Sustaining local audiovisual ecosystems: shifting modes of financing and production of domestic TV drama in small media markets

Various trends, both technological and economic in nature, have led to a shift in the financing and production of serial television fiction (principally television drama and episodic comedy), resulting in pressure on existing financing of TV fiction. These pressures prove especially difficult for small nations and regions, being characterized by restricted markets, a limited number of active players, and barriers for export and scale. For media policy-makers, these transitions invoke a series of new challenges to sustain existing audio-visual ecosystems. Based on a case study of TV fiction in Flanders, and presenting evidence from a financial analysis of 46 TV fiction productions, this article analyses current financing streams, patterns and dynamics of TV fiction in small media markets. It seeks to reveal the composition of budgets and the relative importance of diverse agents and funders involved in TV fiction production. Critical evaluations are then offered as to whether current financing models and policy support mechanisms are fit to tackle the challenges posed by the increasing number of windows and increased fragmentation of TV fiction financing

Learning Agent for a Heat-Pump Thermostat With a Set-Back Strategy Using Model-Free Reinforcement Learning

The conventional control paradigm for a heat pump with a less efficient auxiliary heating element is to keep its temperature set point constant during the day. This constant temperature set point ensures that the heat pump operates in its more efficient heat-pump mode and minimizes the risk of activating the less efficient auxiliary heating element. As an alternative to a constant set-point strategy, this paper proposes a learning agent for a thermostat with a set-back strategy. This set-back strategy relaxes the set-point temperature during convenient moments, e.g. when the occupants are not at home. Finding an optimal set-back strategy requires solving a sequential decision-making process under uncertainty, which presents two challenges. A first challenge is that for most residential buildings a description of the thermal characteristics of the building is unavailable and challenging to obtain. A second challenge is that the relevant information on the state, i.e. the building envelope, cannot be measured by the learning agent. In order to overcome these two challenges, our paper proposes an auto-encoder coupled with a batch reinforcement learning technique. The proposed approach is validated for two building types with different thermal characteristics for heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. The simulation results indicate that the proposed learning agent can reduce the energy consumption by 4-9% during 100 winter days and by 9-11% during 80 summer days compared to the conventional constant set-point strategyComment: Submitted to Energies - MDPI.co

Challenges for sustaining local audiovisual ecosystems : analysis of financing and production of domestic TV fiction in small media markets

Various trends, both technological and economic in nature, led to a shift in financing and production of serial television fiction (mostly TV drama and episodic comedy), consequently putting pressure on existing financing of TV fiction. This proves especially difficult for small markets, being characterized by restricted markets, a limited number of active players and barriers for export and scale. For media policymakers, these transitions invoke a series of new challenges to sustain existing audiovisual ecosystems. This article takes analyses current financing streams, patterns and dynamics of TV fiction in small media markets. It seeks to reveal the composition of budgets, the relative importance of all actors and funding involved in TV fiction production, and assesses whether current financing models and policy support mechanisms are fit to tackle the challenges invoked by the increasing number of windows and increased fragmentation of TV fiction financing. The article is based on a case study of TV fiction in Flanders, presenting evidence from a financial analysis of 46 TV fiction productions

Perceptions d'élèves de niveau secondaire de la notion d'Esprit sportif en contexte d'éducation physique

Cette étude décrit des situations représentatives d’Esprit sportif ou d’un Manque d’Esprit sportif en éducation physique. Au total, 158 élèves du secondaire ont rapporté 269 évènements marquants (134 positifs; 135 négatifs) à l’aide de la Technique des incidents critiques (Brunelle, Drouin, Godbout & Tousignant, 1988). Une analyse de contenu à modèle ouvert (L’Écuyer, 1988) a mené à l’émergence de cinq dimensions: l’Entraide envers des coéquipiers ou des adversaires (42,8%), le Respect envers les adversaires et partenaires et le matériel (21,9%), l’Équité lors de situations d’apprentissage (20,8%), l’Honnêteté (8,2%) et la Ténacité (6,3%). L’absence d’Esprit sportif chez les élèves s’exprime surtout par un manque d’Équité, d’Entraide et de Respect entre les élèves. Ces résultats invitent les éducateurs physiques à reconsidérer certaines des conditions d’apprentissage rapportées par leurs élèves.This study reports situations where sportsmanship is or is not used in high school physical education (PE) classes. A total of 158 high school students reported 269 significant events (134 positive, 135 negative) using the Critical Incident Technique (Brunelle, Drouin, Godbout & Tousignant, 1988). A content analysis of open model (L'Ecuyer, 1988) has led to the emergence of five dimensions: Support to teammates or opponents (42,8%), Respect of opponents, partners and/or equipment (21,9%) Equity between students inside a learning situation (20,8%), Honesty (8,2%) and Tenacity (6,3%). For those students, the absence of sportsmanship in PE is expressed primarily by a lack of Equity, Support and respect between students. These results invite physical educators to reconsider some of the learning circumstances as reported by their students

Chromatin dynamics during interphase and cell division:similarities and differences between model and crop plants

Genetic information in the cell nucleus controls organismal development, responses to the environment and finally ensures own transmission to the next generations. To achieve so many different tasks, the genetic information is associated with structural and regulatory proteins, which orchestrate nuclear functions in time and space. Furthermore, plant life strategies require chromatin plasticity to allow a rapid adaptation to abiotic and biotic stresses. Here, we summarize current knowledge on the organisation of plant chromatin and dynamics of chromosomes during interphase and mitotic and meiotic cell divisions for model and crop plants differing as to the genome size, ploidy and amount of genomic resources available. The existing data indicate that chromatin changes accompany most (if not all) cellular processes and that there are both shared and unique themes in the chromatin structure and global chromosome dynamics among species. Ongoing efforts to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in chromatin organisation and remodeling have, together with the latest genome editing tools, potential to unlock crop genomes for innovative breeding strategies and improvements of various traits