Being Bad in a Video Game can Make Us Morally Sensitive

Several researchers have demonstrated that the virtual behaviors committed in a video game can elicit feelings of guilt. Researchers have proposed that such guilt could have prosocial consequences. However, this proposition has not been supported with empirical evidence. The current study examined this issue in a 2 2 (video game play vs. real world recollection guilt vs. control) experiment. Participants were first randomly assigned to either play a video game or complete a memory recall task. Next, participants were randomly assigned to either a guilt-inducing condition (game play as a terrorist/recall of acts that induce guilt) or a control condition (game play as a UN soldier/recall of acts that do not induce guilt). Results of the study indicate several important findings. First, the current results replicate previous research indicating that immoral virtual behaviors are capable of eliciting guilt. Second, and more importantly, the guilt elicited by game play led to intuition-specific increases in the salience of violated moral foundations. These findings indicate that committing "immoral" virtual behaviors in a video game can lead to increased moral sensitivity of the player. The potential prosocial benefits of these findings are discussed.Advertisin

A simple method for sphingolipid analysis of tissues embedded in optimal cutting temperature compound

MS-assisted lipidomic tissue analysis is a valuable tool to assess sphingolipid metabolism dysfunction in disease. These analyses can reveal potential pharmacological targets or direct mechanistic studies to better understand the molecular underpinnings and influence of sphingolipid metabolism alterations on disease etiology. But procuring sufficient human tissues for adequately powered studies can be challenging. Therefore, biorepositories, which hold large collections of cryopreserved human tissues, are an ideal retrospective source of specimens. However, this resource has been vastly underutilized by lipid biologists, as the components of OCT compound used in cryopreservation are incompatible with MS analyses. Here, we report results indicating that OCT compound also interferes with protein quantification assays, and that the presence of OCT compound impacts the quantification of extracted sphingolipids by LC-ESI-MS/MS. We developed and validated a simple and inexpensive method that removes OCT compound from OCT compound-embedded tissues. Our results indicate that removal of OCT compound from cryopreserved tissues does not significantly affect the accuracy of sphingolipid measurements with LC-ESI-MS/MS. We used the validated method to analyze sphingolipid alterations in tumors compared with normal adjacent uninvolved lung tissues from individuals with lung cancer and to determine the long-term stability of sphingolipids in OCT compound-cryopreserved normal lung tissues. We show that lung cancer tumors have significantly altered sphingolipid profiles and that sphingolipids are stable for up to 16 years in OCT compound-cryopreserved normal lung tissues. This validated sphingolipidomic OCT compound-removal protocol should be a valuable addition to the lipid biologist\u27s toolbox. Keywords: biorepository; cancer, ceramide; lipidomics; lung adenocarcinoma; lung squamous cell carcinoma; mass spectrometry; non-small cell lung cancer. Copyright © 2020 Rohrbach et al

Inter-arrival times of message propagation on directed networks

One of the challenges in fighting cybercrime is to understand the dynamics of message propagation on botnets, networks of infected computers used to send viruses, unsolicited commercial emails (SPAM) or denial of service attacks. We map this problem to the propagation of multiple random walkers on directed networks and we evaluate the inter-arrival time distribution between successive walkers arriving at a target. We show that the temporal organization of this process, which models information propagation on unstructured peer to peer networks, has the same features as SPAM arriving to a single user. We study the behavior of the message inter-arrival time distribution on three different network topologies using two different rules for sending messages. In all networks the propagation is not a pure Poisson process. It shows universal features on Poissonian networks and a more complex behavior on scale free networks. Results open the possibility to indirectly learn about the process of sending messages on networks with unknown topologies, by studying inter-arrival times at any node of the network.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figure

Student Ensemble: Normal Community High School Women’s Chorale, Illinois State University Women’s Choir, Illinois State University Early Music Recorder Ensemble

Center for the Performing ArtsNovember 13, 2011Sunday Evening6:00 p.m

Design of a videogame to explore morality

A number of video games involve moral narratives or require the player to make moral decisions and research from psychologists has helped to understand the effects video game content can have on how individuals behave. Recent research has started to examine the role of morality in video games: however, there are many inconsistencies in the findings. We propose that some of these inconsistencies could be due to using commercial video games for research purposes, which contain biases such as familiarity with the game and favourite characters. The process of playing video games requires consideration of Human Computer Interaction (HCI); i.e., how the game is designed and then how it is received by the player. The aim of this poster is to highlight the work being conducted to design a game in order to investigate how moral decisions are made in video games. The design of video games usually draws on an understanding of HCI to produce play that is entertaining and engaging for the player. The game development process in this research draws on a fusion of psychology and HCI, and by drawing on theories of morality the design of the game will be grounded in psychology, as well as entertainment. Through fusing video game design principles, HCI and psychology, this work is novel in terms of a methodological as well as theoretical contribution to the area

Influence of intense multidisciplinary follow-up and orlistat on weight reduction in a primary care setting

BACKGROUND: Obesity is the most common health problem in developed countries. Recently, several physicians' organizations have issued recommendations for treating obesity to family physicians, including instructions in nutrition, physical activity and medications. The aim of this study was to examine if effective weight-reducing treatment can be given by a family physician. It compares regular treatment with intensive treatment that include close follow-up and orlistat treatment. METHODS: The study was conducted in three primary care clinics. 225 patients were divided into three groups according to their choice. Group A received a personal diet with fortnightly meetings with the family physician and dietitian and orlistat treatment. Group B received a general diet, monthly meetings with the family physician only and orlistat treatment. Group C received a personal diet, monthly meetings with the dietitian only and no drug treatment. The primary endpoint was reduction of at least 5% of the initial weight during the study period. RESULTS: A greater percentage of patients in group A achieved their weight reduction goals than in other groups (51%, 13% and 9% in groups A, B and C, respectively, p < 0.001). There was a significant reduction in triglycerides in all groups, a significant reduction of low density lipids (LDL) in groups A and B and no significant difference in high density lipids (HDL) in any group. CONCLUSIONS: Significant weight reduction was obtained in a family physician setting. Further research is needed to evaluate if, by providing the family physician with the proper tools, similar success can be achieved in more clinics