Revenue and Wealth Maximization in the National Football League: The Impact of Stadia

The opening of the Palace of Auburn Hills, the SkyDome, and Oriole Park at Camden Yards led to the beginning of a construction boom in professional sport. In the National Football League (NFL) alone, 26 stadiums have been built or renovated in the past 10 years. Due to the additional revenue generated by these facilities and the NFL’s current revenue sharing system, professional football franchises are building new stadia for economic reasons rather than to replace unusable or unsafe facilities. The purpose of this study was to determine if a significant difference in net revenue change existed for NFL teams that moved into a new facility and to determine if there was a significant change in valuation for these franchises. The findings indicated that new stadia significantly increase revenue and franchise value in the NFL; therefore, the primary goal of every firm, wealth maximization, is met for teams after opening a new facility.football; NFL; stadium; revenue; honeymoon

Searching for Higgs decays to four bottom quarks at LHCb

We discuss the feasibility of seeing a Higgs boson which decays to four bottom quarks through a pair of (pseudo-)scalars at the LHCb experiment to argue that the use of b-physics triggers and off-line vertex reconstruction, as opposed to jet triggers with b tagging, may be more effective for this signal. Focusing on inclusive production for the Higgs, we find that for light scalar masses below 20 GeV, signal reconstruction efficiencies of order a few percent may be enough for LHCb to find evidence for a Higgs with a dominant 4b decay channel.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Age Related Decrements in Steering Control: The Effects of Landmark and Optical Flow Information

This study examined age related decrements in the use of optical flow and landmark information for the control of steering. Older and younger drivers viewed computer generated displays simulating vehicle motion through a random dot ground plane scene. The horizontal position of the driver was perturbed according a sum of sines function and the driver had to keep steering straight (resembling the task of steering a car on a gusty day). On half the trials, landmark information was presented by color coding one of the dots on the ground plane. Overall, older drivers showed greater steering error magnitude (RMS error) than younger drivers. Unlike the younger drivers, the older drivers showed no reduction in steering errors when landmark information was present. These results suggest that older drivers are more reliant on optical flow information for controlling a vehicle and have a reduced ability to use alternative sources of information, such as landmarks, for steering control

Useful Field of View Impairment in Partial Epilepsy

Patients with epilepsy are at elevated risk for automobile crashes.Most collisions in drivers with epilepsy are not seizure-related, but may insteadresult from cognitive effects of epilepsy and antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) upondriving performance. The Useful Field of View (UFOV) score has demonstratedgood sensitivity and specificity for predicting automobile crashes. The goal in thispilot study was to assess impairments in the UFOV in subjects with partialepilepsy. Participants included 20 subjects with partial epilepsy. Neurologicallynormal control subjects of comparable age also participated. UFOV was assessedin all participants using the Visual Attention Analyzer, Model 3000 (VisualResources, Inc.). UFOV Task scores were added to calculate a UFOV Total scorefor each subject. UFOV scores were higher on all UFOV tasks in subjects withpartial epilepsy compared to neurologically normal individuals of similar age (p\u3c0.05, Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test), suggesting a greater crash risk in individualswith partial epilepsy, even in the absence of an epileptic seizure. Causes ofimpaired UFOV scores include processing speed reduction, divided and selectiveattention impairments, and mild postoperative visual field deficits. Our ongoingstudies in drivers with epilepsy are aimed at further differentiating potentialeffects of seizures, antiepileptic drugs, and surgical lesions upon cognitiveabilities that are critical to safe automobile driving

Variable Ticket Pricing in Major League Baseball

Sport teams historically have been reluctant to change ticket prices during the season. Recently, however, numerous sport organizations have implemented variable ticket pricing in an effort to maximize revenues. In Major League Baseball variable pricing results in ticket price increases or decreases depending on factors such as quality of the opponent, day of the week, month of the year, and for special events such as opening day, Memorial Day, and Independence Day. Using censored regression and elasticity analysis, this article demonstrates that variable pricing would have yielded approximately $590,000 per year in additional ticket revenue for each major league team in 1996, ceteris paribus. Accounting for capacity constraints, this amounts to only about a 2.8$1.4 million in revenue. The largest percentage revenue gain would have been the San Francisco Giants. The Giants would have seen an estimated 6.7% increase in revenue had they used optimal variable pricing

Fluid balance and cardiac function in septic shock as predictors of hospital mortality

INTRODUCTION: Septic shock is a major cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Unfortunately, the optimal fluid management of septic shock is unknown and currently is empirical. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed at Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis, Missouri). Consecutive patients (n = 325) hospitalized with septic shock who had echocardiographic examinations performed within 24 hours of shock onset were enrolled. RESULTS: A total of 163 (50.2%) patients with septic shock died during hospitalization. Non-survivors had a significantly larger positive net fluid balance within the 24 hour window of septic shock onset (median (IQR): 4,374 ml (1,637 ml, 7,260 ml) vs. 2,959 ml (1,639.5 ml, 4,769.5 ml), P = 0.004). The greatest quartile of positive net fluid balance at 24 hours and eight days post-shock onset respectively were found to predict hospital mortality, and the greatest quartile of positive net fluid balance at eight days post-shock onset was an independent predictor of hospital mortality (adjusted odds ratio (AOR), 1.66; 95% CI, 1.39 to 1.98; P = 0.004). Survivors were significantly more likely to have mild left ventricular dysfunction as evaluated by bedside echocardiography and non-survivors had slightly elevated left ventricular ejection fraction, which was also found to be an independent predictor of outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Our data confirms the importance of fluid balance and cardiac function as outcome predictors in patients with septic shock. A clinical trial to determine the optimal administration of intravenous fluids to patients with septic shock is needed

Revenue and Wealth Maximization in the National Football League: The Impact of Stadia

The opening of the Palace of Auburn Hills, the SkyDome, and Oriole Park at Camden Yards led to the beginning of a construction boom in professional sport. In the National Football League (NFL) alone, 26 stadiums have been built or renovated in the past 10 years. Due to the additional revenue generated by these facilities and the NFL’s current revenue sharing system, professional football franchises are building new stadia for economic reasons rather than to replace unusable or unsafe facilities. The purpose of this study was to determine if a significant difference in net revenue change existed for NFL teams that moved into a new facility and to determine if there was a significant change in valuation for these franchises. The findings indicated that new stadia significantly increase revenue and franchise value in the NFL; therefore, the primary goal of every firm, wealth maximization, is met for teams after opening a new facility

Concurrent and prospective associations between negative social-evaluative beliefs, safety behaviours, and symptoms during and following cognitive behavioural group therapy for social anxiety disorder

Background: Improving the delivery of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) requires an in-depth understanding of which cognitive and behavioural mechanisms drive change in social anxiety symptoms (i.e., social interaction anxiety) during and after treatment. The current study explores the dynamic temporal associations between theory-driven cognitive and behavioural mechanisms of symptom change both during and following group CBT. Methods: A randomized controlled trial of imagery-enhanced CBT (n = 51) versus traditional verbal CBT (n = 54) for social anxiety was completed in a community mental health clinic setting. This study included data collected from 12-weekly sessions and a 1-month follow-up session. Mixed models were used to assess magnitude of change over the course of treatment. Cross-lagged panel models were fit to the data to examine temporal relationships between mechanisms (social evaluative beliefs, safety behaviours) and social interaction anxiety symptoms. Results: Participants in both CBT groups experienced significant improvements across all cognitive, behavioural, and symptom measures, with no significant differences in the magnitude of changes between treatments. During treatment, greater social-evaluative beliefs (fear of negative evaluation, negative self-portrayals) at one time point (T) were predictive of more severe SAD symptoms and safety behaviours at T+1. Social-evaluative beliefs (fear of negative evaluation, probability and cost of social failure) and safety behaviours measured at post-treatment were positively associated with SAD symptoms at the 1-month follow-up. Conclusions: The current study identifies social-evaluative beliefs that may be important targets for symptom and avoidance reduction during and following CBT. Assessment of these social-evaluative beliefs throughout treatment may be useful for predicting future SAD symptoms and avoidance, and for adapting treatment to promote optimal change for patients