Exploring human capital: discrimination factors and group-specific performance in the football industry

The aim of the study is to investigate whether discrimination factors exist within professional football clubs, concerning the management of their human capital, by analysing the correlation between the footballers’ wages and their performance. An analysis was conducted to show that discrimination, based both on nationality and race, can affect the strategies adopted by football club managers and in the professional footballer labour market, where players are considered to be the human capital of football enterprises. The research framework consists of an analysis of the existing literature on discrimination in sports and of a quantitative analysis based on an exploratory approach, where the wage differences among Italian Serie A league footballers are compared to the performance of each group of players (organised by race or nationality). The results of the analysis of data for all Italian Serie A clubs show that discrimination (in pay) exists against Italian and white players. In contrast, when small and big clubs are considered separately, the findings relating to small clubs highlight that foreign and black players face such discrimination. The results suggest that managers of professional football clubs apply a discrimination strategy. In addition, the results provide practical implications on the types of discrimination errors that are committed by the management of big and small football clubs. Big clubs tend to overrate the contributions of foreign and/or black players compared to those of Italian and white players, while small clubs tend to overrate the contributions of Italian and white players compared to those of foreign and black players. To reduce discrimination, clubs have to correlate how much players are paid with their performance. Further research is recommended to identify the impact of wage inequality on the football labour market and on professional team management

BASS. XXIX : the near-infrared view of the broad-line region (BLR) : the effects of obscuration in BLR characterization

Virial black hole (BH) mass (MBH) determination directly involves knowing the broad-line region (BLR) clouds' velocity distribution, their distance from the central supermassive BH (RBLR), and the virial factor (f). Understanding whether biases arise in MBH estimation with increasing obscuration is possible only by studying a large (N > 100) statistical sample of obscuration-unbiased (hard) X-ray-selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the rest-frame near-infrared (0.8–2.5 μm) since it penetrates deeper into the BLR than the optical. We present a detailed analysis of 65 local Burst Alert Telescope (BAT) selected Seyfert galaxies observed with Magellan/FIRE. Adding these to the near-infrared BAT AGN spectroscopic survey database, we study a total of 314 unique near-infrared spectra. While the FWHMs of Hα and near-infrared broad lines (He i, Paβ, Paα) remain unbiased to either BLR extinction or X-ray obscuration, the Hα broad-line luminosity is suppressed when NH ≳ 1021 cm−2, systematically underestimating MBH by 0.23–0.46 dex. Near-infrared line luminosities should be preferred to Hα until NH < 1022 cm−2, while at higher obscuration a less-biased RBLR proxy should be adopted. We estimate f for Seyfert 1 and 2 using two obscuration-unbiased MBH measurements, i.e., the stellar velocity dispersion and a BH mass prescription based on near-infrared and X-ray, and find that the virial factors do not depend on the redshift or obscuration, but some broad lines show a mild anticorrelation with MBH. Our results show the critical impact obscuration can have on BLR characterization and the importance of the near-infrared and X-rays for a less-biased view of the BLR

Detection of Faint BLR Components in the Starburst/Seyfert Galaxy NGC 6221 and Measure of the Central BH Mass

In the last decade, using single epoch virial based techniques in the optical band, it has been possible to measure the central black hole mass on large AGN1 samples. However these measurements use the width of the broad line region as a proxy of the virial velocities and are therefore difficult to be carried out on those obscured (type 2) or low luminosity AGN where the nuclear component does not dominate in the optical. Here we present the optical and near infrared spectrum of the starburst/Seyfert galaxy NGC 6221, observed with X-shooter/VLT. Previous observations of NGC 6221 in the X-ray band show an absorbed (N_H=8.5 +/- 0.4 x 10^21 cm^-2) spectrum typical of a type 2 AGN with luminosity log(L_14-195 keV) = 42.05 erg/s, while in the optical band its spectrum is typical of a reddened (A_V=3) starburst. Our deep X-shooter/VLT observations have allowed us to detect faint broad emission in the H_alpha, HeI and Pa_beta lines (FWHM ~1400-2300 km/s) confirming previous studies indicating that NGC 6221 is a reddened starburst galaxy which hosts an AGN. We use the measure of the broad components to provide a first estimate of its central black hole mass (M_BH = 10^(6.6 +/- 0.3) Msol, lambda_Edd=0.01-0.03), obtained using recently calibrated virial relations suitable for moderately obscured (N_H<10^24 cm^-2) AGN.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science

Training graduate students to teach statistics and data science from a distance

Enrollment in undergraduate statistics and data science courses has rapidly increased in just the last decade, resulting in an increased reliance on graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and graduate instructors of record (GRIs). In the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, teaching from a distance has become a necessity. Many instructors, including GTAs and GRIs, need to adapt to new technologies and reconsider pedagogical decisions. This paper presents our experiences from a graduate teaching fellowship program created because of the pandemic. The program had two major components: 1) pedagogical workshops attended by teaching fellows from multiple disciplines across the university and 2) one-on-one mentoring by a faculty member from the fellow’s primary discipline. Here, we provide a unique look at graduate training from both the perspective of the mentor and the mentee. We share a sample training curriculum and propose recommendations for those interested in implementing teaching training opportunities for graduate students