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Using narratives to evoke Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder prevention intention: The role of guilt appeal, point of view, and motivation
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) has become a public health challenge in the U.S. as an outcome of the high alcohol use rate among the public. To prevent FASD, pregnant women need to quit alcohol. This study explored if guilt appeal serves as a promising strategy in FASD prevention persuasion. An online randomized experiment (N = 323) with a 2 (guilt appeal VS. no guilt appeal) * 2 (first-person POV VS. third-person POV) between-subjects factorial design was conducted. Results showed that overall, guilt appeal messages evoked significantly higher prevention intention than no-guilt appeal messages by evoking higher anticipated guilt. Moreover, an interaction effect between guilt appeal and POV was captured. The superiority of guilt appeal was amplified when the message was written in first-person pronouns and attenuated by third-person pronouns. The role of individual motivation (controlled-motivated VS. autonomous-motivated) was also investigated. Though it was found that controlled-motivated individuals generated higher resistance toward guilt appeal messages, this relationship was not moderated by the guilt narrativeās POV. Moreover, motivation didnāt moderate the interaction effects between guilt appeal and POV on behavioral intention. Theoretical contributions and practical implications were discussed
Robust stability for stochastic Hopfield neural networks with time delays
This is the post print version of the article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below - Copyright 2006 Elsevier Ltd.In this paper, the asymptotic stability analysis problem is considered for a class of uncertain stochastic neural networks with time delays and parameter uncertainties. The delays are time-invariant, and the uncertainties are norm-bounded that enter into all the network parameters. The aim of this paper is to establish easily verifiable conditions under which the delayed neural network is robustly asymptotically stable in the mean square for all admissible parameter uncertainties. By employing a LyapunovāKrasovskii functional and conducting the stochastic analysis, a linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach is developed to derive the stability criteria. The proposed criteria can be checked readily by using some standard numerical packages, and no tuning of parameters is required. Examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed criteria.This work was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Nuffield Foundation of the UK under Grant NAL/00630/G, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of German
Facilitating patient portal engagement: a channel expansion and behavior change wheel perspective
IntroductionGiven the low patient portal adoption rates, the contradictory findings on the relationship between patient-provider communication and patient portal use, and the unclear mechanism of why doctor-patient communication might facilitate portal use as indicated in some existing studies, patient portal engagement warrants further examination.MethodsGuided by the behavior change wheel framework and the channel expansion theory, this study examined the facilitators of patient portal engagement and tested the relationship between the facilitators (e.g., social opportunity and psychological capability) through analyzing the HINTS national survey data (N = 1251).ResultsWe found that patient portal access (a physical opportunity) and physician advocacy (a social opportunity) were two significant predictors of portal engagement while educational attainment was not. We did not find any direct correlation between patient-centered communication (PCC) and patient portal engagement, but instead, found a significant indirect relationship between the two.DiscussionTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to employ the behavior change wheel and channel expansion theory to explain patient portal engagement. Theoretically, our study extended the behavior change theory by further explaining the relationship between the key components (e.g., capability, opportunity) of behavior change. Practical strategies to increase patient portal engagement were proposed
Design of exponential state estimators for neural networks with mixed time delays
This is the post print version of the article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below - Copyright 2007 Elsevier Ltd.In this Letter, the state estimation problem is dealt with for a class of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with mixed discrete and distributed delays. The activation functions are assumed to be neither monotonic, nor differentiable, nor bounded. We aim at designing a state estimator to estimate the neuron states, through available output measurements, such that the dynamics of the estimation error is globally exponentially stable in the presence of mixed time delays. By using the LaypunovāKrasovskii functional, a linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach is developed to establish sufficient conditions to guarantee the existence of the state estimators. We show that both the existence conditions and the explicit expression of the desired estimator can be characterized in terms of the solution to an LMI. A simulation example is exploited to show the usefulness of the derived LMI-based stability conditions.This work was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Nuffield Foundation of the UK under Grant NAL/00630/G, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Education Committee of China under Grants 05KJB110154 and BK2006064, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 10471119 and 10671172
Global exponential stability of generalized recurrent neural networks with discrete and distributed delays
This is the post print version of the article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below - Copyright 2006 Elsevier Ltd.This paper is concerned with analysis problem for the global exponential stability of a class of recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with mixed discrete and distributed delays. We first prove the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium point under mild conditions, assuming neither differentiability nor strict monotonicity for the activation function. Then, by employing a new LyapunovāKrasovskii functional, a linear matrix inequality (LMI) approach is developed to establish sufficient conditions for the RNNs to be globally exponentially stable. Therefore, the global exponential stability of the delayed RNNs can be easily checked by utilizing the numerically efficient Matlab LMI toolbox, and no tuning of parameters is required. A simulation example is exploited to show the usefulness of the derived LMI-based stability conditions.This work was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Nuffield Foundation of the UK under Grant NAL/00630/G, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany
Matching-CNN Meets KNN: Quasi-Parametric Human Parsing
Both parametric and non-parametric approaches have demonstrated encouraging
performances in the human parsing task, namely segmenting a human image into
several semantic regions (e.g., hat, bag, left arm, face). In this work, we aim
to develop a new solution with the advantages of both methodologies, namely
supervision from annotated data and the flexibility to use newly annotated
(possibly uncommon) images, and present a quasi-parametric human parsing model.
Under the classic K Nearest Neighbor (KNN)-based nonparametric framework, the
parametric Matching Convolutional Neural Network (M-CNN) is proposed to predict
the matching confidence and displacements of the best matched region in the
testing image for a particular semantic region in one KNN image. Given a
testing image, we first retrieve its KNN images from the
annotated/manually-parsed human image corpus. Then each semantic region in each
KNN image is matched with confidence to the testing image using M-CNN, and the
matched regions from all KNN images are further fused, followed by a superpixel
smoothing procedure to obtain the ultimate human parsing result. The M-CNN
differs from the classic CNN in that the tailored cross image matching filters
are introduced to characterize the matching between the testing image and the
semantic region of a KNN image. The cross image matching filters are defined at
different convolutional layers, each aiming to capture a particular range of
displacements. Comprehensive evaluations over a large dataset with 7,700
annotated human images well demonstrate the significant performance gain from
the quasi-parametric model over the state-of-the-arts, for the human parsing
task.Comment: This manuscript is the accepted version for CVPR 201
Terahertz Sources, Detectors, and Transceivers in Silicon Technologies
With active devices lingering on the brink of activity and every passive device and interconnection on chip acting as potential radiator, a paradigm shift from ātop-downā to ābottom-upā approach in silicon terahertz (THz) circuit design is clearly evident as we witness orders-of-magnitude improvements of silicon THz circuits in terms of output power, phase noise, and sensitivity since their inception around 2010. That is, the once clear boundary between devices, circuits, and function blocks is getting blurrier as we push the devices toward their limits. And when all else fails to meet the system requirements, which is often the case, a logical step forward is to scale these THz circuits to arrays. This makes a lot of sense in the terahertz region considering the relatively efficient on-chip THz antennas and the reduced size of arrays with half-wavelength pitch. This chapter begins with the derivation of conditions for maximizing power gain of active devices. Discussions of circuit topologies for THz sources, detectors, and transceivers with emphasis on their efficacy and scalability ensue, and this chapter concludes with a brief survey of interface options for channeling THz energy out of the chip
Convergent and diver gent brain structural and functional abnormalities associated with developmental dyslexia
Brain abnormalities in the reading network have been repeatedly reported in individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD); however, it is still not totally understood where the structural and functional abnormalities are consistent/inconsistent across languages. In the current multimodal meta-analysis, we found convergent structural and functional alterations in the left superior temporal gyrus across languages, suggesting a neural signature of DD. We found greater reduction in grey matter volume and brain activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus in morpho-syllabic languages (e.g. Chinese) than in alphabetic languages, and greater reduction in brain activation in the left middle temporal gyrus and fusiform gyrus in alphabetic languages than in morpho-syllabic languages. These language differences are explained as consequences of being DD while learning a specific language. In addition, we also found brain regions that showed increased grey matter volume and brain activation, presumably suggesting compensations and brain regions that showed inconsistent alterations in brain structure and function. Our study provides important insights about the etiology of DD from a cross-linguistic perspective with considerations of consistency/inconsistency between structural and functional alterations
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