In the 19th and in the first half of the 20th century numerous parks were built all over Europe, which, though different in many aspects, still show certain similarities in space structure and composition. The question is, whether late modern public parks, built in the second half on the 20th century follow the classical design and composition „rules”? How did the extremely functionalist design approach of the era after WW2 influence park design? The answer is the result of a detailed analysis on space structure and composition principles of the parks built in these times. In this research I analyzed according to specific criteria the Jubileum Park in Budapest, one of the most prominent work of the late modern period in Hungary. The 12 ha Jubileum Park (built in 1965) is located in the heart of Budapest, on the top of Gellért Hill, next to river Danube. Laying high above the city on an exposed hillside, the park offers a broad view of the whole city. The structure of the park is basically determined by the extreme topography, and one of the great value of the park is the natural looking grading, which determines the space structure and fits to the natural terrain very nicely, and the walkway system, which fits to the contour lines and explores the whole site. Fitting to the windy and exposed hilltop position, in space division the terrain in the most appealing, the plantation is only secondary. From formal point an interesting feature is the dominance of two dimensional elements with characteristic shape, like flowerbeds or ornamental pools and the curves of the walkway system. Though the main function of the park is to underline the fantastic visual potential with providing viewpoints, there are some playgrounds as well. For the visitor of today the specialty of the park celebrating the 50th anniversary this year, is, that – disregarding some minor changes – there were no alterations since it exists. As a first step I analyzed the space structure of the park, putting an extra emphasis on the existence or lack of any axis, on the accentuation of the park entrances, on the space organization inside the park and on the existence/lack of hierarchy. Important aspect of analysis was the connection of the park to connecting urban fabric and green surfaces nearby. The next step was to compare the results with other parks built in former times, but having similar natural setting. The goal of the research is to determine, how much the spatial composition of Jubileum Park is different from the spatial composition of classical parks. The results might help to realize, what kind of spatial composition and space structure is typical of late modern parks. It would be important to preserve these space structural specialties of the Jubileum Park during a more and more urgent renovation.
Fusarium crown rot (FCR), caused by Fusarium culmorum (Wm.G.Sm) Sacc., is an important disease of wheat both in Iraq and other regions of wheat production worldwide. Changes in environmental conditions and cultural practices such as crop rotation generate stress on pathogen populations leading to the evolution of new strains that can tolerate more stressful environments. This study aimed to investigate the genetic diversity among isolates of F. culmorum in Iraq. Twenty-nine samples were collected from different regions of wheat cultivation in Iraq to investigate the pathogenicity and genetic diversity of F. culmorum using the repetitive extragenic palindromic (REP-PCR) technique. Among the 29 isolates of F. culmorum examined for pathogenicity, 96% were pathogenic to wheat at the seedling stage. The most aggressive isolate, from Baghdad, was IF 0021 at 0.890 on the FCR severity index. Three primer sets were used to assess the genotypic diversity via REP, ERIC and BOX elements. The amplicon sizes ranged from 200–800 bp for BOX-ERIC2, 110–1100 bp for ERIC-ERIC2 and 200–1300 bp for REP. A total of 410 markers were polymorphic, including 106 for BOX, 175 for ERIC and 129 for the REP. Genetic similarity was calculated by comparing markers according to minimum variance (Squared Euclidean). Clustering analysis generated two major groups, group 1 with two subgroups 1a and 1b with 5 and 12 isolates, respectively, and group 2 with two subgroups 2a and 2b with 3 and 9 isolates, respectively. This is the first study in this field that has been reported in Iraq.
Most scheduling methods used in the construction industry to plan repetitive projects assume that process durations are deterministic. This assumption is acceptable if actions are taken to reduce the impact of random phenomena or if the impact is low. However, construction projects at large are notorious for their susceptibility to the naturally volatile conditions of their implementation. It is unwise to ignore this fact while preparing construction schedules. Repetitive scheduling methods developed so far do respond to many constructionspecific needs, e.g. of smooth resource flow (continuity of work of construction crews) and the continuity of works. The main focus of schedule optimization is minimizing the total time to complete. This means reducing idle time, but idle time may serve as a buffer in case of disruptions. Disruptions just happen and make optimized schedules expire. As process durations are random, the project may be delayed and the crews’ workflow may be severely affected to the detriment of the project budget and profits. For this reason, the authors put forward a novel approach to scheduling repetitive processes. It aims to reduce the probability of missing the deadline and, at the same time, to reduce resource idle time. Discrete simulation is applied to evaluate feasible solutions (sequence of units) in terms of schedule robustness.