The conceptualisation and measurement of DSM-5 Internet Gaming Disorder: the development of the IGD-20 Test

Background: Over the last decade, there has been growing concern about ‘gaming addiction’ and its widely documented detrimental impacts on a minority of individuals that play excessively. The latest (fifth) edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) included nine criteria for the potential diagnosis of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) and noted that it was a condition that warranted further empirical study. Aim: The main aim of this study was to develop a valid and reliable standardised psychometrically robust tool in addition to providing empirically supported cut-off points. Methods: A sample of 1003 gamers (85.2% males; mean age 26 years) from 57 different countries were recruited via online gaming forums. Validity was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), criterion-related validity, and concurrent validity. Latent profile analysis was also carried to distinguish disordered gamers from non-disordered gamers. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were performed to determine an empirical cut-off for the test. Results: The CFA confirmed the viability of IGD-20 Test with a six-factor structure (salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict and relapse) for the assessment of IGD according to the nine criteria from DSM-5. The IGD-20 Test proved to be valid and reliable. According to the latent profile analysis, 5.3% of the total participants were classed as disordered gamers. Additionally, an optimal empirical cut-off of 71 points (out of 100) seemed to be adequate according to the sensitivity and specificity analyses carried

High frequency shoot regeneration of Sterculia urens Roxb. an endangered tree species through cotyledonary node cultures

A protocol is described for rapid and large scale propagation of an endangered, commercially and medicinally important tree species, Sterculia urens, by in vitro culture of cotyledonary nodes from 15 daysold seedlings. Of the four different cytokinins (thidiazuron, isopentenyladenine, zeatin and adenine sulphate) evaluated as supplements to Murashige and Skoog medium (1962), thidiazuron at an optimal concentration of 2.27 M was most effective in inducing bud break (83.0%). Although, multiple shoot formation was a function of cytokinin activity alone, enhanced frequency of shoot regeneration (93.3%) and number of shoots per explant (19.0) were observed by the addition of ascorbic acid (0.1%). Concentrations of all cytokinins tested above the optimum level reduced the frequency of shootregeneration and shoot number. A proliferating shoot culture was established by repeatedly sub-culturing the original cotyledonary node on shoot multiplication medium (0.45 M thidiazuron) after the secondharvest of newly formed shoots. Rooting was best induced (80.0%) in shoots excised from proliferating shoot cultures on a quarter strength MS medium fortified with an optimal concentration of indole-3-butyricacid (9.80 M)

Micropropagation of Sterculia urens Roxb., an endangered tree species from intact seedlings

An efficient and reproducible procedure for the large scale propagation of Sterculia urens is described. Direct shoot proliferation was induced in aseptic seed cultures of S. urens on MS medium (1962)supplemented with 5.0 M thidiazuron + 1.5 M GA3 + 0.1% ascorbic acid. The highest number of shoots (14.0) was formed within 8 weeks of seed culture without root formation on MS medium. Proliferating shoot cultures were established by repeatedly sub culturing mother seedlings (stumps) on fresh medium (MS + 2.5 M TDZ + 1.5 M GA3 + 0.1% ascorbic acid) after excising all newly formed shoots. The shoot forming capacity of seeds was influenced by the cytokinin type and concentration in the medium. Roots formed on excised shoots when they were transferred to quarter strength MS medium containing 9.80 M indole-3-butyric acid. Plantlets were finally transferred to the soil

Differential branching fraction and angular analysis of Λb0→Λμ+μ−\Lambda^{0}_{b} \rightarrow \Lambda \mu^+\mu^- decays

The differential branching fraction of the rare decay $\Lambda^{0}_{b} \rightarrow \Lambda \mu^+\mu^-$ is measured as a function of $q^{2}$, the square of the dimuon invariant mass. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3.0 \mbox{ fb}^{-1}, collected by the LHCb experiment. Evidence of signal is observed in the $q^2$ region below the square of the $J/\psi$ mass. Integrating over 15 < q^{2} < 20 \mbox{ GeV}^2/c^4 the branching fraction is measured as d\mathcal{B}(\Lambda^{0}_{b} \rightarrow \Lambda \mu^+\mu^-)/dq^2 = (1.18 ^{+ 0.09} _{-0.08} \pm 0.03 \pm 0.27) \times 10^{-7} ( \mbox{GeV}^{2}/c^{4})^{-1}, where the uncertainties are statistical, systematic and due to the normalisation mode, $\Lambda^{0}_{b} \rightarrow J/\psi \Lambda$, respectively. In the $q^2$ intervals where the signal is observed, angular distributions are studied and the forward-backward asymmetries in the dimuon ($A^{l}_{\rm FB}$) and hadron ($A^{h}_{\rm FB}$) systems are measured for the first time. In the range 15 < q^2 < 20 \mbox{ GeV}^2/c^4 they are found to be A^{l}_{\rm FB} = -0.05 \pm 0.09 \mbox{ (stat)} \pm 0.03 \mbox{ (syst)} and A^{h}_{\rm FB} = -0.29 \pm 0.07 \mbox{ (stat)} \pm 0.03 \mbox{ (syst)}.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, Erratum adde

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Standards for Computational Methods in Drug Design and Discovery: Simplified Guidance for Authors and Reviewers

Tamer M Ibrahim,1,2 Muzammal Hussain,3,4 Frank M Boeckler5,6 1Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh, 33516, Egypt; 2Center for Informatics Science (CIS), School of Information Technology and Computer Science (ITCS), Nile University, Giza, Egypt; 3Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, 10016, USA; 4Howard Hughes Medical Institute, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, 10016, USA; 5Department of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Laboratory for Molecular Design and Pharmaceutical Biophysics, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tübingen, 72076, Germany; 6Interfaculty Institute for Biomedical Informatics (IBMI), Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, 72076, GermanyCorrespondence: Tamer M Ibrahim, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh, 33516, Egypt, Email [email protected] Frank M Boeckler, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Department of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 8, Tübingen, 72076, Germany, Tel +49 7071 29 74567, Email [email protected]

Maximization of propylene in an industrial FCC unit

YesThe FCC riser cracks gas oil into useful fuels such as gasoline, diesel and some lighter products such as ethylene and propylene, which are major building blocks for the polyethylene and polypropylene production. The production objective of the riser is usually the maximization of gasoline and diesel, but it can also be to maximize propylene. The optimization and parameter estimation of a six-lumped catalytic cracking reaction of gas oil in FCC is carried out to maximize the yield of propylene using an optimisation framework developed in gPROMS software 5.0 by optimizing mass flow rates and temperatures of catalyst and gas oil. The optimal values of 290.8 kg/s mass flow rate of catalyst and 53.4 kg/s mass flow rate of gas oil were obtained as propylene yield is maximized to give 8.95 wt%. When compared with the base case simulation value of 4.59 wt% propylene yield, the maximized propylene yield is increased by 95%

The need of dermatologists, psychiatrists and psychologists joint care in psychodermatology

The mind-skin connection has been studied since the nineteenth century. The last 40 years have set the development of new research areas which allowed the clarifying of how these two dimensions interact. The diseases that involve skin and mind constitute the field of psychodermatology and require that specialists in dermatology, psychiatry and psychology together and integrated take part in it, since skin, nervous system and mind are simultaneously affected. This paper aims to expose how psychodermatoses are currently conceptualized and the need of integration of these three specialties for conveniently treating the patients

Deep learning in mining biological data

Recent technological advancements in data acquisition tools allowed life scientists to acquire multimodal data from different biological application domains. Categorised in three broad types (i.e., images, signals, and sequences), these data are huge in amount and complex in nature. Mining such enormous amount of data for pattern recognition is a big challenge and requires sophisticated data intensive machine learning techniques. Artificial neural network based learning systems are well known for their pattern recognition capabilities and lately their deep architectures - known as deep learning (DL) - have been successfully applied to solve many complex pattern recognition problems. To investigate how DL - especially its different architectures - has contributed and utilised in the mining of biological data pertaining to those three types, a meta analysis has been performed and the resulting resources have been critically analysed. Focusing on the use of DL to analyse patterns in data from diverse biological domains, this work investigates different DL architectures' applications to these data. This is followed by an exploration of available open access data sources pertaining to the three data types along with popular open source DL tools applicable to these data. Also, comparative investigations of these tools from qualitative, quantitative, and benchmarking perspectives are provided. Finally, some open research challenges in using DL to mine biological data are outlined and a number of possible future perspectives are put forward

Role of optimization algorithms based fuzzy controller in achieving induction motor performance enhancement.

Three-phase induction motors (TIMs) are widely used for machines in industrial operations. As an accurate and robust controller, fuzzy logic controller (FLC) is crucial in designing TIMs control systems. The performance of FLC highly depends on the membership function (MF) variables, which are evaluated by heuristic approaches, leading to a high processing time. To address these issues, optimisation algorithms for TIMs have received increasing interest among researchers and industrialists. Here, we present an advanced and efficient quantum-inspired lightning search algorithm (QLSA) to avoid exhaustive conventional heuristic procedures when obtaining MFs. The accuracy of the QLSA based FLC (QLSAF) speed control is superior to other controllers in terms of transient response, damping capability and minimisation of statistical errors under diverse speeds and loads. The performance of the proposed QLSAF speed controller is validated through experiments. Test results under different conditions show consistent speed responses and stator currents with the simulation results