Plos One
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Oculometric measures have been proven to be useful markers of mind-wandering during visual tasks such as reading. However, little is known about ocular activity during mindfulness meditation, a mental practice naturally involving mind-wandering episodes. In order to explore this issue, we extracted closed-eyes ocular movement measurements via a covert technique (EEG recordings) from expert meditators during two repetitions of a 7-minute mindfulness meditation session, focusing on the breath, and two repetitions of a 7-minute instructed mind-wandering task. ⋯ The results show a significantly smaller average amplitude of eye movements in the delta band (1-4 Hz) during mindfulness meditation than instructed mind-wandering. Moreover, participants' meditation expertise correlated significantly with this average amplitude during both tasks, with more experienced meditators generally moving their eyes less than less experienced meditators. These findings suggest the potential use of this measure to detect mind-wandering episodes during mindfulness meditation and to assess meditation performance.
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Comparative Study
Relevance of selective neural stimulation with a multicontact cuff electrode using multicriteria analysis.
Neural multicontact cuff electrodes have the potential to activate selectively different groups of muscles and offer more possibilities of electrical configurations compared to whole ring cuffs. Several previous studies explored multicontact electrodes with a limited set of configurations which were sorted using a selectivity index only. The objective of the present study is to classify a larger number of configurations, i.e. the way the current is spread over the 12 contacts of the cuff electrode, using additional criteria such as robustness (i.e. ability to maintain selectivity within a range of current amplitudes) and efficiency (i.e. electrical consumption of the considered multipolar configuration versus the electrical consumption of the reference whole-ring configuration). ⋯ Results indicated that the optimal configuration depends on the weights applied to selectivity, robustness and efficiency criteria. Tripolar transverse is the most robust configuration and the less efficient, whereas tripolar longitudinal ring is efficient but not robust. New configurations issued from a previous theoretical study we carried out such as steering current ring appears as good compromise between the 3 criteria.
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Recent evidence has suggested that in Japan, professionals and managers have a higher risk of poor health than other workers (e.g., clerks and manual laborers), and this effect may be stronger among women than men. Low organizational justice, which is known to be a potential risk factor for poor health among employees, may explain the gender-specific association. ⋯ Female managers and professionals in a workplace with unsupportive supervisors may be more likely to engage in unhealthy coping behaviors to manage their stress. Creating supportive workplaces may be beneficial in increasing workers' health, especially for female managers and professionals.
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Historical Article
Exploiting the "video game craze": A case study of the tobacco industry's use of video games as a marketing tool.
Video games have grown in popularity since the 1970s, and tobacco imagery is present in a substantial subset of games, including those oriented to youth. Much like exposure to tobacco content in films, exposure to tobacco content in video games may influence smoking uptake and use; however, the tobacco industry's role in facilitating or promoting the use of tobacco imagery in video games is unclear. We explored the industry's interest in and use of video games to market their products to youth and young adults. ⋯ Video game players are an attractive target market for tobacco companies. Video games, as used by these companies, facilitate consumer engagement with particular tobacco brands or particular corporate messages. Eliminating the use of video games as a promotional vehicle may require limiting tobacco marketing in both physical and online environments.
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Previous studies have reported an association between family relationships and suicidal behavior, and found that people with high suicidal ideation are not likely to consult with others about their distress. An effective consulting service is therefore necessary for such individuals. Crisis hotlines are effective for reducing suicide risk, but their associated suicide ideation rate and odds ratio of family problems children remain unclear. ⋯ This result suggested that callers with family problems have a significantly lower rate and odds ratio for suicidal ideation compared with others. However, some associations with a high suicide ideation rate were found for individual items among callers with family problems such as abuse (20.4%), family breakdown (16.1%), and domestic violence (10.6%). Further studies are needed to understand the suicidal ideation of callers with family problems and develop more effective preventive strategies.