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Food quality and safety issues have always been imperative topics discussed by people. The anti-tampering of blockchain technology and the transparency of information make it possible to improve food traceability and safety quality. How to effectively apply blockchain traceability technology to food safety has great research significance for improving food safety and consumer quality trust.

The paper aims to analyze the differences in product quality levels and market participants’ profits before and after the use of blockchain-driven traceability technology in the food agricultural product supply chain (SC) in the dynamic game frameworks of supplier-led and retailer-led modes, respectively, and explores the willingness, social welfare and consumer surplus of each member of the agricultural product SC to participate in the blockchain. Besides, We investigate the SC performance improvement with the mechanism of central centralized decision-making and revenue-sharing contract, compared to the SC performance in dynamic games.

The results are obtained as follow: The adoption of blockchain traceability technology can help improve the quality of food agricultural products, consumer surplus and social welfare, but the application and popularization of technology is hindered by traceability technology installment costs. Compared with the supplier leadership model, retailer-led food quality level, customer surplus and social welfare are higher.

How to effectively apply blockchain traceability technology to food safety has great research significance for improving food safety and consumer quality trust.

Food quality and safety issues have always been hot topics discussed by people. The anti-tampering of blockchain technology and the transparency of information make it possible to improve food traceability and safety quality.

The research results enrich the theories related to food safety and quality, and provide a valuable reference for food enterprises involved in the decision-making exploration of blockchain technology.

Based on the characteristics of blockchain technology, the demand function is adjusted and the product loss risk of channel members is transferred through a Stackelberg game SC composed of agricultural products suppliers and retailers.

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  We introduce two features of blockchain: quality trust and product information tracking.

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  The willingness of each member of the supply chain to use blockchain for product traceability was explored.

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  The overall traceability effect of the retailer-led blockchain is better than that of the manufacturer-led blockchain.

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  The cost of blockchain technology is a barrier to its adoption.

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  Blockchain brings higher consumer surplus and social welfare.

We introduce two features of blockchain: quality trust and product information tracking.

The willingness of each member of the supply chain to use blockchain for product traceability was explored.

The overall traceability effect of the retailer-led blockchain is better than that of the manufacturer-led blockchain.

The cost of blockchain technology is a barrier to its adoption.

Blockchain brings higher consumer surplus and social welfare.

This study aims to establish the friction vibration model.

The friction vibration experiment was carried out on a pin disk friction tester. The causes of friction vibration are discussed, and the friction vibration model is established based on the energy method.

The experimental and simulation results show that the main cause of friction vibration is the nonlinear change of friction coefficient; degree of the friction vibration has a positive relationship with the friction relative velocity and normal contact positive pressure; the proposed friction vibration model is highly consistent in chaotic attractor and time-frequency distribution map and can well predict friction vibration.

The proposed friction vibration model is highly consistent in chaotic attractor and time-frequency distribution map and can well predict friction vibration.

This article examines the influence of Daoist nothingness on leadership in growing Chinese small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Daoism is based on a “letting-go” approach through maintaining inherent openness, which challenges goal-oriented and hierarchical approaches typical of Western and Confucian leadership theories. This facilitates the cross-fertilization of ideas related to the effective management of smaller firms.

This study focuses on SME leaders in a group of 12 growing SMEs in the Shanghai logistics industry in China. Narrative and semi-structured interviews explored emerging aspects beyond the established model of leadership associated with reputation-building. This led to in-depth, thick descriptions, broadening our understanding of leadership and reputation-building.

SME leaders follow nothingness by continuously adopting a letting-go approach which spontaneously fosters reputation-building. By maintaining inherent openness, nothingness functions as an enabling principle that mobilizes multi-beings leading to reputation-building in unintended ways.

A greater plurality of empirical and methodological contexts in Western and non-Western countries helps to understand the dynamics and intersection of Daoist nothingness, leadership and reputation-building.

SME leaders recounted how they discursively practised nothingness for extended periods in their everyday practice. The study shows the significance of nothingness for SME leaders who aspire to grow their businesses by reputation-building among salient stakeholders.

Daoist nothingness provides insights into the distinctive approach of Chinese SME leaders and their relationships with local and distant stakeholders. By engaging in active non-action they relax pre-determined intentions and immerse themselves in the process of leading, where the connections between goals and processes are automatically animated. Such an approach differs from the top-down and goal-oriented approach to leadership adopted in many Western SMEs.

This paper makes two theoretical contributions. First, it indicates the powerful influence of Daoist nothingness on leadership by drawing on the broader context of entrepreneurship in Chinese SMEs. Secondly, it enriches existing concepts such as reputation by endowment and reputation borrowing by demonstrating how Daoist nothingness silently fosters both local reputation and generalized reputation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the allometric permeation performance in fractal branching channel net driven by capillary pressure and analyze how the geometrical parameters of the branching channel net affect the permeability of the fluid transportation.

An allometric permeation model is proposed based on the fractal theory by considering capillary pressure as the main driven force of fluid permeation.

It is found that the permeability efficiency is a function of fractal dimension, bifurcation number, and number of branching level. Different fluid permeation efficiencies of the channel net can be obtained by changing the three parameters.

The allometric permeation model established provides a better understanding of the permeation mechanism in fractal porous media which could further help with the design of bio-mimetic artificial materials.

The structure of wool fibre is a key point in clarifying its properties and performances. Wool fibre can be separated into cuticle cells, cortical cells and even macrofibrils using formic acid as the medium by ultrasonication. The disintegration process of wool fibre is significantly subjected to many parameters. In order to obtain the maximum ratio of disintegration of wool fibre, the effect of these parameters on the disintegration process is studied. The separated wool fibre components are examined with a scanning electron microscopy and the disintegration rates are calculated from the weight proportion of residual and original wool fibres. The results indicate that wool fibre can be separated into cortical cells and macrofibrils by ultrasonication in formic acid. The broken ratio of wool fibre varies greatly with different conditions of ultrasonic irradiation, such as irradiation time, temperature, output power of a transducer, shape of vessel, position of probe, ratio of wool fibre to formic acid, and state of wool fibre. Additionally, ultrasonic irradiation is an efficient method for the preparation of intact cortical cells with high yield from wool fibre in appropriate conditions.

Social media is replete with malicious and unempathetic rhetoric yet few studies explain why these emotions are publicly dispersed. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the intergroup counter-empathic response called schadenfreude originates and how it prompts media consumption and engagement.

The study consists of two field surveys of 635 in-group members of two professional sports teams and 300 residents of California and Texas with political party affiliations. The analysis uses SEM quantitative methods.

Domain passion and group identification together determine the harmonious/obsessive tendencies of passion for an activity and explain the schadenfreude response toward the rival out-group. Group identification is a stronger driver of obsessive passion compared to harmonious passion. Schadenfreude directly influences the use of traditional media (TV, radio, domain websites), it triggers social media engagement (posting), and it accelerates harmonious passion's effects on social media posting.

The study is limited by the groups used to evaluate the research model, sports, and politics.

The more highly identified and passionate group members experience greater counter-empathy toward a rival. At extreme levels of group identification, obsessive passion increases at an increasing rate and may characterize extremism. Harboring feelings of schadenfreude toward the out-group prompts those with harmonious passion for an activity to more frequently engage on social media in unempathetic ways.

This study links the unempathetic, yet common emotion of schadenfreude with passion, intergroup dynamics, and media behavior.

This study aims to examine escapism as the explanatory mechanism that can account for distinct outcomes of harmonious and obsessive sports fan passion among US and Chinese fans.

The study uses cross-cultural data collected among sports fans in the USA and China. Using structural equation modeling and PROCESS model, the authors test the mediating role of escapism and the moderating role of indulgence on the relationships between sports fan passion and procrastination.

The authors found that positive escapism mediates the relationship between harmonious sports fan passion and procrastination, whereas negative escapism mediates the relationship between obsessive sports fan passion and procrastination. While individual-level indulgence was not a significant moderator, post hoc analyses revealed that the interaction of indulgence and uncertainty avoidance played a moderating role.

The use of sports fan samples from both the USA and China enables a cross-cultural comparison of the proposed model, thereby extending the model’s generalizability. By advancing the dual model of escapism, the authors hope to stimulate a research dialogue that identifies more nuanced (both positive and negative) predictors and outcomes of passion for an activity and escapism in the broader context of other passion-inducing activities (e.g., Internet use, work, etc.).

Marketers promoting sports events can use this study's results to highlight the benefits of harmonious sports fan passion in terms of positive escapism and reduced procrastination. Organizations promoting sports fandom need to also be aware that sports fans can have obsessive passion for sports that can lead to procrastination. Therefore, it is important to be vigilant and distinguish between “healthy” and “unhealthy” passion early to avoid “unhealthy” passion turning into negative escapism and by extension, procrastination.

Socially responsible marketers should understand a potential negative effect that obsessive sports fan passion may entail and prevent or minimize its negative consequences.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that explains why sports fan passion can(not) be associated with procrastination. It does so by using the dual escapism as the explanatory mechanism linking harmonious and obsessive sports fan passion and procrastination.

With the popularity of social media and, recently, live streaming, internet celebrity endorsements have become a prevalent approach to content marketing for e-commerce sellers. Despite the widespread use of social media and online communities, empirical studies investigating the economic value of user-generated content (UGC) and marketer-generated content (MGC) still lag behind. The purpose of this paper is to contribute both theoretically and practically to capture both first-order effects and second-order effects of internet celebrity endorsements on marketing outcomes in an e-commerce context.

This study conducts a cross-sectional regression to evaluate the economic value of internet celebrity endorsement, and a panel vector autoregressive model is adopted to examine the relationship between celebrities’ and consumers’ content marketing behaviors and e-commerce sales performance. The authors also adopt look-ahead propensity-score matching technique to correct for selection bias.

The empirical results show that the content generation efforts of marketers and the interaction behaviors between marketers and consumers will significantly influence the e-commerce sales, which refers to the first-order effects of internet celebrity endorsement. Moreover, interactions within the fan community exert second-order effects of content marketing on sales performance.

This paper provides new insights for e-commerce retailers to evaluate the economic values of internet celebrity endorsement, a new content marketing practice in e-commerce platform.