BX | Branded AR Filters: Redefining Branded Interactions

Traditional forms of experiential marketing have been interrupted by augmented reality. As augmented reality continues to grow, a new ecosystem for brand interactions has revealed a world of branded augmented content or “BX”. BX is a concept design that creates a personalized, immersive connection between brand and user through four AR filters

An event-related potential investigation of the neural representations that support familiarity-based picture recognition

Most models of recognition memory assume that familiarity results from the matching of stimuli to the contents of memory. This matching process accumulates evidence that the stimulus was seen before, and when the evidence exceeds a criterion, a feeling of familiarity is experienced. Such models do not specify what constitutes evidence, and therefore offer limited insight into the specific attributes that make stimuli feel familiar. In two experiments, this dissertation examined the type of pictorial attributes that serve as evidence for familiarity-based picture recognition. Participants encoded briefly presented, masked pictures while event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Of primary interest were ERPs for pictures that participants could not identify by name, as previous behavioral research suggests that such items are recognized on the basis of familiarity. Analysis of these encoding ERPs revealed that the global shape of subsequently recognized yet unidentified pictures was fully extracted during the picture\u27s brief presentation, but that their global object shapes were not successfully matched to object representations in memory (Exp 1 & 2). This result indicated that the memory trace for unidentified pictures contained limited conceptual information, and perceptual details that were abstract rather than detailed/episodic. ERPs recorded during retrieval revealed that the neural correlate of familiarity-based retrieval, the FN400, was present for unidentified pictures (Exp 1 & 2), and that the FN400 was more pronounced when participants were oriented toward processing perceptual, as opposed to conceptual, attributes of pictures during encoding (Exp 2). The behavioral measure of familiarity was consistent was consistent with this finding, which together implied that the largely perceptual representations in the pictorial memory trace were sufficient for later recognition of the unidentified picture, and that the pictures were more familiar when perceptual processing was greatest at encoding. The data presented in this dissertation indicate that familiarity-based picture recognition can be based on evidence that is largely perceptual and abstractly represented. The results are discussed within the context of perirhinal cortex models of familiarity, which suggest that picture familiarity is based on conjunctive features represented by the perirhinal cortex within the medial temporal lobe

Neutralization of chemokines RANTES and MIG increases virus antigen expression and spinal cord pathology during Theiler's virus infection.

The role of chemokines during some viral infections is unpredictable because the inflammatory response regulated by these molecules can have two, contrasting effects-viral immunity and immunopathologic injury to host tissues. Using Theiler's virus infection of SJL mice as a model of this type of disease, we have investigated the roles of two chemokines-regulated on activation, normal T cell-expressed and secreted (RANTES) chemokine and monokine induced by IFN-gamma (MIG)-by treating mice with antisera that block lymphocyte migration. Control, infected mice showed virus persistence, mild inflammation and a small degree of demyelination in the white matter of the spinal cord at 6 weeks post-infection. Treatment of mice with RANTES antiserum starting at 2 weeks post-infection increased both viral antigen expression and the severity of inflammatory demyelination at 6 weeks post-infection. MIG antiserum increased the spread of virus and the proportion of spinal cord white matter with demyelination. Overall, viral antigen levels correlated strongly with the extent of pathology. At the RNA level, high virus expression was associated with low IL-2 and high IL-10 levels, and RANTES antiserum decreased the IL-2/IL-10 ratio. Our results suggest that RANTES and MIG participate in an immune response that attempts to restrict viral expression while limiting immunopathology and that anti-chemokine treatment poses the risk of exacerbating both conditions in the long term

Art as an Investment and the Underperformance of Masterpieces

This paper constructs a new data set of repeated sales of artworks and estimates an annual index of art prices for the period 1875-2000. Contrary to earlier studies, we find art outperforms fixed income securities as an investment, though it significantly under-performs stocks in the US. Art is also found to have lower volatility and lower correlation with other assets, making it more attractive for portfolio diversification than discovered in earlier research. There is strong evidence of underperformance of masterpieces, meaning expensive paintings tend to under-perform the art market index. A further study reveals that the underperformance could be consistent with overbidding at auctions. The evidence is mixed on whether the "law of one price" holds in the New York auction market