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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) at different frequencies on working memory (WM) and neuroelectric activity in rats.

Three rTMS protocols involving different frequencies were applied to rats, and 16-channel local field potentials (LFPs) and spikes were recorded from the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of rats in each group during the WM task. First, the behavior of rats during the T-maze task was analyzed, and then, the firing rate of spikes and the energy of the θ-band and γ-band in LFPs when rats performed the WM tasks were calculated. Finally, the spectral coherence between LFPs and spikes was analyzed by wavelet transform.

The results showed that rats in the stimulation groups needed fewer days than those in the control group to reach the task correction standard during the WM experiment (p < 0.05). High-frequency rTMS increases the firing rate of spikes and the degree of synchronization of LFPs-spikes in the θ-band and γ-band in the WM process.

This study showed that high-frequency rTMS can improve the spatial learning ability of rats, which might be due to the increased neuronal excitability of the PFC and the enhancement of co-coding between different modes of neural signals. This study is helpful for understanding the neuroregulatory mechanism of rTMS and will provide a reference for the selection of a suitable frequency for TMS treatment.

To better meet people's information needs under the public health crisis, this study explored the information needs and seeking behavior of college students in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research utilized a survey and the convenience snowball sampling method. A sample of 400 college students was obtained.

The results revealed that college students have paid great attention to COVID-19-related information. They sought the information mainly for personal protection, obtaining the latest information and seeking information for family and friends. Their COVID-19-related information needs were diverse; at different stages, the concerns were different. Social media and mass media were both found to be the most useful tools for seeking COVID-19 information. Too much repetitive information, unclear authoritative and reliable informational sources, and difficulties in judging the authenticity of the information were the most common obstacles for them in information seeking. Nevertheless, the majority of the students agreed that they were very satisfied and somewhat satisfied with the current information services. This did not affect the students' understanding of the importance of health services provided by libraries.

Insights into the people's information needs and information-seeking behavior of this study could help the information providers to offer appropriate information in better ways to improve the public's virus protection capabilities and maintain the stability of social order.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of new model farmer cooperatives set up with Aid agency assistance in Shandan County, Gansu Province, China, focusing on enterprise management and training, and the monitoring and evaluation issues and outcomes.

The paper is a case study of two projects that integrated participatory monitoring and evaluation (PM&E) methodology into both field practice and institutional development. The project evaluation data were collected from semi‐structured interviews, observation and secondary sources.

The cooperatives increased community income through collectively improving members' production and marketing capabilities. As well as economic benefits, the Shandan cooperatives show improvements in social collaboration that include enhanced inter‐ and intra‐family relationships, community harmony and raised status for women.

The cooperatives have only operated since the new co‐op law was enacted 1 July 2007. While the findings are preliminary, planned ongoing evaluation for the Shandan co‐ops will review the sustainability of the economic and social gains made.

The lessons learned from the participatory approach to improve rural cooperative development in Shandan County are relevant to researchers and practitioners, and can be applied by rural communities throughout China.

Although the new style cooperatives have the potential to improve the rural economy, leading to poverty reduction and social development, there have been few case studies of the establishment and progress of these enterprises in China's poorer regions.

Thermal barrier coatings (TBCs), which are used in high temperature applications of gas turbines, are damaged due to fuels and airborne minerals under working conditions. Stable zirconia coatings, which are usually used as topcoat materials in TBCs, are damaged by interacting at high temperatures with elements such as vanadium and sulfur from low quality fuels. The purpose of this paper is to see the failure mechanism of TBC systems after hot corrosion damages.

CoNiCrAlY metallic bond coatings of TBC samples were produced by cold gas dynamic spray method which is a new trend production method and stabilized zirconia ceramic top coating was produced by atmospheric plasma spray method. In total, 50% by weight of V₂O₅ and 50% Na₂SO₄ salt mixtures were placed on TBC samples and subjected to hot corrosion test at 1000°C.

Hot corrosion behaviors of TBC samples were examined by scanning electron microscopy, elemental mapping analysis, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry analysis and X-ray diffraction analysis. TBC samples were damaged at the end of 12-h cycles.

The paper provides to understand the mechanism of hot corrosion of TBCs with cold sprayed metallic bond coat.

This study aims to generalize the following result of McDonald and Siegel (1986) on optimal investment: it is optimal for an investor to invest when project cash flows exceed a certain threshold. This study presents other results that refine or extend this one by integrating timing flexibility and changes in cash flows with time-varying transition probabilities for regime switching. This study emphasizes that optimal thresholds are either overvalued or undervalued in the absence of time-varying transition probabilities. Accordingly, the stochastic nature of transition probabilities has important implications to the search for optimal timing of investment.

The above quotations highlight the adverse consequences of corruption in many countries around the world today. Indeed, the research taboo on corruption, which Gunnar Myrdal identified in 1968, no longer exists, and the silence on the “C” word (corruption) in the World Bank was broken by James Wolfensohn in his famous October 1996 speech, which focused on the negative consequences of the “cancer of corruption” on the World Bank's aid programs.

This paper focuses on the orientation of the economy expressed in the communication of the Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) of China and its relation with the stock market. This study seeks to explore which orientation of the economy may have a stronger impact on the rise of the stock market. It proposes words connoting orientation of the economy (WOE) that is closely related to the stock market, and different WOE has different impacts on the stock market in terms of intensity. The study aims to provide investors with better investment strategies by identifying the stronger developmental WOE.

The paper opted for an exploratory study using the textual analysis approach, based on a corpus of 28 CEWC communications spanning from 1994 to 2021. The raw corpus amounted to 50,754 words in total that are treated with noise reduction method and record an effective corpus of 39,591.

The paper provides empirical insights into the close relationship of the WOE of the CEWC to the stock market, and different WOE has different impacts on the stock market in terms of intensity. It suggests that WOE connoting development may forecast a rising stock market if it is nearly 40% higher than the other two WOEs by impact index.

As WOE is only proven in the CEWC, this paper has its limitations in the scope of samples. It is necessary to apply WOE to more Central Bank communication (CBC) and countries. It is desirable to apply the Gunning–Fog index.

The paper includes implications for investors to read out the orientation of the economy and the degree of different WOEs. Investors are keener to know “what” degree of the CEWC leads to the rise/fall of the stock market. The impact index can be an indicator of a tendency of the stock market, which upgrades the rationality of investment decisions.

This paper fulfills words connoting the orientation of economy as an identified linguistic feature, which the impact of CEWC on stockmarket can be measured.

Previous academic research studies mostly focus on the impact on stock market from the language features of CBC, rather than that from the more influential body, CEWC communication. This study seeks to provide the relationship of CEWC communication and the time length of the impact on the stock prices.

Discussions about digital tourism continue to increase among scholars as Information Communication and Technology (ICT) infrastructure develops. Dynamic changes due to technological aspects have given rise to various developments in the tourism industry. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the scientific structure of the development of digital tourism topics through a bibliometric analysis approach. In total, 102 publications from research on digital tourism were taken from Scopus database between 2001 and 2021, for further bibliometric analysis using the VOSviewer application. Interesting findings describe the most cited digital tourism publications, the contribution of digital tourism by various authors, institutions, countries, co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and co-occurrence for the main trends of digital tourism. This study compiles a detailed review of digital tourism research. This article adds substantial value to the digital tourism topic by analyzing bibliometric data. It provided scientific information regarding digital tourism for other researchers and future research.

The purpose of this study aims to shorten the running-in time and improve the running-in quality of cylinder liner piston rings (CLPRs), the running-in tests were carried out and running-in parameters of CLPRs were designed based on running-in attractor theory, which can guide the choice of optimal working conditions for other friction pairs.

The running-in state and time under different working conditions are identified by the evolution law of the running-in attractor phase trajectory and fractal and chaotic characteristic quantities. The CLPRs running-in tests under different conditions were conducted and the friction signals were collected. The constructed phase trajectories and calculated chaotic parameters of the running-in attractor are obtained and the running-in state and time are identified by the evolution law of phase trajectories and chaotic characteristic quantities. The running-in quality is obtained by the surface morphology fractal dimension and characteristic roughness parameters.

The running-in parameters for short running-in time and good running-in quality are designed based on the fractal and chaotic theory and the optimal solution method are used to verify the results through the single objective or multi-objective optimization, and the corresponding optimal running-in parameters are obtained.

The optimal working condition parameters obtained from the design have guiding significance for the selection of CLPR running-in parameters, and this work can provide ideas for the other friction pairs.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-05-2024-0179/

This study aims to obtain a design scheme of the surface texture on mechanical seal with lower friction and leakage by comparing two common texture types: dimples and grooves.

An optimal free-form shape and an optimal circular shape were chosen by multi-objective optimization, and two types of grooves with different directions were chosen by a series of experiments. Then, the optimal free-form dimple, the optimal circular dimple, the groove perpendicular to the direction of movement (hereafter called groove-1) and the groove angled at 60° to the direction of movement (hereafter called groove-2) were compared by experiments under different loads.

The optimal free-form dimple shows a better performance in terms of a lower coefficient of friction (COF) and a lower leakage than the other shapes, especially for the high speed and low load conditions. The reduction rate of COF is up to 37.5%, and the leakage rate is reduced by about 12.5%. The dimples have a lower leakage than the grooves. The groove angled at 60° to the direction of movement is easier to pump the oil into the interface of the sealing face, leading to a lower friction but a higher leakage.

This study provides a feasible surface texture design scheme for improving the combination performance of mechanical seals.