Deferred Annuities and Strategic Asset Allocation

We derive the optimal portfolio choice and consumption pattern over the lifecycle for households facing labor income, capital market, and mortality risk. In addition to stocks and bonds, households also have access to deferred annuities. Deferred annuities offer a hedge against mortality risk and provide similar benefits as Social Security. We show that a considerable fraction of wealth should be annuitized to skim the return enhancing mortality credit. The remaining liquid wealth (stocks and bonds) is used to hedge labor income risk during work life and to earn the equity premium. We find a marginal difference between a strategy involving deferred annuities and one where the investor can purchase immediate life annuities.

Fault tree safety analysis of a large Li/SOCl(sub)2 spacecraft battery

The results of the safety fault tree analysis on the eight module, 576 F cell Li/SOCl2 battery on the spacecraft and in the integration and test environment prior to launch on the ground are presented. The analysis showed that with the right combination of blocking diodes, electrical fuses, thermal fuses, thermal switches, cell balance, cell vents, and battery module vents the probability of a single cell or a 72 cell module exploding can be reduced to .000001, essentially the probability due to explosion for unexplained reasons

Time is money: life cycle rational inertia and delegation of investment management : [Version November 2013]

We investigate the theoretical impact of including two empirically-grounded insights in a dynamic life cycle portfolio choice model. The first is to recognize that, when managing their own financial wealth, investors incur opportunity costs in terms of current and future human capital accumulation, particularly if human capital is acquired via learning by doing. The second is that we incorporate age-varying efficiency patterns in financial decisionmaking. Both enhancements produce inactivity in portfolio adjustment patterns consistent with empirical evidence. We also analyze individuals’ optimal choice between self-managing their wealth versus delegating the task to a financial advisor. Delegation proves most valuable to the young and the old. Our calibrated model quantifies welfare gains from including investment time and money costs, as well as delegation, in a life cycle setting

A Tale of Two Trusts: The Barnes Foundation and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

This paper examines the law of charitable trusts and donor intent through a comparison of two museums: the Barnes Foundation and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. This paper first analyzes the framework of the Barnes trust and the Gardner trust and explores the various limitations each donor placed upon their trust instruments, including the similar restriction that, after their deaths, their art could never be moved from where they placed it in their respective galleries. The paper then compares and contrasts the Gardner trust with the Barnes trust and discusses how, given their initial similarities, the Gardner Museum has received great success, whereby the Barnes Foundation is currently facing bankruptcy. The paper’s discussion particularly focuses on the recent controversial decision of a Pennsylvania court to allow the Barnes collection to be moved from its current location in the suburbs of Philadelphia, to a new building downtown in an effort to forestall bankruptcy. In conclusion, this paper argues that where Barnes’s excessive use of dead hand control ironically failed to ensure that his wishes for the Foundation were respected in perpetuity, the flexibility of the Gardner trust is what led to its ultimate success

Draw, Write, Speak, Play: The Role of Projection in Diagnosis and Therapy of Children and Adolescents

In this chapter, I will (1) review the concept and function of projective mechanisms on a psychodynamic basis. In this section, I will outline the relation of projection to the unconscious, its use in innerpsychic dynamics, and the underlying mechanisms for its use in psychotherapy like creativity, imagination, and symbolization; (2) give an overview over the use of projective methods for testing and diagnosis in the psychological sciences; and (3) exemplify the use of projective methods in diagnostics and psychotherapy of children and adolescents. I will present current methods based on drawing, verbally describing and imaginating, and playing arts, focusing on sand play therapy and miniature figure play

Ruby Beets

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Diallo, Amadou?Kosovo? Hears Voices Telling Him What to Say?

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Pitfalls in drug testing by hyphenated low- and high-resolution mass spectrometry

This paper reviews various pitfalls observed during developing, validation, application, and interpretation of drug testing approaches using GC-MS and low- and high-resolution LC-MS. They include sampling and storage of body samples, sample adulteration and contamination, analyte stability, sample preparation without or with cleavage of conjugates, extraction, derivatization, internal standardization, false negative and positive results by GC-MS or LC-MS screening and/or confirmation procedures including artifact formation, ion suppression or enhancement by electrospray ionization, and finally pitfalls in data interpretation. Conclusions and prospects close the Tutorial