Sharing, Liking, Commenting, and Distressed? The Pathway Between Facebook Interaction and Psychological Distress

Studies on the mental health implications of social media have generated mixed results. Drawing on a survey of college students (N=513), this research uses structural equation modeling to assess the relationship between Facebook interaction and psychological distress and two underlying mechanisms: communication overload and self-esteem. It is the first study, to our knowledge, that examines how communication overload mediates the mental health implications of social media. Frequent Facebook interaction is associated with greater distress directly and indirectly via a two-step pathway that increases communication overload and reduces self-esteem. The research sheds light on new directions for understanding psychological well-being in an increasingly mediated social world as users share, like, and comment more and more.Radio-Television-Fil

Formation of educational aspirations among Asian American students

textThis study explores how Asian Americans’ educational aspirations are different from other racial groups as well as uncovers differences among Asian American subgroups. This study developed a hypothesized model on the formation of educational aspiration. Among factors affecting educational aspirations that were derived from the literature review, students’ academic effort and performance, students’ perceived academic self-efficacy, and support received from students’ significant others were hypothesized to have direct effects on students’ educational aspirations. In addition, students’ perceived self-efficacy and academic effort were hypothesized to have indirect effects on students’ educational aspirations through students’ academic performance. Students’ demographic and socio-economic characteristics were controlled to examine if they had any direct and indirect effects on educational aspirations. In order to test validity of the hypothesized model on educational aspiration, this study adopted structural education modeling (SEM) to analyze the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). As a result, the hypothesized model was confirmed because of its adequate model fit. In addition, this study found that Asian American students’ educational aspirations were different from other racial groups. First, neither academic effort nor performance affects Asian Americans’ educational aspirations whereas both affect aspirations significantly in the entire sample. Second, there was a positive effect of academic self-efficacy on Asian Americans’ educational aspirations whereas efficacy did not affect aspirations in the entire sample. Third, there was a positive effect of support with college information from significant others on Asian Americans’ aspirations, which was not statistically significant in the results of the entire sample. This indicates that Asian American students’ educational aspirations are more influenced by subjective or perceived factors such as academic self-efficacy and support with college information received from significant others, rather than objective indicators such as academic performance and academic effort. Moreover, there are differences in aspirations by Asian American ethnic subgroups even after controlling for other variables. Compared to Filipino Americans, all other four Asian American subgroups show significantly higher educational aspirations. The findings of this study help to understand how high school students’ educational aspirations are formed in general by examining the conceptual model with the entire data. In addition, the findings help to fill the gap in the literature about debunking the model minority myth about Asian American students by proving that they are heterogeneous.Educational Administratio

Community College Student Engagement Patterns: A Typology Revealed Through Exploratory Cluster Analysis

This study employs survey data from the Center for Community College Student Engagement to examine the similarities and differences that exist across student-level domains in terms of student engagement in community colleges. In total, the sample used in the analysis pools data from 663 community colleges and includes more than 320,000 students. Using data-mining techniques to discover a parsimonious number of natural clusters and, in turn, a k-means cluster analysis as a means of revealing a naturally occurring typology of engagement patterns, our findings reveal that support service utilization is the most distinguishing feature of the similarities and dissimilarities across student groups, suggesting areas for further theory development and testing

Salvage Treatment for Persistent Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia: Efficacy of Linezolid With or Without Carbapenem

Background. Persistent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia is associated with high mortality rates, but no treatment strategy has yet been established. We performed this study to evaluate the efficacy of linezolid with or without carbapenem in salvage treatment for persistent MRSA bacteremia. Methods. All adult patients with persistent MRSA bacteremia for >= 7 days from January 2006 through March 2008 who were treated at Seoul National University Hospital were studied. The results of linezolid salvage therapy with or without carbapenem were compared with those of salvage therapy with vancomycin plus aminoglycosides or rifampicin. Results. Thirty-five patients with persistent MRSA bacteremia were studied. The early microbiological response (ie, negative results for follow-up blood culture within 72 hours) was significantly higher in the linezolid-based salvage therapy group than the comparison group (75% vs 17%; P = .006). Adding aminoglycosides or rifampicin to vancomycin was not successful in treating any of the patients, whereas linezolid-based therapy gave an 88% salvage success rate (P < .001). The S. aureus-related mortality rate was lower for patients treated with a linezolid salvage regimen than for patients continually treated with a vancomycin-based regimen (13% vs 53%; P = .030). Conclusions. Linezolid-based salvage therapy effectively eradicated S. aureus from the blood for patients with persistent MRSA bacteremia. The salvage success rate was higher for linezolid therapy than for vancomycin-based combination therapy.Jenkins TC, 2008, CLIN INFECT DIS, V46, P1000, DOI 10.1086/529190Falagas ME, 2008, LANCET INFECT DIS, V8, P53, DOI 10.1016/S1473-3099(07)70312-2Hawkins C, 2007, ARCH INTERN MED, V167, P1861Kollef MH, 2007, CLIN INFECT DIS, V45, pS191, DOI 10.1086/519470Micek ST, 2007, CLIN INFECT DIS, V45, pS184, DOI 10.1086/519471*CLIN LAB STAND I, 2007, M100S17 CLIN LAB STAHidayat LK, 2006, ARCH INTERN MED, V166, P2138Howden BP, 2006, ANTIMICROB AGENTS CH, V50, P3039, DOI 10.1128/AAC.00422-06Hageman JC, 2006, CLIN INFECT DIS, V43, pE42Jacqueline C, 2006, ANTIMICROB AGENTS CH, V50, P2547, DOI 10.1128/AAC.01501-05Sakoulas G, 2006, CLIN INFECT DIS, V42, pS40Jones RN, 2006, CLIN INFECT DIS, V42, pS13Khatib R, 2006, SCAND J INFECT DIS, V38, P7, DOI 10.1080/00365540500372846Wu VC, 2006, CLIN INFECT DIS, V42, P66Jacqueline C, 2005, ANTIMICROB AGENTS CH, V49, P45, DOI 10.1128/AAC.49.1.45-51.2005*CDCP, 2005, CA MRSA CLIN FAQS CDFowler VG, 2004, J INFECT DIS, V190, P1140Wisplinghoff H, 2004, CLIN INFECT DIS, V39, P309, DOI 10.1086/421946Khosrovaneh A, 2004, CLIN INFECT DIS, V38, P1328Howden BP, 2004, CLIN INFECT DIS, V38, P521KIM SH, 2004, 42 ANN M INF DIS SOC, P142Fowler VG, 2003, ARCH INTERN MED, V163, P2066Kim SH, 2003, CLIN INFECT DIS, V37, P794Moise PA, 2002, J ANTIMICROB CHEMOTH, V50, P1017, DOI 10.1093/jac/dkf215Li JS, 2000, CLIN INFECT DIS, V30, P633You I, 2000, DIAGN MICR INFEC DIS, V36, P37Lowy FD, 1998, NEW ENGL J MED, V339, P520Hiramatsu K, 1997, LANCET, V350, P1670LIBMAN H, 1984, ARCH INTERN MED, V144, P5411

Side-Chain-Assisted Transition of Conjugated Polymers from a Semiconductor to Conductor and Comparison of Their NO₂ Sensing Characteristics

To investigate the effect of a side chain on the electrical properties of a conjugated polymer (CP), we designed two different CPs containing alkyl and ethylene glycol (EG) derivatives as side chains on the same conjugated backbone with an electron donor-acceptor (D-A) type chain configuration. PTQ-T with an alkyl side chain showed typical p-type semiconducting properties, whereas PTQ-TEG with an EG-based side chain exhibited electrically conductive behavior. Both CPs generated radical species owing to their strong D-A type conjugated structure; however, the spin density was much greater in PTQ-TEG. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis revealed that the O atoms of the EG-based side chains in PTQ-TEG were intercalated with the conjugated backbone and increased the carrier density. Upon application to a field-effect transistor sensor for PTQ-T and resistive sensor for PTQ-TEG, PTQ-TEG exhibited a better NO2 detection capability with faster signal recovery characteristics than PTQ-T. Compared with the relatively rigid alkyl side chains of PTQ-T, the flexible EG-based side chains in PTQ-TEG have a higher potential to enlarge the free volume as well as improve NO2-affinity, which promotes the diffusion of NO2 in and out of the PTQ-TEG film, and ultimately resulting in better NO2 detection capabilities