The Performance of German Motion Pictures, Profits, and

This paper discusses different mechanisms of subsidy allocation invoked by operation of law. We compare the allocation of subsidies via committees to the allocation of subsidies through the reference principle, which binds public support to performance at the box offce. The analysis is embedded in a broadly disposed regression analysis of the determinants of the performance of German movies in the theatrical market. It aims to identify market characteristics and contrasts the German case with studies that address foreign markets. Finally, the profitability of the industry is considered as the presumed economic non-viability of the industry constantly recurs in the public debate as an argument for subsidies.German movies, subsidies, motion picture industry

Convergence and the Potential Ban on Interactive Product Placement in Germany

This paper addresses the economic impact of German advertising regulations. The digital convergence of media provides a starting point for the analysis. This convergence makes technically feasible “interactive product placement” (IPP), the integration of interactively purchasable products in television programs and movies for the purpose of advertising. Such advertising could conceivably outstrip traditional product placement as a source of revenues for the film industry. Moreover, IPP could provide valuable incentives to create new audiovisual hardware and software. As product placement is generally banned in Germany, we critically review relevant regulations. Additionally, a simple model is developed that allows for a welfare economic approach to the analysis of an IPP ban.Advertising regulations, German film industry, interactive product placement, law and economics

Scaling test of fermion actions in the Schwinger model

We discuss the scaling behaviour of different fermion actions in dynamical simulations of the 2-dimensional massive Schwinger model. We have chosen Wilson, hypercube, twisted mass and overlap fermion actions. As physical observables, the pion mass and the scalar condensate are computed for the above mentioned actions at a number of coupling values and fermion masses. We also discuss possibilities to simulate overlap fermions dynamically avoiding problems with low-lying eigenvalues of the overlap kernel

Region - Province - Municipality: Spatial Planning and Spatial Policy in Italy, 1860-2016

This article explores the history of regions, centralism and regionalism in Italy - a highly controversial political field of state reorganization over 150 years. Focusing on the status of regions within Italy's political power structure and the development of the multi-level governance system, the article draws a line from the foundation of the Italian national state in 1860/61 to the immediate present. It examines political aspirations for decentralized structures and changing perceptions of how to reorganize the state to create efficient structures in different eras as well as power shifts between the different political levels. The article shows that Italian politics oscillated between centralism and regionalism. Reforms took place against the backdrop of different political systems and public debates in a heterogonous country. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Italian public discussed a federal structure and decentralization. Altogether, reforms were implemented inconsistently, slowly and gradually: The long-term analysis highlights the complexity of constitutional reforms within the background of a set of actor’s including regionalist movements, political parties and traditionalist and regionalist sentiments. What we observe is a highly ideological debate on decentralization followed by reservations and resistances across the state. The article concludes that looking at today’s Italian politics, attempts for recentralization are gaining ground again. However, the article identifies several dimensions of state transformation. Notions of efficiency and legitimacy have to be taken in account just as much as regional self-interests, diverse structures inherited from the past and the asymmetry of the Italian federalist system. The author stresses the need for a more holistic approach, for a detailed examination of the relationship between those dimensions together with a shift in global power structures. The contribution thus proceeds to develop a multifaceted framework in order to facilitate further research, to understand more fully the shift of power within the Italian multi-level system

UR-41 The Accessibility of the Mobile Gaming Platform for the Visually Impaired

The motivation for this project is to research mobile gaming interfaces with the goal of conceptualizing practices in game design that would create more accessible interfaces for the visual impairment community. Thus far, the project has focused on practices that mobile game designers can use to make their games more accessible to the visually impaired. These includes the use of plain text rather than graphics to be scannable by screen readers, the inclusion of audio-oriented support and instruction, the use of contrasting colors to make options more recognizable to those with partial visual impairments, and the implementation of game mechanics that can be learned and operated either partially or entirely through non-visual means.Advisors(s): Professor Nicholas MurphyTopic(s): GamesCGDD 310

A Lattice Calculation of Parton Distributions

We present results for the $x$ dependence of the unpolarized, helicity, and transversity isovector quark distributions in the proton using lattice QCD, employing the method of quasi-distributions proposed by Ji in 2013. Compared to a previous calculation by us, the errors are reduced by a factor of about 2.5. Moreover, we present our first results for the polarized sector of the proton, which indicate an asymmetry in the proton sea in favor of the $u$ antiquarks for the case of helicity distributions, and an asymmetry in favor of the $d$ antiquarks for the case of transversity distributions.Comment: DIS2106 Proceeding

Characterization and Application of Hard X-Ray Betatron Radiation Generated by Relativistic Electrons from a Laser-Wakefield Accelerator

The necessity for compact table-top x-ray sources with higher brightness, shorter wavelength and shorter pulse duration has led to the development of complementary sources based on laser-plasma accelerators, in contrast to conventional accelerators. Relativistic interaction of short-pulse lasers with underdense plasmas results in acceleration of electrons and in consequence in the emission of spatially coherent radiation, which is known in the literature as betatron radiation. In this article we report on our recent results in the rapidly developing field of secondary x-ray radiation generated by high-energy electron pulses. The betatron radiation is characterized with a novel setup allowing to measure the energy, the spatial energy distribution in the far-field of the beam and the source size in a single laser shot. Furthermore, the polarization state is measured for each laser shot. In this way the emitted betatron x-rays can be used as a non-invasive diagnostic tool to retrieve very subtle information of the electron dynamics within the plasma wave. Parallel to the experimental work, 3D particle-in-cell simulations were performed, proved to be in good agreement with the experimental results.Comment: 38 pages, 19 figures, submitted to the Journal of Plasma Physic

Parton Distributions from Lattice QCD with Momentum Smearing

In this work we continue our effort to explore a recent proposal, which allows light-cone distributions to be extracted from purely spatial correlations, being thus accessible to lattice methods. In order to test the feasibility of this method, we present our latest results from a twisted mass lattice calculation of the flavor non-singlet momentum, helicity and transversity distributions of the nucleon. Furthermore, we apply a newly proposed momentum improved smearing, which has the potential to reach higher nucleon momenta as required for a safe matching procedure to the physical distribution functions.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, talk given at the 34th annual International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 24-30 July 2016, University of Southampton, UK. Revision: Added further references and moved acknowledgements to the bac

Large deviations in the quantum quasi-1D jellium

Wigner's jellium is a model for a gas of electrons. The model consists of $N$ unit negatively charged particles lying in a sea of neutralizing homogeneous positive charge spread out according to Lebesgue measure, and interactions are governed by the Coulomb potential. In this work we consider the quantum jellium on quasi-one-dimensional spaces with Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics. Using the Feynman-Kac representation, we replace particle locations with Brownian bridges. We then adapt the approach of Lebl\'e and Serfaty (2017) to prove a process-level large deviation principle for the empirical fields of the Brownian bridges.Comment: 37 pages, 4 figure

Mesoscopic Methods in Engineering and Science

(First paragraph) Matter, conceptually classified into fluids and solids, can be completely described by the microscopic physics of its constituent atoms or molecules. However, for most engineering applications a macroscopic or continuum description has usually been sufficient, because of the large disparity between the spatial and temporal scales relevant to these applications and the scales of the underlying molecular dynamics. In this case, the microscopic physics merely determines material properties such as the viscosity of a fluid or the elastic constants of a solid. These material properties cannot be derived within the macroscopic framework, but the qualitative nature of the macroscopic dynamics is usually insensitive to the details of the underlying microscopic interactions