Roles of Social Media in Disseminating Health Information: An Exploratory Study in China

Social media have largely transformed the way how health information is disseminated. However, the literature is limited in understanding the applications and implications of social media in health information dissemination. In this exploratory research, we interview Chinese social media users with diverse demographics by asking a set of open-ended questions regarding their use of social media in gaining and sharing health information. This research-in-progress paper reports the results of a preliminary analysis of the qualitative data that we were able to collect from 27 respondents by the time of submission. We find social media to be a major or even the only channel of seeking and sharing health information. Despite a number of relative advantages, the uncertainty about credibility is a major concern of many respondents in practicing and sharing the information gained through social media. These findings provide valuable insights for both research and practice

Defense without Forgetting: Continual Adversarial Defense with Anisotropic & Isotropic Pseudo Replay

Deep neural networks have demonstrated susceptibility to adversarial attacks. Adversarial defense techniques often focus on one-shot setting to maintain robustness against attack. However, new attacks can emerge in sequences in real-world deployment scenarios. As a result, it is crucial for a defense model to constantly adapt to new attacks, but the adaptation process can lead to catastrophic forgetting of previously defended against attacks. In this paper, we discuss for the first time the concept of continual adversarial defense under a sequence of attacks, and propose a lifelong defense baseline called Anisotropic \& Isotropic Replay (AIR), which offers three advantages: (1) Isotropic replay ensures model consistency in the neighborhood distribution of new data, indirectly aligning the output preference between old and new tasks. (2) Anisotropic replay enables the model to learn a compromise data manifold with fresh mixed semantics for further replay constraints and potential future attacks. (3) A straightforward regularizer mitigates the 'plasticity-stability' trade-off by aligning model output between new and old tasks. Experiment results demonstrate that AIR can approximate or even exceed the empirical performance upper bounds achieved by Joint Training

Experiential Value, Satisfaction, and Social Virtual World Continuance: An Empirical Investigation in Second

Social virtual worlds (SVW) base their success on continued usage. However, there is a paucity of investigation on SVW continuance. Especially, hedonic value beyond purely utilitarian concerns should be taken into consideration in understanding SVW continuance. In this study, drawing on a satisfaction-based perspective and the notion of experiential value from the consumer behavior literature, we developed a research model regarding the role of experiential value (including both utilitarian and hedonic value) in predicting SVW users’ continuance intention through satisfaction. In order to empirically test the proposed model and hypotheses, data were collected using a questionnaire survey from real users of Second Life, one of the most popular and typical SVWs in the world, and analyzed via LISREL 8.70. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Understanding Healthcare Knowledge Diffusion in WeChat

Social media such as We Chat provide new ways of communicating healthcare information and knowledge. Many healthcare institutions leverage We Chat public platform to disseminate healthcare knowledge in the hope of attracting public attention. It is critical for them to build a comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting WeChat users’ willingness to diffuse healthcare knowledge, an issue that has seldom been studied in the literature. This research aims to address this gap. Drawing on prior research on word-of-mouth, we develop a research model by integrating six factors regarding three key elements of healthcare knowledge communications: content (interestingness, usefulness, emotionality and positivity), source (source credibility) and channel (institution-based trust). The research model will be tested through a scenario-based online survey. This research is expected to contribute by (1) integrating factors that determine healthcare knowledge diffusion including the factors about content, source and channel, especially including institution-based trust as an important determinant, (2) examining the diffusion of healthcare knowledge and taking WeChat as the research context, and (3) using survey with subjective measurements to test a more comprehensive model. Potential practical implications are offered for healthcare organizations and practitioners

Differences in the Reasons of Intermittent versus Permanent Discontinuance in Social Media: An Exploratory Study in Weibo

Discontinued usage (or discontinuance) of social media has aroused extensive interests among researchers and practitioners. Existing research tends to view discontinuance as permanent, but pays little attention to intermittent discontinuance wherein individuals stop using a social medium for a certain period of time but eventually restart using afterwards. Specifically, little is known about the commonalities and differences in reasons underlying permanent and intermittent discontinuance. Addressing this research gap, this paper reports an exploratory field study using qualitative data collected by interviewing 96 users with discontinuance experiences in Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging platform. Results reveal four categories of reasons for discontinuance: user-, context-, function- and content-related. Comparative analysis shows that user discontinuance because of context-related factors is more likely to be intermittent, while user discontinuance due to function- and content-related factors are more likely to be permanent; results for user-related factors are complicated. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

When Online Auction Meets Virtual Reality: An Empirical Investigation

The online auction is becoming increasingly popular in e-commerce, which allows to sell a product to the buyer with the highest bid. However, the lack of authentic product details for a thorough evaluation still poses challenges to its success. Recently, virtual reality (VR) is introduced to online auctions. We employ a unique dataset to investigate the effects of VR on auction outcomes and bidding activities. Results show that VR enhances buyers’ bidding competition, which in turn increases auction success and price, resulting in a competitive effect. Additionally, we find VR boosts buyers’ strategic responses to the bidding war, leading to a late-bidding effect. Findings contribute to both the theory and practice of VR and online auctions in selling houses

Understanding Status Update in Microblog: A Perspective on Media Needs

Microblog has grown popularly as a seminal social medium for timely information seeking and sharing. However, the reason why individuals update real-time information in microblog has not been well understood, and empirical research to address this specific information behavior is hardly available. As a felt urge can be conceptualized as a precursor of real-time updating in the microblog, we attempt to capture the underlying mechanism in causing this less reflective behavior urge. We apply the media needs theory to investigate how the individuals’ media needs spark their urge to update personal status in the microblog. In particular, we conceptualize the cognitive needs as related to information uniqueness, personal integrative needs as related to connectivity, social integrative needs as a unidirectional relationship, affective needs as positive emotions and tension release needs as negative emotions. An online survey was employed to validate the proposed model within 523 microblog users in China. The results suggest that the users’ behavior urge is significantly influenced by information uniqueness, connectivity, unidirectional relationship and positive emotions. Furthermore, among the five media needs, the affective and social integrative related factors strongly determine the personal real-time status update in microblog. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed in this paper

Chinese Virtual World Adoption: Attitudes, Experiences and Issues

Abstract Virtual Worlds are receiving increased global attention in a wide range of applications in education

High-Pressure Die Casting: A Review of Progress from the EPSRC Future LiME Hub

This article provides an overview of high-pressure die casting (HPDC)-related research undertaken at the EPSRC Future LiME Hub between 2015–2022. The project aimed to identify the cause of variability in the tensile ductility of die-cast structures, and to develop novel processing techniques to address this issue. Variability in tensile ductility was related to the size of large pores and non-metallic inclusions. It was proposed that these non-metallic inclusions formed during the pyrolysis of commercial plunger lubricants in the shot sleeve, and that these large pores derived from dilatational strains introduced during semi-solid deformation. Processing parameters and die design were found to significantly influence the microstructure of die-cast products, and the subsequent variability in tensile ductility. To close, recent progress on the application of intensive melt shearing to HPDC is reviewed. Intensive melt shearing was found to induce significant grain refinement in both Al and Mg alloys due to the effective dispersion of native oxide particles, and the use of these particles as heterogeneous nucleation substrates. The presence of native oxide particles also enabled the use of novel heat treatment procedures that avoided conventional issues such as surface blistering and geometrical distortion