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This study aims to develop a facile ligand-exchange strategy to promote nano-sintering of oleylamine (OAM)-capped silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). By using ligand exchange process with NH₄OH to remove OAM from the surface of AgNP, this study reports effectively reducing the sintering temperature of AgNPs to achieve low-temperature nano-sintering. Compared with untreated AgNPs of OAM-capped, NH₄OH-treated AgNPs possess superior sintering performance that could be applied to a fractional generator device as conductor and in favour of the fabrication of flexible circuit modules.

First, oleylamine is used as reductant to synthesize monodisperse AgNPs by a simple one-step method. Then ligand exchange is used with NH₄OH at different treating times to remove OAM, and micro-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and contact angle test are applied to clear the mechanism and structure characteristics of these processes. Finally, NH₄OH-treated AgNPs sediment sintering is used at different temperatures to test electrical resistivity and use ex situ scanning electron microscopy combined with in situ X-ray diffraction to study changes in microstructure in the whole nano-sintering process.

The AgNPs are always capped by organic ligands to prevent nanoparticles agglomeration. And oleylamine used as reductant could synthesize desirable size distributions of 8–32 nm with monodisperse globular shapes, but the low-temperature nano-sintering seemed not to be achieved by the oleylamine-capped AgNPs because OAM is an organic with long C-chain. The ligand exchange approach was enabled to replace the original organic ligands capped on AgNPs with organic ligands of low thermal stability which could promote nano-sintering. After ligand exchange treated AgNPs could be sintered on photo paper, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polyethylene terephthalate flexible substrates at low temperature.

In this research, the method ligand exchange is used to change the ligand of AgNPs. During ligand exchange, NH₄OH was used to treat AgNPs. Through the treatment of NH₄OH, the change of hydrophilic and hydrophobic properties of AgNPs was successfully realized. The sintering temperature of AgNPs can also be reduced and the properties can be improved. Finally, the applicability of the AgNPs sediment with this nano-sintering process at low temperature for obtaining conductive patterns was evaluated using PDMS as substrates.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence mechanism of different levels of social capital (Structure holes–local network attributes and indirect ties–global network attributes) and organizational culture on the creativity of key inventors, and the role of organizational culture between social capital and creativity.

The paper tested the hypotheses with a sample of patent data accumulated from 46 firms in Chinese electronic information and automobile sectors. Negative binomial regression was used to explore the factors influencing the creativity of key inventors.

The paper discovers that structural holes are valuable social capital for the creativity of key inventors and very important in firms with a collective and conservative culture. Moreover, it also locates that key inventor are more creative in firms with an individualistic and competitive culture than those in firms with a collective and conservative culture.

This study emphasizes the influence of social capital on creativity and contributes to R&D management. It highlights structural holes are certainly important to key inventors in a collective and conservative culture, thus contradicting preceding studies that locate structural holes useful solely in an individualistic culture. This finding broadens our knowledge of the benefits of this network structure. Also, this debate challenges several basic views on structural holes currently.

The role of inventors' creativity is crucial for technological innovation within enterprises. The mobility of inventors among different enterprises is a primary source for companies to acquire external knowledge. The mechanism of “learning-by-hiring” is widely recognized by companies. Therefore, it is important to determine how to allocate network resources to enhance the creativity of inventors when companies hire mobile inventors.

The study suggests an analytical framework that analyzes alterations in tie strength and structural holes resulting from the network embeddedness of mobile inventors as well as the effect of the interaction between these two variables on changes in inventor’s creativity after the mobility. In addition, this paper examines the moderating impact of cognitive richness of mobile inventors and cognitive distance between mobile inventors and new employers on the correlation between network embeddedness and creativity.

This study found that: (1) The increase of tie strength has a significant boost in creativity. (2) Increasing structural holes can significantly improve the creativity of mobile inventors. (3) When both the tie strength and the structural holes increase, the creativity of the mobile inventors significantly increases. (4) It is important to note that when there is a greater cognitive distance, stronger tie strength promotes the creativity of mobile inventors. Additionally, cognitive richness plays a significant role in moderating the relationship between changes in structural holes and the creativity of mobile inventors.

These findings provide theoretical guidance for firms to effectively manage mobile inventors and optimize collaborative networks within organizations.

This study investigates Hong Kong “consumers” sake tasting preferences, willingness to pay and how information commonly found on the bottle or menu affects these attributes.

This study took place inside a four-star hotel lobby restaurant. Convenience sampling was used to collect 184 valid responses from Hong Kong residents. Respondents were given four sakes two blind and two with common information found on the bottles and asked to rate each one independently.

The results suggest that alcohol content is the most crucial attribute in assessing the overall liking for consumers. In addition, information currently provided by producers and brewers has a negative effect on all assessment attributes and overall liking, but a positive effect on willingness to pay.

Sake producers, brewers, marketers, and hotel food and beverage managers should reconsider marketing strategies and the type of information provided to send better signals, increase “consumers” assessment and their overall liking. The results of this study suggest that sake brewers may want to advertise the alcohol content better to achieve higher satisfaction.

Consumers taste preferences for sake are not well understood. By applying the signalling theory the study results filled an information gap by examining how sake information commonly found on labels affects hotel guests tasting preferences and willingness to pay.

Transformational leadership (TFL) has been identified by a number of studies as a positive force for business success. However, few studies have explicitly examined its influence on the cooperative employment relationship, such as frontline employees' voice in the workplace. Thus, this study conducts an empirical analysis of dual-level (i.e. group-focused and individual-focused) TFL and its effect on frontline employees' cooperative voice.

This empirical study is based on data from a survey of 468 full-time frontline workers from 38 hotels in China.

The empirical results revealed that both individual-level and group-level TFL are significantly associated with frontline employees' cooperative voice. Person–Organization value congruence and Person–Supervisor value congruence both act as mediators in the linkage between group-level TFL and employees' cooperative voice behaviors. The partial mediating role of Demand–Ability congruence on the relationship between individual-level TFL and cooperative voice is also established.

First, this study investigates the dual-level effects of TFL on the cooperative voice behavior of frontline employees. Second, this study explores whether three dimensions of value congruence mediate the influence of TFL on the voice behaviors of employees.

This paper aims to evaluate the separation and purification characteristics of flavonoids from polygonum cuspidatum (PC) extracts by using macroporous adsorption resins (MAR) mixed bed to improve the utilization rate of flavonoids.

Taking the separation performance of flavonoids as an evaluation index, the best MAR were screened from 31 sorts of MAR and combined the best MAR to form a MAR mixed bed for adsorption and separation of flavonoids.

By studying the separation conditions that affect flavonoids, the results showed that resin LZ-72 has best separation and purification effect on flavonoids under the optimal adsorption and desorption conditions, the purity of the obtained flavonoid compound reaches 82.50%, 2.66 times of the initial extract, and the recovery rate reaches 89.70%. Theoretical research results have shown that the adsorption of flavonoids by MAR conforms to the pseudo-second-order kinetics and Freundlich models.

Because the flavonoids in PC have great medicinal value, the purpose of this work is to develop a method of separating and purifying flavonoids from PC, which will provide a certain foundation for the development of medicine.

This contribution provided a novel way to separate flavonoids from PC. Under the optimal conditions, the content of flavonoids in the product was increased 2.66-fold from 31.01% to 82.50%, and the recovery yield was 89.70%.

This paper seeks to discuss the genealogical sources for Chinese immigrants as well as the settlement of Chinese in the USA and the historical evolution of Chinese names, their origins, arrangement and development. It aims to cover the origins of various classes of Chinese surnames, followed by the content description of a traditional genealogical book for jiapu.

The paper researches the various ways that a Chinese person can find out about their ancestry.

The paper reveals the roles of libraries, including serving the needs of patrons interested in genealogical research, preserving and interpreting information through oral and family history projects and collaborating with other libraries through interlibrary loan, document delivery, library consortia, collection management and international resource‐sharing.

The study provides information on where and how to locate the genealogical resources for researching the genealogy of a Chinese family.

The paper analyzes the value of genealogical research as a documentary source for population history, life expectancy in a clan, marriages and family connections, as well as lineage organizations and inter‐lineage relations.

This paper aims to determine whether application of graphene layers to cuprammonium filaments affords the latter with excellent mechanical properties and improves their electrical properties. At the same time, a circuit model was established to explore the conductive mechanism of the filament. The actual model is used to verify the correctness of the model.

The cuprammonium filaments were desizing, the graphene oxide layer-by-layer sizing and reduction integration process by a continuous sizing machine. The electrical properties of mono- and multifilaments in the static condition, as well as the dynamic–mechanical properties of multifilaments, were analysed, and the related conductive mechanism of the filaments was deduced.

Cuprammonium filaments coated with graphene layers showed good electrical conductivity, and their volume resistance decreased to 4.35 O·cm with increasing number of graphene coats. The X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetric analysis results showed that the graphene layer treatment changed the crystallinity of the copperammonia filaments and improved the thermal stability of the filaments. In the dynamic case, filament resistance was calculated using the equivalent resistance model, and the fitting difference observed was small. This result confirmed the high fit of this circuit model.

Up to the knowledge from literature review, there are no reports on theoretical research on the relation between the electro-mechanical property and structure of conductive filaments.

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating role of career adaptability (CA) in the relationship between supervisor support (SS) and career satisfaction (CS).

Data were collected from 193 full-time employees working in private health-care institutions in Ankara, Turkey. The participants were asked to respond to a self-reported survey. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the hypothesized relationships between the research variables.

The results indicated that SS has a significant and positive effect on CS. It further reveals that CA mediates the effect of SS on CS.

As this study had a cross-sectional research design, causality could not be established between study variables.

CA ought to be considered by the managers and it ought to be advanced as it provides the employees fundamental instruments to deal with their career advancement efficiently.

The present study adds to the existing literature by providing additional evidence for the relationship among SS, CA and CS by examining a sample of health-care professionals.

This exploratory study aims to integrate both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the influence of contemporary university dining attributes and practices on student patronage.

First, a review of the extant literature on-campus dining in universities was conducted. Second, innovative practices of on-campus dining facilities of a large public university were identified. Finally, student perceptions of those practices were examined using a mixed method approach.

The review of literature uncovered 49 articles across 35 years on key topics such as food waste, healthy eating, and service evaluation. From site tours and interviews with related personnel, 40 innovative on-campus dining practices were identified.

Importance ratings revealed cleanliness of the environment, fresh fruit and vegetables, and digitally enabled ordering, as the top three highest rated practices. Factor analysis unveiled six factors that students find important: food diversity, good standards, innovativeness, quick options, menu variety, and fish and seafood. The thematic analysis further revealed four overarching themes (convenience, familiarity, food offerings, and value) and 13 subthemes which complemented the quantitative results.

In addition to shedding post-pandemic light on students’ dining needs, it highlights the paucity of theory used to support extant studies and suggests a novel theoretical underpinning.