cGAS deficient mice display premature aging associated with de-repression of LINE1 elements and inflammation.

Aging-associated inflammation, or 'inflammaging" is a driver of multiple age-associated diseases. Cyclic GMP-AMP Synthase (cGAS) is a cytosolic DNA sensor that functions to activate interferon response upon detecting viral DNA in the cytoplasm. cGAS contributes to inflammaging by responding to endogenous signals such as damaged DNA or LINE1 (L1) cDNA which forms in aged cells.

The Relationship Between Lockdowns and Video Game Playtime: Multilevel Time-Series Analysis Using Massive-Scale Data Telemetry.

Background: COVID-19 led governments worldwide to enact a variety of containment and closure policies. Substantial attention has been directed toward the idea that these public health measures may have unanticipated negative side effects. One proposed effect relates to video games.

Higher working memory capacity and distraction-resistance associated with strategy (not action) game playing in younger adults, but puzzle game playing in older adults.

Superior attention and Working Memory (WM) have been reported for habitual action video gamers compared to other gamers or non-players. With an online experiment we measured visuo-spatial WM capacity and ability to ignore distraction, and participants listed the video games they played. Categorising the 209 young adult participants (18-30 years) according to the game type they predominantly played revealed superior WM capacity for strategy and action gamers compared to non-players.

Postoperative mortality and complications in patients with and without pre-operative SARS-CoV-2 infection: a service evaluation of 24 million linked records using OpenSAFELY.

Surgical decision-making after SARS-CoV-2 infection is influenced by the presence of comorbidity, infection severity and whether the surgical problem is time-sensitive. Contemporary surgical policy to delay surgery is informed by highly heterogeneous country-specific guidance. We evaluated surgical provision in England during the COVID-19 pandemic to assess real-world practice and whether deferral remains necessary.

Difficulty-skill balance does not affect engagement and enjoyment: a pre-registered study using artificial intelligence-controlled difficulty.

How does the difficulty of a task affect people's enjoyment and engagement? Intrinsic motivation and flow theories posit a 'goldilocks' optimum where task difficulty matches performer skill, yet current work is confounded by questionable measurement practices and lacks scalable methods to manipulate objective difficulty-skill ratios. We developed a two-player tactical game test suite with an artificial intelligence (AI)-controlled opponent that uses a variant of the Monte Carlo Tree Search algorithm to precisely manipulate difficulty-skill ratios. A pre-registered study ( = 311) showed that our AI produced targeted difficulty-skill ratios without participants noticing the manipulation, yet different ratios had no significant impact on enjoyment or engagement.

Public Interest Group on Cancer Research: a successful patient-researcher partnership in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Background: Partnering with patients and family members affected by cancer is essential for meaningful research, public engagement and outreach, and advocacy activities.

Objective: Our objective was to create a public interest group through an academic-community partnership focused on cancer research and public engagement.

Methods: A purposeful recruitment process was implemented to ensure a diverse and inclusive group.

Abnormal Body Phenomena in Persons with Major Depressive Disorder.

Background: Depressive disorders, despite being classified as mood or affective disorders, are known to include disturbances in the experience of body, space, time, and intersubjectivity. However, current diagnostic manuals largely ignore these aspects of depressive experience. In this article, we use phenomenological accounts of embodiment as a theoretical foundation for a qualitative study of abnormal body phenomena (ABP) in depressive disorders.

Single-Use System Integrity II: Characterization of Liquid Leakage Mechanisms.

This study investigated the liquid leakage mechanism through microchannels in a flexible single-use packaging system composed of multilayer plastic film. Based on this study, a relationship between the maximum allowable leakage limit (MALL) and the loss of package integrity can be established under different use-case conditions. The MALL is defined as the greatest leak size that does not pose any risk to the product.

Nothing else matters: Video games create sustained attentional selection away from task-irrelevant features.

Feature-based attention allocates resources to particular stimulus features and reduces processing and retention of unattended features. We performed four experiments using self-paced video games to investigate whether sustained attentional selection of features could be created without a distractor task requiring continuous processing. Experiments 1 and 2 compared two versions of the game Two Dots, each containing a sequence of images.

Abnormal Space Experiences in Persons With Schizophrenia: An Empirical Qualitative Study.

Abnormal space experience (ASE) is a common feature of schizophrenia, despite its absence from current diagnostic manuals. Phenomenological psychopathologists have investigated this experiential disturbance, but these studies were typically based on anecdotal evidence from limited clinical interactions. To better understand the nature of ASE in schizophrenia and attempt to validate previous phenomenological accounts, we conducted a qualitative study of 301 people with schizophrenia.

Large-scale narrative events in popular cinema.

Most experiments in event perception and cognition have focused on events that are only a few minutes in length, and the previous research on popular movies is consistent with this temporal scope. Scenes are generally between a few seconds and a few minutes in duration. But popular movies also offer an opportunity to explore larger events-variously called acts, major parts, or large-scale parts by film theorists-in which the boundaries often have few if any unique physical attributes.

Sequences in popular cinema generate inconsistent event segmentation.

Popular movies have an event structure that includes scenes and sequences. Scenes are fashioned to be perceived as smoothly flowing, a feature called continuity. Discontinuity is said to occur when scene (event) boundaries are crossed.

Single-Use System Integrity I: Using a Microbial Ingress Test Method to Determine the Maximum Allowable Leakage Limit (MALL).

An aerosol microbial ingress test was specifically designed and used to create a predictive model in order to determine the maximum allowable leakage limit (MALL) of single-use systems (SUSs). The MALL is defined as the greatest leak size that does not pose any risk to the product. The procedure involved taking test samples of film material from single-use bags.

A systematic review of local excision followed by adjuvant therapy in early rectal cancer: are pT1 tumours the limit?

Aim: Total mesorectal excision remains the cornerstone of treatment for rectal cancer. Significant morbidity means local excision may be more appropriate in selected patients. Adjuvant therapy reduces local recurrence and improves survival; however, there is a paucity of data on its impact following local excision, which this systematic review aims to address.

Temporal fractals in movies and mind.

Fractal patterns are seemingly everywhere. They can be analyzed through Fourier and power analyses, and other methods. Cutting, DeLong, and Nothelfer (2010) analyzed as time-series data the fluctuations of shot durations in 150 popular movies released over 70 years.

Cryptic Emotions and the Emergence of a Metatheory of Mind in Popular Filmmaking.

Hollywood movies can be deeply engaging and easy to understand. To succeed in this manner, feature-length movies employ many editing techniques with strong psychological underpinnings. We explore the origins and development of one of these, the reaction shot.

Considering the filmmaker: Intensified continuity, narrative structure, and the Distancing-Embracing model.

Menninghaus et al. pose two open-ended questions: To what extent do formal elements of art elicit negative affect, and do artists try to elicit this response in a theory-based or intuitive manner? For popular movies, we argue that the consideration of their construction is prior to the consideration of the experience that they evoke.

A meta-analysis of the core essence of psychopathological entities: an historical exercise in phenomenological psychiatry.

Two fundamentally different approaches among phenomenological psychopathologists can be discerned. One is what we call fixed essentialism, where the pathognomonic element of, say, schizophrenia is conceived of as a single, enduring and intrinsically morbid way of grasping all entities in the world, including self and body. The other, which we call dialectical essentialism, accounts for the same manifestations of, say, schizophrenia, but through a process which is not life-enduring, and, most critically vis-à-vis the former formulation, is not in itself a single morbid defect: a morbid pattern of world, self and body is achieved by an imbalance between two or more otherwise healthy constituents of the 'normal' human being, whose imbalance and attempts to resolve this - the dialectic - induce the 'morbidity'.

The evolution of pace in popular movies.

Movies have changed dramatically over the last 100 years. Several of these changes in popular English-language filmmaking practice are reflected in patterns of film style as distributed over the length of movies. In particular, arrangements of shot durations, motion, and luminance have altered and come to reflect aspects of the narrative form.

Abnormal Time Experiences in Major Depression: An Empirical Qualitative Study.

Background: Phenomenological psychopathology, through theoretical and idiographic studies, conceptualizes major depressive disorder (MDD) as a disorder of time experience. Investigations on abnormal time experience (ATE) in MDD adopting methodologies requested by the standards of empirical sciences are still lacking. Our study aimed to provide a qualitative analysis, on an empirical ground and on a large scale, of narratives of temporal experiences of persons affected by MDD.

Exploring social cognition in schizophrenia.

The aim of the study was to compare social cognition between groups of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and healthy controls and to replicate two previous studies using tests of social cognition that may be particularly sensitive to social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Thirty-eight first-admitted patients with schizophrenia and 38 healthy controls solved 11 "imaginary conversation (i.e.

Max Scheler's influence on Kurt Schneider.

Kurt Schneider (1887-1967) met Max Scheler (1874-1928) in 1919 when he enrolled in the latter's philosophy seminars at the University of Cologne. Kurt Schneider was then a junior psychiatrist and Max Scheler a renowned philosophy professor and co-founder of the phenomenological movement in philosophy. We uncover the facts about their intellectual and personal relationship, summarize the main articles and books that they wrote and consider whether Max Scheler did influence the young Kurt Schneider.

Narrative theory and the dynamics of popular movies.

Popular movies grab and hold our attention. One reason for this is that storytelling is culturally important to us, but another is that general narrative formulae have been honed over millennia and that a derived but specific filmic form has developed and has been perfected over the last century. The result is a highly effective format that allows rapid processing of complex narratives.