Retirement Savings Investment Strategy: Member Choices and Performance

Three crucial ingredients influence how much individuals will have to fund retirement income needs: how much they contribute to savings, how long they save for, and the performance of these savings. This paper focuses on the issue of performance, and how individuals perform when they are given the choice of making their own investment strategy for their retirement savings contributions. An empirical examination using a large sample gathered from four Australian superannuation funds is utilised and finds that on average members underperform their own funds default option both in raw returns and on a risk-adjusted basis. For trustees and regulators charged with the responsibility of looking after the interests of members an important result identifies significant differences in performance based on how members are allowed to construct their investment strategy.Retirement savings, Superannuation, Asset allocation, Investment performance Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the four funds who supported this research. We would also like to thank Jacqui Whale for her efforts in making sense of four databases. Paul Gerrans would also like to thank Susquehanna University for the time in writing the paper.

Placing the university: thinking in and beyond globalization

In some respects, the impact of globalization on universities is well rehearsed (competition for international students; the drive for status in global rankings; the opening of overseas campuses; the dream of massive open online courses and other forms of digital education), but the relationship between universities as place-based institutions and globalization is less well understood. It is on that this chapter focuses. Drawing on work undertaken as part of an Economic and Social Research Council project (“Higher Education and Regional Social Transformation”) the author sets the arguments in a wider context. He explores the extent to which and ways in which universities have become key players in the reimagination of their city regions in a (neoliberal) global context. As well as reflecting on the wider public (and local) role of universities, he also considers how universities use the tools available to them to position themselves effectively as successful businesses within the new world in which they find themselves

Molecular basis for resistance of acanthamoeba tubulins to all major classes of antitubulin compounds

Tubulin is essential to eukaryotic cells and is targeted by several antineoplastics, herbicides, and antimicrobials. We demonstrate that Acanthamoeba spp. are resistant to five antimicrotubule compounds, unlike any other eukaryote studied so far. Resistance correlates with critical amino acid differences within the inhibitor binding sites of the tubulin heterodimers

Operating Interaction and Teleprogramming for Subsea Manipulation

The teleprogramming paradigm has been proposed as a means to efficiently perform teleoperation in the subsea environment via an acoustical link. In such a system the effects of both limited bandwidth channels and delayed communications are overcome by transmitting not Cartesian or joint level information but rather symbolic, error-tolerant, program instructions to the remote site. The operator interacts with a virtual reality of the remote site which provides immediate visual and kinesthetic feedback. The uncertainty in this model can be reduced based on information received from the slave manipulator\u27s tactile contact with the environment. It is suggested that the current state of the model be made available to the operator via a graphical display which shows not only the position of objects at the remote site but also, through the use of color clues, the uncertainty associated with those positions. The provision of uncertainty information is important since it allows the operator to compromise between speed and accuracy. An additional operator aid, which we term synthetic fixturing, is proposed. Synthetic fixtures provide the operator of the teleprogramming system with the teleoperation equivalent of the snap commands common in computer aided design programs. By guiding the position and/or orientation of the master manipulator toward specific points, lines or planes the system is able to increase both the speed and precision with which the operator can control the slave arm without requiring sophisticated hardware

Retirement savings investment strategy : member choices and performance

Three crucial ingredients influence how much individuals will have to fund retirement income needs: how much they contribute to savings, how long they save for, and the performance of these savings. This paper focuses on the issue of performance, and how individuals perform when they are given the choice of making their own investment strategy for their retirement savings contributions. An empirical examination using a large sample gathered from four Australian superannuation funds is utilised and finds that on average members underperform their own fund’s default option both in raw returns and on a riskadjusted basis. For trustees and regulators charged with the responsibility of looking after the interests of members an important result identifies significant differences in performance based on how members are allowed to construct their investment strategy

Evaluation of a Floating Bird Diverter

Hazing at oil spills can reduce bird mortalities. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Firefly Pond Diverter™ (Firefly Diverters LLC, Grantsville, UT), a device that floats on the water and is claimed to use motion, reflectivity, and ultraviolet (UV) and visible light emissions to alert and repel birds. The diverter could be useful at a spill, but little is known about how waterbirds would respond. The objectives of this study were to determine if waterbirds were repelled to a greater degree by the diverter compared to a simple novel object (a life ring), to identify the species that responded to the diverter, and determine if birds habituate to the diverter. The study was conducted in December 2007 in a stormwater retention basin in Woodland, California. We divided the study into a 3-day pretreatment period and a 6-day treatment period and counted birds in the morning and afternoon each day. On each day during the treatment period we randomly selected 2 areas of the basin and anchored 2 diverters in one area and 2 life rings in a second area. We moved the diverters and the life rings to new locations daily. During the bird counts we recorded all birds within 15.2 m of each diverter or life ring. For the basin as a whole, we found the temporal pattern of use (fewer birds present in the morning than the afternoon) and number of birds using the basin did not change with the deployment of the diverters and life rings. Species composition was similar during the pretreatment and treatment periods. Gulls, geese, and diving ducks accounted for over 90% of the birds, with gulls most numerous. We observed 7 and 9 species of birds within 15.2 m of the diverters and life rings, respectively. Gulls represented 91% and 81% of the birds near the diverters and the life rings, respectively. There was no difference in the number of birds within 15.2 m of the diverters or the life rings. There also was no difference in the number of birds within 15.2 m of the diverters or \u3e 15.2 m from the diverters. We found the same relationship for the life rings. After field work concluded we were informed that rotation of the flappers on the diverters and an ultraviolet index (UVI) \u3e2 were critical for the diverter to function. During the treatment period there was wind sufficient to spin the flappers during 7 of 12 counts. We observed birds within 15.2 m of the diverters on 6 out of 7 counts with wind. As reported in local newspapers, the UVI was never \u3e2 during the treatment period. If UV radiation has any effect on performance, then December, a month with low UVI values in northern California, was not the optimum time to test. The diverters did not repel birds during this study. It is not known if the diverters will repel birds during conditions of higher UVI. Additional research should be undertaken