Modeling Flood Perils and Flood Insurance Program in Taiwan

Taiwan had approximately 3,000 buildings damaged by floods with an economic loss of NT$12.8 billion annually, a figure 4.5 times more than economic losses due to fire damages. Many insurers become extremely cautious when underwriting their flood policies for people living in areas that are frequently struck by floods. The rising damages also trigger the demand for a mandatory national flood insurance program. This paper describes the development of an integrated flood risk assessment model for Taiwan which contains of a hazard, vulnerability and financial analysis module. We take the perspective that the mandatory program will be provided to fire policyholders as part of building and content insurance to mitigate the financial losses. The issue of a long-term balance between fund accumulations and its claim payouts will be addressed along with policy recommendations based on the modeling results.Risk Assessment, Typhoon, Flood Insurance, Financial Analysis, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Risk and Uncertainty,

Biological and Preclinical Evaluations of Designed Optically Guided Medical Devices with Light Scattering Modules for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Treatment and Surgical Procedure

A novel technique and product applied to carpal tunnel microscopic surgical procedures through the designed medical devices were prepared and studied. The novel design of the medical device could be developed and applied for new carpal tunnel microscopic surgical procedures instead of the traditional carpal tunnel surgical procedures. Also, a new medical device with optical LLLT module was designed for wound healing in carpal tunnel syndrome treatments. Furthermore, assistive surgical healing dressings for carpal tunnel syndrome treatments via minimally invasive surgery (MIS) such as air-foam soft cleaning sponges and hydrogel surgical dressings with polymeric films were designed for more comfortable treatments. Biological and clinical evaluations of carpal tunnel surgical procedure using the new designed medical devices are studied. For commercialized reasons, guidance such as ISO 10993-1:2009(E) for biological evaluation of medical devices must be considered. Furthermore, the clinical evaluation of modified medical devices would be carried out

Productivity Change in Taiwan's Farmers' Credit Unions: A Nonparametric Risk-Adjusted Malmquist Approach

This article proposes an extended three-stage DEA methodology similar to Fried et al. (2002) to improve the measurement of productivity growth then the assumption of free disposability of undesirable outpu t does not apply. A directional distance function is used to construct adjusted Malmquist-Luenberger productivity indexes which simultaneously account for the impacts of undesirable outputs, environmental variables, and statistical noise. Panel data for 264 farmers' credit unions (FCUs) in Taiwan covering the 1998-2000 period are employed to illustrate the advantages of this method. On average, the productivity of Taiwan's FCUs is found to have deteriorated over the 1998-2000 period. Although an improvement in efficiency has been observed, the major reason for the deterioration is found to be due to the regression of techno logy.Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index, three-stage DEA, undesirable outputs, directional distance function, Agricultural Finance, Productivity Analysis,