The implication of the hyperbolic discount model for annuitisation decisions

The low demand for immediate annuities at retirement has been a long-standing puzzle. We show that a hyperbolic discount model can explain this behaviour and results in the attractiveness of long-term deferred annuities. With a set of benchmark assumptions, we find that retirees would be willing to pay a much higher price than the actuarial fair price for annuities with longer deferred periods. Moreover, if governments were to introduce a pre-commitment device which requires pensioners to make annuitisation decisions around ten years before retirement, the take up rate of annuities could become higher

The Fluctuating Pressure Field in a Supersonic Turbulent Boundary Layer

The fluctuating pressure field in a supersonic turbulent boundary laye

Adaptive MBER space-time DFE assisted multiuser detection for SDMA systems

In this contribution we propose a space-time decision feedback equalization (ST-DFE) assisted multiuser detection (MUD) scheme for multiple antenna aided space division multiple access systems. A minimum bit error rate (MBER) design is invoked for the MUD, which is shown to be capable of improving the achievable bit error rate performance over that of the minimum mean square error (MMSE) design. An adaptive MBER ST-DFE-MUD is proposed using the least bit error rate algorithm, which is demonstrated to consistently outperform the least mean square (LMS) algorithm, while achieving a lower computational complexity than the LMS algorithm for the binary signalling scheme. Simulation results demonstrate that theMBER ST-DFE-MUD is more robust to channel estimation errors as well as to error propagation imposed by decision feedback errors, compared to the MMSE ST-DFE-MUD

Radial Basis Function Aided Space-Time Equalization in Dispersive Fading Uplink Environments

A novel Radial Basis Function Network (RBFN) assisted Decision-Feedback aided Space-Time Equalizer (DF-STE) designed for receivers employing multiple antennas is proposed. The Bit Error Rate (BER) performance of the RBFN aided DF-STE is evaluated when communicating over correlated Rayleigh fading channels, whose Channel Impulse Response (CIR) is estimated using a Kalman filtering based channel estimator. The proposed receiver structure outperforms the linear Minimum Mean-Squared Error benchmarker and it is less sensitive to both error propagation and channel estimation errors

Organisational change and development of reformed Chinese township and village enterprises

This article is (c) Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear here (http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/8263). Emerald does not grant permission for this article to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the organisational changes (OCs) and the development of Chinese reformed township and village enterprises (RTVEs), their marketing and R&D strategies, and the impact of changes in terms of overall performance. Design/methodology/approach – A case study methodology involving semi-structured interviews is adopted. The unit chosen is the Guotai International Group (GTIG) in Zhangjiagang, Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China, in which the organisational changes over a period of over 40 years are analysed. Findings – OCs in Chinese RTVEs are found to be driven by a combination of local government plans and market forces. Considering the hybrid nature of the organisation and ownership structures, changes in Chinese RTVEs follow a very much “top-down” approach. Research limitations/implications – The findings imply that managers appointed by the state in RTVEs usually lack the necessary skills in marketing and business management, and can be resistant to organisational changes, such as the willingness to undertake risks. As a result, RTVEs may become stuck in a cycle of low-cost, low-tech products, inhibiting any breakthrough in developing their own quality brands. Originality/value – This is one of few papers studying change over a long span of time to arrive at research findings that will be useful to academic researchers in their future work. The qualitative findings from this paper would also enrich the literatures on organisational change in Chinese RTVEs

A Robust Nonlinear Beamforming Assisted Receiver for BPSK Signalling

Nonlinear beamforming designed for wireless communications is investigated. We derive the optimal nonlinear beamforming assisted receiver designed for binary phase shift keying (BPSK) signalling. It is shown that this optimal Bayesian beamformer significantly outperforms the classic linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) beamformer at the expense of an increased complexity. Hence the achievable user capacity of the wireless system invoking the proposed beamformer is substantially enhanced. In particular, when the angular separation between the desired and interfering signals is below a certain threshold, a linear beamformer will fail while a nonlinear beamformer can still perform adequately. Blockadaptive implementation of the optimal Bayesian beamformer can be realized using a Radial Basis Function network based on the Relevance Vector Machine (RVM) for classification, and a recursive sample-by-sample adaptation is proposed based on an enhanced ?-means clustering aided recursive least squares algorithm

Consistency of Markov chain quasi-Monte Carlo on continuous state spaces

The random numbers driving Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation are usually modeled as independent U(0,1) random variables. Tribble [Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms using completely uniformly distributed driving sequences (2007) Stanford Univ.] reports substantial improvements when those random numbers are replaced by carefully balanced inputs from completely uniformly distributed sequences. The previous theoretical justification for using anything other than i.i.d. U(0,1) points shows consistency for estimated means, but only applies for discrete stationary distributions. We extend those results to some MCMC algorithms for continuous stationary distributions. The main motivation is the search for quasi-Monte Carlo versions of MCMC. As a side benefit, the results also establish consistency for the usual method of using pseudo-random numbers in place of random ones.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOS831 the Annals of Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Study of free-piston Stirling engine driven linear alternators

The analysis, design and operation of single phase, single slot tubular permanent magnet linear alternator is presented. Included is the no-load and on-load magnetic field investigation, permanent magnet's leakage field analysis, parameter identification, design guidelines and an optimal design of a permanent magnet linear alternator. For analysis of the magnetic field, a simplified magnetic circuit is utilized. The analysis accounts for saturation, leakage and armature reaction