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In the past few decades, the content-based image retrieval (CBIR), which focuses on the exploration of image feature extraction methods, has been widely investigated. The term of feature extraction is used in two cases: application-based feature expression and mathematical approaches for dimensionality reduction. Feature expression is a technique of describing the image color, texture and shape information with feature descriptors; thus, obtaining effective image features expression is the key to extracting high-level semantic information. However, most of the previous studies regarding image feature extraction and expression methods in the CBIR have not performed systematic research. This paper aims to introduce the basic image low-level feature expression techniques for color, texture and shape features that have been developed in recent years.

First, this review outlines the development process and expounds the principle of various image feature extraction methods, such as color, texture and shape feature expression. Second, some of the most commonly used image low-level expression algorithms are implemented, and the benefits and drawbacks are summarized. Third, the effectiveness of the global and local features in image retrieval, including some classical models and their illustrations provided by part of our experiment, are analyzed. Fourth, the sparse representation and similarity measurement methods are introduced, and the retrieval performance of statistical methods is evaluated and compared.

The core of this survey is to review the state of the image low-level expression methods and study the pros and cons of each method, their applicable occasions and certain implementation measures. This review notes that image peculiarities of single-feature descriptions may lead to unsatisfactory image retrieval capabilities, which have significant singularity and considerable limitations and challenges in the CBIR.

A comprehensive review of the latest developments in image retrieval using low-level feature expression techniques is provided in this paper. This review not only introduces the major approaches for image low-level feature expression but also supplies a pertinent reference for those engaging in research regarding image feature extraction.

Although service researchers have long suggested that customer mistreatment adversely impacts service employees' outcomes, statistical integration of current empirical findings has been lacking. This meta-analysis aims to review and statistically synthesize the state of research on the relationship between customer mistreatment and service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.

The authors included 221 effect sizes of 135 independent samples from 119 primary studies (N = 47,964). The authors used a meta-analytic approach to quantitatively review the relationship between customer mistreatment and service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Meta-analysis structural equation modeling was used to explore the mediation mechanism of service employees' affective outcomes on the relationships between customer mistreatment and employees' attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Meta-regression was applied to explore the impact of contextual-level moderators (i.e. service provider type and service delivery mode) on these relationships. Furthermore, we compared the effects of customer mistreatment with the effects of other organizational-related factors on some commonly measured employee outcomes.

The results show that customer mistreatment has a significant negative impact on service employees' affective outcomes (i.e. negative emotions), attitudinal outcomes (i.e. job satisfaction, organizational commitment, work engagement and turnover intention) and behavioral outcomes (i.e. job performance, surface acting and emotional labor). Additionally, service employees' negative emotions mediate the association between customer mistreatment and employees' job satisfaction, turnover intention, surface acting and emotional labor. Furthermore, the relationships between customer mistreatment and service employees' negative emotions and job performance are influenced by a contextual-level moderator (i.e. service delivery mode).

The authors contribute to the literature by providing robust meta-analytic estimates of the effects of customer mistreatment on a variety of service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, as well as the different magnitudes of the effect sizes between customer mistreatment and other job-related and personality-related factors by quantifying the true variability of the effect sizes. The authors draw on current theories underpinning customer mistreatment to test a theoretical model of the mediation mechanism of service employees' affective outcomes (i.e. service employees' negative emotions) on the relationships between customer mistreatment and employees' attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. The authors explore the effects of two contextual-level factors (i.e. service provider types and service delivery mode) related to the service delivery context that may account for the variability of effect sizes across empirical studies.

This study investigated the potential negative effects of a sponsored team's losing performance on audiences' trust and purchase intention toward the sponsoring brand. Shedding light on the moderating role of sponsoring brand familiarity among audiences and audience team identification regarding such negative effects, the study establishes when sports sponsorship may incur risk to a sponsoring brand.

Three experimental designs (audience as stimulus of a team's losing vs control condition) were used to indicate whether and when losing performance influences participants' trust and purchase intention toward the sponsoring brand.

The participants in the losing condition report lower brand trust and purchase intention. Brand trust mediates the relationship between losing results and decreased purchase intention. The negative effects of losing on brand trust and purchase intention only appear when the sponsoring brand has low familiarity among audiences and only for audiences with low identification.

The strategy of a brand with low familiarity sponsoring a team that frequently loses has risks and is not worth advocating. However, if an unknown brand has already sponsored a team that often loses, the efforts to cultivate audiences' identification with the team can reduce the potential risks.

The affirmed negative effects of losing performance on brand trust and purchase intention have value for firm sponsorship decisions. This study contributes to the sponsorship literature by revealing two boundary conditions (sponsoring brand familiarity and audiences' team identification) for those negative effects.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a possible negative spillover effect in sports sponsorship to answer whether the sponsored team’s poor performance will have a negative effect on audiences’ trust in its sponsor’s brand. The authors further analysed whether the audience’s attitude towards the team plays a mediating role and whether the audience’s personality type (active vs passive) plays a moderating role in this negative spillover effect.

Three experimental studies were conducted with 380 Chinese undergraduates and MBA student participants over two years. The authors designed the experiment as a computer-mediated intervention in which good, poor and neutral performance groups were compared. After the respondents were exposed to the intervention, we asked them to answer questions using a computer terminal. We analysed the data from the three experiments through analysis of variance (ANOVA), regression analysis and a bootstrap.

The audiences who were exposed to a team’s poor performance condition reported less trust in the sponsor’s brand relative to those exposed to a good performance condition, and the brand trust was even lower than for those who were exposed to a control condition (no performance information). Further, the audience’s negative attitude towards the sports team mediated the negative effect of the team’s poor performance on its sponsor’s brand trust. The negative effect was more obvious for individuals with Type A personalities (active) than for those with Type B personalities (passive).

The prior literature has neglected a possible negative effect of a sports team’s performance on its sponsor’s brand trust. In particular, questions of whether, how and when this negative effect occurs are critical for sponsors, teams, and audiences. Since sports team sponsorship is burgeoning in China, the negative implications are unclear in this new context. Thus, the revelation that the negative spillover effects of a team’s poor performance on audiences’ trust in the sponsor’s brand provides two original contributions. First, the negative effect reveals value for multiple sponsorship stakeholders. Second, the Chinese context in this study adds value for future research and practice regarding both Chinese-foreign and domestic Chinese decisions.

The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of proactivity on work–family enrichment through thriving at work and the moderation of such mediation by immediate supervisor perspective-taking.

Research data consisting of two-wave lagged data (N = 470) were collected from 470 employees of 17 domestic Chinese firms to examine the proposed moderated mediation model.

The findings show that proactivity was positively related to work–family enrichment and that thriving at work partially mediated this relationship. Immediate supervisor perspective-taking strengthens the effect of proactivity on thriving at work, and a positive indirect relationship exists between proactivity and work–family enrichment through thriving at work when immediate supervisor perspective-taking is high.

Organizations should formulate policies to motivate employees to engage in proactive behavior and stimulate employees' thriving at work. Organizations should also select leaders who are good at perspective-taking and provide training to leaders to help them take others' perspectives.

These results deepen our theoretical understanding of the consequences of proactivity by demonstrating the positive associations between proactive behavior and work–family enrichment. The current study also contributes to the literature by identifying the mediating mechanism of thriving at work to explain the relationship between proactivity and work–family enrichment. Furthermore, the results show that supervisor perspective-taking moderates the above mediation.

The user churn (UC) of rural public digital cultural services (RPDCS) indicates that rural users no longer use RPDCS or have switched to other services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors influencing RPDCS's UC and to contribute toward bridging the rural digital divide.

Based on the stimulus-organism-response theory, this study proposes a theoretical framework to investigate the factors influencing RPDCS's user churn. A total of 120 RPDCS users were initially recruited and 90 representative participants were chosen. Data were collected from the 90 respondents and 20 follow-up interviews. To examine the proposed framework and validate the correlations between these factors and UC, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression analysis were used. In addition, recommendations are made to avoid the UC of RPDCS to bridge the rural digital divide.

The results indicate that the UC of RPDCS was stimulated by both physical and ability divides and RPDCS ineffectiveness, resulting in increased churn rates and an exacerbated digital divide. Thus, avoiding the UC of RPDCS is an important way to bridge the rural digital divide, which includes both the physical and ability divides.

This study adds new knowledge about RPDCS and distinguishes it from previous research on public digital cultural services. In addition, the authors discuss how to avoid the UC of RPDCS, to bridge the rural digital divide.

The success of online health communities (OHCs) depends on maintaining long-term relationships with physicians and preventing churn. Even so, the reasons for physician churn are poorly understood. In this study, an empirical model was proposed from a social influence perspective to explore the effects of online social influence and offline social influence on physician churn, as well as the moderating effect of their online returns.

The empirical data of 4,145 physicians from a Chinese OHC, and probit regression models were employed to verify the proposed theoretical model.

The results suggest that physicians' churn intention is influenced by online and offline social influences, and the offline social influence is more powerful. Physicians' reputational and economic returns could weaken the effect of online social influence on churn intention. However, physicians' economic returns could strengthen the effect of offline social influence on churn intention.

This research study is the first attempt to explore physician churn and divides the social influence into online and offline social influences according to the source of social relationship. The findings contribute to the literature on e-Health, user churn and social influence and provide management implications for OHC managers.