Trends in Competitive Balance: Is There Evidence for Growing Imbalance in Professional Sport Leagues?

The concept of competitive balance is a central aspect in the literature of sports economics. A popular argumentation of sport functionaries is that dominance of one or a few teams could lead to unequal incomes for the clubs, restrictions in the clubs' ability to improve sporting performance and ultimately to a loss of attractiveness and loss of income for the league. Following this line of reasoning and alleging a negative trend in competitive sports functionaries often try to implement regulations in team sport leagues. The aim of this paper is to analyze for eight different leagues if there is such a trend existing. For an empirical test for trends in competitive balance of four European soccer leagues (ENG, ESP, GER, ITA) and four US Major Leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL), OLS regressions with a constant were carried out. For the entire observation period from 1969/70 to 2003/2004, of 48 trends ascertained, only 12 could be observed as being significantly positive (i.e. growing imbalance) with 19 significantly negative (i.e. growing balance). The remaining 17 trends were insignificantly different from zero

Episodic vertical nutrient fluxes and nearshore phytoplankton blooms in Southern California

Author Posting. © Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, 2012. This article is posted here by permission of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Limnology and Oceanography 57 (2012): 1673-1688, doi:10.4319/lo.2012.57.6.1673.Three distinct phytoplankton blooms lasting 4–9 d were observed in approximately 15-m water depth near Huntington Beach, California, between June and October of 2006. Each bloom was preceded by a vertical NO3 flux event 6–10 d earlier. NO3 concentrations were estimated using a temperature proxy that was verified by comparison with the limited NO3 observations. The lower–water-column vertical NO3 flux from vertical advection was inferred from observed vertical isotherm displacement. Turbulent vertical eddy diffusivity was parameterized based on the observed background (< 0.3 cycles h−1) stratification and vertical shear in the horizontal currents. The first vertical nitrate flux event in June contained both advective and turbulent fluxes, whereas the later two events were primarily turbulent, driven by shear in the lower part of the water column. The correlation between the NO3 flux and the observed chlorophyll a (Chl a) was maximum (r2 = 0.40) with an 8-d lag. A simple nitrate–phytoplankton model using a linear uptake function and driven with the NO3 flux captured the timing, magnitude, and duration of the three Chl a blooms (skill = 0.61) using optimal net growth rate parameters that were within the expected range. Vertical and horizontal advection of Chl a past the measurement site were too small to explain the observed Chl a increases during the blooms. The vertical NO3 flux was a primary control on the growth events, and estimation of both the advective (upwelled) and turbulent fluxes is necessary to best predict these episodic blooms.California Sea Grant, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, California Coastal Conservancy, National Science Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research supported this research

Episodic vertical nutrient fluxes and nearshore phytoplankton blooms

Abstract Three distinct phytoplankton blooms lasting 4-9 d were observed in approximately 15-m water depth near Huntington Beach, California, between June and October of 2006. Each bloom was preceded by a vertical NO 3 flux event 6-10 d earlier. NO 3 concentrations were estimated using a temperature proxy that was verified by comparison with the limited NO 3 observations. The lower-water-column vertical NO 3 flux from vertical advection was inferred from observed vertical isotherm displacement. Turbulent vertical eddy diffusivity was parameterized based on the observed background (, 0.3 cycles h 21 ) stratification and vertical shear in the horizontal currents. The first vertical nitrate flux event in June contained both advective and turbulent fluxes, whereas the later two events were primarily turbulent, driven by shear in the lower part of the water column. The correlation between the NO 3 flux and the observed chlorophyll a (Chl a) was maximum (r 2 5 0.40) with an 8-d lag. A simple nitrate-phytoplankton model using a linear uptake function and driven with the NO 3 flux captured the timing, magnitude, and duration of the three Chl a blooms (skill 5 0.61) using optimal net growth rate parameters that were within the expected range. Vertical and horizontal advection of Chl a past the measurement site were too small to explain the observed Chl a increases during the blooms. The vertical NO 3 flux was a primary control on the growth events, and estimation of both the advective (upwelled) and turbulent fluxes is necessary to best predict these episodic blooms

Me, Myself, and My Thoughts: The Influence of Brooding and Reflective Rumination on Depressive Symptoms in Athletes in the United Kingdom

Individual differences in vulnerability to depression are still underexplored in athletes. We tested the influence of different brooding and reflective rumination profiles (i.e. repetitive thought processes in response to low/depressed mood) on the odds of experiencing clinically relevant depressive symptoms in competitive athletes (N=286). The Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ – 9) and the Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS-short form) were utilized to measure depression and rumination, respectively. Compared to athletes with a low brooding/reflection profile, athletes with a high brooding/reflection profile had significantly higher odds of experiencing clinical levels of depressive symptoms (OR=13.40, 95% CI=3.81– 47.11). A high reflection/low brooding profile was not, however, related to increased odds of depressive symptoms. Future research could extend our findings by exploring determinants of ruminative tendencies, especially brooding, in athletes. Furthermore, psychological interventions targeting rumination could be examined as a potential prevention and treatment approach to tackling depressive symptoms in athletes

On Ignorant Voters and Busy Politicians

We show that a large electorate of ignorant voters can succeed in establishing high levels of electoral accountability. In our model an incumbent politician is confronted with a large number of voters who receive very noisy signals about her performance. We find that the accountability problem can be solved well in the sense that the incumbent exerts effort as if she faced a social planner who receives a perfect signal about her performance. Our results thus shed light on another potential blessing of large electorates in addition to information aggregation as postulated by the jury theorem