Rationales of Mortgage Insurance Premium Structures

This paper examines the rationales for the design of mortgage insurance premium structures. The actuarially sound premium prices of several widely used structures are formally derives. Two types of cross-subsidization are identified in different structures: (1) subsidization across termination years and (2) extra-subsidization of defaulters by non-defaulters. Because these two types of subsidization exist to different degree among the structures, a borrower may self-select into certain structures to maximize (minimize) the benefits (losses) of cross-subsidies. Adverse selection arises when the borrower's characteristics cannot be completely observed by the insurer. The actuarially sound premium prices should be adjusted for such adverse selection behaviors. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate such adjustments.

Rediscovery and status of Cylindera (s. str.) lunalonga (Schaupp, 1884) (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Cicindelinae) in the San Joaquin Valley of California with a comparison to a Sierra Nevada population

Surveys for adult Cylindera (s. str.) lunalonga (Schaupp) (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Cicindelinae) were conducted between 2001 and 2011 at over 80 sites throughout the species’ historic range in the San Joaquin Valley and Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Previously considered extirpated from the Valley, these surveys resulted in finding adults at 18 sites, several with large populations (>50 individuals). As suggested by historic records, our studies confirmed that the Valley populations of Cy. lunalonga occur in what were historically wetland sites, but are now lowland agricultural croplands. Adults were always associated with wet, muddy soil within and along the edges of irrigation ditches. A comparison of morphology, behavior, habitat, and conservation is made with the only known extant Sierra Nevada population

Home Appreciation Participation Notes: A Solution to Housing Affordability and the Current Mortgage Crisis

This paper introduces Home Appreciation Participation Notes (HAPNs), an innovative new housing finance tool. Housing is a commodity providing two distinct utilities: shelter and investment. Traditionally, buyers have had to purchase both elements in tandom. HAPNs allow buyers to purchase these elements individually. Thus, buyers can focus on purchasing housing units that best fit their shelter needs, investing in housing appreciation to whatever extent is appropriate for the needs of their investment portfolio. HAPNs are different from previous financing tools in three key ways: there is no payment burden until ownership of the home is transferred, the risk of housing price declines is shifted to investors, and the final payoff is indexed to the appreciation rates of local housing prices. With these three features, HAPNs considerably improve the affordability of homeownership while reducing the risk of default and avoiding the moral hazard associated with shared appreciation instruments.

Research in remote sensing of vegetation

The research topics undertaken were primarily selected to further the understanding of fundamental relationships between electromagnetic energy measured from Earth orbiting satellites and terrestrial features, principally vegetation. Vegetation is an essential component in the soil formation process and the major factor in protecting and holding soil in place. Vegetation plays key roles in hydrological and nutrient cycles. Awareness of improvement or deterioration in the capacity of vegetation and the trends that those changes may indicate are, therefore, critical detections to make. A study of the relationships requires consideration of the various portions of the electromagnetic spectrum; characteristics of detector system; synergism that may be achieved by merging data from two or more detector systems or multiple dates of data; and vegetational characteristics. The vegetation of Oregon is sufficiently diverse as to provide ample opportunity to investigate the relationships suggested above several vegetation types

A plant disease extension of the Infectious Disease Ontology

Plants from a handful of species provide the primary source of food for all people, yet this source is vulnerable to multiple stressors, such as disease, drought, and nutrient deficiency. With rapid population growth and climate uncertainty, the need to produce crops that can tolerate or resist plant stressors is more crucial than ever. Traditional plant breeding methods may not be sufficient to overcome this challenge, and methods such as highOthroughput sequencing and automated scoring of phenotypes can provide significant new insights. Ontologies are essential tools for accessing and analysing the large quantities of data that come with these newer methods. As part of a larger project to develop ontologies that describe plant phenotypes and stresses, we are developing a plant disease extension of the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDOPlant). The IDOPlant is envisioned as a reference ontology designed to cover any plant infectious disease. In addition to novel terms for infectious diseases, IDOPlant includes terms imported from other ontologies that describe plants, pathogens, and vectors, the geographic location and ecology of diseases and hosts, and molecular functions and interactions of hosts and pathogens. To encompass this range of data, we are suggesting inOhouse ontology development complemented with reuse of terms from orthogonal ontologies developed as part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. The study of plant diseases provides an example of how an ontological framework can be used to model complex biological phenomena such as plant disease, and how plant infectious diseases differ from, and are similar to, infectious diseases in other organism

The evolution of core proteins involved in microRNA biogenesis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a recently discovered class of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) which play important roles in eukaryotic gene regulation. miRNA biogenesis and activation is a complex process involving multiple protein catalysts and involves the large macromolecular RNAi Silencing Complex or RISC. While phylogenetic analyses of miRNA genes have been previously published, the evolution of miRNA biogenesis itself has been little studied. In order to better understand the origin of miRNA processing in animals and plants, we determined the phyletic occurrences and evolutionary relationships of four major miRNA pathway protein components; Dicer, Argonaute, RISC RNA-binding proteins, and Exportin-5.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Phylogenetic analyses show that all four miRNA pathway proteins were derived from large multiple protein families. As an example, vertebrate and invertebrate Argonaute (Ago) proteins diverged from a larger family of PIWI/Argonaute proteins found throughout eukaryotes. Further gene duplications among vertebrates after the evolution of chordates from urochordates but prior to the emergence of fishes lead to the evolution of four Ago paralogues. Invertebrate RISC RNA-binding proteins R2D2 and Loquacious are related to other RNA-binding protein families such as Staufens as well as vertebrate-specific TAR (HIV trans-activator RNA) RNA-binding protein (TRBP) and protein kinase R-activating protein (PACT). Export of small RNAs from the nucleus, including miRNA, is facilitated by three closely related karyopherin-related nuclear transporters, Exportin-5, Exportin-1 and Exportin-T. While all three exportins have direct orthologues in deutrostomes, missing exportins in arthropods (Exportin-T) and nematodes (Exportin-5) are likely compensated by dual specificities of one of the other exportin paralogues.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Co-opting particular isoforms from large, diverse protein families seems to be a common theme in the evolution of miRNA biogenesis. Human miRNA biogenesis proteins have direct, orthologues in cold-blooded fishes and, in some cases, urochordates and deutrostomes. However, lineage specific expansions of Dicer in plants and invertebrates as well as Argonaute and RNA-binding proteins in vertebrates suggests that novel ncRNA regulatory mechanisms can evolve in relatively short evolutionary timeframes. The occurrence of multiple homologues to RNA-binding and Argonaute/PIWI proteins also suggests the possible existence of further pathways for additional types of ncRNAs.</p

The Plant Ontology: A common reference ontology for plants

The Plant Ontology (PO) (http://www.plantontology.org) (Jaiswal et al., 2005; Avraham et al., 2008) was designed to facilitate cross-database querying and to foster consistent use of plant-specific terminology in annotation. As new data are generated from the ever-expanding list of plant genome projects, the need for a consistent, cross-taxon vocabulary has grown. To meet this need, the PO is being expanded to represent all plants. This is the first ontology designed to encompass anatomical structures as well as growth and developmental stages across such a broad taxonomic range. While other ontologies such as the Gene Ontology (GO) (The Gene Ontology Consortium, 2010) or Cell Type Ontology (CL) (Bard et al., 2005) cover all living organisms, they are confined to structures at the cellular level and below. The diversity of growth forms and life histories within plants presents a challenge, but also provides unique opportunities to study developmental and evolutionary homology across organisms

The Plant Ontology facilitates comparisons of plant development stages across species

The Plant Ontology (PO) is a community resource consisting of standardized terms, definitions, and logical relations describing plant structures and development stages, augmented by a large database of annotations from genomic and phenomic studies. This paper describes the structure of the ontology and the design principles we used in constructing PO terms for plant development stages. It also provides details of the methodology and rationale behind our revision and expansion of the PO to cover development stages for all plants, particularly the land plants (bryophytes through angiosperms). As a case study to illustrate the general approach, we examine variation in gene expression across embryo development stages in Arabidopsis and maize, demonstrating how the PO can be used to compare patterns of expression across stages and in developmentally different species. Although many genes appear to be active throughout embryo development, we identified a small set of uniquely expressed genes for each stage of embryo development and also between the two species. Evaluating the different sets of genes expressed during embryo development in Arabidopsis or maize may inform future studies of the divergent developmental pathways observed in monocotyledonous versus dicotyledonous species. The PO and its annotation databasemake plant data for any species more discoverable and accessible through common formats, thus providing support for applications in plant pathology, image analysis, and comparative development and evolution