Priority of road maintenance can be viewed as a process influenced by decision-makers with varying decision-making power. Each decision-maker may have their view and judgment depending on their function and responsibilities. Therefore, determining the priority of road maintenance can be thought of as a process of MCDM. Regarding the priority of road maintenance, this is a difficult MCDM problem involving uncertainty, qualitative criteria, and possible causal relationships between choice criteria. This paper aims to examine the applicability of multiple MCDM techniques, which are used for assessing the priority of road maintenance, by adapting them to this sector. Priority of road maintenance problems subject to internal

An integrated GIS-VBA (Geographical Information System – Visual Basic for Application), model is developed for selecting an optimum water harvesting dam location among an available locations in a watershed. The proposed model allows quick and precise estimation of an adopted weighted objective function for each selected location. In addition to that for each location, a different dam height is used as a nominee for optimum selection. The VBA model includes an optimization model with a weighted objective function that includes beneficiary items (positive) , such as the available storage , the dam height allowed by the site as an indicator for the potential of hydroelectric power generation , the rainfall rate as a source of water . In a

Abstract

Objective(s): A descriptive study aimed to determine nurses' knowledge about chest physiotherapy techniques for patients with Corona virus disease and observe the relationship between nurses' knowledge and their socio-demographic characteristics.

Methodology: The study was directed in isolation units of Al- Hussein teaching hospitals in Thi-Qar, Iraq for the period from June 1st,  2022 to November 27th, 2022. Non- probability (purposively) sample comprised 41 nurses. A questionnaire was used for data collection and it consists of two parts: the first part comprises socio demographic features, the second part includes self- administered questionnaire sheet wa

The present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between critical thinking, epistemological beliefs, and learning strategies with the academic performance of high school first-grade male and female students in Yazd. For this purpose, from among all first-grade students, as many as 250 students (130 females and 120 males) were selected by using multistage cluster sampling. The data needed were then collected through using California Critical Thinking Skills Test, Schommer's Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire, Biggs’ Revised Two Factor Study Process Questionnaire. The findings indicated that there is a positive significant relationship between critical thinking and academic performance and achievement. Moreover, four fa

This paper proposes two hybrid feature subset selection approaches based on the combination (union or intersection) of both supervised and unsupervised filter approaches before using a wrapper, aiming to obtain low-dimensional features with high accuracy and interpretability and low time consumption. Experiments with the proposed hybrid approaches have been conducted on seven high-dimensional feature datasets. The classifiers adopted are support vector machine (SVM), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and K-nearest neighbour (KNN). Experimental results have demonstrated the advantages and usefulness of the proposed methods in feature subset selection in high-dimensional space in terms of the number of selected features and time spe

This work aimed to produce PVA and PVA/Ag nanofibers ultra-high sensitivity photodetector by electrospinning. The electrospinning process was used to successfully prepare PVA nanofibers and a PVA-Ag nanofiber composite. FE-SEM, XRD, UV, I-V characterizations are used to study the morphological, structural, optical, and electrical properties of the material. In contrast, the PVA-Ag nanofiber composite film displayed a cubic structure with favored orientation (200) that indicated the presence of Ag NPs in the PVA-Ag nanofibers film. While the optical energy gap for PVA was 3.96 eV, it was only 2.14 eV for PVA-Ag nanofibers composite film, making this composite sensitive to visible light, particularly green light at 550 nm with a 65% photosens

Several directional wells have been drilled in Majnoon oilfield at wide variation in drilling time due to different drilling parameters applied for each well. This technical paper shows the importance of proper selection of the bit, Mud type, applied weight on Bit (WOB), Revolution per minute (RPM), and flow rate based on the previous wells drilled. Utilizing the data during drilling each section for directional wells that's significantly could improve drilling efficiency presented at a high rate of penetration (ROP). Based on the extensive study of three directional wells of 35 degree inclination (MJ-51, MJ-52, and MJ-54) found that the applied drilling parameters for MJ-54 and the bit type within associated drilling parameters to drill

In this paper we proposes the philosophy of the Darwinian selection as synthesis method called Genetic algorithm ( GA ), and include new merit function with simple form then its uses in other works for designing one of the kinds of multilayer optical filters called high reflection mirror. Here we intend to investigate solutions for many practical problems. This work appears designed high reflection mirror that have good performance with reduction the number of layers, which can enable one to controlling the errors effect of the thickness layers on the final product, where in this work we can yield such a solution in a very shorter time by controlling the length of the chromosome and optimal genetic operators . Res

In the 1980s, the French Administration Roads LCPC developed high modulus mixtures (EME) by using hard binder. This type of mixture presented good resistance to moisture damage and improved mechanical properties for asphalt mixtures including high modulus, good fatigue behaviour and excellent resistance to rutting. In Iraq, this type of mixture has not been used yet. The main objective of this research is to evaluate the performance of high modulus mixtures and comparing them with the conventional mixture, to achieve this objective, asphalt concrete mixes were prepared and then tested to evaluate their engineering properties which include moisture damage, resilient modulus, permanent deformation and fatigue characteristics. These pro