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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the electrodeposition of copper coatings directly onto AZ31 magnesium alloy, considered as a substrate of electroplating nickel. The additive, pH, complexing agent, current density, time, and temperature of electrolytic bath were studied to understand electrodepositing copper coating on AZ31 magnesium alloy.

Electrodeposition of copper was carried out in an aqueous solution containing copper hydroxide, citrate, and fluorine ion, which avoids the replacement or corrosion of the magnesium alloy. The morphology, structure, and interface of the electrodeposited copper coating were investigated by a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

The copper coating was dense, and there was good adhesion of the copper coating on the AZ31 magnesium alloy. This suggests that successful deposition of copper using an electroplating process could decrease the cost of coating AZ31 magnesium alloy.

This paper will be helpful for the development of coating on magnesium alloy using electroplating processes.

Copper hydroxide and citrate were the main compositions of the electrolyte, combined with sodium poly dipropyl (SP) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) as brightening agents and can be used to electrodeposit copper directly onto AZ31 magnesium alloy.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically unpack whether and how WeChat network size is correlated with perceived social capital and life satisfaction among Chinese overseas students in Germany.

Based on a web-based survey data collected from 218 sojourners, zero-order correlation analyses and structural equation modeling were separately implemented to tackle the complicated research questions.

Findings demonstrate that an individual’s WeChat network size significantly and directly influences bridging, bonding and maintained social capital. Importantly, a path model demonstrates that these distinct dimensions of social capital are all significant predictors of life satisfaction. Furthermore, the empirical evidence reveals that bridging, bonding and maintained social capital can mediate the association between network size and well-being outcome.

Theoretically, the paper is an initial attempt contributing to the previous studies on estimating the influence of WeChat friendships on social capital and life satisfaction. Practically, these findings will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of effect of personal network characteristics derived from the dominant media interaction on social connectedness and life quality.

Despite WeChat is immensely prevalent in Mainland China, only few studies have concentrated on the role of WeChat network size in fostering individuals’ social and psychological development. The work provides unique evidence that number of friends on the emerging technology could indirectly benefit sojourners’ satisfaction with life through processes involving diverse categories of social capital in a trans-cultural environment.

This study aims to investigate how information technology (IT) integration and relational ties between a firm and its supplier influence its innovation performance and how such relationships are moderated by relationship duration and institutional distance between the firm and its supplier.

Based on 153 matched-pair surveys of firms in China, the authors used regression analyses to test their hypotheses.

The authors find that IT integration and relational ties with the supplier significantly improve the firm’s innovation performance. Further, the authors find that relationship duration negatively moderates the impact of relational ties on innovation performance. Institutional distance negatively moderates the impact of IT integration, yet positively moderates the impact of relational ties on innovation performance.

This study provides a more nuanced insight into relational and institutional boundary conditions under which IT integration and relational ties affect innovation performance.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how knowledge spillover and access in a supply chain network enhance the credit quality in supply chain finance (SCF) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Drawing on network theory and a knowledge-based view (KBV) of SCF, this paper proposes a theoretical model and tests it using survey data from a sample of 248 SMEs in China.

The main finding is that both strong ties and dense ties within a supply chain network have positive effects on SMEs’ credit quality, and these effects are mediated by knowledge spillover and knowledge access. Interestingly, knowledge spillover is found to have a positive effect on knowledge access.

This paper is the first to investigate the relationship between supply chain network and supply chain financing from a KBV. The proposed model captures the complexity in the interaction among different attributes of supply chain networks (i.e. strong ties and dense ties), different aspects of knowledge transfer (i.e. knowledge spillover and knowledge access) and SMEs’ credit quality in SCF. The results not only show the importance of SMEs’ supply chain networks to SMEs’ credit quality but also contribute to the understanding of the KBV in SCF.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the intensity use of WeChat is associated with perceived social capital and psychological well-being factors among Chinese international students in Germany.

Based on an online survey data collected from 212 Chinese international college students in Germany, correlation analysis and structural equation modeling were sequentially implemented to deal with the research questions.

The correlation analysis results indicate that the intensity of WeChat use is positively correlated with bridging, bonding, and maintained social capital. Additionally, a path model demonstrates that bonding social capital is positively related to life satisfaction and negatively related to the sense of loneliness. Furthermore, both bonding and maintained social capital mediate the relationship between WeChat use and these two well-being outcomes.

Theoretically, the research is an initial study contributing to the existing social media literature on evaluating the effects of WeChat use on social capital and well-being. Practically, these obtained results can be beneficial to the understanding the dynamics of how social media may potentially impact students’ social connectedness and life quality.

Although WeChat has become the most prevalent social networking site in Mainland China, the social and psychological implications of the emerging technology are not completely understood. The paper offers evidence that WeChat has functioned as an efficient platform for sojourners to develop diverse types of social capital and promote well-being in an intercultural setting.

Drawing on the transactional cost economics (TCE) perspective, we aim to investigate the effects of the balance and imbalance between contractual and relational governance on a firm's bridging responses to supply chain disruptions. By adopting the institutionally contingent perspective, we further examine the moderating effect of cultural distance on the relationship between governance mechanisms and bridging responses.

Based on data collected from 183 firms in China, we use polynomial regression and response surface analyses to test our research model.

The bridging responses increase along with an increasing balance level between contractual and relational governance and decrease along with an increasing imbalance level between contractual and relational governance. Moreover, the positive effect of balance between contractual and relational governance is strengthened by a large cultural distance. We also find that a large cultural distance amplifies the negative effect of the combination of high relational governance and low contractual governance yet weakens that of the combination of high contractual governance and low relational governance.

Our study provides nuanced insights into the effects of the balance and imbalance between contractual and relational governance on bridging responses and into the cultural boundary conditions under which these effects vary.

The primary objectives of this article are to systematically explore whether and how certain WeChat use motives could lead to bridging social capital, bonding social capital and civic engagement among young people.

The data was collected from a large-scale online survey of 1208 young people in mainland China. Zero-order correlation analyses and structural equation modeling were carried out to examine the corresponding hypotheses.

Obtained findings show that WeChat use for informational and social motivations are positively associated with bonding and bridging social capital. Moreover, bonding social capital could mediate the relationship between WeChat usage for informational and relational motivations and civic engagement.

Theoretically, this article underlines the unique social and technological affordances of WeChat by exploring mobile social media use and how it would contribute to the quality of democracy by fostering young people's engagement in civic life. Practically, bridging and bonding social capital play significant roles in enhancing young people's civic engagement, which could be the meaningful resource for mobile social media designers, managers and government officials.

These obtained outcomes underlined the vital role of these newly emerging communication technologies in fostering democratic involvement and production of social capital in contemporary socially networked society.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a distributed protocol to build a logical coordinate system based on the hop counts of each node to four selected landmarks, and the real location information is not needed.

The designed protocol uses the sink node as one of the landmarks and then selects three other sensor nodes near the corners of the sensor network as landmarks.

The simulation results show that the proposed protocol has the superior performance in packet delivery ratio, average hop counts among nodes, and communication overhead to previous works.

This paper presents a distributed protocol to build a logical coordinate system based on hop counts to landmarks.

The victim’s rights movement and restorative justice (RJ) have gained momentum around the world. More laws and policies have focused on crime victims and their families. Western literature suggests that the victim’s family suffers physical, emotional, and financial tolls and that the power of the victim’s family in pursuing justice for their loved ones remains limited. This is particularly concerning within the political and legal context of the abolitionist movement, innocence project, and human rights groups’ campaigns against police torture. Grounded in the perspectives of RJ and Chinese legal culture, this study examines the victim’s family, represented by Ding and senior Yu, of the Nian Bin capital murder case. Drawing on published reports and using the thematic content analysis method, this study examines the following aspects of victim’s family in a death penalty case: 1) victim family’s physical, emotional, and financial tolls; 2) victims’ family and the criminal justice system; 3) victims’ family and the media; and 4) the relationship between the victims’ and the accused’s families. This study concludes with discussions of the competing goals of families impacted by a crime and RJ practices that would help mitigate the loss of the victim’s family and enhance their confidence in the criminal justice system.

This study empirically investigates how ambidextrous innovations and their balancing affect the supply chain financing performance (SCFP) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), based on signaling theory. Moreover, this study explores the moderating effect of the breadth and depth of digital technology deployment on the relationship between ambidextrous innovations and the SCFP of SMEs.

A mixed-methods design is used, including a qualitative study and a quantitative study. Qualitative data have been collected from six multi-cases in different industries. Questionnaire data have been collected from 259 SMEs in China, and a multiple regression model is used to verify the research hypotheses.

The findings indicate that, in supply chain financing, both exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation are helpful in improving the SCFP of SMEs. For resource-constrained SMEs, a relative balance between exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation can help improve SCFP. The breadth of digital technology deployment can strengthen the relationship between exploitative innovation and SCFP, while the depth of digital technology deployment can weaken the relationship between exploratory innovation and SCFP. In addition, increasing the depth of digital technology deployment strengthens the positive correlation between the relative balance of ambidextrous innovations and SCFP.

To effectively obtain supply chain financing, SMEs can either concentrate their limited resources on a single type of innovation or use relative balance strategies to simultaneously pursue two innovations. In addition, in the process of obtaining supply chain financing by ambidextrous innovations, SMEs should appropriately deploy digital technologies.

This study first deconstructs the impact mechanism of ambidextrous innovation capabilities on SCFP based on signaling theory, and then discusses the balancing effect of ambidextrous innovations on SCFP in the cases of resource-constrained SMEs. This study also goes further and finds the negative moderating effect of digital technology deployment in the process of supply chain financing.