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Purpose: The 21st century work environment calls for team members to be more engaged in their work and exhibit more creativity in completing their job tasks. The purpose of this study was to examine whether team performance pressure and individual goal orientation would moderate the relationships between individual autonomy in teams and individual engagement and creativity. Design/Methodology/Approach: A sample consisting of 209 team members and 45 team managers from 45 work teams in 14 companies completed survey measures. To test our hypotheses, we used multilevel modeling with random intercepts and slopes because the individual-level data were nested within the team-level data. Findings: Hierarchical linear modeling showed that team-level performance pressure attenuated the positive relations between job autonomy and three dimensions of engagement. There were also 3-way interactions between job autonomy, psychological performance pressure, and learning goal orientation in predicting three dimensions of engagement and creativity. Implications: This study highlights the importance of exploring the moderating effect of team-level task characteristics and individual differences on the relationships between job autonomy and individual engagement and creativity. Organizations need to carefully consider both individual learning goals and performance pressure when empowering team members with job autonomy. Originality/Value: This is one of the first studies to explore the association between individual job autonomy in teams and individual outcomes in a contingency model. We first introduced team performance pressure as a moderator of job autonomy and examined the 3-way interaction effects of performance pressure, individual job autonomy, and learning goal orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a decorative material, magnesium oxychloride cement was used as a photocatalyst supporter to purify the pollutants indoors. Due to excellent adsorption properties of activated carbon (AC), the photocatalytic composties, TiO/AC, were prepared and introduced into the porous magnesium oxychloride cement (PMOC) substrate to composite a sort of photocatalytic cementitious material (PCM). The optimal composite processes were assessed by gas chromatograph, using toluene as the target. By comparing the perspective of toluene purification and thorough decomposition, it can be found that the optimal mass ratio for TiO/AC composites is 4/25, and the heat treatment to TiO/AC sample at 350 °C can play the optimal synergetic role of adsorbents in photocatalytic process. The synergistic effect of TiO, AC and magnesium oxychloride cement (MOC) was also evaluated by gas chromatograph. One-take molding process was adopted to introduce the TiO/AC into PMOC substrate, and its optimal mass fraction was 4 wt%, while the appropriate density of substrate was 0.35 g/cm3. Toluene degradation showed that the prepared PCM can degrade pollutants efficiently. The appropriate treatment process of TiO/AC, mass of TiO/AC, substrate density, and stable pore structure should be coordinated to maximize the adsorption-photodegradation performance. The combination of photocatalytic materials, adsorbents, and building materials provided a new idea for the application of photocatalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel photocatalytic cement based material was prepared. The distribution of TiO on the surface of cement was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), which showed the relationship of photocatalysis and presence of TiO. TiO also had an impact on cement hydration, which was studied by thermal analysis. With 300 W UV illuminations, formaldehyde and benzene were degraded efficiently by the prepared photocatalytic cement based materials. 15wt% TiO/cement showed the highest degradation efficiency and capability. The results show that formaldehyde and benzene can be degraded within 4 and 9 hours, respectively. Besides, inorganic ions can induce TiO agglomeration. As a result, the presence of inorganic ions in cement is unfavorable for degradation. The photocatalytic cement based materials were fabricated and the degradation efficiency of formaldehyde was measured on building roof under sunlight illumination. Formaldehyde in glass chamber can be degraded thoroughly within 10 days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NbO doped 0.8BaTiO-0.2(NaBi)(MgTi)O (0.8BT-0.2NBMT) polycrystalline ceramics were prepared by solid state reaction method. 0.8BT-0.2NBMT samples were observed to possess two dielectric peaks, which were attributed to the formation of core-shell structure (Huang et al. in J Eur Ceram Soc 36:533-540, 2015). Longer sintering induced uniform distributions of the additives. The introduction of NbO into 0.8BT-0.2NBMT could obviously bring about the improvement of the dielectric temperature stability, the degradation of the dielectric loss at room temperature and the decrease of the sintering temperature. The 0.8BT-0.2NBMT ceramics doped with 2.0 at% NbO could satisfy the temperature range of the X9R (−55 to 200 °C, △C/C = ±15% or less) characteristics, with a moderate dielectric constant of 1130, low dielectric loss of 0.7%, low sintering temperature of 1050 °C and insulation resistivity of 5 × 10 Ω cm at room temperature, which might be promising for practical use in multilayer ceramic capacitors. The inhomogeneous distribution and the existence of the secondary phases were responsible for this excellent dielectric temperature characteristic. The complex impedance analysis was introduced to elaborate the conduction mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the mechanism of the photocatalytic direct synthesis of 1,1-diethoxyethane (DEE) from ethanol is vital for enhancing the reaction efficiency. Based on photocatalytic data of different phase TiO2 and F–TiO2 catalysts, radical trapping data, and GC-MS data, we proposed a photocatalytic mechanism for the preparation of both DEE in neat ethanol and 2,3-butanediol (2,3-BD) in ethanol–H2O using photocatalytic methods. In neat ethanol, hydroxyl isn’t involved in the catalytic cyclic process but hydroxyl has an indirect site-holding effect, thus leading to more hydroxyl groups with higher activity. In ethanol–H2O, although the strong oxidant ṖOH radical is involved, fewer OH groups lead to higher selectivity of 2,3-BD. The interaction of the reactant/solvent with the surface group of the catalyst is important in the activity and selectivity of photocatalytic reactions. This finding gives fundamental insight into the role of TiO2 surface hydroxyl in the photocatalytic dehydrogenation process of alcohols and opens a promising path to obtaining both high selectivity and high conversion in TiO2-based photocatalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing a highly efficient, stable and cost-effective electrocatalyst is critical for Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER). Herein, we present a facile approach for constructing self-supported N-doped carbon electrocatalysts derived from waste silk fabric for HER. After activation of KCl and the thermal carbonization process, the resulting catalysts present a unique porous three-dimensional(3D) structure that can expose more active sites and will promote the efficient diffusion of the electrolyte. As an N-rich and self-supported HER catalyst, the synthetic materials exhibit outstanding electrocatalytic performance with the overpotential of 336.33 ± 26.22 mV to achieve a current density of 10 mA cm−2 and long-term stability (more than 24 h). This work will explore a completely novel approach to prepare a variety of self-supporting 3D electrodes from biomass for various applications. [Display omitted] • This manuscript proposes a facile method to construct a self-supported electrocatalysts derived from waste silk fabric. • The N-rich catalyst with porous three-dimensional(3D) structure exhibits outstanding electrocatalytic performance. • The self-supporting 3D electrodes from biomass can be applied in various fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A thiadiazole-functionalized polyacrylonitrile fiber (DPTD-PANPF) qualitative colorimetric sensor was prepared for the first time, and its absorption properties were investigated in detail. The obtained sensor exhibits excellent chelating selectivity towards Ag+ without interference by other co-existing ions (Pb2+, Hg2+, Cd2+, Zn2+, and Cu2+) and generates a remarkable visual color change from yellow to red-brown over a wide pH range from 3 to 12. The DPTD-PANPF for Ag+ has a naked-eye detection limit of 11 ppb (only one in ten thousand of that of the small molecule DPTD) and a much higher saturation absorption capacity of 149 mg g−1. Moreover, the fiber can be repeatedly used more than 50 times. In summary, this fiber sensor possesses the advantages of excellent selectivity, lower detection limit, outstanding absorption capacity and reusability to detect and remove Ag+ from water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A density functional plane-wave pseudopotential method is used to study the doping mechanisms of impurity defects(Bi, Y) in BaTiO-BiYO. Single Bi and Y impurities have little structure distortion. Bi forms ionic bond with nearby O atom in single Bi impurity, Y formed [YO] octahedral in single Y impurity. However, in the co-doped Bi and Y structure, Bi formed three valence bonds with nearby O atom, which causes the large structure distortion. The doped ion makes the mobile of Ti difficult and loss local ferroelectricity, which will broaden the dielectric constant temperature curve and increase the temperature stability of BaTiO ceramic matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of polyacrylonitrile fiber-supported quaternary ammonium salts (PANF-QAS) were prepared and applied to the catalytic reduction of aldehydes, ketones, azides, and benzyl halides in water using NaBH4 as the reducing reagent in a highly efficient, economic, and environmentally benign way. The structure–activity relationships were investigated, which showed that the catalysts made up of quaternary ammonium salts with longer alkyl chains, larger cationic radii and better lipophilicity speed up the reduction reaction to afford the products in excellent yield. Moreover, the optimized catalyst can be applied to the reduction of 1-naphthaldehyde in a continuous flow process with outstanding reactivity and recyclability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A facet-dependent photo-deactivation mechanism of Cu2O was verified and reported, which is caused by the facet-dependent charge carrier transport. During irradiation, the {100} and {110} crystal facets are selectively corroded by the photo-generated holes, while the {111} facets are comparatively stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BaxSr1-xTiO3-(Ba-B-Al-Si-O) glass ceramics (BST-BBAS) with various amounts of CeO2added, were prepared via melt-quenching technique followed by controlled crystallization. X-ray diffraction reveals that the doping of CeO2restrains the impurity phase in the glassceramics. Besides, the dielectric breakdown strength increases to 1488kV/cm with 0.5 mol% CeO2content. Due to the combined effect of quite high breakdown strength and comparatively high dielectric constant, the energy storage density of 3.2 J/cm3was achieved in the glassceramics with 0.5 mol% CeO2, indicating that the CeO2added is an effective method to improve the energy storage density of BST-BBAS glass ceramics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]