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Swickert and colleagues surveyed young adults in the United States and found that gratitude and social support mediated the association between mindfulness and mood (both positive and negative affect). This study attempted to replicate Swickert et al.'s mediational findings using a young adult Hungarian sample. Results indicated that with one exception, the mediational findings were replicated. The exception was that for the Hungarians, gratitude did not mediate the association between mindfulness and negative affect. Overall, these findings indicate that the mediational effects of gratitude and social support are quite similar for individuals living in the United States and Hungary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High sensation seekers engage in more frequent substance use and perceive a host of potentially dangerous activities as less risky than do low sensation seekers. However, despite a plethora of research on these topics, no study has examined the extent to which personal substance use mediates the association between sensation seeking and perceived risk of substance use. To address this question, we recruited a sample of 79 young adults (mean age=19.1 years, standard deviation=1.4). Participants completed questionnaire measures of sensation seeking, substance use, and perceived risk of co-occurrent substance use. Results from path-analytic modeling indicated that both alcohol use and marijuana use mediated the influence of sensation seeking on perceptions of risk for moderately risky, but not highly risky, pairs of substances. Strengths and limitations of the present study were discussed and directions for future research were suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about how people might benefit from an indirectly experienced traumatic event. The authors examined the relationship between perception of benefit and trauma symptoms in response to a relatively severe, but indirectly experienced, traumatic event. The authors sampled from 2 colleges located in the southeastern United States (N = 136). Individuals responded to questionnaires that assessed perceived benefits and trauma symptoms 1–2 weeks after the terrorist attacks of September II, 2001, and again approximately 10 weeks later. Participants did perceive benefits from witnessing this event, although their perception of benefit declined over time. Level of trauma symptoms correlated positively with perception of benefit, and experiencing a previous trauma also correlated positively with perceived benefits. Additional analysis indicated that level of trauma symptoms mediated the relationship between previous trauma and perception of benefit. These findings help to elucidate understanding of the development of perceived benefits in response to indirectly experienced events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the development of a new self-report measure for assessing expectations for alcohol's cognitive effects and presents an empirical investigation of the association between cognitive alcohol expectancies and alcohol use. The present study also examined the potential moderating effects of need for cognition on the association between cognitive expectancies and drinking. Participants consisted of 179 college undergraduates from a midsized public university in the southeastern United States. Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses, conducted separately for males and females, indicated several main effects for both cognitive alcohol expectancies and need for cognition on alcohol use. In contrast to these main effects, there were no significant multiplicative interaction effects, suggesting that need for cognition did not moderate the direction of association between cognitive expectancies and drinking. The results of homologizer/moderator analyses, however, did indicate a number of significant interaction effects for both males and females. These significant homologizer findings indicated that the strength of association between cognitive alcohol expectancies and drinking increased as need for cognition increased. Implications of the present findings for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To rapidly prognosticate and generate hypotheses on pathogenesis, leukocyte multi-cellularity was evaluated in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients treated in India or the United States (152 individuals, 384 temporal observations). Within hospital (<90-day) death or discharge were retrospectively predicted based on the admission complete blood cell counts (CBC). Two methods were applied: (i) a "reductionist" one, which analyzes each cell type separately, and (ii) a "non-reductionist" method, which estimates multi-cellularity. The second approach uses a proprietary software package that detects distinct data patterns generated by complex and hypothetical indicators and reveals each data pattern's immunological content and associated outcome(s). In the Indian population, the analysis of isolated cell types did not separate survivors from non-survivors. In contrast, multi-cellular data patterns differentiated six groups of patients, including, in two groups, 95.5% of all survivors. Some data structures revealed one data point-wide line of observations, which informed at a personalized level and identified 97.8% of all non-survivors. Discovery was also fostered: some non-survivors were characterized by low monocyte/lymphocyte ratio levels. When both populations were analyzed with the non-reductionist method, they displayed results that suggested survivors and non-survivors differed immunologically as early as hospitalization day 1., Competing Interests: Author AA was employed by the company Stremble Ventures, LTD. Author AR is a co-inventor of the temporary guides used to recognize data patterns (European Union patent number 2959295, US patent number 10,429,389 B2). The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Verma, Libertin, Gupta, Khanna, Kumar, Arora, Krishna, Fasina, Hittner, Antoniades, van Regenmortel, Durvasula, Kempaiah and Rivas.)

The test positivity (TP) rate has emerged as an important metric for gauging the illness burden due to COVID-19. Given the importance of COVID-19 TP rates for understanding COVID-related morbidity, researchers and clinicians have become increasingly interested in comparing TP rates across countries. The statistical methods for performing such comparisons fall into two general categories: frequentist tests and Bayesian methods. Using data from Our World in Data (ourworldindata.org), we performed comparisons for two prototypical yet disparate pairs of countries: Bolivia versus the United States (large vs. small-to-moderate TP rates), and South Korea vs. Uruguay (two very small TP rates of similar magnitude). Three different statistical procedures were used: two frequentist tests (an asymptotic z-test and the 'N-1' chi-square test), and a Bayesian method for comparing two proportions (TP rates are proportions). Results indicated that for the case of large vs. small-to-moderate TP rates (Bolivia versus the United States), the frequentist and Bayesian approaches both indicated that the two rates were substantially different. When the TP rates were very small and of similar magnitude (values of 0.009 and 0.007 for South Korea and Uruguay, respectively), the frequentist tests indicated a highly significant contrast, despite the apparent trivial amount by which the two rates differ. The Bayesian method, in comparison, suggested that the TP rates were practically equivalent-a finding that seems more consistent with the observed data. When TP rates are highly similar in magnitude, frequentist tests can lead to erroneous interpretations. A Bayesian approach, on the other hand, can help ensure more accurate inferences and thereby avoid potential decision errors that could lead to costly public health and policy-related consequences., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)