How motivations of SNSs use and offline social trust affect college students' self-disclosure on SNSs: An investigation in China

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have been proliferating and growing in popularity worldwide throughout the past few years, which have received significant interest from researchers. Previous literatures on Internet suggest that offline social trust influences online perceptions and behaviors, and there is linkage between trust and self-disclosure in face-to-face context. Adopting the Uses and Gratifications perspective as the theoretical foundation, this exploratory study aimed to address the roles that motivations of SNSs use and offline social trust play in predicting levels of self-disclosure on SNSs. Taking 640 snowballing sampling on Renren.com, the study found that there was an instrumental orientation of SNSs use among China's college students. Social interaction, self-image building and information seeking were three major motivations when college students use SNSs. As expected, the results also indicated that motivations of SNS use and offline social trust play a more important role in predicting self-disclosure on SNSs than demographics. This exploratory study gives an empirical insight in the influence of motivations of SNSs use and offline social trust on self-disclosure online. --Social Networking Sites,Motivations,Self-disclosure,Offline Social Trust

Radiomic signature of the FOWARC trial predicts pathological response to neoadjuvant treatment in rectal cancer

Background We aimed to develop a radiomic model based on pre-treatment computed tomography (CT) to predict the pathological complete response (pCR) in patients with rectal cancer after neoadjuvant treatment and tried to integrate our model with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based radiomic signature. Methods This was a secondary analysis of the FOWARC randomized controlled trial. Radiomic features were extracted from pre-treatment portal venous-phase contrast-enhanced CT images of 177 patients with rectal cancer. Patients were randomly allocated to the primary and validation cohort. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression was applied to select predictive features to build a radiomic signature for pCR prediction (rad-score). This CT-based rad-score was integrated with clinicopathological variables using gradient boosting machine (GBM) or MRI-based rad-score to construct comprehensive models for pCR prediction. The performance of CT-based model was evaluated and compared by receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. The LR (likelihood ratio) test and AIC (Akaike information criterion) were applied to compare CT-based rad-score, MRI-based rad-score and the combined rad-score. Results We developed a CT-based rad-score for pCR prediction and a gradient boosting machine (GBM) model was built after clinicopathological variables were incorporated, with improved AUCs of 0.997 [95% CI 0.990–1.000] and 0.822 [95% CI 0.649–0.995] in the primary and validation cohort, respectively. Moreover, we constructed a combined model of CT- and MRI-based radiomic signatures that achieve better AIC (75.49 vs. 81.34 vs.82.39) than CT-based rad-score (P = 0.005) and MRI-based rad-score (P = 0.003) alone did. Conclusions The CT-based radiomic models we constructed may provide a useful and reliable tool to predict pCR after neoadjuvant treatment, identify patients that are appropriate for a 'watch and wait' approach, and thus avoid overtreatment. Moreover, the CT-based radiomic signature may add predictive value to the MRI-based models for clinical decision making

Residents’ attitudes toward the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai prior to and during the event

This paper examines residents’ attitudes to a major non-sport-related mega event, the 2010 Shanghai Expo. Resident attitudes research can ascertain how best to accommodate host community views, a key issue in developing sustainable tourism strategies. The paper breaks new ground by examining attitudes both before and during the event, revealing considerable fluidity in attitudes, and it examines residents’ attitudes in China, reflecting the importance of non-western cultural and political systems on attitude development. The paper contributes to longitudinal research, an area where little research is available. Two studies were conducted before and during the 2010 Shanghai World Expo using the same survey instrument. It is based on a representative sample of residents of Shanghai who were asked about their attitudes to Expo 2010. Results indicate that residents on the whole strongly supported (77.9%) or supported (12.7%) the event with all the average scores of the attitude items higher than 5 (on a 1–7 scale). Some negative impacts were identified such as increased prices, traffic problems, crowding and congestion. Residents were classified into three groups in the pre-event survey (whole embracer, ambivalent embracer and neutralist), according to their level of support, and two groups for the survey during the event

Organisational crises in the media: crisis response strategies and news coverage

During a crisis, the crisis response strategies used reflect the extent to which an organisation accepts responsibility for the crisis. These strategies could subsequently affect the organisation’s image and reputation. Thus, organisations are advised to be strategic in their choices of crisis response strategies through an analysis of the crisis situations. This study examines a crisis caused by an organisation’s appointed advertising agency whose actions led the organisation to be accused of interfering with press freedom. This study uses content analysis to analyse the news coverage on the crisis response strategies used and the tone of the coverage. It found that justification was the most frequently used strategy. When the strategy of excuse was reported in the news coverage, the overall tone of the coverage was likely to be negative. The implications of the findings are also discussed

Organisational crises in the media: Crisis response strategies and news coverage

During a crisis, the crisis response strategies used reflect the extent to which an organisation accepts responsibility for the crisis. These strategies could subsequently affect the organisation’s image and reputation. Thus, organisations are advised to be strategic in their choices of crisis response strategies through an analysis of the crisis situations. This study examines a crisis caused by an organisation’s appointed advertising agency whose actions led the organisation to be accused of interfering with press freedom. This study uses content analysis to analyse the news coverage on the crisis response strategies used and the tone of the coverage. It found that justification was the most frequently used strategy. When the strategy of excuse was reported in the news coverage, the overall tone of the coverage was likely to be negative. The implications of the findings are also discussed

Study on undergraduate practical teaching system of tourism management

In tourism higher education, practical teaching system is vital to realize purpose of undergraduates' cultivation. The crux of constructing this system is analyze problems in teaching progress and research status of universities which have established tourism management major. The article first discussed the basic connotation and practical teaching framework of tourism management. Then the construction of the practical teaching system was presented from three aspects, which are practical teaching objectives, system connotation and management mechanism. In the following some conclusions for realizing the goal are drawn, including cultivating good professional consciousness and capability, establishing integrative, multi-level and open innovation practical teaching structure, improving management regulations, strengthening teaching evaluation and building double-quality teacher teams

Study on the development of tourism public service under the perspective of demand and supply ———Taking Guilin “National tourism comprehensive reform testing area”as an example

Study on tourism public service is an important topic at the present stage of tourism development in our country. We take Guilin as an example，which is the first city to establish national tourism comprehensive reform testing area. The paper firstly analyzes the concept of tourism public service and its system by applying questionnaire survey and interviews and studies the construction of content，quality，and system as well as its development expectation based on the perceived evaluation of both demand and supply. The result shows that tourism public service system is yet to be improved. Monitoring tourism service quality and perfect security and salvage become the pivotal point of assessing superior or inferior service. Transportation service still plays a very important role in local tourism infrastructure， and poor communication between tourism industry and educational system and absence of tourism volunteers’service system also affect the upgrade of overall service level. Corresponding countermeasures are thus put forward. The result provides timing feedback information for tourism destinations to promote the development of regional modern service，enhance tourism public service quality and improve service system

Impressions of Liusanjie: a study of motivation, theatrical performance evaluation, and satisfaction

This paper examines the relationships between motivation to visit, performance evaluation, satisfaction, and behavioural intentions for tourists experiencing 'Impressions of Liusanjie', an iconic, outdoor, theatrical performance in Guilin, China. The study finds that motivation does not affect satisfaction directly but that performance evaluation is an intervening variable between motivation and satisfaction. It also finds that experiential evaluation of the theatrical performance has more effect on satisfaction than evaluation of technical and functional attributes. Tourists were surveyed after the performance and the results analysed using cluster, correlation analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM). The first two techniques were used to identify existing relationships amongst the study variables. SEM was applied to determine if a causal relationship existed and, if so, their strength. This research provides a contribution to the understanding of tourist motivation, theatrical performance evaluation, satisfaction, and behavioural intentions. © 201