Variation orders are an on-going phenomenon in construction and industry projects worldwide, particularly in the province of Sulaimani, where the project's damage from cost and schedule overrun because of variation orders. However, the effect on project costs and time overrun of variation order has yet to be identified. This study evaluates the impact of variation orders on the cost and time off in the Sulaimani governorate. Two hundred twenty-eight projects from various construction sectors built between 2007-2012 were adopted to calculate the contract cost and schedule overruns due to variation orders. Data analysis was applied in the study were descriptive statistics. One-way ANOVA was also applied to determine w

The waste material problem in today's world has become a major topic affecting all sectors of human life. Researchers are interested in providing solutions for each kind of waste material. Waste glass is one of the waste materials whose amounts increase daily. This article deals with two types of modified cement mortar with glass granular in the masonry wall to find their effect on the wall's property (direct tensile, flexural, and compressive bond strength). Seven different mixes were prepared according to the used glass granular ratio (three mixes contained white glass with 15, 20, and 25% while three of them contained green glass granular 5, 10, and 15%, and the last mix was a controlled mix which contains no glass gr

AlO-doped ZnO nanocrystalline thin films from with nano crystallite size in the range (19-15 nm) were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition technique. The reduction of crystallite size by increasing of doping ratio shift the bandgap to IR region the optical band gap decreases in a consistent manner, from 3.21to 2.1 eV by increasing AlO doping ratio from 0 to 7wt% but then returns to grow up to 3.21 eV by a further increase the doping ratio. The bandgap increment obtained for 9% AlO dopant concentration can be clarified in terms of the Burstein–Moss effect whereas the aluminum donor atom increased the carrier's concentration which in turn shifts the Fermi level and widened the bandgap (blue-shift). The engineering of the bandgap by

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers significant benefits to biomedical research and academic writing. Nevertheless, using AI-powered writing aid tools has prompted worries about excessive dependence on these tools and their possible influence on writing proficiency. The current study aimed to explore the academic staff’s perspectives on the impact of AI on academic writing. This qualitative study incorporated in-person interviews with academic faculty members. The interviews were conducted in a semi-structured manner, using a predetermined interview guide consisting of open-ended questions. The interviews were done in person with the participants from May to November 2023. The data was analyzed using thematic analysis. Ten academics aged

Thin film solar cells are preferable to the researchers and in applications due to the minimum material usage and to the rising of their efficiencies. In particular, thin film solar cells, which are designed based one transition metal chalcogenide materials, paly an essential role in solar energy conversion market. In this paper, transition metals with chalcogenide Nickel selenide termed as (NiSe₂/Si) are synthesized. To this end, polycrystalline NiSe₂ thin films are deposited through the use of vacuum evaporation technique under vacuum of 2.1x10^-5 mbar, which are supplied to different annealing temperatures. The results show that under an annealed temperature of 525 K,

One of the most important problems facing the world today is the energy problem. The solution was in finding renewable energy sources such as solar energy. The solar energy applications in Iraq is facing many problems . One of the most important problems is the accumulation of dust on the solar panels surface which causes decreasing its performance sharply. In the present work, a new technique was presented by using two-axis solar tracking system to reduce the accumulated dust on the solar panel surface and compared it with the fixed solar panels which installed at tilt angles 30° and 45°. The results indicated that the maximum losses of the output power due to accumulation of dust on the fixed solar panels is about 31.4% and 23.1% res

This work was conducted to study the coefficient of performance for solar absorption refrigeration by using direct solar energy using aqueous ammonia 0.45 mass fraction (ammonia – water).The experiments were carried out in solar absorption system .The system consisted of solar collector generator (0.25 m × 0.25 m × 0.04m) and condenser cooled by a water bath followed by liquid receiver and evaporator. The results showed that the maximum generator temperature was (92° - 97°) during June 2009, and the minimum evaporator temperature was (5°C - 10°C) for aqua ammonia system.. It was, also, found that the coefficient of performance, cooling ratio and amount of cooling obtainable increased with increasing maximum generator temperature

The present paper is an experimental study to improve the productivity of the conventional solar still. This done by modifying conventional still in a way that the distilled basin is larger than distillation basin, thus providing an increase in the condensation surface and speeding up the condensation process. Moreover, increase in the dimensions of the distilled base helps coupling reflective panels to the distilled base to reflect incident solar radiation to the distillation basin. For this purpose , two solar stills were made, one conventional designand another made according to the proposed design. The two solar stills were tested during the period from February to July 2009 under varying weather conditions of Basra, Iraq (latitude o

Solar energy is the most abundant renewable energy source. This energy can be converted directly into electricity using solar panels. The fixed tilt solar panels are the most practical and the most widely installed throughout the world. Optimum tilt angle calculation has the advantage that it does not use expensive solar trackers. This research calculates the seasonal optimum tilt angle of solar panels for 17 cities in Iraq and 83 cities in 83 countries distributed around the world. Solar Panel Angle Calculator program was used in calculating the optimum tilt angles from vertical. The optimum tilt angle varies between 6° and 112° throughout the year. This angle for winter, spring/ autumn and summer seasons are found to be between