X-ray Induced Changes in Electronic Properties of Stabilized Amorphous Selenium Based Photoconductors

Amorphous selenium and its alloy are important materials for flat panel digital X-ray detectors. The performance of the X-ray detector is directly related to the carrier mobility and carrier-trapping lifetime of amorphous selenium and its alloy. An experiment was conducted to examine the dose rate effects on the carrier-trapping lifetime reduction of amorphous selenium alloy due to X-ray irradiation. In addition, an experiment was conducted to investigate the temperature effects on X-ray induced carrier-trapping lifetime decrease and relaxation process. X-ray induced capacitance changes have been investigated as well. The interrupted field time of flight (IFTOF) techniques are used in order to acquire the carrier-trapping lifetime. Several amorphous selenium alloy films are irradiated under X-ray. The composition of films are a-Se: 0.3% As: 5ppm Cl and the thickness of the films are about 150 μm. Different dose rates, which range from 0.2 Gy/s up to 2 Gy/s, are applied during the irradiation. The experiments are done for both electrons and holes. The dose rate difference does not result in a significant change in the X-ray induced carrier-trapping lifetime decrease. The same set of samples is studied under three different temperatures, 10 ℃, 23.5 ℃ and 35.5 ℃. The X-ray induced hole-trapping lifetime changes at different temperatures are investigated. After irradiation, the hole-trapping lifetime begins to recovery gradually. The temperature during the relaxation process remains unchanged. The change of hole-trapping lifetime is measured by IFTOF measurement. At higher temperature, upon receiving a certain amount of X-ray dose, the hole-trapping lifetime decreases more than it at lower temperature; however, it also recoveries more quickly at higher temperature. The relaxation process at different temperature also gives activation energy for holes. The X-ray irradiation does not result in any capacitance changes for a-Se films

The impact of long-term dietary pattern of fecal donor on in vitro fecal fermentation properties of inulin

Although the composition of the gut microbiota is of interest, the functionality, or metabolic activity, of the gut microbiota is of equal importance: the gut microbiota can produce either harmful metabolites associated with human disease or beneficial metabolites that protect against disease. The purposes of this study were to determine the associations between dietary intake variables and fecal short and branched chain fatty acid (S/BCFA) concentrations; to determine the associations between dietary intake variables and inulin degradation, short and branched chain fatty acid (S/BCFA) production, and ammonia production during in vitro fecal fermentation of a highly fermentable substrate (inulin); and finally to compare results from the fermentation of inulin with those obtained in a previous report using a poorly fermentable substrate (whole wheat; Yang and Rose, Nutr. Res., 2014, 34, 749–759). Stool samples from eighteen individuals that had completed one-year dietary records were used in an in vitro fecal fermentation system with long-chain inulin as substrate. Few dietary intake variables were correlated with fecal S/BCFA concentrations; however, intakes of several plant-based foods, especially whole grain, dry beans, and certain vegetables that provided dietary fiber, plant protein, and B vitamins, were associated with acetate, propionate, butyrate, and total SCFA production during inulin fermentation. In contrast, intake of dairy and processed meats that provided cholesterol and little fiber, were associated with ammonia and BCFA production. Comparing results between inulin and whole wheat fermentations, significant correlations were only found for butyrate and BCFA, suggesting that regardless of the type of carbohydrate provided to the microbiota, long-term diet may have a pronounced effect on the propensity of the gut microbiota toward either beneficial metabolism (butyrate production) or detrimental metabolism (BCFA production). These results may help in the development of new dietary strategies to improve gut microbiota functionality to promote human health

Review Helpfulness as a Function of discrete negative emotions and image colorfulness

Given that helpful reviews are valuable to both customers and e-commerce platforms, a better understanding of the antecedents for review helpfulness offers clear benefits to review writers and online vendors. This paper proposes two research questions: How will negative discrete emotions expressed through review text (i.e., fear, anger, sadness, and disgust) influence review helpfulness? And how will review textual emotions and image colorfulness of review interactively influence review helpfulness? Using online review of computer related products sold via Amazon in the past five years, we found that anger increase online review helpfulness, while sadness and disgust decrease the helpfulness. We also found the moderating effects of review image colorfulness on the relationship between discrete emotions and online review helpfulness. Our research advances the existing online review literature by proposing the importance of discrete emotions and its interactive effect with review image colorfulness in review helpfulness

The Impacts of Individual Emotional state and Emotional Framing of Phishing Attack on Susceptibility to Phishing: An Emotional Congruence Perspective

People’s overdependency on the Internet has given rise to an increasing number of cybercrimes. To help combat these cybercrimes, it is essential to understand factors that can make people vulnerable and susceptible to such crime. Specifically, we focus on phishing attacks, which are increasing in frequency and can have many negative impacts on their victims. Thus, we seek to answer the question: What are the determinants for susceptibility for phishing attacks? Drawing on emotional congruence theory, our work-in-progress study not only examines the direct impacts of individual emotion, and emotional framing of phishing attack, but also focuses on the interactive impacts of the two factors. We will conduct both online and lab experiments to investigate the above research question. We contribute to the human computer interaction (HCI) literature by offering insights on how message design of phishing attack can interplay with individual emotion to influence an individual’s phishing susceptibility

Enhancing Student Experience in Online Learning: A Social Capital Perspective

Due to the shifting trend from face-to-face learning to online learning in higher education and challenges encountered by students in the pandemic era, it is imperative to understand how to enhance student experiences in online learning settings. The objective of this work-in-progress research is to uncover how social capital gained through online interaction impacts a student’s utilitarian and hedonic learning experience. This paper develops a research model to meet this objective and outlines a proposed methodology to validate the proposed model. We expect that this study would contribute to the online learning literature by investigating this novel context, extending social interactions to social capital, and differentiating between utilitarian and hedonic student experiences. This study also has potential to provide implications for online learning designers and instructors in higher education

On the rheology and morphology developments of ternary liquid/liquid/particles system with capillary force

This dissertation is focused on understanding the relationship between rheology and morphology of capillary suspension under various shearing conditions. A model ternary liquid/liquid/particle system is constructed for experimental propose. Particularly in this system, one of the liquid has some preferentiality in wetting towards particles so that liquid meniscus can be formed between particles. Formation of such meniscus can create a network which endows the suspension with a yield stress. Four specific topics are presented: 1) to investigate rheology of pendular network (i.e. only pair-wise connection form between fully wet particles), by examining the dependence of the yielding behavior on flow history, quantify their viscoelasticity, and relate these to the microstructural picture of meniscus rupture; 2) to verify the effect of various wetting conditions on rheology of the capillary suspension. Results show a diminishing solid-like property of such suspension as the particles become less wetting by the minority fluid, which induced particle aggregation; 3) to map the rich variety of morphologies for a model ternary system containing particles which were equally wetted by both polymers, analogous to: Picking emulsions, particle-stabilized foams and bijels 1, 2; 4) to correlate the dynamic morphology of ternary model blend with rheological measurement during creep-recovery via in-situ visualization

An Investigation of Misinformation Susceptibility of Older Adults: A Persuasive Perspective

One group in our society that is particularly vulnerable to misinformation is older adults. While older adults have been recognized as being of high risk for misinformation, this demographic has been under-researched in the dark side of IT literature. This research-in-progress study seeks to understand how individual, medium, and message characteristics influence individuals’ susceptibility toward misinformation and how these factors influence misinformation susceptibility differently across younger and older adults. A lab experiment is also proposed to verify the proposed relationships. This proposed research will provide much needed understanding on how older adults are impacted by the IT threat of misinformation and how to design support to encourage resilience to misinformation that results in improved well-being and mobility for older adults

An Investigation of Intention to Explore Business Intelligence Systems: A Psychological Engagement Perspective

Prior research has generally found that firm-specific information technology (IT) knowledge, behavioral, normative and control beliefs, and team empowerment contributed to intention to explore IT. However, little attention is directed towards how the user experience, specifically user engagement, influences users’ intention to explore IT, such as business information systems (BIS). Toward this end, this paper explores how user engagement affects users’ intention to explore BIS and how user engagement is promoted by the cognitive fit between BIS interface and tasks and the regulatory compatibility between BIS interface and personal characteristics, such as style of information processing. We conducted a lab experiment to empirically test the hypotheses. This study may contribute to the extant information systems (IS) literature by uncovering the impacts of engagement experience on intention to explore and responding to the call for investigation of the BIS context where rich visualizations of the systems influence users’ interactive experience