Twitters Impact on Sports Media Relations

The introduction of Social Media (SM) into sports communications in professional leagues is disrupting the traditional methods of sports media relations. In the past, teams used websites to post information for fans, but it was strictly a one-way format of communication whereby a story was posted for fans to read. To fully engage with this new communication channel, the sports communications departments in professional leagues have begun to use SM to communicate directly with fans through platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Currently, SM like Twitter allows the team communication departments to communicate directly with fans in an interactive two-way format that is not mediated by a reporter or someone from a traditional media outlet. In addition, the open format of SM means that media relations staff are no longer the only intermediary between the media and the players; through the use of SM like Twitter, a professional athlete can now communicate directly to fans without gatekeepers like the media or the sports communications department of the team. This thesis will explore how SM has changed media relations from several different perspectives. The first perspective is related to the risks that are associated with the use of SM by professional athletes: without an intermediary or a filter for athlete-fan communication, many athletes have caused irreparable damage to their reputation and the reputation of their team. The second perspective is related to the benefits for teams that use SM as a platform to connect with fans: the ability to connect with fans using SM is new to sports communications and represents an interactive one-to-one and one-to-many mode of communication through which the fan can directly communicate with the team. Finally, this research will look at how Twitter has changed media relations in sports from the perspective of the lived experiences of people who work in sports media. To explore the risks associated with athletes’ use of social media, this research used Situational Crisis Communication Theory as a theoretical framework to explore reputation-damaging incidents that occurred through social media. The study reviewed national media stories reported in North America from 2009 to 2010 that were perceived to have negative impact on athletes’ reputation. In total, 17 incidents were reviewed — seven incidents in particular demonstrated the athlete as the source of the SM crisis. Through the review and categorization of these 17 situations, the study was able to identify four broad categories of situations that a sports communication manager needs to be prepared for. The four categories identified were “Rookie Reporter”, “Team Insider”, “Opportunist”, and “Imposter”. Each of these categories are invaluable for team communication managers to recognize in order to address the risks associated with social media. To explore the benefits associated with the communications department’s use of social media, this research used Uses and Gratification theory as a theoretical framework to explore how and why fans followed team Twitter accounts. This study was conducted in partnership with the Canadian Football League (CFL) and a total of 526 people responded to an online survey that was tweeted out to them for their feedback. The results of the survey indicated several significant findings — in particular, the phenomenon of converged sports fan consumption was identified, which has not been previously acknowledged in academic research. The phenomenon of converged sports fan refers to the multi-screen environment whereby a sports fan decides where, when, and how they want to consume sporting content. This research identified that in-game consumption of SM while watching television and the mobile consumption of SM are both dominant ways for fans to interact with their teams. This multi-modal format of connecting with the team supports the idea of Henry Jenkins’s Black Box Fallacy (2006, p. 13): as teams move forward in developing communications platforms to reach their fans, they will need to recognize that all channels can and do work together. In order to further understand how Twitter has changed sports media relations, the study used long semi-structured interviews with a phenomenological research design to understand how Twitter has impacted sports media relations. The phenomenological analysis of the informant interviews suggested that Twitter is the source of three themes of change: general media relations, mechanical job functions, and other changes specific to sports media relations. The significance of Twitter’s impact on sports media relations cannot be understated. With the ubiquitous use of SM like Twitter, it is important to understand how sports media relations can use SM to manage the image of their respective teams and athletes. After looking at SM and sports from three different perspectives, the pivotal finding was the role that Twitter and mobile communications play in ‘flattening’ sports media relations. Similar to how Friedman (2006) argued that the convergence of the personal computer drove globalization, Twitter and the increased adoption of mobile communications have flattened the role of sports media relations. This research will explain how the flattening of sports media relations happened and what the implications might be for sports media professionals

Method and apparatus for minimizing multiple degree of freedom vibration transmission between two regions of a structure

Arrays of actuators are affixed to structural elements to impede the transmission of vibrational energy. A single pair is used to provide control of bending and extensional waves and two pairs are used to control torsional motion. The arrays are applied to a wide variety of structural elements such as a beam structure that is part of a larger framework that may or may not support a rigid or non-rigid skin. Electrical excitation is applied to the actuators that generate forces on the structure. These electrical inputs may be adjusted in their amplitude and phase by a controller in communication with appropriate vibrational wave sensors to impede the flow of vibrational power in all of the above mentioned wave forms beyond the actuator location. Additional sensor elements can be used to monitor the performance and adjust the electrical inputs to maximize the attenuation of vibrational energy

Improving Service Experiences with Mobile Ethnography: The Case of two Attractions in Toronto

Introduction: Tourism destination competitiveness has been one of the main areas of research in the past twenty years (e.g., Dwyer & Kim, 2003; Enright & Newton, 2004; Ritchie & Crouch, 2003). The competitiveness of any destination relies, in part, on the quality of the customer experience that is delivered in its tourist attractions. More specifically, tourist satisfaction is based on visitors’ assessment of an experience as compared to their expectations. It is therefore essential for attractions to not only monitor visitor satisfaction, but also to continuously improve the design of the services and experiences that are provided. The purpose of this study was to conduct a service evaluation of two Toronto attractions with an innovative mobile ethnographic method. Literature: Tourism marketing is evolving at a fast pace. Because of rapid and recent technological advances (e.g., Internet access, web 2.0 technology and the ubiquity of smartphones), consumers are increasingly becoming the voice of destinations and tourist services (Dimanche, 2010). They voice their opinions in blogs, review and rate facilities, hotels, and restaurants, and share this information with pictures and videos on social media. We are shifting towards a peer-marketing approach where consumers are the most effective medium to communicate about a brand and the experiences it proposes (Buhalis & Law, 2008). As a result, it has become more important than ever for managers and marketers to focus on the quality of the experience and to work on experience design and improvement with their customers (Andrades & Dimanche, 2014). Service design has only been recently used in tourism management and tourism research (Dimanche, Keup, & Prayag, 2012; Stickdorn & Zehrer, 2009). In particular, a mobile ethnographic methodology was developed in Europe to provide destinations and service providers with alternative tool to consumer surveys that would provide richer and innovative information (Stickdorn & Frischhut, 2012). Methodology: This research uses an innovative methodology, mobile ethnography, to help improve the tourist experience in two Toronto attractions: the CN Tower and the Royal Ontario Museum. Service design is a customer-based approach to designing and improving visitor experiences. The methodology (Dimanche, Prayag, & Keup, 2014; Stickdorn & Frischhut, 2012) relies on volunteers to use their own smartphones to document their customer journeys through an App called ExperienceFellow (please visit experiencefellow.com for more information about the research tool). Other researchers have previously used and recommended mobile ethnographies (e.g., Hein, O\u27Donohoe, and Ryan, 2011; Tan, Foo, Goh, and Theng, 2009). Benefits of this method are that we can collect data on the service delivery site, at the time of service delivery, and in an unobtrusive way. About 50 students from a large urban university were asked to upload the App ExperienceFellow before a visit to (1) the CN Tower or (2) the Royal Ontario Museum. They were asked to identify and rate through the App the various touchpoints that mattered to them, either positively or negatively (i.e., on a 1 to 5 point scale), during the visit. By doing so, they built their own service journey and had to document each touchpoint with evidence recorded on their smartphone (i.e., a picture, a video, a text message, or a voice recording). Results: All information collected through the App was then uploaded on the ExperienceFellow server. Once all data were uploaded, the researchers could analyze the experiences through the eyes of the visitors, and make recommendations to the CN Tower and to the ROM for improvement. An application was used to graphically illustrate the visitor journeys with a storyboard including comments and testimonies made by visitors. As a result, researchers identified significant points of the service journey. Quality points to be emphasized and promoted, areas of improvement, significant problems were then synthesized in reports with recommendations for the attractions. Conclusions: This research responds to the conference call for helping destinations and attractions reimagine and reinvent customer experiences. It describes an innovative method that involves young visitors and their ability to easily use smartphones to address tourism service evaluation and identify significant service touch points, from the customers’ perspective, in the context of two urban attractions. Different from traditional service evaluation studies where visitors are asked to rate pre-identified items, this approach gives the subjects a free-hand in identifying touch points and in documenting not only how the touch points are evaluated and why, but also how the service can be improved. Rich audio-visual records of the visitor experience contribute to service improvement and service innovation. The Director of the Office of Tourism in Antibes Juan Les Pins found the tool and method useful and promising; he intends to propose to his board that this method be integrated into the DMO’s quality control process. References: Andrades, L., & Dimanche, F. (2014). Co-creation of experience value: A tourist behavior approach. In N. Prebensen, J. Chen, & M. Uysal (Eds.), Creating experience value in tourism (pp. 95-112). London: CABI. Buhalis, D., & Law, R. (2008). Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research. Tourism management, 29(4), 609-623. Dwyer, L., & Kim, C. (2003). Destination competitiveness: Determinants and Indicators. Current Issues in Tourism, 6(5), 369–413. Enright, M. J., & Newton, J. (2004). Tourism Destination Competitiveness: A Quantitative Approach. Tourism Management, 25 (6), 777–788. Dimanche, F. (2010). En quête de la génération “C”: Pour un nouvel agenda de recherche marketing et tourisme. [In search of the C-generation: Towards a new tourism marketing research agenda]. Mondes du Tourisme, 1(1), 30-38. Dimanche, F., Prayag, G., & Keup, M. (2014). Le service design dans le tourisme: Une approche ethnographique mobile [Service design in tourism: A mobile ethnographic approach]. Mondes du Tourisme Hors-Série [Special Issue], 32-42. Dimanche, F., Keup, M., & Prayag, G. (2012). What is service design? The service experience (Ch. 1.1). In M. Stickdorn and Birgit Frischhut (Eds.), Service Design and Tourism (pp. 11-14). Norderstedt, Germany: Books on Demand. Hein, W., O\u27Donohoe, S., & Ryan, A. (2011). Mobile phones as an extension of the participant observer\u27s self: Reflections on the emergent role of an emergent technology. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 14(3). 258-273. Doi: 10.1108/13522751111137497 Ritchie, J. R. B., & Crouch, G.I. (2003). The Competitive Destination: A Sustainable Tourism Perspective. Wallingford, UK: CABI.Stickdorn, M., & Frischhut, B. (Eds.) (2012). Service Design and Tourism. Norderstedt, Germany: Books on Demand. Stickdorn, M., & Zehrer, A. (2009, October). Service design in tourism: Customer experience driven destination management. First Nordic Conference on Service Design and Service Innovation. Oslo, Norway. Tan, E.M.Y., Foo, S., Goh, D., & Theng, Y.L. (2007). An analysis of services for the mobile tourist. Proceedings of The International Conference on Mobile Technology, Applications and Systems, Singapore, September 10-12

Quantum bistability and spin current shot noise of a single quantum dot coupled to an optical microcavity

Here we explore spin dependent quantum transport through a single quantum dot coupled to an optical microcavity. The spin current is generated by electron tunneling between a single doped reservoir and the dot combined with intradot spin flip transitions induced by a quantized cavity mode. In the limit of strong Coulomb blockade, this model is analogous to the Jaynes-Cummings model in quantum optics and generates a pure spin current in the absence of any charge current. Earlier research has shown that in the classical limit where a large number of such dots interact with the cavity field, the spin current exhibits bistability as a function of the laser amplitude that drives the cavity. We show that in the limit of a single quantum dot this bistability continues to be present in the intracavity photon statistics. Signatures of the bistable photon statistics manifest themselves in the frequency dependent shot noise of the spin current despite the fact that the quantum mechanical average spin current no longer exhibits bistability. Besides having significance for future quantum dot based optoelectronic devices, our results shed light on the relation between bistability, which is traditionally viewed as a classical effect, and quantum mechanics

VESPRO: Statistical Report

An individual patient data prospective meta-analysis (IPD_PMA) of selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) versus sorafenib for advanced, locally advanced or recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) of the SARAH and SIRveNIB trial

Rapid sediment deposition and fine-scale strata formation in the Hudson estuary

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 109 (2004): F02004, doi:10.1029/2003JF000096.A 9 month time series of tripod-mounted optical and acoustic measurements of sediment concentration and bed elevation was used to examine depositional processes in relationship to hydrodynamic variables in the Hudson River estuary. A series of cores was also taken directly under and adjacent to the acoustic measurements to examine the relation between the depositional processes and the resulting fine-scale stratigraphy. The measurements reveal that deposition occurs as a result of sediment flux convergence behind a salinity front and that the accumulation rates are sufficient to deposit up to 25 cm of new high-porosity sediment in a single ebb-tidal phase. Subsequent dewatering and erosion reduces the thickness of the initial deposit to several centimeters. These depositional events were only observed on spring tides. Ten depositional events during two spring tidal cycles produced a seasonal deposit of 18 cm, consistent with estimates of seasonal deposition from cores. A proxy for near-bed suspended grain size variations was estimated from the combined acoustic and optical measurements, implying that the erosional processes resuspend only the finer-grained sediments, thus leaving behind silt and very fine grained sand beds. The thickness of the deposited homogenous clayey silt beds, and the vertical separation between beds interlaminated with silt and very fine sand, are roughly consistent with the acoustic measurements of changes in bed elevations during deposition and erosion. The variability in individual bed thickness is the result of variations of processes over an individual tidal cycle and is not a product of variations over the spring neap fortnightly timescale.The authors would like to acknowledge the Hudson River Foundation, who provided funding for this work under grant 009/00A

Molecular signatures of differential responses to exercise trainings during rehabilitation.

The loss and recovery of muscle mass and function following injury and during rehabilitation varies among individuals. While recent expression profiling studies have illustrated transcriptomic responses to muscle disuse and remodeling, how these changes contribute to the physiological responses are not clear. In this study, we quantified the effects of immobilization and subsequent rehabilitation training on muscle size and identified molecular pathways associated with muscle responsiveness in an orthopaedic patient cohort study. The injured leg of 16 individuals with ankle injury was immobilized for a minimum of 4 weeks, followed by a 6-week rehabilitation program. The maximal cross-sectional area (CSA) of the medial gastrocnemius muscle of the immobilized and control legs were determined by T1-weighted axial MRI images. Genome-wide mRNA profiling data were used to identify molecular signatures that distinguish the patients who responded to immobilization and rehabilitation and those who were considered minimal responders. RESULTS: Using 6% change as the threshold to define responsiveness, a greater degree of changes in muscle size was noted in high responders (−14.9 ± 3.6%) compared to low responders (0.1 ± 0.0%) during immobilization. In addition, a greater degree of changes in muscle size was observed in high responders (20.5 ± 3.2%) compared to low responders (2.5 ± 0.9%) at 6-week rehabilitation. Microarray analysis showed a higher number of genes differentially expressed in the responders compared to low responders in general; with more expression changes observed at the acute stage of rehabilitation in both groups. Pathways analysis revealed top molecular pathways differentially affected in the groups, including genes involved in mitochondrial function, protein turn over, integrin signaling and inflammation. This study confirmed the extent of muscle atrophy due to immobilization and recovery by exercise training is associated with distinct remodeling signature, which can potentially be used for evaluating and predicting clinical outcomes

Attenuation of Frontostriatal Connectivity During Reward Processing Predicts Response to Psychotherapy in Major Depressive Disorder

There are few reliable predictors of response to antidepressant treatments. In the present investigation, we examined pretreatment functional brain connectivity during reward processing as a potential predictor of response to Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression (BATD), a validated psychotherapy that promotes engagement with rewarding stimuli and reduces avoidance behaviors. Thirty-three outpatients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 20 matched controls completed two runs of the monetary incentive delay task during functional magnetic resonance imaging after which participants with MDD received up to 15 sessions of BATD. Seed-based generalized psychophysiological interaction analyses focused on task-based connectivity across task runs, as well as the attenuation of connectivity from the first to the second run of the task. The average change in Beck Depression Inventory-II scores due to treatment was 10.54 points, a clinically meaningful response. Groups differed in seed-based functional connectivity among multiple frontostriatal regions. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that improved treatment response to BATD was predicted by greater connectivity between the left putamen and paracingulate gyrus during reward anticipation. In addition, MDD participants with greater attenuation of connectivity between several frontostriatal seeds, and midline subcallosal cortex and left paracingulate gyrus demonstrated improved response to BATD. These findings indicate that pretreatment frontostriatal functional connectivity during reward processing is predictive of response to a psychotherapy modality that promotes improving approach-related behaviors in MDD. Furthermore, connectivity attenuation among reward-processing regions may be a particularly powerful endophenotypic predictor of response to BATD in MDD

Sustained anterior cingulate cortex activation during reward processing predicts response to psychotherapy in major depressive disorder

The purpose of the present investigation was to evaluate whether pre-treatment neural activation in response to rewards is a predictor of clinical response to Behavioral Activation Therapy for Depression (BATD), an empirically validated psychotherapy that decreases depressive symptoms by increasing engagement with rewarding stimuli and reducing avoidance behaviors

Physiology regulates the relationship between coccosphere geometry and growth phase in coccolithophores

Coccolithophores are an abundant phytoplankton group that exhibit remarkable diversity in their biology, ecology and calcitic exoskeletons (coccospheres). Their extensive fossil record is a testament to their important biogeochemical role and is a valuable archive of biotic responses to environmental change stretching back over 200 million years. However, to realise the full potential of this archive for (palaeo-)biology and biogeochemistry requires an understanding of the physiological processes that underpin coccosphere architecture. Using culturing experiments on four modern coccolithophore species (Calcidiscus leptoporus, Calcidiscus quadriperforatus, Helicosphaera carteri and Coccolithus braarudii) from three long-lived families, we investigate how coccosphere architecture responds to shifts from exponential (rapid cell division) to stationary (slowed cell division) growth phases as cell physiology reacts to nutrient depletion. These experiments reveal statistical differences in coccosphere size and the number of coccoliths per cell between these two growth phases, specifically that cells in exponential-phase growth are typically smaller with fewer coccoliths, whereas cells experiencing growth-limiting nutrient depletion have larger coccosphere sizes and greater numbers of coccoliths per cell. Although the exact numbers are species-specific, these growth-phase shifts in coccosphere geometry demonstrate that the core physiological responses of cells to nutrient depletion result in increased coccosphere sizes and coccoliths per cell across four different coccolithophore families (Calcidiscaceae, Coccolithaceae, Isochrysidaceae and Helicosphaeraceae), a representative diversity of this phytoplankton group. Building on this, the direct comparison of coccosphere geometries in modern and fossil coccolithophores enables a proxy for growth phase to be developed that can be used to investigate growth responses to environmental change throughout their long evolutionary history. Our data also show that changes in growth rate and coccoliths per cell associated with growth-phase shifts can substantially alter cellular calcite production. Coccosphere geometry is therefore a valuable tool for accessing growth information in the fossil record, providing unprecedented insights into the response of species to environmental change and the potential biogeochemical consequences