Autonomy-enhancing paternalism

We present a form of soft paternalism called "autonomy-enhancing paternalism" that seeks to in-crease individual well-being by facilitating the individual ability to make critically reflected, au-tonomous decisions. The focus of autonomy-enhancing paternalism is on helping individuals to become better decision-makers, rather than on helping them by making better decisions for them. Autonomy-enhancing paternalism acknowledges that behavioral interventions can change the strength of decision-making anomalies over time, and favors those interventions that improve, ra-ther than reduce, individuals' ability to make good and unbiased decisions. By this it prevents ma-nipulation of the individual by the soft paternalist, accounts for the heterogeneity of individuals, and counteracts slippery slope arguments by decreasing the probability of future paternalistic inter-ventions. Moreover, autonomy-enhancing paternalism can be defended based on both liberal val-ues and welfare considerations

An Analysis of The Influence of Discipline, Motivation and Work Environment on the Employees’ Performance of Workers’ Social Security Agency, Medan Branch

This research was carried out to solve problems and to produce or to determine relevant and reliable human resources strategies to increase work enthusiasm in improving the performance of the employees of BPJS Ketenagakerjaan (the Workers’ Social Security Agency), Medan Branch. The population was 51 employees, including superiors and subordinates, in BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, Medan Branch. The whole population was taken as the samples called census. The research used quantitative approach with survey research type. The data were collected through interviews, field observation and questionnaires obtained from the primary data source; namely, all employees in BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, Medan Branch. Simultaneous and partial tests were used as the data analysis method to find out whether discipline, motivation and work environment had any influence on the performances of the employees in BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, Medan Branch. The results of the research showed that simultaneously, discipline, motivation and work environment had positive and significant influence on the employees’ performance; partially, motivation and discipline had significant influence on their performance whereas work environment did not. Keywords: Employee’s Performance, BPJS Ketenagakerjaan (Workers’ Social Security Agency

Verlangen und Kontrolle unter dopaminerger Medikation: Pilotstudie zu De Novo Parkinsonpatienten im ersten Behandlungsjahr

Hintergrund: Viele Menschen, die an einem idiopathischen Parkinsonsyndom leiden, entwickeln im Verlauf der Erkrankung eine Impulse-Kontroll-Störung, die meist durch die dopaminerge Medikation bedingt ist. Zielsetzung: Ändert sich das Verlangen der an einem idiopathischen Parkinsonsyndrom erkrankten Personen im ersten Behandlungsjahr mit dopaminerger Medikation? Methodik: In dieser nicht-interventionellen, nicht-randomisierte Pilotstudie füllten 37 Teilnehmende (19 Personen mit De-Novo Parkinsonsyndrom, 18 Personen in einer gesunden Kontrollgruppe) zwischen Januar 2018 und September 2021 viermalig innerhalb eines Jahres einen Verhaltensfragebogen aus. Dieser wurde in die Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) integriert. Ergebnisse: Alle Teilnehmenden zeigten überraschend wenig Widerstand gegen Verlangen und die meisten Bedürfnisse wurde befriedigt. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Anzahl der individuellen Verlangen unter hoher Levodopa-Äquivalenzdosis zunahm. Zudem sahen wir einen dosisabhängigen, gerade nicht signifikanten Anstieg der Verlangensstärke. Entgegen unserer Erwartungen sahen wir einen negativen, aber gerade nicht signifikanten Zusammengang zwischen einer höheren Levodopa-Äquivalenzdosis und der Wahrscheinlichkeit des Auftretens eines intrapersonellen Konfliktes. Schlussfolgerung: Die Ergebnisse führen zu der neuen Hypothese, dass Personen, die an einem Parkinsonsyndrom erkrankt sind, die mehr aufsteigenden und stärkeren Bedürfnisse weniger kritisch hinterfragen, weil ihnen höhere Ziele im Leben unter höherer dopaminerger Medikation weniger wichtig erscheinen. Es könnte zu einer unangemessenen Befriedigung dieser Bedürfnisse kommen, die dann in einer Impulse-Kontroll-Störung enden könnten. Möglicherweise wird diese Veränderung im Verhalten von den Betroffenen selbst nicht bemerkt, weswegen eine regelmäßige Fremdanamnese mit Angehörigen zur Detektion dieser Verhaltensänderung essentiell erscheint

A generalized wavelet extrema representation

The wavelet extrema representation originated by Stephane Mallat is a unique framework for low-level and intermediate-level (feature) processing. In this paper, we present a new form of wavelet extrema representation generalizing Mallat`s original work. The generalized wavelet extrema representation is a feature-based multiscale representation. For a particular choice of wavelet, our scheme can be interpreted as representing a signal or image by its edges, and peaks and valleys at multiple scales. Such a representation is shown to be stable -- the original signal or image can be reconstructed with very good quality. It is further shown that a signal or image can be modeled as piecewise monotonic, with all turning points between monotonic segments given by the wavelet extrema. A new projection operator is introduced to enforce piecewise inonotonicity of a signal in its reconstruction. This leads to an enhancement to previously developed algorithms in preventing artifacts in reconstructed signal

Present Bias and Everyday Self-Control Failures

Present bias is the economist’s favorite explanation for self-control problems. However, the relationship between present bias and selfcontrol is not yet fully understood. We present the T-SC model of intertemporal choice which integrates main psychological insights on selfcontrol into economics and suggests that present bias is positively related to temptations T and negatively related to self-control SC. To test the model we elicit time preferences using an incentivized delay discounting task, trait temptation and trait self-control using scale measures, and everyday temptations, self-control attempts, and self-control failures using a day reconstruction methodology. In a sample of 142 participants we find that experimentally elicited present bias is not associated with self-control problems, neither when measured on the trait level nor in everyday life. The results are in line with a clear distinction between discounting and visceral influences as determinants of decision making. The results can also explain why recent studies find only weak empirical associations between present bias elicited in monetary delay discounting tasks and life outcomes in non-monetary domains

Sludge and transaction costs

Behavioral scientists have begun to research ‘sludge,’ excessive frictions that make it harder for people to do what they want to do. Friction is also an important concept in transaction-cost economics. Nevertheless, sludge has been discussed without explicit referral to transaction costs. Several questions arise from this observation. Is the analogy to friction used differently in both literatures? If so, what are the key differences? If not, should we develop the concept of sludge when the well-established literature on transaction costs already exists? This conceptual article shows that sludge and transaction costs are related, but distinct, concepts, and that the literature on sludge can benefit from incorporating elements from transaction-cost research. For example, we suggest defining sludge as aspects of the choice architecture that lead to the experience of costs, organize sludges using a typology inspired by the transaction-cost literature, highlight specificity, uncertainty, and frequency as important determinants of the ‘sludginess’ of choice architecture, and show that sludge audits can be conducted using methods developed in the transaction-cost literature

Responsibility utility and the difference between preference and desirance: implications for welfare evaluation

Actions can provide “responsibility utility” when they signal the actors’ identities or values to others or to themselves. This paper considers a novel implication of this responsibility utility for welfare analysis: fully informed incentive-compatible choice data can give a biased measure of the utility delivered by exogenously determined outcomes. A person’s choice of a policy outcome may be informed by responsibility utility that would be strictly absent if that same person were a passive recipient of that same policy outcome. We introduce the term “desirance” to describe a rank ordering over exogenously determined outcomes and present evidence that desirance captures the welfare consequences of exogenously determined outcomes more accurately than preference. We review literatures showing that preference is sensitive to contextual variations that influence responsibility utility and show experimentally that responsibility utility can explain discrepancies between welfare estimates derived from choice data and subjective well-being data. We close by discussing subjective well-being as a potential measure of desirance

Analysis of Piezoresistive Effects in Silicon Structures Using Multidimensional Process and Device Simulation

Abstract With the view to analyzing piezoresistive effects in silicon microstructures we implemented a rigorous physically-based model in the multidimensional general purpose device simulator DESSIS'~~. In this model, the dependence of the piezoresistive coefficients on temperahue and doping concentration is included in a numerically hactable way. Using a commercial TCAD system (ISE), the practicability of the approach is demonstrated by performing a complete simulation sequence for realistic microdevices ranging from the layout design up to the analysis of the device operation

Shape Matching and Object Recognition

We approach recognition in the framework of deformable shape matching, relying on a new algorithm for finding correspondences between feature points. This algorithm sets up correspondence as an integer quadratic programming problem, where the cost function has terms based on similarity of corresponding geometric blur point descriptors as well as the geometric distortion between pairs of corresponding feature points. The algorithm handles outliers, and thus enables matching of exemplars to query images in the presence of occlusion and clutter. Given the correspondences, we estimate an aligning transform, typically a regularized thin plate spline, resulting in a dense correspondence between the two shapes. Object recognition is handled in a nearest neighbor framework where the distance between exemplar and query is the matching cost between corresponding points. We show results on two datasets. One is the Caltech 101 dataset (Li, Fergus and Perona), a challenging dataset with large intraclass variation. Our approach yields a 45 % correct classification rate in addition to localization. We also show results for localizing frontal and profile faces that are comparable to special purpose approaches tuned to faces