The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative ...emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world. PROTOCOL REGISTRATION: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 12 May 2020. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4878591.v1.
The COVID-19 pandemic (and its aftermath) highlights a critical need to communicate health information effectively to the global public. Given that subtle differences in information framing can have ...meaningful effects on behavior, behavioral science research highlights a pressing question: Is it more effective to frame COVID-19 health messages in terms of potential losses (e.g., “If you do not practice these steps, you can endanger yourself and others”) or potential gains (e.g., “If you practice these steps, you can protect yourself and others”)? Collecting data in 48 languages from 15,929 participants in 84 countries, we experimentally tested the effects of message framing on COVID-19-related judgments, intentions, and feelings. Loss- (vs. gain-) framed messages increased self-reported anxiety among participants cross-nationally with little-to-no impact on policy attitudes, behavioral intentions, or information seeking relevant to pandemic risks. These results were consistent across 84 countries, three variations of the message framing wording, and 560 data processing and analytic choices. Thus, results provide an empirical answer to a global communication question and highlight the emotional toll of loss-framed messages. Critically, this work demonstrates the importance of considering unintended affective consequences when evaluating nudge-style interventions.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, ...and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data.
Background. It is recommended that botulinum toxin be used immediately or within 2 weeks after its reconstitution because its efficacy might be compromised by prolonged storage.
Objectives. To ...evaluate the efficacy of botulinum toxin type A (BTX‐A) reconstituted over 6 consecutive weeks for the treatment of glabellar frown lines.
Methods. Four vials of BTX‐A were reconstituted each of 7 days over a period of 6 weeks, totaling 28 vials, corresponding to seven reconstitution dates. During this period, the BTX‐A was stored according to the manufacturer's instructions. On the day after the last reconstitution, all of the reconstituted vials were injected in patients from four dermatologic centers taking part in this study. A total of 88 patients were treated on the same day and were followed every 2 weeks for 4 months. All patients were photographed at all stages. A number of professionals assessed the efficacy of reconstituted BTX‐A based on the reduction of the maximum frowning capacity of the treated muscles.
Results. Of the 88 patients who were selected, 3 were excluded. Three forms of evaluation were applied, and no statistically significant differences were found in the results presented.
Conclusion. BTX‐A may be applied up to 6 weeks after reconstitution without losing its effectiveness. Other factors, which are probably individual, may influence the response to BTX‐A injections.
α-Galactosides are abundant sugars found in legumes such as soybean. Since humans and monogastric animals lack α-galactosidase in the digestive tract, they are unable to digest these sugars, which ...induce flatulence. The use of α-galactosidases is promising as a means to overcome this problem, and to increase the consumption of soy products. Immobilized α-galactosidase, derived from
Debaryomyces hansenii UFV-1, exhibited an activity of 40
U per g of silica and an activity yield of 50%. The optimum pH of free and immobilized α-galactosidase was 5.0 and the optima temperatures were 60 and 80
°C, respectively. The soymilk stachyose was completely hydrolyzed by different enzyme forms after incubation for 4
h at 60
°C, while raffinose was reduced by 100%, 25% and 68% by free, immobilized enzymes and permeabilized cells, respectively. The soy molasses treatment with free enzyme for 6
h promoted reduction in stachyose and raffinose contents by 100% and 50%, respectively.
Open reading frame expressed sequences tags (ORESTES) differ from conventional ESTs by providing sequence data from the central protein coding portion of transcripts. We generated a total of 696,745 ...ORESTES sequences from 24 human tissues and used a subset of the data that correspond to a set of 15,095 full-length mRNAs as a means of assessing the efficiency of the strategy and its potential contribution to the definition of the human transcriptome. We estimate that ORESTES sampled over 80% of all highly and moderately expressed, and between 40% and 50% of rarely expressed, human genes. In our most thoroughly sequenced tissue, the breast, the 130,000 ORESTES generated are derived from transcripts from an estimated 70% of all genes expressed in that tissue, with an equally efficient representation of both highly and poorly expressed genes. In this respect, we find that the capacity of the ORESTES strategy both for gene discovery and shotgun transcript sequence generation significantly exceeds that of conventional ESTs. The distribution of ORESTES is such that many human transcripts are now represented by a scaffold of partial sequences distributed along the length of each gene product. The experimental joining of the scaffold components, by reverse transcription-PCR, represents a direct route to transcript finishing that may represent a useful alternative to full-length cDNA cloning.
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