Retirement Savings Portfolio Management

We assess the welfare implications of alternative retirement plan investment options given that households may not invest according to optimal portfolio choice theory but may instead use simple decision rules. We simulate the performance of lifestyle, lifecycle, and other simple strategies for allocating retirement savings. We find that if investors use simple rules of thumb to choose investments, then the impact of these strategies on welfare depend to a large extent on the choice set they are offered. If larger choice sets cause them to undertake more risk, then risk tolerant individuals may tend to be made better off. If larger choice sets cause them to reduce suboptimally low levels of portfolio risk, then the increased choice set may make them substantially worse off. The welfare effects of plan designs that induce lifecycle investing, which tends to be conservative over the lifetime, therefore depend crucially on the counterfactual portfolio composition, as well as preferences and non-retirement wealth.

MHC and Mate Choice in Anolis sagrei

The study of sexual selection saw its intrepid inception when Charles Darwin observed the earnest with which many male birds must court a female before she will, but often not, mate with him. His idea of the choosy female\u27 was a radical one in the Victorian era when women were regarded as the \u27passive sex. In the century and a half that followed, sexual selection driven by female choice is now widely accepted and strongly supported. Today, with emerging technologies, the nuances and complexities of sexual reproductive are finally coming to light. Female choice in two species is described here. First, the effect of familiarity was tested by allowing female sheepshead minnow, Cyprinodon variegatus to cohabit with a set of males, then replacing half of these males with new males. Spawnings with each individual male was recorded in both conditions. In the period in which females were with familiar and unfamiliar males, it was found that females spawned more with the familiar males. In the second species, the brown anole, Anolis sagrei, sexual selection was investigated using a combination of behavioral, molecular, and statistical techniques. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is a cluster of genes that encode receptors that are critical for adaptive immunity in jawed vertebrates. These genes have also been found to affect mate choice in many species, however, the genetic characterization of these genes is poor for non-avian reptiles. In order to examine the effect of the MHC on mate choice in the brown anole, a portion of this gene first needed to be described. As these data were gathered, courtship and mating behaviors were measured in the same animals. Using logistic regression to control for behavior, it was found in mating trials that females tended to mate with males that carried more genetic diversity

Information Cascades: Replication and an Extension to Majority Rule and Conformity Rewarding Institutions

In a randomly determined order, each agent was given an independent, private signal about which of two states was selected by a random draw. After receiving the private signal each agent made a publicly announced decision about the state. Thus, at the time of personal decision each agent had a private signal and also knew the decisions of all preceding agents. The experiments focused on three different types of organization. (1) Agents were rewarded according to whether their announced decision was right or wrong. This “individualistic institution" is the one studied by Anderson and Holt (AER, 1997). Their discovery of information cascades is replicated. (2) Agents were rewarded according to whether a majority of announced decisions were right or wrong. Under this “majority rule institution" the instance of information cascades is sharply reduced. (3) Agents are rewarded more according to whether their personal announced decision was the same as the majority decision than they were rewarded if their decision was correct. This "conformity rewarding institution" is motivated by proceedings in which there is incentive to produce reports that conform to the reports of others. Substantial information cascades are observed

Asking For Help: Survey and Experimental Evidence on Financial Advice and Behavior Change

When do individuals actually improve their financial behavior in response to advice? Using survey data from current defined contribution (DC) plan holders in the RAND American Life Panel (ALP), we find little correlation between normatively-desirable behaviors and advice. Results from a hypothetical portfolio-allocation choice experiment using the ALP show that unsolicited advice has no causal effect on investment behavior, yet individuals who actively solicit advice ultimately improve performance, despite negative selection on financial ability. While expanding access to advice can have positive effects (particularly for the less financially literate), more extensive compulsory programs of financial counseling may be less effective

Retirement Savings Portfolio Management.

We assess the welfare implications of alternative retirement plan investment options given that households may not invest according to optimal portfolio choice theory but may instead use simple decision rules. We simulate the performance of lifestyle, lifecycle, and other simple strategies for allocating retirement savings. We find that if investors use simple rules of thumb to choose investments, then the impact of these strategies on welfare depend to a large extent on the choice set they are offered. If larger choice sets cause them to undertake more risk, then risk tolerant individuals may tend to be made better off. If larger choice sets cause them to reduce suboptimally low levels of portfolio risk, then the increased choice set may make them substantially worse off. The welfare effects of plan designs that induce lifecycle investing, which tends to be conservative over the lifetime, therefore depend crucially on the counterfactual portfolio composition, as well as preferences and non-retirement wealth.Social Security Administrationhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/49384/1/wp138.pd

The Uses of a Dual-Band Corrugated Circularly Polarized Horn Antenna for 5G Systems

This paper presents the development of a wide-beam width, dual-band, omnidirectional antenna for the mm-wave band used in 5G communication systems for indoor coverage. The 5G indoor environment includes features of wide space and short range. Additionally, it needs to function well under a variety of circumstances in order to carry out its diverse set of network applications. The waveguide antenna has been designed to be small enough to meet the requirements of mm-wave band and utilizes a corrugated horn to produce a wide beam width. Additionally, it is small enough to integrate with 5G communication products and is easy to manufacture. This design is simple enough to have multi-feature antenna performance and is more useful for the femtocell repeater. The corrugated circularly polarized horn antenna has been designed for two frequency bands; namely, 26.5–30 GHz for the low band and 36–40 GHz for high band. The results of this study show that return-loss is better than 18 dB for both low and high band. The peak gain is 6.1 dBi for the low band and 8.7 dBi for the high band. The beam width is 105 degrees and 77 degrees for the low band and the high band, respectively. The axial ratio is less than 5.2 dB for both low and high band. Generally, traditional circularly polarized antennas cannot meet the requirements for broadband. The designs for the antennas proposed here can meet the requirements of FR2 bandwidths. This feature limits axial ratio performance. The measurement error in the current experiment comes from the high precision control on the size of the ridge

A Low-Power Passive UHF Tag With High-Precision Temperature Sensor for Human Body Application

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are widely used in various electronic devices due to their low cost, simple structure, and convenient data reading. This topic aims to study the key technologies of ultra-high frequency (UHF) RFID tags and high-precision temperature sensors, and how to reduce the power consumption of the temperature sensor and the overall circuits while maintaining minimal loss of performance. Combined with the biomedicine, an innovative high-precision human UHF RFID chip for body temperature monitoring is designed. In this study, a ring oscillator whose output frequency is linearly related to temperature is designed and proposed as a temperature-sensing circuit by innovatively combining auxiliary calibration technology. Then, a binary counter is used to count the pulses, and the temperature is ultimately calculated. This topic designed a relaxation oscillator independent of voltage and current. The various types of resistors were used to offset the temperature deviation. A current mirror array calibration circuit is used to calibrate the process corner deviation of the clock circuit with a self-calibration algorithm. This study mainly contributes to reducing power consumption and improving accuracy. The total power consumption of the RF/analog front-end and temperature sensor is 7.65µW. The measurement error of the temperature sensor in the range of 0 to 60◦C is less than ±0.1%, and the accuracy of the output frequency of the clock circuit is ±2.5%