Socially Connecting and Socially Distancing Consumer Choices

Can people use consumption to manage their social relationships? Across three essays, this dissertation explores why and how people make consumer choices that socially connect or distance themselves from others. Essay 1 examines how motives to signal social identity and uniqueness can lead people to make choices that both connect and distance them from other members of their social group. People are often conflicted between wanting to fit in and be different. This research demonstrates how consumers simultaneously satisfy competing motives for group identification and individual uniqueness along different dimensions of choice, thus allowing them to be similar and different at the same time. Essay 2 studies how consumers\u27 gift choices can change how socially connected their recipients feel to them. This research examines actual and hypothetical gift exchanges in real-life relationships and reveals that experiential gifts (events recipients live through) make recipients feel more connected to their gift giver than material gifts (objects for the recipient to keep), regardless of whether the gift is consumed together. Experiential gifts have this connecting effect because of the greater emotion they evoke when consumed. Essay 3 investigates how the emotion that motivates gift giving can affect how connected or disconnected gift givers and recipients feel to each other. This research shows that the same situation of social inequity can elicit feelings of gratitude or guilt, and explores the downstream social consequences of gifts that say thanks versus sorry. Gifts can help restore relationships, but with differential effects for gift givers and recipients. Gift givers report greater improvements in social connection when giving out of guilt, whereas recipients report greater improvements when receiving a gift given out of gratitude. By studying relationships between people, this dissertation provides a richer understanding of the role of consumption in people\u27s social lives and offers guidance to help people foster closer relationships with others

Global Assessment of Severity of Epilepsy (GASE) Scale in Children with Epilepsy: Construct Validity, Stability, and Responsiveness

The Global Assessment of Severity of Epilepsy (GASE) Scale is a single-item, 7-point global rating scale designed for neurologist-report of overall severity of epilepsy in children. Preliminary evidence suggested it may be valid and reliable for research and clinical use. Data from the Health-Related Quality of Life in Children with Epilepsy Study (HERQULES) was analyzed to evaluate validity, stability, and responsiveness of GASE scores. Spearman’s Rho indicated that GASE was moderately correlated with key aspects of epilepsy but weakly correlated with parents’ perceptions of child health. Frequency and intensity of seizures and interference of epilepsy or drugs with daily activities were most strongly correlated with GASE. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) provided modest evidence that GASE could detect stability. Distribution- and anchor-based indices suggested that GASE was responsive to changes in clinical criteria. Results support the construct validity, stability, and responsiveness to change of the GASE Scale in children with epilepsy

Generalized Hybrid Evolutionary Algorithm Framework with a Mutation Operator Requiring no Adaptation

This paper presents a generalized hybrid evolutionary optimization structure that not only combines both nondeterministic and deterministic algorithms on their individual merits and distinct advantages, but also offers behaviors of the three originating classes of evolutionary algorithms (EAs). In addition, a robust mutation operator is developed in place of the necessity of mutation adaptation, based on the mutation properties of binary-coded individuals in a genetic algorithm. The behaviour of this mutation operator is examined in full and its performance is compared with adaptive mutations. The results show that the new mutation operator outperforms adaptive mutation operators while reducing complications of extra adaptive parameters in an EA representation

A study on the effectiveness of Chinese character component teaching for Indonesian elementary students to understand Chinese characters ——Take the students of the Happy Chinese World Language Course as an example

With the gradual increase of China's political and economic influence in the world, the Chinese language has shown a momentum of rapid development. Today, Chinese is the most spoken language in the world. Chinese characters themselves are the most special element of the Chinese language and are considered the most difficult part of the Chinese language to learn. Therefore, an experimental study on the teaching of Chinese character components was carried out for junior students of the Jakarta Happy Chinese Tuition School.The purpose of this study is to understand the effectiveness of Chinese character component teaching for Indonesian beginner students to understand Chinese characters, and the research type of this study is hybrid research, collecting relevant data to design a component teaching program for this experimental study. Design a set of pre-experiment tests and outcome tests before and after the experiment for comparison.Through the results of the study, it is known that the basic situation of Chinese character components is not very ideal for the Happy Chinese World language course, and after teaching using component teaching, the students in the experimental class have significantly improved their knowledge of component teaching, and can use Chinese character components to guess the meaning and pronunciation of unlearned Chinese characters. In addition, you can learn which teaching methods and practice methods can be used, as well as the methods that students prefer. I hope this article can provide some help for teachers of happy Chinese tuition classes and classroom teaching using the same teaching materials, and also stimulate the fun of learning Chinese characters for Indonesian students

Elicited production of wh-questions in Cantonese-speaking children

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 2004."A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, December 31, 2004."Also available in print.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

A retrospective examination of the experience and impacts of adult and peer online sexual victimisation in young people

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a pervasive global problem, and online child sexual abuse (OCSA), despite being a fast-growing form of CSA, has continued to receive relatively limited research attention in comparison to sexual abuse experienced without the facilitation of technology. The aim of this PhD programme is to advance knowledge of OCSA by examining the pre, peri, and post online sexual victimisation experienced by young people before the age of 16 using a retrospective mixed methods approach. This was achieved by exploring the initiation and development of online exploitative relationships, examining the scope of different forms of OCSA, quantifying components of the online grooming process and factors predicting sexual abuse following online grooming, and examining the aftermath of OCSA in terms of disclosure of the abuse and its psychosocial impacts in adulthood through a series of three studies. Study 1 used a focus group design to explore young people’s online experiences and interactions with adults and peers. The results revealed four themes consisting of: i) gendered perceptions and experiences of online sexual harm; ii) experience indicative of online grooming by online adult acquaintances; iii) peer perpetrated OCSA; and iv) the psychological impact of OCSA. Using an online questionnaire, Study 2 confirmed that different forms of OCSA (e.g., unwanted online sexual exposure, engagement in unwanted online sexual activities) and online grooming resulting in sexual abuse were common. This suggests young people experience multiple forms of OCSA and highlights the importance of concurrently examining different types of online sexual victimisation to better understand this form of abuse. The experience of grooming tactics and unwanted online exposure as predictors of sexual abuse by online adult acquaintances support existing qualitative evidence and provide quantitative evidence on the online grooming process. Study 2 also demonstrated, for the first time, that peer norms can increase vulnerability to OCSA and found that descriptive norms predicted different aspects of online grooming activities. Using an online questionnaire, Study 3 was the first study to examine the long-term impact of OCSA on psychosocial well-being and the related influence of disclosure in adulthood. The experience of OCSA was found to adversely relate to depression and anxiety symptoms, as well as lower self-esteem, compared to those who had not experienced this form of abuse. This confirms previous findings on the adverse effects of OCSA on young people and shows that the effects can persist into adulthood. This is consistent with the literature on the long-term effects of CSA and reiterates that OCSA is no less serious or less abusive than offline CSA. The link between specific types of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and OCSA is an important contribution as they demonstrate both direct and indirect trauma is associated with OCSA and add to a growing body of literature on poly-victimisation across the online and offline environments. Study also extends existing knowledge of sexual re-victimisation by demonstrating the cooccurrence of online and offline CSA and that OCSA perpetrated by both adults and peers was most commonly experienced. These results indicate that young people are being sexually re-victimised before they reach adulthood. These findings can inform clinical practice by emphasising the need to consider vulnerability factors across different domains in order to identify at-risk young people and protect them from further harm. A complex relationship emerged in relation to the influence of disclosure on long-term psychosocial well-being, and self-blame was found to predict post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity regardless of whether OCSA had been disclosed. This programme of research developed new knowledge suggesting that vulnerability to OCSA, as well as its experience and impacts, are influenced by social factors and cultural contexts (e.g., gendered sexual norms, peer norms). The role of social stigma about OCSA, negative reactions to disclosure, and self-blame in determining PTSD symptom severity in adulthood and preventing disclosure are also noteworthy contributions to the undeveloped literature on OCSA disclosure. Collectively, the findings underscore the importance of addressing social inequality and social attitudes to prevent exposure to OCSA and to facilitate a safe climate to promote disclosure, which can in turn mitigate the impact of this form of childhood abuse

Global assessment of the severity of epilepsy (GASE) Scale in children: Validity, reliability, responsiveness

Summary Objective The Global Assessment of Severity of Epilepsy (GASE) Scale is a single-item, 7-point global rating scale designed for neurologist-report of overall severity of epilepsy in children. Building on previous preliminary evidence of its validity and reliability for research and clinical use, this study evaluated the GASE Scale\u27s construct validity, reliability, and responsiveness to changes in severity of epilepsy. Methods Data used for the study arose from the Health-Related Quality of Life in Children with Epilepsy Study (HERQULES), a 2-year multicenter prospective cohort study (n = 374) with observations taken at baseline, and 6, 12, and 24 months after diagnosis. Construct validity and reliability were quantified using Spearman\u27s correlation and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Responsiveness was assessed using both distribution-based and anchor-based indices. Results The GASE Scale was at least moderately correlated (r ≥ 0.30) with several key clinical aspects and most strongly correlated with frequency and intensity of seizures and interference of epilepsy or drugs with daily activities (r \u3e 0.30). Total variation in GASE Scale scores explained by seven core clinical aspects of epilepsy increased over time (R2 = 28% at baseline to R2 = 70% at 24 months). The GASE Scale had modest test-retest reliability (ICC range: 0.52-0.64) and was responsive to changes in clinical criteria (standardized response mean range: 0.49-0.68; probability of change range: 0.69-0.75; Guyatt\u27s responsiveness statistic range: 0.56-0.84). The GASE Scale showed potential to discriminate stable and changed patients according to select criteria and to a composite score (area under the receiver operating characteristic [ROC] curve range: 0.50-0.67). Significance Results offer additional evidence in support of the GASE Scale\u27s validity, reliability, as well as responsiveness to changes in severity of epilepsy in children. We conclude that the GASE Scale is a potentially useful tool for assessing the severity of epilepsy in both clinical and research settings