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Based on the cue utilization theory and congruity theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating effects of perceived quality on the relationships between category characteristics and purchase intention for private labels.

To examine the research hypotheses, the authors conducted a questionnaire survey on 703 adult consumers in China.

The results show that perceived quality fully mediates the relationships between category complexity, risk importance, category quality variation, product signatureness and purchase intention. In addition, consumers’ knowledge moderates the relationship between perceived quality and purchase intention. The implications and future research directions are discussed in this study.

The results show that the category complexity is positively related to consumers’ perceived quality. Although opposite to the conclusions in prior research, the findings are consistent with the unique phenomenon in China, that is, to label the name and location of the contract manufacturers. The authors investigate the moderating role of consumer knowledge, which will provide meaningful guidance for the Chinese retailing market.

To provide a simplified proof for Liu's results concerning the relationship between σ‐entropy and σ‐similarity measure.

First obtains Liu's clear and simple functional expression of σ‐similarity measures based on the structure of σ‐entropy by using expressions of equivalent functions of σ‐entropy. Then, by employing the general expression of equivalent functions of σ‐similarity measure of fuzzy sets, provides a different proof of Liu's results.

Here, the proof is much simpler than the original one provided by Liu. And, on the basis of Shannon's probability entropy as introduced by De Luca and Termini, a σ‐similarity measure is constructed, on which a No answer to an open question as proposed by Liu is provided.

Constructs a new approach to some known results and provides a definite answer to an open question.

The purpose of this paper is to solve the problems of poor mechanical properties, high surface roughness and waste support materials of thin-walled parts fabricated by flat-layered additive manufacturing process.

This paper proposes a curved-layered material extrusion modeling process with a five-axis motion mechanism. This process has advantages of the platform rotating, non-support printing and three-dimensional printing path. First, the authors present a curved-layered algorithm by offsetting the bottom surface into a series of conformal surfaces and a toolpath generation algorithm based on the geodesic distance field in each conformal surface. Second, they introduce a parallel five-axis printing machine consisting of a printing head fixed on a delta-type manipulator and a rotary platform on a spherical parallel machine.

Mechanical experiments show the failure force of the five-axis printed samples is 153% higher than that of the three-axis printed samples. Forming experiments show that the surface roughness significantly decreases from 42.09 to 18.31 µm, and in addition, the material consumption reduces by 42.90%. These data indicate the curved-layered algorithm and five-axis motion mechanism in this paper could effectively improve mechanical properties and the surface roughness of thin-walled parts, and realize non-support printing. These methods also have reference value for other additive manufacturing processes.

Previous researchers mostly focus on printing simple shapes such as arch or “T”-like shape. In contrast, this study sets out to explore the algorithm and benefits of modeling thin-walled parts by a five-axis machine. Several validated models would allow comparability in five-axis printing.

The purpose of this study is to provide effective and environmental-friendly corrosion inhibitors derived from graphene oxide for Q235 steel.

Nontoxic and environment-friendly 4-aminobenzoic acid was used to functionalize graphene oxide via amidation and diazotization. The obtained amidation 4-aminobenzoic acid functionalized graphene oxide (PAGO) and diazotization 4-aminobenzoic acid functionalized graphene oxide (PDGO) were characterized by FTIR, Raman and TEM, while the inhibition efficiencies were analyzed by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization (PDP). Furthermore, theoretical inhibition efficiencies were investigated by density functional theory (DFT) approach.

At a concentration of 40 ppm, the maximum inhibition efficiency of PAGO and PDGO were 97.90% and 96.72% in EIS measurement, respectively, which were in accordance with PDP data. Moreover, experimental results were supported by DFT-based quantum chemical calculation.

Environmental-friendly PAGO and PDGO were synthesized successfully. The synthetic inhibitors exhibited excellent inhibition efficiencies in EIS and PDP measurements. Furthermore, a computational study using DFT supported the trend that PAGO was better inhibitor than PDGO.

This study aims to understand the multiaxial fretting fatigue, wear and fracture characteristics of 35CrMoA steel under the elliptical loading path.

By keeping the contact pressure and torsional shear cyclic stress amplitude unchanged; the axial cyclic stress amplitude varied from 650 MPa to 850 MPa. The fretting fatigue test was carried out on MTS809 testing machine, and the axial cyclic strain response and fatigue life of the material were analyzed. The fretting zone and fracture surface morphology were observed by scanning electron microscope. The composition of wear debris was detected by energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer.

In this study, with the increase of axial stress amplitude, 35CrMoA steel will be continuously softened, and the cyclic softening degree increases. The fretting fatigue life decreases unevenly. The fretting scars in the stick region are elongated in the axial direction. The area of fracture crack propagation zone decreases. In addition, the results indicate that wear debris in the slip region is spherical and has higher oxygen content.

There were few literatures about the multiaxial fretting fatigue behavior of 35CrMoA steel, and most scholars focused on the contact pressure. This paper reveals the effect of axial cyclic stress on fretting fatigue and wear of 35CrMoA steel under the elliptical loading path.

Using WeChat moments as an example, this article explores the impact of user role conflict on privacy concerns, social media fatigue and the three dimensions of discontinuous usage intention: control activities, short breaks and suspend usage intentions. Moreover, the moderating function of self-esteem in this process is examined.

The conceptual model includes role conflict, privacy concerns, social media fatigue, discontinuous usage intention and self-esteem. Three hundred and thirty-one questionnaires were collected using an online survey, and the data were analyzed with structural equation and hierarchical regression modeling.

The results show that (1) role conflict positively affects privacy concerns and social media fatigue; (2) privacy concerns also positively affect social media fatigue; (3) privacy concerns positively affect control activities intentions, although their impact on short breaks and suspend usage intentions is not significant, whereas social media fatigue significantly influences control activities, short breaks and suspend usage intentions; and (4) self-esteem negatively moderates the influence of role conflict on privacy concerns.

A key limitation of this research is that it is designed for WeChat. Therefore, the question of whether other social media platforms face role conflict or discontinuous usage problems should be explored in the future.

The article is interesting in that it focuses on the discontinuous usage of social media and identifies factors that contribute to the discontinuous usage of social media. The findings make some theoretical contributions to, and have practical implications for, research into social media usage.

The purpose of this paper is to design a model that can accurately forecast the supply chain sales.

This paper proposed a new model based on lightGBM and LSTM to forecast the supply chain sales. In order to verify the accuracy and efficiency of this model, three representative supply chain sales data sets are selected for experiments.

The experimental results show that the combined model can forecast supply chain sales with high accuracy, efficiency and interpretability.

With the rapid development of big data and AI, using big data analysis and algorithm technology to accurately forecast the long-term sales of goods will provide the database for the supply chain and key technical support for enterprises to establish supply chain solutions. This paper provides an effective method for supply chain sales forecasting, which can help enterprises to scientifically and reasonably forecast long-term commodity sales.

The proposed model not only inherits the ability of LSTM model to automatically mine high-level temporal features, but also has the advantages of lightGBM model, such as high efficiency, strong interpretability, which is suitable for industrial production environment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the synergistic effects of online multimedia by categorizing it into online broadcast media (OBM) and online interactive media (OIM).

The authors used an online experiment method to manipulate the online message stimuli level (online media synergy and online single media repetition).

The results revealed that participants exposed to message stimuli of online media synergy reported greater source credibility, cognitive responses (brand credibility and positive thoughts about the brand), attitude toward the brand and purchase intention. In online multimedia, source credibility influences attitude toward the brand through brand credibility and positive thoughts about the brand; in online single media repetition, source credibility influences attitude toward the brand through only brand credibility.

In addition, the relationship between online media synergy and marketing outcomes might be moderated by consumers’ goals and thought patterns, and future research could further explore the moderating effects of these variables.

This study contributes to media synergy research, assists marketing planners in their understanding of the importance of online media synergy and serves as a reference for marketing planners considering an integrated online marketing plan.

The current study investigated how the synergy of OBM and OIM influences message persuasiveness for consumers (cognitive responses, attitude toward the brand and purchase intention).

This paper aims to investigate the relationships between the strategic type of cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and enterprise growth, and the moderating role of Chinese companies' organizational factors, including organizational structure, organizational experience, cultural distance and relative size.

The authors, as researchers, have mixed the strategic choice and post‐M&As integration into a comprehensive framework while building the theoretical model of “Strategic Type of Cross‐border M&As‐Organizational Factors‐Enterprise Growth” (ST‐OF‐EG). In this paper, they have empirically examined the model using hierarchical regression by analyzing 76 cross‐borders M&A events of overseas‐listed Chinese companies over the 2000‐2007 period.

The analysis shows that: related cross‐border M&As are better for enterprise growth than unrelated diversification cross‐border M&As; and among the organizational factors, studied organizational structure and organizational experience show a positive significance in terms of the relationship between the strategic type of cross‐border M&As and enterprise growth. The moderating role of cultural distance and relative size is non‐significant.

In this paper, the moderating effect of cultural distance was found to be insignificant. However, further research is encouraged.

Chinese companies should pay attention to strategic choices before cross‐border M&As. They should expand abroad to markets step by step. They should merge the companies that have the higher relevance on a product, industry or market first. On the basis of specialization, Chinese companies should make themselves stronger and then develop from specialization to proper diversification, which is a robust path to achieve enterprise growth. Besides, Chinese companies should accumulate international experience as soon as possible and organizational structure should match the strategic choice.

This paper would be immensely helpful to Chinese companies to plan their cross‐border M&As strategy in a way that would enhance growth and core‐competence.

This paper aims to explore how external creditors assess firms’ financial aggressiveness in China.

Using bank loan-specific data, the authors investigate whether firms exhibit greater costs of bank loans when they engage in earnings manipulation and whether this association changes when restrictions on lenders’ compensation are promulgated.

The authors find compelling evidence that bank executives charge higher premiums on firms with accrual earnings management to compensate for additional financial risk but do not charge extra loan prices for firms conducting real earnings management (REM). The authors also find that the enactment of Robust Bank Executive Compensation (REBC) enhances the vigilance of bank executives on the overall client firms’ earnings manipulation, with the exception of REM conducted by state-owned firms.

The authors extend the current literature on the cost of external loans by focusing on bank loans and the influence of REBC. This study offers implications for policymakers in China and other emerging economics to control loan default and financial risk.