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As digital spaces for team collaboration, virtual worlds bring considerable verisimilitude to technology-mediated social interaction and change the process of traditional team learning. The purpose of this study is to understand how to promote collaborative learning in virtual worlds by leveraging the power of we-intention to participate in virtual worlds. The authors further use the valence–instrumentality–self-efficacy–trust model (VIST) model as a means of understanding the formation of we-intention to participate in virtual worlds, during which behavioral desire serves a bridging role.

The authors tested the research model using the data gathered from 298 users of a prominent form of virtual world, i.e. massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The authors used the structural equation modeling approach and the partial least squares technique for data analysis.

Results show that the four factors of the VIST model (i.e. valence on team goals, instrumentality of contribution, self-efficacy in team tasks and trust in team members) all positively influence we-intention to participate in virtual worlds through behavioral desire for team actions. We-intention to participate in virtual worlds further exerts a stronger positive effect on collaborative learning in virtual worlds, compared with I-intention to participate in virtual worlds.

This work advances the information systems literature by introducing a relevant and important concept, i.e. we-intention, to explain collaborative learning in virtual worlds. This study especially compared the effect of we-intention and I-intention on collaborative learning in virtual worlds. The results of this work also provide practitioners with insights into the role of we-intention in promoting collective actions in virtual worlds.

The COVID-19 has become a global pandemic, which has caused large number of deaths and huge economic losses. These losses are not only caused by the virus but also by the related rumors. Nowadays, online social media are quite popular, where billions of people express their opinions and propagate information. Rumors about COVID-19 posted on online social media usually spread rapidly; it is hard to analyze and detect rumors only by artificial processing. The purpose of this paper is to propose a novel model called the Topic-Comment-based Rumor Detection model (TopCom) to detect rumors as soon as possible.

The authors conducted COVID-19 rumor detection from Sina Weibo, one of the most widely used Chinese online social media. The authors constructed a dataset about COVID-19 from January 1 to June 30, 2020 with a web crawler, including both rumor and non-rumors. The rumor detection task is regarded as a binary classification problem. The proposed TopCom model exploits the topical memory networks to fuse latent topic information with original microblogs, which solves the sparsity problems brought by short-text microblogs. In addition, TopCom fuses comments with corresponding microblogs to further improve the performance.

Experimental results on a publicly available dataset and the proposed COVID dataset have shown superiority and efficiency compared with baselines. The authors further randomly selected microblogs posted from July 1–31, 2020 for the case study, which also shows the effectiveness and application prospects for detecting rumors about COVID-19 automatically.

The originality of TopCom lies in the fusion of latent topic information of original microblogs and corresponding comments with DNNs-based models for the COVID-19 rumor detection task, whose value is to help detect rumors automatically in a short time.

This study aims to examine how the perceived importance of work values differs among the three generations (Cultural Revolution, Social Reform and Millennial) in the Chinese workforce.

Grounded in work values and generation theories, hypotheses were tested by empirical data collected from 464 Chinese employees from companies located in the Yangtze River Delta of China. A one-way multivariate analysis of covariance and a series of one-way analysis of covariance and t-tests were conducted to compare the three generations with respect to work values.

The results revealed significant generational differences existing in China with respect to extrinsic–intrinsic work values measured by the work-need typology (Huseman and Hatfield, 1990). After controlling for demographic variables, Millennial employees were found to show the highest preference for both extrinsic and intrinsic work values, followed by the Social Reform generation, whereas the Cultural Revolution generation scored lowest. Additionally, important similarities across the three generations were also found.

These findings highlight the complex nature of generational phenomena and suggest the need to further develop a deep appreciation and understanding of the underlying reasons for those generational differences and similarities.

Drawing from generation and work values theory, the authors developed a theoretical framework that allows us to directly compare the three generations in the Chinese workforce with respect to the magnitude of importance each generation attaches to various work priorities. The present study represents an important initial step in throwing more light on the mechanisms underlying the observed generational differences and similarities in work values.

The relationship between cultural novelty and cross-cultural adjustment of expatriates is often assumed to be negative and linear, while the empirical results for the relationship has been demonstrated by researchers as either negative, positive or absent.

The current research challenges the negative and linear assumption conceptually and empirically and tests a curvilinear relation between cultural novelty and general adjustment. The authors specifically propose and test a theoretical model whereby emotional stability moderates the curvilinear cultural novelty–general adjustment relationship such that the negative effect of cultural novelty on general adjustment is mitigated by emotional stability. Survey data are collected from expatriates recruited from two different host countries, India (N = 151) and China (N = 157).

The findings provide support for the curvilinear relationship between cultural novelty and general adjustment and the moderating effect of expatriates' emotional stability on this relationship.

This present study makes unique contributions to the expatriate management literature in at least two major ways: first, this study consolidates the otherwise contradictory findings and furthers the understanding on the nature of the effect of cultural novelty on expatriate adjustment. In addition, this research tests a cultural novelty–expatriate adjustment model using expatriate samples drawn from China and India, the two largest emerging markets that capture the demographic-profile changes pertaining to the newly emerging expatriation trends.

This study aims to investigate the ecological awareness of Chinese consumers towards fast fashion and examine the effect of social sustainability claims on green brand image and purchase intentions in China, considering China’s unique environmental policy landscape and its significant role in the global fast fashion industry. The study explores the role of altruistic values in promoting sustainability within the well-known fast fashion brand “H” and how they shape brand image, consumer satisfaction and brand equity.

The study collected data from 257 Chinese participants and used a serial mediation model through the PROCESS macro in SPSS to analyse the correlation between green brand image, created through sustainability claims and consumer purchase intentions. The model also assessed the intermediary effects of brand image, satisfaction and equity.

The findings of the research indicate a direct and positive relationship between green brand image and consumer purchase intentions, emphasising the need for clothing and textile industry marketers to strategically promote altruistic values in their sustainability efforts and highlighting the importance of ecological awareness in shaping consumer behaviour in the Chinese context. This approach enhances green satisfaction and green brand equity and ultimately leads to higher green purchase intentions.

This study provides significant insights into the effectiveness of incorporating social sustainability claims in advertising to improve a brand’s green image and influence consumer behaviour. It emphasises the importance of altruistic values in sustainability strategies, offering valuable guidelines for marketers in enhancing green satisfaction and brand equity, thereby boosting consumer purchase intentions in the context of green branding and sustainability advertising. Focussing specifically on the Chinese market, this research sheds light on the impact of ecological awareness among Chinese consumers within the fast-fashion industry. Given China’s substantial role in shaping global fast-fashion production and its evolving environmental policies, this focus adds significant depth to our understanding of sustainability claims’ influence within this crucial consumer base.

Considering the industrial site environment and installation requirements, the straight-beam ultrasound probe with easy installation and good coupling agent adaptability is adopted to replace the traditional water immersion focusing probe for film thickness measurement in cylindrical roller bearings. The straight-beam probe has a large echo receiving range, which will result in measurement regions overlapping and bring about large measurement errors. In this paper, an improved measurement method for film thickness of cylindrical roller bearing with the straight-beam probe is developed.

An improved method is proposed to enhance the spatial resolution of the straight-beam probe. By introducing a correction coefficient based on the percentage of the effective measurement area, the method improves the measuring accuracy successfully.

The experimental results demonstrate that the lubricant-film thickness can be measured to reasonable accuracy by this method and have a better agreement with the theoretical film thickness solutions.

This paper used analytical method and model that is helpful for the improvement of the spatial resolution, which has great influence on the measuring accuracy, is mainly determined by the echo reflection area size of the ultrasound transducer.

Marking and inspecting are key steps in hull structure construction. However, currently most marking and inspecting operations are still carried out manually, which leads to low assembly efficiency and quality. This paper aims to solve these problems through the application of digital technology: the optical projection and machine vision.

First, the assembly process model of hull construction is established in 3D design environment. Second, the process information is presented to workers in a virtual form through optical projector, which provides accurate guidance for the manual operation. On this basis, the workers can complete welding and assembly operations readily. Finally, the machine vision method is used to check the assembly results, which can decrease the subjective errors.

A rapid and accurate assembly positioning for hull structure construction is realized based on optical projection, which can avoid the pollution caused by the marking machine and the error caused by human.

This paper combines the advantages of optical projection and machine vision to the field of shipbuilding. The shortcomings of the traditional marking and inspection methods is effectively solved, which may provide a new way for enhancing the assembly efficiency and quality.

The aim of this work was to propose a method to prepare composite phosphate conversion coating (CPCC), including ternary phosphate conversion coating (TPCC) and binary phosphate conversion coatings (BPCC), with one-step chemical conversion and to reveal and compare the corrosion resistance between TPCC and BPCC.

In this work, a calcium–manganese–zinc (Ca–Mn–Zn) TPCC was prepared on the surface of magnesium alloy (MA) AZ91D with one-step chemical conversion method; for Ca-Mn-Zn@TPCC, its microstructure was characterized with scanning electron microscope observation and scanning tunneling microscope detection, and its composition was characterized with energy dispersion spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses. Particularly, the corrosion resistance of Ca-Mn-Zn@TPCC and its comparison with Ca–Mn, Ca–Zn and Mn–Zn BPCCs were clarified with electrochemical and immersion measurements.

Ca-Mn-Zn@TPCC, which was composed of Ca, Mn, Zn, P and O, exhibited a mud-shaped with cracks microstructure, and the average crack width, terrain fluctuation and coating thickness were 0.61 µm, 23.78 nm and 2.47 µm, respectively. Ca-Mn-Zn@TPCC provided good corrosion resistance to MA AZ91D; in NaCl solution, the total degradation of Ca-Mn-Zn@TPCC consumed eight days; corrosion products with poor adhesion peeled out from Ca-Mn-Zn@TPCC-coated MA AZ91D spontaneously. Besides, the corrosion resistance of Ca-Mn-Zn@TPCC was better than that of Ca-Mn@BPCC, Ca-Zn@BPCC or Mn-Zn@BPCC.

The successful preparation of Ca-Mn-Zn@TPCC on MA AZ91D surface confirmed the proposed method to prepare CPCC with one-step chemical conversion was feasible; at the same time, it was further confirmed that for phosphate conversion coating, ternary coating had better corrosion resistance than binary coating did.

Recently, a new formulation has been introduced for non-local mechanics in terms of fractional calculus. Fractional calculus is a branch of mathematical analysis that studies the differential operators of an arbitrary (real or complex) order and is used successfully in various fields such as mathematics, science and engineering. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new fractional non-local theory which may be applicable in various simple or complex mechanical problems.

In this paper (by using fractional calculus), a fractional non-local theory based on the conformable fractional derivative (CFD) definition is presented, which is a generalized form of the Eringen non-local theory (ENT). The theory contains two free parameters: the fractional parameter which controls the stress gradient order in the constitutive relation and could be an integer and a non-integer and the non-local parameter to consider the small-scale effect in the micron and the sub-micron scales. The non-linear governing equation is solved by the Galerkin and the parameter expansion methods. The non-linearity of the governing equation is due to the presence of von-Kármán non-linearity and CFD definition.

The theory has been used to study linear and non-linear free vibration of the simply-supported (S-S) and the clamped-free (C-F) nano beams and then the influence of the fractional and the non-local parameters has been shown on the linear and non-linear frequency ratio.

A new parameter of the theory (the fractional parameter) makes the modeling more fixable – this model can conclude all of integer and non-integer operators and is not limited to special operators such as ENT. In other words, it allows us to use more sophisticated mathematics to model physical phenomena. On the other hand, in the comparison of classic fractional non-local theory, the theory applicable in various simple or complex mechanical problems may be used because of simpler forms of the governing equation owing to the use of CFD definition.