We extend the Annually Recalculated Virtual Annuity (ARVA) spending rule for retirement savings decumulation (Waring and Siegel (2015) Financial Analysts Journal, 71(1), 91–107) to include a cap and a floor on withdrawals. With a minimum withdrawal constraint, the ARVA strategy runs the risk of depleting the investment portfolio. We determine the dynamic asset allocation strategy which maximizes a weighted combination of expected total withdrawals (EW) and expected shortfall (ES), defined as the average of the worst 5% of the outcomes of real terminal wealth. We compare the performance of our dynamic strategy to simpler alternatives which maintain constant asset allocation weights over time accompanied by either our same modified ARVA spending rule or withdrawals that are constant over time in real terms. Tests are carried out using both a parametric model of historical asset returns as well as bootstrap resampling of historical data. Consistent with previous literature that has used different measures of reward and risk than EW and ES, we find that allowing some variability in withdrawals leads to large improvements in efficiency. However, unlike the prior literature, we also demonstrate that further significant enhancements are possible through incorporating a dynamic asset allocation strategy rather than simply keeping asset allocation weights constant throughout retirement.

Cyber-physical systems (CPS), like autonomous vehicles, are intelligent and networked. The development of such systems and its components requires interdisciplinary cooperation between different stakeholders. A lack of system understanding between stakeholders can lead to unidentified and unresolved security threats & safety hazards in early engineering phases, resulting in high costs in product development and potentially compromises compliance with the safety of CPS.

Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) improves the system understanding between stakeholders by using models.

However, MBSE approaches only partially address security threats & safety hazards. In particular, their integrative consideration is not taken into account.

Established security & safety approaches are either only applicable to specific disciplines or only partially consider security threats & safety hazards.

In the context of this paper we present a method for the resolution of safety relevant security threats in the system architecture design phase using design patterns.

We illustrate our approach with the example of the automotive sector.

Finally, we present an evaluation of the method, based on an 8 week project with 67 master students.

Maturity assessments of technology is a crucial process to identify and acquire compatible technologies for a system’s development. However, being a complex and highly subjective process, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reported cost overruns and schedule slippages through the years. This study provides a unique Weighted Technology Readiness Level (WTRL) framework which utilizes cardinal factors to ascertain the maturity, schedule and trend of NASA’s 7 Technologies based on their maturity time. The framework utilizes MCDM methods to determine the cardinal complexity of each TRL. It allows the assimilation of other cardinal factors using a simple, open structure to track the overall technology maturity and readiness. Furthermore, this study highlights the importance of tailored TRL frameworks to determine the accurate cardinal coefficient of the said technology and the inferences derived otherwise. It eliminates several limitations of previous frameworks and compares against their performance using a verified statistical representation of processed data.

This research investigates service creation in/after effect of coronavirus pandemic targeting the essential business environment. It follows prevention through design approach to facilitate business owners to maintain their business environments at low COVID contraction risks, for both customers and staff. The effectiveness of recommended prevention practices (like social distancing and hand-sanitising) is uncertain at public workplaces, simply due to inevitable workers and customers interactions. Such uncertainty, especially in cases of retail stores and hospitals, raises a need for the design of services and support systems for common/necessary public business activities to reduce the burden on people involved. This research investigates the risk-related metrics to realise such digital services, focussing on three types: congestion at the work environment, disinfection of store area/objects, and sanitisation of people and staffs involved. Based on this, a digital technology-based service COVSAFE was created and tested through a proof-of-concept implementation for a supermarket business environment. This implementation and its evaluations highlight the bottlenecks/challenges for realising this system in everyday scenarios.

In industry, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis is an established quality tool for minimizing development risks in systems, products and processes. Nevertheless, the presented use case shows that the application of the FMEA method in the development of Product-Service Systems in a SME requires modifications to ensure that the special character of PSS is appropriately included and that risks can be adequately assessed and prioritized.

Innovation projects are characterized by numerous uncertainties. Typical concepts in development management like the application of safety coefficients imply limitations of the solution space. In contrast, explicit handling of uncertainties can support engineers in understanding the problem space and in utilising the full potential of the design space along iterative product development steps. As a result from literature analysis, there is a lack of a support for product development that addresses the specific problem of uncertainty and risk in the context of requirement changes. The aim of the contribution at hand is to enhance the efficient development of complex interdisciplinary systems by enabling uncertainty handling in requirements change management. Based on a classification of uncertainty types resulting in a descriptive model, risk management measures are identified to support requirements engineers. The proposed method includes identification & modelling, analysis, treatment and monitoring of risks and counter-measures. By applying this method, engineers are supported in adopting agile approaches and enabling flexible Requirements Engineering.

Emergency management responses to COVID-19 in nursing homes lacked preparation and nuance; moving forward, responses must recognize nursing homes are not generic organizations or services, and individually appreciate each’s unique nature, strengths and limitations.

This paper provides a method to assess the risk relief deriving from a foreign expansion by a life insurance company. We build a parsimonious continuous-time model for longevity risk that captures the dependence across different ages in domestic versus foreign populations. We calibrate the model to portray the case of a UK annuity portfolio expanding internationally toward Italian policyholders. The longevity risk diversification benefits of an international expansion are sizable, in particular when interest rates are low. The benefits are judged based on traditional measures, such as the Risk Margin or volatility reduction, and on a novel measure, the Diversification Index.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization broadly categorize mass gathering events as high risk for amplification of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spread in a community due to the nature of respiratory diseases and the transmission dynamics. However, various measures and modifications can be put in place to limit or reduce the risk of further spread of COVID-19 for the mass gathering. During this pandemic, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security produced a risk assessment and mitigation tool for decision-makers to assess SARS-CoV-2 transmission risks that may arise as organizations and businesses hold mass gatherings or increase business operations: The JHU Operational Toolkit for Businesses Considering Reopening or Expanding Operations in COVID-19 (Toolkit). This article describes the deployment of a data-informed, risk-reduction strategy that protects local communities, preserves local health-care capacity, and supports democratic processes through the safe execution of the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. The successful use of the Toolkit and the lessons learned from this experience are applicable in a wide range of public health settings, including school reopening, expansion of public services, and even resumption of health-care delivery.

Throughout the past couple of decades, the surge in the sale of equity-linked products has led to many discussions on the evaluation and risk management of surrender options embedded in these products. However, most studies treat such options as American/Bermudian style options. In this article, a different approach is presented where only a portion of the policyholders react optimally due to the belief that not all policyholders are rational. Through this method, a probability of surrender is obtained based on the option moneyness and the product is partially hedged using local risk-control strategies. This partial hedging approach is versatile since few assumptions are required for the financial framework. To compare the different surrender assumptions, the initial capital requirement for an equity-linked product is obtained under a regime-switching equity model. Numerical examples illustrate the dynamics and efficiency of this hedging approach.

Any field team, regardless of the professionalism of the leadership, will eventually experience a critical event. Some events will result in a subtle degradation of the team's work; others will cause emergent threats to the safety of the team. A team's sustained performance during a field season depends partly on such chance events and partly with the team's ability to plan for and respond to the dynamic environment of the field. The duty of a field leader is to conduct clear-eyed conversations and ensure that solid preparations are laid for both the group as a whole and the individual team members. Some of these plans need to be manifested by material preparations, some of which require months of forethought. This article walks readers through a two-hour exercise, giving them frameworks from business continuity and military field doctrines to understand risk. Readers will conduct a SWOT analysis, define emergencies within their organizations, and then apply risk management practices of qualitative risk assessment and all-hazards planning to develop planning priorities. By the end, readers will have built specific action plans for improving field season readiness.

Field safety is being taken more seriously across the cultural resource management (CRM) industry as CRM companies seek to be in compliance with their clients’ health and safety programs and to keep employees safe. Many universities also have organizational health and safety programs designed to protect students and employees, but academic archaeology is routinely conducted without adequate risk management planning. Risk management will be a workplace concern for aspiring archaeologists after graduating from college, which is why it is important for academic archaeology to meet industry standards. Archaeology can learn a great deal about fieldwork risk management from the outdoor recreation industry, which emphasizes building leadership skills rather than following proscribed rules and regulations to mitigate the myriad hazards in the field. This article provides some suggestions that academic archaeologists can use to apply risk management concepts from CRM and the outdoor recreation industry to academic projects in order to comply with university requirements and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), as well as to teach students how to be safe in the field.

This paper discusses the use of modelling techniques for the purpose of risk management within life insurers. The key theme of the paper is that life insurance is long-term business and carries with it long-term risks, yet much of modern actuarial risk management is focussed on short-term modelling approaches. These typically include the use of copula simulation models within a 1-year Value-at-Risk (VaR) framework. The paper discusses the limitations inherent within the techniques currently used in the UK and discusses how the focus of the next generation of actuarial models may be on long-term stochastic projections. The scope of the paper includes a discussion of how existing techniques, together with new approaches, may be used to develop such models and the benefits this can bring. The paper concludes with a practical example of how a long-term stochastic risk model may be implemented.

Infectious disasters have specific features which require special approaches and facilities. The main challenge is the rate of spread, and their ability to traverse the Earth in a short time. The preparedness of hospitals to face these events is therefore of the utmost importance. This study was designed to assess the preparedness of countries facing biological events worldwide. A qualitative systematic review was done from PubMed (National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, MD), Scopus (Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands), Web of Science (Thomson Reuters, New York, NY), ProQuest (Ann Arbor, MI), and Google Scholar (Google Inc, Mountain View, CA). Two journals were searched as key journals. The search period was from January 1, 2007 to December 30, 2018. Twenty-one (21) documents were selected including 7 (33%) from Asia, 7 (33%) from Europe, 4 (19%) from USA, 2 (10%) from Africa, and 1 (5%) multi-continental. Forty-six (46) common sub-themes were obtained and categorized into 13 themes (infection prevention control, risk perception, planning, essential support services, surveillance, laboratory, vulnerable groups, education and exercise and evaluation, human resource, clinical management of patients, risk communication, budget, and coordination). Not all articles discussed all the identified categories. There is an extended process required to reach complete preparedness for confronting biological events, including adequate and well-managed budget. Medical centers may have trouble dealing with such events, at least in some respects, but most developed countries seem to be more prepared in this regard.