Philanthropic Foundations: Growing Funders of the News

Updates April 2008 discussions on the role of foundations in supporting journalism, including creating journalism units within NGOs, collaborations with for-profit news organizations, and investment in local news sites and news and information nonprofits

Public Policy and Funding the News

Illustrates how declining government support and recent regulatory decisions have affected the viability of periodicals and other news outlets. Proposes a policy framework for indirect, content-neutral funding and investment in innovation and new models

Higher-Derivative Supergravity and Moduli Stabilization

We review the ghost-free four-derivative terms for chiral superfields in $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetry and supergravity. These terms induce cubic polynomial equations of motion for the chiral auxiliary fields and correct the scalar potential. We discuss the different solutions and argue that only one of them is consistent with the principles of effective field theory. Special attention is paid to the corrections along flat directions which can be stabilized or destabilized by the higher-derivative terms. We then compute these higher-derivative terms explicitly for the type IIB string compactified on a Calabi-Yau orientifold with fluxes via Kaluza-Klein reducing the $(\alpha')^3 R^4$ corrections in ten dimensions for the respective $\mathcal{N}=1$ K\"{a}hler moduli sector. We prove that together with flux and the known $(\alpha')^3$-corrections the higher-derivative term stabilizes all Calabi-Yau manifolds with positive Euler number, provided the sign of the new correction is negative.Comment: Latex, 44+1 pages; v2: References and comments added; estimates of scales added to sec. 4.

Measurements of the free stream fluctuations above a turbulent boundary layer

This paper investigates the velocity fluctuations in the free stream above an incompressible turbulent boundary layer developing at constant pressure. It is assumed that the fluctuations receive contributions from three statistically independent sources: (1) one-dimensional unsteadiness, (2) free stream turbulence, and (3) the potential motion induced by the turbulent boundary layer. Measurements were made in a wind tunnel with a root-mean-square level of the axial velocity fluctuations of about 0.2 percent. All three velocity components were measured using an X-wire probe. The unsteadiness was determined from the spanwise covariance of the axial velocity, measured using two single wire probes. The results show that it is possible to separate the contributions to the r.m.s. level of the velocity fluctuations, without resorting to the dubious technique of high-pass filtering. The separation could be extended to the spectral densities of the contributions, if measurements of sufficient accuracy were available. The Appendix provides a general guide for the measurement of small free stream fluctuation levels

Starobinsky-Type Inflation from α′\alpha'-Corrections

Working in the Large Volume Scenario (LVS) of IIB Calabi-Yau flux compactifications, we construct inflationary models from recently computed higher derivative $(\alpha')^3$-corrections. Inflation is driven by a Kaehler modulus whose potential arises from the aforementioned corrections, while we use the inclusion of string loop effects just to ensure the existence of a graceful exit when necessary. The effective inflaton potential takes a Starobinsky-type form $V=V_0(1-e^{-\nu\phi})^2$, where we obtain one set-up with $\nu=-1/\sqrt{3}$ and one with $\nu=2/\sqrt{3}$ corresponding to inflation occurring for increasing or decreasing $\phi$ respectively. The inflationary observables are thus in perfect agreement with PLANCK, while the two scenarios remain observationally distinguishable via slightly varying predictions for the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$. Both set-ups yield $r\simeq (2\ldots 7)\,\times 10^{-3}$. They hence realise inflation with moderately large fields $\left(\Delta\phi\sim 6\thinspace M_{Pl}\right)$ without saturating the Lyth bound. Control over higher corrections relies in part on tuning underlying microscopic parameters, and in part on intrinsic suppressions. The intrinsic part of control arises as a leftover from an approximate effective shift symmetry at parametrically large volume.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures; v2: clarifications and refs adde

Under the radar: How firms manage competitive uncertainty by appointing friends of other chief executive officers to their boards

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147028/1/smj2966_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147028/2/smj2966.pd

Starting to smoke: a qualitative study of the experiences of Australian indigenous youth

BackgroundAdult smoking has its roots in adolescence. If individuals do not initiate smoking during this period it is unlikely they ever will. In high income countries, smoking rates among Indigenous youth are disproportionately high. However, despite a wealth of literature in other populations, there is less evidence on the determinants of smoking initiation among Indigenous youth. The aim of this study was to explore the determinants of smoking among Australian Indigenous young people with a particular emphasis on the social and cultural processes that underlie tobacco use patterns among this group. MethodsThis project was undertaken in northern Australia. We undertook group interviews with 65 participants and individual in-depth interviews with 11 youth aged 13–20 years led by trained youth ‘peer researchers.’ We also used visual methods (photo-elicitation) with individual interviewees to investigate the social context in which young people do or do not smoke. Included in the sample were a smaller number of non-Indigenous youth to explore any significant differences between ethnic groups in determinants of early smoking experiences. The theory of triadic influence, an ecological model of health behaviour, was used as an organising theory for analysis. ResultsFamily and peer influences play a central role in smoking uptake among Indigenous youth. Social influences to smoke are similar between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth but are more pervasive (especially in the family domain) among Indigenous youth. While Indigenous youth report high levels of exposure to smoking role models and smoking socialisation practices among their family and social networks, this study provides some indication of a progressive denormalisation of smoking among some Indigenous youth. ConclusionsFuture initiatives aimed at preventing smoking uptake in this population need to focus on changing social normative beliefs around smoking, both at a population level and within young peoples’ immediate social environment. Such interventions could be effectively delivered in both the school and family environments. Specifically, health practitioners in contact with Indigenous families should be promoting smoke free homes and other anti-smoking socialisation behaviours

An étude on global vacuum energy sequester

Recently two of the authors proposed a mechanism of vacuum energy sequester as a means of protecting the observable cosmological constant from quantum radiative corrections. The original proposal was based on using global Lagrange multipliers, but later a local formulation was provided. Subsequently other interesting claims of a different non-local approach to the cosmological constant problem were made, based again on global Lagrange multipliers. We examine some of these proposals and find their mutual relationship. We explain that the proposals which do not treat the cosmological constant counterterm as a dynamical variable require fine tunings to have acceptable solutions. Furthermore, the counterterm often needs to be retuned at every order in the loop expansion to cancel the radiative corrections to the cosmological constant, just like in standard GR. These observations are an important reminder of just how the proposal of vacuum energy sequester avoids such problems

Community Supported Stardust Compendia

The Stardust cometary and interstellar collections present unprecedented challenges in sample preparation and analysis. The ensemble of approx.80 tracks and dozens of foil craters from the cometary collection for which we have analyses exhibits a bewildering complexity and diversity of materials. The interstellar collection is even more challenging, because of the extremely low fluence of interstellar dust, a relatively large background of secondary ejecta from impacts on the spacecraft, and the small size of interstellar dust, approximately three orders of magnitude smaller in mass than typical cometary particles. Unlike with the other returned sample collections, characterization of these samples beyond basic photo-documentation is not generally practical at JSC. Even among the other small-particle collections, currently the cosmic dust and Hayabusa samples, SEM/EDX can provide basic chemistry. This is not possible with Stardust particles without destructive and invasive sample preparation. Furthermore, SEM/EDX requires isolating small grains from adhering aerogel. A reliable technique to carry out this task does not exist. Complete characterization of particles requires coordinated analyses using synchrotron and electron-beam microprobes, which do not exist at any one lab. Thus, it was recognized since the Stardust Preliminary Examination in 2006 that characterization of the samples would rely on the worldwide community of Stardust Investigators. Here we announce the development of community-editable, wiki-style Stardust compendia that will support this effort. Our intention is that this will facilitate sample requests by providing basic characterization of tracks. We expect that this will also support comprehensive meta-analyses (global syntheses of analyses) of the collections