And if you stay awake playing games at the casino, you tend to be 'brave' betting more and more...
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Posted: 09 March 2011

Casino at Marina Bay Sands
WASHINGTON: When people do not get enough sleep, they tend to make overly optimistic decisions and may be more prone to risky gambling, US researchers said on Tuesday.

The study published in the journal Neuroscience provides scientific evidence for what casino managers have long known - that flashing lights and ringing slot machines encourage gamblers to keep going until their money is gone.

Scientists used magnetic resonance imagining (MRI) to examine the brains of people who had spent a night of disturbed and shortened sleep compared to their better-rested counterparts.

The scans showed increased activity in the parts of the brain that assess positive outcomes, and decreased activity in the areas that process negative outcomes.

"Using a risky decision-making task, we showed that sleep deprivation shifted most persons' bias from avoiding loss to pursuing gain," said the study by Duke University researchers in North Carolina and Singapore.

The study examined 29 healthy adult volunteers with an average age of 22, and asked them to perform a series of economic decision-making tasks after a normal night of sleep and again after a night of sleep-deprivation.

Sleep deprivation "appears to create an optimism bias; for example, participants behave as if positive consequences are more likely (or more valuable) and as if negative consequences are less likely (or less harmful)," it said.

Drinking caffeine, getting fresh air or exercising are not enough to combat the effects of fatigue, said lead author Vinod Venkatraman, a graduate student in Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke.

"Late-night gamblers are fighting more than just the unfavourable odds of gambling machines; they are fighting a sleep-deprived brain's tendency to implicitly seek gains while discounting the impact of potential losses," said Venkatraman.

- AFP/de



Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Lack of sleep can make you overly optimistic, says study
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final of All-Japan Judo Championships in 2007Image via WikipediaWe had our internal meeting today, and one of the questions that I asked is how the company is managing the supply shortage with Japan out of the supply chain.

"They are scampering to switch substrates," was the answer. Who is the 'they'? Those in-charge, of course.

Anyway, that isn't the point at all.

The point is - that change is so massive, and so massive that if the future, in the event that Japan comes back to the playing field and starts producing, the switch back may not be that easy after all.

So the question is, when the time comes, and Japan springs back to production, will everybody else be willing to switch back?

I'm just preempting the possible extent of Japan's damage, even in its industries.

Will Japan ever recover position as world key player afterwards?

Just my thoughts...

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Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Damage (24RTR2JTXO)Image by Kordian via FlickrThe day Japan was struck by earthquake and tsunami, I briefly discussed with my wife the possible impact to the world of Japan's partial destruction (we know roughly what that means by now, and its extent, current extent).

"In a week's time," I said, "the impact will be felt by the world." And that is true enough. Roughly three weeks after the incident, we are already starting to feel the absence of a major key player in the semiconductor industry - while there are many subsidiaries worldwide, Japan is still the major source of raw materials that these outsourced franchises rely on to build their subsequent products that is consumed by worldwide factories.

What will Jack Welch and John Maxwell write about the Japan incident that we will learn from, all of us, not just leaders?

That book, if I live to see and read it, I am sure will be worth waiting for.

Perhaps it is too much of a tragedy that struck Japan, but were the japanese people thinking of being hit? they got hit, and they asked what anybody who gets hit asks, "Why me?!" That is as if to say, "Why not the others?"

Well, were they thinking of the others that got hit when they're not?

I'm not saying that all those who perished or suffered in that tragedy well deserve it, whatever that means. Sometimes we reap the consequences of our actions, but I am not saying that all who died or affected deserved the rightful judgement. Who am I to say that?

But this is my point. Were those who cried 'Foul!' rightly playing by the rules? Did they stop to think and empathize with those who were recently hit by similar tragedies in other parts of the world? Japan's case isn't the first one -  there's been too many - and it won't be the last. As predicted, the belt would be continuously moving, once it moves. How many more earthquakes are we therefore expecting?

And so, with a short thought from me, I hope we learn from what has happened to Japan, now, and then. And not only Japan, but also from Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, and from all the other countless incidents and accidents that has happened in the past - to prioritize what we should, and not live in this world alone, not mindful of others who are suffering, simply because we are well off and convenient in our small, little place. Let our mind be broader and our perspective wider, and we would be living in a better world, whatever hardship we face.

Hopefully, I live long enough to see and read and learn from the book that Jack Welch or John Maxwell will write about leadership lessons from the Japan earthquake and tsunami incidents.

I hope we all do.

Till then!
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