RESUMO
Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) was first practiced by Buddhists and then developed by clinical psychologist. Previous studies on LKM have mainly focused on the impact of real person-guided meditation on depression, anxiety, and other negative psychology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this study explored the effect and mechanism of media-guided LKM on the improvement of social presence, mindfulness, spirituality, and subjective wellbeing (SWB). From the viewpoint of positive psychology, this study compared the different media effects of animated pedagogical agent (APA)-guided LKM and audio-guided LKM. A total of 82 flight attendants were recruited from airlines; then, they were randomly assigned to two groups: APA group (41 participants) and audio group (41 participants), which both underwent an 8-week LKM training intervention. The aforementioned four main variables were measured pre and post the meditation experiment. The results indicated that both APA-guided meditation and audio-guided meditation significantly improved subjects' spirituality and SWB. Compared with audio-guided meditation, APA-guided meditation significantly improved the subjects' spirituality, SWB, and social presence. Audio-guided meditation has no significant effect on social presence. This study highlights APA-guided meditation has a positive effect on spirituality, SWB, and social presence, which may provide individuals with a simple and easy method to improve their mental health.
RESUMO
Creativity is so important for social and technological development that people are eager to find an easy way to enhance it. Previous studies have shown that mindfulness has significant effects on positive affect (PA), working memory capacity, cognitive flexibility and many other aspects, which are the key to promoting creativity. However, there are few studies on the relationship between mindfulness and creativity. The mechanism between mindfulness and creativity is still uncertain. Meditation is an important method of mindfulness training, but for most people who do not have the basic training, it's difficult to master how to get into a state of mindfulness. Animation has been shown by many studies to help improve cognition and is often used as a guiding tool. Using animation as the guiding carrier of meditation is more convenient and easier to accept. Therefore, this study adopted the intervention method of animation-guided meditation, aiming to explore: (1) the effect of animation-guided meditation on enhancing creativity; (2) the role of flow and emotion in the influence of mindfulness on creativity. We advertised recruitment through the internal network of a creative industrial park, and the final 95 eligible participants were divided into two groups: animation (n = 48) and audio (n = 47) guided meditation. The animation group was given an animated meditation intervention, and the audio group was given an audio meditation intervention, both interventions were performed 3 times a week and last for 8 weeks. Results: (1) Animation-guided meditation significantly increased participants' mindfulness and creativity levels; Significantly reduced their cognitive load compared to audio-guided meditation. (2) Mindfulness has a significant direct effect on creativity, and significant indirect effects on creativity; Flow and PA act as the mediating variable. Conclusion: (1) Mindfulness, flow, and PA all helped to improve the subjects' work creativity. In addition to the direct positive impact of mindfulness on creativity, mindfulness can also have an indirect positive impact on creativity through flow and PA. (2) Compared with audio, animation can significantly reduce cognitive load and help improve users' cognitive ability, which is more suitable for the guidance materials of mindfulness meditation to enhance the effect of meditation.
RESUMO
Russell's vipers (RVs) envenoming is an important public health issue in South-East Asia. Disseminated intravascular coagulopathy, systemic bleeding, hemolysis, and acute renal injury are obvious problems that develop in most cases, and neuromuscular junction blocks are an additional problem caused by western RV snakebite. The complex presentations usually are an obstacle to early diagnosis and antivenom administration. Here, we tried to produce highly specific antibodies in goose yolks for use in a paper-based microfluidic diagnostic kit, immunochromatographic test of viper (ICT-Viper), to distinguish RVs from other vipers and even cobra snakebite in Asia. We used indirect ELISA to monitor specific goose IgY production and western blotting to illustrate the interaction of avian or mammal antibody with venom proteins. The ICT-Viper was tested not only in prepared samples but also in stored patient serum to demonstrate its preliminary efficacy. The results revealed that specific anti-Daboia russelii IgY could be raised in goose eggs effectively without inducing adverse effects. When it was collocated with horse anti-Daboia siamensis antibody, which broadly reacted with most of the venom proteins of both types of Russell's viper, the false cross-reactivity was reduced, and the test showed good performance. The limit of detection was reduced to 10 ng/ml in vitro, and the test showed good detection ability in clinical snake envenoming case samples. The ICT-Viper performed well and could be combined with a cobra venom detection kit (ICT-Cobra) to create a multiple detection strip (ICT-VC), which broadens its applications while maintaining its detection ability for snake envenomation identification. Nonetheless, the use of the ICT-Viper in the South-East Asia region is pending additional laboratory and field investigations and regional collaboration. We believe that the development of this practical diagnostic tool marks the beginning of positive efforts to face the global snakebite issue.
