Effects of information processing styles and health message format on skin cancer risk perceptions and behavior intentions

Effectively communicating the risks of unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, tanning, and unprotected sex has been a widely researched topic in the discipline of health psychology. One area of this research has focused on the type of format used to present the information. In the past, a majority of the research has investigated the factual presentation of information, but an emerging focus has been on the presentation of information within a narrative. So far only a few studies have directly compared the factual format’s ability to increase risk perceptions and alter health related behavior to the narrative’s ability to do so. These few studies have found inconsistent results regarding whether health information presented in a narrative format will be more likely than health information presented in a factual format to increase risk perceptions and motivate health behavior. These inconsistent findings may relate to the information processing style people use when presented with these messages. To investigate this possibility, we examined the interactive effects of information processing style and health message format on risk perceptions and behavior intentions related to skin cancer. One hundred forty-seven female college students who use tanning beds were recruited from Psychology 101 courses. Participants were randomly assigned to either read a narrative message or factual message about how tanning beds can increase the risk of skin cancer. Additionally, prior to reading the message, participants were randomly assigned to a set of instructions for reading the messages that would activate either their experiential or rational processing style. The experiential processing style is characterized by using emotions and past experiences to digest information; the rational processing style, on the other hand, uses reason and logic to process information. We hypothesized that participants who experientially processed the information in a narrative message format would increase their risk perception and worry of skin cancer and reduce their intentions to use tanning beds. A series of ANOVAs were used to analyze the effects of the two factors on risk perceptions, worry, and behavioral intentions. An interaction between message format and processing style was revealed for three separate measures of risk perception as well as for worry. Participants’ risk perceptions were most likely to increase when they processed the narrative experientially in comparison to processing the narrative rationally, the factual message rationally, or the factual message experientially. Similar effects were observed for worry. There were no main effects or interactive effects of message format and processing style on behavior intentions. The present study qualifies inconsistencies in previous research that sometimes show a narrative message is more effective and other times a factual message is more effective. Our findings suggest that although narratives may be a promising route for increasing risk perceptions, they may be most effective when the information is processed in an experiential style. Keywords: Skin cancer, health messages, narratives, processing system/ style, and risk perceptions *This scholar and faculty mentor have requested that only an abstract be published

Information hiding through variance of the parametric orientation underlying a B-rep face

Watermarking technologies have been proposed for many different,types of digital media. However, to this date, no viable watermarking techniques have yet emerged for the high value B-rep (i.e. Boundary Representation) models used in 3D mechanical CAD systems. In this paper, the authors propose a new approach (PO-Watermarking) that subtly changes a model's geometric representation to incorporate a 'transparent' signature. This scheme enables software applications to create fragile, or robust watermarks without changing the size of the file, or shape of the CAD model. Also discussed is the amount of information the proposed method could transparently embed into a B-rep model. The results presented demonstrate the embedding and retrieval of text strings and investigate the robustness of the approach after a variety of transformation and modifications have been carried out on the data

SAFE: Secure-Roaming Agents for E-commerce

The development of the Internet has made a powerful impact on the concept of commerce. E-commerce, a new way to conduct business, is gaining more and more popularity. Despite its rapid growth, there are limitations that hinder the expansion of e-commerce. The primary concern for most people when talking about on-line shopping is security. Due to the open nature of the Internet, personal financial details necessary for on-line shopping can be stolen if sufficient security mechanism is not put in place. How to provide the necessary assurance of security to consumers remains a question mark despite various past efforts. Another concern is the lack of intelligence. The Internet is an ocean of information depository. It is rich in content but lacks the necessary intelligent tools to help one locate the correct piece of information. Intelligent agent, a piece of software that can act on behalf of its owner intelligently, is designed to fill this gap. However, no matter how intelligent an agent is, if it remains on its owner’s machine and does not have any roaming capability, its functionality is limited. With the roaming capability, more security concerns arise. In response to these concerns, SAFE, Secure roaming Agent For E-commerce, is designed to provide secure roaming capability to intelligent agents

Encryption – use and control in E-commerce

The author describes how cryptography can be used to address modern business requirements such as identity protection, secure web access and digital signatures. Article by Robert Bond (Head of Innovation & Technology Group, Hobson Audley and Fellow of SALS). Published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

The Deconstructed (or Distributed) Journal - an emerging model?

Reviews the development of the Deconstructed Journal academic publishing model. The model was first proposed in something like its present form in 1997 and further developed in 1999. Although not actively promoted elements of the model appear to be emerging spontaneously from the general developments in online academic publishing

Grayscale Image Authentication using Neural Hashing

Many different approaches for neural network based hash functions have been proposed. Statistical analysis must correlate security of them. This paper proposes novel neural hashing approach for gray scale image authentication. The suggested system is rapid, robust, useful and secure. Proposed hash function generates hash values using neural network one-way property and non-linear techniques. As a result security and performance analysis are performed and satisfying results are achieved. These features are dominant reasons for preferring against traditional ones.Comment: international journal of Natural and Engineering Sciences (NESciences.com) : Image Authentication, Cryptology, Hash Function, Statistical and Security Analysi