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Earthen construction does not meet today’s requirements due to certain limitations such as low water resistance and its high vulnerability to cracking damage. The purpose of this study is to improve the mechanical properties and low durability of adobe blocks by incorporating date palm wastes as a natural reinforcement and lime as a stabilizer.

Soil from the region of Biskra in Algeria was mixed with sand and lime in suitable ratios. Then, date palm wastes were added to the previous mixture at different ratios (0.3%, 0.6% and 0.9%) by dry mix weight to manufacture adobes. Cubical and cylindrical specimens were prepared and tested in a laboratory to investigate the curing time, mechanical and durability characteristics of the formulated blocks. In addition, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tests were used to identify the materials.

It has been observed that the addition of lime to the soil is very beneficial for its stabilization, in particular for an optimum of 12%. The presence of date palm waste in the mixture (soil + lime) generated a significant improvement in tensile strength reaching a rate of about 67%. The same observation was made for the tests of resistance to dry abrasion, resistance to erosion, attack by external sulphate and wetting/drying. However, for cases of compressive strength, water absorption and swelling an unfavorable effect was recorded.

Based on the above-mentioned findings, this paper presents a novel solution to increase the durability of adobe materials using date palm wastes with oven curing at 65°C for about nine days. Adopting such an approach would certainly encourage building durable mud housing on a large scale. This can contribute to solving the acute housing shortage, particularly in poor countries.

This paper argues that cultures with the same climate have similar handicrafts as they have similar cultivation and identical raw materials. This study focuses on how mountainous, coastal and hot regions partaking in similar crafts and cultural heritage use palm leaves and analyses the resulting handicrafts' similarities.

A review of mapping these samples establishes this similarity in the traditional industries of some civilizations' cultural heritage from countries sharing similar climates.

The handwoven crafts using palm leaves were significant patrimonial artifacts in different societies' and communities' cultural heritage. Our studies revealed that climate plays an active role in influencing all aspects of humanity’s life. It affects the construction methods and style, agriculture and lifestyles.

Traditional handwoven palm leaf product models, especially plates and baskets, are studied from South America, Africa, Gulf Countries and Asia.

Additionally, this paper focuses on preserving these treasures as an essential part of interior elements as accessories for most inhabitants of these areas.

Cultural heritage also embraces intangible aspects such as skills passed down through generations within a particular society. The tangible and intangible elements complement each other and contribute to an overall legacy.

Cultural heritage reflects a society’s way of life carried down through the years across lands, items, customs and aesthetic concepts. People are the gatekeepers of society, as they preserve their way of life for future generations to emulate. Tangible artistic and cultural heritage comprises artifacts. It comprises all human evidence and expressions, such as traditional handicrafts, pictures, documents, books and manuscripts.

Marketing and brand management examples used in classes usually revolve around publicly traded corporations. Students are expected to learn how to deal with branding problems that can arise in new types of organizations as family businesses.

The case study discusses a brand identity and brand management problem facing the Founder of Habiba Community, Maged El Said. Habiba Community is an initiative focusing on sustainability and giving back to community. Many foundations were established under Habiba Community, such as its beach lodge, organic farm and learning center. The beach lodge and organic farm were more familiar to tourists and visitors than the other established foundations. The organic farm produced many organic products sold nationally and internationally. The founder was now faced with the challenge of whether to create one brand identity for Habiba Community as a whole or to go for separate brand identities for each of its foundations.

This case study is developed for students of the bachelor level in marketing and design studies. The case difficulty is regarded as intermediate as it includes new trends and ideas from the field of marketing and branding (as eco-branding and family business branding) and new trends in the tourism service industry (as voluntourism). Courses in which this case study can be used are integrated marketing communication, corporate identity, services marketing and brand management under marketing and graphic design studies. The case study is not designed for earlier courses in marketing and design, as students need to have basic knowledge in marketing and branding beforehand.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 8: Marketing

This paper aims to understand how support organizations promote the structuring of the agricultural value chain through partnerships and capacity building of the various links in the chain.

The study is exploratory and qualitative, based on ten semi-structured interviews with the main public support organizations related to the date sector in Tunisia.

The results showed that the support organizations of the Tunisian date sector do not share the same vision of the priorities to be strengthened to promote the export of dates in Tunisia.

Reviewing the coordination mechanisms between the support organizations is important in order to improve the governance of the value chain and to reinforce the capacity of the operators in the date value chain.

Public support organizations are important actors in agricultural value chains as these organizations implement agricultural policies. Assessing these organizations' contribution to capacity building of chain links is an innovative approach to detecting organizational dysfunction in agricultural value chains in developing countries.

The purpose of this paper is to show that cultural heritage is very important in fostering a quality of life with value and pride in all civilizations. It comes together with an historic message and information that the cultural materials transmit from the past to the present and the future. Therefore, the protection of world cultural heritage from natural and man‐made disasters has been a focus both nationally and internationally for the last 50 years. There are a number of examples which indicate the extent of the irreplaceable destruction of heritage by natural disasters, such as Arg‐e Bam.

Now more than four years after the disaster this paper analyses the extent to which such opportunities were capitalized upon and proposes strategies and recommendations for future risk preparedness planning in Bam. Similar to most disasters, the 2003 Bam earthquake presented windows of opportunity for disaster mitigation, risk preparedness, physical planning, and socio‐economic and cultural developments. The earthquake damaged a significant part of the historical areas of the city and created an opportunity for developing a resilient community that could be used as a model city for other parts of the country.

The study finds that the earthquake provided an opportunity for further development and growth of the city's unique and internationally known date production through more publicity, renovation of the old irrigation systems, and expansion of its related industries. The Bam disaster created new opportunities for the city's exceptional cultural heritage and further developments in tourism. The city could also use this disaster to reshape its physical planning and development by introducing new planning ideas and innovations.

The Bam disaster created new opportunities for the city's exceptional cultural heritage and further developments in tourism. The city could also use this disaster to reshape its physical planning and development by introducing new planning ideas and innovations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze and critique the growing literature on record‐keeping practices in Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt with a particular focus on processes of ancient accountability, and provide a research agenda for future work.

Analyzes the contributions of accounting historians in this area as well as the research conducted by Assyriologists and Egyptologists. Our analysis emphasizes the embeddeness of ancient processes of accounting and accountability in their wider contexts.

A framework is proposed comprising levels and spheres of accountability. The levels of accountability consist of: hierarchical; horizontal; and self, all entailing both accounting and non‐accounting elements. Furthermore, accountability is analyzed at three spheres: the individual‐state, the state‐individual, and the individual‐individual.

Further research in this area might examine issues such as the temporal dimension of accountability and whether more precise time measures than those reported in the extant literature were enforced in ancient economies; how the ancients dealt with differences between actual and expected measures; examination on the extent to which accountability exerted an impact on, and the role of accounting in, ordering the lives of individuals and communities; and examination of the trajectories of accounting and accountability across different historical episodes.

This research aimed to maximize the value of date exports for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

To achieve its objective, this study relied on secondary data and quantitative economic analysis represented by the Linear programming model.

This study showed that Saudi Arabia exports dates to the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Kuwait, Turkey, Somalia, Jordan, Oman, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh Morocco, Lebanon, and others. The geographical concentration coefficient for the quantity and value of date exports was 35.05% and 34.74%, respectively, during the study period. Saudi Arabia exported a quantity of dates amounting to 83.08 thousand tons, representing 40.57% of the average total amount of Saudi dates exports during the study period, to Yemen, Somalia, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Egypt, China, Djibouti, Bahrain, and Ethiopia, at prices lower than the average export price of 1200.31 dollars/ton, and therefore the export policy needs to restructure the geographical distribution of date exports. Based on the models of geographical distribution, Saudi date exports value can be increased by 32.76–127.12 million dollars, meaning can be increased by 13.77% – 53.44%. In light of the results of the proposed models, this study recommends the need to restructure the geographical distribution of Saudi date exports so that the value of Saudi date exports can be increased by 127.12 million dollars from the current situation for the period 2017–2021.

The paper’s original contribution lies in its proposal to restructure the geographical distribution of Saudi date exports to increase the value of exports.

This study aims to analyze the challenges facing five Palestinian clusters and to understand their dynamics and level of development. Using multiple sources of evidence, the research questions are answered using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. Content analysis was used to analyze the data obtained. The five clusters in Palestine are located in a complex environment that imposes a mix of challenges that adversely affect their performance. The challenges facing Palestinian clusters are different in terms of their degree of complexity. The common challenges facing the Palestinian clusters are the fundamental lack of innovative stimulation policies or incentives in the Palestinian ecosystem, lack of trust, unfair competition, limited access to finance, lack of access to promising markets, and the limited collaboration between different parties. More focused policies are suggested to the Palestinian authorities.

The purpose of this paper is to study the efforts of the 2003 Bam earthquake survivors and their strategy for coping with home loss. Regarding the key role of the sense of place within the recovery process following the disaster, this paper considers the characteristics of lost settings located in a desert area while searching for the factors that made an impact on householders' perception of newly built houses.

On the basis of the field survey, a group of 186 households were selected by the probability sampling method. Accordingly, the random selection of residents was organized within the three defined zones of the city that had experienced different degrees of building damages. Data were collected using a face‐to‐face communication approach with the target group of owners of self‐built houses.

The findings indicate that households tend to arrange the new settings on the basis of their perceptions of home place as well as the experience of loss during the quake. It also confirms that owners' participation in housing reconstruction process within setting arrangement has a significant positive impact on their attitude toward newly built homes.

Due to the widespread incidence of natural disasters and in the light of the key role of home place in the existence of human beings and their recovery process, the opportunity for local participation in new housing is highlighted as a means to overcome the challenges faced.