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This paper aims to study the effect of load on the tribological behaviour of Cu-based composites, so as to obtain a suitable applied load on these composites.

Cu-based composites were prepared by powder sintering with direct current electric current heating and tested by Universal Mechanical Test-3 with a ball-on-disk at room temperature.

The results showed that Cu-based composites are might suitable for working under low load. There is only mild damage on the surface under a load of 2 N. While it has microcracks and shows signs of cavitation at a certain depth at 20 N and 50 N. In addition, it is evident that there are three zones in the cross-section of the matrix, namely, a mechanical mixing layer, ceramic layer and substrate, respectively.

There are two wear mechanisms at different loads, and the evolution of worn surfaces with sliding time is also involved. Thus, the developed material can be used for light load sliding electrical contact material applications.

Nowadays, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has demonstrated extensive applications in the field of art design. Attribute editing is an important means to realize clothing style and color design via computer language, which aims to edit and control the garment image based on the specified target attributes while preserving other details from the original image. The current image attribute editing model often generates images containing missing or redundant attributes. To address the problem, this paper aims for a novel design method utilizing the Fashion-attribute generative adversarial network (AttGAN) model was proposed for image attribute editing specifically tailored to women’s blouses.

The proposed design method primarily focuses on optimizing the feature extraction network and loss function. To enhance the feature extraction capability of the model, an increase in the number of layers in the feature extraction network was implemented, and the structure similarity index measure (SSIM) loss function was employed to ensure the independent attributes of the original image were consistent. The characteristic-preserving virtual try-on network (CP_VTON) dataset was used for train-ing to enable the editing of sleeve length and color specifically for women’s blouse.

The experimental results demonstrate that the optimization model’s generated outputs have significantly reduced problems related to missing attributes or visual redundancy. Through a comparative analysis of the numerical changes in the SSIM and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) before and after the model refinement, it was observed that the improved SSIM increased substantially by 27.4%, and the PSNR increased by 2.8%, serving as empirical evidence of the effectiveness of incorporating the SSIM loss function.

The proposed algorithm provides a promising tool for precise image editing of women’s blouses based on the GAN. This introduces a new approach to eliminate semantic expression errors in image editing, thereby contributing to the development of AI in clothing design.

Drawing upon the social identity approach, this research examines whether and how leader–subordinate congruence at high levels of proactive personality facilitates subordinate creativity.

Two different data sets (Study 1: N = 205; Study 2: N = 222) were collected from leader–subordinate dyads in China to provide stronger empirical evidence regarding our hypotheses. Polynomial regression and response surface analyses were used to test our predictions.

Subordinate creativity in the scenario in which the leader and subordinate shared a highly proactive personality (i.e. high–high congruence) was higher than that in the incongruence or low–low congruence scenario. The subordinate's identification with the leader mediated the above relationships such that the indirect relationship between leader–subordinate proactive personality and subordinate creativity via identification with the leader was maximized in the high–high congruence scenario.

The findings suggest that organizations should consider selecting both highly proactive leaders and highly proactive subordinates to facilitate the subordinates' identification and subsequent creativity.

This research highlights the crucial role of leader–subordinate congruence in strong proactive personality for the promotion of creativity and reveals that identification with the leader accounts for the above relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of trust in service and structural assurance on the continuance intention of FinTech services, and the roles of technical factors (i.e. situational normality and system quality) and social factors (i.e. herding and subjective norm) in developing trust in service and structural assurance. YuEbao is selected as the subject as it is a representative example of FinTech services in China.

A survey questionnaire was deployed and a ten-point sliding scale with two-decimal points was applied to improve the accuracy of the questionnaire. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

Trust in service and structural assurance can encourage continuance intention of FinTech service. System quality, situational normality and subjective norm can boost the development of trust in service. Both herding and subjective norm can affect structural assurance significantly.

The study highlights the important roles played by technical factors (i.e. situational normality and system quality) and social factors (i.e. herding and subjective norm) in developing the two levels of trust (i.e. trust in service and structural assurance). It also validates the influences of trust in service and structural assurance on encouraging customers’ continuance intention in the novel context of FinTech.

The findings of this study can be used by practitioners to encourage customers to continue using their FinTech services. To encourage continuance, service providers can improve the quality of their system, design the system to be aligned with customers’ using habits and show customers that their close friends are also using the service.

This study adds to the existing body of trust literature by investigating the direct effects of trust in service and structure assurance on continuance intention and how these two levels of trust are developed from technical and social aspects. It generates interesting insights into customers’ continuance behavior of FinTech services.

Whether employees always disengage from knowledge hiding in a mastery climate is not answered well. This study aims to examine the paradoxical effects of perceived mastery climate (PMC) on evasive knowledge hiding (EKH).

Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to analyze data collected from 148 full-time employees at two-time points.

PMC exerts a positive effect on EKH via perceived status (PS) in organization but also has a negative effect on it via perceived social support. Perceived procedural justice attenuates the positive effect of PS on EKH.

Managers need to notice the paradoxical effects of PMC and keep procedural justice to reduce the positive effect of mastery climate on knowledge hiding.

This study contributes to knowledge hiding literature by investigating two opposite influencing mechanisms of mastery climate, and the moderating effects of perceived procedural justice.

This paper aims to analyze the influence of rotated anisotropy on the stability of slope, the random finite element method is used in this study.

The random field is generated by the discrete cosine transform (DCT) method, which can generate random field with different rotated angles conveniently.

Two idealized slopes are analyzed; it is observed that the rotated angle significantly affects the slope failure risk. The two examples support the conclusion that when the orientation of the layers is nearly perpendicular to the slip surface, the slope is in a relative stable condition. The results of heterogeneous slope with two clay layers demonstrate that the rotated angle of lower layer mainly controls the failure mechanism of the slope, and the rotated angle of upper layer exhibits a significant influence on the probability of slope failure.

The method for rotated anisotropy random field generation based on the DCT has a simple expression with few parameters and is convenient for implementation and practical application. The proposed method and the results obtained are useful for analyzing the stability of the heterogeneous slopes in engineering projects.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the modeling accuracy of the magnetostrictive hysteretic characteristics by introducing hysteresis energy instead of pinning energy in the assembled domain structure model (ADSM).

First, the magnetostrictive characteristics and the domain movement process in an electrical steel sheet are measured and observed. The reasons for the influence of stress on magnetostriction are discussed on the mesoscopic level. Second, the ADSM model using the hysteresis energy is investigated to estimate the influence of external stress. Finally, the simulation results of the modified ADSM model are compared with the experimental data under the same calculation conditions.

The results show that the improved model not only explains the cause of hysteresis clearly from the perspective of the magnetic moment but also improves the modeling ability of magnetostrictive hysteretic.

The magnetostriction in electrical steel lags behind the external magnetic field, and it is significant for reducing core vibration to estimate the magnetostrictive hysteretic property accurately. This paper proposes an effective approach to model the hysteretic characterization of magnetostriction.

Drawing on goal orientation theory, this study intends to investigate whether, how and when developmental leadership influences employees’ feedback seeking behavior (FSB) and feedback avoidance behavior (FAB).

The authors used a two-wave survey of 416 full-time employees in China. The hypotheses were tested with path analyses.

Developmental leadership exerts a positive influence on employees’ FSB and a negative impact on FAB through learning goal orientation (LGO). Additionally, leaders’ high performance expectations (LHPE) not only strengthen the positive effects of developmental leadership on FSB but also intensify its weakening effects on FAB.

The findings enrich current understanding by associating developmental leadership with employees’ FSB/FAB, offering a new viewpoint on its positive impacts. This study also provides deeper insights into when the benefits of developmental leadership are intensified.

The degradation of the natural habitat at the expense of economic development is a harmful growth that warrants environmental policy actions. For instance, the economic impacts of environmental pollution are quite visible in developed and developing economies, where human health is compromised by rapid economic growth and energy induced pollution. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of CO₂ emissions on economic development.

This paper investigates the correlation between pollutant emissions and key economic variables within the economic community of West African states (ECOWAS) region by applying fixed effects model to unbalanced time-series panel data for the period 1980-2014. This paper examines the full ECOWAS panel and sub-panels with export-and-import-dependent countries.

The authors argue that energy consumption (EC) and real output exert causal influences on CO₂ emissions for the full ECOWAS panel and the sub-panels with export-and-import-dependent countries.

The results imply that increase in EC is the main factor that promotes economic growth in the region. Additionally, growth in EC and real output stimulates CO₂ emissions growth.

Therefore, it is argued that technological innovations that increase energy efficiency through new carbon-free technologies that minimize CO₂ emissions growth without impairing economic growth and development must be introduced in the region.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of servant leadership on followers’ subjective career success and the mediating role of career skills. The moderating effect of followers’ proactive personality is also investigated.

This paper collected two-wave matched data from 283 employees of an IT company. The authors use hierarchical regression and bootstrapping to test the hypotheses.

Servant leadership has a positive effect on career satisfaction and perceived employability through career skills. In addition, proactive personality moderates the association between servant leadership and career skills, such that the relationship is stronger when proactive personality is high. Proactive personality also moderates the indirect effect of servant leadership on career satisfaction and perceived employability.

The findings suggest that organizations should select and train leaders to practice servant leadership to enhance employee subjective career success.

This is the first study to investigate the mechanism and boundary conditions of the association between servant leadership and employee subjective career success.