Driving Simulators – More than a Video Game!

Background: This study aimed to investigate teenager, young adult, and adult knowledge levels on distracted and impaired driving through the use of educational driving simulators. The distracted and impaired driving simulators were customized to instruct participants on the dangers of driving distracted or impaired utilizing consequence videos. The simulators were taken to high schools, colleges/universities, and businesses over a four year period where we hypothesized that they would play a significant role in raising knowledge about the dangers and penalties of these risky driving behaviors and would also help to increase seat belt usage. Setting: High schools, colleges / universities, and businesses in northeastern central Pennsylvania September 2012 through May 2016. Sample: 22,801 pre-surveys were taken by mainly students that participated through their high school. Methods: An electronic pre-survey was administered to all participants wanting to drive the simulators. The survey questions were designed to test the participant’s knowledge of driving distracted while driving alone or with somebody else, driving impaired while driving alone or with somebody else, and the use of a seat belt every time they get into a vehicle. Demographic information was collected prior to driving the simulators such as the driver’s age and gender. Based upon their driving outcome, the post survey collected data was based on which drive they did (distracted vs. impaired) and if they thought the consequences for their actions were what they thought they would be. Also questioned was how likely they were to wear their seat belt in the future. Results: In the 22,801 completed pre-surveys, males completed 53% of the surveys, females 47%. Participants of teen driver age (16 to 18) made up the largest number of participants at 49%, with 30% being of non-driver age, and 21% over age 18; 88% of participants have not or rarely checked e-mail or talked on the cell phone within the last 30 days while driving; while 44% have ridden with a driver that was frequently or occasionally texting, checking email, or talking on a cell phone while driving in the last 30 days. Understanding that impaired includes: alcohol, over the counter prescription or other drugs, and drowsy/overly tired, 95% have rarely or not driven impaired in the last 30 days and 95% reported rarely or never going to drive impaired in the future. Those who stated they always wear a seat belt when getting into a vehicle were 77%; however post survey reports showed in the future 87% said they would always wear a seat belt, a 10% gain in knowledge after their driving experience. Conclusions: Driving simulators used on new drivers showing real life consequences, does raise awareness about texting, cellphone use, impaired driving, and not wearing a seat belt. Sixty seven percent of the participants stated the consequences to driving distracted were worse or much worse than they thought

Use of Coniothyrium minitans transformed with the hygromycin B resistance gene to study survival and infection of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum sclerotia in soil

A Coniothyrium minitans strain (T3) co-transformed with the genes for β-glucuronidase (uidA) and hygromycin phosphotransferase (hph), the latter providing resistance to the antibiotic hygromycin B, was used to investigate the survival and infection of sclerotia of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum by C. minitans over time in four different soils. Infection of sclerotia was rapid in all cases, with the behaviour of transformant T3 and wild type parent A69 being similar. Differences were seen between the soils in the rate of infection of sclerotia by C. minitans and in their indigenous fungal populations. Amendment of agar with hygromycin B enabled the quantification of C. minitans in soil by dilution plating where there was a high background of other microorganisms. In Lincoln soil from New Zealand, which had a natural but low population of C. minitans the hygromycin B resistance marker allowed the umambiguous discrimination of the applied transformed isolate from the indigenous hygromycin B sensitive one. In this soil, although the indigenous C. minitans population was detected from sclerotia, none were recovered on the dilution plates, indicating the increased sensitivity of C. minitans detection from soil using sclerotial baiting. C. minitans was a very efficient parasite, being able to infect a large proportion of sclerotia within a relatively short time from an initially low soil population. The addition of hygromycin B to agar also allowed the detection of C. minitans from decaying sclerotia by inhibiting secondary fungal colonisers. This is the first report to show that fungi colonising sclerotia already infected by C. minitans mask the detection of C. minitans from sclerotia rather than displacing the original parasite

A Review of Consumer Embarrassment as a Public and Private Emotion

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150516/1/jcpy1086.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/150516/2/jcpy1086_am.pd

Digital supply chain management in the videogames industry: a systematic literature review

As industries mature, they rely more heavily on supply chain management (SCM) to ensure effective operations leading to greater levels of organisational performance. SCM has been widely covered in many industrial areas and, in line with other burgeoning sectors such as Tourism, an industry focus provides the opportunity to look in-depth at the context-based factors that affect SCM. Developments in digital distribution and rapid technological innovations have resulted in an increased focus on Digital Supply Chains (DSCs), which bring about significant changes to how consumers, customers, suppliers, and manufacturers interact, affecting supply chain design and processes. Through a systematic review of the Videogames Industry Supply Chain Management literature, which serves as a pertinent contextual example of a DSC, we look at how supply chains are affected by structural, market and technological change, such as increased platformisation, disintermediation and the proliferation of digital distribution. We distil these findings into a new research agenda, which identifies themes in line with extant DSC research, provides a series of relevant practice recommendations and identifies opportunities for future research

Consumer perceptions of bundles and time-limited promotion deals: Do contracts matter?

Marketers use various types of deals to positively influence consumers\u27 product evaluations. Across two experiments, we manipulated print advertisements to examine whether the commonly used deal content of both bundling and time-limited promotions affect consumers\u27 perceived confusion, risk and value. In study 1, the influence of this content was tested in the context of a 2-year telecommunications (telco) contract. Here, consumers associated a three-item bundle with greater perceived value than a single item, but perceived value was reduced and risk heightened when it was only available for a limited time. We speculate that this is because of the long-term nature of the contract. Study 2 removed the contract restriction, examining the bundling of a video game console and game(s), again with a time-limited promotion. However, in this context, we failed to locate any interaction effects. It appears that consumers further appraise the drawbacks of a long-term telco contract when accompanied by a time-limited promotion and may perceive the switching costs for study 1 three-item telco bundle to be particularly risky. Our studies represent the first empirical investigation of the effect on consumers\u27 perceptions of offering a bundle in conjunction with a time-limited promotion. Testing these effects in contract and no contract conditions adds to the contribution of our studies by delineating a boundary condition. From a managerial perspective, our findings are thought-provoking in respect to information integration, or how consumers process different deal content together

Some environmental factors affect growth and antibiotic production by the mycoparasite Coniothyrium minitans

The effects of temperature and pH on growth and antibiotic production by three isolates of Coniothyrium minitans (Conio, Contans and IVT1), known to produce the macrolide antibiotic macrosphelide A, were examined in modified Czapek Dox broth (MCD). Antibiotic production was determined by incorporating heated (60 degrees C for 5 min) C. minitans spent culture filtrates of MCD (10%, v/v) into potato dextrose broth and assessing the ability of the filtrates to inhibit growth of S. sclerotiorum. All isolates grew over the temperature range of 10-30 degrees C, with the optimum at approximately 15-20 degrees C. Antibiotics were produced by all isolates at 10-30 degrees C. Culture filtrates of MCD from all isolates incorporated into PDB inhibited growth of S. sclerotiorum by > 50%, whereas there was a reduction in inhibition at 30 degrees C for Conio and IVT1 but not Contans. All three isolates grew over the pH range of 3-7, with greater biomass production in buffered pH 3-5 than the unbuffered control (pH 4.8) media. Antibiotics were produced by all isolates at pH 3-5. Culture filtrates of MCD from all three isolates grown at pH 3-5 inhibited growth of S. sclerotiorum, with the greatest effect on inhibition observed at pH 3. There were no differences in growth inhibition between isolates at pH 3 and 4, but culture filtrates from Conio grown at pH 5 inhibited S. sclerotiorum more than those of IVT1 grown at the same pH. The significance of these results for biocontrol and optimizing antibiotic production by C. minitans is discussed