Mental Imagery of Travelling Destination: Pictures on the Website

The objective of this work is to find what kind of pictures will evoke more mental imagery of the potential travelers and make them more likely to choose the destination for their next trip. The study use the psychological theory of mental imagery and the self-categorization theory to build 7 hypothesis. Two online experiments will be manipulated to test these hypothesis of the study. The findings could help the destination managers to design and show different kinds of pictures on their website to certain potential travelers

Chinese Consumer Insecurity in the Digital Age: Theoretical Construction of Scale Development

Consumer Insecurity is a new research topic in consumer psychology domain in recent years. It focuses on consumer insecurity perception and consuming behavior outcomes, which are influenced by individual’s internal and external factors. However, the concept of insecurity has just been introduced into consumer behavior research which is urgent to compare with the individual insecurity in traditional psychology area. These studies focus on the concept, structure of consumer insecurity in the digital age of China as its background and develop a multi dimension scale with reliability and validity testing to measure the new variable

The Impact of Online Word-of-mouth and Negative Media Exposure on Consumer Habitual Skepticism: The Mediating Effect of Attribution

How did habitual skepticism come into being? In this research，the causes of consumer habitual skepticism are explored from the perspective of attribution. We put forward two important antecedent variables, negative online word-of-mouth and negative media exposure. The study results show that the higher the negative word-of-mouth perception is, the higher the stability and controllability of consumer attribution will be, and the higher the degree of consumer habitual skepticism will be. The higher the intensity of negative media exposure is, the higher the stability and controllability of consumer attribution will be, and the higher the degree of consumer habitual skepticism will be. We test this framework through two experiments. Study 1 investigates the influence of negative word-of-mouth spread and media exposure on consumer habitual skepticism. Study 2 investigates the effect of two independent variables on consumer habitual skepticism from an overall point of view and explore the mediation effect of attribution

Advancements in the research of immunomodulatory effects of radiation therapy: from basic to clinical

Previously, radiotherapy was considered to directly kill tumor cells by deoxyribonucleic acid double-strand break. Recent studies have found that radiotherapy can also produce positive and effective anti-tumor effect by upregulating local and systemic immune responses. However, the immunomodulatory effect of radiotherapy is double-sided. On the one hand, it can activate anti-tumor immune-promoting effect, on the other hand, it may also produce immunosuppressive effect. The key molecular mechanisms of the positive regulation of adaptive and innate anti-tumor response by radiotherapy primarily include: induction of immunogenic cell death to promote the proliferation and activation of T lymphocytes; activation of the cyclic GMP-AMP synthase-stimulator of interferon genes pathway to induce type Ⅰ interferon response; changing the phenotype of tumor cells to enhance their immunogenicity and antigen visibility; stimulating tumor cells and stromal cells to release a variety of inflammatory factors and reshape the tumor immune microenvironment; upregulating the expression of immune checkpoint and death receptor on the surface of tumor cells to promote immune recognition and anti-tumor immune response. In addition, the mechanisms of negative immune suppression by radiotherapy mainly include: induction of tumor cells to upregulate the gene expression of multiple immunosuppressive factors; enhancing the function and effect of various immunosuppressive cells, including regulatory T cells and myeloid-derived suppressor cells; leading to the decreased number of lymphocytes and the depletion of immunologic effector cells. Based on the above exploration of the mechanisms and principle of the immunomodulatory effect of radiotherapy, significant progress has also been shown in the clinical practice of combining radiotherapy with immunotherapy, such as the abscopal effect in the context of immunotherapy era, that is, the effective anti-tumor immune responses generated outside the irradiation field of radiotherapy, as well as the increased efficacy benefit when stereotactic body radiation therapy or low-dose radiotherapy combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors. However, at present, the synergistic mechanism of radiotherapy plus immunotherapy and its influencing factors are unclear. In the future, more in-depth investigations on optimal radiotherapy dose, segmentation regimens, irradiation sites and target volume design, immunotherapy agent selection and the sequence of combining radiotherapy with immunotherapy are necessary, in order to further improve efficacy and promote the translational application of immunomodulatory biological effects of radiotherapy. This article systematically reviewed the latest advancements of basic and clinical research on the immunomodulatory effect of radiotherapy and the synergy of combing radiotherapy with immunotherapy, aiming to provide guidance on the development of theoretical basis and clinical practice regarding the combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy

(2,2′-Bipyridine-κ2 N,N′){N-[(2-oxidonaphthalen-1-yl-κO)methyl­idene]-l-valinato-κO}copper(II) trihydrate

In the title complex, [Cu(C16H15NO3)(C10H8N2)]·3H2O, the CuII atom is five coordinated by O,N,O′-donor atoms of the Schiff base ligand and by two N atoms of the 2,2′-bipyridine ligand in a distorted square-pyramidal geometry. In the crystal, mol­ecules are linked into a two-dimensional network parallel to (011) by O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds

Structure and tanning properties of dialdehyde carboxymethyl cellulose: Effect of degree of substitution

Content: Developing novel tanning agents from renewable biomass is regarded as an effective strategy for sustainable leather industry. In this study, a series of dialdehyde carboxymethyl cellulose (DCMC) were prepared by periodate oxidation of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) with varying degrees of substitution (DS: 0.7, 0.9 and 1.2). The structural properties of DCMC were characterized. Size Exclusive Chromatography measurements showed that CMC underwent severe degradation during periodate oxidation, resulting in the decline of weight-average molecular weight from 250,000 g/mol to around 13,000 g/mol. FT-IR analysis illustrated that aldehyde group was successfully introduced into DCMC. The aldehyde group content of DCMC decreased from 8.38 mmol/g to 2.95 mmol/g as the DS rose from 0.7 to 1.2. Interestingly, formaldehyde was found to be produced in DCMC, and its content was 159.4, 151.7 and 38.4 mg/L, respectively when the DS of CMC was 0.7, 0.9 and 1.2, respectively. Further analysis by HPLC found that fructose was formed during oxidative degradation, and was subsequently oxidized to generate formaldehyde. This was in accordance with the fact that higher DS resulted in lower formaldehyde content in DCMC. The whole reaction mechanism is still under investigation at the moment. Tanning trials showed that the shrinkage temperature and thickening rate of DCMC tanned leather decreased as the DS increased. This should be due to the difference in aldehyde content of DCMC. Leather tanned by DCMC-0.7 (DS of CMC was 0.7) had the highest shrinkage temperature of 81°C and thickening rate of 76%. It was noteworthy that the formaldehyde content in DCMC tanned leather was only 0.11-0.40 mg/kg even though DCMC contained a small amount of formaldehyde. In general, we hope the work on dialdehyde tanning agent derived from CMC could provide some essential data for the development of sustainable tanning material and process. Take-Away: 1. Higher degree of substitution (DS) of CMC resulted in lower aldehyde group content of DCMC. 2. The formaldehyde content of DCMC was negatively correlated with DS. 3. The tanning performance of DCMC with lower DS was better

Experimental implementation of fully controlled dephasing dynamics and synthetic spectral densities

Engineering, controlling, and simulating quantum dynamics is a strenuous task. However, these techniques are crucial to develop quantum technologies, preserve quantum properties, and engineer decoherence. Earlier results have demonstrated reservoir engineering, construction of a quantum simulator for Markovian open systems, and controlled transition from Markovian to non-Markovian regime. Dephasing is an ubiquitous mechanism to degrade the performance of quantum computers. However, a fully controllable all-purpose quantum simulator for generic dephasing is still missing. Here we demonstrate full experimental control of dephasing allowing us to implement arbitrary decoherence dynamics of a qubit. As examples, we use a photon to simulate the dynamics of a qubit coupled to an Ising chain in a transverse field and also demonstrate a simulation of non-positive dynamical map. Our platform opens the possibility to simulate dephasing of any physical system and study fundamental questions on open quantum systems.Comment: V2: Added some text and new figur