Search results

The purpose of this paper is to study the corrosion behavior of Q235 steel in saturated acidic red and yellow soils.

The corrosion behavior of Q235 steel in saturated red and yellow soils was compared by weight-loss, SEM/EDS, 3D ultra-depth microscopy and electrochemical measurements.

R_p of the steel gradually increases and i_corr gradually decreases in both the red and yellow soils with time. The R_p of the steel in the red soil is lower, but its i_corr is higher than that in the yellow soil. The uniform corrosion rate, diameter and density of the corrosion pit on the steel surface in the red soil are greater than those in the yellow soil. Lower pH, higher contents of corrosive anions and high-valence Fe oxides in the red soil are responsible for its higher corrosion rates and local corrosion susceptibility.

This paper investigates the difference in corrosion behavior of carbon steel in saturated acidic red and yellow soils, which can help to understand the mechanism of soil corrosion.

This study tested a holistic model that investigated the interaction effect of negative mentoring experiences and moqi (pronounced “mò-chee”) with a mentor—where moqi refers to a situated state between two parties in which one party understands and cooperates well with the other party without saying a word—on the protégés’ turnover intention, along with the mediating role of protégés’ harmonious work passion.

Data were collected from 281 protégés through a three-wave questionnaire survey with a 1-month lag between waves. We used a hierarchical multiple regression and bootstrapping analysis to test our hypotheses.

Our results support the mediating effect of harmonious work passion on the positive relationship between protégés’ negative mentoring experiences and turnover intention. In addition, our analysis confirmed that moqi with the mentor amplifies both the impact of protégés’ negative mentoring experiences on harmonious work passion and the indirect effect of negative mentoring experiences on protégés’ turnover intention via harmonious work passion.

By demonstrating the interaction effect of protégés’ negative mentoring experiences and moqi with their mentor on turnover intention, as well as the mediating role of harmonious work passion, this study expands our understanding of the mechanism and boundary condition of the effect of negative mentoring experiences and provides inspiration and guidance for mentoring practices.

Although an important facet of modernist architecture in which function plays a prominent role, building flexibility is not entirely a new concept. Its relevance transcends generations, allowing space and structure to evolve through time. This paper investigates the relationship among main building structures, infill elements, and space by studying examples in ancient Chinese architecture. It reveals the role of building owners, users, and craftsmen from a survey of historical documentation. In studying these examples, it is concluded that craftsmen in ancient China were involved not only during the construction phase but throughout the period of use as well. Thus, in select cases, the relationship between craftsmen and owners or users had been preserved for generations. Finally, this paper suggests potential strategies for the building industry and technology in the move towards sustainable development.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze why and when the future work self affects employee creativity.

Survey data were collected from 171 supervisor–employee dyads in four Chinese enterprises.

The results indicate that the future work self has a positive effect on employee creativity. Further, thriving at work mediates the links between the future work self and employee creativity. The authors also theorize that overall fairness moderates the positive effects of the future work self on thriving at work and employee creativity.

The study supports the self-determination perspective regarding the future work self and strengthens the application of this perspective in an effort to understand the relationship between the future work self and employee creativity.

For coastal bridges, the ability to recover traffic functions after the earthquake has crucial implications for post-disaster reconstruction, which makes resilience become a significant index to evaluate the seismic behavior. However, the deterioration of the material is particularly prominent in coastal bridge, which causes the degradation of the seismic behavior. As far, the research studies on resilience of coastal bridges considering multiple degradation factors and different disaster prevention capability are scarce. For further evaluating the seismic behavior of coastal bridge in the long-term context, the seismic resilience is conducted in this paper with considering multiple durability damage.

The fuzzy theory and time-varying fragility analysis are combined in this paper to obtain the life-cycle resilience of coastal bridges.

The results show that durability damage has a remarkable impact on the resilience. After 100 years of service, the seismic resilience of bridge with poor disaster-prevention capability has greatest reduction, about 18%. In addition, the improvement of the disaster prevention capability can stabilize the resilience of the bridge at a higher level.

In this paper, the time-varying fragility analysis of case bridge are evaluated with considering chloride ion erosion and concrete carbonization, firstly. Then, combining fuzzy theory and fragility analysis, the triangular fuzzy values of resilience parameters under different service period are obtained. Finally, the life-cycle resilience of bridge in different disaster prevention capability is analyzed.

Prior research examining cultural effects on customer service expectations has primarily used more generic Western cultural theory on an aggregate scale or with only a single variable to draw conclusions on a customer’s underlying reasoning for buying a service. This study aims to focus on culturally distinct clusters within non-Western nations, specifically exploring within-cluster differences in service expectations within the Confucian Asia cluster.

This study developed a measurement model of Chinese cultural values and service expectations, consisting of a three and five-factor structure, respectively. Data from a sample of 351 diners were analysed using SmartPLS software. The data was compared with similar studies within the Confucian Asia cluster to understand the culture effect on service expectations and within-cluster variations.

The findings underscore the varying importance of cultural values in shaping customer service expectations, emphasizing their relative, rather than equal, significance. The study provides insights into potential within-group differences in customer service expectations within the same cultural cluster – without losing sight of the fundamental cultural heterogeneity of the Confucian culture.

Managers should leverage the distinct cultural values of their operating country to gain insights into diverse customer groups, predict their behaviours and meet their needs and expectations.

This study offers valuable insights to both service management scholars and practitioners by focusing on culturally distinct clusters of non-Western nations and exploring their effects on variation in service expectations within these clusters.

Although mechanical behavior of rigid frame pier has been clearly recognized, their time-varying seismic performance are yet to be well characterized due to some offshore piers that are eroded by chloride ion and located in earthquake-prone area. In this study, the time-variant seismic fragility analysis was conducted to evaluate seismic performance of rigid frame pier under four damage states with considering the time-varying characteristics of the material.

This paper establishes the nonlinear finite element model for the investigated offshore reinforcement concrete (RC) pier with considering the time-varying durability damage of the materials and defines the damage state, damage position and damaged index of the offshore RC pier. It also analyzes the time-varying seismic fragility of the offshore RC pier by using the capacity demand ratio method in the whole life cycle.

The results show that chloride induced corrosion has a significant effect on the rigid frame pier and bending capacity of top section is less than that of bottom section. The rate of decline accelerates after the service life reaching 30 years under the coupling of the earthquake and the environmental erosion. In the early years of service, the seismic fragility of the structure changed slowly.

This paper analyzes the influencing factors of seismic performance of rigid structure pier, and analyzes the seismic capacity and seismic performance of rigid structure pier under different service periods.

While performance demands in the natural world are varied, graded lattice structures reveal distinctive mechanical properties with tremendous engineering application potential. For biomechanical functions where mechanical qualities are required from supporting under external loading and permeability is crucial which affects bone tissue engineering, the geometric design in lattice structure for bone scaffolds in loading-bearing applications is necessary. However, when tweaking structural traits, these two factors frequently clash. For graded lattice structures, this study aims to develop a design-optimization strategy to attain improved attributes across different domains.

To handle diverse stress states, parametric modeling is used to produce strut-based lattice structures with spatially varied densities. The tailored initial gradients in lattice structure are subject to automatic property evaluation procedure that hinges on finite element method and computational fluid dynamics simulations. The geometric parameters of lattice structures with numerous objectives are then optimized using an iterative optimization process based on a non-dominated genetic algorithm.

The initial stress-based design of graded lattice structure with spatially variable densities is generated based on the stress conditions. The results from subsequent dual-objective optimization show a series of topologies with gradually improved trade-offs between mechanical properties and permeability.

In this study, a novel structural design-optimization methodology is proposed for mathematically optimizing strut-based graded lattice structures to achieve enhanced performance in multiple domains.

This research aims to explore the nature of Chinese students' mental health information needs and to identify the online resources they use to meet those needs.

Data was collected from three Chinese research-oriented universities using semi-structured interviews and a survey. Twenty-five university students with varied backgrounds were selected for semi-structured interviews to explore the triggers and nature of their needs. Then, printed and online questionnaires were distributed to undergraduate and postgraduate students and 541 valid responses were processed for descriptive statistical analysis and variance analysis.

The following findings were incurred. First, the triggers of university students' mental health information needs mainly are mental health being in the news, personal interest in gaining mental health knowledge, mental health issues, required formal learning and preparation for mental health counselling. Second, eleven types of information are used, with an emphasis on employment pressure, study stress and self-understanding. Third, mental health information needs differ with mental health status and some social-demographic factors (including gender, urban or rural origin and educational stage). Fourth, information needs can be characterized as dynamic; complex and diverse but concentrated on a few types; ambiguous and hard for participants to define; private; stigmatized; self-dependent and substitutable. Fifth, Internet sources used to meet such needs are mainly search engines, Question and Answer platforms, public social media platforms. Finally, a model of mental health information needs was built based on the above findings to map the whole process from what triggers a need, to the content and characteristics of information need, and online resources used to meet those needs.

The paper provides suggestions for university mental health services in developing more tailored knowledge contents via effective delivery methods to meet diverse needs of student groups.

This research is novel in using empirical data to build a holistic model that captures the context and the nature of mental health information needs of university students.

This paper examines whether and how customers' annual report tone affects suppliers' innovation decisions.

Using the data from disclosed information on top five customers and annual report tone by Chinese listed firms, this paper used a two-way fixed effect model and intermediary effect model tests to explore the impact of customers' annual report tone on suppliers' innovation decisions.

The results indicate that the more positive the tone of customer annual reports is, the higher the suppliers' technological innovation level. The customers' annual report tone affects suppliers' innovation decisions through alleviating financing constraints and reducing the bullwhip effect. In addition, the authors find that the worse the supplier's bargaining power and the higher the customer's media coverage, the more significant the impact of positive customer annual report tone on the level of corporate technological innovation.

For downstream customers, to improve the quality of their text information disclosure. For upstream suppliers, the tone of customers' annual reports has incremental information, so the attention to customers' text information should be strengthened. As far as the market is concerned, it is recommended that regulators should strictly require the quality of text information disclosure and introduce relevant penalty mechanisms better to regulate the quality of corporate text information disclosure.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this paper is the first to expand the research related to textual information from a supply chain innovation perspective. The textual information can provide incremental information, and spillover effects may occur among supply chains, affecting suppliers' innovation decisions. And it clarifies the specific mechanism by which the supply chain tone spillover effect affects corporate innovation, enriching the relevant research on supply chain influence mechanisms.