-and-tube heat exchangers widely used in power plants and refineries. Practical data was obtained by using industrial heat exchanger operating in power generation department of Dura refinery. The commonly used Back Propagation (BP) algorithm was used to train and test networks by divided the data to three samples (training, validation and testing data) to give more approach data with actual case. Inputs of the neural network include inlet water temperature, inlet air temperature and mass flow rate of air. Two outputs (exit water temperature to cooling tower and exit air temperature to second stage of air compressor) were taken in ANN.