Scenarios for the Internet Migration of the Television Industry

All the conditions for the television industry’s migration to the Internet are now in place. While this migration will be gradual, it will have a deep-seated impact on the industry:•the exclusive rights model will no longer be the standard;•some consumers will abandon traditional managed networks;•a globalization trend will be sparked, to the benefit of the major rights holders. Unlike the music and print media industries, the TV industry is gaining a strong position on the Web. As a result, television is poised to play a central role in video services. This offensive strategy will likely pay off down the line, but does not entirely eliminate the possibility of destroying value. There are structural reasons for this, including a fiercely competitive online advertising market and a lack of control over program circulation. Far from being simply transitory, the 2009-2010 economic downturn marks the beginning of a decade of restructuring for the TV industry. This new period will begin with an overall decline in the sector’s resources before increasingly varied consumption patterns spur a new period of growth. The decade running from 2010 to 2020 will also be a period that focuses on cost control, with the industrialization of TV production that will depart once and for all from its historical model, i.e., film. This migration to the Web poses a threat to the European industry in particular. A reassessment of the television industry’s regulatory strategy appears both necessary and urgent, and will involve the creation of integrated pan-European conglomerates.Television, video, networks, on-demand, connected devices, advertising, pay-TV.

Cooling sequences and color-magnitude diagrams for cool white dwarfs with hydrogen-atmospheres

We present new cooling sequences, color-magnitude diagrams, and color-color diagrams for cool white dwarfs with pure hydrogen atmospheres down to an effective temperature \te=1500 K. We include a more detailed treatment of the physics of the fully-ionized interior, particularly an improved discussion of the thermodynamics of the temperature-dependent ion-ion and ion-electron contributions of the quantum, relativistic electron-ion plasma. The present calculations also incorporate accurate boundary conditions between the degenerate core and the outermost layers as well as updated atmosphere models including the H$_2$-H$_2$ induced-dipole absorption. We examine the differences on the cooling time of the star arising from uncertainties in the initial carbon-oxygen profile and the core-envelope $L$-$T_c$ relation. The maximum time delay due to crystallization-induced chemical fractionation remains substantial, from $\sim 1.0$ Gyr for 0.5 and 1.2 \msol white dwarfs to $\sim 1.5$ Gyr for 0.6 to 0.8 \msol white dwarfs, even with initial stratified composition profiles, and cannot be ignored in detailed white dwarf cooling calculations. These cooling sequences provide theoretical support to search for or identify old disk or halo hydrogen-rich white dwarfs by characterizing their mass and age from their observational signatures.Comment: 43 pages, Latex file, uses aasms4.sty, accepted for publication in ApJ (November 10 issue

Enhanced computational methods for quantifying the effect of geographic and environmental isolation on genetic differentiation

In a recent paper, Bradburd et al. (2013) proposed a model to quantify the relative effect ofgeographic and environmental distance on genetic differentiation. Here, we enhance this method in several ways.1. We modify the covariance model so as to fit better with mainstream geostatistical models and avoid mathematically ill-behaved covariance functions,2. we extend the model - initially implemented only for co-dominant bi-allelic markers such as SNPs - to encompass highly polymorphic markers such as microsatellites, 3. we implement and test a model selection procedure that allows users to assess which model (e.g. with or without an environment effect) is most suited,4. we code all our MCMC algorithms in a mix of compiled languages which allows us to decrease computing time by at least one order of magnitude,5. we propose an approximate inference and model selection method allowing us to deal with genomic datasets (several hundred thousands loci).6. We also illustrate the potential of the method by re-analysing three datasets, namely harbour porpoises in Europe, coyotes in California and herrings in the Baltic Sea. The computer program developed here is freely available as an R package called Sunder. It takes as input geo-referenced allele counts at the individual or population level for co-dominant markers. Program homepage: http://www2.imm.dtu.dk/~gigu/Sunder

Le traitement de l'incertitude en gestion de crise : mise en place d'une veille stratégique du territoire

National audienceThe catastrophic events of these last years such as the catastrophe of AZF in 2001 or the various terrorist attacks made evolve the concept of risk by integrating dimensions of crisis and threat. The damages which result from this do not limit to a delimited zone but impact the whole society. The crisis organizations are destabilized by the unusual feature of these situations. The managers must anticipate these situations as soon as possible; react efficiently and in a fast way in order to avoid the consequences of the crisis. However, the decision makers need a fast, clear and structured expertise allowing reducing uncertainties related to the situation. The objective of this project is to present, after a state of the art on the crises, a methodology of decision-making aid to help the Prefects through a potential of crisis usable in vigilance and during the emergency phase.Les évènements catastrophiques de ces dernières années tels que la catastrophe d'AZF en 2001 ou les différents attentats terroristes ont fait évoluer le concept de risque en lui intégrant les dimensions de crise et de menace. Les dommages qui en découlent ne se limitent pas à une zone délimitée mais impactent la société dans son ensemble. Les organisations gestionnaires des crises sont déstabilisées en raison du caractère inhabituel de ces situations. Les gestionnaires se doivent d'anticiper au plus tôt ces situations, de réagir efficacement et de manière rapide afin d'éviter une crise. Or, les décideurs ont besoin d'une expertise rapide, claire et structurée permettant de réduire les incertitudes liées à la situation. L'objectif de ce projet est de présenter, après un état de l'art sur les situations de crise, une méthodologie d'aide à la décision permettant d'apporter de la lisibilité aux préfets à travers l'établissement d'un potentiel de crise utilisable en veille et pendant la phase d'urgence

Structural and core parameters of the hot B subdwarf KPD 0629-0016 from CoRoT g-mode asteroseismology

Context. The asteroseismic exploitation of long period, g-mode hot B subdwarf pulsators (sdBVs), undermined so far by limitations associated with ground-based observations, has now become possible, thanks to high quality data obtained from space such as those recently gathered with the CoRoT (COnvection, ROtation, and planetary Transits) satellite. Aims. We propose a detailed seismic analysis of the sdBVs star KPD 0629-0016, the first compact pulsator monitored with CoRoT, using the g-mode pulsations recently uncovered by that space-borne observatory during short run SRa03. Methods. We use a forward modeling approach on the basis of our latest sdB models, which are now suitable for the accurate com- putation of the g-mode pulsation properties. The simultaneous match of the independent periods observed in KPD 0629-0016 with those of the models leads objectively to the identification of the pulsation modes and, more importantly, to the determination of the structural and core parameters of the star. Results. The optimal model we found closely reproduces the 18 observed periods retained in our analysis at a 0.23% level on av- erage. These are identified as low-degree (l = 1 and 2), intermediate-order (k = −9 through −74) g-modes. The structural and core parameters for KPD 0629-0016 are the following (formal fitting errors only): Teff = 26 290 ± 530 K, log g = 5.450 ± 0.034, M∗ = 0.471 ± 0.002 M⊙, log (Menv/M∗) = −2.42 ± 0.07, log (1 − Mcore/M∗) = −0.27 ± 0.01, and Xcore(C+O) = 0.41 ± 0.01. We addition- ally derive an age of 42.6 ± 1.0 Myr after the zero-age extreme horizontal branch, the radius R = 0.214 ± 0.009 R⊙, the luminosity L = 19.7 ± 3.2 L⊙, the absolute magnitude MV = 4.23 ± 0.13, the reddening index E(B − V) = 0.128 ± 0.023, and the distance d = 1190 ± 115 pc. Conclusions. The advent of high-precision time-series photometry from space with instruments like CoRoT now allows as demon- strated with KPD 0629-0016 the full exploitation of g-modes as deep probes of the internal structure of these stars, in particular for determining the mass of the convective core and its chemical composition.Peer reviewe