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Salt rock from salt lakes can serve as a cost-effective material for subgrade filling, as demonstrated in projects like the Qarhan Salt Lake section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway and the Qarhan Salt Lake section of the G215 Highway. This state-of-the-art paper aims to summarize the engineering properties of salt rock filling and present the advances of its utilization.

This paper collects and analyzes laboratory and field data of salt rock filling from previous studies to present a comprehensive analysis of the engineering properties and utilization of salt rock fillings.

Salt rock primarily contains minerals such as halite and glauberite, which contribute to its unique phase-changing behavior under varying environmental conditions, impacting its mechanical properties. Salt rock filling shrinks when in contact with vapor or unsaturated brine and expands under cooling or evaporation. Its use is particularly recommended for arid regions, with specific restrictions depending on the structure type. This paper discusses suggested countermeasures to mitigate these issues, as well as key quality acceptance indices for salt rock filling compaction. Moisture content after air-drying is recommended as a crucial parameter for construction quality control.

This review aims to support future research and engineering practices in salt rock subgrade applications.

This paper aims to propose a novel wheel-based multiaxis force sensor designed to detect the interaction forces and moments between the planetary rover’s wheel and the terrain, thereby assisting the rover in environmental perception.

The authors’ design approach encompasses the mechanical structure design, decoupling methods and component integration techniques, effectively incorporating multiaxis sensors into the forward-sensing wheel. This enables high-precision and high-reliability detection of wheel–terrain interaction forces and torques.

The designed wheel-based multiaxis force sensor exhibits a nonlinearity error of 0.45%, a hysteresis error of 0.56% and a repeatability error of 0.49%, meeting the requirements for practical applications. Furthermore, the effectiveness and stability of the designed wheel-based multidimensional force sensor have been validated through hardware-in-the-loop experiments and full-vehicle model testing.

Unlike previous methods that directly integrate multiaxis sensors into the forward-sensing wheel, the authors have designed the force sensing wheel with consideration of its limited design space and the need for high measurement accuracy. The effectiveness of the designed wheel-based multidimensional force sensor was ultimately validated through static calibration, hardware-in-the-loop experiments and full-vehicle model experiments.

Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose a mediated moderation showing how proactive personality (PP) and job crafting toward interests (JC-interests) influence the relationship between interest incongruence and cyberloafing.

We used a three-wave survey and collected data from 429 full-time employees working in different industries in China.

We found that interest incongruence was positively related to cyberloafing. Furthermore, this positive relationship was more significant when employees were low in PP or engaged in low levels of JC-interests. In addition, the moderating effect of PP was mediated by JC-interests.

These findings are helpful for organizations in figuring out how to mitigate the detrimental effects of interest incongruence by providing more support to proactive employees and implementing various JC interventions.

This study suggests that PP and JC-interests (resource gain strategy) could mitigate the positive effect of interest incongruence on employees’ cyberloafing.

The Internet of Things-based digital twin (IoT-DT) technologies offer a transformative approach to building retrofitting for reducing operational carbon (ROC) emissions. However, a notable gap exists between the potential and adoption of the two emerging technologies, further exacerbated by the nascent state of research in this domain. This research aims to establish the best practices that innovatively strengthen the identified enablers to decisively tackle challenges, ensuring the efficient implementation of IoT-DT for ROC emissions in buildings.

This study adopted a mixed-method approach. Questionnaire data from 220 multidiscipline professionals were analysed via structural equation modelling analysis, while interview data obtained from 18 stakeholders were analysed using thematic content analysis. The findings were triangulated for cohesive interpretation.

After the analysis of questionnaire data, a structural model was established, depicting the critical challenges (inadequate data security, limited technical expertise and scalability issues) and key enablers (robust data security measures, skill development and government incentives) of implementing IoT-DT for ROC. Sequentially, analysis of in-depth interview data revealed the IoT-based DT best practices (safeguarding data, upskilling and incentivization). Upon triangulating the questionnaire and interview findings, this study explicitly highlights the potential of the established best practices to strategically strengthen enablers, thereby mitigating challenges and ensuring the successful implementation of IoT-based DT for ROC emissions in buildings.

This study provides practical guidance for stakeholders to effectively implement IoT-DT in ROC in buildings and contributes significantly to climate change mitigation.

The platformisation of journalism has compelled news media to adapt to network media logic, affecting journalistic practices and norms. Several challenges emerged for media outlets, including competition for attention, news avoidance and the dominance of social media as primary news sources. Among platforms, TikTok represents an opportunity for news media to engage with new audiences, particularly those who tend to avoid traditional news sources. TikTok's algorithm assesses content virality based on factors like sound, hashtags and content itself, prompting media outlets to develop new strategies to compete in this space.

Our study focuses on Portuguese media, which received limited attention despite TikTok's rapid adoption rate growth, rising from 13% in 2020 to 45% in 2023.

We analysed the last 58 TikTok posts of the most popular Portuguese media according to the Digital News report 2023 starting from 1 September 2023, identifying various elements, such as music, hashtags, featured subjects, topic, etc. To uncover newsroom strategies, we applied multiple correspondence analysis and hierarchical clustering on principal components to identify post clusters. These strategies have been then be correlated with the number of views to determine their effectiveness in engaging audiences.

In this paper, we explore the role of education in household financial technology (FinTech) adoption.

Using representative nationwide household data from the 2017 China Household Finance Survey, we employ the change in China’s compulsory schooling law in the 1980s as an instrumental variable for educational attainment.

We find that among Chinese households, education has statistically significant and economically important effects on the use of various FinTech services, including digital banking, mobile payment, digital wealth management and digital consumer credit. Further analysis indicates that exogeneous increases in education lead to higher levels of financial literacy and social trust, both of which are potential drivers of FinTech adoption. Our findings provide new insights into the importance of education for household financial decision-making and technology adoption.

The contribution of our study is mainly twofold. First, we provide evidence on the role of education in household financial decision making. Second, this study adds to the literature on household adoption of technological innovation in finance. Our findings are also policy-relevant.

This study aims to provide empirical evidence to verify the dimensional structure of artificial intelligence (AI) Chatbot quality and examine the impact of these dimensions on consumer satisfaction and brand advocacy among Gen Z in the fast food industry in Egypt.

The empirical data was obtained with an electronic self-administered survey instrument from 397 young consumers who had prior experience using AI Chatbots across multiple fast food brands in Egypt. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the formulated hypotheses.

The results showed that AI Chatbot quality dimensions, specifically information authenticity and system compliance, significantly enhance young consumers’ satisfaction. In addition, information authenticity of AI Chatbot quality was observed to wield a significant influence on young consumers’ advocacy. In contrast, an insignificant relationship was noticed between satisfaction and advocacy. Moreover, the mediating role of consumer satisfaction was not established.

Given that Gen Z is more technology savvy and computer literate, marketers and practitioners of fast food brands should invest in AI tools to respond to young consumers’ expectations and improve their perception of their services.

This study uses stimulus-organism-response theory to understand the mediating effect of young consumers’ satisfaction in the relationship between AI Chatbot quality and consumer brand advocacy within the fast food industry. Also, it introduced two novel main constructs of AI Chatbot quality, namely, information authenticity and system compliance.

Health and fitness influencers who directly affect one’s well-being through their messages create situations of vulnerability that require trust. To understand the various dimensions of trust, this study integrated a typology of trust into source credibility theory. The purpose of the study is to explore the typology’s four trust dimensions concomitant with the perceived attractiveness and expertise of such influencers to identify consumers’ attitudes toward micro-health and fitness influencers.

This study used a manipulated-stimuli online survey and gathered 414 micro-influencer evaluations. Variance-based structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The results supported the four of trust building. However, a less complex trust formation process was revealed, thereby contrasting the original trust theory formulation. Specifically, the effect of disposition to trust on institution-based trust was higher for regular than for heavy social media users. Also, compared to regular social media users, trusting intentions had a greater impact on heavy social media users’ attitudes toward micro-influencers. In addition, the effect of institution-based trust on trusting beliefs was higher for older than for younger participants. Furthermore, placement of congruent compared to noncongruent products created differences in perceived attitudes toward micro-influencers. In particular, disposition to trust had a larger effect on institution-based trust for noncongruent than for congruent product placements.

This study extended source credibility theory by including alternative trust dimensions – notably, non-situation-specific disposition to trust and institution-based trust, as well as situation-specific trusting beliefs and trusting intentions – into source credibility.

As artificial intelligence technology empowers service robots, they increasingly communicate with consumers in a human-like manner. This study aims to investigate the effect of service robots’ different conversational styles (competent conversational style vs. cute conversational style) on consumer service acceptance and demonstrate the moderating role of consumers’ technology anxiety.

Based on anthropomorphism theory and social presence theory, the authors conducted two scenario-based experiments (restaurant scenario and hotel scenario) to investigate this issue.

The results indicate that service robots’ conversational styles impact consumers’ willingness to accept the use of service robots through perceived social presence and positive emotion. Moreover, consumers perceived social presence and positive emotion play a serial mechanism. In addition, the effect of competent conversational style on consumers perceived social presence is less effective than that of cute conversational style. Finally, the authors demonstrate the moderating role of consumer technology anxiety in the relationship between conversational styles and perceived social presence.

To provide consumers with a positive human–robot interaction experience at the service front line, managers need to make better use of the conversational styles of service robots by comprehensively considering the characteristics of consumer technology anxiety.

This research extends the literature on service robots by integrating consumer characteristics and robots’ conversational styles. These findings highlight the effectiveness of cute conversational style in alleviating consumer technology anxiety.

This study aims to systematically review and critically assess research methods for studying aging populations in tourism and hospitality. It identifies gaps and provides recommendations for advancing methodological innovation in response to emerging research agendas.

Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we conducted a systematic review of existing literature on aging populations in tourism and hospitality. Searches were performed in major databases, including Scopus and Web of Science, to collect peer-reviewed, English articles published in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)-indexed tourism and hospitality journals from 1965 to 2025. The methodologies employed in the selected studies were thoroughly analyzed.

A total of 184 articles were included in the final analysis. The review revealed that current research methods predominantly rely on surveys and interviews, with limited methodological diversity. Gaps were identified, and a conceptual model was proposed to advance cross-disciplinary integration and foster innovative methods that could more comprehensively capture the complexities of senior tourists, particularly those with health conditions.

This paper is likely the first to synthesize research methodologies within this specific context, outlining a path forward for researchers to adopt more innovative, multidisciplinary approaches. This study lays the foundation for future empirical investigations into the behaviors and experiences of senior tourists, as well as the potential role of tourism in promoting healthy aging. Additionally, it provides valuable insights for tourism marketing practitioners to better accommodate this growing segment.