How Millennials get news: Paying for content

Despite growing up amid abundant free online entertainment and news, today’s young adults still use significant amounts of paid content. Selling news to young people remains difficult, but the data from a new study finds reasons for optimism and suggests new ways to think about the challenge. The vast majority of the Millennial Generation, those Americans age 18 to 34, regularly use paid content for entertainment or news, whether they personally pay for the subscriptions and other forms of paid content themselves or someone else pays the bill, according to a new report on Millennials’ news habits. While use of paid entertainment content, including music, movies, television, and video games, is most common among Millennials, 53 percent report regularly using paid news content — in print, digital, or combined formats — in the last year. Furthermore, 40 percent of Millennials personally paid for news products or services out of their own pockets. Millennials over age 21, those most likely to be on their own or out of school, are twice as likely as those age 18-21 to personally pay for news (more than 4 in 10 vs. 2 in 10). A younger adult’s willingness to pay for news is correlated with his or her broader beliefs about the value of news. The people who want to stay connected with the world, who are interested in news, and who are more engaged with news on social networks are the most likely to be willing to personally pay for news. That “news orientation” is the biggest driver of a person’s willingness to pay for news, more so than a person’s age or socioeconomic status

Fiction and psychological insight

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New insight into WDVV equation

We show that Witten-Dijkgraaf-Verlinde-Verlinde equation underlies the construction of N=4 superconformal multi--particle mechanics in one dimension, including a N=4 superconformal Calogero model.Comment: 16 pages, no figures, LaTeX file, PACS: 04.60.Ds; 11.30.P

InSight Aerothermal Environment Assessment

The Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft, which successfully touched down on the planet surface on November 26, 2018, was proposed as a near build-to-print copy of the Mars Phoenix vehicle to reduce the overall cost and risk of the mission. Since the lander payload and the atmospheric entry trajectory were similar enough to those of the Phoenix mission, it was expected that the Phoenix thermal protection material thickness would be sufficient to withstand the entry heat load. However, allowances were made for increasing the heatshield thickness because the planned spacecraft arrival date coincided with the Mars dust storm season. The aftbody Thermal Protection System (TPS) components were not expected to change. In a first for a US Mars mission, the aerothermal environments for InSight included estimates of radiative heat flux to the aftbody from the wake. The combined convective and radiative heat fluxes were used to determine if the as-flown Phoenix thermal protection system (TPS) design would be sufficient for InSight. Although the radiative heat fluxes on the aftbody were predicted to be comparable to, or even higher than the local convective heat fluxes, all analyses of the aftbody TPS showed that the design would still be adequate. Aerothermal environments were computed for the vehicle from post-flight reconstruction of the atmosphere and trajectory and compared with the design environments. These comparisons showed that the predicted as-flown conditions were less severe than the design conditions

Insight private equity : [Version 18 June 2013]

We are able to shed light on the black box of restructuring tools private equity investors use to improve the operational performance of their portfolio companies. By building on previous work considering performance evaluation of PE backed companies, we analyze whether private equity improves operating efficiency and which of the typical restructuring tools are the main performance drivers. Using a set of over 300 international leveraged buyout transactions of the last thirty years, we find that while there is vast improvement in operational efficiency, these gains vary considerably. Our top performing transactions are subject to strong equity incentives, frequent asset restructuring and tight control by the investor. Furthermore, investors’ experience has a positive influence while financial leverage has no influence on operational performance

New insight on pseudospin doublets in nuclei

The relevance of the pseudospin symmetry in nuclei is considered. New insight is obtained from looking at the continuous transition from a model satisfying the spin symmetry to another one satisfying the pseudospin symmetry. This study suggests that there are models allowing no missing single-particle states in this transition, contrary to what is usually advocated. It rather points out to an association of pseudospin partners different from the one usually assumed, together with a strong violation of the corresponding symmetry. A comparison with results obtained from some relativistic approaches is made.Comment: 27 pages, 18 figure

Fund for Shared Insight: 2015 Grantee Interview Themes

In October 2015, ORS Impact interviewed representatives from the 14 organizations that received grants from the Fund for Shared Insight. The purpose of these interviews was to capture insights from the experiences of grantees in their work to date, with the goal of informing discussion and decision making during the November Core Funders meeting. More complete reports of progress on activities and outcomes will be based on the reports by grantees due in January 2016.Findings are summarized below by key groups of grantees, as well as by current areas of interest of the funders