Exploring the effect of AR filter on perceived brand image: The mediating role of realistic experience

Following its extensive application in study on consumers\u27 retail experience, AR (augmented reality) technology has been increasingly applied in social media, notably the AR filter service, which has been embraced by quite a few brands as a novel marketing tool, taking advantage of its entertaining value and dissemination effect to boost brands\u27 perceived image among consumers. However, there have been fewer studies that examine the effectiveness of brand-developed AR filter services in enhancing consumer perceptions of brand image in the context of social media. To bridge the research gap, the study, based on the S-O-R model, looked into the effect of consumers\u27 cognition of AR-filter features on the realism of their experience and thus their perceived brand image. The study was carried out via a questionnaire survey of users of AR filters developed by brand-developed in social media, with its findings having both academic and practical implications for this field

Surgical Excision of Tumoral Calcinosis of the Distal End of the Clavicle in a Patient With Uremia

AbstractTumoral calcinosis is an uncommon disease characterized by tumor-like lesions composed of calcium salt. This condition is not a true neoplasm but an imbalance of calcium and phosphorus metabolism resulting from hereditary causes or secondary defects. Medical therapy to balance calcium and phosphorus is the cornerstone of treatment. However, when pain or other compression symptoms occur, surgical excision is indicated. We report a 53-year-old man who presented with a swollen mass over his left shoulder with severe pain and a decreased range of motion for about 6 months. He had a history of chronic renal failure and was on hemodialysis for 20 years. After serial examinations, hyperphosphatemia, hypocalcemia, and secondary hyperparathyroidism were diagnosed. Excision of the mass was performed. The pathological examination results revealed tumoral calcinosis. He was then referred to a nephrologist to adjust the medication, and dialysate was supplied to balance the calcium and phosphorus metabolism. He recovered well without significant complications or recurrence after 5 years of follow-up

The Equal Opportunities Commission and the Courts in Hong Kong: A Partnership Model?

Since the 1950s, the federal courts in the U.S. have developed a "new partnership" with public administrative agencies. The partnership enables the courts to play a large role in shaping public administrative decision making, implementation, other activity, and values. Severely criticized by scholars and practitioners as judicial meddling and interference with administration, the partnership model rests on the establishment of new constitutional rights for individuals in their encounters with public agencies, facilitation of suits against agencies, creation of remedial law, provision of qualified, rather than absolute, immunity in constitutional tort suits against public employees and officials, and adjustment of the level of judicial scrutiny of agencies on a continuum ranging from virtually "no look" to a "soft look" to a "hard look" depending on the administrative action involved. Our research demonstrates that some elements of the partnership model are present in Hong Kong, at least with respect to the courts and the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). Specifically, the courts have: 1) strengthened the statutory right to equal opportunity and the constitutional right to equality; 2) applied a hard look to administrative rationales for breaching these rights; 3) rejected "administrative difficulty" as a basis for using discriminatory gender classifications; and 4) mandated substantial institutional reform. In so doing, the courts have strengthened the EOC's ability to promote equal opportunity. This single case study adds to extant knowledge about courts and public administration and the adaptability of the partnership model to different political systems

The Application of Six Sigma Approach in Construction : A Case Study for Improving Precast Production Management

Six Sigma has been developed in the 1980s at Motorola; this approach is now extensively ap-plied in the manufacturing and other industries for improving productivity and profitability. In Taiwan, after 921 earthquake in 1999 and huge floods in 2009, the construction industry have realized that the importance of construction quality and harmony with the environment. The Six Sigma takes attention to the quality that customers concerned and also contribute to achieving efficiency and reduce costs. By the way, the thinking of Six Sigma approach should also be applied in the construction industry. Therefore, this paper will take the Six Sigma approach into the practice of precast construction management

Multi-Path Region Mining For Weakly Supervised 3D Semantic Segmentation on Point Clouds

Point clouds provide intrinsic geometric information and surface context for scene understanding. Existing methods for point cloud segmentation require a large amount of fully labeled data. Using advanced depth sensors, collection of large scale 3D dataset is no longer a cumbersome process. However, manually producing point-level label on the large scale dataset is time and labor-intensive. In this paper, we propose a weakly supervised approach to predict point-level results using weak labels on 3D point clouds. We introduce our multi-path region mining module to generate pseudo point-level label from a classification network trained with weak labels. It mines the localization cues for each class from various aspects of the network feature using different attention modules. Then, we use the point-level pseudo labels to train a point cloud segmentation network in a fully supervised manner. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first method that uses cloud-level weak labels on raw 3D space to train a point cloud semantic segmentation network. In our setting, the 3D weak labels only indicate the classes that appeared in our input sample. We discuss both scene- and subcloud-level weakly labels on raw 3D point cloud data and perform in-depth experiments on them. On ScanNet dataset, our result trained with subcloud-level labels is compatible with some fully supervised methods.Comment: Accepted by CVPR202

The Evaluation And Using Intention For Digital Teaching Materials Of Penghu Basalt

The Bureau of Culture of Penghu County produced the Penghu Basalt Digital Teaching Materials, which are supplementary teaching materials for local curriculums in elementary and middle schools in Penghu County. But just what are the teachers’ and students’ opinions of the said teaching materials? Are they willing to use them? Are they suitable? These questions are, indeed, worth further research. The questionnaire survey was conducted to gather the opinions of 142 teachers and 151 students of elementary and middle schools in Penghu County. In addition, using the quasi-experimental and experimental teaching methods, after comparing the pre-test and post-test results to the control group, the learning effectiveness was determined. The results indicate that teachers and students have the highest evaluation for the interface design aspect of this teaching material. The teachers’ evaluation for the teaching materials is significantly higher than the students’. Furthermore, the teaching materials are evaluated highly in terms of attracting attention, generating interest and willingness to use, indicating that the digital teaching materials have potential for promotion in Penghu. After the experimental teaching, only the vocational high school students’ scores before and after the experiment showed significantly improvement, while the scores of the students in the other levels of schools did not. &nbsp

Safety and Efficacy of Tien-Hsien Liquid Practical in Patients with Refractory Metastatic Breast Cancer: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Parallel-Group, Phase IIa Trial

To evaluate the safety and efficacy of Tien-Hsien Liquid Practical (THL-P), a Chinese herbal mixture, in patients with refractory metastatic breast cancer, we performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, phase IIa pilot trial. Patients were randomly assigned to either receive THL-P or matching placebo and followed up every 4 weeks for 24 weeks. The primary endpoint was changes in the global health status/quality of life (GHS/QOL) scale. The secondary endpoints were changes in functional and symptom scales, immunomodulating effects, and adverse events. Sixty-three patients were enrolled between June 2009 and June 2011. The intent-to-treat population included 28 patients in the THL-P group and 11 patients in the placebo group. Compared to the placebo group, the THL-P group had significant improvement from baseline to last visit in GHS/QOL (41.7 versus −33.3; P < 0.05), CD3, CD4/CD8, CD19, CD16+56 positive cells (P < 0.05), and higher levels of physical, role, emotional, and cognitive functioning, as well as decreased fatigue and systemic side effects. Treatment-related adverse events were mild constipation and localized itching, and no serious adverse events were reported. THL-P appears to be a safe alternative adjuvant treatment for patients with refractory metastatic breast cancer, as it effectively improves QOL and palliates cancer-related symptoms