د. ياسر صاحب محمد حسين نصار

Iraq is witnessing many ongoing crises that have affected the performance of the infrastructure and the development of the construction field. Therefore, it is necessary to devise and develop effective crisis management strategies during the three phases of crises before, during, and after the crisis, which makes the development of such a system extremely important. This study focuses on developing and analyzing a framework for crisis management in construction projects. Our view is based on the work of several previous crisis management researchers. This research aims to provide an appropriate crisis management approach to the Iraqi construction industry. This study proposed an integrated crisis management model, based on a comprehensive examination of the crisis management literature and extracting crisis criteria in three phases: before, during, and after the crisis. The researcher, using the Fuzzy DEMATEL method, analyzed the relationships between the criteria. In addition to devising an integrated crisis management model, crisis criteria are categorized by measuring the weights of key components, and finally by ranking criteria according to their importance, enabling managers to respond to threats quickly.

Construction sites are among the most dangerous construction industries in terms of exposing the safety and health of workers to various dangerous accidents during the construction process. Where the statistics of the International Labor Organization show that there is one death every three minutes as a result of a work injury and that there are four different injuries occurring in the world every second. The construction industry has been identified as one of the most dangerous industries, due to the nature of the work resulting from the integration of materials, tools, the environment and various human factors. A message of worker safety consideration during design sites. It is necessary to give the highest importance to the occupational and health safety of workers in construction projects sites in order to reduce risks and losses. Among worker. Iraq suffers from a lack of attention to safety and health of employment. Despite the importance of safety and health for workers, we note that research that deals with on the issue of safety in construction projects is still very little. Empirical studies on the effect of national culture on safety attitudes, behavior, and performance appear to be few. It does not seem unreasonable to expect people’s attitudes toward risk to differ according to the deep values, beliefs and assumptions that local culture influences safety in projects. Therefore, the focus was on the most important factors affecting the safety and health of workers in construction sites and making suggestions about who bears these injuries to the employer or contractor and all safety measures are mentioned while writing the contract and placing them as basic conditions in the project.

Abstract: This paper compares between three image compression Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Wavelet Transform (Haar, DB), and combines the two of them. The new block incorporates the DCT benefits in which it functions flawlessly with highly correlated data. In addition to, the benefits of the transformation of Haar that provide preferable ends for images exhibiting rapid gradient variations. DCT has been implemented to the upper left corner of the block. Haar has been applied to the remaining parts of the block. The whole process introduces an error in the signal which increases as we raise the value of QP. Finally, is the inverse transform which takes the quantized/de-quantized coefficients and reconstruct the values in the pixel domain. This was done by using proper MATLAB function

Any construction project through several stages, starting from the feasibility study stage to the project delivery stage, as the most critical stage that must be focused on is the design stage. It was essential to adopt modern and advanced programs at the design stage to avoid problems and claims between the employer and the contractor due to changes and errors that occur in the project—design process. BIM is one of the modern technologies with many benefits that can be used to solve these errors and obstacles. This research aims to clarify the effectiveness of introducing the BIM system in the design stage of the construction building by comparing it with traditional CAD systems. In this research, ten different actual projects were studied in the architectural design stage to be used in the comparison process between BIM and CAD systems. The researcher reached a set of results, including that introducing the (BIM) in the architectural and structural design stage can reduce the time required to produce design documents by up to (67.6%). This study is helpful for all governmental and private design companies and encourages decision-makers to use the BIM system

Abstract: Construction projects are known globally as risky projects because construction projects are subject to a high degree of uncertainty from achieving the final objectives of the construction project. The process of risk identify, analysis and management is one of the practical and fruitful methods used in the direction of construction industries to increase the chances of completing the project in terms of cost, time and quality. Research aims to determine the risks of the project parties affecting the objectives of the construction project in addition to calculating the severity of the impact of each risk factor, where the impact and probability of each element on the construction industries are calculated, creating risk response procedures to ensure the management of these risks in construction industries. The most common (19) risk factors were extracted from the documents of the Iraqi Ministry of Planning for (110) construction projects related to the buildings and services sector, in addition to identifying (11) risk factors through interviews with a group of experts in the field of implementation and supervision of construction projects. The researcher used the heat map technique to analyze the results of the closed questionnaire. Where the researcher found that the group of risk factors related to the owner and the consultant was the most dominant and that the most critical severity of the risk factors in construction projects was “Delayed the disbursement financial payments to executing companies by owner” with a value of (19.5). In comparison, it was ranked last with a value of (4.90).

One model was developed for the prediction of the productivity rate of columns formwork. It was found that MLR have the ability to forecast the productivity rate for formwork works with excellent degree of accuracy of the coefficient of determination (R2)% 94.39%, and average accuracy percentage (AA)% of 82.31%. The results shows that the relationship between the independent and dependent variables of the built model is very good and the estimated values from a predict model fit with the actual data.

Construction productivity is the main indicator of the performance of construction projects for any country. The productivity of construction projects is defined as the output of the system for each unit of input. The main objective of this paper is to identify and analyze factors affecting labor productivity in construction projects in Iraq through a closed questionnaire. While the second objective of this study is to construct a mathematical model for predicting the construction productivity for Formwork columns works. As well as, the assessment of factors affecting productivity using sensitivity analysis (Garson algorithm). After distributing, gathering and analysis the questionnaire and finding the relatve importance index (RII%) using the Likert scale for each influencing factor, the top ten factors were determined that effect on the productivity rate. As these factors are independent inputs of the model and affect the one output "dependent" is productivity rate. These factors are classified on the basis of the values of the relative importance index (RII%) calculated for each factor. Finally, the data were used in artificial neural networks (ANN) development of the prediction model. It was found that (ANN) have the ability to predict the Total productivity rate for formwork columns works for building project with a good degree of accuracy of the coefficient of correlation (R) was (94.39%) and average accuracy percentage of (AA%) was (85.45%). While, The sensitivity analysis indicated the following, The (V6) (Lack of labor surveillance) is ranked first with a relative importance of (27.61%). Contrast, The (V5) (The Ganger experience) has a low importance in the model with a relative importance around (0.35%) and it is ranked eleven.

Productivity is a very important element in the estimation process in construction management. The objective of this research is to identify and analyze the factors which effect on labor productivity in construction projects. In this research, 42 effective factors were collected from site survey, interviewing with engineers and experts, and previous research in the Arab world. These factors are grouped into Nine categories "Workforce, Leadership, Motivation, Supervisors, Safety, Project, Time, Material, and External". A questionnaire survey of 70 respondents was distributed among different experts. A statistical Analysis was done using SPSS and EXCEL packages. The relative importance index was used to find out the most significant factors affecting the labor productivity in construction sites. The results accomplished from the survey revealed that the major factors negatively effect on the labor productivity (ranked from the worst factor with relative importance index values respectively) namely, Availability Material (88.571%), Climate status "Weather" (88%), Religious occasions (86.29%), Number of working groups (86%), Ganger experience (85.714%), Workforce surveillance (84.857%), Ganger Age (84%), working at high place (82%), Drawings and specifications alteration during execution (81.69%), and Sequence of floor (80.571%). Based upon these findings, this can help the construction professionals to improve the productivity and project performance in Iraq.

The process of formulating the basic strategies in a construction project must go through a set of stages. The desired objectives in feasibility studies should be highlighted to ensure that the packages of the infrastructure projects are moving smoothly in terms of the desired goal. In order to meet ambition for the long term in infrastructure projects, it is required to adopt the five pillars of SMART for rectifying the paths of feasibility studies. The study is a summarizing of fifteen elements that could have negative impacts on outputs of feasibility studies. The designed questionnaires have already been distributed via two stages to the experts/consultants in project management and others. 63 questionnaires were collected to find the negative impact of the elements, and the second stage included 89 participants for measuring their responses about the extent to which previous studies that were prepared over the past five years matched the concept of SMART-objectives. Based on the theoretical principle through analyzing the responses/opinions of participating experts, it was found that the feasibility studies for infrastructure projects obtained the following percentages: 46.07%, 41.57%, 28.09%, 22.47%, and 22.47%. This reflects that the objectives of the infrastructure project were specific, measured, achievable, relevant, and Time-Bound) in sequence consistent with the mentioned percentages. For the improvement outcomes of feasibility studies for infrastructure projects, that required a clear and invaluable link among all feasibility studies and the concept of applying the SMART-five pillars.

At the end of 2019, the whole world was exposed to a major health crisis, which is (Corona virus), which went out of the control of all countries, including Iraq, as it had a clear impact on the final objectives of construction projects. This research aims to study and find the most common risk factors for the Corona virus crisis and analyze them using the descriptive analysis method (HEAT MAP), in addition to identifying, analyzing and evaluating the response procedures after Covid 19 by finding the relative importance index (RII). The factors of the Covid 19 crisis were extracted, as well as finding the most common different response procedures from the archive of (24) completed construction projects in the projects of the University of Kufa, Karbala and Babylon. The current practice and the possibility of the occurrence of risk factors, their severity and the possibility of their occurrence were diagnosed by conducting interviews accompanied by an open questionnaire with (15) Iraqi experts concerned with construction project management, and then directing a detailed closed questionnaire to (140) others. All results obtained were subjected to statistical tests to verify their validity. The results showed the presence of (37) factors related to the Corona virus, with the identification of their characteristics and the most affected project objectives, as well as the most affected contracting parties. All this information was collected in a CV for each risk factor (Risk Factor Register). When using the (HEAT MAP) method, it was found that the group of political risk factors is dominant and that the most harmful factors are the curfew and changes in current government policies adopted to combat the epidemic, curfew decisions and changes in current government policies followed to combat the epidemic, political division, conflicting decisions, and the absence of plans and preparedness for such crises, the delay in state funding for projects funded in the Middle Euphrates due to strict measures in the Middle Euphrates by the government, which has existing projects, is the most harmful. When applying the (RII) to find the most important response measures, it was holding regular working sessions to discuss Covid-19 policies and response mechanisms, imposing a state of emergency due to the Corona virus as a force majeure, and finally cooperating with regulatory authorities to facilitate policy changes as well as enhancing scientific advice. The project, and through this study, many conclusions and recommendations were drawn that would reduce or mitigate the impact of the Corona pandemic or any future events on the objectives of any construction project.