Clinic administrator Dana Schniederjans wants you to forecast patient numbers at the clinic for week $7$ by using this data. You decide to use a average method to find this forecast. Your method uses four actual demand levels, with weights of $0\mathrm{.}500$ on the present period, $0\mathrm{.}250$ one perio periods ago, and $0\mathrm{.}125$ three periods ago.

a$)$ What is the value of your forecast?

The value of the forecast is patients $($round your response to two decimal places$).$

b$)$ If instead the weights were $40,20,10,$ and $10,$ respectively, how would the forecast change?

A$.$ The value of the forecast will decrease.

B$.$ The value of the forecast will increase.

C$.$ The value of the forecast will remain the same.