Introduction des placements alternatifs dans l'allocation d'actifs des caisses de pension: une solution pour contrer les taux bas

Les rendements faibles des placements traditionnels poussent les institutions de prévoyance à remettre leur allocation d'actifs en question. Elles se doivent de continuer à assurer leurs engagements vis-à-vis de leurs assurés et pour cela, se tournent de plus en plus vers les placements alternatifs. Mon travail cherche à savoir si ces placements dits non traditionnels sont adaptés pour les différentes formes de caisses de pension et comment celles-ci peuvent-elles les inclure dans leurs allocations d'actifs. En quête de rendement à long terme, une caisse de pension doit se rendre compte que tous les placements ne sont pas adaptés à sa situation financière et à sa stratégie opérationnelle. Ma recherche consiste donc à analyser les différentes formes de placements alternatifs potentiellement intéressantes pour ces institutions. Certaines sont déjà bien utilisées dans les allocations d'actifs, d'autres moins. Une analyse de différentes caisses de pension suisses est ensuite proposée afin de comprendre les différents cas de placements alternatifs utilisés. Quelle typologie de caisse peut se permettre de prendre plus de risque ? En comparant 10 institutions différentes, nous souhaitons comprendre leurs allocations d'actifs et qu'est-ce que les placements alternatifs leurs ont apporté. Est-il possible de mettre en relation leurs performances passées avec leur taux d'utilisation de placements non traditionnels ? Ces analyses permettront également de faire ressortir les différentes lois et réglementations légales que les institutions de prévoyance doivent respecter. Quelles risques peuvent-elles prendre avec la prévoyance de leurs assurés ? Finalement, quelles recommandations peut-on faire à une caisse de pension qui souhaite obtenir un meilleur rendement de ses placements ? Les placements alternatifs ne sont pas le remède miracle du manque de rendement mais peuvent contribuer au bien-être des institutions de prévoyance à long terme

Driving economic growth with the power of small businesses : the University of Stellenbosch Business School’s Small Business Academy

The University of Stellenbosch Business School, known as SBS, forms a part of the University of Stellenbosch, a leading global research university. Located in the suburbs of Cape Town, South Africa, SBS offers postgraduate-level academic and executive programmes in Business Management and Administration, Development Finance, and Futures Studies to students from all over the globe. The Small Business Academy, a project of the University of Stellenbosch Business School (SBS), is a multi-stakeholder educational initiative that upskills and uplifts South African small-business owners in low-income communities to capacitate them for long-term business success. The chapter highlights the Small Business Academy (SBA) and how it serves as a development vehicle for economic growth and decent work as set forth in Sustainable Development Goal 8, within a country where the informal sector and small businesses are in desperate need of capacity building interventions. Key stages of the SBA's development will be conveyed: how the project began, how its target population was determined, and ways in which its development programme was adapted to better serve its participants and stakeholders, including the addition of coaching and mentoring as a key enabler for participant progress. Relevant lessons learned and success factors for implementing learning interventions in complex environments are shared, particularly the importance of programmatic agility and the holistic benefits of directly engaging stakeholders in the program. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the project’s impacts and contributions toward SDG 8

Can Ancient and Modern Stressors be Distinguished? A Mixed-Methods Exploration of Psychosocial Characteristics and Health Symptoms in Young and Older Adults.

A novel conceptualisation of stress includes a distinction between ancient (AS) and modern stressors (MS); the notion that established adaptive psychophysiological coping processes may enable individuals to better withstand AS than MS. Two consecutive mixed-methods studies assessed the feasibility of distinguishing between AS and MS in young and older adults, using questionnaires and interviews. MS were positively associated with cold symptoms in older adults; and five psychosocial characteristics were identified to profile AS and MS along a continuum. An evolutionary distinction between AS and MS provides an important psychological dimension in better understanding and assessing stress-health processes

Hands-on Learning for Freshman Engineering Students

Formal library orientation sessions for freshman engineering students have been offered for more than seven years by librarians in the Engineering and Physical Sciences Library (EPSL), University of Maryland. Approximately 800 students per year attend these sessions. The sessions are conducted in the library and are required by all students enrolled in ENES 100 (Introduction to Engineering Design). In the spring of 2001 the orientation sessions were reformatted based on comments contained in short surveys completed by students at the end of each session. The format was changed from completely lecture-based to a more interactive session entitled "EPSL Expedition." In addition, during this same semester, librarians volunteered to rewrite and update the chapter on "Library Research Skills" for the course textbook, Introduction to Engineering Design by James W. Dally. This paper will attempt to answer the following question: Do freshman engineering students learn and retain more information through an "interactive" orientation session than they do from a "lecture" based session

Fuller Farmstead: Reuse & Rehabilitation Feasibility Report

A new atrium has been proposed to accommodate the needs of the Barnstable Land Trusts proposed programs. The atrium would provide a well defined, ADA accessible entrance to the building. Design of the new atrium would apply to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for new exterior additions to historic properties. It is recommended that the atrium be constructed on the west façade, after the demolition of 2/3 of the southwest ells

Impacts of Changes to County Educator Position Descriptions on Gender and Educational Diversity

For the purposes of more accurately reflecting job duties and increasing diversity, Ohio county agriculture and natural resources educator position descriptions were changed in 2013 to include natural resources as an educational qualification. We examined applicant and hiring data from 3 years before and 3 years after the position description change. Results indicate that the numbers of women applicants and applicants with natural resources degrees increased following the position description change. However, although the percentage of hires with natural resources backgrounds increased, the percentage of female hires decreased sharply. Factors influencing the hiring of county agriculture and natural resources educators need to be examined

Hospital-Based Physicians\u27 Intubation Decisions and Associated Mental Models when Managing a Critically and Terminally Ill Older Patient.

BACKGROUND: Variation in the intensity of acute care treatment at the end of life is influenced more strongly by hospital and provider characteristics than patient preferences. OBJECTIVE: We sought to describe physicians\u27 mental models (i.e., thought processes) when encountering a simulated critically and terminally ill older patient, and to compare those models based on whether their treatment plan was patient preference-concordant or preference-discordant. METHODS: Seventy-three hospital-based physicians from 3 academic medical centers engaged in a simulated patient encounter and completed a mental model interview while watching the video recording of their encounter. We used an expert model to code the interviews. We then used Kruskal-Wallis tests to compare the weighted mental model themes of physicians who provided preference-concordant treatment with those who provided preference-discordant treatment. RESULTS: Sixty-six (90%) physicians provided preference-concordant treatment and 7 (10%) provided preference-discordant treatment (i.e., they intubated the patient). Physicians who intubated the patient were more likely to emphasize the reversible and emergent nature of the patient situation (z = -2.111, P = 0.035), their own comfort (z = -2.764, P = 0.006), and rarely focused on explicit patient preferences (z = 2.380, P = 0.017). LIMITATIONS: Post-decisional interviewing with audio/video prompting may induce hindsight bias. The expert model has not yet been validated and may not be exhaustive. The small sample size limits generalizability and power. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital-based physicians providing preference-discordant used a different mental model for decision making for a critically and terminally ill simulated case. These differences may offer targets for future interventions to promote preference-concordant care for seriously ill patients