The Nuance of Mindfulness among Gamblers and Video Game Players: Empirical Findings from Latent Profile Analysis and Links to Intervention for Problem Gambling and Problem Video Gaming

Abstract: This presentation reviews two studies that investigate different profiles of gamblers and video gamers across five facets of mindfulness and nonattachment using latent profile analyses. Study 1 identified four profiles among 843 adults who gamble (59.9% male, Mage=39 years): High, Moderate and Low Mindfulness, as well as a Judgmentally Unaware profile, characterized by low levels of nonjudging and acting with awareness. Gamblers with the Judgmentally Unware profile demonstrated more frequent gambling, stronger gambling motivations and gambling-related cognitions, more severe problem gambling, and poorer mental health compared to other profiles. Study 2 identified a different four-profile model among 629 adults who play video games (62.8% male, Mage=38 years): High and Moderate Mindfulness, Judgmentally Unware profile, and Reactive and Attached profile, characterized by high non-reacting and low nonattachment. Video gamers with the Judgmentally Unware profile evidenced the most severe problem gaming, followed by the Reactive and Attached profile. The Judgmentally Unware profile reported stronger gaming motivations and higher emotion-based impulsivity; in contrast, the Reactive and Attached profile demonstrated greater psychological inflexibility and escapism motivation relative to the other profiles. Implications of mindfulness profiles as risk and protective factors will be discussed in light of reducing harm for both gambling and video gaming. Implications: Findings suggest a variety of ways in which gamblers and video gamers might be mindful. Given the overlap between gambling and gaming and the Judgmentally Unaware profile, mindfulness-based harm reduction intervention could be particularly useful for addressing problem gambling/video gaming and decreasing future harms from these activities

Experimental analysis of gene assembly with TopDown one-step real-time gene synthesis

Herein we present a simple, cost-effective TopDown (TD) gene synthesis method that eliminates the interference between the polymerase chain reactions (PCR) assembly and amplification in one-step gene synthesis. The method involves two key steps: (i) design of outer primers and assembly oligonucleotide set with a melting temperature difference of >10°C and (ii) utilization of annealing temperatures to selectively control the efficiencies of oligonucleotide assembly and full-length template amplification. In addition, we have combined the proposed method with real-time PCR to analyze the step-wise efficiency and the kinetics of the gene synthesis process. Gel electrophoresis results are compared with real-time fluorescence signals to investigate the effects of oligonucleotide concentration, outer primer concentration, stringency of annealing temperature, and number of PCR cycles. Analysis of the experimental results has led to insights into the gene synthesis process. We further discuss the conditions for preventing the formation of spurious DNA products. The TD real-time gene synthesis method provides a simple and efficient method for assembling fairly long DNA sequence, and aids in optimizing gene synthesis conditions. To our knowledge, this is the first report that utilizes real-time PCR for gene synthesis

Achievements and challenges in bioartificial kidney development

Bioartificial kidneys (BAKs) combine a conventional hemofilter in series with a bioreactor unit containing renal epithelial cells. The epithelial cells derived from the renal tubule should provide transport, metabolic, endocrinologic and immunomodulatory functions. Currently, primary human renal proximal tubule cells are most relevant for clinical applications. However, the use of human primary cells is associated with many obstacles, and the development of alternatives and an unlimited cell source is one of the most urgent challenges. BAKs have been applied in Phase I/II and Phase II clinical trials for the treatment of critically ill patients with acute renal failure. Significant effects on cytokine concentrations and long-term survival were observed. A subsequent Phase IIb clinical trial was discontinued after an interim analysis, and these results showed that further intense research on BAK-based therapies for acute renal failure was required. Development of BAK-based therapies for the treatment of patients suffering from end-stage renal disease is even more challenging, and related problems and research approaches are discussed herein, along with the development of mobile, portable, wearable and implantable devices

Historic Preservation Digital History Design

Final Project for INST490: Integrated Capstone for Information Science (Spring 2021). University of Maryland, College Park.The goal for this project was to create the early stages of a web development project for the Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation Department. Our team created the initial wireframe designs, identified problems for future aspects of the project, and provided recommendations for the next stages of development. The original project requirements included developing a website design for Parks and Recreation historical sites. However, our project scope changed to focus on the historic Compton Bassett house. Compton Bassett is a former plantation in Upper Marlboro, Maryland dating to 1783. The historic site consists of 14 buildings and is suffering from age and degradation. As a result, the site is not safe for the public to visit and needs to be preserved through an online virtual exhibit. The website will serve two different stakeholders: the public and researchers. It will allow the public to explore historic sites virtually by manipulating 3D models of the sites and accessing information about the sites. Researchers will be able to access sensitive data by registering for an account. Our client and point of contact for the project was Dr. Stefan Woehlke. Our team also communicated with Partnership for Active Learning in Sustainability (PALS) Director Kimberly Fisher, PALS Graduate Assistant Sophie Kotzker, and National Center for Smart Growth website developer Aishwarya Biddatanda.Prince George’s Count

Discrimination of Vanadium from Zinc Using Gene Profiling in Human Bronchial Epithelial Cells

We hypothesized that gene expression profiling may discriminate vanadium from zinc in human bronchial epithelial cells (HBECs). RNA from HBECs exposed to vehicle, V (50 μM), or Zn (50 μM) for 4 hr (n = 4 paired experiments) was hybridized to Affymetrix Hu133A chips. Using one-class t-test with p < 0.01, we identified 140 and 76 genes with treatment:control ratios ≥ 2.0 or ≤ 0.5 for V and Zn, respectively. We then categorized these genes into functional pathways and compared the number of genes in each pathway between V and Zn using Fisher’s exact test. Three pathways regulating gene transcription, inflammatory response, and cell proliferation distinguished V from Zn. When genes in these three pathways were matched with the 163 genes flagged by the same statistical filtration for V:Zn ratios, 12 genes were identified. The hierarchical clustering analysis showed that these 12 genes discriminated V from Zn and consisted of two clusters. Cluster 1 genes (ZBTB1, PML, ZNF44, SIX1, BCL6, ZNF450) were down-regulated by V and involved in gene transcription, whereas cluster 2 genes (IL8, IL1A, PTGS2, DTR, TNFAIP3, CXCL3) were up-regulated and linked to inflammatory response and cell proliferation. Also, metallothionein 1 genes (MT1F, MT1G, MT1K) were up-regulated by Zn only. Thus, using microarray analysis, we identified a small set of genes that may be used as biomarkers for discriminating V from Zn. The novel genes and pathways identified by the microarray may help us understand the pathogenesis of health effects caused by environmental V and Zn exposure

Revisiting Acceptability Judgements

In this work, we revisit linguistic acceptability in the context of large language models. We introduce CoLAC - Corpus of Linguistic Acceptability in Chinese, the first large-scale acceptability dataset for a non-Indo-European language. It is verified by native speakers and is the first acceptability dataset that comes with two sets of labels: a linguist label and a crowd label. Our experiments show that even the largest InstructGPT model performs only at chance level on CoLAC, while ChatGPT's performance (48.30 MCC) is also much below supervised models (59.03 MCC) and human (65.11 MCC). Through cross-lingual transfer experiments and fine-grained linguistic analysis, we provide detailed analysis of the model predictions and demonstrate for the first time that knowledge of linguistic acceptability can be transferred across typologically distinct languages, as well as be traced back to pre-training. Our dataset is publicly available at \url{https://github.com/huhailinguist/CoLAC}