Privacy-Preserving Video Conferencing via Thermal-Generative Images (preprint)

Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, video conferencing has evolved as a new paradigm of communication and teamwork. However, private and personal information can be easily leaked through cameras during video conferencing. This includes leakage of a person's appearance as well as the contents in the background. This paper proposes a novel way of using online low-resolution thermal images as conditions to guide the synthesis of RGB images, bringing a promising solution for real-time video conferencing when privacy leakage is a concern. SPADE-SR (Spatially-Adaptive De-normalization with Self Resampling), a variant of SPADE, is adopted to incorporate the spatial property of a thermal heatmap and the non-thermal property of a normal, privacy-free pre-recorded RGB image provided in a form of latent code. We create a PAIR-LRT-Human (LRT = Low-Resolution Thermal) dataset to validate our claims. The result enables a convenient way of video conferencing where users no longer need to groom themselves and tidy up backgrounds for a short meeting. Additionally, it allows a user to switch to a different appearance and background during a conference.

THE EFFECT OF BRAND AWARENESS ON CONSUMERS' REPURCHASE INTENTION - A STUDY OF STREAMING MEDIA

[...]few researchers systematically integrate five variables: brand awareness, engagement, customer satisfaction, brand loyalty, and repurchase intention as the framework for the overall study. The brand can raise brand awareness through effective media channels such as advertising, television, and mobile phones, which can help ensure product quality and prestige, reducing the risk of purchasing low-quality products (Sasmita & Suki, 2015;Dab-bous & Barakat, 2020). Researchers identified factors that may influence brand loyalty: brand attachment, brand love, brand connection, brand identity, and brand trust (Park et al., 2010;Atul-kar, 2020) and brand name, brand awareness, product and service quality, and pricing are also affected to brand loyalty (Lau et al., 2006;Foroudi, 2019). Creating stable relationships with customers and encouraging their lifetime loyalty is essential for establishing brand loyalty among customers with their comprehensive understanding and trust of the brand name, brand awareness, product, price, and service quality (Seines, 1998;Malik et al., 2013;Rather & Camilleri, 2019).