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

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

The current research aims to verify the relationship and impact of internal control activities as an independent variable in its dimensions (efficiency, training, independence) in making administrative decisions as a responsive variable and its dimensions (identifying and diagnosing the problem, searching for alternatives, evaluating alternatives, choosing the appropriate alternative, implementing the decision, following up Decision and evaluation) in the Kirkuk Water Directorate, as well as to identify the levels of their practices, and then try to come up with a number of recommendations contribute to the strengthening of internal control activities and the process of making administrative decisions of the researched Directorat

A new Differential Evolution (ARDE) algorithm is introduced that automatically adapt a repository of DE strategies and parameters adaptation schemes of the mutation factor and the crossover rate to avoid the problems of stagnation and make DE responds to a wide range of function characteristics at different stages of the evolution. ARDE algorithm makes use of JADE strategy and the MDE_pBX parameters adaptive schemes as frameworks. Then a new adaptive procedure called adaptive repository (AR) has been developed to select the appropriate combinations of the JADE strategies and the parameter control schemes of the MDE_pBX to generate the next population based on their fitness values. Experimental results have been presented to confirm the reli

In this article, a continuous terminal sliding mode control algorithm is proposed for servo motor systems. A novel full-order terminal sliding mode surface is proposed based on the bilimit homogeneous property, such that the sliding motion is finite-time stable independent of the system’s initial condition. A new continuous terminal sliding mode control algorithm is proposed to guarantee that the system states reach the sliding surface in finitetime. Not only the robustness is guaranteed by the proposed controller but also the continuity makes the control algorithm more suitable for the servo mechanical systems. Finally, a numerical example is presented to depict the advantages of the proposed control algorithm. An application in the rota