Extending the Risk Perception Attitude Framework to Predict Individuals' Engagement in Collective Actions Against Cancer.

To identify the psychosocial determinants of individuals' intention to engage in collective actions against cancer, we extended and tested the risk perception attitude (RPA) framework at the level of social perceptions. The results of a large online survey of Hong Kong citizens (N = 1,005) revealed that perceived societal risk and perceived collective efficacy directly and jointly influenced respondents' intention to engage in collective actions against cancer, namely donating to cancer charities, volunteering at cancer-prevention organizations, and supporting public policies for cancer prevention. However, the interaction between perceived societal risk and perceived collective efficacy occurred in a direction opposite to the direction in the initial RPA framework. As suggested by the framework, we also categorized individuals into four attitudinal groups based on their perceptions of societal-level risk as well as efficacy and compared their demographic and psychological characteristics. Among the findings, the four groups significantly differed in their perceptions of individual-level risk as well as efficacy, in their family cancer history, and in their intentions to engage in individual-level behaviors to prevent cancer. Altogether, our findings contribute to the literature by extending the RPA framework to individuals' societal-level perceptions and by providing evidence that the framework can benefit the development of health communication campaigns to promote engagement in collective actions to support cancer prevention.

Can Press Freedom Enhance the Effect of News Exposure on COVID-19 Health Beliefs? A Health Belief Model Perspective.

News media can influence citizens' health beliefs about COVID-19 and eventually their vaccination intention. However, existing literature has rarely investigated how such effect is contingent upon a country-level factor: press freedom. Situated in the Health Belief Model, this study draws upon a multi-national survey (N = 3,599), involving 10 major cities in Asia to address the research gap. Results showed that news exposure has a positive effect on personal health beliefs on COVID-19, affecting their vaccination intention. More interestingly, the relationship between news exposure and personal health beliefs about COVID-19 was negatively moderated by level of press freedom - that is, the relationship between news exposure and personal health beliefs is stronger in cities that belong to countries with low levels of press freedom.

Promoting Favorable Attitudes Toward Seeking Counseling Among People With Depressive Symptomatology: A Masspersonal Communication Approach.

The Internet widely display interactions between various parties, calling for research to understand how message- and source-related factors in these easily observed interactions influence observers' attitudes in health contexts. From a masspersonal communication perspective, we investigated how reading a conversation about seeking counseling between two members of an online support group affects individuals' attitudes toward counseling-seeking behavior. In the conversation, one group member asked for advice about depressive symptoms, and in our online experiment with adults living in the United States (N = 250), we manipulated the responding source's expert status and framing of the message that recommended seeking counseling. Guided by an overarching theoretical framework-dual-process theory of supportive communication outcomes, we found a significant three-way interaction among severity of depressive symptomatology (low vs. high), message framing (gain vs. loss), and source expertise (peer vs. peer counselor vs. professional counselor). When a peer counselor provided the message, loss framing reduced self-stigma toward seeking counseling to a greater degree than gain framing and, in turn, induced more favorable attitudes toward the behavior among people with a high severity of depressive symptomatology. Those findings provide theoretical insights into the masspersonal communication approach to health promotion and inform promising communication strategies to promote counseling-seeking behavior among people with depressive symptomatology.

The Digital Divide and Seeking Health Information on Smartphones in Asia: Survey Study of Ten Countries.

BACKGROUND: Although recent developments in mobile health have elevated the importance of how smartphones empower individuals to seek health information, research investigating this phenomenon in Asian countries has been rare. OBJECTIVE: The goal of our study was to provide a comprehensive profile of mobile health information seekers and to examine the individual- and country-level digital divide in Asia. METHODS: With survey data from 10 Asian countries (N=9086), we ran multilevel regression models to assess the effect of sociodemographic factors, technological factors, and country-level disparities on using smartphones to seek health information. RESULTS: Respondents who were women (ß=.13, P<.001), parents (ß=.16, P<.001), employed (ß=.08, P=.002), of higher social status (ß=.08, P<.001), and/or from countries with low health expenditures (ß=.19, P=.02) were more likely to use smartphones to seek health information. In terms of technological factors, technology innovativeness (ß=.10, P<.001) and frequency of smartphone use (ß=.42, P<.001) were important factors of health information seeking, whereas the effect of online information quality was marginal (ß=-.04, P<.001). CONCLUSIONS: Among smartphone users in Asia, health information seeking varies according to individuals' socioeconomic status, their innovativeness toward technology, and their frequency of smartphone use. Although smartphones widen the digital divide among individuals with different socioeconomic status, they also bridge the divide between countries with varying health expenditures. Smartphones appear to be a particularly useful complement to manage health in developing countries.

Layer thickness influenced irradiation effects of proton beam on MoS2 field effect transistors.

We investigated the influence of the flake thickness for molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) field effect transistors on the effect of a 150 keV high-energy proton beam applied on these devices. The electrical characteristics of the devices with channel thicknesses ranging from monolayer to bulk were measured before and after proton irradiation with a proton fluence of 5 × 1014 cm-2. The subthreshold swing (SS), threshold voltage shift and electron mobility were extracted with the Y-function method after proton irradiation and significant degradation were observed. It is found that, with the increase of layer thickness, mobility degradation and threshold voltage shift both eased, but the SS degradation was insensitive to the MoS2 flake thickness increase. We also demonstrate that the threshold voltage shift is dominated by oxide charges; however, the mobility and SS degradations are mainly affected by the interface traps. Our study will enhance the understanding of the influence of high-energy particles on MoS2-based nano-electronic devices. By increasing the MoS2 flake thickness to a certain extent, one can hopefully find a balance between effectively resisting [Formula: see text] shift and achieving high mobility and small SS degradation.

Reducing metal/graphene contact resistance via N, N-dimethylacetamide-assisted clean fabrication process.

Contact resistance (RC) is of great importance for radio frequency (RF) applications of graphene, especially graphene field effect transistors (FETs) with short channel. FETs and transmission line model test structures based on chemical vapor deposition grown graphene are fabricated. The effects of employing traditional lithography solvent (Acetone) and strong solvents for photo resist, such as N, N-Dimethylacetamide (ZDMAC) and N-Methyl pyrrolidone (NMP), are systematically investigated. It was found that ZDMAC and NMP have more proficiency than acetone to remove the photo-resist residues and contaminations attached on graphene surface, enabling clean surface of graphene. However, strong solvents are found to destroy the lattice structure of graphene channel and induce defects in graphene lattice. Clean surface contributes to a significant reduction in theRCbetween graphene channel and metal electrode, and the defects introduced on graphene surface underneath metal electrodes also contribute the reduction ofRC. But defects and deformation of lattice will increase the resistance in graphene channel and lead to the compromise of device performance. To address this problem, a mix wet-chemical approach employing both acetone and ZDMAC was developed in our study to realize a 19.07% reduction ofRC, without an unacceptable mass production of defects.

Stable p-type chemical doping of graphene with reduced contact resistance by single-layer perfluorinated polymeric sulfonic acid.

Recently, graphene has led to unprecedented progress in device performance at the atom limit. A high performance of field-effect transistors requires a low graphene-metal contact resistance. However, the chemical doping methods used to tailor or improve the properties of graphene are sensitive to ambient conditions. Here, we fabricate a single-layer perfluorinated polymeric sulfonic acid (PFSA), also known as Nafion, between the graphene and the substrate as a p-type dopant. The PFSA doping method, without inducing any additional structural defects, reduces the contact resistance of graphene by ∼28.8%, which has a significant impact on practical applications. This reduction can be maintained for at least 67 days due to the extreme stability of PFSA. Effective, uniform and stable, the PFSA doping method provides an efficient way to reduce the contact resistance of graphene applications.

Online Health Information Seeking: A Review and Meta-Analysis.

Online health information, as an emerging field in health communication research, has attracted close attention from researchers. To identify major determinants of why individuals seek health information online, we conducted a meta-analysis that systematically accumulates the existing research findings. To that end, by integrating three theories or models for examining information-seeking behavior, we developed a theoretical framework for the current meta-analysis that emphasizing psychosocial, instrumental, contextual, and demographic factors. By analyzing the effect sizes from 44 articles representing 54 empirical samples, we found that the quality, trustworthiness, and utility of online health information were the dominant predictors of seeking it and that instrumental factors were more important than psychological ones in determining whether individuals did so. Moreover, the development of information and communication technology, the sampling method, and the type of information sought significantly moderated pairwise relationships between determinants and seeking behavior, whereas culture did not. Herein, we discuss the theoretical implications of our findings as well as directions for future research.

Integrating Risk Perception Attitude Framework and the Theory of Planned Behavior to Predict Mental Health Promotion Behaviors among Young Adults.

Mental disorder is a pressing public health issue in Singapore, especially among young adults. By integrating the risk perception attitude (RPA) framework and the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study examines psychosocial factors underlying two mental health promotion behaviors - seeking counseling and employing self-help methods - among young Singaporeans. The results of an online survey (n = 232) showed that, as predicted by RPA framework, perceived risk interacted with self-efficacy to affect behavioral intention to seek counseling. However, this interaction existed only among individuals with favorable attitudes toward counseling-seeking behavior and not among those with unfavorable attitudes. In addition, the interaction between perceived risk and self-efficacy was not significant for the intention to perform self-help methods. The current findings demonstrated that the nature of focal behavior and attitudes are boundary conditions of the interaction effect between perceived risk and efficacy, which is the core premise of the RPA framework. These findings offer practical implications for developing campaign strategies to promote mental well-being among young adults in Singapore.

A uniform stable P-type graphene doping method with a gold etching process.

Graphene is one of the materials with the most potential for post-silicon electronics because of its outstanding electrical, optical, and mechanical properties. However, the lack of a uniform stable doping method extremely limits the various possible applications of graphene. Here, we developed a uniform and stable graphene efficient p-doping method. Through etching a thin gold film on graphene with a KI/I2 solution, iodine complexes are produced as the dopant absorbing on the graphene surface, and induce extra holes in graphene. Utilizing this method, the graphene film can be effectively doped to p-type without producing undesirable defects, and the roughness of the graphene surface can still be maintained at an ultra-low nanoscale (RMS roughness ∼0.739 nm). The doping effectiveness can be clearly verified by the changes in the Raman spectrum, and the Dirac point shift of the graphene-based transistor, and the reduction of sheet resistance (∼27.2%). Furthermore, the substantially coincident transfer curves after 45 days reveal the long-term stable doping effects. Therefore, this doping method can exploit a way for various graphene-based applications, such as phototransistors, sensors, and organic thin-film transistors.

Development of a Multidimensional Attitude Scale for Organ Donation Research: An Example from China.

This research refined the notion of attitude based on the reasoned action perspective of organ donation research at both the conceptual and the operational levels in the Chinese context. In Study 1, a multidimensional attitude scale was developed based on the salient beliefs of the Chinese toward registering to become an organ donor, and the scale's reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity were established. The results of Study 1 indicated that the attitudes toward registering to become an organ donor consisted of two statistically independent dimensions, namely, positive and negative attitudes. In Study 2, the predictive validity of the multidimensional attitude scale was confirmed, and the results indicated that negative attitudes, positive attitudes, and subjective norms significantly impacted behavioral intention, which, in turn, predicted organ donor registration behavior.

Social Support Seeking on Social Media Among Chinese Gay Men Living with HIV/AIDS: The Role of Perceived Threat.

Background: Due to a double stigma against HIV/AIDS and homosexuality, gay men living with HIV/AIDS (GMLHA) have used social media to exchange social support. The current study aims to examine the influence of perceived threat on seeking social support on social media among Chinese GMLHA. Methods: First, Weibo posts from 133 GMLHA were content analyzed to identify the perceived severity of HIV infection and perceived severity of stigma, as well as their social support seeking on Weibo. Then, a 2 × 2 (perceived severity of HIV infection [present, absent] × perceived severity of stigma [present, absent]) between-subject multivariate analysis of variance with social support seeking as the dependent variable was performed. Results: Perceived severity of HIV infection and perceived severity of stigma had main effects on different kinds of social support seeking. Moreover, GMLHA who expressed both perceived severity of HIV infection and perceived severity of stigma on Weibo posted the greatest number of emotional support-seeking messages. Conclusions: This study revealed that perceived threat was one of the motivations of GMLHA to seek online social support.

Offspring Caregivers of Chinese Women with Breast Cancer: Their Social Support Requests and Provision on Social Media.

Background:Although a number of studies have examined social support needs among women with breast cancer, little attention has been paid to the burden and needs for social support among their family caregivers, who often report mental and physical problems associated with caregiving.Objective:This study aims to examine the role of social media in providing social support for offspring caregivers of breast cancer patients.Methods:A peer support group, "Having a breast cancer patient in my family," was created on Douban (www.douban.com), one of China's most popular social media sites, to provide social support to family caregivers of women with breast cancer. We analyzed the content of 784 messages in the discussion threads where the latest update fell between January 2017 and July 2017.Results:The results revealed that the majority of messages (n = 690, 88.0%) provided or requested social support, and more than 64.5% of these messages (n = 445) were posted by caregivers who were offspring of the cancer patients. The results also suggested that these caregivers requested and provided informational support more frequently than they did emotional and instrumental support.Conclusions:This study suggests that social media could be a plausible platform for offspring caregivers of breast cancer patients to share caregiving experiences, access informational resources for their care recipients, gain knowledge about breast cancer prevention, and obtain emotional encouragement. Theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed.

The Use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) in Health Communication Campaigns: Review and Recommendations.

The past decade has witnessed a rapid increase in the use of Social Networking Sites (SNSs) in health communication campaigns seeking to achieve an ambitious range of health-related impacts. This article provides a review of 40 studies and research protocols, with a focus on two key factors that differentiate SNSs from more traditional health communication approaches of the past. The first is the potential dualism between message sender and receiver, in which receivers become receiver-sources who forward and amplify the content and reach of health messages. The second is the potential dualism between message and message impact, in which the act of forwarding and modifying messages by receiver-sources itself becomes a measure of message impact. Each of these dualisms has implications for the design and evaluation of contemporary health communication campaigns. The review concludes with a series of observations and recommendations for future health communication research.

Identifying Opinion Leaders to Promote Organ Donation on Social Media: Network Study.

BACKGROUND: In the recent years, social networking sites (SNSs, also called social media) have been adopted in organ donation campaigns, and recruiting opinion leaders for such campaigns has been found effective in promoting behavioral changes. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper was to focus on the dissemination of organ donation tweets on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, and to examine the opinion leadership in the retweet network of popular organ donation messages using social network analysis. It also aimed to investigate how personal and social attributes contribute to a user's opinion leadership on the topic of organ donation. METHODS: All messages about organ donation posted on Weibo from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015 were extracted using Python Web crawler. A retweet network with 505,047 nodes and 545,312 edges of the popular messages (n=206) was constructed and analyzed. The local and global opinion leaderships were measured using network metrics, and the roles of personal attributes, professional knowledge, and social positions in obtaining the opinion leadership were examined using general linear model. RESULTS: The findings revealed that personal attributes, professional knowledge, and social positions predicted individual's local opinion leadership in the retweet network of popular organ donation messages. Alternatively, personal attributes and social positions, but not professional knowledge, were significantly associated with global opinion leadership. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study indicate that health campaign designers may recruit peer leaders in SNS organ donation promotions to facilitate information sharing among the target audience. Users who are unverified, active, well connected, and experienced with information and communications technology (ICT) will accelerate the sharing of organ donation messages in the global environment. Medical professionals such as organ transplant surgeons who can wield a great amount of influence on their direct connections could also effectively participate in promoting organ donation on social media.

Understanding interactions in virtual HIV communities: a social network analysis approach.

This study investigated the driving mechanism of building interaction ties among the people living with HIV/AIDS in one of the largest virtual HIV communities in China using social network analysis. Specifically, we explained the probability of forming interaction ties with homophily and popularity characteristics. The exponential random graph modeling results showed that members in this community tend to form homophilous ties in terms of shared location and interests. Moreover, we found a tendency away from popularity effect. This suggests that in this community, resources and information were not disproportionally received by a few of members, which could be beneficial to the overall community.

The effects of fear appeal message repetition on perceived threat, perceived efficacy, and behavioral intention in the extended parallel process model.

This study examined the effect of moderately repeated exposure (three times) to a fear appeal message on the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM) variables of threat, efficacy, and behavioral intentions for the recommended behaviors in the message, as well as the proportions of systematic and message-related thoughts generated after each message exposure. The results showed that after repeated exposure to a fear appeal message about preventing melanoma, perceived threat in terms of susceptibility and perceived efficacy in terms of response efficacy significantly increased. The behavioral intentions of all recommended behaviors did not change after repeated exposure to the message. However, after the second exposure the proportions of both systematic and all message-related thoughts (relative to total thoughts) significantly decreased while the proportion of heuristic thoughts significantly increased, and this pattern held after the third exposure. The findings demonstrated that the predictions in the EPPM are likely to be operative after three exposures to a persuasive message.

Social support exchanges in a social media community for people living with HIV/AIDS in China.

In recent years, social media has become an important source of social support. People living with HIV/AIDS in China created an online support group (the HIV/AIDS Weibo Group) on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, in January 2011. The current study examined how social support transmitted in this social media community. First, messages over five successive weeks (2 May 2011 to 13 June 2011) were randomly selected from the HIV/AIDS Weibo Group on Weibo. Next, we employed social network analysis to map the HIV/AIDS Weibo Group's structure and to measure the study variables. After that, a multivariate analysis of variance was applied to examine the influence of frequency of contact and reciprocity on informational and emotional social support exchanged in each dyad. The results revealed that pairs with a high level of contact frequency or reciprocity exchanged more informational support than do pairs with a low level of contact frequency or reciprocity. Moreover, dyadic partners with high frequency of contact exchanged a larger amount of emotional support than those with a low level frequency of contact; but strongly reciprocal dyads did not exchange significantly more emotional social support than their counterparts with a low level of reciprocity.

A more reliable measurement method for metal/graphene contact resistance.

The contact resistance of metal/graphene is becoming a major limiting factor for graphene devices. Among various kinds of contact resistance test methods, the transmission line model is the most common approach to extract contact resistance in graphene devices. However, experiments show that in some cases there exists large inaccuracy and instability using this method. In this study, we added a cross-bridge structure at the terminal of the transmission line as a supporting test. This modified transmission line measurement structure can easily compare not only the transmission line and Kelvin contact resistance, getting a more reliable value, but also the other contact-related parameters, such as specific contact resistivity, transfer length and the graphene sheet resistance under and outside contact metal at the same time. The new measurement test is very helpful in enabling us to study the contact property accurately. The specific contact resistivity in our experiment is in the range of 2.0 × 10(-6) Ω · cm(2) and 3.0 × 10(-6) Ω · cm(2) at room temperature. With the temperature decreasing from 290 K to 60 K, the transfer length fluctuates around 1.7 µm, and the specific contact resistivity reduces to less than 2.0 × 10(-6) Ω · cm(2).

Physiological and transcriptomic response of dinoflagellate Gymnodinium catenatum to nitrate deficiency.

The paralytic shellfish toxin producing dinoflagellate Gymnodinium catenatum is a globally distributed species and often forms massive blooms. However, the physiological and molecular responses of G. catenatum to nitrate starvation have not been thoroughly investigated. Our results showed that multiple forms of N could be utilized by G. catenatum under nitrate-deficient conditions. Nitrate deficiency adversely affected the growth, cellular Chlorophyll a (Chl a) content, and toxin production of G. catenatum. Transcriptomic analysis revealed significant down-regulation of gene expressions involved in the light reaction of photosynthesis, while genes related to fatty acids synthesis and antioxidation were significantly upregulated in the N-depleted cultures. Our results suggested that excess carbon was channeled into lipid synthesis for energy storage, and antioxidant reactions were upregulated to eliminate toxic peroxides caused by nitrate limitation. These findings highlight the adaptative strategy of G. catenatum in low-nitrate environments, which are crucial factors driving its bloom formation.