In many industrial experimental situations, the levels of certain factors under investigation are much harder to change than others due to time and/or cost constraints. An appropriate approach to such situations is to restrict the randomization of the hard-to-change (HTC) factors, which leads to a split-plot structure. This work designs and conducts a split-plot central composite experiment for optimizing cake height using oven temperature(Factor A) as the HTC factor, amount of flour (B), baking powder (C), and amount of milk (D) as the easy-to-change (ETC) factors. A second-order split-plot central composite design (CCD) model was fit to the generated data and analyzed using generalized least squares (GLS). A stationary point, which gives optimum cake height, was then determined. The results show that main effects of oven temperature, flour, baking powder, and milk were highly significant on the cake height . Their quadratic effects were also significant except that of the flour. The flower/baking powder interaction effect was significant. The fitted model  accounted for about 95% of the total variability in the cake height data. The observed optimum cake height was ̂ at a stationary point: A . This study has established the potentials of response surface experiments in optimizing products in food industries. Keywords: Experiment, split-plot CCD, Cake height, Design, Stationary point.

This study extends existing research on the real earnings management by examining the impacts of audit committee attributes on real earnings management in Nigeria. The analyses involve a sample of 72 non-financial firms with 360 firm-year observations for a five-year period (2014-2018). Data was obtained from the annual reports of these companies as well as from Thompson Reuters and Bloomberg databases. The Panel Corrected Standard Error was used to test the model studied. The finding shows that audit committee size prevent managers’ activities in earnings manipulations. Also, the result establish that the audit committee independence presence on the audit committee control managers’ opportunistic behaviour while audit committee financial expertise were monitors in curtailing earnings manipulation practice.  The findings shall give insight to financial analysts, investors, and regulators on the importance of AC in enhancing the quality of the financial report, also show the role of the audit committee characteristics to deter real earnings manipulations. Keywords: audit committee, size, independence, expertise, earnings management

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