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This paper aims to describe current trends in probabilistic structural fire engineering and provides a comprehensive summary of the state-of-the-art of performance-based structural fire engineering (PSFE).

PSFE has been introduced to overcome the limitations of current conventional design approaches used for the design of fire-exposed structures, which investigate assumed worst-case fire scenarios and include multiple thermal and structural analyses. PSFE permits buildings to be designed in relation to a level of life safety or economic loss that may occur in future fire events with the help of a probabilistic approach.

This paper brings together existing research on various sources of uncertainty in probabilistic structural fire engineering, such as elements affecting post-flashover fire development, material properties, fire models, fire severity, analysis methods and structural reliability.

Prediction of economic loss would depend on the extent of damage, which is further dependent on the structural response. The representative prediction of structural behaviour would depend on the precise quantification of the fire hazard. The incorporation of major uncertainty sources in probabilistic structural fire engineering is explained, and the detailed description of a pioneering analysis method called incremental fire analysis is presented.

The fire resistance of precast prestressed concrete floor systems is heavily influenced by the end connections and the stiffness of the surrounding structure, both of which must be considered in any analysis. Analysing floor slabs with beam or shell elements whose end nodes share the nodes of supporting beams leads to a major problem for precast prestressed flooring systems where the steel tendons terminate at the end of the flooring units, because the approach of sharing nodes of the supporting beam and floor assumes that these tendons are anchored into the supporting beams. In order to solve this problem, a "multi-spring" connection element has been developed. Experimental data available from previous research work has been used to validate the finite element model. It is concluded that the inclusion of the multi-spring connection results in more accurate predictions of prestressed hollowcore slab behaviour in fire conditions.

A simple folding mechanism, which considers the contributions of internal unprotected beams and protected edge beams, has been proposed for isolated slab panels in fire conditions. The current study extends the mechanism to include the reinforcement in the slab as well as continuity across the protected edge beams. Structural failure of the panel depends on the applied loads, the relative beam sizes, their locations within the building, their arrangement in the slab panel, the panel's location and the severity of fire exposure. These factors are considered in the development of a number of collapse mechanisms for verification so they may eventually serve as an additional check within the Bailey-BRE design method, to make it more robust for routine design of composite floors in fire. Comparisons are made with the finite element software Vulcan and other design acceptance criteria.

This paper describes numerical modelling to predict the fire resistance of engineered timber-concrete composite floor systems. The paper describes 3D numerical modelling of the floor systems using finite element software, carried out as a sequential thermo-mechanical analysis. Experimental testing of these floor assemblies has also been undertaken to validate the models, with multiple full scale tests conducted to determine the failure mechanisms and assess fire damage to the system components. The final outcome of this research is the development of simplified design methods for calculating the fire resistance of a wide range of engineered timber floor systems, as part of a larger research project on multi-storey timber buildings.

There is considerable agreement around the foundation skills required by employers that will enable graduates to integrate and devise promising solutions for the challenges faced by knowledge and globalized societies. These are life skills (communication skills, teamwork and leadership skills, language skills in reading and writing and information literacy), transferable skills (such as problem-solving, including critical thinking, creativity and quantitative reasoning) and technology skills (search for knowledge and build upon it). Foundation skills, however, are recognized to be difficult both to teach and assess. This paper aims to describe a performance assessment method to assess and measure these skills in a uniquely concurrent way – the General Education Foundation Skills Assessment (GEFSA).

The GEFSA framework comprises a scenario/case describing an unresolved contemporary issue, which engages student groups in online discussions, and a task-specific analytic rubric to concurrently assess the extent to which students have attained the targeted foundation skills. The method was applied in three semesters – during 2016 and 2017. These students were non-native English speaking students in a General Education program at a university in the UAE.

Results obtained from the rubric for each foundation skill were analyzed and interpreted to ensure robustness of method and tool usability and reliability, provide insight into, and commentary on, the respective skill attainment levels and assist in establishing realistic target ranges for General Education student skill attainment. The results showed that the method is valid and provides valuable data for curriculum development.

This is the first method in published literature that directly assesses the foundation skills for General Education students simultaneously, thus providing educators with valuable data on the skill level of the students. Additionally, repeated use of the method is a valuable way of teaching skills.

This study aims to propose a new model of Islamic cooperative mortgage of housing finance (ICOM) to provide a lower monthly initial amount with a longer tenure for the low- and middle-income members. This model is developed to ease the burden on borrowers concerning the high initial down payment (ID).

The ICOM model is a no-interest mortgage and is developed based on the cooperative home mortgage model by Ebrahim (2009). The model is verified using numerical examples to ensure its feasibility to produce lower monthly initial amounts and compared to the cooperative home mortgage.

From the numerical example, the ICOM model shows a lower monthly initial amount with a longer tenure compared to the cooperative home mortgage. The monthly payment is also lower than the cooperative home mortgage.

The authors compare their model with Ebrahim’s (2009) cooperative home mortgage because of a constraint of limited previous studies on housing finance. Therefore, this model is developed by considering the unaffordability of the initial down payment among low-income borrowers. As this model introduces a lower monthly initial amount, the authors expect it can reduce the unaffordability problem of high initial down payment.

The authors also expect that a lower monthly initial amount with a longer tenure can ease the burden among the low-income borrowers by reducing their consumption on housing.

This paper provides a non-interest Islamic cooperative mortgage and lower monthly initial amount with a longer tenure for the low- and middle-income borrowers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants that likely influence the intention of using digital payment systems such as the Jordan Mobile Payment (JoMoPay) system among public sector employees in Jordan. To achieve the purpose of the current study, the authors developed a new research model based on the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2), with one of Hofstede’s cross-cultural dimension scales [uncertainty avoidance (UA)] to provide a further understanding of the JoMoPay system acceptance in Jordan.

A partial least squares-structural equation modeling approach was used to analyze the data collected by self-administration from the 270 employees working in the Jordanian public sector located in Amman city, the capital city of Jordan. Because most main public sectors are located in Amman and because of the cost and time considerations, the current study applied a non-probability sampling with the purposive sampling technique.

The empirical results reveal that the evident drivers of behavioral intention to use the JoMoPay system are significantly and positively influenced by social influence, UA, performance expectancy, price value and effort expectancy; therefore, the H1, H2, H3, H5 and H6 were supported. Conversely, the results show no significant relationship between facilitating conditions and the behavioral intention to use the JoMoPay system, and hence, the related hypothesis (H4) was not supported.

The results of this study provide beneficial information to the Central Bank of Jordan and other service providers in Jordan about employee intentions to adopt JoMoPay system and increase decision-makers’ knowledge on factors that have an important impact in UTAUT2 model.

The results of this study enable policymakers to understand the important factors that will enhance savings, investments and living standards, create job opportunities as well as reduce the poverty, the paper money printing cost, risks of money transportation cost and the risk of human errors.

The outcomes obtained will help both practitioners and researchers elucidate and understand the situation of digital payment systems acceptance among Jordanian public sector employees, as well as help them formulate plans to expedite the adoption process of digital payment systems in the case of UA.

This paper gives the background to the ISO 18404:2015 standard and explains its rationale. It aims to correct misconceptions and erroneous statements about the standard appearing in the paper by Antony et al. (2021) and to demonstrate the usefulness of the standard in a wide range of application sectors.

A review of recently reported misconceptions and erroneous statements is presented and clarifications are provided. A qualitative interview approach was utilised to obtain the views of leading academics and practitioners familiar with Six Sigma and Lean in a range of sectors and from different parts of the world. This includes the results of a survey for capturing expectations and requirements for the next ISO18404 version.

Clarifications were needed to correct some misconceptions and erroneous statements in recently published work. However, on review, the reports of the interviews in Antony et al. (2021) indicate that most Lean Six Sigma professionals have positive experiences with ISO 18404:2015 and see the advantages of a common standard in helping continuous improvement deployment. Possible causes of some reported negative results are already scheduled to be addressed in the forthcoming review of ISO 18404:2015.

A very real constraint when conducting research into ISO 18404:2015 is to obtain a balanced view of the standard from those who have a vested interest in its continuation and evolution, or not. Whilst the authors cannot claim to be any more objective than Antony et al.’s (2021) authors and commentators, they are, in contrast to that group, highly knowledgeable about the reality of the standard, rather than speculating in ignorance.

A very real constraint when conducting research into ISO 18404:2015 is to obtain a balanced view of the standard which is balanced with respect from those who have a vested interest in its continuation and evolution, or not. Whilst the current authors cannot claim to be any more objective than previous authors, Antony et al.’s (2021) authors and commentators, they are, in contrast to that group, highly knowledgeable about the reality of the standard, rather than speculating in ignorance.

The paper gives a clear description of the ISO standard development process and provides a resource for people to obtain insight into the value or non-value add of a standard in Six Sigma and Lean, and the appropriate details of such a standard. These results can form the basis of a case for the implementation of the standard for those organisations currently trying to decide whether or not to implement it.

Charities depend on giving behaviors of organizations to fulfil their purpose, whereas corporations seek to improve their image in return. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to investigate optimal donation thresholds for organizations to enhance their corporate social responsibility (CSR) image.

Experiment 1 (N = 482) tests whether CSR image improves with donation amount up to the point at which it becomes excessive (H1) and whether this point differs between firms in a positive versus negative economic situation (H2). Experiment 2 (N = 432) examines the role of consumer attribution of firm motives through mediation of these effects (H3), while also exploring consumer donation expectations by testing an “undefined” amount. Experiment 3 (N = 400) validates the role of attributions through the moderating effect of motives.

The experiments demonstrate an optimal interval between inferior and superior donation amounts that maximize the impact of corporate giving on CSR image through the attribution of society-serving motives. Furthermore, the economic situation of the company alters these thresholds – higher donations are required to positively influence the CSR image when the company is in a favorable situation.

This research answers a long-term call to provide more reliable tools on which to base charitable giving decisions. It also identifies perceived donating motives as the psychological process underlying consumers’ response to donation magnitudes.

The authors determine psychological donation thresholds by examining amounts perceived as insignificant in comparison to excessive and provide managers with an easy-to-implement method to determine optimal donation amounts from their target market.

By examining charitable giving at the micro-level, this research provides practical advice to companies on how to determine, ahead of time, how much to donate and what exactly to communicate in which economic situation.

An analysis of domestic and foreign banks’ internal performance by investigating their financial ratios shows that banks in Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates (GCC countries) have improved their performance over the past several years. Commercial banks in these GCC economies are well capitalised and have adopted modern banking services. Most banks are found to be financially sound by international standards, measured by all key financial ratios. Their operations can be characterised by satisfactory asset quality, more than minimum BIS capital/asset ratio, and high level of profitability. External performance is measured by evaluating banks’ market shares, regulatory compliance and public confidence; and most of the banks show better progress. Harmonization of the banks’ supervisory and accounting systems towards IAS has contributed to the safety and competitiveness of the banking sector.