Sport as real life

A new chapter that examines the relationship between sport and European society. It argues that the discourses of modernisation surrounding the sports industry echo broader political and economic discourses that dominate European thinking on the relationship between sports and industry

Estimating Implied Valuation Parameters: Extension and Application to Ground Lease Rentals

A problem that often arises in applied finance is one where decision-makers need to choose a value for some parameter that will affect the cash flows between two parties such as a rental rate or an exercise price. Because the values of the cash flows also depend on various unobservable parameters identifying the value of the policy parameter that achieves the desired allocation between the parties is no simple task often resulting in disputes and the invocation of ad-hoc approaches. We show how this problem can be solved using an extension of the well-known 'implied volatility' technique from option pricing and apply it to the determination of equilibrium rental rates on ground leases of commercial land

<i>CPT</i>-Symmetric Universe

We propose that the state of the universe does {\it not} spontaneously violate CPT. Instead, the universe after the big bang is the CPT image of the universe before it, both classically and quantum mechanically. The pre- and post-bang epochs comprise a universe/anti-universe pair, emerging from nothing directly into a hot, radiation-dominated era. CPT symmetry selects a unique QFT vacuum state on such a spacetime, providing a new interpretation of the cosmological baryon asymmetry, as well as a remarkably economical explanation for the cosmological dark matter. Requiring only the standard three-generation model of particle physics (with right-handed neutrinos), a $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry suffices to render one of the right-handed neutrinos stable. We calculate its abundance from first principles: matching the observed dark matter density requires its mass to be $4.8\times10^{8}~{\rm GeV}$. Several other testable predictions follow: (i) the three light neutrinos are Majorana and allow neutrinoless double $\beta$ decay; (ii) the lightest neutrino is massless; and (iii) there are no primordial long-wavelength gravitational waves. We mention connections to the strong CP problem and the arrow of time.Comment: 5 pages, matches version published in PR

Intra-session and inter-day reliability of the Myon 320 electromyography system during sub-maximal contractions

Electromyography systems are widely used within the field of scientific and clinical practices. The reliability of these systems are paramount when conducting research. The reliability of Myon 320 Surface Electromyography System is yet to be determined. This study aims to determine the intra-session and inter-day reliability of the Myon 320 Surface Electromyography System. Muscle activity from fifteen participants was measured at the anterior deltoid muscle during a bilateral front raise exercise, the vastus lateralis muscle during a squat exercise and the extensor carpi radialis brevis (ECRB) muscle during an isometric handgrip task. Intra-session and inter-day reliability was calculated by intraclass correlation coefficient, standard error of measurement and coefficient of variation (CV). The normalized root mean squared (RMS) surface electromyographic signals produced good intra-session and inter-day testing intraclass correlation coefficient values (range: 0.63-0.97) together with low standard error of measurement (range: 1.49-2.32) and CV (range: 95% Confidence Interval = 0.36-12.71) measures for the dynamic-and-isometric contractions. The findings indicate that the Myon 320 Surface Electromyography System produces good to fair reliability when examining intra-session and inter-day reliability. Findings of the study provide evidence of the reliability of electromyography between trials which is essential during clinical testing.</p

Maine\u27s Recovery of Recreational Damages Due to Coastal Oil Spills

The report identifies 729 recreational sites across eleven coastal recreational resources or activities (herein noted as “coastal resources”) that have the potential to be directly impacted by a possible oil spill. Analyses include an evaluation of the availability of usage data and direct market values

Quantifying the BICEP2-Planck Tension over Gravitational Waves

The recent BICEP2 measurement of primordial gravity waves (r = 0.2^{+0.07}_{-0.05}) appears to be in tension with the upper limit from WMAP (r<0.13 at 95% CL) and Planck (r<0.11 at 95% CL). We carefully quantify the level of tension and show that it is very significant (around 0.1% unlikely) when the observed deficit of large-scale temperature power is taken into account. We show that measurements of TE and EE power spectra in the near future will discriminate between the hypotheses that this tension is either a statistical fluke, or a sign of new physics. We also discuss extensions of the standard cosmological model that relieve the tension, and some novel ways to constrain them.Comment: v2: minor changes matching PRL published versio

Space missions to detect the cosmic gravitational-wave background

It is thought that a stochastic background of gravitational waves was produced during the formation of the universe. A great deal could be learned by measuring this Cosmic Gravitational-wave Background (CGB), but detecting the CGB presents a significant technological challenge. The signal strength is expected to be extremely weak, and there will be competition from unresolved astrophysical foregrounds such as white dwarf binaries. Our goal is to identify the most promising approach to detect the CGB. We study the sensitivities that can be reached using both individual, and cross-correlated pairs of space based interferometers. Our main result is a general, coordinate free formalism for calculating the detector response that applies to arbitrary detector configurations. We use this general formalism to identify some promising designs for a GrAvitational Background Interferometer (GABI) mission. Our conclusion is that detecting the CGB is not out of reach.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, IOP style, References Adde