The Introduction of the Reserve Clause in Major League Baseball: Evidence of its Impact on Select Player Salaries During the 1880s

This paper investigates the introduction of the reserve clause in Major League Baseball during the 1880s. Taking advantage of a unique data set describing the salaries for twenty nine high-quality players throughout the decade of the 1880s, we investigate the impact of the reserve clause as it evolved from a "gentleman's agreement" to a formal contract stipulation. We test three specific hypotheses concerning the reserve clause: its effect on average salaries, on the remuneration to marginal product, and the premium paid to a player for changing teams. The evidence suggests that introducing the reserve clause reduced average salaries and the premium for changing teams; detectable monopsony power was transferred to team owners almost immediately. However, there was no statistically significant impact of the reserve clause on how much players were paid for their marginal product. The empirical results indicate that reserve clause shifted considerable monopsony power to team owners immediately after it was instituted.Sports economics, monopsony, free agency, negotiation

Three-dimensional central-moments-based lattice Boltzmann method with external forcing: A consistent, concise and universal formulation

The cascaded or central-moments-based lattice Boltzmann method (CM-LBM) is a robust alternative to the more conventional BGK-LBM for the simulation of high-Reynolds number flows. Unfortunately, its original formulation makes its extension to a broader range of physics quite difficult. To tackle this issue, a recent work [A. De Rosis, Phys. Rev. E 95, 013310 (2017)] proposed a more generic way to derive concise and efficient three-dimensional CM-LBMs. Knowing the original model also relies on central moments that are derived in an adhoc manner, i.e., by mimicking those of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution to ensure their Galilean invariance a posteriori, a very recent effort [A. De Rosis and K. H. Luo, Phys. Rev. E 99, 013301 (2019)] was proposed to further generalize their derivation. The latter has shown that one could derive Galilean invariant CMs in a systematic and a priori manner by taking into account high-order Hermite polynomials in the derivation of the discrete equilibrium state. Combining these two approaches, a compact and mathematically sound formulation of the CM-LBM with external forcing is proposed. More specifically, the proposed formalism fully takes advantage of the D3Q27 discretization by relying on the corresponding set of 27 Hermite polynomials (up to the sixth order) for the derivation of both the discrete equilibrium state and the forcing term. The present methodology is more consistent than previous approaches, as it properly explains how to derive Galilean invariant CMs of the forcing term in an a priori manner. Furthermore, while keeping the numerical properties of the original CM-LBM, the present work leads to a compact and simple algorithm, representing a universal methodology based on CMs and external forcing within the lattice Boltzmann framework.Comment: Published in Phys. Fluids as Editor's Pic

Echo-Mapping of Swift J1753.5-0127

We present two epochs of coordinated X-ray-optical timing observations of the black hole candidate Swift J1753.5-0127 during its 2005 outburst. The first epoch in July occurred at outburst peak. Two consecutive nights of observations using the McDonald Observatory Argos camera with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer show a consistent correlation with an immediate response and an extended tail lasting ~5s. The properties of the variability and the correlation are consistent with thermal reprocessing in an accretion disk. The shortness of the lag suggests a short orbital period consistent with that recently claimed. The second epoch in August used the VLT FORS2 HIT mode again in conjunction with RXTE. Again a repeatable correlation is seen between two independent subsets of the data. In this case, though, the cross-correlation function has an unusual structure comprising a dip followed by a double-peak. We suggest that this may be equivalent to the dip plus single peak structure seen by Kanbach et al. (2001) in XTE J1118+480 and attributed there to synchrotron emission; a similar structure was seen during later activity of Swift J1753.5-0127 by Durant et al. (2008).Comment: 7 pages, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ

Allometric scaling of weight to height and resulting body mass index thresholds in two Asian populations.

BACKGROUND: Body mass index (BMI) represents a normalization of weight to height and is used to classify adiposity. While the capacity of BMI as an adiposity index has been experimentally validated in Caucasians, but there has been little testing Asian populations. METHODS: To determine whether weight scales to height squared in Asian Indians across the general population and in Asian Indian tribes an allometric analysis on the power law model, W = αH RESULTS: The unadjusted power was β = 2.08 (s = 0.02). The power for the general population (non-tribal) was β = 2.11 (s = 0.02). Powers when adjusted for tribe ranged from 1.87 to 2.35 with 24 of the 33 tribes resulting in statistically significant (p \u3c 0.05) differences in powers from the general population. The coefficients of the adjusted terms ranged from -0.22 to 0.26 and therefore the scaling exponent does not deviate far from 2. Thresholds for BMI classification of overweight in the KNHANES database were BMI = 21 kg/m CONCLUSIONS: Our study confirms that weight scales to height squared in Asian Indian males even after adjusting for tribe membership. We also demonstrate that optimal BMI thresholds are lower in a Korean population in comparison to currently used BMI thresholds. These results support the application of BMI in Asian populations with potentially lower thresholds

Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic

Preparing for a Northwest Passage: A Workshop on the Role of New England in Navigating the New Arctic (March 25 - 27, 2018 -- The University of New Hampshire) paired two of NSF\u27s 10 Big Ideas: Navigating the New Arctic and Growing Convergence Research at NSF. During this event, participants assessed economic, environmental, and social impacts of Arctic change on New England and established convergence research initiatives to prepare for, adapt to, and respond to these effects. Shipping routes through an ice-free Northwest Passage in combination with modifications to ocean circulation and regional climate patterns linked to Arctic ice melt will affect trade, fisheries, tourism, coastal ecology, air and water quality, animal migration, and demographics not only in the Arctic but also in lower latitude coastal regions such as New England. With profound changes on the horizon, this is a critical opportunity for New England to prepare for uncertain yet inevitable economic and environmental impacts of Arctic change