Non-Linear Editor for Text-Based Screencast

Screencasts, where computer screen is broadcast to a large audience on the web, are becoming popular as an online educational tool. Among various types of screencast content, popular are the contents that involve text editing, including computer programming. There are emerging platforms that support such text-based screencasts by recording every character insertion/deletion from the creator and reconstructing its playback on the viewer's screen. However, these platforms lack rich support for creating and editing the screencast itself, mainly due to the difficulty of manipulating recorded text changes; the changes are tightly coupled in sequence, thus modifying arbitrary part of the sequence is not trivial. We present a non-linear editing tool for text-based screencasts. With the proposed selective history rewrite process, our editor allows users to substitute an arbitrary part of a text-based screencast while preserving overall consistency of the rest of the text-based screencast.Comment: To appear in Adjunct Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology (UIST 2017, Poster

Gambling treatment service providers’ views about contingency management: a thematic analysis

BackgroundThere is a need to improve retention and outcomes for treatment of problem gambling and gambling disorder. Contingency management (CM) is a behavioural intervention involving identification of target behaviours (such as attendance, abstinence, or steps towards recovery) and the provision of incentives (such as vouchers or credits towards the purchase of preferred items) contingent on objective evidence of these behaviours. Contingency management for abstinence and attendance in substance misuse treatment has a substantial evidence base but has not been widely adopted or extended to other addictive behaviours such as gambling. Potential barriers to the widespread adoption of CM may relate to practitioners’ perceptions about this form of incentive-based treatment. The present study sought to explore United Kingdom (UK) gambling treatment providers’ views of CM for treatment of problem gambling and gambling disorder.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 treatment providers from across the UK working with people with gambling problems. Participants were provided with an explanation of CM, several hypothetical scenarios, and a structured questionnaire to facilitate discussion. Thematic analysis was used to interpret findings.ResultsParticipants felt there could be a conflict between CM and their treatment philosophies, that CM was similar in some ways to gambling, and that the CM approach could be manipulated and reduce trust between client and therapist. Some participants were more supportive of implementing CM for specific treatment goals than others, such as for incentivising attendance over abstinence due to perceived difficulties in objectively verifying abstinence. Participants favoured providing credits accruing to services relevant to personal recovery rather than voucher-based incentives.ConclusionsUK gambling treatment providers are somewhat receptive to CM approaches for treatment of problem gambling and gambling disorder. Potential barriers and obstacles are readily addressable, and more research is needed on the efficacy and effectiveness of CM for gambling

Quantile regression analysis of in-play betting in a large online gambling dataset

In-play betting involves making multiple bets during a sporting event and is an increasingly popular form of gambling. Behavioural analysis of large datasets of in-play betting may aid in the prediction of at-risk patterns of gambling. However, datasets may contain significant skew and outliers necessitating analytical approaches capable of examining behaviour across the spectrum of involvement with in-play betting. Here, we employ quantile regression analyses to investigate the relationships between in-play betting behaviours of frequency and duration of play, bets per day, net/percentage change, average stake, and average/percentage change across groups of users differing by betting involvement. The dataset consisted of 24,781 in-play sports bettors enrolled with an internet sports betting provider in February 2005. We examined trends in normally-involved and heavily-involved in-play bettor groups at the .1, .3, .5, .7 and .9 quantiles. The relationship between the total number of in-play bets and the remaining in-play betting measures was dependent on degree of involvement. The only variable to differ from this analytic path was the standard deviation in the daily average stake for most-involved bettors. The direction of some relationships, such as the frequency of play and bets per betting day, were reversed for most-involved bettors. Crucially, this highlights the importance of determining how these relationships vary across the spectrum of involvement with in-play betting. In conclusion, quantile regression provides a comprehensive account of the relationship between in-play betting behaviours capable of quantifying changes in magnitude and direction that vary by involvement

Manipulating contextual control over simulated slot machine gambling

Situational or contextual factors involved in slot machine gambling, such as colors, are assumed to play an important role in initiating and maintaining gambling. However, there is little empirical evidence for this assumption. The present study sought to investigate the effects of manipulating two contextual factors (the background colors of computer-simulated slot machines) on participants‟ responding to two concurrently available slot machines. Following a pretest, a nonarbitrary relational training and testing procedure was used to establish contextual functions of MORE-THAN and LESS-THAN for two cues. During posttest, participants allocated the majority of their responses to the slot machine that shared nonarbitrary properties with the contextual cue for MORETHAN, despite the identical payout probabilities of the slot machines. Overall, the present findings demonstrate that participants‟ preferences for one of two concurrently available slot machines may come under contextual control. The advantages of the present approach to investigating the role played by situational factors such as colors in maintaining slot machine gambling are discussed

Emergent slot machine gambling: A relational frame theory approach.

It has been suggested that gambling behaviour may not be solely controlled by schedules of reinforcement, but may be under the control of verbal behaviour. Relational frame theory is a contemporary account of verbal behaviour which may be able to account for aspects of gambling behaviour that cannot be explained by a pure schedule of reinforcement account. Chapter 2 demonstrated that contextual cues may influence preferences for concurrently available slot-machines, thus overriding the contingencies of reinforcement in place. Chapter 3 demonstrated that the presence of accurate or inaccurate rules may influence slot-machine choice and affect gambling persistence. Participants that received inaccurate rules regarding the payout probability of a slot machine, gambled for longer than those given accurate rules. Chapter 4 reported that the discriminative functions of slot-machines could be transformed in accordance with derived same and opposite relations, such that participants showed preferences for slot-machines that had never been experienced before. Chapter 5 demonstrated that not only could preferences for concurrently available slot machines be transformed in accordance with derived comparative relations, but found that preferences for slot machines increased relative to the relational network that had been trained. In Chapter 6, ratings of wins, near-misses and losses on a computer simulated slot-machine could be altered in accordance with derived same and opposite relations, and could even override the non-arbitrary properties of a slot-machine. It was concluded that gambling is verbal behaviour and can be accounted for by derived relations and the transformation of function. These findings may explain instances of gambling behaviour which cannot be accounted for by the direct acting contingencies

Gambling treatment service providers’ views about contingency management: A thematic analysis'

BACKGROUND: There is a need to improve retention and outcomes for treatment of problem gambling and gambling disorder. Contingency management (CM) is a behavioural intervention involving identification of target behaviours (such as attendance, abstinence, or steps towards recovery) and the provision of incentives (such as vouchers or credits towards the purchase of preferred items) contingent on objective evidence of these behaviours. Contingency management for abstinence and attendance in substance misuse treatment has a substantial evidence base but has not been widely adopted or extended to other addictive behaviours such as gambling. Potential barriers to the widespread adoption of CM may relate to practitioners’ perceptions about this form of incentive-based treatment. The present study sought to explore United Kingdom (UK) gambling treatment providers’ views of CM for treatment of problem gambling and gambling disorder. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 treatment providers from across the UK working with people with gambling problems. Participants were provided with an explanation of CM, several hypothetical scenarios, and a structured questionnaire to facilitate discussion. Thematic analysis was used to interpret findings. RESULTS: Participants felt there could be a conflict between CM and their treatment philosophies, that CM was similar in some ways to gambling, and that the CM approach could be manipulated and reduce trust between client and therapist. Some participants were more supportive of implementing CM for specific treatment goals than others, such as for incentivising attendance over abstinence due to perceived difficulties in objectively verifying abstinence. Participants favoured providing credits accruing to services relevant to personal recovery rather than voucher-based incentives. CONCLUSIONS: UK gambling treatment providers are somewhat receptive to CM approaches for treatment of problem gambling and gambling disorder. Potential barriers and obstacles are readily addressable, and more research is needed on the efficacy and effectiveness of CM for gambling. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12954-022-00600-0

Review of Gambling: Behavior Theory, Research, and Application By Patrick M. Gheezi, Charles a. Lyons, Mark R. Dixon, and Ginger R. Wilson (Eds.)

Behavior analysis has not devoted much research attention to understanding or treating gambling behavior, yet it clearly has much to offer. Recently, the advent of this journal and other developments has helped to increase the need for, and relevance of, behavior analytic approaches to the study of gambling behavior. The edited volume by Ghezzi, Lyons, Dixon, and Wilson (2006) is testimony to this growing interest. In an effort to further delineate the behavior analysis of gambling behavior, Ghezzi and colleagues have produced a compelling and timely scholarly overview of behavioral research on understanding and treating disorders associated with gambling. The book should serve to stimulate contin-ued research interest in gambling behavior from within the behavioral communi-ty