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 whether the overrun of project cost and schedule significantly varied depending on project type, size, duration, location, and awarded years. The findings indicated that cost overruns are very common due to variation orders. 95.6% of the projects were studied being impacted, and overrun in project cost are also huge, with 16%. Time also overruns more common than cost overruns due to the variation orders. 98.7% of the projects were studied in Sulaimani were affected by time overrun with an average of 46.3% of initial duration observed. Findings also indicated that two out of five parameters measured in the analysis had a significant correlation with project cost overruns. Three out of five considered variables correlated with construction time overruns.
Background: Adipose derived-mesenchymal stem cells have been used as an alternative to bone marrow cells in this study. Objective: We investigated the in vitro isolation, identification, and differentiation of stem cells into neuron cells, in order to produce neuron cells via cell culture, which would be useful in nerve injury treatment. Method: Mouse adipose mesenchymal stem cells were dissected from the abdominal subcutaneous region. Neural differentiation was induced using β-mercaptoethanol. This study included two different neural stage markers, i.e. nestin and neurofilament light-chain, to detect immature and mature neurons, respectively. Results: The immunocytochemistry results showed that the use of β-mercaptoethanol resulted in
... Show MoreA new simple and sensitive spectrophotometric method for the determination of trace amount of Co(II) in the ethanol absolute solution have been developed. The method is based on the reaction of Co(II) with ethyl cyano(2-methyl carboxylate phenyl azo acetate) (ECA) in acid medium of hydrochloric acid (0.1 M) givining maximum absorbance at ((λmax = 656 nm). Beer's law is obeyed over the concentration range (5-60) (μg / ml) with molar absorptivity of (1.5263 × 103 L mol-1 cm-1) and correlation coefficient (0.9995). The precision (RSD% ˂ 1%). The stoichiometry of complex was confirmed by Job's method which indicated the ratio of metal to reagent is (2:1). The studied effect of interference elements Zn(II), Cu(II), Na(I), K(I), Ca(II) and Mg
... Show MoreIn this paper, a new third kind Chebyshev wavelets operational matrix of derivative is presented, then the operational matrix of derivative is applied for solving optimal control problems using, third kind Chebyshev wavelets expansions. The proposed method consists of reducing the linear system of optimal control problem into a system of algebraic equations, by expanding the state variables, as a series in terms of third kind Chebyshev wavelets with unknown coefficients. Example to illustrate the effectiveness of the method has been presented.
The use of Near-Surface Mounted (NSM) Carbon-Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) strips is an efficient technology for increasing flexural and shear strength or for repairing damaged Reinforced Concrete (RC) members. This strengthening method is a promising technology. However, the thin layer of concrete covering the NSM-CFRP strips is not adequate to resist heat effect when directly exposed to a fire or at a high temperature. There is clear evidence that the strength and stiffness of CFRPs severely deteriorate at high temperatures. Therefore, in terms of fire resistance, the NSM technique has a significant defect. Thus, it is very important to develop a set of efficient fire protection systems to overcome these disadvantages. This pape
... Show MoreThe disposal of textile effluents to the surface water bodies represents the critical issue especially these effluents can have negative impacts on such bodies due to the presence of dyes in their composition. Biological remediation methods like constructed wetlands are more cost-effective and environmental friendly technique in comparison with traditional methods. The ability of vertical subsurface flow constructed wetlands units for treating of simulated wastewater polluted with Congo red dye has been studied in this work. The units were packed with waterworks sludge bed that either be unplanted or planted with Phragmites australis and Typha domingensis. The efficacy of present units was evaluated by monitoring of DO, Temperature, COD
... Show MoreThe dynamic development of computer and software technology in recent years was accompanied by the expansion and widespread implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) based methods in many aspects of human life. A prominent field where rapid progress was observed are high‐throughput methods in biology that generate big amounts of data that need to be processed and analyzed. Therefore, AI methods are more and more applied in the biomedical field, among others for RNA‐protein binding sites prediction, DNA sequence function prediction, protein‐protein interaction prediction, or biomedical image classification. Stem cells are widely used in biomedical research, e.g., leukemia or other disease studies. Our proposed approach of
... Show MoreIn this paper, an intelligent tracking control system of both single- and double-axis Piezoelectric Micropositioner stage is designed using Genetic Algorithms (GAs) method for the optimal Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller tuning parameters. The (GA)-based PID control design approach is a methodology to tune a (PID) controller in an optimal control sense with respect to specified objective function. By using the (GA)-based PID control approach, the high-performance trajectory tracking responses of the Piezoelectric Micropositioner stage can be obtained. The (GA) code was built and the simulation results were obtained using MATLAB environment. The Piezoelectric Micropositioner simulation model with th
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