Evaluating the Impact of Financial Planners

The growing complexity of investment decision-making has increased the potential value of advice from a financial professional. Past research provides only a very partial answer to the question of whether professional financial advice leads to better investment practices and results. In this chapter, we review findings in the existing research literature, detail ‘best practice’ research approaches for drawing confident conclusions regarding causal influences, and provide an example of such an approach using data from the 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances. Our results suggest that the benefits of financial advice may be overstated in the absence of methodological rigor

The kids are all right: Generational differences in responses to the great recession

pre-printData from a university survey of 2,799 employees were examined to determine age cohort differences in retirement planning activities in the aftermath of the Great Recession. A life course approach and logistic regression were used to assess whether members of four different age cohorts altered their retirement planning activities. Older cohorts were more likely to have sought advice from a financial planner but were less likely to have increased time spent educating themselves about financial topics. Older cohorts were also less likely to be saving more for retirement and more likely to be delaying retirement compared to the youngest cohort. The youngest cohort members were relatively more likely to be confident that they will have sufficient funds to live comfortably after retirement. Older cohorts responded to the Great Recession by seeking safety for their retirement assets, and they resigned themselves to working longer before retirement

Διευρύνοντας το Μεθοδολογικό πλάισιο των Ολοκληρωμένων Μοντέλων Χρήσεων-Γης και Μεταφορών: Χωρικά Οικονομετρικά Μοντέλα και Αξιολόγηση Πολιτικών

323 σ.Στην παρούσα εργασία εξετάζεται η διεύρυνση του μεθοδολογικού πλαισίου των Όλοκληρωμένων Μοντέλων Χρήσεων-Γης και Μεταφορών σε κάθε επίπεδο. Οι προτεινόμενες βελτιώσεις αποσκοπούν στην αύξηση των ικανοτήτων πρόβλεψης, αξιοποιώντας τα οφέλη της μικροπροσομοίωσης σε τρείς διαστάσεις, άτομο, χώρο και χρόνο, με σκοπό να καταστόύν τα μοντέλα αυτά ευέλικτα εργαλεία αξιολοόγησης πολιτικών.In this research, the methodological framework of the Integrated Land-Use and Transport (LUTI) models is extended at every level. The objective of developing and implementing LUTI models is to predict the direct and indirect impacts of –transport and land-use– policies, on the environment, the society and the economy. The proposed improvements aim to increase the predicting capabilities of the current LUTI models, exploiting the strengths of microsimulation in three dimensions, agents, space and time, in order to render them flexible platforms for policy evaluation. The effects of the current economic crisis are discussed and explored throughout the doctoral dissertation. Aiming to decrease the required budget for a LUTI model development, public on-line data are used to a large part of the analysis. Moreover, a graph-theoretic solution for associations generation in synthetic simulation is suggested. Different types of spatial econometric models are used for the development of real estate price models, which form fundamental component of every LUTI model. Urban quality indicators (i.e. accessibility, population segregation, economic viability, available open space, housing affordability, land-use and social mix, and building density) are effectively employed manifesting the benefits of trans-disciplinary collaboration in urban planning. In this research, a policy evaluation methodology based on distributions rather than single aggregate measures of quality indicators is proposed. The results indicate that spatial econometrics effectively remove the spatial autocorrelation and achieve higher accuracy than the traditional linear regression, in predicting the dwelling prices. The impact of transportation infrastructure locations on real estate purchase prices and rents differs, depending on the type of the transit system. Qualitative transit infrastructure has preserved the real estate prices at higher levels during the crisis. Synthetic populations and real, on-line, crowdsourced data can efficiently be used for the development of LUTI models. Finally, agent-based LUTI models provide an opportunity for the development of an improved, flexible policy evaluation platform.Δημήτριος Β. Ευθυμίο

A cognitive approach to user perception of multimedia quality: An empirical investigation

Whilst multimedia technology has been one of the main contributing factors behind the Web's success, delivery of personalized multimedia content has been a desire seldom achieved in practice. Moreover, the perspective adopted is rarely viewed from a cognitive styles standpoint, notwithstanding the fact that they have significant effects on users’ preferences with respect to the presentation of multimedia content. Indeed, research has thus far neglected to examine the effect of cognitive styles on users’ subjective perceptions of multimedia quality. This paper aims to examine the relationships between users’ cognitive styles, the multimedia quality of service delivered by the underlying network, and users’ quality of perception (understood as both enjoyment and informational assimilation) associated with the viewed multimedia content. Results from the empirical study reported here show that all users, regardless of cognitive style, have higher levels of understanding of informational content in multimedia video clips (represented in our study by excerpts from television programmes) with weak dynamism, but that they enjoy moderately dynamic clips most. Additionally, multimedia content was found to significantly influence users’ levels of understanding and enjoyment. Surprisingly, our study highlighted the fact that Bimodal users prefer to draw on visual sources for informational purposes, and that the presence of text in multimedia clips has a detrimental effect on the knowledge acquisition of all three cognitive style groups

The construct of psychopathy in a Chilean prison population

Objective: To test the four-factor model of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) empirical construct of psychopathy in a Chilean prison population by using instruments that supply different types of data. Methods: Two hundred and nine male inmates of the Prison of Los Andes, Chile, were evaluated. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out with the PCL-R and the Self-Report of Psychopathy-III-Short Form (SRP-III-SF). Results: The distributions of total PCL-R and SRP-III-SF scores were normal (Kolmorogov-Smirnov [K-S] = 1.04, p = 0.230; K-S = 0.812, p = 0.525, respectively), with means of 20.9±6.8 for the former and 61.6±15.2 for the latter. Model fit was good for the PCL-R (Tucker Lewis index [TLI] = 0.96; root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.04) and for the SRP-SF (TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.04). Conclusions: The results obtained with the PCL-R and the SRP-SF showed adequate fit to the empirical four-factor model of psychopathy and support this model. As foreseeable, fit was better for the PCL-R, which combines several sources of information.Facultad de Ciencias Médica

Ariel - Volume 5 Number 6

Editors J.D. Kanofsky Mark Dembert Entertainment Robert Breckenridge Joe Conti Gary Kaskey Photographer Scot Kastner Overseas Editor Mike Sinason Circulation Jay Amsterdam Humorist Jim McCann Staff Ken Jaffe Bob Sklaroff Janet Welsh Dave Jacoby Phil Nimoityn Frank Chervane

Foliar herbicide control of sticky florestina (Florestina tripteris DC.)

Sticky florestina (Florestina tripteris DC.) is an annual exotic weed that has become naturalised near the townships of Tambo and Barcaldine in central western Queensland, Australia. Three experiments conducted near Barcaldine identified foliar herbicides effective in killing sticky florestina plants and in providing residual activity to reduce recruitment from the soil seed bank. An initial chemical screening experiment evaluated the efficacy of 28 herbicide treatments. The most promising herbicides were then further evaluated in two response-rate experiments. Overall, 2,4-D/picloram, aminopyralid/fluroxypyr, clopyralid, metsulfuron-methyl and triclopyr/picloram proved to be the most effective selective herbicides. Two of these, metsulfuron-methyl at 18 g active ingredient (a.i) ha–1 and 2,4-D + picloram at 900 g a.i. ha–1 + 225 g a.i. ha–1 have now been included in a minor use permit (PER11920) with the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) for the control of sticky florestina in pasture, stock route, roadside and non-crop situations using both spot and boom-spray applications (APVMA 2010). The permit also allows the use of 2,4-D amine for the control of seedlings only

Reduced Left Executive Control Network Functional Connectivity Is Associated with Alcohol Use Disorders

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/108693/1/acer12505.pd