Gambling Behavior and Temporal Discounting Among MilitaryAffiliated and Civilian Students

The present study explored whether the contingencies maintaining gambling behavior differed for military-affiliated and non-military-affiliated students. It also tested for differences in how these groups discounted delayed outcomes. Three groups of students participated: Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) students (n = 36), students with a relative in the military (n = 62), and students with no relative in the military (n = 58). Participants completed the Gambling Functional Assessment-Revised and a delaydiscounting task. Results indicated that all participants’ gambling behavior was maintained primarily by positive reinforcement. Moreover, ROTC students scored significantly higher on gambling for positive reinforcement, and significantly lower on gambling for negative reinforcement, than non-ROTC students. No differences were found across groups in terms of delay discounting. The results suggest that there are differences in the contingencies maintaining the gambling behavior of military-affiliated and non-affiliated students. Implications of the results are discussed

Gambling in a Laboratory Setting: A Comparison of Gambling for Positive Reinforcement Versus as a Potential Escape

Research has shown that most individuals’ gambling is maintained more by positive, than by negative, reinforcement but that disordered gambling is more strongly related to gambling maintained by negative, than positive, reinforcement. Forty five participants were recruited to play video poker in two different sessions: one in which they competed for a $50 gift card and one in which they could play after trying to solve unsolvable anagrams. Higher measures of gambling were observed in the gift-card, than in the anagram, session, but none of the differences were statistically significant and the observed effect sizes were small. Participants’ annual income did predict their behavior in the gift-card, but not the anagram, session while their endorsing gambling as an escape on the Gambling Functional Assessment – Revised predicted their behavior in the anagram, but not the gift-card, session. Thus, the procedure failed to produce different gambling behavior as a function of manipulating the contingencies in the laboratory. However, the results replicate previous ones showing that certain subject variables are predictive of gambling behavior under certain situations

Online Integrity: Student Authentication in an Online Course

Distance education has been around for over 100 years and has progressed from print based or correspondence study to radio, television, audio or video recordings, and on to video conferencing and computer mediated instruction (Wang and Gearhart, 2006). In 2000, Dooley and Murphy stated that delivery via the Internet was relatively new and challenging for higher education institutions. Most would agree that even though delivery via the Internet might no longer be considered “relatively new,” it can still be considered challenging

Using Unsolvable Anagrams to Induce Escape: Will it Increase Gambling Behavior?

Previous research has found an association between gambling as a means of escape and pathological gambling. Likewise, previous laboratory research has found an association between gambling as a means of escape and participants’ gambling behavior. The present experiment had 41 participants play video poker in two sessions. Prior to one session, participants were asked to solve a series of solvable word puzzles. Prior to the other, they were asked to solve a series of unsolvable word puzzles. Consistent with previous research, results demonstrated that participants’ video-poker play was associated with their overall tendency to endorse gambling as a function of escape. However, their behavior did not vary as a function of whether the word puzzles were or were not solvable. These results may suggest that the different word puzzles used in the present procedure were similarly aversive. However, they may also suggest that gambling as an escape represents a general behavior pattern that is not necessarily sensitive to brief environmental manipulations

Investigating the Relationship Between Escape and Gambling Behavior

Recent research suggests that there is a potentially strong relationship between gambling as a means of escape and the presence of pathological gambling. The goal of the present study was to establish whether there was a correlation between endorsing gambling as a means of escape and how participants played video poker in a laboratory setting. Forty eight participants completed several questionnaires and then played video poker. Results demonstrated that endorsement of gambling as a means of escape, as measured by the Gambling Functional Assessment (Dixon & Johnson, 2007), was significantly positively correlated with number of credits risked during video-poker play. It was not, however, correlated with number of hands played or number of errors made. The results therefore support the idea that escape and gambling have a unique relationship and suggest that this relationship may display itself as increased risk taking

Immunohistochemical characterization of the rabbit tracheal cartilages

This is the published version. Copyright © 2010 SciRes.The objective of this study was to immunohistochemically elucidate the major extracellular matrix constituents of rabbit tracheal cartilage. The impetus for this project is the need for crucial design and validation criteria for tissue engineering juxtaposed with the conspicuous lack of trachea extracellular matrix data in the literature. Tracheal tissue specimens were harvested from New Zealand White rabbits, and were immunostained for collagen I, collagen II, aggrecan and decorin; and a Verhoeff-Van Gieson stain was performed to visualize elastin. The most striking result was the highly organized relationship between distinct fibrous (containing collagen I, decorin and elastin) and hyaline-like (containing collagen II and aggrecan) regions of the tracheal wall. The tracheal cartilage stained strongly with collagen II throughout, with periodic bands of aggrecan in the tracheal arches, meaning that there were areas void of aggrecan immunostaining alternating with areas with strong aggrecan immunostaining. In contrast, the periphery of the cartilage and the perichondrium itself exhibited strong collagen I staining and no collagen II staining. Elastin fibers and decorin were also detected along the periphery of the cartilage in the perichondrium and corresponded highly with the distribution of collagen I staining. The body of the rabbit trachea is therefore composed of a hyaline-cartilage structure primarily made of collagen II and bands of aggrecan, surrounded by a fibrous region composed of elastin and collagen I, indicative of a flexible tissue with distinct regions of compressive integrity. This information will be a valuable reference to future tissue engineering efforts in the creation of a biosynthetic substitute for laryngotracheal reconstruction

Video-Poker Play in the Laboratory: The Effect of Information and Monetary Value on Rates of Play

Previous research has found that participants will risk more credits across a video-poker session when they are required to play the optimal cards than when they have complete control over the game, a finding that would seem at least partially inconsistent with the illusion of control (Langer, 1975). Forty-two participants were recruited to play video poker in two sessions, one in which the game informed them of the optimal cards to play and one in which it did not. The session length for some participants was limited by time and for other participants by the number of hands played. Some of the participants played the game for money whereas others did not. When sessions were limited by time, the previous research results were replicated. However, when the sessions were limited by the number of hands played, no differences in gambling were observed between the two sessions. These results indicate that the effect of the game-provide information is to increase the speed at which people play, not to alter their gambling (i.e., betting). Implications of this finding are discussed

Are policy decisions on surgical procedures informed by robust economic evidence? A systematic review

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the empirical and methodological cost-effectiveness evidence of surgical interventions for breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer. Methods: A systematic search of seven databases including MEDLINE, EMBASE, and NHSEED, research registers, the NICE Web site and conference proceedings was conducted in April 2012. Study quality was assessed in terms of meeting essential, preferred and UK NICE specific requirements for economic evaluations. Results: The seventeen (breast = 3, colorectal = 7, prostate = 7) included studies covered a broad range of settings (nine European; eight non-European) and six were published over 10 years ago. The populations, interventions and comparators were generally well defined. Very few studies were informed by literature reviews and few used synthesized clinical evidence. Although the interventions had potential differential effects on recurrence and mortality rates, some studies used relatively short time horizons. Univariate sensitivity analyses were reported in all studies but less than a third characterized all uncertainty with a probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Although a third of studies incorporated patients' health-related quality of life data, only four studies used social tariff values. Conclusions: There is a dearth of recent robust evidence describing the cost-effectiveness of surgical interventions in the management of breast, colorectal and prostate cancers. Many of the recent publications did not satisfy essential methodological requirements such as using clinical evidence informed by a systematic review and synthesis. Given the ratio of potential benefit and harms associated with cancer surgery and the volume of resources consumed by these, there is an urgent need to increase economic evaluations of these technologies

Long-term antigen exposure irreversibly modifies metabolic requirements for T cell function

Energy metabolism is essential for T cell function. However, how persistent antigenic stimulation affects T cell metabolism is unknown. Here, we report that long-term in vivo antigenic exposure induced a specific deficit in numerous metabolic enzymes. Accordingly, T cells exhibited low basal glycolytic flux and limited respiratory capacity. Strikingly, blockade of inhibitory receptor PD-1 stimulated the production of IFNγ in chronic T cells, but failed to shift their metabolism towards aerobic glycolysis, as observed in effector T cells. Instead, chronic T cells appeared to rely on oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) and fatty acid oxidation (FAO) to produce ATP for IFNγ synthesis. Check-point blockade, however, increased mitochondrial production of superoxide and reduced viability and effector function. Thus, in the absence of a glycolytic switch, PD-1-mediated inhibition appears essential for limiting oxidative metabolism linked to effector function in chronic T cells, thereby promoting survival and functional fitness.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe