Individuals are always limited by some inelastic resources, such as time and energy, which restrict them to dedicate to social interaction and limit their contact capacities. Contact capacity plays an important role in dynamics of social contagions, which so far has eluded theoretical analysis. In this paper, we first propose a non-Markovian model to understand the effects of contact capacity o...

Research suggests that social networks, social support, and social influence are associated with weight trajectories among treatment- and non-treatment-seeking individuals. This study examined the impact of having a social contact who participated in the same group behavioral weight-control intervention in the absence of specific social support training on women engaged in a weight-loss program...

Vigorous development of computer technology has made computers play an integral role in people’s lives, but at the same time propagation of the virus on a computer network also cost a great loss to the people. So the research on the mechanism of computer virus propagation and pointing out the key factors in the propagation of the virus has a significant influence on the prevention of computer v...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the hypothesis that children of men whose jobs involve contact with many people (particularly children) are at an increased risk of leukaemia. METHODS A population based dataset obtained from routinely collected death certificates involving 14,168 cancer deaths occurring before the age of 15 years registered in England and Wales between 1959-63 and 1970-90. Associati...

BACKGROUND England's Time To Change (TTC) social marketing campaign emphasised social contact between people with and without mental health problems to reduce stigma and discrimination. AIMS We aimed to assess the effectiveness of the mass media component and also that of the mass social contact events. METHOD Online interviews were performed before and after each burst of mass media social...

Stigma is one of the greatest challenges facing people with mental illness today. In addition to the distress and feelings of rejection it causes, stigma can lead to housing and employment discrimination and can cause people to avoid seeking help for their illness due to shame and fear. Social contact—direct, personal contact between members of the general public and members of a stigmatized gr...

BACKGROUND Excessive fear of scrutiny is a defining feature of social anxiety disorder. Eye contact may trigger feelings of being scrutinized, and although eye contact is commonly feared in persons with social anxiety disorder, it has been studied little. The purpose of this study was to characterize fear and avoidance of eye contact in patients with social anxiety disorder and in nonpatient sa...