2,958 research outputs found
Identifying the NCAA Tournament Dance Card
The NCAA Basketball Tournament selection committee annually selects the Division I men\u27s teams that should receive at-large bids to the national championship tournament. Although its deliberations are shrouded in secrecy, the committee is supposed to consider a litany of team-performance statistics, many of which outsiders can reasonably estimate. Using a probit analysis on objective team data from 1994 through 1999, we developed an equation that accurately classified nearly 90 percent of 249 bubble teams during that time frame and over 85 percent for the 2000 tournament. Given the NCAA Tournament\u27s nickname of the big dance, the equation is effectively the dance card that determined whether a team got an invitation from past committees and is also a tool that could aid decision making for future committees. The accuracy of the dance card, and the factors and weights included in it, suggest that the committee is fairly predictable in its decisions, despite barbs from fans, teams, and the media
An Examination of NBA MVP Voting Behavior: Does Race Matter?
The selection process of the most valuable player (MVP) in the National Basketball Association (NBA) was recently questioned as to whether African-American players were treated unfairly based on their race. Using NBA voting data from the 1995-2005 seasons, we develop two empirical models in order to examine the role that a player’s race plays in the determination of this award. Our estimates imply that after controlling for player, team, and market characteristics, there is no statistically significant effect of race on the likelihood that a player will appear on an MVP ballot or on the number of votes he will receive
Near-Infrared Studies of V1280 Sco (Nova Scorpii 2007)
We present spectroscopic and photometric results of Nova V1280 Sco which was
discovered in outburst in early 2007 February. The large number of spectra
obtained of the object leads to one of the most extensive, near-infrared
spectral studies of a classical nova. The spectra evolve from a P-Cygni phase
to an emission-line phase and at a later stage is dominated by emission from
the dust that formed in this nova. A detailed model is computed to identify and
study characteristics of the spectral lines. Inferences from the model address
the vexing question of which novae have the ability to form dust. It is
demonstrated, and strikingly corroborated with observations, that the presence
of lines in the early spectra of low-ionization species like Na and Mg -
indicative of low temperature conditions - appear to be reliable indicators
that dust will form in the ejecta. It is theoretically expected that mass loss
during a nova outburst is a sustained process. Spectroscopic evidence for such
a sustained mass loss, obtained by tracing the evolution of a P-Cygni feature
in the Brackett gamma line, is presented here allowing a lower limit of 25-27
days to be set for the mass-loss duration. Photometric data recording the
nova's extended 12 day climb to peak brightness after discovery is used to
establish an early fireball expansion and also show that the ejection began
well before maximum brightness. The JHK light curves indicate the nova had a
fairly strong second outburst around 100 days after the first.Comment: Accepted in MNRAS. The paper contains 8 figures and 4 tables. Few
typographical errors were correcte
Life events and hemodynamic stress reactivity in the middle-aged and elderly
Recent versions of the reactivity hypothesis, which consider it to be the product of stress exposure and exaggerated haemodynamic reactions to stress that confers cardiovascular disease risk, assume that reactivity is independent of the experience of stressful life events. This assumption was tested in two substantial cohorts, one middle-aged and one elderly. Participants had to indicate from a list of major stressful life events up to six they had experienced in the previous two years. They were also asked to rate how disruptive and stressful they were, at the time of occurrence and now. Blood pressure and pulse rate were measured at rest and in response to acute mental stress. Those who rated the events as highly disruptive at the time of exposure and currently exhibited blunted systolic blood pressure reactions to acute stress. The present results suggest that acute stress reactivity may not be independent of stressful life events experience
A Fuzzy Spatio-Temporal-based Approach for Activity Recognition
International audienceOver the last decade, there has been a significant deployment of systems dedicated to surveillance. These systems make use of real-time sensors that generate continuous streams of data. Despite their success in many cases, the increased number of sensors leads to a cognitive overload for the operator in charge of their analysis. However, the context and the application requires an ability to react in real-time. The research presented in this paper introduces a spatio-temporal-based approach the objective of which is to provide a qualitative interpretation of the behavior of an entity (e.g., a human or vehicle). The process is formally supported by a fuzzy logic-based approach, and designed in order to be as generic as possible
Dust Emission Features in NGC 7023 between 0.35 and 2.5 micron: Extended Red Emission (0.7 micron) and Two New Emission Features (1.15 and 1.5 micron)
We present 0.35 to 2.5 micron spectra of the south and northwest filaments in
the reflection nebula NGC 7023. These spectra were used to test the theory of
Seahra & Duley that carbon nanoparticles are responsible for Extended Red
Emission (ERE). Our spectra fail to show their predicted second emission band
at 1.0 micron even though both filaments exhibit strong emission in the
familiar 0.7 micron ERE band. The northwest filament spectrum does show one,
and possibly two, new dust emission features in the near-infrared. We clearly
detect a strong emission band at 1.5 micron which we tentatively attribute to
beta-FeSi_2 grains. We tentatively detect a weaker emission band at 1.15 micron
which coincides with the location expected for transitions from the conduction
band to mid-gap defect states of silicon nanoparticles. This is added evidence
that silicon nanoparticles are responsible for ERE as they already can explain
the observed behavior of the main visible ERE band.Comment: 9 pages, color figures, accepted to the ApJ, color and b/w versions
available at http://dirty.as.arizona.edu/~kgordon/papers/ere_1um.htm
Fast Radio Burst Discovered in the Arecibo Pulsar ALFA Survey
Recent work has exploited pulsar survey data to identify temporally isolated,
millisecond-duration radio bursts with large dispersion measures (DMs). These
bursts have been interpreted as arising from a population of extragalactic
sources, in which case they would provide unprecedented opportunities for
probing the intergalactic medium; they may also be linked to new source
classes. Until now, however, all so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs) have been
detected with the Parkes radio telescope and its 13-beam receiver, casting some
concern about the astrophysical nature of these signals. Here we present FRB
121102, the first FRB discovery from a geographic location other than Parkes.
FRB 121102 was found in the Galactic anti-center region in the 1.4-GHz Pulsar
ALFA survey with the Arecibo Observatory with a DM = 557.4 3 pc
cm, pulse width of ms, and no evidence of interstellar
scattering. The observed delay of the signal arrival time with frequency agrees
precisely with the expectation of dispersion through an ionized medium. Despite
its low Galactic latitude (), the burst has three times the
maximum Galactic DM expected along this particular line-of-sight, suggesting an
extragalactic origin. A peculiar aspect of the signal is an inverted spectrum;
we interpret this as a consequence of being detected in a sidelobe of the ALFA
receiver. FRB 121102's brightness, duration, and the inferred event rate are
all consistent with the properties of the previously detected Parkes bursts.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Ap
From a certain point of view: sensory phenomenological envisionings of running space and place
The precise ways in which we go about the mundane, repetitive, social actions of everyday life are central concerns of ethnographers and theorists working within the traditions of the sociology of the mundane and sociological phenomenology. In this article, we utilize insights derived from sociological phenomenology and the newly developing field of sensory sociology to investigate a particular, mundane, and embodied social practice, that of training for distance running in specific places: our favored running routes. For, despite a growing body of ethnographic studies of particular sports, little analytic attention has been devoted to the actual, concrete practices of “doing” or “producing” sporting activity, particularly from a sensory ethnographic perspective. Drawing upon data from a 2-year joint autoethnographic research project, here we explore the visual dimension, focusing upon three key themes in relation to our runners’ visualization of, respectively, (1) hazardous places, (2) performance places, (3) the time–space–place nexus
Revival-collapse phenomenon in the fluctuations of quadrature field components of the multiphoton Jaynes-Cummings model
In this paper we consider a system consisting of a two-level atom, initially
prepared in a coherent superposition of upper and lower levels, interacting
with a radiation field prepared in generalized quantum states in the framework
of multiphoton Jaynes-Cummings model. For this system we show that there is a
class of states for which the fluctuation factors can exhibit revival-collapse
phenomenon (RCP) similar to that exhibited in the corresponding atomic
inversion. This is shown not only for normal fluctuations but also for
amplitude-squared fluctuations. Furthermore, apart from this class of states we
generally demonstrate that the fluctuation factors associated with three-photon
transition can provide RCP similar to that occurring in the atomic inversion of
the one-photon transition. These are novel results and their consequence is
that RCP occurred in the atomic inversion can be measured via a homodyne
detector. Furthermore, we discuss the influence of the atomic relative phases
on such phenomenon.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure
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