The purpose of this study is to avoid delays and cost changes that occur in emergency reconstruction projects especially in post disaster circumstances. This study is aimed to identify the factors that affect the real construction period and the real cost of a project against the estimated period of construction and the estimated cost of the project. The case study is related to the construction projects in Iraq. Thirty projects in different areas of construction in Iraq were selected as a sample for this study. Project participants from the projects authorities provided data about the projects through a data collection distributed survey made by the authors. Mathematical data analysis was used to construct a model to predict change in time and cost of the projects before the start of the construction. The artificial neural networks analysis was selected as a mathematical approach. The most important factors identified leading to schedule delays and cost increase were contractor failure, redesigning of designs/plans and change orders, security issues, selection of low-price bids, weather factors, and owner failures. The use of the ANN model for such a problem is expected to be an effective method for modeling this complicated phenomenon.
An atomic force microscope (AFM) technique is utilized to investigate the polystyrene (PS) impact upon the morphological properties of the outer as well as inner surface of poly vinyl chloride (PVC) porous fibers. Noticeable a new shape of the nodules at the outer and inner surfaces, namely "Crater nodules", has been observed. The fibers surface images have seen to be regular nodular texture at the skin of the inner and outer surfaces at low PS content. At PS content of 6 wt.%, the nodules structure was varied from Crater shape to stripe. While with increasing of PS content, the pore density reduces as a result of increasing the size of the pore at the fiber surface. Moreover, the test of 3D-AFM images shows that the roughness of both su
... Show MoreThe Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is frequently used in pavement engineering
for road pavement inspection. The main objective of this work is to validate
nondestructive, quick and powerful measurements using GPR for assessment of subgrade
and asphalt /concrete conditions. In the present study, two different antennas
(250, 500 MHz) were used. The case studies are presented was carried in University
of Baghdad over about 100m of paved road. After data acquisition and radar grams
collection, they have been processed using RadExplorer V1.4 software
implementing different filters with the most effective ones (time zero adjustment and
DC removal) in addition to other interpretation tool parameters.
The interpretatio
The consumption of dried bananas has increased because they contain essential nutrients. In order to preserve bananas for a longer period, a drying process is carried out, which makes them a light snack that does not spoil quickly. On the other hand, machine learning algorithms can be used to predict the sweetness of dried bananas. The article aimed to study the effect of different drying times (6, 8, and 10 hours) using an air dryer on some physical and chemical characteristics of bananas, including CIE-L*a*b, water content, carbohydrates, and sweetness. Also predicting the sweetness of dried bananas based on the CIE-L*a*b ratios using machine learn- ing algorithms RF, SVM, LDA, KNN, and CART. The results showed that increasing the drying
... Show MoreThe use of blended cement in concrete provides economic, energy savings, and ecological benefits, and also provides. Improvement in the properties of materials incorporating blended cements. The major aim of this investigation is to develop blended cement technology using grinded local rocks . The research includes information on constituent materials, manufacturing processes and performance characteristics of blended cements made with replacement (10 and 20) % of grinded local rocks (limestone, quartzite and porcelinite) from cement. The main conclusion of this study was that all types of manufactured blended cement conformed to the specification according to ASTM C595-12 (chemical and physical requirements). The percentage of the compress
... Show MoreThe goal of our study is to perform detailed multiband surface photometry of the spiral galaxy NGC 4448 and its brightest star-forming regions. The structure and composition of the stellar population in the surface brightness galaxy NGC 4448 was studied using BVR CCD photometry. The observations were obtained on the 1.88 m optical telescope of Kottamia Astronomical Observatory (KAO), Egypt. A two-dimensional decomposition of the galaxy bulge and disk components is carried out. A powerful star forming region is observed near the galactic center. Based on the positions of the various components of the galaxy in two color diagrams. From the observations, the surface brightness profiles, Ellipticity profiles, position angle profiles and colo
... Show MoreNano gamma alumina was prepared by double hydrolysis process using aluminum nitrate nano hydrate and sodium aluminate as an aluminum source, hydroxyle poly acid and CTAB (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide) as templates. Different crystallization temperatures (120, 140, 160, and 180) 0C and calcinations temperatures (500, 550, 600, and 650) 0C were applied. All the batches were prepared at PH equals to 9. XRD diffraction technique and infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy were used to investigate the phase formation and the optical properties of the nano gamma alumina. N2 adsorption-desorption (BET) was used to measure the surface area and pore volume of the prepared nano alumina, the particle size and the
... Show MoreThe research aims to find approximate solutions for two dimensions Fredholm linear integral equation. Using the two-variables of the Bernstein polynomials we find a solution to the approximate linear integral equation of the type two dimensions. Two examples have been discussed in detail.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has significantly transformed modern systems through extensive connectivity but has also concurrently introduced considerable cybersecurity risks. Traditional rule-based methods are becoming increasingly insufficient in the face of evolving cyber threats. This study proposes an enhanced methodology utilizing a hybrid machine-learning framework for IoT cyber-attack detection. The framework integrates a Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) for optimal feature selection, a customized synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) for data balancing, and a systematic approach to hyperparameter tuning of ensemble algorithms: Random Forest (RF), XGBoost, and CatBoost. Evaluations on the RT-IoT2022 dataset demonstrat
... Show MoreManganese sulfate and Punica granatum plant extract were used to create MnO2 nanoparticles, which were then characterized using techniques like Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The crystal's size was calculated to be 30.94nm by employing the Debye Scherrer equation in X-ray diffraction. MnO2 NPs were shown to be effective in adsorbing M(II) = Co, Ni, and Cu ions, proving that all three metal ions may be removed from water in one go. Ni(II) has a higher adsorption rate throughout the board. Co, Ni, and Cu ion removal efficiencies were 32.79%, 75
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