9,931 research outputs found
The Bottom Line: Accounting for Revenues and Expenditures in Intercollegiate Athletics
This paper examines the profitability of Division I athletic programs at colleges and universities in the United States under a variety of accounting definitions of profit. The data identify several broad themes. First, a majority of athletic departments rely heavily on direct and indirect subsidization of their programs by the student body, the institution itself, and state governments in order to balance their books. Without such funding, less than a third of BCS athletic departments and no non-BCS departments are in the black. Second, athletic programs rely heavily on contributions to balance their books. Donations to athletic departments may serve as a substitute for donations to the rest of the university, lowering giving to other programs. Third, football and menâs basketball programs are generally highly profitable at BCS schools, but below this top tier, fewer than 10% of football programs and 15% of menâs basketball programs show a profit by any reasonable accounting measures.Athletics, higher education, sports
The Bottom Line: Accounting for Revenues and Expenditures in Intercollegiate Athletics
This paper examines the profitability of Division I athletic programs at colleges and universities in the United States under a variety of accounting definitions of profit. The data identify several broad themes. First, a majority of athletic departments rely heavily on direct and indirect subsidization of their programs by the student body, the institution itself, and state governments in order to balance their books. Without such funding, less than a third of BCS athletic departments and no non-BCS departments are in the black. Second, athletic programs rely heavily on contributions to balance their books. Donations to athletic departments may serve as a substitute for donations to the rest of the university, lowering giving to other programs. Third, football and menâs basketball programs are generally highly profitable at BCS schools, but below this top tier, fewer than 10% of football programs and 15% of menâs basketball programs show a profit by any reasonable accounting measures.Athletics, higher education, sports
Dynamic Radio-Frequency Transverse Susceptibility in Magnetic Nanoparticle Systems
A novel resonant method based on a tunnel-diode oscillator (TDO) is used to
study the dynamic transverse susceptibility in a Fe nanoparticle system. The
magnetic system consists of an aggregate of nanometer-size core (Au)-shell (Fe)
structure, synthesized by reverse micelle methods. Static and dynamic
magnetization measurements carried out in order to characterize the system
reveal a superparamagnetic behavior at high temperature. The field-dependent
transverse susceptibility at radio-frequencies (RF), for different temperatures
reveals distinct peak structure at characteristics fields (H_k, H_c) which
changes with temperature. It is proposed that relaxation processes could
explain the influence of the temperature on the field dependence of the
transverse susceptibility on the MI.Comment: 3 pages, 2-column, 3 figures, To be published in J. Appl. Phys. 2000
(44th Annual MMM proceedings
Chlorinated auxinsâhow does Arabidopsis thaliana deal with them?
Plant hormones have various functions in plants and play crucial roles in all developmental and differentiation stages. Auxins constitute one of the most important groups with the major representative indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). A halogenated derivate of IAA, 4-chloro-indole-3-acetic acid (4-Cl-IAA), has previously been identified in Pisum sativum and other legumes. While the enzymes responsible for the halogenation of compounds in bacteria and fungi are well studied, the metabolic pathways leading to the production of 4-Cl-IAA in plants, especially the halogenating reaction, are still unknown. Therefore, bacterial flavin-dependent tryptophan-halogenase genes were transformed into the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. The type of chlorinated indole derivatives that could be expected was determined by incubating wild type A. thaliana with different Cl-tryptophan derivatives. We showed that, in addition to chlorinated IAA, chlorinated IAA conjugates were synthesized. Concomitantly, we found that an auxin conjugate synthetase (GH3.3 protein) from A. thaliana was able to convert chlorinated IAAs to amino acid conjugates in vitro. In addition, we showed that the production of halogenated tryptophan (Trp), indole-3-acetonitrile (IAN) and IAA is possible in transgenic A. thaliana in planta with the help of the bacterial halogenating enzymes. Furthermore, it was investigated if there is an effect (i) of exogenously applied Cl-IAA and Cl-Trp and (ii) of endogenously chlorinated substances on the growth phenotype of the plants
Womenâs experiences of personalised support for asthma care during pregnancy: A systematic review of the literature
Abstract Background Asthma and pregnancy are both sources of anxiety for women. Although there has been a focus on physiological management of asthma and pregnancy, there has been little research on the impact that personalised support can have on asthma care during pregnancy. This systematic review and narrative synthesis of the literature set out to answer the question âWhat are womenâs experiences of asthma care, its management and education, during pregnancy?â Methods This systematic review was carried out using accepted methodology from the York Centre for Reviews and Dissemination. Electronic database searches were conducted using PsycInfo, CINAHL, MedLine, Google Scholar and the Cochrane Library, using the combination search terms: âAsthmaâ AND âPregnancyâ AND âCareâ AND (âEducation OR Information OR Experienceâ). Hand searching of journals and searches for grey literature were also undertaken. Independent quality appraisal by the three authors took place using the criteria detailed by Kmet et al. (Standard Quality Assessment Criteria for Evaluating Primary Research Papers from a Variety of Fields, 2004). Results All papers scoring in excess of 60% were deemed to be of adequate quality for inclusion, of which there were five: two qualitative designs and three quantitative designs. The designs were too methodologically heterogeneous to permit statistical meta-analysis so narrative review and synthesis was undertaken. Despite an embryonic evidence bases, it is reasonable to conclude that personalised care has beneficial outcomes for pregnant asthmatic women. Conclusions Larger randomised controlled trials investigating personalised care are required to build an evidence base which can establish the efficacy of such interventions
Dietary dairy product intake and incident type 2 diabetes: a prospective study using dietary data from a 7-day food diary
The consumption of specific dairy types may be beneficial for the prevention of diabetes.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between total and types of dairy product intake and risk of developing incident type 2 diabetes, using a food diary.
Methods: A nested case-cohort within the EPIC-Norfolk Study was examined, including a random subcohort
(n=4,000) and cases of incident diabetes (n=892, including 143 cases in the subcohort) followed-up for 11 years. Diet was assessed using a prospective 7-day food diary. Total dairy intake (g/day) was estimated and categorised into high-fat
(â„3.9%) and low-fat (<3.9% fat) dairy, and by subtype into yoghurt, cheese and milk. Combined fermented dairy product
intake (yoghurt, cheese, sour cream) was estimated and categorised into high- and low-fat. Prentice-weighted Cox
regression HRs were calculated.
Results: Total dairy, high-fat dairy, milk, cheese and high-fat fermented dairy product intakes were not associated with the
development of incident diabetes. Low-fat dairy intake was inversely associated with diabetes in age- and sex-adjusted
analyses (tertile [T] 3 vs T1, HR 0.81 [95% CI 0.66, 0.98]), but further adjustment for anthropometric, dietary and diabetes
risk factors attenuated this association. In addition, an inverse association was found between diabetes and low-fat
fermented dairy product intake (T3 vs T1, HR 0.76 [95% CI 0.60, 0.99]; ptrend=0.049) and specifically with yoghurt intake
(HR 0.72 [95% CI 0.55, 0.95]; ptrend=0.017) in multivariable adjusted analyses.
Conclusions/interpretation: Greater low-fat fermented dairy product intake, largely driven by yoghurt intake, was associated with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes development in prospective analyses. These findings suggest that the consumption of specific dairy types may be beneficial for the prevention of diabetes, highlighting the importance of food
group subtypes for public health messages
Short gamma-ray bursts within 200 Mpc
We present a systematic search for short-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the local Universe based on 14âyr of observations with the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. We cross-correlate the GRB positions with the GLADE catalogue of nearby galaxies, and find no event at a distance âČ100 Mpc and four plausible candidates in the range 100âMpc âČ DââČ 200âMpc. Although affected by low statistics, this number is higher than the one expected for chance alignments to random galaxies, and possibly suggests a physical association between these bursts and nearby galaxies. By assuming a local origin, we use these events to constrain the range of properties for X-ray counterparts of neutron star mergers. Optical upper limits place tight constraints on the onset of a blue kilonova, and imply either low masses (â âČ10â3Mââ ) of lanthanide-poor ejecta or unfavorable orientations (Ξ_(obs) âł 30 deg). Finally, we derive that the all-sky rate of detectable short GRBs within 200 Mpc is 1.3^(+1.7)_(â0.8) yrâ»Âč (68 perâcent confidence interval), and discuss the implications for the GRB outflow structure. If these candidates are instead of cosmological origin, we set a upper limit of âČ2.0 yrâ»Âč (90 perâcent confidence interval) to the rate of nearby events detectable with operating gamma-ray observatories, such as Swift and Fermi
Capacities of Grassmann channels
A new class of quantum channels called Grassmann channels is introduced and
their classical and quantum capacity is calculated. The channel class appears
in a study of the two-mode squeezing operator constructed from operators
satisfying the fermionic algebra. We compare Grassmann channels with the
channels induced by the bosonic two-mode squeezing operator. Among other
results, we challenge the relevance of calculating entanglement measures to
assess or compare the ability of bosonic and fermionic states to send quantum
information to uniformly accelerated frames.Comment: 33 pages, Accepted in Journal of Mathematical Physics; The role of
the (fermionic) braided tensor product for quantum Shannon theory, namely
capacity formulas, elucidated; The conclusion on the equivalence of Unruh
effect for bosons and fermions for quantum communication purposes made clear
and even more precis
The FĂschlĂĄr digital video system: a digital library of broadcast TV programmes
FĂschlĂĄr is a system for recording, indexing, browsing and playback of broadcast TV programmes which has been operational on our University campus for almost 18 months. In this paper we give a brief overview of how the system operates, how TV programmes are organised for browse/playback and a short report on the system usage by over 900 users in our University
Pairing Neutral Cues with Alcohol Intoxication: New Findings in Executive and Attention Networks
Rationale:
Alcohol-associated stimuli capture attention, yet drinkers differ in the precise stimuli that become paired with intoxication.
Objectives:
Extending our prior work to examine the influence of alcoholism risk factors, we paired abstract visual stimuli with intravenous alcohol delivered covertly and examined brain responses to these Pavlovian conditioned stimuli in fMRI when subjects were not intoxicated.
Methods:
Sixty healthy drinkers performed task-irrelevant alcohol conditioning that presented geometric shapes as conditioned stimuli. Shapes were paired with a rapidly rising alcohol limb (CS+) using intravenous alcohol infusion targeting a final peak breath alcohol concentration of 0.045 g/dL or saline (CSâ) infusion at matched rates. On day two, subjects performed monetary delay discounting outside the scanner to assess delay tolerance and then underwent event-related fMRI while performing the same task with CS+, CSâ, and an irrelevant symbol.
Results:
CS+ elicited stronger activation than CSâ in frontoparietal executive/attention and orbitofrontal reward-associated networks. Risk factors including family history, recent drinking, sex, and age of drinking onset did not relate to the [CS+ > CSâ] activation. Delay-tolerant choice and [CS+ > CSâ] activation in right inferior parietal cortex were positively related.
Conclusions:
Networks governing executive attention and reward showed enhanced responses to stimuli experimentally paired with intoxication, with the right parietal cortex implicated in both alcohol cue pairing and intertemporal choice. While different from our previous study results in 14 men, we believe this paradigm in a large sample of male and female drinkers offers novel insights into Pavlovian processes less affected by idiosyncratic drug associations
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