Measuring Enjoyment of Computer Game Play

This paper reports on the development of an instrument designed to measure the enjoyment of computer game play. Despite the enormous technological progress in the field of computer games, enjoyment of computer game play is still not a welldefined construct. Based on Nabi and Krcmar’s (2004) tripartite model of media enjoyment, a survey questionnaire was developed to measure computer game players’ affective, behavioral, and cognitive reactions. Expert consultation, exploratory and confirmatory card sorting sessions were used to refine the instrument. A survey of computer game players was subsequently conducted to test the instrument. Reliabilities and construct validities were analyzed. Findings and their implications were discussed

Effect of cryopreservation on germination of seeds and zygotic embryos of Calamus shendurunii an endemic rattan of Western Ghats

Calamus shendurunii is an endemic rattan of Western Ghats having restricted distribution and limited population. As a prerequisite to device an appropriate method for ex situ conservation of the species, desiccation and cryopreservation of seeds and zygotic embryo has been studied. Seeds extracted from ripened fruits possessed 35 per cent moisture content and exhibited 97 per cent germination. Desiccation to 28 per cent moisture content reduced the germination to 77 per cent. Desiccation below 14 per cent moisture content caused complete loss of seed germinability. Seeds stored under ambient conditions (28±2oC/60% RH) for more than seven days reduced germination to less than 40 per cent. Thus, conventional storage is not effective for their ex situ conservation. As an alternative method, excised zygotic embryos were subjected to desiccation and storage in liquid nitrogen. The embryos tolerated desiccation down to 5 per cent exhibiting 60 to 90 per cent germination upon culture into MS medium. Desiccated embryos subjected to liquid nitrogen exposure showed post freeze recovery and germination (80-90%) equal to that of desiccated control samples. Thus the study proved the extreme recalcitrance of C. shendurunii seeds and embryo cryopreservation as an alternative method of their ex situ conservation in gene banks

Magnetoelectric coupling in strained strontium titanate and Metglas based magnetoelectric trilayer

Direct magneto electric coupling is observed with a magnetoelectric coupling coefficient (MECC) of 806 mV cm−1 Oe−1 at 750 Hz in strontium titanate (STO) - Metglas - strontium titanate (STO-Metglas-STO) trilayer thin films with a total thickness of 600 nm. The piezoelectricity in the strained STO layer, which is otherwise a paraelectric material, enabled the sandwiched magneto electric structure to exhibit a fair sub resonant magneto electric coupling. Theoretical models proposed by Bichurin et al. and Hasanyan et al. are employed to calculate the values of MECC at sub resonant condition for the system, which is noted as 853 mV cm−1 Oe−1. The frequency dependence of MECC coefficient is also calculated and the resonance frequency is estimated as 706 Hz.publishe

Imputation Framework for Missing Values

Abstract-Missing values may occur for several reasons and affects the quality of data, such as malfunctioning of measurement equipment, changes in experimental design during data collection, collation of several similar but not identical datasets and also when respondents in a survey may refuse to answer certain questions such as age or income. Missing values in datasets can be taken as a common problem in statistical analysis. This paper first proposes the analysis of broadly used methods to treat missing values which are either continuous or discrete. And then, an estimator is advocated to impute both continuous and discrete missing target values. The proposed method is evaluated to demonstrate that the approach is better than existing methods in terms of classification accuracy

Improved outcomes of high-risk relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma patients after high-dose chemotherapy: a 15-year analysis

High-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem-cell transplant (HDC/ASCT) is standard treatment for chemosensitive relapsed classical Hodgkin lymphoma, although outcomes of high-risk relapse (HRR) patients remain suboptimal. We retrospectively analyzed all HRR classical Hodgkin lymphoma patients treated with HDC/ASCT at our institution between 01/01/2005 and 12/31/2019. HRR criteria included primary refractory disease/relapse within 1 year, extranodal extension, B symptoms, requiring more than one salvage line, or positron emission tomography (PET)-positive disease at ASCT. All patients met the same ASCT eligibility criteria. We treated 501 patients with BEAM (n=146), busulphan/melphalan (BuMel) (n=38), gemcitabine( Gem)/BuMel (n=189) and vorinostat/Gem/BuMel (n=128). The Gem/BuMel and vorinostat/Gem/BuMel cohorts had more HRR criteria and more patients with PET-positive disease at ASCT. Treatment with brentuximab vedotin (BV) or anti-PD1 prior to ASCT, PET-negative disease at ASCT, and maintenance BV increased over time. BEAM and BuMel predominated in earlier years (2005-2007), GemBuMel and BEAM in middle years (2008-2015), and vorinostat/GemBuMel and BEAM in later years (2016-2019). The median follow-up is 50 months (range, 6-186). Outcomes improved over time, with 2-year progressionfree survival (PFS)/overall survival (OS) rates of 58%/82% (2005-2007), 59%/83% (2008-2011), 71%/94% (2012-2015) and 86%/99% (2016- 2019) (P<0.0001). Five-year PFS/OS rates were 72%/87% after vorinostat/ GemBuMel, 55%/75% after GemBuMel, 45%/61% after BEAM, and 39%/57% after BuMel (PFS: P=0.0003; OS: P<0.0001). These differences persisted within the PET-negative and PET-positive subgroups. Prior BV and vorinostat/GemBuMel were independent predictors of more favorable outcome, whereas primary refractory disease, ≥2 salvage lines, bulky relapse, B symptoms and PET-positivity at ASCT correlated independently with unfavorable outcomes. In conclusion, post-HDC/ASCT outcomes of patients with HRR classic Hodgkin lymphoma have improved over the last 15 years. Pre-ASCT BV treatment and optimized synergistic HDC (vorinostat/GemBuMel) were associated with this improvement

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead