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This study aims to examine the mediating role of product judgement in the relationship between electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and purchase intention. Additionally, it explores the moderating effects of source credibility and consumer ethnocentrism on the relationship between eWOM and product judgement, with a specific focus on Halal products. We utilise the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) to investigate how individuals navigate the processing of information, distinguishing between central and peripheral routes. This exploration aims to enhance our understanding of how the ELM framework influences product judgement and purchase intention in the context of eWOM, with a focus on Halal products.

To achieve these objectives, an online survey was conducted in the United Kingdom. The study employed a moderated-mediation model, analysed using PLS-SEM.

The findings highlight the significant role of source credibility in the central route of information processing and purchase judgements. This study confirms that Halal product judgement fully mediates the relationship between eWOM and purchase intention. Additionally, it reveals that higher source credibility amplifies the impact of eWOM on consumer judgement. However, no significant moderating effect of consumer ethnocentrism on the relationship between eWOM and product judgement was observed in this context.

This study enhances our understanding of how Halal products are adopted in non-Muslim societies, shedding light on persuasive processes. Additionally, it refines the ELM in the context of cross-cultural consumer behaviour. The findings underscore the importance of prioritising source credibility in communication to shape information evaluation and persuasion.

Hyper-heuristics are a class of high-level search techniques which operate on a search space of heuristics rather than directly on a search space of solutions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the suitability of using genetic programming as a hyper-heuristic methodology to generate constructive heuristics to solve the multidimensional 0-1 knapsack problem

Early hyper-heuristics focused on selecting and applying a low-level heuristic at each stage of a search. Recent trends in hyper-heuristic research have led to a number of approaches being developed to automatically generate new heuristics from a set of heuristic components. A population of heuristics to rank knapsack items are trained on a subset of test problems and then applied to unseen instances.

The results over a set of standard benchmarks show that genetic programming can be used to generate constructive heuristics which yield human-competitive results.

In this work the authors show that genetic programming is suitable as a method to generate reusable constructive heuristics for the multidimensional 0-1 knapsack problem. This is classified as a hyper-heuristic approach as it operates on a search space of heuristics rather than a search space of solutions. To our knowledge, this is the first time in the literature a GP hyper-heuristic has been used to solve the multidimensional 0-1 knapsack problem. The results suggest that using GP to evolve ranking mechanisms merits further future research effort.

The construction project is implemented under uncertainty environment, and the product of construction is very complex. Selecting a project delivery system/approach is a critical task, which determines the project schedule, quality and investment objectives. The purpose of this paper is to propose a decision-making model for the selection of project delivery system which is based on information entropy and unascertained measure model.

A decision-making model based on information entropy and unascertained set is employed to select project delivery approach. In order to overcome the subjective evaluations from the experts, the theory of “entropy weight” is applied to modify the experts’ subjective weight. The multi-attribute unascertained measure decision making is fitted to deal with the uncertainty information for selection of project delivery system.

The proposed methodology is more comprehensive compared with the previous work, especially in the uncertainty environment.

There is some further work that should be considered, such as how to deal with the imprecise and subjective information given by the experts; how to determine the weight of the experts’; finding a set of importance factors influencing the selection of a delivery system is a complex task to further research.

The proposed method can help the construction owner to select a most fitted project delivery system of a construction project.

A new approach to select project delivery approach is proposed based on information entropy and unascertained set.

Outlines the massive loan default problems faced by the Bangladesh banking industry and discusses the importance of consistent and adequate public policy in reducing them. Critically reviews the government’s industrial, fiscal, monetary and tariff policies since independence in 1971, referring to relevant research; and relates them to the loan repayment performance of industrial borrowers. Castigates its excessive bureaucratic controls, lack of co‐ordination or consistency and over‐supply of credit; and its failure to recognize entrepreneurs’ general lack of experience. Puts at least part of the blame for industrial loan defaults down to “flawed” policies.

Wyseplant Ltd has supplied two of its Hy‐Ryder B10 hydraulic work platforms for operation by the Suez Shipyard in Egypt.

The purpose of this paper is to thoroughly investigate the aerodynamic effects of blade pitch angle on small scaled horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs) using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method to find out the sophisticated effects on the flow phenomena and power performance.

A small HAWT is used as a reference to validate the model and examine the aerodynamic effects. The blade pitch angle was varied between +2 and −6 degrees, angles which are critical for the reference wind turbine in terms of performance, and the CFD simulations were performed at different tip speed ratio values, λ = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10.5 to cover the effects in various conditions. Results are examined in two different aspects, namely, general performance and the flow physics.

The power performance varies significantly according to the tip speed ratio; the power coefficient increases up to a certain pitch angle at the design tip speed ratio (λ = 6); however, between λ = 2 and 4, the more the blade is pitched downwards, the larger is the power coefficient, the smaller is the thrust coefficient. Similarly, for tip speed ratios higher than λ = 8, the positive effect of the low pitch angles on the power coefficient at λ = 6 reverses. The flow separation location moves close to the leading edge at low tip speed ratios when the blade is pitched upwards and the also tip vortices become more intense. In conclusion, the pitch control can significantly contribute to the performance of small HAWTs depending on different conditions.

In the literature, only very little attention has been paid to the aerodynamic effects of pitch angle on HAWTs, and no such study is available about the effects on small HAWTs. The change of blade pitch angle was maintained at only one degree each time to capture even the smallest aerodynamic effects, and the results are presented in terms of the power performance and flow physics.

This chapter offers a symbolic perspective on the Egyptian Revolution. It does so by analyzing the transformation of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old Egyptian man beaten to death by police on June 6, 2010, into a key visual injustice symbol. Activists were motivated by a horrifying cell phone photograph of Said taken by his family at the morgue and uploaded on the web. Although the postmortem photograph had a powerful emotional impact in itself, the transformation of Said from local/particular incident to injustice symbol with society-wide repercussions cannot be explained by its mere availability in the public sphere. The transformation required intervention and appropriation by activists who creatively and strategically universalized the case, linking it with existing injustice frames in Egypt. This chapter analyzes this interplay between photographs, activism, and society in two steps. The first provides an analysis of the genesis of the Said symbol and identifies three levels of agency in its formation. The second step analyzes the process through which Said was infused with injustice meanings by activists. Providing the first systematic analysis of Said from a social movement perspective, the chapter draws on several data sources that are subjected to interpretive analysis: visual material available on the internet, Facebook pages, and interviews with and accounts by key activists. And it calls for more attention to photographs and symbols in the analysis of activism and points to several historical and present cases with relevance for such an approach.

The purpose of this investigation is to study the corrosion inhibition of carbon steel (CS) using a “green” inhibitor, Opuntia ficus-indica, in an aerated, 0.5 M H₂SO₄ solution at different concentrations and temperatures.

Weight loss determinations, surface studies, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and potentiodynamic polarization were applied during the investigation.

It was observed that Opuntia ficus-indica extract can decrease the corrosion rate of CS, and its efficiency increases with increasing concentration up to 1,000 ppm and with time, but decreases with increasing the temperature from 25 to 600C. The inhibitory activity is due to the presence of phenolic compounds in its chemical structure.

The work was done under static conditions, whereas in acid cleaning conditions, there is a dynamic system. However, the findings may apply to both the systems.

CS is used in acidic environments in the acid cleaning industry.

Results of this work show that it is possible to reduce the cost of repair of equipment and the environmental impact of corrosion.

There are very few investigations on the study of Opuntia ficus-indica leaf extract as a green inhibitor in an acidic environment.

The authors examine whether managers switch from artificial income smoothing using discretionary accruals to real income smoothing around corporate governance reform in Egypt.

The sample comprises 61 non-financial companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange for the years 2004–2011. The authors use discretionary accruals as a proxy for artificial income smoothing and income/loss from asset sales as a proxy for real income smoothing.

The authors offer a significant contribution to accounting literature by providing new empirical evidence on the trade-off between real smoothing technique (e.g. income/loss from asset sales) and discretionary accruals around governance reform in a developing country.

This study suffers from some limitations. First, the study sample is limited to only 338 observations. However, this is due to collecting the data manually and to the small number of listed firms during the study period. Second, the study period ended in 2011 due to the unprecedented political instability after the 2011 Egyptian people revolution. Third, although this study examines the effect of corporate governance, not all the governance aspects have been examined in the study models due to the lack of data.

First, the results of the total samples reveal that managers prefer real income smoothing than accruals income smoothing. This result may confirm the literature arguments on the advantages of REM methods over AEM methods. Cohen et al. (2008) find that firms switch to manage earnings using REM methods and explain that REM methods are harder to detect because they depend on operating decisions (Schipper, 1989). REM can be undertaken anytime during the year (Gunny, 2010). Besides, REM could not be deemed a violation of accounting standards or regulations (MyVay, 2006).

The authors offer a significant contribution to accounting literature by providing new empirical evidence on the trade-off between real smoothing technique (e.g. income/loss from asset sales) and discretionary accruals around governance reform in a developing country.