Although estrogen is recognized as essential for embryonic development and maintenance of pregnancy, it remains unclear whether it has a direct role in the embryos themselves. The aim of this study was to investigate whether estrogen can have any effect in pig embryos during preimplantation development. Since the function of estrogen is mediated through its specific receptor, estrogen receptor (ER), the presence of ER mRNA and protein in pig embryos collected in vivo at different stages of preimplantation development was determined and compared. Using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, ER RNA was detected at the one-cell, two-cell, and four-cell stages. The level became undetectable at the five- to eight-cell stages and the morula stages and then reappeared again at the blastocyst stage. To determine whether the ER message observed in the embryos was translated into ER protein, immunocytochemical analysis was performed and the presence of ER protein was detected in oocytes at one-cell and four-cell stages. However, the amount of ER protein in porcine embryos at the blastocyst stage was still below the detection limit. The presence of ER mRNA at the blastocyst stages suggests that estrogen may start to act directly on pig embryos afterwards, and our results provide a basis for determining the direct role of estrogen in preimplantation pig embryos.

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Due to the rapidly growth of social media, potential moviegoers always depend on the online reviews to make their purchase decisions. Film companies need to know what aspects of reviews will drive sales up or down. This study proposes a framework which integrates an aspect-based sentiment analysis and econometric modeling to explore the relationships between the information features in online reviews and movie ticket sales. The empirical results indicate that whereas the rating does not matter to moviegoers and does not affect movie revenues, additional textual review, both positive and negative contents, does have a positive impact on moviegoers, and further prompts the movie revenues. These findings have significant implications for movie producers as well as advertisers to target promotions at their audience accordingly.

Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) is one of the most influential forms of information and strongly affects customers' willingness to adopt new innovations. Using four metrics of eWOM from YouTube—the numbers of likes, dislikes, views, and comments—this study empirically investigates the dynamic relationships between eWOM and movie box office sales based on innovation diffusion theory. The results show that the innovation diffusion process is applicable in the movie industry. That is, the impacts of the number of views, likes, dislikes, and comments for movie trailers on YouTube on movie box office revenue are first increasing and then gradually decreasing.

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