Social Determinants of Health and Patients' Technology Acceptance of Telehealth During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Pilot Survey.

BACKGROUND: Telehealth has been widely adopted by patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many social determinants of health influence the adoption. OBJECTIVE: This pilot study aimed to understand the social determinants of patients' adoption of telehealth in the context of the pandemic. METHODS: A survey methodology was used to capture data from 215 participants using Amazon Mechanical Turk. The study was guided by the technology acceptance model and the social determinants of health framework. The questionnaire included technology acceptance model variables (eg, perceived usefulness [PU] and perceived ease of use [PEOU]), social determinants (eg, access to health care, socioeconomic status, education, and health literacy), and demographic information (eg, age, sex, race, and ethnicity). A series of ordinary least squares regressions were conducted to analyze the data using SPSS Statistics (IBM Corp). RESULTS: The results showed that social determinant factors-safe neighborhood and built environment (P=.01) and economic stability (P=.05)-are predictors of the PEOU of telehealth adoption at a statistically significant or marginally statistically significant level. Furthermore, a moderated mediation model (PROCESS model 85) was used to analyze the effects of COVID-19 on the neighborhood, built environment, and economic stability. PEOU and PU significantly positively affected users' intention to use technology for both variables. CONCLUSIONS: This study draws attention to 2 research frameworks that address unequal access to health technologies. It also adds empirical evidence to telehealth research on the adoption of patient technology. Finally, regarding practical implications, this study will provide government agencies, health care organizations, and health care companies with a better perspective of patients' digital health use. This will further guide them in designing better technology by considering factors such as social determinants of health.

Virtual reality adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic: A uses and gratifications perspective.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted all aspects of people's lives, including how we work, play, learn, exercise, and socialize. Virtual reality (VR) technology has the potential to mitigate many of the challenges brought about by the pandemic, which has spurred increased adoption. However, relatively low adoption overall and limited software still restrict the power of VR to address COVID-19 difficulties effectively. This study examines how the perceived impacts of COVID-19 might lead to different VR uses and gratifications and device ownership / variability. Furthermore, we investigate the importance of social interactivity within VR for increasing adoption intentions. We surveyed 298 Amazon Mechanical Turk users during the Fall of 2020. Results indicate that the pandemic's perceived impacts influenced the likelihood of acquiring VR for education, tourism, and work. For VR ownership and variability, those who purchased VR during the pandemic were more likely to report buying it for work. Those with access to high-end VR hardware were more likely to report a broader range of uses, including socializing, health, and telemedicine. Validating the importance of various applications during the pandemic, we found that the desire for social interactivity mediates the impacts of COVID-19 on future adoption intentions. Theoretically, we propose several gratifications sought via the use of VR during the pandemic. Practically, we discuss recommendations for future VR research, marketing, and software design.

Feasibility of a Computer Role-Playing Game to Promote Empathy in Nursing Students: The Role of Immersiveness and Perspective.

Empathy is considered a cornerstone of high-quality health care and a required element of nursing education. Although computer role-playing games (CRPGs) are a promising tool to promote clinical empathy, little is known about how and why it is effective at improving empathy. The goal of the current study is to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of a CRPG on nursing students' empathy with a focus on immersiveness and perspective. Results from a 2 × 2 (virtual reality [VR] vs. non-VR × patient's family's perspective vs. health care provider's perspective) between-subjects experiment (N = 69) showed that playing the game in VR (vs. non-VR) led to greater spatial presence and empathy. Moreover, playing from the health care provider's (vs. patient's family's) perspective elicited greater empathy. A moderated mediation effect was found, suggesting that users' attention allocation significantly mediated the effect of immersiveness on empathy in the patient's family's perspective condition. These findings show the feasibility of using a role-playing game for nursing education. Both theoretical and practical implications involving empathy training were discussed, along with suggestions for further research.

Acute Treatment of Migraine: What has Changed in Pharmacotherapies?

BACKGROUND: Migraine is the most prevalent neurological disorder and the leading cause of disability in individuals under 50 years of age. Two types of migraine therapies have been defined: acute therapy (abortive or symptomatic treatment), the purpose of which is to interrupt migraine attacks, and preventive treatment (prophylactic treatment), the purpose of which is to reduce the frequency and severity of migraine attacks. OBJECTIVE: This paper reviews research advances in new agents for acute therapy of migraine. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This review provides an overview of emerging new drugs for acute treatment of migraine based on clinical evidence and summarizes the milestones of different stages of clinical development. RESULTS: Two new formulations of sumatriptan, DFN-11 (3 mg doses of subcutaneous sumatriptan) and DFN-02 (a nasal spray of sumatriptan 10 mg and a permeation-enhancing excipient), have been developed, and both of them showed a fast-onset action with efficacy for acute treatment of migraine with fewer adverse events. New drug discovery programs shifted the focus to the development of ditans, a group of antimigraine drugs targeting 5-HT1F receptors. Only lasmiditan has progressed to phase III clinical trials and was finally approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for acute migraine treatment. The other target for acute therapy is CGRP receptor antagonists, namely, gepants. Ubrogepant and rimegepant demonstrated statistically significant efficacy, and both were recently approved by the FDA. These 5-HT1F receptor agonists and CGRP receptor antagonists did not cause vasoconstriction, offering advantages over the current mainstay of specific acute migraine treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, these new agents have expanded the available acute therapies for migraine treatment and will likely change the strategy with which we treat patients with migraine in the future.

To Believe or Not to Believe: Framing Analysis of Content and Audience Response of Top 10 Deepfake Videos on YouTube.

This study explores popular deepfake media content and audience response in an effort to gain better understanding of the potential social and psychological impacts of deepfakes. A content analysis of the top 10 YouTube deepfake videos and their audience comments (n = 2,689) was conducted to investigate the degree to which media meta-frame influenced audience response. The results suggested that media meta-frame, the type of video (deepfake videos with commentaries or original deepfake videos), and the number of dislikes on the video had considerable influence on audience response (attitudes and perceived realism), while the majority of the audience expressed neutral or irrelevant attitudes. Our exploratory observation revealed a dynamic interplay of how deepfake was presented and how others react to it might influence the public. Thus, it is necessary to appropriately caution the public about their vulnerability to the ever-advancing deepfake technologies.

Cascading Crises: Society in the Age of COVID-19.

The tsunami of change triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed society in a series of cascading crises. Unlike disasters that are more temporarily and spatially bounded, the pandemic has continued to expand across time and space for over a year, leaving an unusually broad range of second-order and third-order harms in its wake. Globally, the unusual conditions of the pandemic-unlike other crises-have impacted almost every facet of our lives. The pandemic has deepened existing inequalities and created new vulnerabilities related to social isolation, incarceration, involuntary exclusion from the labor market, diminished economic opportunity, life-and-death risk in the workplace, and a host of emergent digital, emotional, and economic divides. In tandem, many less advantaged individuals and groups have suffered disproportionate hardship related to the pandemic in the form of fear and anxiety, exposure to misinformation, and the effects of the politicization of the crisis. Many of these phenomena will have a long tail that we are only beginning to understand. Nonetheless, the research also offers evidence of resilience on several fronts including nimble organizational response, emergent communication practices, spontaneous solidarity, and the power of hope. While we do not know what the post COVID-19 world will look like, the scholarship here tells us that the virus has not exhausted society's adaptive potential.

Exergaming Executive Functions: An Immersive Virtual Reality-Based Cognitive Training for Adults Aged 50 and Older.

Prior research suggests that both exergaming and virtual reality (VR)-based training programs could improve executive functions in older adults. However, few studies investigated whether combining exergaming with VR would be more effective. This study seeks to (a) investigate whether playing exergames in an immersive virtual environment (IVE) would yield differential outcomes in selected executive functions, including inhibition, task switching, and working, and (b) examine the role of feeling of presence as a potential mediator between immersive exergaming and cognitive improvement in specific domains. Thirty-three participants over 50 years of age (mean age = 62) participated in a 4-week training program and were randomly assigned into an IVE and non-IVE to play an exergame (Fruit Ninja) for eight sessions within 4 weeks. The results revealed a significant effect of the IVE on the Stroop Test and Trail Making Test after the 4-week training. Furthermore, the impacts of the IVE exergaming on these two tasks were mediated by the feeling of presence. These findings suggested that the immersive experience of exergaming would elicit the feeling of presence, which later contributes to improved cognitive performances in inhibition and task switching. For the theoretical implications, this study extends previous research by showing that (a) feeling of presence could contribute to older adults' cognitive improvement, and (b) the impacts of immersive exergame training on executive functions vary across individual domains. Additionally, this study provides practical implications such that the design of exergames could emphasize the game features requiring mental simulation, which can serve as a novel strategy for preventing cognitive decline in midlife and old age.

Augmented Versus Virtual Reality in Education: An Exploratory Study Examining Science Knowledge Retention When Using Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Mobile Applications.

The propagation of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications that leverage smartphone technology has increased along with the ubiquity of smartphone adoption. Although AR and VR technologies have been widely utilized in the educational domain, there remains a dearth of empirical research examining the differences in educational impact across AR and VR technologies. The purpose of our exploratory study was to address this gap in the literature by comparing AR and VR technologies with regard to their impact on learning outcomes, such as retention of science information. Specifically, we use a two-condition (AR vs. VR) between-subjects' design to test college students' science-knowledge retention in response to both auditory and visual information presented on a Samsung S4 smartphone app. Our results (N = 109) suggest that VR is more immersive and engaging through the mechanism of spatial presence. However, AR seems to be a more effective medium for conveying auditory information through the pathway of spatial presence, possibly because of increased cognitive demands associated with immersive experiences. Thus, an important implication for design is that educational content should be integrated into visual modalities when the experience will be consumed in VR, but into auditory modalities when it will be consumed in AR.

The Physical-Digital Divide: Exploring the Social Gap Between Digital Natives and Physical Natives.

Older adults are the most digitally divided demographic group. The present study explores how older adults perceive the physical use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), particularly across generations and contexts. Data for the present study come from nine focus groups. Seniors acknowledge that ICTs help them connect with geographically distant social ties, but that they lead to feelings of disconnection with geographically close social ties. We label this phenomenon the "physical-digital divide," which exists when a group feels ostracized or offended when those around them engage with ICTs while they themselves are not or cannot engage with ICTs. Younger generations are often referred to as "digital natives" and older generations as "digital immigrants." A more apt label for older adults may be "physical natives," as their preferred method of communication involves physical face-to-face interactions and traditional codes of etiquette. Suggestions are made for reducing the physical-digital divide.

Biaxial stress and optoelectronic properties of Al-doped ZnO thin films deposited on flexible substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering.

Transparent conductive Al-doped ZnO (AZO) thin films were deposited on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polycarbonate (PC) substrates using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering. The biaxial stress was measured with a double beam shadow moiré interferometer, and x-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to investigate the crystal orientation of ZnO. The substrate temperature was varied from room temperature to 150°C in steps of 25°C. The experimental results showed that the residual and shearing stresses increased with the increase in substrate temperature. The residual stress can be separated into principle and shearing stresses by Mohr's circle rule, and the shearing stress (tensile stress) was different from the compressive stress of the residual stress. However, the optimal substrate temperatures for PET and PC were 75°C and 100°C, and the shearing stresses were 424.82 and 543.68 MPa, respectively. AZO/PET and AZO/PC thin films cracked at substrate temperatures of 75°C and 100°C, respectively. AZO/PET thin film at a substrate temperature of 100°C had a resistivity low to the order of 10-3 Ω-cm.

Thorn-like ZnO/CNT composites via the hydrothermal method with different seed layer.

This paper studies the preparation of a zinc oxide (ZnO) seed layer deposited onto carbon nanotubes (CNTs) via RF sputtering, and the growth of ZnO/CNT composite via the hydrothermal method. The ZnO "thorns" have been successfully deposited on CNT "stems." The research focuses on the ZnO seed layer with different sputtering times and annealing processes. A scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigation showed that the length and amount of ZnO thorns decreased with increased sputtering time of the seed layer. The x-ray diffraction (XRD) results showed that the ZnO crystalline structures improved after the seed layer, annealing at peaks of (100), (002), and (101). The results of Raman spectra showed that the ZnO seed layer deposited onto the CNTs, and the annealing, caused damage to the CNTs, reducing the IG/ID ratio from 0.9 to 0.5. Furthermore, the highest UV emission of thorn-like ZnO/CNTs occurred at a peak of 380 nm with seed layer deposition time of 2 min, after annealing.

Electrochromic and optical properties of tungsten oxide films deposited with DC sputtering by introducing hydrogen.

Research was undertaken to investigate the electrochromic and optical properties of tungsten oxide (WO3) films deposited by introducing hydrogen with a direct current (DC) and pulsed DC sputtering. The results show that WO3 films have optimum electrochromic properties at a hydrogen flow of 4 and 3 sccm for DC and pulsed DC, respectively. In the Raman spectra, the peak intensity increased with the increase of hydrogen flow at both 770 cm1 and 950 cm(-1) peaks, which resulted in bonds of W(6+)-O and W(6+)=O, respectively. Simultaneously, the transmittance (ΔT550 nm) variations were 65.6% and 64.4%, and the average transmittance (ΔT400-500 nm) variations were 56.7% and 56.4% for DC and pulsed DC, respectively. The bleached/colored ability of the cyclic voltammograms (CVs) was DC>pulsed DC, and the resistances of AC impedance were pulsed DC>DC.

Measurement of residual stress for ITO/PET substrates by the double beam shadow moiré interferometer.

This study constructed a measurement system that can quickly and accurately analyze the residual stress of flexible electronics. A double beam shadow moiré interferometer was set up to measure and evaluate the residual stress of tin-doped indium oxide films on a polyethylene terephthalate substrate. However, this system required only two symmetrical fringes to evaluate the residual stress of transparent conductive oxide films on flexible substrate. Applying the grating translation techniques to the double beam shadow moiré interferometer greatly improved the measurement resolution and accuracy, and the relative error was reduced to 1.2%.

Selection of a synthetic glycan oligomer from a library of DNA-templated fragments against DC-SIGN and inhibition of HIV gp120 binding to dendritic cells.

We report the synthesis of a nucleic acid-encoded carbohydrate library, its combinatorial self-assembly into 37,485 pairs and a screen against DC-SIGN leading to the identification of consensus ligand motifs. A prototypical example from the selected pairs was shown to have enhanced binding. A dendrimer incorporating the selected motifs inhibited gp120's binding to dendritic cells with higher efficiency than mannan.

DAST-mediated regioselective anomeric group migration in saccharides.

When saccharides bearing a sulfur, selenium, or oxygen substituent at the anomeric center and an unprotected hydroxyl group either at C-4 or C-6 were subjected to fluorination with DAST in dichloromethane, a regioselective migration of the anomeric substituent to the C-4 or C-6 position was observed. Certain saccharides gave a mixture of migration and normal fluorination products whereas others yielded mainly or exclusively migration products (beta-glycosyl fluorides). The high thermal and chemical stability of migrated glycosyl fluorides were demonstrated to be an important precursor for many significant carbohydrate analogies. It is therefore suggested that these migrations may have useful applications in organic synthesis.

Tuning the conformational properties of the prion peptide.

Previously, we disclosed that O-linked glycosylation of Ser-132 or Ser-135 could dramatically change the amyloidogenic property of the hamster prion peptide (sequence 108-144). This peptide, which corresponds to the flexible loop and the first beta-strand in the structure of the prion protein, is a random coil when it is initially dissolved in buffer, but amyloid fibrils are formed with time. Thus, it offers a convenient model system to observe and compare how different chemical modifications and sequence mutations alter the amyloidogenic property of the peptide within a reasonable experimental time frame. In our earlier study, aside from uncovering a site-specificity of the glycosylation on the fibrillogenesis, different effects of alpha-GalNAc and beta-GlcNAc were observed. In this work, we explore further how different sugar configurations affect the conformational property of the polypeptide chain. We compare the effects of O-linked glycosylation by the common sugars alpha-GalNAc, beta-GlcNAc with their non-native analogs beta-GalNAc, alpha-GlcNAc in an effort to uncover the origin of the sugar-specificity on the fibril formation. We find that the anomeric configuration of the sugar is the most important factor affecting the fibrillogenesis. Sugars with the glycosidic bond in the alpha-configuration at Ser-135 have a dramatic inhibitory effect on the structural conversion of the glycosylated peptide. Because O-glycosylation of Ser-135 with alpha-linked sugars also promote the formation of three slowly converting conformations at the site of glycosylation, we surmise that the amyloidogenic property of the peptide is related to its conformational flexibility, and the proclivity of this region of the peptide to undergo the structural conversion from the random coil to form the beta-structure. Upon O-glycosylation with an alpha-linked sugar, this conversion is inhibited and the nucleation of fibril formation is largely retarded. Consistent with this scenario, Arg-136 is the residue most affected in the TOCSY NMR spectra of the glycosylated peptides, other than the serine site modified. In addition, when Arg-136 is substituted by Gly, a mutation that should provide higher structural flexibility in this part of the peptide, the amyloidogenic property of the peptide is greatly enhanced, and the inhibition effect of glycosylation is largely diminished. These results are consistent with Ser-135 and Arg-136 being part of the kink region involved in the structural conversion.

Multi-enzyme one-pot strategy for the synthesis of sialyl Lewis X-containing PSGL-1 glycopeptide.

An enzymatic one-pot three-step glycosylation strategy was developed for the synthesis of sLex moiety of truncated PSGL-1 glycopeptide with and without sulfation. The method provided an efficient way to afford complex glycopeptides in a semi-preparative scale without further complicated and time-consuming purification process in each glycosylation step.