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Health communication scholars have a responsibility to be certain that both healthcare practitioners and government agencies accurately communicate health information to the public. In order to carry out this duty, health communication scholars must assess how messages are being received and if they are being received at all by the public. This paper details a two part study which assesses this phenomenon within the context of skin cancer. Study 1 utilized 29 in depth qualitative interviews to identify subcultures among college students whose communication puts them at risk for skin cancer by encouraging poor sun exposure behaviors. The results indicate that farmers, African Americans, and individuals who regularly participate in outdoor athletics are at risk groups. Study 2 reports a content analysis of the known population of skin cancer Public Service Announcements (PSAs) available via the internet in 2013. The aforementioned groups were not present in any of the PSAs. Detailed results and implications are discussed.

Patients with cancer tend to suffer sleep-wake disturbances at a higher rate than the general population. Insomnia and fatigue should be regarded as a significant patient safety issue, as poor sleep can elevate patients' risks of falls, motor vehicle accidents, and acute infectious illnesses. To alleviate those risks, oncology nurses should be familiar with effective evidence-based practices for assessing and improving patients' sleep quality.

The AACSB accreditation process reflects basic quality principles, providing standards and a process for feedback for continuous improvement. However, implementation can lead to unintended negative consequences. The literature shows that while institutionalism and critical theory have been used as a theoretical base for evaluating accreditation, W. E. Deming's philosophy has not. This article fills that void by examining possible negative consequences in meeting faculty qualification requirements in institutions with a teaching mission. © 2014, Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Background: Younger siblings of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are at higher risk for acquiring these disorders than the general population. Language development is usually delayed in children with ASD. The present study examines the development of pre-speech vocal behavior in infants at risk for ASD due to the presence of an older sibling with the disorder. Methods: Infants at high risk (HR) for ASD and those at low risk, without a diagnosed sibling (LR), were seen at 6, 9, and 12 months as part of a larger prospective study of risk for ASD in infant siblings. Standard clinical assessments were administered, and vocalization samples were collected during play with mother and a standard set of toys. Infant vocal behavior was recorded and analyzed for consonant inventory, presence of canonical syllables, and of non-speech vocalizations, in a cross-sectional design. Children were seen again at 24 months for provisional diagnosis. Results: Differences were seen between risk groups for certain vocal behaviors. Differences in vocal production in the first year of life were associated with outcomes in terms of autistic symptomotology in the second year. Conclusions: Early vocal behavior is a sensitive indicator of heightened risk for autistic symptoms in infants with a family history of ASD.

Language transfer theory elucidates how first language (L1) knowledge and grammatical features are applied in second language (L2) writing. Deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) students who use or are developing American Sign Language (ASL) as their L1 may demonstrate the use of ASL linguistic features in their writing of English. In this study, we investigated the extent to which 29 d/hh students in Grades 6-8 (mean age=13.2) with diverse ASL exposure incorporated ASL features in their English writing. We also investigated the impact of one year of Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) to increase students' metalinguistic knowledge and linguistic competence, and subsequently reduce ASL features in writing. Results indicate that ASL transfer is found in the writings of students with varied L1 experiences, and that SIWI can lead to significant reductions of ASL features in writing. The findings suggest that bilingual literacy programs where there is an emphasis on implicit language competence and metalinguistic knowledge can support d/hh students in the development of written English.

Children and youth in schools are subject to the effects of the larger culture's attitudes and values related to body size. When negatively biased, these attitudes and values can have detrimental effects and thus emerge as relevant to educational and psychological consultants. Drawing on the nascent field of Fat Studies with its focus on the cultural meanings attached to large bodies, we identify direct implications of fat phobia for school-age children and youth. Via a brief case example, an initial review of literature, and several examples of health-positive programming, we describe the social justice implications of fat phobia for consultants in school and community settings. In this consideration of the role of consultants for addressing fat bias and supporting health, we also suggest the merit of applied interdisciplinarity as a strong ground for consultation research and practice. The academic area of Fat Studies provides illustration of the integration of disciplinary perspectives (e.g., sociology, anthropology, biology, psychology). Educational and psychological consultation is ideally situated for systematically engaging such interdisciplinarity in support of practical outcomes that are healthy, sustainable, and socially just.

This paper presents a methodological discussion of a study of tagging quality in subject indexing. The data analysis in the study was divided into 3 phases: analysis of indexing consistency, analysis of tagging effectiveness, and analysis of the semantic values of tags. To analyze indexing consistency, this study employed the vector space model-based indexing consistency measures. An analysis of tagging effectiveness with tagging exhaustivity and tag specificity was conducted to ameliorate the drawbacks of consistency analysis based on only the quantitative measures of vocabulary matching. To further investigate the semantic values of tags at various levels of specificity, a latent semantic analysis (LSA) was conducted. To test statistical significance for the relation between tag specificity and semantic quality, correlation analysis was conducted. This research demonstrates the potential of tags for web document indexing with a complete assessment of tagging quality and provides a basis for further study of the strengths and limitations of tagging.

Due to the large volume and complexity of data, exploring data using visual analytics has become more helpful to interpret and analyze it. The box plot is one of graphical ways and is the most common technique for presenting and summarizing statistics. In this paper, we focus on discussing the tagging patterns by integrating visualization assessment using the box plot with the Shapiro-Wilk test. © 2015 Author.

This poster presents preliminary findings of user tag analysis in the domain of consumer health information. To obtain user terms, 36,205 tags from 38 consumer health information sites were collected from delicious.com. Content analysis was applied to identify the dimensions and types of the collected tags. The preliminary findings showed that user generated tags covers a variety of aspects of health information, ranging from general terms, subject terms, knowledge type, and to audience. General terms and subject terms were observed dominantly by showing 31.7% and 22.8% respectively. © 2015 Authors.