Major League Baseball: America’s Recession-Proof Pastime

This project is a study which examines how attendance levels in Major League Baseball stadiums have been impacted by the current recession in the United States which began in October 2007. Research on attendance during past recessions has shown a strong relationship that during downtrends in the economy, baseball attendance levels generally do not suffer. Using an ordinary least squares regression, independent variables including; percent change in ticket price from previous season, distance to closest competitor, percent change in ticket price of the closest competitor, winning percentage during previous year, winning percentage during current year, unemployment rate during current year, per capita income during current year, and a dummy variable were run against the dependent variable of season attendance totals for 29 of the 30 MLB teams (Those located within the US). The data used is from the years 2008 and 2009, the first and second years of the current recession. Results were analyzed to find if there were any relationships that proved to be significant, with a t-Stat score \u3e 2 or a P-value \u3c .10. The variables of team’s current year winning percentage and presence of a new stadium are the only variables that prove to be significant during both seasons, with a positive correlation for both years. Unemployment becomes significant during the 2009 season, and also changes from being negatively correlated to positively correlated with attendance levels from one year to the next. Overall, the league as a whole had a drop in attendance of 1.09% and 6.59% during the 2008 and 2009 seasons, which were the first and second seasons following the start of the recession. Based on the trend of attendance during past recessions, one would expect that for the upcoming year attendance numbers would jump back up to their 2007 levels. However, due to the length and severity of the recent recession, as well as the growing amount of substitutes available, attendance may suffer more and for longer than it ever has before

A Note on a Conjecture of Watanabe and Yoshida

We consider a conjecture of Watanabe and Yoshida concerning the Hilbert - Kunz multiplicity of an ideal in a Cohen-Macaulay ring and provide a proof of the conjecture in the case the ring is graded.Comment: 6 page

Space debris: Orbital microparticulates impacting LDEF experiments favour a natural extraterrestrial origin

The results of work carried out at the Unit for Space Sciences at the University of Kent at Canterbury, United Kingdom, on the micrometeoroid and space debris environment of near Earth space are described. The primary data for the research program is supplied by an examination of several types of exposed surface from the NASA Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), including an experiment dedicated to the detection of micrometeoroids and space debris provided by the University

The Italian centre-left is stalling in the campaign, but (probably) not in the election

This week sees elections in Italy. The centre-left coalition have seen their comfortable polling lead reduced but are predicted to do be successful on election day. Giuliano Bobba and Duncan McDonnell argue that despite Silvio Berlusconi and Mario Monti’s rhetoric about promoting young people and women, the centre-left PD and SEL perform better on both counts, and that this bodes well for the future of the centre-left

Jamestown Board of Public Utilities and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 459

In the matter of the fact-finding between the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities, employer, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 459, union. PERB case no. M2009-336. Before: James R. McDonnell, Ph.D., fact finder

On the dialog between experimentalist and modeler in catchment hydrology

The dialog between experimentalist and modeler in catchment hydrology has been minimal to date. The experimentalist often has a highly detailed yet highly qualitative understanding of dominant runoff processes—thus there is often much more information content on the catchment than we use for calibration of a model. While modelers often appreciate the need for 'hard data' for the model calibration process, there has been little thought given to how modelers might access this 'soft' or process knowledge. We present a new method where soft data (i.e., qualitative knowledge from the experimentalist that cannot be used directly as exact numbers) are made useful through fuzzy measures of model-simulation and parameter-value acceptability. We developed a three-box lumped conceptual model for the Maimai catchment in New Zealand, a particularly well-studied process-hydrological research catchment. The boxes represent the key hydrological reservoirs that are known to have distinct groundwater dynamics, isotopic composition and solute chemistry. The model was calibrated against hard data (runoff and groundwater-levels) as well as a number of criteria derived from the soft data (e.g. percent new water, reservoir volume, etc). We achieved very good fits for the three-box model when optimizing the parameter values with only runoff (Reff=0.93). However, parameter sets obtained in this way showed in general a poor goodness-of-fit for other criteria such as the simulated new-water contributions to peak runoff. Inclusion of soft-data criteria in the model calibration process resulted in lower Reff-values (around 0.84 when including all criteria) but led to better overall performance, as interpreted by the experimentalist’s view of catchment runoff dynamics. The model performance with respect to soft data (like, for instance, the new water ratio) increased significantly and parameter uncertainty was reduced by 60% on average with the introduction of the soft data multi-criteria calibration. We argue that accepting lower model efficiencies for runoff is 'worth it' if one can develop a more 'real' model of catchment behavior. The use of soft data is an approach to formalize this exchange between experimentalist and modeler and to more fully utilize the information content from experimental catchments