Financial Innovation for an Aging World

Over the last half-century, around the world, many nations have seen plummeting fertility rates and mounting life expectancies. These two factors are the engine behind unprecedented global aging. In this paper, we explore how the demographic transition may influence financial markets and, in turn, how financial market innovation might help resolve concerns flowing from global aging trends. We first provide context by reviewing the economics, finance, and insurance-related literature on how global aging patterns may influence capital markets. We then turn to insurance markets, and discuss a range of products and policies, including both retail and wholesale financial offerings for various forms of life annuities, long-term care benefits, reverse mortgages, securitization of longevity risk, inflation-protected assets, reinsurance, guarantees, derivative contracts on residential property price indices, mortality swaps and longevity derivative contracts. We also indicate how new public-private partnerships might be beneficial in enhancing the future environment for old-age risk management.

NASA metrology information system: A NEMS subsystem

the NASA Metrology Information Systems (NMIS) is being developed as a standardized tool in managing the NASA field Center's instrument calibration programs. This system, as defined by the NASA Metrology and Calibration Workshop, will function as a subsystem of the newly developed NASA Equipment Management System (NEMS). The Metrology Information System is designed to utilize and update applicable NEMS data fields for controlled property and to function as a stand alone system for noncontrolled property. The NMIS provides automatic instrument calibration recall control, instrument historical performance data storage and analysis, calibration and repair labor and parts cost data, and instrument user and location data. Nineteen standardized reports were developed to analyze calibration system operations

Financial Innovation for an Aging World

Over the last half-century, around the world, many nations have seen plummeting fertility rates and mounting life expectancies. These two factors are the engine behind unprecedented global aging. In this paper, we explore how the demographic transition may influence financial markets and, in turn, how financial market innovation might help resolve concerns flowing from global aging trends. We first provide context by reviewing the economics, finance, and insurancerelated literature on how global aging patterns may influence capital markets. We then turn to insurance markets, and discuss a range of products and policies, including both retail and wholesale financial offerings for various forms of life annuities, long-term care benefits, reverse mortgages, securitization of longevity risk, inflation-protected assets, reinsurance, guarantees, derivative contracts on residential property price indices, mortality swaps and longevity derivative contracts. We also indicate how new public-private partnerships might be beneficial in enhancing the future environment for old-age risk management

Subchronic exposure to phytoestrogens alone and in combination with diethylstilbestrol - pituitary tumor induction in Fischer 344 rats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Subchronic administration of the potent pharmaceutical estrogen diethylstilbestrol (DES) to female Fischer 344 (F344) rats induces growth of large, hemorrhagic pituitaries that progress to tumors. Phytoestrogens (dietary plant estrogens) are hypothesized to be potential tumor inhibitors in tissues prone to estrogen-induced cancers, and have been suggested as "safer" estrogen replacements. However, it is unknown if they might themselves establish or exacerbate the growth of estrogen-responsive cancers, such as in pituitary.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We implanted rats with silastic capsules containing 5 mg of four different phytoestrogens - either coumestrol, daidzein, genistein, or <it>trans</it>-resveratrol, in the presence or absence of DES. We examined pituitary and other organ weights, blood levels of prolactin (PRL) and growth hormone (GH), body weights, and pituitary tissue histology.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Blood level measurements of the administered phytoestrogens confirmed successful exposure of the animals to high levels of these compounds. By themselves, no phytoestrogen increased pituitary weights or serum PRL levels after 10 weeks of treatment. DES, genistein, and resveratrol increased GH levels during this time. Phytoestrogens neither changed any wet organ weight (uterus, ovary, cervix, liver, and kidney) after 10 weeks of treatment, nor reversed the adverse effects of DES on pituitaries, GH and PRL levels, or body weight gain after 8 weeks of co-treatment. However, they did reverse the DES-induced weight increase on the ovary and cervix. Morphometric examination of pituitaries revealed that treatment with DES, either alone or in combination with phytoestrogens, caused gross structural changes that included decreases in tissue cell density, increases in vascularity, and multiple hemorrhagic areas. DES, especially in combination with phytoestrogens, caused the development of larger and more heterogeneous nuclear sizes in pituitary.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>High levels of phytoestrogens by themselves did not cause pituitary precancerous growth or change weights of other estrogen-sensitive organs, though when combined with DES, they counteracted the growth effects of DES on reproductive organs. In the pituitary, phytoestrogens did not reverse the effects of DES, but they did increase the sizes and size heterogeneity of nuclei. Therefore, phytoestrogens may oppose some but not all estrogen-responsive tissue abnormalities caused by DES overstimulation, and appear to exacerbate DES-induced nuclear changes.</p

Molecular structure of (CH3)3PF2 : An electron diffraction study of an analogue of ArF2

The molecule (CH3)3PF2 is a trigonal bipyramid with freely rotating methyl groups at the equatorial sites. The principal structural parameters and estimated standard deviations are rg(PF) = 1.685(1) A, rg(PC) = 1.813(1) A, and r(CH) = 1.114(6) A. Amplitudes of vibration were also determined. This investigation completes a study of the series (CH3)nPF5-n 0 [les] n [les] 3, and (CH3)3PF2 corresponds to the hypothetical molecule ArF2 in the closely related series PF5, SF4, ClF3 and ArF2. The stereochemistries and trends in structure parameters in both series are well accounted for by the Gillespie-Nyholm theory. A linear extrapolation suggests a bond length of 1.76 A for argon difluoride.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/33953/1/0000223.pd

Optimized hybrid YOLOu-Quasi-ProtoPNet for insulators classification

To ensure the electrical power supply, inspections are frequently performed in the power grid. Nowadays, several inspections are conducted considering the use of aerial images since the grids might be in places that are difficult to access. The classification of the insulators' conditions recorded in inspections through computer vision is challenging, as object identification methods can have low performance because they are typically pre-trained for a generalized task. Here, a hybrid method called YOLOu-Quasi-ProtoPNet is proposed for the detection and classification of failed insulators. This model is trained from scratch, using a personalized ultra-large version of YOLOv5 for insulator detection and the optimized Quasi-ProtoPNet model for classification. For the optimization of the Quasi-ProtoPNet structure, the backbones VGG-16, VGG-19, ResNet-34, ResNet-152, DenseNet-121, and DenseNet-161 are evaluated. The F1-score of 0.95165 was achieved using the proposed approach (based on DenseNet-161) which outperforms models of the same class such as the Semi-ProtoPNet, Ps-ProtoPNet, Gen-ProtoPNet, NP-ProtoPNet, and the standard ProtoPNet for the classification task