Air pollution and individual productivity: Evidence from the Ironman Triathlon results.

The study considers how air quality affects the productivity of physically intensive labor. Namely, we analyze the athletes of the Ironman Triathlon, one of the toughest long-distance triathlon races in the world. Moreover, in this competition, both men and women, professional and amateur athletes, can participate. We consider the results of Ironman Triathlon from 2005 to 2019. Using athlete's finishing time as a dependent variable, we estimate the impact of concentrations of two main air pollutants, O3 and PM2.5. We found triathletes performance decrements in swimming due to high ozone concentration and in bicycle riding and running due to high level of PM2.5. We have also found that professional athletes are less sensitive to air pollution, whereas there is almost no gender difference in the impact of air pollution on athletes' productivity.

Obesity and individual performance: the case of eSports.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The study considers the problem of the inclusion of people with obesity in the context of the growing role of computer-based work. Negative stereotypes about people with obesity still hold even when they are irrelevant in tasks that require little physical activity. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Using data from the realm of competitive video gaming (eSports) and image recognition-based metric of body mass index metric derived from artificial intelligence, we examine the individual performance depending on weight. The sample includes 821 players and 127,533 player performance observations. RESULTS: For shorter tasks, individuals with normal weight performed better than individuals with obesity. For longer tasks, however, people with Class III (severe) obesity outperformed all others, and their advantage increased with task duration. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings shed light on an understanding of how actually body features are related to objective individual performance in a competitive context.

Correction: After the Crimea crisis: Employee discrimination in Russia and Ukraine.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240811.].

After the Crimea crisis: Employee discrimination in Russia and Ukraine.

This paper examines the issue of employee discrimination after a political crisis: the annexation of Crimea. The annexation, which resulted in a political crisis in Russian-Ukrainian relations, is a setting which allows us to test if a bilateral political issue caused employee discrimination. We use a quasi-experimental approach to examine how the political crisis influenced participation in major sports leagues in Russia and Ukraine. The results show that the employment conditions significantly worsened since the Crimea crisis started.