After the gold rush: industrial re-configuration in the UK television production sector and content

Recent technological and market changes in the television industry appear to have transformed the corporate configurations which conduce to economic success in the production industry. As a result, many leading independent television production companies in the United Kingdom and elsewhere across Europe have become prime targets for corporate activity and many have been subject to takeover, often by the US media groups. Does this matter? Does the concept of ‘national’ television content still have any relevance in the digital era? Drawing on a multiple-case-study-based analysis of several UK-based television production companies over recent years, this article examines how corporate takeovers in the production sector may affect creative decision-making and impact on the nature and quality of television content. Against a background of increased investment interest from multinationals in indigenous players in the United Kingdom and across Europe, the analysis presented makes a timely and policy-relevant contribution to knowledge

SSD Admission Control for Content Delivery Networks

Content delivery networks (CDNs) are utilized to deliver content with low latency. Solid State Drive (SSD) devices are a cost-effective option for intermediate tier caches in servers used in CDNs. However, excessive writes of content to SSD devices can degrade useful life of such devices. This disclosure describes admission control techniques to manage content in an SSD cache. In particular, a popularity metric for content items is determined based on an inter-arrival time. The popularity metric takes into account past admission history and is dynamically to account for variations in content popularity over different time periods. These techniques balance the SSD cache write rates to optimize the device life and cache performance

Music copyright in the digital age: creators, commerce and copyright - an empirical study of the UK music copyright industries

Copyright markets, it is said, are ‘winner takes all’ markets favouring the interests of corporate investors over the interests of primary creators. However, little is known about popular music creators’ ‘lived experience’ of copyright. This thesis interrogates key aspects of copyright transactions between creators and investors operating in the UK music industries using analysis of various copyright related documents and semi-structured interviews with creators and investors. The research found considerable variety in the types of ‘deal’ creators enter into and considerable divergence in the potential rewards. It was observed that new-entrant creators have little comprehension of the basic tenets of copyright, but with experience they become more ‘copyright aware’. Documentary and interview evidence reveals creators routinely assign copyright to third party investors for the full term of copyright in sound recordings: the justification for this is questionable. An almost inevitable consequence of this asymmetry of understanding of copyright and asymmetry of bargaining power is that creators become alienated from their copyright works. The empirical evidence presented here supports historic and contemporary calls for a statutory mechanism limiting the maximum copyright assignment period to ten-years

Summarizing multiprocessor program execution with versatile, microarchitecture-independent snapshots

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-137).Computer architects rely heavily on software simulation to evaluate, refine, and validate new designs before they are implemented. However, simulation time continues to increase as computers become more complex and multicore designs become more common. This thesis investigates software structures and algorithms for quickly simulating modern cache-coherent multiprocessors by amortizing the time spent to simulate the memory system and branch predictors. The Memory Timestamp Record (MTR) summarizes the directory and cache state of a multiprocessor system in a compact data structure. A single MTR snapshot is versatile enough to reconstruct the microarchitectural state resulting from various coherence protocols and cache organizations. The MTR may be quickly updated by each simulated processor during a fast-forwarding phase and optionally stored off-line for reuse. To fill large branch prediction tables, we introduce Branch Predictor-based Compression (BPC) which compactly stores a branch trace so that it may be used to fill in any branch predictor structure. An entire BPC trace requires less space than single discrete predictor snapshots, and it may be decompressed 3-6x faster than performing functional simulation.by Kenneth C. Barr.Ph.D

Cluster-based network proximities for arbitrary nodal subsets

The concept of a cluster or community in a network context has been of considerable interest in a variety of settings in recent years. In this paper, employing random walks and geodesic distance, we introduce a unified measure of cluster-based proximity between nodes, relative to a given subset of interest. The inherent simplicity and informativeness of the approach could make it of value to researchers in a variety of scientific fields. Applicability is demonstrated via application to clustering for a number of existent data sets (including multipartite networks). We view community detection (i.e. when the full set of network nodes is considered) as simply the limiting instance of clustering (for arbitrary subsets). This perspective should add to the dialogue on what constitutes a cluster or community within a network. In regards to health-relevant attributes in social networks, identification of clusters of individuals with similar attributes can support targeting of collective interventions. The method performs well in comparisons with other approaches, based on comparative measures such as NMI and ARI

A Picture May Be Worth a Thousand Texts: Obese Adolescents' Perspectives on a Modified Photovoice Activity To Aid Weight Loss

Abstract Background: In an effort to enhance the vividness and personal relevance of a text messaging intervention to promote weight loss among obese adolescents, a modified Photovoice process was evaluated with adolescents in a weight management program. Methods: Photovoice is a method using photography to generate relevant images and stories from users. Participants were recruited from the Michigan Pediatric Outpatient Weight Evaluation and Reduction (MPOWER) program, a multidisciplinary weight management program for obese adolescents and their parents. Twenty-three adolescents with a mean BMI of 40 were asked to take pictures on three to five randomly assigned weight-related topics, such as ?something that reminds you to exercise,? and to text them to a research assistant. Adolescents then engaged in semistructured interviews about the experience. Detailed notes of the interviews were analyzed to identify themes. Results: Participants generally provided high ratings of the process, indicating that (1) deciding what pictures to take caused them to reflect on their weight loss experience, and (2) a mobile intervention incorporating personally relevant images (e.g., basketball as their favorite sport rather than sports in general) would increase treatment adherence. The submitted photographs frequently featured family members and friends, and participants indicated that family and friends played a major role in motivating and supporting them. Conclusions: This study suggests that a Photovoice component has the potential to enhance weight management programs for teens as part of a text messaging intervention and as an independent entity. Further work should evaluate the effect of this promising intervention on weight loss.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98440/1/chi%2E2011%2E0095.pd

Local-Oscillator Noise Coupling in Balanced Homodyne Readout for Advanced Gravitational Wave Detectors

The second generation of interferometric gravitational wave detectors are quickly approaching their design sensitivity. For the first time these detectors will become limited by quantum back-action noise. Several back-action evasion techniques have been proposed to further increase the detector sensitivity. Since most proposals rely on a flexible readout of the full amplitude- and phase-quadrature space of the output light field, balanced homodyne detection is generally expected to replace the currently used DC readout. Up to now, little investigation has been undertaken into how balanced homodyne detection can be successfully transferred from its ubiquitous application in table-top quantum optics experiments to large-scale interferometers with suspended optics. Here we derive implementation requirements with respect to local oscillator noise couplings and highlight potential issues with the example of the Glasgow Sagnac Speed Meter experiment, as well as for a future upgrade to the Advanced LIGO detectors.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Gaming without Frontiers: Copyright and Competition in the Changing Video Game Sector

This working paper examines aspects of the contemporary video games sector at a time when incumbent and new-entrant market participants vie for primacy in the games industry. In this setting, ownership configurations and business models of key actors are in a state of flux. As consumers increasingly access culture ‘on-demand’ by way of cloud technologies, myriad opportunities and challenges emerge, not only for the video games sector, but for the wider cultural industries and society as a whole. It is in this very dynamic industrial landscape that the working paper is located. This paper marks a starting point for collaborative research on the games industry, drawing on the range of expertise within CREATe to provide a more holistic view of innovation, creativity, and power dynamics in games. The authors draw on different research specialisms and interests including: digitalisation of the cultural industries; copyright and notions of user creativity; digital services and product market definition; and competition law, innovation and the role of technology. The paper draws on each of these specialisms in turn. It starts by providing the industrial context of the discussion and analysis. This feeds into three analytical sections examining: user creativity and intellectual property in video games; the implications of industry concentration for different articulations of creativity; and finally, an exploration of the potential ramifications of developments in the games sector for innovation at the dawn of the metaverse era. In doing so, this work sets the scene for future research, which brings together competition law, IP law, and cultural policy perspectives. With questions formulated throughout the paper, the authors embark on a project to review the changing landscape of gaming and its implications for creativity, innovation, access and integration

Effects of static and dynamic higher-order optical modes in balanced homodyne readout for future gravitational waves detectors

With the recent detection of Gravitational waves (GW), marking the start of the new field of GW astronomy, the push for building more sensitive laser-interferometric gravitational wave detectors (GWD) has never been stronger. Balanced homodyne detection (BHD) allows for a quantum noise (QN) limited readout of arbitrary light field quadratures, and has therefore been suggested as a vital building block for upgrades to Advanced LIGO and third generation observatories. In terms of the practical implementation of BHD, we develop a full framework for analyzing the static optical high order modes (HOMs) occurring in the BHD paths related to the misalignment or mode matching at the input and output ports of the laser interferometer. We find the effects of HOMs on the quantum noise limited sensitivity is independent of the actual interferometer configuration, e.g. Michelson and Sagnac interferometers are effected in the same way. We show that misalignment of the output ports of the interferometer (output misalignment) only effects the high frequency part of the quantum noise limited sensitivity (detection noise). However, at low frequencies, HOMs reduce the interferometer response and the radiation pressure noise (back action noise) by the same amount and hence the quantum noise limited sensitivity is not negatively effected in that frequency range. We show that the misalignment of laser into the interferometer (input misalignment) produces the same effect as output misalignment and additionally decreases the power inside the interferometer. We also analyze dynamic HOM effects, such as beam jitter created by the suspended mirrors of the BHD. Our analyses can be directly applied to any BHD implementation in a future GWD. Moreover, we apply our analytical techniques to the example of the speed meter proof of concept experiment under construction in Glasgow. We find that for our experimental parameters, the performance of our seismic isolation system in the BHD paths is compatible with the design sensitivity of the experiment