The rise in interest rates globally in 2022–23 led to improved scheme funding for many defined-benefit pension schemes. Many schemes in the UK now find themselves closer to, or at, a fully funded position on a low-risk basis (annuity buyout or self-sufficiency). Finishing the journey while managing the risk of losses on that journey is highly desirable, but may be difficult to achieve in practice.

However many schemes are not yet sufficiently funded to buy out liabilities in full with an insurer. Others may not wish to, and many who can afford to do so are not yet able to for investment reasons (such as holding illiquid assets) or operational reasons (such as the time needed to resolve member data issues). For schemes that instead look to adopt self-sufficient ongoing management with low dependency on the sponsoring employer, this may be difficult to maintain in practice. In short, there remains a risk that benefits will not be secured in full, which with hindsight could have been avoided.

The addition of capital to pension scheme assets has long been deployed to enhance the security of member benefits e.g., capital from insurers in the case of a buyout or capital from sponsors in the form of contingent assets.

More recently, providers have developed a diverse set of arrangements that draw on external capital to aid trustees and corporates to meet scheme funding ambitions. Capital Backed Funding Arrangements (“CBFA”) are in this context an additional tool in the trustee toolkit for delivering funding strategies.

This paper focusses on the UK-defined benefit market but the dynamics are applicable to other jurisdictions, with CBFAs being developed for wider markets (e.g., Ireland).

In this paper we:

• survey the current scheme funding landscape and consider the need in this environment for arrangements to support scheme funding journeys to deliver benefits in full

• summarise the key features of arrangements in the market that may support these objectives

• set out considerations for trustees and sponsoring companies when assessing these arrangements.

The aim of this paper is educational – to increase awareness of the key issues and potential solutions. Professional advice will always be required prior to any transaction. We welcome feedback from readers on further material that would be beneficial to support consideration of these arrangements.

We studied the transport and deposition behaviour of point particles in Rayleigh–Bénard convection cells subjected to Couette-type wall shear. Direct numerical simulations (DNSs) are performed for Rayleigh number ($Ra$) in the range $10^{7} \leq Ra \leq ~10^9$ with a fixed Prandtl number $Pr = 0.71$, while the wall-shear Reynolds number ($Re_w$) is in the range $0 \leq Re_w \leq ~12\,000$. With the increase of $Re_w$, the large-scale rolls expanded horizontally, evolving into zonal flow in two-dimensional simulations or streamwise-oriented rolls in three-dimensional simulations. We observed that, for particles with a small Stokes number ($St$), they either circulated within the large-scale rolls when buoyancy dominated or drifted near the walls when shear dominated. For medium $St$ particles, pronounced spatial inhomogeneity and preferential concentration were observed regardless of the prevailing flow state. For large $St$ particles, the turbulent flow structure had a minor influence on the particles’ motion; although clustering still occurred, wall shear had a negligible influence compared with that for medium $St$ particles. We then presented the settling curves to quantify the particle deposition ratio on the walls. Our DNS results aligned well with previous theoretical predictions, which state that small $St$ particles settle with an exponential deposition ratio and large $St$ particles settle with a linear deposition ratio. For medium $St$ particles, where complex particle–turbulence interaction emerges, we developed a new model describing the settling process with an initial linear stage followed by a nonlinear stage. Unknown parameters in our model can be determined either by fitting the settling curves or using empirical relations. Compared with DNS results, our model also accurately predicts the average residence time across a wide range of $St$ for various $Re_w$.

We studied the flow organization and heat transfer properties in two-dimensional and three-dimensional Rayleigh–Bénard cells that are imposed with different types of wall shear. The external wall shear is added with the motivation of manipulating flow mode to control heat transfer efficiency. We imposed three types of wall shear that may facilitate the single-roll, the horizontally stacked double-roll, and the vertically stacked double-roll flow modes, respectively. Direct numerical simulations are performed for fixed Rayleigh number $Ra = 10^{8}$ and fixed Prandtl number $Pr = 5.3$, while the wall-shear Reynolds number ($Re_{w}$) is in the range $60 \leqslant Re_{w} \leqslant 6000$. Generally, we found enhanced heat transfer efficiency and global flow strength with the increase of $Re_{w}$. However, even with the same magnitude of global flow strength, the heat transfer efficiency varies significantly when the cells are under different types of wall shear. An interesting finding is that by increasing the wall-shear strength, the thermal turbulence is relaminarized, and more surprisingly, the heat transfer efficiency in the laminar state is higher than that in the turbulent state. We found that the enhanced heat transfer efficiency at the laminar regime is due to the formation of more stable and stronger convection channels. We propose that the origin of thermal turbulence laminarization is the reduced amount of thermal plumes. Because plumes are mainly responsible for turbulent kinetic energy production, when the detached plumes are swept away by the wall shear, the reduced number of plumes leads to weaker turbulent kinetic energy production. We also quantify the efficiency of facilitating heat transport via external shearing, and find that for larger $Re_{w}$, the enhanced heat transfer efficiency comes at a price of a larger expenditure of mechanical energy.

We present a fast and accurate data-driven surrogate model for divertor plasma detachment prediction leveraging the latent feature space concept in machine learning research. Our approach involves constructing and training two neural networks: an autoencoder that finds a proper latent space representation (LSR) of plasma state by compressing the multi-modal diagnostic measurements and a forward model using multi-layer perception (MLP) that projects a set of plasma control parameters to its corresponding LSR. By combining the forward model and the decoder network from autoencoder, this new data-driven surrogate model is able to predict a consistent set of diagnostic measurements based on a few plasma control parameters. In order to ensure that the crucial detachment physics is correctly captured, highly efficient 1D UEDGE model is used to generate training and validation data in this study. The benchmark between the data-driven surrogate model and UEDGE simulations shows that our surrogate model is capable of providing accurate detachment prediction (usually within a few per cent relative error margin) but with at least four orders of magnitude speed-up, indicating that performance-wise, it has the potential to facilitate integrated tokamak design and plasma control. Comparing with the widely used two-point model and/or two-point model formatting, the new data-driven model features additional detachment front prediction and can be easily extended to incorporate richer physics. This study demonstrates that the complicated divertor and scrape-off-layer plasma state has a low-dimensional representation in latent space. Understanding plasma dynamics in latent space and utilising this knowledge could open a new path for plasma control in magnetic fusion energy research.

Since massive stars form preferentially as members of close binary systems, we use dense grids of detailed binary evolution models to explore how binary evolution shapes the main-sequence morphology of young star clusters. We propose that binary mergers might be the origin of the blue main sequence stars in young star clusters. Our results imply that stars may either form by accretion, or through a binary merger, and that both paths lead to distinctly different spins, magnetic fields, and stellar mass distributions.

Thermocapillary patterning, namely, the formation of micro/nano patterns in a liquid film by surface deformation induced by an imposed thermal gradient, has enjoyed widespread applications in engineering. In this paper, we present the development of analytical and numerical models and model analyses to predict the equilibrium states of a deformed liquid polymer film under the action of thermocapillary forces. The deformation is found to be dependent on a non-dimensional parameter $\Im \equiv Ma \, Ca$, with Ma denoting the Marangoni number and Ca the capillary number. Model analyses show that a hysteresis phenomenon is associated with the thermocapillary deformation of the film with increasing and then decreasing $\Im$. When $\Im$ is increased above a critical value ${\Im _{c,1}}$, significant deformation occurs in the film until the polymer touches the top solid template. Then, if $\Im$ is allowed to decrease, the polymer film would not detach from the template until $\Im$ is decreased below another critical value ${\Im _{c,2}}$ (usually ${\Im _{c,2}} < {\Im _{c,1}}$). With $\Im \in [{\Im _{c,2}},\;{\Im _{c,1}}]$, there exist multiple (three at the maximum) equilibrium states. The Lyapunov energy analysis of these states reveals that one equilibrium state is stable, another is metastable and the third one is unstable.

During the last few decades, bed-elevation profiles from radar sounders have been used to quantify bed roughness. Various methods have been employed, such as the ‘two-parameter’ technique that considers vertical and slope irregularities in topography, but they struggle to incorporate roughness at multiple spatial scales leading to a breakdown in their depiction of bed roughness where the relief is most complex. In this article, we describe a new algorithm, analogous to wavelet transformations, to quantify the bed roughness at multiple scales. The ‘Self-Adaptive Two-Parameter’ system calculates the roughness of a bed profile using a frequency-domain method, allowing the extraction of three characteristic factors: (1) slope, (2) skewness and (3) coefficient of variation. The multi-scale roughness is derived by weighted-summing of these frequency-related factors. We use idealized bed elevations to initially validate the algorithm, and then actual bed-elevation data are used to compare the new roughness index with other methods. We show the new technique is an effective tool for quantifying bed roughness from radar data, paving the way for improved continental-wide depictions of bed roughness and incorporation of this information into ice flow models.

Magnetoelectric (ME) materials exhibit cross-coupling effects between magnetization and polarization, by which one can manipulate the magnetization (or polarization) with an electric (or magnetic) field. To better understand the responses of ME materials and the coupling mechanisms involved, various simulation methods at different scales, ranging from electronic and atomic scale to the mesoscale, have been developed in the past decades. In this article, we summarize recent progress in modeling and predicting responses of ME materials, and present our perspectives on key issues that require further study, including multiscale simulation methods and approaches dealing with dynamic processes. The simulation methods have the potential to illuminate the dynamic processes in ME materials and device response to external fields and eventually be used for guidance for the data-driven computational design of new ME materials and devices.

The readback/hearback loop is a communicative protocol used in many high-risk environments to ensure that a verbal instruction has been heard correctly by a receiver. However, it does not necessarily ensure that an instruction has been understood. Using an international sample of hydroelectric power generation controllers, this study examined whether particular linguistic (complete and partial readbacks) and prosodic (final intonation, filler, and interturn delay) cues contained within a readback response could signal to listeners the extent to which speakers had understood an instruction. The results indicated that different prosodic cues are used to detect nonunderstandings, depending upon the linguistic content of the readback. The results have implications for training and system design in distributed environments.

A numerical analysis is presented of the Rayleigh–Taylor instability (RTI) in the presence of an external electric field, with an emphasis on nonlinear phenomena associated with the evolution of complex interfacial morphology. The Poisson equation for the electric field and the Navier–Stokes equation for fluid flow field are solved simultaneously along with the Cahn–Hilliard phase field equation for interface deformation and morphology development. Numerical model is validated against the existing data and the results of linear analysis. Extensive numerical simulations are carried out for a wide range of fluid flow and electric field conditions. Computed results show that, in both linear and nonlinear regimes, a horizontal field suppresses the RTI, while a vertical electric field aggravates it. However, the vertical field does not affect the secondary instability; specifically, it does not contribute to the baroclinical generation of vorticity and consequently does not affect the roll-up formation. Linear analysis predicts that the RTI remains the same with the interchange of the dielectric constants of the two fluids, which is also confirmed by the numerical model for small interface deformations. This prediction, however, does not hold true in the nonlinear regimes in that complex interfacial morphology may evolve quite differently if the dielectric constants of two fluids are interchanged.

The crystal–melt interfacial free energy is an important quantity governing many kinetic phenomena including solidification and crystal growth. Although general calculation methods are available, it is still difficult to obtain the interfacial energies that differ only slightly due to anisotropy. Here, we report such a calculation of Al crystal–melt interfacial energy based on the general framework of the capillary fluctuation method (CFM). The subtle dependence of both the melting temperature and interfacial free energy at melting temperature on the crystal interface orientation was examined. For Al, the average melting temperature is obtained at 934.79 ± 5 K and the orientationally averaged mean interfacial free energy is 98.35 mJ/m2. In addition, the anisotropy of the interfacial free energy is found weak, nevertheless with the values ranked as γ100 > γ110 > γ111.

The BiCuSeO has been proved to be one of the best oxide-based thermoelectric materials in recent years. Its electric properties have been widely studied, yet the lattice thermal conductivity was only discussed roughly. Our investigation suggests that the anharmonic vibration and the interlayer-interaction plays the crucial role in reducing the intrinsic lattice thermal conductivity. The thermal conductivity has been calculated based on quasi-harmonic approximation and detailed contribution have been discussed. The calculated data have good agreement with the experimental data.

Current theories on disease-diversity relationships predict a strong influence of host richness on disease transmission. In addition, identity effect, caused by the occurrence of particular species, can also modify disease risk. We tested the richness effect and the identity effects of mammal species on bovine tuberculosis (bTB), based on the regional bTB outbreak data in cattle from 2005–2010 in Africa. Besides, we also tested which other factors were associated with the regional bTB persistence and recurrence in cattle. Our results suggested a dilution effect, where higher mammal species richness (MSR) was associated with reduced probabilities of bTB persistence and recurrence in interaction with cattle density. African buffalo had a positive effect on bTB recurrence and a positive interaction effect with cattle density on bTB persistence, indicating an additive positive identity effect of buffalo. The presence of greater kudu had no effect on bTB recurrence or bTB persistence. Climatic variables only act as risk factors for bTB persistence. In summary, our study identified both a dilution effect and identity effect of wildlife and showed that bTB persistence and recurrence were correlated with different sets of risk factors. These results are relevant for more effective control strategies and better targeted surveillance measures in bTB.

Load transfer and mechanical strength of reinforced polymers are fundamental to developing advanced composites. This paper demonstrates enhanced load transfer and mechanical strength due to synergistic effects in binary mixtures of nano-carbon/polymer composites. Different compositional mixtures (always 1 wt. % total) of multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and single-layer graphene (SLG) were mixed in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), and effects on load transfer and mechanical strength were studied using Raman spectroscopy. Significant shifts in the G-bands were observed both in tension and compression for single as well binary nano-carbon counterparts in polymer composites. Small amounts of MWNT0.1 dispersed in SLG0.9/PDMS samples (subscripts represents weight percentage) reversed the sign of the Raman wavenumbers from positive to negative values demonstrating reversal of lattice stress. A wavenumber change from 10 cm-1 in compression (-10% strain) to 10 cm-1 in tension (50% strain), and an increase in elastic modulus of ∼103% was observed for MWNT0.1SLG0.9/PDMS with applied uniaxial tension. Presence of MWNTs in the matrix reduced the segmental polymeric chain length and provided limited extensibility to the chains. This in turn eliminated compressive deformation of SLG and significantly enhanced load transfer and mechanical strength of composites in tension. The orientation order of MWNT with application of uniaxial tensile strain directly affected the shift in Raman wavenumbers (2D band and G-band) and load transfer. It is observed that the cooperative behavior of binary nano-carbons in polymer composites resulted in enhanced load transfer and mechanical strength. Such binary compositions could be fundamental to developing advanced composites.

We present photometry and spectroscopy of the peculiar Type II supernova SN 2010jp, also named PTF10aaxi. The light curve exhibits a linear decline with a relatively low peak absolute magnitude of only −15.9 (unfiltered), and a low radioactive decay luminosity at late times that suggests a low synthesized nickel mass of about 0.003 M⊙ or less. Spectra of SN 2010jp display an unprecedented triple-peaked Hα line profile, showing: (1) a narrow central component that suggests shock interaction with a dense circumstellar medium (CSM); (2) high-velocity blue and red emission features centered at −12,600 and +15,400 km s−1; and (3) very broad wings extending from −22,000 to +25,000 km s−1. We propose that this line profile indicates a bipolar jet-driven explosion, with the central component produced by normal SN ejecta and CSM interaction at mid and low latitudes, while the high-velocity bumps and broad line wings arise in a nonrelativistic bipolar jet. Jet-driven SNe II are predicted for collapsars resulting from a wide range of initial masses above 25 M⊙, especially at the sub-solar metallicity consistent with the SN host environment. It also seems consistent with the apparently low 56Ni mass that may accompany black hole formation. We speculate that the jet survives to produce observable signatures because the star's H envelope was very low mass, having been mostly stripped away by the previous eruptive mass loss.

Let A be a quasi-accretive operator defined in a uniformly smooth Banach space. We present a necessary and sufficient condition for the strong convergence of the semigroups generated by – A and of the steepest descent methods to a zero of A.

The nanotechnology is undergoing enormous attention in the areas of biological research for clinical, environmental, and life sciences applications. One of the products from this new technology that attracts researcher’s attentions is the semiconductor quantum dot (QDs) nanoparticles, QDs possess incomparable advantages such as unique size-dependent physical properties, broad absorption spectrum, precise small bandwidth emission wavelength, as well as enhanced chemical and photochemical stability. The QDs can be modified for a controlled and enhanced endocytosis, enhanced cooperative binding activity, and easy introduction of multi-functionalities for medical applications such as targeted delivery and imaging. It can be used for complex studies that play very important roles in the modern biomedical researches. However, when performing the cell related assays, the non-specific cellular uptake of QDs is a major concern because they can lead to false positives or false results. In our study, we used different surface modified QDs treated with different blocking buffers to eliminate cellular uptake. The preliminary results showed that the cellular uptake of QDs can be eliminated by surface modification of the QD materials and by performing the assays in the presence of blocking buffers. As a result of the elimination of non-specific uptake of QDs the sensitivity and specificity of detection increased significantly.

Nanotechnology is currently undergoing unprecedented development in various fields. There has been a widespread interest in the application of nanomaterials in medicine with its promise of improving imaging, diagnostics, and therapy. The recent advances in engineering and technology have led to the development of new nanoscale platforms such as quantum dots, gold nanocrystals, superparamagnetic nanocrystals, and other semiconductor nanoparticles. Literature on the applications of quantum dots in life sciences has recently increased in number. This may have led to predictions that nanotechnology in life sciences research will contribute $3.4 billion by 2010 while institutions have predicted that the market for nanotechnology and corresponding products will reach $1 trillion in 2012 (1).

Ocean NanoTech is at the height of developmental stages of nanoparticle production for biological applications. Ocean’s high quantum-yield quantum dots (QDs) is currently being tested and used for cell imaging, as wells as for the detection of proteins, DNA, whole cells, and whole organisms. Imaging of cells involves conjugation of QDs to highly sensitive and specific antibody to form QD˜Ab conjugates that attach to specific protein target on the cell surface. Attachment of the QD˜Ab on the cell surface allows imaging of the cell under a fluorescence microscope. QD based imaging can be used in a multiplex immunoassay detection of several types of cells (or microorganisms) in a single sample when several size tunable quantum dots are used as reporter probes.

We report the QD imaging of breast cancer cells. Using the breast cancer cell line SK-BR3, which expresses high levels of her2 antigens on the cell surface, anti-her2 were conjugated to Ocean’s quantum dots, QSH620. To eliminate non-specific binding of the QD˜20Ab Ocean’s super blocking buffer BBB and BBG were used. Preliminary results of in vitro studies indicated that QD based systems can be used to image cells. We anticipate that this system can be transferred to in vivo detection.

The homology of the sequences, reported and registered in GenBank, of different strains of Avian influenza virus (AIV), Newcastle disease virus (NDV), Classical swine fever virus (CSFV) and Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV), was analysed and compared with each other. According to the properties of these viruses, the conservative domain of the M gene for AIV, the F gene for NDV, the 5' non-coding domain end for CSFV and the 2B gene for FMDV were selected for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification. In order to prevent the formation of conformational dimers between different primers, four pairs of primers designed with the DNAsis system under the condition of G+C (50–60%),18–25 bp in length and Tm (72–85), were analysed using the VNTI5.5 system. The specific fragments amplified were as follows: 141 bp for FMDV, 200 bp for CSFV, 319 bp for NDV and 471 bp for AIV. The optimal conditions of PCR for each virus mentioned above were determined by orthogonal assay, and two or four of the four pairs of primers were then combined and used for amplification trials. The results showed that four specific fragments of different lengths would be successfully amplified in one tube at the same time. The products of PCR were tested to be specific by sequencing. Out of 46 pathological samples detected with the multiple PCR, there were 5 AIVs, 7 NDVs, 15 CSFVs and 6 FMDVs. The amplification above was identified with a single PCR. On the other hand, the results corresponded to those of electronic microscopy, haemagglutination (HA) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The method described here is practicable, sensitive, specific, simple and cheap. It could be used for diagnosing AIV, NDV, CSFV and FMDV in different animals.