Applications of Clustering with Mixed Type Data in Life Insurance

Death benefits are generally the largest cash flow item that affects financial statements of life insurers where some still do not have a systematic process to track and monitor death claims experience. In this article, we explore data clustering to examine and understand how actual death claims differ from expected, an early stage of developing a monitoring system crucial for risk management. We extend the $k$-prototypes clustering algorithm to draw inference from a life insurance dataset using only the insured's characteristics and policy information without regard to known mortality. This clustering has the feature to efficiently handle categorical, numerical, and spatial attributes. Using gap statistics, the optimal clusters obtained from the algorithm are then used to compare actual to expected death claims experience of the life insurance portfolio. Our empirical data contains observations, during 2014, of approximately 1.14 million policies with a total insured amount of over 650 billion dollars. For this portfolio, the algorithm produced three natural clusters, with each cluster having a lower actual to expected death claims but with differing variability. The analytical results provide management a process to identify policyholders' attributes that dominate significant mortality deviations, and thereby enhance decision making for taking necessary actions.Comment: 25 pages, 6 figures, 5 table

Shape-centered Representation Learning for Visible-Infrared Person Re-identification

Current Visible-Infrared Person Re-Identification (VI-ReID) methods prioritize extracting distinguishing appearance features, ignoring the natural resistance of body shape against modality changes. Initially, we gauged the discriminative potential of shapes by a straightforward concatenation of shape and appearance features. However, two unresolved issues persist in the utilization of shape features. One pertains to the dependence on auxiliary models for shape feature extraction in the inference phase, along with the errors in generated infrared shapes due to the intrinsic modality disparity. The other issue involves the inadequately explored correlation between shape and appearance features. To tackle the aforementioned challenges, we propose the Shape-centered Representation Learning framework (ScRL), which focuses on learning shape features and appearance features associated with shapes. Specifically, we devise the Shape Feature Propagation (SFP), facilitating direct extraction of shape features from original images with minimal complexity costs during inference. To restitute inaccuracies in infrared body shapes at the feature level, we present the Infrared Shape Restitution (ISR). Furthermore, to acquire appearance features related to shape, we design the Appearance Feature Enhancement (AFE), which accentuates identity-related features while suppressing identity-unrelated features guided by shape features. Extensive experiments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed ScRL. Achieving remarkable results, the Rank-1 (mAP) accuracy attains 76.1%, 71.2%, 92.4% (72.6%, 52.9%, 86.7%) on the SYSU-MM01, HITSZ-VCM, RegDB datasets respectively, outperforming existing state-of-the-art methods

The combined associations of depression and cognitive impairment with functional disability and mortality in older adults: a population-based study from the NHANES 2011–2014

ObjectiveThe present study aimed to explore the combined associations of depression and cognitive impairment with functional disability and mortality, and whether the joint effects of depression and cognitive impairment on mortality were influenced by functional disability.MethodsA total of 2,345 participants aged 60 and above from the 2011–2014 cycle of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were included in the analyses. Questionnaires were used to evaluated depression, global cognitive function and functional disability (including disability in activities of daily living (ADLs), instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), leisure and social activities (LSA), lower extremity mobility (LEM), and general physical activity (GPA)). Mortality status was ascertained up to December 31, 2019. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to investigate the associations of depression and low global cognition with functional disability. Cox proportional hazards regression models were conducted to evaluate the effect of depression and low global cognition on mortality.ResultsInteractions between depression and low global cognition were observed when exploring associations of depression and low global cognition with IADLs disability, LEM disability, and cardiovascular mortality. Compared with normal participants, participants with both depression and low global cognition had the highest odds ratios of disability in ADLs, IADLs, LSA, LEM, and GPA. Besides, participants with both depression and low global cognition also had the highest hazard ratios of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality, and these associations remained after adjusting for disability in ADLs, IADLs, LSA, LEM, and GPA.ConclusionOlder adults with both depression and low global cognition were more likely to have functional disability, and had the highest risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality

The Higher Costs of Doing Business in China: Minimum Wages and Firms' Export Behavior

PublicFinanceThis paper examines the relationship between changes in the minimum wage and firms’ export behavior in China using detailed firm-level data of medium and large manufacturing enterprises between 1998 and 2007. We find that a 10% increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 0.9 percentage-points decrease in the probability of exporting goods and a 0.9% decline in export sales, conditional on exporting. These findings are generally robust to alternative estimation methods and data sources. We further observe a larger decline among firms with lower average wages and a lower capital-labor ratio. The results suggest that Chinese exports and comparative advantage in international markets are not negligibly affected by higher local labor costs and regulations measured through raises in minimum wage standards

A Novel Chemosynthetic Peptide with β-Sheet Motif Efficiently Kills Klebsiella pnuemoniae in a Mouse Model

Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kp) is one of the most common pathogens in nosocomial infections and is increasingly becoming multiple drug resistant. However, the molecular pathogenesis of Kp in causing tissue injury and dysregulated host defense remains elusive, further dampening the development of novel therapeutic measures. We have previously screened a series of synthetic antimicrobial beta-sheet forming peptides and identified a peptide (IRIKIRIK; ie, IK8L) with a broad range of bactericidal activity and low cytotoxicity in vitro. Here, employing an animal model, we investigated the antibacterial effects of IK8L in acute infection and demonstrated that peritoneal injection of IK8L to mice down-regulated inflammatory cytokines, alleviated lung injury, and importantly, decreased mortality compared to sham-injected controls. In addition, a math model was used to evaluate in vivo imaging data and predict infection progression in infected live animals. Mechanistically, IK8L can kill Kp by inhibiting biofilm formation and modulating production of inflammatory cytokines through the STAT3/JAK signaling both in vitro and in vivo. Collectively, these findings reveal that IK8L may have potential for preventing or treating Kp infection

Energy Chaos Characteristic Evolution Analysis of Sandstones during Multilevel Unloading Subject to Different Confining Pressures

AbstractIn this study, multilevel and conventional unloading triaxial compression tests under different confining pressures are separately carried out to systematically reveal the deformation, energy evolution, and fracture characteristics of sandstone samples. Results show that under the multilevel unloading condition, the increase of the initial confining pressure has a more obvious inhibitory effect on the radial strain of sandstone, and the samples can fully exhibit elastic deformation and partial plastic deformation, showing obvious plastic characteristics. The radial energy growth factor is more sensitive than the axial energy growth factor during the process of confining pressure unloading, and the larger the initial confining pressure, the earlier the period-doubling bifurcation region and chaotic region are reached. To better understand the deformation and failure process of rock during engineering excavation, it is necessary to establish a constitutive relation describing the mechanical properties of rock. The three-step failure mode also proves that there are tensile and shear fractures in sandstone samples, in which the effects of tensile stress and shear stress are more or less interdependent in the failure process. It can be seen that multilevel unloading makes the energy conversion more adequate and reduces the sudden release of energy when the rock fails, reducing the possibility of rockburst and making the excavation unloading process safer. This will deepen the understanding of rock failure behavior and contribute to the better application of energy characteristics to relevant engineering practices

Estradiol Promotes M1-like Macrophage Activation through Cadherin-11 To Aggravate Temporomandibular Joint Inflammation in Rats

Macrophages play a major role in joint inflammation. Estrogen is involved in rheumatoid arthritis and temporomandibular disorders. However, the underlying mechanism is still unclear. This study was done to verify and test how estrogen affects M1/M2-like macrophage polarization and then contributes to joint inflammation. Female rats were ovariectomized and treated with increasing doses of 17β-estradiol for 10 d and then intra-articularly injected with CFA to induce temporomandibular joint (TMJ) inflammation. The polarization of macrophages and expression of cadherin-11 was evaluated at 24 h after the induction of TMJ inflammation and after blocking cadherin-11 or estrogen receptors. NR8383 macrophages were treated with estradiol and TNF-α, with or without blocking cadherin-11 or estrogen receptors, to evaluate the expression of the M1/M2-like macrophageassociated genes. We found that estradiol increased the infiltration of macrophages with a proinflammatory M1-like predominant profile in the synovium of inflamed TMJ. In addition, estradiol dose-dependently upregulated the expressions of the M1-associated proinflammatory factor inducible NO synthase (iNOS) but repressed the expressions of the M2-associated genes IL-10 and arginase in NR8383 macrophages. Furthermore, estradiol mainly promoted cadherin-11 expression in M1-like macrophages of inflamed TMJ. By contrast, blockage of cadherin-11 concurrently reversed estradiol-potentiated M1-like macrophage activation and TMJ inflammation, as well as reversed TNF-α-induced induction of inducible NO synthase and NO in NR8383 macrophages. The blocking of estrogen receptors reversed estradiol-potentiated M1-like macrophage activation and cadherin-11 expression. These results suggested that estradiol could promote M1-like macrophage activation through cadherin-11 to aggravate the acute inflammation of TMJs. Copyright © 2015 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc