This study was set out to investigate factors affecting labor productivity on construction in the north of Iraq (Kurdistan) and to rank all the factors based on engineers, contractors, and designer’s opinions. 76 factors were analyzed based on previous literature and a pilot study. Next, by using online Google Form, a questionnaire form was created and sent to people who have experience in the construction industry. Afterward, the questionnaire form was sent to targeted people by email and social media apps. Factors were divided into nine groups “Management, Technical and Technology, Human and Workforce, Leadership, Motivation, Safety, Time, Material and Equipment, and External”. However, 202 respondents participated in this study,

This paper presents L₁-adaptive controller for controlling uncertain parameters and time-varying unknown parameters to control the position of a DC servomotor. For the purpose of comparison, the effectiveness of L₁-adaptive controller for position control of studied servomotor has been examined and compared with another adaptive controller; Model Reference Adaptive Controller (MRAC). Robustness of both L₁-adaptive controller and model reference adaptive controller to different input reference signals and different structures of uncertainty were studied. Three different types of input signals are taken into account; ramp, step and sinusoidal. The L₁-adaptive controller ensured uniformly bounded

Mouth ulcers are common oral lesions. Although several topical treatments are commercially available, their limited residence time requires frequent application, which remains a significant drawback. This study aimed to develop a novel mucoadhesive, thermosensitive, in situ gel-forming spray for local delivery of betamethasone sodium phosphate, thereby reducing systemic exposure. Formulations were optimized using the design of experiment approach to investigate the effects of thermosensitive polymers (Poloxamer 407 and Poloxamer 188), mucoadhesive polymer (hyaluronic acid), and drug incorporation on gelation temperature and time. The optimized formulation gelled at 33.3 ± 0.7 °C within 14.79 ± 1.87 s and showed a spray angle of 4

<span lang="EN-GB">This paper highlights the barriers that have led to a delay in the implementation of E-Health services in Iraq. A new framework is proposed to improve the E-Health sector using a SECI model which describes how explicit and tacit knowledge is generated, transferred, and recreated in organizations through main stages (socialization, externalization, combination and internalization). Class association rules (CARs) is integrated to mine the SECI model by extracting related rules which correspond to the medical advice. The proposed framework (SECICAR) can be done through a web portal to assemble healthcare professionals, patients in one environment. SECICAR will be applied to the hypertension community to show th

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a tool that improves real-time patient health observation in hospitals, asylums, especially at home. WBAN has grown popularity in recent years due to its critical role and vast range of medical applications. Due to the sensitive nature of the patient information being transmitted through the WBAN network, security is of paramount importance. To guarantee the safe movement of data between sensor nodes and various WBAN networks, a high level of security is required in a WBAN network. This research introduces a novel technique named Integrated Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm with Artificial Neural Network (IGO-ANN) for distinguishing between trusted nodes in WBAN networks by means of a classifica

Flexible joint robot (FJR) manipulators can offer many attractive features over rigid manipulators, including light weight, safe operation, and high power efficiency. However, the tracking control of the FJR is challenging due to its inherent problems, such as underactuation, coupling, nonlinearities, uncertainties, and unknown external disturbances. In this article, a terminal sliding mode control (TSMC) is proposed for the FJR system to guarantee the finite-time convergence of the systems output, and to achieve the total robustness against the lumped disturbance and estimation error. By using two coordinate transformations, the FJR dynamics is turned into a canonical form. A cascaded finite-time sliding mode observer (CFTSMO) is construct

The Backstepping Sliding Mode Control is a control technique used for controlling nonlinear systems. In this paper, the performance of the backstepping sliding mode controller schemes for the angular velocity control for a rotary actuator of an angular velocity control system that utilizes a novel hydraulic flow control method called inlet throttling was investigated. For the angular velocity dynamic, a linear state feedback with suitable high gain is designed as the virtual controller, where steady state error can be made arbitrarily small according to the gain value. A time varying sliding variable is then selected based on the designed virtual controller. The resulting control design is robust, and the maximum error of the angular veloci

sensor sampling rate (SSR) may be an effective and crucial field in networked control systems.  Changing sensor sampling period after designing the networked control system is a critical matter for the stability of the system. In this article, a wireless networked control system with multi-rate sensor sampling is proposed to control the temperature of a multi-zone greenhouse. Here, a behavior based Mamdany fuzzy system is used in three approaches, first is to design the fuzzy temperature controller, second is to design a fuzzy gain selector and third is to design a fuzzy error handler. The main approach of the control system design is to control the input gain of the fuzzy temperature controller depending on the cur