Toward a Better Understanding of Social Network Site Engagement in Influencing Health Behaviors: An Examination of the Relationship Between Message Framing, Endorsement Cues, and User Engagement

The use of social network sites (SNS) to deliver health interventions has been on the rise in recent years due to their popularity among the general population and functionalities that facilitate interactions with the content, or with other users of SNS. Despite that, scholars have noted challenges, including low engagement, associated with SNS-delivered interventions. This dissertation’s overall purpose is 1) to document the current state of measuring engagement within SNS-delivered health interventions, and 2) to empirically examine the interplay between message framing, social endorsement and engagement in a randomized experiment using Instagram. Results from the scoping review showed that a majority of studies continue to use micro-level engagement indicators to define engagement with a given intervention, and few studies examined engagement as a potential effect modifier of intervention effect, making it difficult to ascertain the type of engagement that matters the most in driving behavioral change. Results from our experimental study (n=528) that utilized Instagram to deliver a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine promotion information showed that micro-level engagement did not mediate the relationship between framed messages and vaccination intention; instead, the study suggests that the effect of the communication intervention was partially mediated through positive emotion evoked as a result of reading the intervention material. Additionally, the study suggests that heuristic cues displayed on SNS, such as number of likes, could confer social endorsement effect, such that individuals will be more likely to “like” and “share” the post when they see many people have also liked the post. However, no differences were observed in terms of credibility perception between participants who were exposed to a post with high number of likes vs low numbers of likes in the current study context. This dissertation’s findings contribute to gaps in our understanding of engagement in the context of SNS-delivered interventions. Future works that incorporate multiple dimensions of engagement or utilize multiple methods will further our understanding of engagement and improve ways in which we can best utilize SNS for health intervention purposes

E-Cigarettes and Smoking Cessation Among Pregnant Women: Insights From a Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: The use of electronic cigarettes is a rapidly expanding phenomenon. Currently, there is a scarcity of data to help guide decisions regarding the potential harm and benefits of e-cigarettes. This study examines whether pregnant smokers who used e-cigarettes are more likely to quit smoking than those who had never used e-cigarettes. Methods: Data were drawn from the Quit4Baby study, a text-message-based smoking cessation randomized controlled trial. The sample was comprised of 481 participants with complete follow-up data at 1 month follow-up. Linear and logistics regression models to control for confounds were conducted to evaluate the association between e-cigarette use and smoking cessation outcomes. Results: 21.83% of pregnant smokers reported past 30-day use of e-cigarette at baseline or 1 month. E-cigarette users differed from non-users on baseline characteristics including Fagerstrom score, and self-efficacy to quit smoking. At 1 month follow-up, a larger decline in cigarette smoked per day was observed in e-cigarette users (mean decline = 3.95 cigarettes/day) compared to non-users (mean decline = 3.16 cigarettes/day); however, it was not statistically significant. Compared with pregnant smokers who never used e-cigarettes during pregnancy, smokers who ever used e-cigarettes were less likely to quit smoking for 30 days at 1 month follow-up after controlling for intervention effect (AOR=0.466; 95% CI = 0.191, 1.135; p = 0.09) and approached the level of significance. Conclusions: Pregnant smokers who have used e-cigarettes during pregnancy may be at increased risk for not being able to quit smoking. Longer-term cohort studies need to be conducted to confirm findings and future studies should employ better measures of patterns of and reasons for e-cigarette use, and frequency of usage

Assessing the National Cancer Institute\u27s SmokefreeMOM Text-Messaging Program for Pregnant Smokers: Pilot Randomized Trial.

BACKGROUND: Automated text messages on mobile phones have been found to be effective for smoking cessation in adult smokers. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to test the acceptability and feasibility of SmokefreeMOM, a national smoking cessation text-messaging program for pregnant smokers. METHODS: Participants were recruited from prenatal care and randomized to receive SmokefreeMOM (n=55), an automated smoking cessation text-messaging program, or a control text message quitline referral (n=44). Participants were surveyed by phone at baseline and at 1 month and 3 months after enrollment. RESULTS: Results indicate that the SmokefreeMOM program was highly rated overall and rated more favorably than the control condition in its helpfulness at 3-month follow-up (P CONCLUSIONS: SmokefreeMOM is acceptable for pregnant smokers. It is recommended that SmokefreeMOM be further refined and evaluated. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02412956; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02412956 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6tcmeRnbC)

Smoking Characteristics and Psychiatric Comorbidities of Pregnant Smokers: An Analysis of Quit4Baby Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Text messaging or short message service (SMS) programs have been shown to be effective in helping adult smokers quit smoking (Abroms et al., 2014). However, to our knowledge, no prior research has examined psychiatric comorbidities associated with smoking in the text messaging context. The risk of smoking has been shown to increase as a function of the number of psychiatric illnesses with which a person is diagnosed (Aubin, Rollema, Svensson, & Winterer, 2012). The current study examined this association and other correlates of smoking-psychiatric comorbidity in a sample of U.S. pregnant smokers enrolled in Quit4Baby, a smoking cessation text messaging program for pregnant smokers that was adapted from Text2Quit. Method: Pregnant women enrolled in Text4baby and who were current smokers or recent quitter (N=505) were enrolled in a Quit4Baby efficacy study. Those under the age of 14, not pregnant, without a cell phone for personal use, and not currently smoking were ineligible. Participants were surveyed at baseline, and self-report measures of psychiatric conditions and smoking outcomes were assessed. Results: Consistent with previous studies, the number of comorbid diagnoses was significantly associated with heavy (\u3e20 cigarettes/day) smoking. Moreover, among current smokers, there was a significant difference between groups on number of cigarettes smoked by number of psychiatric comorbidities as determined by one-way ANOVA (F(3, 503) = 7.789, p= Conclusions: The current findings of increased rates of mental disorders among smokers and nicotine-dependent smokers in the pregnant women population are supported by this study. The intention to stop smoking should be proactively supported among these comorbid pregnant smokers. Upon the conclusion of the Quit4Baby randomized controlled trial, the effectiveness of text messaging interventions on psychiatric comorbid pregnant smokers will be examined

W-Band Cavity-backed Folded-slot Antenna Using GaAs Integrated Passive Device Technology

A W-band cavity-backed folded-slot antenna based on GaAs integrated passive device technology is proposed in this paper for the first time. A via-cavity is formed to produce TE120 mode resonance and suppress surface waves, and an offset folded slot is designed to match the high impedance of the cavity. The simulated and measured S11 and the simulated radiation patterns are presented, which demonstrate that the antenna can operate from 97.8 GHz to 98.6 GHz with a maximum gain of 2.5 dBi while consuming a small area of only 0.84 mm× 1.325 mm. The proposed antenna is suitable for system-on-chip millimeter-wave applications where front-end modules and the antenna are built on the same chip for minimal signal transfer loss

3D Chip-level Broadband Measurement Technique for Radiated EM Emission

This paper proposes a novel broadband 3D chip-level radiated EM emission measurement technique. Two different test carriers with the embedded CPW and coil conductors respectively are designed and realized by the integrated passive device (IPD) process, which allow collecting the EM emission via near-field coupling. Using an in-house designed 0.18-μm CMOS VCO as the DUT, the emission spectrum obtained using the CPW conductor demonstrates a broadband characteristic up to above 20 GHz with an excellent agreement of the direct measurements. Compared to the traditional IEC standard approaches typically limited below 3 GHz, the proposed high sensitivity and broadband technique is suitable for evaluating EM interference of high-frequency ICs in advanced 3D packaging

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

Brief of Amici Curiae 56 Professors of Law and Economics in Support of Petition of Writ of Certiorari

28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) provides that a defendant in a patent case may be sued where the defendant is incorporated or has a regular and established place of business and has infringed the patent. This Court made clear in Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Prods. Corp., 353 U.S. 222, 223 (1957), that those were the only permissible venues for a patent case. But the Federal Circuit has rejected Fourco and the plain meaning of § 1400(b), instead permitting a patent plaintiff to file suit against a defendant anywhere there is personal jurisdiction over that defendant. The result has been rampant forum shopping, particularly by patent trolls. 44% of 2015 patent lawsuits were filed in a single district: the Eastern District of Texas, a forum with plaintiff-friendly rules and practices, and where few of the defendants are incorporated or have established places of business. And an estimated 86% of 2015 patent cases were filed somewhere other than the jurisdictions specified in the statute. Colleen V. Chien & Michael Risch, Recalibrating Patent Venue, Santa Clara Univ. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-1 (Sept. 1, 2016), Table 3. This Court should grant certiorari to review the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) because the Federal Circuit’s dubious interpretation of the statute plays an outsized and detrimental role, both legally and economically, in the patent system

Brief of Amici Curiae 56 Professors of Law and Economics in Support of Petition of Writ of Certiorari

28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) provides that a defendant in a patent case may be sued where the defendant is incorporated or has a regular and established place of business and has infringed the patent. This Court made clear in Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra Prods. Corp., 353 U.S. 222, 223 (1957), that those were the only permissible venues for a patent case. But the Federal Circuit has rejected Fourco and the plain meaning of § 1400(b), instead permitting a patent plaintiff to file suit against a defendant anywhere there is personal jurisdiction over that defendant. The result has been rampant forum shopping, particularly by patent trolls. 44% of 2015 patent lawsuits were filed in a single district: the Eastern District of Texas, a forum with plaintiff-friendly rules and practices, and where few of the defendants are incorporated or have established places of business. And an estimated 86% of 2015 patent cases were filed somewhere other than the jurisdictions specified in the statute. Colleen V. Chien & Michael Risch, Recalibrating Patent Venue, Santa Clara Univ. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-1 (Sept. 1, 2016), Table 3. This Court should grant certiorari to review the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b) because the Federal Circuit’s dubious interpretation of the statute plays an outsized and detrimental role, both legally and economically, in the patent system