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This paper provides a researcher's account of fieldwork experience in conducting audit research in China. By illustrating on-site fieldwork encounters, the paper reflects stages of access negotiation and management in the fieldwork, reveals the researcher's embodied “affects” in the fieldwork and reasserts the value of researcher's openness and attention in the fieldwork.

This paper uses autoethnography as its overall epistemology. Fieldwork diaries and vignettes are written in the first-person voice to present the researcher's embodied account of fieldwork experience, researcher’s learning and coping skills in managing the fieldwork.

The research findings are not detached from the researcher's experience of the fieldwork. The fieldwork experiences in this study highlight that the fieldwork access is an ongoing process. Different stages of access negotiations, from rejection to acceptance, reveal the tensions between researcher and participants. This study draws attention to the online platform, WeChat, in connecting with auditors to learn from them and suggests openness to the fieldwork encounters and a resilient engagement with auditors.

In reflecting on the researcher's transformation during the fieldwork, this paper argues for a relational and engaged way of conducting fieldwork, rather than a disengaged and judgemental approach in studying auditors' working lives. The paper pays attention to fieldwork as a process and how the knowledge learned in the field is infused with researcher's fieldwork experiences.

Consistency and consensus are two important research issues in group decision-making (GDM). Considering some drawbacks associated with these two issues in existing GDM methods with intuitionistic multiplicative preference relations (IMPRs), a new GDM method with complete IMPRs (CIMPRs) and incomplete IMPRs (ICIMPRs) is proposed in this paper.

A mathematically programming model is constructed to judge the consistency of CIMPRs. For the unacceptably consistent CIMPRs, a consistency-driven optimization model is constructed to improve the consistency level. Meanwhile, a consistency-driven optimization model is constructed to supplement the missing values and improve the consistency level of the ICIMPRs. As to GDM with CIMPRs, first, a mathematically programming model is built to obtain the experts' weights, after that a consensus-driven optimization model is constructed to improve the consensus level of CIMPRs, and finally, the group priority weights of alternatives are obtained by an intuitionistic fuzzy programming model.

The case analysis of the international exchange doctoral student selection problem shows the effectiveness and applicability of this GDM method with CIMPRs and ICIMPRs.

First, a novel consistency definition of CIMPRs is presented. Then, a consistency-driven optimization model is constructed, which supplements the missing values and improves the consistency level of ICIMPRs simultaneously. Therefore, this model greatly improves the efficiency of consistency improving. Experts' weights determination method considering the subjective and objective information is proposed. The priority weights of alternatives are determined by an intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) programming model considering the risk preference of experts, so the method determining priority weights is more flexible and agile. Based on the above theoretical basis, a new GDM method with CIMPRs and ICIMPRs is proposed in this paper.

This paper aims at comparing and contrasting the Ao Man-long scandal with the Ho Chio-meng case in Macau, drawing lessons from the two events and casting lights on the literature on corruption scandals.

The study used documentary research and interpretative and analytical approaches.

The two cases show considerable administrative discretion on the part of the principal officials involved, and remedial measures along the line of having more rigorous and frequent internal auditing may be necessary.

Original analyses were conducted together with literature review and documentary research. This paper would be of interest to scholars and practitioners concerned with how Macau combats corruption.

In order to solve the problems faced by First Order Reliability Method (FORM) and First Order Saddlepoint Approximation (FOSA) in structural reliability optimization, this paper aims to propose a new Reliability-based Design Optimization (RBDO) strategy for offshore engineering structures based on Original Probabilistic Model (OPM) decoupling strategy. The application of this innovative technique to other maritime structures has the potential to substantially improve their design process by optimizing cost and enhancing structural reliability.

In the strategy proposed by this paper, sequential optimization and reliability assessment method and surrogate model are used to improve the efficiency for solving RBDO. The strategy is applied to the analysis of two marine engineering structure cases of ship cargo hold structure and frame ring of underwater skirt pile gripper. The effectiveness of the method is proved by comparing the original design and the optimized results.

In this paper, the proposed new RBDO strategy is used to optimize the design of the ship cargo hold structure and the frame ring of the underwater skirt pile gripper. According to the results obtained, compared with the original design, the structure of optimization design has better reliability and stability, and reduces the risk of failure. This optimization can also better balance the relationship between performance and cost. Therefore, it is recommended for related RBDO problems in the field of marine engineering.

In view of the limitations of FORM and FOSA that may produce multiple MPPs for a single performance function, the new RBDO strategy proposed in this study provides valuable insights and robust methods for the optimization design of offshore engineering structures. It emphasizes the importance of combining advanced MPP search technology and integrating SORA and surrogate models to achieve more economical and reliable design.

To further understand the granular flow lubrication mechanism in metal contact pairs, the effect of sliding-rolling ratio on the force chain properties was investigated.

The parallel inter-plate model of the granular flow lubrication was established with discrete element method. Then, the correlation law between sliding-rolling ratio and force chain evolution properties was calculated and analyzed with PFC2D software platform.

Numerical calculation results show that the dynamic fluctuation property of force chain is existed, and the shock frequency of it is increased with the increase of sliding-rolling ratio. The same evolution law is also occurred for the bearing rate of strong force chain in the initial expansion and final compression phases, and the opposite phenomena is obtained for the overall expansion phase. Moreover, the directivity of strong force chain is changed by the sliding-rolling ratio. With the increase of sliding-rolling ratio, the directivity of strong force chain is first tended to y-axis, and then inclined to the x-axis in the whole phases. The basic reason is that a clamping up and downward movement impact for the neighbor particles are the essence of the above phenomenon.

The main contribution of this work is to lay a theory foundation of interfacial lubrication mechanism with granular flow.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-05-2023-0133/