Browsing by Author "Wang, Wenjin"
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Item Community collective efficacy among Chinese urbanites: an exploratory study(University of Delaware, 2016) Wang, WenjinCollective efficacy has long been a focus for social scientists in Western societies. When applied to community studies, this concept is closely connected with the process of informal social control and social cohesion among community residents. Although the validity of collective efficacy theory has been supported by various studies conducted in different countries, it has rarely been applied to urban communities in non-Western societies like China. Using a large urban sample generated from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) 2012, this study examines the applicability of the collective efficacy measurement proposed by Sampson and colleagues to Chinese urban society. Results of binary logistic regression models suggest that this dominant measurement of collective efficacy that has been widely used in Western society has relatively weak predictive power among Chinese urbanites. Data analyses also show that although primary predictors of urbanites’ perceptions of collective efficacy vary across different community types, residents’ social ties is the most consistent of collective efficacy. The present study thus concludes that a new set of measuring tools that is more relevant to the Chinese context is needed. Future research on Chinese urban communities should pay more attention to the function of social capital in cultivating urban dwellers’ collective efficacy. ☐ Keywords: collective efficacy, urban community, China, influence factors, social tiesItem Social capital and health in East Asia and China: a conceptual and empirical analysis(University of Delaware, 2020) Wang, WenjinRoughly defined as social networks and embedded resources, social capital and its influence on various health outcomes have been well examined over the past three decades. Higher levels of social capital are usually believed to be correlated with better physical and psychological health outcomes. However, two dimensions of social capital – “time” and “context” – are often overlooked in empirical research. First, both social capital and health are cumulative concepts, therefore the interaction between the two should be treated as a longitudinal process rather than a “point.” Second, social capital is context-specific, social capital theory and measurements based on empirical data collected in Western, developed societies may not be able to fully capture the patterns of social relations that are unique to non-Western societies such as East Asian societies, hence fail to provide an accurate understanding of the link between social capital and health in those societies. ☐ Using the 2012 East Asian Social Survey data (EASS2012) and the 2010-2018 China Family Panel Survey data (CFPS2010-2018), this dissertation examines social capital’s structure in East Asian societies, its correlation with East Asian people’s self-rated health, and the longitudinal and accumulative effects of social capital elements on Chinese adults’ self-rated health, depression level, and chronic disease condition. Results of the Exploratory Factor Analysis models reveal a 7-factor East Asian social capital structure that represents the structures of social capital in each of the societies. Two main factors – intimate trust and strong emphasis on network heterogeneity – are the major predictors of East Asian people’s self-rated health. Multi-level analyses of the Chinese longitudinal data suggest that social capital elements have longitudinal and accumulative impacts on Chinese adults’ health outcomes. Social support, strong social ties, and perceived importance of social network demonstrate longitudinal influence on Chinese people’s health outcomes, while civil participation and social trust both show cumulative impacts on Chinese people’s health in later life. Unlike suggested by previous research, social capital measurements about neighborhood and community involvement only play a minor role in determining East Asian and Chinese people’s health conditions. ☐ The study provides directions for future studies and policy making. First, future researchers may want to pay more attention to the longitudinal and cumulative effects of social capital on health outcomes; on the other hand, a more refined social capital theory and measurements with both commonly applicable core elements and context-specific elements is urgently needed. Finally, it would be beneficial for medical practitioners to collaborate with researchers and policy makers to design contextual intervention strategies that focus on promoting the accumulation and mobilization of social capital, which will eventually facilitate the improvement of population health.Item Structured Hybrid Message Passing Based Channel Estimation for Massive MIMO-OFDM Systems(IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 2023-01-26) Liu, Xiaofeng; Wang, Wenjin; Gong, Xinrui; Fu, Xiao; Gao, Xiqi; Xia, Xiang-GenThis paper investigates uplink channel estimation for massive multi-input multi-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) systems with uniform planar array (UPA) antennas at the base station (BS). We first establish a triple beam-based channel model using sampled steering vectors. Based on the presented channel model, we further develop a three-dimensional (3D) Markov random field (MRF) probability model to capture the structured channel sparsity. Then constrained Bethe free energy (BFE) minimization is introduced to provide a systematic theoretical framework for message passing. Under this framework, we derive a structured hybrid message passing (SHMP) algorithm to address the channel estimation problem. The proposed algorithm can significantly improve the estimation accuracy by exploiting the clustered sparse structure of channels with low complexity. Moreover, aiming at the fine factors of the triple beam-based channel model and the coupling parameter of the 3D-MRF sparsity model, we analyze the effect of their different settings in the numerical simulation. Finally, extensive simulation results verify the superiority of the proposed SHMP algorithm.