Pensions auto-enrolment:Unintended consequences of regulation and private law remedies

The introduction of auto-enrolment (AE) into workplace pensions in 2012 requires employers to enrol workers into a pension. Employers have significant discretion in this process and rely on the financial services industry to ensure compliance with AE minimum standards. Employers may not always have pension expertise and will engage pension providers for advice on establishing compliant pension arrangements or modifying existing schemes to use for AE. Whilst this policy benefits many, there are a number of negative consequences flowing from the introduction of AE. Examples include employers choosing poorly performing schemes, insufficient protection of free choice and poor default positions replacing active decision making, all of which result in poor value for some employees. The parties' interests may not always be aligned. Despite the minimum criteria, there can be significant variations between fund costs and scheme quality as private sector pensions are frequently used for compliance. Whilst the ability of employees to opt-out provides legitimacy for the regime, the form of implementation and use of defaults erodes the exercise of choice and there are no provisions to encourage engagement and active decision-making by individuals. In addition to this, inadequate advice impacts on the effects of AE for many. For some this means that they pay in less overall than they would have if they had voluntarily chosen to contribute to a plan. This article explores whether further statutory change to the AE regime is required or whether existing private law remedies, with a focus on Scots law, afford sufficient remedies for those suffering loss. If fiduciary, agency, contractual or delictual obligations arise from the AE relationship then this may provide adequate remedies. This article will consider whether fiduciary duties are owed to employees, particularly by the employer (as an agent) to the employee, and the extent of duties owed under the contract of employment

Oxygen 1s x-ray-absorption near-edge structure of Zn-Ni ferrites : a comparison with the theoretical calculations

[[abstract]]We present the electronic structure of ferrimagnetic ZnxNi1-xFe2O4 compounds obtained by a combination of O K-edge x-ray-absorption measurements and first-principles spin-unrestricted calculations using the pseudofunction method. The two distinct preedge features are found to vary systematically as a function of the Zn content. From both experimental and theoretical analyses, we find that substitution of Ni with Zn enhances localization of the 3d states of Fe on the octahedral sites, so that the O 2p–Fe 3d hybridized states can be resolved into two distinct twofold and threefold features.[[incitationindex]]SCI[[booktype]]紙本[[booktype]]電子

The effects of microwave oven over the IEEE 802.11 FHSS wireless LAN card

[[abstract]]We have investigated the effects of microwave ovens over the IEEE 802.11 FHSS wireless LAN card. The measured MAC frame error rate (FER) is affected by the microwave ovens. The signal spectrum radiated from the microwave oven can be used to verify the measured FER data. The performance of the specific bands assigned to some geographic locations in the IEEE 802.11 standard have been discussed in the paper. From these measurement results we can obtain that the performance of some channels within the IEEE 802.11 FHSS wireless LAN card can be seriously deteriorated. Therefore, the location of the microwave oven and the specific channels for the wireless LAN card should be pre-determined according to the experience guideline.[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]19991018~19991022[[booktype]]紙本[[conferencelocation]]Beijing, Chin

On Providing Temporal Full-Coverage by Applying Energy-Efficient Hole-Movement Strategies for Mobile WSNs

[[abstract]]This paper considers a mobile WSN that contains a big hole but there exists no redundant mobile sensor to heal the hole. To achieve the temporal full-coverage purpose or enhance the tracking quality, three distributed algorithms are proposed for moving the existing big coverage hole to a predefined location. Firstly, the sink chooses a promising direction for hole-movement. Then the basic, forward-only and any-direction movement mechanisms are proposed to move the hole along the promising direction in a manner of minimizing the total power consumption or balancing the energy consumption of the given WSN. Simulation results reveal that the proposed hole-movement mechanisms enhance the coverage of WSN and balance the energy consumption of mobile sensor nodes.[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20070311~20070315[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Kowloon, Hong Kon

The Highly Lose Image Inpainting Method Based on Human Vision

[[abstract]]Currently, noise interference and data loss are two major problems that affect the processing results of image data transmission and storage. In order to restore damaged image data effectively, we propose a novel image inpainting technique based on wavelet transformation. The primary feature of our proposed technique is to separate the given image into two principal components which encompass image texture and color respectively. Then, according to the distinctive qualities of the given image, various image inpainting methods are adopted to perform image repair. By taking advantage of the separation of an image into its individual frequency components, we use the multi-resolution characteristics of wavelet transform, from the lowest spatial-frequency layer to the higher one, to analyze the image from global-area to local-area progressively. In order to substantiate the effectiveness of our proposed image inpainting method, we employed various images subject to high noise interference and/or extensive data loss or distortion. The experimental results were perfect, even if the distortion portions of the repaired images were higher than 90%[[notice]]補正完畢[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20060901~20060901[[conferencelocation]]Beijing, Chin

A Two-Leve Approach to Establishing a Marketing Strategy in the Electronic Marketplace

[[abstract]]This study concerns an analysis of what kinds of products are more suitable for distribution via the Internet than via traditional markets. The purpose of the analysis is to identify and fit marketing strategy to product in the virtual marketplace. The amount of product information needed by the consumer to reach a purchasing decision varies with the degree of consumer involvement with the purchase. We conjecture that two major factors affect the consumer's disposition toward online shopping: (1) the purchase involvement on the part of consumer, and (2) product information exposure provided by the Web. Therefore, in the virtual market products may be grouped into four categories. The implication of this is that online marketing functions at two levels. (1) Level-1: PNF (primitive network function), which is derived from the primitive network characteristics associated with the product's attributes fitting with the consumer's involvement. (2) Level-2: ANF (advanced network function), which is the marketing communication created by the virtual store to meet the demands of consumers purchasing online.[[notice]]補正完畢[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20010103~20010106[[booktype]]紙本[[conferencelocation]]Hawaii, US

OFRD:Obstacle-Free Robot Deployment Algorithms for Wireless Sensor Networks

[[abstract]]Node deployment is an important issue in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Sensor nodes should be efficiently deployed in a predetermined region in a low cost and high coverage quality manner. Random deployment is the simplest way for deploying sensor nodes but may cause the unbalanced deployment and therefore increase the hardware cost. This paper presents an efficient obstacle-free robot deployment algorithm, called OFRD which involves the design of node placement policy, snake-like movement policy, and obstacle handling rules. By applying the proposed OFRD, the robot rapidly deploys near-minimal number of sensor nodes to achieve full sensing coverage even though there exist unpredicted obstacles. Performance results reveal that OFRD outperforms the existing robot deployment mechanism in terms of power conservation and obstacle resistance, and, therefore achieves a better deployment performance.[[incitationindex]]Y[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20070311~20070315[[conferencelocation]]Kowloon, Hong Kon

Historical and Trans-cultural Meaning: The Study of Translations in Taiwan during Japanese Colonial Period

[[abstract]]There were many translators in colonial Taiwan. It is true that the translators, including those who engaged in document translations and oral translations, were ‘bridges which connected different languages (Xu 2006)’ in the colony. As long as the languages of the colonizers and the colonized were totally different or different enough not to be understandable to each other, translations were necessary. It is not appropriate, however, to assume that the translators could guarantee stable and clear communications between the colonizers and colonized all the time. Translation is not ‘an isolated activity carried out independently of the power struggles within and among societies (Delisle & Woodsworth 2012).’ Translators can never escape from the historical and cultural contexts in which they live and work. The description of translators and their works must not fall into politically-neutral narratives. To simply describe their works as something indispensable for the colonial power, however, does not guarantee a sufficient treatment for us to fully understand their roles. What this paper would like to gaze into is the translators themselves, that is, the subjectivity of the translators. Two main topics shall be discussed in the paper to illustrate the historical and trans-cultural implications of the translators; multi-layeredness of the linguistic situation in colonial Taiwan and the trans-border characteristics of the translators. This paper mainly deals with the period from the commencement of the rule to around the middle of the 1900s; what I call ‘the systemization of the translators’ seems to have been completed about ten years after the islands came under Japanese rule.[[sponsorship]]North American Taiwan Studies Association[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20140620~20140621[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Madison, WI, US

Grey Decision-making for a Billiard Robot

[[abstract]]Billiard is one of the most complex games to play in the real world. A player needs to visualize the situation between balls and pockets and to score the ball into the designate pocket by his/her own experience. A billiard robot is developed to imitate the behavior of human beings to play billiard. There are machine vision, decision-making, control and actuating subsystems in the experiment setup. The objective of this paper is to design a decision algorithm for a billiard robot by using grey theory. The results indicate that the decision algorithm work very well in both the simulation and experiment.[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20041010~20041013[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Hague, Netherland

ENISLE: an intuitive heuristic nearly optimal solution for mincut and ratio mincut partitioning

[[abstract]]Mincut partitioning is to minimize the total cuts of the edges by the partitioning of nodes into two sets. The proposed method, Edge-Node Interleaved Sort for Leaching and Envelop (ENISLE) algorithm, not only uses node information but also uses edge information. It is simple, but works effectively, and has never appeared in any earlier literature. It can soon obtain an intuitive heuristic nearly optimal solution for mincut and ratio mincut partitioning and, at the same time, is very suitable for EDA usage.[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencedate]]20010506~20010509[[booktype]]紙本[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Syndey, NSW, Australi