Gambling Participation and Prevalence Estimates of Pathological Gambling in a Far-East Gambling City: Macao

This research is the first scientific study of gambling participation and pathological gambling in Macao. In 2003, a computer-assisted random digit dialing method was used to conduct 1,121 telephone interviews. Two-thirds of respondents expressed that they have participated in at least one of the fourteen forms of gambling in the past year. The three most popular forms of gambling include social gambling, Mark Six lottery, and soccer/basketball betting. As for the prevalence of pathological gambling, the Chinese DSM-IV Gambling Behavior Index was used as the screening tool and results indicate that 1.78% of respondents are classified as probable pathological gamblers and 2.5% are classified as probable problem gamblers. Logistic Regression test indicates that male respondents with a monthly personal income of less than MOP 8,000 (Macau currency is the Pataca) tend to be more vulnerable to problem and pathological gambling when they participate in casino gambling, soccer matches betting and mahjong house gambling

Affinity modulation of platelet integrin alphaIIbbeta3 by beta3-endonexin, a selective binding partner of the beta3 integrin cytoplasmic tail.

Platelet agonists increase the affinity state of integrin alphaIIbbeta3, a prerequisite for fibrinogen binding and platelet aggregation. This process may be triggered by a regulatory molecule(s) that binds to the integrin cytoplasmic tails, causing a structural change in the receptor. beta3-Endonexin is a novel 111-amino acid protein that binds selectively to the beta3 tail. Since beta3-endonexin is present in platelets, we asked whether it can affect alphaIIbbeta3 function. When beta3-endonexin was fused to green fluorescent protein (GFP) and transfected into CHO cells, it was found in both the cytoplasm and the nucleus and could be detected on Western blots of cell lysates. PAC1, a fibrinogen-mimetic mAb, was used to monitor alphaIIbbeta3 affinity state in transfected cells by flow cytometry. Cells transfected with GFP and alphaIIbbeta3 bound little or no PAC1. However, those transfected with GFP/beta3-endonexin and alphaIIbbeta3 bound PAC1 specifically in an energy-dependent fashion, and they underwent fibrinogen-dependent aggregation. GFP/beta3-endonexin did not affect levels of surface expression of alphaIIbbeta3 nor did it modulate the affinity of an alphaIIbbeta3 mutant that is defective in binding to beta3-endonexin. Affinity modulation of alphaIIbbeta3 by GFP/beta3-endonexin was inhibited by coexpression of either a monomeric beta3 cytoplasmic tail chimera or an activated form of H-Ras. These results demonstrate that beta3-endonexin can modulate the affinity state of alphaIIbbeta3 in a manner that is structurally specific and subject to metabolic regulation. By analogy, the adhesive function of platelets may be regulated by such protein-protein interactions at the level of the cytoplasmic tails of alphaIIbbeta3

Chinese Casino Gambling Behaviors: Risk Taking in Casinos vs. Abstract Investments

Capitalizing on the recent developments in casino gambling in Macao and the dominance of Chinese gambling at Macao casinos, the purpose of this research was to study how Chinese behaved in gambling and how these behaviors related to another risk taking activity, investment, which has been documented to be in a different risk taking domain from gambling. A survey was carried out in Macao with casino gamblers as the target respondents. In addition to socio-economic data, each respondent was asked about the extent of his gambling involvement and his responses to some standardized investment decision making situations. Bet-to-income ratio was used to assess a respondent\u27s risk taking behavior in casino gambling. The questionnaire developed by MacCrimmon and Wehrung (1988) was used to assess risk taking propensities in the area of investment. Results showed that gamblers appeared to be taking high risk while gambling. In addition, the degrees of risk taking in the two domains were significantly and positively correlated. The quest for instant rewards either for quick profits or for satisfying strong immediate sensations and excitement might possibly explain the correlation

Adaptive mutation using statistics mechanism for genetic algorithms

Copyright @ 2004 Springer-Verla

Hacking the Catalog as an Open Access Research Tool

Part of the life cycle of scholarly communications is discovery, and one type of material often obscured by the federated results of library search interfaces is open access materials not hosted in the institutional repository but living on the open web. Selecting and cataloging such open access resources builds a focused collection of open access materials that appear in the same search results as materials that libraries lease, purchase, and host. Bringing open access materials into catalog results makes them easier to discover, use, and cite. Identifying and cataloging open access resources emphasizes the vital roles of collection development and cataloging in curating collections of open access resources for research. As with proprietary collection building, a commitment to create catalog records for the open access scholarship created by your faculty, students, and staff improves the discoverability of these resources and can bring your institutional affiliates into new scholarly citation networks. This process also offers an opportunity for modeling critical cataloging. Using local headings and affirming keywords and vocabulary to build a full catalog record improves the catalog’s affirmation of people of historically marginalized identities and asserts the critical value of ethical naming as a scholarly communications practice to support distribution and future authorship. We share here the steps for creating or a conversation for affirming and continuing this practice at your institution

EXPLORING THE EXPENDITURE-BASED PROFILE OF MACAO VISITORS: A CLUSTER ANALYSIS

Visitor profiling has been increasingly recognized as an important tourism marketing tool in the advent of smart tourism. There is a substantial body of literature relating to tourism market segmentation and visitor profiles. However, most of them focus on psychographic and behavioral factors. Seldom research has addressed the visitor profile based on actual expenditure during the visit. In this study, we explored the expenditure-based profile of Macao visitors using a randomly sampled dataset from a large-scale visitor profile survey supported by Macao Government Tourist Office. Utilizing self-reported actual expenditure data from 3577 visitors, we extracted six expenditure clusters of Macao visitors using a k-means clustering with silhouette analysis. The six clusters, i.e., entertainment, gambling, cuisine, shopping, both cuisine & shopping, and transit, have significant differences in expenditure preferences and expenditure levels. We also analyzed the demographic and behavior profile for each cluster. Our findings shed light on developing customized marketing strategies to the profile of each distinct expenditure cluster of Macao visitors

Global Symmetries and D-Terms in Supersymmetric Field Theories

We study the role of D-terms in supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking. By carefully analyzing the SUSY multiplets containing various conserved currents in theories with global symmetries, we obtain a number of constraints on the renormalization group flow in supersymmetric field theories. Under broad assumptions, these results imply that there are no SUSY-breaking vacua, not even metastable ones, with parametrically large D-terms. This explains the absence of such D-terms in models of dynamical SUSY-breaking. There is, however, a rich class of calculable models which generate comparable D-terms and F-terms through a variety of non-perturbative effects; these D-terms can be non-abelian. We give several explicit examples of such models, one of which is a new calculable limit of the 3-2 model.Comment: 34 pages, 2 figures; reference added, minor change

Post-operative cognitive function following general versus regional anesthesia, a systematic review

The effect of anesthetic technique on postoperative outcomes remains in question. This systematic review compares the role of regional versus general anesthesia, with a particular focus on postoperative cognitive function. Potentially relevant articles were identified by searching publicly available computerized databases for this systematic review. Any surgical procedure was accepted with the exception of cardiac, carotid, and neurosurgical procedures. Any regional anesthetic technique was accepted unless combined with a general anesthetic or in conjunction with propofol as a sedative. Any measure of postoperative cognitive function was accepted as long as it was performed no sooner than 7 days postoperatively. Sixteen studies met inclusion criteria and were included in the final analysis. Three studies showed some difference in cognitive function between regional and general anesthesia, whereas the remaining 13 showed no difference between regional and general anesthesia on postoperative cognitive function