Money and Endogenous Growth in a Cash-in-Advance Model with Social Status

Motivated by the substantial increase of nominal money supply in the U.S. economy since late 2008, this paper examines the equilibrium growth effect of money/inflation within a standard one-sector AK model of endogenous growth with wealth-enhanced preferences for social status and the most generalized cash-in-advance constraint. We show that the sign for the correlation between money and output growth depends crucially on (i) the liquidity-constrained ratio of consumption to investment, and (ii) how the shadow price of physical capital responds to a change in the monetary growth rate. This money-growth correlation, as well as the growth effect of social status, turns out to be closely related to the local stability properties of the economy's balanced growth path(s).Money, Endogenous Growth, Cash-in-Advance Constraint, Social Status, In- determinacy

Audio Time-Scale Modification with Temporal Compressing Networks

We proposed a novel approach in the field of time-scale modification on audio signals. While traditional methods use the framing technique, spectral approach uses the short-time Fourier transform to preserve the frequency during temporal stretching. TSM-Net, our neural-network model encodes the raw audio into a high-level latent representation. We call it Neuralgram, in which one vector represents 1024 audio samples. It is inspired by the framing technique but addresses the clipping artifacts. The Neuralgram is a two-dimensional matrix with real values, we can apply some existing image resizing techniques on the Neuralgram and decode it using our neural decoder to obtain the time-scaled audio. Both the encoder and decoder are trained with GANs, which shows fair generalization ability on the scaled Neuralgrams. Our method yields little artifacts and opens a new possibility in the research of modern time-scale modification. The audio samples can be found on https://ernestchu.github.io/tsm-net-demo

From Isovist to Spatial Perception: Wayfinding in Historic Quarter

Based on the assumption that human behaviours are mainly affected by physical and animate environments, this empirical research takes the changeful and complex historical district in Tainan to observe wayfinding behaviours. An a priori analysis of the isovist fields is conducted to identify spatial characteristics. Three measures, the relative area, convexity, and circularity, are applied to scrutinize the possible stopping points, change of speed, and route choices. Accordingly, an experiment is carried out to observe spatial behaviours and different influences of social stimuli. Results show that social interactions afford groups and pairs to perform better than individual observers in wayfinding.© 2016. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creative commons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.Keywords: wayfinding; isovist; spatial perception and social stimuli; historic quarte

Association, Reflection, Stimulation: Problem Exploration in Early Design through AI-Augmented Mind-Mapping

The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science. - Albert Einstein This dissertation aims at developing a computational framework to support the process of problem exploration in early design. To do so, we investigate digital mind-mapping as a tool for problem exploration and develop new algorithms and interaction workflows by leveraging large knowledge databases. The central premise of this work is that channeling the designer's thinking process through intelligent stimulation using such databases can augment designers' ability to reason about the problem at hand and creatively synthesize new ideas to address the problem. Design problems are typically ambiguous, ill-defined, unstructured, and open-ended. Therefore, learning about the problem and exploration of the problem domain is critical in early design to build a well-developed understanding of the context toward fruitful solution exploration in design. Despite the importance of problem understanding in design, little research has been devoted to investigating problem exploration activities in-depth and drawing a clear connection on the effects of such activities on the resulting design outcomes. Most current efforts focus exclusively on implementing methods for ideation, conceptualization, and concept evaluation wherein the solution space takes prominence. In this regard, this dissertation aims to complement this with a study of problem exploration techniques (mind-mapping and free writing) and evaluation in early design. We highlight the importance of problem-based exploration and learning, and share insights on how the structure and associative capability afforded by mind-maps affect ideation on the problem statement, product opportunity gap, and the needs around a given design context. It is common for designers to tend to commit to solutions too early and limit the potential of discovering creative and novel ideas in early design. This tendency is further pronounced with the advent of several digital design tools that are feature-rich and focus on design conceptualization and solution formulation, rather than design problem exploration. Additionally, much of the research in design theory and methodology has also mostly focused on conceptualization techniques such as C-Sketch and morphological matrix, that aim to support the formation of new solution concepts through modification and re-interpretation of rough initial ones. To complement these, in this dissertation, we emphasize the importance of problem exploration and brainstorming tasks towards design opportunity identification during early design. This is studied with the use of mind-maps, a technique that helps designers express their thoughts by making connections or associations between ideas around a given context. Further, we propose novel human-computer collaborative mind-mapping workflows for enhancing design experiences through novel textual, verbal and visual computer supports. Specifically, we designed and implemented two cognitive support mechanisms to help designers in inspecting design problems and generating ideas. Human-subject studies were conducted to examine how these systems perform and user perception. Based on the extensive investigation, this dissertation further shares insights on how to promote reflection in problem exploration by stimulating association across ideas, and develops design implications for intelligent AI-augmented workflows during early design exploratory tasks

ESTIMATION THE PREFERENCE OF ECOTOURISM FOR GAOMEI WETLAND IN TAIWAN

Gaomei Wetland is not only the biggest grassy coastal wetland, but also a wild‐animal protecting area, located on the west‐central coast of Taiwan.Wetlands are considered as one of the most important natural resource, which offer a lot of benefits for human and other creatures. However, it is believed that over-intensive recreational activities in Gaomei Wetland should be responsible for serious damages on natural environment and ecosystem. This study takes Gaomei wetland as an example, and aims to estimate its landscape and ecological services values through Choice experiment. The results of this research showed that Gaomei landscape’s economic value is $2.06 million (USD) per year, and$1.54 million (USD) for its value of ecological services. These findings can help to bring up the awareness of natural resource preservation, and hopefully to keep Gaomei Wetland substantial. The results also indicated that visitors with undergraduate degree or above were willing to pay $6.43 (USD) per year for entry fee to enjoy sunset scenery in Gaomei wetland

DISTRIBUTION OF GRIP PRESSURE THROUGHOUT THE PHASES OF PUTTING IN ELITE GOLF COLLEGE PLAYERS

The purpose of this study is to investigate the distribution of grip pressure, force and the peak pressure of different phases during the putting stroke. Five elite college players with handicaps of 2-8 participated in the study. The Novel Pliance-x System and 150Hz 8- camera Motion Analysis Corporation System were used to collect grip pressure and identify each phase of the putting stroke. At each phase of the putting stroke, average grip pressure, peak pressure and grip force were investigated. Results indicated that lowest grip pressure occurred at address up to the top of backswing (2.41±1.36 Kpa). Grip pressure started to increase during the downswing and reached its peak, 0.02±0.05s, before impact (4.70±1.97 Kpa). The pressure reduced again after impact (4.36±2.06 Kpa). Results indicate that grip pressure does not remain the same throughout the stroke

MUSCLE ACTIVATION AND THREE-DIMENSIONAL KINEMATICS OF UPPER EXTREMITY IN SNATCH WEIGHT LIFTING

INTRODUCTION: Previously, there was little weightlifting research focused on biomechanics of the elbow and the shoulder joints (Bartonietz, 1996). Therefore, the purposes of this study were to evaluate the kinematics of upper extremity on sagittal plane during 1st pull, transition from the 1st to the 2nd pull, 2nd pull, turnover under the barbell, catch phase, and rising from the squat position phases of snatch weight lifting and to examine upper-limb muscles activity during snatch weight lifting. The EMG signals were analyzed using the normalized linear envelopes