Managing Dwindling Online Music Sales: Analyzing Factors Affecting Global Music Piracy

Piracy adversely impacts online music sales. This paper aims to investigate the factors that affect global music piracy directly and e-business indirectly. The factors can be clubbed into four categories, (i) economic, (ii) technological (iii)legal/regulatory, (iv) behavioral/cultural. On analyzing the data of 55 countries, Intellectual Property Protection, trade freedom, income inequality and individualism/collectivism index of a country emerge as the most significant factors affecting music piracy. Hence, a nation can reduce its music piracy rate and enhance e-business by devising stricter laws to safeguard intellectual property, allowing more free trade with other countries and bridging the income inequality within a country

Observed Trends in FRB Population and Bi-modality in the Luminosity Density Distribution

We have considered both non-CHIME and CHIME FRBs in the present study. Our robust conclusion is that there are two categories of non-CHIME FRBs - high luminosity density and low luminosity density events, with majority of the repeaters falling in the latter category. In order to circumvent the non-availability of measured fluence and flux density of the CHIME FRBs, we have devised a novel dimensionless approach that utilizes the ratio of the estimated CHIME lower limits to the fluence as well as to the flux density to investigate the presence of trends and patterns in both non-CHIME as well as CHIME FRB population. We have introduced several physically meaningful dimensionless quantities, and one of the robust results is that the computed values of these are almost same for both CHIME and non-CHIME events. This universality is also seen in the distributions of the computed dimensionless quantities and the underlying trends. In the case of CHIME repeaters, distributions of few of the dimensionless quantities hint at the existence of two modes of repeating radio transients.Comment: Submitted to EP

Intelligent Conversational Agents in Mental Healthcare Services: A Thematic Analysis of User Perceptions

Background: The emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) based Conversational Agents (CA) capable of delivering evidence-based psychotherapy presents a unique opportunity to solve longstanding issues such as social stigma and demand-supply imbalance associated with traditional mental health care services. However, the emerging literature points to several socio-ethical challenges which may act as inhibitors to the adoption in the minds of the consumers. We also observe a paucity of research focusing on determinants of adoption and use of AI-based CAs in mental healthcare. In this setting, this study aims to understand the factors influencing the adoption and use of Intelligent CAs in mental healthcare by examining the perceptions of actual users. Method: The study followed a qualitative approach based on netnography and used a rigorous iterative thematic analysis of publicly available user reviews of popular mental health chatbots to develop a comprehensive framework of factors influencing the user’s decision to adopt mental healthcare CA. Results: We developed a comprehensive thematic map comprising of four main themes, namely, perceived risk, perceived benefits, trust, and perceived anthropomorphism, along with its 12 constituent subthemes that provides a visualization of the factors that govern the user’s adoption and use of mental healthcare CA. Conclusions: Insights from our research could guide future research on mental healthcare CA use behavior. Additionally, it could also aid designers in framing better design decisions that meet consumer expectations. Our research could also guide healthcare policymakers and regulators in integrating this technology into formal healthcare delivery systems. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol12/iss2/1

Workplace Characteristics: Significant Predictors of Stress among Nurses Working in Special Units of a Tertiary Care Hospital

Nursing profession is subjected to high stress owing to its nature of work. Stress can result from various internal and environmental demands and is manifested physiologically and psychologically. The present study was conducted to determine stress, predictors of stress and stress symptoms as experienced by nurses in a tertiary care hospital of North India. The present study was descriptive in nature involving 103 nurses working in special units of the hospital. The nurses were selected conveniently. Demographic profile sheet, modified workplace stress scale (WSS) and Workplace stress symptom scale (WSSS) were administered to collect the data. Findings of the study revealed that 50% of the nurses experienced low stress while 28% and 22% experienced moderate and high stress respectively. Further, job challenge, role- conflict, self- conflict, workload, lack of job autonomy, informal support and goal clarity, improper performance appraisal, poor inter- personal relations and job insecurity were identified as significant predictors of stress. Various stress symptoms as experienced by nurses such as exhaustion, irritation, difficulty in concentration, weariness and feebleness, nervousness, reduced work performance, insomnia and reduced self- confidence, indifference towards anything and depression were also reported. The findings of the study give insight into the significant predictors of stress which can be buffered using various stress management strategies by the nurse managers

Essays in development economics

My dissertation chapters study the impact of environmental factors on outcomes of human functioning. The first chapter studies the impact of heat stress during a primary school leaving exam in Indonesia on outcomes in later life. The Ebtanas are a national standardized test that students must take to gain entry to secondary school. Using individual-level data on test scores, I first show that cognitive performance during the test is affected by heat stress. Impacts are heterogeneous across different subjects, with math and science being the most heavily impacted. Next, I show that disruptive weather conditions during the Ebtanas have compounding negative effects on a wide range of long-term achievements such as adult educational attainment, labor market participation and entry to the marriage market. A 1C increase in temperature in the month of exam leads to 1.53% fewer years of education, 2% fewer hours worked and a 2% higher probability of being married by 18 for women. These findings stress that even examinations conducted during early or mid adolescence may have impacts that persist through adulthood. The second chapter studies the repercussions of an agricultural productivity shock for labor market outcomes and inequality in India. I show that the increase in productivity had heterogeneous impacts on technological diffusion and local labor market outcomes. In wheat growing areas, the productivity increase was followed by investments in labor-saving technology, demonstrated by an increase in the use of tractors. Rice areas in contrast, invested more heavily in labor-enhancing technology such as fertilizers, creating new opportunities for application of labor. These shifts exacerbated inequality in wheat districts while reducing inequality in rice districts. I show that these results are robust to fixed effects and instrumental variables strategy. These findings demonstrate that driven by differences in environmental factor endowments, a productivity shock can have heterogeneous impacts on agricultural labor markets and inequality. Chapter 3 examines the efficacy of genealogically constructed networks in sharing risk under aggregate versus idiosyncratic income shocks in the context of geographically split-off families in Indonesia. While informal transfers are effective in sharing aggregate risks, they are ineffective in an idiosyncratic shock. Plausible reasons include a higher probability of repayment as well as greater economies of scale from resource pooling. We show that idiosyncratic shocks induce households to make long-term and costly changes to their household structure. We demonstrate this in the formation of new split-off families over time who reside outside the district. Our findings further reveal that controlling for shocks to members in a family network is an important source of omitted variable bias in empirical estimations of the impact of shocks on informal transfers