“On the ‘Hot Potato Effect’ of Inflation: Intensive versus Extensive Margins”

Conventional wisdom is that inflation makes people spend money faster, trying to get rid of it like a “hot potato,” and this is a channel through which inflation affects velocity and welfare. Monetary theory with endoge- nous search intensity seems ideal for studying this. However, in standard models, inflation is a tax that lowers the surplus from monetary exchange and hence reduces search effort. We replace search intensity with a free entry (participation) decision for buyers - i.e., we focus on the extensive rather than intensive margin - and prove buyers always spend their money faster when inflation increases. We also discuss welfare.Search, Money, Inflation, Velocity, Free Entry

PPVR: Teaching and Learning to Play the Piano in Virtual Reality

PPVR is a collaboration system that supports remote piano training in a virtual reality environment with the support of synchronous and asynchronous communication, various viewpoints, and detection of finger pressure. We designed two different user interfaces for the learner and the instructor and provide different viewpoints and scaffolding tools for the learner. We also explored the usage of pressure sensing inVR to enrich the information transmission during the remote piano training. We designed a user study, but were unable to conduct it due to COVID-19.Master of ScienceInformation, School ofUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162561/1/Wang_Xizi_Final_MTOP_Thesis_20200531.pd

Collaborative mechanism on profit allotment and public health for a sustainable supply chain

This paper explores the collaborative mechanism that motivates supply chain firms to collectively invest in environmental technology and produce environmental friendly products (EFPs) to reduce pollutant emissions and negative impacts on environment and public health. Our paper investigates how such firms can achieve the balance between economic feasibility and environmental and social sustainability under multiple sustainable constraints in terms of the triple bottom line dimensions. The work also describes the impacts of interrelated multiple sustainable constraints on optimal policy for the supply chain transfer price and profit allotment decisions. Our findings suggest that government intervention plays a dominant role in governing the supply chain firms’ behaviors in the context of environmental and public health sustainability. The profit allotment is determined through the process of negotiation of the transfer price interrelated with the government subsidy sharing between the supply chain firms

Decision Aid Implementation and Patients' Preferences for Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis Treatment: Insights from the High Value Healthcare Collaborative.

Background:Shared decision making (SDM) research has emphasized the role of decision aids (DAs) for helping patients make treatment decisions reflective of their preferences, yet there have been few collaborative multi-institutional efforts to integrate DAs in orthopedic consultations and primary care encounters. Objective:In the context of routine DA implementation for SDM, we investigate which patient-level characteristics are associated with patient preferences for surgery versus medical management before and after exposure to DAs. We explored whether DA implementation in primary care encounters was associated with greater shifts in patients' treatment preferences after exposure to DAs compared to DA implementation in orthopedic consultations. Design:Retrospective cohort study. Setting:10 High Value Healthcare Collaborative (HVHC) health systems. Study participants:A total of 495 hip and 1343 adult knee osteoarthritis patients who were exposed to DAs within HVHC systems between July 2012 to June 2015. Results:Nearly 20% of knee patients and 17% of hip patients remained uncertain about their treatment preferences after viewing DAs. Older patients and patients with high pain levels had an increased preference for surgery. Older patients receiving DAs from three HVHC systems that transitioned DA implementation from orthopedics into primary care had lower odds of preferring surgery after DA exposure compared to older patients in seven HVHC systems that only implemented DAs for orthopedic consultations. Conclusion:Patients' treatment preferences were largely stable over time, highlighting that DAs for SDM largely do not necessarily shift preferences. DAs and SDM processes should be targeted at older adults and patients reporting high pain levels. Initiating treatment conversations in primary versus specialty care settings may also have important implications for engagement of patients in SDM via DAs

Towards a General Solution for Layout of Visual Goal Models with Actors: Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for the paper: Towards a General Solution for Layout of Visual Goal Models with Actors This paper presents early results and lays a foundation for discussion within our GORE community

Collaborating neuroscience online: The case of the Human Brain Project forum

This paper analyzes user interactions on the public-access online forum of the Human Brain Project (HBP), a major European Union-funded neuroscience research initiative, to understand the utility of the Forum for collaborative problem solving. We construct novel data using discussion forum posts and detailed user profiles on the HBP Forum. We find that HBP Forum utilization is comparable to that of a leading general-interest coding platform, and that online usage metrics quickly recovered after an initial Covid-19-related dip. Regression results show that user interactions on the Forum are more active for questions on programming and in HBP core areas. Further, Cox proportional hazard analyses show that such problems are solved faster. Forum posts with users from different countries tend to be discussed more actively but solved slower. Higher shares of administrator support tend to solve problems faster. There are no clear patterns regarding gender and seniority. Our results suggest that building novel collaborative forums can support researchers working on complex topics in challenging times

2D non-LTE Modeling for Axi-symmetric Winds. II. A Short Characteristic Solution for Radiative Transfer in Rotating Winds

We present a new radiative transfer code for axi-symmetric stellar atmospheres and compare test results against 1D and 2D models with and without velocity fields. The code uses the short characteristic method with modifications to handle axi-symmetric and non-monotonic 3D wind velocities, and allows for distributed calculations. The formal solution along a characteristic is evaluated with a resolution that is proportional to the velocity gradient along the characteristic. This allows us to accurately map the variation of the opacities and emissivities as a function of frequency and spatial coordinates, but avoids unnecessary work in low velocity regions. We represent a characteristic with an impact-parameter vector p (a vector that is normal to the plane containing the characteristic and the origin) rather than the traditional unit vector in the direction of the ray. The code calculates the incoming intensities for the characteristics by a single latitudinal interpolation without any further interpolation in the radiation angles. Using this representation also provides a venue for distributed calculations since the radiative transfer can be done independently for each p.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in A&