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Going Global: The Influence of International Talent on MLB Wins and Revenue
No full textThis paper investigates the economic and competitive impacts of foreign-born players\u27 salaries in Major League Baseball (MLB). Utilizing a fixed effects Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression model and a self-collected panel data set covering eight Northeastern MLB teams over the 2014-2023 seasons, the analysis addresses the question of whether salaries of international players influence team revenue and team winning percentage. Key findings indicate that allocating payroll to foreign-born players slightly increases team revenue, reflecting positive consumer (fan) reception. However, complex dynamics emerge at higher proportions of foreign-born players, revealing nonlinear fan discrimination. Regarding competitive outcomes, the analysis reveals that increasing payroll allocated to foreign-born talent only marginally enhances team performance, underscoring a merit-based valuation of talent by employers (general managers) rather than discriminatory practices. Contrary to previous literature suggesting conflicting revenue and attendance impacts, this study identifies consistently positive correlations between international player presence, stadium attendance, and overall revenue. The paper highlights that performance metrics, such as Wins Above Replacement (WAR), significantly predict winning percentages, reinforcing that MLB operates predominantly as a meritocratic market. These findings offer strategic insights for MLB executives regarding optimal payroll allocations and international talent investments while highlighting the global nature of the sport today
Necromanced
No full textIn this modern female-centric retelling of the classic Greek Tale of the Abduction of Persephone, we follow the journey of a bystander in her choice to defy of the gods to protect a traumatized young girl and her refusal to allow the misogynist, abusive, unchecked power flex to continue. We travel between the over- and underworld to witness the abduction, rape, and subsequent aftermath, through the familial dynamics of these divine beings. From parents, to children, pseudo-aunts and uncles, as well as admirers, and close friends, these characters help and hurt each other as they destroy their functioning dynamic and are forced to build a new one as they accept their new reality. A mythic world that reflects the struggles of our present day, Necromanced forces audiences to confront the ongoing debates about sexual assault and its rippling impact on both people and our society
Navigating Generosity: A Comparative Analysis of Charitable Donations Around the Great Recession of 2008
Full text linkThis paper studies donations to non-profit organizations in the US and how they reacted to The Great Recession of 2008. I find statistically significant drop-offs in multiple donative subcategories, including religion, education, human services, public society benefits, and arts, culture, and humanities, making up over 50% of total donations. Donation levels after the 2008 crash tend to be slightly downward sticky, meaning the rate of increase is larger after the treatment effect. These increased rates of return allow for market correction post-recession but still reveal a deadweight loss when comparing trends in OLS betas before and after the recession, meaning organizations must reign in their philanthropic outlays. I find a necessity for exogenous stimulus and propose the Keynesian Foundation as a potential solution to keep non-profit organizations afloat during financial downturns
The relationship between patient satisfaction and the interaction of physical therapy availability and Medicare spending
Full text linkMy research aims to find out whether the interaction of availability of physical therapy services and Medicare spending will impact patient satisfaction. This study also investigates whether improvements in patients’ breathing will impact patient satisfaction with nonparametric regression methodology. The findings show that patient satisfaction increases at a much higher rate when physical therapy services are available to Medicare beneficiaries. Further, the results demonstrates that a statistically significant association exist between patient satisfaction and the improvements in the frequency with which patients’ breathing improves. This study demonstrates that the government needs to increase both Medicare funding and accessibility to high-quality physical therapy services simultaneously to achieve the greatest possible amount of patient satisfaction
The Relationship Between Ownership and English Premier League Players’ Salaries
Full text linkThis paper looks into the relationship between professional soccer player wages and ownership characteristics. Previous research has shown that foreign owners invest more in their clubs but has not connected it to individual players’ wages. Previous player compensation models exist but have not incorporated advanced analytics or tied in the concept of MRP. Regression models have been calculated for club output, club revenue, and expected player wage. The expected player wage was then compared to MRP. These were then regressed with ownership characteristics. This paper has found that there is a statistically significant relationship between two ownership characteristics and player wages. In the future, player compensation models should tie in financial aspects to their models
Photosensitized oxidation of fatty acids on complex environmental interfaces: the effect of pH and speciation of molecular photosensitizer
No full textClouds and cloud formation are essential for understanding Earth\u27s radiation budget and climate change, with aerosols playing a vital role in the process. Aerosol particles are required for atmospheric water to condense, leading to cloud formation. In the marine atmosphere, this process is driven by sea spray aerosols (SSAs), a type of primary aerosol formed by wave breaking or bubble bursting, resulting in particles that carry the composition of the sea surface microlayer (SSML). Thus, chromophoric compounds and fatty acids found in the marine boundary layer (MBL) are known to partition into SSA, along with ionic and other compounds. The chemistry and physics of SSA and SSML, in particular those related to cloud formation, is driven by the chemical composition of these compounds and their environmental ageing. For instance, large concentrations of fatty acids found in partitioning from SSML to SSA suggest that these particles should behave as hydrophobic compounds, as the SSA dries out and its components concentrate during atmospheric transport. Yet, recent work suggests that fatty-acid-rich SSA is a highly effective cloud formation nuclei. In this thesis, we address this apparent contradiction by examining the photooxidation mechanisms of fatty acids in marine environment. The following chapter develops key concepts in atmospheric chemistry and physics, as well as the chemical environment characteristic of the complex systems that involve SSA and SSML.
Despite the important implications the aging of organic compounds in SSA has, this reaction is poorly understood. Recent studies suggest that organic chromophores present in SSA can induce photosensitized oxidation of fatty acids. However, due to the complexity of these organic chromophores, chemical mimics are necessary to understand this reaction at a molecular level. To better understand the effect of environmental photosensitizers on daytime oxidation of organic compounds, we present here laboratory studies on the photosensitized oxidation of nonanoic acid, a proxy of fatty acids found in SSA, by four different photosensitizers: environmental photosensitizers marine chromophoric dissolved organic matter (mCDOM) and its terrestrial counterpart, humic acid (HA), and 4-benzoylbenzoic acid (4BBA) and 4-imidazolecarboxaldehyde (4-IC) as molecular proxies. A tandem gravimetric and vibrational spectroscopy was used to perform in-situ analysis and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LCMS) was used to perform ex-situ analysis. The effect of relevant environmental conditions such as pH was investigated, as well as the speciation of model systems at different pHs, as a range of pH variations exists in the marine environment and pH has been known to affect the photoactivity of organic chromophores. We find that all four photosensitizers initiated the photooxidation of nonanoic acid, although the rate and yield of product formation differed depending on the photosensitizer. The rate of oxidation is dependent on the concentration of photosensitizer and oxygen, with little to no mass change occurring in the absence of oxygen. Photooxidation initiated by deprotonated 4BBA is faster than neutral or protonated 4BBA. We also find that both the aldehyde and 1,1-diol forms of 4-IC are present at low pH and photooxidation initiated by 4-IC is faster at around pH 6, providing insight into how pH affects the efficacy of photosensitizers. Overall, this work shows that organic photosensitizers can oxidize fatty acids to form hydrophilic products and pH has a significant effect on this process
The Effect of Remittances on Educational Outcome in Uganda
Full text linkThis study investigates the impact of remittances received on the highest level of education completed by the household members in Uganda. The results of our multinomial logistic regression analysis that uses survey data from Uganda in 2010 indicate that, after controlling for other variables, our independent variable—the total amount of remittances received—is only a significant predictor of the three highest level of education categories (Completed secondary education vs Didn’t complete primary education category, Post-secondary diploma vs Didn’t complete primary education category, and Degree and Above Education vs Didn’t complete primary education). This could be due to the fact that households with lower and primary level of education understand the importance of education; therefore, they are more likely to invest in higher education
Open Letters & Impersonal Forms: Diaries, Letters, and Self-Disclosure in Rilke’s Prose
Full text linkThis paper places Letters alongside two other works of prose by Rilke — The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910) and Diaries of a Young Poet (1997). The first is Rilke’s only novel, in which a young man inscribes his thoughts, feelings, and activities in a series of journal entries; the second is a series of private journals which Rilke maintained between 1898 and 1900. Notebooks’ narrator resembles Rilke in several ways, but the novel’s fictiveness impedes upon readers’ instinct to treat the story as entirely autobiographical. In his actual diaries, published at the opposite end of the same century, Rilke drafts poetry, recounts his travels, marvels at art, pines after women, and records the minutia of everyday life, but he reveals little about his emotions or mental state. The posthumous publishing of Rilke’s Letters and Diaries is reactive, reflective of the poet’s lasting fame. Moreover, these books are a consequence of collective curiosity about the interior lives of larger-than-life writers. In each case — Letters, Notebooks, and Diaries — Rilke opts for a literary form that affords him the privacy, communication, or convenience most appropriate for a given subject matter or audience. In each case, writing is performative and a means of self-preservation. Yet a more scrutinizing examination of this trio of texts reveals that the real letters, fictionalized journal entries, and real journal entries each defy the parameters of their form. Under Rilke’s pen, they begin to resemble one another in unlikely and ironic ways. While his non-fiction prose eludes reader expectations, Rilke’s work of fiction skillfully generates the illusion of self-disclosure. This body of work forces readers to reconsider assumptions about the inheritances of form, the privacy of authors, and the intimacy of epistolary exchange and diary entries
The Illuminating Power of Christmas: Stories of Community
Full text linkChristmas is an almost universal experience in the Western world. Its symbolism as a moment of community and connection reveals the human need to be with one another and fight our greatest fear—loneliness. Christmas is one of many winter festivals around the globe that demonstrate this need for connection, but because of Western media and culture it has become a holiday celebrated within and outside of the Christian faith and thus reaches a wide audience. It is a time when people come together to perform the same rituals every year and reflect. Christmas is a dedicated time to celebrate the ways in which we have forged communities and honor these bonds. The study of Christmas allows readers to understand the ways in which humans create collectives because Christmas occurs during a time of year best known for death and darkness, Christmas stories remind readers that there is light everywhere, in each of us
Autumn in New York: Gotham and the Decline of the New Deal Order (1967-1975)
Full text linkIn 1975, the city of New York looked out on the precipice of fiscal collapse. Years of borrowing, a fleeting tax base, deindustrialization, and the thinning of federal investment streams left the city short-changed and vulnerable, reliant on banks with waning interest in funding New York’s robust network of social services. [1] The conversations, contestations, and political resolutions that followed would reshape and remake the politics of a city that had, for four decades, represented a beacon of “social democracy.” [2] New York ultimately surrendered its commitment to urban liberalism and embraced a neoliberal politics of austerity, mirroring shifts taking place on the national level. Major politicos of the Right, particularly Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, capitalized on the moment to portray the New Deal style of politics, defined by “promises and programs, subsidies and studies, welfare and make work,” as inert and inept in the face of crisis. [3] Yet the rise of austerity politics was not merely the result of developments on the Right, but the erosion and splintering of the New Deal order – order being defined as “a constellation of rules, institutions, practices, and ideas that hang together over time; a bundle of patterns.” [4] In the years preceding the fiscal crisis, critical events fractured the foundational coalitions and conceptions of New York politics, thus facilitating a reordering of city, state, and nation. [5] This thesis draws upon the scholarship of American Political Development to explain the historical and political construction of these changing tides and grapples with their long-term impact on political life.
[1] Kim Phillips-Fein, Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Politics (New York: Picador, 2017).
[2] Joshua B. Freeman, Working Class New York: Life and Labor Since World War II (New York: The New Press, 2000), 334-335.
[3] Ronald Reagan, “President’s Remarks at the Westway Highway Project Ceremony” (speech, New York City, September 7, 1981), Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5HqPeBTTNs&t=1s.
[4] Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, The Search for American Political Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 14.
[5] Jerald Podair, The Strike That Changed New York: Blacks, Whites, and the Ocean-Hill Brownsville Crisis (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002); Roger Starr, The Rise and Fall of New York City (New York: Basic Books, 1985)