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The current study examines how distant outgroups are portrayed in humanitarian appeals on a popular social media platform, YouTube. Social media is a growing platform for humanitarian organisations to spread messages about crises, as they can reach a wide audience in a quick and costless manner. Drawing from theories of visual framing and intergroup relations, this study analyses how organisations frame the outgroup beneficiaries in their online donation appeals. A quantitative content analysis was conducted to explore online humanitarian donation appeals, with a focus on the visual content used to portray outgroup beneficiaries. The study sampled 187 videos from 10 prominent humanitarian organisations’ YouTube channels. Findings indicate that while humanitarian organisations have largely moved away from an explicit rhetoric of frail, dying, and suffering subjects, subtle notions of helplessness are still prevalent. The narrative that outgroup beneficiaries are passive sufferers can hence be detrimental to intergroup relations. Submitted/Accepted version

This study presents a novel organocatalytic approach for direct modification of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) by attaching functional groups using C-H bond functionalization, yielding functionalized PEO with degradability and molecular delivery capabilities. Direct functionalization of PEO has been a challenging task due to the difficulty in finding versatile polymerization conditions that can accommodate various functional epoxides. The presented method overcomes these limitations and allows for a broad substrate scope including biologically active carboxylic acids such as ibuprofen and glycyrrhetinic acid. The modification process preserves the parent PEO structure throughout the highly reactive radical and oxocarbenium intermediate. The resulting functional PEO contains a degradable acetal unit, making it desirable for molecular delivery applications. Hydrolysis studies confirm the steady release of fragmented PEO and carboxylic acid. The drug-loaded PEO demonstrates cytoprotective activity in RAW264.7 cells stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The hydrophobic drug moieties taken up by cells and released via the acid-triggered cleavage of acetal linkages in the acidic environment of endosomes. Crosslinked PEO is also demonstrated with a dicarboxylic acid, which loses its gel architecture upon contact with water. The presented method offers a versatile and efficient way to modify PEO, with potential applications in drug delivery and tissue engineering.

This paper describes a novel method for directly modifying poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) by attaching functional groups using C-H bond functionalization. While existing methods for PEO modification, such as copolymerization and PEGylation, have limitations, direct functionalization of PEO has been challenging due to the difficulty in finding versatile polymerization conditions that can accommodate various functional epoxides. This study demonstrates a fully organocatalytic approach for direct PEO functionalization with carboxylic acids, resulting in a broad substrate scope that includes aromatic, aliphatic, and biologically active carboxylic acids such as ibuprofen and glycyrrhetinic acid. Importantly, our condition preserves the parent PEO structure throughout the highly reactive radical and oxocarbenium intermediate.

Compared to normal cells, cancer cells are more susceptible to insults of prooxidants that generate ROS (reactive oxygen species) or scavenge antioxidants such as glutathione (GSH). Cancer cells undergo immunogenic cell death (ICD) by elevated oxidative stress. Herein, we report rationally designed F-ssPBCA nanoparticles as a tumor-targeting prooxidant, which generates ROS and scavenges GSH simultaneously to cooperatively amplify oxidative stress, leading to ICD. Prooxidant F-ssPBCA nanoparticles are composed of a disulfide-bridged GSH scavenging dimeric prodrug (ssPB) that self-assembles to form nanoconstructs and encapsulates ROS-generating BCA (benzoyloxy cinnamaldehyde). F-ssPBCA nanoparticles significantly elevate oxidative stress to kill cancer cells and also evoke ICD featured by the release of CRT (calreticulin), HMGB-1 (high mobility group box-1), and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Animal studies revealed that F-ssPBCA nanoparticles accumulate in tumors preferentially and suppress tumor growth effectively. The results of this study demonstrate that prooxidant-mediated oxidative stress elevation is a highly effective strategy to kill cancer cells selectively and even evoke abundant ICD. We anticipate that oxidative stress amplifying F-ssPBCA nanoparticles hold tremendous translational potential as a tumor targeted ICD-inducing anticancer nanomedicine.

Intergroup contact varies in richness of the experience, yet the effect of contact richness has not been systematically examined. This paper experimentally tested whether and how different levels of mediated contact richness—afforded by different forms of media—affect attitudes toward marginalized outgroups (e.g., refugees, migrant workers). Data collected online from an adult sample (N = 510) found that richness of the mediated contact experience increased feelings of psychological closeness of the depicted outgroup member, which then reduced intergroup anxiety and perceived threat of the outgroup. This, in turn, increased support for policies that promote more humane and equitable conditions for the two outgroups. Theoretical implications for intergroup contact theory and practical implications for utilizing media programs to reduce intergroup bias are discussed. Ministry of Education (MOE) This work was partially supported by the Start-up Grant and Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1 Grant awarded to the first author.

Cancer cells are more vulnerable to reactive oxygen species (ROS)-mediated oxidative stress than normal cells due to disturbed redox balance. It can be postulated that ROS-generating drug carriers exert anticancer actions, leading to combination anticancer therapy with drug payloads. Here, we report a ROS-generating polyprodrug of cinnamaldehyde (CA) that not only serves as a drug carrier but also synergizes with drug payloads. The polyprodrug of CA (pCA) incorporates ROS-generating CA in the backbone of an amphiphilic polymer through an acid-cleavable acetal linkage. pCA could self-assemble with tumor-targeting lipopeptide (DSPE-PEG-RGD) and encapsulate doxorubicin (DOX) to form T-pCAD micelles. At acidic pH, T-pCAD micelles release both CA and DOX to exert synergistic anticancer actions. Animal studies using mouse xenograft models revealed that T-pCAD micelles accumulate in tumors preferentially and suppress the tumor growth significantly. Based on the oxidative stress amplification and acid-responsiveness, ROS-generating pCAD micelles hold tremendous potential as drug carriers for combination anticancer therapy.

While fact-checking has received much attention as a potential tool to combat fake news, whether and how fact-checking information lessens intentions to share fake news on social media remains underexplored. Two experiments uncovered a theoretical mechanism underlying the effect of fact-checking on sharing intentions, and identified an important contextual cue (i.e., social media metrics) that interacts with fact-checking effects. Exposure to fake news with fact-checking information (vs. fake news without fact-checking information) yielded more negative evaluations of the news and a greater belief that others are more influenced by the news than oneself (third-person perception [TPP]). Increased TPP, in turn, led to weaker intentions to share fake news on social media. Fact-checking information also nullified the effect of social media metrics on sharing intentions; without fact-checking information, higher (vs. lower) social media metrics induced greater intentions to share the news. However, when fact-checking debunked the news, such an effect disappeared.

The increasingly assertive position of social media as a news source means that news audiences can no longer depend on traditional journalists for information verification. Instead, they must determine the news credibility on their own. The majority of information credibility studies have considered news audiences’ information evaluation as a purely cognitive endeavor, implying that individuals can arrive at valid information without social validation. By drawing on self-categorization theory, this article re-conceptualizes audiences’ acts of news authentication by considering it not as a one-off activity under the uncontested control of the individual, but as a cycle of collective authentication strategies whereby individual authentication and social validation are entangled in the context-dependent processing of social news. To do this, we unpacked the social dimension of news authentication by looking at the social motivation, strategies, as well as the consequences that support it through a series of focus group discussions in Singapore.

Analysis of patient-derived DNA samples has identified hundreds of variants that are likely involved in neuropsychiatric diseases such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SCZ). While these studies couple behavioral phenotypes to individual genotypes, the number and diversity of candidate genes implicated in these disorders highlights the fact that the mechanistic underpinnings of these disorders are largely unknown. Here, we describe a RNAi-based screening platform that uses C. elegans to screen candidate neuropsychiatric risk genes (NRGs) for roles in controlling dendritic arborization. To benchmark this approach, we queried published lists of NRGs whose variants in ASD and SCZ are predicted to result in complete or partial loss of gene function. We found that a significant fraction (>16%) of these candidate NRGs are essential for dendritic development. Furthermore, these gene sets are enriched for dendritic arbor phenotypes (>14 fold) when compared to control RNAi datasets of over 500 human orthologs. The diversity of PVD structural abnormalities observed in these assays suggests that the functions of diverse NRGs (encoding transcription factors, chromatin remodelers, molecular chaperones and cytoskeleton-related proteins) converge to regulate neuronal morphology and that individual NRGs may play distinct roles in dendritic branching. We also demonstrate that the experimental value of this platform by providing additional insights into the molecular frameworks of candidate NRGs. Specifically, we show that ANK2/UNC-44 function is directly integrated with known regulators of dendritic arborization and suggest that altering the dosage of ARID1B/LET-526 expression during development affects neuronal morphology without diminishing aspects of cell fate specification.

Guided by the framework of reciprocity on social media, the current study investigated antecedents of news sharing. Using a two-wave panel survey involving 868 respondents who took two surveys about one year apart, this study examined the effect of frequency of receiving news on social media on subsequent news-sharing behaviour, while controlling for demographics, news-sharing motivations and trust in social media news. The study found that motivation for self-presentation and trust in news shared by one's social media network positively predicted news sharing on social media. Frequency of receiving news at Time 1 also predicted sharing news subsequently at Time 2. This points to news being valued as a form of social currency.

As both news and audiences are increasingly mobile, this introduction calls for intensified research into mobility as a core characteristic of journalism. This special issue explores the intersection of news with mobility in production, distribution and consumption. News has become mobile in a material sense as it is accessed on portable devices; and in a professional sense of being cut adrift from the business models which sustained it, challenged by peripheral actors and alternative news media, and embracing new technologies, new relationships with the audience and new political challenges to its status quo. One task is to adapt research techniques usually applied to fixed phenomena–or at least applied with the intention of fixing them–to something fluid. This is not impossible. All mobilities need an infrastructure on which to move, offering fixed points in a fluid world. Mobility offers critical questions of power and dominance of who is mobile, how, and under what circumstances; in this way, mobility becomes embodied. And the paradigm calls for research into the mobility of journalism and its interaction with similarly fluid, related actualities: blogs, smartphones, audiences, economics, advertisers, government and technology. Each interacts with journalism to deliver diverse realities.

This study seeks to understand how online discussion, fact-checking, and sources of fact-checks will influence individuals' risk perceptions toward nuclear energy when they are exposed to fake news. Using a 2 × 3 experimental design, 320 participants were randomly assigned to one of the six experimental conditions. Results showed an interaction effect between online discussion and exposure to fact-checking, in which online discussion lowered individuals' risk perception toward nuclear energy when a fact-check was unavailable. Of those who participated in the online discussion, those who viewed a fact-check posted by traditional media have higher risk perception as compared to those who viewed a fact-check posted by a fact-check organization. Our findings indicate that different fact-checking sources can have differential effects on public risk perceptions, depending on whether online discussion is involved. To curb the spread of fake news, different fact-checking strategies will need to be deployed depending on the situation. National Research Foundation (NRF) This work is funded by the Singapore National Research Foundation under the Nuclear Safety Research and Education Programme (NSREP) Award No. NRF2014NPR-NPRP001-004.

This study investigates a mechanism of mediated intergroup contact effects that occurs through experiencing social presence of a stigmatized outgroup character. Conceiving narrative texts as a context for mediated intergroup contact, we experimentally test (N = 505) the effects of narrative perspective (first vs. third person) and the photograph of the outgroup protagonist (present vs. absent) on perceived social presence of the outgroup character. We further test whether experiencing the outgroup protagonist as socially present affects intergroup outcomes (i.e., perspective-taking, intergroup anxiety, outgroup knowledge, and outgroup attitudes). Findings indicate that first-person narratives are more effective than third-person narratives in inducing social presence of the stigmatized outgroup character; photos, unexpectedly, did not have such an effect. Social presence, in turn, plays a key role in facilitating positive intergroup outcomes from reading online narrative texts. The implications of our findings are discussed. Ministry of Education (MOE) This work was supported by Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1 Grant.

Token acts of online support, also known as clicktivism, have received much criticism in recent years for suppressing subsequent prosocial behavior. However, whether, when, and why individuals perform less prosocial behavior following these acts remains relatively unknown. To address these questions, we designed a lab experiment in which participants ( N = 193) were randomly assigned to engage in public, private, or no act of clicktivism. Consistent with moral self-licensing theory, those who signed an online petition were less likely to donate than those who did not sign any petition. Public clicktivism (compared to private clicktivism) increased donation intentions among those with high impression management tendencies (i.e. high self-monitors). Concerns about one’s moral self-image partially mediated these effects. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

We bridge the theorizing on mediated and imagined contact and integrate these two contact forms in one sequence within a single design. We experimentally examine whether (1) encouraging people to i...

Contains fulltext : 226720.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) In the last 10 years, many canonical findings in the social sciences appear unreliable. This so-called "replication crisis" has spurred calls for open science practices, which aim to increase the reproducibility, replicability, and generalizability of findings. Communication research is subject to many of the same challenges that have caused low replicability in other fields. As a result, we propose an agenda for adopting open science practices in Communication, which includes the following seven suggestions: (1) publish materials, data, and code; (2) preregister studies and submit registered reports; (3) conduct replications; (4) collaborate; (5) foster open science skills; (6) implement Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines; and (7) incentivize open science practices. Although in our agenda we focus mostly on quantitative research, we also reflect on open science practices relevant to qualitative research. We conclude by discussing potential objections and concerns associated with open science practices. 26 p.

Although Tan’gun, Korea’s mythical founding father, is often depicted as an undisputed symbol of Korean nationalism, this article sheds light on a more complex history in which Tan’gun stands at the center of contesting forces and ambiguous understandings. In fact, besides his nationalist deployment, he was also mobilized as a symbol of Korean-Japanese affinity, which, in turn, was based on centuries of Japanese engagements with the mythical progenitor. As a more cosmopolitan conceptualization of Tan’gun obtained imperialist dimensions in the early twentieth century, it also interacted with and stimulated Korean nationalist utilizations of the founding father. By investigating Tan’gun’s “other” history, this article complicates our understanding of how the figure of Tan’gun evolved into the prime symbol of Korean nationalism and how Koreans negotiated their historical identity within the Japanese empire.

All living things are made up of cells that form the different tissues, organs and structures of an organism. The human body, for example, is thought to consist of some 37 trillion cells and harbor over 200 cell types. To maintain a working organism, cells divide to create new cells and replace the ones that have died. Cell division is a tightly controlled process consisting of several steps, and cells continuously face a Shakespearean dilemma of deciding whether to continue dividing (also known as cell proliferation) or to halt the process (known as quiescence). This difficult balancing act is critical during all stages of life, from embryonic development to tissue growth in an adult. Problems in the underlying pathways can result in diseases such as cancer. Cell division is driven by proteins called CDKs, which help cells to complete their cell cycle in the correct sequence. To gain more insight into this complex process, scientists have developed tools for monitoring CDKs. One such tool is a fluorescent biosensor, a molecule that can be inserted into cells that glows and moves in response to CDK activity. The biosensor can be studied and measured in each cell using a microscope. Adikes, Kohrman, Martinez et al. adapted and optimized an existing CDK biosensor to help study cell division and the switch between proliferation and quiescence in two common research organisms, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans and the zebrafish. Analysis of this biosensor showed that CDK activity at the end of cell division is higher if the cells will divide again but is low if the cells are going to become quiescent. This could suggest that the decision of a cell between proliferation and quiescence may happen earlier than expected. The optimized biosensor is sensitive enough to detect these differences and can even measure variations that influence proliferation in a region on C. elegans that was once thought to be unchanging. The development of this biosensor provides a useful research tool that could be used in other living organisms. Many research questions relate to cell division and so the applications of this tool are wide ranging.

Following a demonstration path without observing exact location of an agent is a challenging navigation problem. Especially, considering the probabilistic transition function of the agent makes the problem hard to solve with an exact action decision, so learning-based approaches have been used to solve this task. For example, a previous method by Kumar and Gupta et al., robust path following network (RPF), is a neural-network-based method using visual memories of the demonstration. Although the RPF shows good performances on the path-following task, it does not consider the efficiency of the visual memory since it requires the entire visual memory of the demonstration. In this paper, we propose a path-following network using sparse memory of the demonstration path that can deal with various sparsity of the visual memory. For each time step, the proposed network makes soft attention on the sparse memory to control the agent. We test the proposed model on the Habitat simulator using MatterPort3D dataset with various sparsity of memory. The experimental results show that the proposed method achieves 81.9% of success rate and 73.7% of SPL on a model with 0.8 memory sparsity, and also the results of the models with other memory sparsity achieve reasonable performances compare to the baseline methods.

In this paper, we tackle the problem of visual target navigation which is a crucial task for embodied AI. Given a target observation and an initial observation, we extract keypoints using an off-the-shelf keypoint detection model. Then we find sparse keypoint correspondences and estimate the relative camera pose with the PnP algorithm to reach the viewpoint for the target observation. Compared to conventional approaches, our method is faster, and more robust to scene changes and occlusions. We collected a 3D scan dataset in a university building and the proposed method is verified using the dataset.

The goal of the optimal viewpoint path estimation is to generate a path to the optimal viewpoint location where the robot can best see the Point of Interest (POI). There are several learning-based methods to find an optimal viewpoint, but these methods are limited to a specific object POI and it is necessary to newly learn in a situation where a new POI is added, and not robust to the environment changes. In this paper, we propose an algorithm that generates a path to the optimal viewpoint by using the geometrical features of the environment in the situation where the target POI is in the field of view. This method makes it easy to add new POIs and is robust to environmental changes because it uses semantic and geometric information. We assume that the robot can make a simple estimation of the geometric characteristics of the surrounding environment by using pretrained networks or by using sensor values. We collected the Kwanjeong street dataset for testing our algorithm. In this dataset, the distance accuracy of our method to reach the optimal viewpoint of the POI achieved 81.8% and 70.9% for template matching accuracy.

Analysis of patient-derived DNA samples has identified hundreds of variants that are likely involved in neuropsychiatric diseases such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and schizophrenia (SCZ). While these studies couple behavioral phenotypes to individual genotypes, the number and diversity of candidate genes implicated in these disorders highlights the fact that the mechanistic underpinnings of these disorders are largely unknown. Here, we describe a RNAi-based screening platform that uses C. elegans to screen candidate neuropsychiatric risk genes (NRGs) for roles in controlling dendritic arborization. To benchmark this approach, we queried published lists of NRGs whose variants in ASD and SCZ are predicted to result in complete or partial loss of gene function. We found that a significant fraction (>16%) of these candidate NRGs are essential for dendritic development. Furthermore, these gene sets are enriched for dendritic arbor phenotypes (>14 fold) when compared to control RNAi datasets of over 500 human orthologs. The diversity of PVD structural abnormalities observed in these assays suggests that the functions of diverse NRGs (encoding transcription factors, chromatin remodelers, molecular chaperones and cytoskeleton-related proteins) converge to regulate neuronal morphology and that individual NRGs may play distinct roles in dendritic branching. We also demonstrate that the experimental value of this platform by providing additional insights into the molecular frameworks of candidate NRGs. Specifically, we show that ANK2/UNC-44 function is directly integrated with known regulators of dendritic arborization and suggest that altering the dosage of ARID1B/LET-526 expression during development affects neuronal morphology without diminishing aspects of cell fate specification.

It is imperative to provide emergency preparedness messages so that the public can react appropriately to potential nuclear crises. Considering the mass media's extensive audience outreach, this study investigates how emergency preparedness message frames and the type of communication channels can influence individuals’ trust in government, risk perceptions, and acceptance of nuclear energy development in a neighboring country. A 4 (Emergency preparedness message frame: competence vs. care vs. honesty vs. control) × 2 (Communication channel: social media vs. traditional media) between-subjects factorial experiment was conducted online with 600 participants. Messages centered on care influenced participants’ trust in government the most. Messages disseminated through traditional media impacted participants’ trust in government more than social media. Participants’ trust in government and risk perceptions mediated the relationship between message frames and the types of communication channel on their acceptance of nuclear energy development in a neighboring country. Theoretical implications, practical implications, and directions for future research are discussed. Accepted version

Structured, intergroup communication that occurs in a deliberative discussion context can be an effective method for improving intergroup relations. Conceptualizing this unique kind of communication as deliberative contact, this study experimentally examined its effect and mechanisms based on two Deliberative Polling projects, conducted in two different countries: Australia (N = 339) and Bulgaria (N = 230). Results indicated that deliberative contact with a minority group member during small-group discussions increased support for policies that were beneficial to the minority group. This effect of deliberative contact was marginally stronger among those who had more negative contact experiences with the minority group in the past. Furthermore, deliberative contact effects were mediated by altered perceptions about the minority group’s structural disadvantages in society, but not by an increase in factual knowledge about the outgroup. Published version