Patrimoine de marque : le passé au service du management de la marque

Researchers and practitioners talk about brand heritage even though its meaning and its difference from related concepts are not entirely clear. Through a review of the multidisciplinary literature, this article distinguishes brand heritage from the concepts of inheritance, retro, nostalgia, and authenticity. This article defines brand heritage as a dynamic construct based on an inherited or borrowed past, with a view to supporting brand identity and being transmitted. A total of 11 research propositions are presented within an inclusive framework that paves the way for future research and contributes to research on brand management and the role of consumers in creating value

Volume Tracking: A new method for quantitative assessment and visualization of intracardiac blood flow from three-dimensional, time-resolved, three-component magnetic resonance velocity mapping

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Functional and morphological changes of the heart influence blood flow patterns. Therefore, flow patterns may carry diagnostic and prognostic information. Three-dimensional, time-resolved, three-directional phase contrast cardiovascular magnetic resonance (4D PC-CMR) can image flow patterns with unique detail, and using new flow visualization methods may lead to new insights. The aim of this study is to present and validate a novel visualization method with a quantitative potential for blood flow from 4D PC-CMR, called Volume Tracking, and investigate if Volume Tracking complements particle tracing, the most common visualization method used today.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eight healthy volunteers and one patient with a large apical left ventricular aneurysm underwent 4D PC-CMR flow imaging of the whole heart. Volume Tracking and particle tracing visualizations were compared visually side-by-side in a visualization software package. To validate Volume Tracking, the number of particle traces that agreed with the Volume Tracking visualizations was counted and expressed as a percentage of total released particles in mid-diastole and end-diastole respectively. Two independent observers described blood flow patterns in the left ventricle using Volume Tracking visualizations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Volume Tracking was feasible in all eight healthy volunteers and in the patient. Visually, Volume Tracking and particle tracing are complementary methods, showing different aspects of the flow. When validated against particle tracing, on average 90.5% and 87.8% of the particles agreed with the Volume Tracking surface in mid-diastole and end-diastole respectively. Inflow patterns in the left ventricle varied between the subjects, with excellent agreement between observers. The left ventricular inflow pattern in the patient differed from the healthy subjects.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Volume Tracking is a new visualization method for blood flow measured by 4D PC-CMR. Volume Tracking complements and provides incremental information compared to particle tracing that may lead to a better understanding of blood flow and may improve diagnosis and prognosis of cardiovascular diseases.</p

Immersive Insights: A Hybrid Analytics System for Collaborative Exploratory Data Analysis

In the past few years, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies have experienced terrific improvements in both accessibility and hardware capabilities, encouraging the application of these devices across various domains. While researchers have demonstrated the possible advantages of AR and VR for certain data science tasks, it is still unclear how these technologies would perform in the context of exploratory data analysis (EDA) at large. In particular, we believe it is important to better understand which level of immersion EDA would concretely benefit from, and to quantify the contribution of AR and VR with respect to standard analysis workflows. In this work, we leverage a Dataspace reconfigurable hybrid reality environment to study how data scientists might perform EDA in a co-located, collaborative context. Specifically, we propose the design and implementation of Immersive Insights, a hybrid analytics system combining high-resolution displays, table projections, and augmented reality (AR) visualizations of the data. We conducted a two-part user study with twelve data scientists, in which we evaluated how different levels of data immersion affect the EDA process and compared the performance of Immersive Insights with a state-of-the-art, non-immersive data analysis system.Comment: VRST 201

Performance Analysis of Electro-chemical Machining of Ti-48Al-2Nb-2Cr Produced by Electron Beam Melting

Ti-48Al-2Nb-2Cr is a challenging and difficult-to-cut titanium aluminide (TiAl) alloy with several manufacturing issues because of the high sensitivity to crack formation and oxygen picking up. Electron beam powder bed fusion (EB-PBF) made feasible TiAl near net shape components, but the surfaces are particularly rough and present complex surface topographies. In this present investigation, experimental analysis and optimization are proposed for electro-chemical machining (ECM) on as-built Ti-48Al-2Nb-2Cr surfaces manufactured using EB-PBF. Experimental runs are performed under pulsed machining conditions and varying specific process metrics to understand the machining effects on the process efficiency and removal phenomena. In particular, the morphology and isotropy of the surface are studied before and after the machining by scanning electron and confocal microscopies. The results establish the optimal machining conditions and a range for the active machining time that produce, compared to the as-built surface, an extremely smooth and isotropy surface without any detrimental effect on the surface integrity and microstructure

Interactive Visualization In A High Performance Computing Virtual Environment

An intuitive means of controlling numerical simulations can be achieved by integrating virtual environments with High Performance Computing (HPC) resources. The Cosmic Worm is an HPC visualization tool which runs in the CAVE virtual reality theater. It is designed to visualize the three-dimensional output from a numerical simulation while giving a scientist interactive control of that simulation from within a virtual environment. It is being developed in collaboration with the Astrophysics and Gravitation groups at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Both groups are finding this to be a valuable research tool in their studies of cosmic phenomena. For the first time they have the ability to steer their three-dimensional simulations, and visualization in the CAVE has enabled them to see aspects of the data which had not appeared in standard workstation visualizations. INTRODUCTION Visualization is not only a tool for understanding data but can also create an int..

Enhancing cognitive training effects in Alzheimer's disease: rTMS as an add-on treatment

The treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the field of non-pharmacological interventions is a challenging issue, given the limited benefits of the available drugs. Cognitive training (CT) represents a commonly recommended strategy in AD. Recently, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has gained increasing attention as a promising therapeutic tool for the treatment of AD, given its ability of enhancing neuroplasticity. In the present randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled study, we aimed at investigating the add-on effect of a high frequency rTMS protocol applied over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) combined with a face-name associative memory CT in the continuum of AD pathology. Fifty patients from a very early to a moderate phase of dementia were randomly assigned to one of two groups: CT plus real rTMS or CT plus placebo rTMS. The results showed that the improvement in the trained associative memory induced with rTMS was superior to that obtained with CT alone. Interestingly, the extent of the additional improvement was affected by disease severity and levels of education, with less impaired and more educated patients showing a greater benefit. When testing for generalization to non-trained cognitive functions, results indicated that patients in CT-real group showed also a greater improvement in visuospatial reasoning than those in the CT-sham group. Interestingly, this improvement persisted over 12 weeks after treatment beginning. The present study provides important hints on the promising therapeutic use of rTMS in AD

Disclosing the build-up mechanisms of multi jet fusion: Experimental insight into the characteristics of starting materials and finished parts

Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) is an emerging additive manufacturing (AM) technique that enables the production of prototypes and functional parts starting from a thermoplastic-based powder, mainly polyamide 12 (PA12). Layer upon layer, the polymeric particles are selectively impregnated with two different inks and then fused and consolidated by an infrared (IR) lamp. Much faster than other AM techniques for polymers, MJF has shown exciting potentialities. However, little is known about the consolidation mechanisms acting in MJF and about the effect on the properties of the finished parts of the quality of the materials, powder and inks, and of the printing conditions. The present contribution investigates these issues. The study also compares virgin PA12 powder with pure PA12, recycled PA12 for MJF and PA12 for in selective laser sintering (SLS). The powders showed slight differences. The two inks have the same composition, except for the presence of graphitic carbon. Tensile tests showed that the printed parts are isotropic. However, the deformation at break is affected by building direction of the sample. Occasionally, poor inter-layer adhesion is observed and the tensile strength and the deformation at break collapse. Printed tensile specimens are found to be representative of the material behaviour of a printed component, apart from the deformation at break which is systematically overestimated