Finding Democracy in Spain

Between General Franco's agony (October/November 1975) and the constitution's approval (December 1978), European media reported intensively about the democratisation process in Spain. The present paper deals with its examination through the Radio della Svizzera di lingua italiana broadcasts. As the only Swiss Italian-speaking broadcaster, it tried to provide in-depth information and opinion on a country whose solid ties with Switzerland were based on economy, migration and tourism. The study of this non-commercial radio allows us to determine the way the democratisation was approached and portrayed for a Swiss audience and offers a genuine case for transnational historical research.     

Communist media economics and the consumers: The case of the print media of East Central Europe

Abstract

Entrepreneurship theory complements established approaches to media management research with an alternative frame for viewing media ownership and the media's capacity for content diversity. Established entrepreneurship metrics were applied to media industries in the United States. All media sectors experienced varying rates in the second half of the last century; by the turn of the new century, nearly all were more entrepreneurial than any other U.S. service or manufacturing industry.     

Using rating matrix compression techniques to speed up collaborative recommendations

Collaborative filtering is a popular recommendation technique. Although researchers have focused on the accuracy of the recommendations, real applications also need efficient algorithms. An index structure can be used to store the rating matrix and compute recommendations very fast. In this paper we study how compression techniques can reduce the size of this index structure and, at the same time, speed up recommendations. We show how coding techniques commonly used in Information Retrieval can be effectively applied to collaborative filtering, reducing the matrix size up to 75 %, and almost doubling the recommendation speed. Additionally, we propose a novel identifier reassignment technique, that achieves high compression rates, reducing by 40 % the size of an already compressed matrix. It is a very simple approach based on assigning the smallest identifiers to the items and users with the highest number of ratings, and it can be efficiently computed using a two pass indexing. The usage of the proposed compression techniques can significantly reduce the storage and time costs of recommender systems, which are two important factors in many real applications.     

Mediating Frida: Negotiating Discourses of Latina/o Authenticity in Global Media Representations of Ethnic Identity

This article analyzes the discourses of Latina/o identity embedded in the movie Frida, the Latino news coverage about the film, and an on-line chat stream about the film. Comparing the identity discourses circulated by the movie's producers, Latina/o journalists, and Latina/o audiences when discussing the film shows how different communities negotiate the meanings of ethnic identity. The study concludes that the discourses of ethnic identity circulated through the movie, news coverage, and chat stream disrupt notions of Latina/o ethnic identity as a stable and commodifiable demographic category.     

New Method for Historic Rammed-earth Wall Characterization: The Almohade Ramparts of Malaga and Seville

ABSTRACT

The goal of this research is to propose a new method of characterizing rammed-earth walls. Based on their historic building materials properties, five broad test groups were established for the characterization: chemical and mineralogical composition, physical properties, mechanical properties, particle size distribution, and dating. These determinations can, in turn, be grouped into two different types: instrumental techniques such as XRF, XRD, and SEM-EDX, as well as adaptations of standard methods (mainly UNE-EN standards) for application to these materials. As case studies where the proposed method is applied, we present our research on the rammed-earth walls in the ramparts of Seville and Malaga (Spain), clearly showing the method’s capacity for comparing and differentiating different rammed-earth walls.     

Superstars as Emotion-Eliciting Objects. An Examination of the Effect of the Emotion Mix of Movie Stars

This article examines how superstars can influence moviegoers' decision process via eliciting emotions. The article builds upon prior research in the role of emotions in consumption. The data of a survey study are used to capture the emotional profile of superstars. Results from a correspondence analysis indicate that superstars can be classified according to the basic emotions they elicit. The resulting “constellations” of superstars influence spectators' decisions. A nested logit model gives evidence that supports the importance of taking into account the difference among emotions of the same valence. Moreover, the emotional interdependence between superstars seems to influence spectators' willingness to attend a movie.     

The Impact of Corporate Media News on Market Valuation

This article explores the influence of Web-based corporate reporting on the investors' valuation of companies in the information and communications technology industry. This study compiled 8,111 news items issued in the “Press Releases” tab of the firms' Web sites between January 2003 and April 2005, and analyzed what type of news items affects stock returns. The results show a positive price reaction to news regarding new customers, completion of acquisitions, strategic long-term decisions, and non-technological alliances. In contrast, the results show a negative price reaction to news regarding the launch of new or upgraded products.     

An annual JCR impact factor calculation based on Bayesian credibility formulas

Our aim deals with appraising the annual impact calculation of journals belonging to the JCR, in terms of the expected citation (with or without selfcitations) by published paper in a range of k-years. A Bayesian approach to the problem, should reflect not only the current prestige of a journal, but also taking into account its recent trajectory. In this wide context, credibility theory becomes an adequate mechanism deciding whether journal's impact factor calculation to be more or less plausible. Under prior belief that journal quality is determined by its impact factor, we model the citation-quality process by choosing a conjugated family of the exponential class in order to obtain a net impact credibility formula. Proposed weighting schema produces the effect of smoothing out any sudden increases or decreases in the year-by-year impact factor.