In 2016, Singapore grappled with one of the largest Zika outbreaks in Southeast Asia. This study examines the use of Facebook for Zika-related outreach by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the National Environmental Agency (NEA) from March 1, 2015, to September 1, 2016, and public response to this effort. Despite nearly equivalent outreach, MOH's Facebook posts received more likes (µ = 3.49) and shares (µ = 30.11), whereas NEA's posts received more comments (µ = 4.55), with NEA posting mostly on prevention (N = 30) and MOH on situational updates (N = 24). Thematic analyses identified prevention-related posts as garnering the most likes (N = 1277), while update-related posts were most shared (N = 1059) and commented upon (N = 220). Outreach ceased briefly for 2 months after Singapore's first imported case of Zika, but increased following the outbreak of locally transmitted cases in August 2016. Public engagement was significantly higher during Zika compared with prior haze and dengue outbreaks. The results indicate the value of Facebook as a tool for rapid outreach during infectious disease outbreaks, and as a "listening" platform for those managing the situation. We discuss implications for public health communication research and policy.

The purpose of this work is to compare the creative outcome in the educational context of students belonging to two different cultures, namely Singaporean and Portuguese and determine whether they respond differently to the same design brief. The participants from both samples equal 121 student designers and span from 18–25 years old. Students were randomly distributed within a uniform, standard of student performance, which allowed for fair comparison between groups. Expert judges were employed to judge the creativity of concept sketches generated during a Collaborative Sketching exercise. To evaluate the creative outcome, we employed the Consensual Assessment Technique based on a rubric-based system developed in our earlier works. The analysis of variance procedure revealed no statistically significant difference between the averaged total scores of the two groups on the appropriateness measure. However, the student designers from both samples showed statistically significant differences when provided with a baseline brief in the novelty measure. In consideration of the overall creativity scores, a relatively equivalent performance is observed across the two universities.

The purpose of this work is to compare impact of regulatory focuses, namely preventive and promotional contexts, on creative ideation measured by novelty and usefulness. The study consisted of Singaporean students from an undergraduate university, and assessed their personality using the Big Five, Regulatory Focus, Creativity type and creativity outcomes measured with the Consensual Assessment Technique by completing a Collaborative Sketch exercise. Participants were randomly assigned to either the preventive, promotional or a baseline condition and tasked with a design problem necessitating a solution in the form of sketches. This study found the three conditions to yield significantly different novelty scores, but not usefulness scores. The most impactful condition on novelty was the baseline, indicating novice designers are capable of creating novel products and services. Those in the promotion condition created the second most novel sketches, or design solutions, followed lastly by the prevention condition. This may be so as novice designers consider larger space of solutions and may generate more ideas. This research is useful in creative pedagogy and for design professionals.

The overarching goal of this work is to support creative ideation in engineering design with the aim of overcoming design fixation. We study the impact of abstract representations and ways to frame the problem in design briefs on the creativity of concept sketches. Framing/Reframing involves shifting perspectives on the design purpose and to reveal insights and opportunities. Two Framing/Reframing techniques are tested: the Ishikawa/Fishbone Diagram to identify root causes and a blend of Parnes’ Restatement/SCAMPER method to encourage divergence in problem perception. Abstract representations of requirements were used as stimuli to foster transfer and associative thinking. Using a full-factorial experimental design with brief variations, C-Sketch ideas developed by first-year engineering/architecture students were evaluated for their creativity. Our results showed a positive interaction effect for novelty and usefulness when the Fishbone Reframing method was used with abstract representation, but there was no difference in creativity scores when comparing the two Framing/Reframing methods between each other.

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