An Analysis of Evacuation Behavior During Hurricane Ike

Hurricanes have been considered one of the most costly disasters in United State, which lead to both economic loss and human fatalities. Therefore, understanding the characteristics of those who evacuated and of those who did not evacuate have been principal focus of some previous researches related to hurricane evacuation behavior. This research presents two sets of decision-making models for analyzing hurricane evacuation behavior, using two statistical methods: standard logistic model and mixed logistic model.The receipt of evacuation order, elevation, expenditure, the presence of children and elderly people, ownership of a house, and receipt of hurricane warning are found to be extremely important in evacuation decision making. When the mixed logistic model is applied, the rate of concern about hurricane threat is assumed to be random according to normal distribution. Mixed logistic models which account for the heterogeneity of household responses are found to perform better than standard logistic model

Does Capital Account Liberalization Affect the Financial Stability: Evidence from China

This paper seeks to investigate the relationship between capital account liberalization and the financial stability in China. Furthermore, The Finite Distributed Lag Model is employed to quantify relationship between capital account liberalization and monetary crisis. And a general conclusion can be drawn that capital account liberalization is harmful to the stability official market in one year period, while the overall capital account liberalization effect can facilitate China's financial stability in a long run. Moreover, some suggestions are provided on China's capital account liberalization policies

Mean-Variance-Skewness Portfolio Selection Model Based on RBF-GA

The classical Markowitz’s mean-variance model in modern investment science uses variance as risk measure while it ignores the asymmetry of the return distribution. This article introduces skewness, V-type transaction costs, cardinality constraint and initial investment proportion, and builds a new class of nonlinear multi-objective portfolio model (mean-variance-skewness portfolio selection model). To solve the model, we develop a genetic algorithm(GA) which contains radial basis function(RBF) neural network, called RBF-GA. The experimental results show that the proposed model is more effective and more realistic than others

Childhood mitochondrial encephalomyopathies: clinical course, diagnosis, neuroimaging findings, mtDNA mutations and outcome in six children

Mitochondrial dysfunction manifests in many forms during childhood. There is no effective therapy for the condition; hence symptomatic therapy is the only option. The effect of symptomatic therapy are not well known. We present clinical course, diagnosis and effect of current treatments for six children suffering from mitochondrial encephalomyopathy identified by clinical demonstrations, brain MRI findings and DNA mutations. Two were male and four were female. Their age ranged between 2 and 17 years. Skeletal muscle biopsies were obtained in three and one showed misshaped and enlarged mitochondria under electron microscope. mtDNA mutation frequency was >30%. Five children were diagnosed with MELAS (mitochondrial encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and strokelike episodes) and one with Leigh’s syndrome (LS). All were given cocktail and symptomatic treatments. One of the five MELAS children died from severe complications. The other four MELAS children remain alive; four showed improvement, and one remained unresponsive. Of the four who showed improvement, two do not have any abnormal signs and the other two have some degree of motor developmental delay and myotrophy. The LS child is doing well except for ataxia. Until better therapy such as mitochondrial gene therapy is available, cocktail and symptomatic treatments could at least stabilize these children

An Empirical Study on the Influencing Factors of University Students’ Sense of Gain in Ideological and Political Theory Course -- Take the Course of “Ideological and Moral Cultivation and Legal Basis”as An Example

The self-made questionnaire was administered to a random sample of 1000 undergraduates, the result of data analysis shows that the “Mechanism model of influencing factors on university students’ ‘Basic Course’  gain” proposed in this paper can partly explain the influence of personal, family, school and social factors on college students’ “Basic Course” acquisition; The factors of family, school and society are the external factors which affect the students’ sense of gain of“Basic Course”, and the personal factors are the internal factors which affect the students’ sense of gain of “Basic Course”; External factors act through internal factors. Based on that, this paper puts forward some suggestions and countermeasures to enhance the sense of gain of university students’“Basic courses”

Fresnel diffraction patterns as accelerating beams

We demonstrate that beams originating from Fresnel diffraction patterns are self-accelerating in free space. In addition to accelerating and self-healing, they also exhibit parabolic deceleration property, which is in stark contrast to other accelerating beams. We find that the trajectory of Fresnel paraxial accelerating beams is similar to that of nonparaxial Weber beams. Decelerating and accelerating regions are separated by a critical propagation distance, at which no acceleration is present. During deceleration, the Fresnel diffraction beams undergo self-smoothing, in which oscillations of the diffracted waves gradually focus and smooth out at the critical distance

Early increase of cerebrospinal fluid 14-3-3ζ protein in the alzheimer's disease continuum

BackgroundThe earlier research has shown that the 14-3-3ζ is increased in neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) of human Alzheimer's disease (AD) brains and stimulates the tau phosphorylation. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) 14-3-3ζ along the AD continuum remains to be explored.MethodsWe analyzed 113 cognitive normal (CN) controls, 372 patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 225 patients with AD dementia from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative database. CSF 14-3-3ζ protein was measured by Mass Spectrometry.ResultsWe observed higher CSF 14-3-3ζ in the MCI group vs. the CN group and in the AD group vs. the MCI or CN group. The 14-3-3ζ was able to distinguish AD from CN and MCI. High 14-3-3ζ predicted conversion from MCI to AD. In CSF, phosphorylated tau at threonine 181 and total-tau were associated with 14-3-3ζ in MCI and AD groups, and beta-amyloid (Aβ) 42 correlated with 14-3-3ζ in the MCI group. Baseline high 14-3-3ζ was associated with cognitive decline, brain atrophy, glucose hypometabolism, and Aβ deposition in MCI and AD at baseline and follow-up.ConclusionOur findings revealed the potential diagnostic and prognostic utility of CSF 14-3-3ζ in the AD continuum. The 14-3-3ζ could be a promising therapeutic target for the intervention of AD