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This study aims to investigate the mechanical properties of sustainable recycled polypropylene (rPP) composite materials integrated with spherical silicon carbide (SiC) particles.

A representative volume element (RVE) analysis is employed to predict the Young’s modulus of rPP filled with spherical-shaped SiC at varying volume percentages (i.e. 10, 20 and 30%).

The investigation reveals that the highest values of Young’s modulus, tensile strength, flexural strength and mode 1 frequency are observed for the 30% rPP/SiC samples, exhibiting increases of 115, 116, 62 and 15%, respectively, compared to pure rPP. Fractography analysis confirms the ductile nature of pure rPP and the brittle behavior of the 30% rPP/SiC composite. Moreover, the RVE method predicts Young’s modulus more accurate than micromechanical models, aligning closely with experimental results. Additionally, results from ANSYS simulation tests show tensile strength, flexural strength and frequency within a 10% error range when compared to experimental data.

This study contributes to the field by demonstrating the mechanical enhancements achievable through the incorporation of sustainable materials like rPP/SiC, thereby promoting environmentally friendly engineering solutions.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of Ti₃SiC₂ on the high-temperature tribological behaviors of NiCr coating, which was beneficial to improve the friction-wear performance of hot work mold.

NiCr-Ti₃SiC₂ coatings were prepared on H13 steel substrate by laser cladding. The microstructure, phases and hardness of obtained coatings were analyzed using a super-depth of field microscope, X-ray diffraction and microhardness tester, respectively, and the tribological performance of obtained coatings at 500°C was investigated using a high-temperature tester.

The results show the NiCr-Ti₃SiC₂ coatings are comprised of γ-Ni solid, solution, Ti_xNi_y, TiC and Ti₃SiC₂ phases, and the coating hardness is increased with the increase of Ti₃SiC₂ mass fraction, which is contributed to the fine-grain and dispersion strengthening effect by the addition of Ti₃SiC₂. The NiCr-Ti₃SiC₂ coatings present excellent friction reduction and wear resistance by the synergetic action of Ti₃SiC₂ lubricant and hard phase, and the wear mechanism is predominated by abrasive wear and oxidation wear.

Ti₃SiC₂ phase was used to reinforce the tribological performance of H13 steel at high temperature, and the roles of friction reduction and wear resistance were discussed.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-01-2023-0004/

This study aims to investigate the friction behavior of SiC-B₄C composite ceramics treated by annealing in air sliding against SiC balls.

The dry sliding tests were performed with a ball-on-disk tribometer in ambient air condition. Analysis of friction coefficient, phase compositions of the surfaces, morphologies of worn surfaces of disks and wear scars of balls and surface profiles of wear tracks for disks were carried out using Raman spectroscope, microscope and surface profilometer.

The results show that a self-lubricating layer with the main composition of H₃BO₃ was successfully fabricated on the surface of SiC-B₄C composite ceramics by the annealing treatment in air. When the mass fraction of SiC is more than that of B₄C, SiC-B₄C composite ceramics show higher friction coefficients, the values of which are 0.38 for 80 Wt.%SiC-20 Wt.%B₄C and 0.72 for 60 Wt.%SiC-40 Wt.%B₄C, respectively. SiC-B₄C composite ceramics show lower friction coefficients when the mass fraction of B₄C is more than that of SiC. The low friction coefficients of 40 Wt.%SiC-60 Wt.% B₄C composite ceramics (0.16) and 20 Wt.%SiC-80 Wt.% B₄C composite ceramics (0.20) are attributed to the formation of a sufficient amount of H₃BO₃ layer, rather than the layer of silicon oxides.

This study will help to understand the friction behavior of SiC-B₄C composite ceramics with different ratios of SiC to B₄C treated by annealing in air.

Customer engagement has key practical implications for hospitality management. However, little is known about how perceived coolness and wow affect customer engagement. The purpose of this research was to investigate the associations among perceived coolness, perceived wow and customer engagement and examine the mediator of self-image congruity (SIC).

Survey data were collected from 406 restaurant customers in Taiwan, and structural equation modeling was adopted to examine the hypotheses. Furthermore, a replica model was produced for another sample of 412 hotel customers.

The results indicate that perceived coolness positively affects customer engagement and SIC and that perceived wow positively affects SIC. SIC positively affects customer engagement. Moreover, SIC mediates the associations of perceived coolness and wow with customer engagement. The relationships between the variables did not significantly differ between restaurant customers and hotel customers.

Hospitality businesses can create environments in which customers interact with service providers through innovative technology, thereby encouraging engagement. Coolness and the wow factor must be prioritized in servicescapes, meal and room design, the service process and creative marketing.

The findings contribute knowledge on hospitality, factors affecting customer engagement and the mediating mechanism of SIC. Hospitality managers can use the results to formulate strategies for servicescape design, brand management and customer experience.

Self-inflicted crises (SIC)– either intentionally induced or at least carelessly accepted – can tremendously damage a corporation’s reputation and legitimacy in the eyes of the stakeholders. While academia usually advices companies to accept full responsibility, practice shows that by far not all companies rely on such a responsible strategy. In practice, corporations choose various response strategies ranging from apologies, over diminishing approaches to full denials. By investigating a large data set embracing several countries and industries covering 696 cases of SIC, the authors analyze how corporations respond to such events and compare these response strategies across countries and types of crises.

This book chapter follows a domain-spanning approach by combining corporate social responsibility (CSR), crisis management, and stakeholder management to investigate how companies aim at solving crises. Drawing on attribution theory and situational crisis communication theory, the results reveal that corporations often do not follow the prevailing recommendation to take responsibility. The authors find that in the majority of cases, internationally active corporations try to deny or diminish their responsibility for the crises. Hence, the findings suggest that the concept of CSR is not working in the case of SIC since not only the existence of such corporate behavior but also the use of denial and diminish strategies contradicts the idea of corporate responsibility. Moreover, the authors shed light on possible differences and preferences toward a specific response strategy between countries and between different types of crises.

The authors contribute to the growing literature in the field of crisis management and crisis response strategies by investigating a large data set embracing several countries and industries. In this regard, the study differs from previous qualitative studies and experimental research as it is based on a large cross-country and cross-company set of secondary data. Thereby, the study allows drawing conclusions for a wide range of corporations and countries, hence increasing its general applicability.

The aim of this study is to assess the mediating effect of source appearance (SA) and self-influencer congruence (SIC) on the relationship between visual content (VC) and customer engagement (CE) towards mobile advertisement.

This study uses a quantitative approach to test the proposed model based on the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) theory. The non-probability purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from Pakistani mobile users through a self-administered questionnaire.

The study results prove that VC alone cannot generate mobile users’ engagement. SA is the key in this regard, which has a relatively higher importance compared to SIC. Furthermore, the serial mediation effect of SA and SIC on CE shows that attractive sources are likely to induce higher SIC and subsequent CE.

The results reveal that without a pleasing SA and positive SIC, mobile users skip the ads by perceiving them to be irritating or interruptive. Mobile ads might cost relatively less, but the advertisers should understand the significance of the SA toward minimizing the mobile advertising skepticism.

Advertisers can enhance the user’s engagement on mobile devices by addressing both the SA and SIC in their VC. The combined effect of both the SA and SIC on CE has not been assessed before. Furthermore, this study has used the SOR mechanism to examine CE.

El objetivo general de esta investigación es evaluar el efecto mediador de la apariencia de la fuente (SA) y la congruencia del auto-influencer (SIC) en la relación entre el contenido visual (CV) y el compromiso del cliente (CE) hacia la publicidad móvil.

Este estudio utiliza un enfoque cuantitativo para probar el modelo propuesto basado en la teoría estímulo-organismo-respuesta (SOR). Se utilizó la técnica de muestreo intencional no probabilístico para recoger datos de usuarios de móviles paquistaníes mediante un cuestionario autoadministrado.

Nuestros resultados demuestran que el contenido visual por sí solo no puede generar el compromiso de los usuarios de móviles. La apariencia de la fuente es la clave a este respecto, que tiene una importancia relativamente mayor en comparación con la congruencia del auto-influencer. Además, el efecto de mediación en serie de SA y SIC en CE muestra que es probable que las fuentes atractivas induzcan un mayor SIC y el consiguiente compromiso del cliente.

Los resultados revelan que sin una SA agradable y una SIC positiva, los usuarios de móviles omiten los anuncios al percibirlos como irritantes o interruptores. Los anuncios para móviles pueden costar relativamente menos, pero los anunciantes deben comprender la importancia de la apariencia de la fuente para minimizar el escepticismo de la publicidad móvil.

Los anunciantes pueden mejorar la participación del usuario en los dispositivos móviles abordando tanto la AS como el SIC en sus contenidos visuales. Hasta ahora no se había evaluado el efecto combinado de la AS y el SIC en el CE. Además, este estudio ha utilizado el mecanismo del SOR para examinar el engagement del cliente.

本研究的总体目标是评估源外观（SA）和自我影响者一致性（SIC）对移动广告视觉内容（VC）和客户参与（CE）之间关系的中介效应。

本研究采用定量方法来检验基于刺激-有机体-反应（SOR）理论提出的模型。研究采用了非概率目的性抽样技术, 通过自填问卷的方式向巴基斯坦移动用户收集数据。

我们的研究结果证明, 仅靠视觉内容并不能引起移动用户的参与。在这方面, 源外观是关键, 与自我影响者一致性相比, 源外观的重要性相对更高。此外, SA 和 SIC 对 CE 的串联中介效应表明, 有吸引力的信息源可能会诱发更高的 SIC 和随后的客户参与。

研究结果表明, 如果没有令人愉悦的SA和积极的SIC, 移动用户就会认为广告具有刺激性或干扰性, 从而跳过广告。移动广告的成本可能相对较低, 但广告商应了解广告源外观对减少移动广告怀疑的重要性。

广告商可以通过在视觉内容中同时考虑广告联盟和广告投放中心这两个因素, 提高用户在移动设备上的参与度。之前从未有人评估过 “SA “和 “SIC “对消费者参与度的综合影响。此外, 本研究还使用了 SOR 机制来考察客户参与度。

A chromium‐silicon carbide electrodeposited composite coatings were obtained by suspending silicon carbide (SiC) particles in a trivalent chromium plating solution. This composite was improved by adding the synthesized 1‐ethyl‐1‐cetyl‐2‐sulfonate‐4(hydroxy ethyl)‐piprazine (A16) as dispersing agent for SiC. The adsorption of A16 on SiC was determined. The relation between the zeta potential and codeposition of SiC was investigated by studying the effect of the additive (A16) concentration on mobility (dispersion) and the zeta potential of SiC. The results show that the zeta potential of SiC is more positive at critical micelle concentration of the additive and stimulation results from the adsorption of A16 on the SiC particles. Morphology resistance of the coating was determined and compared with free chromium deposits. These results were discussed according to the obtained adsorption isotherm of the additive.

The mechanical properties like hardness, tensile strength, wear resistance of electro-co-deposited Ni-SiC coatings are dependent on factors like bath temperature, current density, duration of deposition, amount of SiC particles etc. Ni-SiC nano composite coatings were prepared on a mild steel substrate by electro-co-deposition process. In this study, the effect of electrochemical bath parameters such as bath temperature, current density and SiC loading were varied and effect of this variation on the coating thickness and tensile strength of Ni-SiC composite coating was studied. The experimental results showed that, a uniform deposit thickness was obtained for 3 A/dm² current density, temperature of 55°C and loading of 4 g/l. A peak value of coating thickness was observed at a current density of 4 A/dm² from the experiment. The experimental results also showed that, the tensile strength of the composite coating containing SiC the is significantly higher than pure Ni coating and the tensile strength increases with an increase in the percentage of SiC particles in Ni-SiC coatings. The tensile strength of the composite coating increased by nearly about 52% with increasing SiC loading and then decreased.

The paper aims to evaluate mechanisms for silicon overfilling including volume expansion of silicon on solidification for composite silicon/silicon carbide (SiC) objects generated using post‐process infiltration of selective laser sintered (SLS) SiC preforms.

Overfilling was characterized through geometrical means and microscopy, and results were used for further study and discussion of overfilling mechanisms.

Silicon overfilling in silicon infiltrated SLS SiC parts is attributed primarily to its infiltrant silicon volume expansion on solidification. Si/SiC composites were found to be thermally stable with good material bonding.

Silicon as an infiltrant is unusual as it expands on solidification, whereas most infiltrants contract. Overfilling during infiltration of SLS porous performs is therefore not considered to be prevalent.

This paper provides an examination of the value of silicon as an infiltrant material for SLS SiC preforms. Various mechanisms are presented for volume change during post‐process infiltration of indirect SLS non‐metallic performs.

In general, music has an effect on emotion. Information compiled by Bruner states generalities of emotional expressions that are associated with different components of music. For example, a faster tempo creates feelings of happiness or animation, whereas a slower tempo evokes tranquil and sentimental feelings. Songs in higher keys and/or major mode are generally considered happier than songs in lower and/or minor keys. Consonant harmonies are described as playful and happy, with dissonant harmonies see more ominous and sad. This is a generally accepted use of music, which has been implemented in working and retail environments, and in advertisements. However, does emotion actually affect behaviour and is there any evidence? One experiment showed a short video of a TV drama and played different musical moods along with it. Results indicated that the different moods produced different interpretations of same video stimulus (Vinovich, 1975). Bruner concludes that human beings non‐randomly assign emotional meaning to music, experience non‐random affective reactions to music, and thus, when used in a marketing‐related context, music is capable of evoking non‐random affective and behavioural responses in consumers.