The Collective Bargaining Effects of NBA Player Productivity Dynamics

We apply quintile regression methodology to player pay and performance data from the 1985-86 to 2005-06 seasons of the National Basketball Association (NBA). In addition to confirming a finding from Hakes and Turner (2007) of systematic bias in pooled OLS regressions of career paths for salary and productivity, the quintile analysis presents two important results regarding NBA salary structure. Unlike Major League Baseball (MLB), the highest ability veteran NBA players suffer salary suppression relative to the lesser-talented players in their debut-year cohort, indicating rents have been transferred from the most able players to players of lesser abilities. Also, while young NBA players in general suffer from salary suppression relative to free agents, as is well-reported in baseball, our regression results show that the highest-ability young players suffer the most salary suppression, and that the effects of the rookie salary cap in the 1995 NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement depressed salaries for young players of all ability levels.career dynamics; pay and productivity; professional basketball

Dust control for Enabler

The dust control group designed a system to restrict dust that is disturbed by the Enabler during its operation from interfering with astronaut or camera visibility. This design also considers the many different wheel positions made possible through the use of artinuation joints that provide the steering and wheel pitching for the Enabler. The system uses a combination of brushes and fenders to restrict the dust when the vehicle is moving in either direction and in a turn. This design also allows for each of maintenance as well as accessibility of the remainder of the vehicle

Handling Qualities Evaluation of Pilot Tools for Spacecraft Docking in Earth Orbit

A new generation of spacecraft is now under development by NASA to replace the Space Shuttle and return astronauts to the Moon. These spacecraft will have a manual control capability for several mission tasks, and the ease and precision with which pilots can execute these tasks will have an important effect on mission risk and training costs. This paper focuses on the handling qualities of a spacecraft based on dynamics similar to that of the Crew Exploration Vehicle, during the last segment of the docking task with a space station in low Earth orbit. A previous study established that handling qualities for this task degrade significantly as the level of translation-into-rotation coupling increases. The goal of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of various pilot aids designed to mitigate the handling qualities degradation caused by this coupling. Four pilot tools were ev adluaetead:d-band box/indicator, flight-path marker, translation guidance cues, and feed-forward control. Each of these pilot tools improved handling qualities, generally with greater improvements resulting from using these tools in combination. A key result of this study is that feedforward control effectively counteracts coupling effects, providing solid Level 1 handling qualities for the spacecraft configuration evaluated

Improved Lunar Lander Handling Qualities Through Control Response Type and Display Enhancements

A piloted simulation that studied the handling qualities for a precision lunar landing task from final approach to touchdown is presented. A vehicle model based on NASA's Altair Lunar Lander was used to explore the design space around the nominal vehicle configuration to determine which combination of factors provides satisfactory pilot-vehicle performance and workload; details of the control and propulsion systems not available for that vehicle were derived from Apollo Lunar Module data. The experiment was conducted on a large motion base simulator. Eight Space Shuttle and Apollo pilot astronauts and three NASA test pilots served as evaluation pilots, providing Cooper-Harper ratings, Task Load Index ratings and qualitative comments. Each pilot flew seven combinations of control response types and three sets of displays, including two varieties of guidance and a nonguided approach. The response types included Rate Command with Attitude Hold, which was used in the original Apollo Moon landings, a Velocity Increment Command response type designed for up-and-away flight, three response types designed specifically for the vertical descent portion of the trajectory, and combinations of these. It was found that Velocity Increment Command significantly improved handling qualities when compared with the baseline Apollo design, receiving predominantly Level 1 ratings. This response type could be flown with or without explicit guidance cues, something that was very difficult with the baseline design, and resulted in approximately equivalent touchdown accuracies and propellant burn as the baseline response type. The response types designed to be used exclusively in the vertical descent portion of the trajectory did not improve handling qualities

The Collective Bargaining Effects of NBA Player Productivity Dynamics

We apply quintile regression methodology to player pay and performance data from the 1985-86 to 2005-06 seasons of the National Basketball Association (NBA). In addition to confirming a finding from Hakes and Turner (2007) of systematic bias in pooled OLS regressions of career paths for salary and productivity, the quintile analysis presents two important results regarding NBA salary structure. Unlike Major League Baseball (MLB), the highest ability veteran NBA players suffer salary suppression relative to the lesser-talented players in their debut-year cohort, indicating rents have been transferred from the most able players to players of lesser abilities. Also, while young NBA players in general suffer from salary suppression relative to free agents, as is well-reported in baseball, our regression results show that the highest-ability young players suffer the most salary suppression, and that the effects of the rookie salary cap in the 1995 NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement depressed salaries for young players of all ability levels

Dust control for Enabler

The dust control group designed a system to restrict dust that is disturbed by the Enabler during its operation from interfering with astronaut or camera visibility. This design also considers the many different wheel positions made possible through the use of artinuation joints that provide the steering and wheel pitching for the Enabler. The system uses a combination of brushes and fenders to restrict the dust when the vehicle is moving in either direction and in a turn. This design also allows for ease of maintenance as well as accessibility of the remainder of the vehicle

Quantifying the success of feral cat eradication, San Nicolas Island, California

It is usually uncertain when to declare success and stop control in pest eradication operations that rely on successive reductions of the population. We used the data collected during a project to eradicate feral cats from San Nicolas Island, California to estimate both the number of cats remaining towards the end of the project, and the amount and type of surveillance effort required to declare successful eradication after the last known cat was removed. Fifty seven cats were removed between June 2009 and April 2010 and our model estimated that there was a 95% chance that a further 1 to 4 cats remained, with 1 cat being the most likely number. After this time a further two cats were detected and removed and the model predicted this outcome with a probability of 0.25. If managers wished to confirm eradication success at this point, we estimated that 55 km of effort searching for recent evidence of cats over the whole island without detecting any would provide 99% certainty that no cats remained (stopping rule 1). Alternatively, the optimal amount of search effort for evidence that minimized the joint cost of searching and the cost of wrongly declaring eradication was 75 km (stopping rule 2). The equivalent amount of camera-nights (26 cameras were available) required to declare successful eradication were 416 (stopping rule 1) and 1196 camera nights (stopping rule 2). During the confirmation phase, 270 km of sign search effort and 3294 camera-nights surveillance were used from late June 2010, when the last cat was removed, through August 2010, without detecting signs of survivors. Managers can be very confident that eradication has been successful

Catalytic Kinetic Resolution of a Dynamic Racemate: Highly Stereoselective β-Lactone Formation by N-Heterocyclic Carbene Catalysis

This study describes the combined experimental and computational elucidation of the mechanism and origins of stereoselectivities in the NHC-catalyzed dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) of α-substituted-β-ketoesters. Density functional theory computations reveal that the NHC-catalyzed DKR proceeds by two mechanisms, depending on the stereochemistry around the forming bond: 1) a concerted, asynchronous formal (2+2) aldol-lactonization process, or 2) a stepwise spiro-lactonization mechanism where the alkoxide is trapped by the NHC-catalyst. These mechanisms contrast significantly from mechanisms found and postulated in other related transformations. Conjugative stabilization of the electrophile and non-classical hydrogen bonds are key in controlling the stereoselectivity. This reaction constitutes an interesting class of DKRs in which the catalyst is responsible for the kinetic resolution to selectively and irreversibly capture an enantiomer of a substrate undergoing rapid racemization with the help of an exogenous base

Kinetics of cone specific G-protein signaling in avian photoreceptor cells

Cone photoreceptor cells of night-migratory songbirds seem to process the primary steps of two different senses, vision and magnetoreception. The molecular basis of phototransduction is a prototypical G protein-coupled receptor pathway starting with the photoexcitation of rhodopsin or cone opsin thereby activating a heterotrimeric G protein named transducin. This interaction is well understood in vertebrate rod cells, but parameter describing protein–protein interactions of cone specific proteins are rare and not available for migratory birds. European robin is a model organism for studying the orientation of birds in the earth magnetic field. Recent findings showed a link between the putative magnetoreceptor cryptochrome 4a and the cone specific G-protein of European robin. In the present work, we investigated the interaction of European robin cone specific G protein and cytoplasmic regions of long wavelength opsin. We identified the second loop in opsin connecting transmembrane regions three and four as a critical binding interface. Surface plasmon resonance studies using a synthetic peptide representing the second cytoplasmic loop and purified G protein α-subunit showed a high affinity interaction with a KD value of 21 nM. Truncation of the G protein α-subunit at the C-terminus by six amino acids slightly decreased the affinity. Our results suggest that binding of the G protein to cryptochrome can compete with the interaction of G protein and non-photoexcited long wavelength opsin. Thus, the parallel presence of two different sensory pathways in bird cone photoreceptors is reasonable under dark-adapted conditions or during illumination with short wavelengths