May I continue or should I stop? the effects of regulatory focus and message framings on video game players’ self-control

Two types of motivations exist in terms of regulatory focus: a promotion orientation concerned with advancement and achievement and a prevention orientation concerned with safety and security. The central premise of this research is that promotion-focused and prevention-focused players differ in their sensitivity to message frames and therefore respond with different levels of self-control. This study adopted a 2 (message frames: positive vs. negative) × 2 (regulatory focus: promotion vs. prevention) between-subjects design; the results confirmed the hypotheses that, for promotion-focused players, negative messages are significantly effective in preventing them from becoming addicted to the games; meanwhile, for prevention-focused players, positive messages significantly influenced players, leading them to become addicted. Hence, video games’ negative and addiction-related messages should be enhanced whereas positive messages should be cautiously released.Regulatory focus, regulatory fit, message frames, self-control, video game

Using Semantic Web Technology to Design Agent-to-Agent Argumentation Mechanism in an E-Marketplace

In existing e-marketplaces, buyers can use search engines to find products that exactly match their demands, but some products those are potentially interesting to them cannot be found out. This research aims to design a multi-agent e-marketplace in which buyers and sellers can delegate their agents to argue over product attributes via an agent-to-agent argumentation mechanism. A seller agent is able to persuade a buyer agent to believe the seller’s product is interesting to the buyer. To make this idea possible, this research adopts the Semantic Web technology to express agents’ ontologies and uses an abstract argumentation framework with dialectical game approach to support defeasible reasoning. This research hopes the proposed architecture and approach can help buyers to find out potential interesting products and help sellers to increase revenue through their agents and help existing and initiative e-marketplaces to design their argumentation mechanisms

Age Effects on Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Response Inhibition: An MEG Study

Inhibition, the ability to suppress irrelevant information, thoughts or movements, is crucial for humans to perform context-appropriate behaviors. It was suggested that declined cognitive performance in older adults might be attributed to inhibitory deficiencies. Although previous studies have shown an age-associated reduction in inhibitory ability, the understanding regarding its cortical spatiotemporal maps remained limited. Thus, we used a whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) to elucidate the age effects on response inhibition, and to explore the brain activation differences in high- and low-performing seniors. We recruited 22 younger and 22 older adults to participate in the visual Go/No-go task. Both behavioral performance and neuromagnetic responses to No-go stimuli were analyzed. The behavioral results showed that the older adults made more false alarm (FA) errors than the younger adults did. The MEG results showed that the seniors exhibited declined cortical activities in middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and delayed activation in MTG, prefrontal cortex (PFC) and pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA). Furthermore, among the older adults, more recruitment of the left PFC was found in the high-performers than in the lower-performers. In conclusion, age-related deficiencies in response inhibition were observed in both behavioral performance and neurophysiological measurement. Our results also suggested that frontal recruitment plays a compensatory role in successful inhibition

Predictors of green purchase intention toward eco-innovation and green products: Evidence from Taiwan

ABSTRACT Recently, purchasing intention towards green products has gained global attention due to their extensive use and high environmental issues. Thus, the current article investigates environmental concern, environmental knowledge, green product, and eco-innovation influence on the green purchase intention of green products in Taiwan industry. The research also examines the mediating role of consumers’ attention among environmental concerns environmental knowledge, green products eco-innovation, and green purchase intention. The article used questionnaires to collect the primary data from the sampled population. To examine the hypothesis, the PLS methodology was adopted. The results indicated that environmental concern, environmental knowledge, green product, and eco-innovation have a positive association with green purchase intention. The findings also exposed that consumer attention significantly and positively mediates environmental concern, environmental knowledge, green product, eco-innovation, and green purchase intention. The paper also proposed some guidelines to the practitioners which help them in the development of green-related policies to increase purchase intention

May I continue or should I stop? the effects of regulatory focus and message framings on video game players’ self-control

Two types of motivations exist in terms of regulatory focus: a promotion orientation concerned with advancement and achievement and a prevention orientation concerned with safety and security. The central premise of this research is that promotion-focused and prevention-focused players differ in their sensitivity to message frames and therefore respond with different levels of self-control. This study adopted a 2 (message frames: positive vs. negative) × 2 (regulatory focus: promotion vs. prevention) between-subjects design; the results confirmed the hypotheses that, for promotion-focused players, negative messages are significantly effective in preventing them from becoming addicted to the games; meanwhile, for prevention-focused players, positive messages significantly influenced players, leading them to become addicted. Hence, video games’ negative and addiction-related messages should be enhanced whereas positive messages should be cautiously released

One-Fe versus Two-Fe Brillouin Zone of Fe-Based Superconductors: Creation of the Electron Pockets via Translational Symmetry Breaking

We investigate the physical effects of translational symmetry breaking in Fe-based high-temperature superconductors due to alternating anion positions. In the representative parent compounds, including the newly discovered Fe-vacancy-ordered $\mathrm{K_{0.8}Fe_{1.6}Se_2}$, an unusual change of orbital character is found across the one-Fe Brillouin zone upon unfolding the first-principles band structure and Fermi surfaces, suggesting that covering a larger one-Fe Brillouin zone is necessary in experiments. Most significantly, the electron pockets (critical to the magnetism and superconductivity) are found only created with the broken symmetry, advocating strongly its full inclusion in future studies, particularly on the debated nodal structures of the superconducting order parameter.Comment: Accepted by Physical Review Letters. Updated in Figure 2 and supplementary informatio

Effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Medicine for Liver Protection and Chemotherapy Completion among Cancer Patients

While traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is widely used among Chinese patients with cancer, studies evaluating the effectiveness of TCM using objective indicators are rare. We examined the effectiveness of TCM for liver protection and completion of chemotherapy among patients with cancer receiving chemotherapy. We used a case-control design to examine the medical records of patients with cancer who received chemotherapy in a teaching hospital in Taipei in 2004. A total of 184 courses of chemotherapy among 89 patients were studied. Of the 184 courses, 42 used TCM jointly with chemotherapy served as cases, while the remaining 142 courses served as controls. Outcome variables included counts of cancelled or delayed chemotherapies and liver function (aspartate aminotransferase, AST and alanine aminotransferase, ALT) 1 week before, during and 2 weeks after chemotherapy. Generalized estimating equations were used to analyze the data. Patients who had concomitant TCM with chemotherapy had lower serum ALT and AST during chemotherapy than the controls given that the age, sex, cancer stage, radiotherapy sites, cancer diagnosis and potential hepatotoxicity of the chemotherapeutic drugs were controlled for in the model [β  = −3.48, 95% confidence interval (CI) −10.08 to 3.11 for AST; β  = −5.95, 95% CI: −11.47 to −0.44 for ALT]. There was no significant difference between the case and control groups for odds of completing one course of chemotherapy. Use of TCM with chemotherapy resulted in protection of the liver during chemotherapy, as manifested by lower serum AST and ALT levels

Comparison of the mismatch-specific endonuclease method and denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography for the identification of HBB gene mutations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Beta-thalassemia is a common autosomal recessive hereditary disease in the Meditertanean, Asia and African areas. Over 600 mutations have been described in the beta-globin (<it>HBB</it>), of which more than 200 are associated with a beta-thalassemia phenotype.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We used two highly-specific mutation screening methods, mismatch-specific endonuclease and denaturing high-performance liquid chromatography, to identify mutations in the <it>HBB </it>gene. The sensitivity and specificity of these two methods were compared. We successfully distinguished mutations in the <it>HBB </it>gene by the mismatch-specific endonuclease method without need for further assay. This technique had 100% sensitivity and specificity for the study sample.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Compared to the DHPLC approach, the mismatch-specific endonuclease method allows mutational screening of a large number of samples because of its speed, sensitivity and adaptability to semi-automated systems. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of using the mismatch-specific endonuclease method as a tool for mutation screening.</p