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Public release date: 19-Feb-2013
Share ] Contact: Andy Henion
henion@msu.edu
517-355-3294
Michigan State University
EAST LANSING, Mich. Today's consumers switch between media forms so often from TV to laptops to smart phones that capturing their attention with advertising has gone, as one CEO explained, from shooting fish in a barrel to shooting minnows.
Now, a Michigan State University business scholar and colleagues have developed the most accurate model yet for targeting those fast-moving minnows. The research-based model predicts when during the day people use the varying forms of media and even when they are using two or more at a time, an increasingly common practice known as media multiplexing.
That's good news for companies struggling to predict when to buy ads on the Internet, television and radio, and in print publications. Previous models for predicting when consumers use media were 60 percent-70 percent accurate; the new model led by MSU's Chen Lin has proved 97 percent accurate.
"For businesses, our model does a much better job of predicting where your customers are at any given time," said Lin, assistant professor of marketing. "It represents a significant advancement over other models because much of that work assumed people consumed one type of media at a time."
The study, published in the academic journal Marketing Science, is based on a survey of the media-consumption habits of nearly 2,000 U.S. residents. Lin and colleagues used the survey data to create their complex forecasting model.
Among the study findings:
Chen also said she was surprised to find consumers still value print media at certain times, particularly in the morning. Print was especially popular when it was paired with other forms of media.
"The old thinking is that print is endangered, but we found that it doesn't need to be eliminated," Lin said. "Print can have a second life if it's cleverly paired with new media such as personal computers and smart phones."
In fact, Lin said ad buyers should stop considering the different media forms as competing and instead view them as complimentary. For example, print ads should be partnered with radio and Internet media forms in the key time slots when consumers are likely to be using all three forms.
"Our findings underscore the need to move away from a competitive mindset to a coordinated viewpoint," Lin said, "as consumers increasingly use combinations of media forms in short periods."
###
Lin's co-authors are Sriram Venkataraman from the University of North Carolina and Sandy Jap from Emory University.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 19-Feb-2013 Share ] Contact: Andy Henion
henion@msu.edu
517-355-3294
Michigan State University
EAST LANSING, Mich. Today's consumers switch between media forms so often from TV to laptops to smart phones that capturing their attention with advertising has gone, as one CEO explained, from shooting fish in a barrel to shooting minnows.
Now, a Michigan State University business scholar and colleagues have developed the most accurate model yet for targeting those fast-moving minnows. The research-based model predicts when during the day people use the varying forms of media and even when they are using two or more at a time, an increasingly common practice known as media multiplexing.
That's good news for companies struggling to predict when to buy ads on the Internet, television and radio, and in print publications. Previous models for predicting when consumers use media were 60 percent-70 percent accurate; the new model led by MSU's Chen Lin has proved 97 percent accurate.
"For businesses, our model does a much better job of predicting where your customers are at any given time," said Lin, assistant professor of marketing. "It represents a significant advancement over other models because much of that work assumed people consumed one type of media at a time."
The study, published in the academic journal Marketing Science, is based on a survey of the media-consumption habits of nearly 2,000 U.S. residents. Lin and colleagues used the survey data to create their complex forecasting model.
Among the study findings:
Chen also said she was surprised to find consumers still value print media at certain times, particularly in the morning. Print was especially popular when it was paired with other forms of media.
"The old thinking is that print is endangered, but we found that it doesn't need to be eliminated," Lin said. "Print can have a second life if it's cleverly paired with new media such as personal computers and smart phones."
In fact, Lin said ad buyers should stop considering the different media forms as competing and instead view them as complimentary. For example, print ads should be partnered with radio and Internet media forms in the key time slots when consumers are likely to be using all three forms.
"Our findings underscore the need to move away from a competitive mindset to a coordinated viewpoint," Lin said, "as consumers increasingly use combinations of media forms in short periods."
###
Lin's co-authors are Sriram Venkataraman from the University of North Carolina and Sandy Jap from Emory University.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-02/msu-bat021913.php
The Carnival Triumph fire that knocked out power and left more than 4,000 passengers and crew stranded without air conditioning, hot food or working toilets was traced to a flexible fuel oil return line. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
By Mark Potter and Andrew Rafferty, NBC News
The cause of the engine fire that left the cruise ship Carnival Triumph without power for five days was a leak in a fuel oil return line that sprayed onto a hot surface, the Coast Guard announced Monday.
Lt. Cmdr. Teresa Hatfield, head of the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Casualty Investigation Team, said the oil caught fire when it made contact with the hot surface. She said the suppression system kicked on immediately and that the ship?s crew ?did a very good job? in responding.
?The fire is not suspected to have been caused intentionally.
During a teleconference with reporters Monday, Hatfield said the damage was contained to a relatively small area of the engine room. But because the oil burned at such a high temperature, crew members had to close off the room and could not immediately put out the blaze.
Hatfield deferred questions about when the fuel oil return lines were last inspected or why the damage had been so severe, saying only that the investigation is ongoing.
The Coast Guard has been with the vessel since it docked in Mobile, Ala., on Thursday and is conducting interviews with both passengers and crew. The service expects to complete the onsite investigation by the end of the week.
The Bahamas Maritime Agency is leading the investigation, but the Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board are leading the U.S. efforts.
The ship left from Galveston, Texas, on Feb. 7 for a four-day cruise that was to take passengers to Mexico. On the third day, the fire broke out, leaving the 4,200 passengers and crew with no power, a scarcity of food and only a few working bathrooms.
The final report on the incident could be six months away. Investigators are trying to determine why the fire disabled the ship.
LONDON (AP) ? A British couple's round-the-world cycling odyssey ended in tragedy when both of them were killed in a road accident in Thailand.
Peter Root and Mary Thompson, who had been chronicling their journey in a blog, died Wednesday when they were hit by a pickup truck in a province east of Bangkok, Thai police said Monday.
The couple, both 34 and from Guernsey in the Channel Islands, left Britain in July 2011 and had cycled through Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and China.
The trip was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the couple, who met in art school and spent six years saving money and planning their journey, Peter's father Jerry Root told the Associated Press in an interview.
"They were both inspirational," Jerry Root said. "They didn't just talk about it, they did it. I couldn't be prouder of them."
He said they were both experienced cyclists who knew the rigors and risks of extended bicycle travel.
"They were camping wild, as they called it," he said. "What helps me is to think of how happy they were with each other. They were leading the life they wanted to. It was the happiest, the most fruitful of lives."
The couple had been posting photos and details of their trip on the website Two on Four Wheels. They also had many followers on Twitter and Facebook who were tracing their journey and vicariously enjoying their adventure, which included a trip through remote parts of Central Asia.
A video they posted from that part of the journey shows them camping in the desert, riding through hills, stopping to swim in rivers and lakes, and braving heavy snowstorms. They also cycle through tense situations as armed conflict breaks out during their journey through Tajikistan.
There is also footage showing Thompson suffering a gash to her knee after an apparent collision with a truck.
The couple look tanned, joyous and relaxed ? if a bit windblown ? in the footage. It is apparent life on the road agreed with them.
"They never talked about the trip as having a destination or a deadline or a time scale," said Ben Thompson, Mary's brother. "They didn't have firm plans, they had rough ideas. They just loved people. They were always dragging people to the campfire to share a story and a beer and some food."
After Southeast Asia, the couple were planning to make their way to New Zealand for a brief respite, he said.
Thai Police Lt. Col. Supachai Luangsukcharoen said Monday that investigators found their bodies, their bicycles and their belongings scattered along a roadside, along with a pickup truck that crashed between some trees.
Supachai said the truck driver, 25-year-old Worapong Sangkhawat, was seriously injured in the crash. He told police his truck hit the cyclists as he was reaching down to pick up a cap from the vehicle's floor, Supachai said.
The driver has been released on bail and faces charges of causing death by dangerous driving, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail.
Police said the couple's bodies were being kept at a rescue unit in Chachoengsao, 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of Bangkok, until they could be repatriated.
___
Writers Jill Lawless in London and Thanyarat Doksone in Thailand contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/round-world-uk-cyclists-killed-thailand-161455377.html
Yesterday I saw a pink plastic vacuum cleaner in the toy department at Target. This is why I?m a feminist.
We live in a world where Republican politicians in Michigan, the state where I was born, shouted down Rep. Lisa Brown?s (D-West Bloomfield) use of the word ?vagina? in official proceedings (apparently one ought not to use this anatomically correct word ?in mixed company,? according to Rep. Mike Callton, R-Nashville.) This is also why I?m a feminist. We live in a world where cleaning products are still pitched solely at women, where Klondike Bars are pitched to men with nagging wives. Come to think of it, that nagging wife seems to be everywhere these days: all she wants to do is talk about heirloom tomatoes and paint swatches?what a harpy! We live in a world where rape, sexual harassment, abortion, birth control, and other terms are still considered murky, taboo, or both. These, too, are reasons why I?m a feminist, and why I think that feminist discourse is a field to which all women writing today must contribute. I?m not foolishly suggesting that all writing by women, let alone all writing period, has to be or is inherently political, but rather that the landscape of our society is still deeply riven with inequalities that must be addressed and translated by all female writers?by all writers, really?from the budding creative writers that I teach at The University of North Texas all the way up to the finest writers of our generation.
I suppose I?m somewhere in the middle of that great swath of women, and my work seeks to engage with feminism any way that it can?I think of addressing feminist issues as a kind of triage: chaos is the order of the day, so dive in and tackle anything that needs tackling or calls out to you. My poem, ?Every Creeping Thing,? (which I was honored to have chosen as Runner-Up in So to Speak?s 2013 Poetry Contest by judge Danielle Pafunda) is one of which I?ve always been fond, but also one I?ve tinkered with for years.
In my MFA program, I was asked to read the Bible as literature for a readings course by an older male professor who was overtly religious. All semester he?I?ll go ahead and say it?bullied us into tapping into the mystical wonder and religious import of the Old Testament, which made me uneasy. Weren?t we supposed to be taking away universals? Storytelling and textual beauty? Poignant characters? I came away from that experience with a profound sympathy for one figure in particular: Hagar, the woman who figures into my poem. My professor, however, was not particularly interested in her, and dismissed my interest in her as a mere distraction.
Part of the reason I had such difficulty mimicking his zeal for the Old Testament as a whole was, in part, because of the countless women who are wronged, sent away, turned into salt (Lot?s wife doesn?t even merit a name! I?m still indignant) and the like. Hagar was a handmaid (read: slave) to Sarah, who, supposedly barren herself, gives Hagar to her husband Abraham so that they may conceive and fulfill god?s promise. To make a long story short, Hagar conceives a son, Ishmael, and later, Sarah is able conceive a son, named Isaac, with Abraham as well. Then, with Abraham?s blessing, Sarah jealously sends Hagar and Ishmael away:
And Abraham arose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and the child, and sent her away; and she departed, and strayed in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. And the water in the bottle was spent, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot; for she said: ?Let me not look upon the death of the child.? And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept. (Genesis 21:14-16)
In this poem I imaginatively inserted myself at this very moment, to look down at Hagar as she puts the child under the shrubs and weeps, because it is a moment I still can?t move past. The sense of how ill-used she is, and the fact that her struggle as a mother and a woman is so easily reduced to her usefulness as a vessel (?purpose filled?), remain very compelling for me.
But things get better for Hagar. God hears her, helps her. Brings her back from the wilderness. My poem ends before any of this can happen, and points to the very real, and very demoralizing possibility (dare I say certainty? in mixed company?!) that the ?voice / among voices, that sibilating / hope? will not come, perhaps that it never came for Hagar and her son, nor will it come for us.
We are all, in a sense, women alone in the underbrush, and I don?t think we can afford to wait for a voice from above to right our compasses; instead we must be our own compasses, for Hagar, for Rep. Lisa Brown, and for the little girl who?s going to get that awful pink plastic vacuum for her birthday?I hope she stuffs it full of frogs.
Feb. 15, 2013 ? University at Buffalo engineers have created a more efficient way to catch rainbows, an advancement in photonics that could lead to technological breakthroughs in solar energy, stealth technology and other areas of research.
Qiaoqiang Gan, PhD, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at UB, and a team of graduate students described their work in a paper called "Rainbow Trapping in Hyperbolic Metamaterial Waveguide," published Feb. 13 in the online journal Scientific Reports.
They developed a "hyperbolic metamaterial waveguide," which is essentially an advanced microchip made of alternate ultra-thin films of metal and semiconductors and/or insulators. The waveguide halts and ultimately absorbs each frequency of light, at slightly different places in a vertical direction, to catch a "rainbow" of wavelengths.
Gan is a researcher within UB's new Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics.
"Electromagnetic absorbers have been studied for many years, especially for military radar systems," Gan said. "Right now, researchers are developing compact light absorbers based on optically thick semiconductors or carbon nanotubes. However, it is still challenging to realize the perfect absorber in ultra-thin films with tunable absorption band.
"We are developing ultra-thin films that will slow the light and therefore allow much more efficient absorption, which will address the long existing challenge."
Light is made of photons that, because they move extremely fast (i.e., at the speed of light), are difficult to tame. In their initial attempts to slow light, researchers relied upon cryogenic gases. But because cryogenic gases are very cold -- roughly 240 degrees below zero Fahrenheit -- they are difficult to work with outside a laboratory.
Before joining UB, Gan helped pioneer a way to slow light without cryogenic gases. He and other researchers at Lehigh University made nano-scale-sized grooves in metallic surfaces at different depths, a process that altered the optical properties of the metal. While the grooves worked, they had limitations. For example, the energy of the incident light cannot be transferred onto the metal surface efficiently, which hampered its use for practical applications, Gan said.
The hyperbolic metamaterial waveguide solves that problem because it is a large area of patterned film that can collect the incident light efficiently. It is referred to as an artificial medium with subwavelength features whose frequency surface is hyperboloid, which allows it to capture a wide range of wavelengths in different frequencies including visible, near-infrared, mid-infrared, terahertz and microwaves.
It could lead to advancements in an array of fields.
For example, in electronics there is a phenomenon known as crosstalk, in which a signal transmitted on one circuit or channel creates an undesired effect in another circuit or channel. The on-chip absorber could potentially prevent this.
The on-chip absorber may also be applied to solar panels and other energy-harvesting devices. It could be especially useful in mid-infrared spectral regions as thermal absorber for devices that recycle heat after sundown, Gan said.
Technology such as the Stealth bomber involves materials that make planes, ships and other devices invisible to radar, infrared, sonar and other detection methods. Because the on-chip absorber has the potential to absorb different wavelengths at a multitude of frequencies, it could be useful as a stealth coating material.
Additional authors of the paper include Haifeng Hu, Dengxin Ji, Xie Zeng and Kai Liu, all PhD candidates in UB's Department of Electrical Engineering. The work was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and UB's electrical engineering department.
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Don?t be surprised if you soon see golf carts on the streets of one Seminole County city.? Beginning March 1, the City of Sanford will allow people to drive golf carts down much of the city, including the downtown Sanford area.
?These beautiful parks, and being able to enjoy it on a golf cart, there?s really not a lot more fun you could have,? said longtime Sanford resident Steve Flowers.
But driving a golf cart on city streets in Sanford is illegal.
But March 1, that will change, when the city will allow licensed drivers to ride gold carts around an entire section of downtown Sanford.? That?s something many Sanford residents like Steve Flowers have pushed for for several years.? City leaders studied the issue, and passed an ordinance.
The whole ordinance can be found on the Sanford website.
?Sanford has such great natural resources, and golf carts are the best way to get around and see what we have going on in this great town,? said Flowers.
Every golf cart will have to pass an inspection by Sanford Police, who will then place a decal showing that on the cart.
Steve Flowers says his family has lived in the area for generations.?? He wants golf carts to help improve the image and economic vitality of Sanford.? To help in that, he?s even offering a free service for people until the end of March to help them have their golf carts ready.
?We?re giving away free golf cart detailing, we?re checking your tires for safety, air your tires up, charge your battery, make sure your golf cart is working good for you.? We want these golf carts to be safe,? said Flowers.
One city commissioner, whose district makes up most of the area where golf carts will be allowed, voted against the ordinance.
?I thought seatbelts would be a real plus, also head restraints,? said Sanford?s District 1 City Commissioner Mark McCarty.
McCarty also says the ordinance doesn?t require carts to be insured.? He worries that will open the city up to expensive lawsuits.
?I wanted to be responsible with it, and I?m sure I didn?t make some people happy with it, but that?s something we can add in later to it I?m sure,? said McCarty.
But even with his concerns, McCarty thinks golf carts will be good for Sanford tourism in the long run.
?Guided tours, learn about our history, it?s going to be a great place to go on a golf cart, but make sure you?re insured though,? said McCarty.
To register a golf cart, people will have to show proof of ownership, a driver?s license, and pay a $25 annual fee.? People can begin registering their carts at city hall on February 25.
Steve Flowers says if people donate golf cart parts to him, he will use those parts to help other golf cart owners repair their carts.? He says he?s donating a lot of time and money to encourage people to get more golf carts on the road in Sanford, when it becomes legal.
