Fluctuation Results from PHENIX

The PHENIX Experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider has made measurements of event-by-event fluctuations in the net charge, the mean transverse momentum, and the charged particle multiplicity as a function of collision energy, centrality, and transverse momentum in heavy ion collisions. The results of these measurements will be reviewed and discussed.Comment: Proceedings for the Workshop on Correlations and Fluctuations in Relativistic Nuclear Collisions, April 21-23, 2005; 10 pages, 17 figure

The Financial Determinants of College Football

There is a certain tradition, pageantry, rivalry, and glory in college football. It is well known that college football can be a big time money maker and sometimes covers the costs of other athletic teams within a school. However, it is also recognized that many college football programs lose money or struggle to break even. Thus, there is tremendous variability that exists in the amount of resources a school may have and the outcomes in athletic success, while there is not always a one to one correspondence between the two. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the quantifiable determinants of success, considering both financial and nonfinancial variables. The pressure to win, and do so immediately; brand; and outdo other schools in the facility “arm’s race†has reached unprecedented levels

Seasonal Occurrence of the White Shark, Carcharodon carcharias, in Waters off the Florida West Coast, with Notes on its Life History

The white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, is considered rare in the Gulf of Mexico; however, recent longline captures coupled with historical landings information suggest that the species occurs seasonally (winter-spring) within this region. We examined a total of seven adult and juvenile white sharks (185-472 em total length) captured in waters off the west coast of Florida. Commercial longline fisheries were monitored for white sharks during all months (1981-94), but this species was captured only from January to April. All white sharks were captured in continental shelf waters from 37 to 222 km off the west coast of Florida when sea surface temperatures ranged from 18.7° to 21.6°C. Depths at capture locations ranged from 20 to 164 m. Fishing gear typically used in Gulf of Mexico offshore fisheries may not be effective at capturing this species, and the apparent rarity of white sharks in this area may be, in part, a function of gear bias

Transverse radial expansion in nuclear collisions and two particle correlations

At the very first stage of an ultra-relativistic nucleus-nucleus collision new particles are produced in individual nucleon-nucleon collisions. In the transverse plane, all particles from a single $NN$ collision are initially located at the same position. The subsequent thermalization and transverse radial expansion of the system create strong position-momentum correlations and lead to characteristic rapidity, transverse momentum, and azimuthal correlations among the produced particles.Comment: As accepted for publication in Phys. Lett. B. The discussion is slightly extended. The linear scale in Fig.2 changed to log scale. No other change

Outlook for U.S. Agriculture: Prices, Pressures, and Distributions

Presentation examining Missouri farm debt-to-asset ratios, short-term agricultural market outlook, and the distribution of farm income

Exploring Options for a New Farm Bill

nvited Paper for the Southern Agricultural Economics Association Annual Meeting, Ft. Worth, TX.Before Congress debates another assistance package or the next farm bill, we should be evaluating alternative policy options. During the past year, FAPRI and AFPC were asked by Representative Charles Stenholm, ranking minority member of the House Agriculture Committee, to analyze the merits of alternative farm programs that would transfer $1,$2, or $3 billion per year (over and above the 1996 farm bill) to program crop producers (FAPRI-UMC Report 07-00). The farm program tools of interest were: a supplemental income protection program, higher marketing loan rates, and additional AMTA payments. The analysis of these options showed that even with$3 billion per year of payments it would not be sufficient to reduce the cash flow problem facing farmers (Smith and Richardson)

Public geographies II: being organic

This second report on ‘public geographies' considers the diverse, emergent and shifting spaces of engaging with and in public/s. Taking as its focus the more ‘organic’ rather than ‘traditional’ approach to doing public geography, as discussed in the first report, it explores the multiple and unorthodox ways in which engagements across academic-public spheres play out, and what such engagements may mean for geography/ers. The report first explores the role of the internet in ‘enabling conversations', generating a range of opportunities for public geography through websites, wikis, blogs, file-sharing sites, discussion forums and more, thinking critically about how technologies may enable/disable certain kinds of publically engaged activities. It then considers issues of process and praxis: how collaborations with groups/communities/organizations beyond academia are often unplanned, serendipitous encounters that evolve organically into research/learning/teaching endeavours; but also that personal politics/positionality bring an agency to bear upon whether we, as academics, follow the leads we may stumble upon. The report concludes with a provocative question – given that many non-academics appear to be doing some amazing and inspiring projects and activities, thoughtful, critical and (arguably) examples of organic public geographies, what then is academia’s role

Traces of Thermalization at RHIC

I argue that measurements of Au+Au collisions at 20, 130 and 200 GeV of the centrality dependence of the mean p_t together with p_t and net-charge fluctuations reflect the approach to local thermal equilibrium.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figures, for proc. Quark Matter 2004, to be published in J. Phys.

The smooth Whitehead spectrum of a point at odd regular primes

Let p be an odd regular prime, and assume that the Lichtenbaum-Quillen conjecture holds for K(Z[1/p]) at p. Then the p-primary homotopy type of the smooth Whitehead spectrum Wh(*) is described. A suspended copy of the cokernel-of-J spectrum splits off, and the torsion homotopy of the remainder equals the torsion homotopy of the fiber of the restricted S^1-transfer map t: SigmaCP^infty--> S. The homotopy groups of Wh(*) are determined in a range of degrees, and the cohomology of Wh(*) is expressed as an A-module in all degrees, up to an extension. These results have geometric topological interpretations, in terms of spaces of concordances or diffeomorphisms of highly connected, high dimensional compact smooth manifolds.Comment: Published by Geometry and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol7/paper4.abs.htm