Perverse cross-subsidization in the credit market

We show how asymmetric information and borrowers' heterogeneity in wealth may produce equilibria in which, due to decreasing absolute risk aversion, hard working poor borrowers subsidize richer borrowers. In particular, a model of adverse selection and moral hazard in a competitive credit market is developed with private information on borrowers' wealth. Because of the ambiguous effect of decreasing risk aversion on the willingness to post collateral, both separating and pooling equilibria are possible in principle. Under separation the poor borrowers bear the cost of separation in terms of excessive risk taking. In a more likely pooling equilibrium poor hard-working borrowers subsidize richer ones

Adaptive Mesh Refinement for Hyperbolic Systems based on Third-Order Compact WENO Reconstruction

In this paper we generalize to non-uniform grids of quad-tree type the Compact WENO reconstruction of Levy, Puppo and Russo (SIAM J. Sci. Comput., 2001), thus obtaining a truly two-dimensional non-oscillatory third order reconstruction with a very compact stencil and that does not involve mesh-dependent coefficients. This latter characteristic is quite valuable for its use in h-adaptive numerical schemes, since in such schemes the coefficients that depend on the disposition and sizes of the neighboring cells (and that are present in many existing WENO-like reconstructions) would need to be recomputed after every mesh adaption. In the second part of the paper we propose a third order h-adaptive scheme with the above-mentioned reconstruction, an explicit third order TVD Runge-Kutta scheme and the entropy production error indicator proposed by Puppo and Semplice (Commun. Comput. Phys., 2011). After devising some heuristics on the choice of the parameters controlling the mesh adaption, we demonstrate with many numerical tests that the scheme can compute numerical solution whose error decays as $\langle N\rangle^{-3}$, where $\langle N\rangle$ is the average number of cells used during the computation, even in the presence of shock waves, by making a very effective use of h-adaptivity and the proposed third order reconstruction.Comment: many updates to text and figure

Ruptures and repairs of group therapy alliance. an untold story in psychotherapy research

Although previous studies investigated the characteristics of therapeutic alliance in group treatments, there is still a dearth of research on group alliance ruptures and repairs. The model by Safran and Muran was originally developed to address therapeutic alliance in individual therapies, and the usefulness of this approach to group intervention needs to be demonstrated. Alliance ruptures are possible at member to therapist, member to member, member to group levels. Moreover, repairs of ruptures in group are quite complex, i.e., because other group members have to process the rupture even if not directly involved. The aim of the current study is to review the empirical research on group alliance, and to examine whether the rupture repair model can be a suitable framework for clinical understanding and research of the complexity of therapeutic alliance in group treatments. We provide clinical vignettes and commentary to illustrate theoretical and research aspects of therapeutic alliance rupture and repair in groups. Our colleague Jeremy Safran made a substantial contribution to research on therapeutic alliance, and the current paper illustrates the enduring legacy of this work and its potential application to the group therapy context

The use of imaging systems to monitor shoreline dynamics

The development of imaging systems is nowadays established as one of the most powerful and reliable tools for monitoring beach morphodynamics. Two different techniques for shoreline detection are presented here and, in one case, applied to the study of beach width oscillations on a sandy beach (Pauanui Beach, New Zealand). Results indicate that images can provide datasets whose length and sample interval are accurate enough to resolve inter-annual and seasonal oscillations, and long-term trends. Similarly, imaging systems can be extremely useful in determining the statistics of rip current occurrence. Further improvements in accuracy and reliability are expected with the recent introduction of digital systems

Detecting nonlinearity in run-up on a natural beach

International audienceNatural geophysical timeseries bear the signature of a number of complex, possibly inseparable, and generally unknown combination of linear, stable non-linear and chaotic processes. Quantifying the relative contribution of, in particular, the non-linear components will allow improved modelling and prediction of natural systems, or at least define some limitations on predictability. However, difficulties arise; for example, in cases where the series are naturally cyclic (e.g. water waves), it is most unclear how this cyclic behaviour impacts on the techniques commonly used to detect the nonlinear behaviour in other fields. Here a non-linear autoregressive forecasting technique which has had success in demonstrating nonlinearity in non-cyclical geophysical timeseries, is applied to a timeseries generated by videoing the waterline on a natural beach (run-up), which has some irregular oscillatory behaviour that is in part induced by the incoming wave field. In such cases, the deterministic shape of each run-up cycle has a strong influence on forecasting results, causing questionable results at small (within a cycle) prediction distances. However, the technique can clearly differentiate between random surrogate series and natural timeseries at larger prediction distances (greater than one cycle). Therefore it was possible to clearly identify nonlinearity in the relationship between observed run-up cycles in that a local autoregressive model was more adept at predicting run-up cycles than a global one. Results suggest that despite forcing from waves impacting on the beach, each run-up cycle evolves somewhat independently, depending on a non-linear interaction with previous run-up cycles. More generally, a key outcome of the study is that oscillatory data provide a similar challenge to differentiating chaotic signals from correlated noise in that the deterministic shape causes an additional source of autocorrelation which in turn influences the predictability at small forecasting distances

Age-related differences during visual search: the role of contextual expectations and cognitive control mechanisms

We explored the efficacy of drawing pictures as an encoding strategy to enhance memory performance in healthy older adults and individuals with probable dementia. In an incidental encoding phase, participants were asked to either draw a picture or write out each word from a set of 30 common nouns for 40 seconds each. Episodic memory for the target words was compared in a group of healthy older adults to individuals with probable dementia (MMSE/MOCA range 4 to 25). In two experiments we showed that recall and recognition performance was higher for words that were drawn than written out during encoding, for both participant groups. We suggest that incorporating visuo-perceptual information into memory enhanced performance by increasing reliance on visual-sensory brain regions, which are relatively intact in these populations. Our findings demonstrate that drawing is a valuable technique leading to measurable gains in memory performance for individuals with probable dementia

Magic mirror on the wall: Selfie-related behavior as mediator of the relationship between narcissism and problematic smartphone use

Objective: Recent research has suggested that problematic smartphone use is associated with several psychological factors and that mobile apps and smartphone-related behavior (i.e. selfi e behavior) may encourage the development of problematic smartphone use. However, little is known about how the interplay between dysfunctional personality characteristics and selfi e-related behavior can infl uence problematic smartphone use. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between narcissism and problematic smartphone use, as well as the mediating role of selfi e-related behavior in this relationship among young men and women. Method: In the current study, a total of 627 undergraduate students (283 males and 344 females) completed a cross-sectional survey. A structural equation model was tested separately for males and females in order to evaluate the associations between narcissism, selfi e-related behavior and problematic smartphone use. Results: The results showed that greater narcissism was related to increased selfi e-related behavior, which in turn were positively associated with problematic smartphone use both for males and females. However, selfi e-related behavior mediated the relationship between narcissism and problematic smartphone use only for females. Conclusions: The study provides fresh insight into our understanding of the psychological mechanisms underlying problematic smartphone use, which may inform prevention and treatment interventions

Similar mechanisms of temporary bindings for identity and location of objects in healthy ageing:An eye tracking study with naturalistic scenes

The ability to maintain visual working memory (VWM) associations about the identity and location of objects has at times been found to decrease with age. To date, however, this age-related difficulty was mostly observed in artificial visual contexts (e.g., object arrays), and so it is unclear whether it may manifest in naturalistic contexts, and in which ways. In this eye-tracking study, 26 younger and 24 healthy older adults were asked to detect changes in a critical object situated in a photographic scene (192 in total), about its identity (the object becomes a different object but maintains the same position), location (the object only changes position) or both (the object changes in location and identity). Aging was associated with a lower change detection performance. A change in identity was harder to detect than a location change, and performance was best when both features changed, especially in younger adults. Eye movements displayed minor differences between age groups (e.g., shorter saccades in older adults) but were similarly modulated by the type of change. Latencies to the first fixation were longer and the amplitude of incoming saccades was larger when the critical object changed in location. Once fixated, the target object was inspected for longer when it only changed in identity compared to location. Visually salient objects were fixated earlier, but saliency did not affect any other eye movement measures considered, nor did it interact with the type of change. Our findings suggest that even though aging results in lower performance, it does not selectively disrupt temporary bindings of object identity, location, or their association in VWM, and highlight the importance of using naturalistic contexts to discriminate the cognitive processes that undergo detriment from those that are instead spared by aging

The differences of Slovenian and Italian daily practices experienced in the first wave of covid-19 pandemic

Background The COVID-19 pandemic situation with the lockdown of public life caused serious changes in people's everyday practices. The study evaluates the differences between Slovenia and Italy in health-related everyday practices induced by the restrictive measures during first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods The cross-sectional cohort study examined changes through an online survey conducted in nine European countries from April 15-28, 2020. The survey included questions from a simple activity inventory questionnaire (SIMPAQ), the European Health Interview Survey, and some other questions. To compare difference in changes between European countries we examined Italy with severe and its neighbour country Slovenia with low incidence and victims of COVID-19 epidemic. 956 valid responses from Italy (N = 511; 50% males) and Slovenia (N = 445; 26% males) were investigated. Results During the survey, there was a 4.7-fold higher incidence and 12.1-fold more deaths (per 100,000) in Italy than in Slovenia. Barring periods and measures were similar, the latter more stringent in Italy. We found more changes in Italy than in Slovenia: physical inactivity increased (Italy: + 65% vs. Slovenia: + 21%; p < 0.001), walking time decreased (Italy: -68% vs. Slovenia: -4.4%; p < 0.001); physical work increased by 38% in Slovenia (p < 0.001), and recreation time decreased by 37% in Italy (p < 0.001). Italians reported a decrease in quality of general health, fitness level, psychological well-being, quality of life and care for own health (p < 0.001); Slovenians showed a decline in psychological well-being and quality of life (p < 0.001) but generally had a higher concern for their own health (p = 0.005). In pooled participants, changes in eating habits (meal size and consumption of unhealthy food), age and physical inactivity were positively correlated with increases in body mass, while changes in general well-being and concern for health were negatively correlated. Conclusion The study shows that the negative impact of COVID -19 measures is greater in Italy where the pandemic COVID -19 was more prevalent than in Slovenia with low prevalence. Additional consideration should be given to the negative impact of COVID-19 measures on some health-related lifestyle variables when implementing further measures to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic

Self-organization mechanisms for the formation on nearshore crescentic and transverse sand bars

The formation and development of transverse and crescentic sand bars in the coastal marine environment has been investigated by means of a nonlinear numerical model based on the shallow-water equations and on a simpli ed sediment transport parameterization. By assuming normally approaching waves and a saturated surf zone, rhythmic patterns develop from a planar slope where random perturbations of small amplitude have been superimposed. Two types of bedforms appear: one is a crescentic bar pattern centred around the breakpoint and the other, herein modelled for the rst time, is a transverse bar pattern. The feedback mechanism related to the formation and development of the patterns can be explained by coupling the water and sediment conservation equations. Basically, the waves stir up the sediment and keep it in suspension with a certain cross-shore distribution of depth-averaged concentration. Then, a current flowing with (against) the gradient of sediment concentration produces erosion (deposition). It is shown that inside the surf zone, these currents may occur due to the wave refraction and to the redistribution of wave breaking produced by the growing bedforms. Numerical simulations have been performed in order to understand the sensitivity of the pattern formation to the parameterization and to relate the hydro-morphodynamic input conditions to which of the patterns develops. It is suggested that crescentic bar growth would be favoured by high-energy conditions and ne sediment while transverse bars would grow for milder waves and coarser sediment. In intermediate conditions mixed patterns may occur