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The purpose of this paper is to study the electronic transport performance of Ag-ZnO film under dark and UV light conditions.

Ag-doped ZnO thin films were prepared on fluorine thin oxide (FTO) substrates by sol-gel method. The crystal structure of ZnO and Ag-ZnO powders was tested by X-ray diffraction with Cu Kα radiation. The absorption spectra of ZnO and Ag-ZnO films were recorded by a UV–visible spectrophotometer. The micro electrical transport performance of Ag-ZnO thin films in dark and light state was investigated by photoassisted conductive atomic force microscope (PC-AFM).

The results show that the dark reverse current of Ag-ZnO films does not increase, but the reverse current increases significantly under illumination, indicating that the response of Ag-ZnO films to light is greatly improved, owing to the formation of Ohmic contact.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, the micro electrical transport performance of Ag-ZnO thin films in dark and light state was firstly investigated by PC-AFM.

The purpose of this paper is to study the correlation between the thicknesses of the C–Ni films that have been prepared by RF-magnetron sputtering on quartz substrates and their three-dimensional (3D) micro morphology. In this work by AFM images, this paper studied stereo metric analysis of these films.

The C–Ni films have been prepared by RF-magnetron sputtering on quartz substrates using a mosaic target consisting of pure graphite and strips of pure nickel approximately 2 cm² attached to the graphite race track. The field emission scanning electronic microscopy (FESEM) images were used for the morphological characterization.

The histogram peaks are zero for all samples and the histograms are almost symmetric around zero. Temperature did not have much effect on the degree of isolation, so all four diagrams have similar results. The qualitative observations through statistical parameters of the 3D surface texture revealed that the smoothest surface has been obtained for C-Ni films annealed at 500 °C (Sa, Sq, Sz and Sv have the lower values), while the most irregular topography has been found for C-Ni films annealed at 300 °C (the fractal dimension D = 2.01 ± 0.131).

As shown in FESEM images, the size of the particles was increased for films deposited from 300 ºC to 800ºC; however, at 1000ºC, it decreased significantly. The histogram peaks are zero for all samples and the histograms were almost symmetric around zero. Also, the largest and lowest root mean heights (Sq) belong to films at 300 °C and 500 °C. Furthermore, the more irregular surface was found at 300 °C, and the more regular surface was found at 500 °C. As the temperature was increased to 800 °C, the values of the IAPSD function increased systematically, and then the values of the IAPSD function was decreased in the fourth sample. The surface skewness of samples annealed at 1000 °C was positive which confirms the lack of dominance of cavities on their surface with the highest amount of C-Ni films at 800 °C.

The main purpose of the present study is to introduce new Schiff bases as corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in 1 M HCl. The inhibitory activity of Schiff base was also assessed.

2,2′-((1Z,1′Z)-((2,2-dimethylpropane-1,3-diyl)bis(azanylylidene))bis(methanylylidene))diphenol was synthesized and it’s performance as an inhibitor was then investigated in 1 M HCl. The inhibition of this compound was studied and evaluated by the chemical methods of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, electrochemical potential dynamic polarization and Atomic Force microscopy (AFM) method. The thermodynamics parameters were investigated for corrosion of carbon steel in both the absence and presence of Schiff base.

The results of the tests showed that this compound has a good performance as an inhibitor and the percentage of inhibition on steel corrosion will increase with increasing concentration and it will reach 70% in the presence of 2 × 10⁻³ M of this inhibitor. Polarization tests indicated that this compound will act as a mixed inhibitor. Nyquist curves showed that the addition of this substance to the solution increased the charge transfer resistance and decreased the capacity of the double layer. The absorption of the new Schiff base on steel follows Langmuir adsorption isotherm, and the amount of free energy of adsorption indicates the spontaneous adsorption of this inhibitor. Using AFM investigations, the results of electrochemical methods were confirmed.

Incorporation of a new Schiff base into 1 M HCl is a promising approach for protecting the carbon steel against corrosive solution.

Financial anxiety has become a global concern and a growing research area with significant potential to contribute to the behavioral and personal finance literature. Despite this, the literature is fragmented and inconsistent. Prior studies vary greatly in the breadth of definitions and measures of financial anxiety. There has been no systematic evaluation of literature on financial anxiety antecedents, consequences, and coping strategies. This systematic review fills this gap.

We followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We searched Scopus and Web of Science and identified 55 eligible studies published between 2009 and 2024.

Financial anxiety is defined and measured differently in different research domains. We identified several antecedents, including socio-demographic factors (e.g. gender, age, ethnicity, income, employment, racial background, and language proficiency), personality traits, compulsive and impulsive buying behavior, depression or other mental issues, family health issues, and the COVID-19 pandemic and consequences of financial anxiety, including psychological and psychic health, societal and personal relations, financial behavior and well-being, and job-related outcomes. In addition, the literature presents six financial anxiety coping strategies (self-imposed coping mechanisms, spiritual and theological resources, increased financial capability, social and family support, seeking professional help, and language proficiency training). Several future research directions are presented.

This review represents the first systematic compilation and evaluation of the research findings on financial anxiety.

Niobium Nitride (NbN) was interesting material for its applications in the medicinal tools or tools field (corresponding to saline serum media) as well as in mechanical properties. The aim of this work was depositing NbN thin films on two types of substrates (stainless steel (SS304) and silicon (100)) using plasma technique at varied powers (100–150 W).

DC magnetron sputtering technique at different powers were used to synthesis NbN films. Film structure was studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern. Rutherford elastic backscattering and energy dispersive X-ray were used to examine the deposited film composition. The films morphology was studied via atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy images. Corrosion resistance of the three NbN/SS304 films was studied in 0.9% NaCl environment (physiological standard saline).

All properties could be controlled by the modification of DC power, where the crystallinity of samples was changed and consequently the corrosion and microhardness were modified, which correlated with the power. NbN film deposited at higher power (150 W) has shown better corrosion resistance (0.9% NaCl), which had smaller grain size (smoother) and was thicker.

The NbN films have a preferred orientation (111) matching to cubic structure phase. Corrosion resistance was enhanced for the NbN films compared to SS304 substrates (noncoating). Therefore, NbN films deposited on SS304 substrate could be applied as medicinal tools as well as in mechanical fields.

This study aims to propose a research model integrating technology acceptance model 3 (TAM3) constructs and human aspects of humanoid service robots (HSRs), measured by the Godspeed questionnaire series and tested across two hotel properties in Japan and the USA.

Potential participants were approached randomly by email invitation. A final sample size of 395 across two hotels, one in Japan and the other in the USA, was obtained, and the data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results confirm that perceived usefulness, driven by subjective norms and output quality, and perceived ease of use, driven by perceived enjoyment and absence of anxiety, are the immediate direct determinants of users’ re-patronage intentions for HSRs. Results also showed that users prefer anthropomorphism, perceived intelligence and the safety of an HSR for reusing it.

The findings have practical implications for the hospitality industry, suggesting multiple attributes of an HSRs that managers need to consider before deploying them in their properties.

The current study proposes an integrated model determining factors that affect the re-patronage of HSRs in hotels.

Predicting a user’s click-through rate on an advertisement or item often uses deep learning methods to mine hidden information in data features, which can provide users with more accurate personalized recommendations. However, existing works usually ignore the problem that the drift of user interests may lead to the generation of new features when they compute feature interactions. Based on this, this paper aims to design a model to address this issue.

First, the authors use graph neural networks to model users’ interest relationships, using the existing user features as the node features of the graph neural networks. Second, through the squeeze-and-excitation network mechanism, the user features and item features are subjected to squeeze operation and excitation operation, respectively, and the importance of the features is adaptively adjusted by learning the channel weights of the features. Finally, the feature space is divided into multiple subspaces to allocate features to different models, which can improve the performance of the model.

The authors conduct experiments on two real-world data sets, and the results show that the model can effectively improve the prediction accuracy of advertisement or item click events.

In the study, the authors propose graph network and feature squeeze-and-excitation model for click-through rate prediction, which is used to dynamically learn the importance of features. The results indicate the effectiveness of the model.

The purpose of this paper is to study the correlation between different topographies and the reaction of Ulva Linza fouling species.

In this research, topographies with a different method, such as hot embossing and hot pulling, were achieved, and biological analyses were done with macroalgae Ulva Linza cells. The effect of topography via local binding geometry (honeycomb size gradients) and Wenzel roughness on the settling of Ulva microorganisms was tested.

As a result, Ulva spores confirmed different reactions to a similar set of tapered microstructures that was in agreement with the results on distinct honeycombs. The local binding geometry and the Wenzel roughness factor “r” were dominant on settling of Ulva Linza spores.

The reaction of an organism at the interface of vehicles’ substrate is powerfully affected by surface topographies.

The best embedment occurred on structures with bigger sizes than Ulva Linza’s spores. The density of settled spores was proportional to Wenzel roughness and the spores favour to attach to “kink sites” positions.

Unfortunately, unpleasant aggregation of marine biofouling on marine vehicles’ surfaces, generate terrific difficulties in the relevant industry.

There was a sharp relationship between Wenzel roughness and settle of Ulva Linza spores. The local binding geometry and the Wenzel roughness factor “r” were dominant on settling of Ulva Linza spores.

The purpose of this study is to adjust the electronic transport performance of zinc oxide–silicon dioxide (ZnO-SiO₂) film by the construction of a grain boundary barrier.

ZnO-SiO₂ thin films were prepared on glass substrates by a simple sol-gel method. The crystal structure of ZnO and ZnO-SiO₂ powders were tested by X-ray diffraction with copper (Cu) Kα radiation. The absorption spectra of ZnO and ZnO-SiO₂ films were recorded by a ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometer. The micro electrical transport performance of ZnO-SiO₂ thin films were investigated by conductive atomic force microscope and electrostatic force microscope.

The results show that the current of ZnO-SiO₂ film decrease, indicating that the mobility of ZnO-SiO₂ film is greatly decreased, owing to the formation of the grain boundary barrier between ZnO and SiO₂. The phase variation of ZnO-SiO₂ film increases due to the electron accumulation at grain boundaries.

ZnO and ZnO-5SiO₂ thin films prepared on glass substrates by a simple sol-gel method were first studied by CAFM and EFM. The band gaps of ZnO and ZnO-5SiO₂ is ∼3.05 eV and 3.15 eV, respectively. The barrier height of ZnO-5SiO₂ film increased by ∼0.015 eV after introducing SiO₂. The phase variation intensity increased to a certain extent after doping SiO₂, due to the increased GB barrier. ZnO-5SiO₂ film will be a promising ETL candidate in the application of QLEDs field.

Stereolithography (SLA) additive manufacturing (AM) technique has enabled the production of inconspicuous and aesthetically pleasing orthodontics that are also hygienic. However, the staircase effect poses a challenge to the application of invisible orthodontics in the dental industry. The purpose of this study is to implement chemical postprocessing technique by using isopropyl alcohol as a solvent to overcome this challenge.

Fifteen experiments were conducted using a D-optimal design to investigate the effect of different concentrations and postprocessing times on the surface roughness, material removal rate (MRR), hardness and cost of SLA dental parts required for creating a clear customized aligner, and a container was constructed for chemical treatment of these parts made from photocurable resin.

The study revealed that the chemical postprocessing technique can significantly improve the surface roughness of dental SLA parts, but improper selection of concentration and time can lead to poor surface roughness. The optimal surface roughness was achieved with a concentration of 90 and a time of 37.5. Moreover, the dental part with the lowest concentration and time (60% and 15 min, respectively) had the lowest MRR and the highest hardness. The part with the highest concentration and time required the greatest budget allocation. Finally, the results of the multiobjective optimization analysis aligned with the experimental data.

This paper sheds light on a previously underestimated aspect, which is the pivotal role of chemical postprocessing in mitigating the adverse impact of stair case effect. This nuanced perspective contributes to the broader discourse on AM methodologies, establishing a novel pathway for advancing the capabilities of SLA in dental application.