Model Risk, Mortality Heterogeneity, and Implications for Solvency and Tail risk

Mortality models used to assess longevity risk and retirement funding have been extended to stochastic models with trends and systematic risk. Systematic risk cannot be readily diversified in an insurance pool or pension fund. It is an important factor in assessing solvency and highlighting the tail risk in longevity insurance and pension products. Idiosyncratic risk can be diversified in typical pool sizes, although less effectively at the older ages. Mortality heterogeneity is not usually taken into account in stochastic mortality models. This is a mortality risk that reduces the effectiveness of idiosyncratic mortality risk pooling. Heterogeneity has been modeled with frailty models and more recently with Markov multiple state ageing models. This paper overviews recent developments in models for mortality heterogeneity and uses a model calibrated to both population mortality and health condition data to consider the impact of model risk and heterogeneity in assessing solvency and tail risk for longevity risk products

High Volumetric Performance Supercapacitors with Controlled Nanomorphology

Supercapacitor is one of the promising energy storage devices due to its relatively higher energy density compared with dielectric capacitor and higher power density and longer cycle life time (>millions) than conventional battery. In order to satisfy various requirements for energy technologies, supercapacitors with higher energy and power densities are required. In this chapter, we improved the electrochemical performance largely compared with commercial product through controlling the nanomorphology of cells. Meanwhile, although many past research programs have focused mainly on gravimetric energy densities, here we have also devoted efforts to study and develop nanomorphologic structures to realize high volumetric energy and power densities, since device volume is another critical and key performance parameter. Moreover, fundamental studies have been carried out on the mobile ion transport and storage in the nanostructures developed in this chapter

Heat Transfer Analysis of Passive Residual Heat Removal Heat Exchanger under Natural Convection Condition in Tank

Aiming at the heat transfer calculation of the Passive Residual Heat Removal Heat Exchanger (PRHR HX), experiments on the heat transfer of C-shaped tube immerged in a water tank were performed. Comparisons of different correlation in literatures with the experimental data were carried out. It can be concluded that the Dittus-Boelter correlation provides a best-estimate fit with the experimental results. The average error is about 0.35%. For the tube outside, the McAdams correlations for both horizontal and vertical regions are best-estimated. The average errors are about 0.55% for horizontal region and about 3.28% for vertical region. The tank mixing characteristics were also investigated in present work. It can be concluded that the tank fluid rose gradually which leads to a thermal stratification phenomenon

Proximal buddy in jail technique: A bail out technique to increase guide support

  Background: During percutaneous coronary intervention, “buddy-in-jail” technique is often used to facilitate stent delivery in complex coronary artery lesions. However, the safety and efficacy of this tech­nique when used with different jailed wire and applied in different target vessel lesions remain elusive. The aim of this retrospective study was to analyze the effectiveness of “buddy-in-jail” technique in the tortuous and rigid lesions of both the common and neighboring coronary arteries. The effectiveness between hydrophilic-coated and non-hydrophilic-coated guide wire as jailed wires was also compared. Methods: The “buddy-in-jail” technique was applied in 15 patients after failed balloon or stent delivery into the target vessel lesion from June 2014 to December 2016. The safety and effectiveness of the “bud­dy-in-jail” technique was compared in the tortuous and rigid lesions of both the common and neighbor­ing coronary arteries and between hydrophilic-coated and non-hydrophilic-coated “jailed” wires. Results: Stent delivery was successful in 13 (86.7%) patients with the use of “buddy-in-jail” technique. The success rate was similar to the group using the common artery (87.5%) as a “buddy” vessel and the group using a neighboring artery (85.7%) as a “buddy” vessel (p > 0.05), and between hydrophilic- -coated (100%) and non-hydrophilic-coated “jailed” wire (77.8%) group (p > 0.05). All wires were successfully extracted without complications. Conclusions: The “buddy-in-jail” technique offers a potential alternative approach for the distal stent delivery in both the common and neighboring coronary arteries. Also, both hydrophilic and non-hydro­philic-coated wire could be safely and effectively used as “jailed” wire.

Chronic vagus nerve stimulation in patients with heart failure: challenge or failed translation?

Autonomic imbalance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems contributes to the progression of chronic heart failure (HF). Preclinical studies have demonstrated that various neuromodulation strategies may exert beneficial cardioprotective effects in preclinical models of HF. Based on these encouraging experimental data, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) has been assessed in patients with HF with a reduced ejection fraction. Nevertheless, the main trials conducted thus far have yielded conflicting findings, questioning the clinical efficacy of VNS in this context. This review will therefore focus on the role of the autonomic nervous system in HF pathophysiology and VNS therapy, highlighting the potential reasons behind the discrepancy between preclinical and clinical studies

Dynamical Variations of the Global COVID-19 Pandemic Based on a SEICR Disease Model: A New Approach of Yi Hua Jie Mu

The ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused more than 150 million cases of infection to date and poses a serious threat to global public health. In this study, global COVID-19 data were used to examine the dynamical variations from the perspectives of immunity and contact of 84 countries across the five climate regions: tropical, arid, temperate, and cold. A new approach named Yi Hua Jie Mu is proposed to obtain the transmission rates based on the COVID-19 data between the countries with the same climate region over the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic will persist over a long period of time or enter into regular circulation in multiple periods of 1–2 years. Moreover, based on the simulated results by the COVID-19 data, it is found that the temperate and cold climate regions have higher infection rates than the tropical and arid climate regions, which indicates that climate may modulate the transmission of COVID-19. The role of the climate on the COVID-19 variations should be concluded with more data and more cautions. The non-pharmaceutical interventions still play the key role in controlling and prevention this global pandemic

Effect of somatic symptoms, anxiety and depression on clinical prognosis in patients with chronic heart failure

Objective·To explore the association of somatizatic symptoms, anxiety and depression with clinical prognosis in the patients with chronic heart failure (CHF).Methods·The patients with CHF who visited the Department of Cardiology, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine from January 2018 to December 2021 were included. Demographic data and clinical features of the patients were collected. The Self-reported Somatic Symptom Scale of China (SSS-CN), the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) were used to evaluate the patients′ conditions. Telephone follow-up was conducted at the 12th month after the first visit, and the specific information of the patients′ end-point events (including death, re-hospitalization, causes of death and re-hospitalization) was collected. Survival curve and Cox regression analysis were used to evaluate the clinical prognosis of the patients.Results·A total of 195 patients were included. The SSS-CN scores in CHF patients were different between the two genders, among the different heart rate groups and the different cardiac function grades of New York Heart Association (NYHA), also between the patients with anxiety/depression or not (all P<0.05). Survival curve analysis showed that overall survival rate of patients in the moderate-severe somatic symptoms group was lower than that of the patients in the normal-mild group (Log rank P=0.020). Cox regression analysis showed that compared with the normal-mild group, the patients in the moderate-severe somatic symptoms group had a higher risk of all-cause death [hazard ratio (HR)=2.797, 95%CI 1.135－6.890]; the CHF patients with depressive symptoms had a higher risk of all-cause death (HR=2.883, 95%CI 1.150－6.984). Compared with the normal-mild group, the patients with moderate-severe somatic symptoms had a higher risk of cardiovascular death (HR=2.784, 95%CI 1.073－7.226). The CHF patients with depressive symptoms had a higher risk of cardiovascular death (HR=2.823, 95%CI 1.087－7.330). There were no statistically differences in anxiety, depression, somatization symptoms and their severity between all-cause hospitalization and hospitalization due to CHF.Conclusion·The moderate-severe somatic symptoms and depression are the risk factors of all-cause death and cardiovascular death in the patients with CHF

Multi-mode SAR Interferometry Processing Research and Implementation

Current operation mode of SAR can be roughly divided into two types: strip-map mode and burst mode. The most conventional mode is strip-map mode, in which the swath width is quite limited. The other type is burst mode, which is an active option to overcome this limitation by cyclically scanning several subswaths, known as ScanSAR. In addition, Envisat ASAR has another type of burst mode, that is, Alternating Polarization mode. ALOS PALSAR and Radarsat-1 also have their own ScanSAR operation modes, but each of them is distinctive from the others in implementation. Numerous theoretical results and applications of interferometry using strip-map data have been published before. Interferometry with burst mode data, however, is much rarer and different from the case of the traditional strip-map mode from raw data focusing to interferogram generation because of its burst nature of data acquisition pattern. In our study, we put our emphasis on each kind of burst mode interferometry and mixed mode interferometry. Until now, our successful research work includes Envisat ASAR WS-WS, IM-WS and ALOS PALSAR WB1-WB1 Interferometry. Other development activities including Envisat AP-AP and Radarsat-1 SNA-SNA interferometry are still on going. In the following paper, we will present our results and give an overview of multi-mode SAR. interferometry for the present spaceborne SAR sensors.Engineering, Electrical &amp; ElectronicPhysics, AppliedEICPCI-S(ISTP)