The relationship between betting and lottery play: a high frequency time-series analysis

The substitutability of different gambling products is an important concern for any jurisdiction contemplating deregulation of its gambling sector. We apply a novel daily time-series data set of daily turnover from one of Britain's leading bookmakers to analyse potential substitution between lottery play and bookmaker betting. We find some evidence that bettors do substitute away from horse race, dog race and numbers betting when the effective price of lottery tickets is unusually low, i.e. when there is a rollover or Superdraw. This substitution has a highly specific pattern of timing that varies by sector. Our results further suggest that bettors rationally engage in forward-looking substitution within their betting portfolios.

Innovation and cumulative culture through tweaks and leaps in online programming contests

E.M. was supported by the John Templeton Foundation Grant #40128 ‘Exploring the Evolutionary Foundations of Cultural Complexity, Creativity, and Trust’ and the University of St Andrews School of Biology. L.R. was supported by the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland (MASTs) pooling initiative funded by the Scottish Funding Council (grant reference HR09011).The ability to build progressively on the achievements of earlier generations is central to human uniqueness, but experimental investigations of this cumulative cultural evolution lack real-world complexity. Here, we studied the dynamics of cumulative culture using a large-scale data set from online collaborative programming competitions run over 14 years. We show that, within each contest population, performance increases over time through frequent ‘tweaks’ of the current best entry and rare innovative ‘leaps’ (successful tweak:leap ratio = 16:1), the latter associated with substantially greater variance in performance. Cumulative cultural evolution reduces technological diversity over time, as populations focus on refining high-performance solutions. While individual entries borrow from few sources, iterative copying allows populations to integrate ideas from many sources, demonstrating a new form of collective intelligence. Our results imply that maximising technological progress requires accepting high levels of failure.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Attitudes of Spouses Toward Job and Family Responsibilities of Professionals in the Agricultural Education and Communications Profession

The field of education, specifically the profession of teaching, is one of the most visible and underappreciated professions practiced today. Though improvements with recognition towards teachers have increased over time, the demands and expectations of teachers have also increased. In the growing profession of agriculture, the demands and challenges of an agriculture teacher bring both positive and negative outcomes in the life of an individual. The purpose of this study was to determine the job satisfaction of spouses toward job and family responsibilities of individuals in leadership positions within agricultural education and communications. This study was significant because it analyzed the perceptions of individuals’ attitudes toward the agriculture profession and the importance thereof. The study found that agriculture professionals, as in many other professions, were capable of becoming emotionally drained and/or stressed as they attempted to balance their personal and work lives but were not likely to leave the profession for this reason alone

Geometrical phases for the G(4,2) Grassmannian manifold

We generalize the usual abelian Berry phase generated for example in a system with two non-degenerate states to the case of a system with two doubly degenerate energy eigenspaces. The parametric manifold describing the space of states of the first case is formally given by the G(2,1) Grassmannian manifold, while for the generalized system it is given by the G(4,2) one. For the latter manifold which exhibits a much richer structure than its abelian counterpart we calculate the connection components, the field strength and the associated geometrical phases that evolve non-trivially both of the degenerate eigenspaces. A simple atomic model is proposed for their physical implementation.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, REVTEX, minor typos corrected, to appear in Jour. Math. Phy

The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer consensus statement on immunotherapy for the treatment of prostate carcinoma.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and second leading cause of cancer death among men in the United States. In recent years, several new agents, including cancer immunotherapies, have been approved or are currently being investigated in late-stage clinical trials for the management of advanced prostate cancer. Therefore, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) convened a multidisciplinary panel, including physicians, nurses, and patient advocates, to develop consensus recommendations for the clinical application of immunotherapy for prostate cancer patients. To do so, a systematic literature search was performed to identify high-impact papers from 2006 until 2014 and was further supplemented with literature provided by the panel. Results from the consensus panel voting and discussion as well as the literature review were used to rate supporting evidence and generate recommendations for the use of immunotherapy in prostate cancer patients. Sipuleucel-T, an autologous dendritic cell vaccine, is the first and currently only immunotherapeutic agent approved for the clinical management of metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). The consensus panel utilized this model to discuss immunotherapy in the treatment of prostate cancer, issues related to patient selection, monitoring of patients during and post treatment, and sequence/combination with other anti-cancer treatments. Potential immunotherapies emerging from late-stage clinical trials are also discussed. As immunotherapy evolves as a therapeutic option for the treatment of prostate cancer, these recommendations will be updated accordingly

Evolution of drainage system morphology at a land-terminating Greenland outlet glacier

This work was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (through grants to Nienow, Mair, and Wadham, and a studentship to Bartholomew), the Edinburgh University Moss Centenary Scholarship (Cowton and Bartholomew), and a Carnegie Research Grant (Nienow). We thank Ian Willis, Tim Bartholomaus and an anonymous referee for valuable comments which significantly improved the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Hydrologie and biotic influences on nitrate removal in a subtropical spring-fed river

We use a long-term chemical and hydrologic record in combination with longitudinal sampling and highfrequency nitrate (NO3-) measurements from in situ sensors to describe temporal and spatial patterns of nitrogen (N) inputs and removal in the spring-fed Ichetucknee River (Columbia County, Florida) and to determine the hydrological, geomorphic, and biological factors that influence those dynamics. Over a 20-yr period of record, NO 3-N removal averaged 118 kg N d-1 (0.77 g N m-2 d-1 ) over the upper 5 km of the Ichetucknee River. Three independent estimates of gross autotrophic N assimilation (from gross primary production, diel NO3- variation, and standing biomass) agreed closely but accounted for less than 20% of observed N removal. Longitudinal surveys indicate negligible or negative dissolved organic nitrogen and ammonium (NH4+) production, suggesting that denitrification is the predominant mechanism of N removal in this river. A positive relationship between discharge and the magnitude of NO3-N removal shows that interactions with the surrounding floodplain exert considerable influence at high flows, and longitudinal NO3- patterns indicate that N removal may be influenced by channel morphology. These results suggest a greater role for dissimilatory processes and hydrologic connectivity with hyporheic and floodplain sediments than has been previously recognized in highly productive spring-fed rivers of north Florida. While hydrologic variation is the primary determinant of variation in NO 3- removal within the Ichetucknee River, comparison across systems indicates that biotic characteristics can cause significant deviation from predictions based on purely physical models of relationships between river size and N removal. © 2010 by the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, Inc