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This paper aims to examine the influence of accounting information system (AIS) success on planning process effectiveness (PPE) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of Yemen, a less developed nation (LDN).

This study developed a theoretical model based on IS success model (DMISS2003). The model’s components were tested using structural equation modeling via SmartPLS on a sample of 325 SMEs.

The empirical results imply that AIS success positively affects PPE if SMEs focus on AIS information quality, system quality, user satisfaction and usage.

This study focused on SMEs in Yemen. Thus, it can be expanded to include different other countries.

The results of this study could be considered by owners and managers of SMEs, policymakers and AIS designers/vendors. This study could provide them insight into the role of AIS success in promoting PPE in SMEs. This study could assist policymakers in analyzing the work of SMEs and assessing their success, referring to AIS. Moreover, knowing the most critical determinants of AIS success could direct designers’/vendors’ efforts toward upgrading and improving the present AIS.

Government policymakers in LDNs considering how to motivate SME development in their nation should be aware of the significance of AIS success and implementation among SMEs and its role in the nation’s economic development.

This research is one of the first that investigates the impact of AIS success on PPE in SMEs. Current literature largely lacks the investigation of such an impact, especially among SMEs in LDNs such as Yemen. Most AIS’s prior research focused on SMEs in developed nations, which may not fully apply to LDNs such as Yemen. Indeed, no existing literature is available where AIS success impacts PPE in SMEs of LDNs. In this respect, this study claims its uniqueness.

The purpose of this current investigation is to evaluate the effect of adding different levels of cheeseweed Malva parviflora L. mallow leaves powder (MPLP) on the nutritional and quality characteristics of bread.

Wheat flour was partially replaced with MPLP at 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4% and 5% levels to obtain the wheat– MPLP composite flour. Chemical composition, phenolics, flavonoids and antioxidant activity by 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl of wheat flour and MPLP were determined. Physicochemical and sensory characteristics of bread enriched with various levels of MPLP were evaluated.

MPLP contains 23.9% of protein, 10.1% of crude fiber and 9.8% of ash, respectively. MPLP had a significantly higher concentration of micronutrients than wheat flour. The content of total phenolics, flavonoids as well as free radical scavenging activity of MPLP were 17.6, 38.2 and 6.0 fold, respectively, higher compared to wheat flour. Protein content in bread samples increased with the addition of the MPLP in a range of 1.2%–6.6%. The increasing replacement of MPLP in the composite flours resulted in progressively higher dietary fiber and ash contents for fortified bread samples. The higher level of MPLP reduced the specific volume of fortified breads. The highest scores for the sensory attributes were noted for bread samples fortified with 2% and 3% of MPLP, whereas the lowest scores for bread samples fortified with 4% and 5% MPLP.

Supplementation of wheat bread with different levels of MPLP resulted in significant increases in macro and microelements of fortified breads.

Supplementation of wheat bread with different levels of cheeseweed Mallow (Malva parviflora L.) leaves powder resulted in significant increases in macro and microelements of fortified breads.

Construction contractors in Palestine, as in many other developing countries, suffer from many problems. One of their main problems is their inability to meet contractual requirements, such as completing projects within time, at the agreed cost and to the desired quality. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the causes of the non-fulfillment of contractual requirements in three different types of projects: building, road and electro-mechanical projects.

Two methods were adopted to collect the data – qualitative and quantitative. In total, 65 causes were identified from the literature and qualitative semi-structured interviews with professional experts. These causes were classified into five categories: managerial, financial, contractor capabilities, regulations and laws and political. In the quantitative approach, a questionnaire was developed and then distributed to 50 professional experts: 20 building experts, 15 road experts and 15 experts in electro-mechanical projects. A five-point Likert scale was used to assess the importance, from the perspective of the subject matter experts, of the causes that had been identified. About 35 responses, which represent a combined response rate of 70%, were received. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, with the mean, standard deviation and degree of importance for each of the identified causes being determined, and the SPSS software platform used to rank them.

The results reveal that the most important reasons why contractors did not fulfill their contractual requirements in building projects were that contracts were awarded to the contractor offering the lowest price, and the profit margin was low because of intense competition among contractors. In road projects, the most important causes were the poor estimation of the equipment required and a lack of standardized conditions in the construction sector, while in electro-mechanical projects, the most important causes were the inability of the contractor to estimate the cost of the project accurately because of unclear bid documents and a lack of contractor capital.

The results of this study will be useful to stakeholders and Palestinian contractor unions. They can be disseminated to give guidance so that contractors can avoid these problems in future construction projects and enhance their compliance with contractual requirements. Moreover, knowing about these causes may lead to the reduction of conflicts and disputes between contractual parties (owners and contractors), which in turn will be reflected in the work quality and reputation of contractors.

The purpose of this research is to introduce an innovative framework called the waqf cooperative housing framework (WCHF), with an objective to create a synergistic equilibrium between waqf and cooperative housing schemes. To tackle problems related to the dearth of financing, this research postulates an innovative waqf-based source of finance that involves generating revenue from common areas (waqf area) within the vicinity of the condominium.

Primary data were collected through interviews and the data were analysed using the NVIVO software. The interviewees comprised managers from property development sectors, public sector officials, university lecturers in Islamic finance, CEOs, top management officials from Islamic financial institutions, community leaders and shariah scholars.

A framework was proposed based on the result of the interviews. It was found that innovative models such as WCHF can resolve the issue of affordable housing in Karachi such as decreasing the financial burden on the public exchequer, bringing positive change to the lives of the poor, fulfilling the property developer’s corporate social responsibility, fulfilling the religious duty of the general public and condominium owners towards their fellow beings as well as creating new employment opportunities for people who are working in the financial sector (waqf management companies/trustees) and the construction sector.

Even though this study has introduced an innovative and practical solution to the financing of affordable housing, it also encountered some limitations. First, it is conducted in Karachi city involving six group of respondents; thus, the findings cannot be generalised with other contexts. Similar research needs to be conducted in different contexts.

To date, this is among the first studies, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to investigate cooperative affordable housing with the help of innovative Islamic finance tools in the context of Pakistan. Furthermore, insufficient attention has been given to the enabling and hindering factors behind the acceptance of a framework that seeks to initiate a cooperative scheme based on an innovative waqf financing tool that generates revenue from common areas around a condominium.

This study aims to develop the maqasid index (MI) for Islamic corporate social responsibility (CSR), namely, Dana Abadi Umat (DAU) (Ummah’s Endowment Fund) or MI-DAU in Indonesia.

Modeling and weighting are based on Delphi and analytic network process (ANP) methods, called Delphi–ANP additive weighting. The Delphi method was applied to design and validate the factors of the MI-DAU model, and the ANP method was applied to generate and validate weights for these factors. Finally, the MI-DAU is calculated, based on the planned budget and actual allocation of DAU returns, called the maslahah fund, using additive weighting.

Delphi and ANP show significant and robust results. The priority order and weights of maqasid Shariah are safeguard the faith (0.32), safeguard the intellect (0.219), safeguard the life (0.204), safeguard the wealth (0.171) and safeguard the lineage (0.104). Meanwhile, the priority order and weights of the main activities are education (0.190), Ummah’s economy (0.167), Hajj service (0.155), Da’wah (0.124), health care (0.118), social-religious (0.097), worship facilities (0.085) and disaster emergency response (0.065). Finally, the results of MI-DAU show a high index in 2019 and 2020 of 71.89 and 69.51, respectively, generated from allocation ratio of 90.63% and 85.98%, respectively.

Maqasid Shariah used in this study follows Al-Ghazali, where it could also follow maqasid Shariah of Abu Zahrah or Al-Najjar. Moreover, the MI-DAU score uses additive calculations, where it can also use Pentagon calculation.

The improved framework and method used to design MI-DAU in this study could be applied to design more scientific MI for other Islamic financial institutions.

The novelty of this study is in the improved method used to design the MI model, including its factors, using Delphi, and to assign weights of all factors using ANP, where both provide validation for more robust MI model.

This study aims to investigate mustahiq business success using a newly developed index called asnaf muslimpreneur success index (AMSi).

Following Abu Zaharah theory of al-Maqasid al-Shariah, the authors developed the AMSi through literature analyses and expert judges involving three Shariah scholars for improved extensions and applications. Subsequently, the authors conducted the actual survey, which included 17 mustahiq who had been assisted by the zakat institution in running their small and halal businesses in Sabah, Malaysia.

Using the AMSi, the success of asnaf businesses was in the moderate index, implying the success meets the index score of more than 50%. All indexes capturing asnafs’ business experience, asnafs’ business justice, asnafs’ well-being and asnafs’ financial wisdom were greater than the threshold value of 0.5 or 50%, implying that the interaction of the battery items involved in those variables resulted in satisfactory results, indicating that they are relevant and essential in gauging the asnafs’ success level in the development business programme.

The results obtained were at the exploratory level, and for that, more studies related are expected to be conducted in the future, where the coverage of the respondents used is larger to extend the findings, at least.

The results obtained can become a yardstick to gauge the success of asnaf muslimpreneurs in Sabah, East Malaysia.

This study introduces new measures of asnaf muslimpreneur success model, where mustahiq business is brought into play.

This study aims to introduce a novel approach in form of a comprehensive software suite to help understanding and optimizing the build orientation toward maximizing the fatigue lifetime of complex geometries. The objective is to find an optimized build orientation under a given in-service loading state, which brings on smoother surfaces in stressed regions, mitigated roughness-induced stress concentration and deferred crack initiation stage. The solution addresses scenarios that no post-build surface treatment can be applied.

To account for the surface topography, the staircase induced surface roughness is registered as a function of build angle using the white light interferometry characterization, based on which the stress concentration factor (k_t) is calculated. Thereafter, the developed module in “Fatlab toolbox” is used to find the optimum build angle, considering the integrated surface orientations and stress analysis under a given loading condition.

Surface topography creates local stress concentrations upon loading, directly influencing the fatigue lifetime. It is a well-established fact that the conditions of the staircase geometry and surface roughness affect the magnitude of the stress concentration upon loading, which is influenced by the build orientation of the component. The proposed solution suggests the best build orientation that mitigates staircase-related surface roughness.

The suggested numerical approach assists the designers with positioning of the part on the build plate to minimize the build orientation-induced surface roughness and improve the as-built fatigue lifetime of the component.

This paper aims at studying meta-heuristic algorithms. One of the common meta-heuristic optimization algorithms is called grey wolf optimization (GWO). The key aim is to enhance the limitations of the wolves’ searching process of attacking gray wolves.

The development of meta-heuristic algorithms has increased by researchers to use them extensively in the field of business, science and engineering. In this paper, the K-means clustering algorithm is used to enhance the performance of the original GWO; the new algorithm is called K-means clustering gray wolf optimization (KMGWO).

Results illustrate the efficiency of KMGWO against to the GWO. To evaluate the performance of the KMGWO, KMGWO applied to solve CEC2019 benchmark test functions.

Results prove that KMGWO is superior to GWO. KMGWO is also compared to cat swarm optimization (CSO), whale optimization algorithm-bat algorithm (WOA-BAT), WOA and GWO so KMGWO achieved the first rank in terms of performance. In addition, the KMGWO is used to solve a classical engineering problem and it is superior.

This study examines the built environment in the preserved historic settlements of the Najd region of Saudi Arabia, providing insight into shared core concepts and forms that were commonly shared across the settlement's dwellings before the Kingdom's period of modernization.

Space syntax convex mapping and the justified access graphing as the main techniques to examine several internal elements at the building level. The study created elements such as connectivity, access graphs and depth graphs to understand the integration and placement of these elements to overcome surrounding forces. Also, the author combined graphical architectural analysis with space syntax techniques to understand the spatial and physical integration in three-dimensional space. This helped to establish a link between what is two-dimensional (the building layout) with what is three-dimensional (the physical form).

The paper found that the hierarchical order of internal spaces and the order's role in shaping the physical form served to satisfy the social behavior and environmental conditions. As a result, all building elements generated with the guidance of the main culturally rooted in support with internal spaces order. This order of spaces inside the house led the urban spatial hierarchy to connect but not conflict, as the whole process of generating the physical forms is to complement each other and to produce a unified built environment.

This study is limited to Najdi dwelling form and culture, the author believes expanding the number of study samples in the five traditional settlements or expanding the scope of the study to examine other Saudi regions may result in new findings and insights.

The paper offers and discusses two mechanisms on how to enhance the process of designing modern houses in similar cultures or elsewhere in the world. Also, how traditional dwelling elements generated with the guidance of the main, culturally rooted values and beliefs, in support of the internal spatial order.

The purpose of this paper is to present a maturity model developed to assess knowledge sharing (KS) for the Jordanian construction sector.

The research was conducted in three stages. The first stage consisted of the review of literature and documenting variables from the literature that highlight influence on KS in organizations. The second stage was designed for maturity model development by identifying the cultural factors that affect KS in the Jordanian construction sector through questionnaires and interviews. Factor analysis was used to find possible relationships between the cultural variables followed by semi-structured interviews. In the third stage the initial maturity model was refined through another set of semi-structured interviews.

The model presented in the paper includes three levels of maturity. The first level identifies whether the variable barely exists in company’s KS practices. The second level shows the occasional techniques which the company uses to increase KS activities. The final level demonstrates the importance of the variable in affecting KS as being fundamentally ingrained in the company’s vision, mission, strategy and operations.

The research has developed a model that can be used to measure the KS in an organization. Although the model has been applied to the construction industry, it can easily be modified to fit in the other sectors.