Movie Industry Economics: How Data Analytics Can Help Predict Movies’ Financial Success

Purpose: Data analytics techniques can help to predict movie success, as measured by box office sales or Oscar awards. Revenue prediction of a movie before its theatrical release is also an important indicator for attracting investors. While measures for predicting the success of a movie in box office sales and awards are widely missing, this study uses data analytics techniques to present a new measure for prediction of movies’ financial success.Methodology: Data were collected by web-scraping and text mining. Classification and Regression Tree (CART), Random Forests, Conditional Forests, and Gradient Boosting were used and a model for prediction of movies' financial success proposed. Content strategy and generating high profile reviews with complex themes can add to controversy and increase the chance of nomination for major movie awards, including Oscars.Findings/Contribution: Findings show that data analytics is key to predicting the success of movies. Although predicting sales based on data available before the release remains a difficult endeavor, even with state-of-the-art analytics technologies, it potentially reduces the risk of investors, studios and other stakeholders to select successful film candidates and have them chosen before the production process starts. The contribution of this study is to develop a model for predicting box office sales and the chance of nomination for winning Oscars. Practical Implications: Cinema managers and investors can use the proposed model as a guide for predicting movies’ financial success

Fabrication and characterisation of the PiN Ge photodiode with poly-crystalline Si:P as n-type region

Germanium (Ge) PiN photodetectors are fabricated and electro-optically characterised. Unintentionally and p-type doped Ge layers are grown in a reduced-pressure chemical vapour deposition tool on a 200 mm diameter, -oriented, p-type silicon (Si) substrates. Thanks to two Ge growth temperatures and the use of short thermal cycling afterwards, threading dislocation densities down to 10⁷ cmˉ² are obtained. Instead of phosphorous (P) ion implantation in germanium, the authors use in situ phosphorous-doped poly-crystalline Si (poly-Si) in the n-type regions. Secondary ion mass spectrometry revealed that P was confined in poly-Si and did not diffuse in Ge layers beneath. Over a wide range of tested device geometries, production yield was dramatically increased, with almost no short circuits. At 30 °C and at -0.1 V bias, corresponding to the highest dynamic resistance, the median dark current of 10 μm diameter photodiodes is in the 5-20 nA range depending on the size of the n-type region. The dark current is limited by the Shockley-Read-Hall generation and the noise power spectral density of the current by the flicker noise contribution. A responsivity of 0.55 and 0.33 A/W at 1.31 and 1.55 μm, respectively, is demonstrated with a 1.8 μm thick absorption Ge layer and an optimized anti-reflection coating at 1.55 μm. These results pave the way for a cost-effective technology based on group-IV semiconductors

New remains of Lophiaspis maurettei (Mammalia, Perissodactyla) from the early Eocene of France and the implications for the origin of the Lophiodontidae

International audienceThe Lophiodontidae are endemic perissodactyls from Europe that flourished during the Eocene. Despite their preponderance in the European fossil record, their exact origin and relationships within the perissodactyls remain unknown due to the rare and fragmentary material in the early Ypresian, the time of their earliest radiation. Lophiaspis maurettei is the oldest and earliest diverging lophiodontid known to date but is unfortunately poorly known. We describe here the results of new excavations of the type locality of Palette. Important new material including complete skulls, mandibles, post-cranial elements and juvenile specimens lead us to revise Lophiaspis maurettei from Palette and other localities and to describe novel morphology for this species. According to an original phylogenetic analysis, based on a revised matrix of dental, cranio-mandibular and postcranial characters, Ls. maurettei is an early diverging lophiodontid morphologically close to Protomoropus and Paleomoropus, two basal chalicotheres, known from Asia and North America, respectively. Our resulting topology does not support the previously proposed inclusion of the lophiodontids within the Ceratomorpha and supports a position within the suborder Ancylopoda, close to some Eomoropidae representatives. These results imply that Ls. maurettei was restricted to Southern Europe during the early Eocene, which would be compatible with an Asian origin for lophiodontids in accordance with the evolutionary history of other perissodactyls and placental mammal