Property and Casualty Solvency Funds as a Tax and Social Insurance System

When a Property and Casualty (P&C) insurance company becomes insolvent, solvent insurance companies are forced to pay assessments (a form of taxation) to state guarantee funds ('solvency funds') in order to protect the policyholders of the failed companies. We produce estimates of the costs to the guarantee funds of resolving P&C insurance company insolvencies. We find that the total net costs (payments by the fund less recoveries by the fund) of resolving insolvencies are remarkably high. We estimate that the mean ratio of net costs to assets is approximately one, implying that insolvent companies have liabilities that are roughly twice as large as assets when they fail. Our cost estimate for resolving insurance company insolvencies is roughly three times higher than similar estimates for banks. We also find that the ratio of net costs to assets tends to be higher for small firms, poorly capitalized firms, firms writing significant premiums in long tail lines, and firms that fail because of disasters. Our findings also indicate that the resolution of insolvencies is typically quick. More than 60 percent of all costs to the fund for a given insolvency occur within two years, and more than three-quarters of total costs occur within three years. However, we find that firms with a high proportion of premiums in long tail lines take much longer to resolve.

A Simple Quantum Model of Ultracold Polar Molecule Collisions

We present a unified formalism for describing chemical reaction rates of trapped, ultracold molecules. This formalism reduces the scattering to its essential features, namely, a propagation of the reactant molecules through a gauntlet of long-range forces before they ultimately encounter one another, followed by a probability for the reaction to occur once they do. In this way, the electric-field dependence should be readily parametrized in terms of a pair of fitting parameters (along with a $C_6$ coefficient) for each asymptotic value of partial wave quantum numbers $|L,M \rangle$. From this, the electric field dependence of the collision rates follows automatically. We present examples for reactive species such as KRb, and non-reactive species, such as RbCs

A Technique for Measuring Rotocraft Dynamic Stability in the 40 by 80 Foot Wind Tunnel

An on-line technique is described for the measurement of tilt rotor aircraft dynamic stability in the Ames 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel. The technique is based on advanced system identification methodology and uses the instrumental variables approach. It is particulary applicable to real time estimation problems with limited amounts of noise-contaminated data. Several simulations are used to evaluate the algorithm. Estimated natural frequencies and damping ratios are compared with simulation values. The algorithm is also applied to wind tunnel data in an off-line mode. The results are used to develop preliminary guidelines for effective use of the algorithm

p-wave Feshbach molecules

We have produced and detected molecules using a p-wave Feshbach resonance between 40K atoms. We have measured the binding energy and lifetime for these molecules and we find that the binding energy scales approximately linearly with magnetic field near the resonance. The lifetime of bound p-wave molecules is measured to be 1.0 +/- 0.1 ms and 2.3 +/- 0.2 ms for the m_l = +/- 1 and m_l = 0 angular momentum projections, respectively. At magnetic fields above the resonance, we detect quasi-bound molecules whose lifetime is set by the tunneling rate through the centrifugal barrier

Investigation of the aerodynamic characteristics and wing-deployment transients of the NASA DL-4 body with a sailwing landing aid Final report

Aerodynamic characteristics and wing deployment transients of NASA DL-4 lifting body fitted with sailwing landing ai

Universal resonant ultracold molecular scattering

The elastic scattering amplitudes of indistinguishable, bosonic, strongly-polar molecules possess universal properties at the coldest temperatures due to wave propagation in the long-range dipole-dipole field. Universal scattering cross sections and anisotropic threshold angular distributions, independent of molecular species, result from careful tuning of the dipole moment with an applied electric field. Three distinct families of threshold resonances also occur for specific field strengths, and can be both qualitatively and quantitatively predicted using elementary adiabatic and semi-classical techniques. The temperatures and densities of heteronuclear molecular gases required to observe these univeral characteristics are predicted. PACS numbers: 34.50.Cx, 31.15.ap, 33.15.-e, 34.20.-bComment: 4 pages, 5 figure