Exposure to Nature Sounds through a Mobile Application in Daily Life: Effects on Learning Performance among University Students.

Previous studies have revealed the restorative effects of exposure to natural environments on psychological well-being and cognitive performance. Recent studies have reported the effects of exposure to nature sounds (e.g., the sounds of birds, rainfall, and waves) through a mobile application on reducing students' mental fatigue and improving their cognitive performance. However, it remains unknown whether exposure to nature sounds through a mobile application may influence students' learning performance. To address the gap, we conducted a study with 71 university students. During the four-week intervention, 36 students in the experimental group were exposed to nature sounds through a free mobile application for at least 30 consecutive minutes per day when working on academic-related tasks; 35 students in the control group did not have such exposure when working on similar tasks. The results show that students in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group in their engagement in deep learning, frequency of academic procrastination, and academic self-efficacy. The findings reveal the promising effects of exposure to nature sounds through a mobile application on improving students' learning performance. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Risk Communication in the Alert Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Analysis of News Flow at National and Global Levels.

This study examined the global media citation network of COVID-19-related news at two stages of the pandemic alert phase, i.e., the national level alert stage and the global level alert stage. The findings reveal that the small-world pattern and scale-free property of media citation networks contributed to the rapid spread of COVID-19-related news around the world. Within the networks, a small number of media outlets from a few countries formed the backbone of the network to control the risk communication; meanwhile, many media of geographical and cultural similarities formed cross-border collaborative cliques in the periphery of the network. When the alert phase escalated from the national level to the global level, the network demonstrated a number of changes. The findings contribute to the understanding of risk communication for international public health emergencies by taking into account the network perspective and evolutionary nature of public health emergencies in analysis.

Preparation of wafer-level glass cavities by a low-cost chemical foaming process (CFP).

A novel foaming process-chemical foaming process (CFP)-using foaming agents to fabricate wafer-level micro glass cavities including channels and bubbles was investigated. The process consists of the following steps sequentially: (1) shallow cavities were fabricated by a wet etching on a silicon wafer; (2) powders of a proper foaming agent were placed in a silicon cavity, named 'mother cavity', on the etched silicon surface; (3) the silicon cavities were sealed with a glass wafer by anodic bonding; (4) the bonded wafers were heated to above the softening point of the glass, and baked for several minutes, when the gas released by the decomposition of the foaming agent in the 'mother cavity' went into the other sealed interconnected silicon cavities to foam the softened glass into cylindrical channels named 'daughter channels', or spherical bubbles named 'son bubbles'. Results showed that wafer-level micro glass cavities with smooth wall surfaces were achieved successfully without contamination by the CFP. A model for the CFP was proposed to predict the final shape of the glass cavity. Experimental results corresponded with model predictions. The CFP provides a low-cost avenue to preparation of micro glass cavities of high quality for applications such as micro-reactors, micro total analysis systems (µTAS), analytical and bio-analytical applications, and MEMS packaging.