The Impact of the Public Authorities’ Messages – the European Central Bank Case

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ioan Talpos

2007-03-01

Full Text Available The public authorities (the agency messages could play a key role in the social subjects’ decisions. How and when the agency communicates the path of its future policies influences the present social and economic architecture. The aim of this paper is to advance an explanatory framework for the connections between the transparency and credibility of the public authorities and the volatility of the social output. In order to provide some empirical evidences, the paper will consider the case of the European Central Bank as a representative monetary authority. The main output of the paper resides in the thesis that, with a certain consistency, there are some connections between the agency’s mandates, the types of the messages transmitted by the agency and the volatility of the obtained results, and also in the idea that an agency entrusted with a “strong” mandate could transmit “mixed” type messages (i.e. “informative-persuasive” ones which, in special conditions, could influence the decisions of certain categories of clients and/ or non-members. Of course, the following core question still remains: “How sustainable could be the effects induced by the impact of different agency messages received by the various beneficiaries?” And this, because in the end “The one who knows does not speak and the one who speaks does not know” (LAO ZI - DAO DE JING.

Tweet for Behavior Change: Using Social Media for the Dissemination of Public Health Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Hunter, Ruth F; Ajao, Oluwaseun; Jurek, Anna; McKeown, Gary; Hong, Jun; Barrett, Eimear; Ferguson, Marbeth; McElwee, Gerry; McCarthy, Miriam; Kee, Frank

2017-01-01

Background Social media public health campaigns have the advantage of tailored messaging at low cost and large reach, but little is known about what would determine their feasibility as tools for inducing attitude and behavior change. Objective The aim of this study was to test the feasibility of designing, implementing, and evaluating a social media–enabled intervention for skin cancer prevention. Methods A quasi-experimental feasibility study used social media (Twitter) to disseminate different message “frames” related to care in the sun and cancer prevention. Phase 1 utilized the Northern Ireland cancer charity’s Twitter platform (May 1 to July 14, 2015). Following a 2-week “washout” period, Phase 2 commenced (August 1 to September 30, 2015) using a bespoke Twitter platform. Phase 2 also included a Thunderclap, whereby users allowed their social media accounts to automatically post a bespoke message on their behalf. Message frames were categorized into 5 broad categories: humor, shock or disgust, informative, personal stories, and opportunistic. Seed users with a notable following were contacted to be “influencers” in retweeting campaign content. A pre- and postintervention Web-based survey recorded skin cancer prevention knowledge and attitudes in Northern Ireland (population 1.8 million). Results There were a total of 417,678 tweet impressions, 11,213 engagements, and 1211 retweets related to our campaign. Shocking messages generated the greatest impressions (shock, n=2369; informative, n=2258; humorous, n=1458; story, n=1680), whereas humorous messages generated greater engagement (humorous, n=148; shock, n=147; story, n=117; informative, n=100) and greater engagement rates compared with story tweets. Informative messages, resulted in the greatest number of shares (informative, n=17; humorous, n=10; shock, n=9; story, n=7). The study findings included improved knowledge of skin cancer severity in a pre- and postintervention Web-based survey

Does the Screening Status of Message Characters Affect Message Effects?

Science.gov (United States)

Alber, Julia M.; Glanz, Karen

2018-01-01

Public health messages can be used to increase awareness about colorectal cancer screenings. Free or inexpensive images for creating health messages are readily available, yet little is known about how a pictured individual's engagement in the behavior of interest affects message outcomes. Participants (N = 360), aged 50 to 75 years, completed an…

Message design strategies to raise public awareness of social determinants of health and population health disparities.

Science.gov (United States)

Niederdeppe, Jeff; Bu, Q Lisa; Borah, Porismita; Kindig, David A; Robert, Stephanie A

2008-09-01

Raising public awareness of the importance of social determinants of health (SDH) and health disparities presents formidable communication challenges. This article reviews three message strategies that could be used to raise awareness of SDH and health disparities: message framing, narratives, and visual imagery. Although few studies have directly tested message strategies for raising awareness of SDH and health disparities, the accumulated evidence from other domains suggests that population health advocates should frame messages to acknowledge a role for individual decisions about behavior but emphasize SDH. These messages might use narratives to provide examples of individuals facing structural barriers (unsafe working conditions, neighborhood safety concerns, lack of civic opportunities) in efforts to avoid poverty, unemployment, racial discrimination, and other social determinants. Evocative visual images that invite generalizations, suggest causal interpretations, highlight contrasts, and create analogies could accompany these narratives. These narratives and images should not distract attention from SDH and population health disparities, activate negative stereotypes, or provoke counterproductive emotional responses directed at the source of the message. The field of communication science offers valuable insights into ways that population health advocates and researchers might develop better messages to shape public opinion and debate about the social conditions that shape the health and well-being of populations. The time has arrived to begin thinking systematically about issues in communicating about SDH and health disparities. This article offers a broad framework for these efforts and concludes with an agenda for future research to refine message strategies to raise awareness of SDH and health disparities.

Class network routing

Science.gov (United States)

Bhanot, Gyan [Princeton, NJ; Blumrich, Matthias A [Ridgefield, CT; Chen, Dong [Croton On Hudson, NY; Coteus, Paul W [Yorktown Heights, NY; Gara, Alan G [Mount Kisco, NY; Giampapa, Mark E [Irvington, NY; Heidelberger, Philip [Cortlandt Manor, NY; Steinmacher-Burow, Burkhard D [Mount Kisco, NY; Takken, Todd E [Mount Kisco, NY; Vranas, Pavlos M [Bedford Hills, NY

2009-09-08

Class network routing is implemented in a network such as a computer network comprising a plurality of parallel compute processors at nodes thereof. Class network routing allows a compute processor to broadcast a message to a range (one or more) of other compute processors in the computer network, such as processors in a column or a row. Normally this type of operation requires a separate message to be sent to each processor. With class network routing pursuant to the invention, a single message is sufficient, which generally reduces the total number of messages in the network as well as the latency to do a broadcast. Class network routing is also applied to dense matrix inversion algorithms on distributed memory parallel supercomputers with hardware class function (multicast) capability. This is achieved by exploiting the fact that the communication patterns of dense matrix inversion can be served by hardware class functions, which results in faster execution times.

Communicating with the workforce during emergencies: developing an employee text messaging program in a local public health setting.

Science.gov (United States)

Karasz, Hilary N; Bogan, Sharon; Bosslet, Lindsay

2014-01-01

Short message service (SMS) text messaging can be useful for communicating information to public health employees and improving workforce situational awareness during emergencies. We sought to understand how the 1,500 employees at Public Health--Seattle & King County, Washington, perceived barriers to and benefits of participation in a voluntary, employer-based SMS program. Based on employee feedback, we developed the system, marketed it, and invited employees to opt in. The system was tested during an ice storm in January 2012. Employee concerns about opting into an SMS program included possible work encroachment during non-work time and receiving excessive irrelevant messages. Employees who received messages during the weather event reported high levels of satisfaction and perceived utility from the program. We conclude that text messaging is a feasible form of communication with employees during emergencies. Care should be taken to design and deploy a program that maximizes employee satisfaction.

The Impact of Suicide Prevention Public Service Announcements on Help-Seeking Attitudes: The Message Makes a Difference

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bonnie Klimes-Dougan

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Suicide continues to be one of the most serious public health challenges. Public service announcements are frequently used to address this challenge, but are rarely sufficiently evaluated to determine if they meet the intended goals, or are associated with potential iatrogenic effects. Although it is challenging to assess the relative impact of different PSA modalities, our group previously noted that one billboard message failed to show the same benefits as one TV ad (e.g., Klimes-Dougan & Lee, 2010. The purpose of this study was to extend these findings to test critical aspects of suicide prevention billboard messaging. Although both simulated billboard messages presented had identical supporting messages, we predicted that the more personal billboard message, focused on saving one’s life, would cause more favorable help-seeking attitudes than the message focused on suicide. Young adult university students (N = 785 were randomly assigned to one of three conditions; one of two billboard simulations or a TV ad simulation. Help-seeking attitudes, maladaptive coping and reports of concern and distress were evaluated. The results of this study suggest some relative benefits in endorsement of favorable help-seeking attitudes for one of the billboard conditions - Stop depression from taking another life. Although further research is needed to determine what methods will alter the risk for suicide in the population, the results of this study provide a useful first step showing that some billboard messaging may favorably influence help-seeking attitudes.

Public responses to flood warning messages: the Floodline service in Scotland

Science.gov (United States)

Cranston, Michael; Geddes, Alistair; Black, Andrew; Ambler, Alice; Menmuir, Cordelia

2017-04-01

Over the past decade, efforts have been made to improve the national flood warning system in Scotland, with new capabilities in the underlying flood forecasting tools, as well as development of an active flood warning dissemination service. This paper focusses on the latter service, for which there are around 26,000 customers registered at present, and which saw over 300,000 individual messages being issued during recent floods in winter 2015/16. However, notwithstanding such promising signs of change, evidence of how (if at all) the flood warning messages disseminated by the service actually impacts on recipient behaviour remains more limited. For example, this includes knowledge of the extent to which the messages influence actions on flood preparedness and mitigation. In consequence, there are also ongoing questions over the cost-effectiveness of the service in its current format, and of its scalability to even larger numbers of recipients. This paper will present initial findings from the first detailed study of customer perceptions of the messages distributed via the Scottish flood warning system, officially known as Floodline. In particular, the primary focus will be on results generated from a web-based questionnaire survey of registered Floodline customers. The survey was designed to assess associations between multiple customer characteristics, including location and risk level, type of warning message received, prior experience of flooding, risk awareness, and demographics. The study was conducted for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, which is responsible for running the Floodline service. More broadly it resonates with current emphases on exploring effective means of hazard communication and encouraging public engagement in flood risk management.

The effects of message framing, involvement, and nicotine dependence on anti-smoking public service announcements.

Science.gov (United States)

Jung, Wan S; Villegas, Jorge

2011-01-01

Anti-smoking Public Service Announcements (PSAs) typically emphasize the negative consequences of failing to quit smoking (negative frame), as opposed to emphasizing the benefits of quitting (positive frame). However, stressing the benefits of quitting sometimes produces better communication outcomes. Previous research on message framing has tried to identify factors affecting the impact of positive framing and negative framing. Data were collected on 188 undergraduates attending a southeastern university in the United States who were assigned randomly to view either positive or negative messages. Our study found that involvement and nicotine dependence moderated the impact of framed smoking-cessation messages on attitude toward the ad.

76 FR 25695 - Public Health Information Network (PHIN) Messaging Guide for Syndromic Surveillance

Science.gov (United States)

2011-05-05

.../library/2011/guides/Syndromic_Surveillance_Implementation_Guide_Release_1_4.pdf . Written comments... http://www.cdc.gov/phin/library/2011/guides/Syndromic_Surveillance_Implementation_Guide_Release_1_4.pdf...-2011-0004] Public Health Information Network (PHIN) Messaging Guide for Syndromic Surveillance AGENCY...

Public health interventions: reaching Latino adolescents via short message service and social media.

Science.gov (United States)

Vyas, Amita N; Landry, Megan; Schnider, Marisa; Rojas, Angela M; Wood, Susan F

2012-07-12

Adolescents are substantial users of short message service (SMS) and social media. The public health community now has more opportunities to reach this population with positive youth development and health messages through these media. Latinos are a growing and youthful population with significant health risks and needs. This population may benefit from SMS and social media health interventions. To examine (1) SMS and social media utilization and behavior among Latino youth, and (2) how SMS and social media can be effectively used as a component of public health interventions focused on decreasing sexual risk taking among Latino youth. A mixed-methods approach, using both quantitative survey data and qualitative interview data, was used to provide a robust understanding of SMS and social media use and behavior for public health interventions. We recruited 428 ninth and tenth grade, self-identifying Latino adolescents to participate in a quantitative survey. Additionally, we conducted five key informant interviews with staff and 15 youth. We found that 90.8% (355/391) of respondents had access to a mobile phone either through having their own or through borrowing or sharing one. Of those who had access to a mobile phone, 94.1% (334/355) used SMS, with 41.1% (113/275) sending and receiving more than 100 text messages per day. Of 395 respondents, 384 (97.2%) had at least one social media account, and the mean number of accounts was 3.0 (range 0-8). A total of 75.8% (291/384) of adolescents logged in to their account daily. Of those with a social media account, 89.1% (342/384) had a Facebook account. Youth who took the survey in English were significantly more likely than those who took it in Spanish to have access to a mobile phone (χ(2) (1 )= 5.3; 93.3% vs 86.3%; P = .02); to be high-volume texters (χ(2) (2 )= 16.8; 49.4% vs 25.3%; P Facebook account (χ(2) (1 )= 9.9; 90.9% vs 79.7%; P = .002); and to have a greater mean number of social media accounts (t(387 )= 7

Using Text-Messaging in the Secondary Classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Thomas, Kevin; Orthober, Corrie

2011-01-01

To examine the potential uses of and barriers to text-messaging in secondary schools, three classes (66 students) of high school students used their personal mobile phones to receive out of school, course-related text-messages from teachers. Forty-six students (70%) agreed to receive text-messages. Findings indicate that participants found…

Message framing in the context of the national menu-labelling policy: a comparison of public health and private industry interests.

Science.gov (United States)

Shelton, Rachel C; Colgrove, James; Lee, Grace; Truong, Michelle; Wingood, Gina M

2017-04-01

We conducted a content analysis of public comments to understand the key framing approaches used by private industry v. public health sector, with the goal of informing future public health messaging, framing and advocacy in the context of policy making. Comments to the proposed menu-labelling policy were extracted from Regulations.gov and analysed. A framing matrix was used to organize and code key devices and themes. Documents were analysed using content analysis with Dedoose software. Recent national nutrition-labelling regulations in the USA provide a timely opportunity to understand message framing in relation to obesity prevention and policy. We examined a total of ninety-seven documents submitted on behalf of organizations (private industry, n 64; public health, n 33). Public health focused on positive health consequences of the policy, used a social justice frame and supported its arguments with academic data. Industry was more critical of the policy; it used a market justice frame that emphasized minimal regulation, depicted its members as small, family-run businesses, and illustrated points with humanizing examples. Public health framing should counter and consider engaging directly with non-health-related arguments made by industry. Public health should include more powerful framing devices to convey their messages, including metaphors and humanizing examples.

Raising Public Awareness of Clinical Trials: Development of Messages for a National Health Communication Campaign.

Science.gov (United States)

Massett, Holly A; Dilts, David M; Bailey, Robert; Berktold, Jennifer; Ledsky, Rebecca; Atkinson, Nancy L; Mishkin, Grace; Denicoff, Andrea; Padberg, Rose Mary; Allen, Marin P; Silver, Karen; Carrington, Kelli; Johnson, Lenora E

2017-05-01

Clinical trials are essential for developing new and effective treatments and improving patient quality of life; however, many trials cannot answer their primary research questions because they fall short of their recruitment goals. This article reports the results of formative research conducted in two populations, the public and primary care physicians, to identify messages that may raise awareness and increase interest in clinical trials and be used in a national communication campaign. Results suggested that participants were primarily motivated to participate in clinical trials out of a self-interest to help themselves first. Messages illustrated that current treatments were tested via clinical trials, helped normalize trials as routine practices, and reduced concerns over trying something new first. Participants wanted messages that portray trials as state-of-the-art choices that offer some hope, show people like themselves, and are described in a clear, concise manner with actionable steps for them to take. The study revealed some differences in message salience, with healthy audiences exhibiting lower levels of interest. Our results suggest that targeted messages are needed, and that communication with primary health-care providers is an important and necessary component in raising patient awareness of the importance of clinical trials.

Crafting a Real-Time Information Aggregator for Mobile Messaging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jenq-Shiou Leu

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Mobile messaging is evolving beyond SMS (Short Message Service text messaging with the introduction of MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service. In the past, such a scheme is used for peer-to-peer communication. Messages are generally displayed on a cellular phone with a limited-sized screen. However, such a visualizing process is not suitable to broadcast real-time SMS/MMS messages to people in public. To facilitate the instancy and publicity, we develop a real-time information aggregator—Visualizing SMS and MMS Messages System (VSMMS—to realize the concept by integrating SMS and MMS messaging over GSM/GPRS/UMTS onto a remote display device. The device exhibits messages on a larger display device in public. VSMMS features a revolutionized variation of mass media broadcasting. In this paper, we practically illustrate how to design and implement VSMMS and use a M/M/1 model to conduct a theoretical analysis about the message delay in the system queue. Meanwhile, we make an empirical performance evaluation about the message transmission time over different networks.

Suicide Prevention Public Service Announcements Impact Help-Seeking Attitudes: The Message Makes a Difference

OpenAIRE

Klimes-Dougan, Bonnie; Wright, Nathan; Klingbeil, David A.

2016-01-01

Suicide continues to be one of the most serious public health challenges. Public service announcements (PSAs) are frequently used to address this challenge, but are rarely sufficiently evaluated to determine if they meet the intended goals, or are associated with potential iatrogenic effects. Although it is challenging to assess the relative impact of different PSA modalities, our group previously noted that one billboard message failed to show the same benefits as one TV ad [e.g., Klimes-Dou...

Evaluating public education messages aimed at monitoring and responding to social interactive technology on smartphones among young drivers.

Science.gov (United States)

Gauld, Cassandra S; Lewis, Ioni; White, Katherine M; Fleiter, Judy J; Watson, Barry

2017-07-01

Young drivers are more likely than any other age group to access social interactive technology (e.g., Facebook, E-mail) on a smartphone while driving. The current study formed part of a larger investigation and was guided by The Step Approach to Message Design and Testing (SatMDT) to evaluate the relative effectiveness of three different public education messages aimed at reducing smartphone use among young drivers. The messages were each adapted to the specific behaviours of monitoring/reading and responding to social interactive technology on smartphones. Participants (n=288; 199F, 89M) were drivers aged 17-25 years who resided in the Australian state of Queensland. Message acceptance (i.e., intention and effectiveness) and message rejection were both assessed using a self-report survey. Multivariate analyses found that, overall, the messages targeting monitoring/reading behaviour were considered more effective than those targeting responding behaviour. The message that challenged the underlying motivation that believing you are a good driver makes it easier to monitor/read social interactive technology while driving was considered particularly effective by young male drivers. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sugar-sweetened beverages coverage in the British media: an analysis of public health advocacy versus pro-industry messaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Elliott-Green, Alex; Hyseni, Lirije; Lloyd-Williams, Ffion; Bromley, Helen; Capewell, Simon

2016-07-19

To assess the extent of media-based public health advocacy versus pro-industry messaging regarding sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). We conducted a systematic analysis to identify and examine all articles regarding SSBs published in all mainstream British print newspapers and their online news websites from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2014. We initially conducted a brief literature search to develop appropriate search terms and categorisations for grouping and analysing the articles. Articles were then coded according to the publishing newspaper, article type, topic, prominence and slant (pro-SSB or anti-SSB). A contextual analysis was undertaken to examine key messages in the articles. We identified 374 articles published during 2014. The majority of articles (81%) suggested that SSBs are unhealthy. Messaging from experts, campaign groups and health organisations was fairly consistent about the detrimental effects of SSB on health. However, relatively few articles assessed any approaches or solutions to potentially combat the problems associated with SSBs. Only one-quarter (24%) suggested any policy change. Meanwhile, articles concerning the food industry produced consistent messages emphasising consumer choice and individual responsibility for making choices regarding SSB consumption, and promoting and advertising their products. The food industry thus often managed to avoid association with the negative press that their products were receiving. SSBs were frequently published in mainstream British print newspapers and their online news websites during 2014. Public health media advocacy was prominent throughout, with a growing consensus that sugary drinks are bad for people's health. However, the challenge for public health will be to mobilise supportive public opinion to help implement effective regulatory policies. Only then will our population's excess consumption of SSBs come under control. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use

The effect of message frame in anti-smoking public service announcements on cognitive response and attitude toward smoking.

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Lijiang

2010-01-01

This study investigated whether and how message frames in anti-smoking public service announcements (PSAs) affect individuals' cognition and attitude toward smoking. Individuals in a sample of 315 participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental framing conditions: (a) health consequence, (b) secondhand smoke, and (c) industry manipulation. Each participant viewed four PSAs in a random order within a particular message frame. The study found strong evidence for the application effect in framing. The accessibility effect in framing was found to be conditional on message frame. Individuals' cognition on health consequence of smoking and on industry manipulation predicted their attitude toward smoking, but not cognition on secondhand smoke. The three frames also led to different patterns of affective responses that can be a basis for persuasion. Implications for message framing effect and anti-smoking campaigns were discussed.

Communication of urgent public health messages to urban populations: lessons from the Massachusetts water main break.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, C Jason; Little, Alison A; Holliman, Jaime Bruce; Ng, Chun Y; Barrero-Castillero, Alejandra; Fu, Chong Min; Zuckerman, Barry; Bauchner, Howard

2011-10-01

To study when and how an urgent public health message about a boil-water order reached an urban population after the Massachusetts water main break. In-person surveys were conducted in waiting areas of clinics and emergency departments at a large urban safety net hospital within 1 week of the event. Of 533 respondents, 97% were aware of the order; 34% of those who lived in affected cities or towns were potentially exposed to contaminated water. Among those who were aware, 98% took action. Respondents first received the message through word of mouth (33%), television (25%), cellular telephone calls (20%), landline calls (10%), and other modes of communication (12%). In multivariate analyses, foreign-born respondents and those who lived outside the city of Boston had a higher risk of exposure to contaminated water. New modes (eg, cellular telephones) were used more commonly by females and younger individuals (ages 18 to 34). Individuals who did not speak English at home were more likely to receive the message through their personal networks. Given the increasing prevalence of cellular telephone use, public officials should encourage residents to register landline and cellular telephone for emergency alerts and must develop creative ways to reach immigrants and non-English-speaking groups quickly via personal networks.

UK public perceptions of shale gas hydraulic fracturing:The role of audience, message and contextual factors on risk perceptions and policy support

OpenAIRE

Whitmarsh, Lorraine; Nash, Nick; Upham, Paul; Lloyd, Alyson; Verdon, James P; Kendall, J.-Michael

2015-01-01

There is growing recognition of the need to understand public attitudes to energy sources, such as shale gas, and to feed these into decision-making. This study represents the first detailed UK experimental survey of public perceptions of shale gas fracking, including analysis of the effects of different messages and the relative influence of different audience, message and contextual factors on support and risk perceptions in respect of shale gas fracking. Using an online survey (N = 1457) o...

Implications of skeletal muscle loss for public health nutrition messages: a brief report.

Science.gov (United States)

Levy, Louis B; Welch, Ailsa A

2015-11-01

Age-related skeletal muscle loss, sarcopenia, cachexia and wider malnutrition (under nutrition) are complex in aetiology with interaction of clinical, social and economic factors. Weight loss and loss of skeletal muscle mass in older people are associated with increased morbidity and mortality with implications for increasing health and social care costs. There is insufficient evidence to identify the ideal treatment options. However, preventing weight loss and loss of skeletal muscle in older age will be keys to reducing morbidity and mortality. This will require all those coming into contact with older people to identify and address weight loss early, including through diet, improving physical activity and increasing social interaction. Public health messages on diet should, in the main, continue to focus on older people achieving current UK dietary recommendations for their age as visually depicted in the eatwell plate together with associated messages regarding dietary supplements where appropriate.

Effects of Message Interactivity upon Relational Maintenance Strategy in Digital Communications between Organizations and the Public

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zhan-Qing

2012-01-01

Digital communication between organizations and the public is strategically important in shaping mutual understanding and long term relationship. The primary focus of this project was to investigate the relationship between message interactivity and relational maintenance strategy in the email communication process on organization websites. At…

Posts to online news message boards and public discourse surrounding DUI enforcement.

Science.gov (United States)

Connor, Susan M; Wesolowski, Kathryn

2009-12-01

This study analyzes posts to online news message boards covering driving under the influence (DUI) enforcement efforts to determine their usefulness for informing traffic safety program planning and public relations efforts aimed at mainstream drinking drivers. A series of Google searches were conducted using keywords designed to capture news stories regarding impaired driving enforcement efforts. For each search, the first 100 Web pages returned were reviewed and articles were included in analysis if they were from an independent news source and contained user comments. Coders captured data on 28 fields for each post, including tone in relation to enforcement, tone of interpersonal communication with other posters, and expressed feelings regarding drinking and driving. Fifty-six news articles covering DUI enforcement efforts met study criteria, with 615 posts. The majority of posts (57%) were neutral on DUI enforcement; 24 percent (148) took a negative tone and 19 percent (115) positive. Posts that discussed checkpoints were 2.6 times more likely to take a negative tone toward enforcement than those that did not. Twenty-one percent of anti-enforcement posts challenged the idea that driving after drinking was necessarily dangerous. Of the 321 posts involving direct communication between posters, 67 percent involved disagreement with another post. Profanity or belittling comments appeared in 10 percent of posts. Public responses to DUI enforcement news articles provide insight into the beliefs and thought processes of those who oppose enforcement efforts or view drinking and driving as no big deal. Primary objections to enforcement focused on civil and personal rights issues, skepticism regarding law enforcement's motives and objectivity, and the belief that drinking driving is not a "real" crime. Online news message boards could be useful in informing campaigns and helping program planners frame media events and press releases to best appeal to the most at

A One Health Message about Bats Increases Intentions to Follow Public Health Guidance on Bat Rabies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hang Lu

Full Text Available Since 1960, bat rabies variants have become the greatest source of human rabies deaths in the United States. Improving rabies awareness and preventing human exposure to rabid bats remains a national public health priority today. Concurrently, conservation of bats and the ecosystem benefits they provide is of increasing importance due to declining populations of many bat species. This study used a visitor-intercept experiment (N = 521 in two U.S. national parks where human and bat interactions occur on an occasional basis to examine the relative persuasiveness of four messages differing in the provision of benefit and uncertainty information on intentions to adopt a rabies exposure prevention behavior. We found that acknowledging benefits of bats in a risk message led to greater intentions to adopt the recommended rabies exposure prevention behavior without unnecessarily stigmatizing bats. These results signify the importance of communicating benefits of bats in bat rabies prevention messages to benefit both human and wildlife health.

Fear, threat and efficacy in threat appeals: message involvement as a key mediator to message acceptance.

Science.gov (United States)

Cauberghe, Verolien; De Pelsmacker, Patrick; Janssens, Wim; Dens, Nathalie

2009-03-01

In a sample of 170 youngsters, the effect of two versions of a public service announcement (PSA) threat appeal against speeding, placed in four different contexts, on evoked fear, perceived threat (severity and probability of occurrence), perceived response efficacy and self-efficacy, message involvement and anti-speeding attitude and anti-speeding intention is investigated. Evoked fear and perceived threat and efficacy independently influence message involvement. Message involvement is a full mediator between evoked fear, perceived threat and efficacy perception on the one hand, and attitudes towards the message and behavioral intention to accept the message on the other. Speeding experience has a significantly negative impact on anti-speeding attitudes. Message and medium context threat levels and context thematic congruency have a significant effect on evoked fear and to a lesser extent on perceived threat.

Mobile phone short message service messaging for behaviour modification in a community-based weight control programme in Korea.

Science.gov (United States)

Joo, Nam-Seok; Kim, Bom-Taeck

2007-01-01

We conducted a community-based anti-obesity programme using mobile phone short message service (SMS) messaging. A total of 927 participants were recruited and visited a public health centre for initial assessment. Mobile phones were used to deliver short messages about diet, exercise and behaviour modification once a week. After a 12-week anti-obesity programme they visited the public health centre again. Four hundred and thirty-three subjects (47%) successfully completed their weight control programme. There were mean reductions of weight, waist circumference and body mass index of 1.6 kg (P behaviour modification in weight control and anti-obesity health education programmes when promoted by community health centres.

Teaching the Public Relations Case Studies/Campaigns Class.

Science.gov (United States)

Cottone, Laura Perkins

The public relations case studies/campaigns class entails teaching students how to die and then come back to life. As students must learn to take a critical look at complex public and social issues, teachers should create an environment in which the students feel comfortable with the process of psychological reconstruction. Students must be taught…

"Playing Hooky" Health Messages: Apprehension, Impression Management, and Deception.

Science.gov (United States)

Barrett, Ashley; Murphy, Melissa; Blackburn, Kate

2018-03-01

This study investigates playing hooky in higher education classrooms and associates this behavior with students' communicative dispositions, instructor perceptions, and language use. We define "playing hooky" as students skipping class and explaining their absence to their instructor with deceptive health messages. The purpose of Study 1, an online survey (N = 177), is to further understand the characteristics of students who engage in this type of deceptive health communication. Study 1 measures communication apprehension and perceived instructor credibility in students who had played hooky from class and those who had not. Findings reveal that students who communicate playing hooky health messages (a) reported more instructor communication apprehension and (b) perceived the instructors with whom they had played hooky to be less credible. Study 2 uses facework theory and MEH analysis to reveal the different linguistic strategies students use to communicate (a) truthful health messages (N = 165) and (b) deceptive heath messages (N = 82) to their instructor following an absence. Results demonstrate that students' facework strategies are more geared toward saving instructors' negative face in the deceptive health message condition. Implications of both studies are offered.

Testing the effects of a message framing intervention on intentions towards hearing loss prevention in adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

de Bruijn, Gert-Jan; Spaans, Pieter; Jansen, Bastiaan; van't Riet, Jonathan

2016-04-01

Adolescent hearing loss is a public health problem that has eluded effective intervention. A persuasive message strategy was tested for its effectiveness on adolescents' intention to listen to music at a reduced volume. The messages manipulated both type of message frame [positive consequences of listening to music at a reduced volume (gain-framed) versus negative consequences of not listening to music at a reduced volume (loss-framed)] and type of temporal context (short-term versus long-term consequences). Participants were recruited from four vocational and secondary education schools in the Netherlands and message exposure took place online during class hours. Two weeks prior to message exposure, adolescents provided data on intention and risk perception towards hearing loss and use of (digital) music players. After message exposure, 194 adolescents (mean age = 14.71 years, SD = 1.00, 37.8% males) provided immediate follow-up data on intention. Results revealed that intention to listen to music at a reduced volume increased in those exposed to a loss-framed message with short-term consequences. No changes were found in the other conditions. Messages that emphasize negative short-term consequences of not listening to music at a moderate volume have the ability to influence adolescents' intention towards hearing loss prevention. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Young drivers' engagement with social interactive technology on their smartphone: Critical beliefs to target in public education messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Gauld, Cassandra S; Lewis, Ioni M; White, Katherine M; Watson, Barry

2016-11-01

The current study forms part of a larger study based on the Step Approach to Message Design and Testing (SatMDT), a new and innovative framework designed to guide the development and evaluation of health communication messages, including road safety messages. This four step framework is based on several theories, including the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The current study followed steps one and two of the SatMDT framework and utilised a quantitative survey to validate salient beliefs (behavioural, normative, and control) about initiating, monitoring/reading, and responding to social interactive technology on smartphones by N=114 (88F, 26M) young drivers aged 17-25 years. These beliefs had been elicited in a prior in-depth qualitative study. A subsequent critical beliefs analysis identified seven beliefs as potential targets for public education messages, including, 'slow-moving traffic' (control belief - facilitator) for both monitoring/reading and responding behaviours; 'feeling at ease that you had received an expected communication' (behavioural belief -advantage) for monitoring/reading behaviour; and 'friends/peers more likely to approve' (normative belief) for responding behaviour. Potential message content targeting these seven critical beliefs is discussed in accordance with the SatMDT. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

End-to-End Delay Model for Train Messaging over Public Land Mobile Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Franco Mazzenga

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Modern train control systems rely on a dedicated radio network for train to ground communications. A number of possible alternatives have been analysed to adopt the European Rail Traffic Management System/European Train Control System (ERTMS/ETCS control system on local/regional lines to improve transport capacity. Among them, a communication system based on public networks (cellular&satellite provides an interesting, effective and alternative solution to proprietary and expensive radio networks. To analyse performance of this solution, it is necessary to model the end-to-end delay and message loss to fully characterize the message transfer process from train to ground and vice versa. Starting from the results of a railway test campaign over a 300 km railway line for a cumulative 12,000 traveled km in 21 days, in this paper, we derive a statistical model for the end-to-end delay required for delivering messages. In particular, we propose a two states model allowing for reproducing the main behavioral characteristics of the end-to-end delay as observed experimentally. Model formulation has been derived after deep analysis of the recorded experimental data. When it is applied to model a realistic scenario, it allows for explicitly accounting for radio coverage characteristics, the received power level, the handover points along the line and for the serving radio technology. As an example, the proposed model is used to generate the end-to-end delay profile in a realistic scenario.

The Impact of Suicide Prevention Public Service Announcements on Help-Seeking Attitudes: The Message Makes a Difference

OpenAIRE

Bonnie Klimes-Dougan; Nathan Wright; David A Klingbeil

2016-01-01

Abstract Suicide continues to be one of the most serious public health challenges. Public service announcements are frequently used to address this challenge, but are rarely sufficiently evaluated to determine if they meet the intended goals, or are associated with potential iatrogenic effects. Although it is challenging to assess the relative impact of different PSA modalities, our group previously noted that one billboard message failed to show the same benefits as one TV ad (e.g., Klimes-D...

Arbitrated quantum signature scheme with message recovery

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Hwayean; Hong, Changho; Kim, Hyunsang; Lim, Jongin; Yang, Hyung Jin

2004-01-01

Two quantum signature schemes with message recovery relying on the availability of an arbitrator are proposed. One scheme uses a public board and the other does not. However both schemes provide confidentiality of the message and a higher efficiency in transmission

The Use of Facebook Advertising for Communicating Public Health Messages: A Campaign Against Drinking During Pregnancy in New Zealand.

Science.gov (United States)

Parackal, Mathew; Parackal, Sherly; Eusebius, Shobhit; Mather, Damien

2017-08-10

Social media is gaining recognition as a platform for delivering public health messages. One area attracting attention from public health researchers and professionals is Facebook's advertising channel. This channel is reported to have a broad reach and generate high user engagement with the disseminated campaign materials. However, to date, no study has examined the communication process via this channel which this study aimed to address. The specific objectives of the study were to (1) examine user engagement for a public health campaign based on the metadata provided by Facebook, (2) analyze comments generated by the campaign materials using text mining, and (3) investigate the relationship between the themes identified in the comments and the message and the sentiments prevalent in the themes that exhibited significant relationships. This study examined a New Zealand public health pilot campaign called "Don't Know? Don't Drink," which warned against drinking alcohol during pregnancy. The campaign conveyed the warning through a video and three banner ads that were delivered as news feeds to women aged 18-30 years. Thematic analysis using text mining performed on the comments (n=819) identified four themes. Logistic regression was used to identify meaning-making themes that exhibited association with the message. The users' engagement was impressive with the video receiving 203,754 views. The combined likes and shares for the promotional materials (video and banner ads) amounted to 6125 and 300, respectively. The logistic regression analysis showed two meaning-making themes, namely, risk of pregnancy (P=.003) and alcohol and culture (PFacebook's advertising channel. ©Mathew Parackal, Sherly Parackal, Shobhit Eusebius, Damien Mather. Originally published in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (http://publichealth.jmir.org), 10.08.2017.

Framing HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for the General Public: How Inclusive Messaging May Prevent Prejudice from Diminishing Public Support.

Science.gov (United States)

Calabrese, Sarah K; Underhill, Kristen; Earnshaw, Valerie A; Hansen, Nathan B; Kershaw, Trace S; Magnus, Manya; Krakower, Douglas S; Mayer, Kenneth H; Betancourt, Joseph R; Dovidio, John F

2016-07-01

Strategic framing of public messages about HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) may influence public support for policies and programs affecting access. This survey study examined how public attitudes toward PrEP differed based on the social group PrEP was described as benefiting ("beneficiary") and the moderating effect of prejudice. Members of the general public (n = 154) recruited online were randomly assigned to three beneficiary conditions: general population, gay men, or Black gay men. All participants received identical PrEP background information before completing measures of PrEP attitudes (specifying beneficiary), racism, and heterosexism. Despite anticipating greater PrEP adherence among gay men and Black gay men and perceiving PrEP as especially beneficial to the latter, participants expressed lower support for policies/programs making PrEP affordable for these groups vs. the general population. This disparity in support was stronger among participants reporting greater prejudice. Inclusive framing of PrEP in public discourse may prevent prejudice from undermining implementation efforts.

Spatial variation in messaging effects

Science.gov (United States)

Warshaw, Christopher

2018-05-01

There is large geographic variation in the public's views about climate change in the United States. Research now shows that climate messages can influence public beliefs about the scientific consensus on climate change, particularly in the places that are initially more skeptical.

Uncovering the most effective active ingredients of antismoking public service announcements: the role of actor and message characteristics.

Science.gov (United States)

Shadel, William G; Fryer, Craig S; Tharp-Taylor, Shannah

2009-05-01

This study examined whether the appeal of actors (i.e., their likeability and attractiveness) used in antismoking public service announcements (PSAs) interacts with adolescents' risk of future smoking to predict adolescents' smoking resistance self-efficacy and whether the antismoking messages in the PSAs further moderate this relationship. We used a 2 (future smoking risk: low, high) x 2 (actor appeal: low, high) x 3 (PSA antismoking message: tobacco industry manipulation, short-term smoking effects, long-term smoking effects) study design. A diverse sample of 110 adolescents (aged 11-17 years), with varying levels of experience with smoking, rated their smoking resistance self-efficacy after viewing each of the PSAs in each design cell. Overall, PSAs that used long-term smoking effects messages were associated with the strongest smoking resistance self-efficacy, followed in turn by PSAs that used short-term smoking effects messages and by tobacco industry manipulation messages. We found a significant interaction of actor appeal and PSA antismoking message. The use of more appealing actors was associated with stronger smoking resistance self-efficacy only in long-term smoking effects PSAs. The use of less appealing actors was associated with stronger smoking resistance self-efficacy for tobacco industry manipulation PSAs and short-term smoking effects PSAs. Future smoking risk did not moderate any of these findings. Antismoking PSAs that emphasize long-term smoking effects are most strongly associated with increased smoking resistance self-efficacy. The effect of these PSAs can be strengthened by using actors whom adolescents perceive to be appealing.

Public understanding of One Health messages: The role of temporal framing.

Science.gov (United States)

Roh, Sungjong; Rickard, Laura N; McComas, Katherine A; Decker, Daniel J

2018-02-01

Building on research in motivated reasoning and framing in science communication, we examine how messages that vary attribution of responsibility (human vs animal) and temporal orientation (now vs in the next 10 years) for wildlife disease risk influence individuals' conservation intentions. We conducted a randomized experiment with a nationally representative sample of US adults ( N = 355), which revealed that for people low in biospheric concern, messages that highlighted both human responsibility for and the imminent nature of the risk failed to enhance conservation intentions compared with messages highlighting animal responsibility. However, when messages highlighting human responsibility placed the risk in a temporally distal frame, conservation intentions increased among people low in biospheric concern. We assess the underlying mechanism of this effect and discuss the value of temporal framing in overcoming motivated skepticism to improve science communication.

A qualitative study of college student responses to conflicting messages in advertising: anti-binge drinking public service announcements versus wine promotion health messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahn, Ho-Young; Wu, Lei; Kelly, Stephanie; Haley, Eric

2011-06-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate how college students deal with conflicting health messages in advertising regarding binge drinking and wine promotion. Phenomenological in-depth long interviews were conducted beyond the point of redundancy (N = 16). The results of this study indicated that students' meaning making regarding the conflicting messages relied greatly upon how consistent either message was with their prior beliefs about alcohol. Additionally, not all students perceived the messages to be contradictory; these students saw the messages as being constructed for different purposes and as such incomparable. Overall, students who perceived conflict responded to the topic with apathy fueled by advertising skepticism. Employing qualitative methodology to understand how college students respond to conflicting messages will assist health promotion practitioners develop more effective alcohol abuse prevention messages and provide suggestions for researchers for studying this phenomenon from other perspectives in the future. Implications are further discussed within.

Fear, threat and efficacy in threat appeals: Message involvement as a key mediator to message acceptance

OpenAIRE

Cauberghe, Verolien; De Pelsmacker, Patrick; JANSSENS, Wim; Dens, Nathalie

2009-01-01

In a sample of 170 youngsters, the effect of two versions of a public service announcement (PSA) threat appeal against speeding, placed in four different contexts. on evoked fear, perceived threat (severity and probability of occurrence), perceived response efficacy and self-efficacy, message involvement and anti-speeding attitude and anti-speeding intention is investigated. Evoked fear and perceived threat and efficacy independently influence message involvement...

Economic performance and public concerns about social class in twentieth-century books.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yunsong; Yan, Fei

2016-09-01

What is the association between macroeconomic conditions and public perceptions of social class? Applying a novel approach based on the Google Books N-gram corpus, this study addresses the relationship between public concerns about social class and economic conditions throughout the twentieth century. The usage of class-related words/phrases, or "literary references to class," in American English-language books is related to US economic performance and income inequality. The findings of this study demonstrate that economic conditions play a significant role in literary references to class throughout the century, whereas income inequality does not. Similar results are obtained from further analyses using alternative measures of class concerns as well as different corpora of English Fiction and the New York Times. We add to the social class literature by showing that the long-term temporal dynamics of an economy can be exhibited by aggregate class concerns. The application of massive culture-wide content analysis using data of unprecedented size also represents a contribution to the literature. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An analysis of patient-provider secure messaging at two Veterans Health Administration medical centers: message content and resolution through secure messaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Shimada, Stephanie L; Petrakis, Beth Ann; Rothendler, James A; Zirkle, Maryan; Zhao, Shibei; Feng, Hua; Fix, Gemmae M; Ozkaynak, Mustafa; Martin, Tracey; Johnson, Sharon A; Tulu, Bengisu; Gordon, Howard S; Simon, Steven R; Woods, Susan S

2017-09-01

We sought to understand how patients and primary care teams use secure messaging (SM) to communicate with one another by analyzing secure message threads from 2 Department of Veterans Affairs facilities. We coded 1000 threads of SM communication sampled from 40 primary care teams. Most threads (94.5%) were initiated by patients (90.4%) or caregivers (4.1%); only 5.5% were initiated by primary care team members proactively reaching out to patients. Medication renewals and refills (47.2%), scheduling requests (17.6%), medication issues (12.9%), and health issues (12.7%) were the most common patient-initiated requests, followed by referrals (7.0%), administrative issues (6.5%), test results (5.4%), test issues (5.2%), informing messages (4.9%), comments about the patient portal or SM (4.1%), appreciation (3.9%), self-reported data (2.8%), life issues (1.5%), and complaints (1.5%). Very few messages were clinically urgent (0.7%) or contained other potentially challenging content. Message threads were mostly short (2.7 messages), comprising an average of 1.35 discrete content types. A substantial proportion of issues (24.2%) did not show any evidence of being resolved through SM. Time to response and extent of resolution via SM varied by message content. Proactive SM use by teams varied, but was most often for test results (32.7%), medication-related issues (21.8%), medication renewals (16.4%), or scheduling issues (18.2%). The majority of messages were transactional and initiated by patients or caregivers. Not all content categories were fully addressed over SM. Further education and training for both patients and clinical teams could improve the quality and efficiency of SM communication. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association 2017. This work is written by US Government employees and is in the public domain in the United States.

Class hierarchical test case generation algorithm based on expanded EMDPN model

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

LI Jun-yi; GONG Hong-fang; HU Ji-ping; ZOU Bei-ji; SUN Jia-guang

2006-01-01

A new model of event and message driven Petri network(EMDPN) based on the characteristic of class interaction for messages passing between two objects was extended. Using EMDPN interaction graph, a class hierarchical test-case generation algorithm with cooperated paths (copaths) was proposed, which can be used to solve the problems resulting from the class inheritance mechanism encountered in object-oriented software testing such as oracle, message transfer errors, and unreachable statement. Finally, the testing sufficiency was analyzed with the ordered sequence testing criterion(OSC). The results indicate that the test cases stemmed from newly proposed automatic algorithm of copaths generation satisfies synchronization message sequences testing criteria, therefore the proposed new algorithm of copaths generation has a good coverage rate.

Developing effective messages about potable recycled water: The importance of message structure and content

Science.gov (United States)

Price, J.; Fielding, K. S.; Gardner, J.; Leviston, Z.; Green, M.

2015-04-01

Community opposition is a barrier to potable recycled water schemes. Effective communication strategies about such schemes are needed. Drawing on social psychological literature, two experimental studies are presented, which explore messages that improve public perceptions of potable recycled water. The Elaboration-Likelihood Model of information processing and attitude change is tested and supported. Study 1 (N = 415) premeasured support for recycled water, and trust in government information at Time 1. Messages varied in complexity and sidedness were presented at Time 2 (3 weeks later), and support and trust were remeasured. Support increased after receiving information, provided that participants received complex rather than simple information. Trust in government was also higher after receiving information. There was tentative evidence of this in response to two-sided messages rather than one-sided messages. Initial attitudes to recycled water moderated responses to information. Those initially neutral or ambivalent responded differently to simple and one-sided messages, compared to participants with positive or negative attitudes. Study 2 (N = 957) tested the effectiveness of information about the low relative risks, and/or benefits of potable recycled water, compared to control groups. Messages about the low risks resulted in higher support when the issue of recycled water was relevant. Messages about benefits resulted in higher perceived issue relevance, but did not translate into greater support. The results highlight the importance of understanding people's motivation to process information, and need to tailor communication to match attitudes and stage of recycled water schemes' development.

Frequency of Risk-Related News Media Messages in 2016 Coverage of Zika Virus.

Science.gov (United States)

Sell, Tara Kirk; Watson, Crystal; Meyer, Diane; Kronk, Marissa; Ravi, Sanjana; Pechta, Laura E; Lubell, Keri M; Rose, Dale A

2018-01-03

News media plays a large role in the information the public receives during an infectious disease outbreak, and may influence public knowledge and perceptions of risk. This study analyzed and described the content of U.S. news media coverage of Zika virus and Zika response during 2016. A random selection of 800 Zika-related news stories from 25 print and television news sources was analyzed. The study examined 24 different messages that appeared in news media articles and characterized them using theories of risk perception as messages with characteristics that could increase perception of risk (risk-elevating messages; n = 14), messages that could decrease perception of risk (risk-minimizing messages; n = 8), or messages about travel or testing guidance (n = 2). Overall, 96% of news stories in the study sample contained at least one or more risk-elevating message(s) and 61% contained risk-minimizing message(s). The frequency of many messages changed after local transmission was confirmed in Florida, and differed between sources in locations with or without local transmission in 2016. Forty percent of news stories included messages about negative potential outcomes of Zika virus infection without mentioning ways to reduce risk. Findings from this study may help inform current federal, state, and local Zika responses by offering a detailed analysis of how news media are covering the outbreak and response activities as well as identifying specific messages appearing more or less frequently than intended. Findings identifying the types of messages that require greater emphasis may also assist public health communicators in responding more effectively to future outbreaks. © 2017 Society for Risk Analysis.

Mailing lists are preferred to newsgroups as teaching tools for undergraduate biology classes.

Science.gov (United States)

Machart, J M; Silverthorn, D U

2000-06-01

Effective communication between instructors and students is a challenge regardless of the instructor-to-student ratio. Instructors of large classes, in particular, have resorted to various forms of Internet communication, such as mailing lists and newsgroups, to supplement class time and office hours. Mailing lists are closed discussions among subscribers who receive and send messages via an electronic mail program (e.g., Eudora). Newsgroups are public discussions to which anyone can gain access and respond via a newsreader program (e.g., Nuntius). Newsgroup messages are posted to a bulletin board that the subscriber must visit to read. Mailing lists and newsgroups share many advantages (convenience, greater anonymity, and speed of communication) and disadvantages (computer access required, impersonal nature, junk mail, and lack of graphics in older programs). However, surveys of both faculty and students in biology indicate that mailing lists are generally favored over newsgroups. Reasons given for mailing list popularity included greater familiarity with the E-mail format and ease of access.

Promoting public health messages: Should we move beyond fear-evoking appeals in road safety?

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Ioni M; Watson, Barry; White, Katherine M; Tay, Richard

2007-01-01

Road traffic injury is one of the most significant global public health issues of the 21st century. The extent to which negative, fear-evoking messages represent effective persuasive strategies remains a contentious public and empirical issue. Nevertheless, negative, fear-based appeals represent a frequently used approach in Australasian road safety advertising. The authors conducted a series of focus groups with 16 licensed drivers to explore the potential utility of appeals to emotions other than fear. More specifically, they sought to explore the utility of positive emotional appeals, such as those incorporating humor. The themes emerging from the qualitative analysis suggested that both emotion and the provision of strategies are key components contributing to the overall persuasiveness of a road safety advertisement. Overall, it appears there is support for researchers and health advertising practitioners to provide further attention to the role that positive emotional appeals might play in future campaigns.

Exploring Message Meaning: A Qualitative Media Literacy Study of College Freshmen

Science.gov (United States)

Ashley, Seth; Lyden, Grace; Fasbinder, Devon

2012-01-01

Critical media literacy demands understanding of the deeper meanings of media messages. Using a grounded theory approach, this study analyzed responses by first-year college students with no formal media literacy education to three types of video messages: an advertisement, a public relations message and a news report. Students did not exhibit…

Mitigating Psychological Reactance: The Role of Message-Induced Empathy in Persuasion

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Lijiang

2010-01-01

This article examines the role of message-induced state empathy in persuasion. Message-induced empathy is conceptualized as a perception-action process that consists of affective, cognitive, and associative components. Twenty professionally produced public service announcements (PSAs) were used as stimuli messages in a 2 (high vs. low empathy) x 2…

Quantum signature scheme for known quantum messages

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Taewan; Lee, Hyang-Sook

2015-01-01

When we want to sign a quantum message that we create, we can use arbitrated quantum signature schemes which are possible to sign for not only known quantum messages but also unknown quantum messages. However, since the arbitrated quantum signature schemes need the help of a trusted arbitrator in each verification of the signature, it is known that the schemes are not convenient in practical use. If we consider only known quantum messages such as the above situation, there can exist a quantum signature scheme with more efficient structure. In this paper, we present a new quantum signature scheme for known quantum messages without the help of an arbitrator. Differing from arbitrated quantum signature schemes based on the quantum one-time pad with the symmetric key, since our scheme is based on quantum public-key cryptosystems, the validity of the signature can be verified by a receiver without the help of an arbitrator. Moreover, we show that our scheme provides the functions of quantum message integrity, user authentication and non-repudiation of the origin as in digital signature schemes. (paper)

Does perceived risk influence the effects of message framing? Revisiting the link between prospect theory and message framing.

Science.gov (United States)

Van 't Riet, Jonathan; Cox, Anthony D; Cox, Dena; Zimet, Gregory D; De Bruijn, Gert-Jan; Van den Putte, Bas; De Vries, Hein; Werrij, Marieke Q; Ruiter, Robert A C

2016-12-01

Health-promoting messages can be framed in terms of the beneficial consequences of healthy behaviour (gain-framed messages) or the detrimental consequences of unhealthy behaviour (loss-framed messages). An influential notion holds that the perceived risk associated with the recommended behaviour determines the relative persuasiveness of gain- and loss-framed messages. This 'risk-framing hypothesis', which was derived from prospect theory, has been central to health message-framing research for the better part of two decades and has enduring appeal to researchers and practitioners. It has found its way into several health communication handbooks and is communicated to the general public. The present article examines the validity of the risk-framing hypothesis anew by providing a review of the health message-framing literature. In spite of its ongoing appeal, we conclude that the hypothesis has severe theoretical flaws. In addition, we find that the empirical evidence in favour of the hypothesis is weak and inconsistent. It seems that, in applying prospect theory's tenets to a health-promotion context, some of the theory's key aspects have been lost in translation. At the close of the article, we offer a research agenda for the future, arguing that, above all, new methodology is needed to bring the message-framing literature further.

Mobile Phones in the Classroom: Examining the Effects of Texting, Twitter, and Message Content on Student Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Kuznekoff, Jeffrey H.; Munz, Stevie; Titsworth, Scott

2015-01-01

This study examined mobile phone use in the classroom by using an experimental design to study how message content (related or unrelated to class lecture) and message creation (responding to or creating a message) impact student learning. Participants in eight experimental groups and a control group watched a video lecture, took notes, and…

Applying a message oriented middleware architecture to the TJ-II remote participation system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sanchez, E.; Portas, A.; Pereira, A.; Vega, J.

2006-01-01

A message oriented middleware (MOM) has been introduced into the TJ-II data acquisition system to on-line distribute information. Java message service (JMS) has been chosen as the messaging application program interface (API) in order to ensure multiplatform portability. A library of C++ classes providing interface for JMS Java classes has been developed. This allows C++ programs to inter-communicate through JMS. In addition, a set of C wrapper functions has also been developed to provide basic messaging functionalities for C or FORTRAN programs. These functions are used in TJ-II LabView data acquisition applications. Several software applications that take advantage of the MOM architecture have been developed. Firstly, a general-user application allows monitoring of the data acquisition systems. Secondly, a simple application permits the visualization of TJ-II monitor signals with on-line data refreshing. These applications are written in the Java language, thereby ensuring its portability. These software tools provide new functionalities to the TJ-II remote participation system and are equally used in the local environment

Applying a message oriented middleware architecture to the TJ-II remote participation system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sanchez, E. [Asociacion EURATOM/CIEMAT para Fusion, Avda Complutense 22, 28040 Madrid (Spain)]. E-mail: edi.sanchez@ciemat.es; Portas, A. [Asociacion EURATOM/CIEMAT para Fusion, Avda Complutense 22, 28040 Madrid (Spain); Pereira, A. [Asociacion EURATOM/CIEMAT para Fusion, Avda Complutense 22, 28040 Madrid (Spain); Vega, J. [Asociacion EURATOM/CIEMAT para Fusion, Avda Complutense 22, 28040 Madrid (Spain)

2006-07-15

A message oriented middleware (MOM) has been introduced into the TJ-II data acquisition system to on-line distribute information. Java message service (JMS) has been chosen as the messaging application program interface (API) in order to ensure multiplatform portability. A library of C++ classes providing interface for JMS Java classes has been developed. This allows C++ programs to inter-communicate through JMS. In addition, a set of C wrapper functions has also been developed to provide basic messaging functionalities for C or FORTRAN programs. These functions are used in TJ-II LabView data acquisition applications. Several software applications that take advantage of the MOM architecture have been developed. Firstly, a general-user application allows monitoring of the data acquisition systems. Secondly, a simple application permits the visualization of TJ-II monitor signals with on-line data refreshing. These applications are written in the Java language, thereby ensuring its portability. These software tools provide new functionalities to the TJ-II remote participation system and are equally used in the local environment.

Designing Skin Cancer Prevention Messages: Should We Emphasize Gains or Losses? Message Framing, Risk Type, and Prior Experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Moon J; Kang, Hannah

2018-05-01

To test whether message framing (ie, gain vs. loss) and risk type (ie, health vs appearance risk) in skin cancer prevention messages interact with one's prior experience. Two experiments with a 2 (message framing: gain vs loss) × 2 (risk type: health vs appearance risk) factorial design were conducted. The participants were given a URL to the experiment website via e-mail. On the first page of the website, the participants were told that they would be asked to evaluate a skin cancer print public service announcement (PSA): Online experiments. A total of 397 individuals participated (236 for experiment 1 and 161 for experiment 2). Apparatus: Four versions of the skin cancer print PSAs were developed. Four PSAs were identical except for the 2 manipulated components: message framing and risk type. Measures were adopted from Cho and Boster (message framing), Jones and Leary and Kiene et al. (risk type), De Vries, Mesters, van't Riet, Willems, and Reubsaet and Knight, Kirincich, Farmer, and Hood (prior experience), and Hammond, Fong, Zanna, Thrasher, and Borland and Hoffner and Ye (behavioral intent). General linear models were used to test hypotheses. Three-way interactions among message framing, risk type, and prior experience were found: When the intent of the message was to encourage sunscreen use, the effects of message framing and risk type were shown to be the exact opposite directions from when the intent was to discourage indoor/outdoor tanning. To discourage tanning among those with prior experience, messages emphasizing losses in terms of one's health will work better. For those with no prior experience, messages emphasizing potential appearance losses will work better for discouraging tanning while messages emphasizing gains like improving appearance will do a better job in encouraging sunscreen use.

A Measure of EFL Public Speaking Class Anxiety: Scale Development and Preliminary Validation and Reliability

Science.gov (United States)

Yaikhong, Kriangkrai; Usaha, Siriluck

2012-01-01

The present study contributes to developing a Public Speaking Class Anxiety Scale (PSCAS) to measure anxiety in the EFL public speaking class in the Thai context. Items were adopted from previous scales: Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz et al. (1986); Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) and Personal…

ZeroMQ: Messaging Made Simple

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2013-01-01

Since its inception in 2007, ZeroMQ has defined a new product category of thin, fast, open source message transports. This little library has now grown into a large, vibrant community of projects tied together with standard protocols and APIs. Applications, written in any language, talk to each other over TCP, multicast, or inproc transports, using a single socket-based API, and a set of "patterns" (pub-sub, request-reply, dealer-router, pipeline). ZeroMQ handles message framing, batching, and I/O, but ignores aspects like serialization and persistence. By focussing on the essentials, and acting as a toolkit rather than a pre-packaged solution, ZeroMQ turns the complex problem of distributed computing into a relatively simple recipe. About the speaker Pieter Hintjens is a writer, programmer, and public speaker who has spent decades building large software systems, organizations, and businesses. He designed the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) in 2006 for JPMorganChase and left ...

“You should be reading, not texting”: Understanding classroom text messaging in the constant contact society

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah Lohnes Watulak

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Cell phones are the most ubiquitous communication device owned by young people today, and students’ text messaging during class is a common occurrence in many university classrooms. Analyzing data from a qualitative study involving 34 undergraduate students at a university in the Northeastern United States, this paper seeks to explore: Why do university students text message during class, and what does this tell us about text messaging as a new literacy practice within traditional classroom settings? Drawing on perspectives from new literacies and communication studies, I argue that texting was a meaningful practice for students as it afforded the opportunity for ongoing participation in social networks, and provided a means of exercising power within the controlled space of the classroom.

It's not hype, it's communication: Using public relations techniques to improve your technical messages

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Martell, P.J.

1990-01-01

Technical communicators are concerned that if they employ public relations (PR) techniques, they somehow compromise their work. They believe PR equates with type. However, to those of us in the field, PR means simply how people relate. Knowing PR techniques gives one a better understanding of human factors and interactions; using the techniques improves the chances for communication to occur. If technical communications are willing to learn PR techniques, they will gain strong tools to use to strengthen their messages.

Strategic messaging to promote taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages: lessons from recent political campaigns.

Science.gov (United States)

Jou, Judy; Niederdeppe, Jeff; Barry, Colleen L; Gollust, Sarah E

2014-05-01

This study explored the use of strategic messaging by proponents of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxation to influence public opinion and shape the policy process, emphasizing the experiences in El Monte and Richmond, California, with SSB tax proposals in 2012. We conducted 18 semistructured interviews with key stakeholders about the use and perceived effectiveness of messages supporting and opposing SSB taxation, knowledge sharing among advocates, message dissemination, and lessons learned from their messaging experiences. The protax messages most frequently mentioned by respondents were reinvesting tax revenue into health-related programs and linking SSB consumption to health outcomes such as obesity and diabetes. The most frequently mentioned antitax messages addressed negative economic effects on businesses and government restriction of personal choice. Factors contributing to perceived messaging success included clearly defining "sugar-sweetened beverage" and earmarking funds for obesity prevention, incorporating cultural sensitivity into messaging, and providing education about the health effects of SSB consumption. Sugar-sweetened beverage taxation has faced significant challenges in gaining political and public support. Future campaigns can benefit from insights gained through the experiences of stakeholders involved in previous policy debates.

Supervising simulations with the Prodiguer Messaging Platform

Science.gov (United States)

Greenslade, Mark; Carenton, Nicolas; Denvil, Sebastien

2015-04-01

At any one moment in time, researchers affiliated with the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) climate modeling group, are running hundreds of global climate simulations. These simulations execute upon a heterogeneous set of High Performance Computing (HPC) environments spread throughout France. The IPSL's simulation execution runtime is called libIGCM (library for IPSL Global Climate Modeling group). libIGCM has recently been enhanced so as to support realtime operational use cases. Such use cases include simulation monitoring, data publication, environment metrics collection, automated simulation control … etc. At the core of this enhancement is the Prodiguer messaging platform. libIGCM now emits information, in the form of messages, for remote processing at IPSL servers in Paris. The remote message processing takes several forms, for example: 1. Persisting message content to database(s); 2. Notifying an operator of changes in a simulation's execution status; 3. Launching rollback jobs upon simulation failure; 4. Dynamically updating controlled vocabularies; 5. Notifying downstream applications such as the Prodiguer web portal; We will describe how the messaging platform has been implemented from a technical perspective and demonstrate the Prodiguer web portal receiving realtime notifications.

[Nutritional health messages transmitted through television advertising. Trends and errors].

Science.gov (United States)

Ortega, R M; Andrés, P; Jiménez, L M; Ortega, A

1995-01-01

The present study analyzes de publicity messages with a alimentary-nutritional content (n = 448), aired by 2 television channels (one public and one private), during 6 hours a day in the first week of October 1993, examining the most frequent tendencies and errors, and whether or not they are adhering to the nutritional standards intended to improve the health of the population. With this aim, a questionnaire was designed, which was submitted to a control prior to doing the study, and which permitted the same study during the years 1991, 1992, and 1993. The message which was most used to promote the sales of the products, was the taste, followed by quality, novelty, health, nutritional and natural. The messages indicating that the product reduces or minimizes fat, cholesterol, sodium, sugar, alcohol, ... are few or lower than those observed in other populations. In some cases the messages may be useful in re-enforcing the standards of the nutritional educators and health care professionals who try to improve the diet and the health of the public. However, in the majority of cases, the message of the advertisements may mislead or confuse the consumer with irrelevant or incomplete information. They also frequently contribute to the promotion of an extremely thin body image, which guides the food choice of a large percentage of the population. The results of the study may help in the planning of nutritional education of the population, and they emphasize the need for a greater supervision and control of the advertisements.

The Prodiguer Messaging Platform

Science.gov (United States)

Denvil, S.; Greenslade, M. A.; Carenton, N.; Levavasseur, G.; Raciazek, J.

2015-12-01

CONVERGENCE is a French multi-partner national project designed to gather HPC and informatics expertise to innovate in the context of running French global climate models with differing grids and at differing resolutions. Efficient and reliable execution of these models and the management and dissemination of model output are some of the complexities that CONVERGENCE aims to resolve.At any one moment in time, researchers affiliated with the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL) climate modeling group, are running hundreds of global climate simulations. These simulations execute upon a heterogeneous set of French High Performance Computing (HPC) environments. The IPSL's simulation execution runtime libIGCM (library for IPSL Global Climate Modeling group) has recently been enhanced so as to support hitherto impossible realtime use cases such as simulation monitoring, data publication, metrics collection, simulation control, visualizations … etc. At the core of this enhancement is Prodiguer: an AMQP (Advanced Message Queue Protocol) based event driven asynchronous distributed messaging platform. libIGCM now dispatches copious amounts of information, in the form of messages, to the platform for remote processing by Prodiguer software agents at IPSL servers in Paris. Such processing takes several forms: Persisting message content to database(s); Launching rollback jobs upon simulation failure; Notifying downstream applications; Automation of visualization pipelines; We will describe and/or demonstrate the platform's: Technical implementation; Inherent ease of scalability; Inherent adaptiveness in respect to supervising simulations; Web portal receiving simulation notifications in realtime.

Identifying Persuasive Public Health Messages to Change Community Knowledge and Attitudes About Bulimia Nervosa.

Science.gov (United States)

McLean, Siân A; Paxton, Susan J; Massey, Robin; Hay, Phillipa J; Mond, Jonathan M; Rodgers, Bryan

2016-01-01

Addressing stigma through social marketing campaigns has the potential to enhance currently low rates of treatment seeking and improve the well-being of individuals with the eating disorder bulimia nervosa. This study aimed to evaluate the persuasiveness of health messages designed to reduce stigma and improve mental health literacy about this disorder. A community sample of 1,936 adults (48.2% male, 51.8% female) from Victoria, Australia, provided (a) self-report information on knowledge and stigma about bulimia nervosa and (b) ratings of the persuasiveness of 9 brief health messages on dimensions of convincingness and likelihood of changing attitudes. Messages were rated moderately to very convincing and a little to moderately likely to change attitudes toward bulimia nervosa. The most persuasive messages were those that emphasized that bulimia nervosa is a serious mental illness and is not attributable to personal failings. Higher ratings of convincingness were associated with being female, with having more knowledge about bulimia nervosa, and with lower levels of stigma about bulimia nervosa. Higher ratings for likelihood of changing attitudes were associated with being female and with ratings of the convincingness of the corresponding message. This study provides direction for persuasive content to be included in social marketing campaigns to reduce stigma toward bulimia nervosa.

Competing with big business: a randomised experiment testing the effects of messages to promote alcohol and sugary drink control policy.

Science.gov (United States)

Scully, Maree; Brennan, Emily; Durkin, Sarah; Dixon, Helen; Wakefield, Melanie; Barry, Colleen L; Niederdeppe, Jeff

2017-12-28

Evidence-based policies encouraging healthy behaviours are often strongly opposed by well-funded industry groups. As public support is crucial for policy change, public health advocates need to be equipped with strategies to offset the impact of anti-policy messages. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effectiveness of theory-based public health advocacy messages in generating public support for sugary drink/alcohol policies (increased taxes; sport sponsorship bans) and improving resistance to subsequent anti-policy messages typical of the sugary drink/alcohol industry. We conducted a two-wave randomised online experiment assigning Australian adults to one of four health policies (sugary drink tax; sugary drink industry sports sponsorship ban; alcohol tax; alcohol industry sports sponsorship ban). Within each health policy, we randomised participants to one of five message conditions: (i) non-advocacy based message about the size and seriousness of the relevant health issue (control); (ii) standard pro-policy arguments alone; (iii) standard pro-policy arguments combined with an inoculation message (forewarning and directly refuting anti-policy arguments from the opposition); (iv) standard pro-policy arguments combined with a narrative message (a short, personal story about an individual's experience of the health issue); or (v) standard pro-policy arguments combined with a composite inoculation and narrative message. At time 1, we exposed participants (n = 6000) to their randomly assigned message. Around two weeks later, we re-contacted participants (n = 3285) and exposed them to an anti-policy message described as being from a representative of the sugary drink/alcohol industry. Generalised linear models tested for differences between conditions in policy support and anti-industry beliefs at both time points. Only the standard argument plus narrative message increased policy support relative to control at time 1. The standard argument plus narrative

What it Takes to Get Passed On: Message Content, Style, and Structure as Predictors of Retransmission in the Boston Marathon Bombing Response.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jeannette Sutton

Full Text Available Message retransmission is a central aspect of information diffusion. In a disaster context, the passing on of official warning messages by members of the public also serves as a behavioral indicator of message salience, suggesting that particular messages are (or are not perceived by the public to be both noteworthy and valuable enough to share with others. This study provides the first examination of terse message retransmission of official warning messages in response to a domestic terrorist attack, the Boston Marathon Bombing in 2013. Using messages posted from public officials' Twitter accounts that were active during the period of the Boston Marathon bombing and manhunt, we examine the features of messages that are associated with their retransmission. We focus on message content, style, and structure, as well as the networked relationships of message senders to answer the question: what characteristics of a terse message sent under conditions of imminent threat predict its retransmission among members of the public? We employ a negative binomial model to examine how message characteristics affect message retransmission. We find that, rather than any single effect dominating the process, retransmission of official Tweets during the Boston bombing response was jointly influenced by various message content, style, and sender characteristics. These findings suggest the need for more work that investigates impact of multiple factors on the allocation of attention and on message retransmission during hazard events.

University Advertising and Universality in Messaging

Science.gov (United States)

Diel, Stan R.; Katsinas, Stephen

2018-01-01

University and college institutional advertisements, which typically are broadcast as public service announcements during the halftime of football games, were the subject of a quantitative analysis focused on commonality in messaging and employment of the semiotic theory of brand advertising. Findings indicate advertisements focus on students'…

Designing Anti-Binge Drinking Prevention Messages: Message Framing vs. Evidence Type.

Science.gov (United States)

Kang, Hannah; Lee, Moon J

2017-09-27

We investigated whether presenting anti-binge drinking health campaign messages in different message framing and evidence types influences college students' intention to avoid binge drinking, based on prospect theory (PT) and exemplification theory. A 2 (message framing: loss-framed message/gain-framed message) X 2 (evidence type: statistical/narrative) between-subjects factorial design with a control group was conducted with 156 college students. College students who were exposed to the loss-framed message condition exhibited a higher level of intention to avoid binge drinking in the near future than those who did not see any messages (the control group). This finding was mainly among non-binge drinkers. Regardless of evidence type, those who were exposed to the messages exhibited a higher level of intention to avoid binge drinking than those in the control group. This is also mainly among non-binge drinkers. We also found the main effects of message framing and evidence type on attitude toward the message and the main effect of message framing on attitude toward drinking.

Advanced Messaging Concept Development Basic Safety Message

Data.gov (United States)

Department of Transportation — Contains all Basic Safety Messages (BSMs) collected during the Advanced Messaging Concept Development (AMCD) field testing program. For this project, all of the Part...

Secure message authentication system for node to node network

Science.gov (United States)

Sindhu, R.; Vanitha, M. M.; Norman, J.

2017-10-01

The Message verification remains some of the best actual methods for prevent the illegal and dis honored communication after presence progressed to WSNs (Wireless Sensor Networks). Intend for this purpose, several message verification systems must stand established, created on both symmetric key cryptography otherwise public key cryptosystems. Best of them will have some limits for great computational then statement above in count of deficiency of climb ability then flexibility in node settlement occurrence. In a polynomial based system was newly presented for these problems. Though, this system then situations delay will must the dimness of integral limitation firm in the point of polynomial: once the amount of message transferred remains the greater than the limitation then the opponent will completely improve the polynomial approaches. This paper suggests using ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography). Though using the node verification the technique in this paper permits some nodes to transfer a limitless amount of messages lacking misery in the limit problem. This system will have the message cause secrecy. Equally theoretic study then model effects show our planned system will be effective than the polynomial based method in positions of calculation then statement above in privacy points though message basis privacy.

When message-frame fits salient cultural-frame, messages feel more persuasive.

Science.gov (United States)

Uskul, Ayse K; Oyserman, Daphna

2010-03-01

The present study examines the persuasive effects of tailored health messages comparing those tailored to match (versus not match) both chronic cultural frame and momentarily salient cultural frame. Evidence from two studies (Study 1: n = 72 European Americans; Study 2: n = 48 Asian Americans) supports the hypothesis that message persuasiveness increases when chronic cultural frame, health message tailoring and momentarily salient cultural frame all match. The hypothesis was tested using a message about health risks of caffeine consumption among individuals prescreened to be regular caffeine consumers. After being primed for individualism, European Americans who read a health message that focused on the personal self were more likely to accept the message-they found it more persuasive, believed they were more at risk and engaged in more message-congruent behaviour. These effects were also found among Asian Americans who were primed for collectivism and who read a health message that focused on relational obligations. The findings point to the importance of investigating the role of situational cues in persuasive effects of health messages and suggest that matching content to primed frame consistent with the chronic frame may be a way to know what to match messages to.

Development of a replicable process for translating science into practical health education messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Tyus, Nadra C; Freeman, Randall J; Gibbons, M Christopher

2006-09-01

There has been considerable discussion about translating science into practical messages, especially among urban minority and "hard-to-reach" populations. Unfortunately, many research findings rarely make it back in useful format to the general public. Few innovative techniques have been established that provide researchers with a systematic process for developing health awareness and prevention messages for priority populations. The purpose of this paper is to describe the early development and experience of a unique community-based participatory process used to develop health promotion messages for a predominantly low-income, black and African-American community in Baltimore, MD. Scientific research findings from peer-reviewed literature were identified by academic researchers. Researchers then taught the science to graphic design students and faculty. The graphic design students and faculty then worked with both community residents and researchers to transform this information into evidence-based public health education messages. The final products were culturally and educationally appropriate, health promotion messages reflecting urban imagery that were eagerly desired by the community. This early outcome is in contrast to many previously developed messages and materials created through processes with limited community involvement and by individuals with limited practical knowledge of local community culture or expertise in marketing or mass communication. This process may potentially be utilized as a community-based participatory approach to enhance the translation of scientific research into desirable and appropriate health education messages.

Toastmaster's Inspired Pedagogical Changes: From a Speech Class into a Public Relations Course

Science.gov (United States)

Shadinger, David

2016-01-01

Action research is used to view pedagogical changes, first in a speech class and then in a public relations course over a five-year period. The course instructor gained experience as a member of a Toastmasters International club and used Toastmasters-like activities, to revise content in the courses. Ultimately, students in the public relations…

Managerial performance and cost efficiency of Japanese local public hospitals: a latent class stochastic frontier model.

Science.gov (United States)

Besstremyannaya, Galina

2011-09-01

The paper explores the link between managerial performance and cost efficiency of 617 Japanese general local public hospitals in 1999-2007. Treating managerial performance as unobservable heterogeneity, the paper employs a panel data stochastic cost frontier model with latent classes. Financial parameters associated with better managerial performance are found to be positively significant in explaining the probability of belonging to the more efficient latent class. The analysis of latent class membership was consistent with the conjecture that unobservable technological heterogeneity reflected in the existence of the latent classes is related to managerial performance. The findings may support the cause for raising efficiency of Japanese local public hospitals by enhancing the quality of management. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Public bureaucracy and ruling classes in Brazil

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Brazil underwent industrialization and major economic development during the period that spanned 1930 to 1980 This is the period of strategic national development initiated by Getulio Vargas and taken up again after the crisis of the 1960s by the military regime that was in power. Throughout the entire period, public bureaucracy played a key role, always in consort with the industrial bourgeoisie. These two classes emerged as actors in political life as of the 1930s and - together with the workers who were minor partners - promoted the Brazilian industrial revolution. During the 1960s the radicalization of the Left and the right-wing alarmism which were both to a large extent stimulated by the Cuban revolution led to a military coup in which the bourgeoisie and the military joined interests with the United States. Nonetheless, both the bourgeoisie and public bureaucracy returned to a nationalist and developmentalist policy during the years that followed. Yet the major foreign debt crisis that took place during the 1980s led to the breaking apart of these alliances, and over the course of the decade, to the surrender to neo-liberalism coming from the North. At that moment, a disoriented public bureaucracy attempted to defend its own corporate interests. As of the 1990s, however, the sector involved itself in the State Administrative Reform of 1995; furthermore, neoliberalism, which then became the dominant current, went on to lose its hegemony over the following decade due to failure in promoting economic development. These two facts work, on the one hand, to re-establish new republican perspectives for public bureaucracy and, on the other, suggest that the renewed alliance of public bureaucracy and industrial bourgeoisie may again be turning into the nation's route to re-establishing economic development.

Web usage data as a means of evaluating public health messaging and outreach.

Science.gov (United States)

Tian, Hao; Brimmer, Dana J; Lin, Jin-Mann S; Tumpey, Abbigail J; Reeves, William C

2009-12-21

The Internet is increasingly utilized by researchers, health care providers, and the public to seek medical information. The Internet also provides a powerful tool for public health messaging. Understanding the needs of the intended audience and how they use websites is critical for website developers to provide better services to the intended users. The aim of the study was to examine the utilization of the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) website at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We evaluated (1) CFS website utilization, (2) outcomes of a CDC CFS public awareness campaign, and (3) user behavior related to public awareness campaign materials and CFS continuing medical education courses. To describe and evaluate Web utilization, we collected Web usage data over an 18-month period and extracted page views, visits, referring domains, and geographic locations. We used page views as the primary measure for the CFS awareness outreach effort. We utilized market basket analysis and Markov chain model techniques to describe user behavior related to utilization of campaign materials and continuing medical education courses. The CDC CFS website received 3,647,736 views from more than 50 countries over the 18-month period and was the 33rd most popular CDC website. States with formal CFS programs had higher visiting density, such as Washington, DC; Georgia; and New Jersey. Most visits (71%) were from Web search engines, with 16% from non-search-engine sites and 12% from visitors who had bookmarked the site. The public awareness campaign was associated with a sharp increase and subsequent quick drop in Web traffic. Following the campaign, user interest shifted from information targeting consumer basic knowledge to information for health care professionals. The market basket analysis showed that visitors preferred the 60-second radio clip public service announcement over the 30-second one. Markov chain model results revealed that most visitors took the

Experimental effects of climate messages vary geographically

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Baobao; van der Linden, Sander; Mildenberger, Matto; Marlon, Jennifer R.; Howe, Peter D.; Leiserowitz, Anthony

2018-05-01

Social science scholars routinely evaluate the efficacy of diverse climate frames using local convenience or nationally representative samples1-5. For example, previous research has focused on communicating the scientific consensus on climate change, which has been identified as a `gateway' cognition to other key beliefs about the issue6-9. Importantly, although these efforts reveal average public responsiveness to particular climate frames, they do not describe variation in message effectiveness at the spatial and political scales relevant for climate policymaking. Here we use a small-area estimation method to map geographical variation in public responsiveness to information about the scientific consensus as part of a large-scale randomized national experiment (n = 6,301). Our survey experiment finds that, on average, public perception of the consensus increases by 16 percentage points after message exposure. However, substantial spatial variation exists across the United States at state and local scales. Crucially, responsiveness is highest in more conservative parts of the country, leading to national convergence in perceptions of the climate science consensus across diverse political geographies. These findings not only advance a geographical understanding of how the public engages with information about scientific agreement, but will also prove useful for policymakers, practitioners and scientists engaged in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Management Communication Strategy in Case Assignments: The Double-Message Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Stevens, Betsy

1994-01-01

Offers a solution to the limitations of using case studies in business communication classes that use the double-message approach, in which students write a context memorandum along with their response to the case protagonist, thus providing instructors with a social context for cases and additional dimensions that enhance the instructor's ability…

CosmoQuest: Educating the Public (and Ourselves) With CosmoAcademy Online Classes

Science.gov (United States)

Francis, M. R.; Gay, P.

2016-12-01

CosmoAcademy is a part of the CosmoQuest mission to educate the public about astronomy, planetary science, and similar subjects. Through short-duration online classes with small enrollment, we can cover many subjects of interest to the interested layperson, taught by experts. Typical CosmoAcademy classes consist of four hours of face-to-face time, and are limited to fewer than 20 students. This is in contrast to massive online classes such as MOOCs, which often replicate typical university courses, but which rarely allow student-instructor interaction. Additionally, we offer continuing-education classes for classroom teachers and other educators on similar subjects, to let them enrich their own teaching. WeBecause of the short classes, we can offer short classes both on standard topics (the Solar System planets, introduction to cosmology) and specific subjects relating to the news (LIGO, asteroid missions). The expert instructors may be graduate students, research professionals, or anyone with the technical background. We also offer classes to train instructors before they begin teaching. These professional development classes are designed to help those without classroom experience, but also support those who To make that work, we offer classes to train the instructors before they begin teaching, if they don't have the experience or just want to learn how to be more effective in the classroom.We will present CosmoAcademy's program, and explain what it offers both to people taking the class and those who might want to teach with us.

Hashtag (# as Message Identity in Virtual Community

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Urip Mulyadi

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Computer Mediated Communication or CMC is able to present a virtual community, where the people inside have the same interest to share information related to events, activities, competitions, entertainment, history, event and others in Semarang City for publication. This research attempted to describe that hashtags can be utilized as the identity of a message in a communications network on Facebook Group MIK Semar. The results of this study are hashtags have changed how we build a virtual community, as the use of hashtags in Facebook Group MIK SEMAR as message identity to build better relationship and support communication among its members.

Organizational Supports for Research Evidence Use in State Public Health Agencies: A Latent Class Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Hengrui; Allen, Peg; Yan, Yan; Reis, Rodrigo S; Jacob, Rebekah R; Brownson, Ross C

2018-05-30

Use of research evidence in public health decision making can be affected by organizational supports. Study objectives are to identify patterns of organizational supports and explore associations with research evidence use for job tasks among public health practitioners. In this longitudinal study, we used latent class analysis to identify organizational support patterns, followed by mixed logistic regression analysis to quantify associations with research evidence use. The setting included 12 state public health department chronic disease prevention units and their external partnering organizations involved in chronic disease prevention. Chronic disease prevention staff from 12 US state public health departments and partnering organizations completed self-report surveys at 2 time points, in 2014 and 2016 (N = 872). Latent class analysis was employed to identify subgroups of survey participants with distinct patterns of perceived organizational supports. Two classify-analyze approaches (maximum probability assignment and multiple pseudo-class draws) were used in 2017 to investigate the association between latent class membership and research evidence use. The optimal model identified 4 latent classes, labeled as "unsupportive workplace," "low agency leadership support," "high agency leadership support," and "supportive workplace." With maximum probability assignment, participants in "high agency leadership support" (odds ratio = 2.08; 95% CI, 1.35-3.23) and "supportive workplace" (odds ratio = 1.74; 95% CI, 1.10-2.74) were more likely to use research evidence in job tasks than "unsupportive workplace." The multiple pseudo-class draws produced comparable results with odds ratio = 2.09 (95% CI, 1.31-3.30) for "high agency leadership support" and odds ratio = 1.74 (95% CI, 1.07-2.82) for "supportive workplace." Findings suggest that leadership support may be a crucial element of organizational supports to encourage research evidence use. Organizational supports such

Experience in Modelling Nuclear Energy Systems with MESSAGE: Country Case Studies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2018-01-01

Member States have recognized the increasing need to model future nuclear power scenarios in order to develop strategies for sustainable nuclear energy systems. The IAEA model for energy supply strategy alternatives and their general environmental impacts (MESSAGE) code is a tool that supports energy analysis and planning in Member States. This publication documents the experience gained on modelling and scenario analysis of nuclear energy systems (NES) using the MESSAGE code through various case studies performed by the participating Member States on evaluation and planning for nuclear energy sustainability at the regional or national level. The publication also elaborates on experience gained in modelling of global nuclear energy systems with a focus on specific aspects of collaboration among technology holder and technology user countries and the introduction of innovative nuclear technologies. It presents country case studies covering a variety of nuclear energy systems based on a once-through fuel cycle and a closed fuel cycle for thermal reactors, fast reactors and advanced systems. The feedback from case studies proves the analytical capabilities of the MESSAGE model and highlight the path forward for further advancements in the MESSAGE code and NES modelling.

Mobile phone text messaging to reduce alcohol and tobacco use in young people – a narrative review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Haug S

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Severin Haug Swiss Research Institute for Public Health and Addiction at Zurich University, Zurich, Switzerland Background: Alcohol and tobacco use are major causes of the disease burden in most countries of the world. Mobile phone text messaging is very popular among adolescents and young adults and has the potential to deliver individualized information to large population groups at low costs. Objective: To provide a narrative review on studies testing the appropriateness and effectiveness of text messaging-based programs to reduce alcohol and tobacco use in young people. Results: Two published studies on text message-based programs for the reduction of problem drinking and two studies on programs for enhancing smoking cessation were identified. A US-American pilot experimental study tested the feasibility and initial efficacy of a text messaging-based assessment and brief intervention among young adults identified during their emergency department visit with hazardous drinking. It demonstrated the feasibility of the text messaging-based program to collect drinking data in young adults after emergency department discharge. A Swiss pre–post study tested the appropriateness and initial effectiveness of a combined, individually tailored web- and text messaging (SMS-based program to reduce problem drinking in vocational school students. It provided evidence for the appropriateness of the intervention and initial evidence for its efficacy to reduce problem drinking. One of the two studies addressing smoking cessation was a US-American pilot randomized controlled trial. Participants were recruited via online advertisements and received text messages tailored according to their quitting stage. The intervention significantly affected self-reported quitting rates at 4 weeks but not at 3 months after the quit date. Within a cluster-randomized controlled trial conducted in Switzerland, smoking students were proactively recruited within vocational

Classroom-Based Integration of Text-Messaging in Mathematics Teaching-Learning Process

Science.gov (United States)

Aunzo, Rodulfo T., Jr.

2017-01-01

A lot of teachers are complaining that students are "texting" inside the classroom even during class hours. With this, this research study "on students' perception before the integration and the students' attitude after the integration of text messaging inside the classroom during the mathematics teaching-learning process was…

Attacks on public telephone networks: technologies and challenges

Science.gov (United States)

Kosloff, T.; Moore, Tyler; Keller, J.; Manes, Gavin W.; Shenoi, Sujeet

2003-09-01

Signaling System 7 (SS7) is vital to signaling and control in America's public telephone networks. This paper describes a class of attacks on SS7 networks involving the insertion of malicious signaling messages via compromised SS7 network components. Three attacks are discussed in detail: IAM flood attacks, redirection attacks and point code spoofing attacks. Depending on their scale of execution, these attacks can produce effects ranging from network congestion to service disruption. Methods for detecting these denial-of-service attacks and mitigating their effects are also presented.

Unintended messages in online advertising to youth: illicit drug imagery in a Canadian sports marketing campaign.

Science.gov (United States)

Auger, Nathalie; Daniel, Mark; Knäuper, Bärbel; Dourian, Tara; Raynault, Marie-France

2015-04-01

We assessed the potential for harmful messages in online advertisements targeted to youth, using the example of the Canadian "Light It Up" marketing campaign from a large sports corporation. We undertook a cluster randomized controlled trial of 20 secondary school classes in Montreal, Canada. Classes were randomly allocated to view a "Light It Up" advertisement (n = 205) or a neutral comparison advertisement (n = 192). The main outcome measures were self-reports of illicit drug messages in the advertisements. Of the students, 22.9% reported that the "Light It Up" advertisement contained illicit drug messages compared with 1.0% for the comparison advertisement (relative risk, 22.0; 95% confidence interval, 6.5-74.9). Although meant to promote sports, youth in this study believed that the "Light It Up" advertisement was related to illicit drugs. The campaign illustrates how advertisements may inadvertently market unwanted behaviors to children. Copyright © 2015 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

BrdsNBz: Sexually Experienced Teens More Likely to Use Sexual Health Text Message Service.

Science.gov (United States)

Willoughby, Jessica Fitts

2015-12-01

Text messaging services are becoming an increasingly popular way to provide sexual health information to teens, but little is known about who uses such services. This study assessed whether teens at a greater risk for negative sexual health outcomes use a sexual health text message service. A text message service that connects teens with sexual health educators was promoted in six public schools in one state in the Southeast. Students (n = 2,125) in four schools completed an online questionnaire assessing personal risk factors associated with negative sexual health outcomes and use of the text message service. Text message service users (n = 144) were more likely to have had sex, to have been in a relationship, and to come from a lower socioeconomic status background. Users also felt less connected to their schools and were slightly older than nonservice users. When all variables were entered into a logistic regression, only sexual experience was associated with service use. Sexual health text message services are designed to provide information to teens in an effort to prevent negative sexual outcomes. Such services seem to be reaching youth with increased risk of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease acquisition. This study provides evidence that teens most likely to benefit are also those most likely to use a sexual health text message service. © 2015 Society for Public Health Education.

A Visualized Message Interface (VMI) for intelligent messaging services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Endo, T.; Kasahara, H.; Nakagawa, T.

1984-01-01

In CCITT, Message Handling Systems (MHS) have been studied from the viewpoint of communications protocol standardization. In addition to MHS services, Message Processing (MP) services, such as image processing, filing and retrieving services, will come into increasing demand in office automation field. These messaging services, including MHS services, can be thought of as Intelligent Messaging (IM) services. IM services include many basic services, optional user facilities and service parameters. Accordingly, it is necessary to deal with these parameters and MP procedures in as systematic and user-friendly a manner as possible. As one step towards realizing a user-friendly IM services interface, the characteristics of IM service parameters are studied and a Visualized Message Interface (VMI) which resembles a conventional letter exchange format is presented. The concept of VMI formation is discussed using the generic document structure concept as well as a Screen Interface and Protocol Interface conversion package

Public Key Cryptography.

Science.gov (United States)

Tapson, Frank

1996-01-01

Describes public key cryptography, also known as RSA, which is a system using two keys, one used to put a message into cipher and another used to decipher the message. Presents examples using small prime numbers. (MKR)

To what extent can the nuclear public relations be effective?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ohnishi, Teruaki [CRC Research Institute, Tokyo (Japan)

1996-06-01

The effect of public relations (PRs) on the public`s attitude to nuclear energy was assessed using a model developed under the assumption that the extent of attitude change of the public by the PRs activity is essentially the same as that by the nuclear information released by the newsmedia. The attitude change of the public was quantitatively estimated by setting variables explicitly manifesting the activities such as the circulation of exclusive publicity and the area of advertising messages in the newspaper as parameters. The public`s attitude became clear to have a nonlinear dependence on the amount of activity, the extent of its change being varied considerably with demographic classes. Under a given financial condition, the offer of PRs information to the people, as many as possible in a target region, in spite of its little force of appeal, was found to be more effective for the amelioration of public attitude than the repeated offer of the information to a limited member of the public. It also became clear that there exists the most effective media mix for the activity depending on the extent of target region and on the target class of demography, therefore, it is quite significant to determine beforehand the proper conditions for the activity to be executed, such a situation indicating the need for the introduction of nuclear PRs management. (Author).

In the Shadow of Celebrity? World-Class University Policies and Public Value in Higher Education

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cremonini, Leon; Westerheijden, Donald F.; Benneworth, Paul Stephen; Dauncey, Hugh

2014-01-01

The growing popularity of the concept of world-class universities raises the question of whether investing in such universities is a worthwhile use of public resources. Does concentrating public resources on the most excellent universities improve the overall quality of a higher education system,

Church-based social marketing to motivate older adults to take balance classes for fall prevention: cluster randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

DiGuiseppi, Carolyn G; Thoreson, Sallie R; Clark, Lauren; Goss, Cynthia W; Marosits, Mark J; Currie, Dustin W; Lezotte, Dennis C

2014-10-01

Determine whether a church-based social marketing program increases older adults' participation in balance classes for fall prevention. In 2009-10, 51 churches (7101 total members aged ≥ 60) in Colorado, U.S.A. were randomized to receive no intervention or a social marketing program. The program highlighted benefits of class participation (staying independent, building relationships), reduced potential barriers (providing convenient, subsidized classes), and communicated marketing messages through church leaders, trained "messengers," printed materials and church-based communication channels. Between-group differences in balance class enrollment and marketing message recall among congregants were compared using Wilcoxon Two-Sample Test and regression models. Compared to 25 control churches, 26 churches receiving the social marketing program had a higher median proportion (9.8% vs. 0.3%; psocial marketing effectively disseminated messages about preventing falls through balance classes and, by emphasizing benefits and reducing barriers and costs of participation, successfully motivated older adults to enroll in the classes. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

DMS message design workshops.

Science.gov (United States)

2009-03-01

This report summarizes the training conducted statewide regarding the design and display of messages on : dynamic message signs. The training is based on the Dynamic Message Sign Message Design and Display : Manual (0-4023-P3). Researchers developed ...

Countering Craving with Disgust Images: Examining Nicotine Withdrawn Smokers' Motivated Message Processing of Anti-Tobacco Public Service Announcements.

Science.gov (United States)

Clayton, Russell B; Leshner, Glenn; Tomko, Rachel L; Trull, Timothy J; Piasecki, Thomas M

2017-03-01

There is a lack of research examining whether smoking cues in anti-tobacco advertisements elicit cravings, or whether this effect is moderated by countervailing message attributes, such as disgusting images. Furthermore, no research has examined how these types of messages influence nicotine withdrawn smokers' cognitive processing and associated behavioral intentions. At a laboratory session, participants (N = 50 nicotine-deprived adults) were tested for cognitive processing and recognition memory of 12 anti-tobacco advertisements varying in depictions of smoking cues and disgust content. Self-report smoking urges and intentions to quit smoking were measured after each message. The results from this experiment indicated that smoking cue messages activated appetitive/approach motivation resulting in enhanced attention and memory, but increased craving and reduced quit intentions. Disgust messages also enhanced attention and memory, but activated aversive/avoid motivation resulting in reduced craving and increased quit intentions. The combination of smoking cues and disgust content resulted in moderate amounts of craving and quit intentions, but also led to heart rate acceleration (indicating defensive processing) and poorer recognition of message content. These data suggest that in order to counter nicotine-deprived smokers' craving and prolong abstinence, anti-tobacco messages should omit smoking cues but include disgust. Theoretical implications are also discussed.

Text Message Support for Weight Loss in Patients With Prediabetes: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Fischer, Henry H; Fischer, Ilana P; Pereira, Rocio I; Furniss, Anna L; Rozwadowski, Jeanne M; Moore, Susan L; Durfee, Michael J; Raghunath, Silvia G; Tsai, Adam G; Havranek, Edward P

2016-08-01

Although the benefits of in-person Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) classes for diabetes prevention have been demonstrated in trials, effectiveness in clinical practice is limited by low participation rates. This study explores whether text message support enhances weight loss in patients offered DPP classes. English- and Spanish-speaking patients with prediabetes (n = 163) were randomized to the control group, which only received an invitation to DPP classes as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or to the text message-augmented intervention group, which also received text messages adapted from the DPP curriculum for 12 months. Mean weight decreased 0.6 pounds (95% CI -2.7 to 1.6) in the control group and 2.6 pounds (95% CI -5.5 to 0.2) in the intervention group (P value 0.05). Three percent weight loss was achieved by 21.5% of participants in the control group (95% CI 12.5-30.6), compared with 38.5% in the intervention group (95% CI 27.7-49.3) (absolute difference 17.0%; P value 0.02). Mean glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) increased by 0.19% or 2.1 mmol/mol (95% CI -0.1 to 0.5%) and decreased by 0.09% or 1.0 mmol/mol (95% CI -0.2 to 0.0%) in the control group and intervention participants, respectively (absolute difference 0.28%; P value 0.07). Stratification by language demonstrated a significant treatment effect in Spanish speakers but not in English speakers. Text message support can lead to clinically significant weight loss in patients with prediabetes. Further study assessing effect by primary language and in an operational setting is warranted. © 2016 by the American Diabetes Association. Readers may use this article as long as the work is properly cited, the use is educational and not for profit, and the work is not altered.

Addressing medication nonadherence by mobile phone: development and delivery of tailored messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Gatwood, Justin; Balkrishnan, Rajesh; Erickson, Steven R; An, Lawrence C; Piette, John D; Farris, Karen B

2014-01-01

Medication nonadherence remains a significant public health problem, and efforts to improve adherence have shown only limited impact. The tailoring of messages has become a popular method of developing communication to influence specific health-related behaviors but the development and impact of tailored text messages on medication use is poorly understood. The aim of this paper is to describe an approach to developing theory-based tailored messages for delivery via mobile phone to improve medication adherence among patients with diabetes. Kreuter's five-step tailoring process was followed to create tailored messages for mobile phone delivery. Two focus group sessions, using input from 11 people, and expert review of message content were used to adapt the survey instrument on which the messages were tailored and edit the developed messages for the target population. Following established tailoring methods a library of 168 theory-driven and 128 medication-specific tailored messages were developed and formatted for automated delivery to mobile phones. Concepts from the Health Belief Model and Self-Determination Theory were used to craft the messages and an algorithm was applied to determine the order and timing of messages with the aim of progressively influencing disease and treatment-related beliefs driving adherence to diabetes medication. The process described may be applied to future investigations aiming to improve medication adherence in patients with diabetes and the effectiveness of the current messages will be tested in a planned analysis. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Public Education: A Route into Lebanon’s Middle Class in the 1960s and Early 1970s

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Youssef Zbib

2014-05-01

Full Text Available In Lebanon during the 1960s, public education became more accessible to members of the lower classes and different sectarian denominations, after a time when education had been, to a large extent, a privilege of upper- and middle-class Christians. This paper examines the socioeconomic conditions of public school teachers as a result of this process. Using Bourdieusian analysis, I argue that these teachers used cultural capital acquired through free education to become part of a rising professional middle class. To a large extent, these teachers’ definition of their own social positions and roles was a result of their individual histories and internalized values.

Application of a Tsunami Warning Message Metric to refine NOAA NWS Tsunami Warning Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Gregg, C. E.; Johnston, D.; Sorensen, J.; Whitmore, P.

2013-12-01

In 2010, the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) funded a three year project to integrate social science into their Tsunami Program. One of three primary requirements of the grant was to make improvements to tsunami warning messages of the NWS' two Tsunami Warning Centers- the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) in Palmer, Alaska and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. We conducted focus group meetings with a purposive sample of local, state and Federal stakeholders and emergency managers in six states (AK, WA, OR, CA, HI and NC) and two US Territories (US Virgin Islands and American Samoa) to qualitatively asses information needs in tsunami warning messages using WCATWC tsunami messages for the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami event. We also reviewed research literature on behavioral response to warnings to develop a tsunami warning message metric that could be used to guide revisions to tsunami warning messages of both warning centers. The message metric is divided into categories of Message Content, Style, Order and Formatting and Receiver Characteristics. A message is evaluated by cross-referencing the message with the operational definitions of metric factors. Findings are then used to guide revisions of the message until the characteristics of each factor are met. Using findings from this project and findings from a parallel NWS Warning Tiger Team study led by T. Nicolini, the WCATWC implemented the first of two phases of revisions to their warning messages in November 2012. A second phase of additional changes, which will fully implement the redesign of messages based on the metric, is in progress. The resulting messages will reflect current state-of-the-art knowledge on warning message effectiveness. Here we present the message metric; evidence-based rational for message factors; and examples of previous, existing and proposed messages.

Getting your message out with social marketing.

Science.gov (United States)

Manoff, R K

1997-09-01

This article was based on a speech presented at a Plenary Session of the 1996 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. The address describes the nature of social marketing with examples and some lessons learned in developing countries. The earliest social marketers were Moses with the Ten Commandments of God and Indian religious authorities with fertility motifs inscribed on temple walls. Modern marketers of beer and snack food preempted the ancients and made social marketing more ingenious. The strategy shifted to supplying a product to satisfy a consumer want. Messages became a two-way process that minimized feedback shock. Focus groups were used to probe consumers' thoughts. Research must probe the total environment of the "problem." In Brazil, breast feeding promotions revealed that the perceived problem may not be the real problem, and there was no single magic solution. Most tropical disease prevention approaches do not rely on multistage strategies. The oral rehydration therapy (ORT) strategy became a world-wide model when strategists realized that the formula had to be easy to remember, diarrhea had to be recognized as a disease, and the function of ORT had to be clearly defined. The Bangladesh Social Marketing Campaign was successful in getting men to discuss family planning with their wives and establishing the family planning worker as a heroine. Effective messages must uncover points of resistance to the message. Public health advances in the 19th century were due to social policy to improve water supply, sanitation, and nutrition. The iodization of salt in Ecuador was possible with political will, public awareness, redirection of perception, and motivation of demand. Social marketing resources exist in all countries nowadays. Only medical and scientific professionals can promote concern about tropical diseases and raise the prevention priority on the public agenda.

Analysis of twitter users' sharing of official new york storm response messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Genes, Nicholas; Chary, Michael; Chason, Kevin

2014-01-01

Twitter is a social network where users read, send, and share snippets of text ("tweets"). Tweets can be disseminated through multiple means; on desktop computers, laptops, and mobile devices, over ethernet, Wi-Fi or cellular networks. This redundancy positions Twitter as a useful tool for disseminating information to the public during emergencies or disasters. Previous research on dissemination of information using Twitter has mostly investigated the characteristics of tweets that are most effective in raising consumer awareness about a new product or event. In particular, they describe characteristics that increase the chance the messages will be shared ("retweeted") by users. In comparison, little has been published on how information from municipal or state government agencies spreads on Twitter during emergency situations. Retweeting these messages is a way to enhance public awareness of potentially important instructions from public officials in a disaster. The aim of this study is to (1) describe the tweets of select New York State and New York City agencies by public officials surrounding two notable recent winter storms that required a large-scale emergency response, and (2) identify the characteristics of the tweets of public officials that were most disseminated (retweeted). For one week surrounding Superstorm Sandy (October 2012) and the winter blizzard Nemo (February 2013), we collected (1) tweets from the official accounts for six New York governmental agencies, and (2) all tweets containing the hashtags #sandy (or #nemo) and #nyc. From these data we calculated how many times a tweet was retweeted, controlling for differences in baseline activity in each account. We observed how many hashtags and links each tweet contained. We also calculated the lexical diversity of each tweet, a measure of the range of vocabulary used. During the Sandy storm, 3242 shared (retweeted) messages from public officials were collected. The lexical diversity of official

Politics, Religion and Morals: The Symbolism of Public Schooling for the Urban Middle-Class Identity

Science.gov (United States)

Rowe, Emma E.

2016-01-01

Research points to sections of the middle-class repopulating the "ordinary" urban public school and whilst there are key differences in how they are navigating public school choices, from "seeking a critical mass" to resisting traditional methods of choice and going "against-the-grain", or collectively campaigning for…

Public Education: A Route into Lebanon’s Middle Class in the 1960s and Early 1970s

OpenAIRE

Youssef Zbib

2014-01-01

In Lebanon during the 1960s, public education became more accessible to members of the lower classes and different sectarian denominations, after a time when education had been, to a large extent, a privilege of upper- and middle-class Christians. This paper examines the socioeconomic conditions of public school teachers as a result of this process. Using Bourdieusian analysis, I argue that these teachers used cultural capital acquired through free education to become part of a rising profess...

To what extent can the nuclear public relations be effective?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ohnishi, Teruaki

1996-01-01

The effect of public relations (PRs) on the public's attitude to nuclear energy was assessed using a model developed under the assumption that the extent of attitude change of the public by the PRs activity is essentially the same as that by the nuclear information released by the newsmedia. The attitude change of the public was quantitatively estimated by setting variables explicitly manifesting the activities such as the circulation of exclusive publicity and the area of advertising messages in the newspaper as parameters. The public's attitude became clear to have a nonlinear dependence on the amount of activity, the extent of its change being varied considerably with demographic classes. Under a given financial condition, the offer of PRs information to the people, as many as possible in a target region, in spite of its little force of appeal, was found to be more effective for the amelioration of public attitude than the repeated offer of the information to a limited member of the public. It also became clear that there exists the most effective media mix for the activity depending on the extent of target region and on the target class of demography, therefore, it is quite significant to determine beforehand the proper conditions for the activity to be executed, such a situation indicating the need for the introduction of nuclear PRs management. (Author)

Diffusion of Messages from an Electronic Cigarette Brand to Potential Users through Twitter.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kar-Hai Chu

Full Text Available This study explores the presence and actions of an electronic cigarette (e-cigarette brand, Blu, on Twitter to observe how marketing messages are sent and diffused through the retweet (i.e., message forwarding functionality. Retweet networks enable messages to reach additional Twitter users beyond the sender's local network. We follow messages from their origin through multiple retweets to identify which messages have more reach, and the different users who are exposed.We collected three months of publicly available data from Twitter. A combination of techniques in social network analysis and content analysis were applied to determine the various networks of users who are exposed to e-cigarette messages and how the retweet network can affect which messages spread.The Blu retweet network expanded during the study period. Analysis of user profiles combined with network cluster analysis showed that messages of certain topics were only circulated within a community of e-cigarette supporters, while other topics spread further, reaching more general Twitter users who may not support or use e-cigarettes.Retweet networks can serve as proxy filters for marketing messages, as Twitter users decide which messages they will continue to diffuse among their followers. As certain e-cigarette messages extend beyond their point of origin, the audience being exposed expands beyond the e-cigarette community. Potential implications for health education campaigns include utilizing Twitter and targeting important gatekeepers or hubs that would maximize message diffusion.

Text messaging in health care: a systematic review of impact studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Yeager, Valerie A; Menachemi, Nir

2011-01-01

Studies suggest text messaging is beneficial to health care; however, no one has synthesized the overall evidence on texting interventions. In response to this need, we conducted a systematic review of the impacts of text messaging in health care. PubMed database searches and subsequent reference list reviews sought English-language, peer-reviewed studies involving text messaging in health care. Commentaries, conference proceedings, and feasibilities studies were excluded. Data was extracted using an article coding sheet and input into a database for analysis. Of the 61 papers reviewed, 50 articles (82%) found text messaging had a positive effect on the primary outcome. Average sample sizes in articles reporting positive findings (n=813) were significantly larger than those that did not find a positive impact (n=178) on outcomes (p = 0.032). Articles were categorized into focal groups as follows: 27 articles (44.3%) investigated the impact of texting on disease management, 24 articles (39.3%) focused texting's impact to public health related outcomes, and 10 articles (16.4%) examined texting and its influence on administrative processes. Articles in focal groups differed by the purpose of the study, direction of the communication, and where they were published, but not in likelihood of reporting a positive impact from texting. Current evidence indicates that text messaging health care interventions are largely beneficial clinically, in public health related uses, and in terms of administrative processes. However, despite the promise of these findings, literature gaps exist, especially in primary care settings, across geographic regions and with vulnerable populations.

Competing with big business: a randomised experiment testing the effects of messages to promote alcohol and sugary drink control policy

OpenAIRE

Scully, Maree; Brennan, Emily; Durkin, Sarah; Dixon, Helen; Wakefield, Melanie; Barry, Colleen L.; Niederdeppe, Jeff

2017-01-01

Background Evidence-based policies encouraging healthy behaviours are often strongly opposed by well-funded industry groups. As public support is crucial for policy change, public health advocates need to be equipped with strategies to offset the impact of anti-policy messages. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effectiveness of theory-based public health advocacy messages in generating public support for sugary drink/alcohol policies (increased taxes; sport sponsorship bans) and impr...

Public Address, Cultural Diversity, and Tolerance: Teaching Cultural Diversity in Speech Classes.

Science.gov (United States)

Byrd, Marquita L.

While speech instructors work to design appropriate diversity goals in the public speaking class, few have the training for such a task. A review of course objectives and assignments for the basic course may be helpful. Suggestions for instructors working to incorporate diversity in the basic course include: (1) recognize the dominance of the…

Statistics of Epidemics in Networks by Passing Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Shrestha, Munik Kumar

financial contagion gets worse with too much diversification. We also predict that financial system exhibits "robust yet fragile" behavior, with regions of the parameter space where contagion is rare but catastrophic whenever it occurs. In further results, we develop a message-passing approach to recurrent state epidemics like susceptible-infectious-susceptible and susceptible-infectious-recovered-susceptible where nodes can return to previously inhabited states and multiple waves of infection can pass through the population. Given that message-passing has been applied exclusively to models with one-way state changes like susceptible-infectious and susceptible-infectious-recovered, we develop message-passing for recurrent epidemics based on a new class of differential equations and demonstrate that our approach is simple and efficiently approximates results obtained from Monte Carlo simulation, and that the accuracy of message-passing is often superior to the pair approximation (which also takes second-order correlations into account).

Getting Your Message Across: Mobile Phone Text Messaging

Science.gov (United States)

Beecher, Constance C.; Hayungs, Lori

2017-01-01

Want to send a message that 99% of your audience will read? Many Extension professionals are familiar with using social media tools to enhance Extension programming. Extension professionals may be less familiar with the use of mobile phone text-based marketing tools. The purpose of this article is to introduce SMS (short message system) marketing…

Nuclear public information in practice

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mesaru, Daniela

2001-01-01

This presentation describes the site of Cernavoda-1 NPP, its history, decision making to build it, major public concerns related to NPP operation, fuel fabrication, Interim storage of spent fuel and spent fuel disposal, Transport of radioactive material,Emergency preparedness, Nuclear or radiological accidents. Within this scope the key messages to be communicated to the public are recommended. The public relation groups should communicate all the time with public - trying to send the main message: 'Nobody Wants To Hide Anything. We Are Always Open. Your Good Health Means We Can Still Produce Nuclear Power'

Tobacco-prevention messages online: social marketing via the Web.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Carolyn A; Hullman, Gwen A

2005-01-01

Antitobacco groups have joined millions of other commercial or noncommercial entities in developing a presence on the Web. These groups primarily represent the following different sponsorship categories: grassroots, medical, government, and corporate. To obtain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses in the message design of antitobacco Web sites, this project analyzed 100 antitobacco Web sites ranging across these four sponsorship categories. The results show that the tobacco industry sites posted just enough antismoking information to appease the antismoking publics. Medical organizations designed their Web sites as specialty sites and offered mostly scientific information. While the government sites resembled a clearinghouse for antitobacco related information, the grassroots sites represented the true advocacy outlets. In general, the industry sites provided the weakest persuasive messages and medical sites fared only slightly better. Government and grassroots sites rated most highly in presenting their antitobacco campaign messages on the Web.

Analysis of Twitter Users’ Sharing of Official New York Storm Response Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Chary, Michael; Chason, Kevin

2014-01-01

Background Twitter is a social network where users read, send, and share snippets of text (“tweets”). Tweets can be disseminated through multiple means; on desktop computers, laptops, and mobile devices, over ethernet, Wi-Fi or cellular networks. This redundancy positions Twitter as a useful tool for disseminating information to the public during emergencies or disasters. Previous research on dissemination of information using Twitter has mostly investigated the characteristics of tweets that are most effective in raising consumer awareness about a new product or event. In particular, they describe characteristics that increase the chance the messages will be shared ("retweeted") by users. In comparison, little has been published on how information from municipal or state government agencies spreads on Twitter during emergency situations. Retweeting these messages is a way to enhance public awareness of potentially important instructions from public officials in a disaster. Objective The aim of this study is to (1) describe the tweets of select New York State and New York City agencies by public officials surrounding two notable recent winter storms that required a large-scale emergency response, and (2) identify the characteristics of the tweets of public officials that were most disseminated (retweeted). Methods For one week surrounding Superstorm Sandy (October 2012) and the winter blizzard Nemo (February 2013), we collected (1) tweets from the official accounts for six New York governmental agencies, and (2) all tweets containing the hashtags #sandy (or #nemo) and #nyc. From these data we calculated how many times a tweet was retweeted, controlling for differences in baseline activity in each account. We observed how many hashtags and links each tweet contained. We also calculated the lexical diversity of each tweet, a measure of the range of vocabulary used. Results During the Sandy storm, 3242 shared (retweeted) messages from public officials were

Managing Social Activity and Participation in Large Classes with Mobile Phone Technology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Thatcher

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Within the context of a developing country, suchas South Africa, access to technology is severely limited.However, most South Africans have relatively good access tomobile phone technology in relation to other portable andmobile technology. In this initiative, students wereencouraged to use mobile phone text messaging to sendquestions to the lecturer during classes or between classes. Atotal of 86 text messages were sent to the lecturer during a 7-week, second year psychology course. At the end of thecourse 136 responses to questionnaire distributed in classwas obtained. This data was analysed using activity theoryas a framework for the discussion. The results indicated thatstudents had strongly favorable perceptions of this initiativeand respondents had spontaneously suggested other uses ofmobile phone technology to enhance the learningexperience. Activity theory provided a useful framework forevaluating the use of mobile phone text messages to enhancestudent participation and learning.

Humorous Writing Exercise Using Internet Memes On English Classes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdul Aziz Turhan Kariko

2012-11-01

Full Text Available This study discusses Internet memes found by Internet users and how they appeal for them, by deconstructing what internet meme is and what it does. Analysis are conducted especially on how the relation between images, text, and meanings connect with each other to form social messages, political messages, universal emotions, or merely to make humor and entertain its users. Researcher examines five samples of internet memes on the internet and decodes their relation between images, texts, and meanings using semiotics. These samples are then introduced as writing assignments to two BINUS University’s English department classes and one Global English Class. The study reveals that humor and creativity in using internet memes are related to the students’ achievement in their studies.

Frightfully funny: combining threat and humour in health messages for men and women.

Science.gov (United States)

Hendriks, Hanneke; Janssen, Loes

2018-05-01

It is imperative for public health to investigate what factors may reduce defensive responses and increase the effectiveness of health information. The present research investigated gender differences in responses to threatening health-promoting information communicated with humour. Male and female participants were exposed to a health message stressing the negative consequences of binge drinking (Experiment 1; N = 209) or caffeine consumption (Experiment 2; N = 242), that did or did not contain a funny visual metaphor (Experiment 1) or a slapstick cartoon (Experiment 2). Message evaluation, message attention, and attitudes and intentions towards the behaviour were measured. Results showed that health messages were more persuasive when communicated with humour, although humour played a different role for men and women. Whereas men responded more in line with message goals when the message combined high threat with humour, women preferred the low threat humour messages. By uncovering the moderating role of gender as a key audience characteristic, this research contributes to designing effective future health campaigns and provides important insights for future studies investigating the underlying mechanisms responsible for the different effects of threat and humour appeals for men and women.

The effectiveness of quantum operations for eavesdropping on sealed messages

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lopata, Paul A; Bahder, Thomas B

2007-01-01

A quantum protocol is described which enables a user to send sealed messages and that allows for the detection of active eavesdroppers. We examine a class of eavesdropping strategies, those that make use of quantum operations, and we determine the information gain versus disturbance caused by these strategies. We demonstrate this tradeoff with an example and we compare this protocol to quantum key distribution, quantum direct communication, and quantum seal protocols

Mobile Learning: Integrating Text Messaging into a Community College Pre-Algebra Course

Science.gov (United States)

Bull, Prince; McCormick, Carlos

2012-01-01

This study investigated the use of text messaging as an educational tool in a pre-algebra course at a community college in the central region of North Carolina. The research was conducted in two pre-algebra classes with thirty-three students and one instructor. Data were gathered using qualitative and quantitative methods. A mixed method design…

Unified Internet Messaging

OpenAIRE

Healy, Paul; Barber, Declan

2015-01-01

As telephony services, mobile services and internet services continue to converge, the prospect of providing Unified Messaging and even Unified Communications becomes increasingly achievable. This paper discusses the growing importance of IP-based networks to Unified Messaging developments and examines some of the key services and protocols that are likely to make Unified Messaging more widely available. In this initial paper, we limit ourselves initially to the unification of text-based mess...

Message-driven factors influencing opening and forwarding of mobile advertising messages

OpenAIRE

Sanz Blas, Silvia; Ruiz Mafé, Carla; Martí Parreño, José

2015-01-01

This work aims to analyse the influence of message-driven factors -informativeness, ubiquity, frequency and personalization- on consumer attitude and behaviour -opening and forwarding- towards mobile advertising messages. A theoretical model was developed and empirically tested using a sample of 355 Spanish teenager mobile users. Findings show that frequency is the dimension accounting the most -and significantly- of the four message-driven factors analysed on attitude toward mobile advertisi...

75 FR 73983 - Proposed Modification of the Salt Lake City, UT, Class B Airspace Area; Public Meetings

Science.gov (United States)

2010-11-30

... of the Salt Lake City, UT, Class B Airspace Area; Public Meetings AGENCY: Federal Aviation... Class B airspace area at Salt Lake City, UT. The purpose of these meetings is to provide interested... Road, Ogden, UT, 84405. (2) The meeting on Tuesday, February 1, 2011, will be held in the Conference...

Children and youth perceive smoking messages in an unbranded advertisement from a NIKE marketing campaign: a cluster randomised controlled trial

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Background How youth perceive marketing messages in sports is poorly understood. We evaluated whether youth perceive that the imagery of a specific sports marketing advertisement contained smoking-related messages. Methods Twenty grade 7 to 11 classes (397 students) from two high schools in Montréal, Canada were recruited to participate in a cluster randomised single-blind controlled trial. Classes were randomly allocated to either a NIKE advertisement containing the phrase 'LIGHT IT UP' (n = 205) or to a neutral advertisement with smoking imagery reduced and the phrase replaced by 'GO FOR IT' (n = 192). The NIKE logo was removed from both advertisements. Students responded in class to a questionnaire asking open-ended questions about their perception of the messages in the ad. Reports relating to the appearance and text of the ad, and the product being promoted were evaluated. Results Relative to the neutral ad, more students reported that the phrase 'LIGHT IT UP' was smoking-related (37.6% vs. 0.5%) and that other parts of the ad resembled smoking-related products (50.7% vs. 10.4%). The relative risk of students reporting that the NIKE ad promoted cigarettes was 4.41 (95% confidence interval: 2.64-7.36; P promoting NIKE hockey products appears to have contained smoking-related messages. This particular marketing campaign may have promoted smoking. This suggests that the regulation of marketing to youth may need to be more tightly controlled. PMID:21477307

Children and youth perceive smoking messages in an unbranded advertisement from a NIKE marketing campaign: a cluster randomised controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Auger, Nathalie; Daniel, Mark; Knäuper, Bärbel; Raynault, Marie-France; Pless, Barry

2011-04-08

How youth perceive marketing messages in sports is poorly understood. We evaluated whether youth perceive that the imagery of a specific sports marketing advertisement contained smoking-related messages. Twenty grade 7 to 11 classes (397 students) from two high schools in Montréal, Canada were recruited to participate in a cluster randomised single-blind controlled trial. Classes were randomly allocated to either a NIKE advertisement containing the phrase 'LIGHT IT UP' (n = 205) or to a neutral advertisement with smoking imagery reduced and the phrase replaced by 'GO FOR IT' (n = 192). The NIKE logo was removed from both advertisements. Students responded in class to a questionnaire asking open-ended questions about their perception of the messages in the ad. Reports relating to the appearance and text of the ad, and the product being promoted were evaluated. Relative to the neutral ad, more students reported that the phrase 'LIGHT IT UP' was smoking-related (37.6% vs. 0.5%) and that other parts of the ad resembled smoking-related products (50.7% vs. 10.4%). The relative risk of students reporting that the NIKE ad promoted cigarettes was 4.41 (95% confidence interval: 2.64-7.36; P NIKE hockey products appears to have contained smoking-related messages. This particular marketing campaign may have promoted smoking. This suggests that the regulation of marketing to youth may need to be more tightly controlled.

Efficient Data Generation and Publication as a Test Tool

Science.gov (United States)

Einstein, Craig Jakob

2017-01-01

A tool to facilitate the generation and publication of test data was created to test the individual components of a command and control system designed to launch spacecraft. Specifically, this tool was built to ensure messages are properly passed between system components. The tool can also be used to test whether the appropriate groups have access (read/write privileges) to the correct messages. The messages passed between system components take the form of unique identifiers with associated values. These identifiers are alphanumeric strings that identify the type of message and the additional parameters that are contained within the message. The values that are passed with the message depend on the identifier. The data generation tool allows for the efficient creation and publication of these messages. A configuration file can be used to set the parameters of the tool and also specify which messages to pass.

Whose Schools? Reconnecting the Public and Public Schools.

Science.gov (United States)

Mathews, David

1999-01-01

A Kettering Foundation survey of Newark citizens found that the only consistent supporters of public schools view them as partners in educating children and building community. Schools' standard public-relations techniques (directing messages exclusively to parents and stressing customer satisfaction) are misguided. Ameliorative strategies are…

When message-frame fits salient cultural-frame, messages feel more persuasive

OpenAIRE

Uskul, Ayse K.; Oyserman, Daphna

2010-01-01

The present study examines the persuasive effects of tailored health messages comparing those tailored to match (versus not match) both chronic cultural frame and momentarily salient cultural frame. Evidence from two studies (Study 1: n = 72 European Americans; Study 2: n = 48 Asian Americans) supports the hypothesis that message persuasiveness increases when chronic cultural frame, health message tailoring and momentarily salient cultural frame all match. The hypothesis was tested using a me...

The Step approach to Message Design and Testing (SatMDT): A conceptual framework to guide the development and evaluation of persuasive health messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Ioni; Watson, Barry; White, Katherine M

2016-12-01

This paper provides an important and timely overview of a conceptual framework designed to assist with the development of message content, as well as the evaluation, of persuasive health messages. While an earlier version of this framework was presented in a prior publication by the authors in 2009, important refinements to the framework have seen it evolve in recent years, warranting the need for an updated review. This paper outlines the Step approach to Message Design and Testing (or SatMDT) in accordance with the theoretical evidence which underpins, as well as empirical evidence which demonstrates the relevance and feasibility of, each of the framework's steps. The development and testing of the framework have thus far been based exclusively within the road safety advertising context; however, the view expressed herein is that the framework may have broader appeal and application to the health persuasion context. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

MessageSpace: a messaging system for health research

Science.gov (United States)

Escobar, Rodrigo D.; Akopian, David; Parra-Medina, Deborah; Esparza, Laura

2013-03-01

Mobile Health (mHealth) has emerged as a promising direction for delivery of healthcare services via mobile communication devices such as cell phones. Examples include texting-based interventions for chronic disease monitoring, diabetes management, control of hypertension, smoking cessation, monitoring medication adherence, appointment keeping and medical test result delivery; as well as improving patient-provider communication, health information communication, data collection and access to health records. While existing messaging systems very well support bulk messaging and some polling applications, they are not designed for data collection and processing of health research oriented studies. For that reason known studies based on text-messaging campaigns have been constrained in participant numbers. In order to empower healthcare promotion and education research, this paper presents a system dedicated for healthcare research. It is designed for convenient communication with various study groups, feedback collection and automated processing.

EMI Messaging Guidelines

CERN Document Server

Cons, L.

2011-01-01

Guidelines for potential users of messaging within EMI. The goal is to provide enough practical information so that EMI product teams can start investigating whether using messaging in their products can be beneficial or not.

Public opinion research in Canada: Incorporating the messages

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

David Lisle

2001-01-01

The development and use of nuclear technology in Canada, similar to other countries, has been influenced by public perceptions that are often based on limited information. Most individuals find it challenging to decide among the apparent conflicting claims and allegations related to nuclear power. To meet the challenges of public acceptance, AECL develops and implements strategies designed to increase awareness and understanding of the issues associated with nuclear technology. AECL's public communication programs have evolved over several decades. This reflects the changing nature of public concerns related to nuclear energy. With ever increasing requirements for public involvement in the decision-making process, AECL has designed and successfully implemented effective communication and consultation processes to build and maintain public support for nuclear projects. Public communication programs have also been developed and implemented by the provincial utilities that own and operate CANDU reactors, by the Canadian Nuclear Association and by the Canadian Nuclear Society. Often public education and information programs have been a collaborative effort involving a number of the key stakeholders in Canada's nuclear industry. AECL's public communication initiatives are designed to address the fears and myths surrounding the nuclear industry. The company is committed to providing information on its programs and it responds in a timely fashion to requests from the public. Due to the highly competitive nature of the nuclear industry, there is some proprietary information that is restricted and cannot be released. Consultations with the shareholder and with other key stakeholders on communication plans are an integral component of the design and implementation process. AECL public affairs staff provides advice and assistance to various government and industry communication committees. (author)

Is anybody doing it? An experimental study of the effect of normative messages on intention to do physical activity.

Science.gov (United States)

van Bavel, René; Esposito, Gabriele; Baranowski, Tom

2014-07-31

The study explores whether messages about the physical activity levels of the majority (i.e. normative messages) affect young adults' intention to engage in regular physical activity. An experimental survey among 16 to 24 year-olds in Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania (n = 1200) was conducted in March 2013. A control group received no message; one treatment group was told that the majority was physically active (positive message); and another treatment group was told that the majority was not physically active (negative message). Both the positive and (unexpectedly) the negative normative messages showed a significant and positive effect on intention to be physically active. There was no difference between the effects of the messages. Normative messages affect intention, which is encouraging for public health campaigns. The effect of the positive message confirms previous findings on conformity to the norm; the effect of the negative message is unexpected and requires further research to be understood.

Message sensation and cognition values: factors of competition or integration?

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Jie

2015-01-01

Using the Activation Model of Information Exposure and Elaboration Likelihood Model as theoretical frameworks, this study explored the effects of message sensation value (MSV) and message cognition value (MCV) of antismoking public service announcements (PSAs) on ad processing and evaluation among young adults, and the difference between high sensation seekers and low sensation seekers in their perceptions and responses toward ads with different levels of sensation and cognition value. A 2 (MSV: high vs. low) × 2 (MCV: high vs. low) × 2 (need for sensation: high vs. low) mixed experimental design was conducted. Two physiological measures including skin conductance and heart rate were examined. Findings of this study show that MSV was not a distraction but a facilitator of message persuasiveness. These findings contribute to the activation model. In addition, need for sensation moderated the interaction effect of MSV and MCV on ad processing. Low sensation seekers were more likely to experience the interaction between MSV and MCV than high sensation seekers. Several observations related to the findings and implications for antismoking message designs are elaborated. Limitations and directions for future research are also outlined.

Children and youth perceive smoking messages in an unbranded advertisement from a NIKE marketing campaign: a cluster randomised controlled trial

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Daniel Mark

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background How youth perceive marketing messages in sports is poorly understood. We evaluated whether youth perceive that the imagery of a specific sports marketing advertisement contained smoking-related messages. Methods Twenty grade 7 to 11 classes (397 students from two high schools in Montréal, Canada were recruited to participate in a cluster randomised single-blind controlled trial. Classes were randomly allocated to either a NIKE advertisement containing the phrase 'LIGHT IT UP' (n = 205 or to a neutral advertisement with smoking imagery reduced and the phrase replaced by 'GO FOR IT' (n = 192. The NIKE logo was removed from both advertisements. Students responded in class to a questionnaire asking open-ended questions about their perception of the messages in the ad. Reports relating to the appearance and text of the ad, and the product being promoted were evaluated. Results Relative to the neutral ad, more students reported that the phrase 'LIGHT IT UP' was smoking-related (37.6% vs. 0.5% and that other parts of the ad resembled smoking-related products (50.7% vs. 10.4%. The relative risk of students reporting that the NIKE ad promoted cigarettes was 4.41 (95% confidence interval: 2.64-7.36; P Conclusions The unbranded imagery of an advertisement in a specific campaign aimed at promoting NIKE hockey products appears to have contained smoking-related messages. This particular marketing campaign may have promoted smoking. This suggests that the regulation of marketing to youth may need to be more tightly controlled.

Development of strategies for communication with public on nuclear power

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Narayanan, K.K.

2012-01-01

Nuclear industry, as a whole, has so often communicated a lack of confidence in the public. There are historical reasons for this, including the fact that the tremendous power of atom was introduced to mankind in a most, destructive way by exploding two atomic devices at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Other reasons are the secrecy rooted in its activities, problems in communicating scientific concepts with general public and use of jargons, which on occasions resulted in misinterpretation by the public. The resulting lack of public confidence is a major road-block in its development in many countries, including India. So it is essential to establish a trust between nuclear industry and general public. To achieve this, effective communication with public on issues related to nuclear power is imperative. The important components of this strategy are: 1. The goals 2. The message 3. The communicators 4.The audience 5.The tools. These components are briefly discussed below. The Goals: What are the goals to be achieved? The aim should be building awareness, understanding and public support for the nuclear power program across the country. If this is achieved half the battle is won. The Message: What are your messages to the public? At the outset you should be very clear about your message, believe it, and make it believable to your audience. The message should be positive, clear and simple. It should stress the inevitability of nuclear power in the energy scenario and the overall development of the country. The communicators: Who are the communicators? Identify, and prepare the communicators of the message. Put a human face on them. Make sure that those who deliver the message must really believe in the message. Third party communicators have a higher level of credibility, because they are not from the nuclear industry. It is vital that communicators be skilled in the art of listening to the audience - a two-way dialogue has to be maintained. Special training is essential for

Positive mood can increase or decrease message scrutiny: the hedonic contingency view of mood and message processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Wegener, D T; Petty, R E; Smith, S M

1995-07-01

Currently dominant explanations of mood effects on persuasive message processing (i.e., cognitive capacity and feelings as information) predict that happy moods lead to less message scrutiny than neutral or sad moods. The hedonic contingency view (D. T. Wegener & R. E. Petty, 1994) predicts that happy moods can sometimes be associated with greater message processing activity because people in a happy mood are more attentive than neutral or sad people to the hedonic consequences of their actions. Consistent with this view, Experiment 1 finds that a happy mood can lead to greater message scrutiny than a neutral mood when the message is not mood threatening. Experiment 2 finds that a happy mood leads to greater message scrutiny than a sad mood when an uplifting message is encountered, but to less message scrutiny when a depressing message is encountered.

Evaluating elements of trust: Race and class in risk communication in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Science.gov (United States)

Battistoli, B F

2016-05-01

This study seeks to determine the relative influence of race and class on trust in sources of messages of environmental risk in post-Katrina New Orleans. It poses two hypotheses to test that influence: H1-African-Americans ("Blacks") trust risk message sources less than European American ("Whites") do and H2-The higher the socioeconomic class, the lower the trust in risk message sources. A 37-question telephone survey (landlines and cellphones) was conducted in Orleans Parish in 2012 (n = 414). The overall margin of error was ±4.8% at a 95% confidence interval. A hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the first hypothesis was rejected, while the second was supported. Additional data analysis revealed that frequency of use of sources of risk information appears to be a positive factor in building trust. © The Author(s) 2015.

CDC MessageWorks: Designing and Validating a Social Marketing Tool to Craft and Defend Effective Messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Cole, Galen E; Keller, Punam A; Reynolds, Jennifer; Schaur, Michelle; Krause, Diane

2016-03-01

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, in partnership with Oak Ridge Associated Universities, designed an online social marketing strategy tool, MessageWorks, to help health communicators effectively formulate messages aimed at changing health behaviors and evaluate message tactics and audience characteristics. MessageWorks is based on the advisor for risk communication model that identifies 10 variables that can be used to predict target audience intentions to comply with health recommendations. This article discusses the value of the MessageWorks tool to health communicators and to the field of social marketing by (1) describing the scientific evidence supporting use of MessageWorks to improve health communication practice and (2) summarizing how to use MessageWorks and interpret the results it produces.

Abstinence, Social Norms, and Drink Responsibly Messages: A Comparison Study

Science.gov (United States)

Glassman, Tavis J.; Kruger, Jessica Sloan; Deakins, Bethany A.; Paprzycki, Peter; Blavos, Alexis A.; Hutzelman, Erin N.; Diehr, Aaron

2016-01-01

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine which type of prevention message (abstinence, social norms, or responsible drinking) was most effective at reducing alcohol consumption. Participants: The subjects from this study included 194 college students from a public university. Methods: Researchers employed a quasi-experimental design,…

CDC MessageWorks: Designing and Validating a Social Marketing Tool to Craft and Defend Effective Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Cole, Galen E.; Keller, Punam A.; Reynolds, Jennifer; Schaur, Michelle; Krause, Diane

2016-01-01

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, in partnership with Oak Ridge Associated Universities, designed an online social marketing strategy tool, MessageWorks, to help health communicators effectively formulate messages aimed at changing health behaviors and evaluate message tactics and audience characteristics. MessageWorks is based on the advisor for risk communication model that identifies 10 variables that can be used to predict target audience intentions to comply with health recommendations. This article discusses the value of the MessageWorks tool to health communicators and to the field of social marketing by (1) describing the scientific evidence supporting use of MessageWorks to improve health communication practice and (2) summarizing how to use MessageWorks and interpret the results it produces. PMID:26877714

Readability Comparison of Pro- and Anti-Cancer Screening Online Messages in Japan

Science.gov (United States)

Okuhara, Tsuyoshi; Ishikawa, Hirono; Okada, Masahumi; Kato, Mio; Kiuchi, Takahiro

2016-01-01

Background: Cancer screening rates are lower in Japan than those in western countries. Health professionals publish pro-cancer screening messages on the internet to encourage audiences to undergo cancer screening. However, the information provided is often difficult to read for lay persons. Further, anti-cancer screening activists warn against cancer screening with messages on the Internet. We aimed to assess and compare the readability of pro- and anti-cancer screening online messages in Japan using a measure of readability. Methods: We conducted web searches at the beginning of September 2016 using two major Japanese search engines (Google.jp and Yahoo!.jp). The included websites were classified as “anti”, “pro”, or “neutral” depending on the claims, and “health professional” or “non-health professional” depending on the writers. Readability was determined using a validated measure of Japanese readability. Statistical analysis was conducted using two-way ANOVA. Results: In the total 159 websites analyzed, anti-cancer screening online messages were generally easier to read than pro-cancer screening online messages, Messages written by health professionals were more difficult to read than those written by non-health professionals. Claim × writer interaction was not significant. Conclusion: When health professionals prepare pro-cancer screening materials for publication online, we recommend they check for readability using readability assessment tools and improve text for easy comprehension when necessary. PMID:28125867

Karhunen-Loève-Based Reduced-Complexity Representation of the Mixed-Density Messages in SPA on Factor Graph and Its Impact on BER

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prochazka Pavel

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The sum product algorithm on factor graphs (FG/SPA is a widely used tool to solve various problems in a wide area of fields. A representation of generally-shaped continuously valued messages in the FG/SPA is commonly solved by a proper parameterization of the messages. Obtaining such a proper parameterization is, however, a crucial problem in general. The paper introduces a systematic procedure for obtaining a scalar message representation with well-defined fidelity criterion in a general FG/SPA. The procedure utilizes a stochastic nature of the messages as they evolve during the FG/SPA processing. A Karhunen-Loève Transform (KLT is used to find a generic canonical message representation which exploits the message stochastic behavior with mean square error (MSE fidelity criterion. We demonstrate the procedure on a range of scenarios including mixture-messages (a digital modulation in phase parametric channel. The proposed systematic procedure achieves equal results as the Fourier parameterization developed especially for this particular class of scenarios.

Key Ingredients-Target Groups, Methods and Messages, and Evaluation-of Local-Level, Public Interventions to Counter Stigma and Discrimination: A Lived Experience Informed Selective Narrative Literature Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Ashton, Laura J; Gordon, Sarah E; Reeves, Racheal A

2018-04-01

A proliferation of recent literature provides substantial direction as to the key ingredients-target groups, messages and methods, and evaluation-of local-level, public interventions to counter stigma and discrimination. This paper provides a selective narrative review of that literature from the perspective or standpoint of anti-stigma experts with lived experience of mental distress, the key findings of which have been synthesised and presented in diagrammatic overviews (infographics). These are intended to guide providers in planning, delivering and evaluating lived experience-directed local-level, public interventions to counter stigma and discrimination in accord with current best practice.

Physical activity guides for Canadians: messaging strategies, realistic expectations for change, and evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Brawley, Lawrence R; Latimer, Amy E

2007-01-01

Physical activity guidelines offer evidence-based behavioural benchmarks that relate to reduced risk of morbidity and mortality if people adhere to them. Essentially, the guidelines tell people what to do, but not why and how they should do it. Thus, to motivate adherence, messages that translate guidelines should convey not only how much physical activity one should attempt and why it is recommended, but also how to achieve such a recommendation. Canada's physical activity guides exemplify how guidelines can be translated. This paper (i) provides a brief overview of the challenges encountered in creating the existing guides and (ii) highlights important practical issues and empirical evidence that should be considered in the future when translating guidelines into messages and disseminating these messages. We draw on the successes of past efforts to translate the goals of physical activity guidelines and on recent literature on messages and media campaigns to make recommendations. Information to motivate people to move toward the goals in physical activity guidelines should be translated into a set of messages that are informative, thought provoking, and persuasive. These messages should be disseminated to the public via a multi-phase social-marketing campaign that is carefully planned and thoroughly evaluated.

Awareness of media-based antitobacco messages among a community sample of LGBT individuals.

Science.gov (United States)

Matthews, Alicia K; Balsam, Kimberly; Hotton, Anna; Kuhns, Lisa; Li, Chien-Ching; Bowen, Deborah J

2014-11-01

Study objectives were to measure awareness of general antitobacco messages in LGBT-focused and general media outlets among LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) individuals and to examine associations between sociodemographic characteristics and awareness levels. Data were based on cross-sectional survey data from a racially diverse sample of participants (N = 726). Participants were primarily male (69.3%), with smaller percentages of female (21.8%) and transgender (8.9%). The median age was 31 years. A higher proportion of participants reported awareness of antitobacco messages in general media outlets compared to LGBT-specific media outlets. Awareness of antitobacco messages in general media was positively associated with current smoking and negatively associated with female gender and Latino ethnicity. Awareness of antitobacco messages in LGBT media was positively associated with younger age, current smoking, frequent reading of LGBT newspapers or magazines, and frequent attendance at LGBT bars and negatively associated with Latino ethnicity. Despite frequent readership, awareness of antitobacco messages in LGBT newspapers/magazines was quite low. We speculate that low awareness is related to the absence of antitobacco messages in LGBT-related media. LGBT-specific media outlets provide an important opportunity for future antitobacco campaigns. © 2014 Society for Public Health Education.

Impact of Twitter intensity, time, and location on message lapse of bluebird's pursuit of fleas in Madagascar.

Science.gov (United States)

Da'ar, Omar B; Yunus, Faisel; Md Hossain, Nassif; Househ, Mowafa

The recent outbreak of bubonic plague in Madagascar reminds us of the continuing public health challenges posed by such deadly diseases in various parts of the world years after their eradication. This study examines the role of Twitter in public health disease surveillance with special focus on how Twitter intensity, time, and location issues explain Twitter plague message delay. We retrospectively analyzed the Twitter feeds of the 2014 bubonic plague outbreak in Madagascar. The analyses are based on the plague-related data available in the public domain between November 19th and 27th 2014. The data were compiled in March 2015. We calculated the time differential between the tweets and retweets, and analyzed various characteristics of the Tweets including Twitter intensity of the users. A total of 6873 Twitter users were included in the study, of which 52% tweeted plague-related information during the morning hours (before mid-day), and 87% of the tweets came from the west of the epicenter of the plague. More importantly, while session of tweet lease and relative location had effect on message lapse, absolute location did not. Additionally, we found no evidence of differential effect of location on message lapse based on relative location i.e. tweets from west or east nor number of following. However, there is evidence that more intense Twitter use appears to have significant effect on message lapse such that as the number of tweets became more intense, time differential between the tweets and retweets increased while higher number of retweets diminished message lapse. This study affirms that Twitter can play an important role in ongoing disease surveillance and the timely dissemination of information during public health emergencies independent of the time and space restrictions. Further ways should be explored to embed social media channels in routine public health practice. Copyright © 2017 King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences. Published by

Class and narrative accrual: personal troubles and public issues in five vignettes.

OpenAIRE

Spokes, Matthew

2017-01-01

This paper develops Bruner’s (1991) notion of narrative accrual, in conjunction with ‘life-stories’ and ‘event-stories’, to focus on the accumulation of experiences as a contributor to working class identity. Situated between Mills’ (1959) personal troubles and public issues, and framed by Nouri and Helterline (1998) argument that identity is framed by social interaction with signification systems and other people, the author’s own experiences as an early career academic in two different Brit...

Message framing in social networking sites.

Science.gov (United States)

Kao, Danny Tengti; Chuang, Shih-Chieh; Wang, Sui-Min; Zhang, Lei

2013-10-01

Online social networking sites represent significant new opportunities for Internet advertisers. However, results based on the real world cannot be generalized to all virtual worlds. In this research, the moderating effects of need for cognition (NFC) and knowledge were applied to examine the impact of message framing on attitudes toward social networking sites. A total of 216 undergraduates participated in the study. Results reveal that for social networking sites, while high-NFC individuals form more favorable attitudes toward negatively framed messages than positively framed messages, low-NFC individuals form more favorable attitudes toward positively framed messages than negatively framed messages. In addition, low-knowledge individuals demonstrate more favorable attitudes toward negatively framed messages than positively framed messages; however, the framing effect does not differentially affect the attitudes of high-knowledge individuals. Furthermore, the framing effect does not differentially affect the attitudes of high-NFC individuals with high knowledge. In contrast, low-NFC individuals with low knowledge hold more favorable attitudes toward positively framed messages than negatively framed messages.

HIV/AIDS messages as a spur for conversation among young South ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The participants indicated that they were willing to discuss the themes addressed in either a poster or radio advertisement because they appreciated the message and felt that its content ... Keywords: communication strategies; health behaviour; HIV prevention; mass media; public health; radio advertisements; rhetoric; youth

Complex Conjugated certificateless-based signcryption with differential integrated factor for secured message communication in mobile network.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sumithra Alagarsamy

Full Text Available Certificateless-based signcryption overcomes inherent shortcomings in traditional Public Key Infrastructure (PKI and Key Escrow problem. It imparts efficient methods to design PKIs with public verifiability and cipher text authenticity with minimum dependency. As a classic primitive in public key cryptography, signcryption performs validity of cipher text without decryption by combining authentication, confidentiality, public verifiability and cipher text authenticity much more efficiently than the traditional approach. In this paper, we first define a security model for certificateless-based signcryption called, Complex Conjugate Differential Integrated Factor (CC-DIF scheme by introducing complex conjugates through introduction of the security parameter and improving secured message distribution rate. However, both partial private key and secret value changes with respect to time. To overcome this weakness, a new certificateless-based signcryption scheme is proposed by setting the private key through Differential (Diff Equation using an Integration Factor (DiffEIF, minimizing computational cost and communication overhead. The scheme is therefore said to be proven secure (i.e. improving the secured message distributing rate against certificateless access control and signcryption-based scheme. In addition, compared with the three other existing schemes, the CC-DIF scheme has the least computational cost and communication overhead for secured message communication in mobile network.

Complex Conjugated certificateless-based signcryption with differential integrated factor for secured message communication in mobile network.

Science.gov (United States)

Alagarsamy, Sumithra; Rajagopalan, S P

2017-01-01

Certificateless-based signcryption overcomes inherent shortcomings in traditional Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Key Escrow problem. It imparts efficient methods to design PKIs with public verifiability and cipher text authenticity with minimum dependency. As a classic primitive in public key cryptography, signcryption performs validity of cipher text without decryption by combining authentication, confidentiality, public verifiability and cipher text authenticity much more efficiently than the traditional approach. In this paper, we first define a security model for certificateless-based signcryption called, Complex Conjugate Differential Integrated Factor (CC-DIF) scheme by introducing complex conjugates through introduction of the security parameter and improving secured message distribution rate. However, both partial private key and secret value changes with respect to time. To overcome this weakness, a new certificateless-based signcryption scheme is proposed by setting the private key through Differential (Diff) Equation using an Integration Factor (DiffEIF), minimizing computational cost and communication overhead. The scheme is therefore said to be proven secure (i.e. improving the secured message distributing rate) against certificateless access control and signcryption-based scheme. In addition, compared with the three other existing schemes, the CC-DIF scheme has the least computational cost and communication overhead for secured message communication in mobile network.

Improving the Effectiveness of Fundraising Messages: The Impact of Charity Goal Attainment, Message Framing, and Evidence on Persuasion

Science.gov (United States)

Das, Enny; Kerkhof, Peter; Kuiper, Joyce

2008-01-01

This experimental study assessed the effectiveness of fundraising messages. Based on recent findings regarding the effects of message framing and evidence, effective fundraising messages should combine abstract, statistical information with a negative message frame and anecdotal evidence with a positive message frame. In addition, building on…

Starting Off on the Best Foot: A Review of Message Framing and Message Tailoring, and Recommendations for the Comprehensive Messaging Strategy for Sustained Behavior Change.

Science.gov (United States)

Pope, J Paige; Pelletier, Luc; Guertin, Camille

2018-09-01

Health promotion programs represent a salient means through which physical activity promoters can cultivate positive health behavior change and maintenance. The messages communicated within these programs serve as an essential component as they are often used to convey valuable information, resources, or tools that facilitate health behavior initiation and sustained engagement. Identifying the most effective way to communicate health promotion information is, therefore, of considerable importance to ensuring that people not only attend to these messages, but also connect with and internalize the information conveyed within them. This paper was written to (1) summarize and evaluate the most prominent reviewed research approaches of message framing and tailoring to message design; and (2) offer a comprehensive messaging strategy to promote sustained health behavior change. A review of the literature demonstrated that a messaging strategy that has consistently led to healthy behavior change has yet to be identified. Furthermore, scholars have articulated that a multi-theoretical approach that places emphasis on facilitating motivation and healthy behavior change needs to be employed. Thus, this paper proposes and provides recommendations for employing the Comprehensive Messaging Strategy for Sustained Behavior Change (CMSSBC), which advocates tailoring messages to peoples' stage of change and framing them to focus on self-determined motives and intrinsic goals.

Development of environmentally friendly messages to promote longer durations of breastfeeding for already breastfeeding mothers.

Science.gov (United States)

Hamilton, Amanda E

2015-01-01

Durations of breastfeeding activity in the United States fall short of established recommendations by leading public health institutions. In response to this problem, this study sought to develop environmentally friendly messages to promote continued breastfeeding for moms already breastfeeding in order to help them reach recommended breastfeeding durations. Messages were successfully cultivated to encourage moms already breastfeeding to meet recommended breastfeeding durations. In addition, this study cultivated strategies by which to use environmentally friendly messages to urge mothers who still need to decide whether to breastfeed or formula feed to breastfeed, although this was not the purpose of the research. Avenues for future communication-based breastfeeding research were also elucidated. The Elaboration Likelihood Model serves as useful theory to assess the role of environmentally friendly messages in the promotion of continued breastfeeding.

Survey of Instant Messaging Applications Encryption Methods

OpenAIRE

Kabakuş, Abdullah; Kara, Resul

2015-01-01

Instant messaging applications has already taken the place of traditional Short Messaging Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) due to their popularity and usage easement they provide. Users of instant messaging applications are able to send both text and audio messages, different types of attachments such as photos, videos, contact information to their contacts in real time. Because of instant messaging applications use internet instead of Short Message Service Technical Reali...

Impact of Cultural Exposure and Message Framing on Oral Health Behavior: Exploring the Role of Message Memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Brick, Cameron; McCully, Scout N; Updegraff, John A; Ehret, Phillip J; Areguin, Maira A; Sherman, David K

2016-10-01

Health messages are more effective when framed to be congruent with recipient characteristics, and health practitioners can strategically choose message features to promote adherence to recommended behaviors. We present exposure to US culture as a moderator of the impact of gain-frame versus loss-frame messages. Since US culture emphasizes individualism and approach orientation, greater cultural exposure was expected to predict improved patient choices and memory for gain-framed messages, whereas individuals with less exposure to US culture would show these advantages for loss-framed messages. 223 participants viewed a written oral health message in 1 of 3 randomized conditions-gain-frame, loss-frame, or no-message control-and were given 10 flosses. Cultural exposure was measured with the proportions of life spent and parents born in the US. At baseline and 1 week later, participants completed recall tests and reported recent flossing behavior. Message frame and cultural exposure interacted to predict improved patient decisions (increased flossing) and memory maintenance for the health message over 1 week; for example, those with low cultural exposure who saw a loss-frame message flossed more. Incongruent messages led to the same flossing rates as no message. Memory retention did not explain the effect of message congruency on flossing. Flossing behavior was self-reported. Cultural exposure may only have practical application in either highly individualistic or collectivistic countries. In health care settings where patients are urged to follow a behavior, asking basic demographic questions could allow medical practitioners to intentionally communicate in terms of gains or losses to improve patient decision making and treatment adherence. © The Author(s) 2015.

Using the Theory of Planned Behavior to predict intention to comply with a food recall message.

Science.gov (United States)

Freberg, Karen

2013-01-01

The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) has provided considerable insight into the public's intention to comply with many different health-related messages, but has not been applied previously to intention to comply with food safety recommendations and recalls ( Hallman & Cuite, 2010 ). Because food recalls can differ from other health messages in their urgency, timing, and cessation, the applicability of the TPB in this domain is unknown. The research reported here attempted to address this gap using a nationally representative consumer panel. Results showed that, consistent with the theory's predictions, attitudes and subjective norms were predictive of the intention to comply with a food recall message, with attitudes having a much greater impact on intent to comply than subjective norms. Perceived behavioral control failed to predict intention to comply. Implications of these results for health public relations and crisis communications and recommendations for future research were discussed.

Degree sequence in message transfer

Science.gov (United States)

Yamuna, M.

2017-11-01

Message encryption is always an issue in current communication scenario. Methods are being devised using various domains. Graphs satisfy numerous unique properties which can be used for message transfer. In this paper, I propose a message encryption method based on degree sequence of graphs.

A hazard-independent approach for the standardised multi-channel dissemination of warning messages

Science.gov (United States)

Esbri Palomares, M. A.; Hammitzsch, M.; Lendholt, M.

2012-04-01

The tsunami disaster affecting the Indian Ocean region on Christmas 2004 demonstrated very clearly the shortcomings in tsunami detection, public warning processes as well as intergovernmental warning message exchange in the Indian Ocean region. In that regard, early warning systems require that the dissemination of early warning messages has to be executed in way that ensures that the message delivery is timely; the message content is understandable, usable and accurate. To that end, diverse and multiple dissemination channels must be used to increase the chance of the messages reaching all affected persons in a hazard scenario. In addition to this, usage of internationally accepted standards for the warning dissemination such as the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Distribution Element specified by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) increase the interoperability among different warning systems enabling thus the concept of system-of-systems proposed by GEOSS. The project Distant Early Warning System (DEWS), co-funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme, aims at strengthening the early warning capacities by building an innovative generation of interoperable tsunami early warning systems based on the above mentioned concepts following a Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) approach. The project focuses on the downstream part of the hazard information processing where customized, user-tailored warning messages and alerts flow from the warning centre to the responsible authorities and/or the public with their different needs and responsibilities. The information logistics services within DEWS generate tailored EDXL-DE/CAP warning messages for each user that must receive the message according to their preferences, e.g., settings for language, interested areas, dissemination channels, etc.. However, the significant difference in the implementation and

Message Effects of Public Service Advertising.

Science.gov (United States)

Lynn, Jerry R.

Public service advertisements, disseminated via the mass media, have been credited with "positive attitudinal effects" in past research, but only certain kinds of such advertisements are really effective. Of the types of appeals used in television commercials--informative, emotional, "establishment" (or status quo), and…

The MomConnect helpdesk: how an interactive mobile messaging programme is used by mothers in South Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

Xiong, Khou; Kamunyori, Joy; Sebidi, Jane

2018-01-01

South Africa's MomConnect mobile messaging programme, which aims to promote safe motherhood and improve pregnancy outcomes for South African women, includes a helpdesk feature which allows women registered on the system to ask maternal and child health (MCH)-related questions and to provide feedback on health services received at public health clinics. Messages sent to the helpdesk are answered by staff located at the National Department of Health. We examined event data from the MomConnect helpdesk database to identify any patterns in messages received, such as correlation of frequency or types of messages with location. We also explored what these data could tell us about the helpdesk's effectiveness in improving health service delivery at public health clinics. We found that approximately 8% of registered MomConnect users used the helpdesk, and that usage was generally proportional to the use of antenatal care (ANC) services in provinces (as indicated by number of ANC first visits and number of MomConnect registrations), except in two provinces. Language, category and key topics of helpdesk messages were correlated with provinces. Most users accessed the helpdesk to seek maternal information, and where feedback about health services was provided, there were significantly more compliments than complaints. The MomConnect helpdesk is an important resource providing expectant mothers and mothers of infants with an interactive option for accessing MCH-related information-above that included in the standard MomConnect messages-and advances achievement of the health goals of the MomConnect programme.

The effects of frame, appeal, and outcome extremity of antismoking messages on cognitive processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Leshner, Glenn; Cheng, I-Huei

2009-04-01

Research on the impact of antismoking advertisements in countermarketing cigarette advertising is equivocal. Although many studies examined how different message appeal types influence people's attitudes and behavior, there have been few studies that have explored the mechanism of how individuals attend to and remember antismoking information. This study examined how message attributes of antismoking TV ads (frame, appeal type, and outcome extremity) interacted to influence people's attention (secondary task reaction time) and memory (recognition). Antismoking public service announcements were chosen that were either loss- or gain-framed, had either a health or social appeal, or had either a more or less extreme outcome described in the message. Among the key findings were that loss-framed messages with more extreme outcomes required the most processing resources (i.e., had the slowest secondary task reaction times) and were the best remembered (i.e., were best recognized). These findings indicate ways that different message attributes affect individuals' cognitive processing, and they are discussed in light of prior framing and persuasion research.

The Impact of the Public Authorities’ Messages – the European Central Bank Case

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ioan Talpos

2007-03-01

Of course, the following core question still remains: “How sustainable could be the effects induced by the impact of different agency messages received by the various beneficiaries?” And this, because in the end “The one who knows does not speak and the one who speaks does not know” (LAO ZI - DAO DE JING.

Entity-based Classification of Twitter Messages

OpenAIRE

Yerva, Surender Reddy; Miklós, Zoltán; Aberer, Karl

2012-01-01

Twitter is a popular micro-blogging service on theWeb, where people can enter short messages, which then become visible to some other users of the service. While the topics of these messages varies, there are a lot of messages where the users express their opinions about some companies or their products. These messages are a rich source of information for companies for sentiment analysis or opinion mining. There is however a great obstacle for analyzing the messages directly: as the company n...

Getting the message across: age differences in the positive and negative framing of health care messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Shamaskin, Andrea M; Mikels, Joseph A; Reed, Andrew E

2010-09-01

Although valenced health care messages influence impressions, memory, and behavior (Levin, Schneider, & Gaeth, 1998) and the processing of valenced information changes with age (Carstensen & Mikels, 2005), these 2 lines of research have thus far been disconnected. This study examined impressions of, and memory for, positively and negatively framed health care messages that were presented in pamphlets to 25 older adults and 24 younger adults. Older adults relative to younger adults rated positive pamphlets more informative than negative pamphlets and remembered a higher proportion of positive to negative messages. However, older adults misremembered negative messages to be positive. These findings demonstrate the age-related positivity effect in health care messages with promise as to the persuasive nature and lingering effects of positive messages. (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Personal messages reduce vandalism and theft of unattended scientific equipment.

Science.gov (United States)

Clarin, B-Markus; Bitzilekis, Eleftherios; Siemers, Björn M; Goerlitz, Holger R

2014-02-01

Scientific equipment, such as animal traps and autonomous data collection systems, is regularly left in the field unattended, making it an easy target for vandalism or theft. We tested the effectiveness of three label types, which differed in their information content and tone of the message, that is, personal , neutral or threatening , for reducing incidents of vandalism and theft of unattended scientific field equipment. The three label types were attached to 20 scientific equipment dummies each, which were placed semi-hidden and evenly distributed in four public parks in Munich, Germany. While the label type had no effect on the severity of the interactions with our equipment dummies, the personal label reduced the overall number of interactions by c . 40-60%, compared with the dummies showing the neutral or threatening label type. We suggest that researchers, in addition to securing their field equipment, label it with personal and polite messages that inform about the ongoing research and directly appeal to the public not to disturb the equipment. Further studies should extend these results to areas with different socio-economic structure.

Manipulative Use of Short Messaging Service (SMS Text Messages by Nigerian Telecommunications Companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ayoola, Kehinde A.

2014-02-01

Full Text Available This paper is an application of Relevance Theory for the interpretation of short messaging service (SMS text messages emanating from Nigerian telecommunications companies to their subscribers. The aim of the research was to identify and describe the manipulative strategies employed by Nigerian telecommunications companies to induce subscribers to part with their money through sales promotion lotteries. 100 SMS texts were purposively extracted from the cell phones of randomly selected residents of Lagos Nigeria who had received promotional SMS text messages from three major Nigerian telecommunications companies. Using Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory (1995 as its theoretical framework, the paper described the manipulative use of SMS by Nigerian telecommunications companies. The analysis revealed that SMS text messages were encoded to achieve maximization of relevance through explicature and implicature; contextual implication and strengthening; and the reduction of processing effort through violating the maxim of truthfulness and the creative use of graphology. The paper concludes that SMS text-messages were used manipulatively by Nigerian telecommunications companies to earn indirect income from sales promotion lottery.

A secure transmission scheme of streaming media based on the encrypted control message

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Bing; Jin, Zhigang; Shu, Yantai; Yu, Li

2007-09-01

As the use of streaming media applications increased dramatically in recent years, streaming media security becomes an important presumption, protecting the privacy. This paper proposes a new encryption scheme in view of characteristics of streaming media and the disadvantage of the living method: encrypt the control message in the streaming media with the high security lever and permute and confuse the data which is non control message according to the corresponding control message. Here the so-called control message refers to the key data of the streaming media, including the streaming media header and the header of the video frame, and the seed key. We encrypt the control message using the public key encryption algorithm which can provide high security lever, such as RSA. At the same time we make use of the seed key to generate key stream, from which the permutation list P responding to GOP (group of picture) is derived. The plain text of the non-control message XORs the key stream and gets the middle cipher text. And then obtained one is permutated according to P. In contrast the decryption process is the inverse process of the above. We have set up a testbed for the above scheme and found our scheme is six to eight times faster than the conventional method. It can be applied not only between PCs but also between handheld devices.

Improving the effectiveness of fundraising messages: The impact of charity goal attainment, message framing, and evidence on persuasion

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Das, E.; Kerkhof, P.; Kuiper, J.

2008-01-01

This experimental study assessed the effectiveness of fundraising messages. Based on recent findings regarding the effects of message framing and evidence, effective fundraising messages should combine abstract, statistical information with a negative message frame and anecdotal evidence with a

"How Should I Be?" A Photovoice Exploration Into Body Image Messaging for Young Women Across Ethnicities and Cultures.

Science.gov (United States)

Madden, Devin; Breny, Jean M

2016-05-01

Photovoice, a community-based participatory research method that allows participants to inform research questions in an intimate way, has proven successful with youth. A diverse group of teenage girls living in New York City were asked to take photographs and reflect on what messages they received and from whom, how these messages translate across cultures and ethnicities, and how these messages are internalized and acted on. The group selected specific photographs to discuss together and themes emerged to answer the research questions; themes were reinforced by journal responses and agreed on by the group at the concluding session. The participants identified the media, peers, and family as cultural influencers on body image but noted that these messages change depending on the delivering medium. Participants not only offered recommendations with policy implications for advertising and media giants but also urged public health practitioners, teachers, and other key stakeholders working with young women of color to simply provide them with more space for talking. While Photovoice served as an effective methodology for gaining a more expansive understanding of how body image messages are received with young women of color, the tool should be considered for youth development interventions that take a community-based participatory approach. © 2015 Society for Public Health Education.

The impact of cultural exposure and message framing on oral health behavior: Exploring the role of message memory

Science.gov (United States)

Brick, Cameron; McCully, Scout N.; Updegraff, John A.; Ehret, Phillip J.; Areguin, Maira A.; Sherman, David K.

2015-01-01

Background Health messages are more effective when framed to be congruent with recipient characteristics, and health practitioners can strategically decide on message features to promote adherence to recommended behaviors. We present exposure to United States (U.S.) culture as a moderator of the impact of gain- vs. loss-frame messages. Since U.S. culture emphasizes individualism and approach orientation, greater cultural exposure was expected to predict improved patient choices and memory for gain-framed messages, whereas individuals with less exposure to U.S. culture would show these advantages for loss-framed messages. Methods 223 participants viewed a written oral health message in one of three randomized conditions: gain-frame, loss-frame, or no-message control, and were given ten flosses. Cultural exposure was measured with the proportions of life spent and parents born in the U.S. At baseline and one week later, participants completed recall tests and reported recent flossing behavior. Results Message frame and cultural exposure interacted to predict improved patient decisions (increased flossing) and memory maintenance for the health message over one week. E.g., those with low cultural exposure who saw a loss-frame message flossed more. Incongruent messages led to the same flossing rates as no message. Memory retention did not explain the effect of message congruency on flossing. Limitations Flossing behavior was self-reported. Cultural exposure may only have practical application in either highly individualistic or collectivistic countries. Conclusions In healthcare settings where patients are urged to follow a behavior, asking basic demographic questions could allow medical practitioners to intentionally communicate in terms of gains or losses to improve patient decision making and treatment adherence. PMID:25654986

Common-Message Broadcast Channels with Feedback in the Nonasymptotic Regime: Full Feedback

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Trillingsgaard, Kasper Fløe; Yang, Wei; Durisi, Giuseppe

2018-01-01

We investigate the maximum coding rate achievable on a two-user broadcast channel for the case where a common message is transmitted with feedback using either fixed-blocklength codes or variable-length codes. For the fixed-blocklength-code setup, we establish nonasymptotic converse and achievabi......We investigate the maximum coding rate achievable on a two-user broadcast channel for the case where a common message is transmitted with feedback using either fixed-blocklength codes or variable-length codes. For the fixed-blocklength-code setup, we establish nonasymptotic converse...... and achievability bounds. An asymptotic analysis of these bounds reveals that feedback improves the second-order term compared to the no-feedback case. In particular, for a certain class of anti-symmetric broadcast channels, we show that the dispersion is halved. For the variable-length-code setup, we demonstrate...

Toward Predicting Popularity of Social Marketing Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Bei; Chen, Miao; Kwok, Linchi

Popularity of social marketing messages indicates the effectiveness of the corresponding marketing strategies. This research aims to discover the characteristics of social marketing messages that contribute to different level of popularity. Using messages posted by a sample of restaurants on Facebook as a case study, we measured the message popularity by the number of "likes" voted by fans, and examined the relationship between the message popularity and two properties of the messages: (1) content, and (2) media type. Combining a number of text mining and statistics methods, we have discovered some interesting patterns correlated to "more popular" and "less popular" social marketing messages. This work lays foundation for building computational models to predict the popularity of social marketing messages in the future.

A Messaging Infrastructure for WLCG

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Casey, James; Cons, Lionel; Lapka, Wojciech; Paladin, Massimo; Skaburskas, Konstantin

2011-01-01

During the EGEE-III project operational tools such as SAM, Nagios, Gridview, the regional Dashboard and GGUS moved to a communication architecture based on ActiveMQ, an open-source enterprise messaging solution. LHC experiments, in particular ATLAS, developed prototypes of systems using the same messaging infrastructure, validating the system for their use-cases. In this paper we describe the WLCG messaging use cases and outline an improved messaging architecture based on the experience gained during the EGEE-III period. We show how this provides a solid basis for many applications, including the grid middleware, to improve their resilience and reliability.

Repeated exposure to media messages encouraging parent-child communication about sex: differential trajectories for mothers and fathers.

Science.gov (United States)

Blitstein, Jonathan L; Evans, W Douglas; Davis, Kevin C; Kamyab, Kian

2012-01-01

To examine changes in parent-child communication related to sexual behavior after exposure to public health messages. Randomized, controlled trial that was part of precampaign message testing. Exposure occurred online or through DVDs mailed to participants and viewed on their personal computers. Data collection occurred via a secure Web site. Participants included parents (n  =  1969) living with a child age 10 to 14 years drawn from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households. Treatment participants were exposed to video, audio, and print advertisements that promoted the benefits of speaking to their children early and often about delaying initiation of sexual activity; messages also directed parents to an informational Web site. The dependent variable assessed frequency of parent-child communication related to sexual behavior. The primary independent variable was treatment assignment. Longitudinal growth modeling that included five waves of data. The trajectory of growth over time differed between fathers in the treatment group and fathers in the control group (F[1, 2357]  =  4.15; p groups. This study demonstrates that father-child and mother-child communication patterns differ over time in response to public health messages. Findings have implication for researchers developing health marketing campaigns.

Distributed parallel messaging for multiprocessor systems

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Dong; Heidelberger, Philip; Salapura, Valentina; Senger, Robert M; Steinmacher-Burrow, Burhard; Sugawara, Yutaka

2013-06-04

A method and apparatus for distributed parallel messaging in a parallel computing system. The apparatus includes, at each node of a multiprocessor network, multiple injection messaging engine units and reception messaging engine units, each implementing a DMA engine and each supporting both multiple packet injection into and multiple reception from a network, in parallel. The reception side of the messaging unit (MU) includes a switch interface enabling writing of data of a packet received from the network to the memory system. The transmission side of the messaging unit, includes switch interface for reading from the memory system when injecting packets into the network.

When communications collide with recipients' actions: effects of post-message behavior on intentions to follow the message recommendation.

Science.gov (United States)

Albarracín, Dolores; Cohen, Joel B; Kumkale, G Tarcan

2003-07-01

Two experiments investigated the processes through which post-message behavior (e.g., noncompliance) influences resistance to the message. Participants in Experiment 1 read preventive, consumer-education messages that either opposed the consumption of an alcohol-like product or recommended moderation. Half of the participants then tried the product, whereas the remaining participants performed a filler task. In the absence of trial, the two messages had the same effect. However, recipients of the abstinence-promoting preventive message who tried the product had stronger intentions to use the product in the future than recipients of the moderation message. This finding suggests that assessments of message impact may be inadequate unless an opportunity for trial is also provided. Results are interpreted in terms of self-perception and cognitive dissonance and contrasted from psychological reactance.

When Communications Collide With Recipients’ Actions: Effects of Post-Message Behavior on Intentions to Follow the Message Recommendation

Science.gov (United States)

Albarracín, Dolores; Cohen, Joel B.; Kumkale, G. Tarcan

2013-01-01

Two experiments investigated the processes through which post-message behavior (e.g., noncompliance) influences resistance to the message. Participants in Experiment 1 read preventive, consumer-education messages that either opposed the consumption of an alcohol-like product or recommended moderation. Half of the participants then tried the product, whereas the remaining participants performed a filler task. In the absence of trial, the two messages had the same effect. However, recipients of the abstinence-promoting preventive message who tried the product had stronger intentions to use the product in the future than recipients of the moderation message. This finding suggests that assessments of message impact may be inadequate unless an opportunity for trial is also provided. Results are interpreted in terms of self-perception and cognitive dissonance and contrasted from psychological reactance. PMID:15018672

Public Private Partnerships: deciphering meaning message and phenomenon

NARCIS (Netherlands)

E-H. Klijn (Erik-Hans)

2010-01-01

markdownabstract__Abstract__ There is no doubt that Public private partnerships have been a dominant issue in governmental rhetoric’s but also in governmental practice. In many countries governments have turned to the idea of public private partnerships, or partnerships in general, as a vehicle

System of message for gamma-radiation monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bolic, M.D.; Koturovic, A.M.

2001-01-01

Paper describes a system of voice messages for gamma-radiation monitor based on PC. The systems reproduces recorded messages that is simpler than the process of their synthesis. Message choice is based on combination of recorded digital results and/or received reference messages or warnings. The system of generation of voice messages applies the Windows based software. The total memory array required to create independent voice system is maximum 1.7 mbyte. The monitor may be used for continuous monitoring of radioactivity level with 5-8 s period of message repetition. Another option of the system operation is based on monitor application for the environment monitoring. Period of messages in this case is equal to 5-30 min [ru

Guidelines for designing messages in risk communication

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Takashita, Hirofumi; Horikoshi, Hidehiko

2004-07-01

Risk Communication Study Team (hereafter called RC team) has designed messages for risk communication based on the analysis of the local residents' opinions which were expressed in several questionnaire surveys. The messages are described in a side format (Power Point format) every single content. This report provides basic guidelines for making messages that are used for risk communication, and does not include concrete messages which RC team designed. The RC team has already published the report entitled 'Information materials for risk communication' (JNC TN8450 2003-008) separately, and it gives the concrete messages. This report shows general cautions and checklists in designing messages, comments on the messages from outside risk communication experts, and opinions from local residents. (author)

Law-based arguments and messages to advocate for later school start time policies in the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Clark J; Nolan, Dennis M; Lockley, Steven W; Pattison, Brent

2017-12-01

The increasing scientific evidence that early school start times are harmful to the health and safety of teenagers has generated much recent debate about changing school start times policies for adolescent students. Although efforts to promote and implement such changes have proliferated in the United States in recent years, they have rarely been supported by law-based arguments and messages that leverage the existing legal infrastructure regulating public education and child welfare in the United States. Furthermore, the legal bases to support or resist such changes have not been explored in detail to date. This article provides an overview of how law-based arguments and messages can be constructed and applied to advocate for later school start time policies in US public secondary schools. The legal infrastructure impacting school start time policies in the United States is briefly reviewed, including descriptions of how government regulates education, what legal obligations school officials have concerning their students' welfare, and what laws and public policies currently exist that address adolescent sleep health and safety. On the basis of this legal infrastructure, some hypothetical examples of law-based arguments and messages that could be applied to various types of advocacy activities (eg, litigation, legislative and administrative advocacy, media and public outreach) to promote later school start times are discussed. Particular consideration is given to hypothetical arguments and messages aimed at emphasizing the consistency of later school start time policies with existing child welfare law and practices, legal responsibilities of school officials and governmental authorities, and societal values and norms. Copyright © 2017 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of tailored message education about breast cancer risk appraisal for obese Korean women.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Somi; Chung, ChaeWeon; Cochrane, Barbara B

2013-11-01

To examine the effects of tailored message education about breast cancer risk in obese Korean women. Pretest/post-test with two comparison treatments. Rural community settings in South Korea. Non-random sample of 64 obese women. Based on the Health Belief Model, tailored message education involved a one-session individual approach addressing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral domains. The comparison group received a one-time standard education group session. Data on breast cancer risk factors and mammography findings were recorded. Knowledge, awareness, emotional barriers, self-efficacy, and intent to screen and prevent breast cancer. Compared to standard education, tailored message education showed significantly higher score changes on awareness of personal risk (F = 5.21, p message education targeting breast cancer and risk associated with obesity is useful in breast cancer screening education. Future studies should incorporate individualized messages on nutrition, exercise, and cultural barriers to reduce breast cancer risk in obese women. Individual educational strategies can effectively enhance breast cancer prevention and early screening. Public and preventive education should include a focus on cultural, cognitive, and emotional domains. For obese women, a heightened awareness and self-efficacy may influence screening behaviors.

Message Design and Audience Engagement with Tobacco Prevention Posts on Social Media.

Science.gov (United States)

Strekalova, Yulia A; Damiani, Rachel E

2018-06-01

Understanding the appropriate medium to communicate health promotion messages is vital for improving personal and societal health. As increasingly more people utilize social media for health information, public health practitioners use these platforms to engage an existing audience in health promotion messages. In this study, the relational framing theory was used as a lens for studying how message framing may influence social media audience engagement. Specifically, we assessed how posts from Tobacco Free Florida's Facebook page were framed as either dominant-submissive or affiliate-disaffiliate to an implied audience of either smokers, nonsmokers, active quitters, or a mixed audience, and the extent to which a direct call for engagement, in terms of a request to comment, like, or share the post, was used for audience engagement. A three-way interaction for the level of engagement through comments was significant, F(3217) = 7.11, p social media. Implied audiences of Tobacco Free Florida's posts included smokers, those who are trying to quit, and nonsmokers as health promotion can be targeted at the individual's health, social support infrastructure, or the well-being of the society, and implications for strategic message design and audience targeting are discussed.

Nurses' use of mobile instant messaging applications: A uses and gratifications perspective.

Science.gov (United States)

Bautista, John Robert; Lin, Trisha T C

2017-10-01

To explore how and why mobile instant messaging applications are used by Filipino nurses as part of their work. Guided by the uses and gratifications theory, in-depth interviews with 20 staff nurses working in 9 hospitals (ie, 4 private and 5 public hospitals) in the Philippines were conducted in July 2015. Interview data were analysed through a phenomenological perspective to thematic analysis. Results show that mobile instant messaging applications such as Facebook Messenger and Viber were mostly used by staff nurses and these were accessed using their own smartphones. Thematic analysis indicates that they were used to meet staff nurses' need for information exchange, socialization, and catharsis. Moreover, user interactions vary depending on members within a chat group. For instance, communication via mobile instant messaging applications are much formal when superiors are included in a chat group. In general, the results show that mobile instant messaging applications are routinely used by Filipino staff nurses not only for clinical purposes (ie, information exchange) but also for non-clinical purposes (ie, socialization and catharsis). This paper ends with several practical and theoretical implications including future research directions. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Evaluation of Sexual Communication Message Strategies

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

Parent-child communication about sex is an important proximal reproductive health outcome. But while campaigns to promote it such as the Parents Speak Up National Campaign (PSUNC) have been effective, little is known about how messages influence parental cognitions and behavior. This study examines which message features explain responses to sexual communication messages. We content analyzed 4 PSUNC ads to identify specific, measurable message and advertising execution features. We then develop quantitative measures of those features, including message strategies, marketing strategies, and voice and other stylistic features, and merged the resulting data into a dataset drawn from a national media tracking survey of the campaign. Finally, we conducted multivariable logistic regression models to identify relationships between message content and ad reactions/receptivity, and between ad reactions/receptivity and parents' cognitions related to sexual communication included in the campaign's conceptual model. We found that overall parents were highly receptive to the PSUNC ads. We did not find significant associations between message content and ad reactions/receptivity. However, we found that reactions/receptivity to specific PSUNC ads were associated with increased norms, self-efficacy, short- and long-term expectations about parent-child sexual communication, as theorized in the conceptual model. This study extends previous research and methods to analyze message content and reactions/receptivity. The results confirm and extend previous PSUNC campaign evaluation and provide further evidence for the conceptual model. Future research should examine additional message content features and the effects of reactions/receptivity. PMID:21599875

Evaluation of Sexual Communication Message Strategies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khan Munziba

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Parent-child communication about sex is an important proximal reproductive health outcome. But while campaigns to promote it such as the Parents Speak Up National Campaign (PSUNC have been effective, little is known about how messages influence parental cognitions and behavior. This study examines which message features explain responses to sexual communication messages. We content analyzed 4 PSUNC ads to identify specific, measurable message and advertising execution features. We then develop quantitative measures of those features, including message strategies, marketing strategies, and voice and other stylistic features, and merged the resulting data into a dataset drawn from a national media tracking survey of the campaign. Finally, we conducted multivariable logistic regression models to identify relationships between message content and ad reactions/receptivity, and between ad reactions/receptivity and parents' cognitions related to sexual communication included in the campaign's conceptual model. We found that overall parents were highly receptive to the PSUNC ads. We did not find significant associations between message content and ad reactions/receptivity. However, we found that reactions/receptivity to specific PSUNC ads were associated with increased norms, self-efficacy, short- and long-term expectations about parent-child sexual communication, as theorized in the conceptual model. This study extends previous research and methods to analyze message content and reactions/receptivity. The results confirm and extend previous PSUNC campaign evaluation and provide further evidence for the conceptual model. Future research should examine additional message content features and the effects of reactions/receptivity.

TXT@WORK: pediatric hospitalists and text messaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuhlmann, Stephanie; Ahlers-Schmidt, Carolyn R; Steinberger, Erik

2014-07-01

Many studies assess provider-patient communication through text messaging; however, minimal research has addressed communication among physicians. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of text messaging by pediatric hospitalists. A brief, anonymous, electronic survey was distributed through the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Hospital Medicine Listserv in February 2012. Survey questions assessed work-related text messaging. Of the 106 pediatric hospitalist respondents, 97 met inclusion criteria. Most were female (73%) and had been in practice text messages, some (12%) more than 10 times per shift. More than half (53%) received work-related text messages when not at work. When asked to identify all potential work recipients, most often sent work-related text messages to other pediatric hospitalists (64%), fellows or resident physicians (37%), and subspecialists/consulting physicians (28%). When asked their preferred mode for brief communication, respondents' preferences varied. Many (46%) respondents worried privacy laws can be violated by sending/receiving text messages, and some (30%) reported having received protected health information (PHI) through text messages. However, only 11% reported their institution offered encryption software for text messaging. Physicians were using text messaging as a means of brief, work-related communication. Concerns arose regarding transfer of PHI using unsecure systems and work-life balance. Future research should examine accuracy and effectiveness of text message communication in the hospital, as well as patient privacy issues.

The Canary in the Coal Mine Tweets: Social Media Reveals Public Perceptions of Non-Medical Use of Opioids.

Science.gov (United States)

Chan, Brian; Lopez, Andrea; Sarkar, Urmimala

2015-01-01

Non-medical prescription opioid use is a growing public health concern. Social media is an emerging tool to understand health attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. We retrieved a sample of publicly available Twitter messages in early 2014, using common opioid medication names and slang search terms. We used content analysis to code messages by user, context of message (personal vs general experiences), and key content themes. We reviewed 540 messages, of which 375 (69%) messages were related to opioid behaviors. Of these, 316 (84%) originated from individual user accounts; 125 messages expressed personal experience with opioids. The majority of personal messages referenced using opioids to obtain a "high", use for sleep, or other non-intended use (87,70%). General attitudes regarding opioid use included positive sentiment (52, 27%), comments on others peoples opioid use (57, 30%), and messages containing public health information or links (48, 25%). In a sample of social media messages mentioning opioid medications, the most common theme amongst English users related to various forms of opioid misuse. Social media can provide insights into the types of misuse of opioids that might aid public health efforts to reduce non-medical opioid use.

78 FR 52166 - Quantitative Messaging Research

Science.gov (United States)

2013-08-22

... COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION Quantitative Messaging Research AGENCY: Commodity Futures... survey will follow qualitative message testing research (for which CFTC received fast-track OMB approval... message testing research (for which CFTC received fast-track OMB approval) and is necessary to identify...

Source Similarity and Social Media Health Messages: Extending Construal Level Theory to Message Sources.

Science.gov (United States)

Young, Rachel

2015-09-01

Social media users post messages about health goals and behaviors to online social networks. Compared with more traditional sources of health communication such as physicians or health journalists, peer sources are likely to be perceived as more socially close or similar, which influences how messages are processed. This experimental study uses construal level theory of psychological distance to predict how mediated health messages from peers influence health-related cognition and behavioral intention. Participants were exposed to source cues that identified peer sources as being either highly attitudinally and demographically similar to or different from participants. As predicted by construal level theory, participants who perceived sources of social media health messages as highly similar listed a greater proportion of beliefs about the feasibility of health behaviors and a greater proportion of negative beliefs, while participants who perceived sources as more dissimilar listed a greater proportion of positive beliefs about the health behaviors. Results of the study could be useful in determining how health messages from peers could encourage individuals to set realistic health goals.

Student Views about the Public Spot Advertisement Signs in the Context of Lifelong Learning (The Example of Reading Culture Themed Public Spot Advertisement)

Science.gov (United States)

Tanca, H. Altug; Ünal, Fatma

2018-01-01

It's important that the messages and information in the public spot advertisements that is wanted to be conveyed to the individuals to be reached at the desired level and an asymmetric structure existing between the message prepared with a fictional structure and the perception between the message and the receiving party. Because, a decent…

How Do Low-Literacy Populations Perceive "Dirty Bombs"? Implications for Preparedness Messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Bass, Sarah Bauerle; Gordon, Thomas F; Maurer, Laurie; Greener, Judith; Mora, Gabriella; Ruggieri, Dominique; Wolak, Caitlin; Parvanta, Claudia

2016-01-01

Potential terror events such as "dirty bombs" could have significant public health effects, but little is known about how low-literacy populations perceive dirty bombs, their trust in public health or government officials to provide credible information, and their willingness to comply with recommended actions. We surveyed 50 low-literacy adults from a large urban center; they were mostly members of ethnic minority groups. We used unique social marketing methods-perceptual mapping and vector message modeling-to create 3-dimensional models that reflected respondents' knowledge of what a dirty bomb is, their intended behaviors should one occur, and their concerns about complying with "shelter in place" recommendations. To further understand individual variations in this at-risk group, a k-means cluster analysis was used to identify 3 distinct segments, differing on trust of local authorities and their emergency response, willingness to comply with emergency directives, and trust of information sources. Message strategies targeting each segment were developed to focus on concepts important to moving the groups toward a "shelter in place" behavior, revealing key differences in how best to communicate with risk communication. We discuss how these methods helped elucidate specific differences in each segment's understanding of and likely response during the event of a "dirty bomb" and how these techniques can be used to create more effective message strategies targeted to these groups.

Effects of Text Messaging on Academic Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Barks Amanda

2011-12-01

Full Text Available University students frequently send and receive cellular phone text messages during classroominstruction. Cognitive psychology research indicates that multi-tasking is frequently associatedwith performance cost. However, university students often have considerable experience withelectronic multi-tasking and may believe that they can devote necessary attention to a classroomlecture while sending and receiving text messages. In the current study, university students whoused text messaging were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: 1. a group that sent andreceived text messages during a lecture or, 2. a group that did not engage in text messagingduring the lecture. Participants who engaged in text messaging demonstrated significantlypoorer performance on a test covering lecture content compared with the group that did notsend and receive text messages. Participants exhibiting higher levels of text messaging skill hadsignificantly lower test scores than participants who were less proficient at text messaging. It ishypothesized that in terms of retention of lecture material, more frequent task shifting by thosewith greater text messaging proficiency contributed to poorer performance. Overall, the findingsdo not support the view, held by many university students, that this form of multitasking has littleeffect on the acquisition of lecture content. Results provide empirical support for teachers andprofessors who ban text messaging in the classroom.

Washington State Retail Marijuana Legalization: Parent and Adolescent Preferences for Marijuana Messages in a Sample of Low-Income Families.

Science.gov (United States)

Hanson, Koren; Haggerty, Kevin P; Fleming, Charles B; Skinner, Martie L; Casey-Goldstein, Mary; Mason, W Alex; Thompson, Ronald W; Redmond, Cleve

2018-03-01

As legalization of nonmedical retail marijuana increases, states are implementing public health campaigns designed to prevent increases in youth marijuana use. This study investigated which types of marijuana-related messages were rated most highly by parents and their teens and whether these preferences differed by age and marijuana use. Nine marijuana-focused messages were developed as potential radio, newspaper, or television announcements. The messages fell into four categories: information about the law, general advice/conversation starters, consequences of marijuana use/positive alternatives, and information on potential harmful effects of teen marijuana use. The messages were presented through an online survey to 282 parent (84% female) and 283 teen (54% female) participants in an ongoing study in Washington State. Both parents and youth rated messages containing information about the law higher than other types of messages. Messages about potential harms of marijuana use were rated lower than other messages by both generations. Parents who had used marijuana within the past year (n = 80) rated consequence/positive alternative messages lower than parent nonusers (n = 199). Youth marijuana users (n = 77) and nonusers (n = 202) both rated messages containing information about the law higher than other types of messages. Youth users and nonusers were less likely than parents to believe messages on the harmful effects of marijuana. The high ratings for messages based on information about the marijuana law highlight the need for informational health campaigns to be established as a first step in the marijuana legalization process.

Mass media campaigns and organ donation: managing conflicting messages and interests.

Science.gov (United States)

Rady, Mohamed Y; McGregor, Joan L; Verheijde, Joseph L

2012-05-01

Mass media campaigns are widely and successfully used to change health decisions and behaviors for better or for worse in society. In the United States, media campaigns have been launched at local offices of the states' department of motor vehicles to promote citizens' willingness to organ donation and donor registration. We analyze interventional studies of multimedia communication campaigns to encourage organ-donor registration at local offices of states' department of motor vehicles. The media campaigns include the use of multifaceted communication tools and provide training to desk clerks in the use of scripted messages for the purpose of optimizing enrollment in organ-donor registries. Scripted messages are communicated to customers through mass audiovisual entertainment media, print materials and interpersonal interaction at the offices of departments of motor vehicles. These campaigns give rise to three serious concerns: (1) bias in communicating information with scripted messages without verification of the scientific accuracy of information, (2) the provision of misinformation to future donors that may result in them suffering unintended consequences from consenting to medical procedures before death (e.g, organ preservation and suitability for transplantation), and (3) the unmanaged conflict of interests for organizations charged with implementing these campaigns, (i.e, dual advocacy for transplant recipients and donors). We conclude the following: (1) media campaigns about healthcare should communicate accurate information to the general public and disclose factual materials with the least amount of bias; (2) conflicting interests in media campaigns should be managed with full public transparency; (3) media campaigns should disclose the practical implications of procurement as well as acknowledge the medical, legal, and religious controversies of determining death in organ donation; (4) organ-donor registration must satisfy the criteria of informed

Improving Type Error Messages in OCaml

OpenAIRE

Charguéraud , Arthur

2015-01-01

International audience; Cryptic type error messages are a major obstacle to learning OCaml or other ML-based languages. In many cases, error messages cannot be interpreted without a sufficiently-precise model of the type inference algorithm. The problem of improving type error messages in ML has received quite a bit of attention over the past two decades, and many different strategies have been considered. The challenge is not only to produce error messages that are both sufficiently concise ...

CMLOG: A common message logging system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, J.; Akers, W.; Bickley, M.; Wu, D.; Watson, W. III

1997-01-01

The Common Message Logging (CMLOG) system is an object-oriented and distributed system that not only allows applications and systems to log data (messages) of any type into a centralized database but also lets applications view incoming messages in real-time or retrieve stored data from the database according to selection rules. It consists of a concurrent Unix server that handles incoming logging or searching messages, a Motif browser that can view incoming messages in real-time or display stored data in the database, a client daemon that buffers and sends logging messages to the server, and libraries that can be used by applications to send data to or retrieve data from the database via the server. This paper presents the design and implementation of the CMLOG system meanwhile it will also address the issue of integration of CMLOG into existing control systems. CMLOG into existing control systems

Inoculation message treatments for curbing noncommunicable disease development.

Science.gov (United States)

Mason, Alicia M; Miller, Claude H

2013-07-01

To study the effect of various types of inoculation message treatments on resistance to persuasive and potentially deceptive health- and nutrition-related (HNR) content claims of commercial food advertisers. A three-phase experiment was conducted among 145 students from a Midwestern U.S. university. Quantitative statistical analyses were used to interpret the results. RESULTS provide clear evidence that integrating regulatory focus/fit considerations enhances the treatment effectiveness of inoculation messages. Inoculation messages that employed a preventative, outcome focus with concrete language were most effective at countering HNR advertising claims. The findings indicate that inoculation fosters resistance equally across the most common types of commercially advertised HNR product claims (e.g., absolute, general, and structure/function claims). As the drive to refine the inoculation process model continues, further testing and application of this strategy in a public health context is needed to counter ongoing efforts by commercial food advertisers to avoid government regulations against deceptive practices such as dubious health/nutrition claims. This research advances inoculation theory by providing evidence that 1) good regulatory fit strengthens the effect of refutational preemption and 2) an inoculation approach is highly effective at fostering resistance to commercial advertisers' HNR content claims. This macro approach appears far superior to education or information-based promotional health campaigns targeted solely at specific populations demonstrating rising rates of noncommunicable disease.

Inoculation message treatments for curbing noncommunicable disease development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alicia M. Mason

2013-07-01

Full Text Available OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of various types of inoculation message treatments on resistance to persuasive and potentially deceptive health- and nutrition-related (HNR content claims of commercial food advertisers. METHODS: A three-phase experiment was conducted among 145 students from a Midwestern U.S. university. Quantitative statistical analyses were used to interpret the results. Results: Results provide clear evidence that integrating regulatory focus/fit considerations enhances the treatment effectiveness of inoculation messages. Inoculation messages that employed a preventative, outcome focus with concrete language were most effective at countering HNR advertising claims. The findings indicate that inoculation fosters resistance equally across the most common types of commercially advertised HNR product claims (e.g., absolute, general, and structure/function claims. CONCLUSIONS: As the drive to refine the inoculation process model continues, further testing and application of this strategy in a public health context is needed to counter ongoing efforts by commercial food advertisers to avoid government regulations against deceptive practices such as dubious health/nutrition claims. This research advances inoculation theory by providing evidence that 1 good regulatory fit strengthens the effect of refutational preemption and 2 an inoculation approach is highly effective at fostering resistance to commercial advertisers' HNR content claims. This macro approach appears far superior to education or information-based promotional health campaigns targeted solely at specific populations demonstrating rising rates of noncommunicable disease.

Engineered cell-cell communication via DNA messaging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ortiz Monica E

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Evolution has selected for organisms that benefit from genetically encoded cell-cell communication. Engineers have begun to repurpose elements of natural communication systems to realize programmed pattern formation and coordinate other population-level behaviors. However, existing engineered systems rely on system-specific small molecules to send molecular messages among cells. Thus, the information transmission capacity of current engineered biological communication systems is physically limited by specific biomolecules that are capable of sending only a single message, typically “regulate transcription.” Results We have engineered a cell-cell communication platform using bacteriophage M13 gene products to autonomously package and deliver heterologous DNA messages of varying lengths and encoded functions. We demonstrate the decoupling of messages from a common communication channel via the autonomous transmission of various arbitrary genetic messages. Further, we increase the range of engineered DNA messaging across semisolid media by linking message transmission or receipt to active cellular chemotaxis. Conclusions We demonstrate decoupling of a communication channel from message transmission within engineered biological systems via the autonomous targeted transduction of user-specified heterologous DNA messages. We also demonstrate that bacteriophage M13 particle production and message transduction occurs among chemotactic bacteria. We use chemotaxis to improve the range of DNA messaging, increasing both transmission distance and communication bit rates relative to existing small molecule-based communication systems. We postulate that integration of different engineered cell-cell communication platforms will allow for more complex spatial programming of dynamic cellular consortia.

Hand hygiene posters: selling the message.

Science.gov (United States)

Jenner, E A; Jones, F; Fletcher, B C; Miller, L; Scott, G M

2005-02-01

This literature review was undertaken to determine the established theory and research that might be utilized to inform the construction of persuasive messages on hand hygiene posters. It discusses the principles of message framing and the use of fear appeals. Current theory suggests that the most effective messages for health promotion behaviours should be framed in terms of gains rather than losses for the individual. However, as clinical hand hygiene is largely for the benefit of others (i.e. patients), messages should also invoke a sense of personal responsibility and appeal to altruistic behaviour. The use of repeated minimal fear appeals have their place. Posters that simply convey training messages are not effective persuaders.

Main messages for the new nuclear unit in Finland

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nikula, Anneli

2001-01-01

have been held both in Finland and abroad. Training related to messages has been arranged both for the company's own personnel and for partners in co-operation. It has also included TV-performance training. The most important political instances were informed about the submission of the application for decision in principle. The application did not come as a surprise. A large amount of various kinds of material was prepared for the media. The material was available e.g. as CD-files and on TVO's Internet website. A publicity survey was made of the newspaper articles published after the submission of the application. The survey showed that TVO's messages had come out extremely well

What's in a message? Delivering sexual health promotion to young people in Australia via text messaging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hellard Margaret E

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Advances in communication technologies have dramatically changed how individuals access information and communicate. Recent studies have found that mobile phone text messages (SMS can be used successfully for short-term behaviour change. However there is no published information examining the acceptability, utility and efficacy of different characteristics of health promotion SMS. This paper presents the results of evaluation focus groups among participants who received twelve sexual health related SMS as part of a study examining the impact of text messaging for sexual health promotion to on young people in Victoria, Australia. Methods Eight gender-segregated focus groups were held with 21 males and 22 females in August 2008. Transcripts of audio recordings were analysed using thematic analysis. Data were coded under one or more themes. Results Text messages were viewed as an acceptable and 'personal' means of health promotion, with participants particularly valuing the informal language. There was a preference for messages that were positive, relevant and short and for messages to cover a variety of topics. Participants were more likely to remember and share messages that were funny, rhymed and/or tied into particular annual events. The message broadcasting, generally fortnightly on Friday afternoons, was viewed as appropriate. Participants said the messages provided new information, a reminder of existing information and reduced apprehension about testing for sexually transmitted infections. Conclusions Mobile phones, in particular SMS, offer health promoters an exciting opportunity to engage personally with a huge number of individuals for low cost. The key elements emerging from this evaluation, such as message style, language and broadcast schedule are directly relevant to future studies using SMS for health promotion, as well as for future health promotion interventions in other mediums that require short formats, such

The message development tool: a case for effective operationalization of messaging in social marketing practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Mattson, Marifran; Basu, Ambar

2010-07-01

That messages are essential, if not the most critical component of any communicative process, seems like an obvious claim. More so when the communication is about health--one of the most vital and elemental of human experiences (Babrow & Mattson, 2003). Any communication campaign that aims to change a target audience's health behaviors needs to centralize messages. Even though messaging strategies are an essential component of social marketing and are a widely used campaign model, health campaigns based on this framework have not always been able to effectively operationalize this key component, leading to cases where initiating and sustaining prescribed health behavior has been difficult (MacStravic, 2000). Based on an examination of the VERB campaign and an Australian breastfeeding promotion campaign, we propose a message development tool within the ambit of the social marketing framework that aims to extend the framework and ensure that the messaging component of the model is contextualized at the core of planning, implementation, and evaluation efforts.

Investigating the impact of viral message appeal and message credibility on consumer attitude toward brand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Majid Esmaeilpour

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Background - Due to the rapid growth of the Internet and use of e-commerce in recent years, viral marketing has drawn the attention of manufacturing and service organizations. However, no research has been conducted to examine the impact of message appeal and message source credibility on consumers' attitude with mediating role of intellectual involvement of consumers and their risk taking level. Purpose - The aim of this study was to examine the impact of appeal and message source credibility on consumers’ attitude with mediating role of consumers’ intellectual involvement and their risk taking level. Design/methodology/approach – The population of this study includes consumers of mobile phones (Samsung, Sony, Nokia, LG and iPhone in Bushehr city (Iran. As the population of the study is unlimited, 430 questionnaires were distributed using available sampling method, and 391 questionnaires were collected and analyzed. Using structural equation modeling, data were analyzed through smart PLS software. Findings –The results show that the appeal and credibility of the message source have impact on consumer attitudes toward the brand. It was also found that intellectual involvement of consumers plays the mediating role in the relationship between message appeal and consumer attitudes toward brand. In the relationship between message source credibility and customer attitude towards the brand, the level of risk taking of people has no mediating role. Research limitations/implications – Data collection tool was questionnaire in this study, and questionnaire has some disadvantages that can affect the results. Additionally, this study was conducted in Bushehr city (Iran. Therefore, we should be cautious in generalizing the findings. Originality/value – In this study, the effect of message appeal and message source credibility on consumer attitude to brand was examined. The risk taking level of consumer and his involvement level were considered

A value message is worth a thousand words: Impact of management framework on public perceptions of nuclear waste

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mays, C. [Inst. SYMLOG, Cachan (France)

1999-12-01

Until recent years, those involved in the design, operation and regulation of nuclear power systems devoted more resources to forward movement than to the back end of the fuel cycle. Now, though, concerted thought and international cooperation have been devoted to the question of nuclear waste management. The expert consensus is that sufficient knowledge exists to make e.g. disposal decisions with an acceptable level of confidence. In the first phases of research, decision processes were adapted to the tasks at hand. However, at some point in each nuclearized country, there came a time when waste management implied finding repository sites. At that time management abruptly entered the social sphere - where unfortunate experience has shown time and time again that classical decision processes are not adapted to facilitating societal acceptance of management solutions. This paper recounts the various management frameworks that have been tested in a number of countries in the goal of siting underground repositories or laboratories. Mechanisms of public perception are examined in an effort to understand the context in which such management attempts take place. In particular, the value messages sent - consciously or inadvertently - to the public by waste managers are graphically illustrated and evaluated. A humorous tone and sympathy for the various stakeholders inside and outside industry are shown in this presentation.

A value message is worth a thousand words: Impact of management framework on public perceptions of nuclear waste

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mays, C.

1999-01-01

Until recent years, those involved in the design, operation and regulation of nuclear power systems devoted more resources to forward movement than to the back end of the fuel cycle. Now, though, concerted thought and international cooperation have been devoted to the question of nuclear waste management. The expert consensus is that sufficient knowledge exists to make e.g. disposal decisions with an acceptable level of confidence. In the first phases of research, decision processes were adapted to the tasks at hand. However, at some point in each nuclearized country, there came a time when waste management implied finding repository sites. At that time management abruptly entered the social sphere - where unfortunate experience has shown time and time again that classical decision processes are not adapted to facilitating societal acceptance of management solutions. This paper recounts the various management frameworks that have been tested in a number of countries in the goal of siting underground repositories or laboratories. Mechanisms of public perception are examined in an effort to understand the context in which such management attempts take place. In particular, the value messages sent - consciously or inadvertently - to the public by waste managers are graphically illustrated and evaluated. A humorous tone and sympathy for the various stakeholders inside and outside industry are shown in this presentation

Associations of racial discrimination and parental discrimination coping messages with African American adolescent racial identity.

Science.gov (United States)

Richardson, Bridget L; Macon, Tamarie A; Mustafaa, Faheemah N; Bogan, Erin D; Cole-Lewis, Yasmin; Chavous, Tabbye M

2015-06-01

Research links racial identity to important developmental outcomes among African American adolescents, but less is known about the contextual experiences that shape youths' racial identity. In a sample of 491 African American adolescents (48% female), associations of youth-reported experiences of racial discrimination and parental messages about preparation for racial bias with adolescents' later racial identity were examined. Cluster analysis resulted in four profiles of adolescents varying in reported frequency of racial discrimination from teachers and peers at school and frequency of parental racial discrimination coping messages during adolescents' 8th grade year. Boys were disproportionately over-represented in the cluster of youth experiencing more frequent discrimination but receiving fewer parental discrimination coping messages, relative to the overall sample. Also examined were clusters of adolescents' 11th grade racial identity attitudes about the importance of race (centrality), personal group affect (private regard), and perceptions of societal beliefs about African Americans (public regard). Girls and boys did not differ in their representation in racial identity clusters, but 8th grade discrimination/parent messages clusters were associated with 11th grade racial identity cluster membership, and these associations varied across gender groups. Boys experiencing more frequent discrimination but fewer parental coping messages were over-represented in the racial identity cluster characterized by low centrality, low private regard, and average public regard. The findings suggest that adolescents who experience racial discrimination but receive fewer parental supports for negotiating and coping with discrimination may be at heightened risk for internalizing stigmatizing experiences. Also, the findings suggest the need to consider the context of gender in adolescents' racial discrimination and parental racial socialization.

Message exchange in the building industry

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vries, de B.; Somers, L.J.A.M.

1995-01-01

A process model is described for exchanging information in the building industry. In this model participants send and receive messages. On receipt of a message an activity is executed if all required information is available. Otherwise a message will be sent to another participant to obtain the

Diabetes education via mobile text messaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Wangberg, Silje C; Arsand, Eirik; Andersson, Niklas

2006-01-01

Living with diabetes makes great educational demands on a family. We have tested the feasibility of using the mobile phone short message service (SMS) for reaching people with diabetes information. We also assessed user satisfaction and perceived pros and cons of the medium through interviews. Eleven parents of children with type 1 diabetes received messages for 11 weeks. The parents were positive about the system and said that they would like to continue to use it. The pop-up reminding effect of SMS messages in busy everyday life was noted as positive. Some parents experienced the messages as somewhat intrusive, arriving too often and at inconvenient times. The parents also noted the potential of the messages to facilitate communication with their adolescent children. The inability to store all of the messages or to print them out were seen as major disadvantages. Overall, the SMS seems to hold promise as means of delivering diabetes information.

Recent computer attacks via Instant Messaging

CERN Multimedia

IT Department

2008-01-01

Be cautious of any unexpected messages containing web links even if they appear to come from known contacts. If you happen to click on such a link and if your permission is requested to run or install software, always decline it. Several computers at CERN have recently been broken into by attackers who have tricked users of Instant Messaging applications (e.g. MSN, Yahoo Messenger, etc.) into clicking on web links which appeared to come from known contacts. The links appeared to be photos from ‘friends’ and requested software to be installed. In practice, attacker software was installed and the messages did not come from real contacts. In the past such fake messages were mainly sent by email but now a wider range of applications are being targeted, including Instant Messaging. Cybercriminals are making growing use of fake messages to try to trick you into clicking on Web links which will help them to install malicious software on your computer. Anti-virus software cann...

Auctioning Bulk Mobile Messages

NARCIS (Netherlands)

S. Meij (Simon); L-F. Pau (Louis-François); H.W.G.M. van Heck (Eric)

2003-01-01

textabstractThe search for enablers of continued growth of SMS traffic, as well as the take-off of the more diversified MMS message contents, open up for enterprises the potential of bulk use of mobile messaging , instead of essentially one-by-one use. In parallel, such enterprises or value added

Crafting safe and effective suicide prevention media messages: outcomes from a workshop in Australia.

Science.gov (United States)

Ftanou, Maria; Skehan, Jaelea; Krysinska, Karolina; Bryant, Marc; Spittal, Matthew J; Pirkis, Jane

2018-01-01

Suicide and suicide-related behaviours are major public health concerns in Australia and worldwide. One universal intervention that has received an increased focus as a means of preventing suicide is the use of media campaigns. There is, however, a lack of understanding of the kinds of campaign messages that are safe and effective. The current paper aims to expand on this knowledge. The study objectives were to: (1) explore what suicide prevention experts consider to be essential characteristics of effective and safe suicide media campaigns; (2) develop suicide prevention media messages; and (3) explore the impact that these messages might have on different audiences. We conducted a workshop in July 2015 which was attended by 21 experts (professionals with knowledge about suicide prevention and/or media campaigns, and people with a lived experience of suicide). The experts were split into three groups, and each group developed a suicide prevention message for one of the following target audiences: people at risk of suicide; family and peers of people at risk of suicide; and people bereaved by suicide. The three groups generally agreed that these messages had to include two key characteristics: (1) validate or reflect the target group's issues and needs; and (2) promote help-seeking behaviours. They noted, however, that messages that might have a positive impact for one target audience might inadvertently have a negative impact for other target audiences. In particular, they were concerned that messages designed for family and peers about being supportive and looking for warning signs might leave those who had been bereaved by suicide feeling isolated, guilty or traumatised. Workshop participants highlighted that gaps exist in relation to the use of appropriate language, were unsure of how to create destigmatising messages without normalising or sensationalising suicide and commented on the lack of evaluative evidence for the efficacy of media campaigns. Developing

"Pervy Role-Play and Such": Girls' Experiences of Sexual Messaging Online

Science.gov (United States)

Nielsen, Silja; Paasonen, Susanna; Spisak, Sanna

2015-01-01

Sexting is one of the recurring causes of concern in public discussion of young people and network media. This paper builds on findings from a survey with 1269 Finnish female respondents aged 11-18 conducted using a popular online community for girls on their experiences of and views on online messages concerning sex and sexuality. Sixty-five per…

Popular Mobilization Messaging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James Garrison

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This Research Paper examines the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Unit’s (PMU messaging on the organisation’s website and social media platforms through early January 2017 to develop a more nuanced understanding of the PMU’s outlook, both present and future. After providing an overview of the PMU’s media presence online, the paper discusses how the organisation promotes its core narrative: that it is a cross-confessional and patriotic force for the defence of all Iraqis against a brutal and evil IS. The paper then addresses the PMU’s use of messaging to refute the sectarian portrayal of the organisation in some quarters before turning to the way the PMU approaches regional and international states in its media. Finally, the paper summarises the PMU’s messaging strategy and discusses how this strategy implies a less threatening future for the organisation than is often anticipated.

Evidence-Based Support for the Characteristics of Tsunami Warning Messages for Local, Regional and Distant Sources

Science.gov (United States)

Gregg, C. E.; Johnston, D. M.; Sorensen, J. H.; Vogt Sorensen, B.; Whitmore, P.

2014-12-01

Many studies since 2004 have documented the dissemination and receipt of risk information for local to distant tsunamis and factors influencing people's responses. A few earlier tsunami studies and numerous studies of other hazards provide additional support for developing effective tsunami messages. This study explores evidence-based approaches to developing such messages for the Pacific and National Tsunami Warning Centers in the US. It extends a message metric developed for the NWS Tsunami Program. People at risk to tsunamis receive information from multiple sources through multiple channels. Sources are official and informal and environmental and social cues. Traditionally, official tsunami messages followed a linear dissemination path through relatively few channels from warning center to emergency management to public and media. However, the digital age has brought about a fundamental change in the dissemination and receipt of official and informal communications. Information is now disseminated in very non-linear paths and all end-user groups may receive the same message simultaneously. Research has demonstrated a range of factors that influence rapid respond to an initial real or perceived threat. Immediate response is less common than one involving delayed protective actions where people first engage in "milling behavior" to exchange information and confirm the warning before taking protective action. The most important message factors to achieve rapid response focus on the content and style of the message and the frequency of dissemination. Previously we developed a tsunami message metric consisting of 21 factors divided into message content and style and receiver characteristics. Initially, each factor was equally weighted to identify gaps, but here we extend the work by weighting specific factors. This utilizes recent research that identifies the most important determinants of protective action. We then discuss the prioritization of message information

Media Messages and Perception of Risk for Ebola Virus Infection, United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Sell, Tara Kirk; Boddie, Crystal; McGinty, Emma E; Pollack, Keshia; Smith, Katherine Clegg; Burke, Thomas A; Rutkow, Lainie

2017-01-01

News media have been blamed for sensationalizing Ebola in the United States, causing unnecessary alarm. To investigate this issue, we analyzed US-focused news stories about Ebola virus disease during July 1-November 30, 2014. We found frequent use of risk-elevating messages, which may have contributed to increased public concern.

Manufacturing consent?: Media messages in the mobilization against HIV/AIDS in India and lessons for health communication.

Science.gov (United States)

Khan, Shamshad

2014-01-01

Despite repeated calls for a more critical and "culture-centered" approach to health communication, textual analysis of televised public service advertising (PSA) campaigns has been largely neglected, even by critical communication scholars. In the case of "developing" countries in particular, there is an acute shortage of such literature. On the other hand, following the outbreak of major public health diseases such as AIDS, most countries have adopted PSA campaigns as the most preferred means of communicating messages. Drawing on insights from cultural studies (especially Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall), this article engages in textual analysis of the televised PSA campaigns launched by the Indian state to prevent HIV/AIDS between 2002 and 2005. Through such analysis, it argues that although few diseases in Indian history have spurred such massive and creative efforts for mass mobilization as AIDS, these efforts, in terms of their ethical implications, have been far from emancipatory. In fact, they have constructed and perpetuated the logic of domination and control along class, gender, sexuality, and knowledge systems, often contradicting and potentially harming the very goal of HIV prevention and of health promotion and empowerment. This article also holds that assessing public health campaigns through textual analysis, a highly neglected tool in health communication, can shed important light on a far more complex and changing nature of the state and public policy, especially in the developing world, thereby opening up space for alternative theorizing for health communication and social change.

Message Oriented Communication For Ipv6 Enabled Pervasive Devices

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomasz Szydlo

2013-01-01

Full Text Available An increasing number of electronic devices in our environment is equipped with radio interfaces used for exposing and using their functionality by other devices and applications. Wireless communication in this class of devices is exposed to a number of situations that may occur including limited energy resources, equipment failures, nodes mobility and loss of communication between nodes. It causes that commonly used standards and protocols for sharing services are not practical and do not take into account the occurrence of these problems. The paper presents the concept of communication that relies on the exchange of messages between wireless pervasive devices available in the environment.

Hooked on a feeling: Affective anti-smoking messages are more effective than cognitive messages at changing implicit evaluations of smoking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Colin Tucker Smith

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Because implicit evaluations are thought to underlie many aspects of behavior, researchers have started looking for ways to change them. We examine whether and when persuasive messages alter strongly-held implicit evaluations of smoking. In smokers, an affective anti-smoking message led to more negative implicit evaluations on four different implicit measures as compared to a cognitive anti-smoking message which seemed to backfire. Additional analyses suggested that the observed effects were mediated by the feelings and emotions raised by the messages. In non-smokers, both the affective and cognitive message engendered slightly more negative implicit evaluations. We conclude that persuasive messages change implicit evaluations in a way that depends on properties of the message and of the participant. Thus, our data open new avenues for research directed at tailoring persuasive messages to change implicit evaluations.

Hooked on a feeling: affective anti-smoking messages are more effective than cognitive messages at changing implicit evaluations of smoking.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Colin Tucker; De Houwer, Jan

2015-01-01

Because implicit evaluations are thought to underlie many aspects of behavior, researchers have started looking for ways to change them. We examine whether and when persuasive messages alter strongly held implicit evaluations of smoking. In smokers, an affective anti-smoking message led to more negative implicit evaluations on four different implicit measures as compared to a cognitive anti-smoking message which seemed to backfire. Additional analyses suggested that the observed effects were mediated by the feelings and emotions raised by the messages. In non-smokers, both the affective and cognitive message engendered slightly more negative implicit evaluations. We conclude that persuasive messages change implicit evaluations in a way that depends on properties of the message and of the participant. Thus, our data open new avenues for research directed at tailoring persuasive messages to change implicit evaluations.

How Fear-Arousing News Messages Affect Risk Perceptions and Intention to Talk About Risk.

Science.gov (United States)

Paek, Hye-Jin; Oh, Sang-Hwa; Hove, Thomas

2016-09-01

Building on the theoretical arguments of the impersonal-impact and differential-impact hypotheses, this study has a twofold purpose: first, to demonstrate how fear-arousing media messages about risk are associated with personal-level risk perception, as well as, and perhaps more so than, societal-level risk perception; and second, to examine how the resulting risk perceptions can mediate intention to talk about the risk with family and friends. A news message evaluation study was conducted among the general public in South Korea concerning two major risks, carcinogens and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Two sets of structural equation models reveal three main findings: (a) Fear-arousing news messages are positively related to personal-level risk perception, as well as to societal-level risk perception; (b) fear-arousing news messages result in intention to talk about the risk directly and indirectly through risk perception; and (c) personal-level risk perception appears more strongly related to intention to talk than does societal-level risk perception, although such relationships may vary across risk topics.

Messaging, Missions, and Mindsets: The Unintended Consequences of National Messaging and Policy when Translated into Operations and Soldier Actions in the Second World War

Science.gov (United States)

2013-06-23

abundant, and nearly every American had regular 6 access to radios and the cinema . For the first time, messages could reach nearly everyone in...still required for full support. On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese provided it.42 On December 11th, 1941, Hitler declared war on the U.S., without...Soviet, and anti-gypsy indoctrinating propaganda. Nazi public festivals and theater, contextually similar to the American cinema experience

Nonblocking and orphan free message logging protocols

Science.gov (United States)

Alvisi, Lorenzo; Hoppe, Bruce; Marzullo, Keith

1992-12-01

Currently existing message logging protocols demonstrate a classic pessimistic vs. optimistic tradeoff. We show that the optimistic-pessimistic tradeoff is not inherent to the problem of message logging. We construct a message-logging protocol that has the positive features of both optimistic and pessimistic protocol: our protocol prevents orphans and allows simple failure recovery; however, it requires no blocking in failure-free runs. Furthermore, this protocol does not introduce any additional message overhead as compared to one implemented for a system in which messages may be lost but processes do not crash.

The religious message in action - a case study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

René Gothóni

1975-01-01

Full Text Available We understand a religious message to be the product of a religious movement. In studying such a message, it is very much to the purpose to place it in the context in which it operates. The cultural and social context of a religious message is some religious movement. Hence, the message should be examined against that framework. Each message has a certain structure, and its detection is of prime importance. Messages are not only part of the tradition, but themselves unique in their respective communicative situations. Thus, in our view, structural analysis does not have analytical use-value unless the message's symbols are set into their communicative context. The aim of this paper is dual: On the one hand, we intend to analyze and clarify the structure of a religious message of the Laestadian movement, how the message operates, also how the members of that movement respond to the codes of the message, and what kind of functions it fulfills; on the other, to develop and test an analytical model which would combine structural and interactional analysis.

Reducing high calorie snack food in young adults: a role for social norms and health based messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Robinson, Eric; Harris, Ellis; Thomas, Jason; Aveyard, Paul; Higgs, Suzanne

2013-06-05

Consumption of high calorie junk foods has increased recently, especially among young adults and higher intake may cause weight gain. There is a need to develop public health approaches to motivate people to reduce their intake of junk food. To assess the effect of health and social norm messages on high calorie snack food intake (a type of junk food) as a function of usual intake of junk food. In a between-subjects design, 129 young adults (45 men and 84 women, mean age = 22.4 years, SD = 4.5) were assigned to one of three conditions: 1) a social norm condition, in which participants saw a message about the junk food eating habits of others; 2) a health condition, in which participants saw a message outlining the health benefits of reducing junk food consumption and; 3) a control condition, in which participants saw a non-food related message. After exposure to the poster messages, participants consumed a snack and the choice and amount of snack food consumed was examined covertly. We also examined whether usual intake of junk food moderated the effect of message type on high calorie snack food intake. The amount of high calorie snack food consumed was significantly lower in both the health and the social norm message condition compared with the control message condition (36% and 28%, both p food or energy intake between the health and social norm message conditions. There was no evidence that the effect of the messages depended upon usual consumption of junk food. Messages about the health effects of junk food and social normative messages about intake of junk food can motivate people to reduce their consumption of high calorie snack food.

The public's needs drive the public's receptivity to information

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cramer, E.N.

1999-01-01

Customers want high-quality products at low prices, and they want them now. The message is clear: The Public compares perceived alternatives. The communication problem of the nuclear industry is the same as any other nonmonopoly provider of products or services, i.e., to show the public that nuclear electricity is superior even though nuclear electricity itself is indistinguishable from any other electricity. The following topics are discussed in this paper: (1) What the public needs in general; (2) what the public wants of information delivered; (3) the nuclear information that the public wants; (4) the ANS public information web page; and (5) wider use of issues information

Message Scheduling and Forwarding in Congested DTNs

KAUST Repository

Elwhishi, Ahmed; Ho, Pin-Han; Shihada, Basem

2012-01-01

Multi-copy utility-based routing has been considered as one of the most applicable approaches to effective message delivery in Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs). By allowing multiple message replicas launched, the ratio of message delivery or delay can be significantly reduced compared with other counterparts. Such an advantage, nonetheless, is at the expense of taking more buffer space at each node and higher complexity in message forwarding decisions. This paper investigates an efficient message scheduling and dropping policy via analytical modeling approach, aiming to achieve optimal performance in terms of message delivery delay. Extensive simulation results, based on a synthetic mobility model and real mobility traces, show that the proposed scheduling framework can achieve superb performance against its counterparts in terms of delivery delay.

Message Scheduling and Forwarding in Congested DTNs

KAUST Repository

Elwhishi, Ahmed

2012-08-19

Multi-copy utility-based routing has been considered as one of the most applicable approaches to effective message delivery in Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs). By allowing multiple message replicas launched, the ratio of message delivery or delay can be significantly reduced compared with other counterparts. Such an advantage, nonetheless, is at the expense of taking more buffer space at each node and higher complexity in message forwarding decisions. This paper investigates an efficient message scheduling and dropping policy via analytical modeling approach, aiming to achieve optimal performance in terms of message delivery delay. Extensive simulation results, based on a synthetic mobility model and real mobility traces, show that the proposed scheduling framework can achieve superb performance against its counterparts in terms of delivery delay.

Does perceived risk influence the effects of message framing? Revisiting the link between prospect theory and message framing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Riet, J.P. van 't; Cox, A.D.; Cox, D.; Zimet, G.D.; Bruijn, G.J. de; Putte, B. van den; Vries, H. de; Werrij, M.Q.; Ruiter, R.A.C.

2016-01-01

Health-promoting messages can be framed in terms of the beneficial consequences of healthy behaviour (gain-framed messages) or the detrimental consequences of unhealthy behaviour (loss-framed messages). An influential notion holds that the perceived risk associated with the recommended behaviour

Visual elements in direct-to-consumer advertising: Messages communicated to patients with arthritis.

Science.gov (United States)

Willis, Erin

2017-01-01

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising saturates popular health magazines, communicating persuasive messages to readers that may influence attitudes and behaviors. This research used a two-prong approach to investigate the visual elements used in DTC advertising and their influence on consumers' understanding of a disease and its treatment options. An analysis was conducted of DTC advertisements (N = 62) from a population sample of Arthritis Today magazine, 2000-2010. Three panels of people with arthritis were used to validate the findings and discuss implications for health literacy. Pharmaceutical companies have an opportunity to communicate tailored messages to readers of niche publications and improve disease management.

The Message Reporting System of the ATLAS DAQ System

CERN Document Server

Caprini, M; Kolos, S; 10th ICATPP Conference on Astroparticle, Particle, Space Physics, Detectors and Medical Physics Applications

2008-01-01

The Message Reporting System (MRS) in the ATLAS data acquisition system (DAQ) is one package of the Online Software which acts as a glue of various elements of DAQ, High Level Trigger (HLT) and Detector Control System (DCS). The aim of the MRS is to provide a facility which allows all software components in ATLAS to report messages to other components of the distributed DAQ system. The processes requiring a MRS are on one hand applications that report error conditions or information and on the other hand message processors that receive reported messages. A message reporting application can inject one or more messages into the MRS at any time. An application wishing to receive messages can subscribe to a message group according to defined criteria. The application receives messages that fulfill the subscription criteria when they are reported to MRS. The receiver message processing can consist of anything from simply logging the messages in a file/terminal to performing message analysis. The inter-process comm...

[Physical activity guidelines for Canadians: strategies for dissemination of the message, expectations for change and evaluation].

Science.gov (United States)

Brawley, Lawrence R; Latimer, Amy E

2007-01-01

Physical activity guidelines offer evidence-based behavioural benchmarks that relate to reduced risk of morbidity and mortality if people adhere to them. Essentially, the guidelines tell people what to do, but not why and how they should do it. Thus, to motivate adherence, messages that translate guidelines should convey not only how much physical activity one should attempt and why it is recommended, but also how to achieve such a recommendation. Canada's physical activity guides exemplify how guidelines can be translated. This paper (i) provides a brief overview of the challenges encountered in creating the existing guides and (ii) highlights important practical issues and empirical evidence that should be considered in the future when translating guidelines into messages and disseminating these messages. We draw on the successes of past efforts to translate the goals of physical activity guidelines and on recent literature on messages and media campaigns to make recommendations. Information to motivate people to move toward the goals in physical activity guidelines should be translated into a set of messages that are informative, thought provoking, and persuasive. These messages should be disseminated to the public via a multi-phase social-marketing campaign that is carefully planned and thoroughly evaluated.

Survivors' perceptions of public health messages during an Ebola crisis in Liberia and Sierra Leone: An exploratory study.

Science.gov (United States)

Schwerdtle, Patricia; De Clerck, Veronique; Plummer, Virginia

2017-12-01

The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone was the largest epidemic of Ebola ever recorded. The healthcare workforce was diminished and exhausted as the region emerged from civil war. Few qualitative, descriptive studies have been conducted to date that concentrate on the voices of Ebola survivors and their perceptions of health messages. In this study, we employed an interpretive, qualitative design to explore participant experiences. Twenty five survivors who had recovered from Ebola were recruited from three villages in Liberia and Sierra Leone in August 2015. Data were collected using semistructured interviews. Data analysis revealed four themes: (i) degrees of mistrust; (ii) messages conflicting with life and culture; (iii) seeing is believing; and (iv) recovery inspires hope. The findings were explored in the context of the relevant literature. The themes highlight the need to develop culturally-appropriate messages, underpinned by a sound understanding of the community and a willingness to work with the culture and trusted leaders. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Hand hygiene posters: motivators or mixed messages?

Science.gov (United States)

Jenner, E A; Jones, F; Fletcher, B C; Miller, L; Scott, G M

2005-07-01

Poster campaigns regarding hand hygiene are commonly used by infection control teams to improve practice, yet little is known of the extent to which they are based on established theory or research. This study reports on the content analysis of hand hygiene posters (N=69) and their messages (N=75) using message-framing theory. The results showed that posters seldom drew on knowledge about effective ways to frame messages. Frequently, they simply conveyed information 'telling' rather than 'selling' and some of this was confusing. Most posters were not designed to motivate, and some conveyed mixed messages. Few used fear appeals. Hand hygiene posters could have a greater impact if principles of message framing were utilized in their design. Suggestions for gain-framed messages are offered, but these need to be tested empirically.

Preventing messaging queue deadlocks in a DMA environment

Science.gov (United States)

Blocksome, Michael A; Chen, Dong; Gooding, Thomas; Heidelberger, Philip; Parker, Jeff

2014-01-14

Embodiments of the invention may be used to manage message queues in a parallel computing environment to prevent message queue deadlock. A direct memory access controller of a compute node may determine when a messaging queue is full. In response, the DMA may generate and interrupt. An interrupt handler may stop the DMA and swap all descriptors from the full messaging queue into a larger queue (or enlarge the original queue). The interrupt handler then restarts the DMA. Alternatively, the interrupt handler stops the DMA, allocates a memory block to hold queue data, and then moves descriptors from the full messaging queue into the allocated memory block. The interrupt handler then restarts the DMA. During a normal messaging advance cycle, a messaging manager attempts to inject the descriptors in the memory block into other messaging queues until the descriptors have all been processed.

Struggles for recognition: a content analysis of messages posted on the Internet

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andersen AJ

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Anders Johan W Andersen,1,2 Tommy Svensson31Department of Psychosocial Health, University of Agder, Norway; 2Nordic School of Public Health, Gothenburg, Sweden; 3Department of Behavioral Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, Linköping, SwedenBackground: The Internet has enlarged the possibilities of human communication and opened new ways of exploring perceptions of mental health. This study is part of a research project aiming to explore, describe, and analyze different discourses of mental health in Norway and Sweden, using material from Internet-based services.Aim: To examine messages posed by users of publicly available question-and-answer services and to describe their content.Methods: A Web search was used to identify Norwegian and Swedish Websites offering mental health services by email or posted messages. A total of 601 messages from 20 services, 10 Norwegian and 10 Swedish, were analyzed by means of qualitative content analysis and further interpreted in light of the social theory of recognition by Honneth.Results: Eight categories emerged from the analysis: family life, couples, others, violence, the ungovernable, self-image, negotiating normality, and life struggles. These categories were then grouped into three themes: (1 relationship to significant others, (2 relationship to self, and (3 relationship to the social community. The themes promoted an understanding of mental health as closely connected to political and social factors.Conclusions: The results showed a variety of concerns from various parts of life and empowered the view that mental health should be understood broadly, at a conceptual level. Mental health emerged as a deeply relational concept that emphasized the equal distribution of chances in life. It strengthened the moral grammar of social inclusion and the acceptance of plurality in social life.Keywords: Internet-based services, mental health, public health, social theory

Efficacy of Web-Based Collection of Strength-Based Testimonials for Text Message Extension of Youth Suicide Prevention Program: Randomized Controlled Experiment.

Science.gov (United States)

Thiha, Phyo; Pisani, Anthony R; Gurditta, Kunali; Cherry, Erin; Peterson, Derick R; Kautz, Henry; Wyman, Peter A

2016-11-09

Equipping members of a target population to deliver effective public health messaging to peers is an established approach in health promotion. The Sources of Strength program has demonstrated the promise of this approach for "upstream" youth suicide prevention. Text messaging is a well-established medium for promoting behavior change and is the dominant communication medium for youth. In order for peer 'opinion leader' programs like Sources of Strength to use scalable, wide-reaching media such as text messaging to spread peer-to-peer messages, they need techniques for assisting peer opinion leaders in creating effective testimonials to engage peers and match program goals. We developed a Web interface, called Stories of Personal Resilience in Managing Emotions (StoryPRIME), which helps peer opinion leaders write effective, short-form messages that can be delivered to the target population in youth suicide prevention program like Sources of Strength. To determine the efficacy of StoryPRIME, a Web-based interface for remotely eliciting high school peer leaders, and helping them produce high-quality, personal testimonials for use in a text messaging extension of an evidence-based, peer-led suicide prevention program. In a double-blind randomized controlled experiment, 36 high school students wrote testimonials with or without eliciting from the StoryPRIME interface. The interface was created in the context of Sources of Strength-an evidence-based youth suicide prevention program-and 24 ninth graders rated these testimonials on relatability, usefulness/relevance, intrigue, and likability. Testimonials written with the StoryPRIME interface were rated as more relatable, useful/relevant, intriguing, and likable than testimonials written without StoryPRIME, P=.054. StoryPRIME is a promising way to elicit high-quality, personal testimonials from youth for prevention programs that draw on members of a target population to spread public health messages. ©Phyo Thiha, Anthony

Social Media in Health Research: An Example from Childcare Provider Message Boards

Science.gov (United States)

Lynch, Meghan

2011-01-01

Social media sites, such as message boards and blogs, provide innovative data sources for researchers as these sites feature people sharing advice and discussing issues in a public arena. Research has found the online context can encourage people to reveal more information than do such traditional methods as interviews or focus groups. However,…

Systematic review of public health branding.

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, W Douglas; Blitstein, Jonathan; Hersey, James C; Renaud, Jeanette; Yaroch, Amy L

2008-12-01

Brands build relationships between consumers and products, services, or lifestyles by providing beneficial exchanges and adding value to their objects. Brands can be measured through associations that consumers hold for products and services. Public health brands are the associations that individuals hold for health behaviors, or lifestyles that embody multiple health behaviors. We systematically reviewed the literature on public health brands; developed a methodology for describing branded health messages and campaigns; and examined specific branding strategies across a range of topic areas, campaigns, and global settings. We searched the literature for published studies on public health branding available through all relevant, major online publication databases. Public health branding was operationalized as any manuscripts in the health, social science, and business literature on branding or brands in health promotion marketing. We developed formalized decision rules and applied them in identifying articles for review. We initially identified 154 articles and reviewed a final set of 37, 10 from Africa, Australia, and Europe. Branded health campaigns spanned most of the major domains of public health and numerous communication strategies and evaluation methodologies. Most studies provided clear information on planning, development, and evaluation of the branding effort, while some provided minimal information. Branded health messages typically are theory based, and there is a body of evidence on their behavior change effectiveness, especially in nutrition, tobacco control, and HIV/AIDS. More rigorous research is needed, however, on how branded health messages impact specific populations and behaviors.

SMS Messaging Applications

CERN Document Server

Pero, Nicola

2009-01-01

Cell phones are the most common communication device on the planet, and Short Message Service (SMS) is the chief channel for companies to offer services, accept requests, report news, and download binary files over cell phones. This guide describes the protocols and best practices (things that ensure you won't get sued or lose your right to offer a service) you need to know to make SMS messaging part of an organizational service. Issues such as character sets, differences among vendors, common practices in Europe and North America, and API choices are covered.

AMS: Area Message Service for SLC

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Crane, M.; Mackenzie, R.; Millsom, D.; Zelazny, M.

1993-04-01

The Area Message Service (AMS) is a TCP/IP based messaging service currently in use at SLAC. A number of projects under development here at SLAC require and application level interface to the 4.3BSD UNIX socket level communications functions using TCP/IP over ethernet. AMS provides connection management, solicited message transfer, unsolicited message transfer, and asynchronous notification of pending messages. AMS is written completely in ANSI 'C' and is currently portable over three hardware/operating system/network manager platforms, VAX/VMS/Multinet, PC/MS-DOS/Pathworks, VME 68K/pSOS/pNA. The basic architecture is a client-server connection where either end of the interface may be the server. This allows for connections and data flow to be initiated from either end of the interface. Included in the paper are details concerning the connection management, the handling of the multi-platform code, and the implementation process

Risk Belief and Attitude Formation From Translated Scientific Messages About PFOA, an Environmental Risk Associated With Breast Cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Sandi W; Hitt, Rose; Russell, Jessica; Nazione, Samantha; Silk, Kami; Atkin, Charles K; Keating, David

2017-03-01

Evidence regarding possible environmental causes of breast cancer is advancing. Often, however, the public is not informed about these advances in a manner that is easily understandable. This research translates findings from biologists into messages at two literacy levels about perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a possible environmental contributor to breast cancer. The Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM) was used to investigate how ability, motivation, and systematic and heuristic processing lead to risk beliefs and, ultimately, to negative attitudes for individuals receiving translated scientific messages about PFOA. Participants (N = 1,389) came from the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation's Army of Women. Findings indicated that ability, in the form of translated messages, predicted systematic processing, operationalized as knowledge gain, which was negatively associated with formation of risk beliefs that led to negative attitudes toward PFOA. Heuristic processing cues, operationalized as perceived message quality and source credibility, were positively associated with risk beliefs, which predicted negative attitudes about PFOA. Overall, more knowledge and lower literacy messages led to lower perceived risk, while greater involvement and ratings of heuristic cues led to greater risk perceptions. This is an example of a research, translation, and dissemination team effort in which biologists created knowledge, communication scholars translated and tested messages, and advocates were participants and those who disseminated messages.

An Experimental Test of the Roles of Audience Involvement and Message Frame in Shaping Public Reactions to Celebrity Illness Disclosures.

Science.gov (United States)

Myrick, Jessica Gall

2018-04-13

Much research has investigated what happens when celebrities disclose an illness (via media) to the public. While audience involvement (i.e., identification and parasocial relationships) is often the proposed mechanism linking illness disclosures with audience behavior change, survey designs have prevented researchers from understanding if audience involvement prior to the illness disclosure actually predicts post-disclosure emotions, cognitions, and behaviors. Rooted in previous work on audience involvement as well as the Extended Parallel Process Model, the present study uses a national online experiment (N = 1,068) to test how pre-disclosure audience involvement may initiate post-disclosure effects for the message context of skin cancer. The data demonstrate that pre-disclosure audience involvement as well as the celebrity's framing of the disclosure can shape emotional responses (i.e., fear and hope), and that cognitive perceptions of the illness itself also influence behavioral intentions.

Food and beverage promotions in Vancouver schools: A study of the prevalence and characteristics of in-school advertising, messaging, and signage.

Science.gov (United States)

Velazquez, Cayley E; Black, Jennifer L; Ahmadi, Naseam

2015-01-01

The purpose of this study was to provide a descriptive profile of food-related advertising, messaging, and signage in Vancouver schools and to examine differences in the prevalence and characteristics of promotions between elementary and secondary schools. All food-related promotions were photographed in 23 diverse Vancouver public schools between November 2012 and April 2013. Key attributes, including the location, size, and main purpose of each promotion, as well as the type of food and/or beverage advertised and compliance with provincial school nutrition guidelines, were coded. Descriptive statistics assessed the prevalence and characteristics of promotions. Cross-tabulations examined whether the promotional landscape differed between elementary and secondary schools. All secondary and 80% of elementary schools contained food or beverage promotions (median = 17, range = 0-57 promotions per school). Of the 493 promotions documented, approximately 25% depicted "choose least" or "not recommended" items, prohibited for sale by provincial school nutrition guidelines. Nearly 1/3 of promotions advertised commercial items (e.g., brand name beverages such as Pepsi), in violation of the Board of Education's advertising policies and only 13% conveyed nutrition education messages. Close to half of all promotions were created by students for class projects, many of which marketed minimally nutritious items. In Vancouver schools, food-related promotions are common and are more prevalent in secondary than elementary schools. Students are regularly exposed to messaging for nutritionally poor items that are not in compliance with provincial school nutrition guidelines and which violate school board advertising policies. Stronger oversight of food-related promotional materials is needed to ensure that schools provide health promoting food environments.

The influence of message framing, intention to quit smoking, and nicotine dependence on the persuasiveness of smoking cessation messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Moorman, Marjolein; van den Putte, Bas

2008-10-01

This study explores the combined effect of message framing, intention to quit smoking, and nicotine dependence on the persuasiveness of smoking cessation messages. Pre- and post-message measures of quit intention, attitude toward smoking cessation, and perceived behavioral control were taken in two separate waves from current cigarette smokers with varying levels of nicotine dependence (N=151). In the second wave, participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups. In the first group, participants read a smoking cessation message which emphasized the benefits of quitting (positive frame). In the second group participants read a message which emphasized the costs of not quitting (negative frame). Results show that smokers' intentions to quit smoking and their level of nicotine dependence jointly influence the persuasiveness of positive and negative message frames. When nicotine dependence and quitting intention are both high, a negative frame works best. Conversely, a positive frame is preferable when nicotine dependence or quitting intention is low. Smokers' level of processing is proposed as the underlying mechanism explaining the different effects of message frames.

Improved Message Authentication and Confidentiality Checking

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ismail Jabiullah, M.; Abdullah Al-Shamim, M.; Lutfar Rahman, M.

2005-01-01

The most confusing areas of the secured network communications are the message authentication and confidentiality checking. The attacks and the counter measures have become so convoluted that the users in this area begin to account for all contingencies. Two session-key generation techniques are used here to generate two separate session keys K 1 and K 2 ; and both the sender and the reveiver share these keys for higher degree of authentication and confidentiality. For this, the message is first encrypted by the key K 1 , and then the intermediary message authenticatin code (MAC) is generated by encrypting the encrypted message using the key K 2 . Then, the encrypted message and the intermediary MAC is again encrypted by using the K 2 and concatenated with the encrypted message and sent to the destination. At the receiving end, first, the received ciphertext is encrypted by using key K 2 and compared to the received MAC. The received ciphertext again is decrypted by the key K 2 and compared with the first decrypted MAC twice by the key K 2 . The plaintext is obtained by decrypting the received ciphertext first by K 2 and then by K 1 , using the corresponding decryption techniques respectively. The encryption techniques with key K 2 provides the authentication and with key K 1 provides the confidentiality checking of the transmitted message. The developed technique can be applied to both academic and commercial applications in online or offline electronic transactions for security.(authors)

A one-way text messaging intervention for obesity.

Science.gov (United States)

Ahn, Ahleum; Choi, Jaekyung

2016-04-01

Worldwide, there has been a startling increase in the number of people who are obese or overweight. Obesity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and overall mortality. Mobile phone messaging is an important means of human communication globally. Because the mobile phone can be used anywhere at any time, mobile phone messaging has the potential to manage obesity. We investigated the effectiveness of a one-way text messaging intervention for obesity. Participants' body mass index and waist circumference were measured at the beginning of the programme and again after 12 weeks. The text message group received text messages about exercise, dietary intake, and general information about obesity three times a week, while the control group did not receive any text messages from the study. Of the 80 participants, 25 subjects in the text message group and 29 participants in the control group completed the study. After adjusting for baseline body mass index, the body mass index was significantly lower in the text message group than in the control group (27.9 vs. 28.3; p = 0.02). After adjusting for the baseline waist circumference, the difference of waist circumference between the text message group and control group was not significant (93.4 vs. 94.6; p = 0.13). The one-way text messaging intervention was a simple and effective way to manage obesity. The one-way text messaging intervention may be a useful method for lifestyle modification in obese subjects. © The Author(s) 2015.

Affective and executive network processing associated with persuasive antidrug messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramsay, Ian S; Yzer, Marco C; Luciana, Monica; Vohs, Kathleen D; MacDonald, Angus W

2013-07-01

Previous research has highlighted brain regions associated with socioemotional processes in persuasive message encoding, whereas cognitive models of persuasion suggest that executive brain areas may also be important. The current study aimed to identify lateral prefrontal brain areas associated with persuasive message viewing and understand how activity in these executive regions might interact with activity in the amygdala and medial pFC. Seventy adolescents were scanned using fMRI while they watched 10 strongly convincing antidrug public service announcements (PSAs), 10 weakly convincing antidrug PSAs, and 10 advertisements (ads) unrelated to drugs. Antidrug PSAs compared with nondrug ads more strongly elicited arousal-related activity in the amygdala and medial pFC. Within antidrug PSAs, those that were prerated as strongly persuasive versus weakly persuasive showed significant differences in arousal-related activity in executive processing areas of the lateral pFC. In support of the notion that persuasiveness involves both affective and executive processes, functional connectivity analyses showed greater coactivation between the lateral pFC and amygdala during PSAs known to be strongly (vs. weakly) convincing. These findings demonstrate that persuasive messages elicit activation in brain regions responsible for both emotional arousal and executive control and represent a crucial step toward a better understanding of the neural processes responsible for persuasion and subsequent behavior change.

Persuasive messages. Development of persuasive messages may help increase mothers' compliance of their children's immunization schedule.

Science.gov (United States)

Gore, P; Madhavan, S; Curry, D; McClurg, G; Castiglia, M; Rosenbluth, S A; Smego, R A

1998-01-01

Effective immunization campaigns can be designed by determining which persuasion strategy is most effective in attracting the attention of mothers of preschoolers. The authors assess the impact of three persuasional strategies: fear-arousal, motherhood-arousal, and rational messages, on mothers of preschoolers who are late for their immunizations. The fear-arousal message was found to be most effective, followed by the motherhood-arousal, and then the rational message, in attracting mothers' attention to their child's immunization status.

Empowerment in the process of health messaging for rural low-income mothers: an exploratory message design project.

Science.gov (United States)

Aldoory, Linda; Braun, Bonnie; Maring, Elisabeth Fost; Duggal, Mili; Briones, Rowena Lynn

2015-01-01

Rural, low-income mothers face challenges to their health equal to or greater than those of low-income mothers from urban areas. This study put health message design into the hands of low-income rural mothers. The current study filled a research gap by analyzing a participatory process used to design health messages tailored to the everyday lives of rural low-income mothers. A total of forty-three mothers participated in nine focus groups, which were held from 2012 to 2013, in eight states. The mothers were from different racial and ethnic backgrounds. Participants discussed food security, physical activity, and oral health information. They created messages by considering several elements: visuals, length of message, voice/perspective, self-efficacy and personal control, emotional appeals, positive and negative reinforcements, and steps to health behavior change. This study was innovative in its focus on empowerment as a key process to health message design.

Marketing messages in food and alcohol magazine advertisements, variations across type and nutritional content of promoted products: a content analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Pitts, A; Burke, W; Adams, J

2014-09-01

'Marketing messages' are the themes used in advertisements to promote products. We explored the frequency of different marketing messages used in food and alcohol advertisements in UK women's magazines and associations with the type and nutritional content of products promoted. All advertisements for food and alcohol in 108 issues of popular UK monthly women's magazines were identified and text-based marketing messages classified using a bespoke coding framework. This information was linked to existing data on the type (i.e. food group) and nutritional content of advertised products. A total of 2 687 marketing messages were identified in 726 advertisements. Consumer messages such as 'taste' and 'quality' were most frequently found. Marketing messages used in advertisements for food and alcohol were notably different. The relationship between type and nutritional content of products advertised and marketing messages used was not intuitive from a consumer perspective: advertisements for foods 'high in fat and/or sugar' were less likely to use messages related to health, but more likely to use messages emphasizing reduced amounts of specific nutrients. Almost all advertisements included consumer-related marketing messages. Marketing messages used were not always congruent with the type or nutritional content of advertised products. These findings should be considered when developing policy. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Faculty of Public Health. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The persuasion network is modulated by drug-use risk and predicts anti-drug message effectiveness

Science.gov (United States)

Mangus, J Michael; Turner, Benjamin O

2017-01-01

Abstract While a persuasion network has been proposed, little is known about how network connections between brain regions contribute to attitude change. Two possible mechanisms have been advanced. One hypothesis predicts that attitude change results from increased connectivity between structures implicated in affective and executive processing in response to increases in argument strength. A second functional perspective suggests that highly arousing messages reduce connectivity between structures implicated in the encoding of sensory information, which disrupts message processing and thereby inhibits attitude change. However, persuasion is a multi-determined construct that results from both message features and audience characteristics. Therefore, persuasive messages should lead to specific functional connectivity patterns among a priori defined structures within the persuasion network. The present study exposed 28 subjects to anti-drug public service announcements where arousal, argument strength, and subject drug-use risk were systematically varied. Psychophysiological interaction analyses provide support for the affective-executive hypothesis but not for the encoding-disruption hypothesis. Secondary analyses show that video-level connectivity patterns among structures within the persuasion network predict audience responses in independent samples (one college-aged, one nationally representative). We propose that persuasion neuroscience research is best advanced by considering network-level effects while accounting for interactions between message features and target audience characteristics. PMID:29140500

How real-life health messages engage our brains: Shared processing of effective anti-alcohol videos.

Science.gov (United States)

Imhof, Martin A; Schmälzle, Ralf; Renner, Britta; Schupp, Harald T

2017-07-01

Health communication via mass media is an important strategy when targeting risky drinking, but many questions remain about how health messages are processed and how they unfold their effects within receivers. Here we examine how the brains of young adults-a key target group for alcohol prevention-'tune in' to real-life health prevention messages about risky alcohol use. In a first study, a large sample of authentic public service announcements (PSAs) targeting the risks of alcohol was characterized using established measures of message effectiveness. In the main study, we used inter-subject correlation analysis of fMRI data to examine brain responses to more and less effective PSAs in a sample of young adults. We find that more effective messages command more similar responses within widespread brain regions, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, insulae and precuneus. In previous research, these regions have been related to processing narratives, emotional stimuli, self-relevance and attention towards salient stimuli. The present study thus suggests that more effective health prevention messages have greater 'neural reach', i.e. they engage the brains of audience members' more widely. This work outlines a promising strategy for assessing the effects of health communication at a neural level. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

AMS: Area Message Service for SLC

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Crane, M.; Mackenzie, R.; Millsom, D.; Zelazny, M.

1993-01-01

The Area Message Service (AMS) is a TCP/IP based messaging service currently in use at SLAC. A number of projects under development here at SLAC require an application level interface to the 4.3BSD UNIX socket level communications functions using TCP/IP over ethernet. AMS provides connection management, solicited message transfer, unsolicited message transfer, and asynchronous notification of pending messages. AMS is written completely in ANSI open-quote C close-quote and is currently portable over three hardware/operating system/network manager platforms, VAX/VMS/Multinet, PC/MS-DOS/Pathworks, VME 68K/pSOS/pNA. The basic architecture is a client-server connection where either end of the interface may be the server. This allows for connections and data flow to be initiated from either end of the interface. Included in the paper are details concerning the connection management, the handling of the multi-platform code, and the implementation process

Factors influencing message dissemination through social media

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Zeyu; Yang, Huancheng; Fu, Yang; Fu, Dianzheng; Podobnik, Boris; Stanley, H. Eugene

2018-06-01

Online social networks strongly impact our daily lives. An internet user (a "Netizen") wants messages to be efficiently disseminated. The susceptible-infected-recovered (SIR) dissemination model is the traditional tool for exploring the spreading mechanism of information diffusion. We here test our SIR-based dissemination model on open and real-world data collected from Twitter. We locate and identify phase transitions in the message dissemination process. We find that message content is a stronger factor than the popularity of the sender. We also find that the probability that a message will be forwarded has a threshold that affects its ability to spread, and when the probability is above the threshold the message quickly achieves mass dissemination.

Investigating the impact of viral message appeal and message credibility on consumer attitude toward the brand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Esmaeilpour Majid

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Due to the rapid growth of the Internet and use of e-commerce in the recent years, viral marketing has drawn the attention of manufacturing and service organizations. However, no research has been conducted to examine the impact of message appeal and message source credibility on consumers’ attitude with mediating role of intellectual involvement of consumers and their risk taking level. The aim of this study was to examine the impact of appeal and message source credibility on consumers’ attitude with mediating role of consumers’ intellectual involvement and their risk taking level. The population of this study includes consumers of mobile phones (Samsung, Sony, Nokia, LG and iPhone in the Bushehr city (Iran. As the population of the study is unlimited, 430 questionnaires were distributed using available sampling method, and 391 questionnaires were collected and analyzed. Using structural equation modeling, we analysed the data through smart PLS software. The results show that the appeal and credibility of the message source impact the consumer attitudes toward the brand. We also found that the intellectual involvement of consumers plays the mediating role in the relationship between message appeal and consumer attitudes toward brands. In the relationship between message source credibility and customer attitude towards the brand, the level of risk taking of people has no mediating role.

Effect of Gender on Students' Emotion with Gender-Related Public Self-Consciousness as a Moderator in Mixed-Gender Physical Education Classes

Science.gov (United States)

Moon, Minkwon; Jeon, Hyunsoo; Kwon, Sungho

2016-01-01

The present study investigates whether gender-related public self-consciousness moderates the relationship between students' gender and emotions in mixed-gender physical education classes. The Positive and Negative Affect Scales and the Gender-related Public Self-Consciousness Scale were administered to 380 middle-school students in South Korea.…

Management and Archiving e-mail Messages in Governmental Organization

OpenAIRE

Ashraf Mohamed A.Mohsen

2006-01-01

The study deals great issue of digital preservation that is e-mail archiving, it covered all aspects of the topic; it discuss: e-mail system, components of e-mail message, advantages and disadvantages of e-mail, official e-mail messages, management of e-mail messages, organizing and arrangement of e-mail messages, keeping and deleting messages, archiving e-mail messages, and some related issues like: privacy and security.

The influence of message framing, intention to quit smoking, and nicotine dependence on the persuasiveness of smoking cessation messages

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Moorman, M.; van den Putte, B.

2008-01-01

This study explores the combined effect of message framing, intention to quit smoking, and nicotine dependence on the persuasiveness of smoking cessation messages. Pre- and post-message measures of quit intention, attitude toward smoking cessation, and perceived behavioral control were taken in two

Smartphone text message service to foster hand hygiene compliance in health care workers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kerbaj, Jad; Toure, Youssoupha; Soto Aladro, Alberto; Boudjema, Sophia; Giorgi, Roch; Dufour, Jean Charles; Brouqui, Philippe

2017-03-01

Health care-associated infections are a major worldwide public health issue. Hand hygiene is a major component in the prevention of pathogen transmission in hospitals, and hand hygiene adherence by health care workers is low in many studies. We report an intervention using text messages as reminders and feedback to improve hand hygiene adherence. The study is a historical comparison proof-of-concept study. Eighteen health care workers were monitored during 12 months by a radiofrequency identification system. Afterward we sent 2 types of text messages, congratulation or encouragement, and we studied the evolution of hand hygiene adherence. We recorded 15,723 hand hygiene opportunities, 8,973 before intervention and 6,750 during and after the intervention. Using a multilevel logistic regression analysis, we found a significant increase in hand hygiene adherence during the intervention (odds ratio, 1.68) compared with the historical period. Despite limitations due to the type of study, a text message encouraging personnel to be more vigilant is effective in increasing hand hygiene adherence in health care workers. Text message feedback should be incorporated into multimodal approaches for improving hand hygiene compliance. Copyright © 2017 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Improving Type Error Messages in OCaml

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arthur Charguéraud

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Cryptic type error messages are a major obstacle to learning OCaml or other ML-based languages. In many cases, error messages cannot be interpreted without a sufficiently-precise model of the type inference algorithm. The problem of improving type error messages in ML has received quite a bit of attention over the past two decades, and many different strategies have been considered. The challenge is not only to produce error messages that are both sufficiently concise and systematically useful to the programmer, but also to handle a full-blown programming language and to cope with large-sized programs efficiently. In this work, we present a modification to the traditional ML type inference algorithm implemented in OCaml that, by significantly reducing the left-to-right bias, allows us to report error messages that are more helpful to the programmer. Our algorithm remains fully predictable and continues to produce fairly concise error messages that always help making some progress towards fixing the code. We implemented our approach as a patch to the OCaml compiler in just a few hundred lines of code. We believe that this patch should benefit not just to beginners, but also to experienced programs developing large-scale OCaml programs.

The False Promise of Class-Size Reduction

Science.gov (United States)

Chingos, Matthew M.

2011-01-01

Class-size reduction, or CSR, is enormously popular with parents, teachers, and the public in general. Many parents believe that their children will benefit from more individualized attention in a smaller class and many teachers find smaller classes easier to manage. The pupil-teacher ratio is an easy statistic for the public to monitor as a…

Science to Action: Thoughts on Convincing a Skeptical Public

Science.gov (United States)

Press, William

2016-01-01

Acceptance by the public of findings widely accepted by scientists varies dramatically, issue by issue. The danger of smoking, for example, readily achieved public acceptance, while the arguably greater danger of climate change has, thus far, not. What are the relevant variables that make some public issues more difficult than others? A hypothesis consistent with the historical data is that, in communicating to the public, scientists fail to adequately distinguish two different types of messages, the first relating to the nature of scientific evidence, and the second relating to the rational choice of evidence-based decision-making. As scientists we take both for granted, but the public often may not. Different kinds of communication are required for the two different messages.

The WLCG Messaging Service and its Future

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cons, Lionel; Paladin, Massimo

2012-01-01

Enterprise messaging is seen as an attractive mechanism to simplify and extend several portions of the Grid middleware, from low level monitoring to experiments dashboards. The production messaging service currently used by WLCG includes four tightly coupled brokers operated by EGI (running Apache ActiveMQ and designed to host the Grid operational tools such as SAM) as well as two dedicated services for ATLAS-DDM and experiments dashboards (currently also running Apache ActiveMQ). In the future, this service is expected to grow in numbers of applications supported, brokers and technologies. The WLCG Messaging Roadmap identified three areas with room for improvement (security, scalability and availability/reliability) as well as ten practical recommendations to address them. This paper describes a messaging service architecture that is in line with these recommendations as well as a software architecture based on reusable components that ease interactions with the messaging service. These two architectures will support the growth of the WLCG messaging service.

Alcohol and tobacco advertising in black and general audience newspapers: targeting with message cues?

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, Elisia L; Caburnay, Charlene A; Rodgers, Shelly

2011-07-01

This study content analyzed 928 tobacco- and alcohol-related advertisements from a 3-year national sample of Black (n = 24) and general audience (n = 11) newspapers from 24 U.S. cities. The authors compared the frequency of tobacco and alcohol product and control advertising in Black versus general audience newspapers, as well as the presence of 5 message cues: model ethnicity, presence of health official, referral to resources, personal behavior mobilization, and localization. Results within health issues show that Black newspapers had more alcohol product advertising than did general audience newspapers. In contrast, Black newspapers had less alcohol and tobacco control advertising than general audience newspapers. Black newspapers' tobacco/alcohol product advertisements had more African American models than did general audience newspapers' tobacco/alcohol advertising, whereas general audience newspapers' tobacco control advertisements were significantly more likely to feature public health officials than ads in Black newspapers. Fewer message cues such as personal behavior mobilization, referral to resources, and localization were present in Black versus general audience newspapers. Results suggest that Black newspapers may have greater dependency than do general audience newspapers on these risk-related advertisements that target African American consumers. Given the current advertising environment, public health initiatives are needed to counter unhealthy alcohol product advertising messages that target vulnerable populations.

Astronomy for Astronomical Numbers - Education and Public Outreach with Massive Open Online Classes

Science.gov (United States)

Impey, C.; Buxner, S.; Wenger, M.; Formanek, M.

2015-12-01

Massive Open Online Classes (MOOCs) represent a powerful new mode of education and public outreach. While early hype has often given way to disappointment over the typically low completion rates, retaining the interest of free-choice learners is always a challenge, and the worldwide reach and low cost of of these online classes is a democratizing influence in higher education. We have used providers Udemy and Coursera to reach over 60,000 adults with an astronomy course that covers the recent research results across the subject from comets to cosmology. In addition to measures of participation, completion, and performance, we have administered surveys of the learners that measure science literacy, attitudes towards science and technology, and sources of information about science. Beyond the usual core of video lectures and quizzes, we have used peer reviewed writing assignments, observing project, and citizen science to create a richer learning environment. Research on MOOCs is still in its early stages, but we hope to learn what factors contribute most to student engagement and completion in these online settings.

Comment ameliorer la selection et le traitement des messages verbaux? (How to Improve the Selection and Processing of Verbal Messages)

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Rivenez, Marie; Darwin, Chris; Guillaume, Anne

2005-01-01

L'objectif de cette recherche est d'ameliorer la selection des messages verbaux. Nous cherchons a determiner les facteurs influencant le traitement d'un message verbal lorsque l'attention est portee sur un autre message...

CANDU fuel cycle economic efficiency assessments using the IAEA-MESSAGE-V code

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Prodea, Iosif; Margeanu, Cristina Alice; Aioanei, Corina; Prisecaru, Ilie; Danila, Nicolae

2007-01-01

The main goal of the paper is to evaluate different electricity generation costs in a CANDU Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) using different nuclear fuel cycles. The IAEA-MESSAGE code (Model for Energy Supply Strategy Alternatives and their General Environmental Impacts) will be used to accomplish these assessments. This complex tool was supplied by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2002 at 'IAEA-Regional Training Course on Development and Evaluation of Alternative Energy Strategies in Support of Sustainable Development' held in Institute for Nuclear Research Pitesti. It is worthy to remind that the sustainable development requires satisfying the energy demand of present generations without compromising the possibility of future generations to meet their own needs. Based on the latest public information in the next 10-15 years four CANDU-6 based NPP could be in operation in Romania. Two of them will have some enhancements not clearly specified, yet. Therefore we consider being necessary to investigate possibility to enhance the economic efficiency of existing in-service CANDU-6 power reactors. The MESSAGE program can satisfy these requirements if appropriate input models will be built. As it is mentioned in the dedicated issues, a major inherent feature of CANDU is its fuel cycle flexibility. Keeping this in mind, some proposed CANDU fuel cycles will be analyzed in the paper: Natural Uranium (NU), Slightly Enriched Uranium (SEU), Recovered Uranium (RU) with and without reprocessing. Finally, based on optimization of the MESSAGE objective function an economic hierarchy of CANDU fuel cycles will be proposed. The authors used mainly public information on different costs required by analysis. (authors)

Greenhouse effect: Evolution of scientific message and its transfer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Braicovich, L.; Amman, F.; Pavia Univ.

1991-01-01

The greenhouse effect, not anymore confined to scientific journals, is becoming a policy issue and, possibly, a nightmare in public opinion. In this analysis of the evolution of the scientific message and its transfer to policy makers and public opinion, the paper first considers, in general terms, the more recent trends in related research activity and in the transfer processes of the results. Then, a more detailed examination is made of the progress achieved in the years 1989-1990 through scientific research in various aspects of the greenhouse effect. It is confirmed that, for the time being, the scientific results leave many important points unresolved; policy decisions on the matter cannot therefore rely on present scientific knowledge as if it were firmly established

Social media as a sensor of air quality and public response in China.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Shiliang; Paul, Michael J; Dredze, Mark

2015-03-26

Recent studies have demonstrated the utility of social media data sources for a wide range of public health goals, including disease surveillance, mental health trends, and health perceptions and sentiment. Most such research has focused on English-language social media for the task of disease surveillance. We investigated the value of Chinese social media for monitoring air quality trends and related public perceptions and response. The goal was to determine if this data is suitable for learning actionable information about pollution levels and public response. We mined a collection of 93 million messages from Sina Weibo, China's largest microblogging service. We experimented with different filters to identify messages relevant to air quality, based on keyword matching and topic modeling. We evaluated the reliability of the data filters by comparing message volume per city to air particle pollution rates obtained from the Chinese government for 74 cities. Additionally, we performed a qualitative study of the content of pollution-related messages by coding a sample of 170 messages for relevance to air quality, and whether the message included details such as a reactive behavior or a health concern. The volume of pollution-related messages is highly correlated with particle pollution levels, with Pearson correlation values up to .718 (n=74, Phealth concern. Additionally, 3 messages of 170 requested that action be taken to improve quality. We have found quantitatively that message volume in Sina Weibo is indicative of true particle pollution levels, and we have found qualitatively that messages contain rich details including perceptions, behaviors, and self-reported health effects. Social media data can augment existing air pollution surveillance data, especially perception and health-related data that traditionally requires expensive surveys or interviews.

Message passing for quantified Boolean formulas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Pan; Ramezanpour, Abolfazl; Zecchina, Riccardo; Zdeborová, Lenka

2012-01-01

We introduce two types of message passing algorithms for quantified Boolean formulas (QBF). The first type is a message passing based heuristics that can prove unsatisfiability of the QBF by assigning the universal variables in such a way that the remaining formula is unsatisfiable. In the second type, we use message passing to guide branching heuristics of a Davis–Putnam–Logemann–Loveland (DPLL) complete solver. Numerical experiments show that on random QBFs our branching heuristics give robust exponential efficiency gain with respect to state-of-the-art solvers. We also manage to solve some previously unsolved benchmarks from the QBFLIB library. Apart from this, our study sheds light on using message passing in small systems and as subroutines in complete solvers

49 CFR 38.35 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Public information system. 38.35 Section 38.35... SPECIFICATIONS FOR TRANSPORTATION VEHICLES Buses, Vans and Systems § 38.35 Public information system. (a... a public address system permitting the driver, or recorded or digitized human speech messages, to...

36 CFR 1192.103 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public information system... Commuter Rail Cars and Systems § 1192.103 Public information system. (a) Each car shall be equipped with an... speech messages, to announce stations and provide other passenger information. Alternative systems or...

36 CFR 1192.121 - Public information system.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 36 Parks, Forests, and Public Property 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Public information system... Intercity Rail Cars and Systems § 1192.121 Public information system. (a) Each car shall be equipped with a... messages, to announce stations and provide other passenger information. Alternative systems or devices...

Citizens’ adaptive or avoiding behavioral response to an emergency message on their mobile phone

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gutteling, J.M.; Terpstra, T.; Kerstholt, J.H.

2017-01-01

Since November 2012, Dutch civil defense organizations employ NL-Alert, a cellular broadcast-based warning system to inform the public. Individuals receive a message on their mobile phone about the actual threat, as well as some advice how to deal with the situation at hand. This study reports on

Earthquake Early Warning: User Education and Designing Effective Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Burkett, E. R.; Sellnow, D. D.; Jones, L.; Sellnow, T. L.

2014-12-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and partners are transitioning from test-user trials of a demonstration earthquake early warning system (ShakeAlert) to deciding and preparing how to implement the release of earthquake early warning information, alert messages, and products to the public and other stakeholders. An earthquake early warning system uses seismic station networks to rapidly gather information about an occurring earthquake and send notifications to user devices ahead of the arrival of potentially damaging ground shaking at their locations. Earthquake early warning alerts can thereby allow time for actions to protect lives and property before arrival of damaging shaking, if users are properly educated on how to use and react to such notifications. A collaboration team of risk communications researchers and earth scientists is researching the effectiveness of a chosen subset of potential earthquake early warning interface designs and messages, which could be displayed on a device such as a smartphone. Preliminary results indicate, for instance, that users prefer alerts that include 1) a map to relate their location to the earthquake and 2) instructions for what to do in response to the expected level of shaking. A number of important factors must be considered to design a message that will promote appropriate self-protective behavior. While users prefer to see a map, how much information can be processed in limited time? Are graphical representations of wavefronts helpful or confusing? The most important factor to promote a helpful response is the predicted earthquake intensity, or how strong the expected shaking will be at the user's location. Unlike Japanese users of early warning, few Californians are familiar with the earthquake intensity scale, so we are exploring how differentiating instructions between intensity levels (e.g., "Be aware" for lower shaking levels and "Drop, cover, hold on" at high levels) can be paired with self-directed supplemental

Using Publish-Subscribe Messaging for System Status and Automation

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Danford S.

2015-01-01

The NASA Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) system is a message-based plug-and-play open system architecture used in many of NASA mission operations centers. This presentation will focus on the use of GMSEC standard messages to report and analyze the status of a system and enable the automation of the system's components. In GMSEC systems, each component reports its status using a keep-alive message and also publishes status and activities as log messages. In addition, the components can accept functional directive messages from the GMSEC message bus. Over the past several years, development teams have found ways to utilize these messages to create innovative display pages and increasingly sophisticated approaches to automation. This presentation will show the flexibility and value of the message-based approach to system awareness and automation.

Emotional flow in persuasive health messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Nabi, Robin L

2015-01-01

Overwhelmingly, the literature on the persuasive influence of emotions has focused on individual emotions, fear in particular, though some recent attention has been given to mixed emotions in persuasive appeals. Building on this newer wave of research, this article argues that instead of focusing on singular emotional states or collections of emotions evoked by a message, it might prove valuable to explore the flow, or evolution, of emotional experience over the course of exposure to a health message. The article offers a brief introduction to the concept of emotion, followed by a review of the state of the literature on the use of emotion in health messages. The concept of emotional flow is then introduced along with a consideration of how it has been tacitly incorporated into the study of emotional health messages. Finally, the utility of the concept of emotional flow is elaborated by articulating the ways in which it might be harnessed to facilitate the creation of more effective health messages, individually as well as across campaigns. The article concludes with an agenda for future research.

Matching Message Design and Depressed Cognition: An Exploration of Attention Patterns for Gain- and Loss-Framed Depression Help-Seeking Messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Lueck, Jennifer A

2017-07-01

Although disproportionally affected by depression, most depressed college students do not seek the help they need. Research has recently uncovered the potential negative effects of depression help-seeking messages if depressed cognition is not considered in the health message design process. It is unclear if depression determines whether and how individuals pay attention to gain- and loss-framed depression help-seeking messages-a mechanism that has significant implications for the strategic planning of health communication interventions. In order to enable the effective matching of message design and audience features, this study investigated attention patterns for gain (n = 75)- and loss (n = 78)-framed depression help-seeking messages using eye-tracking technology and self-report measures. The results confirmed that depression is a characteristic of risk avoidance and negative cognition. Depressed participants tended to pay more attention to disease information that was placed in a loss-framed rather than a gain-framed depression help-seeking message. Using negative message framing strategies for health messages seeking to educate about depression symptoms might therefore be a useful persuasive strategy-particularly when disseminated to vulnerable populations affected by depression. Furthermore, the present study emphasizes the effective use of eye-tracking technology in communication research.

Effects of argument quality, source credibility and self-reported diabetes knowledge on message attitudes: an experiment using diabetes related messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Tung-Cheng; Hwang, Lih-Lian; Lai, Yung-Jye

2017-05-17

Previous studies have reported that credibility and content (argument quality) are the most critical factors affecting the quality of health information and its acceptance and use; however, this causal relationship merits further investigation in the context of health education. Moreover, message recipients' prior knowledge may moderate these relationships. This study used the elaboration likelihood model to determine the main effects of argument quality, source credibility and the moderating effect of self-reported diabetes knowledge on message attitudes. A between-subjects experimental design using an educational message concerning diabetes for manipulation was applied to validate the effects empirically. A total of 181 participants without diabetes were recruited from the Department of Health, Taipei City Government. Four group messages were manipulated in terms of argument quality (high and low) × source credibility (high and low). Argument quality and source credibility of health information significantly influenced the attitude of message recipients. The participants with high self-reported knowledge participants exhibited significant disapproval for messages with low argument quality. Effective health information should provide objective descriptions and cite reliable sources; in addition, it should provide accurate, customised messages for recipients who have high background knowledge level and ability to discern message quality. © 2017 Health Libraries Group Health Information & Libraries Journal.

The Effect of Framing and Normative Messages in Building Support for Climate Policies

Science.gov (United States)

Hurlstone, Mark J.; Lewandowsky, Stephan; Newell, Ben R.; Sewell, Brittany

2014-01-01

Deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are required to mitigate climate change. However, there is low willingness amongst the public to prioritise climate policies for reducing emissions. Here we show that the extent to which Australians are prepared to reduce their country's CO2 emissions is greater when the costs to future national income are framed as a “foregone-gain”—incomes rise in the future but not by as much as in the absence of emission cuts—rather than as a “loss”—incomes decrease relative to the baseline expected future levels (Studies 1 & 2). The provision of a normative message identifying Australia as one of the world's largest CO2 emitters did not increase the amount by which individuals were prepared to reduce emissions (Study 1), whereas a normative message revealing the emission policy preferences of other Australians did (Study 2). The results suggest that framing the costs of reducing emissions as a smaller increase in future income and communicating normative information about others' emission policy preferences are effective methods for leveraging public support for emission cuts. PMID:25501009

The effect of framing and normative messages in building support for climate policies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark J Hurlstone

Full Text Available Deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are required to mitigate climate change. However, there is low willingness amongst the public to prioritise climate policies for reducing emissions. Here we show that the extent to which Australians are prepared to reduce their country's CO2 emissions is greater when the costs to future national income are framed as a "foregone-gain"--incomes rise in the future but not by as much as in the absence of emission cuts--rather than as a "loss"--incomes decrease relative to the baseline expected future levels (Studies 1 & 2. The provision of a normative message identifying Australia as one of the world's largest CO2 emitters did not increase the amount by which individuals were prepared to reduce emissions (Study 1, whereas a normative message revealing the emission policy preferences of other Australians did (Study 2. The results suggest that framing the costs of reducing emissions as a smaller increase in future income and communicating normative information about others' emission policy preferences are effective methods for leveraging public support for emission cuts.

The effect of framing and normative messages in building support for climate policies.

Science.gov (United States)

Hurlstone, Mark J; Lewandowsky, Stephan; Newell, Ben R; Sewell, Brittany

2014-01-01

Deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are required to mitigate climate change. However, there is low willingness amongst the public to prioritise climate policies for reducing emissions. Here we show that the extent to which Australians are prepared to reduce their country's CO2 emissions is greater when the costs to future national income are framed as a "foregone-gain"--incomes rise in the future but not by as much as in the absence of emission cuts--rather than as a "loss"--incomes decrease relative to the baseline expected future levels (Studies 1 & 2). The provision of a normative message identifying Australia as one of the world's largest CO2 emitters did not increase the amount by which individuals were prepared to reduce emissions (Study 1), whereas a normative message revealing the emission policy preferences of other Australians did (Study 2). The results suggest that framing the costs of reducing emissions as a smaller increase in future income and communicating normative information about others' emission policy preferences are effective methods for leveraging public support for emission cuts.

Text2Floss: the feasibility and acceptability of a text messaging intervention to improve oral health behavior and knowledge.

Science.gov (United States)

Hashemian, Tony S; Kritz-Silverstein, Donna; Baker, Ryan

2015-01-01

Text messaging is useful for promoting numerous health-related behaviors. The Text2Floss Study examines the feasibility and utility of a 7-day text messaging intervention to improve oral health knowledge and behavior in mothers of young children. Mothers were recruited from a private practice and a community clinic. Of 156 mothers enrolled, 129 randomized into text (n = 60) and control groups (n = 69) completed the trial. Participants in the text group received text messages for 7 days, asking about flossing and presenting oral health information. Oral health behaviors and knowledge were surveyed pre- and post-intervention. At baseline, there were no differences between text and control group mothers in knowledge and behaviors (P > 0.10). Post-intervention, text group mothers flossed more (P = 0.01), had higher total (P = 0.0006) and specific (P Text messages were accepted and perceived as useful. Mothers receiving text messages improved their own oral health behaviors and knowledge as well as their behaviors regarding their children's oral health. Text messaging represents a viable method to improve oral health behaviors and knowledge. Its high acceptance may make it useful for preventing oral disease. © 2014 American Association of Public Health Dentistry.

Instant Messaging by SIP

Science.gov (United States)

Muhi, Daniel; Dulai, Tibor; Jaskó, Szilárd

2008-11-01

SIP is a general-purpose application layer protocol which is able to establish sessions between two or more parties. These sessions are mainly telephone calls and multimedia conferences. However it can be used for other purposes like instant messaging and presence service. SIP has a very important role in mobile communication as more and more communicating applications are going mobile. In this paper we would like to show how SIP can be used for instant messaging purposes.

The Message Logging System for NOνA Experiment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lu Qiming; Kowalkowski, J B; Biery, K A

2011-01-01

The message logging system provides the infrastructure for all of the distributed processes in the data acquisition (DAQ) to report status messages of various severities in a consistent manner to a central location, as well as providing the tools for displaying and archiving the messages. The message logging system has been developed over a decade, and has been run successfully on CDF and CMS experiments. The most recent work to the message logging system is to build it as a stand-alone package with the name MessageFacility which works for any generic framework or applications, with NOνA as the first driving user. System designs and architectures, as well as the efforts of making it a generic library will be discussed. We also present new features that have been added.

Gain versus loss-framed messaging and colorectal cancer screening among African Americans: A preliminary examination of perceived racism and culturally targeted dual messaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Lucas, Todd; Hayman, Lenwood W; Blessman, James E; Asabigi, Kanzoni; Novak, Julie M

2016-05-01

This preliminary study examined the effect of gain versus loss-framed messaging as well as culturally targeted personal prevention messaging on African Americans' receptivity to colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. This research also examined mechanistic functions of perceived racism in response to message framing. Community samples of African Americans (N = 132) and White Americans (N = 50) who were non-compliant with recommended CRC screening completed an online education module about CRC, and were either exposed to a gain-framed or loss-framed message about CRC screening. Half of African Americans were exposed to an additional and culturally targeted self-control message about personal prevention of CRC. Theory of planned behavior measures of attitudes, normative beliefs, perceived behavioural control, and intentions to obtain a CRC screen served as primary outcomes. The effect of messaging on perceived racism was also measured as an outcome. Consistent with prior research, White Americans were more receptive to CRC screening when exposed to a loss-framed message. However, African Americans were more receptive when exposed to a gain-framed message. The contrary effect of loss-framed messaging on receptivity to screening among African Americans was mediated by an increase in perceived racism. However, including an additional and culturally targeted prevention message mitigated the adverse effect of a loss-framed message. This study identifies an important potential cultural difference in the effect of message framing on illness screening among African Americans, while also suggesting a culturally relevant linking mechanism. This study also suggests the potential for simultaneously presented and culturally targeted messaging to alter the effects of gain and loss-framed messaging on African Americans. What is already known on this subject? African Americans are at an increased risk of both developing and dying from colorectal cancer (CRC). These disparities can be

The persuasion network is modulated by drug-use risk and predicts anti-drug message effectiveness.

Science.gov (United States)

Huskey, Richard; Mangus, J Michael; Turner, Benjamin O; Weber, René

2017-12-01

While a persuasion network has been proposed, little is known about how network connections between brain regions contribute to attitude change. Two possible mechanisms have been advanced. One hypothesis predicts that attitude change results from increased connectivity between structures implicated in affective and executive processing in response to increases in argument strength. A second functional perspective suggests that highly arousing messages reduce connectivity between structures implicated in the encoding of sensory information, which disrupts message processing and thereby inhibits attitude change. However, persuasion is a multi-determined construct that results from both message features and audience characteristics. Therefore, persuasive messages should lead to specific functional connectivity patterns among a priori defined structures within the persuasion network. The present study exposed 28 subjects to anti-drug public service announcements where arousal, argument strength, and subject drug-use risk were systematically varied. Psychophysiological interaction analyses provide support for the affective-executive hypothesis but not for the encoding-disruption hypothesis. Secondary analyses show that video-level connectivity patterns among structures within the persuasion network predict audience responses in independent samples (one college-aged, one nationally representative). We propose that persuasion neuroscience research is best advanced by considering network-level effects while accounting for interactions between message features and target audience characteristics. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

Actors with Multi-Headed Message Receive Patterns

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sulzmann, Martin; Lam, Edmund Soon Lee; Van Weert, Peter

2008-01-01

style actors with receive clauses containing multi-headed message patterns. Patterns may be non-linear and constrained by guards. We provide a number of examples to show the usefulness of the extension. We also explore the design space for multi-headed message matching semantics, for example first-match......The actor model provides high-level concurrency abstractions to coordinate simultaneous computations by message passing. Languages implementing the actor model such as Erlang commonly only support single-headed pattern matching over received messages. We propose and design an extension of Erlang...... and rule priority-match semantics. The various semantics are inspired by the multi-set constraint matching semantics found in Constraint Handling Rules. This provides us with a formal model to study actors with multi-headed message receive patterns. The system can be implemented efficiently and we have...

Effects of Text Messaging on Academic Performance

OpenAIRE

Barks Amanda; Searight H. Russell; Ratwik Susan

2011-01-01

University students frequently send and receive cellular phone text messages during classroominstruction. Cognitive psychology research indicates that multi-tasking is frequently associatedwith performance cost. However, university students often have considerable experience withelectronic multi-tasking and may believe that they can devote necessary attention to a classroomlecture while sending and receiving text messages. In the current study, university students whoused text messaging were ...

Reactions to threatening health messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Ten Hoor, Gill A; Peters, Gjalt-Jorn Y; Kalagi, Janice; de Groot, Lianne; Grootjans, Karlijne; Huschens, Alexander; Köhninger, Constanze; Kölgen, Lizan; Pelssers, Isabelle; Schütt, Toby; Thomas, Sophia; Ruiter, Robert A C; Kok, Gerjo

2012-11-21

Threatening health messages that focus on severity are popular, but frequently have no effect or even a counterproductive effect on behavior change. This paradox (i.e. wide application despite low effectiveness) may be partly explained by the intuitive appeal of threatening communication: it may be hard to predict the defensive reactions occurring in response to fear appeals. We examine this hypothesis by using two studies by Brown and colleagues, which provide evidence that threatening health messages in the form of distressing imagery in anti-smoking and anti-alcohol campaigns cause defensive reactions. We simulated both Brown et al. experiments, asking participants to estimate the reactions of the original study subjects to the threatening health information (n = 93). Afterwards, we presented the actual original study outcomes. One week later, we assessed whether this knowledge of the actual study outcomes helped participants to more successfully estimate the effectiveness of the threatening health information (n = 72). Results showed that participants were initially convinced of the effectiveness of threatening health messages and were unable to anticipate the defensive reactions that in fact occurred. Furthermore, these estimates did not improve after participants had been explained the dynamics of threatening communication as well as what the effects of the threatening communication had been in reality. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the effectiveness of threatening health messages is intuitively appealing. What is more, providing empirical evidence against the use of threatening health messages has very little effect on this intuitive appeal.

Instant messaging at the hospital: supporting articulation work?

Science.gov (United States)

Iversen, Tobias Buschmann; Melby, Line; Toussaint, Pieter

2013-09-01

Clinical work is increasingly fragmented and requires extensive articulation and coordination. Computer systems may support such work. In this study, we investigate how instant messaging functions as a tool for supporting articulation work at the hospital. This paper aims to describe the characteristics of instant messaging communication in terms of number and length of messages, distribution over time, and the number of participants included in conversations. We also aim to determine what kind of articulation work is supported by analysing message content. Analysis of one month's worth of instant messages sent through the perioperative coordination and communication system at a Danish hospital. Instant messaging was found to be used extensively for articulation work, mostly through short, simple conversational exchanges. It is used particularly often for communication concerning the patient, specifically, the coordination and logistics of patient care. Instant messaging is used by all actors involved in the perioperative domain. Articulation work and clinical work are hard to separate in a real clinical setting. Predefined messages and strict workflow design do not suffice when supporting communication in the context of collaborative clinical work. Flexibility is of vital importance, and this needs to be reflected in the design of supportive communication systems. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Visualizing Public Opinion in Croatia Based on Available Social Network Content

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ševa, Jurica

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In the last decade advances of computer technologies have lead towards a technological reality where the line between information consumers and information producers is blurred. This technological omnipresence allows for unprecedented data creation capabilities. Based on various data sources, it seems humans have fully embraced data-generating activities. One such activity is using online social network applications, like Facebook or Twitter in almost all aspects of their lives. One of the main features of online social network applications is perceived freedom of speech, individuality and privacy, even though every application has some special features. Therefore, content generated using these services presents the public with interesting insights in private life of people and their attitudes towards public affairs. Social network applications are active the most during specific public events aimed at the massive public. Due to its brevity, ease of use and frequency, Twitter is an interesting social network application for research and analysis. Other than allowing almost exclusively short messages (up to 140 characters, a tweet (a Twitter post can contain location of the message sender as well as a graphic to accompany the textual message. The textual part of the message may contain so called hashtags – keywords used for indexing and easy identification of a subject the message is related to. These hashtags allow us to group messages related to a specific event. Recent governmental elections held in Croatia were very popular amongst the Croatian Twitter community. Usage of hashtags allowed us to identify the right messages and thus most-used words to describe this event and potentially identify how people felt when talking, i.e. writing, about politics and the held elections. Furthermore, geolocation information, optionally embedded in a tweet, makes it possible to analyze which keywords were used in which parts of Croatia, all pertaining to

Theoretical Foundations of Appeals Used in Alcohol-Abuse and Drunk-Driving Public Service Announcements in the United States, 1995-2010.

Science.gov (United States)

Niederdeppe, Jeff; Avery, Rosemary J; Miller, Emily Elizabeth Namaste

2018-05-01

The study identifies the extent to which theoretical constructs drawn from well-established message effect communication theories are reflected in the content of alcohol-related public service announcements (PSAs) airing in the United States over a 16-year period. Content analysis of 18 530 141 alcohol-abuse (AA) and drunk-driving (DD) PSAs appearing on national network and local cable television stations in the 210 largest designated marketing areas (DMAs) from January 1995 through December 2010. The authors developed a detailed content analytic codebook and trained undergraduate coders to reliably identify the extent to which theoretical constructs and other creative ad elements are reflected in the PSAs. We show these patterns using basic descriptive statistics. Although both classes of alcohol-related PSAs used strategies that are consistent with major message effect theories, their specific theoretical orientations differed dramatically. The AA PSAs were generally consistent with constructs emphasized by the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM), whereas DD PSAs were more likely to use normative strategies emphasized by the Focus Theory of Narrative Conduct (FTNC) or source credibility appeals central to the Elaboration Likelihood Model. Having identified message content, future research should use deductive approaches to determine if volume and message content of alcohol-control PSAs have an impact on measures of alcohol consumption and/or measures of drunk driving, such as fatalities or driving while intoxicated/driving under the influence arrests.

Strategi Public Relations dalam Mendukung Pemasaran Pembangkit Listrik Nasional (PLN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Novi Anggraeni

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Public relations is one of the elements that determine the viability of an organization positively. The purpose of the research; 1. Knowing the planning public relations strategies in support of marketing; 2. Knowing the kinds of public relations activities; 3. Knowing the packaging contents of the message of the communication media used; 4. Knowing the effect to be achieved; and 5. Knowing the obstacles faced. The method used descriptive qualitative. Results of the study are: 1. Judging from the background criteria for Public Relations of PT. PLN (Persero APJ Cirebon is formal education, job experience, appearance, skills, individual characteristics, and adaptation, credible communicator. 2. Kegiatan Public Relations to support the marketing of which the existence of a local radio talk show in Cirebon (Cirebon FM, a local television talk show in Cirebon (RCTV, cooperation in carrying out tasks related to corporate law. 3. Packaging persuasive message content, preparation of informative messages are intended to provide excitement and build consumer understanding. 4. The effect achieved a change in opinions, attitudes and behavior. 5. Barriers found limited use of communication media and the lack of communication superiors and subordinates

Outpatient blood pressure monitoring using bi-directional text messaging.

Science.gov (United States)

Anthony, Chris A; Polgreen, Linnea A; Chounramany, James; Foster, Eric D; Goerdt, Christopher J; Miller, Michelle L; Suneja, Manish; Segre, Alberto M; Carter, Barry L; Polgreen, Philip M

2015-05-01

To diagnose hypertension, multiple blood pressure (BP) measurements are recommended. We randomized patients into three groups: EMR-only (patients recorded BP measurements in an electronic medical record [EMR] web portal), EMR + reminders (patients were sent text message reminders to record their BP measurements in the EMR), and bi-directional text messaging (patients were sent a text message asking them to respond with their current BP). Subjects were asked to complete 14 measurements. Automated messages were sent to each patient in the bi-directional text messaging and EMR + reminder groups twice daily. Among 121 patients, those in the bi-directional text messaging group reported the full 14 measurements more often than both the EMR-only group (P text messaging is an effective way to gather patient BP data. Text-message-based reminders alone are an effective way to encourage patients to record BP measurements. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Tracing How Normative Messages May Influence Physical Activity Intention.

Science.gov (United States)

van Bavel, René; Esposito, Gabriele; Baranowski, Tom; Duch-Brown, Néstor

2017-04-01

Normative messages have been shown to increase intention to do physical activity. We traced how "positive" and "negative" normative messages influenced physical activity intention by comparing constructs of the model of goal-directed behavior with descriptive norms (MGDB + DNs) across control and treatment groups in an experiment. For this purpose, 16-24-year-old respondents (n = 1,200) in Bulgaria, Croatia, and Romania were asked about their age, sex, and levels of physical activity before being exposed to positive and negative normative messages and completing a questionnaire with MGDB + DNs scales. Different MGDB + DNs constructs were influenced by the normative messages: compared with the control, the negative message group showed stronger attitudes (p = .003) and the positive message group showed higher positive anticipated emotions (p = .005). The positive message's effect is consistent with the literature on conformity to social norms. The negative message's effect lends itself to interpretations based on social identity and deviance regulation theories.

Effects of Instant Messaging on School Performance in Adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Grover, Karan; Pecor, Keith; Malkowski, Michael; Kang, Lilia; Machado, Sasha; Lulla, Roshni; Heisey, David; Ming, Xue

2016-06-01

Instant messaging may compromise sleep quality and school performance in adolescents. We aimed to determine associations between nighttime messaging and daytime sleepiness, self-reported sleep parameters, and/or school performance. Students from 3 high schools in New Jersey completed anonymous questionnaires assessing sleep duration, daytime sleepiness, messaging habits, and academic performance. Of the 2,352 students sampled, 1,537 responses were contrasted among grades, sexes, and messaging duration, both before and after lights out. Students who reported longer duration of messaging after lights out were more likely to report a shorter sleep duration, higher rate of daytime sleepiness, and poorer academic performance. Messaging before lights out was not associated with higher rates of daytime sleepiness or poorer academic performance. Females reported more messaging, more daytime sleepiness, and better academic performance than males. There may be an association between text messaging and school performance in this cohort of students. © The Author(s) 2016.

Independent Auditor’s Report: Messages Conveyed and Implications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saher Aqel

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Auditing plays a crucial role in the business environment by providing assurance services to the public so as to decrease information risk by increasing the reliability of financial information provided by the business entities. As the final product of the audit, the audit report is a way by which the auditor communicates with the public the findings of the audit process. The auditor‟s report is the only aspect of the work of auditor that can be available to the public. Thus, users are likely to assess the auditor‟s professionalism and competence by this report. The purpose of this study is to address the meaning and implication of the audit report in addition to a discussion of the messages perceived from the auditor‟s report. Differences in perceptions of the meaning of the auditor‟s report may exist between the auditors and users. Users may misperceive the nature and scope of the audit function and the level of assurance when they read the audit report

The WLCG Messaging Service and its Future

CERN Document Server

Cons, Lionel

2012-01-01

Enterprise messaging is seen as an attractive mechanism to simplify and extend several portions of the Grid middleware, from low level monitoring to experiments dashboards. The production messaging service currently used by WLCG includes four tightly coupled brokers operated by EGI (running Apache ActiveMQ and designed to host the Grid operational tools such as SAM) as well as two dedicated services for ATLAS-DDM and experiments dashboards (currently also running Apache ActiveMQ). In the future, this service is expected to grow in numbers of applications supported, brokers and technologies. The WLCG Messaging Roadmap identified three areas with room for improvement (security, scalability and availability/reliability) as well as ten practical recommendations to address them. This paper describes a messaging service architecture that is in line with these recommendations as well as a software architecture based on reusable components that ease interactions with the messaging service. These two architectures wil...

Pilot study of psychotherapeutic text messaging for depression.

Science.gov (United States)

Pfeiffer, Paul N; Henry, Jennifer; Ganoczy, Dara; Piette, John D

2017-08-01

Background Text messaging services could increase access to psychotherapeutic content for individuals with depression by avoiding barriers to in-person psychotherapy such as cost, transportation, and therapist availability. Determining whether text messages reflecting different psychotherapeutic techniques exhibit differences in acceptability or effectiveness may help guide service development. Objectives We aimed to determine: (1) the feasibility of delivering a psychotherapy-based text messaging service to people with depression identified via the internet, (2) whether there is variation in satisfaction with messages according to the type of psychotherapeutic technique they represent, and (3) whether symptoms of depression vary according to receipt of each message type and participants' satisfaction with the messages they received. Methods For this study 190 US adults who screened positive for a major depressive episode (Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) score ≥10) were recruited from online advertisements. Participants received a daily psychotherapy-based text message 6 days per week for 12 weeks. Text messages were developed by a team of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers to reflect three psychotherapeutic approaches: acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), behavioural activation, and cognitive restructuring. Each week the message type for the week was randomly assigned from one of the three types, allowing for repeats. Participants were asked daily to rate each message. On the 7th day of each week, participants completed a two-item depression screener (PHQ-2). Web-based surveys at baseline, 6, and 12 weeks were used as the primary measure of depressive symptoms (PHQ-9). Results Of the 190 participants enrolled, 85 (45%) completed the 6-week web survey and 67 (35%) completed the 12-week survey. The mean baseline PHQ-9 score was 19.4 (SD 4.2) and there was a statistically significant mean improvement in PHQ-9 scores of -2.9 (SD 6.0; p�

Systematic and heuristic processing of majority and minority-endorsed messages: the effects of varying outcome relevance and levels of orientation on attitude and message processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Robin; Hewstone, Miles; Martin, Pearl Y

2007-01-01

Two experiments investigated the conditions under which majority and minority sources instigate systematic processing of their messages. Both experiments crossed source status (majority vs. minority) with message quality (strong vs. weak arguments). In each experiment, message elaboration was manipulated by varying either motivational (outcome relevance, Experiment 1) or cognitive (orientating tasks, Experiment 2) factors. The results showed that when either motivational or cognitive factors encouraged low message elaboration, there was heuristic acceptance of the majority position without detailed message processing. When the level of message elaboration was intermediate, there was message processing only for the minority source. Finally, when message elaboration was high, there was message processing for both source conditions. These results show that majority and minority influence is sensitive to motivational and cognitive factors that constrain or enhance message elaboration and that both sources can lead to systematic processing under specific circumstances.

'Nuclearelectrica' Company messages for a broadly acceptable nuclear power program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stiopol, Mihaela; Bilegan, C. Iosif

2001-01-01

Romania started the nuclear power program about 20 years ago, by a high level Government decision. After 1989 the former Ministry of Electrical Power was transformed into a state owned company, RENEL, in which nuclear activities were also included. RENEL was a monopoly system responsible for production, transport and distribution of electricity in Romania. The deregulation process in the power sector was many times asked by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, to split this monopoly system in separately activities: Production, Transport and Distribution. The first step occurred in July 1998, when the nuclear activities were externalized from RENEL. In nuclear sector two new entities were created: SN 'Nuclearelectrica' SA, a state own company that includes three branches: - Nuclear Power Production - Cernavoda NPP Unit 1; - Nuclear Fuel Plant-Pitesti; - Project Development Branch - Cernavoda Units 2-5. The second entity is the so-called Romanian Authority (Autonomous Reggie) for Nuclear Activities (RAAN), including as branches the heavy water fabrication plant 'ROMAG PROD', the Nuclear Research Institute (ICN) Pitesti and the Nuclear Engineering and Design Institute (CITON) Bucharest. The rest of conventional power sector was renamed, namely, CONEL. The organization process continued and in August 2000, by a Government Ordinance the CONEL was split into the following companies: - one for hydropower production 'HIDROELECTRICA'; - one for thermal power production 'TERMOELECTRICA'; - one for transport 'TRANSELECTRICA'; - one for distribution 'ELECTRICA'. The goal of a third step of restructuring process is the privatization in the power field. The steps of Romanian Power Sector Restructuring are presented. Since 1991 a Public Information program has been established. Depending on the evolution of the construction of the first Romanian nuclear power station, during the years, the messages changed. Everybody working in the nuclear field knows how difficult is

Reference computations of public dose and cancer risk from airborne releases of uranium and Class W plutonium

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peterson, V.L.

1995-01-01

This report presents ''reference'' computations that can be used by safety analysts in the evaluations of the consequences of postulated atmospheric releases of radionuclides from the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site. These computations deal specifically with doses and health risks to the public. The radionuclides considered are Class W Plutonium, all classes of Enriched Uranium, and all classes of Depleted Uranium. (The other class of plutonium, Y, was treated in an earlier report.) In each case, one gram of the respirable material is assumed to be released at ground leveL both with and without fire. The resulting doses and health risks can be scaled to whatever amount of release is appropriate for a postulated accident being investigated. The report begins with a summary of the organ-specific stochastic risk factors appropriate for alpha radiation, which poses the main health risk of plutonium and uranium. This is followed by a summary of the atmospheric dispersion factors for unfavorable and typical weather conditions for the calculation of consequences to both the Maximum Offsite Individual and the general population within 80 km (50 miles) of the site

Flow of emotional messages in artificial social networks

OpenAIRE

Chmiel, Anna; Holyst, Janusz A.

2010-01-01

Models of message flows in an artificial group of users communicating via the Internet are introduced and investigated using numerical simulations. We assumed that messages possess an emotional character with a positive valence and that the willingness to send the next affective message to a given person increases with the number of messages received from this person. As a result, the weights of links between group members evolve over time. Memory effects are introduced, taking into account t...

Message Passing Framework for Globally Interconnected Clusters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hafeez, M; Riaz, N; Asghar, S; Malik, U A; Rehman, A

2011-01-01

In prevailing technology trends it is apparent that the network requirements and technologies will advance in future. Therefore the need of High Performance Computing (HPC) based implementation for interconnecting clusters is comprehensible for scalability of clusters. Grid computing provides global infrastructure of interconnecting clusters consisting of dispersed computing resources over Internet. On the other hand the leading model for HPC programming is Message Passing Interface (MPI). As compared to Grid computing, MPI is better suited for solving most of the complex computational problems. MPI itself is restricted to a single cluster. It does not support message passing over the internet to use the computing resources of different clusters in an optimal way. We propose a model that provides message passing capabilities between parallel applications over the internet. The proposed model is based on Architecture for Java Universal Message Passing (A-JUMP) framework and Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) named as High Performance Computing Bus. The HPC Bus is built using ActiveMQ. HPC Bus is responsible for communication and message passing in an asynchronous manner. Asynchronous mode of communication offers an assurance for message delivery as well as a fault tolerance mechanism for message passing. The idea presented in this paper effectively utilizes wide-area intercluster networks. It also provides scheduling, dynamic resource discovery and allocation, and sub-clustering of resources for different jobs. Performance analysis and comparison study of the proposed framework with P2P-MPI are also presented in this paper.

Understanding health food messages on Twitter for health literacy promotion.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, J; Liu, F; Zhou, H

2018-05-01

With the popularity of social media, Twitter has become an important tool to promote health literacy. However, many health-related messages on Twitter are dead-ended and cannot reach many people. This is unhelpful for health literacy promotion. This article aims to examine the features of online health food messages that people like to retweet. We adopted rumour theory as our theoretical foundation and extracted seven characteristics (i.e. emotional valence, attractiveness, sender's authoritativeness, external evidence, argument length, hashtags, and direct messages). A total of 10,025 health-related messages on Twitter were collected, and 1496 messages were randomly selected for further analysis. Each message was treated as one unit and then coded. All the hypotheses were tested with logistic regression. Emotional valence, attractiveness, sender's authoritativeness, argument length, and direct messages in a Twitter message had positive effects on people's retweet behaviour. The effect of external evidence was negative. Hashtags had no significant effect after consideration of other variables. Online health food messages containing positive emotions, including pictures, containing direct messages, having an authoritative sender, having longer arguments, or not containing external URLs are more likely to be retweeted. However, a message only containing positive or negative emotions or including direct messages without any support information will not be retweeted.

Freebie Rhabdomyolysis: A Public Health Concern. Spin Class-Induced Rhabdomyolysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Brogan, Maureen; Ledesma, Rudrick; Coffino, Alan; Chander, Praveen

2017-04-01

Rhabdomyolysis is a pathologic condition in which intracellular muscle constituents leak into the blood circulation. It is usually caused by muscle trauma. "Spinning" is an indoor form of cycling where participants use a special stationary exercise bicycle with a weighted flywheel and undergo high-intensity cycling classes focusing on endurance. There have been several case reports in the literature of exertional rhabdomyolysis following spin class. Our nephrology practices have diagnosed a number of cases of symptomatic patients presenting to our emergency departments following their first spin classes, with histories and creatinine phosphokinase levels diagnostic of exertional rhabdomyolysis. We present 3 unusual cases of exertional rhabdomyolysis, each occurring after a first spin class. In the first case, rhabdomyolysis developed following 15 minutes of spin class. In the second case, it occurred in a young individual who exercises regularly. In the third case, the patient developed biopsy-proved acute kidney injury secondary to exertional rhabdomyolysis and required hemodialysis. The high-intensity exercise associated with "spin class" comes with significant risks to newcomers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Implementation of Text-Messaging and Social Media Strategies in a Multilevel Childhood Obesity Prevention Intervention: Process Evaluation Results.

Science.gov (United States)

Loh, Ivory H; Schwendler, Teresa; Trude, Angela C B; Anderson Steeves, Elizabeth T; Cheskin, Lawrence J; Lange, Sarah; Gittelsohn, Joel

2018-01-01

Social media and text messaging show promise as public health interventions, but little evaluation of implementation exists. The B'more Healthy Communities for Kids (BHCK) was a multilevel, multicomponent (wholesalers, food stores, recreation centers) childhood obesity prevention trial that included social media and text-messaging components. The BHCK was implemented in 28 low-income areas of Baltimore City, Maryland, in 2 waves. The texting intervention targeted 241 low-income African American caregivers (of 283), who received 3 texts/week reinforcing key messages, providing nutrition information, and weekly goals. Regular posting on social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) targeted community members and local stakeholders. High implementation standards were set a priori (57 for social media, 11 for texting), with low implementation defined as social media implementation improved from low-moderate to high reach, dose delivered, and fidelity. Text messaging increased from moderate to high in reach and dose delivered, fidelity decreased from high to moderate. Data were used to monitor and revise the BHCK intervention throughout implementation. Our model for evaluating text messaging-based and social media-based interventions may be applicable to other settings.

78 FR 64202 - Quantitative Messaging Research

Science.gov (United States)

2013-10-28

... COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION Quantitative Messaging Research AGENCY: Commodity Futures... survey will follow qualitative message testing research (for which CFTC received fast- track OMB approval... comments. Please submit your comments using only one method and identify that it is for the ``Quantitative...

Health in arts: are arts settings better than sports settings for promoting anti-smoking messages?

Science.gov (United States)

Davies, Christina; Knuiman, Matthew; Pikora, Terri; Rosenberg, Michael

2015-05-01

promote other types of health messages should be investigated further. © Royal Society for Public Health 2013.

Safety message broadcast in vehicular networks

CERN Document Server

Bi, Yuanguo; Zhuang, Weihua; Zhao, Hai

2017-01-01

This book presents the current research on safety message dissemination in vehicular networks, covering medium access control and relay selection for multi-hop safety message broadcast. Along with an overall overview of the architecture, characteristics, and applications of vehicular networks, the authors discuss the challenging issues in the research on performance improvement for safety applications, and provide a comprehensive review of the research literature. A cross layer broadcast protocol is included to support efficient safety message broadcast by jointly considering geographical location, physical-layer channel condition, and moving velocity of vehicles in the highway scenario. To further support multi-hop safety message broadcast in a complex road layout, the authors propose an urban multi-hop broadcast protocol that utilizes a novel forwarding node selection scheme. Additionally, a busy tone based medium access control scheme is designed to provide strict priority to safety applications in vehicle...

Effects of Electronic Word - of - Mouth Messages

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Choong Hoon Lim

2012-01-01

Full Text Available With the increased usage of online technologies, there has been an escalation of Electronic Word - of –Mouth (eWOM messages related to sport products and services offered and consumed. Therefore, in this original investigation by applying eWOM to the sport industry, this study examined how the combination of the quality of the eWOM message and the provider of the eWOM message affects purchaseintentions depending on the expertise level of the consumer. This study – which involved the collection of data from 134 students at a large university situated in the Midwest of the United States – utilized repeated measures of Analysis of Variance (ANOVA with tripartite groups of expertise and experimental conditions as independent variables. Purchase intention was the dependent variables. The results indicated that the quality of the eWOM message moderated the effect of the provider of the eWOM message. The subject’s level of expertise also had a moderating role on purchase intention.

Individual differences in drivers' cognitive processing of road safety messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaye, Sherrie-Anne; White, Melanie J; Lewis, Ioni M

2013-01-01

Using Gray and McNaughton's (2000) revised reinforcement sensitivity theory (r-RST), we examined the influence of personality on processing of words presented in gain-framed and loss-framed anti-speeding messages and how the processing biases associated with personality influenced message acceptance. The r-RST predicts that the nervous system regulates personality and that behaviour is dependent upon the activation of the behavioural activation system (BAS), activated by reward cues and the fight-flight-freeze system (FFFS), activated by punishment cues. According to r-RST, individuals differ in the sensitivities of their BAS and FFFS (i.e., weak to strong), which in turn leads to stable patterns of behaviour in the presence of rewards and punishments, respectively. It was hypothesised that individual differences in personality (i.e., strength of the BAS and the FFFS) would influence the degree of both message processing (as measured by reaction time to previously viewed message words) and message acceptance (measured three ways by perceived message effectiveness, behavioural intentions, and attitudes). Specifically, it was anticipated that, individuals with a stronger BAS would process the words presented in the gain-frame messages faster than those with a weaker BAS and individuals with a stronger FFFS would process the words presented in the loss-frame messages faster than those with a weaker FFFS. Further, it was expected that greater processing (faster reaction times) would be associated with greater acceptance for that message. Driver licence holding students (N=108) were recruited to view one of four anti-speeding messages (i.e., social gain-frame, social loss-frame, physical gain-frame, and physical loss-frame). A computerised lexical decision task assessed participants' subsequent reaction times to message words, as an indicator of the extent of processing of the previously viewed message. Self-report measures assessed personality and the three message

Public foetal images and the regulation of middle-class pregnancy in the online media: a view from South Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

Macleod, Catriona; Howell, Simon

2015-01-01

Ultrasonography images and their derivatives have been taken up in a range of 'public' spaces, including medical textbooks, the media, anti-abortion material, advertising, the Internet and public health facilities. Feminists have critiqued the personification of the foetus, the bifurcation of the woman's body and the reduction of the pregnant woman to a disembodied womb. What has received less attention is how these images frequently intersect with race, class, gender and heteronormativity in the creation of idealised and normative understandings of pregnancy. This paper focuses on the discursive positioning of pregnant women as 'mothers' and foetuses as 'babies' in online media targeted at a South African audience, where race and class continue to intersect in complex ways. We show how the ontologically specific understandings of 'mummies' and 'babies' emerge through the use of foetal images to construct specific understandings of the 'ideal' pregnancy. In the process, pregnant women are made responsible for ensuring that their pregnancy conforms to these ideals, which includes the purchasing of the various goods advertised by the websites. Not only does this point to a commodification of pregnancy, but also serves to reinforce a cultural understanding of White, middle-class pregnancy as constituting the normative 'correct' form of pregnancy.

Reactions to threatening health messages

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ten Hoor Gill A

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Threatening health messages that focus on severity are popular, but frequently have no effect or even a counterproductive effect on behavior change. This paradox (i.e. wide application despite low effectiveness may be partly explained by the intuitive appeal of threatening communication: it may be hard to predict the defensive reactions occurring in response to fear appeals. We examine this hypothesis by using two studies by Brown and colleagues, which provide evidence that threatening health messages in the form of distressing imagery in anti-smoking and anti-alcohol campaigns cause defensive reactions. Methods We simulated both Brown et al. experiments, asking participants to estimate the reactions of the original study subjects to the threatening health information (n = 93. Afterwards, we presented the actual original study outcomes. One week later, we assessed whether this knowledge of the actual study outcomes helped participants to more successfully estimate the effectiveness of the threatening health information (n = 72. Results Results showed that participants were initially convinced of the effectiveness of threatening health messages and were unable to anticipate the defensive reactions that in fact occurred. Furthermore, these estimates did not improve after participants had been explained the dynamics of threatening communication as well as what the effects of the threatening communication had been in reality. Conclusions These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the effectiveness of threatening health messages is intuitively appealing. What is more, providing empirical evidence against the use of threatening health messages has very little effect on this intuitive appeal.

Teens could get new message on waiting for sex. Sex education.

Science.gov (United States)

1997-04-21

It's best to wait until you are older to have sex. But if you decide to have intercourse, use a condom. We'll show you how. That's the message most New Jersey teens get in their sex education classes. It's the law. But a new source of federal funding could help advocates of "abstinence-only" education find a way around that requirement. The state Department of Health and Senior Services is considering whether to apply for federal money limited to programs teaching teens that abstinence is the only certain way to prevent pregnancy and avoid contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV. The federally funded programs also would have to teach that sex before marriage is morally wrong. About $50 million for these abstinence-only programs was quietly tucked into the welfare bill that President Clinton signed into law in 1996. New Jersey is eligible to receive $843,000. The health department is hearing from people on both sides of the issue, said Celeste Wood, who plans to submit a report to Health Commissioner Len Fishman by the end of the month. Fishman will then decide whether New Jersey should apply for the money, she said. Historically, debate between "comprehensive" and "abstinence-only" sex education has centered around the classroom and education department. Comprehensive programs teach both abstinence and contraception. Abstinence-only programs prohibit discussion of contraception. Comprehensive education advocates have won that battle in New Jersey public schools. The state's core curriculum standards currently call for schools to teach teens about both abstinence and contraception. But the new federal money is being funneled through state health departments. "This skates around the schools by bringing the money in through the public health arena," said Daniel Daley, director of public policy for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US. "They are trying to influence community-based programs and make an end-run around the schools

Lol: New Language and Spelling in Instant Messaging

Science.gov (United States)

Varnhagen, Connie K.; McFall, G. Peggy; Pugh, Nicole; Routledge, Lisa; Sumida-MacDonald, Heather; Kwong, Trudy E.

2010-01-01

Written communication in instant messaging, text messaging, chat, and other forms of electronic communication appears to have generated a "new language" of abbreviations, acronyms, word combinations, and punctuation. In this naturalistic study, adolescents collected their instant messaging conversations for a 1-week period and then completed a…

The simplicity complex: exploring simplified health messages in a complex world.

Science.gov (United States)

Zarcadoolas, Christina

2011-09-01

A challenge in individual and public health at the start of the 21st century is to effectively communicate health and science information about disease and complex emergencies. The low health literacy of millions of adults in the USA has been referred to as a 'silent killer'. A popular approach to improving health communication and health promotion to low health literate consumers has been to simplify the language of health information. The expected result has been that individuals and groups will better understand information and will then make informed decisions about their health and behaviors. This expectation has grown to include the belief that the public will be better prepared to take appropriate action in complex natural and man-made emergencies. Demonstrating the efficacy of this approach remains, in large part, uninvestigated. And it is becoming more evident that health literacy itself is complex and multifaceted. This article applies linguistic and sociolinguistic models in order to better articulate the role of simplification in health communication and health promotion. Focusing on two models from sociolinguistics-pragmatics and text theory-the article discusses their usefulness in rethinking message simplification. The discussion proposes that a richer, more theory-based understanding of text structures and functions, along with other powerful constructs, including cultural appropriateness, relevancy and context, are needed to close the gaps between health messages, health messengers and patients/the public. The article concludes by making recommendations for future study to empirically test the strengths and limitations of these models and constructs.

'It's about the smoke, not the smoker': messages that motivate rural communities to support smoke-free policies.

Science.gov (United States)

Kostygina, Ganna; Hahn, Ellen J; Rayens, Mary Kay

2014-02-01

Rural residents are exposed to sophisticated tobacco advertising and tobacco growing represents an economic mainstay in many rural communities. There is a need for effective health messages to counter the pro-tobacco culture in these communities. To determine relevant cultural themes and key message features that affect receptivity to pro-health advertisements among rural residents, 11 exploratory focus groups and surveys with community advocates (N = 82) in three rural Kentucky counties were conducted. Participants reviewed and rated a collection of print media advertisements and branding materials used by rural communities to promote smoke-free policies. Findings reveal that negative emotional tone, loss framing, appeals to religiosity, and shifting focus away from smokers are effective strategies with rural audiences. Potential pitfalls were identified. Attacks on smokers may not be a useful strategy. Health risk messages reinforced beliefs of secondhand smoke harm but some argued that the messages needed to appeal to smokers and emphasize health hazards to smokers, rather than to non-smokers only. Messages describing ineffectiveness of smoking sections were understood but participants felt they were only relevant for restaurants and not all public spaces. Emphasis on religiosity and social norms shows promise as a culturally sensitive approach to promoting smoke-free environments in rural communities.

Using Mobile Devices to Facilitate Student Questioning in a Large Undergraduate Science Class

Science.gov (United States)

Crompton, Helen; Burgin, Stephen R.; De Paor, Declan G.; Gregory, Kristen

2018-01-01

Asking scientific questions is the first practice of science and engineering listed in the Next Generation Science Standards. However, getting students to ask unsolicited questions in a large class can be difficult. In this qualitative study, undergraduate students sent SMS text messages to the instructor who received them on his mobile phone and…

A Novel Message Scheduling Framework for Delay Tolerant Networks Routing

KAUST Repository

Elwhishi, Ahmed

2013-05-01

Multicopy routing strategies have been considered the most applicable approaches to achieve message delivery in Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs). Epidemic routing and two-hop forwarding routing are two well-reported approaches for delay tolerant networks routing which allow multiple message replicas to be launched in order to increase message delivery ratio and/or reduce message delivery delay. This advantage, nonetheless, is at the expense of additional buffer space and bandwidth overhead. Thus, to achieve efficient utilization of network resources, it is important to come up with an effective message scheduling strategy to determine which messages should be forwarded and which should be dropped in case of buffer is full. This paper investigates a new message scheduling framework for epidemic and two-hop forwarding routing in DTNs, such that the forwarding/dropping decision can be made at a node during each contact for either optimal message delivery ratio or message delivery delay. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed message scheduling framework can achieve better performance than its counterparts.

The message is the message-maker.

Science.gov (United States)

Chalkley, A B

1977-03-01

For those engaged in family planning or other demographic work of an active kind, serious errors can be made and much money and skill wasted unless there is a clear idea of available means of communication. Literacy and media-diffusion figures offer vague parameters, especially in Asia, and the role of spoken communication -- considered key in "illiterate" societies -- is even more difficult to assess. For mass media, the starting point is "diffusion rates" representing numbers of TV sets owned or newspapers sold per 1000 population and so on -- measures of quantity. This article surveys the population growth rates, urban-rural distribution, educational levels, literacy rates, numbers of newspapers bought, radios and TVs owned (per 1000 population) for 12 Asian countries, and discusses their meaning in terms of media use. Chief among the points made are that print media still have an enormous role to play in the developing countries -- newspaper diffusion rates are quite high, even in countries with low urban population (especially India). The quality of electronic media (too often considered the natural "wave of the future" everywhere) varies but is generally not high. Where they are fully developed their role is vital -- but it might be noted that it is the message makers themselves who are most vital. Choosing the right medium and the proper message for it is essential.

Comparing tailored and untailored text messages for smoking cessation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skov-Ettrup, L S; Ringgaard, L W; Dalum, P

2014-01-01

The aim was to compare the effectiveness of untailored text messages for smoking cessation to tailored text messages delivered at a higher frequency. From February 2007 to August 2009, 2030 users of an internet-based smoking cessation program with optional text message support aged 15-25 years were...... of text messages increases quit rates among young smokers....

Motivating Smoking Cessation Text Messages: Perspectives from Pregnant Smokers.

Science.gov (United States)

Schindler-Ruwisch, Jennifer M; Leavitt, Leah E; Macherelli, Laura E; Turner, Monique M; Abroms, Lorien C

2018-06-01

The purpose of this research is to analyze cessation text-messages written by pregnant smokers to elucidate the target population's preferred content and message attributes. To achieve this goal, the objectives of this study are three-fold; to qualitatively code messages written by pregnant smokers for frame, type of appeal, and intended target. Study participants were recruited as part of a larger trial of pregnant smokers who were enrolled in a text-messaging program or control group and surveyed 1 month post-enrollment. Each participant was asked to write a brief message to another pregnant smoker and two independent coders qualitatively analyzed responses. User generated messages (N = 51) were equally loss and gain framed, and the most common appeals were: fear, guilt, cognitive, hope and empathy, in order of most to least frequent. The target of the majority of the messages was the baby. Allowing pregnant smokers to write cessation text-messages for other pregnant women can provide relevant insight into intervention content. Specifically, pregnant smokers appear to equally promote gain and loss frames, but may prefer messages that include components of fear and guilt related to the impact of smoking on their baby. Additional research is needed to systematically uncover perspectives of pregnant smokers to ensure interventions are optimally effective.

Creating Effective Media Messaging for Rural Smoke-free Policy.

Science.gov (United States)

Riker, Carol A; Butler, Karen M; Ricks, JaNelle M; Record, Rachael A; Begley, Kathy; Anderson, Debra Gay; Hahn, Ellen J

2015-01-01

Objectives were to (1) explore perceived effectiveness of existing smoke-free print advertisements in rural communities and (2) generate message content, characteristics, and media delivery channels that resonate with residents. Qualitative methods design. Thirty-nine rural adults recruited by community partners. Content analysis of findings from individuals in four focus groups who participated in general discussion and reviewed eight print ads related to secondhand smoke (SHS) and smoke-free policy. Six content themes were identified: smoking/SHS dangers, worker health, analogies, economic impact, rights, and nostalgia. Seven message characteristics were recognized: short/to the point, large enough to read, graphic images, poignant stories, statistics/charts/graphs, message sender, and messages targeting different groups. Four media delivery channels were considered most effective: local media, technology, billboard messages, and print materials. Seeking input from key informants is essential to reaching rural residents. Use of analogies in media messaging is a distinct contribution to the literature on effective smoke-free campaigns. Other findings support previous studies of effective messaging and delivery channels. Further research is needed to examine effectiveness of themes related to message content in smoke-free ads and delivery strategies. Effective media messaging can lead to policy change in rural communities to reduce exposure to SHS. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Interest of pregnant women in the use of SMS (short message service) text messages for the improvement of perinatal and postnatal care.

Science.gov (United States)

Cormick, Gabriela; Kim, Natalie A; Rodgers, Ashlei; Gibbons, Luz; Buekens, Pierre M; Belizán, José M; Althabe, Fernando

2012-08-06

Mobile health (mHealth) is emerging as a useful tool to improve healthcare access especially in the developing world, where limited access to health services is linked to poor antenatal care, and maternal and perinatal mortality.The objective of this study is to 1) understand pregnant women's access and usage of cell phones and 2) survey the health information needs and interests in a population attending public hospitals and health centers of two cities in Argentina. This information is not available and it is the basis to develop a strategy for improving maternal care via cell phones. Questionnaires were verbally administered to pregnant women who were attending an antenatal care visit in community health centers and public hospitals in Rosario, Santa Fe and Mercedes, Corrientes. Participants were 18 years of age or older and had previously given birth. The data obtained was qualitative and analyzed using SPSS version 18. A total of 147 pregnant women meeting inclusion criteria (Rosario: 63; Mercedes: 84) were approached and verbally consented to participate. The average age was 29.5 years, most lived in urban areas (89%) with a mean travel time of 43.4 minutes required to get to the health center and 57.3 minutes to get the hospital.Ninety-six percent of women (n = 140) responded that they would like to receive text messages and cell phone calls with information regarding prenatal care, although the topics and period of time to receive information varied greatly. Considering the vast majority of the interviewed women had access to and were interested in receiving text messages and calls with educational information regarding pregnancy and infant health, pregnant women in Argentina could benefit from such an mHealth program. The low access to Internet suggests it is not an option for this population; however, this cannot be assumed as representative of the country's situation.To retain active participation, other forms of health communication, such as a 2

Interest of pregnant women in the use of SMS (short message service text messages for the improvement of perinatal and postnatal care

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cormick Gabriela

2012-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Mobile health (mHealth is emerging as a useful tool to improve healthcare access especially in the developing world, where limited access to health services is linked to poor antenatal care, and maternal and perinatal mortality. The objective of this study is to 1 understand pregnant women’s access and usage of cell phones and 2 survey the health information needs and interests in a population attending public hospitals and health centers of two cities in Argentina. This information is not available and it is the basis to develop a strategy for improving maternal care via cell phones. Methods Questionnaires were verbally administered to pregnant women who were attending an antenatal care visit in community health centers and public hospitals in Rosario, Santa Fe and Mercedes, Corrientes. Participants were 18 years of age or older and had previously given birth. The data obtained was qualitative and analyzed using SPSS version 18. Results A total of 147 pregnant women meeting inclusion criteria (Rosario: 63; Mercedes: 84 were approached and verbally consented to participate. The average age was 29.5 years, most lived in urban areas (89% with a mean travel time of 43.4 minutes required to get to the health center and 57.3 minutes to get the hospital. Ninety-six percent of women (n = 140 responded that they would like to receive text messages and cell phone calls with information regarding prenatal care, although the topics and period of time to receive information varied greatly. Conclusions Considering the vast majority of the interviewed women had access to and were interested in receiving text messages and calls with educational information regarding pregnancy and infant health, pregnant women in Argentina could benefit from such an mHealth program. The low access to Internet suggests it is not an option for this population; however, this cannot be assumed as representative of the country’s situation. To retain

Extracting messages masked by chaos

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perez, G.; Cerdeira, H.A.

1995-01-01

We show how to extract messages that are masked by a chaotic signal in a system of two Lorenz oscillators. This mask removal is done for two different modes of transmission, a digital one where a parameter of the sender is switched between two values, and an analog mode, where a small amplitude message is added to the carrier signal. We achieve this without using a second Lorenz oscillator as receiver, and without doing a full reconstruction of the dynamics. This method is robust with respect to transformations that impede the unmasking using a Lorenz receiver, and is not affected by the broad-band noise that is inherent to the synchronization process. We also discuss the limitations of this way of extraction for messages in high frequency bands. (author). 12 refs, 4 figs

Flow of Emotional Messages in Artificial Social Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Chmiel, Anna; Hołyst, Janusz A.

Models of message flows in an artificial group of users communicating via the Internet are introduced and investigated using numerical simulations. We assumed that messages possess an emotional character with a positive valence and that the willingness to send the next affective message to a given person increases with the number of messages received from this person. As a result, the weights of links between group members evolve over time. Memory effects are introduced, taking into account that the preferential selection of message receivers depends on the communication intensity during the recent period only. We also model the phenomenon of secondary social sharing when the reception of an emotional e-mail triggers the distribution of several emotional e-mails to other people.

Subtle Messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Tamplin de Poinsot, Nan

1999-01-01

Describes a self-portrait assignment inspired by the work of Frida Kahlo. Discusses Frida Kahlo's artwork and use of surrealist and symbolist views. States that each student had to incorporate personal symbolism in the portrait to convey a message about him or herself in a subtle manner. (CMK)

Art messaging to engage homeless young adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Nyamathi, Adeline; Slagle, Alexandra; Thomas, Alexandra; Hudson, Angela; Kahilifard, Farinaz; Avila, Glenna; Orser, Julie; Cuchilla, Manuel

2011-01-01

Art has been shown to be an empowering and engaging entity with numerous benefits to vulnerable populations, including the homeless persons and young adults. However, little is known how homeless young adults perceive the use of art as messages that can communicate the danger of initiating or continuing drug and alcohol use. The purpose of this study was to solicit perspectives of homeless, drug-using young adults as to how art can be used to design messages for their peers about the danger of initiating or continuing drug and alcohol use. Qualitative methodology via focus group discussions was utilized to engage 24 homeless young adults enrolled from a drop-in site in Santa Monica, California. The findings revealed support for a myriad of delivery styles, including in-person communication, flyers, music, documentary film, and creative writing. The young adults also provided insight into the importance of the thematic framework of messages. Such themes ranged from empowering and hopeful messages to those designed to scare young homeless adults into not experimenting with drugs. The findings indicate that in addition to messages communicating the need to prevent or reduce drug and alcohol use, homeless young adults respond to messages that remind them of goals and dreams they once had for their future, and to content that is personal, real, and truthful. Our research indicates that messages that reinforce protective factors such as hope for the future and self-esteem may be as important to homeless young adults as information about the risks and consequences of drug use.

Military Message Experiment. Volume II.

Science.gov (United States)

1982-04-01

elements of the Department of Defense. This resulted in a memorandum from the Director, Telecomunications and Comand and Control, OSD, in June 1975...1978 to April 1979 and provides a discussion of the telecomunications inter- face aspects of the experiment. This Final Report covers the period of...arise in the telecomunication system which require A retransmission of an outgoing message. A "service" message may be created within the

Oral health promotion and education messages in Live.Learn.Laugh. projects.

Science.gov (United States)

Horn, Virginie; Phantumvanit, Prathip

2014-10-01

The FDI-Unilever Live.Learn.Laugh. phase 2 partnership involved dissemination of the key oral health message of encouraging 'twice-daily toothbrushing with fluoride toothpaste' and education of people worldwide by FDI, National Dental Associations, the Unilever Oral Care global team and local brands. The dissemination and education process used different methodologies, each targeting specific groups, namely: mother and child (Project option A); schoolchildren (Project option B); dentists and patients (Project option C); and specific communities (Project option D). Altogether, the partnership implemented 29 projects in 27 countries. These consisted of educational interventions, evaluations including (in some cases) clinical assessment, together with communication activities at both global and local levels, to increase the reach of the message to a broader population worldwide. The phase 2 experience reveals the strength of such a public-private partnership approach in tackling global oral health issues by creating synergies between partners and optimising the promotion and education process. © 2014 FDI World Dental Federation.

Parental attitudes towards measles vaccination in the canton of Aargau, Switzerland: a latent class analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Weiss, Carine; Schröpfer, Daniel; Merten, Sonja

2016-08-11

Despite the successes of routine national childhood vaccination programmes, measles remains a public health concern. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how patterns of parental attitudes are linked to the decision-making process for or against MMR vaccination. This exploratory study was designed to identify distinct patterns of attitudes towards or against measles vaccination through Latent Class Analysis (LCA) in a sub-sample of mothers living in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. Parents of young children below 36 months of age were randomly selected through parents' counsellors' registries. Among other questions, respondents were asked to state their agreement in response to 14 belief statements regarding measles vaccination on a 5-point Likert scale. To identify groups of parents showing distinct patterns of attitudes and beliefs regarding measles vaccination, we used Latent Class Analysis (LCA). The LCA showed three classes of parents with different attitudes and believes towards measles vaccination: The biggest group (class 1) are those having positive attitudes towards immunisation, followed by the second biggest group (class 2) which is characterised by having fearful attitudes and by showing uncertainty about immunisation. The third group (class 3) shows distinct patterns of critical attitudes against immunisation. Within this group over 90 % agree or totally agree that immunisation is an artificial intrusion into the natural immune system and therefore want to vaccinate their children only if necessary. We find that parents in the Canton Aargau who hesitate to vaccinate their children against measles, mumps and rubella show distinct opinions and attitudes. Health professionals should be aware of these perceptions to tailor their messages accordingly and positively influence these parents to vaccinate their children. Special attention needs to be given to those parents who are planning to vaccinate their children but are not following the

Pride, Paternalism, Prejudice—Images of the Working Class

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ove Skarpenes

2018-01-01

Full Text Available What has happened with the image of the working class? The hero in the construction of the Nordic Model was the labor movement (and the working class. For a long time, this was the dominant picture of the Norwegian working class. However, the societal trends of the past decades have, in a peculiar way, given the working class a central place in political discussions and in the public sphere, but now, a more ambivalent image emerges. In a somewhat paternalistic way, the worker image in political and academic debates as well as in part of the public sphere is typically that of a person unsuccessful in the educational system. Even a third image is identifiable in the public sphere—a prejudice imagery—in which the class is labelled as unhealthy, abusing the welfare system, culturally unsophisticated, and politically dangerous, moving toward right-wing populism. The ambition of the paper is to present these different images of the working class.

Normative and counter-normative stress messages and symptom reporting: implications for health promotion and a methodological artefact for stress research.

Science.gov (United States)

Ferguson, Eamonn; Lawrence, Claire

2013-05-01

There is increasing use of counter-normative health messages (i.e., evidence-based health information about cause-effect relationships that run counter to shared normative beliefs, e.g., stress can lead to personal growth). The current studies examine the effect of normative and counter-normative messages about stress on levels of symptom reporting. Predictions are derived from reactance, social comparison, and self-enhancement theories. Two studies focus on the development of the messages, and two experimental studies examine the effect of manipulating normative and counter-normative messages on symptom reports. The final study controls for mere-measurement effects and explores the role of stress process variables (appraisals and coping). Exposure to a normative message (stress causes ill health) results in reduced symptom reporting compared to a counter-normative message (stress provides challenge, growth, and development) and control groups. The results suggest that people may use symptom reporting strategically to indicate coping. Based on the argument that beliefs about stress and health are stored as mental models, the theoretical associations derived from stress theory are only observed when a normative message is presented. Counter-normative stress messages may carry no tangible benefits compared to normative messages. Some stress research may suffer from inherent methodological bias when normative information is provided in information and consent sheets. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? At present, nothing is known about counter-normative health messages, despite the fact that they are becoming widely used as a public intervention. What does this study add? A clear operational definition of counter-normative messages. A test of three competing theories for counter-normative messages that focus of the stress-symptom link. Demonstrating for the first time, that in the domain of stress and health, counter-normative messages

19 CFR 4.7d - Container status messages.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-01

... 19 Customs Duties 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Container status messages. 4.7d Section 4.7d... TREASURY VESSELS IN FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC TRADES Arrival and Entry of Vessels § 4.7d Container status messages. (a) Container status messages required. In addition to the advance filing requirements pursuant...

Identifying spam e-mail messages using an intelligence algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Parichehr Ghaedi

2014-06-01

Full Text Available During the past few years, there have been growing interests in using email for delivering various types of messages such as social, financial, etc. There are also people who use email messages to promote products and services or even to do criminal activities called Spam email. These unwanted messages are sent to different target population for different purposes and there is a growing interest to develop methods to filter such email messages. This paper presents a method to filter Spam email messages based on the keyword pattern. In this article, a multi-agent filter trade based on the Bayes rule, which has benefit of using the users’ interest, keywords and investigation the message content according to its topic, has been used. Then Nested Neural Network has been used to detect the spam messages. To check the authenticity of this proposed method, we test it for a couple of email messages, so that it could determine spams and hams from each other, effectively. The result shows the superiority of this method over the previous ones including filters with Multi-Layer Perceptron that detect spams.

Short Message Service (SMS) Texting Symbols: A Functional Analysis of 10,000 Cellular Phone Text Messages

Science.gov (United States)

Beasley, Robert E.

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of symbolic expressions (e.g., "BTW," "LOL," "UR") in an SMS text messaging corpus consisting of over 10,000 text messages. More specifically, the purpose was to determine, not only how frequently these symbolic expressions are used, but how they are utilized in terms of the language functions…

How consumers evaluate eWOM (electronic word-of-mouth) messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Doh, Sun-Jae; Hwang, Jang-Sun

2009-04-01

This experiment explored how consumers evaluate electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) messages about products. Each participant was exposed a 10-message set in a single board. Five groups were manipulated in terms of their ratios of positive and negative messages. The result showed significant differences across various sets of eWOM messages. Although more positive sets showed higher scores in many cases, this was not true in all situations, especially for the case of credibility. Involvement and prior knowledge partially moderated the relationship between the ratio of messages and the eWOM effect. The credibility of Web sites and eWOM messages can be damaged in the long run if all of the eWOM messages are positive.

An Optimal Non-Interactive Message Authentication Protocol

OpenAIRE

Pasini, Sylvain; Vaudenay, Serge

2006-01-01

Vaudenay recently proposed a message authentication protocol which is interactive and based on short authenticated strings (SAS). We study here SAS-based non-interactive message authentication protocols (NIMAP). We start by the analysis of two popular non-interactive message authentication protocols. The first one is based on a collision-resistant hash function and was presented by Balfanz et al. The second protocol is based on a universal hash function family and was proposed by Gehrmann, Mi...

Text messaging-based smoking cessation intervention: a narrative review.

Science.gov (United States)

Kong, Grace; Ells, Daniel M; Camenga, Deepa R; Krishnan-Sarin, Suchitra

2014-05-01

Smoking cessation interventions delivered via text messaging on mobile phones may enhance motivations to quit smoking. The goal of this narrative review is to describe the text messaging interventions' theoretical contents, frequency and duration, treatment outcome, and sample characteristics such as age and motivation to quit, to better inform the future development of this mode of intervention. Studies were included if text messaging was primarily used to deliver smoking cessation intervention and published in English in a peer-reviewed journal. All articles were coded by two independent raters to determine eligibility and to extract data. Twenty-two studies described 15 text messaging interventions. About half of the interventions recruited adults (ages 30-40) and the other half targeted young adults (ages 18-29). Fourteen interventions sent text messages during the quit phase, 10 had a preparation phase and eight had a maintenance phase. The number of text messages and the duration of the intervention varied. All used motivational messages grounded in social cognitive behavioral theories, 11 used behavioral change techniques, and 14 used individually tailored messages. Eleven interventions also offered other smoking cessation tools. Three interventions yielded smoking cessation outcomes greater than the control condition. The proliferation of text messaging in recent years suggests that text messaging interventions may have the potential to improve smoking cessation rates. Detailed summary of the interventions suggests areas for future research and clinical application. More rigorous studies are needed to identify components of the interventions that can enhance their acceptability, feasibility and efficacy. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Preference for gain- or loss-framed electronic cigarette prevention messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Kong, Grace; Cavallo, Dana A; Camenga, Deepa R; Morean, Meghan E; Krishnan-Sarin, Suchitra

2016-11-01

Effective electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) prevention messages are needed to combat the rising popularity/uptake of e-cigarettes among youth. We examined preferences for e-cigarette prevention messages that either emphasized gains (e.g., You save money by not using e-cigarettes) or losses (e.g., You spend money by using e-cigarettes) among adolescents and young adults. Using surveys in two middle schools, four high schools, and one college in CT (N=5405), we assessed students' preferences for gain- or loss-framed e-cigarette prevention messages related to four themes: financial cost, health risks, addiction potential, and social labeling as a smoker. We also assessed whether preferences for each message framing theme differed by sex, school level, cigarette-use status, and e-cigarette use-status. We also examined whether preference for message framing differed by cigarette and e-cigarette susceptibility status among never e-cigarette users. Overall, loss-framing was preferred for message themes related to health risks, addiction potential, and social labeling as a smoker, whereas gain-framing was preferred for message themes related to financial cost. Logistic regression analyses showed that 1) females preferred loss-framed messages for all themes relative to males, 2) lifetime e-cigarette users preferred loss-framed health risks and social labeling messages relative to never users, and 3) high school students preferred gain-framed social labeling messages relative to college students. The preference for message framing did not differ by cigarette or e-cigarette susceptibility. Preference for message framing differed by themes and individual characteristics. This formative research could inform the construction of persuasive e-cigarette prevention messages. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Quantum messages with signatures forgeable in arbitrated quantum signature schemes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Taewan; Choi, Jeong Woon; Jho, Nam-Su; Lee, Soojoon

2015-01-01

Even though a method to perfectly sign quantum messages has not been known, the arbitrated quantum signature scheme has been considered as one of the good candidates. However, its forgery problem has been an obstacle to the scheme becoming a successful method. In this paper, we consider one situation, which is slightly different from the forgery problem, that we use to check whether at least one quantum message with signature can be forged in a given scheme, although all the messages cannot be forged. If there are only a finite number of forgeable quantum messages in the scheme, then the scheme can be secured against the forgery attack by not sending forgeable quantum messages, and so our situation does not directly imply that we check whether the scheme is secure against the attack. However, if users run a given scheme without any consideration of forgeable quantum messages, then a sender might transmit such forgeable messages to a receiver and in such a case an attacker can forge the messages if the attacker knows them. Thus it is important and necessary to look into forgeable quantum messages. We show here that there always exists such a forgeable quantum message-signature pair for every known scheme with quantum encryption and rotation, and numerically show that there are no forgeable quantum message-signature pairs that exist in an arbitrated quantum signature scheme. (paper)

Effects of ethnic targeting on the perceived effectiveness of cancer prevention messages among latinas and non-latina white women.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramírez, A Susana

2013-01-01

In general, efforts to target Latinos are made through Spanish-language messages, yet 75% of U.S. Latinos are bilingual or English dominant. Acculturation (adapting mainstream traits) is associated with increased lifestyle-related risk behaviors. Latinos maintain cultural traits and ethnic identification even as they appear to acculturate (e.g., through language). This raises questions about how to communicate health information to more-acculturated Latinos who are not reached by traditional Spanish outreach yet may not identify with general-market messages. This study tested the relative efficacy of English-language messages targeted to Latinas, compared with general-market messages, among highly acculturated Latina women and non-Latina White women. In this pair of online experiments, Latinas (n = 715) and non-Latina White women (n = 704) rated the perceived effectiveness of general-market versus Latina-targeted Pap smear and mammogram public service announcements. In 1 of 2 experiments ethnically targeted messages were rated relatively more effective for the intended audience and equally effective for the general audience. The author discusses implications for how campaigns reach U.S. Latinos across the acculturation spectrum.

Countering Islamic State Messaging Through “Linkage-Based” Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J.M. Berger

2017-08-01

Full Text Available The Islamic State’s recent losses on the battlefield, including significant casualties within its media and propaganda division, offer a unique opportunity to inject competing and alternative messages into the information space. This paper proposes that the content of such messages should be guided by a linkage-based analysis of existing Islamic State messaging. A linkage-based analysis of a top-level 2017 audio message by Islamic State spokesperson Abu Hasan al Muhajir offers several potential insights into crafting effective content for competing and alternative messages. A comparison of the 2017 work to earlier Islamic State messaging also reveals specific opportunities to undermine the credibility of the organisation’s broader propaganda programme by highlighting the organisation’s repeated failure to follow through on its extravagantly promised commitment to achieving its stated goals.

RSA Key Development Using Fingerprint Image on Text Message

Science.gov (United States)

Rahman, Sayuti; Triana, Indah; Khairani, Sumi; Yasir, Amru; Sundari, Siti

2017-12-01

Along with the development of technology today, humans are very facilitated in accessing information and Communicate with various media, including through the Internet network . Messages are sent by media such as text are not necessarily guaranteed security. it is often found someone that wants to send a secret message to the recipient, but the messages can be known by irresponsible people. So the sender feels dissappointed because the secret message that should be known only to the recipient only becomes known by the irresponsible people . It is necessary to do security the message by using the RSA algorithm, Using fingerprint image to generate RSA key.This is a solution to enrich the security of a message,it is needed to process images firstly before generating RSA keys with feature extraction.

Designing messages with high sensation value: when activation meets reactance.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Jie

2015-01-01

Based on two theoretical models--activation model of information exposure and psychological reactance theory--this study examined the individual and combined effects of message sensation value (MSV) and controlling language on young adults' information processing. Two experimental studies on anti-drunken driving and anti-smoking public service announcements were conducted that were conceptual replications of one another. The measures included perceived threat to freedom, sensation seeking, perceived ad effectiveness and state reactance (anger). Across the two studies, MSV was found to advance the perceived ad effectiveness, and controlling language contributed to anger. A consistent interaction was revealed, such that participants responded positively to the high sensation value messages when presented with low controlling language. The effect of high sensation value anti-smoking ads to advance persuasiveness particularly under the condition of low controlling language was more influential to low sensation seekers. This study suggests that increasing MSV coupled with high controlling language can backfire, especially when targeting young adults. The implications for persuasion in general are considered, as well as the specific findings for drunken driving and smoking.

Low message sensation health promotion videos are better remembered and activate areas of the brain associated with memory encoding.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David Seelig

Full Text Available Greater sensory stimulation in advertising has been postulated to facilitate attention and persuasion. For this reason, video ads promoting health behaviors are often designed to be high in "message sensation value" (MSV, a standardized measure of sensory intensity of the audiovisual and content features of an ad. However, our previous functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI study showed that low MSV ads were better remembered and produced more prefrontal and temporal and less occipital cortex activation, suggesting that high MSV may divert cognitive resources from processing ad content. The present study aimed to determine whether these findings from anti-smoking ads generalize to other public health topics, such as safe sex. Thirty-nine healthy adults viewed high- and low MSV ads promoting safer sex through condom use, during an fMRI session. Recognition memory of the ads was tested immediately and 3 weeks after the session. We found that low MSV condom ads were better remembered than the high MSV ads at both time points and replicated the fMRI patterns previously reported for the anti-smoking ads. Occipital and superior temporal activation was negatively related to the attitudes favoring condom use (see Condom Attitudes Scale, Methods and Materials section. Psychophysiological interaction (PPI analysis of the relation between occipital and fronto-temporal (middle temporal and inferior frontal gyri cortices revealed weaker negative interactions between occipital and fronto-temporal cortices during viewing of the low MSV that high MSV ads. These findings confirm that the low MSV video health messages are better remembered than the high MSV messages and that this effect generalizes across public health domains. The greater engagement of the prefrontal and fronto-temporal cortices by low MSV ads and the greater occipital activation by high MSV ads suggest that that the "attention-grabbing" high MSV format could impede the learning and

Low message sensation health promotion videos are better remembered and activate areas of the brain associated with memory encoding.

Science.gov (United States)

Seelig, David; Wang, An-Li; Jagannathan, Kanchana; Jaganathan, Kanchana; Loughead, James W; Blady, Shira J; Childress, Anna Rose; Romer, Daniel; Langleben, Daniel D

2014-01-01

Greater sensory stimulation in advertising has been postulated to facilitate attention and persuasion. For this reason, video ads promoting health behaviors are often designed to be high in "message sensation value" (MSV), a standardized measure of sensory intensity of the audiovisual and content features of an ad. However, our previous functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study showed that low MSV ads were better remembered and produced more prefrontal and temporal and less occipital cortex activation, suggesting that high MSV may divert cognitive resources from processing ad content. The present study aimed to determine whether these findings from anti-smoking ads generalize to other public health topics, such as safe sex. Thirty-nine healthy adults viewed high- and low MSV ads promoting safer sex through condom use, during an fMRI session. Recognition memory of the ads was tested immediately and 3 weeks after the session. We found that low MSV condom ads were better remembered than the high MSV ads at both time points and replicated the fMRI patterns previously reported for the anti-smoking ads. Occipital and superior temporal activation was negatively related to the attitudes favoring condom use (see Condom Attitudes Scale, Methods and Materials section). Psychophysiological interaction (PPI) analysis of the relation between occipital and fronto-temporal (middle temporal and inferior frontal gyri) cortices revealed weaker negative interactions between occipital and fronto-temporal cortices during viewing of the low MSV that high MSV ads. These findings confirm that the low MSV video health messages are better remembered than the high MSV messages and that this effect generalizes across public health domains. The greater engagement of the prefrontal and fronto-temporal cortices by low MSV ads and the greater occipital activation by high MSV ads suggest that that the "attention-grabbing" high MSV format could impede the learning and retention of public

Hearts or minds? Identifying persuasive messages on climate change

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bethany Albertson

2015-03-01

Full Text Available This article sheds light on what kinds of appeals persuade the US public on climate change. Using an experimental design, we assign a diverse sample of 330 participants to one of four conditions: an economic self-interest appeal, a moral appeal, a mixed appeal combining self-interest and morality and a control condition with no persuasive appeal.1 Participants were then asked a series of questions about their willingness to support advocacy efforts, including such actions as writing a letter to Congress, signing a petition and joining an organization. We hypothesized that for issues like climate change where it is expensive to address the problem, arguments based on self-interest are more likely to be persuasive than moral appeals. Our experiment yielded some surprising results. Knowledge was an important moderator of people’s attitudes on climate change in response to the persuasive messages. We found that among respondents who were more knowledgeable about climate change that the economic frame was most the persuasive in terms of a subject’s willingness to take actions to support the cause. However, among low knowledge respondents, the control condition without messaging yielded the most concern.

Hybrid Message-Embedded Cipher Using Logistic Map

OpenAIRE

Mishra, Mina; Mankar, V. H.

2012-01-01

The proposed hybrid message embedded scheme consists of hill cipher combined with message embedded chaotic scheme. Message-embedded scheme using non-linear feedback shift register as non-linear function and 1-D logistic map as chaotic map is modified, analyzed and tested for avalanche property and strength against known plaintext attack and brute-force attack. Parameter of logistic map acts as a secret key. As we know that the minimum key space to resist brute-force attack is 2100, and it is ...

Messages about Sexuality: An Ecological Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Boone, Tanya L.

2015-01-01

The goal of this two-part study was to identify the perceived influence of sexuality messages from parents, peers, school and the media--four microsystems within the Ecological Model--on emerging adult US college women's sexual attitudes. Findings suggest that parents were the most likely source of the message to "remain abstinent until…

Class prediction for high-dimensional class-imbalanced data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lusa Lara

2010-10-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The goal of class prediction studies is to develop rules to accurately predict the class membership of new samples. The rules are derived using the values of the variables available for each subject: the main characteristic of high-dimensional data is that the number of variables greatly exceeds the number of samples. Frequently the classifiers are developed using class-imbalanced data, i.e., data sets where the number of samples in each class is not equal. Standard classification methods used on class-imbalanced data often produce classifiers that do not accurately predict the minority class; the prediction is biased towards the majority class. In this paper we investigate if the high-dimensionality poses additional challenges when dealing with class-imbalanced prediction. We evaluate the performance of six types of classifiers on class-imbalanced data, using simulated data and a publicly available data set from a breast cancer gene-expression microarray study. We also investigate the effectiveness of some strategies that are available to overcome the effect of class imbalance. Results Our results show that the evaluated classifiers are highly sensitive to class imbalance and that variable selection introduces an additional bias towards classification into the majority class. Most new samples are assigned to the majority class from the training set, unless the difference between the classes is very large. As a consequence, the class-specific predictive accuracies differ considerably. When the class imbalance is not too severe, down-sizing and asymmetric bagging embedding variable selection work well, while over-sampling does not. Variable normalization can further worsen the performance of the classifiers. Conclusions Our results show that matching the prevalence of the classes in training and test set does not guarantee good performance of classifiers and that the problems related to classification with class

Real Time Assessment of Young Adults' Attitudes toward Tobacco Messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Hébert, Emily T; Vandewater, Elizabeth A; Businelle, Michael S; Harrell, Melissa B; Kelder, Steven H; Perry, Cheryl L

2018-01-01

We used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine young adults' attitudes towards pro-tobacco messages encountered in real time and their association with intentions to use tobacco. Young adults (N = 92, ages 18-29) recorded sightings of marketing or social media related to tobacco in real time via mobile app for 28 days. Participants reported message characteristics, their attitudes towards the message, and intentions to use the depicted product for each submission. We used generalized linear mixed models to examine factors related to attitude towards message and intentions to use tobacco. Messages depicting e-cigarettes (p < .001) or hookah (p < .05) were associated with significantly more favorable attitudes compared with traditional cigarettes. Positive attitude towards the message was significantly associated with intention to use the depicted product (p < .001). Messages depicting e-cigarettes and hookah were significantly associated with higher intention to use. Message source was not significantly related to attitudes towards the message or product use intentions. Marketing featuring e-cigarettes and hookah is an important target for future regulation. Given that pro-tobacco and e-cigarette messages are prevalent online, future research should consider the Internet and social media as important venues for counter-marketing and intervention efforts.

Vapor Store Owner Beliefs and Messages to Customers.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheney, Marshall K; Gowin, Mary; Wann, Taylor Franklin

2016-05-01

Electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use is becoming increasingly popular but little is known about the role of the local vapor store in promoting use and influencing customer attitudes and beliefs about vaping. Thirty-three vapor store owners were interviewed about their personal beliefs and attitudes about e-cigarettes and what they told customers about the health impact of using e-cigarettes. Interviews were recorded then transcribed, coded, and analyzed for themes. Vapor store owners used the internet to obtain information about vaping, most often from YouTube and industry sources. Owners often did not have the training to critically evaluate research studies posted on the internet. Owners promoted vaping as a healthier alternative to smoking and often compared it to a medical treatment. Owners considered ingredients in the e-liquid as safe to use if it was safe to eat and discussed other foods vapor ingredients were found in. Owners also discussed the safety of secondhand vapor. Owners described the health impact of nicotine in e-liquid by comparing nicotine to caffeine and promoted the nicotine in e-liquid as coming from vegetables rather than tobacco. Finally, owners talked about vaping as a habit rather than a continued addiction to nicotine. Local store owners are an important source of health information for current and potential e-cigarette users but their messages to customers may be based on incomplete or misinterpreted information. Understanding local store owner messages to customers in addition to internet-based messages is an important area for future public health research. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Alternative Data Storage Solution for Mobile Messaging Services

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David C. C. Ong

2007-01-01

Full Text Available In recent years, mobile devices have become relatively more powerful with additional features which have the capability to provide multimedia streaming. Better, faster and more reliable data storage solutions in the mobile messaging platform have become more essential with these additional improvements. The existing mobile messaging infrastructure, in particular the data storage platform has become less proficient in coping with the increased demand for its services. This demand especially in the mobile messaging area (i.e. SMS – Short Messaging Service, MMS – Multimedia Messaging Service, which may well exceeded 250,000 requests per second, means that the need to evaluate competing data management systems has become not only necessary but essential. This paper presents an evaluation of SMS and MMS platforms using different database management systems – DBMS and recommends the best data management strategies for these platforms.

Learning from the Starry Message: Using Galileo's "Sidereus Nuncius" in Introductory Astronomy Classes

Science.gov (United States)

Wiesner, Matthew P.

2015-01-01

Every introductory astronomy class encounters Galileo during the course as the first man to systematically study the sky with a telescope. Every Astronomy 101 student meets Galileo as one of the major catalysts behind the shift from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican system and as one of the great minds behind the scientific method. But most of the…

Social media for message testing: a multilevel approach to linking favorable viewer responses with message, producer, and viewer influence on YouTube.

Science.gov (United States)

Paek, Hye-Jin; Hove, Thomas; Jeon, Jehoon

2013-01-01

To explore the feasibility of social media for message testing, this study connects favorable viewer responses to antismoking videos on YouTube with the videos' message characteristics (message sensation value [MSV] and appeals), producer types, and viewer influences (viewer rating and number of viewers). Through multilevel modeling, a content analysis of 7,561 viewer comments on antismoking videos is linked with a content analysis of 87 antismoking videos. Based on a cognitive response approach, viewer comments are classified and coded as message-oriented thought, video feature-relevant thought, and audience-generated thought. The three mixed logit models indicate that videos with a greater number of viewers consistently increased the odds of favorable viewer responses, while those presenting humor appeals decreased the odds of favorable message-oriented and audience-generated thoughts. Some significant interaction effects show that videos produced by laypeople may hinder favorable viewer responses, while a greater number of viewer comments can work jointly with videos presenting threat appeals to predict favorable viewer responses. Also, for a more accurate understanding of audience responses to the messages, nuance cues should be considered together with message features and viewer influences.

Can Personalized Nudges Improve Learning in Hybrid Classes? Experimental Evidence from an Introductory Undergraduate Course

Science.gov (United States)

O'Connell, Stephen D.; Lang, Guido

2018-01-01

A field experiment was conducted to investigate whether personalized e-mail reminders can improve study consistency and learning outcomes in an introductory-level undergraduate course. By randomly assigning whether nearly 300 students would receive occasional e-mail messages encouraging out-of-class study, we find that these reminders increased…

Expanded carrier screening: what determines intended participation and can this be influenced by message framing and narrative information?

Science.gov (United States)

Voorwinden, Jan S; Buitenhuis, Anne H; Birnie, Erwin; Lucassen, Anneke M; Verkerk, Marian A; van Langen, Irene M; Plantinga, Mirjam; Ranchor, Adelita V

2017-06-01

Next-generation sequencing enabled us to create a population-based expanded carrier screening (ECS) test that simultaneously tests for 50 serious autosomal recessive diseases. Before offering this test universally, we wanted to know what factors are related to intended participation and how the general public can be informed about the test without being influenced in their intention to participate. We studied this by measuring to what extent 'message framing' and 'narrative information' can influence people's intended participation. Data were collected by means of an online survey of 504 potential users, and the factors examined were based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and on previous research on intended participation in preconception carrier screening. Message framing was manipulated by explaining the risk of couple carriership in different ways, while narrative information was provided to only half of the respondents. The factors most positively related to intended participation were perceiving benefits of the screening, having a positive attitude towards the screening, having no religion, having an actual child wish and experiencing the choice to participate as easy. Perceived benefits and a positive attitude were most influential factors by far. Message framing and narrative information had no significant effect on intended participation, reinforcing that message framing and narrative information can help to inform the general public about ECS without influencing their intended participation. Future research should study if the importance of perceived benefits and a positive attitude can be replicated when other factors are included and when actual participation is measured instead of intended participation.

Driver memory for in-vehicle visual and auditory messages

Science.gov (United States)

1999-12-01

Three experiments were conducted in a driving simulator to evaluate effects of in-vehicle message modality and message format on comprehension and memory for younger and older drivers. Visual icons and text messages were effective in terms of high co...

Representing culture in interstellar messages

Science.gov (United States)

Vakoch, Douglas A.

2008-09-01

As scholars involved with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) have contemplated how we might portray humankind in any messages sent to civilizations beyond Earth, one of the challenges they face is adequately representing the diversity of human cultures. For example, in a 2003 workshop in Paris sponsored by the SETI Institute, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) SETI Permanent Study Group, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (ISAST), and the John Templeton Foundation, a varied group of artists, scientists, and scholars from the humanities considered how to encode notions of altruism in interstellar messages . Though the group represented 10 countries, most were from Europe and North America, leading to the group's recommendation that subsequent discussions on the topic should include more globally representative perspectives. As a result, the IAA Study Group on Interstellar Message Construction and the SETI Institute sponsored a follow-up workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA in February 2005. The Santa Fe workshop brought together scholars from a range of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, chemistry, communication science, philosophy, and psychology. Participants included scholars familiar with interstellar message design as well as specialists in cross-cultural research who had participated in the Symposium on Altruism in Cross-cultural Perspective, held just prior to the workshop during the annual conference of the Society for Cross-cultural Research . The workshop included discussion of how cultural understandings of altruism can complement and critique the more biologically based models of altruism proposed for interstellar messages at the 2003 Paris workshop. This paper, written by the chair of both the Paris and Santa Fe workshops, will explore the challenges of communicating concepts of altruism that draw on both biological and cultural models.

Safety class methodology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Donner, E.B.; Low, J.M.; Lux, C.R.

1992-01-01

DOE Order 6430.1A, General Design Criteria (GDC), requires that DOE facilities be evaluated with respect to ''safety class items.'' Although the GDC defines safety class items, it does not provide a methodology for selecting safety class items. The methodology described in this paper was developed to assure that Safety Class Items at the Savannah River Site (SRS) are selected in a consistent and technically defensible manner. Safety class items are those in the highest of four categories determined to be of special importance to nuclear safety and, merit appropriately higher-quality design, fabrication, and industrial test standards and codes. The identification of safety class items is approached using a cascading strategy that begins at the 'safety function' level (i.e., a cooling function, ventilation function, etc.) and proceeds down to the system, component, or structure level. Thus, the items that are required to support a safety function are SCls. The basic steps in this procedure apply to the determination of SCls for both new project activities, and for operating facilities. The GDC lists six characteristics of SCls to be considered as a starting point for safety item classification. They are as follows: 1. Those items whose failure would produce exposure consequences that would exceed the guidelines in Section 1300-1.4, ''Guidance on Limiting Exposure of the Public,'' at the site boundary or nearest point of public access 2. Those items required to maintain operating parameters within the safety limits specified in the Operational Safety Requirements during normal operations and anticipated operational occurrences. 3. Those items required for nuclear criticality safety. 4. Those items required to monitor the release of radioactive material to the environment during and after a Design Basis Accident. Those items required to achieve, and maintain the facility in a safe shutdown condition 6. Those items that control Safety Class Item listed above

Gender messages in contemporary popular Malay songs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Collin Jerome

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Gender has been an important area of research in the field of popular music studies. Numerous scholars have found that contemporary popular music functions as a locus of diverse constructions and expressions of gender. While most studies focus on content analyses of popular music, there is still a need for more research on audience’s perception of popular music’s messages. This study examined adult Malay listeners’ perceptions of gender messages in contemporary Malay songs. A total of 16 contemporary Malay songs were analysed using Fairclough’s (1992 method of text analysis. The content of the songs that conveyed messages about gender were the basis for analysis. The results showed that the messages revolve mainly around socially constructed gender roles and expectations in romantic relationships. Gender stereotypes are also used in the songs to reinforce men’s and women’s roles in romantic relationships. The results also showed that, while listeners acknowledge the songs’ messages about gender, their own perceptions of gender and what it means to be a gendered being in today’s world are neither represented nor discussed fully in the songs analysed. It is hoped the findings from this, particularly the mismatch between projected and perceived notions of gender, contribute to the field of popular Malay music studies in particular, and popular music studies in general where gender messages in popular songs and their influence on listeners’ perceptions of their own gender is concerned.

Synchronous message-based communication for distributed heterogeneous systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wilkinson, N.; Dohan, D.

1992-01-01

The use of a synchronous, message-based real-time operating system (Unison) as the basis of transparent interprocess and inter-processor communication over VME-bus is described. The implementation of a synchronous, message-based protocol for network communication between heterogeneous systems is discussed. In particular, the design and implementation of a message-based session layer over a virtual circuit transport layer protocol using UDP/IP is described. Inter-process communication is achieved via a message-based semantic which is portable by virtue of its ease of implementation in other operating system environments. Protocol performance for network communication among heterogeneous architecture is presented, including VMS, Unix, Mach and Unison. (author)

The prototype message broadcast system for the superconducting super collider

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Low, K.; Skegg, R.

1991-01-01

This paper presents a prototype unified message broadcast system to handle the site-wide distribution of all control system messages for the Superconducting Super Collider. The messages are assembled in the control room area and encapsulated for transmission via a general fiber-optic link system to devices distributed throughout 70 miles of tunnels. An embedded timing signal is used by the distribution system to ensure that messages arrive at all devices simultaneously. Devices receive messages using a special receiver sub-system

Frightfully funny: Combining threat and humour in health messages for men and women

OpenAIRE

Hendriks, Hanneke; Janssen, Loes

2017-01-01

Objective: It is imperative for public health to investigate what factors may reduce defensive responses and increase the effectiveness of health information. The present research investigated gender differences in responses to threatening health-promoting information communicated with humour. Design: Male and female participants were exposed to a health message stressing the negative consequences of binge drinking (Experiment 1; N = 209) or caffeine consumption (Experiment 2; N = 242), that ...

(In-)Secure messaging with the Silent Circle instant messaging protocol

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Verschoor, S.R.; Lange, T.

2016-01-01

Silent Text, the instant messaging application by the company Silent Circle, provides its users with end-to-end encrypted communication on the Blackphone and other smartphones. The underlying protocol, SCimp, has received many extensions during the update to version 2, but has not been subjected to

Mobile phone text messaging to improve knowledge and practice of diabetic foot care in a developing country: Feasibility and outcomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Hassan, Zeinab M

2017-06-01

To test the feasibility and effectiveness of using mobile phone text messaging to reinforce learning and the practice of diabetic foot care in a developing country. Ongoing learning reinforcement (2-3 times weekly) by text messaging followed an informal class on diabetic foot care in a community clinic setting. Subjects with cell phone access and no history of diabetic foot wounds or current wounds were recruited for participation (N = 225). Foot examinations and pretesting by survey occurred just before patients departed the clinic; the posttest survey and a final foot examination occurred 12 weeks later. The survey included basic demographic items along with items to measure knowledge and current foot care practices. One sample t tests (raw scores) and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests compared knowledge and practice before and after intervention. Initially, a majority of the sample (76%) reported poor levels of foot care. After 12 weeks text messaging is an economical, feasible, and effective method for educators to improve diabetic self-care, even in a developing country. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.

Simple messaging and collaboration system for heterogeneous organizations operating in disaster environments

OpenAIRE

Meyer, Ramsey

2011-01-01

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. A novel communication system for use by a wide variety of first responders in disaster response is described. The system is based primarily on SMS messaging technologies and either indigenous mobile phone service providers or mobile phone service brought in via cellular-on-wheels (COWs), UAVs, rapidly deployed towers, etc. End users use either their own cell phones, running a native SMS application, or low-cost phones that are dist...

Mental health message appeals and audience engagement: Evidence from Australia.

Science.gov (United States)

Yap, Jo En; Zubcevic-Basic, Nives; Johnson, Lester W; Lodewyckx, Michaela A

2017-09-07

Social media platforms are increasingly used to disseminate social marketing messages about mental health and wellbeing. This study presents a range of message appeals used in social media enabled mental health promotion and stigma reduction messages. Furthermore, it examines the relationship between the type of message appeals and audience engagement. A content analysis of 65 organisation-generated YouTube videos about depression and anxiety and stigma reduction was conducted. The most utilised message appeal was Sorrow, followed by Affiliation, Ease/Convenience, Hope, Humour, Guilt/Shame, Heroic/Successful, and Fear. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between the type of message appeals and audience engagement in terms of the number of likes, comments, and shares. The analysis revealed that Sorrow is the most useful message appeal for generating audience comments. However, Sorrow is negatively associated with the number of likes and shares. The results suggest that mental health promotion messages may engage a larger audience through Affiliation and Hope as they have a positive impact on the number of shares. This could, in effect, turn audiences into vocal advocates for mental health promotion and stigma reduction messages. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Bidirectional Text Messaging to Improve Adherence to Recommended Lipid Testing.

Science.gov (United States)

Baldwin, Laura-Mae; Morrison, Caitlin; Griffin, Jonathan; Anderson, Nick; Edwards, Kelly; Green, Jeff; Waldren, Cleary; Reiter, William

2017-01-01

Synergies between technology and health care in the United States are accelerating, increasing opportunities to leverage these technologies to improve patient care. This study was a collaboration between an academic study team, a rural primary care clinic, and a local nonprofit informatics company developing tools to improve patient care through population management. Our team created a text messaging management tool, then developed methods for and tested the feasibility of bidirectional text messaging to remind eligible patients about the need for lipid testing. We measured patient response to the text messages, then interviewed 8 patients to explore their text messaging experience. Of the 129 patients the clinic was able to contact by phone, 29.4% had no cell phone or text-messaging capabilities. An additional 20% refused to participate. Two thirds of the 28 patients who participated in the text messaging intervention (67.9%) responded to at least 1 of the up to 3 messages. Seven of 8 interviewed patients had a positive text-messaging experience. Bidirectional text messaging is a feasible and largely acceptable form of communication for test reminders that has the potential to reach large numbers of patients in clinical care. © Copyright 2017 by the American Board of Family Medicine.

VISUAL ART AND REGULATORY FIT MESSAGES ON CONSUMER EVALUATIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danielle Mantovani

2016-03-01

Full Text Available In this study, we demonstrate that the art infusion effect, in which the presence of visual art causes a positive impact on consumers’ perceptions of products and advertising messages, might have a moderation effect on regulatory fit and non-fit messages. We investigate the impact of visual art on advertisement evaluations in regulatory (non- fit conditions. Regulatory focus theory suggests that consumers rely on their motivational focus (prevention vs. promotion for their evaluations and decisions. Usually, consumers prefer products that fit with their personal motivational focus. In the present study, the results of three experiments indicate that using visual art with a promotion or prevention fit message is recommended, while non-art images increase message persuasiveness when non-fit messages are presented. Therefore, not all information compatible with the consumer’s motivational focus are best evaluated. When non-art images are presented, non-fit messages might be more persuasive.

Public Relations vs. Propaganda

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexandru BASTIAN

2006-10-01

Full Text Available The paper aims at presenting the characteristics, methods and aplications of two related activities – Public Relations and propaganda. Although different from the piont of wiev of purpose and results (the practice of Public Relations aims at establishing and maintaining mutual lines of communications, understanding, acceptance, and cooperation between an organization and its publics, through transparency and honesty, while propaganda insists on a message that is intended primarily to serve the interests of the messenger. in order to influence public opinion and to manipulate other people’s beliefs by any means necessary, the two activities also present quite a lot of similarities.

Understanding the effectiveness of the entertainment-education strategy: an investigation of how audience involvement, message processing, and message design influence health information recall.

Science.gov (United States)

Quintero Johnson, Jessie M; Harrison, Kristen; Quick, Brian L

2013-01-01

A growing body of evidence suggests that entertainment-education (EE) is a promising health communication strategy. The purpose of this study was to identify some of the factors that facilitate and hinder audience involvement with EE messages. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the authors introduce a construct they call experiential involvement, which describes the experience of being cognitively and emotionally involved with EE messages and is a product of transportation into an EE text and identification with EE characters. Using an experimental design, the authors also investigated how reports of experiential involvement and health information recall varied depending on the degree to which the educational content was well integrated with the narrative content in EE messages. Findings indicated that integration significantly influenced health information recall. Results indicated that experiential involvement and the perception that the health topic in EE messages was personally relevant predicted participants' systematic processing of the information in EE messages. Contrary to expectation, personal relevance did not predict experiential involvement, and systematic message processing was negatively related to health information recall. Implications for the construction of EE messages and the study of the EE strategy are discussed.

Lung Cancer Messages on Twitter: Content Analysis and Evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Sutton, Jeannette; Vos, Sarah C; Olson, Michele K; Woods, Chelsea; Cohen, Elisia; Gibson, C Ben; Phillips, Nolan Edward; Studts, Jamie L; Eberth, Jan M; Butts, Carter T

2018-01-01

The aim of this project was to describe and evaluate the levels of lung cancer communication across the cancer prevention and control continuum for content posted to Twitter during a 10-day period (September 30 to October 9) in 2016. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to identify relationships between tweet characteristics in lung cancer communication on Twitter and user-level data. Overall, 3,000 tweets published between September 30 and October 9 were assessed by a team of three coders. Lung cancer-specific tweets by user type (individuals, media, and organizations) were examined to identify content and structural message features. The study also assessed differences by user type in the use of hashtags, directed messages, health topic focus, and lung cancer-specific focus across the cancer control continuum. Across the universe of lung cancer tweets, the majority of tweets focused on treatment and the use of pharmaceutical and research interventions, followed by awareness and prevention and risk topics. Among all lung cancer tweets, messages were most consistently tweeted by individual users, and personal behavioral mobilizing cues to action were rare. Lung cancer advocates, as well as patient and medical advocacy organizations, with an interest in expanding the reach and effectiveness of social media efforts should monitor the topical nature of public tweets across the cancer continuum and consider integrating cues to action as a strategy to increase engagement and behavioral activation pertaining to lung cancer reduction efforts. Copyright © 2017 American College of Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Changing knowledge and beliefs through an oral health pregnancy message.

Science.gov (United States)

Bates, S Brady; Riedy, Christine A

2012-01-01

Pregnancy can be a critical and important period in which to intervene to improve oral health in both the mother and her child. This study examined an online approach for promoting awareness of oral health messages targeted at pregnant women, and whether this type of health messaging impacts oral health knowledge and beliefs. The study was conducted in three parts: production and pilot testing of a brief commercial, Web site/commercial launch and testing, and dissemination and monitoring of the commercial on a video-sharing site. The brief commercial and pre- and postsurveys were produced and pilot tested among a convenience sample of pregnant women (n = 13). The revised commercial and surveys were launched on a newly created Web site and monitored for activity. After 2 months, the commercial was uploaded to a popular video-sharing Web site. Fifty-five individuals completed both the pre- and postsurveys after the Web site was launched. No one responded 100 percent correctly on the presurvey; 77.4 percent responded correctly about dental visits during pregnancy, 66.0 percent about cavity prevention, and 50.9 percent about transmission of bacteria by saliva. Most respondents recalled the correct information on the posttest; 100 percent or close to 100 percent accurately responded about visiting the dentist during pregnancy and preventing cavities, while 79.2 percent responded correctly to the transmission question. Social media can effectively provide dental health messages during pregnancy. This approach can play an important role in increasing awareness and improving oral health of both mother and child. © 2011 American Association of Public Health Dentistry.

Message strategies in direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising: a content analysis using Taylor's six-segment message strategy wheel.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsai, Wan-Hsiu Sunny; Lancaster, Alyse R

2012-01-01

This exploratory study applies Taylor's (1999) six-segment message strategy wheel to direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical television commercials to understand message strategies adopted by pharmaceutical advertisers to persuade consumers. A convenience sample of 96 DTC commercial campaigns was analyzed. The results suggest that most DTC drug ads used a combination approach, providing consumers with medical and drug information while simultaneously appealing to the viewer's ego-related needs and desires. In contrast to ration and ego strategies, other approaches including routine, acute need, and social are relatively uncommon while sensory was the least common message strategy. Findings thus recognized the educational value of DTC commercials.

Micro-cultural customization of organ donation propagation messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Dunkel, Anke; Nakamoto, Kent; Schulz, Peter J

2018-05-01

Organ transplantation is plagued by limited availability of organs. This study investigated the effect of messages promoting organ donation which were customized according to the language-defined micro-cultures in Switzerland. Community-, informative-, and emotional-oriented messages were carried by conventional flyers. A 3 × 3 between-subjects experiment was conducted with short- and long-term willingness to donate, long-term signing of organ donation card and long-term interpersonal communication on organ donation as outcome variables. The culturally customized interventions appeared to have no immediate effect and consequently no differential effect on willingness to donate organs and on signing a donor card. Among the Swiss Germans, of the three messages, the community-oriented one instigated less interpersonal communication. Findings are consistent with a mechanism in which the message does not have an immediate effect on willingness to donate organs but motivates further thought and related behaviors that lead to higher commitment and later increased willingness to donate. Targeting not only the message but also the objective that drives the messages must be considered. Campaigns should include elements that build on the unfolding commitment process to promote the follow-up actions that lead to greater willingness. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Designing for scale: optimising the health information system architecture for mobile maternal health messaging in South Africa (MomConnect)

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Seebregts, C

2018-04-01

Full Text Available MomConnect is a national initiative coordinated by the South African National Department of Health that sends text-based mobile phone messages free of charge to pregnant women who voluntarily register at any public healthcare facility in South...

‘It’s about the smoke, not the smoker’: messages that motivate rural communities to support smoke-free policies

Science.gov (United States)

Kostygina, Ganna; Hahn, Ellen J.; Rayens, Mary Kay

2014-01-01

Rural residents are exposed to sophisticated tobacco advertising and tobacco growing represents an economic mainstay in many rural communities. There is a need for effective health messages to counter the pro-tobacco culture in these communities. To determine relevant cultural themes and key message features that affect receptivity to pro-health advertisements among rural residents, 11 exploratory focus groups and surveys with community advocates (N = 82) in three rural Kentucky counties were conducted. Participants reviewed and rated a collection of print media advertisements and branding materials used by rural communities to promote smoke-free policies. Findings reveal that negative emotional tone, loss framing, appeals to religiosity, and shifting focus away from smokers are effective strategies with rural audiences. Potential pitfalls were identified. Attacks on smokers may not be a useful strategy. Health risk messages reinforced beliefs of secondhand smoke harm but some argued that the messages needed to appeal to smokers and emphasize health hazards to smokers, rather than to non-smokers only. Messages describing ineffectiveness of smoking sections were understood but participants felt they were only relevant for restaurants and not all public spaces. Emphasis on religiosity and social norms shows promise as a culturally sensitive approach to promoting smoke-free environments in rural communities. PMID:23969628

Suspecting Neurological Dysfunction From E Mail Messages ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A non medical person suspected and confirmed neurological dysfunction in an individual, based only on e mail messages sent by the individual. With email communication becoming rampant “peculiar” email messages may raise the suspicion of neurological dysfunction. Organic pathology explaining the abnormal email ...

Tendency to Message Delivery in Internet Viral Marketing

OpenAIRE

Mostafa Ghazizadeh; Ahmad Sardari; Seyyed Reza Shojaee; Mehdi Samizadeh

2011-01-01

Abstract The main goal of this research is to review and determine the factors associated with tendency to forward the marketing messages in viral marketing plans of Fast-food industries. In other words, in this study, the effects of three critical determinants, i.e. commercial intention, attractiveness, and media richness have been examined on receivers' intention to forward marketing message in Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz. Findings imply that receivers’ attitude toward the message has pos...

Can persuasive and demonstrative messages to visitors reduce littering in river beaches?

Science.gov (United States)

Cingolani, Ana M; Barberá, Iván; Renison, Daniel; Barri, Fernando R

2016-12-01

Littering of public areas is a significant problem worldwide. Here we evaluate the success of persuasive and demonstrative messages at reducing littering in highly visited river beaches in Argentina. We made an intervention at the beaches which consisted of a personalized verbal request asking visitors to take their litter to the waste cans (persuasive message) while they were exposed to the example of picking up the litter already left on the beach (demonstrative message). We conducted 102 observations distributed over 29 dates, two years and four beaches. Each observation consisted of three or four rounds: before the presence of visitors we cleaned the beaches, during the stay of visitors we made the intervention (once or twice) in two out of the four beaches, and early next morning we estimated the amount of litter left per beach. Litter weight ranged from 0 to 53gvisitor -1 day -1 . Littering per visitor was reduced an average of 35% due to the intervention (p=0.049). We also found differences among beaches (p=0.001), and an increase in littering with crowding (p=0.005). We show for the first time that the personalized request combined with the example of picking up litter is effective in reducing littering in a Latin American country. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Teaching Students the Persuasive Message through Small Group Activity

Science.gov (United States)

Creelman, Valerie

2008-01-01

Teaching students to write persuasive messages is a critical feature of any undergraduate business communications course. For the persuasive writing module in the author's course, students write a persuasive message on the basis of the four-part indirect pattern often used for sales or fund-raising messages. The course text she uses identifies…

Public health communications for safe motherhood.

Science.gov (United States)

Kessel, E

1994-03-30

Public health communication aims to influence health practices of large populations, including maternal health care providers (traditional birth attendants, (TBAs), nurse-midwives, other indigenous practitioners, and physicians). A quality assurance process is needed to give public sector health providers feedback. Computerized record keeping is needing for quality assurance of maternal health programs. The Indian Rural Medical Association has trained more than 20,000 rural indigenous practitioners in West Bengal. Training of TBAs is expensive and rarely successful. However, trained health professional leading group discussions of TBAs is successful at teaching them about correct maternity care. Health education messages integrated into popular songs and drama is a way to reach large illiterate audiences. Even though a few donor agencies and governments provide time and technical assistance to take advantage of the mass media as a means to communicate health messages, the private sector has most of the potential. Commercial advertisements pay for Video on Wheels, which, with 100 medium-sized trucks each fitted with a 100-inch screen, plays movies for rural citizens of India. They are exposed to public and family planning messages. Jain Satellite Television (JST) broadcasts 24 hours a day and plans to broadcast programs on development, health and family planning, women's issues, and continuing education for all health care providers (physicians, nurses, TBAs, community workers, and indigenous practitioners). JST and the International Federation for Family Health plan to telecast courses as part of an Open University of Health Sciences.

Stigmatizing Images in Obesity Health Campaign Messages and Healthy Behavioral Intentions.

Science.gov (United States)

Young, Rachel; Subramanian, Roma; Hinnant, Amanda

2016-08-01

Background Antiobesity campaigns blaming individual behaviors for obesity have sparked concern that an emphasis on individual behavior may lead to stigmatization of overweight or obese people. Past studies have shown that perpetuating stigma is not effective for influencing behavior. Purpose This study examined whether stigmatizing or nonstigmatizing images and text in antiobesity advertisements led to differences in health-related behavioral intentions. Method Participants in this experiment were 161 American adults. Measures included self-reported body mass index, weight satisfaction, antifat attitudes, and intention to increase healthy behaviors. Results Images in particular prompted intention to increase healthy behavior, but only among participants who were not overweight or obese. Conclusion Images and text emphasizing individual responsibility for obesity may influence behavioral intention among those who are not overweight, but they do not seem to be effective at altering behavioral intentions among overweight people, the target audience for many antiobesity messages. Images in antiobesity messages intended to alter behavior are influential and should be selected carefully. © 2015 Society for Public Health Education.

Public-channel cryptography based on mutual chaos pass filters.

Science.gov (United States)

Klein, Einat; Gross, Noam; Kopelowitz, Evi; Rosenbluh, Michael; Khaykovich, Lev; Kinzel, Wolfgang; Kanter, Ido

2006-10-01

We study the mutual coupling of chaotic lasers and observe both experimentally and in numeric simulations that there exists a regime of parameters for which two mutually coupled chaotic lasers establish isochronal synchronization, while a third laser coupled unidirectionally to one of the pair does not synchronize. We then propose a cryptographic scheme, based on the advantage of mutual coupling over unidirectional coupling, where all the parameters of the system are public knowledge. We numerically demonstrate that in such a scheme the two communicating lasers can add a message signal (compressed binary message) to the transmitted coupling signal and recover the message in both directions with high fidelity by using a mutual chaos pass filter procedure. An attacker, however, fails to recover an errorless message even if he amplifies the coupling signal.

Message Correlation Analysis Tool for NOvA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lu Qiming; Biery, Kurt A; Kowalkowski, James B

2012-01-01

A complex running system, such as the NOvA online data acquisition, consists of a large number of distributed but closely interacting components. This paper describes a generic real-time correlation analysis and event identification engine, named Message Analyzer. Its purpose is to capture run time abnormalities and recognize system failures based on log messages from participating components. The initial design of analysis engine is driven by the data acquisition (DAQ) of the NOvA experiment. The Message Analyzer performs filtering and pattern recognition on the log messages and reacts to system failures identified by associated triggering rules. The tool helps the system maintain a healthy running state and to minimize data corruption. This paper also describes a domain specific language that allows the recognition patterns and correlation rules to be specified in a clear and flexible way. In addition, the engine provides a plugin mechanism for users to implement specialized patterns or rules in generic languages such as C++.

Message Correlation Analysis Tool for NOvA

CERN Multimedia

CERN. Geneva

2012-01-01

A complex running system, such as the NOvA online data acquisition, consists of a large number of distributed but closely interacting components. This paper describes a generic realtime correlation analysis and event identification engine, named Message Analyzer. Its purpose is to capture run time abnormalities and recognize system failures based on log messages from participating components. The initial design of analysis engine is driven by the DAQ of the NOvA experiment. The Message Analyzer performs filtering and pattern recognition on the log messages and reacts to system failures identified by associated triggering rules. The tool helps the system maintain a healthy running state and to minimize data corruption. This paper also describes a domain specific language that allows the recognition patterns and correlation rules to be specified in a clear and flexible way. In addition, the engine provides a plugin mechanism for users to implement specialized patterns or rules in generic languages such as C++.

Message correlation analysis tool for NOvA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lu, Qiming [Fermilab; Biery, Kurt A. [Fermilab; Kowalkowski, James B. [Fermilab

2012-01-01

A complex running system, such as the NOvA online data acquisition, consists of a large number of distributed but closely interacting components. This paper describes a generic real-time correlation analysis and event identification engine, named Message Analyzer. Its purpose is to capture run time abnormalities and recognize system failures based on log messages from participating components. The initial design of analysis engine is driven by the data acquisition (DAQ) of the NOvA experiment. The Message Analyzer performs filtering and pattern recognition on the log messages and reacts to system failures identified by associated triggering rules. The tool helps the system maintain a healthy running state and to minimize data corruption. This paper also describes a domain specific language that allows the recognition patterns and correlation rules to be specified in a clear and flexible way. In addition, the engine provides a plugin mechanism for users to implement specialized patterns or rules in generic languages such as C++.

A one-mode-for-all predictor for text messaging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vimala Balakrishnan

2011-08-01

Full Text Available This paper discusses the enhancements made on the current mobile phone messaging software, namely the predictive text entry. In addition, the application also has a facility to abbreviate any unabbreviated words that exist in the dictionary, so that the message length can be reduced. The application was tested in a computer-simulated mobile environment and the results of the tests are presented here. These additional features will potentially enable users to send messages at a reduced length and thus reduce the cost of sending messages. Moreover, users who are not adept in using the abbreviations can now do so with features made available on their mobile phones. It is believed that these additional features will also encourage more users to use the predictive software as well as further improve users’ messaging satisfaction.

Single-Sex Classes in Two Arkansas Elementary Schools: 2008-2009

Science.gov (United States)

Stotsky, Sandra; Denny, George; Tschepikow, Nick

2010-01-01

Interest in single-sex classes continues to grow in the United States, but there has been little research at the elementary level in this country or elsewhere to help guide educators' decision-making about the overall value of single-sex classes in public schools and the specific value of single-sex classes in public schools for increasing boy's…

The efficacy of mobile phone-based text message interventions ('Happy Quit') for smoking cessation in China.

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, Yanhui; Wu, Qiuxia; Tang, Jinsong; Zhang, Fengyu; Wang, Xuyi; Qi, Chang; He, Haoyu; Long, Jiang; Kelly, Brian C; Cohen, Joanna

2016-08-19

Considering the extreme shortage of smoking cessation services in China, and the acceptability, feasibility and efficacy of mobile phone-based text message interventions for quitting smoking in other countries, here we propose a study of "the efficacy of mobile phone-based text message interventions ('Happy Quit') for smoking cessation in China". The primary objective of this proposed project is to assess whether a program of widely accessed mobile phone-based text message interventions ('Happy Quit') will be effective at helping people in China who smoke, to quit. Based on the efficacy of previous studies in smoking cessation, we hypothesize that 'Happy Quit' will be an effective, feasible and affordable smoking cessation program in China. In this single-blind, randomized trial, undertaken in China, about 2000 smokers willing to make a quit attempt will be randomly allocated, using an independent telephone randomization system that includes a minimization algorithm balancing for sex (male, female), age (19-34 or >34 years), educational level (≤ or >12 years), and Fagerstrom score for nicotine addiction (≤5, >5), to 'Happy Quit', comprising motivational messages and behavioral-change support, or to a control group that receives text messages unrelated to quitting. Messages will be developed to be suitable for Chinese. A pilot study will be conducted before the intervention to modify the library of messages and interventions. The primary outcome will be self-reported continuous smoking abstinence. A secondary outcome will be point prevalence of abstinence. Abstinence will be assessed at six time points (4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24 weeks post-intervention). A third outcome will be reductions in number of cigarettes smoked per day. The results will provide valuable insights into bridging the gap between need and services received for smoking cessation interventions and tobacco use prevention in China. It will also serve as mHealth model for extending the public

Asynchronous Message Service Reference Implementation

Science.gov (United States)

Burleigh, Scott C.

2011-01-01

This software provides a library of middleware functions with a simple application programming interface, enabling implementation of distributed applications in conformance with the CCSDS AMS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems Asynchronous Message Service) specification. The AMS service, and its protocols, implement an architectural concept under which the modules of mission systems may be designed as if they were to operate in isolation, each one producing and consuming mission information without explicit awareness of which other modules are currently operating. Communication relationships among such modules are self-configuring; this tends to minimize complexity in the development and operations of modular data systems. A system built on this model is a society of generally autonomous, inter-operating modules that may fluctuate freely over time in response to changing mission objectives, modules functional upgrades, and recovery from individual module failure. The purpose of AMS, then, is to reduce mission cost and risk by providing standard, reusable infrastructure for the exchange of information among data system modules in a manner that is simple to use, highly automated, flexible, robust, scalable, and efficient. The implementation is designed to spawn multiple threads of AMS functionality under the control of an AMS application program. These threads enable all members of an AMS-based, distributed application to discover one another in real time, subscribe to messages on specific topics, and to publish messages on specific topics. The query/reply (client/server) communication model is also supported. Message exchange is optionally subject to encryption (to support confidentiality) and authorization. Fault tolerance measures in the discovery protocol minimize the likelihood of overall application failure due to any single operational error anywhere in the system. The multi-threaded design simplifies processing while enabling application nodes to

Advertising vs. Public Service Announcements: The Role of Message Type in Safer-Sex Campaigns and Third-Person Perception.

Science.gov (United States)

Chapin, John

Fifteen years ago, W. Davison introduced the third-person effect hypothesis, that individuals believe they are less influenced than others by media messages. Although third-person effect is a perceptual bias, Davison believed that individuals act on such misperceptions. Few studies since have tested the behavioral aspect of the third-person…

Exploring the use of text and instant messaging in higher education classrooms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sharon Lauricella

2013-09-01

Full Text Available This article examined how higher education students used text and instant messaging for academic purposes with their peers and faculty. Specifically, comfort level, frequency of use, usefulness, reasons for messaging and differences between peer-to-peer and peer-to-instructor interactions were examined. Students noted that they were very comfortable with using both text and instant messaging. Text messaging was used weekly with instructors and daily with peers. Instant messaging was used rarely with instructors but weekly with peers. Students rated text messaging as very useful and instant messaging as moderately useful for academic purposes. Key reasons cited for using both text and instant messaging included saving time, resolving administrative issues, convenience and ease of use. Text messaging appears to be the preferred mode of communication for students with respect to communicating with both peers and instructors. It is concluded that both text and instant messaging are useful and viable tools for augmenting student's communication among peers and faculty in higher education.

Persuasiveness of Anti-Smoking Messages: Self-Construal and Message Focus

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Bo; Nan, Xiaoli; Zhao, Xinyan

2017-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of independent vs interdependent self-construal in non-smokers' responses to an anti-smoking message that focuses on either personal or relational consequences of smoking. Design/methodology/approach: Two web-based experimental studies were conducted among US college non-smokers. In the…

The BlackBerry Project: Capturing the Content of Adolescents’ Text Messaging

Science.gov (United States)

Underwood, Marion K.; Rosen, Lisa H.; More, David; Ehrenreich, Sam; Gentsch, Joanna K.

2011-01-01

This brief report presents an innovative method for capturing the content of adolescents’ electronic communication on handheld devices: text messaging, email, and Instant Messaging. In an ongoing longitudinal study, adolescents were provided with BlackBerry devices with service plans paid by the investigators, and use of text messaging was examined when participants were 15 years old and in the 10th grade (N=175, 81 girls). BlackBerries are configured so that the content of all text messages, email messages, and Instant Messages is saved to a secure server and organized in a highly secure, searchable, online archive. This paper describes the technology used to devise this method and ethical considerations. Evidence for validity is presented, including information on use of text messaging to show that participants used these devices heavily and frequencies of profane and sexual language in a two-day sample of text messaging to demonstrate that they were communicating openly. PMID:22004337

Changing public stigma with continuum beliefs.

Science.gov (United States)

Corrigan, Patrick W; Schmidt, Annie; Bink, Andrea B; Nieweglowski, Katherine; Al-Khouja, Maya A; Qin, Sang; Discont, Steve

2017-10-01

Given the egregious effect of public stigma on the lives of people with mental illness, researchers have sought to unpack and identify effective components of anti-stigma programs. We expect to show that continuum messages have more positive effect on stigma and affirming attitudes (beliefs that people with mental illness recover and should be personally empowered) than categorical perspectives. The effect of continuum beliefs will interact with contact strategies. A total of 598 research participants were randomly assigned to online presentations representing one of the six conditions: three messages (continuum, categorical, or neutral control) by two processes (education or contact). Participants completed measures of continuum beliefs (as a manipulation check), stigma and affirming attitudes after viewing the condition. Continuum messages had significantly better effect on views that people with mental illness are "different," a finding that interacted with contact. Continuum messages also had better effects on recovery beliefs, once again an effect that interacted significantly with contact. Implications of these findings for improving anti-stigma programs are discussed.

Text messages as a learning tool for midwives | Woods | South ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The use of cell phone text messaging to improve access to continuing ... with 50 of the message recipients, demonstrated that the text messages were well received by ... services, such as the management of HIV-infected children and adults.

Undergraduates' Text Messaging Language and Literacy Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Grace, Abbie; Kemp, Nenagh; Martin, Frances Heritage; Parrila, Rauno

2014-01-01

Research investigating whether people's literacy skill is being affected by the use of text messaging language has produced largely positive results for children, but mixed results for adults. We asked 150 undergraduate university students in Western Canada and 86 in South Eastern Australia to supply naturalistic text messages and to complete…

Expectancy Theory in Media and Message Selection.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Leuven, Jim

1981-01-01

Argues for reversing emphasis on uses and gratifications research in favor of an expectancy model which holds that selection of a particular medium depends on (1) the expectation that the choice will be followed by a message of interest and (2) the importance of that message in satisfying user's values. (PD)

Toward Real-Time Infoveillance of Twitter Health Messages.

Science.gov (United States)

Colditz, Jason B; Chu, Kar-Hai; Emery, Sherry L; Larkin, Chandler R; James, A Everette; Welling, Joel; Primack, Brian A

2018-06-21

There is growing interest in conducting public health research using data from social media. In particular, Twitter "infoveillance" has demonstrated utility across health contexts. However, rigorous and reproducible methodologies for using Twitter data in public health are not yet well articulated, particularly those related to content analysis, which is a highly popular approach. In 2014, we gathered an interdisciplinary team of health science researchers, computer scientists, and methodologists to begin implementing an open-source framework for real-time infoveillance of Twitter health messages (RITHM). Through this process, we documented common challenges and novel solutions to inform future work in real-time Twitter data collection and subsequent human coding. The RITHM framework allows researchers and practitioners to use well-planned and reproducible processes in retrieving, storing, filtering, subsampling, and formatting data for health topics of interest. Further considerations for human coding of Twitter data include coder selection and training, data representation, codebook development and refinement, and monitoring coding accuracy and productivity. We illustrate methodological considerations through practical examples from formative work related to hookah tobacco smoking, and we reference essential methods literature related to understanding and using Twitter data. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print June 21, 2018: e1-e6. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304497).

The prototype message broadcast system for the Superconducting Super Collider

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Low, K.; Skegg, R.

1990-11-01

A prototype unified message broadcast system to handle the site-wide distribution of all control system messages for the Superconducting Super Collider is presented. The messages are assembled in the control room area and encapsulated for transmission via a general fiber-optic link system to devices distributed throughout 70 miles of tunnels. An embedded timing signal is used by the distribution system to ensure that messages arrive at all devices simultaneously. Devices receive messages using a special receiver sub-system. A simple version of this system is to be used in the Accelerator Systems String Test (ASST) at the SSC site in 1991. 3 refs., 6 figs., 1 tab

A Novel Message Scheduling Framework for Delay Tolerant Networks Routing

KAUST Repository

Elwhishi, Ahmed; Ho, Pin-Han; Naik, K.; Shihada, Basem

2013-01-01

new message scheduling framework for epidemic and two-hop forwarding routing in DTNs, such that the forwarding/dropping decision can be made at a node during each contact for either optimal message delivery ratio or message delivery delay. Extensive

Number Theory and Public-Key Cryptography.

Science.gov (United States)

Lefton, Phyllis

1991-01-01

Described are activities in the study of techniques used to conceal the meanings of messages and data. Some background information and two BASIC programs that illustrate the algorithms used in a new cryptographic system called "public-key cryptography" are included. (CW)

Calcium, Vitamin D, Iron, and Folate Messages in Three Canadian Magazines.

Science.gov (United States)

Cooper, Marcia; Zalot, Lindsay; Wadsworth, Laurie A

2014-12-01

Data from the Canadian Community Health Survey showed that calcium, vitamin D, iron, and folate are nutrients of concern for females 19-50 years of age. The study objectives were to assess the quantity, format, and accuracy of messages related to these nutrients in selected Canadian magazines and to examine their congruency with Canadian nutrition policies. Using content analysis methodology, messages were coded using a stratified sample of a constructed year for Canadian Living, Chatelaine, and Homemakers magazines (n = 33) from 2003-2008. Pilot research was conducted to assess inter-coder agreement and to develop the study coding sheet and codebook. The messages identified (n = 595) averaged 18 messages per magazine issue. The most messages were found for calcium, followed by folate, iron, and vitamin D, and the messages were found primarily in articles (46%) and advertisements (37%). Overall, most messages were coded as accurate (82%) and congruent with Canadian nutrition policies (90%). This research demonstrated that the majority of messages in 3 Canadian magazines between 2003 and 2008 were accurate and reflected Canadian nutrition policies. Because Canadian women continue to receive much nutrition information via print media, this research provides important insights for dietitians into media messaging.

Mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments.

Science.gov (United States)

Gurol-Urganci, Ipek; de Jongh, Thyra; Vodopivec-Jamsek, Vlasta; Atun, Rifat; Car, Josip

2013-12-05

This review is an update of the original Cochrane review published in July 2012. Missed appointments are a major cause of inefficiency in healthcare delivery with substantial monetary costs for the health system, leading to delays in diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Patients' forgetfulness is one of the main reasons for missed appointments. Patient reminders may help reduce missed appointments. Modes of communicating reminders for appointments to patients include face-to-face communication, postal messages, calls to landlines or mobile phones, and mobile phone messaging. Mobile phone messaging applications, such as Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Message Service (MMS), could provide an important, inexpensive delivery medium for reminders for healthcare appointments. To update our review assessing the effects of mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments. Secondary objectives include assessment of costs; health outcomes; patients' and healthcare providers' evaluation of the intervention and perceptions of safety; and possible harms and adverse effects associated with the intervention. Original searches were run in June 2009. For this update, we searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL,The Cochrane Library 2012, Issue 8), MEDLINE (OvidSP) (January 1993 to August 2012), EMBASE (OvidSP) (January 1993 to August 2012), PsycINFO (OvidSP) (January 1993 to August 2012) and CINAHL (EbscoHOST) (January 1993 to August 2012). We also reviewed grey literature (including trial registers) and reference lists of articles. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) assessing mobile phone messaging as reminders for healthcare appointments. We only included studies in which it was possible to assess effects of mobile phone messaging independent of other technologies or interventions.   Two review authors independently assessed all studies against the inclusion criteria, with any disagreements resolved by a third

Effects of Anti-Smoking Public Service Announcements on the Attitudes of Korean College Students toward Smoking.

Science.gov (United States)

Cho, Kyoung Won; Lee, Jakyoung; Ryu, Ji-Hye; Kim, Soo Jeong

2017-12-01

This study aimed to identify the effects of anti-smoking public service announcements on the attitudes of Korean college students toward smoking. This study involved students via convenience sampling from seven universities who were randomly assigned to four groups. All groups completed a preliminary questionnaire, before being shown a public service announcement twice, and then completed a post viewing questionnaire. For announcements with positive messages, the proportion of changes in beliefs and attitudes were 39.1% and 19.8%, respectively, whereas those with negative messages showed a greater proportion of changes in the beliefs (59.7%) and attitudes (40.3%). After adjusting for sex and change in belief, the message types and smoking status were identified as factors affecting the change in the participants attitudes. A negative message resulted in a greater change in attitudes (odds ratio [OR], 3.047; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.847-5.053). Ever-smokers including current smokers showed a greater positive change in attitude than never-smokers (OR, 6.965; 95% CI, 4.107-11.812). This study found that positive anti-smoking public service announcements were more effective on attitude change than negative messages. Additionally these announcements were more effective among viewers who were current smokers or had a prior smoking experience.

MMS: An electronic message management system for emergency response

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, H.B.; Garde, H.; Andersen, V.

1998-01-01

among messages can be viewed in a graphic tree-like display. By employing the extensive filtration facilities offered by the MMS. users are able to monitor the current status of messages. And, in general, filtration provides users with means of surveying a possibly large number of responses to messages...... contingency plan and procedures to be applied during predefined stages of an emergency....

Instant Messaging in Dental Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Khatoon, Binish; Hill, Kirsty B; Walmsley, A Damien

2015-12-01

Instant messaging (IM) is when users communicate instantly via their mobile devices, and it has become one of the most preferred choices of tools to communicate amongst health professions students. The aim of this study was to understand how dental students communicate via IM, faculty members' perspectives on using IM to communicate with students, and whether such tools are useful in the learning environment. After free-associating themes on online communication, two draft topic guides for structured interviews were designed that focussed on mobile device-related communication activities. A total of 20 students and six faculty members at the University of Birmingham School of Dentistry agreed to take part in the interviews. Students were selected from years 1-5 representing each year group. The most preferred communication tools were emails, social networking, and IM. Emails were used for more formal messages, and IM and social networking sites were used for shorter messages. WhatsApp was the most used IM app because of its popular features such as being able to check if recipients have read and received messages and group work. The students reported that changes were necessary to improve their communication with faculty members. The faculty members reported having mixed feelings toward the use of IM to communicate with students. The students wished to make such tools a permanent part of their learning environment, but only with the approval of faculty members. The faculty members were willing to accept IM as a communication tool only if it is monitored and maintained by the university and has a positive effect on learning.

Do Class Size Effects Differ across Grades?

Science.gov (United States)

Nandrup, Anne Brink

2016-01-01

This paper contributes to the class size literature by analysing whether short-run class size effects are constant across grade levels in compulsory school. Results are based on administrative data on all pupils enrolled in Danish public schools. Identification is based on a government-imposed class size cap that creates exogenous variation in…

The Influence of Information Technology on Student's Behavioural Nature in the Class Room

Science.gov (United States)

Ali, Liaqat

2018-01-01

The use of mobile phones and other gadgets in the university class room is becoming a culture in the modern age of technology. Some students use this technology for the purpose of information only. However, it was noted that others use mobile phone to receive messages through different applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and Viber.…

Reactions to framing of cessation messages: insights from dual-smoker couples.

Science.gov (United States)

Lipkus, Isaac M; Ranby, Krista W; Lewis, Megan A; Toll, Benjamin

2013-12-01

Couples in which both members smoke (dual-smoker couples) have not been the explicit target of cessation interventions. Quit rates are lower and relapse rates are higher among individuals in dual-smoker couples. A potentially effective strategy to motivate dual-smoker couples to quit is to convey messages that highlight how the positive outcomes of quitting (gain frame) or the negative outcomes of continued smoking (loss frame) affect the couple rather than the individual smoker. We explored whether dual-smoker couples' smoking behaviors (e.g., amount smoked) and desire to quit would differ as a function of message frame (gain vs. loss) or outcome focus (individual vs. couple). Dual-smoker couples (N = 40) completed a baseline survey and were then randomized to review gain- or loss-framed messages that varied whether the outcomes influenced the individual or the couple. Main outcomes were desire to quit after reading messages and smoking behaviors at a 1-month follow-up. Couple-focused messages produced the strongest desire to quit and decreased amount of cigarettes smoked at follow-up. The latter effect was mediated by desire to quit. Loss-framed messages produced inconsistent effects on desire to quit. There were no significant interactions between outcome focus and message framing. Findings suggest that messages emphasizing how smoking affects both partners can motivate cessation among dual-smoker couples. Contrary to findings showing that gain-framed messages motivate cessation targeting individual smokers, results suggest that loss-framed messages may be more persuasive than gain-framed messages when the target of the outcome involves significant others.