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This article aims to study the inhibition of Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC) of steels (22K and OCH18N10T) in citric acid and sodium chloride. The effect of the investigated inhibitors; dibenzylsulfoxide (DBSO) and sodium phosphate (Na₃PO₄) was established by means of slow strain rate technique (SSRT). It was observed that DBSO positively influences the susceptibility of given steels to SCC. It was found that sodium phosphate inhibits the SCC of 22K, but increases the susceptibility of OCH18N10T steel to SCC.

The effect of some organophosphorus compounds on iron corrosion in 6 M HCl has been examined by means of polarization and capacitance measurements. It appears that these compounds inhibit iron corrosion by affecting both cathodic and anodic reactions. A quantum chemical approach was used to correlate the inhibition efficiency to the molecular structure of the compounds. It was found that there is not a noticeable relationship between their molecular structure and their inhibition effectiveness. Also based on these calculations, it can be suggested that the inhibitor molecules behave as electron acceptor when they adsorb on the iron metal.

This paper seeks to revisit the interrelationship among tourists’ perceived value of the destination, tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty in the heritage tourism site of Hoi An. In addition, the moderating role of tourists’ perceived crowding, which has become remarkably common at the site, in such a triangle relationship will also be explored. In other words, this study aims to validate an extended model of perceived value – tourist satisfaction – destination loyalty – perceived crowding.

The study collects data from 403 tourists who visited Hoi An during peak season through an online questionnaire. The data were later analysed using AMOS and Warp partial least squares.

The results validate the significant and positive correlation among perceived value, customer satisfaction and destination loyalty. Also, perceived crowding was confirmed to affect the relationship among these three variables negatively. In terms of academic contributions, this paper empirically proved that low levels of tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty among tourists who highly value their visiting experience at World Heritage Sites (WHS) can be caused by perceived crowding.

So far, current literature has investigated the direct (either positive or negative) relationship between perceived crowding and post-visit behaviours of tourists (Nie et al., 2022; Papadopoulou, Ribeiro, & Prayag, 2023; Stemmer, Gjerald, & Øgaard, 2022). Broadening this area of research, the authors of this paper used the social interference theory and the stimulus-overload theory to explain the low level of tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty among tourists who highly value their visiting experience at WHS.

The study investigated the effect of marketing communications’ dimensions on brand loyalty in the banking sector.

The study adopted the quantitative research approach which relied on the explanatory design due to the nature of the hypotheses tested. The convenience sampling technique was used to pull 377 customers of a branch of a commercial bank in Ghana. Furthermore, the PLS-SEM technique was deployed to assess the measurement model and test the research hypotheses.

Results show that the following dimensions of marketing communications are significant predictors of brand loyalty: direct marketing, public relations and sales promotion. The exception is advertising, which had an inverse relation with brand loyalty.

The results provide significant pointers to banks’ management that they should deploy a variety of marketing communication channels other than intensive advertising to reach and persuade customers.

The study illustrates the latest effort to extensively provide insights into how commercial banks could leverage marketing communication tools to sustain loyalty in an emerging economy that is intensively competitive.

This paper aims to investigate the stress corrosion cracking (SCC) process of sensitized 304 stainless steel during the slow strain rate test by using the electrochemical noise (EN) technique.

EN data are interpreted based on chaos and wavelet analyses, and correlation dimension and wavelet energy distribution are used as indicators for SCC process identification.

Experimental results reveal that the corrosion potential abruptly decreases from 180 to 100 mV at 6,300 s and the current increases from 10 to 100 nA accordingly, which is attributed to passive film breakdown and crack initiation. Chaos and wavelet analyses results reveal that, as crack initiates, the correlation dimensions increase from 1.2 to 1.9, and the corresponding distribution frequencies of maximum relative wavelet energy change from high frequency to low frequency.

SCC is monitored in lab, and crack initiation and propagation are identified by chaos and wavelet analyses. This work lays the foundation for SCC detection in field using EN.

Restaurants with limited promotion budgets depend mainly on word of mouth (WOM) among customers. WOM seems particularly important to the marketing of services. This is because services are experiential in nature and difficult to assess before purchase. In the restaurants context there is little research on WOM. The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that may influence tourists’ WOM about restaurants implying on the critical role of relationship quality.

A comprehensive literature review is conducted to identify the major factors influencing WOM in the context of restaurant industry. The study utilizes self-administered questionnaire survey and the target population are the customers who have referred to the restaurants of Tehran, Iran. A convenience sampling approach was utilized to collect a sample of 326 customers. A structural equation modeling procedure is applied to the examination of the antecedents of WOM.

The paper found that food quality, personal interaction quality, physical environment quality, and perceived value influence WOM behavior of customer in an indirect way through relationship quality.

This research conjectured that an understanding of factors that influence the tourist to talk each other about a given restaurant are worthy of additional research. Consequently, the study helps to understand how these factors can provide alternative sources of marketing to attract the long-term economic sustainability of restaurant industry in Iran.

To the authors’ knowledge, this research will be the first attempt to explore influential factors on WOM in restaurant industry focusing on the critical role of relationship quality. It is expected that researchers will find this research a contribution to the WOM literature, particularly in restaurant industry.

The purpose of this investigation is to study the corrosion behavior of iron and aluminum in HCl and NaOH media by means of theoretical and experimental approaches.

For theoretical investigations, the quantum chemical calculation was performed. In this regard, the adsorption of OH⁻ and Cl⁻ on iron and aluminum surfaces was investigated. Furthermore, the natural bond orbital for the direction and magnitude of charge transfer interactions were calculated. In addition, the electrochemical evaluations based on potentiodynamic experiments were carried out.

The quantum chemical calculation results showed that the charge transfer from OH⁻ to the iron surface is more than that from Cl⁻, and also the charge transfer from Cl⁻ is more than that from OH⁻ to aluminum cluster. Furthermore, these anions donate more electrons to the iron cluster than to the aluminum cluster. The experimental data showed that the rate of corrosion of iron in 1.0M NaOH solution was less than in 1.0M HCl solution. The corrosion of aluminum in HCl solution was less than that in NaOH solution. The rate of corrosion of iron in both solutions was less than that of aluminum.

The findings of this paper indicate that calculations based on the natural bond orbital analysis of the charge transfer rates from OH⁻ and Cl⁻ to the iron or aluminum surfaces, and their comparison with experimental results, exhibited excellent agreement.

The purpose of this paper is to address the following question: which type of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication, face-to-face vs electronic, has the stronger influence on destination image and attitude?

A multidimensional model is developed with eight constructs. After the validation of measurement scales, hypotheses are contrasted through structural modeling to test the model fit and estimate the model coefficients. The model was tested empirically using a sample of 678 tourists who had experience within the online tourist community, tripadvisor.com. Tourists were required to complete a survey regarding their information search from the virtual sharing platform and face-to-face communications.

The results of this study suggest that electronic WOM (eWOM) has a more powerful effect on destination image, attitude, and travel intention rather than face-to-face WOM.

This paper is one of the first to develop and empirically test a comparative model for information search behavior, namely, face-to-face WOM vs eWOM, and destination image/attitude in the context of tourism industry.

Although user stickiness has been studied for several years in the field of live e-commerce, little attention has been paid to the effects of streamer attributes on user stickiness in this field. Rooted in the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory, this study investigated how streamer attributes influence user stickiness.

The authors obtained 496 valid samples from Chinese live e-commerce users and explored the formation of user stickiness using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Artificial neural network (ANN) was used to capture linear and non-linear relationships and analyze the normalized importance ranking of significant variables, supplementing the PLS-SEM results.

The authors found that attractiveness and similarity positively impacted parasocial interaction (PSI). Expertise and trustworthiness positively impacted perceived information quality. Moreover, streamer-brand preference mediated the relationship between PSI and user stickiness, as well as the relationship between perceived information quality and user stickiness. Compared to PLS-SEM, the predictive ability of ANN was more robust. Further, the results of PLS-SEM and ANN both showed that attractiveness was the strongest predictor of user stickiness.

This study explained how streamer attributes affect user stickiness and provided a reference value for future research on user behavior in live e-commerce. The exploration of the linear and non-linear relationships between variables based on ANN supplements existing research. Moreover, the results of this study have implications for practitioners on how to improve user stickiness and contribute to the development of the livestreaming industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the hard and soft measures of service quality and visitors' satisfaction, which ultimately contribute to visitor loyalty to the destination, specifically in the context of the Borneo Cultural Festival (BCF) in Sibu, Sarawak (Malaysia).

The study uses a quantitative research approach with 427 valid responses from domestic and international tourists of BCF and employs the cognitive-affective-conative theory to examine how the festival impacts visitor loyalty.

The findings indicate that both hard and soft measures significantly contribute to the service quality and visitor satisfaction at the BCF. Additionally, service quality and visitor satisfaction were found to positively influence destination loyalty, while the relationship between legibility and visitor satisfaction was not significant.

The findings encourage the ministry and event organisers to adopt a destination event strategy that positions Sibu as an attractive event destination capable of attracting domestic and international tourists.

The findings of this study contribute to the existing body of knowledge on event tourism and destination loyalty by applying the cognitive-affective-conative theory. This study marks the first of its kind, analysing both the tangible (hard) and intangible (soft) measures of service quality and their impact on visitor satisfaction, ultimately influencing visitor loyalty to the destination, particularly in the context of the BCF in Sibu, Sarawak.