Howzat? The Financial Health of English Cricket: Not Out, Yet

In 1997 a review of the financial health of English county cricket highlighted strategic weaknesses within the professional game, principally an over-reliance by clubs on the annual grants provided to them by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). Without such grants the teams, in general terms, would be insolvent. Using the financial statements of the First Class Cricket Counties, this paper explores how the financial position and performance of the county game has changed, 20 years on from the seminal study. A series of structural changes to the game had been made, yet financial problems are still evident. Counties are as reliant on central grant income as they were in 1997, although there are cases where clubs have made strategic enhancements and are becoming self-sustainable as going concerns. Rather than the ECB directly funding county revenue it should be working in collaboration with individual clubs to achieve developments in the game from the grassroots upwards, in order to help clubs grow their own revenue streams.</jats:p

Ramallah Archive

Este trabajo pone en relación documentos que se conservan en el Archivo Municipal de Ramallah con negativos que se encontraron en el propio Archivo y el desarrollo de la ciu- dad contemporánea. Once cajas de cartón se fueron llenando de negativos por el fotógrafo con sede en Ra- mala Garo Kuftedjian, en su Studio Venus. Después de su muerte su familia las cedió al municipio. Los negativos representan tanto personas solas como familias completas, a menudo con motivo de un evento particular: un matrimonio, la llegada de un nuevo bebé o un viaje. Fotografías familiares que se uti- lizan como testimonios de la integridad de la familia; los ausentes se hacen presentes por medio de una fotografía que muestra uno de sus parientes. Mientras que las fotografías muestran las di- ferencias en las relaciones sociales y los cam- bios en la moda, los documentos de archivo se re eren a períodos concretos de la historia palestina: la época bajo dominio jordano, la administración por las fuerzas de ocupación israelíes y el período posterior a los Acuerdos de Oslo, así como la creación de la Autoridad Palestina en Cisjordania y la Franja de Gaza. Finalmente, las fotografías de la ciudad en- focan elementos para la reorganización de la existencia colectiva e individual. Una de las condiciones principales es la falta de espa- cio. El apilamiento, la compresión, o el lle- nado de los vacíos conectan tanto los docu- mentos de archivo como el desarrollo urbano contemporáneo

Performance analysis in sport and leisure management

This commentary documents a programme of research conducted between 1995 and 2012 which, perhaps unconventionally, applied performance analysis techniques frequently used in the business context to evaluate and analyse performance, both financial and non-financial, in sport and leisure. Use of performance analysis in the sport and leisure sectors was found to be lacking by the Audit Commission and therefore provided considerable research opportunities. The research presented was carried out in: professional cricket; major sports events; elite sport development systems; and initiatives to stimulate demand in sport and leisure. The philosophical underpinnings of the research are influenced by critical realism and pragmatism. The former holds that we can have only a partial understanding of reality and that this is subject to revision. The latter focuses on the practical uses and successes of research rather than concern with grand theories and is based upon empirical evidence-based, rather than a priori, principles. In professional cricket, conventional ratio analysis found a seemingly healthy industry that was strategically vulnerable to fluctuations in the performance of the England team; and which was in urgent need of reform to become competitive. The establishment of UK Sport in 1997 created the opportunity for research into the economic and social impacts of major sports events; and, performance analysis in elite sport. Both of these areas of research are underpinned by an approach which devised methodologies for data collection; implemented standardisation techniques; and constructed predictive models which have been subsequently tested, refined and retested. In the context of stimulating demand for sport and cultural activities, price on it is own is found to be a crude weapon particularly for generating market development effects. The coherence of this research is founded upon its commonality of method: in all four areas of research the subject organisations were in receipt of subsidy and the effective use of this subsidy has been examined by employing performance analysis techniques

Development of Regression Models for Predicting Properties of High Strength Concrete Using Nondestructive Tests

High strength concrete (HSC) is a relatively recent development in concrete technology. It is being used increasingly in major civil engineering and building projects. This leads to the need for quality assurance of the in-situ concrete. Testing of concrete traditionally involved compression testing of cylinders or cubes to obtain the properties and these may not adequately represent the in-situ properties of concrete. This necessitates the use of non-destructive test (NDT). There are no standard relationships that had been established for high strength concrete physical and mechanical properties using Sclerometer test, Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV) methods and Pullout test. Prediction models need to be developed for concrete strength, density and static elastic modulus estimation. They are normally required in building or structural assessment, especially with the present trend of constructing modern structures using high strength concrete. Eight different mix proportions of HSC containing sandstone aggregate of nominal sizes of 10mm and 19mm and silica fume content were investigated in this study.The silica fume contents were varied at 0%, 5%, 10% and 15%. These mixes produced concrete at 28-day strength between 40 MPa to 100 MPa. A total of 360 standard cubes (150mm), 144 cylinders (150 x 300mm) and 16 reinforced beams were cast for this study. A total of forty-five standard cube specimens for each mix were tested at the age of 3, 7, 14, 28 and 56 days in both, nondestructive and destructive manner. On the other hand, eighteen cylinder specimens for each mix were tested at the age of 28 and 56 days in both, nondestructive and destructive manner. As for the pullout test some forty-five inserts were prepared for each mix at the age of 3, 7, 14, 28 and 56 days. For each destructive test, an average of 45 values of nondestructive tests was obtained, which depends on the type of NDT techniques used. The results were analyzed using statistical tools (SPSS ver.13). The prediction models for each NDT technique were developed based on the obtained experimental results. Statistical tests of significance on the predicted models were performed to ascertain their reliability in estimating the concrete properties. Predicted models were also further validated using data from other researchers. The models developed in this study are expected to be used to estimate strength, density and static elastic modulus parameters using Sclerometer test, UPV method and Pullout test. The generalized power models for strength, density and modulus of elasticity prediction using Sclerometer and Pullout test were found to be unaffected by the aggregate sizes. The maximum error of these models were found to be ±12.5% for strength-Sclerometer test, ±25% for strength-Pullout test, ±3% for density-Sclerometer test, ±2% for density-Pullout test and ±5% for static elastic modulus-Sclerometer test.Strength, density and static modulus of elasticity prediction for direct and indirect UPV methods indicated that aggregate sizes should be known in advance. Generalized quadratic models were proposed for concrete mix with nominal aggregate size 10mm (series A10) for strength, density and modulus of elasticity prediction using UPV direct method. The maximum error of these models was found to be ±20% for strength, ±3% and ±5% for density and static modulus of elasticity respectively. A linear model for strength, a power model for density and a logarithmic model for static elastic modulus was proposed for 19mm maximum aggregate size. The quadratic models are valid for pulse velocity range between 4.7 to 6.1 km/sec and the other models are 4.3 to 5.5 km/sec. All of these models are found to be capable of predicting strength between 30 to 110 MPa, density between 2320 to 2525 kg/m3 and static elastic modulus between 28 to 40 GPa. Combined NDT methods were found to improve some of strength prediction. Statistical significant tests on the prediction models have been carried out to ascertain their reliability in estimating strength, density and static elastic modulus properties of concrete. Moreover, validation of the predicted models with other researchers further enhances reliability of each model. Thus, the proposed models for different NDT techniques can be used as a practical guide in the assessment of in-situ concrete properties

Valuing the voluntary sector: rethinking economic analysis

The voluntary sector plays an important role in the sports industry, as a provider of sporting opportunities and in the development of sport, from increasing participation through to supporting excellence and elite performance. However, despite this importance, research on its contribution to sport-related economic activity is limited, with information on this sector remaining the weakest part of current economic assessments of the UK sports industry. The research presented in this article examines the economic importance of the voluntary sector, using a case study of Sheffield. It demonstrates that the sports voluntary sector in the city is considerably smaller than was predicted when using national estimates, and that this is largely a consequence of methodological issues relating to previous research. The article suggests that in the light of the findings and the increasing use of sport in urban policy, there is a need to rethink the methodology used to evaluate the economic contribution of the voluntary sector in the future.</p

A SILENCE REMOVAL AND ENDPOINT DETECTION APPROACH FOR SPEECH PROCESSING

In this paper a brief overview of silence removal and voice activity detection is discussed and a new method for silence removal is suggested. The objective of suggested method is to delete the silence and unvoiced segments from the speech signal which are very useful to increase the performance and accuracy of the system. Endpoint detection is used to remove the DC offset value from the signal after silence removal process. Silence removal and Endpoint detection are main part of many applications such as speaker and speech recognition. The proposed method uses Root Mean Square (RMS) to delete the unvoiced segments from the speech signal. This work showed better results for silence removal and endpoint detection than existing methods. The performance of this research work is evaluated using MATLAB tool and accuracy of 97.2% is achieved

A NOVEL APPROACH FOR ERROR DETECTION AND CORRECTION USING GATED CORRECTION METHOD

Data communication is the process of exchanging information between sender and receiver. The basic objective of a communication system is to transmit data which is free of error. Advancement in technology has made various revolutions in data communication, with which come greater chances that the data to be sent becomes corrupted. The data is transferred from various transmission impairments and during this period various factors affect the signal, the data received at the receiver is different from the data transmitted. As digital signals exist in two states either high or low, the error occurred will change its state. In today's advance world different techniques have been made to detect and remove error in the data. The paper delivers a simple error correction and detection method which can detect and correct single, multiple and burst error simply by using XNOR and COMPLEMENT. In the proposed method key is calculated and is send as a redundant bits at the receiver different operations are made to get the data that was originally sent. This error correction is a step ahead of hamming code. This paper also discusses the shortcomings of hamming code

Effectiveness Of Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity And Impact- Echo Ndt Techniques To Assess The Quality Of Concrete

The deterioration of concrete in structure is a result of several internal or external degradation mechanism and which results in distress of the structure i.e. decrease in strength and integrity of the structure. The state of distress is often hidden from view and is only evident at a stage where there is significant reduction in strength of the structure. Defects are often introduced during construction and are viewed during in-service life. Some deterioration is viewed physically in the early age or during the service life of the structure in terms of spalling, surface crack, swelling and honeycombing. This deterioration collectively or individually results in reducing the load carrying capacity in terms of the distress of the structure. In this project, the common defects in the concrete structures and mapping techniques by nondestructive test are presented. Among the various techniques of the nondestructive tests, the Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity (UPV) and DOCtor's Impactecho were chosen for their effectiveness. The UPV is used to estimate the concrete strength, detecting flaws such as voids and cracks and also to investigate the effects of smaller diameter bar in the concrete. In detecting various sizes of voids by the Impact-echo test techniques a format was suggested to identify them from the frequency spectrum