Showing papers on "Tournament published in 1999"

Executive Compensation and Tournament Theory: Empirical Tests on Danish Data

Abstract: This article adds to the empirical literature on tournament theory as a theory of executive compensation. I test several propositions of tournament models on a rich data set containing information about 2,600 executives in 210 Danish firms during a 4‐year period. I ask, Are pay differentials between job levels consistent with relative compensation? Is pay dispersion between levels higher in noisy environments? Is the dispersion affected by the number of tournament participants? Is average pay lower in firms with more compressed pay structures? Does wider pay dispersion enhance firm performance? Most of the predictions gain support in the data.

Tournament Rewards and Risk Taking

Abstract: I consider two seemingly unrelated puzzles. 1.Why is relative performance evaluation (RPE) used less in CEO compensation than agency theory suggests? 2.Why is sometimes, e.g., for fund managers, a 'modest' performance more highly rewarded than 'very high' performances? I consider a simple tournament model where agents can influence the spread of output in addition to its mean. I show that standard tournament rewards induce risky and lazy behavior from the agents. This finding sheds light on Puzzle 1. Second, I consider a scheme that ranks agents according to their relative closeness to a benchmark k. I show that there exists intermediate values of k such that the risky-lazy problem of the standard tournament can be mitigated, and first best level of effort can be implemented. This result sheds light on Puzzle 2.

System, method and article of manufacture for tournament play in a network gaming system

Abstract: The present invention provides a system, method and article of manufacture for determining payment for participating in a network gaming tournament. First, a plurality of networked game apparatuses are provided for allowing games to be played by a plurality of players in a tournament. An indication of an outcome of at least one game played by each of the players is then received. Based on a sum of the outcomes of the games of all of the players, a total amount of prize credits or prizes is determined. Subsequently, a first portion of the total amount of prize credits or prizes is partitioned for payment for participation in the tournament, and a second portion of the total amount of prize credits or prizes is awarded to at least one winning player based on the outcome of the at least one game thereof.

A Sequential Game Model of Sports Championship Series: Theory and Estimation

Abstract: These large percentages may indicate that teams that fall behind 3-0 tend to give up in the fourth game Reaching the state 3-0 is an endogenous outcome that depends on the relative ability of the teams Uncontrolled differences in the strengths of the teams induce positive serial correlation across the outcomes of games within a series This serial correlation could be mistaken for dependence of outcomes on the state of the series However, estimates of the structural model do not support the notion that strategic incentives matter in the championship series of any of the three sports Nor are the estimates of unobserved heterogeneity in relative team ability significant in any of the sports The estimated strategic effect is largest in hockey, but both it and unobserved heterogeneity are still small in magnitude compared to home-field advantage In short, cliches such as a team "played with its back against the wall" or "is better than it appears on paper" are not evident in the data Our analysis relates to some research on patterns in sports statistics concerning momentum Much of this work-such as Tversky and Gilovich's (1989) well-known analysis of shooting streaks in basketball-studies individual offensive performance It is difficult to relate momentum of this type to strategic interactions in a symmetric situation, since defensive performance may have a momentum of its own that it is harder to measure Jackson and Mosurski (1997) and Magnus and Klaasen (1996) analyze outcomes of tennis tournaments which, like championship series, are symmetric contests Jackson and Mosurski find the outcomes of sets within a match to be correlated, which is consistent with the incentive effects present in our model Magnus and Klaasen analyze individual points at Wimbledon, and they find complicated correlations between the state of the match and the outcomes of points For example, they conclude that seeded players play important or critical points better than non-seeded players, which is consistent with our framework of ability differences combined with variable effort levels that depend upon the state of the larger competition The model adapts and extends the tournament models of Lazear and Rosen (1981) and Rosen (1986) to a sequential environment Ehrenberg and Bognanno (1990), Craig and Hall (1994), and Taylor and Trogdon (1999) analyze sports data in the spirit of the tournament model Ehrenberg and Bognanno study whether performance of professional golfers is related to the prize structure of the tournament, and Craig and Hall interpret outcomes of pre-season NFL football games as a tournament among teammates for positions on their respective teams Our focus is on aggregate team performance at the last stage of the season when the primary objective would not appear to be competition for positions Using a random-effects logit, Taylor and Trodgon

Scheduling a round robin tennis tournamentunder courts and players availability constraints

Abstract: A practical problem encountered by the management of a tennis club is theorganization of a tennis tournament for the club members. The tournament participants aresplit into different series: in each series, every player plays once a week with adifferent opponent in a round robin tournament. All matches are subject to a time limitcorresponding to one hour. All the series share the same pool of courts, whose weeklyavailability is predefined. In addition, the players have their own availabilityconstraints. Given the courts and players availability, the objective is to schedule thetournament with no violation of the constraints or, more realistically, in order tomaximize the number of feasible matches. This problem can be formulated as a maximummatching problem, with the additional constraint that each player must play just once aweek. It can also be modeled as a maximum clique problem. A two‐step heuristicprocedure is proposed to solve the problem: first, the round robin tournaments ofeach series are generated, then the matches of each tournament are assignedto the available courts for every week by means of a local search procedure. The procedurehas been succesfully implemented and is currently used by the tennis club.

An experimental investigation of research tournaments

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION Research tournaments have played an important role in the economic growth of nations since the earliest stages of the Industrial Revolution. For example, the golden age of steam locomotion was spawned by a research tournament sponsored by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1829.(1) More recently, research tournaments have been used to create a variety of products ranging from fuel-efficient refrigerators (Langreth [1994]) and digital televisions (Economist [1993]), to high-tech fighter aircraft for the military (Schwartz et al. [1991]). Today, scientists and lawmakers are even considering the use of a research contest to propel the development of the first manned space mission to Mars.(2) Despite the recurring popularity of research tournaments over the last two hundred years, the first theoretical model for evaluating their efficiency was not published until Taylor's [1995] seminal work. Taylor's model provides a theoretical basis for evaluating the effect the number of competitors and tournament duration have on the amount of effort expended by contestants in a research tournament. Taylor proved that, by limiting the number of competitors in a research tournament and charging each competitor an entry fee, research tournament sponsors can induce an efficient amount of innovative effort. Fullerton and McAfee [1999] extended research tournament theory to include competitions with heterogeneous contestants, showing for a large class of contests the optimal number of competitors is two and sponsors can induce the best qualified competitors to enter the tournament by holding specialized all-pay entry auctions. Although the economic intuition behind these research tournaments is straightforward, the empirical calculations required to compute their equilibrium strategies are very complex, and it is an empirical question as to whether individuals are able to compute these strategies. Therefore, to investigate the predictive power of research tournament models, we conducted a series of laboratory experiments to test Taylor's seminal research tournament theory by examining whether subjects in a controlled economic laboratory setting can be induced to expend the predicted amount of research and development (RD x = 0. Each new innovation is drawn, with recall, from the distribution of innovations allowing each competitor to retain the best draw across all T periods of the tournament. …

Can the NCAA Basketball Tournament Seeding be Used to

Abstract: Following the announcement by the NCAA of the seeding and placement of men's basketball teams in the regional tournaments there is often much discussion among basketball afficionados of the fairness. A statistical analysis of simple regression models for the tournament games shows that indeed there is a strong association between the seed positions of the teams and the actual margin of victory; in fact, fairly reliable prediction models of actual margin of victory in tournament games can be achieved based primarily on the seed numbers alone.

Constraint-based round robin tournament planning

Abstract: Sport tournament planning becomes a complex task in the presence of heterogeneous requirements from teams, media, fans and other parties. Existing approaches to sport tournament planning often rely on precomputed tournament schemes which may be too rigid to cater for these requirements. Existing work on sport tournaments suggests a separation of the planning process into three phases. In this work, it is shown that all three phases can be solved using nite-domain constraint programming. The design of Friar Tuck, a generic constraint-based round robin planning tool, is outlined. New numerical results on round robin tournaments obtained with Friar Tuck underline the potential of constraints over nite domains in this area.

Can the NCAA basketball tournament seeding be used to predict margin of victory

Abstract: Following the announcement by the NCAA of the seeding and placement of men's basketball teams in the regional tournaments there is often much discussion among basketball afficionados of the fairness. A statistical analysis of simple regression models for the tournament games shows that indeed there is a strong association between the seed positions of the teams and the actual margin of victory; in fact, fairly reliable prediction models of actual margin of victory in tournament games can be achieved based primarily on the seed numbers alone.

Do tournaments solve the two-sided moral hazard problem?

Abstract: The paper analyzes the optimality of relative performance evaluation via two-part piece rate tournaments in incentive contracting with multiple agents and two-sided moral hazard. If the agents are risk-averse, it is shown that a tournament is optimal only when the following conditions hold: (i) there is common uncertainty inflicted on the activities of the agents that is not contingent on their actions, but can be contingent on the principal’s action; (ii) the principal sufficiently saves in transaction costs by employing a tournament; (iii) the number of agents is sufficiently large. Then the feedback effect of using a tournament to monitor the agents is that the principal’s moral hazard problem is relaxed when the principal takes a single action. It can also be relaxed when the principal can vary her actions with the agents but there are economies of scale in her activity. Absent common uncertainty, the optimum scheme is shown to be a fixed performance standard, rather than a tournament, but if the agents are risk-neutral, a tournament can still be optimal provided that (ii) and (iii) hold.

Constructive Quasi-Ramsey Numbers and Tournament Ranking

Abstract: A constructive lower bound on the quasi-Ramsey numbers and the tournament ranking function was obtained in [S. Poljak, V. Rodl, and J. Spencer, SIAM J. Discrete Math., (1) 1988, pp. 372--376]. We consider the weighted versions of both problems. Our method yields a polynomial time heuristic with guaranteed lower bound for the linear ordering problem.

The variety generated by tournaments

Abstract: By a tournament we mean a directed graph (T,→) such that whenever x, y are two distinct elements of T , then precisely one of the two cases, either x→ y or y → x, takes place. There is a one-to-one correspondence between tournaments and commutative groupoids satisfying ab ∈ {a, b} for all a and b: set ab = a if and only if a→ b. This makes it possible to identify tournaments with their corresponding groupoids and employ algebraic methods for their investigation. So, an equivalent definition is: A tournament is a commutative groupoid, every subset of which is a subgroupoid. For two elements a and b of a tournament, we set a→ b if and only if ab = a. The aim of this paper is to investigate the the variety of groupoids generated by tournaments. This variety will be denoted by T. We have started the investigation in our previous paper [9], in which it is proved that the variety is not finitely based. Here we will find a four-element base for the three-variable equations of T, and proceed to investigate subdirectly irreducible algebras in T. Our main effort will be focused on an attempt to find a positive solution to a conjecture, which has several equivalent formulations:

Injuries among adolescent soccer players during an interprovincial tournament in South Africa

Abstract: Objective: To descriptionbe the pattern of injuries among soccer players taking part in the interprovincial under-20 soccer tournament in Cape Town in 1997. Design: The injuries recorded were those that occurred during the 76 matches played at the tournament. Four hundred and five players participated from all the nine provinces.

Tournament Rewards and Risk Taking

Abstract: I consider two seemingly unrelated puzzles; 1. Why is relative performance evaluation (RPE) used less in CEo compensation than agency theory suggests? 2. Why is sometimes, e.g., for fund managers, a mediocre performance more highly rewarded than excellence? I consider a simple tournament model, where agents can influence the spread of output in addition to its mean. Ishow that standard tournament rewards induce risky and lazy behavior from the agents. This finding sheds light on Puzzle 1. Second, I consider a scheme that ranks agents according to their relative closeness to a benchmark k. I show that there exists intermediate values of k such that the risky-lazy problem of the standard tournament can be mitigated. This result sheds light on Puzzle 2.

Singular values of tournament matrices

Abstract: Upper and lower bounds on both the largest and smallest singular values of a tournament matrix M of order n are obtained. For most values of n, the matrices M for which equality holds are characterized.

Random tournaments and random circuits

Abstract: This thesis is devoted to two different topics in the area of probabilistic combinatorics: asymptotic behaviour of subgraph counts in a random tournament and random circuit decompositions of complete graphs.Let Tn be a random tournament on n vertices, chosen uniformly from all 2(n2) such tournaments, and let D be an arbitrary directed graph. Then the number of copies of D in Tn is a random variable which, after normalization, converges in distribution as n tends to infinity. The limit distribution is determined, and it turns out to be normal for a typical D, but for some D it is a quadratic polynomial in normal variables. It is also shown that the variance of the number of copies of D in Tn is a polynomial in n and that the degree of this polynomial is, for a typical D, 2v - 3, where v is the number of vertices of D. However, examples are given for which this degree is as low as v.Some directed graphs turn out to appear the same number of times in all tournaments with a fixed number of vertices. A partial characterization of these directed graphs is given.In the complete undirected or directed graph on n vertices, choose a random decomposition of the set of all edges into circuits, uniformly from all such decompositions. Letting Lk be the fraction of edges contained in the k-th longest circuit in this decomposition, it is shown that (L1, L2,...) converges to a Poisson-Dirichlet distribution as n tends to infinity. It is also shown that the numbersof circuits of given lengths converge jointly to independent Poisson variables, and that the expected number of circuits is log n + O(1) in the undirected case and 2 log n + O(1) in the directed case.

A smallest tournament for which the Banks set and the Copeland set are disjoint

Abstract: Given a tournament T, a Banks winner of T is the first vertex of any maximal (with respect to inclusion) transitive subtournament of T; a Copeland winner of T is a vertex with a maximum out-degree. In this paper, we show that 13 is the minimum number of vertices that a tournament must have so that none of its Copeland winners is a Banks winner: for any tournament with less than 13 vertices, there is always at least one vertex which is a Copeland winner and a Banks winner simultaneously.

Some Modifications of the Tournament Algorithm for the Mutual Exclusion Problem

Abstract: We propose two lockout-free (starvation-free) mutual exclusion algorithms for the asynchronous multiwriter/reader shared memory model. The first algorithm is a modification of the well-known tournament algorithm for the mutual exclusion problem. By the modification we can speed up the original algorithm. The running time of the modified algorithm from the entrance of the trying region to the entrance of the critical region is at most (n − 1)c + O(nl), where n is the number of processes, l is an upper bound on the time between successive two steps of each process, and c is is an upper bound on the time that any user spends in the critical region. The second algorithm is a further modification of the first algorithm. It is designed so that some processes have an advantage of access to the resource over other processes. key words: asynchronous processes, concurrency, distributed systems, lockout-freedom, mutual exclusion, shared memory

Charles Chesnutt's Southern Black Jew: Rena Walden's Masquerade in The House Behind the Cedars

Abstract: Chapter five of Charles Chesnutt's novel The House Behind the Cedars is devoted exclusively to the detailed description of the mock medieval tournament held annually in the small town of Clarence, North Carolina, where much of the novel is set. As Chesnutt himself points out in his autho rial voice, the mock tournament at Clarence is staged in avowed imitation of the spectacular tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouch that Sir Walter Scott describes so graphically in his classic romance Ivanhoe.

On k-ary spanning trees of tournaments

Abstract: It is well known that every tournament contains a Hamiltonian path, which can be restated as that every tournament contains a unary spanning tree. The purpose of this article is to study the general problem of whether a tournament contains a k-ary spanning tree. In particular, we prove that, for any fixed positive integer k, there exists a minimum number h(k) such that every tournament of order at least h(k) contains a k-ary spanning tree. The existence of a Hamiltonian path for any tournament is the same as h(1) = 1. We then show that h(2) = 4 and h(3) = 8. The values of h(k) remain unknown for k ≥ 4. © 1999 John & Sons, Inc. J Graph Theory 30: 167–176, 1999 Part of this work was done while visiting the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Research by Dr. Gerard J. Chang supported in part by the National Science Council under grant NSC87-2115-M009-007.

Bypaths in local tournaments

Abstract: A digraph T is called a local tournament if for every vertex x of T, the set of in-neighbors as well as the set of out-neighbors of in-neighbors of x induce tournaments. Let x and y be two vertices of a 3-connected and arc-3-cyclic local tournament T with y x. We investigate the structure of T such that T contains no (x,y)-path of length k for some k with 3 k V(T) -1. Our result generalized those of [2] and [5] for tournaments.

v-PATHS OF ARCS IN REGULAR MULTIPARTITE TOURNAMENTS

Abstract: A v-path of an arc xy in a multipartite tournament T is an oriented oath in T-y which starts at x such that y does not dominate and end vertex of the path. We show that if T is a regular n-partite (n7) tournament, then every arc of T has a v-path of length m for all m satisfying 2mn-2. Our result extends the corresponding result for regular tournaments, due to Alspach, Reid and Roselle [2] in 1974, to regular multipartite tournaments.

The Career Path Tournament: Developing Awareness of Sociological Barriers to Career Advancement

Abstract: The author of this article presents the Career Path Tournament, a game for heightening participants' awareness of sociological factors (e.g., race, gender, and discrimination in hiring) influencing career advancement and of the need to anticipate and cope with these factors. The game, which is based on Rosenbaum's ( 1976, 1981, 1984) Tournament Model, is intended for junior high, high school, and college students in a classroom setting. Undergraduate participants' (N = 74) quantitative and qualitative evaluations of the game are presented as evidence that the game raised awareness of sociological barriers and provided participants with helpful suggestions for adaptively coping with these barriers. The Career Path Tournament uses a round-by-round elimination format to illustrate the constraining effects of sociological forces on career advancement. The game is based on a status attainment model of career advancement known as the Wisconsin Model (Sewell, Haller, & Ohlendorf, 1970; Sewell, Haller, & Portes, 1969). This model highlights how sociological factors (e.g., intelligence and aptitude) influence social-psychological development (which includes career development). Although there is substantial empirical evidence to support the model (e.g., Campbell, 1983; Hauser, Tsai, & Sewell, 1983; Jencks, Crouse, & Meuser, 1983; Saltiel, 1988), it has been criticized because of too little emphasis on structural factors that are believed to constrain career choice (Hotchkiss & Borow, 1990). The influence of structural factors (e.g., race, gender) has been well documented in the sociology literature (e.g., Amissah,1996; Farley & Allen, 1987; Peoples & Robinson,1996; Tienda & Lii, 1987; Waters & Eschbach, 1995). Consequently, in addition to the Wisconsin Model, the Career Path Tournament also incorporates aspects of Rosenbaum's (1976, 1981, 1984) Tournament Model, which emphasizes the negative effects of structural factors such as discriminatory tracking on career advancement. In discriminatory tracking, authority figures use demographic factors in deciding whether students should enter a vocational or academic track. For example, a teacher might discourage a girl in high school from taking advanced courses because of her sex. In the Wisconsin Model, social-psychological processes are considered to be a factor contributing to occupational attainment. One such process relates to feelings of aspiration to career advancement (Sewell et al., 1970; Sewell et al., 1969). In Wicklund and Gollwitzer's (1982) symbolic self-completion theory, individuals committed to career advancement endeavor to attain skills and qualities reflective of their chosen professional identity. Such skills and qualities serve as indications of aspects of identity (e.g., association membership, college degree) and are referred to as "symbols of completion" because they indicate that professional identity has been established. Round 3 of the tournament incorporates symbolic self-completion theory as a relevant aspect of occupational aspirations. In this round participants purchase symbols of professionalism (e.g., a briefcase, an association membership) that are instrumental in helping them advance to the final interview round. THE CAREER PATH TOURNAMENT Goals The Career Path Tournament has three goals. The first goal is to stimulate awareness of sociological barriers to career advancement. This awareness is heightened as participants are discriminated against in the safe context of the game. A second, and closely related, goal is to increase participants' awareness of feelings such as anger, anxiety, and confusion over past discriminatory treatment. A third goal is for students to gain a better understanding of the career advancement process as it is reflected in education practices, professional training, and hiring interviews. The final goal of the tournament is to increase awareness of the need to intentionally cope with discriminatory practices. …

Device for automatic running of tournaments and method employed in this device

Abstract: FIELD: automatic equipment. SUBSTANCE: device uses computer card- shaped data carriers for each participant of tournament, and control data for each tournament type. Device has at least one reader of card-shaped data carriers, which provides input of data about participants and control data into computer. In addition device has indication board, which is connected to computer in order to display tournament data. Separate stages in running tournament correspond to sequence of reading of data carriers into reader. EFFECT: prevention of deliberate and unintentional service errors. 16 cl, 1 dwg