The Sport League's Dilemma: Competitive Balance versus Incentives to Win

We analyze a dynamic model of strategic interaction between a professional sport league that organizes a tournament, the teams competing to win it, and the broadcasters paying for the rights to televise it. Teams and broadcasters maximize expected profits, while the league's objective may be either to maximize the demand for the sport or to maximize the teams' joint profits. Demand depends positively on symmetry among teams (competitive balance) and how aggressively teams try to win (incentives to win). Revenue sharing increases competitive balance but decreases incentives to win. Under demand maximization, a performance-based reward scheme (used by European sport leagues) may be optimal. Under joint profit maximization, full revenue sharing (used by many US leagues) is always optimal. These results reflect institutional differences among European and American sports leagues.

Uncertainty and Risk in Financial Markets

This paper considers a general equilibrium model in which the=20 distinction between un-certainty and risk is formalized by assuming agents= =20 have incomplete preferences over state-contingent consumption bundles, as=20 in Bewley (1986). Without completeness, individual decision making depends= =20 on a set of probability distributions over the state space. A bundle is=20 preferred to another if and only if it has larger expected utility for all= =20 probabilities in this set. When preferences are complete this set is a=20 singleton, and the model reduces to standard expected utility. In this=20 setting, we characterize Pareto optima and equilibria, and show that the=20 presence of uncertainty generates robust indeterminacies in equilibrium=20 prices and allocations for any speci=AFcation of initial endowments. We=20 derive comparative statics results linking the degree of uncertainty with=20 changes in equilibria. Despite the presence of robust indeterminacies, we=20 show that equilibrium prices and allocations vary continuously with=20 underlying fundamentals. Equilibria in a standard risk economy are thus=20 robust to adding small degrees of uncertainty. Finally, we give conditions= =20 under which some assets are not traded due to uncertainty aversion.

Skill, Strategy, and Passion: an Empirical Analysis of Soccer

Sports provide a natural experiment on individual choices in games with high stakes. We study soccer with a game-theoretic model of a match, and then evaluate the ability of this model to explain actual behavior with data from 2885 matches among professional teams. In our model, the strategy of a team depends on the current state of the game. When the game is tied, both teams attack. A losing team always attacks, while its winning opponent attacks early in the game, but it starts defending as the end of the match nears. We find that teams' skills, current score, and home field advantage are significant explanatory variables of the probability of scoring. We also find that a team which falls behind is relatively more likely to score. A team which is ahead, on the other hand, uses a conservative strategy very early in the match. These results support the main conclusions of our model. They indicate that soccer teams behave consistently with rationality and equilibrium. However, there is significant evidence that emotional factors are roughly as important as rational ones in determining the game's outcome, and they affect the strategic decisions of teams.

Your Morals Are Your Moods

We test the effect of players' moods on their behavior in a gift-exchange game. In the first stage of the game, player 1 chooses a transfer to player 2. In the second stage, player 2 chooses an effort level. Higher effort is more costly for player 2, but it increases player 1's payoff. We say that player 2 reciprocates if effort is increasing in the transfer received. Player 2 is generous if an effort is incurred even when no transfer is received. Subjects play this game in two different moods. To induce a `bad mood', subjects in the role of player 2 watched a sad movie before playing the game; to induce a `good mood', they watched a funny movie. Mood induction was effective: subjects who saw the funny movie reported a significantly better mood than those who saw the sad movie. These two moods lead to significant differences in player 2's behavior. We find that a bad mood implies more reciprocity while a good mood implies more generosity. Since high transfers are relatively more common, player 1 makes more money when second movers are in a bad mood.

Correction to: Effects of immune suppression for transplantation on inflammatory colorectal cancer progression (Oncogenesis, (2018), 7, 6, (46), 10.1038/s41389-018-0055-5)

At the time of publication, the html version of this paper contained an error; the authors Imerio Angriman and Lucrezia Furian were not tagged as equally contributing authors. This has now been fixed in the html version of the paper, the PDF was correct at the time of publication. Erratum for Effects of immune suppression for transplantation on inflammatory colorectal cancer progression. [Oncogenesis. 2018

Antimicrobial Prophylaxis for Urologic Procedures in Paediatric Patients: A RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method Consensus Study in Italy

The main aim of surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis (SAP) in urologic procedures is to prevent bacteraemia, surgical site infections (SSIs), and postoperative urinary tract infections (ppUTIs). Guidelines for SAP in paediatric urology are lacking. Only some aspects of this complex topic have been studied, and the use of antibiotic prophylaxis prior to surgical procedures seems to be more often linked to institutional schools of thought or experts' opinions than to rules dictated by studies demonstrating the most correct and preferred management. Therefore, the aim of this Consensus document realized using the RAND/UCLA appropriateness method is to provide clinicians with a series of recommendations on SAP for the prevention of bacteraemia, SSIs, and ppUTIs after urologic imaging and surgical procedures in paediatric patients. Despite the few available studies, experts agree on some basilar concepts related to SAP for urologic procedures in paediatric patients. Before any urological procedure is conducted, UTI must be excluded. Clean procedures do not require SAP, with the exception of prosthetic device implantation and groin and perineal incisions where the SSI risk may be increased. In contrast, SAP is needed in clean-contaminated procedures. Studies have also suggested the safety of eliminating SAP in paediatric hernia repair and orchiopexy. To limit the emergence of resistance, every effort to reduce and rationalize antibiotic consumption for SAP must be made. Increased use of antibiotic stewardship can be greatly effective in this regard

Surgical Antimicrobial Prophylaxis in Neonates and Children with Special High-Risk Conditions: A RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method Consensus Study

Surgical site infections (SSIs), which are a potential complications in surgical procedures, are associated with prolonged hospital stays and increased postoperative mortality rates, and they also have a significant economic impact on health systems. Data in literature regarding risk factors for SSIs in pediatric age are scarce, with consequent difficulties in the management of SSI prophylaxis and with antibiotic prescribing attitudes in the various surgical procedures that often tend to follow individual opinions. The lack of pediatric studies is even more evident when we consider surgeries performed in subjects with underlying conditions that may pose an increased risk of complications. In order to respond to this shortcoming, we developed a consensus document to define optimal surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis (SAP) in neonates and children with specific high-risk conditions. These included the following: (1) colonization by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and by multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria other than MRSA; (2) allergy to first-line antibiotics; (3) immunosuppression; (4) splenectomy; (5) comorbidity; (6) ongoing antibiotic therapy or prophylaxis; (7) coexisting infection at another site; (8) previous surgery in the last month; and (9) presurgery hospitalization lasting more than 2 weeks. This work, made possible by the multidisciplinary contribution of experts belonging to the most important Italian scientific societies, represents, in our opinion, the most up-to-date and comprehensive collection of recommendations relating to behaviors to be undertaken in a perioperative site in the presence of specific categories of patients at high-risk of complications during surgery. The application of uniform and shared protocols in these high-risk categories will improve surgical practice with a reduction in SSIs and consequent rationalization of resources and costs, as well as being able to limit the phenomenon of antimicrobial resistance

Notulae to the Italian flora of algae, bryophytes, fungi and lichens: 4

In this contribution, new data concerning bryophytes, fungi and lichens of the Italian flora are presented. It includes new records and confirmations for the bryophyte genera Campylopus, Paludella, Tortula, and Conocephalum, the fungal genera Agonimia, Buelliella, Entorrhiza, Filicupula, Poronia, and Sporisorium, the lichen genera Cladonia, Dibaeis, Lasallia, and Rhizocarpon