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Monday, February 4, 2013

2013 a comeback year for construction | BGreen Magazine

According to a recently conducted region-wide study, the value of new construction projects in the GCC is expected to rise in 2013, with projects valued at US$64.5 billion set to be awarded to contractors over the coming 12 months.

This figure shows a sharp increase, up by a third (33%) on the value of projects awarded in 2012 (US$48.4bn).

Building projects worth over US$68.7bn were completed in the GCC in 2012 according to the sector report issued today. Despite being lower than previously estimated, the Gulf?s construction industry grew by 48% over 2011 when completed projects were valued at US$46.5bn. The report also forecasts a further 19% sector growth in 2013, with completed construction projects set to reach US$81.6bn.

Growth of construction projects by sector

In 2012, residential, commercial and hospitality sectors led the GCC projects market; with US$29.4bn, US$12.2bn and US$5.5bn worth of projects completed respectively. Education, medical and retail sectors were other significant contributors, with completed projects worth US$5.2bn, U$3.3bn and US$2.4bn respectively.

?In 2013, a two-paced growth is likely with residential, retail and commercial sector construction projects growing at slower rates of 4.4%, 4% and 13% to US$30.7bn, US$2.5bn and US$13.8bn respectively.? However, hospitality, educational and medical projects will grow at faster rates of 27%, 69% and 79% respectively to US$27bn, US$8.8bn and US$5.9bn. The hospitality and educational sectors of the GCC building construction industry will see their market share by value of projects completed in 2013 grow tremendously by 137% (from 3.8% to 9%) and 134 % (4.7% to 11%) respectively. Residential building projects will remain the largest segment of the real estate market in terms of projects expected to complete in 2013 with a market share of 38%. Commercial will remain the second largest real estate sector with 17% but the educational sector is set to overtake the hospitality construction segment and claim third place with an 11% of the market share against hospitality?s market share of 9%.

Overview of the GCC interiors and fit-out market

Despite being lower than previously forecast, the value of the GCC interior contracting and fit-out market in 2012 was US$7.86bn ? an increase of 56% against the 2011 figure of US$5.04bn and is expected to rise by 17% in 2013 to US$9.2bn. In 2012, the UAE was once again the largest interiors and fit-out market in the GCC and, at US$2.83bn, made up 36% of the US$7.86bn GCC market. It was followed by the Saudi Arabia and Qatar which were valued at US$2.6bn and US$1.49bn respectively. The Kuwait interiors and fit-out market was valued at US$472m, Oman?s at US$314m and Bahrain?s at US$157m.

The residential sector continues to command the largest market share of the GCC interior contracting and fit-out market with a 41% share of the overall market value in 2012 (US$3.24bn). While the residential sector is expected to remain the largest sector of the interior contracting and fit-out market in 2013 and increase in value by 5%, it will see its market share reduce slightly to 37% (US$3.4bn) as other sectors grow at a faster rate.

As GCC countries continue to invest in social infrastructure, the value of the educational and medical sectors of the interior contracting and fit-out market will see huge increases of 70% (from US$412m to US$702m) and 80% respectively (from US$261m to US$470m).

In 2013, the hospitality sector of the GCC interior contracting and fit-out market is set to overtake the commercial sector and take the second largest share of the market ? increasing in value by 31% from US$1.2bn to US$1.57bn.

The report

The in-depth sector report issued today was commissioned by the organising team behind INDEX, and conducted by Ventures ME.

Frederique Maurell, Event Director for both the INDEX and Office exhibitions,?who supervised the compilation of the report, said: ?A number of construction projects that had been on hold resumed in 2012, as the region?s oversupply concerns were dispelled by a rise in demand due to growth of the population and disposable incomes. Governments have initiated construction across key sectors to cater to this demand. Though recovery of the commercial real estate sector remains somewhat subdued, new opportunities are emerging in residential, hospitality, retail and education sectors; albeit at a cautious and regulated pace. While the global economy as a whole remains relatively flat, it is safe to say that GCC construction industry and the associated interiors fit-out sector are recovering momentum.?

?This trend is being driven by investors acquiring partly completed properties and renovating, expanding or adding value rather than initiating new developments. The interiors and fit-out sector is responding well to these changes in demand, and beginning to see growth in new projects. Together, this puts the market firmly on an upward trajectory,? added Maurell.

As a preamble to INDEX 2013, the report highlights the potential for a comeback for the construction sector. The 23rd edition of the annual INDEX Interiors and Design Exhibition, the region?s largest and longest running interiors and design exhibition, will run alongside the 12^th edition of the annual Office Exhibition on 20 to 23 May 2013 at the Dubai World Trade Centre, UAE.

Source: http://www.buildgreen.ae/2013/02/04/2013-a-comeback-year-for-construction/

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Sunday, February 3, 2013

Saturday video break: Killing Me Softly (Offthekuff)

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Man charged in fatal shooting of ex-SEAL/author

In this April 6, 2012, photo, former Navy SEAL and author of the book ?American Sniper? poses in Midlothian, Texas. A Texas sheriff has told local newspapers that Kyle has been fatally shot along with another man on a gun range, Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013. (AP Photo/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Paul Moseley)

This photo provided by the Erath County Sheriff?s Office shows Eddie Ray Routh. He was charged with murder in connection with a shooting at a central Texas gun range that killed former Navy SEAL and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield, the Texas Department of Public Safety said Sunday, Feb. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/ Erath County Sheriff's Office)

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STEPHENVILLE, Texas (AP) ? A 25-year-old Iraq war veteran charged with murdering former Navy SEAL and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle and his friend turned his semi-automatic handgun onto the pair while they were at a Texas shooting range, authorities said Sunday.

Eddie Ray Routh of Lancaster was arraigned early Sunday on two counts of capital murder in the deaths of Kyle, 38, and Chad Littlefield, 35, at the shooting range about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

Capt. Jason Upshaw with the Erath County Sheriff's Office said Routh used a semi-automatic handgun, which authorities later found at his home. Upshaw declined to give any more details about the type of gun used.

Routh has not made any comments indicating what his motive may have been, Upshaw said. Sheriff Tommy Bryant said Routh was unemployed and "may have been suffering from some type of mental illness from being in the military himself," but he didn't know if Routh was on any medication.

"I don't know that we'll ever know. He's the only one that knows that," Upshaw said.

The U.S. military confirmed Sunday that Routh was a corporal in the Marines from June 2006 to January 2010. He was deployed to Iraq in 2007 and Haiti in 2010. His current duty status is listed as reserve.

Routh is being held on $3 million bond. Authorities did not know whether Routh had a lawyer yet.

Bryant said the trio went to the shooting range around 3:15 p.m. Saturday. Someone else came across the bodies of Kyle and Littlefield around 5 p.m. and called 911.

Upshaw said autopsies were still pending and he could not say how many times the men were shot or where on their bodies they were hit.

After the shootings, Routh left the shooting range in Kyle's black pickup truck, Bryant said, first going to his sister's home in Midlothian, where he told her and her husband what he had done. The couple called local police.

Routh arrived at his home in Lancaster, about 17 miles southeast of Dallas, at about 8 p.m. Police arrested him after a brief pursuit and took him to the Lancaster Police Department.

Travis Cox, the director of a nonprofit Kyle helped found, told the Associated Press on Sunday that Kyle and Littlefield had taken Routh to the range. Littlefield was Kyle's neighbor and "workout buddy," Cox said.

"What I know is Chris and a gentleman ? great guy, I knew him well, Chad Littlefield ? took a veteran out shooting who was struggling with PTSD to try to assist him, try to help him, try to, you know, give him a helping hand and he turned the gun on both of them, killing them," Cox said.

A knock on the door at Routh's last known address went unanswered Sunday. A for-sale sign was in front of the small, wood-framed home.

Kyle, a decorated veteran, wrote the best-selling book, "American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History," detailing his 150-plus kills of insurgents from 1999 to 2009. Kyle said in his book that Iraqi insurgents had put a bounty on his head. According to promotional information from book publisher William Morrow, Kyle deployed to Iraq four times.

Kyle's nonprofit, FITCO Cares, provides at-home fitness equipment for emotionally and physically wounded veterans.

"Chris was literally the type of guy if you were a veteran and needed help he'd help you," Cox said. "And from my understanding that's what happened here. I don't know how he came in contact with this gentleman, but I do know that it was not through the foundation."

Cox described Littlefield as a gentle, kind-hearted man who often called or emailed him with ideas for events or fundraisers to help veterans.

"It was just two great guys with Chad and Chris trying to help out a veteran in need and making time out of their day to help him. And to give him a hand. And unfortunately this thing happened," Cox said.

Lt. Cmdr. Rorke Denver, who served with Kyle on SEAL Team 3 in Iraq in 2006, called Kyle a champion of the modern battlefield.

"Everybody was aware in 2006 that something special or something unique with his skill set was developing and starting to grow and then it just carried on until he hung up his guns, at least in an active military capacity, and moved on," Denver said. His book, "Damn Few," about training SEALs, will be released this month.

Denver wasn't surprised that Kyle apparently used a shooting range to help someone with PTSD.

"For us, for warriors, that's a skill set that has become very familiar, very comfortable for us," said Denver, a lieutenant commander in a reserve SEAL team. "So I actually see it as kind of a perfect use of Chris' unique skill set and expertise of which he has very few peers."

Craft International, Kyle's security training company, had scheduled a $2,950-per-person civilian training event at Rough Creek Lodge called the "Rough Creek Shoot Out!" for March 1-3. The price included lodging, meals and shooting instruction. Kyle was scheduled to teach the first class, called "precision rifle."

Kyle is survived by his wife, Taya, and their two children, Cox said.

___

Sherman reported from McAllen, Texas. Associated Press writers Andale Gross and Erica Hunzinger in Chicago contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-03-Sniper%20Author-Shooting/id-e1f37b96a437418da426ee95da712b77

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Plant scientists demonstrate new means of boosting maize yields

Feb. 3, 2013 ? A team of plant geneticists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has successfully demonstrated what it describes as a "simple hypothesis" for making significant increases in yields for the maize plant.

Called corn by most people in North America, modern variants of the Zea mays plant are among the indispensable food crops that feed billions of the planet's people. As global population soars beyond 6 billion and heads for an estimated 8 to 9 billion by mid-century, efforts to boost yields of essential food crops takes on ever greater potential significance.

The new findings obtained by CSHL Professor David Jackson and colleagues, published online February 3 in Nature Genetics, represent the culmination of over a decade of research and creative thinking on how to perform genetic manipulations in maize that will have the effect of increasing the number of its seeds -- which most of us call kernels.

Plant growth and development depend on structures called meristems -- reservoirs in plants that consist of the plant version of stem cells. When prompted by genetic signals, cells in the meristem develop into the plant's organs -- leaves and flowers, for instance. Jackson's team has taken an interest in how quantitative variation in the pathways that regulate plant stem cells contribute to a plant's growth and yield.

"Our simple hypothesis was that an increase in the size of the inflorescence meristem -- the stem-cell reservoir that gives rise to flowers and ultimately, after pollination, seeds -- will provide more physical space for the development of the structures that mature into kernels."

Dr. Peter Bommert, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Jackson lab, performed an analytical technique on several maize variants that revealed what scientists call quantitative trait loci (QTLs): places along the chromosomes that "map" to specific complex traits such as yield. The analysis pointed to a gene that Jackson has been interested in since 2001, when he was first to clone it: a maize gene called FASCIATED EAR2 (FEA2).

Not long after cloning the gene, Jackson had a group of gifted Long Island high school students, part of a program called Partners for the Future, perform an analysis of literally thousands of maize ears. Their task was to meticulously count the number of rows of kernels on each ear. It was part of a research project that won the youths honors in the Intel Science competition. Jackson, meantime, gained important data that now has come to full fruition.

The lab's current research has now shown that by producing a weaker-than-normal version of the FEA2 gene -- one whose protein is mutated but still partly functional -- it is possible, as Jackson postulated, to increase meristem size, and in so doing, get a maize plant to produce ears with more rows and more kernels.

How many more? In two different crops of maize variants that the Jackson team grew in two locations with weakened versions of FEA2, the average ear had 18 to 20 rows and up to 289 kernels -- as compared with wild-type versions of the same varieties, with 14 to 16 rows and 256 kernels. Compared with the latter figure, the successful FEA2 mutants had a kernel yield increase of some 13%.

"We were excited to note this increase was accomplished without reducing the length of the ears or causing fasciation -- a deformation that tends to flatten the ears," Jackson says. Both of those characteristics, which can sharply lower yield, are prominent when FEA2 is completely missing, as the team's experiments also demonstrated.

Teosinte, the humble wild weed that Mesoamericans began to modify about 7000 years ago, beginning a process that resulted in the domestication of maize, makes only 2 rows of kernels; elite modern varieties of the plant can produce as many as 20.

A next step in the research is to cross-breed the "weak" FEA2 gene variant, or allele, associated with higher kernel yield with the best maize lines used in today's food crops to ask if it will produce a higher-yield plant.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Peter Bommert, Namiko Satoh Nagasawa & David Jackson. Quantitative variation in maize kernel row number is controlled by the FASCIATED EAR2 locus. Nature Genetics, 03 February 2013 DOI: 10.1038/ng.2534

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/33u3yq3NI_4/130203145600.htm

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Friday, February 1, 2013

Gay-rights backers await for their Jackie Robinson

San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver answers questions Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, in New Orleans, regarding anti-gay remarks he made during Super Bowl media day Tuesday. Culliver apologized for the comments he made to a comedian, saying "that's not what I feel in my heart." The 49ers are scheduled to play the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game on Feb. 3. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver, seated at top, answers questions Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, in New Orleans, regarding anti-gay remarks he made during Super Bowl media day Tuesday. Culliver apologized for the comments he made to a comedian, saying "that's not what I feel in my heart." The 49ers are scheduled to play the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game on Feb. 3. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver (29) takes a seat to answer questions Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, in New Orleans, regarding anti-gay remarks he made during Super Bowl media day Tuesday. Culliver apologized for the comments he made to a comedian during an interview, saying "that's not what I feel in my heart." The 49ers are scheduled to play the Baltimore Ravens in the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game on Feb. 3. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) ? Brendon Ayanbadejo has heard from many players who applaud his support of gay marriage ? some of them teammates, others from the opposing side of the line.

Then, just days before the biggest game of the year, he received a striking reminder of the macho attitudes that still prevail in the NFL.

San Francisco cornerback Chris Culliver said he wouldn't welcome a gay player on his team. Even though he quickly backtracked, the comments underscored what Ayanbadejo already believed:

The league is still a long way from embracing its first openly gay player.

"It's going to take a very courageous person to come out," said Ayanbadejo, a backup linebacker and special teams ace for the Baltimore Ravens.

Culliver apologized Thursday, maintaining that what he said during an interview with comedian Artie Lange during Super Bowl media day ? videotaped and posted on the Internet ? were not his true beliefs.

"That's not what I feel in my heart," the defensive back said.

But Ayanbadejo (EYN'-beh-day-joe), who stirred debate this season by backing a gay-rights amendment in his adopted state of Maryland, estimates that at least half the NFL's players would agree with what Culliver said, at least privately.

Responding to a series of crude questions from Lange, Culliver said the 49ers didn't have any gay players, and if they did those players should leave. "Can't be with that sweet stuff," he said, seemingly unaware that his comments would ever get back to San Francisco and the Bay Area, home to a large gay community.

"I'm sorry if I offended anyone. They were very ugly comments," Culliver said. "Hopefully, I will learn and grow from this experience and this situation. I love San Francisco."

Whether he was honestly expressing his true feelings or trying to limit the damage, the comments prompted plenty of discussion about a larger issue: Is the NFL ? or any major pro sport in the U.S. ? ready to accept a player who comes out?

Several retired athletes have acknowledged their homosexuality after their careers were over. But no one has revealed it while actually suiting up, no doubt mindful of the divisiveness it might cause in the locker room.

"I'd say 50 percent of the people (in the NFL) think like Culliver. I'd say 25 percent of the people think like me. And 25 percent of the people are religious. They don't necessarily agree with all the things I agree with, but they're accepting," Ayanbadejo said. "So it's a fight. It's an uphill battle."

For Ayanbadejo, taking a strong stand on heated issues is just part of his makeup. The 36-year-old grew up in Northern California ? less than an hour from the 49ers current training facility ? and learned at an early age from his family to treat all people with tolerance and respect. He remembers marveling at the skill of Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis, then finding out later he was gay.

"I thought it was awesome he could go out there and do his thing," Ayanbadejo said. "No matter who you are or what you're doing, if you're doing something you love, you should be able to do that and express who you are."

That's why he thought it important to come out in support of gay marriage in Maryland, an issue that put him at odds with a vocal state lawmaker who opposed the measure. The amendment was passed by the voters in November, and Ayanbadejo was pleasantly surprised that a number of players ? even from other teams ? gave him a pat on his back.

Of course, there were others who didn't agree ? many of them in his own locker room. Safety Bernard Pollard is among those who doesn't support gay marriage, though he insisted it doesn't affect his relationship with Ayanbadejo.

"Everybody's entitled to their own opinion," Pollard said. "Ayanbadejo has taken a position to back everything that's going on there (in Maryland). There's a lot of guys that disagree.

"But, you know, we can all disagree, and be perfectly fine. He knows I don't back what he's doing. I don't stand for it. But at the same time, that doesn't take away from us being teammates. I still respect him as a man. I'm never going to demean him. He's never going to demean me. He's got his thing, and I've got mine."

Ayanbadejo was asked what kind of player ? and person ? it would take to be the first openly gay athlete in the NFL. He said it would have to be someone along the lines of Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in baseball and, coincidentally, would have been 94 on Thursday.

"If you're an amazing player, acceptance is going to come a lot easier," the Ravens linebacker said. "People would be like, 'Man, I didn't know gay people were such amazing athletes.' Uh, yeah, it's not that farfetched. But some people think like that."

San Francisco safety Donte Whitner, another strong supporter of gay rights, said a number of factors would have to be lined up perfectly before a gay player could make the call to come out.

"It depends on what team he's on, what market he's in and the character of the guys in the locker room," he said. "The character of the guys in the locker room is important. You can feel a lot more comfortable about coming out if there's guys in there to back you up."

Interestingly enough, considering it was a teammate who stirred up the issue during Super Bowl week, Whitner said the 49ers would probably be one of the most accepting squads.

"I believe there would be no issues with our team," he said. "I believe San Francisco would probably be the best city to do it in."

Niners CEO Jed York said he needs to become a leader on the issue of gay rights. After the Super Bowl, he intends to set up a meeting between Culliver and members of the LGBT community in the Bay area.

"I can't force anybody to think or to act the way that I want them to," York said. "But what I can do is give them the opportunity to experience other cultures, other communities."

While Ayanbadejo praised the efforts of NFL executives like York, as well as the backing he received from his own team on the gay-marriage issue, the first player to come out will surely face plenty of obstacles.

"I think it would be tough," 49ers receiver Randy Moss said. "That person would get ridiculed and just beat up verbally. I don't know if they'd be able to handle it."

But Moss said it's time ? past time, really ? for everyone in the NFL to acknowledge that gay players have always been part of the league. And, he added, to realize they're not going to hide their true feelings forever.

"It's not going anywhere," Moss said. "We're all the same people. What is it ? a 16th of an inch of our skin color ? that separates us from one another? I don't really look at gays in sports as a problem. We just need to accept it and move on."

___

AP Sports Writers Janie McCauley, Howard Fendrich and Barry Wilner contributed to this report.

___

Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-02-01-FBN-Super-Bowl-Gay-Rights/id-89c50b75f878456380d0c16aeb811282

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Defiant Iran plans to speed up nuclear fuel work

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has informed the U.N. nuclear agency that it plans to use more modern uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz plant, according to a document made available to Reuters on Thursday.

Such a step could enable Iran to refine uranium faster than it can at the moment and increase concerns in Western states and Israel about the goals of Tehran's nuclear program, which they fear has military aims. Iran says its work is peaceful.

It would also underline Iran's defiance in the face of international demands to suspend all enrichment activities, enshrined in a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions, and may further complicate diplomacy to resolve the dispute.

A diplomat who declined to be identified, said Iran had informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog, of the plan in a letter dated January 23.

The letter said that Iran would use the new centrifuges - a model called IR2m - at a unit in the Natanz plant where Iran is enriching uranium to a fissile concentration of up to five percent, according to an IAEA communication to member states seen by Reuters.

"The Secretariat of the Agency received a letter from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) dated 23 January 2013 informing the Agency that 'centrifuge machines type IR2m will be used in Unit A-22' at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz," the IAEA communication said.

Iran says it refines uranium to power a planned network of nuclear power stations. But the West fears that the material, if enriched much further to 90 percent, could be used for weapons. Iran says its nuclear program has only peaceful goals.

The Islamic republic has for years been trying to develop more centrifuges that are more efficient than the breakdown-prone 1970s IR-1 models it now uses for production.

(This story has been refiled to fix typo in author's name)

(Reporting by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-says-plans-upgrade-uranium-enrichment-natanz-diplomat-081034490.html

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New model to determine lifetime spending

Jan. 30, 2013 ? University of Virginia Darden School of Business research shows new, more effective ways to plan for retirement.

Every day, financial planners help future retirees determine how much they'll spend or "consume" each year of their lifetime. The answer lets individuals know how much they'll need to save to live comfortably. However, making plans without knowing how long you will live is a financial challenge. As the saying goes, "You can't take it with you when you die." At the same time, individuals do not want to outlive their retirement savings.

Darden Professors Samuel E. Bodily, John Tyler Professor of Business Administration, and Assistant Professor Casey Lichtendahl discussed what they believe to be a more effective preference model for the financial-planning problem in their award-winning research paper, "Preferences for Consumption Streams: Scale Invariance, Correlation Aversion and Delay Aversion Under Mortality Risk."

The professors demonstrate that people should put their money where their health is.

"People tend to 'under plan,'" said Bodily. "They plan to spend less at 65 years of age and spend more money when they are in their 80s. With this type of spending delay, individuals risk not getting to spend as much as they might like during their lifetimes."

To better determine consumption habits, a small but growing number of financial planners offer computer-based forecasting tools. The tools ask individuals to enter information about financial obligations, savings and assets. These "financial planning calculators" generate reports that guide individuals and their planners as they choose the best approach for growing retirement savings based on consumption during each phase of a retiree's life.

Bodily and Lichtendahl favor this approach, but identify one pitfall: The common financial model, which takes additive preferences into account, fails to address dependencies on uncertainties. It doesn't distinguish between situations in which consumption is all bad or all good versus situations in which there are some bad and some good years. Instead, the researchers developed the multiplicative-expo power utility (MEP), which accounts for risks and uncertainties. Using MEP can help financial planners better forecast their clients' retirement spending needs.

Past lab experiments that studied consumption preferences showed that most people are "correlation averse," meaning they prefer to have a mixture of bad and good years rather than all bad or all good years. One positive effect of using MEP is that it suggests that retirees spend more in their early retirement years when they are more likely to be healthy and able to consume more rather than later.

"We're taking raw preferences of individuals and using the information to make decisions about spending," said Lichtendahl. "This model has important implications for how planners and analysts advise individuals planning for retirement."

"With MEP, you can solve dynamic problems because you can take them apart in time," Bodily added. "The MEP form is general and can also help with decisions such as career choices, investment choices and insurance planning."

Earlier in the fall, they were chosen as finalists for the 2012 Decision Analysis Publication Award. The prize recognizes the best 2010 publication in "decision analysis, broadly defined." The members of the 2012 Publication Award Committee chose their work because it offered a significant impact on decision-making and business practice. Their research was published in the journal Operations Research. Bodily and Lichtendahl were recognized at the conference of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences for receiving the award.

Last month, Bodily and Lichtendahl won the "Best Paper" Decision Analysis Special Recognition Award for their December 2012 paper in Decision Analysis on "Multiplicative Utilities for Health and Consumption." This paper builds upon the use of multiplicative utilities such as MEP to connect consumption habits with health status and future health considerations.

Bodily researches decision and risk analysis, strategy modeling and analysis, forecasting and lifetime consumption, and investment planning. He has written several books, a wide variety of journal articles in publications including Operations Research and Harvard Business Review and more than 120 cases and technical notes on quantitative analytics.

Lichtendahl teaches Quantitative Analysis courses in Darden's MBA program. His research focuses on eliciting, evaluating and combining probability forecasts for use in corporate and governmental decision-making situations. His other research interests include modeling consumption preferences for use in personal financial decisions.

In addition to advancing knowledge in the area of decision analysis and modeling, Bodily and Lichtendahl hope to modernize the way financial planners and wealth managers help individuals shape the quality of their older adult lives through more effective planning for retirement.

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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/mind_brain/consumer_behavior/~3/IN8YNIEQ6lQ/130130184025.htm

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