Survivor Funds

This Article explains how to create “survivor funds”—short-term investment funds that would pay more to those investors who live until the end of the fund’s term than to those who die before then. For example, instead of just investing in a ten-year bond and dividing the proceeds among the investors at the end of the bond term, a survivor fund would invest in that ten-year bond but divide the proceeds only among those who survived the full ten years. These survivor funds would be attractive investments because the survivors would get a greater return on their investments, while the decedents, for obvious reasons, would not care. Survivor funds would work like short-term tontines. Basically, a tontine is a financial product that combines features of an annuity and a lottery. In a simple tontine, a group of investors pools their money together to buy a portfolio of investments, and, as investors die, their shares are forfeited, often with the entire fund going to the last survivor. For example, imagine that ten 65-year-old men each contribute $1000 to a fund that buys a large diamond for$10,000 and that the men agree that the last “survivor will get the diamond. Accordingly, after the ninth man dies, the tenth man gets the diamond, and he can keep it or sell it. Of course, the survivor principle—that the share of each, at death, is enjoyed by the survivors—can be used to design financial products that would benefit multiple survivors, not just the last survivor. For example, elsewhere, we showed how tontines could be used to create so-called “tontine annuities” and “tontine pensions” that would benefit lots of retirees. In this Article, we show how the survivor principle can be used to create survivor funds that would only make payments to those who survive for a specified number of years

Substructure: Clues to the Formation of Clusters of Galaxies

We have examined the spatial distribution of substructure in clusters of galaxies using Einstein X-ray observations. Subclusters are found to have a markedly anisotropic distribution that reflects the surrounding matter distribution on supercluster scales. Our results suggest a picture in which cluster formation proceeds by mergers of subclusters along large-scale filaments. The implications of such an anisotropic formation process for the shapes, orientations and kinematics of clusters are discussed briefly.Comment: 7 pages, uuencoded compressed postscript. To appear in ApJ Letters (September 20, 1995 issue

Are there socioeconomic gradients in stage and grade of breast cancer at diagnosis? Cross sectional analysis of UK cancer registry data

Socioeconomic gradients in uptake of breast cancer screening in the United Kingdom should, intuitively, lead to socioeconomic gradients in disease progression at diagnosis. However, studies have found little evidence of such an effect. Although this could be interpreted as evidence that socioeconomic gradients in uptake of screening do not have clinically important consequences, all of the published studies have used data from before (pre-1988) or during the early stages (1988-95) of implementation of the national breast cancer screening programme. We investigated the relation between socioeconomic position and progression of breast cancer at diagnosis by using recent data from the Northern and Yorkshire Cancer Registry and Information Service (NYCRIS), which is estimated to achieve around 93% ascertainment

Ion sputter textured graphite electrode plates

A specially textured surface of pyrolytic graphite exhibits extremely low yields of secondary electrons and reduced numbers of reflected primary electrons after impingement of high energy primary electrons. Electrode plates of this material are used in multistage depressed collectors. An ion flux having an energy between 500 iV and 1000 iV and a current density between 1.0 mA/sq cm and 6.0 mA/sq cm produces surface roughening or texturing which is in the form of needles or spires. Such textured surfaces are especially useful as anode collector plates in high tube devices

Ion sputter textured graphite

A specially textured surface of pyrolytic graphite exhibits extremely low yields of secondary electrons and reduced numbers of reflected primary electrons after impingement of high energy primary electrons. An ion flux having an energy between 500 eV and 1000 eV and a current density between 1.0 mA/sq cm and 6.0 mA/sq cm produces surface roughening or texturing which is in the form of needles or spines. Such textured surfaces are especially useful as anode collector plates in high efficiency electron tube devices

Propagation of the phase of solar modulation

The phase of the 11 year galactic cosmic ray variation, due to a varying rate of emission of long lived propagating regions of enhanced scattering, travels faster than the scattering regions themselves. The radial speed of the 11 year phase in the quasi-steady, force field approximation is exactly twice the speed of the individual, episodic decreases. A time dependent, numerical solution for 1 GeV protons at 1 and 30 Au gives a phase speed which is 1.85 times the propagation speed of the individual decreases

Flaw growth behavior in thick welded plates of 2219-T87 aluminum at room and cryogenic temperatures

Axial load fatigue and fracture tests were conducted on thick welded plates of 2219-T87 aluminum alloy to determine the tensile strength properties and the flaw growth behavior in electron beam, gas metal arc, and pulse current gas tungsten arc welds for plates 6.35 centimeters (2.5 in.) thick. The tests were conducted in room temperature air and in liquid nitrogen environments. Specimens were tested in both the as-welded and the aged after welding conditions. The experimental crack growth rate were correlated with theoretical crack growth rate predictions for semielliptical surface flaws

Intracluster Globular Clusters

Globular cluster populations of supergiant elliptical galaxies are known to vary widely, from extremely populous systems like that of UGC 9799, the centrally dominant galaxy in Abell 2052, to globular-cluster-poor galaxies such as NGC 5629 in Abell 2666. Here we propose that these variations point strongly to the existence of a population of globular clusters that are not bound to individual galaxies, but rather move freely throughout the cores of clusters of galaxies. Such intracluster globular clusters may have originated as tidally stripped debris from galaxy interactions and mergers, or alternatively they may have formed in situ in some scenarios of globular cluster formation.Comment: 9 pages, uuencoded compressed postscript. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities at the sloshing cold fronts in the Virgo cluster as a measure for the effective ICM viscosity

Sloshing cold fronts (CFs) arise from minor merger triggered gas sloshing. Their detailed structure depends on the properties of the intra-cluster medium (ICM): hydrodynamical simulations predict the CFs to be distorted by Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities (KHIs), but aligned magnetic fields, viscosity, or thermal conduction can suppress the KHIs. Thus, observing the detailed structure of sloshing CFs can be used to constrain these ICM properties. Both smooth and distorted sloshing CFs have been observed, indicating that the KHI is suppressed in some clusters, but not in all. Consequently, we need to address at least some sloshing clusters individually before drawing general conclusions about the ICM properties. We present the first detailed attempt to constrain the ICM properties in a specific cluster from the structure of its sloshing CF. Proximity and brightness make the Virgo cluster an ideal target. We combine observations and Virgo-specific hydrodynamical sloshing simulations. Here we focus on a Spitzer-like temperature dependent viscosity as a mechanism to suppress the KHI, but discuss the alternative mechanisms in detail. We identify the CF at 90 kpc north and north-east of the Virgo center as the best location in the cluster to observe a possible KHI suppression. For viscosities $\gtrsim$ 10% of the Spitzer value KHIs at this CF are suppressed. We describe in detail the observable signatures at low and high viscosities, i.e. in the presence or absence of KHIs. We find indications for a low ICM viscosity in archival XMM-Newton data and demonstrate the detectability of the predicted features in deep Chandra observations.Comment: Accepted for ApJ; 15 pages, 11 figures. A movie can be found here: http://www.hs.uni-hamburg.de/DE/Ins/Per/Roediger/research.html#Virgo-viscou

The 30/20 GHz flight experiment system, phase 2. Volume 1: Executive summary

Summary information on the final communication system design, communication payload, space vehicle, and development plan for the 30/20 GHz flight experiment will be installed on the LEASAT spacecraft which will be placed into orbit from the space shuttle cargo bay. The communication concept has two parts: a truck service and a customer premise service (CPS). The trucking system serves four spot beams which are interconnected in a satellite switched time division multiple access mode by an IF switch matrix. The CPS covers two large areas of the eastern United States with a pair of scanning beams