Strong Social Component Research Articles

Will the Artificial Intelligence Touch Substitute for the Human Touch?

Nowadays, artificial intelligence is used in many fields to diagnose and treat different diseases. Robots are also useful tools that substitute for human work. Despite robots being used also for touch therapy, can they substitute for the human touch? Human touch has a strong social component, and it is necessary for the correct development of newborns and the treatment of pathological situations. To substitute human touch, it is necessary to integrate robots with artificial intelligence as well as with sensors that mimic human skin. Today, the question remains without answer: Can human touch be substituted with AI in its social and affiliative components?

Social relationships in adults who were adopted following institutional deprivation

Research examining the effects of severe, prolonged early deprivation has shown elevated rates of neurodevelopmental symptoms, which frequently persist into adulthood and are associated with functional and social relationship difficulties, as well as elevated rates of mental health problems. The behavioural manifestations of these symptoms closely resemble those of ADHD and also ASD. Here, we used qualitative methods to explore and characterise the social experiences and difficulties encountered by young adults exposed to profound early deprivation, in part to highlight any apparent parallels between the experiences in this group and those identified in typically developing samples with ADHD or ASD. To do so, we interviewed young adults and their adoptive parents ( N = 18) from the English and Romanian Adoptees study, about their social lives. Participants were keen to describe not only the challenges they faced but also adaptive responses. A semantic/descriptive thematic analysis revealed that the young adults strongly desired social relationships but struggled to navigate social norms, resulting in frustration and frequent loss of relationships. This was accompanied by strong feelings of loss and rejection, all of which were perceived to have a negative impact upon self-esteem and mental health. Adaptive strategies included the fostering of casual friendships with older individuals and seeking employment with strong social components. Similarities and differences between our findings and the social difficulties experienced by typically developing groups with neurodevelopmental problems, and adopted individuals more generally, are discussed.

Epidemiological Modeling of the Impact of Public Health Policies on Hepatitis C: Protocol for a Gamification Tool Targeting Microelimination.

Hepatitis C is a disease with a strong social component, as its main transmission route is via blood, making it associated with lifestyle. Therefore, it is suitable to be worked on from the perspective of public health policy, which still has a lot of room to explore and improve, contrary to diagnoses and treatments, which are already very refined and effective. An interactive gamified policy tool, designated as Let's End HepC (LEHC), was created to understand the impact of policies related to hepatitis C on the disease's epidemiology on a yearly basis until 2030. To this end, an innovative epidemiological model was developed, integrating Markov chains to model the natural history of the disease and adaptive conjoint analysis to reflect the degree of application of each of the 24 public health policies included in the model. This double imputation model makes it possible to assess a set of indicators such as liver transplant, incidence, and deaths year by year until 2030 in different risk groups. Populations at a higher risk were integrated into the model to understand the specific epidemiological dynamics within the total population of each country and within segments that comprise people who have received blood products, prisoners, people who inject drugs, people infected through vertical transmission, and the remaining population. The model has already been applied to a group of countries, and studies in 5 of these countries have already been concluded, showing results very close to those obtained through other forms of evaluation. The LEHC model allows the simulation of different degrees of implementation of each policy and thus the verification of its epidemiological impact on each studied population. The gamification feature allows assessing the adequate fulfillment of the World Health Organization goals for the elimination of hepatitis C by 2030. LEHC supports health decision makers and people who practice patient advocacy in making decisions based on science, and because LEHC is democratically shared, it ends up contributing to the increase of citizenship in health. RR1-10.2196/38521.

Explaining vegetarian and vegan dietary behavior among U.S. and Dutch samples applying a reasoned action approach

The present research applied the framework of the Reasoned Action Approach (RAA) to investigate intention formation of adopting vegetarian and vegan diets among U.S. and Dutch samples. First, a belief elicitation study was carried out to determine salient beliefs regarding both dietary behaviors. The U.S. sample (N = 59) together provided a total of 551 beliefs (298 vegetarian, 253 vegan) and the Dutch sample (N = 30) 294 beliefs (171 vegetarian, 123 vegan). Second, a regression study determined which reasoned action variables—Attitude, Perceived Norm and Perceived Control—explained Intention to adopt a vegetarian or a vegan diet for two separate samples. For both samples RAA-variables explained Intention relatively well (i.e., between 30 and 43% of the variance). For U.S. participants (N = 204), Instrumental and Experiential Attitude were significant predictors of their Intention to have a vegetarian or a vegan diet. For Dutch participants (N = 345), Instrumental and Experiential Attitude and Descriptive Norm predicted Intention to adopt a vegetarian diet. For adopting a vegan diet, Experiential Attitude was the only predicting variable for the Dutch sample. Almost all salient beliefs collected in the belief elicitation study significantly correlated with Intention to adopt diet, regardless of which RAA-variable they belonged to. Based on our findings, we critically evaluate the use of RAA in explaining behavioral Intentions, especially for behavior with a strong social component. Moreover, we show the importance of—the often not employed—belief elicitation phase and as such, discourage using only a regression approach. From a societal perspective, we argue that there is a strong need for interventions if one wants to encourage behavior change in the field of vegetarianism and veganism as—amongst others—average Intention scores were very low. In addition, we show that while the U.S. and Dutch samples, sharing Western norms and values, often overlapped, they also differed in subtle—yet potentially important—ways when it comes to motivations and cognitions with regard to vegetarian and vegan dietary behavior. Hence, interventions may have to include different content in order to be effective for these seemingly similar target groups and target behaviors.

Social health factors and dementia risk – assessing potential pathways in a population‐based cohort study

AbstractBackgroundEpidemiological studies suggest an association between social health factors and dementia risk, but potential pathways between these factors remain largely unexplored. Therefore, the current study assesses the relationship between social isolation, social activity engagement, and dementia risk, including potential effect mediation by level of loneliness.MethodWe used data from 7520 participants of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), assessed from baseline (Wave 2, 2004/2005) until Wave 9 (2018/2019) for incident dementia. Level of social isolation was defined as the frequency of contact with children, other family and friends in addition to the membership in clubs and organizations. Social activities were inferred by the self‐reported frequency of engagement in activities with a strong social component (e.g. volunteering). Both variables were dichotomized, representing low vs. high social isolation or social activity engagement. Level of loneliness was measured using the short form of the UCLA loneliness scale. Depression diagnoses were assessed through self‐report.Separate multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression models were fitted, with social isolation and social activities as predictors while controlling for age, sex, education, wealth, cardiovascular risk factors (model 1) and, subsequently, for depression and level of loneliness (model 2).ResultAfter a median follow‐up period of 11.8 years (IQR = 5.9 years‐13.9 years), 495 people (67.1 cases per 10,000 person‐years; 95% CI 61.5‐73.3) developed dementia. Higher social isolation (HR = 1.30; 95% CI 1.03‐1.64) and more frequent social activity engagement (HR = 0.74; 95% CI 0.60‐0.92) were related to dementia risk in model 1. Social isolation still predicted dementia risk in model 2 (HR = 1.30; 95% CI 1.02‐1.66), while social activity engagement did not (HR = 0.83; 95% CI 0.65‐1.07). Both depression and loneliness significantly predicted dementia risk in the model including social isolation, while, for the model including social activity engagement, only depression was associated with dementia risk. The change in HR between model 1 and 2 for social activity engagement was mainly due to adding level of loneliness rather than depression to the model.ConclusionLower social isolation and more frequent social activity engagement are associated with lower dementia risk. Part of the association might be explained by level of loneliness and depression.

Creative compliance, neutralization techniques, and palaeontological ethics

This paper uses the sociological and criminological concepts of creative compliance and techniques of neutralization to consider reactions to ongoing ethical issues within the paleontological community. Using the ethical and legal issues concerning the study of fossil-bearing amber from Myanmar, and drawing upon interviews from palaeontologists conducted by the TRANSFORM project, this paper argues that palaeontological research has a strong social component which should not only be reflected in the ethical approval and oversight of palaeontological projects, but also reflected in the teaching of palaeontology at university level.

Iconic but Invasive: The Public Perception of the Chinese Windmill Palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) in Switzerland

Biological invasions strongly increased during the last centuries and are challenging environmental managers worldwide. In this context, public acceptance of management measures is a key factor determining the long-term success of the control of invasive species. However, in the case of charismatic and iconic invasive species, the public has often been unwilling to accept strict management measures. Here, we studied the public perception of the Chinese windmill palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) in Switzerland, which is declared as invasive in southern Switzerland but also recognized as iconic. We conducted a nation-wide online survey in the multilingual and multicultural context of Switzerland, investigating the influence of social and cultural factors on the knowledge of, the attitude toward, and the willingness to control the invasive T. fortunei. Results confirm that the knowledge and perception of invasive plants have a strong social and cultural component and may vary greatly as a function of the cultural background, education level, age, and other social characteristics. Furthermore, information on the invasiveness of the focal species provided during the survey significantly affected informants’ perceptions, which are closely related to the acceptance of possible management and control measures. This allows us to highlight the importance of a holistic approach that includes targeted public information when dealing with biological invasions, especially in the case of charismatic and iconic species. Based on the obtained results, we suggest avenues for refining management and control strategies of T. fortunei in Switzerland, many of which generally applicable to other cases of invasive species.

Cultural Franchises or Franchising Cultures?

Museums franchises have been part of our lives for several decades, gathering momentum and taking the cultural world by storm. These museums ‘brands’ are a product of the changes museums have experienced in the past decades that shaped their role as a social agents, and the influence of globalisation, which altered the paradigm of the essence of what museums constitute, and ultimately their new role as diplomatic agents. This article aims to analyse the development, the characteristics and the controversies that have surrounded the Hermitage Barcelona project, which embodies the challenges and opportunities new globalised museums are facing on a museological, political, economic and social level. This project raises social debates around topics such as cultural policy, branding strategy, tourism and identity, issues that it has in common with other satellite museums all over the world, such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi or the Guggenheim Museums. This strong social component underlines the importance of approaching the analysis of new museum models from an interdisciplinary, participatory and culturally sensitive perspective.

Illusory social agents within and beyond voices: Acomputational linguistics analysis of the experience of psychosis.

ObjectivesPsychosis has a strong social component and often involves the experience of being affected by ‘illusory social agents’. However, this experience remains under‐characterized, particularly for social agents in delusions and non‐vocal hallucinations. One useful approach is a form of computational linguistics called corpus linguistics that studies texts to identify patterns of meaning encoded in both the semantics and linguistic structure of the text.MethodsTwenty people living with psychosis were recruited from community and inpatient services. They participated in open‐ended interviews on their experiences of social agents in psychosis and completed a measure of psychotic symptoms. Corpus linguistics analysis was used to identify key phenomenological features of vocal and non‐vocal social agents in psychosis.ResultsSocial agents i) are represented with varying levels of richness in participants’ experiences, ii) are attributed with different kinds of identities including physical characteristics and names, iii) are perceived to have internal states and motivations that are different from those of the participants, and iv) interact with participants in various ways including through communicative speech acts, affecting participants’ bodies, and moving through space. These representations were equally rich for agents associated with hallucinated voices and those associated with non‐vocal hallucinations and delusions.ConclusionsWe show that the experience of illusory social agents is a rich and complex social experience reflecting many aspects of genuine social interaction and is not solely present in auditory hallucinations, but also in delusions and non‐vocal hallucinations.Practitioner Points The experience of being affected by illusory social agents in psychosis extends beyond hallucinated voices.They are a rich and complex social experience reflecting many aspects of genuine social interaction.These are also likely to be a source of significant distress and disability.

Promoting social capital, self-management and health literacy in older adults through a group-based intervention delivered in low-income urban areas: results of the randomized trial AEQUALIS

BackgroundEvidence is scarce on how to promote health and decrease cumulative inequalities for disadvantaged older people. Downstream complex interventions focusing on intermediate factors (self-management, health literacy and social capital) may have the potential to mitigate the inequitable impacts of social determinants in health. The aim of the AEQUALIS study was to assess the effectiveness of a group-based intervention to improve self-perceived health as indicator of health inequality.MethodsPragmatic randomised clinical trial addressed to older adults (≥ 60 years) living in urban disadvantaged areas with low self-perceived health. The intervention was delivered in primary care settings and community assets between 2015 and 2017 and consisted in 12 weekly sessions. The primary outcome was self-perceived health assessed in two ways: with the first item of the SF-12 questionnaire, and with the EQ-5D visual analog scale. Secondary outcomes were health-related quality of life, social capital, self-management, mental health and use of health services. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, post intervention and follow-up at 9 months after the end of the intervention.Results390 people were allocated to the intervention group (IG) or the control group (CG) and 194 participants and 164 were included in the data analysis, respectively. Self perceived health as primary outcome assessed with SF-12-1 was not specifically affected by the intervention, but with the EQ-5D visual analog scale showed a significant increase at one-year follow-up only in the IG (MD=4.80, 95%CI [1.09, 8.52]). IG group improved health literacy in terms of a better understanding of medical information (− 0.62 [− 1.10, − 0.13]). The mental component of SF-12 improved (3.77 [1.82, 5.73]), and depressive symptoms decreased at post-intervention (− 1.26 [− 1.90, − 0.63]), and at follow-up (− 0.95 [− 1.62, − 0.27]). The use of antidepressants increased in CG at the follow-up (1.59 [0.33, 2.86]), while it remained stable in the IG.ConclusionsThis study indicates that a group intervention with a strong social component, conducted in primary health care and community assets, shows promising effects on mental health and can be used as a strategy for health promotion among older adults in urban disadvantaged areas.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02733523. Registered 11 April 2016 - Retrospectively registered

Perceptions And Use Of Internet-based Physical Activity And Health Resources Among Postmenopausal Women: A Qualitative Analysis.

PURPOSE: With about 80% of women over age 50 reporting little/no regular physical activity (PA), this group is the most sedentary population in the U.S. Social media and new technologies provide an opportunity for home-based health promotion and behavioral interventions. PURPOSE: Use a qualitative approach to explore how women over age 50 use social media and online activities to access health information and participate in PA. METHODS: Telephone interviews were conducted on a sample of healthy women over the age 50 years. A semistructured interview guide was used to acquire information on common internet use, online health information search history, and history of accessing physical activity programming. Responses were transcribed and examined for recurring themes and language-based sentiments using established qualitative content analytic procedures. RESULTS: All women were in their mid-50’s with a mean age was 55.5 years (range 53-56 years). All women were peri- or post-menopausal, and were either married or widowed. Facebook was the most commonly used online social app and was used to “keep up” with family and friends, to access support groups and read health articles. Fitbit was used by the majority of interviewees to track daily steps, sleep patterns, and calories burned during workouts. The participants also liked the goal-setting, self-monitoring, and social component (competition/social comparison) provided by Fitbit. MyFitnessPal was a commonly used app to track activity and monitor the relationship between calories consumed and calories expended. A number of women, particularly those with health conditions, accessed online sources to research medications/drug interactions and learn more about their condition. Participants reported that they were distrustful of much online information and were skeptical of many health web sites. Additionally, the women indicated that they would like to see more age-related content and access to communities of women of similar age. CONCLUSIONS: Internet access to social groups and health/PA information is important to women over the age of 50. This demographic is receptive to information and interventions accessed online that are age-appropriate and include a strong social support component.

Unpacking the Political Effects of Social Movements With a Strong Digital Component: The Case of #IdleNoMore in Canada

While many scholars have studied collective action with a strong social media component led by marginalized groups, few have unpacked how this form of political engagement captures the attention of established political elites and, in some cases, influences the mainstream political narrative and policy outcomes. Fewer have focused on the political impact of social media-intensive Indigenous protest movements. This article addresses these gaps in the academic literature. It does so by examining the online and offline impact of the Indigenous-led Idle No More movement at the federal level in Canada. To evaluate the movement’s effects on the public political narrative on Indigenous-related issues, this article reviews the content of the House of Commons Question Period before and after the emergence of the movement in December 2012. To measure Idle No More’s impact on policy outcomes, this article compares federal budgets and the volume of policy proposals pertaining to Indigenous Affairs introduced in the years preceding the beginning of the movement to those that came in the years following it. Semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders are also conducted to better comprehend the political impact of the movement. The study posits that protests coincided with momentary changes to the salience of Indigenous policy issues, but not with significant policy outcomes in that area.

A social–product–process framework for construction

ABSTRACT This paper introduces a new framework for understanding, modelling and software engineering in construction information activities. The current framework is based on understanding that products are the results of processes, which are performed by actors. Such frameworks are influenced by the available technology. The Internet of today is supporting also other kinds of human activities: communication and social interactions among humans. The construction industry uses them as well but without having a proper understanding of their role. There is a gap in the current framework. In this paper, the relevant theories to specify this gap in terms of what could exist in theory and what is offered by technology are analysed. As a result, a new framework of construction information activities that fills the gap is proposed. The key concepts and relations among them are identified and elaborated within the existing framework. The framework introduces the third major integrative element of the otherwise fragmented construction information activities – the social network – the existing two being the physical building and its digital twin. The framework provides a theoretical and conceptual basis for designing, planning, creating, monitoring and evaluating construction-related online services that include a strong social component and use social media services.

Illustrative effects of social capital on health and quality of life among older adult in India: Results from WHO-SAGE India

BackgroundLacuna in contemporary Indian academic research highlights the need to investigate the component of social capital and health outcome among elderly individuals in Indian context. Study endeavors to investigate prevalence of health indicators: self-rated good health(SRH), functional limitation, depression and quality of life(QoL) and the illustrative effects of social capital on elderly health outcome and QoL. MethodsNationally representative cross-sectional data from WHO Study on global AGEing and adults health (SAGE) India 2007 is used. Individuals aged 50+ are included where logistic regression is used to estimate the effect of social capital along with other co-founders on SRH, functional limitation, and depression. Linear regression model is used to analyse evaluates the impact of social capital with other co-founders on QoL among elderly. ResultsThe multivariate analysis shows that SRH is associated with age, female, those having education, higher social-action with strong trust, safety and higher psychological resources. Depression among elderly is significantly related to age, gender, education level, higher wealth, strong sociability. QoL is inversaly related to age, gender, being muslim. A positive association of QoL is observed with higher education, having wealth, and strong social capital component like currently married, civic engagement, social-action, trust solidarity,and strong psychological resources. ConclusionThe paper presents evidence that social capital significantly associated with SRH, lower depression, better functional health and higher quality of life. Hench forth policy makers should construct social policy where elderly feel safe and trusty surrounding, that can involved them into main stream as a productive resource of society.

Exploring inter-organizational paradoxes: Methodological lessons from a study of a grand challenge

In this article, we outline a methodological framework for studying the inter-organizational aspects of paradoxes and specify this in relation to grand challenges. Grand challenges are large-scale, complex, enduring problems that affect large populations, have a strong social component and appear intractable. Our methodological insights draw from our study of the insurance protection gap, a grand challenge that arises when economic losses from large-scale disaster significantly exceed the insured loss, leading to economic and social hardship for the affected communities. We provide insights into collecting data to uncover the paradoxical elements inherent in grand challenges and then propose three analytical techniques for studying inter-organizational paradoxes: zooming in and out, tracking problematization and tracking boundaries and boundary organizations. These techniques can be used to identify and follow how contradictions and interdependences emerge and dynamically persist within inter-organizational interactions and how these shape and are shaped by the unfolding dynamics of the grand challenge. Our techniques and associated research design help advance paradox theorizing by moving it to the inter-organizational and systemic level. This article also illustrates paradox as a powerful lens through which to further our understanding of grand challenges.

What are the most frequent diagnoses in adolescence? The reality of an Adolescent Medicine Clinic.

ABSTRACTObjectiveTo characterize the care flow and the primary diagnoses of an Adolescent Medicine Clinic.MethodsA retrospective descriptive study, with analysis of clinical processes of adolescents (10-18 years) seen at the Adolescent Medicine Clinic, from January 2006 to December 2013. The following variables were analyzed: sex, age, number of visits, referring service and primary diagnoses according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. As to the variable age, the adolescents were divided into two groups: Group I comprised those aged 10-14 years, and Group II, 15-18 years.ResultsA total of 7,692 visits were carried out, in that, 1,659 first visits (22%), with an annual growth rate of 6%. The mean age was 14.2 years, and 55% of patients were female. The group of endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases was the most representative in our sample (34%), with obesity being the most frequent diagnosis in both sexes and age groups (23%), with a higher prevalence in males (13% male versus 10% female, p<0.001) and younger adolescents (18% in Group I versus 5% in Group II p<0.001). The group of mental and behavioral disorders was the second most prevalent (32%), affecting mainly females (39% female versus 22% male, p<0.001) and the older age group (39% Group II versus 27% Group I, p<0.001). Social problems were the primary diagnosis in 8% of visits.ConclusionMost diseases diagnosed have a strong behavioral and social component, particularly mental disorders and obesity. This specific type of diagnoses reinforces the need for a global approach for adolescents and specialized adolescent medicine units/clinics.

MCS-GPM: Multi-Constrained Simulation Based Graph Pattern Matching in Contextual Social Graphs

Graph Pattern Matching (GPM) has been used in lots of areas, like biology, medical science, and physics. With the advent of Online Social Networks (OSNs), recently, GPM has been playing a significant role in social network analysis, which has been widely used in, for example, finding experts, social community mining, and social position detection. Given a query which contains a pattern graph $G_Q$ and a data graph $G_D$ , a GPM algorithm finds those subgraphs, $G_M$ , that match $G_Q$ in $G_D$ . However, the existing GPM methods do not consider the multiple end-to-end constraints of the social contexts, like social relationships, social trust, and social positions on edges in $G_Q$ , which are commonly found in various applications, such as crowdsourcing travel, social network based e-commerce, and study group selection, etc. In this paper, we first conceptually extend Bounded Simulation to Multi-Constrained Simulation (MCS) , and propose a novel NP-Complete Multi-Constrained Graph Pattern Matching (MC-GPM) problem. Then, to address the efficiency issue in large-scale MC-GPM, we propose a new concept called Strong Social Component (SSC), consisting of participants with strong social connections. We also propose an approach to identifying SSCs, and propose a novel index method and a graph compression method for SSC. Moreover, we devise a multithreading heuristic algorithm, called M-HAMC, to bidirectionally search the MC-GPM results in parallel without decompressing graphs. An extensive empirical study over five real-world large-scale social graphs has demonstrated the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach.

Emerging adulthood, sharing utilities and intention to use sharing services

PurposeThis study aims to test Lamberton and Rose’s (2012) commercial sharing utility model of access-based consumption use in three different contexts: car-sharing, room-sharing and household goods purchases. More importantly, this research extends the model by examining the effects of emerging adulthood as a life-stage on perceived value of social applications that facilitate and promote transaction utility, called shareaids.Design/methodology/approachA questionnaire designed to evaluate the effects of emerging adulthood and sharing utilities on intention to use sharing services was developed and administered to 345 respondents at a Midwestern US university. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.FindingsResults indicate that flexibility utility had the strongest direct impact on intention to use sharing consumption while also having indirect effects in all contexts examined. The emerging adulthood life-stage was found to affect transaction utility and shareaids as predicted, and shareaids positively influenced consumers’ perception of the social utility value of access-based consumption.Research limitations/implicationsThe generalizability of this study is limited by its use of a student sample. Also, the study suffers from inherent limitations linked to self-reported survey research.Practical implicationsSharing services that have a strong social component could use shareaids to gain a competitive advantage. Examples of shareaid application include split bills for multiple payments to split fares among friends and social media transaction tools. Shareaid applications can enhance consumers’ perception of social value and the overall shareability value of the sharing service.Originality/valueThis is the first known study to test the effects of emerging adulthood as a life-stage on perceived value of social applications that facilitate and promote transaction utility, called shareaids.

Early social communication in infants with fragile X syndrome and infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder

BackgroundLittle research in fragile X syndrome (FXS) has prospectively examined early social communication. AimsTo compare early social communication in infants with FXS, infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASIBs), and typically developing (TD) infants. Methods and proceduresParticipants were 18 infants with FXS, 21 ASIBs, and 22 TD infants between 7.5–14.5 months. Social communication was coded using the Communication Complexity Scale during the administration of Autism Observation Scale for Infants. Outcomes and resultsDescriptively different patterns were seen across the three groups. Overall infants with FXS had lower social communication than ASIBs or TD infants when controlling for nonverbal cognitive abilities. However, infants with FXS had similar levels of social communication as ASIBs or TD infants during peek-a-boo. No differences were observed between ASIBs and TD infants. For all infants, higher social communication was related to lower ASD risk. Conclusions and implicationsFindings provide insight into the developmental course of social communication in FXS. The dynamic nature of social games may help to stimulate communication in infants with FXS. Language interventions with a strong social component may be particularly effective for promoting language development in FXS.

Utility of Social Cognitive Theory in Intervention Design for Promoting Physical Activity among African-American Women: A Qualitative Study.

We examined the cultural relevance of Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) in the design of a physical activity intervention for African-American women. A qualitative study design was used. Twenty-five African-American women (Mean age = 38.5 years, Mean BMI = 39.4 kg·m2) were enrolled in a series of focus groups (N = 9) to elucidate how 5 SCT constructs (ie, Behavioral Capability, Outcome Expectations, Self-efficacy, Self-regulation, Social Support) can be culturally tailored in the design of a physical activity program for African-American women. For the construct of Behavioral Capability, participants were generally unaware of the amount, intensity, and types of physical activity needed for health benefits. Outcome Expectations associated with physical activity included increased energy, improved health, weight loss, and positive role modeling behaviors. Constructs of Self-efficacy and Self-regulation were elicited through the women perceiving themselves as a primary barrier to physical activity. Participants endorsed the need of a strong social support component and identified a variety of acceptable sources to include in a physical activity program (ie, family, friends, other program participants). Findings explicate the utility of SCT as a behavioral change theoretical basis for tailoring physical activity programs to African-American women.