scholarly journals Direct and indirect effects of functional and dysfunctional impulsivity on sensation seeking in youth (19-25 years old)

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (73) (1) ◽  
pp. 163-177
Author(s):  
Stanislava Stoyanova ◽  
Nikolay Ivantchev

This study was focused on the relationships between sensation seeking, functional and dysfunctional impulsivity in youth. The aim of this study was to investigate the direct and indirect effects of functional and dysfunctional impulsivity on sensation seeking in youth controlled for gender and age in the group of 19–25-year-old. Radoslavova & Velichkov’s (2005) self-report paper-and-pencil questionnaire was used to measure sensation seeking, functional and dysfunctional types of impulsivity among 764 students. Dysfunctional impulsivity was directly and indirectly related to sensation seeking mediated by functional impulsivity and being statistically controlled for age and gender. Functional impulsivity also was directly and indirectly related to sensation seeking mediated by dysfunctional impulsivity with gender and age as controlled confound variables. Dysfunctional impulsivity had larger direct and indirect effects as a mediator on sensation seeking than the corresponding effects of functional impulsivity on sensation seeking controlling for age and gender. These findings suggest the possibility for existence of some deficiencies in the speed, accuracy, and effectiveness of processing information, making decisions, and implementing actions during the search for optimal stimulation among youth.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-149
Author(s):  
Stanislava Stoyanova ◽  
Nikolay Ivantchev

It is important to study the relationships between sensation seeking, functional and dysfunctional impulsivity to clarify the appropriateness and effectiveness of ways for seeking optimal stimulation. The aim of this study was to investigate if dysfunctional impulsivity had stronger direct and indirect effects on sensation seeking in youth with functional impulsivity as a mediator. Sensation seeking, functional and dysfunctional types of impulsivity were studied among 764 students from 19 to 25 years old by means of Radoslavova and Velichkov’s (2005) questionnaire. The results indicated that sensation seeking, functional and dysfunctional impulsivity correlated significantly and positively. Dysfunctional impulsivity was directly related to sensation seeking, as well as indirectly related to sensation seeking mediated by functional impulsivity. The findings also revealed that functional impulsivity was directly related to sensation seeking, as well as indirectly related to sensation seeking mediated by dysfunctional impulsivity. Dysfunctional impulsivity had larger direct effects on sensation seeking than functional impulsivity. Dysfunctional impulsivity also had larger effects as a mediator on sensation seeking than the effects of functional impulsivity as a mediator on sensation seeking. These findings suggest some deficiencies in the speed and accuracy of processing information, and the effectiveness of made decisions and implemented actions in search of optimal stimulation among youth.    


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 835
Author(s):  
Ioannis Tsimperidis ◽  
Cagatay Yucel ◽  
Vasilios Katos

Keystroke dynamics are used to authenticate users, to reveal some of their inherent or acquired characteristics and to assess their mental and physical states. The most common features utilized are the time intervals that the keys remain pressed and the time intervals that are required to use two consecutive keys. This paper examines which of these features are the most important and how utilization of these features can lead to better classification results. To achieve this, an existing dataset consisting of 387 logfiles is used, five classifiers are exploited and users are classified by gender and age. The results, while demonstrating the application of these two characteristics jointly on classifiers with high accuracy, answer the question of which keystroke dynamics features are more appropriate for classification with common classifiers.


Author(s):  
Lora I. Dimitrova ◽  
Eline M. Vissia ◽  
Hanneke Geugies ◽  
Hedwig Hofstetter ◽  
Sima Chalavi ◽  
...  

AbstractIt is unknown how self-relevance is dependent on emotional salience. Emotional salience encompasses an individual's degree of attraction or aversion to emotionally-valenced information. The current study investigated the interconnection between self and salience through the evaluation of emotional valence and self-relevance. 56 native Dutch participants completed a questionnaire assessing valence, intensity, and self-relevance of 552 Dutch nouns and verbs. One-way repeated-measures ANCOVA investigated the relationship between valence and self, age and gender. Repeated-measures ANCOVA also tested the relationship between valence and self with intensity ratings and effects of gender and age. Results showed a significant main effect of valence for self-relevant words. Intensity analyses showed a main effect of valence but not of self-relevance. There were no significant effects of gender and age. The most important finding presents that self-relevance is dependent on valence. These findings concerning the relationship between self and salience opens avenues to study an individual's self-definition.


Author(s):  
Pierluigi Carcagnì ◽  
Dario Cazzato ◽  
Marco Del Coco ◽  
Pier Luigi Mazzeo ◽  
Marco Leo ◽  
...  

AbstractIn thiswork, a real-time system able to automatically recognize soft-biometric traits is introduced and used to improve the capability of a humanoid robot to interact with humans. In particular the proposed system is able to estimate gender and age of humans in images acquired from the embedded camera of the robot. This knowledge allows the robot to properly react with customized behaviors related to the gender/age of the interacting individuals. The system is able to handle multiple persons in the same acquired image, recognizing the age and gender of each person in the robot’s field of view. These features make the robot particularly suitable to be used in socially assistive applications.


Author(s):  
Igor Linskiy ◽  
Valerii Kuzminov ◽  
Oleksandr Minko ◽  
Hanna Kozhyna ◽  
Yevheniia Grynevych ◽  
...  

The purpose of the work is to determine in the Ukrainian society the scale of harm inflicted by drinkers to other persons, as well as the gender and age characteristics of this harm. In four regions of Ukraine (Kharkiv, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, Kyiv), during 2018-2020, 1,742 people were examined from three qualitatively different comparison groups: patients with alcohol dependence (393 people); their healthy relatives (274 people) and representatives of the general population (1075 people). The main research tool was the questionnaire of the international research consortium GENAHTO (Gender, Alcohol, and Harms to Others). It was shown that, in general, drinkers are present in the microsocial environment of 27.62 % of the surveyed healthy respondents. Extrapolation of this indicator to the entire population of Ukraine suggests that the total number of people who suffer in one way or another due to the drinkers in their environment is about 11.6 million people. In addition, the drinkers frequency in the environment of respondents can be used to determine the real number of people with alcohol problems in our country. Preliminary calculations indicate that this number is from 1.5 to 2.2 million people. The drinkers frequency in the environment of the respondents significantly depends on the age of the latter. The highest values of this indicator are characteristic of the respondents in the age category 40—59 years old” (31.43 % for men and 41.27 % for women). The subjective perception of harm from drinkers in the environment grows steadily with increasing age of the respondents, while this growth is most pronounced in women.


Circulation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 141 (Suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Changwei Li ◽  
Ruiyuan Zhang ◽  
Luqi Shen ◽  
Sangzhu Laba

Background: Tibet has a disproportionately higher prevalence of hypertension, compared to other regions of China. This may be related to long-term exposure to the high altitude. The aim of our study is to evaluate associations of altitudes with prevalence of hypertension among residents aged 15 years and older in Tibet, China. Method: A total of 11,407 Tibet residents in the 5 th National Health Services Survey (NHSS) in 2013-2015 were included in this study. Physician diagnosed hypertension was determined based on self-report. County level altitude was identified and assigned to all residents in a county. Association between altitude and hypertension prevalence was assessed by two logistic regression models: model 1 adjusted for age and gender, and model 2 additionally adjusted for marital status, education, smoking, drinking, exercise, distance to a medical institute, area of residency, and body mass index (BMI). Non-linear relationship between altitude and prevalence of hypertension was explored by restricted cubic spline analyses. Sensitivity analysis were performed by restricting residents in rural and/or nomadic areas. Result: The prevalence of self-reported hypertension is 15.7%, the medication adherence rate is 14%, and the control rate is 10.3%. Compared to residents without physician diagnosed hypertension, those with hypertension were closer to a hospital, older, having lower education level, and less likely to be a smoker or live in an urban area. Altitude showed a U shape relationship with the prevalence of hypertension with a turning point at around 3,800 meters. For residents living more than 3,800 meters above sea level, a 1,000 meters increase in altitude was associated with 2.05 (95% confidence interval: 1.62-2.61) times higher odds of having physician diagnosed hypertension, after adjusting for age and gender. When further controlling for all covariates, the OR dropped to 1.87 (1.46-2.41) but still significant. For residents living below the altitude of 3,800 meters, 1000 meters’ increase was associated 0.55 (95% CI: 0.33-0.92) less likelihood of having physician diagnosed hypertension. Conclusion: The burden of self-reported hypertension was high among Tibet residents. Altitude was in a U-shaped association with the prevalence of hypertension with a turning point at around 3,800 meters.


2002 ◽  
Vol 41 (03) ◽  
pp. 202-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Yamasawa ◽  
S. Kamohara ◽  
M. Shiota ◽  
T. Komori ◽  
Y. Watanabe ◽  
...  

Summary Objectives: To improve insight into age and gender related distributions of serum lipids and their correlation with body mass index (BMI). Methods: Serum lipids embracing atherogenic index (AI) and BMI were analyzed from the results obtained in 19,823 men and 14,788 women undergoing a health examination between 1986 and 1996. Results: The changes in total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), AI and BMI differed regarding gender. Although high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) showed a flat pattern for all ages in both genders, its level in women was higher than in men. The ratio of the number in the unsuitable range to those in the suitable range increased with age as to TC in both sexes, then more than half of the population have an unsuitable level in the sixth decade. As for the correlation between serum lipids and BMI: TC, TG and AI correlated positively, but HDL-C correlated negatively. There were significant gaps between both age and gender. Conclusions: We suggest that the normal range of values of serum lipids needs to be revised according to gender and age to evaluate the risk status for a cardio-cerebrovascular disease more precisely in the field of preventive medicine. Simpler guidelines are preferable in specialized care as well as in general practice, particularly since computer technology is not yet universally adapted. In the near future, when computed information technology will be as common as the electricity and the telephone are current on the whole earth, all guidelines will have to be computed on the spot and personally.


2019 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jackson K Mukonzo ◽  
Allan Kengo ◽  
Bisaso Kutesa ◽  
Sarah Nanzigu ◽  
Anton Pohanka ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Suboptimal anti-TB drugs exposure may cause multidrug-resistant TB. The role of African predominant SLCO1B1 variant alleles on rifampicin pharmacokinetics and the subsequent effect on the occurrence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis–rifampicin sensitivity needs to be defined. We describe the rifampicin population pharmacokinetics profile and investigate the relevance of SLCO1B1 genotypes to rifampicin pharmacokinetics and rifampicin-TB sensitivity status. Methods Fifty patients with TB (n=25 with rifampicin-resistant TB and n=25 with rifampicin-susceptible TB) were genotyped for SLOC1B1 rs4149032 (g.38664C>T), SLOC1B1*1B (c.388A>G) and SLOC1B1*5 (c.521 T>C). Steady state plasma rifampicin levels were determined among patients infected with rifampicin-sensitive TB. Data were analysed using NONMEM to estimate population rifampicin pharmacokinetics as well as the effect of SLOC1B1 genotypes on rifampicin pharmacokinetics and on rifampicin-TB sensitivity status. Results Overall allele frequencies of SLOC1B1 rs4149032, *1B and *5 were 0.66, 0.90 and 0.01, respectively. Median (IQR) Cmax and Tmax were 10.2 (8.1–12.5) mg/L and 1.7 (1.125–2.218) h, respectively. Twenty-four percent of patients exhibited Cmax below the recommended 8–24 mg/L range. SLOC1B1 genotypes, gender and age did not influence rifampicin pharmacokinetics or TB-rifampicin sensitivity. Conclusions Although SLOC1B1 genotype, age and gender do not influence either rifampicin pharmacokinetics or rifampicin-TB sensitivity status, one in every four Ugandan TB patients achieve subtherapeutic plasma rifampicin concentrations.


2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Koffel ◽  
M. D. Kramer ◽  
P. A. Arbisi ◽  
C. R. Erbes ◽  
M. Kaler ◽  
...  

Background.Research suggests that personality traits have both direct and indirect effects on the development of psychological symptoms, with indirect effects mediated by stressful or traumatic events. This study models the direct influence of personality traits on residualized changes in internalizing and externalizing symptoms following a stressful and potentially traumatic deployment, as well as the indirect influence of personality on symptom levels mediated by combat exposure.Method.We utilized structural equation modeling with a longitudinal prospective study of 522 US National Guard soldiers deployed to Iraq. Analyses were based on self-report measures of personality, combat exposure, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms.Results.Both pre-deployment Disconstraint and externalizing symptoms predicted combat exposure, which in turn predicted internalizing and externalizing symptoms. There was a significant indirect effect for pre-deployment externalizing symptoms on post-deployment externalizing via combat exposure (p< 0.01). Negative Emotionality and pre-deployment internalizing symptoms directly predicted post-deployment internalizing symptoms, but both were unrelated to combat exposure. No direct effects of personality on residualized changes in externalizing symptoms were found.Conclusions.Baseline symptom dimensions had significant direct and indirect effects on post-deployment symptoms. Controlling for both pre-exposure personality and symptoms, combat experiences remained positively related to both internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Implications for diagnostic classification are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (17) ◽  
pp. 5957 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Garcia-Guzman ◽  
Yair A. Andrade-Ambriz ◽  
Mario-Alberto Ibarra-Manzano ◽  
Sergio Ledesma ◽  
Juan Carlos Gomez ◽  
...  

Category suggestions or recommendations for customers or users have become an essential feature for commerce or leisure websites. This is a growing topic that follows users’ activity in social networks generating a huge quantity of information about their interests, contacts, among many others. These data are usually collected to analyze people’s behavior, trends, and integrate a complete user profile. In this sense, we analyze a dataset collected from Pinterest to predict the gender and age by processing input images using a Convolutional Neural Network. Our method is based on the meaning of the image rather than the visual content. Additionally, we propose a heuristic-based approach for text analysis to predict users’ age and gender from Twitter. Both of the classifiers are based on text and images and they are compared with various similar approaches in the state of the art. Suggested categories are based on association rules conformed by the activity of thousands of users in order to estimate trends. Computer simulations showed that our approach can recommend interesting categories for a user analyzing his current interest and comparing this interest with similar users’ profiles or trends and, therefore, achieve an improved user profile. The proposed method is capable of predicting the user’s age with high accuracy, and at the same time, it is able to predict gender and category information from the user. The certainty that one or more suggested categories be interesting to people is higher for those users with a large number of publications.


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