Google online marketing challenge and research opportunities

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is an ongoing collaboration between Google and academics, to give students experiential learning. The Challenge gives student teams US$200 in AdWords, Google’s flagship advertising product, to develop online marketing campaigns for actual businesses. The end result is an engaging in-class exercise that provides students and professors with an exciting and pedagogically rigorous competition. Results from surveys at the end of the Challenge reveal positive appraisals from the three—students, businesses, and professors—main constituents; general agreement between students and instructors regarding learning outcomes; and a few points of difference between students and instructors. In addition to describing the Challenge and its outcomes, this article reviews the postparticipation questionnaires and subsequent datasets. The questionnaires and results are publicly available, and this article invites educators to mine the datasets, share their results, and offer suggestions for future iterations of the Challenge

Investigating TV viewing and overweight in pre-adolescent and adolescent girls

Childhood obesity is one of the most important public health problems facing America today. Other studies have identified a relationship between television viewing and weight, but more research is needed to identify causal mechanisms and factors that moderate the TV-weight relationship. This study used the NHLBI National Growth and Health Survey to examine the effects of TV viewing on BMI in a panel of White and Black girls from the ages of 9 to 18. Analyses provided estimates of the influence of TV on BMI for White and Black girls, evaluated different mechanisms of actions, and tested effects of potential moderators. Multiple analyses provided evidence for an effect of TV on BMI for White, but not Black, girls. Specifically, latent growth curve models found that for White girls, baseline TV viewing and increases in TV viewing over time positively predicted baseline BMI and increases in BMI. Autoregressive cross-lagged models tested one-year lags of the effects of TV on BMI and reciprocal effects of BMI on TV. Five of nine lagged TV-BMI analyses were significant for White girls; (on average, one additional hour of TV viewing/day was associated with an increase in BMI of 0.7 the following year. None of the lagged TV-BMI analyses was significant for Black girls, although two of the lagged BMI-TV tests reached significance. Seven possible mediators were tested: calorie, fat, and sugar intakes, eating while watching television, fast food restaurant visits, nutritional knowledge, and physical activity. Among at least some age/racial subgroups, television viewing was associated with increased fast food restaurant visits, fat and calorie intakes, decreased nutritional knowledge, and eating while watching television. Fast food restaurant visits and fat and calorie intakes were significantly and positively associated with BMI among some subgroups. However, only fast food restaurant visits among 9--10-year-old White girls met the criteria for partial mediation. Six variables were tested as interactions with TV. Of these, two---stronger family cohesiveness and higher self-esteem---acted as buffers against TV\u27s effects on BMI among White girls, and one---baseline weight status over the 85th percentile---amplified TV\u27s effects among Black girls

Controls on the cycling of barium isotopes in estuaries

GEOCHIMICA ET COSMOCHIMICA ACT

Estuarine processes modify the isotope composition of dissolved riverine barium fluxes to the ocean

Barium (Ba) isotope variations offer the potential to trace environmental processes, including long-term changes in river discharge and marine export production. Riverine inputs are an important source of dissolved Ba to the ocean, which we estimate to be ~10 to 20 Gmol yr−1. A large fraction (~20 to 75%) of this net riverine dissolved Ba flux to the ocean is derived from estuarine processes, in particular the release of exchangeable Ba from riverine suspended particles due to exchange with major cations in seawater. Despite the importance of this process for controlling the input of dissolved Ba to the ocean, its impact on the δ138/134Ba of net riverine dissolved Ba fluxes remains unknown. To address this observational gap, Ba concentration and isotope data from across the estuarine mixing zones of the Amazon (Brazil), Fly (Papua New Guinea) and Johor (Malaysia) Rivers are presented. Desorption from suspended riverine particles releases Ba with δ138/134Ba 0.2 to 0.3‰ lower than corresponding river dissolved loads, modifying the isotope composition of net riverine dissolved Ba fluxes that reach the ocean. This offset likely represents an isotope fractionation accompanying the adsorption of Ba by particulate phases within river catchments, which can explain the systematic enrichment of heavier Ba isotopes in river dissolved loads relative to weathering lithologies. River dissolved loads are also systematically offset to higher δ138/134Ba than the main oceanic Ba sink: burial of BaSO4 in marine sediment. This represents an apparent imbalance in the modern marine Ba isotope budget. Our results suggest that accounting for modification of the δ138/134Ba of net riverine Ba fluxes to the ocean by estuarine processes is likely to play a key role towards balancing the modern marine Ba isotope budget

Data for: Estuarine processes modify the isotope composition of dissolved riverine barium fluxes to the ocean

Dissolved Ba concentration and isotope composition results spanning salinity gradients across the estuarine mixing zones of the Amazon, Fly and Johor Rivers