Understanding the Social Media Fandom of the Mr. Olympia Bodybuilding Show

The sport of bodybuilding has become one of the leading enterprises in using social media as the headlining avenue of marketing and promoting for the events they host. Social media marketing is used to reach marketing goals ranging from consumer care to advertising to commerce. The problem with this is that there is no knowledge about how the fans interact and engage with certain types of posts that are published throughout the Mr. Olympia show by the Mr. Olympia official Instagram account. This project gathered data on both what was posted through the official Mr. Olympia Instagram account and how fans interacted with these posts for a 3-week time period surrounding the Mr. Olympia competition. The data demonstrated that the engagement of fans changed based on the time of posting in relation to the event and as well as the in relation to the content of the post itself. The Mr. Olympia and other bodybuilding social media accounts should pay attention to the findings for they can create even stronger social media interaction and engagement from fans with the information provided

Evaluation of the learning and skills measure

In April 2009, the Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills commissioned York Consulting, in association with Old Bell 3, to undertake research to inform the implementation of the Learning and Skills Measure. The broad aims of the research were to focus on the likely impacts of the Measure on the 14-19 Learning Pathways nationally and to assess the degree to which wider choice is secured as a result of policy implementation

Why Do Political Action Committees Give Money to Candidates? Campaign Contributions, Policy Choices, and Election Outcomes

This paper examines political action committees' motivations for giving campaign contributions to candidates for political office. First, the paper estimates the effect of campaign contributions received by candidates on the outcomes of the 1996 elections to the U.S. House of Representatives. Next, the paper uses a Congressional Quarterly survey of candidates' policy positions to determine the impact of contributions on the policy stances adopted by the candidates. The empirical results suggest that political action committees donate campaign funds to challengers in order to affect the outcome of the election. Campaign contributions received by challengers have a large impact on the election outcome but do not affect the challengers' policy stances on any of the five issues examined in this paper. Campaign contributions to incumbents do not raise their chances of election, however, and affect their policy decisions on only one issue. Some evidence is presented that PAC contributions to incumbents may be given primarily in order to secure unobservable services for the political action committees.

"Why Do Political Action Committees Give Money to Candidates? Campaign Contributions, Policy Choices, and Election Outcomes"

This paper examines political action committees' motivations for giving campaign contributions to candidates for political office. First, the paper estimates the effect of campaign contributions received by candidates on the outcomes of the 1996 elections to the U.S. House of Representatives. Next, the paper uses a Congressional Quarterly survey of candidates' policy positions to determine the impact of contributions on the policy stances adopted by the candidates. The empirical results suggest that political action committees donate campaign funds to challengers in order to affect the outcome of the election. Campaign contributions received by challengers have a large impact on the election outcome but do not affect the challengers' policy stances on any of the five issues examined in this paper. Campaign contributions to incumbents do not raise their chances of election, however, and affect their policy decisions on only one issue. Some evidence is presented that PAC contributions to incumbents may be given primarily in order to secure unobservable services for the political action committees

A vision system planner for increasing the autonomy of the Extravehicular Activity Helper/Retriever

The Extravehicular Activity Retriever (EVAR) is a robotic device currently being developed by the Automation and Robotics Division at the NASA Johnson Space Center to support activities in the neighborhood of the Space Shuttle or Space Station Freedom. As the name implies, the Retriever's primary function will be to provide the capability to retrieve tools and equipment or other objects which have become detached from the spacecraft, but it will also be able to rescue a crew member who may have become inadvertently de-tethered. Later goals will include cooperative operations between a crew member and the Retriever such as fetching a tool that is required for servicing or maintenance operations. This paper documents a preliminary design for a Vision System Planner (VSP) for the EVAR that is capable of achieving visual objectives provided to it by a high level task planner. Typical commands which the task planner might issue to the VSP relate to object recognition, object location determination, and obstacle detection. Upon receiving a command from the task planner, the VSP then plans a sequence of actions to achieve the specified objective using a model-based reasoning approach. This sequence may involve choosing an appropriate sensor, selecting an algorithm to process the data, reorienting the sensor, adjusting the effective resolution of the image using lens zooming capability, and/or requesting the task planner to reposition the EVAR to obtain a different view of the object. An initial version of the Vision System Planner which realizes the above capabilities using simulated images has been implemented and tested. The remaining sections describe the architecture and capabilities of the VSP and its relationship to the high level task planner. In addition, typical plans that are generated to achieve visual goals for various scenarios are discussed. Specific topics to be addressed will include object search strategies, repositioning of the EVAR to improve the quality of information obtained from the sensors, and complementary usage of the sensors and redundant capabilities

"Campaign Contributions, Policy Decisions, and Election Outcomes: A Study of the Effects of Campaign Finance Reform"

Proposals for campaign finance reform are essentially based on the belief that political influence can be bought with financial donations to a candidate's campaign. But do contributions really influence the decisions of legislators once they are in office? In this brief, Christopher Magee examines the link between campaign donations and legislators' actions. His results suggest that political action committees donate campaign funds to challengers in order to affect the outcome of the election by increasing the challenger's chances of winning. These contributions have a large effect on the election outcome but do not seem to affect challengers' policy stances. In contrast, campaign contributions to incumbents do not raise their chances of being reelected and seem to be given with the hope of gaining influence.