Household portfolios in the UK

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the composition of household portfolios, using both aggregate and micro-data. Among the key findings are that: Most household wealth is held in the form of housing and pensions. Over time, there has been a shift away from housing towards financial assets, driven largely by the growth in life and pension funds. Liquid financial wealth (excluding life and pension funds) is not predominantly held in risky form. By far the most commonly held asset is an interest-bearing account at a bank or building society account. Of people with positive (liquid) financial wealth, more than half is held in savings accounts. The importance of risky assets in an individual's portfolio varies according to their characteristics. The unconditional portfolio share held in risky assets (i.e. averaged across those with and without any risky assets) rises with both age and total financial wealth. However, most of the variation in unconditional portfolio shares is due to differences in ownership rates as opposed to the proportion of the portfolio held in risky assets. Looking only at the people within each wealth decile who have risky assets, the conditional portfolio share is relatively constant across wealth, suggesting a possible role for entry costs or other fixed costs in explaining portfolio holdings. Multivariate analysis shows that the conditional portfolio share in risky assets actually falls with age as classical portfolio theory would predict. Finally, the tax treatment of savings products has an effect on portfolio choice. Separate probit regressions for the ownership of tax-favoured assets and similar assets without the tax exemption, show that, controlling for other factors, marginal tax rates are important in determining asset ownership. These results are in accordance with those found by Poterba in the US.

A Preliminary Check-List of the Marine Algae of the Moss Landing Jetty: An Annotated Floristic Compilation. Annual Report, Part 7, 1973

(PDF contains 55 pages

Clock Tower MQP

This project explores an alternative structural design for the Worcester Memorial Clock Tower currently being built at Worcester Psychiatric Hospital in memory of the Worcester Insane Hospital. It is proposed to support the tower using a steel frame and builds the tower envelope with precast tilt-up reinforced concrete panels and embedded stone veneer attached to the steel. A cost estimate and construction schedule for the alternative design is prepared and compared to the existing design

It\u27s a Small World After All: Insights, Interferences, and Implications of In Situ Chlorophyll Fluorescence Monitoring in Estuaries

Concentrations of the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll a are used as a proxy for phytoplankton biomass by estuarine scientists to study eutrophication, food web dynamics, and harmful algal blooms. Coastal managers use chlorophyll as an indicator of nutrient pollution and for assessments to meet Clean Water Act standards. Chlorophyll a, as measured in the laboratory by extraction from monthly discrete water samples, is a core component of the National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) System-Wide Monitoring Program (SWMP). Field-deployable sensors based on the excitation and emission spectra of in situ chlorophyll have not been incorporated into SWMP to date because past studies showed inconsistencies across reserves. Several studies have shown in situ chlorophyll fluorescence to be temperature sensitive as well as subject to spectral interference from fluorescent dissolved organic matter (fDOM) and turbidity. The project objectives included the assessment of sensor reliability across a range of environmental conditions, identifying interferences that may affect sensor output, and developing estuary-wide or conditional relationships between chlorophyll monitoring using the datasonde and extractive chlorophyll measurements. To achieve these objectives, validation of the sensor output through paired sampling with extractive analysis was conducted. Additional testing focused on identifying sensor interferences was also conducted including temperature, turbidity and fDOM. Results indicate in situ chlorophyll fluorescence correlates to extracted chlorophyll, but this relationship is influenced by the environmental interferences mentioned. Utilizing hierarchical regression modeling to incorporate data from interfering parameters improved the relation between sensor and extracted concentrations. Incorporating this sensor into NERR SWMP long-term water quality monitoring program as a surrogate for chlorophyll concentration will give coastal managers around the country increased insight into what drives the base of estuarine food webs. Combined with satellite telemetry, these sensors provide near-real-time insight into phytoplankton dynamics, with the potential to provide early detection and rapid response to harmful algae blooms

Toward A Common Notion of Authority

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard Colleg

The Use of Social Science by the United States Supreme Court in Cases Raising Husband-Wife and Parent-Child Legal Issues

This research provides a descriptive study of the use of social science research contained in reported decisions of the United States Supreme Court. The cases were selected from case abstracts contained in two U.S. Supreme Court digests. The author relied on the court reporter\u27s arrangement of abstracts of case decisions (sorted by substantive areas of the law) to identify relevant cases presenting issues of parent -child and husband-wife relations. The following substantive areas were initially selected using this method: abortion, adultery and fornication, adoption, immigration, exclusion and deportation, bigamy, bastards, dower, death, domicil, divorce and separation, guardian and ward, homestead, husband and wife, incompetent persons, infants, kidnapping, indecency, lewdness and obscenity, marriage, privacy, poor and poor laws, torts, schools, social security and unemployment compensation, wills, workman\u27s compensation, and zoning. Substantive areas receiving one or none citations of social science (in the summary tabulations) were excluded, leaving the parent-child areas of abortion, bastards, infants, obscenity, poor and poor laws, schools and social security. The above exclusion process left the husband-wife areas of adultery and fornication, bigamy, divorce and separation, husband and wife, and marriage. The entire text and footnotes were analyzed in the selected cases . The date of the decision, use or non-use of social science research, and the nature or discipline of the research were recorded and tabulated. The substantive caselaw of schools and obscenity were the substantive areas containing the most frequent citations of social science. The study revealed a general trend consistent with Christensen\u27s (1964) model of family research development. Parent-child opinions revealed a general utilization rate of four per cent. The study revealed that history and economics, as social science disciplines, have been cited more frequently by the Supreme Court during the period analyzed than the social science disciplines of sociology and psychology