Introduction

It didn\u27t seem so wrong. It seemed as though I worked my whole life to get where I am, and at the same time, when it was presented to me, it was like this was the time I could start to get back some of the fruits of my labor. 1 —Paul Palmer, former star college football running back, regarding cash payments of more than $5,000 he received while a college senior from sports agent Norby Walters. This epigraph has remained in our text through multiple editions. Its continued relevance is underscored by the irony that, in a recent court ruling, a judge pegged the minimum dollar figure for college athletes to received from licensing revenues at$5,000. This book, meanwhile, focuses on the evolving sports agent industry, the issues affecting it, and how to improve and regulate it. Key issues and problems associated with sports agents are visible at the high school, collegiate, and professional levels. Whatever the concerns that lie at the center of the sports agent storm, it is a business that captures the attention of many

slq(2)sl_q(2) Realizations for Kepler and Oscillator Potentials and q-Canonical Transformations

The realizations of the Lie algebra corresponding to the dynamical symmetry group SO(2,1) of the Kepler and oscillator potentials are q-deformed. The q-canonical transformation connecting two realizations is given and a general definition for q-canonical transformation is deduced. q-Schr\"{o}dinger equation for a Kepler like potential is obtained from the q-oscillator Schr\"{o}dinger equation. Energy spectrum and the ground state wave function are calculated.Comment: 12 pages, Latex twice, (Comparison with the other approaches and some refs. added. The version which will appear in J. Phys. A

Exact expression for the diffusion propagator in a family of time-dependent anharmonic potentials

We have obtained the exact expression of the diffusion propagator in the time-dependent anharmonic potential $V(x,t)={1/2}a(t)x^2+b\ln x$. The underlying Euclidean metric of the problem allows us to obtain analytical solutions for a whole family of the elastic parameter a(t), exploiting the relation between the path integral representation of the short time propagator and the modified Bessel functions. We have also analyzed the conditions for the appearance of a non-zero flow of particles through the infinite barrier located at the origin (b<0).Comment: RevTex, 19 pgs. Accepted in Physical Review

Exact propagators for atom-laser interactions

A class of exact propagators describing the interaction of an $N$-level atom with a set of on-resonance $\delta$-lasers is obtained by means of the Laplace transform method. State-selective mirrors are described in the limit of strong lasers. The ladder, V and $\Lambda$ configurations for a three-level atom are discussed. For the two level case, the transient effects arising as result of the interaction between both a semi-infinite beam and a wavepacket with the on-resonance laser are examined.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Boundary Shape and Casimir Energy

Casimir energy changes are investigated for geometries obtained by small but arbitrary deformations of a given geometry for which the vacuum energy is already known for the massless scalar field. As a specific case, deformation of a spherical shell is studied. From the deformation of the sphere we show that the Casimir energy is a decreasing function of the surface to volume ratio. The decreasing rate is higher for less smooth deformations.Comment: 12 page

Engineering access to higher education through higher education fairs

Text from van Zanten A., Legavre A. “Engineering access to higher education through higher education fairs”, in Goastellec G., Picard F. (ed.) The Roles of Higher Education and Research in the Fabric of Societies, Leuven, Sense Publishers, 2014 (in press). Transition to higher education is a major social process. This transition has been mostly studied by French sociologists of education and higher education from perspectives focusing predominantly on the role of the socio-economic status, academic profiles and different tracks followed by secondary school students (Merle 1996, Duru-Bellat and Kieffer 2008, Convert 2010), and, to a lesser extent, on the types of secondary schools attended (Duru-Bellat and Mingat 1998, Nakhili 2005) and the local higher education provision (Berthet et al. 2010, Orange 2013). Although these structural determinants play a major role in explaining significant regularities, they provide more powerful explanations for individuals representing the extremes of the different variables considered, leaving room for the influence of other major factors for those students in intermediate situations. In addition, even in the case of students occupying extreme positions, structural perspectives better explain the distribution of students between different higher education tracks than they do between institutions and disciplines. In this chapter, we adopt a perspective that we see as complementary to and interacting with the perspective centred on structural determinants by focusing on the role of the devices that mediate the exchanges between students and higher education institutions, and more specifically on one device: higher education fairs. Our purpose in doing so is not only to document how these various devices frame, in ways that remain largely unexplored by researchers, exchanges between providers and consumers of higher education but also to point out – and further explore in future publications – how these devices, and the specific features of fairs, contribute to the reproduction and transformation of educational inequalities in access to higher education (Benninghoff et al. 2012)

Classification of Spanish ports using cluster analysis

El sistema portuario español es sumamente complejo y admite el estudio desde numerosos puntos de vista En este artículo se estudian los puertos según su actividad y sus características externas para la clasificación en agrupaciones. Para ello se han utilizado indicadores que reflejan la actividad portuaria y se han aplicado sobre las 28 Autoridades Portuarias españolas. Con estos indicadores se ha aplicado una metodología específica para a través del análisis de conglomerados (cluster) para averiguar cuáles son los agrupamientos que se producen. El análisis cluster se complementa con otros análisis estadísticos: análisis multivariante y componentes principales, para conocer qué indicadores son los más relevantes en las agrupaciones y cómo se comportan. Los resultados finales obtenidos muestran que este tipo de estudios estadísticos son apropiados para realizarse en el entorno portuario y que los agrupamientos reflejan correctamente la realidad portuaria.The Spanish port system is extremely complex and admits the study from many points of view. In this article the ports are studied from the point of view of classification in clusters according to their external characteristics. For this purpose, indicators have been used that reflect the port activity and have been applied on the 28 Spanish Port Authorities. With these indicators, a specific methodology has been applied through the analysis of clusters (cluster) to find out which clusters are produced. The cluster analysis is complemented by other analyzes (main components, multivariate analysis and individual indicators) to know which indicators are the most relevant in clusters and how they behave. The final results obtained show that this type of statistical studies are appropriate to be carried out in the port environment and that the groupings correctly reflect the port reality

‘For Your Ears Only!’ Donald Sterling and Backstage Racism in Sport

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate how racism manifests ‘behind closed doors’ in the backstage private domain. We do this with reference to recent high-profile controversies in the US and UK. In particular, we use the concepts of frontstage (public) and backstage (private) racism to unpack the extraordinary case in point of the ex-National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise owner Donald Sterling. The paper concludes that though it is important for frontstage racism to be disrupted, activist scholars must be mindful of the lesser-known, and lesser-researched, clandestine backstage racism that, we argue, galvanises more public manifestations. The Donald Sterling case is an example of how backstage racism functions and, potentially, how it can be resisted

DIFFUSION IN ONE DIMENSIONAL RANDOM MEDIUM AND HYPERBOLIC BROWNIAN MOTION

Classical diffusion in a random medium involves an exponential functional of Brownian motion. This functional also appears in the study of Brownian diffusion on a Riemann surface of constant negative curvature. We analyse in detail this relationship and study various distributions using stochastic calculus and functional integration.Comment: 18 page

Prevalence of Pulmonary Tuberculosis and Candidiasis among those Living with HIV Positive Patients in Two Medical Centres in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria

People living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are predisposed to tuberculosis and co-infections from many pathogens. Hence, the objective of this paper was to investigate the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis and candidiasis among those living with HIV in Two Medical Centres in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria using Standard methods. The results obtained showed that 136 (64.76 %) of the HIV patients also had fungal infection, 36 (17.14 %) had co-infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, 37 (17.62 %) were neither infected with M. tuberculosis nor Candida spp. and 1 (0.48 %) had tuberculosis infection. Prevalence of resistant rifampicin M. tuberculosis among HIV patients was 6 (2.85 %) while candidiasis and M. tuberculosis co-infection among the patients was 30 (83.33 %). That which involved Candida albicans and M. tuberculosis had the highest percentage of occurrence 25 (83.33 %). HIV patients between 28 - 36 years had the highest 15 (50 %) number of cases of co-infection. Among the study population, the prevalence of co-infection in males and females was 11 (15.27 %) and 19 (13.76 %), respectively. Anaemia was observed in highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and HAART-naïve patients. Due to lower prevalence of rifampicin resistance and anaemia among HARRT patients compared with HART-naïve patients, the Ministry of Health and relevant government and private agencies should intensive efforts to provide affordable/free antiretroviral treatment to HIV patients