Mixing the princes and the paupers: Pay and performance in the National Basketball Association

We investigate how team and individual performances of players in the National Basketball Association respond to variations in intra-team pay inequality. By breaking down team dispersion into conditional and expected components, we find that expected pay dispersion has a positive effect on team and individual performance. We find that team and individual performances are essentially orthogonal to conditional pay inequality, counter to the hypotheses of fairness and cohesion proposed in the literature both for sports and general occupations. A change in collective bargaining regime in 1996 had little impact on either team or player productivity.

What does it mean to find the Face of the Franchise? Physical Attractiveness and the Evaluation of Athletic Performance

Previous research has shown how more attractive people reap more rewards in a variety of settings. We show that attractiveness as measured by facial symmetry leads to greater rewards in professional sports. National Football League quarterbacks who are more attractive are paid greater salaries and this premium persists after controlling for player performance.

Mixing the princes and the paupers: Pay and performance in the National Basketball Association

We investigate how team and individual performances of players in the National Basketball Association respond to variations in intra-team pay inequality. By breaking down team dispersion into conditional and expected components, we find that expected pay dispersion has a positive effect on team and individual performance. We find that team and individual performances are essentially orthogonal to conditional pay inequality, counter to the hypotheses of fairness and cohesion proposed in the literature both for sports and general occupations. A change in collective bargaining regime in 1996 had little impact on either team or player productivity

Comparison of Metaheuristic Optimization Algorithms for Electromechanical Actuator Fault Detection

Model-based Fault Detection and Identification (FDI) for prognostics rely on the comparison between the response of the monitored system and that of a digital twin. Discrepancies among the behavior of the two systems are analyzed to filter out the effect of uncertainties of the model and identify failure precursors. A possible solution to identify faults is to leverage a model able to simulate faults: an optimization algorithm varies the faults magnitude parameters within the model to achieve the matching between the responses of the model and the actual system. When the algorithm converges, we can assume that the fault parameters that produce the best match between the system and its digital twin approximate the actual faults affecting the equipment. The choice of an optimization algorithm appropriate for the task is highly problem dependent. Algorithms for FDI are required to deal with multimodal objective functions characterized by poor regularity and a relatively high computational cost. Additionally, the derivatives of the objective function are not usually available and must be obtained numerically if needed. Then, we restrict our search for a suitable optimization algorithm to metaheuristic gradient-free ones, testing Genetic Algorithm, Particle Swarm Optimization, Differential Evolution, Grey Wolf Optimization, Dragonfly Algorithm, and Whale Optimization Algorithm. Their performances on the considered problem were assessed and compared, in terms of accuracy and computational time

Epidemiology of Coxiella burnetii infection in Africa: a OneHealth systematic review

Background: Q fever is a common cause of febrile illness and community-acquired pneumonia in resource-limited settings. Coxiella burnetii, the causative pathogen, is transmitted among varied host species, but the epidemiology of the organism in Africa is poorly understood. We conducted a systematic review of C. burnetii epidemiology in Africa from a “One Health” perspective to synthesize the published data and identify knowledge gaps.<p></p> Methods/Principal Findings: We searched nine databases to identify articles relevant to four key aspects of C. burnetii epidemiology in human and animal populations in Africa: infection prevalence; disease incidence; transmission risk factors; and infection control efforts. We identified 929 unique articles, 100 of which remained after full-text review. Of these, 41 articles describing 51 studies qualified for data extraction. Animal seroprevalence studies revealed infection by C. burnetii (≤13%) among cattle except for studies in Western and Middle Africa (18–55%). Small ruminant seroprevalence ranged from 11–33%. Human seroprevalence was <8% with the exception of studies among children and in Egypt (10–32%). Close contact with camels and rural residence were associated with increased seropositivity among humans. C. burnetii infection has been associated with livestock abortion. In human cohort studies, Q fever accounted for 2–9% of febrile illness hospitalizations and 1–3% of infective endocarditis cases. We found no studies of disease incidence estimates or disease control efforts.<p></p> Conclusions/Significance: C. burnetii infection is detected in humans and in a wide range of animal species across Africa, but seroprevalence varies widely by species and location. Risk factors underlying this variability are poorly understood as is the role of C. burnetii in livestock abortion. Q fever consistently accounts for a notable proportion of undifferentiated human febrile illness and infective endocarditis in cohort studies, but incidence estimates are lacking. C. burnetii presents a real yet underappreciated threat to human and animal health throughout Africa.<p></p&gt

Interpol and the Emergence of Global Policing

This chapter examines global policing as it takes shape through the work of Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization. Global policing emerges in the legal, political and technological amalgam through which transnational police cooperation is carried out, and includes the police practices inflected and made possible by this phenomenon. Interpol’s role is predominantly in the circulation of information, through which it enters into relationships and provides services that affect aspects of governance, from the local to national, regional and global. The chapter describes this assemblage as a noteworthy experiment in developing what McKeon called a frame for common action. Drawing on Interpol publications, news stories, interviews with staff, and fieldwork at the General Secretariat in Lyon, France, the history, institutional structure, and daily practices are described. Three cases are analyzed, concerning Red Notices, national sovereignty, and terrorism, in order to explore some of the problems arising in Interpol’s political and technical operating arrangements. In conclusion, international and global policing are compared schematically, together with Interpol’s attempts to give institutional and procedural direction to the still-evolving form of global policing

OsWRKY IIa Transcription Factors Modulate Rice Innate Immunity

WRKY transcription factors regulate diverse plant processes including responses to biotic stresses. Our previous studies indicate that OsWRKY62, an OsWRKY IIa subfamily member, functions as a negative regulator of the rice defense against Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae. Here, we report that a large inverted repeat construct designed to knock down the expression of the four OsWRKY IIa subfamily members (OsWRKY62, OsWRKY28, OsWRKY71, and OsWRKY76) leads to overexpression of all four genes and disease resistance in some transgenic plants. These phenotypes are stably inherited as reflected by progeny analysis. A pathogenesis-related gene, PR10, is up-regulated in plants overexpressing the OsWRKY IIa genes. These results suggest that OsWRKY IIa proteins interact functionally to modulate plant innate immunity