Annuity markets and benefit design in multi-pillar pension schemes : experience and lessons from four Latin American countries

A growing number of countries have introduced mandatory defined contribution schemes. As these schemes mature, their success will increasingly depend on how well they translate accumulated funds into a stream of retirement income. Successful reforms will rely on a well regulated, and competitive insurance sector. They will strike a balance between individual preferences, and public policy objectives, such as providing a reasonable amount of longevity insurance. This paper describes the benefit stage in four Latin American countries, and presents preliminary evidence on their emerging annuities markets. We find that these markets are less transparent than they should be, and that supervision is less strict than during the accumulation period. Annuities markets will grow dramatically in the coming decades as the reforms mature. Growth depends on policy variables, such as the use of recognition bonds, as well as initial conditions. The markets in Peru and Colombia, will be much smaller than those in Chile and Argentina, in both absolute, and relative terms. The immaturity of the schemes, and temporarily limited flow of new pensioners, should be viewed as a window of opportunity for improving supervision, increasing transparency, and educating workers.Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Pensions&Retirement Systems,Non Bank Financial Institutions,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&BankingReform

Feedback Based Architecture for Reading Check Courtesy Amounts

In recent years, a number of large-scale applications continue to rely heavily on the use of paper as the dominant medium, either on intra-organization basis or on inter-organization basis, including paper intensive applications in the check processing application. In many countries, the value of each check is read by human eyes before the check is physically transported, in stages, from the point it was presented to the location of the branch of the bank which issued the blank check to the concerned account holder. Such process of manual reading of each check involves significant time and cost. In this research, a new approach is introduced to read the numerical amount field on the check; also known as the courtesy amount field. In the case of check processing, the segmentation of unconstrained strings into individual digits is a challenging task because one needs to accommodate special cases involving: connected or overlapping digits, broken digits, and digits physically connected to a piece of stroke that belongs to a neighboring digit. The system described in this paper involves three stages: segmentation, normalization, and the recognition of each character using a neural network classifier, with results better than many other methods in the literaratu

Autonomous landing control of highly flexible aircraft based on Lidar preview in the presence of wind turbulence

This paper investigates preview-based autonomous landing control of a highly flexible flying wing model using short range Lidar wind measurements in the presence of wind turbulence. The preview control system is developed based on a reduced-order linear aeroelastic model and employs a two-loop control scheme. The outer loop employs the LADRC (linear active disturbance rejection control) and PI algorithms to track the reference landing trajectory and vertical speed, respectively, and to generate the attitude angle command. This is then used by the inner-loop using H∞ preview control to compute the control inputs to the actuators (control flaps and thrust). A landing trajectory navigation system is designed to generate real-time reference commands for the landing control system. A Lidar (light detection and ranging) simulator is developed to measure the wind disturbances at a distance in front of the aircraft, which are provided to the inner-loop H∞ preview controller as prior knowledge to improve control performance. Simulation results based on the full-order nonlinear flexible aircraft dynamic model show that the preview-based landing control system is able to land the flying wing effectively and safely, showing better control performance than the baseline landing control system (without preview) with respect to landing effectiveness and disturbance rejection. The control system’s robustness to measurement error in the Lidar system is also demonstrated

A method for normal-mode-based model reduction in nonlinear dynamics of slender structures

This paper introduces a nonlinear reduced-order modelling methodology for finite-element models of structures with slender subcomponents and inertia represented by lumped masses along main load paths. The constructed models have dynamics described by 1-D intrinsic equations of motion, which are further written in modal co-ordinates. This yields finite-dimensional approximations of the system dynamics with only quadratic nonlinearities. Evaluation of the problem coefficients is performed from static condensation of the original model on the lumped masses. The method exploits the multi-point constraints typically used to obtain sectional loads in aircraft aeroelastic analysis. The technique is illustrated on simple 3D structural models built using solid elements

Reduced Structural Modeling of Integrally-Strained Slender Wings

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/77134/1/AIAA-2004-2038-697.pd

Handwritten Bank Check Recognition of Courtesy Amounts

In spite of rapid evolution of electronic techniques, a number of large-scale applications continue to rely on the use of paper as the dominant medium. This is especially true for processing of bank checks. This paper examines the issue of reading the numerical amount field. In the case of checks, the segmentation of unconstrained strings into individual digits is a challenging task because of connected and overlapping digits, broken digits, and digits that are physically connected to pieces of strokes from neighboring digits. The proposed architecture involves four stages: segmentation of the string into individual digits, normalization, recognition of each character using a neural network classifier, and syntactic verification. Overall, this paper highlights the importance of employing a hybrid architecture that incorporates multiple approaches to provide high recognition rates

A multi-step multi-objective generation expansion planning model-A case study in Mexico

Abstract Planning in the energy sector implies multiple and conflicting objectives. Multi-objective models allow the analysis of the inter-relationships and trade-off solutions to be obtained. This paper presents a mixed integer linear model for multi-step multi-objective generation expansion planning (MMGEP). The MMGEP problem is defined as the problem of determining the answers to the following questions: What types of generation technologies are to be added to the grid? What is the capacity of each new generation plant? Where will the plant be located? When will the plant be located? The MMGEP objectives are to minimize the global cost of the system, minimize the environmental impact and maximize the social profits. The proposed model is based on a real power system in Mexico for the planning period between 2017 and 2037. The problem was solved using the NSGA-II algorithm. Keywords: Energy planning, generation expansion planning, capacity expansion planning, Generation expansion plannin

Modeling Piezocomposite Actuators Embedded in Slender Structures

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/76594/1/AIAA-2003-1803-446.pd