Factors influencing the international syndication marketplace in the 1990s

This article examines 10 factors affecting the U.S. international syndication business in the 1990s, especially sales in Western Europe. Despite sluggish sales and the enforcement of EC and national quotas, the study suggests that syndicators offering high‐quality programming and adopting proactive and creative marketing strategies will prosper and maintain their competitive edge during this decade. The author suggests two key strategies, cooperative agreements and creative pricing, as means of coping with financial challenges and expanding international sales of television programs.     

Does acute exercise switch off switch costs? A study with younger and older athletes

This study investigated the effects of acute exercise on 53 young (16-24 years) and 47 older (65-74 years) adults' switch-task performance. Participants practiced sports requiring either low or high cognitive demands. Both at rest and during aerobic exercise, the participants performed two reaction time tasks that differed in the amount of executive control involved in switching between global and local target features of visual compound stimuli. Switch costs were computed as reaction time differences between switch and nonswitch trials. In the low demanding task, switch costs were sensitive only to age, whereas in the high demanding task, they were sensitive to acute exercise, age, and sport-related cognitive expertise. The results suggest that acute exercise enhances cognitive flexibility and facilitates complex switch-task performance. Both young age and habitual practice of cognitively challenging sports are associated with smaller switch costs, but neither age nor cognitive expertise seem to moderate the relationship between acute exercise and switch-task performance.     

Late-Night Iraq: Monologue Joke Content and Tone From 2003 to 2007

The current study examines late-night comedy about the war in Iraq. Specifically, a content analysis was conducted to examine late-night comedy jokes from March 2003 to March 2007. Results indicate jokes told (N = 986) about Iraq were anti-war, had a negative tone, and depicted the U.S. government negatively. The most common type of comedy employed to discuss Iraq was informative. The topics discussed in the jokes varied. The study also found differences in comedian ideology (anti-war), tone, and depiction of the U.S. government over time.     

Can an early mathematical intervention boost the progress of children in kindergarten? A field experiment

European Journal of Psychology of Education - Socioeconomic status (SES) has been shown to be associated with children’s arithmetic knowledge as early as kindergarten, which is an important...     

Influence of free surface,unsteadiness and viscous effects on oar blade hydrodynamic loads

Abstract

Flow around a rowing blade is a very complex phenomenon, involving unsteady three-dimensional flow with violent motion of the free surface. However, in the literature, forces acting on blades are modelled using extreme and dubious simplifications. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of free surface and unsteadiness (two physical characteristics that are commonly neglected when modelling loads on blades) as well as viscous effects. In fact, quasi-static approaches are often used, with no influence of the free surface effects. To conduct this study, computational fluid dynamics is used, supported by experimental results performed with a dedicated device reproducing a simplified rowing stroke in the towing tank. Comparisons show that both free surface flow and unsteadiness must be considered to capture the whole physics of the phenomenon accurately. In contrast, the viscous effects have a very limited influence.     

“Selling less of more?” The impact of digitization on record companies

In this paper, we use data from a survey of 151 French record companies to test the “long-tail” hypothesis at the level of the firm. More specifically, we test whether, following the “selling less of more” principle coined by Anderson (2006), record companies that have adapted to digitization (at various levels: artists’ scouting, distribution, and promotion) release more new albums without having higher overall sales. We construct a production function in which the output is produced from conventional inputs of labor and capital, as well as inputs that are more specific to the recorded music industry. We consider two types of output: a commercial output (albums sales) and a creative output (number of new albums released). We show that labels that have adapted to digitization are more efficient in respect of creative output, but that there is no effect of adaptation to digitization on the commercial output, which is consistent with the predictions of the long-tail hypothesis.     

Effects of an Adaptive Game Intervention on Accessing Number Sense in Low-Socioeconomic-Status Kindergarten Children

"The Number Race" is an adaptive game designed to improve number sense. We tested its effectiveness using a cross-over design in 53 low socioeconomic status kindergarteners in France. Children showed improvements in tasks traditionally used to assess number sense (numerical comparison of digits and words). However, there was no improvement on non-symbolic measures of number sense, suggesting that rather than being in number sense per se, the improvement was in number sense access; or links between symbolic and non-symbolic representations of number. Focused adaptive interventions such as this may contribute to reducing the socioeconomic gap in math achievement.