Online revenue model adoption in the media sector: in-depth results from an exploratory study in the Netherlands

Especially for companies in the media sector such as publishers, the Internet has created new strategic and commercial opportunities. However, many companies in the media sector are struggling with how to adapt their business and revenue model for doing profitable business online. This exploratory study goes into the success factors and the level of adoption of online revenue models by media sector companies. We use Chaffey (2002) in determining online revenue models in which we included Osterwalder’s (2001) four ‘pillars’ of business models. These four pillars cover the twelve critical success factors for e-businesses as identified by Sung (2004). This theoretical framework was used for in-depth interviews with 20 senior managers within the media sector in the Netherlands. From this, it appeared that advertising is the most used online revenue model, with targeting advertising, lead generation and a combination of content and customer profiles as most promising. Ease of use is distinguished by all senior managers as success factor. Still, in order to be successful, all factors should be applied, and this appears not to be the case. Organizations in the media sector need to invest in technical and organizational expertise by hiring the right employees with the right knowledge. Emphasis on target advertising and lead generation are most promising. A combination of content and customer profiles is a focus-point for the near future

Maquiladoras and market mamas

"This study analyzes work, childcare arrangements, and earnings of mothers in the poor neighborhoods of Guatemala City and Greater Accra, Ghana, two urban areas where formal- and informal-sector work differ in importance. Unlike previous studies on childcare that take mother's work status as given, this paper treats childcare choice and labor force participation of women as joint decisions. Our empirical results indicate that participation in the labor market and use of formal day care are, in fact, jointly determined. In both Guatemala and Accra, life cycle and household demographic factors, notably child age, appear to have important effects on both decisions. In both cities, higher household wealth reduces the mothers' chances of working, presumably via an income effect. Controlling for endogeneity of labor market participation and formal day-care use, in Guatemala, day-care prices do not have significant impacts on earnings; neither does the number of day-care centers within a 10-minute walk affect earnings in Accra. In Guatemala, maternal education is an important determinant of utilization of formal day care, but does not have large effects on whether she works for pay or not. In contrast, in Accra, maternal education does not affect either the demand for formal care or the decision to work. In Guatemala, greater travel time from home to the day-care center reduces utilization of this type of care, but a larger supply of day-care centers in the community does not affect use of formal care in Accra. The lack of importance of formal day-care supply variables in Accra compared to the effect of some variables such as travel time to day-care centers in Guatemala suggests that provision of formal day care may not be as critical an intervention to increase mothers' labor force participation rates in cities where the informal sector dominates, such as in Accra. In more urbanized settings like Guatemala City, where the formal sector generates a higher proportion of jobs for women, formal day care is more important to mothers' decision to work." Author's AbstractRural poor ,

Maquiladoras and market mamas

"This study analyzes work, childcare arrangements, and earnings of mothers in the poor neighborhoods of Guatemala City and Greater Accra, Ghana, two urban areas where formal- and informal-sector work differ in importance. Unlike previous studies on childcare that take mother's work status as given, this paper treats childcare choice and labor force participation of women as joint decisions. Our empirical results indicate that participation in the labor market and use of formal day care are, in fact, jointly determined. In both Guatemala and Accra, life cycle and household demographic factors, notably child age, appear to have important effects on both decisions. In both cities, higher household wealth reduces the mothers' chances of working, presumably via an income effect. Controlling for endogeneity of labor market participation and formal day-care use, in Guatemala, day-care prices do not have significant impacts on earnings; neither does the number of day-care centers within a 10-minute walk affect earnings in Accra. In Guatemala, maternal education is an important determinant of utilization of formal day care, but does not have large effects on whether she works for pay or not. In contrast, in Accra, maternal education does not affect either the demand for formal care or the decision to work. In Guatemala, greater travel time from home to the day-care center reduces utilization of this type of care, but a larger supply of day-care centers in the community does not affect use of formal care in Accra. The lack of importance of formal day-care supply variables in Accra compared to the effect of some variables such as travel time to day-care centers in Guatemala suggests that provision of formal day care may not be as critical an intervention to increase mothers' labor force participation rates in cities where the informal sector dominates, such as in Accra. In more urbanized settings like Guatemala City, where the formal sector generates a higher proportion of jobs for women, formal day care is more important to mothers' decision to work." Author's AbstractRural poor ,

Dietary Diversity and Its Relationship with Nutritional Status among Adolescents and Adults in Rural India

Dietary diversity is associated with household or individual food availability and intake of nutrients from different food groups and is an important component of nutritional outcome. This study examined the Nutrient Adequacy Ratio (NAR) and the Mean Adequacy Ratio (MAR) of three dietary diversity indices and their relationship with the nutritional status of adolescents and adults in rural regions of two states in India, Wardha district in Maharashtra and Koraput district in Odisha, in 2014. Individual dietary diversity was calculated using 24-hour diet recall (FS24hr) data and household dietary diversity was measured with food frequency data using Berry’s index (DDI) and food scores (FSFFQ). The nutritional status of individuals was assessed using anthropometric indices. The diets in both locations were cereal dominated. It was observed that 51% of adolescent boys and 27% of adolescent girls had ‘thinness’ and stunting. The prevalence of undernutrition was higher among adult women (48%) than adult men (36%). The mean diversity indices were FS24hr of 8, DDI of 89–90 and FSFFQ of 64–66 in the two locations. The FS24hr was found to be positively correlated with the NAR of all nutrients while DDI and FSFFQ were correlated with seven and six nutrients, respectively. The DDI and FS24hr showed an association with MAR if the two locations were combined together. Sensitivity and specificity analysis showed that FS24hr gave more true positives than false positives and the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve was 0.68, implying that this measure truly differentiates individuals having low dietary diversity with low MAR from those with low dietary diversity and a high MAR. All three measures of dietary diversity showed a linear association with the nutritional outcomes of adults, while in the adolescent group only DDI showed a relationship. It is concluded that 24-hour diet recall is a good measure for studying the relationship between dietary diversity and nutritional status in adults

Synthesis of monoalkylated calix[4]arenes via direct alkylation

A new one-step procedure for the synthesis of monoalkylated calix[4]arenes is presented. Reaction of calix[4]arene 1a or 1b with 1.2 equivalent of a weak base (K2CO3 in MeCN or CsF in DMF) and excess of alkylating agent affords the monoalkylated calix[4]arenes in moderate to good yield

Childcare and work

"This study investigates the effects of childcare on work and earnings of mothers in poor neighborhoods of Guatemala City. Recognizing that mothe'rs work status may depend on the availability of childcare, decisions to participate in the labor force and to use formal day care are modeled to allow for the possibility that they may be jointly determined. We then explore the impact of childcare prices on mothers' earnings, conditional on her decision to work. Also explored is whether a mother's "status" within her household (as measured by the value of the assets she brought to her marriage) influences her entry into the labor force.....Our results indicate that participation in the labor market and use of formal day care are, in fact, joint decisions for mothers. Life cycle and household demographic factors have important effects on both decisions. Maternal education is an important determinant of utilization of formal day care, but does not have large effects on whether she works for pay or not. Higher household wealth reduces her chances of working, presumably via an income effect. However, the value of assets she brought to her marriage increases the likelihood of her working....." from Authors' Abstract

Does subsidized childcare help poor working women in urban areas?

High urbanization rates in Latin America are accompanied by an increase in women's participation in the labor force and the number of households headed by single mothers. Reliable and affordable childcare alternatives are thus becoming increasingly important in urban areas. The Hogares Comunitarios Program (HCP), established in Guatemala City in 1991, was a direct response to the increasing need of poor urban dwellers for substitute childcare. This government-sponsored pilot program was designed as a strategy to alleviate poverty by providing working parents with low-cost, quality childcare within their community. This paper presents preliminary findings from an evaluation of the HCP carried out in 1998 in urban slums of Guatemala City. The evaluation included both an operations (or process) evaluation and an impact evaluation. Key findings of the operations evaluation are summarized, and preliminary findings of the impact evaluation on children's dietary intakes are presented. Aspects related to the targeting, coverage, and cost of the program are also discussed, and the patterns of childcare use by nonbeneficiary households and their costs are described.Urbanization Latin America. ,Women Employment Guatemala. ,Child care Developing countries Evaluation. ,Urban poor Services for. ,Evaluation. ,Children Nutrition. ,Poverty alleviation. ,

Does subsidized childcare help poor working women in urban areas?

High urbanization rates in Latin America are accompanied by an increase in women's participation in the labor force and the number of households headed by single mothers. Reliable and affordable childcare alternatives are thus becoming increasingly important in urban areas. The Hogares Comunitarios Program (HCP), established in Guatemala City in 1991, was a direct response to the increasing need of poor urban dwellers for substitute childcare. This government-sponsored pilot program was designed as a strategy to alleviate poverty by providing working parents with low-cost, quality childcare within their community. This paper presents preliminary findings from an evaluation of the HCP carried out in 1998 in urban slums of Guatemala City. The evaluation included both an operations (or process) evaluation and an impact evaluation. Key findings of the operations evaluation are summarized, and preliminary findings of the impact evaluation on children's dietary intakes are presented. Aspects related to the targeting, coverage, and cost of the program are also discussed, and the patterns of childcare use by nonbeneficiary households and their costs are described.Urbanization Latin America. ,Women Employment Guatemala. ,Child care Developing countries Evaluation. ,Urban poor Services for. ,Evaluation. ,Children Nutrition. ,Poverty alleviation. ,

Problems With Complex Actions

We consider Euclidean functional integrals involving actions which are not exclusively real. This situation arises, for example, when there are $t$-odd terms in the the Minkowski action. Writing the action in terms of only real fields (which is always possible), such terms appear as explicitly imaginary terms in the Euclidean action. The usual quanization procedure which involves finding the critical points of the action and then quantizing the spectrum of fluctuations about these critical points fails. In the case of complex actions, there do not exist, in general, any critical points of the action on the space of real fields, the critical points are in general complex. The proper definition of the function integral then requires the analytic continuation of the functional integration into the space of complex fields so as to pass through the complex critical points according to the method of steepest descent. We show a simple example where this procedure can be carried out explicitly. The procedure of finding the critical points of the real part of the action and quantizing the corresponding fluctuations, treating the (exponential of the) complex part of the action as a bounded integrable function is shown to fail in our explicit example, at least perturbatively.Comment: 6+epsilon pages, no figures, presented at Theory CANADA

The Guatemala Community Day Care Program: an example of effective urban programming

Urban programming, Child care, Community Daycare Centers Program, Childcare and work, Gender,