Pre-warning information dissemination models of different media under emergencies

Pre-warning plays an important role in emergency handling, especially in urban areas with high population density like Beijing. Knowing the information dissemination mechanisms clearly could help us reduce losses and ensure the safety of human beings during emergencies. In this paper, we propose the models of pre-warning information dissemination via five classical media based on actual pre-warning issue processes, including television, radio, short message service (SMS), electronic screens, and online social networks. The population coverage ability and dissemination efficiency at different issue time of these five issue channels are analyzed by simulation methods, and their advantages and disadvantages are compared by radar graphs. Results show that SMS is the most appropriate way to issue long-term pre-warning for its large population coverage, but it is not suitable for issuing urgent warnings to large population because of the limitation of telecom company's issue ability. TV shows the best performance to combine the dissemination speed and range, and the performance of radio and electronic screens are not as satisfactory as the others. In addition, online social networks might become one of the most promising communication method for its potential in further diffusion. These models and results could help us make pre-warning issue plans and provide guidance for future construction of information diffusion systems, thus reducing injuries, deaths, and other losses under different emergencies.

Strategies for Information Dissemination of Quality and Safety Crisis of Tropical Agricultural Products

The quality and safety crisis of agricultural products on the one hand is the crisis of harm of agricultural products,and on the other hand is the crisis of information dissemination. This paper analyzed the characteristics of content of the quality and safety crisis information of tropical agricultural products. On the basis of these characteristics,it came up with strategies and recommendations for solving the problems of quality and safety of tropical agricultural products,including establishing the emergency response system for quality and safety crisis of tropical agricultural products,bringing into play the social responsibilities of scientific research institutions,and bringing into play authoritative effect of scientific experts.

A study on predicting crisis information dissemination in epidemic-level public health events

Crisis information dissemination plays a key role in the development of emergency responses to epidemic-level public health events.Therefore,clarifying the causes of crisis information dissemination and making accurate predictions to effectively control such situations have attracted extensive attention.Based on media richness theory and persuasion theory,this study constructs an index system of crisis information dissemination impact factors from two aspects:the crisis information publisher and the published crisis information content.A multi-layer perceptron is used to analyze the weight of the index system,and the prediction is transformed into a pattern classification problem to test crisis information dissemination.In this study,COVID-19 is considered a representative event.An experiment is conducted to predict the crisis information dissemination of COVID-19 in two megacities.Data related to COVID-19 from these two megacities are acquired from the well-known Chinese social media platform Weibo.The experimental results show that not only the identity but also the social influence of the information publisher has a significant impact on crisis information dissemination in epidemic-level public health events.Furthermore,the proposed model achieves more than 95%test accuracy,precision rate,recall value and f1-score in the prediction task.The study provides decision-making support for government departments and a guide for correctly disseminating crisis information and public opinion during future epidemic-level public health events.

Agricultural information dissemination using ICTs:A review and analysis of information dissemination models in China

Over the last three decades,China’s agriculture sector has been transformed from the traditional to modern practice through the effective deployment of Information and Communication Technologies(ICTs).Information processing and dissemination have played a critical role in this transformation process.Many studies in relation to agriculture information services have been conducted in China,but few of them have attempted to provide a comprehensive review and analysis of different information dissemination models and their applications.This paper aims to review and identify the ICT based information dissemination models in China and to share the knowledge and experience in applying emerging ICTs in disseminating agriculture information to farmers and farm communities to improve productivity and economic,social and environmental sustainability.The paper reviews and analyzes the development stages of China’s agricultural information dissemination systems and different mechanisms for agricultural information service development and operations.Seven ICT-based information dissemination models are identified and discussed.Success cases are presented.The findings provide a useful direction for researchers and practitioners in developing future ICT based information dissemination systems.It is hoped that this paper will also help other developing countries to learn from China’s experience and best practice in their endeavor of applying emerging ICTs in agriculture information dissemination and knowledge transfer.

A time sequence analysis on the informal information flow mechanism of microblogging

Microblog is a new Internet featured product, which has seen a rapid development in recent years. Researchers from different countries are making various technical analyses on microblogging applications. In this study, through using the natural language processing(NLP) and data mining, we analyzed the information content transmitted via a microblog, users' social networks and their interactions, and carried out an empirical analysis on the dissemination process of one particular piece of information via Sina Weibo.Based on the result of these analyses, we attempt to develop a better understanding about the rule and mechanism of the informal information flow in microblogging.

Gardasil on Twitter: A Content Mining Study Examining Message, Context, and Source Characteristics of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Vaccine-Related Tweets

Genital human papilloma virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted virus in the US. Effective HPV vaccines remain controversial and have poor uptake among many adolescent groups. Social media have potential for promoting the HPV vaccine, but little is known about the content or sentiment of social media discussions regarding the vaccine. The purpose of this study was to examine message, context, sentiment, and source characteristics of original HPV- and HPV vaccine-related Twitter posts (tweets) over a 3-month time period. This content mining study used publicly available data purchased from Twitter. One-thousand tweets were randomly selected from a sample of 45,260 English language tweets matching our search criteria and collected from December 2014-January 2015. Tweets were manually coded according to source, context, message, and sentiment characteristics using a coding document developed from previous research. Individuals posted just over half (55%) of tweets, whereas organizations posted 40%. More than half (57%) of all coded tweets were positive, and less than one-fifth were negative. Organizations’ tweets were more likely to be positive than individuals’ tweets. A temporal display of contextual events and tweet spikes demonstrates that positive tweets can increase during newsworthy events (e.g. FDA approval of Gardisil 9). The HPV vaccine was most often discussed under a cancer prevention message frame. In contrast with some existing research, discussions surrounding the HPV vaccine in original Twitter posts are largely positive. Our study reveals opportunities for adolescent health specialists to provide accurate, positive HPV vaccination information via Twitter.

Celebrity and ordinary users: A comparative study of microblog user behaviors on Sina Weibo

Purpose： This study aims to investigate and compare celebrity and ordinary users＇ behaviors on Sina Weibo. Design/methodology/approach： Data was collected from 12,555 ordinary users and 2,467 celebrity users on Sina Weibo. Correlation and regression analysis was performed on users＇ number of followings, number of followers and number of posts. Findings： The results revealed significant difference between famous and ordinary users＇ behaviors on Sina Weibo. We found correlation among ordinary users＇ number of followings, number of followers and number of posts, but for celebrity users, only their number of followings and number of posts are related with each other. For both ordinary and celebrity users, their number of followings significantly affects how many posts they publish. Research limitations： We only carried out our investigation on Sina Weibo and the findings need to be further verified on other microblogging platforms. Practical implications： This research is useful for microblogging service providers to understand different types of users and promote the continuous use of their services. Originality/value： This research delivers valuable insights into understanding of the characteristics of different types of microbloggers and the ways to increase user viscosity.

Development in theoretical study and practice of library legislation in China

One of the most outstanding characteristics of library legislation in China is that theoretical research and legislative practice are mutually reinforcing, making important issues and basic rules and regulations closely associated with legislation and the research focus. A national library law is currently being enacted while several local library legislations have already seen fruitful results. In the enactment of 'Regulations for the Protection of Information Network Dissemination Rights', the library professional participated for the first time in enacting a national copyright law, which led to unprecedented flourishing of library activities and copyright studies. The promulgation of another legal framework,'Government Information Disclosure Regulations' further advanced the research on related issues and pushed forward government information services in public libraries in the same way. A new landmark for library legislation in recent years is the promulgation of'Guidelines for Land Utilization for Public Library Construction' and 'Public Library Construction Standards', while the framing of 'Rules of Professional Ethics for Librarians in China(On trial)' and the 'Library Service Manifesto' give indication that a framework of self-disciplinary measures of library professionals is established.

Weather Information Acquisition and Health Significance during Extreme Cold Weather in a Subtropical City:A Crosssectional Survey in Hong Kong

Health and disaster risk reduction are important and necessary components in building a smart city,especially when climate change may increase the frequency of extreme temperatures and the health risks of urban dwellers.However,limited knowledge is available about the best way to disseminate weather warnings and health protection information.This study explores the weather information acquisition patterns of the Hong Kong public and examines the sociodemographic predictors of these patterns to establish the potential public health implications of smart city development.A population-based,stratified crosssectional,random digit dialing telephone survey was conducted among the Cantonese-speaking population aged over 15 years in Hong Kong in early 2016.Analyses were conducted based on 1017 valid samples,with a response rate of 63.6%.Cold Weather Warnings were well disseminated in Hong Kong,with 95.7% of the respondents reporting awareness of the public warnings.Television and smartphone apps were the two most important channels for weather information acquisition.Age and education level are the main social-demographic variables associated with the current utilization and future preference of smartphone technology.Among those who were not using a preferredchannel to acquire weather information,61.3% considered switching to a smartphone app.Moreover,the patterns of individual health protection measures and self-reported health impacts were significantly different between smartphone app users and non-users.Weather information dissemination should be tailored to the sociodemographic characteristics of the users.

Viewpoints on Grid Standards

At GCC 2003 in Shanghai in December 2003, a panel discussion was held on thefuture of grid computing and on the role of the Globus Toolkit in future grid standards. Panelistsinclude Andrew Chien (UCSD, USA), Wolfgang Gentzsch (Sun), Francis Lau (HKU, China), Carl Kesselman(USC, USA), Satoshi Matsuoka (TIT, Japan), Xian-He Sun (IIT, USA), Richard Wirt (Intel), Liang-JieZhang (IBM Research), Song-Nian Zhou (Platform Computing), and Zhi-Wei Xu (ICT, China), with Hai Jin(HUST, China) served as the coordinator. The panel talks were stimulating and well received. Threeof the panel talk notes are selected and included in this viewpoint.