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Investments for Carbon Footprint Reduction: An Instructional Case
No full textABSTRACT This instructional case explores strategic decision‐making at CarCompany (CarCo), a large automaker that is transitioning to battery electric vehicles. CarCo aims to reduce the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at their own sites and at suppliers' sites. The challenge is to select a group of CO2 reduction initiatives that achieves the objectives set by CarCo's management while staying within budgetary restrictions. Another challenge is renegotiating some CO2 reduction initiatives with suppliers so that greater overall CO2 reductions can be achieved. Finally, decentralization of objectives and budgets for CO2 reductions needs to be considered. CarCo's Sustainability Manager, Julia Neumann, has been asked to select from the list of proposed projects and present her recommendations to CarCo's board. In this case, students need to apply rigorous analyses on the basis of cost‐benefit analysis, justify their decisions, and think outside the box. They are asked to assess how existing evaluation techniques can be used and adapted to CO2 emissions. The case delves into the complexities of the transition to cleaner production processes and the expanding network of suppliers, employees, and other stakeholders that need to be involved in the process
Economic evaluations of early detection strategies for pancreatic cancer: a systematic review
No full textAbstract
Objectives
The early detection of pancreatic cancer is an important step in reducing mortality by offering patients curative treatment. The aim of this study was to synthesize available evidence on the costs and cost-effectiveness of strategies for early pancreatic cancer detection.
Methods
The electronic databases PubMed, Web of Science, and EconLit were searched for peer-reviewed and published papers in English until April 2024 with no date or contextual restrictions. Economic evaluations of early pancreatic cancer detection strategies compared to alternative or no detection strategies were criteria for inclusion.
Results
Thirty-one articles were included, 22 were full and nine were partial economic evaluations. Fifteen studies screened target populations with pancreatic cancer-associated risk factors and 16 conducted surveillance of patients with precancerous lesions. Six studies found early detection strategies to be cost-effective, one did not, and thirteen reported partially cost-effective results. In all studies, populations of interest had an elevated pancreatic cancer risk compared to the general population. Endoscopic ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, and computed tomography were the most frequently evaluated imaging modalities. Patient engagement, valuation of outcomes and choice of discount rates were among incomplete reporting categories, and narrow evaluation perspectives may have biased the results.
Conclusions
Early detection strategies for pancreatic cancer may be cost-effective for certain high-risk patient groups. However, evaluations so far have applied heterogeneous methods, used different modalities, had various target groups and screened at different frequencies. Further evaluations will be required to systematically synthesize economic evidence regarding specific early detection strategies.
Registration
PROSPERO registration CRD42023475348
‘Old’ Materialisms vs. ‘New’ Materialisms in Ageing Research: A Comparison Based on Empirical Data on Grieving
No full textAbstract
The importance of materiality is increasingly being discussed in ageing research, particularly in approaches of cultural, environmental, and material gerontology. This growing interest in materiality has led to a critical examination of the relationship between approaches that are inspired by what are referred to as ‘old materialisms’—that is, historical–materialist and Marxist approaches—on the one hand and ‘new materialisms’—that is, newer feminist and poststructural approaches—on the other hand. In this article, approaches of ‘old’ and ‘new’ materialisms are discussed comparatively in terms of their potential benefits. For this purpose, we use the intersectional multilevel analysis according to Gabriele Winker and Nina Degele and core concepts of agential realism according to Karen Barad. Using material on widowhood and mourning taken from interviews with professional experts, we work out similarities and differences and the extent to which a combination of ‘old’ and ‘new’ materialisms offers specific analytical interpretations on an empirical level as well as the methodological consequences in ageing research in particular and sociological research in general. @Die Bedeutung von Materialität wird in der Alternsforschung zunehmend diskutiert, insbesondere in Ansätzen der Kulturgerontologie, der Ökogerontologie und der Materiellen Gerontologie. Das wachsende Interesse an Materialität zeigt sich im Theoriediskurs zudem in einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung des Verhältnisses von sogenannten alten Materialismen – also historisch-materialistischen und marxistischen Ansätzen – einerseits und sogenannten neuen Materialismen – also neueren feministischen und poststrukturellen Ansätzen – andererseits. In diesem Artikel werden Ansätze der „alten“ und „neuen“ Materialismen vergleichend hinsichtlich ihres Nutzens diskutiert. Dazu werden zwei ausgewählte materialistische Ansätze herangezogen; die intersektionale Mehrebenenanalyse nach Gabriele Winker und Nina Degele sowie Konzepte des agentiellen Realismus nach Karen Barad. Anhand von Interviewmaterial mit professionellen Fachkräften zu Verwitwung und Trauer arbeiten wir Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede heraus und zeigen auf, inwiefern eine Kombination von „alten“ und „neuen“ Materialismen spezifische analytische Rekonstruktionen auf empirischer Ebene sowie methodologische Weiterentwicklungen für die Alternsforschung im Besonderen und die soziologische Forschung im Allgemeinen ermöglicht
Harnessing Soft Information to Promote Financial Inclusion: The Case of Business Lending by a Native CDFI
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Native Community Development Financial Institutions (NCDFIs) promote financial inclusion in financially underserved Native communities by adopting innovative lending strategies, including designing their own soft-information-based measures of borrower risk. Drawing on business loan data from one prominent NCDFI, a nonprofit loan fund, we examine to what extent the NCDFI-generated borrower risk measures help explain the NCDFI's loan performance and pricing above and beyond the effect of the credit score, a conventional credit-bureau-produced, hard-information-based metric. All else equal, both loan delinquency hazard and loan interest rate are robustly predicted by one of the NCDFI's two proprietary soft-information-based measures, the character score, but do not vary with the other one, commitment to business score. The credit score is an important determinant of loan delinquency hazard but, all else equal, does not exhibit a detectable relationship with the loan interest rate. We do not find evidence of noteworthy interactions among the three NCDFI-used borrower risk measures. Our study offers evidence in support of the unique underwriting practices and relationship-based lending operations that characterize the NCDFI industry.G21;G11;J15;O16;P4
Understanding teleoperation: A human-centered framework for workplace design
No full textAbstract
This article introduces a psychologically grounded framework to describe cognitive demands in the teleoperation of highly automated agents. It builds on established models of information processing, situation awareness, and occupational stress to explain how remote operators perceive, process, and act upon task demands in dynamic environments. Three scenarios from ground-based transportation illustrate varying operational contexts and support the identification of objective task demands. The framework highlights key human factors such as attention, working memory, and situation understanding, while also accounting for individual differences in cognitive resources. It provides a theoretical foundation for future empirical studies and supports the human-centered design of adaptive teleoperation workplaces. Practical Relevance : The framework supports the design and evaluation of teleoperation workplaces by identifying cognitive demands across diverse scenarios. It provides guidance for designing adaptive interfaces and task allocation strategies in event-driven, safety-critical environments that feature frequent context switches and uncertain sensor-based information. It helps practitioners and system designers to address the specific challenges of teleoperation as a complex socio-technical system. @Dieser Artikel stellt ein psychologisch fundiertes Rahmenwerk vor, um die kognitiven Anforderungen bei der Teleoperation von hochautomatisierten Agenten zu beschreiben. Er baut auf etablierten Modellen der Informationsverarbeitung, des Situationsbewusstseins und des beruflichen Stresses auf, um zu erklären, wie Teleoperatoren die Aufgabenanforderungen in dynamischen Umgebungen wahrnehmen, verarbeiten und danach handeln. Drei Szenarien aus dem bodengebundenen Verkehr veranschaulichen unterschiedliche Einsatzkontexte und unterstützen die Identifizierung objektiver Aufgabenanforderungen. Das Rahmenwerk hebt menschliche Schlüsselfaktoren wie Aufmerksamkeit, Arbeitsgedächtnis und Situationsverständnis hervor und berücksichtigt dabei auch individuelle Unterschiede bezüglich der kognitiven Ressourcen. Es bietet eine theoretische Grundlage für zukünftige empirische Studien und unterstützt die menschengerechte Gestaltung von adaptiven Telearbeitsplätzen. Praktische Relevanz : Das Rahmenwerk unterstützt die Gestaltung und Evaluierung von Telearbeitsplätzen durch die Identifizierung kognitiver Anforderungen in unterschiedlichen Szenarien. Es bietet eine Anleitung zur Gestaltung adaptiver Schnittstellen und Strategien zur Aufgabenzuweisung in ereignisgesteuerten, sicherheitskritischen Umgebungen, die häufige Kontextwechsel und unsichere sensorgestützte Informationen aufweisen. Es hilft Praktikern und Systemdesignern, die spezifischen Herausforderungen der Teleoperation als komplexes sozio-technisches System zu bewältigen
Assessing Alternative Options for a More Sustainability‐focused CAP
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This paper attempts to bring together the threads from the various articles in the Special Issue and draw overarching conclusions. It does so by classifying the policy models according to specific design criteria in order to highlight similarities, differences and special features. It then discusses the merits and challenges of the design features in the presented models. Results‐based schemes harness farmers’ self‐interest and increase ‘buy‐in’ but involve the risk for famers of low payments. Hybrid schemes, combining action‐ and results‐based payments, can be a suitable remedy, as are payments based on modelled (rather than measured) results. Point systems, besides having a motivational effect on farmers, facilitate the targeting of policies to regional circumstances and are particularly well suited for communicating the societal benefits achieved. Thresholds that must be achieved to trigger payment can nudge farmers to improve their environmental performance, but are not entirely incentive‐compatible. A bonus for diversity of measures at farm level can encourage innovation and engagement, but can also make the uptake of measures less predictable. These ideas can all contribute to an enhanced focus on rewarding farmers for the actual delivery of environmental outcomes, consistent with the public money for public goods ethos. However, the policy models for a fundamental re‐orientation of the CAP presented appear to only have limited compatibility with the EU Commission’s proposal for the next CAP reform. @Dieser Beitrag führt die Fäden aus den verschiedenen Artikeln dieser Sonderausgabe zusammen und leitet übergreifende Schlussfolgerungen ab. Dazu werden die Politikmodelle nach bestimmten Gestaltungskriterien klassifiziert, um Gemeinsamkeiten, Unterschiede und Besonderheiten herauszuarbeiten. Anschließend werden die Vorzüge und Herausforderungen der Gestaltungsmerkmale der vorgestellten Modelle erörtert. Ergebnisorientierte Modelle sprechen das Eigeninteresse der Landwirte an und erhöhen die Akzeptanz, bergen jedoch das Risiko, dass die Landwirte nur geringe Zahlungen erhalten. Hybride Modelle, die handlungs‐ und ergebnisbasierte Zahlungen miteinander kombinieren, können ebenso wie Zahlungen auf der Grundlage modellierter (anstatt gemessener) Ergebnisse dieses Risiko reduzieren. Punktbasierte Politikmodelle wirken motivierend auf die Landwirte und erleichtern die Ausrichtung der Politik auf regionale Gegebenheiten. Sie eignen sich darüber hinaus besonders gut, um den gesellschaftlichen Nutzen der Maßnahmen zu kommunizieren. Schwellenwerte, die erreicht werden müssen, um Zahlungen auszulösen, können Landwirte dazu anregen, ihre Umweltleistung zu verbessern, sind jedoch nicht vollkommen anreizkompatibel. Ein Bonus für Maßnahmenvielfalt auf Betriebsebene kann Innovation und Engagement fördern, aber auch die Umsetzung der Maßnahmen aus Sicht der Verwaltung weniger vorhersehbar machen. All diese Ideen können dazu beitragen, den Fokus stärker auf die Bezahlung von Landwirten für die tatsächliche Erzielung von Umweltleistungen zu legen, im Einklang mit dem Grundsatz „öffentliche Gelder für öffentliche Güter”. Die vorgestellten Politikmodelle für eine grundlegende Neuausrichtung der GAP scheinen jedoch nur begrenzt mit den Plänen der EU‐Kommission vereinbar zu sein
Skewness Issues in Quantifying Efficiency: Insights from Stochastic Frontier Panel Models Based on Closed Skew Normal Approximations
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Typically, the inefficiency term in stochastic frontier models is assumed to be positively skewed; however, efficiency scores are biased if this assumption is violated. This paper considers the case in which negative skewness is also allowed in the model. The paper discusses estimation of a stochastic frontier panel model with unobserved fixed effects without having to identify additional parameters that determine skewness of inefficiency. On the one hand, the parameters can be estimated via integrating out nuisance parameters by means of marginal maximum likelihood. On the other hand, we propose an approximation based on closed skew normal distributions, which turns out to be sufficiently accurate for maximum likelihood estimation. Simulations assess the finite sample performance of estimators and show that all model parameters and efficiency scores can be estimated consistently regardless of positive or negative inefficiency skewness. An empirical analysis to unravel inefficiencies in the German healthcare system demonstrates the practical relevance of the model.C23;D24;I11;I1
The state of robo-advisory design: A systematic consolidation of design requirements and recommendations
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Although robo-advisors offer potential benefits for enhancing investment decisions, financial decision-makers remain reluctant to utilize advice from robo-advisors, a form of artificial intelligence designed to convey newfound investment insights in a particularly intuitive way. To increase robo-advice utilization, numerous scholars have investigated various facets and design features aimed at making robo-advisors more appealing to investors. However, these proposed designs often focus only on specific aspects and are spread across various technological and domain contexts. Despite some overlapping ideas, there is little consistency between them. This has led to incoherent notions of what constitutes effective financial robo-advisor design among scholars and practitioners. To address this gap, we conduct a systematic literature review to synthesize existing knowledge. Based on 14 years of research, our study identifies six categories of design requirements and eight categories of design recommendations for robo-advisory. Our structured juxtaposition and synthesis of prevalent robo-advisor requirements and recommendations facilitate holistic research and practical implementations for viable financial robo-advisory systems
Optimierung der Mensch-Roboter-Kollaboration durch prognostizierbare Bewegungen und anthropomorphe Bahnführung: Zwei experimentelle Studien zur Interaktionssicherheit und Benutzererfahrung
No full textZusammenfassung
Dieser Artikel präsentiert zwei unabhängige empirische Studien zur Optimierung der Sicherheit und Benutzererfahrung in der Mensch-Roboter-Kollaboration (MRK). In der ersten Studie wird untersucht, wie sich anthropomorphe, durch die Nutzer selbst programmierte Bewegungsbahnen auf das Vertrauen, das Verhalten und die Wahrnehmung der Interaktion auswirken. Die Ergebnisse zeigen eine signifikant höhere Vertrauensbewertung und ein stabileres Distanzverhalten im Vergleich zu klassischen Point-to-Point-Trajektorien. In der zweiten Studie steht die Prognosefähigkeit verschiedener standardisierter Bewegungsformen im Vordergrund. Hierzu wurden Eyetracking- und SAGAT-Daten erhoben, die belegen, dass linear und kreisförmig verlaufende Bahnen zu höherem Situationsbewusstsein führen als nicht vorhersehbare Point-to-Point-Bewegungen. Beide Studien zeigen komplementär, wie wichtig vorhersagbare, menschenähnliche Bewegungsformen und partizipative Systemgestaltung für eine sichere und akzeptierte MRK sind. Die Ergebnisse liefern praxisnahe Implikationen für die Gestaltung und Programmierung kooperativer Robotersysteme. Praktische Relevanz : Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass vorhersagbare, anthropomorphe Bewegungsbahnen das Vertrauen, die Sicherheit und das Situationsbewusstsein in der Mensch-Roboter-Kollaboration deutlich erhöhen. Durch gezielte Gestaltung der Bewegungsprofile und partizipative Programmieransätze lassen sich Akzeptanz und Effizienz kollaborativer Robotersysteme in der industriellen Praxis verbessern. Die Befunde liefern konkrete Ansatzpunkte für die ergonomische und psychologische Optimierung zukünftiger MRK-Arbeitsplätze. @This article presents two independent empirical studies aimed to optimize safety and user experience in human-robot collaboration (HRC). The first study examines how anthropomorphic motion trajectories, programmed by users themselves, influence trust, behavior, and the perception of interaction. The results show significantly higher trust ratings and more stable distance behavior compared to conventional point-to-point trajectories. The second study focuses on the predictability of different standardized motion trajectories. Eye-tracking and SAGAT data demonstrate that linear and circular trajectories lead to higher situation awareness than unpredictable point-to-point movements. Together, the two studies highlight the importance of predictable, human-like motion patterns and participatory system design for safe and accepted human-robot collaboration. The findings provide practical implications for the design and programming of collaborative robotic systems. Practical Relevance : The results show that predictable, anthropomorphic motion trajectories significantly enhance trust, safety, and situation awareness in human-robot collaboration. By deliberately designing motion profiles and incorporating participatory programming approaches, the acceptance and efficiency of collaborative robotic systems in industrial practice can be improved. The findings provide concrete guidance for the ergonomic and psychological optimization of future HRC workplaces
Coevolution of stock prices and their perceived fundamental value
No full textAbstract
We develop a simple nonlinear stock market model in which speculators switch between technical and fundamental trading rules depending on market conditions. Additionally, we assume that agents are unaware of the true current fundamental value and, thus, use a weighted average of the current price and the known long-run fundamental value as an estimate of the fundamental price. Using analytical and numerical methods, we demonstrate that an increase in the reaction parameter of technical traders may cause boom-bust dynamics. Moreover, we show that a heightened belief among agents that the fundamental value is more sensitive to deviations of the current price from its long-run fundamental value can cause the price to become trapped above or below this long-run value, oscillate within a higher price range, and prolong the duration of a bubble. In two model extensions, we assume that agents compute the current fundamental value based on the deviation between the average price and the known long-run fundamental value, using a moving average of the past k prices and an exponential moving average, respectively. These robustness checks show that, in these cases, price and perceived fundamental value fluctuate less statically around the long-run fundamental value.C62;D84;G10;G4