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The e-business platform has become a major driver for economic growth and development. The economic success of an e-marketplace greatly depends on the extent to which buyers and sellers are attracted to enter and actively participate in the e-business platform. Existing literature lacks empirical examination of factors influencing e-business platform attractiveness (EBPA) from a seller's perspective and understudies the interplay between technical and managerial considerations.

Based on the literature on network economy, modular systems theory, control theory and social exchange theory, the paper proposed that platform flexibility and platform control (PC) would affect EBPA through both direct and interaction effects. From a survey of platform sellers, the paper explored the influencing mechanisms of EBPA using hierarchical regression and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to understand the statistical associations and the set relations of the conjunctions and conditions.

The paper found that platform flexibility (PF), process control and clan control (CC) positively affected EBPA. In addition, the interaction between PF and process control demonstrated a substitution effect on EBPA, and the interaction between PF and CC demonstrated a complementary effect on EBPA. Also, the authors found that the interaction between process control and CC demonstrated a complementary effect on EBPA. fsQCA provided the configurations of causal recipes associated with EBPA.

From a seller's perspective, the paper presents both theoretical explanation and empirical evidence for how design factors (e.g. PF) and governance factors (e.g. process control and CC) may interplay to influence EBPA.

This study explores the interplay between the spirit of place, brand equity and tourists’ travel intentions within the context of culinary tourism at destinations influenced by Confucian culture. It examines how Confucian values, such as benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and trust, shape the personality of culinary tourism destinations and how this personality influences tourists’ travel intentions both directly and indirectly through brand equity.

The researchers develop a conceptual framework highlighting dimensions of destination personality derived from Confucian values. These values serve as indicators of brand equity, focusing on dimensions like brand image, perceived quality and brand loyalty in the culinary tourism sector. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyze data from 503 tourists, examining the relationships between the Confucian-inspired destination personality, brand equity and tourists’ travel intentions.

The results show that tourists resonate strongly with the five Confucian personality traits, which significantly influence their travel intentions either directly or indirectly through enhanced brand equity. The study highlights the pivotal role of Confucian culture in shaping the destination personality and brand equity, which, in turn, drives tourists’ travel behaviors.

This study reveals how the spirit of place influences tourist behavior through brand equity, providing new perspectives and practical strategies for destination branding and development.

This study is the first to examine the relationships between spirit of place, brand equity and travel intentions within a Confucian cultural context, expanding the theoretical understanding of culinary tourism branding.

The purpose of this work is to controllably synthesize a carbon aerogel with programmable functionally graded performance via a simple and effective strategy.

This work uses polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) via the controllable sol-gel, lyophilization, and carbonization approach to achieve a programmable carbon aerogel. This design has the advantages of low raw material and preparation cost, simple and controllable synthetic process and low carbonization temperature.

The thermal stability and microstructure of PVA aerogel can be controlled by the crosslinking agent content within a certain range. The crosslinking agent content and the carbonization temperature are the key factors for functionally graded programming of carbon aerogels, including microstructure, oxygen-containing functional groups and adsorption performance. The adsorption ratio and adsorption rate of uranium can be controlled by adjusting initial concentration and pH value of the uranium solution. The 2.5%25 carbon aerogel with carbonization temperature of 350 °C has excellent adsorption performance when the initial concentration of uranium solution is 32 ppm at pH 7.5.

As a new type of lightweight nano-porous amorphous carbon material, this carbon aerogel has many excellent properties.

This work presents a simple, low cost and controllable strategy for functionally graded programming of novel carbon aerogel. This carbon aerogel has great potential for application in various fields such as uranium recovery, wastewater treatment, sound absorption and shock absorption.

This study aims to report the development and experimental evaluation of two kinds of PANI@semiconductor based photocathodic anti-corrosion coating, for application on stainless steel substrates.

PANI was in situ chemical polymerized on TiO₂ and BiVO₄ particles, and FT-IR and SEM/EDS were used to understand the characteristics and elemental distribution of the composite particles. Composite coatings, which consisted of epoxy, PANI@TiO₂ or PANI@BiVO₄ and graphene, were prepared on the 304L stainless steel. Photoelectrochemical response measurement, electrochemical tests and immersion tests were used to assess the anti-corrosion performance of the prepared coatings in 45°C 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution. And the corrosion protection mechanism was further explained by combining with surface observation.

The photoelectrochemical response tests revealed the good photocathodic effect of the coatings, and the reversible oxidation-reduction properties of PANI (pseudocapacitive effect) leading to the repeated usage of the coatings. Consequently, the anti-corrosion mechanism of the composite coating is attributed to the physical barrier effect of the coating, the anodic protection effect of PANI and the photocathodic and energy store effect.

These kind coatings could prevent corrosion from day to night for stainless steel, which has great engineering application prospects on stainless steel corrosion protection.