The Efficiency of Pension Plan Investment Menus: Investment Choices in Defined Contribution Pension Plans

Few previous studies have explored whether defined contribution retirement saving plans offer sufficiently diversified investment menus, though it is likely that these menus significantly shape workers’ accumulations of retirement wealth. This paper assesses the efficiency and performance of 401(k) investment options offered by a large group of US employers. We show that most plans are efficient compared to market benchmark indexes. Three performance measures underscore the fact that these plans tend to offer a sensible investment menu, when measured in terms of the menus’ mean-variance efficiency, diversification, and participant utility. The key factor contributing to plan efficiency and performance has to do with the types of funds offered, rather than the total number of investment options provided.

Live Projects as Research: Tools of Practice Research in Making Architecture

Hands-off or hands-on? Do architects ‘design’ buildings or do they ‘make’ them? This paper addresses the role of the architect as a maker, someone who has a foot in many camps in order to bring together and realise an intention in response to a setting. In a field where professional practice tends to take precedence over research, what is architectural research? How do we define it? Using examples from live projects carried out by students and researchers, this paper explores the different roles and tools adopted in three specific concrete settings: Navi Mumbai, Freetown and Agra. Mainstream architectural design works in a hands-off way. However architectural making is definitely hands-on. To the extent that architecture is about making rather than planning, a hands-off approach is untenable. It is impossible to produce good architecture without being involved with the setting because making is a creative act using the resources, both physical and cultural, available within that setting. In the practice of architectural making, researchers need to develop a discourse around a topic and take action, after due deliberation, in an ethical way. Research is a part of this process. This paper identifies the varied roles architects have played in each of the three live projects and explores the implications for the architecture profession and in academia

Transitional civic placemaking: dispersed initiatives in changing urban landscapes

Field trip publication on the theme of "Transitional Civic Placemaking: Dispersed Initiatives in Changing Urban Landscapes" in Athens, Calabria and Freetown (and Yakutsk). Produced by students from MArch/MA by Project Unit 6 and Degree Studios 3 & 7 at the Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University in 2018-19. Tutors: Maurice Mitchell, Bo Tang, Robert Barnes, Sandra Denicke-Poulcher and Jane McAllister. This booklet summarises the investigations, surveys and speculations of architecture students in Degree Studios 3 and 7, together with Diploma Unit 6 at the CASS. We started the year by immersing ourselves in an urban setting in South Bermondsey which was full of a diverse array of steel and concrete sheds. Exploratory design work focused on the assembly, conversion, adjustment, extension, and/ or re-assembly of existing buildings to better suit the concerns of the existing inhabitants. Students investigated closed boundaries and permeable borders (Sennett, 1998). Out of this investigation emerged speculations which included arcades, a re-purposed canal and high-ceilinged ground floor workshops under multi-storey apartments. Having practiced on-site research methods and following on from the previous summer scoping study, Civic Edgelands, students undertook field trips to Athens, Freetown, and Calabria in November 2018. All three locations are, or have been, migrant gateways, and transitional settlements for the uprooted and offer new opportunities for urban dwelling to their occupants: old, new and those just passing through

The Efficiency of Pension Menus and Individual Portfolio Choice in 401(k) Pensions

Though millions of US workers have 401(k) plans, few studies evaluate participant investment performance. Using data on over 1,000 401(k) plans and their participants, we identify key portfolio investment inefficiencies and attribute them to offered investment menus versus individual portfolio choices. We show that the vast majority of 401(k) plans offers reasonable investment menus. Nevertheless, participants “undo” the efficient menu and make substantial mistakes: in a 20-year career it will reduce retirement wealth by one-fifth, in fact, more than what a naive allocation strategy would yield. We outline implications for plan sponsors and participants seeking to enhance portfolio efficiency: don’t just offer or choose more funds, but help people invest smarter.

Cryptanalysis of a technique to transform discrete logarithm based cryptosystems into identity-based cryptosystems

In this paper we analyse a technique designed to transform any discrete logarithm based cryptosystem into an identity-based cryptosystem. The transformation method is claimed to be efficient and secure and to eliminate the need to invent new identity-based cryptosystems. However, we show that the identity-based cryptosystem created by the proposed transformation method suffers from a number of security and efficiency problems

The Efficiency of Pension Plan Investment Menus: Investment Choices in Defined Contribution Pension Plans

Few previous studies have explored whether defined contribution retirement saving plans offer sufficiently diversified investment menus, though it is likely that these menus significantly shape workers’ accumulations of retirement wealth. This paper assesses the efficiency and performance of 401(k) investment options offered by a large group of US employers. We show that most plans are efficient compared to market benchmark indexes. Three performance measures underscore the fact that these plans tend to offer a sensible investment menu, when measured in terms of the menus’ mean-variance efficiency, diversification, and participant utility. The key factor contributing to plan efficiency and performance has to do with the types of funds offered, rather than the total number of investment options provided

Security of the Lin-Lai smart card based user authentication scheme

The remote user authentication scheme of Lin and Lai, that uses a smart card and a fingerprint measurement, is reviewed and shown to possess significant security issues

Cryptanalysis of the Yeh-Sun password-based authentication protocols

Two authentication protocols proposed by Yeh and Sun are analysed and shown to possess serious security defects

Cryptanalysis of the Yeh-Sun password-based authentication protocols

Two authentication protocols proposed by Yeh and Sun are analysed and shown to possess serious security defects