Pirate or subscriber? An exploratory study on italian consumers' music habits

Purpose of the paper: This paper analyzes Italian consumers’ music habits in terms of online piracy behaviors and their interest toward subscription-based music services (SBMS), i.e. services that for a small monthly fee give users legal access to vast music libraries across multiple devices. The objective is to try and profile a piracy-prone consumer and explore if SBMS could be a viable alternative to online music piracy in Italy, where the general piracy rate is very high. Methodology: The study is based on an empirical quantitative analysis through the collection of 505 questionnaires completed by Italian consumers. Findings: The paper highlights how Italian consumers reflect the ‘attitude-behavior gap’ in music consumption, as they perceive online music piracy as ethically wrong, yet they still show low preference for the legal, reasonably priced choice (such as SBMS). Younger, male, lower education, students have the highest propensity towards online piracy. In addition, consumers’ awareness, familiarity and interest in subscriptionbased music services are still very low. Research limitations: The limitations of the paper are linked mainly to the adapted scales, to the omission of alternative determinants of attitude towards piracy, to the composition of the sample and for analyzing only two subscription-based music services (Napster and Spotify). Managerial implications: The results call for greater efforts by music industry actors and public institutions to educate Italian consumers about the consequences of their online piracy behavior and the possible solutions offered by SBMS. Originality of the paper: This paper is the first to focus on Italian consumers’ music habits, their attitude and behavior towards online piracy and their interest toward subscription-based music services as a viable alternative

Nuclear response for the Skyrme effective interaction with zero-range tensor terms. II. Sum rules and instabilities

The formalism of linear response theory for Skyrme forces including tensor terms presented in article [1] is generalized for the case of a Skyrme energy density functional in infinite matter. We also present analytical results for the odd-power sum rules, with particular attention to the inverse energy weighted sum rule, $M_{-1}$, as a tool to detect instabilities in Skyrme functionals.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Thermal neutron captures on dd and 3^3He

We report on a study of the $nd$ and n\,^3He radiative captures at thermal neutron energies, using wave functions obtained from either chiral or conventional two- and three-nucleon realistic potentials with the hyperspherical harmonics method, and electromagnetic currents derived in chiral effective field theory up to one loop. The predicted $nd$ and n\,^3He cross sections are in good agreement with data, but exhibit a significant dependence on the input Hamiltonian. A comparison is also made between these and new results for the $nd$ and n\,^3He cross sections obtained in the conventional framework for both potentials and currents.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figures; references added; corrections to text and abstract as suggested by referee adde

Tools for incorporating a D-wave contribution in Skyrme energy density functionals

The possibility of adding a D-wave term to the standard Skyrme effective interaction has been widely considered in the past. Such a term has been shown to appear in the next-to-next-to-leading order of the Skyrme pseudo-potential. The aim of the present article is to provide the necessary tools to incorporate this term in a fitting procedure: first, a mean-field equation written in spherical symmetry in order to describe spherical nuclei and second, the response function to detect unphysical instabilities. With these tools it will be possible to build a new fitting procedure to determine the coupling constants of the new functional

E-ABR in patients with cochlear implant: A comparison between patients with malformed cochlea and normal cochlea

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to compare the electrical auditory brainstem response (EABR) following cochlear implant (CI) surgery in pediatric subjects with cochlear malformation and a normal cochlea, in order to assess the sensitivity of EABR and to evaluate the surgery outcome. MATERIALS and METHODS: A total of 26 pediatric subjects who were deaf and scheduled for CI surgery were enrolled into this case control study. Group A (n=20) included subjects with a normo-conformed cochlea. Group B (n=6) included subjects with cochlear malformation. Subjects were evaluated with EABR immediately (T0) and 6 months (T1) post-CI surgery. The EABR Waves III and V average amplitude and latency were compared across time, separately for each group, and across groups, separately for each time. RESULTS: Auditory brainstem response (ABR) could only be recorded in Group A. We were able to record EABR from all subjects at T0 and T1, and waves III and V were present in all the recorded signals. There were no statistically significant differences between T0 and T1 in EABR Waves III and V in terms of average amplitude and latency in neither group. When comparing Groups A and B, the only statistically significant difference was the average amplitude of wave V, both at T0 and T1. CONCLUSION: EABR is a valid tool to measure the auditory nerve integrity after CI surgery in patients with a normal and malformed cochlea, as shown by its ability to measure waves III and V when ABR is absent. The EABR testing should be performed before and after CI surgery, and EABR should be used as a measure of outcome, especially in patients with a malformed cochlea

How Power-to-Gas strategy could reduce national Natural Gas consumption over the energy crisis period

Europe is facing an energy crisis caused by the dramatic rise in gas prices. This situation is damaging the European economy and urgent measures to reduce gas consumption are crucial in the short term. This paper aims to analyse the potential contribution of the Power-to-Gas strategy to reduce the Italian consumption of Natural Gas (NG) in the context of the current energy crisis. To do so, the Italian energy system has been modelled by means the EnergyPLAN software. The electrolysers' installation in the Italian energy systems has been simulated in combination with different levels of additional RES installation. The hydrogen production and the NG abatement potential have been calculated in each simulated scenario. Furthermore, the Natural Gas Abatement Cost (NGAC) has been assessed. By installing 1.5 GW of electrolysers, along with an additional 25 GW of renewables, about 140 ktonH2/year can be produced only by exploiting the RES excess. The total NG reduction due to both the RES generation and the hydrogen injection is more than 60 TWh/year. The NG abatement cost varies between 45 and 54 €/MWh. At current gas prices, it is therefore extremely cheaper to invest in a drastic reduction of natural gas than to buy the same amount of gas on the wholesale market. Therefore, the current energy crisis can be an opportunity to accelerate the energy transition process. The proposed solutions allow a substantial reduction in gas consumption with the consequent reduction in emissions and the country's energy dependency

Discrete surface growth process as a synchronization mechanism for scale free complex networks

We consider the discrete surface growth process with relaxation to the minimum [F. Family, J. Phys. A {\bf 19} L441, (1986).] as a possible synchronization mechanism on scale-free networks, characterized by a degree distribution $P(k) \sim k^{-\lambda}$, where $k$ is the degree of a node and $\lambda$ his broadness, and compare it with the usually applied Edward-Wilkinson process [S. F. Edwards and D. R. Wilkinson, Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. A {\bf 381},17 (1982) ]. In spite of both processes belong to the same universality class for Euclidean lattices, in this work we demonstrate that for scale-free networks with exponents $\lambda<3$ this is not true. Moreover, we show that for these ubiquitous cases the Edward-Wilkinson process enhances spontaneously the synchronization when the system size is increased, which is a non-physical result. Contrarily, the discrete surface growth process do not present this flaw and is applicable for every $\lambda$.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Local chiral interactions and magnetic structure of few-nucleon systems

The magnetic form factors of $^2$H, $^3$H, and $^3$He, deuteron photodisintegration cross sections at low energies, and deuteron threshold electrodisintegration cross sections at backward angles in a wide range of momentum transfers, are calculated with the chiral two-nucleon (and three-nucleon) interactions including $\Delta$ intermediate states that have recently been constructed in configuration space. The $A\,$=$\,$3 wave functions are obtained from hyperspherical-harmonics solutions of the Schr\"odinger equation. The electromagnetic current includes one- and two-body terms, the latter induced by one- and two-pion exchange (OPE and TPE, respectively) mechanisms and contact interactions. The contributions associated with $\Delta$ intermediate states are only retained at the OPE level, and are neglected in TPE loop (tree-level) corrections to two-body (three-body) current operators. Expressions for these currents are derived and regularized in configuration space for consistency with the interactions. The low-energy constants that enter the contact few-nucleon systems. The predicted form factors and deuteron electrodisintegration cross section are in excellent agreement with experiment for momentum transfers up to 2--3 fm$^{-1}$. However, the experimental values for the deuteron photodisintegration cross section are consistently underestimated by theory, unless use is made of the Siegert form of the electric dipole transition operator. A complete analysis of the results is provided, including the clarification of the origin of the aforementioned discrepancy.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figure

Jamming in complex networks with degree correlation

We study the effects of the degree-degree correlations on the pressure congestion J when we apply a dynamical process on scale free complex networks using the gradient network approach. We find that the pressure congestion for disassortative (assortative) networks is lower (bigger) than the one for uncorrelated networks which allow us to affirm that disassortative networks enhance transport through them. This result agree with the fact that many real world transportation networks naturally evolve to this kind of correlation. We explain our results showing that for the disassortative case the clusters in the gradient network turn out to be as much elongated as possible, reducing the pressure congestion J and observing the opposite behavior for the assortative case. Finally we apply our model to real world networks, and the results agree with our theoretical model