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Bituminous materials play a crucial role in the construction industry, serving as essential binders in asphalt mixtures. Understanding their bonding behavior, mechanism, and characterization is imperative for enhancing pavement performance, durability, and sustainability. Despite the widespread use of bituminous materials, challenges persist in optimizing their physical, rheological, and mechanical properties, addressing aging effects, and developing eco-friendly alternatives. The modification can be made by incorporating modifiers or additives, such as anti-stripping agents, surfactants, and bonding promoters, at their optimal dosages. Technically, the cohesion and adhesion bonds could be reinforced by adding a designated percentage of additives to the asphalt binder and within the asphalt-aggregate interfaces in asphalt mixtures. Prior to improving the pavement materials for road construction, adhesion and wetting properties also need to be given crucial attention. The inter-surface characteristics and their morphological behavior significantly influence the adhesion and cohesion bonding within binder-aggregate matrices, as indicated by the good correlations in both dry and wet conditions between failure pattern and bond strength. This review highlights recent breakthroughs in bituminous material research, emphasizing innovative approaches to enhance performance, durability, and environmental compatibility, providing insights for future advancements in asphalt pavement engineering. To advance the development of robust, environmentally sensitive asphalt pavements and guarantee a sustainable and effective transportation infrastructure for years to come, cooperation between researchers, engineers, and industry stakeholders is important.

Purpose: In spite of the increasing number of Islamic banks offering Islamic investment products, there is, as yet, little academic research on this topic and the consumer acceptance of the products is not yet understood fully. To help in bridging this gap, this study aims to assess the determinants of choice behaviour of Islamic investment products in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach: Using the Theory of Consumption Value (TCV) as a baseline theory, data are obtained from 460 bank customers who intend to invest in the products. Findings: The results of this study show that emotional value, epistemic value, conditional value, functional value and social value are significantly related to the choice behaviour of Islamic investment products. Research limitations/implications: Three concerns were found in this study. Firstly, the geographies of this study are narrowed down to bank customers who were resided in specific areas in East Malaysia. Secondly, the authors used the TCV on a particular focus of Islamic banking products. Future studies should address these issues accordingly for improved application and generalisation. Thirdly, some reliability issues were identified in composite reliability values and the related future studies are expected to strengthen the research design to extend the findings at best. Practical implications: The results are helpful for practitioners to develop new business models of Islamic investment products in Malaysia. Originality/value: This study provides meaningful insights for theory building of choice behaviour in the context of Islamic investment products, where the TCV comes into play.