Third‐person effect,gender differences,pornography exposure and support for restriction of pornography

The interrelationship of the factors that influence attitudes in support of restrictions on pornography are explored in this study. From data gathered in a survey of Taiwanese high school students, a model is constructed to depict these relationships. Although both male and females subjects perceived pornography to have greater negative influence on others than on themselves, females who had a lower level of past exposure to pornography perceived greater negative effects of pornography on others than did male respondents. Findings also supported the hypotheses that gender, lower level of past exposure and perceived negative effects all are related to an attitude that favours control of pornography.     

Self-efficacy,information-processing strategies,and acquisition of health knowledge

Informed by the Cognitive Mediation Model of media learning, this study explores how self-efficacy and information-processing strategies jointly impact the learning of health knowledge. Using survey data (N=1409), the study examines the roles that self-efficacy, motivation of media use, news attention, and elaboration play in acquiring knowledge about swine flu during the 2009 global pandemic crisis. Results support the hypothesized relationships among self-efficacy, motivation, attention to and elaboration of swine flu news, and knowledge about the flu. Implications of the findings to advance the research in mediated cognitive learning are discussed.     

Heshang (River Elegy) a television orchestration of a new ideology in China

This paper analyses the extensive reactions and intensive discussions generated by Heshang, a six‐part documentary series aired in June 1988 in China. The documentary, advocating a ‘full‐scale adoption of Western ideas’, and ‘total abandoning of Chinese traditional culture’, stirred up party leaders' displeasure.

Furthermore, the paper also analyses the presentation rationale and strategy (such as use of symbols, emotional appeal, etc.) used in Heshang. The analysis suggests that the programme producers' experiment of conveying complex social, cultural and historical contents in a documentary format is successful and innovative. Additionally, Heshang has enormous implications for contemporary Chinese politics, in particular the use of television as a public forum on controversial issues. As such, this paper enhances our understanding of the role and impact of the mass media in China.     

学校和非正规教育与青年的社会性发展

信息时代以及全球化已经改变了我们的学习、工作和生活。科学、技术还有社会的转变席卷全球。此种转变最主要的表现就是“信息社会”的出现。它使人们能够利用丰富的和迅速传播的信息来满足自己的兴趣并改变他人的生活。信息社会的发展依赖于独立的、有创造性的、有思考力的和不断学习的个体的作用，这些个体应能够包容差异，能够考虑到他人并能够与他人很好共事，并且能够在各种不同的工作和生活环境中有效发挥作用。培养这样的人，     

The Role of Class Teachers in a Key Secondary School in Shanghai

This paper reports on an investigation carried out in a 'key' secondary school in Shanghai. This investigation is set in the broader context of current developments in Chinese Education. Perhaps the first surprising discovery is that the affective aspects of education are seen as highly significant in these developments. Given the vast numbers involved and great regional differences, what is described here is likely to be only representative of the best practice. The particular focus of this paper is on the multifaceted role of the class teacher. The second surprise is that though there are great differences, not least in the politicization of education, there are striking parallels with English education and there are some instances where the class teacher's practice as described here is in advance of many of their English counterparts.     

Investigating the Sensitivity of Goodness-of-Fit Indices to Detect Measurement Invariance in a Bifactor Model

A Monte Carlo simulation study was conducted to evaluate the sensitivities of the likelihood ratio test and five commonly used delta goodness-of-fit (ΔGOF) indices (i.e., ΔGamma, ΔMcDonald’s, ΔCFI, ΔRMSEA, and ΔSRMR) to detect a lack of metric invariance in a bifactor model. Experimental conditions included factor loading differences, location and number of noninvariant items, and sample size. The results indicated all ΔGOF indices held Type I error to a minimum and overall had adequate power for the study. For detecting the violation of metric invariance, only ΔGamma and ΔCFI, in addition to Δχ², are recommended to use in the bifactor model with values of ?.016 to ?.023 and ?.003 to ?.004, respectively. Moreover, in the variance component analysis, the magnitude of the factor loading differences contributed the most variation to all ΔGOF indices, whereas sample size affected Δχ² the most.     

Reading and Spelling Chinese Among Beginning Readers: What Skills Make a Difference?

The contributions of six important reading-related skills (phonological awareness, rapid naming, orthographic skills, morphological awareness, listening comprehension, and syntactic skills) to Chinese word and text reading were examined among 290 Chinese first graders in Hong Kong. Rapid naming, but not phonological awareness, was a significant predictor of Chinese word reading and writing to dictation (i.e., spelling) in the context of orthographic skills and morphological awareness. Commonality analyses suggested that orthographic skills and morphological awareness each contributed significant amount of unique variance to Chinese word reading and spelling. Syntactic skills accounted for significant amount of unique variance in reading comprehension at both sentence and passage levels after controlling for the effects of word reading and the other skills, but listening comprehension did not. A model on the interrelationships among the reading-related skills and Chinese reading at both word and text levels was proposed.     

Analysis of sources of innovation, technological innovation capabilities, and performance: An empirical study of Hong Kong manufacturing industries

The concept of the regional innovation system (RIS) has been developed into an important framework for evaluating innovation performance. The study reported in this paper explores the relationship between the RIS and the firm's innovation system (FIS) according to the basic premise that firms that better utilize sources of information (SI) available within their regional innovation system (RIS) perform better due effect this has in enhancing the firm's technological innovation capabilities (TICs). The different innovation capabilities of a firm are regarded as the key components of the firm's innovation system. The sources of information available within an RIS include external sources (EXT) and external expert organizations, the latter of which are referred to as knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). This study also explores the dual role of KIBS as both sources of and bridges for innovation in the RIS. Data were obtained through a mailed survey using a self-administered questionnaire. The utilization concept and the dual role of KIBS were verified. The results show that externally available information affects all innovation capabilities of the firm, while external expert organizations affect only the firm's R&D and resources allocation capabilities. This study contributes to the RIS literature by providing empirical evidence on how firms can interact with the RIS by utilizing SI to enhance their TICs and achieve global competitiveness.     

Exploring the potential common psychotherapeutic factors: use of cognitive behavioural therapy,mindful yoga and positive psychology in enhancing the well-being of students with SENs in Hong Kong

This study examined the effects of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), mindful yoga and positive psychology interventions and identified common psychotherapeutic elements that exert critical treatment effects on Hong Kong Chinese students with special educational needs (SENs). Forty-seven participants received CBT intervention while 42 and 41 participants received mindful yoga and positive psychology interventions, respectively (N = 130). Mixed ANOVAs revealed no significant interaction effect between time and intervention condition on any outcome variables. However, within-subjects ANOVA revealed significant improvements in some dimensions within each intervention, including areas of behavioural problems, positive feelings and positive relationships. Changes in negative automatic thoughts were also found to lessen negative emotions in all three interventions. This study ascertained the differential effects of the selected approaches in ameliorating negative emotion, reducing behavioural problems and enhancing positive relationships among students with SENs in various treatment approaches. In addition, this study highlighted several common psychotherapeutic elements, which could potentially serve as important factors and constitute the formulation of an integrative psychotherapeutic framework for enhancing the well-being of students with SENs in Hong Kong. Finally, implications for practice and the possible development of an integrative intervention model were discussed.     

Effects of shear stresses and antioxidant concentrations on the production of reactive oxygen species in lung cancer cells

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are known to be a key factor in the development of cancer, and many exogenous sources are supposed to be related to the formation of ROS. In this paper, a microfluidic chip was developed for studying the production of ROS in lung cancer cells under different chemical and physical stimuli. This chip has two unique features: (1) five relative concentrations of 0, 1/8, 1/2, 7/8, and 1 are achieved in the culture regions; (2) a shear stress gradient is produced inside each of the five culture areas. Lung cancer cells were seeded inside this biocompatible chip for investigating their response to different concentrations of H₂O₂, a chemical stimulus known to increase the production of ROS. Then the effect of shear stress, a physical stimulus, on lung cancer cells was examined, showing that the production of ROS was increased in response to a larger shear stress. Finally, two antioxidants, α-tocopherol and ferulic acid, were used to study their effects on reducing ROS. It was found that high-dose α-tocopherol was not able to effectively eliminate the ROS produced inside cells. This counter effect was not observed in cells cultured in a traditional chamber slide, where no shear stress was present. This result suggests that the current microfluidic chip provides an in vitro platform best mimicking the physiological condition where cells are under circulating conditions.