PAST EXPERIENCES OR NEW CREATIVE IDEAS? EXPLORING THE CONNOTATIONS OF PRODUCT AESTHETICS TO GAIN NEW MARKET SHARE

Jingyi Sun 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

Introduction For a long time, firms have been improving product function, performance, price-performance ratio (hereinafter uniformly referred to as functional aspects of product design), and product appearance. Nevertheless, the current market situation is that many products in the same category are similar in quality, price and appearance. Product homogeneity leads to excess supply, and this situation is objectively long-standing. For consumers, positive emotions often play a key role in their purchase decisions. Yet, when most products seem to be similar, it is difficult to evoke more positive emotions of consumers to increase their willingness to pay. This paper shows that besides product appearance and functional aspects of product design, the connotations of product aesthetics should also be focused. In other words, aesthetic aspects of product design should include both product appearance and connotations. Connotations, as deep meaning inside product aesthetics, can evoke either consumers’ memories of the past or imagination of new creative ideas, or both (e.g., Starry night umbrella by MoMA Design Store, Sakura Masking Tape by Bande). Although the contents of memory recall or imagination might differ across consumers, positive emotions evoked in that process will increase willingness to pay. A new conceptual model is proposed in this paper, which shows that functional aspects, product appearance, and the connotations of product aesthetics could cause different psychological activities, and positive emotions evoked in those processes can enhance willingness to pay. When most products tend to be similar, the connotations of product aesthetics could be a promising area for firms today to make their products distinctive and increase their market share. Product Design and Consumer Emotions (1) Elements of Product Design Product design is considered as the set of properties of a product, including both functional and aesthetic aspects (e.g., Homburg, Schwemmle, & Kuehnl, 2015; Jindal, Sarangee, Echambadi, & Lee, 2016; Luchs & Swan, 2011). Functional aspects of product design consist of function, performance, and price-performance ratio. Aesthetic aspects mainly refer to product appearance, consisting of visual elements such as color, shape, and material. (2) Relationship between Product Design and Consumer Emotions Previous research shows that functional aspects of product design could evoke positive emotions like satisfaction, and aesthetic aspects could please our senses and make us feel delight (e.g., Bloch 1995; Chitturi, Raghunathan, & Mahajan, 2008). Furthermore, Norman (2004) points out that emotional factors can be the key to the success of product design. If a product could evoke consumers’ positive emotions, those emotions would arouse willingness to pay. If not, consumers might not have the desire to buy it. The Connotations of Product Aesthetics Evoking Positive Emotions of Consumers As Barnard (2005) suggests, as the deep level of meaning, connotations refer to one’s feelings or thoughts caused by a design. This paper proposes that the connotations in product aesthetics could either remind consumers of their past experiences or trigger their imagination to think about new creative ideas, or both. Emotional resonance could be achieved and finally facilitate purchase behaviors. In our daily lives, there are many products that have not only beautiful appearances but also the connotations of product aesthetics. For instance, Starry Night Umbrella by MoMA Design Store (Figure 1). MoMA Design Store released an umbrella patterned with stars, the moon and the sky that swirl, which reminds consumers of the masterpiece The Starry Night (1889) by Vincent Van Gogh. When encountering this umbrella, consumers who love the works of Van Gogh will have positive emotions and a strong desire to buy it. Cherry Blossom Masking Tape by Bande (Figure 2). Bande, a Japanese masking tape brand, launched a masking tape with sakura (cherry blossom in Japanese) petals design. Its real-like floral design can remind consumers of spring or their own stories with cherry blossom and trigger their imagination to come up with lots of creative ideas such as using it to decorate their diaries, laptops, furniture, and so on. Besides the original function of tapes, the connotations inside product aesthetics could encourage consumers to think creatively and feel happy. A Conceptual Model of Product Design, Positive Emotions, and Market Share This paper proposes a conceptual model (Figure 3), showing that different aspects of product design can evoke consumer emotions and those positive emotions have a positive effect on willingness to pay. First, functional aspects of product design are very important. Consumers compare function, performance, and price-performance ratio among many products, which is considered as a process of rational thinking. Products with high qualities and affordable prices can make consumers feel satisfied. Positive emotions (E1) evoked by functional aspects can enhance the willingness to pay and bring firms market share (S1). Then, on the bases of functional aspects, firms use different colors, shapes, and materials to make product appearance attractive. Sophisticated appearances of products can please the senses of consumers and evoke positive emotions (E2). That could increase their desires to buy and bring more market share (S2) for firms. Nevertheless, these two parts are what most firms can do today. To make products distinctive, firms should add connotations into aesthetic aspects of product design, which can trigger consumers’ memory recall of their past experiences or their imagination of new creative ideas, or both. Although the contents of recall and imagination are different across consumer, the arousal of positive emotions (E3) will enhance willingness to pay and finally bring new market share (S3). Thus, two equations derived are as follows: Positive Emotions = E1+E2+E3 Market share =S1+S2+S3 If firms take all these aspects of product design into consideration, their products will evoke consumers’ positive emotions adequately to increase willingness to pay, and help firms occupy more market share from fierce market competition. General Discussions On the market today, lots of products have beautiful appearances and seem to be similar in functional aspects of product design. To make products distinctive, this paper considers that firms should also attach importance to the connotations of product aesthetics. The connotations will remind consumers of their past experiences or let them imagine new creative ideas, or both. Positive emotions evoked during that process increase willingness to pay. That is a promising area for firms today to gain more consumers and new market share. Since the connotations of product aesthetics could be influenced by factors such as age and culture, it is important for marketers to investigate and analyze consumers’ understandings of aesthetics from different ages and cultures, then feed it back to designers to help them design successful products in the future.

Research of Short-Term Load Forecasting Using DWT and LSSVM Optimized by QDE

Wei Sun,Jingyi Sun 보안공학연구지원센터 2016 International Journal of Smart Home Vol.10 No.11

To evaluate short-term power load properly and efficiently, this paper proposes a modified DWT-QDE-LSSVM (Discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) optimized by quantum differential evolution (QDE)) model combined with input selected. The load data series of the previous days are first decomposed into an approximation component and a detail component. Then LSSVM is built to model the approximation component and QDE algorithm is applied to overcome the problems faced by LSSVM in selecting parameters. In order to raise forecasting accuracy, this paper proposes the refinement of related factors. The empirical results show that the proposed DWT-QDE-LSSVM model is feasible and can satisfy the short-term load forecasting requirements in China.

Prediction of carbon dioxide emissions based on principal component analysis with regularized extreme learning machine

Wei Sun,Jingyi Sun 대한환경공학회 2017 Environmental Engineering Research Vol.22 No.3

Nowadays, with the burgeoning development of economy, CO2 emissions increase rapidly in China. It has become a common concern to seek effective methods to forecast CO2 emissions and put forward the targeted reduction measures. This paper proposes a novel hybrid model combined principal component analysis (PCA) with regularized extreme learning machine (RELM) to make CO2 emissions prediction based on the data from 1978 to 2014 in China. First eleven variables are selected on the basis of Pearson coefficient test. Partial autocorrelation function (PACF) is utilized to determine the lag phases of historical CO2 emissions so as to improve the rationality of input selection. Then PCA is employed to reduce the dimensionality of the influential factors. Finally RELM is applied to forecast CO2 emissions. According to the modeling results, the proposed model outperforms a single RELM model, extreme learning machine (ELM), back propagation neural network (BPNN), GM(1,1) and Logistic model in terms of errors. Moreover, it can be clearly seen that ELM-based approaches save more computing time than BPNN. Therefore the developed model is a promising technique in terms of forecasting accuracy and computing efficiency for CO2 emission prediction.

Antimicrobial and Cytotoxic Activity of Endophytic Fungi from Lagopsis supina

Zhang Dekui,Sun Weijian,Xu Wenjie,Ji Changbo,Zhou Yang,Sun Jingyi,Tian Yutong,Li Yanling,Zhao Fengchun,Tian Yuan 한국미생물·생명공학회 2023 Journal of microbiology and biotechnology Vol.33 No.4

In this study, five endophytic fungi belonging to the Aspergillus and Alternaria genera were isolated from Lagopsis supina. The antimicrobial activity of all fungal fermented extracts against Staphylococcus and Fusarium graminearum was tested using the cup-plate method. Among them, Aspergillus ochraceus XZC-1 showed the best activity and was subsequently selected for large-scale fermentation and bioactivity-directed separation of the secondary metabolites. Four compounds, including 2- methoxy-6-methyl-1,4-benzoquinone (1), 3,5-dihydroxytoluene (2), oleic acid (3), and penicillic acid (4) were discovered. Here, compounds 1 and 4 displayed anti-fungal activity against F. graminearum, F. oxysporum, F. moniliforme, F. stratum, Botrytis cinerea, Magnaporthe oryzae, and Verticillium dahliae with diverse MIC values (128–512 μg/ml), which were close to that of the positive control antifungal, actidione (64–128 μg/ml). Additionally, compounds 1 and 4 also exhibited moderate antibacterial activity against S. aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella enterica, with low MIC values (8–64 μg/ml). Moreover, compounds 1 and 4 displayed selective cytotoxicity against cancer cell lines as compared with the normal fibroblast cells. Therefore, this study proposes that the endophytic fungi from L. supina can potentially produce bioactive molecules to be used as lead compounds in drugs or agricultural antibiotics.

Comprehensive evaluation of cleaner production in thermal power plants based on an improved least squares support vector machine model

Minquan Ye,Jingyi Sun,Shenhai Huang 대한환경공학회 2019 Environmental Engineering Research Vol.24 No.4

In order to alleviate the environmental pressure caused by production process of thermal power plants, the application of cleaner production is imperative. To estimate the implementation effects of cleaner production in thermal plants and optimize the strategy duly, it is of great significance to take a comprehensive evaluation for sustainable development. In this paper, a hybrid model that integrated the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) algorithm optimized by grid search (GS) algorithm is proposed. Based on the establishment of the evaluation index system, AHP is employed to pre-process the data and GS is introduced to optimize the parameters in LSSVM, which can avoid the randomness and inaccuracy of parameters’ setting. The results demonstrate that the combined model is able to be employed in the comprehensive evaluation of the cleaner production in the thermal power plants.

The Impact of the US-China Trade War on Chinese Firms' Investment

Miao Yanliang,Fei Xuan,Sun Jingyi,Yang Hao 한국국제경제학회 2023 International Economic Journal Vol.37 No.3

We study the effects of the US-China trade war on Chinese firms’ investment using the detailed quarterly financial data of Chinese listed firms merged with firm-level Chinese customs data. We construct the firm-level measures of direct trade exposure and the financial measures of indirect exposures to the US-China trade tension using firms’ equity responses during the trade war escalation periods. We document that the trade war reduced Chinese firms’ investment by two percent. In particular, we find significant heterogeneous firms’ responses to the trade war, depending on their firm characteristics. Chinese firms that are more dependent on exports to the US have lower stock returns; large firms and state-owned firms suffer more compared to small firms and private-owned ones.

Updated Bayesian Network Meta-Analysis of Adjuvant Targeted Treatment Regimens for Early Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor-2 Positive Breast Cancer

Xinyan Li,Litong Yao,Mozhi Wang,Mengshen Wang,Xiang Li,Xueting Yu,Jingyi Guo,Haoran Dong,Xiangyu Sun,Yingying Xu 한국유방암학회 2020 Journal of breast cancer Vol.23 No.4

Purpose: Combining targeted agents with adjuvant chemotherapy prolongs survival in human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer patients, but also increases the risk of adverse effects. The updated results of 3 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were reported in 2019. Given the lack of adequate head-to-head pairwise assessment for anti-HER2 agents, network meta-analysis facilitates obtaining more precise inference for evidence-based therapy. Methods: RCTs comparing at least 2 anti-HER2 regimens in an adjuvant setting for HER2- positive early-stage breast cancer (EBC) were included. Hazard ratios for overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS), with respective 95% confidence intervals were pooled for assessment of efficacy. A Bayesian statistical model was used, and odds ratios (ORs) for adverse events (AEs) were used to pool effect sizes. Results: We demonstrated that 1-year trastuzumab plus chemotherapy had increased efficacy compared to shorter or longer treatment duration. The OR of cardiac events gradually increased from 6 months to 1 and 2-year trastuzumab arms, relative to chemotherapy only. Compared to trastuzumab plus chemotherapy, dual HER2-targeting therapies increased DFS, especially for hormone receptor negative patients. Dual anti-HER2 blockade regimens revealed an increased probability of gastrointestinal reactions. As a second agent, pertuzumab showed significantly higher DFS and OS. Conclusion: We conclude that 1-year adjuvant trastuzumab should remain as the standard treatment for HER2-positive EBC patients, as it has greater efficacy and a manageable proportion of AEs. Clinical efficacy can be increased for hormone receptor-negative tumors by including a second HER2-targeted agent to the treatment regimen. For hormone receptor-positive cases with basal disease, it is acceptable to reduce the risk of cardiotoxicity by shortening the duration of trastuzumab.

Predictive and Prognostic Roles of Pathological Indicators for Patients with Breast Cancer on Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy

Xinyan Li,Mozhi Wang,Mengshen Wang,Xueting Yu,Jingyi Guo,Tie Sun,Litong Yao,Qiang Zhang,Yingying Xu 한국유방암학회 2019 Journal of breast cancer Vol.22 No.4

Currently, neoadjuvant chemotherapy is a standard therapeutic strategy for breast cancer, as it can provide timely and individualized chemo-sensitivity information and is beneficial for custom-designing subsequent treatment strategies. To accurately select candidates for neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the association between various immunohistochemical biomarkers of primary disease and tumor response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy has been investigated, and results have shown that certain pathological indicators evaluated after neoadjuvant chemotherapy are associated with long-term prognosis. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recommended that complete pathological response can be used as a surrogate endpoint for neoadjuvant chemotherapy, which is related to better prognosis. Considering that residual tumor persists in the majority of patients after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the value of various pathological indicators of residual disease in predicting the long-term outcomes is being extensively investigated. This review summarizes and compares various predictive and prognostic indicators for patients who have received neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and analyzes their efficacy in different breast cancer subtypes.