Synced advertising (SA) has grown in popularity due to its ability to facilitate multitasking and personalize ads to the media content users consume. Research on the effects of SA has been limited, but it has been suggested that repetition and personalization with SA will lead to a stronger, lasting impression. However, there are concerns that SA could be perceived as intrusive and lead to privacy issues. This study seeks to explore how the consumer paradox between perceived relevance and privacy concerns may affect the outcome of the advertisements.

Expressing political stances is not rare among service providers such as taxi drivers and chefs. For instance, in 2021, a restaurant owner angry at the death of U.S. soldiers during the evacuation of Afghanistan posted a sign on the front door telling Biden supporters to eat elsewhere (Miller 2021). Given findings from research on brand activism, consumers can be expected to have less favorable attitudes toward service providers who are more politically different from them. However, if service providers who are politically opposite are more competent than ones who are politically identical, would consumers still choose politically identical but less competent service providers? To our knowledge, no research has been conducted to examine what factors influence consumers’ choices between more competent but politically opposite service providers and less competent but politically identical service providers. To fill that gap, in our research, we examined the role of consumers’ political ideology (i.e., conservative vs. liberal) in making trade-offs between more competent but politically opposite service providers and less competent but politically identical ones.

Ammonium (NH4 +) serves as a nitrogen source, but its elevated levels can hinder plant growth and production. Excess NH4 + with α-ketoglutarate is assimilated into glutamate, a precursor of proline and glutathione (GSH). This study aimed to investigate the effects of excessive NH4 + on the regulation of proline and GSH synthesis. Detached leaves from oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) were fed with 0, 50, 100, 500, and 1000 mM NH4Cl for 16 h. As the NH4 + concentrations increased, the leaves exhibited progressive wilting and yellowing. Furthermore, total carotenoid and chlorophyll concentrations declined in response to all NH4 + treatments, with the lowest levels observed in 1000 mM NH4 + treatment. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) concentration showed a minor increase at low NH4 + concentration (50 and 100 mM) treatments but a significant increase at high NH4 + (500 and 1000 mM), which was consistent with the localization of H2O2. Amino acid concentrations increased with increasing in NH4 + concentration, while the protein concentration displayed the opposite trend. Proline and cysteine concentrations exhibited a gradual increase in response to increasing NH4 + concentrations. However, GSH concentrations rose only in the 50 mM NH4 + treatment and decreased in the 500 and 1000 mM NH4 + treatments. These results indicate that excessive NH4 + is primarily assimilated into proline, while GSH synthesis is adversely affected.

The most important aspect of the imaging role for indeterminate bile duct stricture is to make a differential diagnosis on whether the stricture is highly likely to be malignant or benign. Compared to benign stricture, malignant stricture is longer, thicker, and has indistinct outer border and irregularity of the lumen in contrastenhanced computed tomography and magnetic resonance (MR). Also, in the contrast-enhanced portal phase, malignant stricture has a stronger enhancement than the liver parenchyma. There are studies to differentiate between malignant and benign stricture in diffusion weighted image, a functional MR image, but there remains controversial. Sometimes, malignant biliary stricture may be caused by bile duct invasion of gallbladder cancer, pancreatic cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, biliary metastasis, and lymphoma. Among the potential causes of indeterminate biliary stricture, the characteristics of multifocal biliary stricture mainly suggest benign sclerosing cholangitis, and various external compression factors that cause biliary stricture can be differentiated by radiologic imaging. There are causes of biliary dilatation without obstructive lesion, radiologic diagnosis can be made by considering various characteristics.

It is well known that lymph node metastasis is a major prognostic factor in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). 30-40% of patients with OSCC have already undergone regional metastasis at diagnosis. The survival rate of patients with metastasis is reduced by more than 50%. Therefore, prevention and early detection of metastasis are very important to increase the survival rate of patients. Many investigators have studied the molecular mechanism of metastasis and tried to develop the molecules to inhibit any step of metastatic cascade. Among those molecules, an interest in the metastasis suppressor gene has been increasing. Expression of metastasis suppressor KiSS-1 has shown to be significantly related to poor clinical outcome and worse survival rate of patient in various malignancies of different organs. In addition, our previous study in OSCC also revealed that downregulation of KiSS-1 expression correlated with the presence of cervical lymph node metastasis, one part of tumor progression. Therefore, further investigation was needed to identify the molecular function of KiSS-1 using OSCC cell line and to evaluate the possibility of KiSS-1 as a new therapeutic target.

Differential diagnosis of the malignant lesion and the benign lesion is critically important for the precise treatment. A clinician should diagnose in a comprehensive manner considering clinical, radiological, and histopathological perspectives. The lesion in the oral cavity in this study was clinically and radiologically malignant. However, the lesion was histopathologically benign. Surgical intervention was not performed except biopsy. The lesion improved after about one month of supportive medication after the biopsy. The importance of decision making process was emphasized in this report.

Satisfaction paradox indicates customer satisfaction does not necessarily translate into customer repurchase. Competitor’s attractiveness and customer demographics are two main moderators for the paradoxical phenomenon. Competitor’s attractiveness exhibits customer switching effect, whereas customer demographics imply customers moored with their current service provider. Still, the cases were few investigated in B2B settings where customers are in general more complex than consumers as involving more intricate organizational network influences. In a business network, transactions may incur buyer/seller relational activities that mitigate paradoxical behavior. Nonetheless, the variable is yet identified and the interacting effects between the moderating variables are not clarified. Thus, this study aims to develop an operational model to classify satisfied customers into loyal, moored and paradoxical segments using three genres of moderators: competitor’s attractiveness, organizational and transactional variables in a B2B setting. In the model, the theoretical bases of switching behaviors are applied for four statistical analysis executed in a logic sequence, including a factor analysis to consolidate quality measurements, a quadrant analysis to locate the effect of competitor’s attractiveness, a clustering analysis to segment satisfied customers into four segments, and finally, nonparametric tests to validate the organizational and transactional segmentation variables. Empirically, we study Taiwanese manufacturers who engaged in global trade and have had experiences in choosing the global air express services that form an oligopolistic market and a strategic group so competitor’s attractiveness can be better calibrated. A total of 180 valid samples are collected and analyzed. The results contribute to the literatures of B2B service marketing.

This study identifies the best gift ever as a new type of gift with specific characteristics that make it different from the ideal, „perfect gift‟. For this, we draw on consumers‟ lived experiences to understand the underlying traits of their most cherished gifts. This understanding is of great importance for retailers, who strive to assist consumers on their search for the „perfect gift‟ (Mintel, 2015). As Belk (1996) suggests, the „perfect gift‟ involves sacrifice, altruism, luxury, surprise and is uniquely appropriate for the recipient. Although this concept has been widely used in the literature, there remain two main limitations to address. First, existing work focused on the „perfect gift‟ is conceptual and considers this type of gift in its ideal form, thus neglecting actual experiences of givers and receivers as consumers of their most special gifts. Although some empirical research exists around the subject (Tuten & Kiecker, 2009), these studies assume the „perfect gift‟ conceptualisation proposed by Belk (1996) or suggest that “the „perfect gift‟ metaphor is not always an accurate prototype for giving” (Otnes, 2018, p.222). In addition to this, the retail environment has changed considerably since Belk‟s (1996) work. The new digital world reconfigures the definitions of gift-giving contextualised in a pre-digital landscape (Belk, 2013; Otnes, 2018), raising questions for example, of whether digital gifts can be perfect (Belk, 2013). In order to address these concerns, we propose to study participants‟ experiences of their best gift ever (both given and received); to this effect, we conducted 27 face-to-face semi-structured interviews. We did not prompt participants with any characteristics of the „perfect gift‟ from the literature but rather focused on capturing participants‟ insights about their best gift ever in their own terms. While we drew insights on the categorisation of the perfect gift proposed by Belk (1996), we adopted an interpretivist perspective allowing themes to emerge from the data (Holbrook & O‟Shaughnessy, 1988). Our findings show that the best gift ever might not be perfect but it is attainable and proposed as a new concept to understand gifts. This extends existing research beyond the notion that "the perfect gift, like most perfection, remains an ideal more than a reality in our gift giving" (Belk, 1996, p.76). Our analysis suggests that the best gift ever is: 1) experiential (i.e. symbolic meanings are associated with the shared giver-receiver experience), 2) memorable (i.e. the experience is remembered vividly and gift meaning evolves overtime); and 3) delightful (i.e. experience of deep emotions of delight, excitement and pleasure). Finally, although the best gift ever shares characteristics with those of the perfect gift including appropriateness, sacrifice, altruism and luxury, our data shows that these characteristics defining the ideal perfect gift (Belk, 1996) are not necessarily met by the best gift ever in most cases. That is, not all of these traits were simultaneously present within the same best gift ever experience and some of them were not important for our participants. Practitioners could support customers in the creation of the best gift ever by helping to build memorable and delightful gift experiences, the value of which can be enhanced over time.

Bemisia tabaci is a vector of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) but Trialeurodes vaporariorum is not. To determine the effect of TYLCV acquisition on vector and non-vector, we compared various physiological characteristics between two species. Our results showed that TYLCV acquisition significantly affected B. tabaci but not T. vaporariorum. The B. tabaci increased susceptibility against thermal stress but weakened chill coma recovery, shortening of longevity, low fecundity and abbreviated developmental time by virus acquisition. At the molecular level, B. tabaci increased hsp70 and hsp90 levels by TYLCV ingestion. However, T. vaporariorum did not shown any changes of those characteristics. Therefore, the physiological manipulation of TYLCV was specific to vector species but not non-vector species.

Spoken words tends to be verbal communication, because the source of the words is different, or for use in different groups, it produced the sound homophones nearly glyph (written symbols) through the synchronical and diachronical spread, which is a spoken word may become phonetic variations occurred in the communication process, and lead to produce multiple variants including the shape of words and the numerous, complicated and changeful usage of words, sometimes even cover up their original real feature. This article focuses on spoken word about the same word but variant character of the oral literature (including abroad), which reflected Beijing dialect in the late Qing and early republic period