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Marketing in social media is gaining importance among young consumers. Because of the clutter in social network services (SNS) like Facebook, creating engaging content that can generate click-through and sharing behaviors is becoming a key success factor for SNS marketing. We investigate the neural indicators of engagement with content as a driver of consumers′ click-through behavior in social media. Using a novel neuroscientific research methodology called event-related potentials (ERP), we find unique brainwave signals that combine P3 and late positive potential (LPP), increasing power signals with multiple exposures while young consumers are exposed to highly engaging Facebook posts. These unique brainwave signals in response to engagement with online content, which occur within 300 ms, are detected in the bilateral temporal brain areas. A new neuromarketing method will soon allow marketers to predict consumers′ online click-through behaviors from micro-second brain processes that occur almost simultaneously with the time of content exposure.

Microalgae have been studied and tested for over 70 years. However, biodiesel, the prime target of the algal industry, has suffered from low competitiveness and current steps toward banning the internal combustion engine all over the world. Meanwhile, interest in reducing CO2 emissions has grown as the world has witnessed disasters caused by global warming. In this situation, in order to maximize the benefits of the microalgal industry and surmount current limitations, new breakthroughs are being sought. First, drop-in fuel, mandatory for the aviation and maritime industries, has been discussed as a new product. Second, methods to secure stable and feasible outdoor cultivation focusing on CO2 sequestration were investigated. Lastly, the need for an integrated refinery process to simultaneously produce multiple products has been discussed. While the merits of microalgae industry remain valid, further investigations into these new frontiers would put algal industry at the core of future bio-based economy.

The era for eco-friendly polymers was ushered by the marine plastic menace and with the discovery of emerging pollutants such as micro-, nano-plastics, and plastic leachates from fossil fuel-based polymers. This review investigates algae-derived natural, carbon neutral polysaccharides and polyesters, their structure, biosynthetic mechanisms, biopolymers and biocomposites production process, followed by biodegradability of the polymers. The review proposes acceleration of research in this promising area to address the need for eco-friendly polymers and to increase the cost-effectiveness of algal biorefineries by coupling biofuel, high-value products, and biopolymer production using waste and wastewater-grown algal biomass. Such a strategy improves overall sustainability by lowering costs and carbon emissions in algal biorefineries, eventually contributing towards the much touted circular, net-zero carbon future economies. Finally, this review analyses the evolution of citation networks, which in turn highlight the emergence of a new frontier of sustainable polymers from algae.

Based on the behavioral economic theory, the recent uptake in the use of Nudge Theory, has been seen in many companies aiding consumers’ decision-making processes. However, recently online channels have started to use this technique for profiteering purposes, coined in this paper as a digital dark nudge. While cases of good nudge have been extensively studied, research on their dark sides and the effects these may have are absent and unclear. We demonstrate in a pilot study on 92 participants proof of concept and thus conceptualize the next steps in analyzing this phenomenon through the lens of NeuroIs. Through this process we aim to identify whether digital dark nudges will be detrimental to a consumers’ buying intentions and whether they may have a long-term negative impact on those engaged in the use of them.

Filamentous freshwater macroalgae have significant potential as a renewable source of bioenergy. However, the ultimate success of freshwater macroalgae as a biofuel feedstock will depend upon our ability to produce biomass at commercial-scale in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. Aquatic ecology can play an important role to achieve the scale-up of algal crop production by informing the rates of nutrients supplied to the cultivation systems, and by helping to create adaptive production systems that are resilient to environmental change. A review and analysis of data from the published literature reveals that the large-scale cultivation of freshwater macroalgae is feasible using currently available technologies such as the Algal Turf Scrubber® system (ATS™). In addition, graphical analyses of published data obtained from ATS systems of varying sizes in operation worldwide reveal that both macroalgal biomass productivity and nutrient removal rates are hyperbolically related to the areal loading rates of both total nitrogen and total phosphorus. The effectiveness and need for CO2 supplementation of macroalgal production systems like the ATS has not yet been conclusively demonstrated, however.

The progressive deposition of amyloid-β (Aβ) in the brain is a pathologic feature of Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study was aimed to determine whether endogenous tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) modulates the pathogenic process of AD. tPA expression and activity developed around amyloid plaques in the brains of human amyloid precursor protein-overexpressing Tg2576 mice, which were weakened by the genetic ablation of tPA. Although the complete loss of tPA was developmentally fatal to Tg2576 mice, tPA-heterozygous Tg2576 mice expressed the more severe degenerative phenotypes than tPA wild-type Tg2576 mice, including abnormal and unhealthy growth, shorter life spans, significantly enhanced Aβ levels, and the deposition of more and larger amyloid plaques in the brain. In addition, the expression of synaptic function-associated proteins was significantly reduced, which in turn caused a more severe impairment in learning and memory performance in Tg2576 mice. Thus, endogenous tPA, preferentially its aggregate form, could degrade Aβ molecules and maintain low levels of brain Aβ, resulting in the delay of AD pathogenesis.

A flexible hybrid anode from graphite and thin film silicon is realized by the concept of a 3D sandwich current collector by the combination of micro-contact printing and RF magnetron sputtering. Flexible lithium-ion batteries with a new hybrid anode demonstrate not only enhanced specific capacity but also improved rate capability compared to that of a conventional graphite anode under bending deformation.

Digital and social media has become an indispensable channel of promotion and marketing to the enterprises. For example, compared to other means of promotional channels, such as television advertising, newspapers, social network services (SNS) are more competitive, more convenient, and lower-cost. Because individuals compose or share those posts anytime, anywhere, information spreads fast and wide on social media. SNS posts can affect people's perception, thus affecting their purchase intention and behavior. A large number of researchers investigated academic issues involved SNS, such as the influence of eWOM in social media on consumers' purchase intentions (Erkan & Evans, 2016). According to Lin and Lu’s research (2011), which suggests that gender difference also exists in social media. In addition, a study identified attributes of social media messaging activities and examined the relationships among those perceived activities, value equity, relationship equity, brand equity, customer equity, and purchase intention through a structural equation model (Kim & Ko, 2012). In this study, we focus on the motivational antecedents of digital buzz on digital and social media. Among many performance metrics of digital marketing, the most important one that really matters to advertisers is click-through. Click-through is believed to reflect viewers’ interest in the product contents that are being shown on screen, and based on that assumption, it opens a new navigation tab, such as the advertiser’s web site that can provide information about products and services of an advertising company. However, there is a caveat here. Since advertisements in digital and social media are often placed on top of the contents that the viewers have already been reading, viewers can accidentally click on the internet advertisements in which they have no interests. Viewers are only annoyed by intrusive re-routing during their digital activities. Hence, it is important that the digital media marketer to be able to distinguish between the click-throughs, knowing the difference between the clicks that are genuinely reflective of a viewer’s interest, or the rest of clicks that are not. For this purpose, we propose consumer curiosity and anticipation as drivers of click-through that are meaningful to digital markers. Consumer curiosity is an important variable that results in click-through behavior, digital propagation or buzz, and further stimulates consumers' consumption activities. In recent years, there are many studies to verify this theory. Online atmospherics have an impact on customer emotions, and perceptual curiosity has a moderating effect existed in the two variables (Koo & Ju, 2010). However, the research about curiosity’s mediation effect on purchase intention aroused by SNS contents is still limited. In addition, the neural research in this field is still limited. The research seeks to understand how the SNS contents affect customer’s curiosity toward the product which the content mentioned. Furthermore, to find the relationship between curiosity and the purchase intention by using neuromarketing methodology. Our goal is to discover the neural signatures of consumers’ motivational state that leads to click-through, exploration of contents, and finally digital buzz behavior. EEG and fMRI are commonly research approaches used in the neuroscience field. EEG detect electric activities in the brain waves and fMRI measures hemodynamic events to discover individuals’ cognitive and motivational states. After content-analyzing top 10 most shared posts in the fashion brands Facebook official account which included luxury brands such as GUCCI, Luis Vuitton, and Hermes), we extract the attractive posts’ content attributes to be the level of accuracy, graphic quality, and information value. Then, we create two different simulations of social media activities that instigates viewer curiosity at differing levels. By designing an online experiment that examines how different arrays of information can create different levels viewer curiosity in user posts, and by measuring viewers’ intention to propagate the posts, we are able to discover neural signatures of digital buzz. Potential implications to digital marketing of this research in establishing meaningful performance metrics for digital marketing are discussed.

Patterning and aligning are the most distinctive research areas in surface science. In this paper, we demonstrate a fabrication method for the simultaneous formation of a wall-structured surface relief and a molecular aligning region between the walls. A photoreactive polymer, poly(vinyl cinnamate) (PVCi), was used as the matrix; it was coated either onto a rigid glass substrate or a flexible plastic substrate. We used a solvent-assisted micro-molding poly(dimethylsiloxane) stamp to form 10-μm-wide and 10-μm-high walls every 100 μm on the matrix. The direction of the molecular alignment in the region between the walls was perpendicular to the direction of the walls; this finding was confirmed by the subsequent liquid crystal (LC) alignment investigation. The alignment of this wide region between the wall structures is uncommon and differs from the molecular alignment induced by the microgroove topology due to the patterning. Additionally, the application of linearly polarized ultraviolet irradiation onto the photoreactive PVCi improved the molecular alignment either on the region between the walls or on the lateral side of the walls; this finding was confirmed by polarized light microscopy imaging. The simultaneous formation of the wall support in the molecular aligning region can be used in flexible LC displays, in which the maintenance of cell gaps and the aligning of the LC material play a critical role in display performance. Open image in new window

This study has analyzed the scale, location, resource potential and feasibility of offshore wind farm scientifically and systematically based on the national wind map and GIS. For long-term wind power development, this study pursues siting strategy building, selection of target area and deciding development priority as well as the presenting a basis for assessment that are necessary for policy decision making by making theme layers under GIS environment. According to the analysis after organizing technological development by stages, even if only the most suitable sites are developed among the area of offshore wind farm candidates that can be developed under the current technological standard, it has been evaluated as being able to develop about 3 times of the wind power dissemination target until 2012. It is expected that about 5% of territorial water area can be developed in a short-term future while the southern offshore area possessing relatively favorable wind resource than the western offshore has been identified as the most feasible site. While about 23% of territorial water area has been classified as potential area for offshore wind farm development in a long-term future, even Jeju Island and offshore of Ulsan possessing excellent wind resource have been analyzed as feasible sites. The feasibility assessment of offshore wind lam development established by this study is expected to assist national strategy building for accomplishing the wind power dissemination target.

A Polymeric mirror from 1D photonic crystal exhibiting full specular reflection is applied on the exterior of the counter electrode of a dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Reflection of exiting light from the cell allows for the reuse of the light and thereby significantly increases the efficiency of the DSSCs (from 8.07% to 8.85%). Furthermore, it is also found to be effective even with incorporation of an internal scattering layer, which is widely used within a TiO₂ anode layer for enhancing light trapping in DSSCs (from 9.17% to 9.53%).

A systematic approach was followed to develop a new counter-electrode consisting of a highly reflective polymer substrate and a highly conductive polymer for use in dye-sensitized solar cells. The reflection of the incident light from the substrate allows more solar light to be harvested by the dye. We compared the photovoltaic performance of the TCO- and Pt-less counter-electrodes based on the reflective and pristine polymer substrates. The optimal DSSC composed of the TCO- and Pt-less counter-electrode exhibits a power conversion efficiency of 6.15% when measured using an AM1.5G solar simulator at 100 mW cm−2 light illumination.