The privacy trade-off for mobile app downloads: The roles of app value, intrusiveness, and privacy concerns

Today, mobile app users regularly “pay” for various mobile services, such as social networking or entertainment apps, by accepting app permission requests, thereby sharing personal data with apps. Privacy calculus theory has established that individuals disclose personal information based on a cost-benefit trade-off. In the mobile app context, however, this notion needs more support, because existing studies have only measured costs and benefits or forced a trade-off. Conducting two online experiments among Western European app users (N1 = 183; N2 = 687), this study replicates earlier findings and provides more-profound insights into the boundary conditions of the privacy calculus by showing that app value (i.e., benefits) trumps the costs (i.e., intrusiveness, privacy concerns) in the privacy trade-off

Self-switching in Mach-Zehnder interferometers with SOA phase shifters

A self-switching mechanism in Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) is described. The input light signal is distributed unequally over the interferometer arms using an multimode interference (MMI) coupler. In the arms, semiconductor optical amplifiers are placed as nonlinear phase shifters. Unequal intensities yield a nonlinear phase shift. The signals from the two arms are then recombined in an output MMI coupler. If an obtained nonlinear phase shift in the arms can compensate the coupler-induced phase difference between the arms, the signals are in phase at the output port. Choosing an appropriate output coupler, 2×1 and 2×2 devices can be obtained. The 2×2 and 2×1 MZIs can be used as pattern effect compensators and 2R-regenerators or low-loss combiner circuits, respectively. An active-passive integration technique is applied in order to realize the interferometric structures. Fabrication, simulation, and characterization of these devices are presented in this letter

Minder mineralenverlies in de substraatteelt : een economische analyse van opties

De overheid wil stapsgewijs de lozingen van mineralen door glastuinbouwbedrijven met substraatteelt naar de omgeving terugdringen. In 2027 moeten deze lozingen vrijwel nul zijn. Onderzocht is welke maatregelen daartoe door de bedrijven genomen kunnen worden en welke kosten die met zich mee zullen brengen. The Dutch government wants to reduce the release (leaching) of nutrients from greenhouse horticultural firms with substrate-grown crops into the environment. These releases must be practically nil in 2027. This study examined which measures could be taken by the firms to comply with this objective and the associated costs

Molecular identification of temperate Cricetidae and Muridae rodent species using fecal samples collected in a natural habitat

Molecular species identification from biological material collected at field sites has become an established ecological tool. However, extracting and amplifying DNA from degraded field samples, such as prey remains and feces that have been exposed to the elements, remains a challenge and costly. We collected 115 fecal samples of unknown small mammals, resembling fecal droppings of voles and mice (i.e., Cricetidae and Muridae), from a salt marsh in The Netherlands. We modified a previously published protocol into a relatively low-cost method with a PCR success of 95%. We demonstrate that species identification is possible for both Cricetidae and Muridae species using fecal samples of unknown age deposited in the field. For 90 samples, sequences of the variable control region in the mitochondrial genome were obtained and compared to published DNA sequences of small mammals occurring in north European salt marshes. A single sample, probably environmentally contaminated, appeared as Sus scrofa (n = 1). We positively identified house mouse Mus musculus, being the positive control (n = 1), and common vole Microtus arvalis (n = 88). In 81 sequences of 251 nt without ambiguous bases, ten haplotypes were present. These haplotypes, representing the central lineage of the western subspecies M. arvalis arvalis, were separated by 20 mutations from published control region haplotypes of the western European lineages sampled in France. Unlike earlier studies of cytochrome b variation in coastal European populations, we did not find indications of recent purging of genetic variation in our study area