In 2011, home-video distribution company, The Criterion Collection, teamed up with streaming-content provider Hulu, extending their business model to include online streaming to subscribers through Hulu Plus. With the rise of Over-The-Top (OTT) media distribution services into the at-home market, the question that Criterion now faces is: how will the company survive as the market shifts away from Criterion’s established values? And, more pertinently, how does Criterion, by rebranding their image to compete in the streaming market, hope to attract new users without alienating their established fan base or sacrificing their brand identity? This thesis examines the Criterion Collection’s brand identity, business model, and history, focusing on its packaging and promotion, distribution channels (physical and streaming), and the formation of a self-established cinephile community through their website, Criterion.com. In my examination of Criterion’s attempts to branch out into new markets and adapt to alternative modes of media consumption, I argue that Criterion is taking strides to attract new audiences and build a tightly knit online fan community around their brand.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Numerical approximations of multiscale problems of important applications in ecology are investigated. One of the class of models considered in this work are singularly perturbed (slow-fast) predator-prey systems which are characterized by the presence of a very small positive parameter representing the separation of time-scales between the fast and slow dynamics. Solution of such problems involve multiple scale phenomenon characterized by repeated switching of slow and fast motions, referred to as relaxationoscillations, which are typically challenging to approximate numerically. Granted with a priori knowledge, various time-stepping methods are developed within the framework of partitioning the full problem into fast and slow components, and then numerically treating each component differently according to their time-scales. Nonlinearities that arise as a result of the application of the implicit parts of such schemes are treated by using iterative algorithms, which are known for their superlinear convergence, such as the Jacobian-Free Newton-Krylov (JFNK) and the Anderson’s Acceleration (AA) fixed point methods.

The Internet provides the opportunity to develop a new way to present journalism, but many scholars say newspaper Web sites do nothing but mirror their print parents. This study used content analysis to compare the content of stories in five newspapers with their Web counterparts, and it examines whether reporter affiliation or a story's geographic emphasis has a relationship with the story's amount of contextual elements. These elements could include photos, graphics, or multimedia or interactive components online. This approach applied gatekeeping theory to publications that have editions in two media. This study examined the five largest newspapers in the South over 14 days, collecting a sample of 635 stories on the front pages and metro section front pages of the papers. Nearly all stories in the sample appeared on the newspapers' Web sites, and story content was the same 96% of the time. The study found that 85% of print stories were published with at least one contextual element, but only 58% of online stories had at least one such element. About a third of the sample had at least one contextual element in common between print and online versions of a story, while about 20% of the sample had entirely unique sets of contextual elements in print and online. Newspapers are no more likely to publish additional contextual elements with local stories than any other type of content. This effort focused on storytelling components; it examined whether print and Web editions of newspapers tell stories differently---whether they are complementary or competitive.

A content analysis of news Web sites reveals how many multimedia and interactive components both converged and non-converged media organizations include on their Web presence. The sample included four news Web sites considered to be highly converged with their print and broadcast counterparts (TBO.com, chicagotribune.com, DallasNews.com, and Azcentral.com), one newspaper Web site not affiliated with a broadcast media organization (buffalonews.com), and one broadcast news Web site not affiliated with a print news organization (kfmb.com). A multimedia and interactivity score was given to each Web site based on the quantity of these components each site used. Both kfmb.com (a non-converged organization) and chicagotribune.com (a highly converged news organization) offered significantly more multimedia components than the other four organizations, but only chicagotribune.com provided a statistically significant number of interactivity components on its Web site. The results of this study revealed that among the four converged news organizations (azcentral.com, dallasnews.com, chicagotribune.com, and tbo.com), the only organization demonstrating the characteristics of a converged news organization was chicagotribune.com.

As global temperatures rise due to anthropogenic climate change, water resources, thus economies, are threatened. A geologically recent period of increased temperatures is the mid-Holocene and an investigation of its climate may allow for a better understanding of future precipitation and changes to regional water resources. The regions of interest are tropical Northern Central America and subtropical North America with Belize and Florida representing each climate zone. By reconstructing mid-Holocene climate in Florida and Belize, I hope to provide a better understanding of how increased temperatures and a reduced latitudinal temperature gradient impacts both precipitation patterns and variability. Today, drivers of changes in precipitation include climate systems such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Therefore, it is imperative to determine their latitudinal influences during the mid-Holocene and consequently their potential impact on water resources in the near future. Speleothems from Chen Ha Cave, Vaca Plateau, Belize and Brown's Cave, West Central Florida, provided high-resolution (sub-annual to decadal) oxygen and carbon stable isotope data that allowed for a detailed investigation of mid-Holocene climate. The speleothems were sampled along the growth axis of a cross-section for oxygen and carbon isotopic analysis. 234U-230Th dating was used to create a chronology for each record and determine the time step between each isotope sample. Time series analysis with variations of Fourier transforms, including Lomb-Scargle, wavelet analysis, and multi-taper method, was used to extract periodicities for each oxygen isotope record. To determine which atmospheric-oceanic modes influenced mid-Holocene precipitation, the speleothem periodicities were compared to those of known periodicities of atmospheric-oceanic modes, such as the AMV and NAO. Finally, the Florida and Belize records were assessed for coherency using cross wavelet analysis. The Floridian speleothem recorded less precipitation compared to present levels due to a westward expansion and intensification of the North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH) with a quasi-persistent but less influential AMV. Relative to today, the mid-Holocene in Belize was slightly wetter which I suggest is a result of a more northerly ITCZ and an intensification of the NASH that increased the strength of the Caribbean Lower Level Jet (CLLJ). The Seuss solar cycle was also significant in Belize, contributing 7.2% of the precipitation variability. Wavelet coherency assessment reveal very little connectivity between the Florida and Belize speleothem reconstructions, potentially due to the blocking influence of the ITCZ. Comparison to other records from the mid-Holocene supports the hypothesis of an intensified NASH and more northerly ITCZ. A future increase in precipitation in Belize may lead to increased soil erosion, the need for crop adaptation, and risk to the population of low lying areas, such as Belize City. In Florida, reduced precipitation may result in a decrease in agricultural output and threats to the state's freshwater supply.

Internet services play an increasingly important role in modern society. Mobile Internet, a fast-growing technology that combines the Internet with mobile devices, has recently become popular. It is predicted that the convergence between mobile networks and the Internet would become the next generation of network architecture, and mobile IPv6 is likely to emerge as the most efficient and cost-effective instrument to achieve "anywhere and anytime" fast Internet and resolve the problems of worldwide mobility management. This research project reviews mobile Internet competition and the market mix in New Zealand, both major players and minor players being involved. The researcher also investigates the requirements of the mobile Internet deployment model from two perspectives: the market and the consumers. Finally the connection between end user services (for example, mobile Internet) and convergence (for example, network convergence and technology convergence) are examined in the research study conducted.The researcher applies a multi-case study strategy to conduct the research project and interview is adopted as the major research technique in order to collect research data. Several organizations which deploy mobile Internet services in New Zealand are chosen as participants, with the aim of offering both personal insights and business views to the research questions and objectives.

Many rural districts are facing economic decline because of a range of factors such as demographic change, changing socio-economic development patterns, farm amalgamations, the entry of large retail businesses, the so called ‘Big Box Retailing’ (BBRs), and a decline in rural infrastructure investment. These factors in turn affect the viability of many small-to-medium sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the primary employers and the engines for economic growth and employment in rural districts. The combined effect of these processes is that many rural districts struggle to keep young people, maintain economic and social diversity and attract new settlers and investment. This thesis seeks to answer the question as to how large scale retail businesses, rural farm amalgamations and declining rural populations impact on the viability of SME retail businesses in rural areas. In order to answer this question, this study identifies the key factors, which affect the future viability of small-to-medium sized retail businesses in sparsely populated rural districts using the South Taranaki District as a case study. The role of economic development agencies and district councils is also examined using case studies of small towns in rural districts of Australia and the United States of America (USA). This study found a number of factors affect the future viability of small-to-medium sized retail businesses in sparsely populated rural districts. For the South Taranaki district, these factors include the arrival of large-scale supermarkets, followed by large scale retail chains such as The Warehouse. These factors, combined with changing rural population structures and economic ‘spikes’ relating to sporadic energy development, have significant implications for the long term viability of many SMEs in the district. Case studies of similar rural districts in the USA and Australia provided examples of strategies that could be used to manage these impacts. This thesis recommends policies, initiatives and strategies that may be considered by territorial local authorities, regional councils and central governments to help address the economic development challenges facing rural districts.

La modélisation géométrique de quelques problèmes de gestion de la fabrication des mélanges en pétrochimie a amené a introduire des polytopes particuliers appelés zonotopes. Le critère de gestion utilise a conduit a la resolution d'un probleme d'optimisation non linéaire avec contraintes. Les données de ce probleme sont constituées par des caractéristiques des produits de base. Ces caractéristiques sont des résultats de mesures, donc sujettes a des erreurs. Nous étudions la variation de la solution du probleme d'optimisation par rapport a ces erreurs et nous caractérisons la région de confiance de la solution quand celles-ci sont supposées gaussiennes et indépendantes. Un zonoide est la limite au sens de la métrique de hausdorff d'une suite de zonotopes. Dans le cas des processus continus de fabrication, la modélisation a amené a considérer des zonoides particuliers appelés zonoides associes a une courbe paramétrique. Nous donnons quelques propriétés de ces ensembles, nous présentons une paramétrisation de la surface représentant leurs bords et nous étudions la régularité de cette paramétrisation connaissant celles des courbes paramétriques auxquelles ils sont associes. Nous abordons ensuite le probleme d'approximation de zonoides par des zonotopes. Une methode de construction de suites de zonotopes convergeant vers un zonoide donne est etablie. Pour chaque zonotope, élément de la suite, nous évaluons l'erreur d'approximation. L'ordre de convergence de ces suites est calcule.

Ce document présente une synthèse des travaux de recherche effectués après la thèse, soutenue à l'université Toulouse III en décembre 2001. <br /><br /><br />Une large partie de ces recherches est consacrée aux inégalités fonctionnelles, dont les inégalités de Poincaré ou de Sobolev logarithmique sont deux représentantes emblématiques. De façon générale, les inégalités fonctionnelles sont à la frontière de l'analyse et des probabilités et sont utilisées dans de nombreux problèmes mathématiques. On pourra citer par exemple l'étude de la convergence à l'équilibre d'équations différentielles ou de chaîne de Markov, l'étude des ensembles convexes en grande dimension, l'étude de la concentration de mesures produits ou corrélées, l'étude de la convergence de systèmes de particules, ou l'étude de l'existence d'une unique mesure de Gibbs en mécanique statistique. La résolution de chacun de ces problèmes repose sur l'établissement d'une inégalité fonctionnelle adaptée au modèle. <br /><br /><br />Dans ce mémoire, nous traitons ces problèmes de deux façons. D'une part, nous nous intéressons directement aux inégalités fonctionnelles, en cherchant à établir des hiérarchies entre elles, à trouver des critères simples permettant d'établir leur existence. D'autre part, à partir de problèmes de convergence à l'équilibre d'équations d'évolutions, nous élaborons et utilisons des inégalités fonctionnelles appropriées permettant d'obtenir des taux de convergence à l'équilibre.<br /><br /><br />Ce document est divisé en 5 chapitres. Les 4 premiers chapitres traitent des inégalités fonctionnelles et leurs implications pour des équations d'évolutions linéaires, non-linéaires, locales ou non-locales. <br /><br />Le dernier chapitre traite quant à lui un tout autre problème. Nous essayons de montrer la convergence à l'équilibre d'un algorithmique génétique utilisé pour des problèmes de filtrage non-linéaire.

On présente un travail relatif 0 l'analyse de variance 0 deux facteurs en présence d'interaction multiplicative. on considère pour les paramètres d'interaction des estimateurs proposes par J.R. Barra. On montre que, sous des hypothèses simples, les lois des estimateurs ont de "bonnes" propriétés d'approximation.