Digital preservation strategies for AV content

The mass digitisation of analogue archive holdings plus the transition to tapeless production for new content means AV archives inevitably face the prospect of file-based archiving solutions using IT storage technology. But what is the long-term Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of these systems, which file formats should be used, what storage technologies make sense, what are the risks involved, what is the additional cost of managing these risks, and what new software approaches can be applied? These are all issues being explored by major broadcasters, national archives and technology specialists in the European PrestoPrime project and the UK AVATAR-m project

Tools for modelling and simulating migration-based preservation

This report describes two tools for modelling and simulating the costs and risks of using IT storage systems for the long-term archiving of file-based AV assets. The tools include a model of storage costs, the ingest and access of files, the possibility of data corruption and loss from a range of mechanisms, and the impact of having limited resources with which to fulfill access requests and preservation actions. Applications include archive planning, development of a technology strategy, cost estimation for business planning, operational decision support, staff training and generally promoting awareness of the issues and challenges archives face in digital preservation

Scalable Recollections for Continual Lifelong Learning

Given the recent success of Deep Learning applied to a variety of single tasks, it is natural to consider more human-realistic settings. Perhaps the most difficult of these settings is that of continual lifelong learning, where the model must learn online over a continuous stream of non-stationary data. A successful continual lifelong learning system must have three key capabilities: it must learn and adapt over time, it must not forget what it has learned, and it must be efficient in both training time and memory. Recent techniques have focused their efforts primarily on the first two capabilities while questions of efficiency remain largely unexplored. In this paper, we consider the problem of efficient and effective storage of experiences over very large time-frames. In particular we consider the case where typical experiences are O(n) bits and memories are limited to O(k) bits for k << n. We present a novel scalable architecture and training algorithm in this challenging domain and provide an extensive evaluation of its performance. Our results show that we can achieve considerable gains on top of state-of-the-art methods such as GEM.Comment: AAAI 201

Determination of the permeability parameters of bagasse pulp from two different sugar extraction methods

The permeability, the specific surface area and the swelling factor have been determined for Australian bagasse pulp derived from bagasse from two different sugar extraction processes. The sugar extraction process was not found to affect the permeability of the pulp. The results for bagasse pulp are compared to those of eucalypt pulp, which is widely used in Australia for paper manufacture. The fibre length distribution showed a high fraction of small fibres in all of the bagasse pulp samples. Surprisingly, the permeability properties of the bagasse pulp samples were better than that that of eucalypt. It is presumed that this is due to the relatively large fraction of longer fibres in the bagasse pulp compared to the eucalypt pulp

Audiovisual preservation strategies, data models and value-chains

This is a report on preservation strategies, models and value-chains for digital file-based audiovisual content. The report includes: (a)current and emerging value-chains and business-models for audiovisual preservation;(b) a comparison of preservation strategies for audiovisual content including their strengths and weaknesses, and(c) a review of current preservation metadata models, and requirements for extension to support audiovisual files

Getting it together: the work-life agenda and offices

This research analyses the current focus on family-friendly offices and develops a set of recommendations for office providers and operators to help them facilitate this new scenario. The main drivers of change towards family friendly offices are social policy, employers and employees. Demographic changes such as the later transition to parenthood and an increase in the number of older people in society have changed the balance between work and family. Changes in society's values and particularly in gender roles have also driven changes in working practices. Offices are adapting to demands for family-friendly workplaces. The report concludes with a number of recommendations for action which stakeholders can implement in both the short and long term to promote better work-life integration