Effectiveness of self-training using the mobile-based virtual reality program in patients with social anxiety disorder

Kim, Hesun Erin,Hong, Yeon-Ju,Kim, Min-Kyeong,Jung, Young Hoon,Kyeong, Sunghyon,Kim, Jae-Jin Pergamon 2017 Computers in human behavior Vol.73 No.-

<P><B>Abstract</B></P> <P>Social anxiety is one of the common mental problems with relatively low treatment-seeking rate. Virtual reality exposure therapy is a promising treatment option for social anxiety disorder (SAD). Our objective was to investigate the efficacy of self-training using the newly developed mobile-based virtual reality program for the cost-effective treatment of SAD. Twenty-two patients with SAD and 30 sex- and age-matched normal controls engaged in the program, which consisted of eight self-training sessions during two weeks. Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) was assessed before and after the training. Additionally, the embedded in-app performance variables were analyzed for objective performance improvements. Although the LSAS scores decreased after the training in both groups, patients showed greater degree of decrease at the marginal significance level than controls (<I>p</I> = 0.053). Overall, there were significant improvements in the total speech length (<I>p</I> < 0.001), voiced-time ratio (<I>p</I> < 0.001), and subjective self-ratings on the performance measured within the program for subjective nervousness (<I>p</I> < 0.001) and for the subjective confidence in content (<I>p</I> = 0.039). The findings provide compelling evidence that the self-training could be beneficial for reducing anxiety and improving skills. The mobile-based virtual reality program for the treatment of SAD may be the first mobile application treatment option that could be operated by the patient alone, at home.</P> <P><B>Highlights</B></P> <P> <UL> <LI> Mobile-based virtual reality self-training for social anxiety was developed. </LI> <LI> The mobile program attenuated social anxiety. </LI> <LI> Through the program, participants were able to improve performance skills. </LI> </UL> </P>

Division of domestic labor over retirement among middle-aged and older couples in Korea

Erin Hy Won Kim,Changjun Lee 한국여성정책연구원(구 한국여성개발원) 2017 한국여성정책연구원 세미나자료 Vol.2017 No.9

Topic-based content and sentiment analysis of Ebola virus on Twitter and in the news

Kim, Erin Hea-Jin,Jeong, Yoo Kyung,Kim, Yuyoung,Kang, Keun Young,Song, Min SAGE Publications 2016 JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SCIENCE Vol.42 No.6

<P>The present study investigates topic coverage and sentiment dynamics of two different media sources, Twitter and news publications, on the hot health issue of Ebola. We conduct content and sentiment analysis by: (1) applying vocabulary control to collected datasets; (2) employing the n-gram LDA topic modeling technique; (3) adopting entity extraction and entity network; and (4) introducing the concept of topic-based sentiment scores. With the query term 'Ebola' or 'Ebola virus', we collected 16,189 news articles from 1006 different publications and 7,106,297 tweets with the Twitter stream API. The experiments indicate that topic coverage of Twitter is narrower and more blurry than that of the news media. In terms of sentiment dynamics, the life span and variance of sentiment on Twitter is shorter and smaller than in the news. In addition, we observe that news articles focus more on event-related entities such as person, organization and location, whereas Twitter covers more time-oriented entities. Based on the results, we report on the characteristics of Twitter and news media as two distinct news outlets in terms of content coverage and sentiment dynamics.</P>

The Relationship between Delirium and Statin Use According to Disease Severity in Patients in the Intensive Care Unit

Jun Yong An(Jun Yong An),Jin Young Park(Jin Young Park),Jaehwa Cho(Jaehwa Cho),Hesun Erin Kim(Hesun Erin Kim),Jaesub Park(Jaesub Park),Jooyoung Oh(Jooyoung Oh) 대한정신약물학회 2023 CLINICAL PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY AND NEUROSCIENCE Vol.21 No.1

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the use of statins and the occurrence of delirium in a large cohort of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU), considering disease severity and statin properties. Methods: We obtained clinical and demographical information from 3,604 patients admitted to the ICU from January 2013 to April 2020. This included information on daily statin use and delirium state, as assessed by the Confusion Assessment Method for ICU. We used inverse probability of treatment weighting and categorized the patients into four groups based on the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score (group 1: 0−10 - mild; group 2: 11−20 - mild to moderate; group 3: 21−30 - moderate to severe; group 4: > 30 - severe). We analyzed the association between the use of statin and the occurrence of delirium in each group, while taking into account the properties of statins. Results: Comparisons between statin and non-statin patient groups revealed that only in group 2, patients who were administered statin showed significantly higher occurrence of delirium (p = 0.004, odds ratio [OR] = 1.58) compared to the patients who did not receive statin. Regardless of whether statins were lipophilic (p = 0.036, OR = 1.47) or hydrophilic (p = 0.032, OR = 1.84), the occurrence of delirium was higher only in patients from group 2. Conclusion: The use of statins may be associated with the increases in the risk of delirium occurrence in patients with mild to moderate disease severity, irrespective of statin properties.

ETHNIC-INSPIRED DESIGN (EID) CONSUMPTION: A MEANS OF ENHANCING SELF-VIEW CONFIDENCE

Erin Cho,Chung-Wha Ki,Youn-Kyung Kim 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2017 Global Fashion Management Conference Vol.2017 No.07

Despite the growing trend of incorporating ethnic motifs, colors, and styles (i.e., ethnic-inspired designs (EIDs)) into mainstream fashion products in the US, there is yet a lack of understanding on what drives consumers to demand such products with EIDs. Although extant literature provides important insights as to what motivates consumers to favor EIDs, much of the studies have focused on the products’ appeals to particular ethnic groups with matching their cultural backgrounds. Less is understood on the core self-centric values mainstream consumers reflect into EIDs and the personal goal-pursuit they project by wearing them. We address this issue. Building upon Image Theory (Beach & Mitchell, 1987), our findings document that consumers’ purchase intent toward products with EIDs is more fundamentally driven by their aspirations to boost their self-view confidence by wearing EIDs (i.e., self-enhancement), which are guided by their core self-values that are represented by two personal values (i.e., cultural openness and seeking personal style) and two product values (i.e., perceived esthetics and perceived novelty).

디자인을 통한 소비자와 국가의 갈등구조 관계의 고찰: 조선왕조실록에 기반한 문헌과 실증연구

에린조(Erin Cho),김장호(Jangho Kim) 한국디자인학회 2014 디자인학연구 Vol.27 No.1

THE EFFECT OF CUSTOMIZATION EXPERIENCE ON CONSUMERS’ HAPPINESS AND PURCHASE INTENTION AND THE MEDIATING ROLES OF AUTONOMY, COMPETENCE AND AUTHORSHIP

Ha Youn Kim,Yuri Lee,Erin Cho,Sunyang Park 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

This study investigates the effect of high-level customization experience delivered via information and communication technology (ICT) on consumers’ patronage behavior toward a brand. The results indicate that customization experience increases purchasing intention for it enhance the level of happiness about the product. The relationship between customization experience and happiness is found to be mediated by autonomy (i.e., feeling of being in charge of one’s own action), competence (i.e., feeling that one effectively utilize one’s skill and abilities) and the pride of authorship (i.e. feeling of pride when creating an artifact of one’s own). Introduction The advancement of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has led the paradigm shift in managing a producer and consumer relationship in the fashion industry. In particular, it has blurred the boundaries between the role of a producer and the role of a consumer. For example, Adidas, one of the biggest sportswear companies in the world, has built SpeedFactory, which offers a special customization service for their users to build sneakers according to their own design specifications. There it takes only five hours for a customized design put together by its users to be produced in a real pair of sneakers and ready to be delivered to their home (Wiener, 2017). The term, prosumer (i.e., producer and consumer) indicates such people who not only purchase and use a product a company offers but also actively participate in the production process by communicating and reflecting their preference (Toffler, 1980). This phenomenon is particularly evident with millennial consumers who desire customer-centric experiences with which they feel wanted and valued. They are willing to engage with brands through producing consumer-generated contents and suggesting their ideas during the production process (McGee, 2017). Such desire has driven the growth of customization services and the rapid development of technology further enabling companies to provide customization more easily and at lower costs (Mitrea, Werner, & Greif, 2010). Despite its increasing significance, not much attention has been paid to understanding the psychological underpinnings as to how and why customization services may enhance consumer patronage behavior toward a brand. This study fills this void by examining the underlying mechanism of the relation between personalization experiences and purchasing intention. Literature review and research questions Customization Experience and Happiness “Experience” has emerged as an important keyword for marketing professionals in the last couple of decades (Pine & Gillomore, 1999; Schmitt, 1999). Consumers wanted and were willing to pay for unique, personalized events that are not the same as anyone else’s, and those that can surprise and impress them beyond providing mere satisfaction (Pine & Gillomore, 1999). Customized services thus have a great impact on consumer patronage behavior such as purchase intention and brand loyalty. Recently, marketing and psychology research has also observed that customized experiences bring happiness (e.g. Bhattacharjee, & Mogilner, 2014; Guevarra & Howell, 2015). Happiness refers to a cognitive and emotional evaluation of one's own life (Diener, 1984). While, to some extent, happiness can be assessed by external criteria such as socioeconomic level or objective indicators, subjective well-being is argued to be important for individuals to assess their own psychological states (Diener, 1984). In general, studies have found that material goods provide lower level of happiness than life experiences, since consumers tend to evaluate happiness through specific events. However, Guevarra & Howell (2015) illustrated that the dichotomous distinction between material items and life experience is ambiguous at the boundary, and in the middle of continuum from material items to life experiences exists “experiential products,” which give consumers the same level of happiness as life experiences. Offering consumers the ability to reflect their preferences in product designs is a way to tap into this psychology. Customization can be a unique experience in that consumers themselves participate in production processes. It is expected that the experience of designing one’s own good will positively affect consumer's happiness level. What Drives Happiness from Customization Experiences? Self-determination theory of Deci & Ryan (2012) (e.g., Maltby & Day, 2001; Wilson, Rodgers, Fraser, & Murray, 2004) is used as the conceptual framework to identify the underlying psychological mechanisms for this study. In particular, the selfdetermination theory posits that people feel happiness when they are satisfied with such psychological needs as autonomy (i.e., engaging in behaviors that express one’s true identity and feeling of being in charge of one’s own action), competence (i.e., feeling of fulfillment that one effectively utilize one’s skill and abilities), and relatedness (i.e., feelings of closeness to a desired social group) through experience (Deci & Ryan, 2012). Given the focus of this study is the customized service delivered online, the variable of relatedness is less relevant since our study focuses on independently designing a product to a user’s unique preferences. The variable of relatedness is excluded in our research model. Instead, we include the “pride of authorship” (Trentin, Perin, & Forza, 2014), which refers to the feeling of pride generated when creating an artifact of their own and a sense of being the creator of it (Schreier, 2006). Customized services can enhance the sense of accomplishment as an author which is also found to affect happiness (Schreier, 2006). We thus formulated the following hypotheses. Hypothesis 1-3. Perceived customization experience will have a positive influence on autonomy (H1), competence (H2), pride of authorship (H3). Hypothesis 4-6. Autonomy (H4), competence (H5), pride of authorship (H6) will have a positive influence on happiness. Hypothesis 7. Happiness will have a positive influence on purchase intention. Method The data were collected via an online experiment in May 2017 with women in their 20s and 30s residing in South Korea, nationwide. Procedure The target site we used as an experiment stimulus was a shoe retail site (http://www.shoesofprey.com) that offers customization options (e.g., shapes, colors, and heel height). The data were collected for a week with 180 participants in total. After entering a designated computer lab, participants were given a detailed instruction of how to use the customized services of this brand. Experiment assistants provided real-time help to participants for any technical difficulties. We asked respondents to visit an online website of this brand. The participants were asked to explore the site and to design customized shoes to their liking. After spending some time on the site and finish customization, they were asked to answer questions in our questionnaire. Measures/Data Collection and Analysis The measures of our constructs were developed based on previous literature. All items (except for demographic characteristics) were measured using a 7-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree;” 7 = “strongly agree”). About 12 responses were deleted from a total of 180 responses due to incomplete data, thus168 were used for final analysis. The data were statistically analyzed using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 18.0. Results Underlying Mechanism of the Relation between Personalization Experience and Happiness: Autonomy, Competence, and Pride of Authorship With the pooled data (n=168), the results of the confirmatory factor analysis on the entire measurement model showed that our measurement model had a reasonably good fit (χ2(df=145)=300.546, p=.000; Normed χ2(CMIN/DF)=2.073; GFI=.847; CFI=.924; NFI=.864; TLI=.910; RMSEA=.080). The measurements of reliability yielded Cronbach’s α coefficients above 0.7. The convergent validity and discriminant validity were confirmed between the measurement variables, and the measured values were found to be appropriate. Customization experience had a significant influence on the path of autonomy, competence, and pride of authorship at the .001 level. Specifically, the results showed that the coefficient of the path from “customization experience to autonomy” to be .71***, that from “customization experience to competence” was .81***, and that from “customization experience to pride of authorship” was .68***. We thus accept Hypothesis 1, 2, and 3. These mediation variables were found to have a positive influence on happiness at the .001 level. The coefficient of the path from “autonomy to happiness” was .38***, that from “competence happiness” was .29***, and that from “pride of authorship to happiness” was .25***. We thus accept Hypothesis 4, 5, and 6. It was identified that happiness was positively related to purchase intention with coefficients, 0.49***. Thus, Hypothesis 7 was supported. Discussion and implications Previous research found that offering customization service positively influences purchase intention and willingness-to-pay. This paper extends the current understand as to the effect of customization service experience on consumer patronage intention by identifying underlying psychological mechanism. The customized products allow and demand consumers to engage in the designing process. This distinctive experience generates psychological reactions that are linked to personal happiness. In particular, we find that a heightened sense of autonomy, competence, and the pride of authorship are critical mediators linking the customization experiences to happiness. The results also indicate that feeling of happiness is a significant driver for consumer patronage behavior. Our results imply that millennial consumers want to experience consumer-centric events and to engaging in creating their own contents to feel fulfilled with consumption experiences and that customized services can be a power tool to meet this desire.

Intra-amniotic LPS amplifies hyperoxia-induced airway hyperreactivity in neonatal rats

Choi, Chang Won,Kim, Beyong Il,Mason, Stanley N.,Potts-Kant, Erin N.,Brahmajothi, Mulugu V.,Auten, Richard L. Nature Publishing Group 2013 Pediatric research Vol.74 No.1

<P><B>Background:</B></P><P>We previously showed that intra-amniotic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) amplifies alveolar hypoplasia induced by postnatal hyperoxia. We determined whether the priming effect of intra-amniotic LPS amplifies hyperoxia-induced airway hyperreactivity (AHR).</P><P><B>Methods:</B></P><P>LPS or normal saline was injected into the amniotic cavities of pregnant rats at the 20th day of gestation. After birth, rat pups were exposed to 60% O<SUB>2</SUB> or air for 14 d. On postnatal day 14, rat pups underwent forced oscillometry, which included a challenge with nebulized methacholine, and the lungs were harvested for morphological studies.</P><P><B>Results:</B></P><P>Hyperoxia significantly increased airway reactivity and decreased compliance. Intra-amniotic LPS further increased hyperoxia-induced AHR but did not further impair respiratory system compliance. Hyperoxia-induced changes in lung parenchymal and small airway morphology were not further altered by intra-amniotic LPS. However, combined exposure to intra-amniotic LPS and hyperoxia increased the proportion of degranulating mast cells in the hilar airways.</P><P><B>Conclusion:</B></P><P>Intra-amniotic LPS amplified postnatal hyperoxia-induced AHR. This was associated with increased airway mast cell degranulation, which has previously been linked with hyperoxia-induced AHR. There were no morphologic changes of parenchyma or airways that would account for the LPS augmentation of hyperoxia-induced AHR.</P>

Graduate perception of cosmetic surgery training in plastic surgery residency and fellowship programs

Ngaage, Ledibabari Mildred,Kim, Cecelia J,Harris, Chelsea,McNichols, Colton HL,Ihenatu, Chinezimuzo,Rosen, Carly,Elegbede, Adekunle,Gebran, Selim,Liang, Fan,Rada, Erin M,Nam, Arthur,Slezak, Sheri,Lifc Korean Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surge 2020 Archives of Plastic Surgery Vol.47 No.1

Background As the demand for cosmetic surgery continues to rise, plastic surgery programs and the training core curriculum have evolved to reflect these changes. This study aims to evaluate the perceived quality of current cosmetic surgery training in terms of case exposure and educational methods. Methods A 16-question survey was sent to graduates who completed their training at a U.S. plastic surgery training program in 2017. The survey assessed graduates' exposure to cosmetic surgery, teaching modalities employed and their overall perceived competence. Case complexity was characterized by the minimum number of cases needed by the graduate to feel confident in performing the procedure. Results There was a 25% response rate. The majority of respondents were residents (83%, n=92) and the remaining were fellows (17%, n=18). Almost three quarters of respondents were satisfied with their cosmetic training. Respondents rated virtual training as the most effective learning modality and observing attendings' patients/cases as least effective. Perceived competence was more closely aligned with core curriculum status than case complexity, i.e. graduates feel more prepared for core cosmetic procedures despite being more technically difficult than non-core procedures. Conclusions Despite the variability in cosmetic exposure during training, most plastic surgery graduates are satisfied with their aesthetic training. Incorporation of teaching modalities, such as virtual training, can increase case exposure and allow trainees more autonomy. The recommended core curriculum is adequately training plastic surgery graduates for common procedures and more specialized procedures should be consigned to aesthetic fellowship training.

Effects of Body Image on College Students' Attitudes Toward Diet/Fitness Apps on Smartphones

Cho, Jaehee,Lee, H. Erin,Kim, Sun Jin,Park, Dongjin Mary Ann Liebert 2015 CYBERPSYCHOLOGY BEHAVIOR AND SOCIAL NETWORKING Vol.18 No.1