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The purpose of this work is to reveal the mechanism of WO₄²⁻ on surface passivation for Q235 carbon steel in tungstate solution.

In Na₂WO₄ solutions with the different concentrations of WO₄²⁻, the spontaneous passivation occurred on the surface of Q235 carbon steel when the concentration of WO₄²⁻ was up to 0.13 mmol/L, which was attributed to the formations of the inner deposition film and the outer adsorption film on the Q235 surface under the action of WO₄²⁻.

The inner deposition film presented a two-layer microstructure: the inside layer was composed of Fe₂O₃ mainly, and the outside layer comprised Fe(OH)2•nH₂O, Fe(OH)3•nH₂O, FeWO₄ and Fe₂(WO₄)3.

Both FeWO₄ and Fe₂(WO₄)3 repaired the defects in the outside layer of the inner deposition film; however, the outer adsorption film played a more important role in the surface passivation than the inner deposition film did.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the mechanism of nitrite (NO_2⁻) for the surface passivation of carbon steels in acidic environments through investigating the influences of 0.01 mol/L NaNO₂ addition on the corrosion and passivation behaviors of Q235 carbon steel in acidic phosphate buffer (APB) solutions (pH 2 to 6).

The electrochemical techniques including open circle potential evolution, potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry were applied.

In APB solutions without NO_2⁻, the Q235 steel presented the electrochemical behaviors of activation (A), activation-passivation-transpassivation and self-passivation-transpassivation at pH 2 to 4, pH 5 and pH 6, respectively; the corrosion rate decreased with the up of pH value, and the surface passivation occurred in the pH 5 and pH 6 solutions only: the anodic passivation at pH 5 and the spontaneous passivation at pH 6.

In APB solutions without NO_2⁻, the corrosion rate decreased with the up of pH value, and the surface passivation occurred in the pH 5 and pH 6 solutions only: the anodic passivation at pH 5 and the spontaneous passivation at pH 6. With the addition of 0.01 mol/L NaNO₂, into APB solutions, the variation of corrosion rate showed the same rule, but the surface passivation occurred over the whole acidic pH range, including the anodic passivation at pH 2 to 4 and the spontaneous passivation at pH 5 to 6.

A chromate conversion coating was prepared on the surface of bare AA2024 aluminum alloy by direct immersion in the chromating treatment bath, and the corrosion behavior of chromated AA2024 aluminum alloy in 3.5 per cent NaCl solution was studied by electrochemical measurement and microstructural observation.

According to the polarization curve test and the scanning electron microscope observation, the corrosion evolution of chromated AA2024 in 3.5 per cent NaCl solution was divided into the following three stages: coating failure, pitting corrosion and intergranular corrosion (IGC).

In the first stage, the chromate coating degraded gradually due to the combined action of chloride anions and water molecules, resulting in the complete exposure of AA2024 substrate to 3.5 per cent NaCl solution. Subsequently, in the second stage, chloride anions adsorbed at the sites of θ phase (Al2Cu) and S phase (Al2CuMg) on the AA2024 surface preferentially, and some corrosion pits initiated at the above two sites and propagated towards the deep of crystal grains. However, the propagation of a pit terminated when the pit front arrived at the adjacent grain boundary, where the initiation of IGC occurred.

Finally, in the third stage, the corrosion proceeded along the continuous grain boundary net and penetrated the internal of AA2024 substrate, resulting in the propagation of IGC. The related corrosion mechanisms for the bare and the chromated AA2024 were also discussed.

This paper aims to investigate magnetic field anneal in micro-patterned Co-based amorphous ribbon on giant magneto-impedance (GMI) effect enhancement.

The amorphous ribbons were annealed in transverse and longitudinal magnetic field. The influence of different field annealing directions on GMI effect and impedance Z, resistance R and reactance X with a series of line width have been deeply analyzed.

In comparison with GMI sensors microfabricated by unannealed and transversal field annealed ribbons, GMI sensor which was designed and microfabricated by longitudinal field anneal ribbon performs better. The results can be explained by the domain wall motion and domain rotation during annealing process and the geometric structure of Co-based GMI sensor. In addition, shrinking the line width of GMI sensor can promote GMI effect significantly because of the effect of demagnetizing field, and the optimum GMI ratio is 209.7 per cent in longitudinal field annealed GMI sensor with 200 μm line width.

In conclusion, annealing in longitudinal magnetic field and decreasing line width can enhance GMI effect in micro-patterned Co-based amorphous ribbon.

Studies in hospitality and tourism have seldom investigated the role of employee commitment to building customers' attitudinal loyalty. This study examines the impact of employee commitment on customers' attitude-based loyalty. The study contributes to knowledge of how employees' affective attitude (i.e. employee commitment) impacts and mediates the relationships within this model by considering service quality attributes separately in the context of China's Greater Bay Area.

Using a quantitative approach, 664 customers visiting hotels and tourist attractions within three cities of Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai were surveyed. A convenience sampling technique was employed to administer questionnaires within these contexts. A structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS software was used to test the relationships in the proposed model.

The results suggest that while service quality attributes have a different impact on employee commitment, employee commitment plays a response-predictor-mediator role in the attitudinal loyalty framework. For instance, personal interactions and technical quality are significant predictors of employee commitment. Employee commitment influences customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions. Moreover, employee commitment fully mediates the relationship between technical quality and customer satisfaction and partially mediates the association between personal interaction and customer satisfaction.

Given that employee commitment could be derived from personal interaction with customers, hoteliers and destination management organizations should encourage customers through their websites to be responsive to employees by providing constructive feedback on their service delivery. Management of hotels, attractions and destinations need to motivate employees through incentives such as pay raise, bonuses, time-off and paid holidays.

The paper is inimitable in its attempt to extend the customer attitudinal loyalty debate by including employees' attitude (i.e. commitment) in the measurement of customers' attitudinal loyalty in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Science and technology innovation policy has important strategic significance with respect to the promotion of an innovation orientation in our country, and the classification and measurement of regional science and technology innovation policy urgently require research attention.

In this paper, we use text mining and principal component analysis to analyze the classification and measurement of technology innovation policy based on data obtained from Zhongguancun Science Park.

The empirical results indicate that regional science and technology innovation policy can be divided into four types: authoritative, guiding, urgent and periodical. The key measurements are function type, intensity, resource supply, funding level and funding effectiveness.

A comparative analysis is performed to investigate the different types of regional science and technology innovation policy measurement. Additionally, the study’s limitations are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss an adaptive SLA mechanism for service sharing in virtual environment, which can organize and govern QoS items in terms of service execution time, reliability, and availability, and provides a common understanding about services, responsibilities, priorities, guarantees and warranties-related virtual cooperative issues.

The management framework for SLA is introduced, based on which the whole process including SLA contract, adaptive SLA negotiation strategy, SLA deployment and SLA assessment are discussed, and the prototype is implemented in the cloud manufacturing platform.

A proposed SLA framework for service sharing in virtual environments is given; electronic contracts are designed in the framework for encapsulating measurable aspects of service level agreements so as to provide common understanding about the service; and an improved SLA negotiation strategy with three phases is presented for the dynamicity of the virtual services.

The paper presents a very useful adaptive SLA mechanism for service sharing in virtual environments that can be utilized in concurrent or future advanced manufacturing modes.

Market orientation is often mentioned as a key factor for the success of domestic and international activities, but our knowledge about differences in degrees of market orientation remains limited for firms that have varying degrees of international activities. In particular, the literature is very sparse with regard to studies of newly established firms. Our study empirically explores this gap examining how different types of new ventures adopt two strategic components of market orientation – customer orientation and competitor orientation. Our empirical evidence is based on responses from CEOs of 249 Danish manufacturing firms that are categorized into four groups, depending on their degree of international operations within the first three years. We demonstrate that the most internationally oriented firms seem to be the most market oriented in general. They are significantly more competitor-oriented than domestically oriented firms, but the results regarding customer orientation are more mixed. Interestingly, we find indications that the strategic emphasis on customer orientation may be higher for firms with domestic operations than for those with limited international operations. We discuss implications for research and managers.

This paper aims to examine the effects of task and relationship conflicts on team creativity, and the moderating role of shared leadership in inter-organizational teams. An inter-organizational team normally comprises employees from collaborated organizations brought together to conduct an initiative, such as product development. Practitioners and researchers have witnessed the prevalence of conflict in inter-organizational teams. Despite significant scholarly investigation into the importance of conflict in creativity, a deep theoretical understanding of conflict framework remains elusive.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in China to collect data. Consequently, 54 teams, which comprised 54 team managers and 276 team members, were deemed useful for the study.

By testing our hypotheses on 54 inter-organizational teams, we found that relationship conflict has a negative relationship with team creativity, whereas task conflict has an inverted U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with team creativity. Furthermore, when shared leadership is stronger, the negative relationship with team creativity is weaker for relationship conflict, whereas the inverted U-shaped relationship with team creativity is stronger for task conflict.

The main limitation is cross-sectional, which cannot establish causality in relationships. Despite this potential weakness, the present research provides insights into conflict, leadership and inter-organizational collaboration literature.

The findings of this study offer some guidance on how managers can intervene in the conflict situations of inter-organizational teams.

Managers are struggling to identify ways to effectively manage team conflict when a team of diverse individuals across organizational boundaries are brought together to solve a problem. The findings of this study offer some guidance on how managers can intervene in the conflict situations of inter-organizational teams.

This paper provides understandings about how relationship and task conflicts affect team creativity in inter-organizational teams.

Five different structural reactive dyes (Reactive Brilliant Blue K-3R, Everacion Blue H-ERD, Moderzol Blue FBR, Atuzol Black B and Moderzol Blue HEGN) were treated with laccase (Denilite II US) in order to determine the optimum decolouration conditions. The experiments showed that laccase had distinct decolouration effects on these five dyes. Under optimum conditions, the colour removal rates of Everacion Blue H-ERD and Moderzol Blue HEGN were over 90%. Furthermore, the effects of different additives, such as acid ion, metal ion, and surfactants on the decolouration rate of Reactive Brilliant Blue K-3R were discussed. The results show that the decolouration rate is significantly promoted through the addition of Cu²⁺ and Al³⁺, while it is inactivated with Fe²⁺ and ion surfactants. Moreover, the COD removal rates of the five dyes are more than 75%.