Cultural quotas in broadcasting I: a model

This paper develops a Hotelling location model in which two radio stations choose combinations of local and international content to play, given consumers with preferences distributed over those combinations. Station revenue derives from sales of advertising time, the demand for which depends negatively on the price and positively on the station’s market share and consumers get disutility from advertising and from a less-than-ideal broadcast mix of local and international content. In this setting we show that the laissez-faire solution involves less than (socially optimal) maximal differentiation

Cultural quotas in broadcasting II: policy

This paper considers the application of ‘cultural quotas’ to radio broadcasting: a requirement that a minimum percentage of broadcast content be of local origin. Using a Hotelling location model derived in Richardson (2004) we show that, while the laissez-faire solution involves less than (socially optimal) maximal differentiation, a quota reduces the differentiation between the stations even further. While a cultural quota may raise consumer welfare, the reduced station diversity and advertising levels monotonically lower overall social welfare. We consider two other policies – a limit on advertising and a publicly provided non-commercial station – and show that both also reduce diversity, compared to the laissez-faire solution. An advertising cap is not as effective as the quota in achieving greater airplay for local content for least welfare cost but a public station can be, depending on the magnitude of its associated fixed costs

A high-rise on Main Street: Hotelling with mobile consumers

This note considers Hotelling’s (1929) model of locational choices by two firms and subsequent price competition in a setting where atomistic consumers locate first. It is shown that any equilibrium in pure strategies involves either one or two mass points with all surplus captured either by the consumers or by firms, respectively.

Phase Locked Loop Test Methodology

Phase locked loops are incorporated into almost every large-scale mixed signal and digital system on chip (SOC). Various types of PLL architectures exist including fully analogue, fully digital, semi-digital, and software based. Currently the most commonly used PLL architecture for SOC environments and chipset applications is the Charge-Pump (CP) semi-digital type. This architecture is commonly used for clock synthesis applications, such as the supply of a high frequency on-chip clock, which is derived from a low frequency board level clock. In addition, CP-PLL architectures are now frequently used for demanding RF (Radio Frequency) synthesis, and data synchronization applications. On chip system blocks that rely on correct PLL operation may include third party IP cores, ADCs, DACs and user defined logic (UDL). Basically, any on-chip function that requires a stable clock will be reliant on correct PLL operation. As a direct consequence it is essential that the PLL function is reliably verified during both the design and debug phase and through production testing. This chapter focuses on test approaches related to embedded CP-PLLs used for the purpose of clock generation for SOC. However, methods discussed will generally apply to CP-PLLs used for other applications

Fair Trade

This paper deals with the behavior of fair trade organizations in an oligopolistic setting in which the vertically integrated fair trade firm produces a commodity which is a weak substitute for another commodity. Profit-maximizing oligopolists are vertically disintegrated and produce for both markets and the fair trade firm can charge a premium to consumers due to a "warm glow effect" that depends on the wage paid to fair trade producers. We show that trade integration will unambiguously increase the size of the fair trade firm. However, the relative size compared to oligopolists shrinks with integration. The effect of a change in substitutability between the two commodities on markets shares depends on the relative market potential. Furthermore, we show that the warm glow effect does not support an expansion of the volume of fair trade.

A high-rise on Main Street: hotelling with mobile consumers

This note considers Hotelling’s (1929) model of locational choices by two firms and subsequent price competition in a setting where atomistic consumers locate first. It is shown that any equilibrium in pure strategies involves either one or two mass points with all surplus captured either by the consumers or by firms, respectively

Cultural quotas in broadcasting I: a model

This paper develops a Hotelling location model in which two radio stations choose combinations of local and international content to play, given consumers with preferences distributed over those combinations. Station revenue derives from sales of advertising time, the demand for which depends negatively on the price and positively on the station’s market share and consumers get disutility from advertising and from a less-than-ideal broadcast mix of local and international content. In this setting we show that the laissez-faire solution involves less than (socially optimal) maximal differentiation

PropBase QueryLayer: a single portal to UK physical property databases

Until recently, the delivery of geological information for industry and public was achieved by geological mapping. Now pervasively available computers mean that 3D geological models can deliver realistic representations of the geometric location of geological units, represented as shells or volumes. The next phase of this process is to populate these with physical properties data that describe subsurface heterogeneity and its associated uncertainty. Achieving this requires capture and serving of physical, hydrological and other property information from diverse sources to populate these models. The British Geological Survey (BGS) holds large volumes of subsurface property data, derived both from their own research data collection and also other, often commercially derived data sources. This can be voxelated to incorporate this data into the models to demonstrate property variation within the subsurface geometry. All property data held by BGS has for many years been stored in relational databases to ensure their long-term continuity. However these have, by necessity, complex structures; each database contains positional reference data and model information, and also metadata such as sample identification information and attributes that define the source and processing. Whilst this is critical to assessing these analyses, it also hugely complicates the understanding of variability of the property under assessment and requires multiple queries to study related datasets making extracting physical properties from these databases difficult. Therefore the PropBase Query Layer has been created to allow simplified aggregation and extraction of all related data and its presentation of complex data in simple, mostly denormalized, tables which combine information from multiple databases into a single system. The structure from each relational database is denormalized in a generalised structure, so that each dataset can be viewed together in a common format using a simple interface. Data are re-engineered to facilitate easy loading. The query layer structure comprises tables, procedures, functions, triggers, views and materialised views. The structure contains a main table PRB_DATA which contains all of the data with the following attribution: • a unique identifier • the data source • the unique identifier from the parent database for traceability • the 3D location • the property type • the property value • the units • necessary qualifiers • precision information and an audit trail Data sources, property type and units are constrained by dictionaries, a key component of the structure which defines what properties and inheritance hierarchies are to be coded and also guides the process as to what and how these are extracted from the structure. Data types served by the Query Layer include site investigation derived geotechnical data, hydrogeology datasets, regional geochemistry, geophysical logs as well as lithological and borehole metadata. The size and complexity of the data sets with multiple parent structures requires a technically robust approach to keep the layer synchronised. This is achieved through Oracle procedures written in PL/SQL containing the logic required to carry out the data manipulation (inserts, updates, deletes) to keep the layer synchronised with the underlying databases either as regular scheduled jobs (weekly, monthly etc.) or invoked on demand. The PropBase Query Layer’s implementation has enabled rapid data discovery, visualisation and interpretation of geological data with greater ease, simplifying the parameterisation of 3D model volumes and facilitating the study of intra-unit heterogeneity

Cultural quotas in broadcasting II: policy

This paper considers the application of ‘cultural quotas’ to radio broadcasting: a requirement that a minimum percentage of broadcast content be of local origin. Using a Hotelling location model derived in Richardson (2004) we show that, while the laissez-faire solution involves less than (socially optimal) maximal differentiation, a quota reduces the differentiation between the stations even further. While a cultural quota may raise consumer welfare, the reduced station diversity and advertising levels monotonically lower overall social welfare. We consider two other policies – a limit on advertising and a publicly provided non-commercial station – and show that both also reduce diversity, compared to the laissez-faire solution. An advertising cap is not as effective as the quota in achieving greater airplay for local content for least welfare cost but a public station can be, depending on the magnitude of its associated fixed costs

EUV, XUV, and X-Ray wavelength sources created from laser plasma produced from liquid metal solutions and nano-size particles in solution

Special liquid droplet targets that are irradiated by a high power laser and are plasmarized to form a point source EUV, XUV and x-ray source. Various types of liquid droplet targets include metallic solutions, and nano-sized particles in solutions having a melting temperature lower than the melting temperature of some or all of the constituent metals, used a laser point source target droplets. The solutions have no damaging debris and can produce plasma emissions in the X-rays, XUV, and EUV(extreme ultra violet) spectral ranges of approximately 0.1 nm to approximately 100 nm, approximately 11.7 nm and 13 nm, approximately 0.5 nm to approximately 1.5 nm, and approximately 2.3 nm to approximately 4.5 nm. The second type of target consists of various types of liquids which contain as a miscible fluid various nano-size particles of different types of metals and non-metal materials