Analysing busway station capacity under mixed stopping and non-stopping operation

Busway stations are the interface between passengers and services. The station is crucial to line operation as it is typically the only location where buses can pass each other. Congestion may occur here when buses manoeuvring into and out of the platform lane interfere with bus flow, or when a queue of buses forms upstream of the platform lane blocking the passing lane. Further, some systems include operation where express buses do not observe the station, resulting in a proportion of non-stopping buses. It is important to understand the operation of the station under this type of operation and its effect on busway capacity. This study uses microscopic simulation to treat the busway station operation and to analyse the relationship between station potential capacity where all buses stop, and Mixed Potential Capacity where there is a mixture of stopping and non-stopping buses. First, the micro simulation technique is used to analyze the All Stopping Buses (ASB) scenario and then statistical model is tuned and calibrated for a specified range of controlled scenarios of dwell time characteristics Subsequently, a mathematical model is developed for Mixed Stopping Buses (MSB) Potential Capacity by introducing different proportions of express (or non-stopping) buses. The proposed models for a busway station bus capacity provide a better understanding of operation and are useful to transit agencies in busway planning, design and operation.

What do Netflix, Stan and Presto mean for Australian TV?

The arrival of subscription video on demand services Netflix, Stan and Presto have implications for what we call "television" in Australia – and much of the policy detail remains to be hammered out.

Sydney's media cluster: Continuity and change in film and television

A significant media city globally , Sydney is the production and design centre for the Australian media system and a subsidiary node of larger international systems principally headquartered in Los Angeles and London. Its media cluster is undergoing transformations to improve its position internationally by increasing capabilities and ties to other Australian and international production clusters. Sydney’s media cluster is a collection of suburbs forming an “arc” along major transport corridors stretching from Macquarie Park in the north to Sydney airport in the south. As a dispersed rather than tightly bound cluster, it is defined by the functional proximity provided by automobile and telecommunication networks Sydney’s media cluster is considered here along two dimensions—that of Sydney’s place within the ecology of Australian and international media and that of its internal organization within the geographical space of metropolitan Sydney. The first examines Sydney’s media cluster at the level of the metropolitan area of Sydney within its state, national and international contexts; while the second digs below this level to explore its working out in urban space.

Distribution Revolution: Conversations about the Digital Future of Film and Television

Distribution Revolution is a collection of interviews with leading film and TV professionals concerning the many ways that digital delivery systems are transforming the entertainment business. These interviews provide lively insider accounts from studio executives, distribution professionals, and creative talent of the tumultuous transformation of film and TV in the digital era. The first section features interviews with top executives at major Hollywood studios, providing a window into the big-picture concerns of media conglomerates with respect to changing business models, revenue streams, and audience behaviors. The second focuses on innovative enterprises that are providing path-breaking models for new modes of content creation, curation, and distribution—creatively meshing the strategies and practices of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. And the final section offers insights from creative talent whose professional practices, compensation, and everyday working conditions have been transformed over the past ten years. Taken together, these interviews demonstrate that virtually every aspect of the film and television businesses is being affected by the digital distribution revolution, a revolution that has likely just begun. Interviewees include: • Gary Newman, Chairman, 20th Century Fox Television • Kelly Summers, Former Vice President, Global Business Development and New Media Strategy, Walt Disney Studios • Thomas Gewecke, Chief Digital Officer and Executive Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, Warner Bros. Entertainment • Ted Sarandos, Chief Content Officer, Netflix • Felicia D. Henderson, Writer-Producer, Soul Food, Gossip Girl • Dick Wolf, Executive Producer and Creator, Law & Order

Telstra on the TV casting couch to trump its telco peers

This week, Telstra announced it will shortly introduce a new streaming video set top box. For a number of reasons, this is a very smart move.

Media futures: A review essay on'The Future of Reputation','TV Futures', and'The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It'

In his 1987 book, The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT, Stewart Brand provides an insight into the visions of the future of the media in the 1970s and 1980s. 1 He notes that Nicolas Negroponte made a compelling case for the foundation of a media laboratory at MIT with diagrams detailing the convergence of three sectors of the media—the broadcast and motion picture industry; the print and publishing industry; and the computer industry. Stewart Brand commented: ‘If Negroponte was right and communications technologies really are converging, you would look for signs that technological homogenisation was dissolving old boundaries out of existence, and you would expect an explosion of new media where those boundaries used to be’. Two decades later, technology developers, media analysts and lawyers have become excited about the latest phase of media convergence. In 2006, the faddish Time Magazine heralded the arrival of various Web 2.0 social networking services: You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy‐strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television. And we didn’t just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open‐source software. America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user‐created Linux. We’re looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it’s just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy. The magazine announced that Time’s Person of the Year was ‘You’, the everyman and everywoman consumer ‘for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game’. This review essay considers three recent books, which have explored the legal dimensions of new media. In contrast to the unbridled exuberance of Time Magazine, this series of legal works displays an anxious trepidation about the legal ramifications associated with the rise of social networking services. In his tour de force, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, Daniel Solove considers the implications of social networking services, such as Facebook and YouTube, for the legal protection of reputation under privacy law and defamation law. Andrew Kenyon’s edited collection, TV Futures: Digital Television Policy in Australia, explores the intersection between media law and copyright law in the regulation of digital television and Internet videos. In The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, Jonathan Zittrain explores the impact of ‘generative’ technologies and ‘tethered applications’—considering everything from the Apple Mac and the iPhone to the One Laptop per Child programme.

Social Media Audience Metrics as a New Form of TV Audience Measurement

Digital media have contributed to significant disruptions in the business of audience measurement. Television broadcasters have long relied on simple and authoritative measures of who is watching what. The demand for ratings data, as a common currency in transactions involving advertising and program content, will likely remain, but accompanying measurements of audience engagement with media content would also be of value. Today's media environment increasingly includes social media and second-screen use, providing a data trail that affords an opportunity to measure engagement. If the limitations of using social media to indicate audience engagement can be overcome, social media use may allow for quantitative and qualitative measures of engagement. Raw social media data must be contextualized, and it is suggested that tools used by sports analysts be incorporated to do so. Inspired by baseball's Sabremetrics, the authors propose Telemetrics in an attempt to separate actual performance from contextual factors. Telemetrics facilitates measuring audience activity in a manner controlling for factors such as time slot, network, and so forth. It potentially allows both descriptive and predictive measures of engagement.

Digital color reproduction on color television monitors

Color displays used in image processing systems consist of a refresh memory buffer storing digital image data which are converted into analog signals to display an image by driving the primary color channels (red, green, and blue) of a color television monitor. The color cathode ray tube (CRT) of the monitor is unable to reproduce colors exactly due to phosphor limitations, exponential luminance response of the tube to the applied signal, and limitations imposed by the digital-to-analog conversion. In this paper we describe some computer simulation studies (using the U*V*W* color space) carried out to measure these reproduction errors. Further, a procedure to correct for color reproduction error due to the exponential luminance response (gamma) of the picture tube is proposed, using a video-lookup-table and a higher resolution digital-to-analog converter. It is found, on the basis of computer simulation studies, that the proposed gamma correction scheme is effective and robust with respect to variations in the assumed value of the gamma.

Turf for tough times - keeping grass cover with less water, Proceedings of a seminar held at Redlands Research Station, Cleveland, Queensland, 6 June 2007.

Suitable for gaining some insights into important questions about the management of turf in dry times. Improve your product quality and avoid unnecessary losses. Can varieties help? How important are soils in conserving moisture and how do I measure my soil's condition? How can I make the best use of available water? Can water retaining amendments assist in establishing turf? Is recycled water a good option? Contains research results from turfgrass trials conducted by Queensland Government scientists for Queensland conditions.

Theoretical Studies on Coupled Electron and Proton Transfer in Cytochrome c Oxidase

The complexity of life is based on an effective energy transduction machinery, which has evolved during the last 3.5 billion years. In aerobic life, the utilization of the high oxidizing potential of molecular oxygen powers this machinery. Oxygen is safely reduced by a membrane bound enzyme, cytochrome c oxidase (CcO), to produce an electrochemical proton gradient over the mitochondrial or bacterial membrane. This gradient is used for energy-requiring reactions such as synthesis of ATP by F0F1-ATPase and active transport. In this thesis, the molecular mechanism by which CcO couples the oxygen reduction chemistry to proton-pumping has been studied by theoretical computer simulations. By building both classical and quantum mechanical model systems based on the X-ray structure of CcO from Bos taurus, the dynamics and energetics of the system were studied in different intermediate states of the enzyme. As a result of this work, a mechanism was suggested by which CcO can prevent protons from leaking backwards in proton-pumping. The use and activation of two proton conducting channels were also enlightened together with a mechanism by which CcO sorts the chemical protons from pumped protons. The latter problem is referred to as the gating mechanism of CcO, and has remained a challenge in the bioenergetics field for more than three decades. Furthermore, a new method for deriving charge parameters for classical simulations of complex metalloenzymes was developed.

A study on the variations of optical and physical properties of aerosols over a tropical semi-arid station during grassland fire

The present paper records the results of a case study on the impact of an extensive grassland fire on the physical and optical properties of aerosols at a semi-arid station in southern India for the first time from ground based measurements using a MICROTOPS-II sunphotometer, an aethalometer and a quartz crystal microbalance impactor (QCM). Observations revealed a substantial increase in aerosol optical depth (AOD) at all wavelengths during burning days compared to normal days. High AOD values observed at shorter wavelengths suggest the dominance of accumulation mode particle loading over the study area. Daily mean aerosol size spectra shows, most of the time, power-law distribution. To characterize AOD, the Angstrom parameters (i.e., alpha and beta) were used. Wavelength exponent (1.38) and turbidity coefficient (0.21) are high during burning days compared to normal days, thereby suggesting an increase in accumulation mode particle loading. Aerosol size distribution suggested dominance of accumulation mode particle loading during burning days compared to normal days. A significant positive correlation was observed between AOD at 500 mn and water vapour and negative correlation between AOD at 500 nm and wind speed for burning and non-burning days. Diurnal variations of black carbon (BC) aerosol mass concentrations increased by a factor of similar to 2 in the morning and afternoon hours during burning period compared to normal days.

Slogans of Change : Three Outlooks on Finnish Television

The study Slogans of Change. Three Outlooks on Finnish Television Contents is concerned with alleged changes of television contents during the 1990s and 2000s, such as dumbing down, tabloidisation, entertainisation , and the like. Specifically, the focus is on the ways these changes might manifest in Finnish television. The aim of the study has been threefold: 1. To operationalise public and academic discussions about changes via specific slogans emerging from the debates; 2. Consequently, to study the slogans empirically and reflect on the findings with earlier research, including studies on institutional and audience-related aspects; 3. Finally, to suggest what the findings might mean regarding discussions about television s role, and what kinds of slogans or concepts might best serve future discussions and research. The empirical outlooks presented in this study offer analyses with three different sets of opposing slogans of change. The outlooks also follow three different traditions of the study of television. The first outlook focuses on quantity, as it gives a longitudinal (1993-2004), macro-level view on programme structures. The methodological approach is derived from media economic and policy studies. The claims that frame the analysis are convergence versus diversification of programme structures. The second outlook provides quantitative and qualitative views on the characteristics and quality  the term signifying essence as well as worth  of Finnish television journalism during sample weeks from the years 2002 and 2003. This outlook follows the traditions of quantitative content analysis found in journalism studies coupled with descriptive qualitative content analyses. The slogans reflected in this section are the lightening or widening of journalism. The third outlook narrows down the material and focuses at a micro-level on form; that is, communicative conventions in a small array of selected programmes in 1993, 2000 and during 2002-2004. The analyses have been inspired by the method of conversation analysis of verbal interaction, and coupled with qualitative close readings, with the focus of different communicative situations in the programmes. The catchphrases employed in this part are emotainment versus democratainment, coupled with more specific claims of discursive hybridisation and conversationalisation. The findings depict that, empirically, changes in Finnish television contents are not clear linear trends and cannot easily be moulded into neat slogans. The quantitative outlook on programme output during 1993-2004 depicts a tendency towards differentiation of channels, paving the way for the multi-channel digital system. The change in programme structures, however, is not dramatic on the level of total output. The second outlook suggests that the dualistic concepts, such as the pair information-entertainment, are not sufficient in understanding the array and changes of programmes that could be called journalism. The outlook on communicative conventions highlights hybridisation in the manner of television talk and its relation to broader debates on contents. Despite the three dissimilar empirical approaches, unifying aspects emerge. The outlooks suggest, albeit in different ways, tendencies toward distinction and polarisation. This study proposes that in order to facilitate a more nuanced understanding of the changes in television contents, dualistic slogans should be replaced with a multi-dimensional understanding of the concept of diversity.

Cystatin C, a measure of renal function, as prognostic risk marker in acute heart failure : Studies on the cardiorenal syndrome

Acute heart failure (AHF) is a complex syndrome associated with exceptionally high mortality. Still, characteristics and prognostic factors of contemporary AHF patients have been inadequately studied. Kidney function has emerged as a very powerful prognostic risk factor in cardiovascular disease. This is believed to be the consequence of an interaction between the heart and kidneys, also termed the cardiorenal syndrome, the mechanisms of which are not fully understood. Renal insufficiency is common in heart failure and of particular interest for predicting outcome in AHF. Cystatin C (CysC) is a marker of glomerular filtration rate with properties making it a prospective alternative to the currently used measure creatinine for assessment of renal function. The aim of this thesis is to characterize a representative cohort of patients hospitalized for AHF and to identify risk factors for poor outcome in AHF. In particular, the role of CysC as a marker of renal function is evaluated, including examination of the value of CysC as a predictor of mortality in AHF. The FINN-AKVA (Finnish Acute Heart Failure) study is a national prospective multicenter study conducted to investigate the clinical presentation, aetiology and treatment of, as well as concomitant diseases and outcome in, AHF. Patients hospitalized for AHF were enrolled in the FINN-AKVA study, and mortality was followed for 12 months. The mean age of patients with AHF is 75 years and they frequently have both cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular co-morbidities. The mortality after hospitalization for AHF is high, rising to 27% by 12 months. The present study shows that renal dysfunction is very common in AHF. CysC detects impaired renal function in forty percent of patients. Renal function, measured by CysC, is one of the strongest predictors of mortality independently of other prognostic risk markers, such as age, gender, co-morbidities and systolic blood pressure on admission. Moreover, in patients with normal creatinine values, elevated CysC is associated with a marked increase in mortality. Acute kidney injury, defined as an increase in CysC within 48 hours of hospital admission, occurs in a significant proportion of patients and is associated with increased short- and mid-term mortality. The results suggest that CysC can be used for risk stratification in AHF. Markers of inflammation are elevated both in heart failure and in chronic kidney disease, and inflammation is one of the mechanisms thought to mediate heart-kidney interactions in the cardiorenal syndrome. Inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) correlate very differently to markers of cardiac stress and renal function. In particular, TNF-α showed a robust correlation to CysC, but was not associated with levels of NT-proBNP, a marker of hemodynamic cardiac stress. Compared to CysC, the inflammatory markers were not strongly related to mortality in AHF. In conclusion, patients with AHF are elderly with multiple co-morbidities, and renal dysfunction is very common. CysC demonstrates good diagnostic properties both in identifying impaired renal function and acute kidney injury in patients with AHF. CysC, as a measure of renal function, is also a powerful prognostic marker in AHF. CysC shows promise as a marker for assessment of kidney function and risk stratification in patients hospitalized for AHF.

Framtidens television. Vissa marknadsförings- och upphovsrättsliga spörsmål

Den här boken handlar om framtidens television och vissa marknadsförings- och upphovsrättsliga spörsmål som aktualiseras i samband med nya former av televisionssändningar. TV-tekniken har utvecklats mycket under de senaste åren, och det är framförallt sändningstekniken som har genomgått de största förändringarna. Tyngdpunkten i detta arbete har lagts på förmedling av TV-sändningar över Internet med hjälp av P2P-tekniken (peer-to-peer) och vilka marknadsförings- och upphovsrättsliga spörsmål detta aktualiserar. Den nya förmedlingstekniken möjliggör en rad nya marknadsföringsmetoder, och i boken behandlas hur dessa metoder förhåller sig till nuvarande marknadsföringsrättsliga reglering. Förmedling av upphovsrättsskyddat material över Internet har inneburit ett flertal reformer av gällande upphovsrättslagstiftning i syfte att stärka rättsinnehavarnas ensamrätt. En viktig fråga som boken behandlar är hur gällande upphovsrättslagstiftning skall tolkas i förhållande till nya distributionsformer över Internet. I boken tas även upp frågor i anknytning till problemet med att en stor del av det material som förmedlas över Internet sker utan rättsinnehavarens samtycke, vilket innebär en ekonomisk förlust för rättsinnehavaren. I boken framläggs alternativa lösningar för hur förmedlingen över Internet kan tilldela rättsinnehavaren ekonomisk ersättning, trots att förmedlingen är avgiftsfri.

Uhrihaastatteluista poliitikkojen kovisteluun : Tutkimus Jokelan ja Kauhajoen koulusurmien tv-uutisoinnin kerrontatavoista

Medialla on valta päättää, miten väkivallasta kerrotaan, ja miten kriisit esitetään. Median kerrontatavoilla on suuri vaikutus siihen, miten katastrofi näyttäytyy tavalliselle kansalaiselle. Keskityn tutkielmassani siihen, millaisia kerrontatapoja Jokelan ja Kauhajoen koulusurmien tv-uutisointiin on rakennettu. Selvitän, mitä eroja ja yhtäläisyyksiä uutiskerronnassa oli kahden koulusurmatapauksen välillä sekä eri tv-kanavien välillä. Tarkastelen myös, mitkä toimijat korostuvat uutisten eri kerrontatavoissa. Laadullisen tutkimusotteen piirissä metodologinen tutkimustapani on representaatioanalyysi. Tutkielman lähtökohtana on malli katastrofiuutisoinnin kerrontatavoista. Gert Z. Nordström (1996) on kehittänyt mallin alun perin kuva-analyysiä varten. Myöhemmin sitä on sovellettu mediatekstien analyysiin (Huhtala jaa Hakala 2007). Tässä tutkielmassa sovellan mallia audiovisuaalisen kerronnan analyysiin. Tutkimusaineistoni koostuu television uutislähetyksistä seitsemän päivän ajalta sekä Jokelan että Kauhajoen tapahtumien jälkeen neljällä valtakunnallisella tv-kanavalla. Analyysimallin mukaisesti koulusurmat esitetään televisiossa käyttäen eeppistä, dramaattista, lyyristä ja didaktista kerrontatapaa. Lisäksi kyseessä olleesta tv-aineistosta nousi viides kerronnan luokka, kriittinen kerronta. Eeppisellä kerronnalla tarkoitetaan tyypillistä raportoivaa ja referoivaa uutiskerrontaa. Dramaattista kerrontaa käytetään raportoitaessa suoraan tapahtumapaikalta. Lyyrinen kerronta kuvaa tunteita. Didaktisessa kerronnassa pohditaan, mitä tapahtuneesta voi oppia. Kriittisen kerronnan keinoin vaaditaan vastuunottoa tapahtuneesta. Tv-uutisten kerrontatavoissa näyttäisi korostuvan eeppisen kerronnan määrä. Kauhajoen ja Jokelan uutiskerronnat kuitenkin erosivat toisistaan niin, että eeppinen kerronta lisääntyi entisestään Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa. Myös kriittinen kerronta korostui Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa. Jokelan uutisoinnissa esiintyi puolestaan enemmän dramaattista, lyyristä ja didaktista kerrontaa. MTV3-kanavalla käytettiin muita kanavia vähemmän eeppistä kerrontaa. Didaktista kerrontaa esiintyi MTV3:lla muita kanavia reilusti enemmän molempien koulusurmatapausten yhteydessä. Lisäksi MTV3-kanavalla esiintyi eniten kriittistä kerrontaa Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa. YLEn ja Nelosen kerrontatapojen esiintyminen oli lähes samankaltaista sekä Jokelan että Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa. Jokelan uutisoinnissa Nelonen käytti kuitenkin merkittävästi enemmän dramaattista kerrontaa YLEen verrattuna. Jokelan uutisoinnissa toimijoina korostuivat ampuja, ja uhrit, kun taas Kauhajoella päätoimijoita olivat poliisi ja poliitikot. Jokelan tv-uutisoinnissa sekä uhrit että ampuja olivat kolmen keskeisimmän toimijan joukossa useassa kerrontatavan luokassa. Kauhajoen uutisoinnissa puolestaan uhrit eivät olleet missään kerrontatavan luokassa kolmen keskeisimmän toimijan joukossa, ja ampujakin vain yhdessä luokassa. Eeppisen ja kriittisen kerrontatavan korostuminen sekä poliitikkojen keskeisyys toimijoina Kauhajoen tv-uutisoinnissa kertoo siitä, että Jokelaan nähden Kauhajoen koulusurmien uutisointi oli selvästi yhteiskuntakeskeisempää. Jokelan uutisointi painottui enemmän yksittäisen tapahtuman traagisuuteen sekä henkilökohtaloihin.