Marginal Revenue Products of Collegiate Basketball Players: What\u27s March Madness Worth to Your Team?

Basketball is considered a revenue sport within the context of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The annual March Madness tournament brings in over a billion dollars in advertising revenue alone. This is just one illustration of the influx of money lining the coffers of the NCAA and Division 1 teams each year, leading many to question why the student-athletes don\u27t receive a bigger piece of the pie. Some pundits argue that the athletic scholarship caps and restriction of player movement enforced by the NCAA lead to players contributing more in revenue to their schools than they receive in scholarship value. We test this claim by using a modified approach to estimate marginal revenue products (MRPs) across collegiate basketball teams. We find that for 37% of the teams in our panel, the players are collectively contributing more to revenues than the amount they cost their institutions. We argue that, based on how a MRP is defined within this context, we cannot say with certainty that the current on-court revenue contributions of the remaining teams do not exceed their costs

Effects of season and waterbody on transparency tube estimates of suspended sediment in large rivers

This paper reports the measurement (N>132) of the effect of river and season on transparency in cm and Total Suspended Solids in mg/L in a navigational pool of the Ohio River and one of its tributaries, the Muskingum River. Both river of origin and season affected water transparency. The transparency-TSS relationship was stronger in spring (R2 = 0.894) than autumn (R2 =0.710), with an overall correlation of R2=0.86 for N=93 observations in both water bodies and seasons. Regression equations for the transparency-TSS relationships for the two rivers under low (autumn) and high (spring) flow conditions were developed. Our study demonstrates that properly trained volunteers can assist with rapid assessment of water turbidity from suspended solids in large rivers, reservoirs and lakes, but seasonal calibration of these measures will improve accuracy of sediment monitoring and management.Keywords: Transparency tube, turbidity, monitoring, sediment transport, citizen science, water qualit

Phytoremediation of iron (Fe) and copper (Cu) by water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)

This study was carried out to investigate the ability of Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes [Mart.]Solms) to absorb and translocate iron (Fe) and copper (Cu). The study was conducted with three concentration gradients of Fe and Cu at 10mg/l, 15mg/l, 20mg/l and control (no metal); the whole set-up was done in triplicates and the experiment lasted for 12 weeks. The results showed that iron (Fr) had the highest accumulation value in the root (1.12 ~c 0.42), while copper (Cu) had the highest value in the leave (0.38 ~c 0.06); both at 20mg/l. Statistical analysis showed that there was significant difference among treatment (p&lt0.05). Translocation factor (TF) is the ratio between metal concentrations in aerial part to metal concentration in the root. Metals that are accumulated by plants and largely stort in the roots are indicated by TF values less than 1, when greater than 1, its indicate good translocation capabilities. The TF value for Fe ranged from 0.49 ~c 0.57- 0.68 ~c 0.27 in leaf, and 0.64 ~c 0.17- 0.77 ~c 0.18 in the stem. While the Translocation factor values for Ca ranged from 0.78 ~c 0.08- 1.12 ~c 0.12 in leaf and 0.72 ~c 0.32- 1.09 ~c 0.19 in the stem. This reveals that Cu had better translocation capability than Fe. Highest values of bioconcentration factor (BCF) for Fe and Cu were 2.32 ~c 0.65 at 20mg/l and 0.72 ~c 0.01 at 15mg/l obtained in the root and leaf respectively, indicating that the accumulation potential of Fe by water hyacinth is higher than Cu. In conclusion, according to the accumulation capabilities of the investigated plant (Eichhornia crassipes), this study showed that the plant was found to be a promising candidate for phytoremediation and adequate for bio-monitoring programs for contaminated water

de-Broglie Wave-Front Engineering

We propose a simple method for the deterministic generation of an arbitrary continuous quantum state of the center-of-mass of an atom. The method's spatial resolution gradually increases with the interaction time with no apparent fundamental limitations. Such de-Broglie Wave-Front Engineering of the atomic density can find applications in Atom Lithography, and we discuss possible implementations of our scheme in atomic beam experiments.Comment: The figures' quality was improved, the text remains intact. 5 pages, 3 figures; submitted to PR

Atom gratings produced by large angle atom beam splitters

An asymptotic theory of atom scattering by large amplitude periodic potentials is developed in the Raman-Nath approximation. The atom grating profile arising after scattering is evaluated in the Fresnel zone for triangular, sinusoidal, magneto-optical, and bichromatic field potentials. It is shown that, owing to the scattering in these potentials, two \QTR{em}{groups} of momentum states are produced rather than two distinct momentum components. The corresponding spatial density profile is calculated and found to differ significantly from a pure sinusoid.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

Modification of black-hole entropy by strings

A generalized action for strings which is a sum of the Nambu-Goto and the extrinsic curvature (the energy integral of the surface) terms, is used to couple strings to gravity. It is shown that the conical singularity has deficit angle that has contributions from both the above terms. It is found that the effect of extrinsic curvature is to oppose that of the N-G action for the temperature of the black-hole and to modify the entropy-area relation.Comment: 11 pages, Latex versio

Emergence of behavioural avoidance strategies of malaria vectors in areas of high LLIN coverage in Tanzania

Despite significant reductions in malaria transmission across Africa since 2000, progress is stalling. This has been attributed to the development of insecticide resistance and behavioural adaptations in malaria vectors. Whilst insecticide resistance has been widely investigated, there is poorer understanding of the emergence, dynamics and impact of mosquito behavioural adaptations. We conducted a longitudinal investigation of malaria vector host choice over 3 years and resting behaviour over 4 years following a mass long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) distribution in Tanzania. By pairing observations of mosquito ecology with environmental monitoring, we quantified longitudinal shifts in host-choice and resting behaviour that are consistent with adaptation to evade LLINs. The density of An. funestus s.l., declined significantly through time. In tandem, An. arabiensis and An. funestus s.l. exhibited an increased rate of outdoor relative to indoor resting; with An. arabiensis reducing the proportion of blood meals taken from humans in favour of cattle. By accounting for environmental variation, this study detected clear evidence of intra-specific shifts in mosquito behaviour that could be obscured in shorter-term or temporally-coarse surveys. This highlights the importance of mosquito behavioural adaptations to vector control, and the value of longer-term behavioural studies

D-brane dynamics near compactified NS5-branes

We examine the dynamics of a $Dp$-brane in the background of $k$ coincident, parallel $NS$5-branes which have had one of their common transverse directions compactified. We find that for small energy, bound orbits can exist at sufficiently large distances where there will be no stringy effects. The orbits are dependent upon the energy density, angular momentum and electric field. The analysis breaks down at radial distances comparable with the compactification radius and we must resort to using a modified form of the harmonic function in this region.Comment: Latex, 20 pages, 6 figs, references adde

Dynamic correlations of the Coulomb Luttinger liquid

The dynamic density response function, form-factor, and spectral function of a Luttinger liquid with Coulomb electron-electron interaction are studied with the emphasis on the short-range electron correlations. The Coulomb interaction changes dramatically the density response function as compared to the case of the short-ranged interaction. The form of the density response function is smoothing with time, and the oscillatory structure appears. However, the spectral functions remain qualitatively the same. The dynamic form-factor contains the $\delta$-peak in the long-wave region, corresponding to one-boson excitations. Besides, the multi-boson-excitations band exists in the wave-number region near to $2k_F$. The dynamic form-factor diverges at the edges of this band, while the dielectric function goes to zero there, which indicates the appearance of a soft mode. We develop a method to analyze the asymptotics of the spectral functions near to the edges of the multi-boson-excitations band.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PR

Exclusion Statistics of Quasiparticles in Condensed States of Composite Fermion Excitations

The exclusion statistics of quasiparticles is found at any level of the hierarchy of condensed states of composite fermion excitations (for which experimental indications have recently been found). The hierarchy of condensed states of excitations in boson Jain states is introduced and the statistics of quasiparticles is found. The quantum Hall states of charged $\alpha$-anyons ($\alpha$ -- the exclusion statistics parameter) can be described as incompressible states of $(\alpha+2p)$-anyons ($2p$ -- an even number).Comment: 4 page