5,708 research outputs found
The Impact of Surplus Distribution on the Risk Exposure of With Profit Life Insurance Policies Including Interest Rate Guarantees
This paper analyzes the numerical impact of different surplus distribution mechanisms on the risk exposure of a life insurance company selling with profit life insurance policies with a cliquet-style interest rate guarantee. Three representative companies are considered, each using a different type of surplus distribution: A mechanism, where the guaranteed interest rate also applies to surplus that has been credited in the past, a slightly less restrictive type in which a guaranteed rate of interest of 0% applies to past surplus, and a third mechanism that allows for the company to use former surplus in order to compensate for underperformance in “bad” years. Our study demonstrates that regulators should be very careful in deciding which design of a distribution mechanism is to be enforced. Within our model framework, a distribution mechanism of the third type yields preferable results with respect to the considered risk measure. In particular, throughout the analysis, our representative company 3 faces ceteris paribus a significantly lower shortfall risk than the other two companies. Requiring “strong” guarantees puts companies at a significant competitive disad¬vantage relative to insurers which are subject to regulation that only requires the third type of surplus distribution mechanism. This is particularly true, if annual minimum participation in the insurer’s investment returns is mandatory for long term contracts
EDUCATING, EVALUATING, ADVISING, AND ENTERTAINING - DIGITAL INFLUENCERS AND THEIR NARRATIVES
Organizations have been increasingly exploring storytelling as a valuable strategy to engage customers to increase their attention and retention. Social media platforms like Instagram have become essential tools for many brands to use storytelling through influencers. In this study, we explore the narratives constructed by digital influencers, as they play a crucial role in shaping their brand image and engagement with their audience. By analysing the narrative strategies used by digital influencers, we contribute to a deeper understanding of the role and impact of digital storytelling. We identify, illustrate, and discuss four narrative strategies: educating, evaluating, advising, and entertaining. Our study motivates further research to develop a detailed conceptual understanding of digital influencers and digital storytelling
The Impact of Surplus Distribution on the Risk Exposure of With Profit Life Insurance Policies Including Interest Rate Guarantees
This paper analyzes the numerical impact of different surplus distribution mechanisms on the risk exposure of a life insurance company selling with profit life insurance policies with a cliquet-style interest rate guarantee. Three representative companies are considered, each using a different type of surplus distribution: A mechanism, where the guaranteed interest rate also applies to surplus that has been credited in the past, a slightly less restrictive type in which a guaranteed rate of interest of 0% applies to past surplus, and a third mechanism that allows for the company to use former surplus in order to compensate for underperformance in “bad” years. Our study demonstrates that regulators should be very careful in deciding which design of a distribution mechanism is to be enforced. Within our model framework, a distribution mechanism of the third type yields preferable results with respect to the considered risk measure. In particular, throughout the analysis, our representative company 3 faces ceteris paribus a significantly lower shortfall risk than the other two companies. Requiring “strong” guarantees puts companies at a significant competitive disad¬vantage relative to insurers which are subject to regulation that only requires the third type of surplus distribution mechanism. This is particularly true, if annual minimum participation in the insurer’s investment returns is mandatory for long term contracts.life insurance; interest guarantees; surplus distribution
Applying Service Engineering Principles to TMN Systems
Recent work in distributed and telecommunication systems has become increasingly oriented towards applications in a global open market in telecommunications services, as the effects of liberalisation take hold. The areas of network and service management will be essential to competitiveness in this market, however the technologies and system development techniques widely used today (i.e. SNMP and CMIP) were conceived to address the needs of large corporate data networks and monolithic public telecommunication networks. How these technologies and techniques can be applied to management in an open market environment is not currently well defined. This paper describes some of the work of the RACE II PROJECT PREPARE in its application of ITU-T TMN recommendations to management solutions in an open services environment. In particular it describes the engineering approach taken to developing TMN systems in an attempt to tailor them to such an environment
Vacuum energy sequestering and conformal symmetry
In a series of recent papers Kaloper and Padilla proposed a mechanism to
sequester standard model vacuum contributions to the cosmological constant. We
study the consequences of embedding their proposal into a fully local quantum
theory. In the original work, the bare cosmological constant and a
scaling parameter are introduced as global fields. We find that in
the local case the resulting Lagrangian is that of a spontaneously broken
conformal field theory where plays the role of the dilaton. A
vanishing or a small cosmological constant is thus a consequence of the
underlying conformal field theory structure.Comment: Extended discussion on the conformal symmetry. Matches the published
versio
The Complexity of Finding Small Triangulations of Convex 3-Polytopes
The problem of finding a triangulation of a convex three-dimensional polytope
with few tetrahedra is proved to be NP-hard. We discuss other related
complexity results.Comment: 37 pages. An earlier version containing the sketch of the proof
appeared at the proceedings of SODA 200
Monitoring Three-Dimensional Packings in Microgravity
We present results from experiments with granular packings in three
dimensions in microgravity as realized on parabolic flights. Two different
techniques are employed to monitor the inside of the packings during
compaction: (1) X-ray radiography is used to measure in transmission the
integrated fluctuations of particle positions. (2) Stress-birefringence in
three dimensions is applied to visualize the stresses inside the packing. The
particle motions below the transition into an arrested packing are found to
produce a well agitated state. At the transition, the particles lose their
energy quite rapidly and form a stress network. With both methods, non-arrested
particles (rattlers) can be identified. In particular, it is found that
rattlers inside the arrested packing can be excited to appreciable dynamics by
the rest-accelerations (g-jitter) during a parabolic flight without destroying
the packings. At low rates of compaction, a regime of slow granular cooling is
identified. The slow cooling extends over several seconds, is described well by
a linear law, and terminates in a rapid final collapse of dynamics before
complete arrest of the packing.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
Spiral ground state in the quasi-two-dimensional spin-1/2 system Cu2GeO4
We apply density functional theory band structure calculations, the
coupled-cluster method, and exact diagonalization to investigate the
microscopic magnetic model of the spin-1/2 compound Cu2GeO4. The model is
quasi-two-dimensional, with uniform spin chains along one direction and
frustrated spin chains along the other direction. The coupling along the
uniform chains is antiferromagnetic, J 130 K. The couplings along the
frustrated chains are J1 -60 K and J2 80 K between nearest neighbors and
next-nearest neighbors, respectively. The ground state of the quantum model is
a spiral, with the reduced sublattice magnetization of 0.62 mu_B and the pitch
angle of 84 deg, both renormalized by quantum effects. The proposed spiral
ground state of Cu2GeO4 opens a way to magnetoelectric effects in this
compound.Comment: Extended version: 8 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Frustration and Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya anisotropy in the kagome francisites CuBi(SeOOX
We investigate the antiferromagnetic canting instability of the spin-1/2
kagome ferromagnet, as realized in the layered cuprates
CuBi(SeOOX (X=Br, Cl, and I). While the local canting can be
explained in terms of competing exchange interactions, the direction of the
ferrimagnetic order parameter fluctuates strongly even at short distances on
account of frustration which gives rise to an infinite ground state degeneracy
at the classical level. In analogy with the kagome antiferromagnet, the
accidental degeneracy is fully lifted only by non-linear 1/S corrections,
rendering the selected uniform canted phase very fragile even for spins-1/2, as
shown explicitly by coupled-cluster calculations. To account for the observed
ordering, we show that the minimal description of these systems must include
the microscopic Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interactions, which we obtain from
density-functional band-structure calculations. The model explains all
qualitative properties of the kagome francisites, including the detailed nature
of the ground state and the anisotropic response under a magnetic field. The
predicted magnon excitation spectrum and quantitative features of the
magnetization process call for further experimental investigations of these
compounds.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure
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