Genetic Screening and Price Discrimination in Insurance Markets

Basing insurance prices on the results of an imperfect screening test to identify risk types can reduce or increase aggregate discrimination across insureds. We present a powerful and general new framework of analysis to examine this issue, rawing upon recent work which uses decomposable inequality indices to measure vertical and horizontal inequity in taxation. We find that, whilst improved test performance inevitably reduces vertical discrimination (in the average prices faced by different risk types), even very accurate tests can lead to substantial horizontal discrimination (within risk types) and enhanced overall discrimination. These conclusions are shown to be robust to a range of different value judgements about how to aggregate individual discriminatory effects and to be particularly relevant to the case of genetic screeninginsurance, genetic information, discrimination

Adaptive Optics Simulations for Siding Spring

Using an observational derived model optical turbulence profile (model-OTP) we have investigated the performance of Adaptive Optics (AO) at Siding Spring Observatory (SSO), Australia. The simulations cover the performance for AO techniques of single conjugate adaptive optics (SCAO), multi-conjugate adaptive optics (MCAO) and ground-layer adaptive optics (GLAO). The simulation results presented in this paper predict the performance of these AO techniques as applied to the Australian National University (ANU) 2.3 m and Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) 3.9 m telescopes for astronomical wavelength bands J, H and K. The results indicate that AO performance is best for the longer wavelengths (K-band) and in the best seeing conditions (sub 1-arcsecond). The most promising results are found for GLAO simulations (field of view of 180 arcsecs), with the field RMS for encircled energy 50% diameter (EE50d) being uniform and minimally affected by the free-atmosphere turbulence. The GLAO performance is reasonably good over the wavelength bands of J, H and K. The GLAO field mean of EE50d is between 200 mas to 800 mas, which is a noticeable improvement compared to the nominal astronomical seeing (870 to 1700 mas).Comment: 15 pages; accepted for publication in PAS

Local and Global Properties of the World

The essence of the method of physics is inseparably connected with the problem of interplay between local and global properties of the universe. In the present paper we discuss this interplay as it is present in three major departments of contemporary physics: general relativity, quantum mechanics and some attempts at quantizing gravity (especially geometrodynamics and its recent successors in the form of various pregeometry conceptions). It turns out that all big interpretative issues involved in this problem point towards the necessity of changing from the standard space-time geometry to some radically new, most probably non-local, generalization. We argue that the recent noncommutative geometry offers attractive possibilities, and gives us a conceptual insight into its algebraic foundations. Noncommutative spaces are, in general, non-local, and their applications to physics, known at present, seem very promising. One would expect that beneath the Planck threshold there reigns a ``noncommutative pregeometry'', and only when crossing this threshold the usual space-time geometry emerges.Comment: 43 pages, latex, no figures, changes: authors and abstract added to the body of pape

Opportunities and challenges of the U.S. dollar as an increasingly global currency: a Federal Reserve perspective

The rapid growth of demand for U.S. currency over the past two decades, especially the proportion estimated to be held abroad, has posed challenges for the Federal Reserve in meeting its congressionally mandated responsibilities for currency availability and distribution. Those challenges lie in making certain that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) prints adequate amounts of currency; that overseas distribution channels have sufficient capacity to distribute U.S. currency when and where it is needed; and that the integrity of U.S. currency is maintained by monitoring counterfeiting activity. In the process of meeting these challenges, the Federal Reserve has improved its methods of forecasting demand for U.S. currency, expanded currency distribution channels, and worked with the BEP and the U.S. Secret Service to protect against counterfeiting threats. This article gives an overview of the evolution of the Federal Reserve's responsibilities for U.S. currency, particularly in relation to the increase in foreign demand over the past two decades, and also discusses work on counterfeit deterrence.International finance ; Money ; Dollar, American

THE SACRED POWER OF FAT AND HONEY IN SAN AND ANCIENT GREEK MYTH AND RITUAL

In this paper, I attempt a comparison between the sacred significance of fat and honey in the myths and rituals of the San peoples of southern Africa and the ancient Greeks. As Biesele (1993) and Lewis-Williams (2015) have convincingly demonstrated, the creation narratives of the diverse linguistic groups which constitute the /Xam (San) peoples of southern Africa, arguably the first peoples to call this country ‘home’, reveal strong links between the gathering and possession of animal fat and honey, and access to spiritual power. In ancient Greek mythology, as is well known from Callimachus and many later texts (e.g., Apollodorus and Nonnus), the infant Zeus was fed on honey by the bee-woman, Melissa. Many fundamental rites in ancient Greek religion, as reflected in texts from Homer onwards—libations, some sacrifices, ritual offerings such as the ‘panspermia’, and funerary rites—all provide evidence of the Greek belief in the spiritual potency of fat and honey. I thus analyse the similarities and differences between the significance of the fat-honey nexus in these two religious traditions and reflect on cross-cultural comparisons, their history, and their purpose in contemporary South Africa