The Skipping Behavior of Users of Music Streaming Services and its Relation to Musical Structure

The behavior of users of music streaming services is investigated from the point of view of the temporal dimension of individual songs; specifically, the main object of the analysis is the point in time within a song at which users stop listening and start streaming another song ("skip"). The main contribution of this study is the ascertainment of a correlation between the distribution in time of skipping events and the musical structure of songs. It is also shown that such distribution is not only specific to the individual songs, but also independent of the cohort of users and, under stationary conditions, date of observation. Finally, user behavioral data is used to train a predictor of the musical structure of a song solely from its acoustic content; it is shown that the use of such data, available in large quantities to music streaming services, yields significant improvements in accuracy over the customary fashion of training this class of algorithms, in which only smaller amounts of hand-labeled data are available

Joining primeness and disjointness from infinitely divisible systems

We show that ergodic dynamical systems generated by infinitely divisible stationary processes are disjoint in the sense of Furstenberg with distally simple systems and systems whose maximal spectral type is singular with respect to the convolution of any two continuous measures.Comment: 15 page

Does a Specific Union Impact on Wage Increases? Evidence from Canada, 1985-2007

The purpose of this note is to examine the effect of belonging to a specific union on negotiated wage increases, given unionisation status. The data consist of all collective agreements with more than 500 employees, which were signed in Quebec (N=632) or Ontario (N=1349) during the 1985-2007 period. The model used is a standard wage equation with the negotiated rate of increase of base wages, annualized as the dependent variable and four dichotomous variables for a specific union, the CPI and the unemployment rate two quarters before the collective agreements, the presence or not of a cost of living agreements in the collective agreement and eighteen industrial dichotomous variables. We find with one exception no evidence that one union is better than another in obtaining higher wage growth. L’objectif de ce cahier est d’examiner l’impact d’une affiliation syndicale spécifique sur l’augmentation des salaires négociés, étant donné la syndicalisation. Les données sont l’ensemble des conventions collectives de 500 employés et plus qui ont été signées au Québec (N=632) et en Ontario (N=1349) durant la période 1985-2007. Le modèle utilisé est une équation salariale typique avec le taux d’augmentation salariale annualisé comme variable dépendante et quatre variables dichotomiques pour les syndicats spécifiques, l’IPC et le taux de chômage retardée de deux périodes par rapport à la signature, la présence ou non d'une clause d’ajustement au coût de la vie et 18 variables de secteur industriel. Nous ne trouvons sauf pour une exception aucun résultat indiquant qu’un syndicat obtient des augmentations plus élevées qu’un autre.Unions wages collective agreements, salaires syndicats, conventions collectives

Radiation effects on CMOS image sensors with sub-2µm pinned photodiodes

A group of four commercial sensors with pixel pitches below 2μm has been irradiated with 60Co source at several total ionizing dose levels related to space applications. A phenomenological approach is proposed through behavior analysis of multiple sensors embedding different technological choices (pitch, isolation or buried oxide). A complete characterization including dark current, activation energy and temporal noise analysis allows to discuss about a degradation scheme

Rad Tolerant CMOS Image Sensor Based on Hole Collection 4T Pixel Pinned Photodiode

1.4μm pixel pitch CMOS Image sensors based on hole collection pinned photodiode (HPD) have been irradiated with 60Co source. The HPD sensors exhibit much lower dark current degradation than equivalent commercial sensors using an Electron collection Pinned Photodiode (EPD). This hardness improvement is mainly attributed to carrier accumulation near the interfaces induced by the generated positive charges in dielectrics. The pre-eminence of this image sensor based on hole collection pinned photodiode architectures in ionizing environments is demonstrated

Radiation Effects on CMOS Image Sensors With Sub-2 µm Pinned Photodiodes

CMOS image sensor hardness under irradiation is a key parameter for application fields such as space or medical. In this paper, four commercial sensors featuring different technological characteristics (pitch, isolation or buried oxide) have been irradiated with 60Co source. Based on dark current and temporal noise analysis, we develop and propose a phenomenological model to explain pixel performance degradation

Mesures de l’efficacité des entreprises artisanales de pêche

In this paper, efficiency of artisanal fishing firms is measured using a method elaborated by Yotopoulos and Lau (AER, March 1973). It shows that this method could be used by fishery managers to find new criteria when it comes to decide which fishermen should be granted a license, when entry into the fisheries ought to be limited. The main results may however appear surprising in that they reveal that as a whole fishermen are price efficient, although those more open to new technology have a more business like behavior and tend to be more efficient than the others. Finally those with a larger experience of the labor market outside fisheries reveal a behavior consistant with a perception of the opportunity cost of their labor higher than that shown by those with little experience outside of fisheries

Using bank loans as collateral in Europe: The role of liquidity and funding purposes. National Bank of Belgium Working Paper No. 318

We show that illiquid assets such as bank loans are used by euro area banks both as central bank collateral for short-term liquidity insurance purposes and for longer-term funding purposes for issuing covered bonds or asset-backed securities. We then explore the determinants of the choice of using bank loans for short-term liquidity insurance purposes or long-term funding purposes focusing on the case of Belgian banks. We find that (1) loan types are key to alleviating asymmetries of information; (2) regulatory requirements play a major role in the choices of banks, both directly and indirectly through clientele effects and (3) there are significant switching costs between the various uses of bank loans as collateral so historical decisions also determine the use of bank loans as collateral