A lack of adequate building maintenance is a significant obstacle faced by governmental hospitals. This paper evaluates factors that negatively impact building-maintenance practices in Iraq. A literature review was conducted to identify factors affecting maintenance. A list of 42 factors affecting hospital-buildings was collected from previous studies and tested using a structured questionnaire distributed to hospital-maintenance experts. During the data analysis, 76 valid questionnaires were used. Based on the respondents’ ratings, the relative-importance index (RII) was used to determine the level of importance of each factor. From the results, it was concluded that twelve factors affect maintenance practices in hospital buildin

Sub-threshold operation has received a lot of attention in limited performance applications.However, energy optimization of sub-threshold circuits should be performed with the concern of the performance limitation of such circuit. In this paper, a dual size design is proposed for energy minimization of sub-threshold CMOS circuits. The optimal downsizing factor is determined and assigned for some gates on the off-critical paths to minimize the energy at the maximum allowable performance. This assignment is performed using the proposed slack based genetic algorithm which is a heuristic-mixed evolutionary algorithm. Some gates are heuristically assigned to the original and the downsized design based on their slack time determined by static tim

Phase change materials are extensively studied for use in low-, mid-, and high-temperature applications due to their melting and solidification temperatures, latent heat, and thermophysical properties. This work aims to explore the energy stored, or released and their duration for the energy storage unit formed of a phase change material surrounding a tube within which a hot or cold, single or Two-Phase fluid flows, serving as a heat source or sink. The 3D axial transient thermal analysis of the energy storage unit is performed using the finite element method via a MATLAB-developed computer program. The effects of single- or Two-Phase fluid flow on temperature distribution, solidification, melting duration, and energy stored within phase ch

The great raise and development of residential buildings in modern cities worldwide as a result of urban extends leads to environmental and social problems, that make the designers looking for more complicated and innovative solutions. To encounter these, most advanced technologies in construction had been used resulting buildings had become higher, which was moved away from the land called residential housing. And with the development of these buildings, increase in the inhabitants inside; generate distant from nature, which increased the need for interactive outdoor recreational spaces open green in its high sections, was an alternative or complementary option to outer space at the ground level. Therefore, the research problem has emer

In this research we solved numerically Boltzmann transport equation in order to calculate the transport parameters, such as, drift velocity, W, D/? (ratio of diffusion coefficient to the mobility) and momentum transfer collision frequency ?m, for purpose of determination of magnetic drift velocity WM and magnetic deflection coefficient ? for low energy electrons, that moves in the electric field E, crossed with magnetic field B, i.e; E×B, in the nitrogen, Argon, Helium and it's gases mixtures as a function of: E/N (ratio of electric field strength to the number density of gas), E/P300 (ratio of electric field strength to the gas pressure) and D/? which covered a different ranges for E/P300 at temperatures 300°k (Kelvin). The results show

The evolution in materials’ technology in the last decades resulted in interesting projects that aimed at preserving the environment and energy and reduce pollution. They have been taken the principles of environmental design as a basis for architectural thought, starting from the early stages of the design process ending in choosing appropriate building materials to achieve sustainable buildings, but these trying are limited in our local environment and there isn’t demanded seriousness. The research problem emerges in the ignorance of the environmental aspect (ecological system) when selecting building materials during design process to achieve sustainable buildings. The aim of this research is revealing the mechanisms of selecting

Cold plasma is a relatively low temperature gas, so this feature enables us to use cold plasma to treat thermally sensitive materials including polymers and biologic tissues. In this research, the non-thermal plasma system is designed with diameter (3 mm, 10 mm) Argon at atmospheric pressure as well as to be suitable for use in medical and biotechnological applications.
The thermal description of this system was studied and we observed the effect of the diameter of the plasma needle on the plasma, when the plasma needle slot is increased the plasma temperature decrease, as well as the effect of the voltages applied to the temperature of the plasma, where the temperature increasing with increasing the applied voltage . Results showed t