Digital Divide in Social Media Prosumption: Proclivity, Production Intensity, and Prosumer Typology among College Students and General Population

This paper examines the digital divide in social media prosumption. It compares college students’ and general population’s prosumption behavior in social media and proposes a set of measures of prosumption in online media settings with special emphasis on social media including prosumption proclivity, production intensity, and a prosumption index which can be used in future studies on social media and other usergenerated content sites. We classified prosumption behavior in a quadrant of four main types along the two dimensions of production and consumption. A polarized trend of prosumption was observed. Prosumption proclivity is a much stronger facilitator of social media consumption than participation or production intensity especially among college students

Mapping Use of a Self-directed On-line Heart Disease Education Program onto Health Learning Outcomes: A Study of Post-Heart Attack Learners

We correlated 25 heart patients’ changes in four behaviors to usage of behavior themes and three on-line learning activities. Information correlated negatively; communications correlated positively; and interactive planning showed a positive trend with changing behaviors. These findings challenge on-line educators to transcend information provision and offer more opportunities that integrate social interaction and planning

Media capabilities as a comprehensive construct for research on media choice: Assessment of a measurement model [Slides]

Slides presented at the Communication Theory and Methodology Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Association Annual Convention, August 10-13, 2011, St. Louis, Missouri by Louisa Ha, Cong Kristy Shi, and Gi Woong Yun

Structural and Biochemical Studies of Enzymes in Bacterial Glycobiology

The speed that bacterial pathogens gain resistance to antibiotics is alarming. Designing new antibacterial agents is urgent, but it requires understanding their bacterial targets at the molecular level to achieve high specificity and potency. In this thesis, I discuss the structural and biochemical investigations of three potential protein targets for antibiotics. The first is a UDP-Glc/GlcNAc 4-epimerase, called Gne, from the human pathogen Campylobacter jejuni. This enzyme is the sole source of N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) in C. jejuni, which is a common component in three major glycoconjugates decorating the cell surface and is critical for pathogenesis. The second target protein is an integral membrane protein, called MraY, which catalyzes the transfer of phospho-N-acetylmuramyl (MurNAc) pentapeptide to a lipid carrier, undecaprenyl phosphate (C55-P), producing Lipid I in the peptidoglycan biosynthesis pathway. In the following step, a peripheral protein called MurG catalyzes transferring N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) to Lipid I and produces Lipid II, which provides the first building block of the peptidoglycan layer. Peptidoglycan is uniquely bacterial, with MraY and MurG both being essential for cell viability; therefore, they are attractive targets for the development of antibacterial agents and work toward their structures is presented. Finally, MraY from Escherichia coli is the target for the lysis protein E from phage ΦX174.Efforts toward elucidating the EcMraY-E complexstructure are demonstrated here. In total, this thesis provides important data toward a full mechanistic understanding of these important antibacterial targets