1,416 research outputs found
Ahead of the Game: Balancing the Gaming Industry and Public Interest
No full textBesides socio-demographic [i.e. age, gender, cultural background, family condition, romantic relationship involvement], game use information [i.e. daily playing time], the Internet Gaming Disorder Test - Short Form [IGD9-SF; reflecting the APA criteria] and the Gaming Disorder Test [GDT-4; reflecting the WHO criteria] for gaming disorder behaviours, participants addressed:
a) personality with the Mini-International Personality Item Pool [20 items]; b) depression and anxiety with the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale [DASS 21 ];
c) cultural values with the Individualism and Collectivism Scale [ICS];
d) the experience of the game surrounding as real with the Presence Questionnaire [PQ];
e) the absorbance by the online activity with the Online Flow Questionnaire [OFQ];
f) the experience of the avatar as the physical, emotional and identity extension of one’s self with the Self-Presence Questionnaire [SPQ];
g) the level of identification, immersion and compensation through the avatar with User-Avatar-Questionnaire [UAQ];
h) how much the user behaves like the avatar in real-life with the Proteus Effect Scale [PES] and;
i) how fulfilling their communication within their family is with the Family Communication Scale [FCS]. Fitbit actigraphy also recorded total steps, distance moved in Kilometres, calorie expenditure, sleep duration, and active minutes for seven days surrounding the assessment
Clinicopathological features, diagnosis and treatment of clear cell sarcoma/melanoma of soft parts
No full textBackground: Clear cell sarcoma of tendons and aponeuroses is a rare, high grade malignant soft tissue tumor resembling melanoma and soft tissue sarcomas. Clinical and Imaging Presentation: The median age at presentation is 27 years and the most common location are the foot and the ankle. MR imaging typically shows a benign looking, well defined, homogenous mass; on T1-weighted MR images, it is usually homogeneous and isointense or slight hyperintense to muscle, whereas on T2-weighted MR images, it is usually more heterogeneous with variable signal intensity. Pathology: Microscopically, the clear cell appearance is due to the accumulation of glycogen. The cells show no or minimal pleomorphism, and paucity of mitotic figures that is in concordance with the slow-growing behavior of the tumor. Scattered multinucleated giant cells are commonly present; areas of necrosis and melanin pigment may be identified. The reciprocal translocation t(12;22)(q13;q12) is observed in more than 90% of clear cell sarcoma cases. In addition, polysomy of chromosome 8 has been observed as a secondary abnormality in many cases of clear cell sarcoma. The differential diagnosis of clear cell sarcoma should include melanoma, epithelioid malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor, melanotic schwannoma, paraganglioma-like dermal melanocytic tumor, perivascular epithelioid cell neoplasms (PEComas), cellular blue naevus, synovial sarcoma (monophasic type), alveolar soft part sarcoma, paraganglioma, epithelioid sarcoma and carcinomas. Treatment and Prognosis: The treatment of choice for clear cell sarcoma is wide surgical resection. If complete excision is achieved, adjuvant treatments are not unnecessary. Chemotherapy is predominantly employed in patients with metastatic disease. The 5 to 20 year survival of the patients with clear cell sarcoma range from 67% to 10%. The rates of local recurrence ranges up to 84%, late metastases up to 63%, and metastases at presentation up to 30%
Objectivity in law
No full textThe question of objectivity in legal interpretation has emerged in recent years as a highly important topic in contemporary jurisprudence. This original book addresses the issue of how and in what sense legal interpretation can be objective. The author supports the possibility of objectivity in law and spells out the content of objectivity involved. He then provides a comprehensive defence against the classical, as well as less well-known, objections to the possibility of objectivity in legal interpretationThe discussion is firmly grounded in metaphysics, which sets the book apart from other similar discussions in jurisprudence. Stavropoulos identifies an important source of resistance to acceptance of the possibility of objectivity in legal interpretation: a widely-held but faulty semantic. He then develops an alternative semantic framework which draws on influential theories in contemporary philosophy. The book shows that objectivism is a natural, commonsensical position, and rejects the currently popular notion that objectivism requires extravagant or bizarre metaphysics. Furthermore, the discussion presents the opportunity to reinterpret major debates in jurisprudence and to show how influential theories, notably H. L. A. Hart's and Ronald Dworkin's, bear on that central issu
New ways to specify data edits
No full textData editing is the process by which data that are collected in some way (a statistical
survey for example) are examined for errors and corrected with the help of software. Edits, the logical conditions that should be satisfied by the data, are specified by subject-matter experts with a procedure which could be tedious and could lead to mistakes with practical implications. To render the process of edit specification more efficient we provide a new step—the definition of the so-called abstract data model of a survey—which describes the structure of the phenomenon that is studied in a survey. The existence of this model enables experts to identify all combinations of variables which should be checked by edits and to avoid the definition of conflicting edits.Furthermore, we introduce an automatic data validation strategy—TREEVAL—that
consists of fast tree growing to derive automatically the functional form of edits and of a statistical criterion to clean the incoming data. The TREEVAL strategy is cast within a total quality management framework. The application of the methodologies proposed is demonstrated with the help of a real life application
Greek meat supply response and price volatility in a rational expectations framework: A multivariate GARCH approach
No full textThis paper examines supply response models in a rational expectations framework for each one of the four major Greek meat markets, i.e. beef, broiler, lamb and pork. A multivariate GARCH model with Cholesky decomposition is used to incorporate price volatility into the rational expectations supply response model for each meat category and as a result the conditional covariance matrix remains positive definite without imposing any restrictions on the parameters. The empirical results confirm the existence of rational behaviour by meat producers in the four examined markets and indicate that price volatility is a major risk factor in Greek meat production while feed prices and veterinarian medicine prices are both important cost factors. Furthermore, the last Common Agricultural Policy reform is found to have a negative impact on the beef and lamb production in Greece.meat supply, price volatility, rational expectations, MGARCH., Agricultural and Food Policy,
Η ΙΑΤΡΟΪΣΤΟΡΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ ΤΟΥ ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΗ Κ. ΣΤΑΥΡΟΠΟΥΛΟΥ (1927-1994)
No full textΔεν παρατίθεται περίληψη στα Ελληνικά.In this paper the author presents Ar. Stavropoulos' views and theoretical approach to the history of Medicine and his contribution to the study of the history of that discipline in Greece during the period of Turkish occupation and in the 19th century, as reflected in his work. Aspects such as, the influence of epidemics on the Greek population economy and demography, the function of hospitals, health policy, medical training and the formation of the medical personnel, feature among the topics discussed by Stavropoulos, in this context
Unraveling the optimum latent structure of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder : evidence supporting ICD and HiTOP frameworks
No full textAttention Deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is conceptualized differently in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), the International Classification of Diseases-10 (ICD-10), and the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) frameworks. This study applied independent cluster confirmatory factor analysis (ICM-CFA), exploratory structure equation model with target rotation (ESEM), and the S-1 bi-factor CFA approaches to evaluate seven ADHD models yielded by different combinations of these taxonomic frameworks. Parents and teachers of a community sample of children (between 6 and 12 years of age) completed the Disruptive Behavior Rating Scale (for ADHD symptoms) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (for validation). Our findings for both parent and teacher ratings provided the most support for the S-1 bi-factor CFA model comprised of (i) a g-factor based on ICD-10 impulsivity symptoms as the reference indicators and (ii) inattention and hyperactivity as specific factors. However, the hyperactivity-specific factor lacked clarity and reliability. Thus, our findings indicate that ADHD is best viewed as a disorder primarily reflecting impulsivity, though with a separable inattention (but no hyperactivity) component, i.e., “ADID (attention deficit/impulsivity disorder).” This model aligns with the HiTOP proposals. © Copyright © 2021 Gomez, Liu, Krueger, Stavropoulos, Downs, Preece, Houghton and Chen
Avoidant romantic attachment in adolescence: Gender, excessive internet use and romantic relationship engagement effects
No full textRomantic development is a distinctive characteristic of puberty. However, a significant proportion of adolescents present with avoidant romantic attachment (ARA) tendencies, which have significant impact on their general adaptation. ARA variations have been suggested in relation to age, gender, engagement with a romantic partner and Excessive Internet Use (EIU) behaviours. In this longitudinal, two-wave study of a normative sample of 515 Greek adolescents at 16 and 18 years, ARA was assessed with the relevant subscale of the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised and EIU with the Internet Addiction Test. A three-level hierarchical linear model found ARA tendencies to decrease between 16 and 18 while engagement in a romantic relationship and EIU were associated with lower and higher ARA tendencies respectively. Gender did not differentiate ARA severity either at the age of 16 or its changes over time. Results highlight the need of adopting a longitudinal-contextualized approach and provide implications for prevention and intervention initiatives in relation to the romantic development of adolescents. © 2018 Stavropoulos et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
User-avatar bond as diagnostic indicator for gaming disorder: A word on the side of caution : Commentary on: Deep learning(s) in gaming disorder through the user-avatar bond: A longitudinal study using machine learning (Stavropoulos et al., 2023)
No full textIn their study, Stavropoulos et al. (2023) capitalized on supervised machine learning and a longitudinal design and reported that the User-Avatar Bond could be accurately employed to detect Gaming Disorder (GD) risk in a community sample of gamers. The authors suggested that the User-Avatar Bond is a “digital phenotype” that could be used as a diagnostic indicator for GD risk. In this commentary, our objectives are twofold: (1) to underscore the conceptual challenges of employing User-Avatar Bond for conceptualizing and diagnosing GD risk, and (2) to expound upon what we perceive as a misguided application of supervised machine learning techniques by the authors from a methodological standpoint
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