The Impact of Motivational Factors on Daily Fantasy Sports Participation

Since the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act (UIGEA) in 2006, the fantasy sports world has had a tumultuous decade. Shortly after the passing of UIGEA, daily fantasy sports became marketable, and saw several years of tremendous growth. However, recent legal issues have clouded the industry, and lawmakers have questioned whether daily fantasy sports indeed fall under the exception granted by UIGEA as a “game of skill”, or whether the games are illegal gambling. This study is meant to look at what motivates fantasy sports participants, especially through this time of turmoil in the industry. It specifically looks at how players’ competitive, knowledge-seeking, or social tendencies affect their participation habits. Additionally, this thesis explores the effect that marketing messaging that portrays a daily fantasy sports website as a perfect place to satisfy these individual traits has on player participation. Finally, this study investigates the role that a sense of fairness plays in shaping players’ perceptions of these websites. To study these things, we began by looking at previous studies that focus on competition, knowledge, and social factors, both in the fantasy sports field and elsewhere, and creating a literature review. Following the literature review, an experiment was created, which tested these three scales as well as the perception of fairness, using a fictitious fantasy sports site, Fantasyland. The results obtained from this experiment indicate that those with competitive or social dispositions are the most likely to try fantasy sports. Additionally, it was found that those who are socially motivated are more likely to recommend a fantasy sports site to friends or strangers. Lastly, the perception of fairness did not have a direct effect of participants, although in one case, it did positively impact an individual’s willingness to try a daily sports website. These results and their implications as well as future research directions are outlined in the concluding discussion section

New ΔR for the southwest Pacific Ocean

ΔR results of known-age shells from the Solomon and Coral Seas and the northwest coast of New Ireland are presented. The results are too few to be conclusive but indicate that ΔR in this region is variable. An average ΔR value of 370 ± 25 yr is recorded for a range of shell species from Kavieng Harbor, New Ireland, and is primarily attributed to weak equatorial upwelling of depleted 14C due to seasonal current reversals. In contrast, values from the Solomon and Coral Seas are lower (average ΔR = 45 ± 19 yr). Higher ΔR values for some shellfish from these 2 seas is attributed to ingestion of 14Cdepleted sediment by deposit-feeding species

The marine ΔR For Nenumbo (Solomon Islands): A case study in calculating reservoir offsets form paired sample data

It is necessary to calculate location-specific marine ΔR values in order to calibrate marine samples using calibration curves such as those provided through the IntCal98 (Stuiver et al. 1998) data. Where known-age samples are available, this calculation is straightforward (i.e. Stuiver et al. 1986). In the case that a paired marine/terrestrial sample calculation is performed, however, the standard calculation (i.e. Stuiver and Braziunas 1993) requires that the samples are treated as relating to isochronous events. This may not be an appropriate assumption for many archaeological paired samples. In this paper, we present an approach to calculating marine ΔR values that does not require the dated events to be treated as isochronous. When archaeological evidence allows the dated events to be tightly temporally constrained, the approach presented here and that described by Stuiver and Braziunas (1993) give very similar results. However, where tight temporal constraints are less certain, the 2 approaches can give rise to differing results. The example analysis considered here shows that a ΔR of –81 ± 64 ¹⁴C yr is appropriate for samples in the vicinity of Nenumbo (Reef Islands, southeast Solomon Islands) around the period 2000–3000 BP

Teacher Education and the Political : the power of negative thinking

Teacher Education and the Political is a striking book which addresses the nature and purpose of teacher education in a global context characterised by economic and political anxieties around declining productivity and social inclusion. These anxieties are manifested in recent policy developments such as the promotion of professional standards, the deregulation and marketisation of teacher education and the imposition of performance-related regimes that tie teachers’ pay to outcomes in high-stakes testing

Caring for the older person with cognitive impairment in hospital: Qualitative analysis of nursing personnel reflections on fall events

Aims and objectives To explore nurse and nursing assistant reflections on the care of older patients with cognitive impairment who have experienced a fall. Background While there are evidence‐based clinical guidelines for the prevention and management of falls and for the care of older people with cognitive impairment, the falls rates for older people with cognitive impairment are three times as high as those without. Design Critical incident technique. Methods Eleven registered and two enrolled nurses and four assistants in nursing working in one subacute and two acute wards within two hospitals of a tertiary level health service in south‐east Queensland. Individual semistructured interviews focused on two past events when a patient with cognitive impairment had fallen in hospital: one when there was minimal harm and the second when there was significant harm. Thematic analysis was undertaken. The COREQ checklist was followed. Results Three themes emerged from 23 reflective accounts of fall events: “direct observation is confounded by multiple observers” and “knowing the person has cognitive impairment is not enough,” and “want to rely on the guideline but unsure how to enact it.” While participants were aware of the falls prevention policy and techniques available to prevent falls, the implementation of these was challenging due to the complexity of care required by the older person with cognitive impairment. Conclusions Falls prevention for older people with cognitive impairment is complex and belies the simple application of policy. Relevance to clinical practice To reduce falls, nurses can involve the family to support “knowing the patient” to enable prediction of impulsive actions; shift the focus of in‐service from lectures to specific case presentations, with collaborative analysis on person‐focused strategies to prevent falls in older people with cognitive impairment; and reconsider the sitter role from simple observer to assistant, focused on ambulation and supporting independence in activities of daily living.Full Tex

The use of exergy analysis to benchmark the resource efficiency of municipal waste water treatment plants in Ireland

Exergy Analysis has been identified in the literature as a powerful tool to benchmark the resource efficiency of thermal systems. The exergy approach provides a rational basis for process optimisation, where, in theory, the processes with the greatest exergy destruction represent the greatest energy efficiency opportunities. Exergy analysis of a Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) has been performed. In addition, two separate reference environments for WWTPs are defined based on plant location. Biological oxygen demand was identified as the most useful parameter when calculating the chemical exergy of organic matter in waste water. The results of this study indicate that organic matter is the principal contributor to chemical exergy values and that exergy analysis is a useful approach to identify inefficient processes within a WWTP

High pO2 Floating Zone Crystal Growth of the Perovskite Nickelate PrNiO3

Single crystals of PrNiO3 were grown under an oxygen pressure of 295 bar using a unique high-pressure optical-image floating zone furnace. The crystals, with volume in excess of 1 mm3, were characterized structurally using single crystal and powder X-ray diffraction. Resistivity, specific heat, and magnetic susceptibility were measured, all of which evidenced an abrupt, first order metal-insulator transition (MIT) at ~130 K, in agreement with previous literature reports on polycrystalline specimens. Temperature-dependent single crystal diffraction was performed to investigate changes through the MIT. Our study demonstrates the opportunity space for high fugacity, reactive environments for single crystal growth specifically of perovskite nickelates but more generally to correlated electron oxides.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, Supporting Information include