Continuous improvement, or Kaizen, is a philosophy that is based on the idea of continuously finding ways to improve things.  From this point of view, continuous improvement is not limited to the quality of products or services but it also applies to all the processes in the organization.  During the last two decades several continuous improvement approaches were developed and marketed.  The advocates of each approach claim that their approach is the best, however all the approaches had their own advantages and disadvantages and had their share of criticism.  The important question is how to choose the right continuous improvement approach?  This research work addresses the philosophy, the concepts, the assumptio

Rutting is mainly referring to pavement permanent deformation, it is a major problem for flexible pavement and it is a complicated process and highly observed along with many segments of asphalt pavement in Iraq. The occurrence of this defect is related to several variables such as elevated temperatures and high wheel loads. Studying effective methods to reduce rutting distress is of great significance for providing a safe and along-life road. The asphalt mixture used to be modified by adding different types of additives. The addition of additives typically excesses stiffness, improves temperature susceptibility, and reduces moisture sensitivity. For this work, steel fibres have been used for modifying asphalt mixture as they incorp

The target of this study was to synthesize several new Ciprofloxacin drug analogs by providing a nucleophilic substitution procedure that provides new functionality at the carboxylic group location. The analogs were synthesized, designed, and characterized by ¹HNMR, and FTIR. The synthetic path began from the reaction of ciprofloxacin drug with morpholine to give compound[B], ciprofloxacin derivative was linked with a variety of primary and secondary amines to give compounds[B1-B9]. The above-mentioned prepared compounds [B3 and B5] were applied to liver enzymes, and the increase in the activity of these enzymes was observed. In addition, a theoretical study was conducted to study the energies and properties of the prepared co

Two dimensional meso-scale concrete modeling was used in finite element analysis of plain concrete beam subjected to bending. The plane stress 4-noded quadrilateral elements were utilized to model coarse aggregate, cement mortar. The effect of aggregate fraction distribution, and pores percent of the total area – resulting from air voids entrapped in concrete during placement on the behavior of plain concrete beam in flexural was detected. Aggregate size fractions were randomly distributed across the profile area of the beam. Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) was employed to treat the discontinuities problems result from double phases of concrete and cracking that faced during the finite element analysis of concrete beam. Crac

This paper deals with an analytical study of the flow of an incompressible generalized Burgers’ fluid (GBF) in an annular pipe. We discussed in this problem the flow induced by an impulsive pressure gradient and compare the results with flow due to a constant pressure gradient. Analytic solutions for velocity is earned by using discrete Laplace transform (DLT) of the sequential fractional derivatives (FD) and finite Hankel transform (FHT). The influences of different parameters are analyzed on a velocity distribution characteristics and a comparison between two cases is also presented, and discussed in details. Eventually, the figures are plotted to exhibit these effects.

The organizational culture is an effective control mechanism that dictates the behavior of employees and according to their intellectual and social orientations, so it is considered a more powerful way to control employee orientations and determine their management according to organizational rules and regulations, as it was one of the most important factors determining the performance of organizations, while organizational performance is a measure of what the organization has achieved from the objectives of the scheme To ensure that it faces various changes and remains within the global competition, and to reach that it was necessary to identify the most prominent and most important research problems in knowing the extent of com

This study investigates the influence of five nanomaterials nano-alumina (NA), nano-silica (NS), nano-titanium (NT), nano-zinc oxide (NZ), and carbon nanotubes (CNT)on enhancing the fatigue resistance of asphalt binders. NA, NS, and NT were incorporated at dosages of 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10%, while NZ and CNT were added at 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5%. A series of physical, rheological, and performance-based tests were conducted, including penetration, softening point, ductility, and rotational viscosity. Based on the outcomes of the overall desirability evaluation, the first three dosages of each nanomaterial were selected for further testing due to their superior workability and binder flexibility. Subsequent investigations included the high-tem

Predicting vertical stress was indeed useful for controlling geomechanical issues since it allowed for the computation of pore pressure for the formation and the classification of fault regimes. This study provides an in-depth observation of vertical stress prediction utilizing numerous approaches using the Techlog 2015 software. Gardner's method results in incorrect vertical stress values with a problem that this method doesn't start from the surface and instead relies only on sound log data. Whereas the Amoco, Wendt non-acoustic, Traugott, average technique simply needed density log as input and used a straight line as the observed density, this was incorrect for vertical computing stress. The results of these methods

* Khalifa E. Sharquie1, Hayder Al-Hamamy2, Adil A. Noaimi1, Mohammed A. Al-Marsomy3, Husam Ali Salman4, American Journal of Dermatology and Venereology, 2014 - Cited by 2