Educating for the Gaming Industry: Need, Profile, and Suggested Schema

As legalized gambling becomes increasingly widespread and competitive, operators seek employees who understand its unique culture and demands. Today, few baccalaureate programs offer gaming management education. Gaming subject areas for college programs span three content spheres: (a) gaming and games themselves; (b) gaming interfaces with other hospitality subjects (lodging, accounting); and (c) the gaming/hospitality environment (regulation, economics). In a given academic program, gaming content integration can be measured along a continuum, from nonexistent, to somewhat integrated within existing courses, to comprising a central educational focus

Demonstrations of Arkansas\u27 Water Management Simulator

One of the larger stumbling blocks to comprehensive water management is the lack of public understanding of the multitude of variables that operate at the same time within the hydrologic cycle. With more public understanding, there is greater public support for various water projects. Dr. John R. Amend from Montana State University developed a water management simulator which could handle a large number of variables simultaneously of natural surface and groundwater flow plus a number of water use variables on an accelerated time sequence. By using several remote control devices, participants can control their water use but have no control over other participants competing for the same water molecule. The purpose of this information transfer project was to demonstrate the use of the water management simulator and to begin to develop experienced teams of people from government agencies and academia to explain its operation to local professional and civic groups. The interest level is very high for the team members to learn about the operation of the water management simulator. The simulator demonstrations have been well received by various audiences

Bias and uncertainty in the absorption emission measurement of atomic sodium density in the SSME exit plane

The measurement of atomic sodium concentration in the TTB 019 firing of April 1990 is significant in that it represents the first measurement of density at the exit plane of the space shuttle main engine. The knowledge of the sodium density, combined with the certainty that the exit plane of the plume is optically thin at the sodium D-line wavelengths, provides essential information for evaluation of diagnostic techniques using sodium atoms, such as resonant Doppler velocimetry for temperature, pressure, and velocity through high resolution fluorescent lineshape analysis. The technique used for the sodium atom line transmission (SALT) measurements is that of resonant absorption emission using a hollow cathode lamp as the reference source. Through the use of two-dimensional kinetic (TDK) predictions of temperature and density for the flight engine case and radiative transfer calculations, this line-of-sight spectrally integrated transmission indicates a sodium atom concentration, i.e., mole fraction, of 0.91e-10. The subject of this paper is the assumptions and measurement uncertainties tied into the calculation. Because of the narrow shape of the source emission, the uncertainties in the absorption profile could introduce considerable bias in the measurement. The following were investigated: (1) the inclusion of hyperfine splitting of the D-lines in the calculation; (2) the use of the flight engine predictions of plume temperature and density versus those for the large throat engine; (3) the assumption of a Gaussian, i.e., Doppler, distribution for the source radiance with a temperature of 400 K; (4) the use of atomic collisional shift and width values for the work by Jongerius; and (5) a Doppler shift for a 7 degree outward velocity vector at the plume edge. Also included in the study was the bias introduced by an uncertainty in the measurement of the D1/D2 line ratio in the source

An Evolutionary View of the Critical Functions of Slot Machine Technology

The U.S. gaming industry has grown from its infancy in the early 1930s to a maturing giant in the 1990s. With this growth has come an evolution in management functions associated with one of the major components of casino operations, the slot department. These functions; counting, analysis, security, maintenance, and marketing, have evolved through an iterative process of technology; applying science to enhance functionality. This paper traces the expanding applications of gaming technologies, and provides a framework for understanding the past, present and future uses of technology in casino slot operation

Imperfect Contract Enforcement

We model imperfect contract enforcement when repudiators and their victims default to spot trading. The interaction between the contract and spot markets under improved enforcement can exacerbate repudiation and reduce contract execution, harming all traders. Improved contract execution benefits traders on the excess side of the spot market by attracting potential counter-parties, but harms them by impeding their exit from contracts found to be unfavorable. Multiple equilibria and multiple optima are possible, with anarchy a local optimum, perfect enforcement a local minimum and imperfect enforcement a global optimum. LDCs exhibit parameter combinations such that imperfect enforcement is optimal from their side of international markets. The model thus rationalizes the internationally varying patterns of imperfect enforceability observable in survey data.

Trade Implies Law: The Power of the Weak

Without the rule of law, traders who incur trading costs can be held up by counter-parties who are stronger in anarchic bargaining. The favourable terms which the latter extract can overcrowd that side of the market, dissipating the benefits. We establish plausible necessary and sufficient conditions for a move from anarchy toward the rule of law to benefit all traders. The rule of law might be delayed, not only by the difficulties of setting up legal institutions, but by monopolistic traders that have meantime emerged to address the inefficiencies of anarchic trade. These monopolistic traders must also guarantee atomistic traders against holdup.