Contemporary consumers are deluged by advertising. Their lack of interest and defense has challenge advertisers to motivate consumers to process ads. From the advertising literature, rhetorical devices can be attention getting, arousing, affect inducing and memorable. Specifically, the use of metaphors expends dimensional thinking and enhances ad responses. This research proposes two types of metaphors (explicit vs. implicit) and examines the effects of product type and need for cognition on metaphor advertising. The present study uses experimental design with a 3(metaphor advertising: non-metaphoric vs. explicit-metaphoric vs. implicit-metaphoric) x 2(product type: utilitarian vs. hedonic) factorial design. Need for cognition is measured. Six different scenarios are established through fictitious product ads, and the ad effects are measures by attitude toward the brand and purchase intention to observe the response under different scenarios. The results indicate that the metaphor advertising is more effective than the non-metaphor advertising, which is consistent with previous studies. There is an interaction effect between the type of metaphor and product type. The explicit metaphor is more effective than implicit metaphor in promoting an utilitarian product. On the contrary, the implicit metaphor is more effective than the explicit metaphor in promoting a hedonic product. High need of cognition enhances the effects of metaphor advertising. Compared with those who have lower level of need for cognition, the individuals who have higher level have more favorable attitudes toward the product and stronger purchase intention, especially on explicit metaphor.

Nowadays most companies are now being faced with the reality that Corporate Social Responsibility is more than merely a fad. Drawing upon CSR, HR and stakeholder related theories this research aims to substantiate empirically by exploring HR¡¦s contribution to responsible leadership within corporations with the endeavor to explore to what extent Taiwanese companies have integrated CSR practices in their Human Resource Management policies and practices. Relying on the quantitative analysis of 82 questionnaires and qualitative analysis of interviews with CSR and HR executives from 3 corporations in Taiwan, an analysis of whether HR supporting functions towards employee training and development (CSR and General), employee wellbeing, employee engagement and CSR communication to employees contributed to the success of CSR programs. Findings of this research uncovered that companies pay due attention to employee training and development, employee wellbeing as well as employee engagement. The study also helped explain the existence of implicit CSR practices in Taiwanese firms suggesting that an inside-out approach to CSR communication exists in Taiwanese firms; most firms do not engage in philanthropic activities but are more akin to ensuring that they maintain a high level of employee work-life balance. The thesis concludes that the HR has the potential to dig deeper into the company levels and structures and identifying underlying definitional issues that may prevent or facilitate the success of CSR programs.

The field of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is in a continual state of advancement due to new numerical techniques, optimization of existing codes, and the increase in memory and processing speeds of computers. In this thesis, the solution technique for a pre-existing Navier-Stokes flow solver is adapted from an explicit Runge Kutta method to a Lower-Upper Symmetric Gauss-Seidel (LU-SGS) implicit time integration method. Explicit time integration methods were originally used in CFD codes because these methods require less memory. Information needed to advance the flow in time is localized to each grid point. These explicit methods are, however, restricted by time step sizes due to stability criteria. In contrast, implicit methods are unaffected by a large time step sizes but are restricted by memory requirements due to the complexities of unstructured grids. The implementation of LU-SGS performs grid re-ordering for unstructured meshes because of the coupling of grid points in the integration method's solution. The explicit and implicit flow solvers were tested for inviscid flows in incompressible, compressible, and transoinc flow regimes. The results found by comparing the implicit and explicit algorithms revealed a significant speed up in convergence to steady state by the LU-SGS method in terms of iteration number and CPU time per iteration.

This thesis presents a prototype system for generating animation control systems for isosurface-based characters that blurs the distinction between a skeletal rig and a particle system. Managing articulation and deformation set-up can be challenging for amorphous characters whose surface shape is defined at render time and can only be viewed as an approximation during the process of defining an animation performance. This prototype system utilizes conventional scripted techniques for defining animation control systems integrated with a graphical user interface that provides art directable control over surface contour, shape and silhouette for isosurface-based characters. Once animated, these characters can be rendered using Rendermans RIBlobby implementation and provide visual feedback of fluid motion tests. The prototype system fits naturally within common practices in digital character setup and provides the animator control over isosurface-based characters.

Product placement, an advertising trend that places a brand within the context of an information medium, has emerged as an effective means of increasing brand recognition. The practice has not been thoroughly examined in the different media in which it occurs. The purpose of the present experiment was to investigate the effectiveness of prominent and subtle product placements in books on different forms of memory. The effectiveness of the placements was evaluated by measuring explicit and implicit memory for the placed brands. Additionally, effectiveness was measured with two types of preference judgments: a forced choice scenario and a shopping list scenario. Results from Experiment 1 showed that participants demonstrated implicit memory for brands mentioned in the novel with a word stem completion task and a category exemplar generation task. The centrality of placement only affected performance on these tasks for test-aware participants. Experiment 2 used a forced choice task and showed that consumer preference was unaffected by subtle and prominent placements. Experiment 3 used a shopping list scenario and showed that brand placement affected participants’ preferences for previously studied brands regardless of the placement centrality. The experiments also showed that participants had explicit memory for the brands with prominent placements leading to better recall than subtle placements. Taken together, the findings show that the placement of brands in books is a valid means of influencing consumer awareness and behavior toward the brand.

The Finite-Difference Time Domain (FDTD) method is a very useful numerical simulation technique for solving problems related to electromagnetism. However, as the traditional FDTD method is based on an explicit finite-difference algorithm, the Courant-Friedrich-Levy(CFL) stability condition must be satisfied when this method is used. Therefore, a maximum time-step size is limited by minimum cell size in a computational domain, which means that if an object of analysis has fine scale dimensions, a small time-step size creates a significant increase in calculation time. Alternating-Direction Implicit (ADI) method is based on an implicit finite-difference algorithm. Since this method is unconditionally stable, it can improve calculation time by choosing time-step arbitrarily. The ADI-FDTD is based on an Alternating direction implicit technique and the traditional FDTD algorithm. The new method can circumvent the stability constraint. In this thesis, we incorporate Lumped Element and Equivalent Current Source method into the ADI-FDTD. By using them to simulate active or passive device, the application of method will be more widely.

Consider the D-optimal designs for a combined polynomial of degree d and trigonometric of order m regression on a partial circle [see Graybill (1976), p. 324]. It is shown that the structure of the optimal design depends only on the length of the design interval and that the support points are analytic functions of this parameter. Moreover, the Taylor expansion of the optimal support points can be determined efficiently by a recursive procedure.

In this study, the focus is on predicting the subcellular localization of a protein, since subcellular localization is helpful in understanding a protein&rsquo / s functions. Function of a protein may be estimated from its sequence. Motifs or conserved subsequences are strong indicators of function. In a given sample set of protein sequences known to perform the same function, a certain subsequence or group of subsequences should be common / that is, occurrence (frequency) of common subsequences should be high. Our idea is to find the common subsequences through clustering and use these common groups (implicit motifs) to classify proteins. To calculate the distance between two subsequences, traditional string edit distance is modified so that only replacement is allowed and the cost of replacement is related to an amino acid substitution matrix. Based on the modified string edit distance, spectral clustering embeds the subsequences into some transformed space for which the clustering problem is expected to become easier to solve. For a given protein sequence, distribution of its subsequences over the clusters is the feature vector which is subsequently fed to a classifier. The most important aspect if this approach is the use of spectral clustering based on modified string edit distance.

This work is intended to compare Large Eddy Simulation and Implicit Large Eddy Simulation (LES and ILES) for a turbulent, non-reacting or reacting high speed H2 jet in co-flowing air, typical of scramjet engines. Numerical simulations are performed at resolutions ranging from 32&times / 32&times / 128 to 256&times / 256&times / 1024, using a 5th order WENO scheme. Physical LES are carried out with the Smagorinsky and the Selective Structure Function models associated to molecular diffusion. Implicit LES are performed with and without molecular diffusion, by solving either the Navier-Stokes or the Euler equations. In the nonreacting case, the Smagorinsky model is too dissipative. The Selective Structure Function leads to better results, but does not show any superiority compared to ILES, whatever the grid resolution. In the reacting case, a molecular viscous cut-off in the simulation is mandatory to set a physical width for the reaction zone in the ILES approach, hence to achieve grid-convergence. It is also found that ILES/LES are less sensitive to the inlet conditions than the RANS approach. The first chapter is an introduction to the context of this study. In the second chapter, the governing equations for multispecies reacting flows are presented, with emphasis on the thermodynamic and transport models. In the third chapter, physical LES equations and explicit sub-grid modeling strategies iv are detailed. Some properties of the numerical scheme are also investigated. In chapter four, the numerical scheme and some aspects of the solver are explained. Finally, non-reacting and reacting numerical experiments are presented and the results are discussed.

Previous research has indicated that aggression is generally detrimental to performance in the occupational domain (Campbell, 1990; James et al., 2005; Sackett, 2002; Viswesvaran et al., 1999). In certain athletic contexts, however, aggression may serve to enhance performance at the team level. For this analysis, team-level aggression is hypothesized to be positively related to team performance in basketball. Aggression in this context is defined as "the desire to inflict harm on another individual, group, or entity" (James, 2005, p.71). Both implicit (CRT-A) and explicit (NEO-PI-R) aggression were measured, and team performance was represented primarily by team scores. The data demonstrate that team-level implicit aggression is significantly and positively related to team performance, however team-level explicit aggression does not have a significant relationship with team performance.