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Promoting community engagement is a key issue in the sustainable development of protected natural areas. Enhancing the local residents' sense of place identity contributes to their willingness to protect the ecological environment and increases their support for ecotourism development. The role of knowledge in addressing ecological issues is widely recognized, and tourism, which focuses on knowledge production and dissemination, is gradually emerging as an alternative choice for innovative and sustainable ecotourism development in protected natural areas. However, the effect of knowledge on place identity has not been sufficiently addressed. This study employed a qualitative research method and considered Danxia Mountain, a protected area, as a case study to analyze the transformation of knowledge underlying tourism products during the transition from sightseeing tourism to study tourism. Furthermore, it explored how the behavior of community residents in learning and disseminating new knowledge contributes to the reconstruction of their local identities. The findings showed that the knowledge of resource classification and evaluation of sightseeing tourism generated a paradoxical place identity, whereas the scientific and local knowledge about Danxia Mountain for tourism reconnected community residents to the place and established a place identity. The formation and changes of local residents' place identity are the result of the interactive process of knowledge's definition of place differences and the behaviors of learning and disseminating knowledge. Specifically, there are three aspects to consider: 1) Place differences and place meanings stemming from knowledge discourse. The knowledge of a place defines its differences and assigns meaning to it. Moreover, the type of knowledge of a place can change, triggering the reconstruction of the place identity of local residents. 2) Place identity arises from the learning, internalization, and construction processes of local residents in relation to place differences and meanings within the knowledge framework. This is achieved through transforming diverse individuals' experiences and feelings about a place, where meaningful and comprehensible identities are formed, leading to a diversified sense of place identity based on individual experiences. 3) Identity performance in the process of knowledge dissemination and sharing socializes individual place identities and establishes a collective place identity. This research combines knowledge as the discourse defining place differences and the behavioral interactions of using knowledge, which expands the understanding of the process and mechanisms of place identity and can provide a more comprehensive explanatory framework for establishing place identity in social-place-individual interaction. It also provides practical guidance for cultivating local residents' place identity through knowledge-based study tourism, which requires incorporating the knowledge of community residents into the heritage site's knowledge system as well as community residents as active participants in the learning and dissemination of knowledge in the context of study tourism, which is essential for fostering a sense of place identity.

Nurturing cultural atmosphere and making such atmosphere perceivable are critical for revitalizing historic districts and attracting tourists. However, lacking understanding of and measurement tools for cultural atmosphere impedes both research and managerial practices. To fill the gaps, the present study adopted a mixed-method approach developing a scale of perceived cultural atmosphere in the context of a historic district, Yongqing Fang. Using UGC content and 30 interview data, the qualitative part served for initial item generation. Through two questionnaire surveys with 513 participants, the quantitative part completed scale refinement and validation. A 13-item, four-dimension structure was suggested, including architectural setting, interior decoration, traditional activity, and shared affects. Theoretically, the present study improves the understanding of cultural atmosphere and provides a measurement tool for future studies. Pragmatically, destination managers may apply the scale in cultivating and maintaining a sense of culturalness in historic districts or other heritage sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communities play a critical role in the development and maintenance of sustainable heritage tourism. However, conflicts often arise when these communities are ignored or marginalized in the heritage tourism development process. This paper examines whether the community located within the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, a World Heritage Site in China, views the designation and subsequent tourism development as beneficial or not. The findings show that there are significant differences in opinion between the local Hani people and non-Local Hani and outsiders who live in the heritage area. The local Hani feel a greater sense of deprivation due to de-empowerment and economic inequalities as compared with non-Local Hani and outsiders. This deprivation has reduced their motivation to conserve their own heritage, while the non-local Hani feel a greater sense of gain and a newfound appreciation for their personal and collective heritage identity. Frequent interactions between the two groups have led to local Hani people resisting the heritage preservation responsibilities enforced upon them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Because of profound applications of two-dimensional molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) and its heterostructures in electronics, its thermal stability has been spurred substantial interest. We employ a precision muffle furnace at a series of increasing temperatures up to 340 °C to study the oxidation behavior of continuous MoS2 films by either directly growing mono- and few-layer MoS2 on SiO2/Si substrate, or by mechanically transferring monolayer MoS2 or hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) onto monolayer MoS2 substrate. Results show that monolayer MoS2 can withstand high temperature at 340 °C with less oxidation while the few-layer MoS2 films are completely oxidized just at 280 °C, resulting from the growth-induced tensile strain in few-layer MoS2. When the tensile strain of films is released by transfer method, the stacked few-layer MoS2 films exhibit superior thermal stability and typical layer-by-layer oxidation behavior at similarly high temperature. Counterintuitively, for the MoS2/h-BN heterostructure, the h-BN film itself stacked on top is not damaged and forms many bubbles at 340 °C, whereas the underlying monolayer MoS2 film is oxidized completely. By comprehensively using various experimental characterization and molecular dynamics calculations, such anomalous oxidation behavior of MoS2/h-BN heterostructure is mainly due to the increased tensile strain in MoS2 film at elevated temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are easily oxidized in the humid atmosphere, leading to a decrease in their lubricating properties and limiting their application. In this study, a MoS2/WS2 multilayer film doped with tantalum (MoS2/WS2-Ta) is fabricated by magnetron sputtering to improve the corrosion and oxidation resistance of TMDs. Results show that doping of Ta makes the structure of the MoS2/WS2 multilayer film more compact, and the MoS2 and WS2 crystals exhibit a stronger (0002) preferred orientation than that of un-doped sample. Such compact structure and (0002) preferred orientation of MoS2/WS2-Ta can realize a high corrosion resistance, i.e., a more positive corrosion potential and a lower corrosion current density in comparison with the MoS2/WS2 multilayer. Furthermore, the friction properties of MoS2/WS2 multilayer film doped with 1.1 at% of Ta are improved remarkably under both of high temperature (370 °C in air) and vacuum conditions, the result is attributed to its high mechanical properties and (0002) preferred orientation. In a word, the combination of multilayer structure and doping of Ta into the films is a promising approach to accurately design the TMDs toward a wide temperature range and environmentally adaptive lubricants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]