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N‐benzyl triethanol ammonium chloride (BTAC) and ethoxylated n‐benzyl triethanol ammonium chloride (EBTAC) were synthesized. The prepared compounds were characterized, then tested for their evaluation as corrosion inhibitors for steel pipelines in typical crude oil and residual fuel oil (RFO) media through weight loss determination. In addition, the surface properties of the investigated compounds were studied through surface tension measurements in a hydrocarbon system. Calculations of the surface and thermodynamic properties of the tested compounds were undertaken on the basis of the obtained experimental data. Results showed that the two additives achieved a substantial decrease in the corrosion rate and that EBTAC exhibited improved surface and thermodynamic properties and attained more inhibition effect.

Due to the increasing size and complexity of construction projects, construction engineering and management involves the coordination of many complex and dynamic processes and relies on the analysis of uncertain, imprecise and incomplete information, including subjective and linguistically expressed information. Various modelling and computing techniques have been used by construction researchers and applied to practical construction problems in order to overcome these challenges, including fuzzy hybrid techniques. Fuzzy hybrid techniques combine the human-like reasoning capabilities of fuzzy logic with the capabilities of other techniques, such as optimization, machine learning, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) and simulation, to capitalise on their strengths and overcome their limitations. Based on a review of construction literature, this chapter identifies the most common types of fuzzy hybrid techniques applied to construction problems and reviews selected papers in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique to illustrate their capabilities for addressing construction challenges. Finally, this chapter discusses areas for future development of fuzzy hybrid techniques that will increase their capabilities for solving construction-related problems. The contributions of this chapter are threefold: (1) the limitations of some standard techniques for solving construction problems are discussed, as are the ways that fuzzy methods have been hybridized with these techniques in order to address their limitations; (2) a review of existing applications of fuzzy hybrid techniques in construction is provided in order to illustrate the capabilities of these techniques for solving a variety of construction problems and (3) potential improvements in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique in construction are provided, as areas for future research.

Most decision-making problems in construction are complex and difficult to solve, as they involve multiple criteria and multiple decision makers in addition to subjective uncertainties, imprecisions and vagueness surrounding the decision-making process. In many instances, the decision-making process is based on linguistic terms rather than numerical values. Hence, structured fuzzy consensus-reaching processes and fuzzy aggregation methods are instrumental in multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problems for capturing the point of view of a group of experts. This chapter outlines different fuzzy consensus-reaching processes and fuzzy aggregation methods. It presents the background of the basic theory and formulation of these processes and methods, as well as numerical examples that illustrate their theory and formulation. Application areas of fuzzy consensus reaching and fuzzy aggregation in the construction domain are identified, and an overview of previously developed frameworks for fuzzy consensus reaching and fuzzy aggregation is provided. Finally, areas for future work are presented that highlight emerging trends and the imminent needs of fuzzy consensus reaching and fuzzy aggregation in the construction domain.

The purpose of this study is threefold: first, to detect trends in financial statement manipulation; second, to measure the level of manipulation and to measure the variation in manipulation between countries; and, third, to identify widely used techniques in financial statements manipulation.

This study uses financial data of listed companies from Asia, namely, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong and China. The study adopts financial ratios, financial forensic tool, dichotomous approach and statistical tools to analyze the data (84,000 observations) over a period of four years from 2010 to 2013.

The results show that 34 per cent of sample companies in selected Asian countries are involved in the manipulation of financial statements; the average level of manipulation (overall manipulation index) is 72 per cent; and there is a significant difference between countries at 5 per cent level. The study also identifies four most commonly used techniques, namely: days’ sales in receivable (DSRI), depreciation (DEPI), assets quality (AQI) and total accruals to total assets (TATA).

Although this study found a significant national difference between countries in terms of practicing manipulation in financial statements, it did not address the issue of why some countries have higher level of manipulation and greater fluctuations in manipulation than others. Further study could be conducted to look for the reasons on these issues.

Investors and other stakeholders are advised to judge the manipulation in financial statements before fixing up for investment. At least they should examine Sales, Accounts Receivable, Depreciation, Value of Fixed Assets and Accruals data before accepting the financial statement in good faith.

The trend of manipulation in financial statements is increasing day by day and that is why it needs to prevent to protect our society from white collar crime. The cost of white collar crime is much higher and key executives are making money at the expense of investors and other stakeholders. This kind of study creates awareness among stakeholders about the manipulation as well as provides techniques to examine the faithfulness of financial statements. Then, managers will not overstate or understate either revenues or expenses easily, as it can damage the goodwill.

This is the first study of its kind addressing measurement of manipulation score, overall manipulation index (OMI) and identification of widely used variables of manipulation in financial statements are new contributions towards existing literature of earnings manipulation.

Poor performance remains a challenge for the construction industry worldwide. One of the key performance indicators of the construction industry is the timely delivery of projects. Despite the recent methodological and technological advances in the field, project-overrun remains a significant challenge for the industry. This paper seeks to propose practical solutions that allow overcoming the challenges and promote the opportunities for improving the performance of the construction projects in Dubai.

This study focussed on the construction projects in Dubai; therefore, this research adopted a sequential mixed approach in two stages. The first stage involved face-to-face interviews with seven carefully selected construction professionals. Their answers were analysed to provide with the literature study “the informed-basis for the development of the online questionnaire”. The second stage involved an online survey administrated to 425 carefully selected construction organisations working in Dubai. Accordingly, a meticulous analysis for the prime causes of project overruns has also been undertaken. This analysis assisted proposing the most suitable solutions-based technologies that enabled alleviating overruns in the construction projects.

The findings revealed that, there was a consensus agreement on the formidable opportunities for improving the performance of the construction industry in general and in particular in Dubai. These opportunities are intrinsically linked with the adoption of the latest technologies such as building information modelling, augmented reality, virtual reality and the artificial intelligence (AI). Whereas, adopting AI has already assisted two public authorities to release No Objection Certificates and work permits effectively within one day instead of 14 working days, which has saved 90% of the time and cost. Likewise, adoption of the AI has assisted delivering the construction project with a 9% of time saving and a 6% of cost saving due to embracing an automated system that enabled them to instantly detect and report the delays, once occurred.

The main limitation of this study is that the study was limited to the construction industry in the Emirate of Dubai. Therefore, future research could target the whole United Arab Emirates construction industry to propose the practical solution on the country level.

The literature study is replete with solutions, which tend to be theoretical more than practical. Therefore, the proposed practical recommendations will significantly assist the construction industry to improve its suboptimal performance to rescind the sovereignty of the irrelevant involvements. The research recommended establishing independent entity to lead the change in the construction industry; this entity will have the power of enacting rules and legislations. Furthermore, this independent entity will have the power and authority of dictations and impose sanctions on the non-committed organisations that are reluctant to adopt the recommended technologies and approaches.

Based on the findings of the study, this paper draws a road map for the construction industry by determining practical solutions for improvements starting with an establishment of an independent authority that selects and tests the most appropriate technologies and approaches to contribute to performance improvements.

The purpose of this paper is to present a review of literature on fraud with a specific focus on small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Specifically, it aims to provide further knowledge on recent developments in fraud research and offers suggestions for future research.

This paper systematically reviews the fraud literature, by organising them into five sections; definition, elements, theories, factors and prevention mechanisms.

The most common factors of fraud in SMEs are the low morale among employees and weak internal control within the organisations. Nonetheless, research on fraud involving SMEs is limited, albeit the importance of SMEs to the economy.

This paper encapsulates the importance of research on fraud in SMEs by offering directions for future research. Among others, future studies might indicate the link between corruption, financing sources and innovation of SMEs, especially within the context of an emerging country and reveal the cost of the criminal justice system to identify more accurately the cost of fraud in SMEs.

The focus on fraud in SMEs and the recent period of study offer a foundation for future research directed at the factors of fraud and the prevention mechanisms. Future research can further explore and broaden the literature on fraud involving SMEs through research that focuses on the impact of fraud and the types of control mechanisms that suit the SMEs. Greater understanding of fraud in the SMEs allows in identifying the best approach to prevent and detect fraud for small businesses with limited resources.

The metal working fluid industry accounts for approximately 5 per cent of the total world market for lubricant. Cutting fluids are formulated to fulfil one or more different functions. It is becoming increasingly apparent that to provide additions friendly for environment and low costs. This paper studies high performance mixture of anionic/nonionic polymeric surfactants as an additive for metal working fluid, thus the mixture has poly functions such as anticorrosion and emulsifier. The surface tensions of aqueous solutions of anionic/nonionic mixtures were measured as a function of nonionic concentration at 40°C with constant anionic concentration. The surface excesses concentrations, mole fractions, and interaction parameters of binary polymeric mixtures were calculated. Moreover, the critical micelle concentration and adsorption of ANO/ETH mixture on solutions and steel surface were determined. These parameters confirm the synergistic action of ANO/ETH polymeric surfactants for micellization and adsorption at different interfaces.

This study aims to determine the effect of health knowledge on nutrition-label use and attitude, and consequently on healthy food choice among Malaysian Muslim consumers.

This study adopts the positivist, deductive and quantitative approach. A sample consisting of 257 Muslim consumers, at least 15 years old, were selected using systematic street-intercept sampling method. Data collected using a self-administered questionnaire were analysed using descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling (SEM).

The findings reveal the significant positive effect of health knowledge on nutrition-label use and attitude towards nutrition label, but only attitude towards nutrition label significantly predicts healthy food choice.

Though the findings add to the existing literature, provide useful information on how nutrition label could guide the consumer to make healthier food choices and serve as a reference point that could stimulate and guide future researchers and other relevant parties, this study is limited by several factors that require replication in future research.

This research is perhaps one of the first attempts to consider the role of nutrition label as one of the ways to comply with the Tayyib principle.

A nickel‐fluoropolymer composite was produced by electrodeposition using Watt’s nickel bath containing polytetrafluoro ethylene (PTFE) in suspension. Various experimental conditions including the PTFE concentration, the pH values, current density and the temperature on the volume per cent of PTFE were evaluated. Also several studies were carried out with aqueous surfactant mixture solutions including surface tension (γ), critical micelle concentration (CMC), micellar composition (X_m), activity coefficient (υ), micellar interaction parameter (β^m). Effectiveness (Π_CMC) and efficiency PC₂₀ were investigated at different mole fraction of anionic surfactant. The relation between efficiency of anionic/non‐ionic surfactant mixture and codeposition of PTFE particles was discussed according to micellar composition and the above mentioned physical parameters.

White pine wood was impregnated with a mixture of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and N‐methacryloyloxyphthalimide and by other three mixtures prepared by mixing MMA and N‐methacryloyloxytetrabromo‐phthalimide. Water uptake of treated wood was found to be 54 per cent after water‐soaking test of 168 h and maximum antiswell efficiency was found to be 48 per cent for treated wood samples with non‐brominated comonomer mixture.