Online Paradigm Research Articles

Guidelines for successful online service delivery in orofacial myology

Purpose: Since the advent of COVID-19, online services within most healthcare fields have become ubiquitous. This article investigates the research regarding the feasibility and effectiveness of delivering online services and provides a tutorial of ideas and information to successfully implement online orofacial myofunctional therapy. Method: This article is a compilation of evidence-based results on the topic of online service delivery and perspectives and experiences shared by three service delivery providers. Results: It is possible to compensate for the interactive differences between in-person and online myofunctional therapy. It is believed that online therapeutic services are an efficient and effective mode of service delivery. Discussion: Although online service delivery is not new, the current world-wide pandemic has brought telehealth to the forefront. In a time of increased demand for distance treatment, the orofacial myologist must rapidly develop competency and comfort within the new assessment and treatment online paradigm. It is positive to know that research to date indicates that clients within associated fields benefit from the accessibility, ease, and convenience of online service delivery. This article summarizes legal considerations, technology, treatment preparation, client motivation, and the implementation of online therapy.

Being liked or not being liked: A study on social-media exclusion in a preadolescent population

IntroductionSocial-media can contribute to building up adolescents' relationships, but they might also bring negative exclusionary experiences. Being excluded is a subtle yet hurtful form of relational aggression, which affects people's psychological wellbeing, especially during developmental stages. In this study, we (1) analyzed the effects of social-media exclusion adapting the Ostracism Online paradigm to a cohort of Italian preadolescents (Mage = 11.47, 53% girls) and (2) tested the efficacy of two potential recovery strategies (i.e., social bonds vs. social surrogate). MethodInclusionary status was manipulated through the number of “likes” participants received on a fictitious online social network. In the exclusion condition, participants received fewer likes than everyone else. In the inclusion condition, participants received a similar number of likes of other users. Then, all participants were asked to think of a significant positive relationship with a family member (social bonds), a celebrity (social surrogate), their present moment thoughts (control). ResultsPreadolescents who received fewer likes than others reported higher levels of need threat (i.e., belong, self-esteem, meaningful existence, but not control) and negative emotions. Moreover, the social-bonds strategy generally brought a faster psychological recovery from social-media exclusion than the control condition. The efficacy of social-surrogates strategy was greater for boys than for girls, probably due to different choices in their favorite celebrities. ConclusionThese findings show how offline life offers compensatory opportunities for adolescents’ online life. When the lack of “Likes” signal exclusion on social-media, thinking of an existing social relationship help adolescents to cope with this negative experience.

Paradigms of EU Consumer Law in the Digital Age

The article analyzes the legal developments that can be observed in EU law on consumer contracts in an increasingly digitalized environment. It draws on the example of sale of goods, i.e. a type of contract that existed and exists both before and after the flourishing digitalization. Hereby, changes in paradigms can be seen most clearly. The main argument of the article will be that there is no formal separate set of law for cross-border online sales in the European context but rather that sales law in general is heavily influenced by a new paradigm of online sales. In this paradigm, the primary aim is no longer to protect individual autonomy and to level out parties’ interests (a party-centered perspective) but more and more to protect and facilitate markets (a market-centered perspective). While a focus on markets has always influenced the European Union’s view on consumer law, it could fully prevail only in the course of digitalization. This is, because cross-border consumption on a significant scale in the European Single Market was practically not feasible for consumers before the advent of online transactions. The shift towards a market paradigm is not limited to contract law in a narrow sense but extends to regulatory techniques in private international law, law enforcement, and developments in private contractual practice. Therefore, the article will trace the unfolding of an online paradigm and its leading role for consumer sales in general across different sub-areas. For example, it will analyze the principle of market orientation in conflict of laws, means of standardization and boosting consumption in substantive EU sales law, and the transformation of contractual relations in the platform economy.

Pledging to Behave Honestly

There are many situations in which people are asked to pledge or to commit to behaving honestly. While there have been studies demonstrating the positive effects of pledges, some of these findings have been challenged, and there have been other studies showing that pledges could be ineffective or even counter-productive. Moreover, several important questions, such as how pledges interact with sanctions, whether their effects last, or how should they be worded, have not been examined systematically. To address these issues, we developed an innovative online paradigm – the “Online Matrix Task” – that facilitates the examination of these and related questions. We examined the effects of pledges in two studies: the first involving two phases of data collection, and the second with a larger and representative sample. We found that pledges can reduce dishonesty significantly in sequential decisions, and not just one-shot decisions. They also reduce dishonesty considerably compared to fines, repeatedly across different times, and consistently across different extents of cheating, different individuals and several different wordings. Our results establish the effects of pledges on reducing cheating, and suggest several directions for future research in order to better understand the underlying mechanisms of how and when pledges can make people behave more honestly.

Toeing the Party Lie: Ostracism Promotes Endorsement of Partisan Election Falsehoods

Research suggests that ostracism could promote endorsement of partisan falsehoods. Socially excluded individuals are uniquely attentive to distinctions between in-groups and out-groups, and act in ways intended to promote group belonging, potentially including a greater willingness to accept claims made by other group members. We test this assertion with a 2 (ostracism) X 2 (anonymity) X 2 (topic) mixed factorial design using the Ostracism Online paradigm with a demographically diverse online sample of Americans (N = 413). Results suggest that when ostracized, both Democrats and Republicans are more likely to endorse party-line falsehoods about the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. These effects are contingent on several individual-level differences, including strength of ideological commitment, cognitive reflection, and faith in intuition for facts. These patterns failed to replicate with fracking, a politically charged science topic.

Mental rotation of feet in individuals with Body Integrity Identity Disorder, lower-limb amputees, and normally-limbed controls.

Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) is a non-psychotic condition wherein individuals desire amputation or paralysis of one or more healthy, fully-functioning limbs (predominantly the legs). Individuals with BIID have been suggested to have a mismatch between the perceived mental representation of the body and its actual physical structure, such that their desired identity matches that of a lower-limb amputee. Accordingly, studies have reported an altered central network involving body representation of the legs in BIID, but its relationship to behavior remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated the integrity of body representation in individuals with BIID, acquired lower-limb amputees, and normally-limbed controls using an online mental rotation task. Participants judged the laterality of left and right foot images presented from different views, orientations, and of different types. We expected BIID participants to be slower for mentally rotating images that corresponded to their affected legs than lower-limb amputees and normally-limbed participants. We found that the groups did not significantly differ in their performance. All participants were slower at judging feet presented in awkward postures than natural postures, replicating previous studies and validating our online paradigm. The results are discussed in terms of the robust nature of visual and sensorimotor lower-limb representations, whether related to the self or as prototype, in the context of disturbed lower-limb integrity.

Enabling Trusted and Privacy-Preserving Healthcare Services in Social Media Health Networks

Social Media Health Networks provide a promising paradigm to attract patients to share and communicate their personal health status with other online patients, and consult healthcare services from online caregivers with social networks. Social Media Health Networks transform healthcare services from time-consuming offline hospital-centered paradigm to the convenient and efficient online paradigm through Internet, which can expand the traditional healthcare services and shorten the information gap between patients and caregivers. However, how to build the trust between patients and caregivers raises a challenging issue due to the openness of the social networks; meanwhile, the personal privacy may be disclosed when sharing personal health information with other patients and caregivers. In this paper, we propose a personalized and trusted healthcare service approach to enable trusted and privacy-preserving healthcare services in social media health networks, which can improve the trustiness between patients and caregivers through authentic ratings toward caregivers and guarantee the patients’ privacy. Specifically, we employ the collaborative filtering model to seek appropriate personalized caregivers, bloom filter to extract and map the personal healthcare symptoms, and inner product to compute the similarity between patients for finding patients with similar health symptoms in a privacy-preserving way. Meanwhile, to guarantee authentic ratings and reviews toward caregivers, we develop a sybil attack detection scheme to find patients’ fake ratings and reviews using different pseudonyms. Security analysis shows that our proposed approach can preserve the privacy of patients and prevent sybil attacks. Performance evaluation demonstrates that our approach can achieve prominent performance improvement, in terms of personalized caregivers finding and sybil attack resistance.

Distribution-Free One-Pass Learning

In many large-scale machine learning applications, data are accumulated with time, and thus, an appropriate model should be able to update in an online paradigm. Moreover, as the whole data volume is unknown when constructing the model, it is desired to scan each data item only once with a storage independent with the data volume. It is also noteworthy that the distribution underlying may change during the data accumulation procedure. To handle such tasks, in this paper we propose DFOP, a distribution-free one-pass learning approach. This approach works well when distribution change occurs during data accumulation, without requiring prior knowledge about the change. Every data item can be discarded once it has been scanned. Besides, theoretical guarantee shows that the estimate error, under a mild assumption, decreases until convergence with high probability. The performance of DFOP for both regression and classification are validated in experiments.

Living with Artificial Intelligence: A Paradigm Shift toward Future Network Traffic Control

Future Internet is expected to meet explosive traffic growth and extremely complex architecture, which tend to make the traditional NTC strategies inefficient and even ineffective. Inspired by the latest breakthroughs of AI and its power to address large-scale and complex difficulties, the network community has begun to consider shifting the NTC paradigm from legacy rule-based to novel AI-based. As an applied inter-discipline, design and implementation are important. Although there have been some preliminary explorations along this frontier, they are either limited by only envisioning the prospects, or too scattered to provide high-level insight into a general methodology. To this end, we start with the domain knowledge relationships of AI and NTC, summarizing a baseline workflow toward deep reinforcement learning, which will be the dominant method for the AI-NTC paradigm. On top of that, we argue that AI-NTC training and running must be carried out in online environments in closed-loop fashion for the purpose of putting ti into practice. A series of challenges and opportunities are discussed from a realistic viewpoint, and a set of new architecture and mechanism to enable the online and closed-loop AI-NTC paradigm are proposed. Hopefully, this work can help the AI community to better understand NTC and the NTC community to better live with AI.

On(line) Being Relational: A Case Study

This study describes a master’s program cohort in the Southeast transitioning from a traditional to an online paradigm. This study examined through narrative analysis the online dialogue of engagement between students and faculty through the lens of social constructivism, specifically focusing on barriers creating monologue and facilitators creating “online” dialogue (Gergen, 1999). Transformative dialogue was more difficult in the online transition because of technology structures and differing expectations. Results suggest that faculty and students must be prepared to use online technology in a pedagogical setting that requires greater responsibility for students to “manage their education.” The “boundedness” of an online environment requires faculty to encourage a shift from blame to responsibility. Although online dialogue was considered “stilted,” even by experienced participants, the convenience is evident for students as well as faculty. The results demonstrated the need for faculty presence through the use of online tools to make the online environment meaningful. Reviewing these narratives may help administrators prepare for a transition to an online program.

Cognitively active older adults’ comprehension and metacomprehension of negated text

ABSTRACTBackground/Study context: Previous research has demonstrated that negated text is universally difficult to understand, and while readers are aware of the difficulty, they are not always able to direct this awareness to improve their comprehension of negation. The present research aimed to determine whether this holds true for older adults, even while maintaining good cognitive function through reading activity. Methods: The study used an online paradigm, where young (age range 19–24) and older (age range 60–87) adults read passages, rated their comprehension, and answered questions about what they read. Data analysis included analysis of variance for comprehension accuracy and metacomprehension judgment as well as gamma correlation analysis for the relationship between these two variables to determine accuracy of metacomprehension judgments. Result:. Older readers, who took part in library activities and book discussion groups, had better comprehension than young adults overall and were also better able to judge their own comprehension of negative text. Conclusion: These results suggested that remaining cognitively active may help older adults not only maintain their ability to understand text but may also enhance their ability to assess their own comprehension of that text. In addition, these readers were likely able to use their experience with reading to compensate for any working memory deficits that may occur with age and which may detrimentally affect their ability to understand complex text constructions, such as negation.

Investigating the effects of visual distractors on the performance of a motor imagery brain-computer interface

ObjectivesBrain-computer interfaces (BCIs) allow users to operate a device or application by means of cognitive activity. This technology will ultimately be used in real-world environments which include the presence of distractors. The purpose of the study was to determine the effect of visual distractors on BCI performance. MethodsSixteen able-bodied participants underwent neurofeedback training to achieve motor imagery-guided BCI control in an online paradigm using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure neural signals. Participants then completed two sessions of the motor imagery EEG-BCI protocol in the presence of infrequent, small visual distractors. BCI performance was determined based on classification accuracy. ResultsThe presence of distractors was found to affect motor imagery-specific patterns in mu and beta power. However, the distractors did not significantly affect the BCI classification accuracy; across participants, the mean classification accuracy was 81.5 ± 14% for non-distractor trials, and 78.3 ± 17% for distractor trials. ConclusionThis minimal consequence suggests that the BCI was robust to distractor effects, despite motor imagery-related brain activity being attenuated amid distractors. SignificanceA BCI system that mitigates distraction-related effects may improve the ease of its use and ultimately facilitate the effective translation of the technology from the lab to the home.

Online Incivility: Exploring from Malaysian Academic Perspective

In the evolving globalization in Malaysia, many organizations employ online communication platform for faster decision making, easier collaboration on assignments and greater recognition of employees for achievement and rewards. However, this additional medium of communication posts a risk of uncivil online comments that can lead to lower unproductively among employees that reduces employees’ well-being and increases organizations costs. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the negative consequences of online incivility, in particular in Malaysia, considering aspect of negative moods as possible mediator in the relationship. In addition, problem solving conflict management styles is also discussed as a social support that may decrease the negative consequences of online incivility based from sound literature review. Plausible hypotheses are also then derived from the constructive arguments. This study is consistent with the objectives of Eleventh Malaysian Plan (2016-2020) and Transformasi Nasional 2050 (TN50) to improve the nations’ well being and productivity from perceiving the positive and work harmony created. In practical, the study can help shape policies and guidelines involving human-technology interaction for the decision makers by incorporating aspects of human psychological well-being that can be affected by technology through the online paradigm.

Trans youth and social media: moving between counterpublics and the wider web

Today’s trans youth grew up with the internet and online LGBTQ resources and spaces are important to these communities. This article focuses on conceptualising the digital cultural strategies that trans and gender questioning youth adopt both as social media users and producers in order to cope and thrive. Drawing on ethnographic data detailing a group of trans youth’s engagements with LGBTQ social media counterpublics and the wider web, and their movement between these spheres, in combination with close readings of online material identified as salient by the participants, this article argues that in the face of rampant transphobia and cis coded online paradigms, trans youth respond both critically and creatively. More specifically, I highlight how they resist prescribed user protocols of mainstream social networking sites as well as employ pragmatic strategies for navigating a binary gendered online world, staking out their own methods and aesthetics for self expression and community formation. Having examined the content and style of social media examples highlighted by the participants, the article contends that trans youth’s consumption and production of types of online and social media is significantly more diverse than research to date has recognised.

Toward online education for fingerprint recognition: A proof-of-concept web platform

ABSTRACTRecent advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have pushed education systems into the online paradigm. Although fingerprint recognition has received considerable attention from researchers, the concept of creating online or distance education systems for fingerprint recognition systems is a valid problem that requires further investigation. This article addresses the problem and presents a web platform for online education of a fingerprint recognition system. This study focused on the technical design and implementation of the web platform solely as a proof of concept to illustrate the possibility of creating distance education for fingerprint recognition. The developed platform offers students a way to gain knowledge about the full range of fingerprint recognition system technology. The significance of using a web platform stems from the need to supplement students’ theoretical knowledge with practical hands-on experience with information security in general and with fingerprint recognition in particular. Demonstrations such as fingerprint image enhancement and fingerprint feature extraction are included in the current platform prototype. Plots of fingerprint recognition performance curves such as false match rate (FMR) and false non-match rate (FNMR) as functions of the matching threshold curve, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and the detection error trade-off (DET) curve are plotted as part of the platform. From a technical viewpoint, the platform was successfully implemented; however, its educational impact needs further evaluation.

Transcranial direct current stimulation versus user training on improving online myoelectric control for amputees

Objective. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and user training (UT) are two types of methods to improve myoelectric control performance for amputees. In this study, we compared the independent effect between tDCS and UT, and investigated the combined effect of tDCS and UT. Approach. An online paradigm of simultaneous and proportional control (SPC) based on electromyography (EMG) was adopted. The proposed experiments were conducted on six naïve unilateral trans-radial amputees. The subjects each received three types of 20 min interventions: active tDCS with motor training (tDCS + UT), active tDCS with quiet sitting (tDCS), and sham tDCS with motor training (UT). The interventions were applied at one week intervals in a randomized order. The subjects performed online control of a feedback arrow with two degrees of freedom (DoFs) to accomplish target reaching motor tasks in pre-sessions and post-sessions. We compared the performance, measured by completion rate, completion time, and efficiency coefficient, between pre-sessions and post-sessions. Main results. The results showed that the intervention tDCS + UT and tDCS significantly improved the online SPC performance (i.e. improved the completion rate; reduced the completion time; and improved the efficiency coefficient), while intervention UT did not significantly change the performance. The results also showed that the online SPC performance after intervention tDCS + UT and tDCS was not significantly different, but both were significantly better than that after intervention UT. Significance. tDCS could be an effective intervention to improve the online SPC performance in a short time.

An online paradigm for exploring the self-reference effect.

People reliably encode information more effectively when it is related in some way to the self—a phenomenon known as the self-reference effect. This effect has been recognized in psychological research for almost 40 years, and its scope as a tool for investigating the self-concept is still expanding. The self-reference effect has been used within a broad range of psychological research, from cultural to neuroscientific, cognitive to clinical. Traditionally, the self-reference effect has been investigated in a laboratory context, which limits its applicability in non-laboratory samples. This paper introduces an online version of the self-referential encoding paradigm that yields reliable effects in an easy-to-administer procedure. Across four studies (total N = 658), this new online tool reliably replicated the traditional self-reference effect: in all studies self-referentially encoded words were recalled significantly more than semantically encoded words (d = 0.63). Moreover, the effect sizes obtained with this online tool are similar to those obtained in laboratory samples, and are robust to experimental variations in encoding time (Studies 1 and 2) and recall procedure (Studies 3 and 4), and persist independent of primacy and recency effects (all studies).

A hybrid three-class brain–computer interface system utilizing SSSEPs and transient ERPs

Objective. This paper investigates the fusion of steady-state somatosensory evoked potentials (SSSEPs) and transient event-related potentials (tERPs), evoked through tactile simulation on the left and right-hand fingertips, in a three-class EEG based hybrid brain–computer interface. It was hypothesized, that fusing the input signals leads to higher classification rates than classifying tERP and SSSEP individually. Approach. Fourteen subjects participated in the studies, consisting of a screening paradigm to determine person dependent resonance-like frequencies and a subsequent online paradigm. The whole setup of the BCI system was based on open interfaces, following suggestions for a common implementation platform. During the online experiment, subjects were instructed to focus their attention on the stimulated fingertips as indicated by a visual cue. The recorded data were classified during runtime using a multi-class shrinkage LDA classifier and the outputs were fused together applying a posterior probability based fusion. Data were further analyzed offline, involving a combined classification of SSSEP and tERP features as a second fusion principle. The final results were tested for statistical significance applying a repeated measures ANOVA. Main results. A significant classification increase was achieved when fusing the results with a combined classification compared to performing an individual classification. Furthermore, the SSSEP classifier was significantly better in detecting a non-control state, whereas the tERP classifier was significantly better in detecting control states. Subjects who had a higher relative band power increase during the screening session also achieved significantly higher classification results than subjects with lower relative band power increase. Significance. It could be shown that utilizing SSSEP and tERP for hBCIs increases the classification accuracy and also that tERP and SSSEP are not classifying control- and non-control states with the same level of accuracy.

Memory and place attachment as predictors of imagined restorative perceptions of favourite places

Previous research linking favourite places and restorative environments hypothesises that place memory and place attachment can be implicated in restorative perceptions of place. In the present study, conducted with an online paradigm, 234 Finnish residents rated an imagined favourite place on place memory properties, place attachment, and imagined restorative perceptions. Autobiographical and positive affective properties of place memory were consistently predictive of perceived restorative potential of place. Attachment in the form of place identity and place dependence also positively predicted of restorative perceptions, and mediated certain relationships between memory properties and restorative perceptions. These findings highlight the relevance of top-down processing of restorative environments according to past experiences and individual attachments. This understudied topic may shed light on semantic values underpinning restoration in a range of settings, including favourite places.

The portion size effect on food intake is robust to contextual size information

Larger portion sizes have consistently been shown to lead to greater food intake. However, studies of the portion size effect typically provided participants with a single portion of food at a time without any objective information about the size of the portion, and hence failed to consider the potential significance of contextual size information. In order to investigate whether contextual size information moderates the portion size effect, participants were served small or large portions of pasta for lunch in the presence or absence of contextual size information. Study 1 found that the portion size effect on food intake was robust to contextual size information. Study 2 replicated this finding in an online paradigm, showing that contextual size information also had no influence on prospective intake, even when participants chose the portion size they preferred. Both studies also showed that participants’ perceptions of how much was appropriate to eat mediated the effect of portion size on intake. A practical implication of our findings is that modifying consumption norms may be an effective way to promote healthier consumer food decisions.