Too much at stake to uphold sport integrity? High-performance athletes’ involvement in match-fixing

Non-betting-related match-fixing constitutes an important integrity issue in contemporary sports. With varied forms ranging from passive tanking to the purposeful, coercive, calculated bribing of others to gain advantages, non-betting-related match-fixing can be a form of corruption that deters sport development. This paper examines high-performance athletes’ involvement in non-betting-related match-fixing in South Korea. Drawing from survey data (n=731), this paper describes and analyses the prevalence of match-fixing, its locales (i.e., levels of competition) and origins (i.e., who made the offer/approach). Results show that: (1) 74 athletes (10.12%) were approached to take part in match-fixing, while 33 of those athletes (4.51%) actually participated; and (2) the match-fixing offers were usually made ‘by coaches’, ‘at high school-level nationwide competitions’, ‘for the purpose of entering universities’. Finally, this paper concludes by suggesting that the excessive incentives (e.g., university admission) linked with elite sport development structures may account for the strong motive behind non-betting-related match-fixing, and its endangering of sport integrity.</p

Odds-wise view: Whose ideas prevail in the global integrity campaigns against match-fixing?

The global expansion of sports betting has resulted in the formation of (inter)national governing regimes aimed at sustaining revenue and regulating attendant issues, including match-fixing. This article explores the workings of these regimes vis-à-vis the management of match-fixing issues in sport. More particularly, this article focuses on betting monitoring programmes as countermeasures against match-fixing and conceptualises these as social instruments that ultimately define issues and influence the wider integrity agenda of anti-match-fixing campaigns. Analysing documentary, observation and interview data from two disparate monitoring programmes, the results show that betting monitoring is a technical extension of corporate risk management, invariably reflecting the business interests of the betting industry. Therefore, the operating logic of betting monitoring defines match-fixing as an act of sabotaging the competitive edge of betting companies. Moreover, this interest-laden paradigm reigns within the broader policy agenda of sport integrity by equating the betting industry's interest with that of sport. From this, the article suggests that betting monitoring plays a part in the legitimation of commercial gambling by reframing the issue of match-fixing as a common enemy that gambling and sport join forces to combat, not a risk that gambling brings to sport

Cotton Fabrics with Single-Faced Superhydrophobicity

This article reports on the fabrication of cotton fabrics with single-faced superhydrophobicity using a simple foam finishing process. Unlike most commonly reported superhydrophobic fabrics, the fabrics developed in this study exhibit asymmetric wettability on their two faces: one face showing superhydrophobic behavior (highly nonwetting or water-repellent characteristics) and the other face retaining the inherent hydrophilic nature of cotton. The superhydrophobic face exhibits a low contact angle hysteresis of θ_a/θ_r = 151°/144° (θ_a, advancing contact angle; θ_r, receding contact angle), which enables water drops to roll off the surface easily so as to endow the surface with well-known self-cleaning properties. The untreated hydrophilic face preserves its water-absorbing capability, resulting in 44% of the water-absorbing capacity compared to that of the original cotton samples with both sides untreated (hydrophilic). The single-faced superhydrophobic fabrics also retain moisture transmissibility that is as good as that of the original untreated cotton fabrics. They also show robust washing fastness with the chemical cross-linking process of hydrophobic fluoropolymer to fabric fibers. Fabric materials with such asymmetric or gradient wettability will be of great use in many applications such as unidirectional liquid transporting, moisture management, microfluidic systems, desalination of seawater, flow management in fuel cells, and water/oil separation

Air-Impregnated Nanoporous Anodic Aluminum Oxide Layers for Enhancing the Corrosion Resistance of Aluminum

Nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide layers were fabricated on aluminum substrates with systematically varied pore diameters (20–80 nm) and oxide thicknesses (150–500 nm) by controlling the anodizing voltage and time and subsequent pore-widening process conditions. The porous nanostructures were then coated with a thin (only a couple of nanometers thick) Teflon film to make the surface hydrophobic and trap air in the pores. The corrosion resistance of the aluminum substrate was evaluated by a potentiodynamic polarization measurement in 3.5 wt % NaCl solution (saltwater). Results showed that the hydrophobic nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide layer significantly enhanced the corrosion resistance of the aluminum substrate compared to a hydrophilic oxide layer of the same nanostructures, to bare (nonanodized) aluminum with only a natural oxide layer on top, and to the latter coated with a thin Teflon film. The hydrophobic nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide layer with the largest pore diameter and the thickest oxide layer (i.e., the maximized air fraction) resulted in the best corrosion resistance with a corrosion inhibition efficiency of up to 99% for up to 7 days. The results demonstrate that the air impregnating the hydrophobic nanopores can effectively inhibit the penetration of corrosive media into the pores, leading to a significant improvement in corrosion resistance

Spontaneous Spreading of a Droplet: The Role of Solid Continuity and Advancing Contact Angle

Spontaneous spreading of a droplet on a solid surface is poorly understood from a macroscopic level down to a molecular level. Here, we investigate the effect of surface topography and wettability on spontaneous spreading of a water droplet. Spreading force is measured for a suspended droplet that minimizes interference of kinetic energy in the spontaneous spreading during its contact with solid surfaces of discontinuous (pillar) and continuous (pore) patterns with various shapes and dimensions. Results show that a droplet cannot spread spontaneously on pillared surfaces regardless of their shapes or dimensions because of the solid discontinuity. On the contrary, a droplet on pored surfaces can undergo spontaneous spreading whose force increases with a decrease in the advancing contact angle. Theoretical models based on both the system free energy and capillary force along the contact line validate the direct and universal dependency of the spontaneous spreading force on the advancing contact angle

In Situ Control of Underwater-Pinning of Organic Droplets on a Surfactant-Doped Conjugated Polymer Surface

Controlling the pinning of organic droplets on solid surfaces is of fundamental and practical interest in the field of material science and engineering, which has numerous applications such as surface cleaning, water treatment, and microfluidics. Here, a rapid in situ control of pinning and actuation of organic droplets is demonstrated on dodecylbenzene­sulfonate-doped polypyrrole (PPy­(DBS)) surfaces in an aqueous environment via an electrochemical redox process. A dramatic change of the pinning results from the transport of DBS^– molecules between the PPy­(DBS) surface and the aqueous environment, as well as from a simultaneous alternation of the surface oleophobicity to organic liquids during the redox process. This in situ control of the droplet pinning enables a stop-and-go droplet actuation, applicable to both polar and apolar organic droplets, at low voltages (∼0.9 V) with an extremely low roll-off angle (∼0.4°)

Wafer-Scale Pattern Transfer of Metal Nanostructures on Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) Substrates via Holographic Nanopatterns

In this paper, we report on a cost-effective and simple, nondestructive pattern transfer method that allows the fabrication of metallic nanostructures on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate on a wafer scale. The key idea is to use holographic nanopatterns of a photoresist (PR) layer as template structures, where a metal film is directly deposited in order to replicate the nanopatterns of the PR template layer. Then, the PDMS elastomer is molded onto the metal film and the metal/PDMS composite layer is directly peeled off from the PR surface. Many metallic materials including Ti, Al, and Ag were successfully nanopatterned on PDMS substrates by the pattern transfer process with no use of any adhesion promoter layer or coating. In case of Au that has poor adhesion to PDMS material, a salinization of the metal surface with 3-(aminopropyl)-triethoxysilane (APTES) monolayer promoted the adhesion and led to successful pattern transfer. A series of adhesion tests confirmed the good adhesion of the transferred metal films onto the molded PDMS substrates, including scotch-tape and wet immersion tests. The inexpensive and robust pattern transfer approach of metallic nanostructures onto transparent and flexible PDMS substrates will open the new door for many scientific and engineering applications such as micro-/nanofluidics, optofluidics, nanophotonics, and nanoelectronics

Bubble Movement on Inclined Hydrophobic Surfaces

The movement of a single air bubble on an inclined hydrophobic surface submerged in water, including both the upward- and downward-facing sides of the surface, was investigated. A planar Teflon sheet with an apparent contact angle of a sessile water droplet of 106° was used as a hydrophobic surface. The volume of a bubble and the inclination angle of a Teflon sheet varied in the ranges 5–40 μL and 0–45°, respectively. The effects of the bubble volume on the adhesion and dynamics of the bubble were studied experimentally on the facing-up and facing-down surfaces of the submerged hydrophobic Teflon sheet, respectively, and compared. The result shows that the sliding angle has an inverse relationship with the bubble volume for both the upward- and downward-facing surfaces. However, at the same given volume, the bubble on the downward-facing surface spreads over a larger area of the hydrophobic surface than the upward-facing surface due to the greater hydrostatic pressure acting on the bubble on the downward-facing surface. This makes the lateral adhesion force of the bubble greater and requires a larger inclination angle to result in sliding

On-Demand Capture and Release of Organic Droplets Using Surfactant-Doped Polypyrrole Surfaces

In this paper, we demonstrate the controlled capture and release of dichloromethane (DCM) droplets on dodecylbenzenesulfonate-doped polypyrrole (PPy­(DBS)) surfaces in an aqueous environment. The droplets captured on oxidized PPy­(DBS) surfaces were released on-demand via a reduction process at ∼0.9 V, with controlled release time and droplet morphology. The release time of an entire droplet (2 ± 1 μL) was proportional to the thickness of the PPy­(DBS) coating, increasing from 11.5 to 26.3 s for thicknesses ranging from 0.6 to 5.1 μm. The droplet-release time was also affected by the redox voltages, and among the tested redox voltages, the fastest release was achieved at −0.9/0.1 V. The PPy­(DBS) surfaces with larger thicknesses were more durable for the droplet capture and release. The droplets were more rapidly released from PPy­(DBS) surfaces with increased surface roughness ratios, such as 6.0 s on a micropillared surface and 10.3 s on a meshed surface, as compared to 14.6 s on the 1.8 μm thick PPy­(DBS) surfaces coated on frosted-glass substrates (i.e., with random microstructures). The release of a single droplet was achieved by increasing the underwater oleophobicity of PPy­(DBS) surface via O₂ plasma treatment

Nanotexturing of Conjugated Polymers via One-Step Maskless Oxygen Plasma Etching for Enhanced Tunable Wettability

A one-step maskless oxygen plasma etching process is investigated to nanopattern conjugated polymer dodecylbenzenesulfonate doped polypyrrole (PPy­(DBS)) and to examine the effects of nanostructures on the inherent tunable wettability of the surface and the droplet mobility. Etching characteristics such as the geometry and dimensions of the nanostructures are systematically examined for the etching power and duration. The mechanism of self-formation of vertically aligned dense-array pillared nanostructures in the one-step maskless oxygen plasma etching process is also investigated. Results show that lateral dimensions such as the periodicity and diameter of the pillared nanostructures are insensitive to the etching power and duration, whereas the length and aspect ratio of the nanostructures increase with them. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis and thermal treatment of the polymer reveal that the codeposition of impurities on the surface resulting from the holding substrate is the primary reason for the self-formation of nanostructures during the oxygen plasma etching, whereas the local crystallinity subject to thermal treatment has a minor effect on the lateral dimensions. Retaining the tunable wettability (oleophobicity) for organic droplets during the electrochemical redox (i.e., reduction and oxidization) process, the nanotextured PPy­(DBS) surface shows significant enhancement of droplet mobility compared to that of the flat PPy­(DBS) surface with no nanotexture by making the surface superoleophobic (i.e., in a Cassie–Baxter wetting state). Such enhancement of the tunable oleophobicity and droplet mobility of the conjugated polymer will be of great significance in many applications such as microfluidics, lab-on-a-chip devices, and water/oil treatment