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Sustainability principles are considered one of the vital challenges facing developing countries (including Iraq), which are trying vigorously to implement sustainable development in most of their development projects. The projects of constructing educational buildings, such as schools and universities, are among the most important development projects to be established in Iraq. This study aims to develop standards to help improve the understanding of the sustainability requirements of educational buildings in Iraq. Through a series of studies, this study has developed a system that can be used to measure the sustainability of these buildings. First, information about sustainability assessment systems was gathered from the literature and references. Second, personal interviews with specialists, field questionnaires, and the software Analytical Hierarchal Process (AHP) to identify the weights of the main categories and factors for sustainable educational buildings. The results showed that the criteria of Energy Efficiency received the greatest weight (29.6%). On the other hand, less weight was obtained from the Precious Water and Waste (3.6%). Finally, the study developed a rating system model, "Educational Building Sustainability Rate (EBSR)," under Iraqi environmental conditions.

The owner of construction projects often faces difficulty choosing the appropriate project delivery system. The construction project’s owner must choose a suitable project delivery system throughout the project's early decision-making stages. This choice greatly impacts the success of the project. This paper aims to construct a method for project delivery decisions. This method can provide a reference for the owner to select the proper project delivery system. This research described the factors affecting the decision about the project delivery method through a literature review. These factors were categorized into eight groups: scope, time, quality, cost, risk and relationships, owner organization, project characteristics, and external environmental factors. Then, a combined methodology of Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) are proposed for project delivery system selection. The SWARA is used to determine the factors’ weights. The TOPSIS technique determines the rank of the alternatives proposed for the delivery system in the various categories. The results showed the most significant factors related to the cost with a weight of 0.335, and the design-build is the closest to the ideal solution and ranked first among the other suggested project delivery systems with a relative closeness of 0.829. This paper stipulates the basis for such a process of decision-making.

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of using various by-products (orange and apple pomace, tomato peel, pepper peel, prickly pear peel, and prickly pear seed peel) on the dough rheology and properties of gluten-free bread. The by-products were incorporated into a gluten-free bread formulation based on corn and chickpea flours (2/1 w/w). Different levels of each by-product (0, 2.5, 5, and 7.5% in the basic replacement) were tested. Wheat bread and gluten-free bread without the addition of by-products were used as controls. The results indicated that the by-products increased the maximum dough height, the total CO2 production, and CO2 retention coefficient compared to unenriched gluten-free dough. The highest K-value consistency coefficient was observed for the dough enriched with the prickly pear peel. The addition of by-products significantly improved (p < 0.0001) the specific volume of gluten-free bread, with values increasing from 1.48 to 2.50 cm3/g. The hierarchical cluster analysis and the constellation plot showed four groups: the wheat bread group, the second group containing the gluten-free control bread, the group with bread enriched by pomace, and the group with bread enriched with peels, exhibit the same effect on gluten-free bread and the peels exhibit the same effect on gluten-free bread.