Display “Why” Higher than “How”: How Display Positioning Affects Construal Level

Prior research has shown that vertical position of an item is important in both an offline and an online digital context. However, findings in the digital context are inconsistent and atheoretical. Recent psychology research has observed that looking up vs. down can shift processing style (abstract vs. concrete) because looking up (down) tends to associate with observing distant (proximal) stimuli. Based on this insight, we propose that when looking at an object displayed on the top (bottom) of a webpage, users will process the object in a relatively abstract (concrete) way. Further, according to the fit hypothesis in the construal level theory, we propose that advertising with low-level (vs. high-level) construals will be more persuasive when it appears at the bottom (vs. on the top) of the webpage. An initial study has been conducted to examine our propositions. Two future studies using eye-tracking technology are proposed to provide more stringent evidence

Doubly Robust Proximal Causal Learning for Continuous Treatments

Proximal causal learning is a promising framework for identifying the causal effect under the existence of unmeasured confounders. Within this framework, the doubly robust (DR) estimator was derived and has shown its effectiveness in estimation, especially when the model assumption is violated. However, the current form of the DR estimator is restricted to binary treatments, while the treatment can be continuous in many real-world applications. The primary obstacle to continuous treatments resides in the delta function present in the original DR estimator, making it infeasible in causal effect estimation and introducing a heavy computational burden in nuisance function estimation. To address these challenges, we propose a kernel-based DR estimator that can well handle continuous treatments. Equipped with its smoothness, we show that its oracle form is a consistent approximation of the influence function. Further, we propose a new approach to efficiently solve the nuisance functions. We then provide a comprehensive convergence analysis in terms of the mean square error. We demonstrate the utility of our estimator on synthetic datasets and real-world applications.Comment: Preprint, under revie

Transcriptome profiling of the floating-leaved aquatic plant Nymphoides peltata in response to flooding stress

This table provides all differentially expressed genes meeting the threshold (FDR ≤ 0.01) and the GO terms that the differentially expressed genes were enriched. (XLS 207 kb

INVESTIGATING CONSUMERS’ REDEMPTION RESPONSES THROUGH THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN MESSAGE FRAMING AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTANCE IN MOBILE ADVERTISEMENT DESIGN

On the one hand, the increasing digitalization of commerce has put local owner operated retail outlets (LOOROs) under pressure to adapt their business models to the new technological and competitive environment as well as to the changing shopping habits of their customers. On the other hand, it also offers potential competitive advantages for them. This paper investigates the retailers’ perception of the competition and their perception of customer expectations, combined with a survey of the current use of digitalized services and the LOOROs readiness to increase the usage of digitalized services. Our results confirm that the perception of competitive pressure and customer expectations has a positive influence on LOOROs’ readiness to adopt new technologies and business models. But a significant number of the surveyed retailers underestimate the expectations of their customers and are reluctant to add digital services to their business portfolio. While our key findings are relevant insights for all LOOROs on their journey towards digitalization, our findings provide even more significant insights for all digital service providers aiming to take a slice of the still substantial market shares of LOOROs in rural areas