Professional Hockey Elements Attracting Fans to AHL Games

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships between on-ice professional hockey elements and attendance at American Hockey League games. It was important to this study that the AHL was the most successful North American professional hockey league in recent years in terms of increasing attendance and in 2015-16 the league set a record for total fans attending games at around 7 million. Also, recently the NHL and consequently AHL have implemented rules to increase scoring and decrease fighting; therefore it was important to conclude if those changes resulted in changed fan motivation to attend games. It was previously known that AHL fans preferred high scoring and high fighting games and were indifferent about team success when deciding on attending games before the rule changes. Data were collected on average goals per game, average fights per game, divisional rivalry games, winning percentage, and percent capacity filled for each of the 30 AHL teams’ weekend games in the 2015-16 season. A regression was used to discover the relationships between the variables and attendance. It was concluded that average goals per game and average fights per game had a significant relationship with attendance, while team success had a not significant relationship with attendance. Even after the many rule changes to increase scoring and decrease fighting, fans still preferred to go to games that were high scoring and high fighting. This was important for AHL business executives to know because they were changing rules to decrease fighting, yet fans preferred high fighting. Rule changes made should have been to the fans liking so the league as a business could have profit maximized, therefore this information can help them make better decisions moving forward

Boosting Linear-Optical Bell Measurement Success Probability with Pre-Detection Squeezing and Imperfect Photon-Number-Resolving Detectors

Linear optical realizations of Bell state measurement (BSM) on two single-photon qubits succeed with probability $p_s$ no higher than $0.5$. However pre-detection quadrature squeezing, i.e., quantum noise limited phase sensitive amplification, in the usual linear-optical BSM circuit, can yield ${p_s \approx 0.643}$. The ability to achieve $p_s > 0.5$ has been found to be critical in resource-efficient realizations of linear optical quantum computing and all-photonic quantum repeaters. Yet, the aforesaid value of $p_s > 0.5$ is not known to be the maximum achievable using squeezing, thereby leaving it open whether close-to-$100\%$ efficient BSM might be achievable using squeezing as a resource. In this paper, we report new insights on why squeezing-enhanced BSM achieves $p_s > 0.5$. Using this, we show that the previously-reported ${p_s \approx 0.643}$ at single-mode squeezing strength $r=0.6585$---for unambiguous state discrimination (USD) of all four Bell states---is an experimentally unachievable point result, which drops to $p_s \approx 0.59$ with the slightest change in $r$. We however show that squeezing-induced boosting of $p_s$ with USD operation is still possible over a continuous range of $r$, with an experimentally achievable maximum occurring at $r=0.5774$, achieving ${p_s \approx 0.596}$. Finally, deviating from USD operation, we explore a trade-space between $p_s$, the probability with which the BSM circuit declares a "success", versus the probability of error $p_e$, the probability of an input Bell state being erroneously identified given the circuit declares a success. Since quantum error correction could correct for some $p_e > 0$, this tradeoff may enable better quantum repeater designs by potentially increasing the entanglement generation rates with $p_s$ exceeding what is possible with traditionally-studied USD operation of BSMs.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

OPTIMALITY AND SEPARABLE LINEAR PROGRAMMING: AN ADDITIONAL REMINDER

The assumed global optimum solution obtained in linear programming is not an assumed characteristic of separable linear programming. Separable programming is non-linear programming and must possess certain sufficient conditions for a global optimum to be obtained. The global optimum conditions for separable programming are set forth.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Simulation evaluation of display/FLIR concepts for low-altitude, terrain-following helicopter operations

A piloted simulation of three head-down display (HDD) concepts with flight-director guidance superimposed on forward-looking infrared (FLIR) imagery was performed to evaluate the task of low-level, terrain-following (TF), manual helicopter flight. The three display concepts were examined for the purpose of finding ways by which aircraft flight-attitude and command symbols and FLIR imagery could be integrated onto one instrument. In all cases, the FLIR imagery was centered on the flight-path vector of the aircraft. The three displays were then characterized by having: (1) pitch attitude conformal to the FLIR imagery; (2) pitch attitude conformal to the FLIR imagery, but with an increase in the scaling; and (3) pitch attitude nonconformal to the FLIR imagery with the same pitch scaling as in (2). The simulation was conducted on the Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS) at Ames Research Center, using NASA and Air Force test pilots. The pilots indicated that the nonconformal pitch attitude and FLIR display was the preferred way to display information because of the absence of pitch-attitude information on displays (1) and (2) during some portions of the operational flight envelope

Multilevel Approach For Signal Restoration Problems With Toeplitz Matrices

We present a multilevel method for discrete ill-posed problems arising from the discretization of Fredholm integral equations of the first kind. In this method, we use the Haar wavelet transform to define restriction and prolongation operators within a multigrid-type iteration. The choice of the Haar wavelet operator has the advantage of preserving matrix structure, such as Toeplitz, between grids, which can be exploited to obtain faster solvers on each level where an edge-preserving Tikhonov regularization is applied. Finally, we present results that indicate the promise of this approach for restoration of signals and images with edges

The Bargaining Strength of a Milk Marketing Cooperative

As a result of economies of size, food processors are generally large and few in number. These characteristics put processors at a bargaining advantage over independent farmers. Marketing cooperatives were established to counter the uneven bargaining position of individual farmers. This article investigates the relative bargaining strength of one milk marketing cooperative and several fluid milk processors. The Nash bargaining model can be used to analyze the negotiated price in the Florida fluid milk market which acts like a bilateral monopoly. The milk marketing cooperatives have bargained well with the milk marketing processors. The monthly bargaining strength of the Southeast Dairy Cooperative, Inc. (SDC), exceeds the monthly bargaining strength of the processors in all twelve months, ranging from a low of 0.6664 in January to a high of 0.7831 in September. The monthly average bargaining strength across all months for SDC is 0.7326.cooperative, bargaining, bilateral monopoly, dairy, processors, Agribusiness, Marketing,

Marijuana and Crime: Is there a Connection Beyond Prohibition?

We examine the relationship between marijuana use and non-drug related crime using data on arrests from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) Program and Uniform Crime Reports. There is a positive association between self-reported use at the time of the offence and non-drug related violent, property and income-producing crime even after accounting for other substance use in the ADAM data. Reduced form equations using both data sets only provide evidence supporting a causal mechanism for property and income-producing crime. In the case of violent crime, we find a statistically significant association with arrests but not reported crime, suggesting that marijuana use may just influence the likelihood of getting caught committing these crimes.

A BARGAINING FRAMEWORK TO ESTABLISH OVER-ORDER PREMIUMS IN DAIRY MARKETS

Given the approximate bilateral monopoly nature of Florida dairy industry (producers and processors), the monthly projected over-order premiums (i.e., the dollar amount above the Class I price) are determined by the generalized Nash bargaining model through the relevant prices, costs, bargaining power, and risk attitudes. The implications of the results are discussed.Agribusiness,