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

In light of the enquiry raised by the Economist Mary Finn in 1995 concluding that high utilization in absorptive capacity of the economy is of inflationary tendency for industrial countries due to the equality between high rates of utilization of absorptive capacity and resource – shortage conditions leading to price inflation, the same idea was used to prove that budget utilization of operational costs and elevating absorptive capacity at the expense of investment budget leads to inflationary tendency that becomes a burden on financing the step- in policy of the Central bank to control prices through its foreign currency reserves at a time when the economy turned  into an importer of non- tradable goods and being subject

Construction projects have become a changing dramatically in recent decades and that the goal of the beneficiaries of the implementation of structural project is to complete the work with less time and within the cost of the specific and the best possible quality may sometimes happen that highlights the importance of time on the rest of the items at the implementation of projects for various reasons, including the need to use the project as soon as possible possible change rapidly to customer's requests, but the high cost of the project represents the biggest obstacle for entrepreneurs with its effects on the quality and the time workers, and is a measure of those elements in monetary terms is the key to integration between them, so the

A novel azo dye ligand namely (2-(pyridin-3-yldiazenyl)naphthalen-1-ol (HPYNA), was synthesized by the coupling reaction of diazonium salt of 3-aminopyridine with naphthol. The palladium(II) complex for HPYNA ligand was prepared by reacting palladium(II) ions with the HPYNA ligand. These synthesized compounds were characterized using different techniques, including mass, 1H-NMR, infrared, and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The infrared results show that the azo ligand reacts as a bidentate via the oxygen atom of phenol and nitrogen atom of the azo group. The palladium(II) complex is square-planer with diamagnetic properties depending on the results of electronic transitions and magnetic sensitivity. The HPYNA ligand and palladium complex show

Image compression is a suitable technique to reduce the storage space of an image, increase the area of storage in the device, and speed up the transmission process. In this paper, a new idea for image compression is proposed to improve the performance of the Absolute Moment Block Truncation Coding (AMBTC) method depending on Weber's law condition to distinguish uniform blocks (i.e., low and constant details blocks) from non-uniform blocks in original images. Then, all elements in the bitmap of each uniform block are represented by zero. After that, the lossless method, which is Run Length method, is used for compressing the bits more, which represent the bitmap of these uniform blocks. Via this simple idea, the result is improving

Mesoporous silica (MPS) nanoparticle was prepared as carriers for drug delivery systems by sol–gel method from sodium silicate as inexpensive precursor of silica and Cocamidopropyl betaine (CABP) as template. The silica particles were characterized by SEM, TEM, AFM, XRD, and N2adsorption–desorption isotherms. The results show that the MPS particle in the nanorange (40-80 nm ) with average diameter equal to 62.15 nm has  rods particle morphology, specific surface area is 1096.122 m²/g, pore volume 0.900 cm³/g, with average pore diameter 2.902 nm, which can serve as efficient carriers for drugs. The adsorption kinetic of Ciprofloxacin (CIP) drug was studied and the data were analyzed and found to match well with

Infrastructure, especially wastewater projects, plays an important role in the life of residential communities. Due to the increasing population growth, there is also a significant increase in residential and commercial facilities. This research aims to develop two models for predicting the cost and time of wastewater projects according to independent variables affecting them. These variables have been determined through a questionnaire distributed to 20 projects under construction in Al-Kut City/ Wasit Governorate/Iraq. The researcher used artificial neural network technology to develop the models. The results showed that the coefficient of correlation R between actual and predicted values were 99.4% and 99 %, MAPE was

In this work, effects of using different evaporative cooling pads (ECPs) on the energetic and exergetic efficiency of a direct evaporative air cooler (DEAC) have been theoretically and experimentally investigated. Three types of ECPs were used, i.e., honeycomb cellulose cooler pad (HCCP), shading-cloth cooler pad (SCCP), and aspen wood wool cooler pad (AWWCP). For SCCP and AWWCP, a 3-cm pad thickness was used, while for the HCCP, three different values of pad thickness were used, i.e., 3, 5, and 7 cm. Tests were carried out using air velocities of 8, 14, and 19 m/s, measured at the DEAC outlet. Engineering equation solver (EES) used for performing the required calculations of the various parameters affecting the thermal performance of the D