1,205 research outputs found
Financing the embedded value of life insurance portfolios
In May 2004 the CFO Forum harmonized the various efforts of reporting the embedded valueof life insurance companies by issuing the European Embedded Value (EEV) Principles.In this working paper a methodology is proposed to derive a maximum lending amountfrom EEV figures without much additional data requirements from the originating insurer. The approach chosen is similar to that of other financing areas, e.g. real estate finance, where first a prudent best estimate valuation is done and later risk deductions are performed in the form of applying loan to value ratios, e.g. 60-80 % of the prudent amount. Here, this prudent value is called bankable embedded value and the loan to value analysis presented leads to the maximum lending amount. The deductions proposed to arrive at a maximum lending amount are based on parameter adjustments and risk allowances for unexpected risks. There is an analogy with insurers for determining their own capital needs. The methodology proposed is based on the stress test approach which increasingly gains popularity with insurance supervisors in Europe. --European embedded value,embedded value,life insurance policies,maximum lending amount,required capital,risk analysis,risk discount rate,value reporting and analysis,value sensitivity analysis
Shape-memory polymers as flexible resonator substrates for continuously tunable organic DFB lasers
We introduce shape-memory polymers (SMP) as substrate material for active optical devices. As an exemplary application we build a tunable organic semiconductor distributed feedback (DFB) laser. Hence, we transfer a second order Bragg grating with a period of 400 nm into SMP foils by hot embossing. The composite organic gain medium Alq3:DCM evaporated on the SMP substrate serves as laser active material. Mechanical stretching of the substrate increases the grating period temporarily and triggering the shape-memory effect afterwards reduces the period on demand. In this way, we can adjust the grating period to achieve a broad continuously tuning of the laser emission wavelength by 30 nm
Crowd behaviour during high-stress evacuations in an immersive virtual environment
Understanding the collective dynamics of crowd movements during stressful
emergency situations is central to reducing the risk of deadly crowd disasters.
Yet, their systematic experimental study remains a challenging open problem due
to ethical and methodological constraints. In this paper, we demonstrate the
viability of shared 3D virtual environments as an experimental platform for
conducting crowd experiments with real people. In particular, we show that
crowds of real human subjects moving and interacting in an immersive 3D virtual
environment exhibit typical patterns of real crowds as observed in real-life
crowded situations. These include the manifestation of social conventions and
the emergence of self-organized patterns during egress scenarios. High-stress
evacuation experiments conducted in this virtual environment reveal movements
characterized by mass herding and dangerous overcrowding as they occur in crowd
disasters. We describe the behavioral mechanisms at play under such extreme
conditions and identify critical zones where overcrowding may occur.
Furthermore, we show that herding spontaneously emerges from a density effect
without the need to assume an increase of the individual tendency to imitate
peers. Our experiments reveal the promise of immersive virtual environments as
an ethical, cost-efficient, yet accurate platform for exploring crowd behaviour
in high-risk situations with real human subjects.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure
Thermal effects on atomic friction
We model friction acting on the tip of an atomic force microscope as it is
dragged across a surface at non-zero temperatures. We find that stick-slip
motion occurs and that the average frictional force follows ,
where is the tip velocity. This compares well to recent experimental work
(Gnecco et al, PRL 84, 1172), permitting the quantitative extraction of all
microscopic parameters. We calculate the scaled form of the average frictional
force's dependence on both temperature and tip speed as well as the form of the
friction-force distribution function.Comment: Accepted for publication, Physical Review Letter
You can't see what you can't see: Experimental evidence for how much relevant information may be missed due to Google's Web search personalisation
The influence of Web search personalisation on professional knowledge work is
an understudied area. Here we investigate how public sector officials
self-assess their dependency on the Google Web search engine, whether they are
aware of the potential impact of algorithmic biases on their ability to
retrieve all relevant information, and how much relevant information may
actually be missed due to Web search personalisation. We find that the majority
of participants in our experimental study are neither aware that there is a
potential problem nor do they have a strategy to mitigate the risk of missing
relevant information when performing online searches. Most significantly, we
provide empirical evidence that up to 20% of relevant information may be missed
due to Web search personalisation. This work has significant implications for
Web research by public sector professionals, who should be provided with
training about the potential algorithmic biases that may affect their judgments
and decision making, as well as clear guidelines how to minimise the risk of
missing relevant information.Comment: paper submitted to the 11th Intl. Conf. on Social Informatics;
revision corrects error in interpretation of parameter Psi/p in RBO resulting
from discrepancy between the documentation of the implementation in R
(https://rdrr.io/bioc/gespeR/man/rbo.html) and the original definition
(https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1852106) as per 20/05/201
Мобильное приложение для организации проектной деятельности студента
Объектом исследования является процесс организации проектной деятельности студента.
Цель работы – проектирование и разработка мобильного приложения для организации проектной деятельности студента.
В результате разработано мобильное приложение для организации проектной деятельности студента со следующим функционалом: учет выполняемых проектов, учет посещаемости консультаций проектного обучения, учет и контроль выполнения оперативных задач проекта, анализ исполнительской дисциплины.The object of research is the process of organizing student project activities.
The purpose of the work is the design and development of a mobile application for the organization of student project activities.
As a result, a mobile application was developed for organizing a student’s project activity with the following functionalities: accounting for ongoing projects, accounting for attendance of project training consultations, accounting for and monitoring the implementation of operational tasks of the project, analysis of performing discipline
The Esophageal Anastomosis: How Improving Blood Supply Affects Leak Rate
Esophageal leak. Anastomosis. VEGF. Delay phenomenon surgical preparation of the conduit in order to reduce morbidity and optimize patient outcomes
Interaction imaging with amplitude-dependence force spectroscopy
Knowledge of surface forces is the key to understanding a large number of
processes in fields ranging from physics to material science and biology. The
most common method to study surfaces is dynamic atomic force microscopy (AFM).
Dynamic AFM has been enormously successful in imaging surface topography, even
to atomic resolution, but the force between the AFM tip and the surface remains
unknown during imaging. Here, we present a new approach that combines high
accuracy force measurements and high resolution scanning. The method, called
amplitude-dependence force spectroscopy (ADFS) is based on the
amplitude-dependence of the cantilever's response near resonance and allows for
separate determination of both conservative and dissipative tip-surface
interactions. We use ADFS to quantitatively study and map the nano-mechanical
interaction between the AFM tip and heterogeneous polymer surfaces. ADFS is
compatible with commercial atomic force microscopes and we anticipate its
wide-spread use in taking AFM toward quantitative microscopy
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