Purpose The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the global economy and, thus, the global construction industry. This paper aims to study the impact of COVID-19 on construction project performance in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a qualitative and exploratory approach to investigate the impact of COVID-19 and its policies on project performance in the UAE construction industry in critical areas of the project management body of knowledge (e.g. schedule, cost, resources and contracts). Semi-structured interview questions were asked from ten construction professional to obtain valuable insights into the pandemic’s effects on the UAE construction industry and the effectiveness of policies implemented to rectify the damage and identify the industry’s new normal. Findings The findings indicate that the construction industry faced several challenges such as schedule delays, disrupted cashflows, delayed permits, approvals and inspections, travel restrictions, serious health and safety concerns, material and equipment shortages, among others which hindered the timely delivery of construction projects. It also indicates that efforts made by the government institutions and the construction industry of the UAE such as economic support programs, digitization of processes, fee and fine waivers, health facilities, among other statutory relaxations proved effective in supporting the construction industry against the adverse effects of the pandemic. Research limitations/implications The research findings are limited to the literature review and ten semi-structured interviews seeking an expert’s opinion from industry professionals working in the UAE construction industry. The research team did not get access to project documents, contracts and project progress reports which may be required to validate the interview findings, and to perform an in-depth analysis quantifying the impact of COVID 19 on construction projects performance, which is a limitation of this research. Practical implications The implication is that, owing to the imposed lockdowns and strict precautionary measures to curb the rapid spread of the pandemic, smooth execution of the construction project across the country was affected. The government institutions and stakeholders of the construction projects introduced and implemented various techniques and solutions which effectively handled the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the construction industry of the UAE. Originality/value This study has identified the challenges faced by the construction industry of the UAE in the context of the management of project schedule, project cost, construction contracts, health and safety of construction employees and other related aspects of the construction projects. This study also identified the techniques and solutions adopted by various public and private institutions of the country and their implications on construction projects. Therefore, this study provides guidelines for policymakers and future research studies alike.

The construction industry is prone to major safety hazards owing to the complex and onsite nature of construction projects. Hence, construction researchers have been pursuing concepts, methods, and tools using advancing technologies to improve construction safety management. Subsequently, the rapid digitization of construction work practices is providing opportunities to improve construction safety. Research has revealed that construction safety management practices can benefit from the applications of virtual design construction technologies (VDC), such as building information modeling (BIM), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), geographic information systems (GIS), and gaming technology. This study comprehensively reviews 191 research articles, published between 2010 and 2019, focusing on providing an overview of the implementation and application of VDC technologies for improving construction safety. The objective of this review is to critically collect and analyze applications of VDC technologies and present a holistic view of the features and functions of VDC technologies that can impact jobsite safety improvement in the construction industry. The review showed that VDC technologies can substantially improve construction safety. Emerging digital technologies, such as BIM, VR, AR, GIS, and gaming technologies can transform the traditional document-oriented safety procedures into digitalized safety practices allowing safety managers to visualize and analysis construction sites virtually to devise proactive safety measures and effective safety trainings. This study also highlights challenges such as research gaps regarding these digital tools that are currently impeding their widespread use in construction safety.

With the advancement of digital design practices in the global construction industry, different aspects related to the project lifecycle are extracting their benefits, including making improvements in safety. The objective of this paper is to ascertain the awareness of these technologies, their potential, and any barriers related to the use of different virtual design construction (VDC) tools, such as building information modeling, virtual reality, augmented reality, and geographic information systems, to improve job-site safety in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The paper presents an overview of the GCC construction industry and highlights current safety management practices and problems in the region. The potential of VDC tools for improving job-site safety is discussed and presented. The study has used a questionnaire survey to identify the drivers and barriers of using VDC tools in improving job-site safety management in the GCC region. The results indicated that “designing emergency and evacuation plans” and “fall-hazard prevention strategies” are the two best safety applications of these tools if used proactively. Similarly, “lack of knowledge about return on investment for VDC tools” was considered as the predominant barrier, preventing stakeholders from using these technologies to improve construction safety. These results will help the GCC construction industry to build a strategy for the digitalization of proactive constructability analysis techniques for improving job-site safety. Overall, due to the multilingual dynamics of this region, it is recommended that VDC tools should become more prevalent so that the transfer of safety information and hazard prevention becomes easier, mitigating safety risks.

Effective safety management is a key aspect of managing construction projects. Current safety management practices are heavily document-oriented that rely on historical data to identify potential hazards at a construction job site. Such document-bound safety practices are prone to interpretative and communication errors in multilingual construction environments, such as in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Applications of Building Information Models (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) are claimed to improve hazards identification and communication in comparison to 2-D static drawings by simulating job-site conditions and safety implications and thus can interactively educate the job-site crew to enhance their understanding of the on-site conditions and safety requirements. This paper presents findings of a case study conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of 4-Dimensional (4-D) BIM and VR in simulating job-site safety instructions for a multilingual construction crew at a project in the UAE. 4-D BIM-enabled VR simulations, in lieu of the Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHAD) code of practice, were developed and tested through risk assessment and safety training exercises for the job-site crew. The results showed a significant improvement in the job-site crew’s ability to recognize a hazard, understand safety protocols, and incorporate proactive risk response in mitigating the hazards. This study concludes that 4-D BIM-enabled VR visualization can improve information flow and knowledge exchange in a multilingual environment where jobsite crew do not speak a common language and cannot understand written safety instructions, manuals, and documents in any common language due to linguistic diversity. The findings of this study are useful in communicating safety instructions, and safety training, in the UAE, as well as in international projects.

Endophytes are the microbes residing internally in the host tissues without causing visible disease symptoms. They have found involved in a balanced interaction with the plants and providing benefits such as, growth enhancement and disease resistance. In this review we hypothesize that endophytes can be employed as a potential biocontrol agent, as biocontrol is becoming most suitable disease management strategy due to its health and environment conservational benefits. This aspect of endophytes should be consider, there are several investigations that have revealed and proved the role of endophytes as best biocontrol agent. Mutualistic interaction of endophytes involve different mechanisms, as it may trigger certain genes involved in induced systemic resistance (ISR) that may initiate defense mechanism against attack of pathogens or by formulating secondary metabolites and other chemical compounds that are directly toxic to the pathogens. There is a need to explore the endophytic interaction and its mechanism of causing disease resistance more precisely.

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Summer Cypress (Bassia scoparia) is a large annual herb belonging to the family Amaranthaceae native to Eurasia. It has been introduced in many other countries of the world. In Pakistan, summer cypress is also known as kochia and grown as an ornamental plant for its red fall foliage for landscapes. During October, 2017 a survey was conducted in Punjab Province, Pakistan, where 100 wilted plant samples were collected from 30 different plantations of Faisalabad district. Up to 50% loss of plantation was noted in all visited locations. Lower parts of the plants were affected first presenting with necrosis of leaf tips surrounded by a chlorotic zone (Fig. 1. A). Then necrosis of apical margins of the plant parts occurred, followed by stem discoloration and wilting of entire herbaceous branches, leading to the partial wilting of the plants. Ultimately, whole plant wilted and died, (Fig. 1. B) appearing as though they had been scorched. Diseased tissues from lower stem (crown portion) were sampled, surface sterilized in 70 % ethanol for 30 s, and cultured on to Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium. Petri dishes were incubated at 25 ˚C with alternating 12-hour periods of light and dark. Frequently observed, fast growing whitish grey fungal cultures with black pin head points were obtained after 7 days (Fig. 1. C). Young conidia were one-celled, yellow to orange in color and turned brown to black (Fig. 1. D & E), ranged in size from 11 μm to 16 μm x 9.5 μm to 12 μm (Fig. 1. F), and were ellipsoidal at maturity (Fig. 2. A). Hyphae were branched, septate and dark brown in color while conidiophores were flexuous, branched and ranged between 3.5 μm to 4.5 μm in diameter and 14.5 μm to 26.5 μm in length. Based on morphology (Ellis, 1971), the pathogen was identified as Nigrospora oryzae and submitted to the Westerdijk Collection of Fungi, Netherland (CBS 146145/RNOEG30). Total DNA of isolate EG30 was extracted and portions of the Internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and beta-tubulin (βt) gene were amplified using the universal primers ITS1F and ITS4 (White et al., 1990) and βt2a and βt2b (Glass and Donaldson, 1995). The generated ITS (GenBank Accession No. MG745331.1 491 bp) and βt (GenBank Accession No. MN629896 408 bp) sequences were searched against GenBank using BLASTn and were 99% homologous to ITS (KX986074 525 bp ; MN341493 550 bp) and 100% homologous to βt (MK262852 409 bp) gene region from Nigrospora oryzae (Wang et al., 2017; Zhang, 2019). For pathogenicity tests, ten healthy two-month-old summer cypress plants were inoculated by soil drenching of a spore suspension (106-107 spores/mL) of the fungal isolate EG30 while five plants were treated with sterilized water and used as control treatments. Plants were incubated at 60 to 75% relative humidity (RH) and 25 ˚C in a greenhouse. Leaf necrosis and partial to whole plant witling (Fig. 2. B & C) were observed in the inoculated plants after 21 days. No symptoms appeared in control plants. A fungus was re-isolated from the lower stem (crown portion) parts of the inoculated plants that was identical in morphology to isolate EG30. No fungus resembling EG30 was isolated from the control plants. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of summer cypress wilt caused by Nigrospora oryzae (Berk. and Broome) Petch, a known pathogen of several important crops in China, Australia, India, Canada, and Pakistan (Sharma et al., 2013).