Connecting social media to e-commerce:cold-start product recommendation using microblogging information

In recent years, the boundaries between e-commerce and social networking have become increasingly blurred. Many e-commerce websites support the mechanism of social login where users can sign on the websites using their social network identities such as their Facebook or Twitter accounts. Users can also post their newly purchased products on microblogs with links to the e-commerce product web pages. In this paper, we propose a novel solution for cross-site cold-start product recommendation, which aims to recommend products from e-commerce websites to users at social networking sites in 'cold-start' situations, a problem which has rarely been explored before. A major challenge is how to leverage knowledge extracted from social networking sites for cross-site cold-start product recommendation. We propose to use the linked users across social networking sites and e-commerce websites (users who have social networking accounts and have made purchases on e-commerce websites) as a bridge to map users' social networking features to another feature representation for product recommendation. In specific, we propose learning both users' and products' feature representations (called user embeddings and product embeddings, respectively) from data collected from e-commerce websites using recurrent neural networks and then apply a modified gradient boosting trees method to transform users' social networking features into user embeddings. We then develop a feature-based matrix factorization approach which can leverage the learnt user embeddings for cold-start product recommendation. Experimental results on a large dataset constructed from the largest Chinese microblogging service Sina Weibo and the largest Chinese B2C e-commerce website JingDong have shown the effectiveness of our proposed framework.

Resisting the final word:challenging stale media and policy representations of students’ performative technological encounters in university education

This article explores powerful, constraining representations of encounters between digital technologies and the bodies of students and teachers, using corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It discusses examples from a corpus of UK Higher Education (HE) policy documents, and considers how confronting such documents may strengthen arguments from educators against narrow representations of an automatically enhanced learning. Examples reveal that a promise of enhanced ‘student experience’ through information and communication technologies internalizes the ideological constructs of technology and policy makers, to reinforce a primary logic of exchange value. The identified dominant discursive patterns are closely linked to the Californian ideology. By exposing these texts, they provide a form of ‘linguistic resistance’ for educators to disrupt powerful processes that serve the interests of a neoliberal social imaginary. To mine this current crisis of education, the authors introduce productive links between a Networked Learning approach and a posthumanist perspective. The Networked Learning approach emphasises conscious choices between political alternatives, which in turn could help us reconsider ways we write about digital technologies in policy. Then, based on the works of Haraway, Hayles, and Wark, a posthumanist perspective places human digital learning encounters at the juncture of non-humans and politics. Connections between the Networked Learning approach and the posthumanist perspective are necessary in order to replace a discourse of (mis)representations with a more performative view towards the digital human body, which then becomes situated at the centre of teaching and learning. In practice, however, establishing these connections is much more complex than resorting to the typically straightforward common sense discourse encountered in the Critical Discourse Analysis, and this may yet limit practical applications of this research in policy making.

Narratives Around Iberian Culture at Valencia Museums and Archaeological Sites: From Official Discourses to Social Perceptions

Museums and archaeological sites are considered the most authoritative places for talking about the past and the heritage from a scientific perspective. In fact, visitors assume their discourses as reliable and indisputable. In spite of that, professionals of archaeology must critically analyse the production of narratives at heritage sites, since they often reflect social, political and identity issues related to the present-day realities. The aim of this paper is to study official and popular discourses about the Iberian culture (Iron Age) collected in museums and archaeological sites from Valencia region.

Estrategias de visibilización y procesos de identificación boliviana en la prensa gráfica y en la red social Facebook, en dos ciudades del centro de la provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Los usos y las formas de identificación intra y extra grupo a través de los medios de comunicación son aspectos escasamente explorados en los estudios sobre las identidades en ciudades de tipo intermedias del centro de la provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Por ello, el objetivo de este trabajo consiste en analizar y discutir los modos en que se visibilizan y construyen las representaciones y manifestaciones de los inmigrantes y descendientes bolivianos, específicamente en la red social Facebook y en la prensa gráfica local de las ciudades de Olavarría y Azul. Se pretende contribuir a la comprensión de la manera en que se producen los diversos discursos y saberes de estos grupos, así como identificar a estos medios de comunicación como instrumentos que posibilitan intervenir desde otros espacios de reconocimiento y legitimidad.

IDEATIONAL REPRESENTATIONS OF EDENTULISM AND PROSTHETIC REHABILITATION FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE ELDERLY

Objetivo: Identificar as representações ideativas de idosos edêntulos uni ou bimaxilares acerca das perdas dentárias e da reabilitação protética oral. Métodos: Estudo qualitativo, realizado entre janeiro e março de 2011 com sete idosos residentes em uma Instituição Pública de Longa Permanência do Recife-PE, com 14 idosos em atendimento na Clínica de Prótese Dentária da Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE). Coletaram-se os dados através de uma entrevista semiestruturada que passou por análise de conteúdo. Resultados: Os achados possibilitaram identificar que, para os idosos, os dentes contribuíam tanto para a saúde quanto como para facilitar interações sociais, enquanto o edentulismo foi associado a uma pluralidade de sentimentos negativos. Quanto à reabilitação protética, eles enfatizaram os prejuízos para a saúde devido a próteses mal adaptadas. Conclusão: Os idosos acreditam que o edentulismo e a reabilitação protética estão associados, principalmente, a um conceito mecanicista da profissão, amplamente difundido entre os profissionais que privilegiam mais a odontologia curativa em detrimento da prevenção. Nesse contexto, para que o envelhecimento possa ser considerado uma etapa da vida com as mesmas qualidades e dificuldades de qualquer outra, sugere-se aos gestores e aos próprios profissionais em saúde que se comprometam mais com uma prática odontológica humanizadora e preventiva, a fim de proverem os requisitos mínimos para um envelhecimento com dignidade.

The Effect of Supportive Social Interaction Priming on Children's Prosocial Comforing Responses to Distressed Others

The ability to sensitively care for others’ wellbeing develops early in ontogeny and is an important developmental milestone for healthy social, emotional, and moral development. One facet of care for others, prosocial comforting, has been linked with important social outcomes such as peer acceptance and friendship quality, underscoring the importance of determining factors involved in the ability to comfort. Although social support has been linked with a number of important social outcomes, no study has directly examined whether felt social support can foster children’s positive behavior toward others. The purpose of the current investigation was to use an experimental priming paradigm to demonstrate that felt social support a) enhances children’s ability to respond prosocially to the distress of others and b) decreases children’s expressions of personal distress when faced with the distress of another person. Participants were 94 4-year-old children (M = 53.56 months, SD = 3.38 months; 52 girls). Children were randomly assigned to either view pictures of mothers and children in close, personal interactions (supportive social interaction condition), happy women and children in separate pictures, presented side-by-side (happy control condition), or pictures of colorful overlapping shapes (neutral control condition). Each set of 20 pictures was presented in the context of a categorization computer game that participants played 4 times throughout the course of the study. Immediately following the first three computer games, children were given the opportunity to comfort someone who was distressed; twice it was the adult experimenter working with the child, and once it was an unseen infant crying over a monitor that participants had been trained to use. Comforting behaviors and distress/arousal were coded in 10-second time segments and yielded a global comforting score and a distress proportion score for each task. Results indicated that priming condition had no effect on either prosocial comforting behavior or expressions of personal distress. I discuss these null findings in light of the available literatures on priming mental representations in children and on prosocial comforting, and suggest some future directions for continued investigation in both fields.

Adesão ao tratamento em pacientes com depressão major: A influência da percepção de doença, suporte social, espiritualidade e do estado emocional

Este estudo teve como finalidade investigar a relação entre alguns factores psicossociais e a adesão terapêutica, utilizando como variáveis preditoras, as representações de doença, a ansiedade e depressão as previsões de suporte social, e a espiritualidade e como variáveis de resultado, a adesão ao regime terapêutico, através da avaliação da adesão à medicação. Pretendeu-se testar quatro hipóteses: (1) Prevê-se que as representações de depressão nas suas dimensões da consequências, duração e controlo pessoal e de tratamento, identidade, preocupação, emoções e compreensão da doença sejam preditores significativos da adesão ao tratamento medicamentoso; (2) Prevê-se que os níveis de ansiedade e depressão dos doentes depressivos estarão significativa e negativamente correlacionados com os níveis de adesão ao tratamento medicamentoso; (3) Prevê-se que os níveis de suporte social percebido estarão significativa e positivamente correlacionados com os níveis de adesão ao tratamento medicamentoso e (4) Prevê-se que os níveis de espiritualidade se encontrem significativa e positivamente correlacionados com os níveis de adesão ao tratamento medicamentoso. Tratou-se de um estudo transversal, com desenho correlacionai e foi desenvolvido num Hospital da Região do Alentejo, mais especificamente, num Departamento de Psiquiatria a saúde Mental, com uma amostra não aleatória de 15 pacientes com o diagnóstico de Depressão. Os resultados confirmaram parcialmente a primeira hipótese, sendo as representações de doença, nas suas dimensões controlo pessoal, controlo do tratamento e emoções preditores significativos da adesão (mais especificamente das alterações das doses da medicação). A segunda hipótese também foi confirmada parcialmente, sendo a depressão preditora da adesão (tanto na dimensão do esquecimento, quanto na alteração das doses da medicação). A terceira hipótese foi, também, parcialmente confirmada sendo a aliança fiável preditora significativa da adesão (na dimensão do esquecimento da toma da medicação). Por último, a quarta hipótese foi igualmente confirmada parcialmente sendo a esperança/optimismo preditora significativa da adesão (tanto na dimensão do esquecimento, quanto na alteração das doses da medicação). Nas análises exploratórias verificou-se a influência da variável sócio­ demográfico “sexo” nas representações cognitivas e também na depressão. A "idade" também demonstrou algum efeito nas alterações à medicação e nas provisões sociais. O "estado civil" mostrou efeito no aconselhamento e na oportunidade de prestação de valores. As variáveis clínicas também mostraram ter influência. O "tempo de doença" mostrou efeito significativo nas representações emocionais, nas crenças, esperança/optimismo e no esquecimento da medicação. A "duração do tratamento com medicação" mostrou efeito na compreensão da doença e no esquecimento da medicação. Por fim, são apresentadas algumas implicações da depressão, bem como algumas sugestões para estudos futuros. /ABSTRACT: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between some psychosocial factors and the adherence, using as predictor variables, the representations of illness, the anxiety and depression, the social support predictions, and spirituality, and as outcome variables, adherence to treatment regimen, through the assessment of medication adherence. lt was intended to test four hypotheses: (1) lt is expected that the depression representations in its dimensions of consequences, duration and personal control and treatment, identity, concern, emotions and disease understanding are significant predictors of adherence to therapy; (2) lt is expected that anxiety and depression levels in depressed patients are significantly and negatively correlated with the levels of adherence to therapy; (3) lt is expected that the levels of perceived social support are significantly and positively correlated with the levels of adherence to drug treatment and (4) lt is expected that the levels of spirituality are significantly and positively correlated with levels of adherence to therapy. This was a cross-sectional study with correlational design and was developed in one Hospital of the Alentejo Region, more specifically, in a Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, with a non¬random sample of 15 patients diagnosed with depression. The results partially confirmed the first hypothesis, being the representations of disease, in its dimensions of personal control, treatment control and emotions, significant predictors of adherence (more specifically, of the changes in the doses of medication). The second hypothesis was also partially confirmed, with depression being a predictor of adherence {both in the extent of oblivion and in the changes of medication doses). The third hypothesis was also partially confirmed, being the trustable alliance a quite significantly reliable predictor of adherence {in the dimension of the medication oblivion). Finally, the fourth hypothesis was equally partially confirmed, being the hope/optimism significant predictor of adherence (both in the extent of oblivion and in changing doses of medication). ln exploratory analyzes, it was verified the influence of socio-demographic variable "sex" in the cognitive representations and also in depression. The "age" also had some effect on changes to medication and social provisions. The "marital status" had effect in the counseling and in the opportunity to provide values. The clinical variables also proved to have influence. "Time sickness" had a significant effect on emotional representations, beliefs, hope/optimism and medication oblivion. The "treatment duration with medication" had effect in the disease understanding and the medication oblivion. Finally, are presented some implications of depression as well as some suggestions for future studies.

The effect of gender context on children's social behaviour in a limited resources situation : an observational study

Knowing when to compete and when to cooperate to maximize opportunities for equal access to activities and materials in groups is critical to children's social and cognitive development. The present study examined the individual (gender, social competence) and contextual factors (gender context) that may determine why some children are more successful than others. One hundred and fifty-six children (M age=6.5 years) were divided into 39 groups of four and videotaped while engaged in a task that required them to cooperate in order to view cartoons. Children within all groups were unfamiliar to one another. Groups varied in gender composition (all girls, all boys, or mixed-sex) and social competence (high vs. low). Group composition by gender interaction effects were found. Girls were most successful at gaining viewing time in same-sex groups, and least successful in mixed-sex groups. Conversely, boys were least successful in same-sex groups and most successful in mixed-sex groups. Similar results were also found at the group level of analysis; however, the way in which the resources were distributed differed as a function of group type. Same-sex girl groups were inequitable but efficient whereas same-sex boy groups were more equitable than mixed groups but inefficient compared to same-sex girl groups. Social competence did not influence children's behavior. The findings from the present study highlight the effect of gender context on cooperation and competition and the relevance of adopting an unfamiliar peer paradigm when investigating children's social behavior.