Prediction of reserves using multivariate power-normal mixture distribution

Recently, in the area on stochastic loss reserving, there are a number of papers which analyze the individual claims data using the Position Dependent Marked Poisson Process. The present paper instead uses a different type of individual data. For the i-th (1 ≤ i ≤ n) customer, these individual data include the sum insured i s together with the amount paid ij y and the amount ij a reported but not yet paid in the j-th (1 6) j dd development year. A technique based on multivariate power-normal mixture distribution is already available for predicting the future value ( 1 ijy � , 1 ija � ) using the present year value(,) i j i j ya and the sum insured i s . Presently the above technique is improved by the transformation of distribution which is defined on the whole real line to one which is non-negative and having approximately the same first four moments as the original distribution. It is found that, for the dataset considered in this paper, the improved method giveV a better estimate for the reserve when compared with the chain ladder reserve estimate. Furthermore, the method is expected to provide a fairly reliable value for the Provision of Risk Margin for Adverse Deviation (PRAD

Challenges for implmenting liveable communties in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur

Liveability refers to the health and social quality of an area as perceived by all stakeholders in study area. Bangsar is a residential area which comprised of different level of social classes. Therefore liveability level in Bangsar communities also varies due to its existing condition of public realm in different areas and diversity group of people. Hence implementation of liveable communities in Bangsar is not achievable as a whole. Every community in Bangsar has its own common barrier for implementing liveable communities. Therefore there is a need to examine existing community liveability and common barrier for achieving desired level of liveability in Bangsar. The important key elements in liveable community such as physical structures, natural features and service provisions are examined to understand what constitute a liveable community. The urban morphology and survey research method are used to identify and evaluate the liveability in Bangsar's community. It is carried out to examine the challenges for creating liveable communities and real needs of the residents towards liveable community in Bangsar. The outcome of this study is potential to use as a resource that can assist the urban planning industry in Kuala Lumpur to incorporate health and social outcome in new proposed developmen

Kecenderungan Gelagat Kewarganegaraan Organisasi di Kalangan Pendidik

The aim of this survey research is to determine the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among teachers. Two instruments for both constructs were administered to 129 teachers from five schools in the District of Baling, Kedah Darul Aman On the whole, the results show that there is significant positive relationship between job satisfaction and OCB when self-rating approach is used in the evaluation of OCB. For dimensions in the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), The Work Itself, Supervisor and Co-worker show significant positive relationship with OCB (Niehoff & Moormon, 1993). With the instrument by William & Anderson (199 l), The Work Itself and Co-worker show significant relationship. As for Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), both Intrinsic and Extrinsic dimensions show significant positive relationship with the OCB (Niehoff & Moormon, 1993). The results also show that generally there is no association between OCB and all the demographic factors

Malaysians' willingness to support Japanese expatriates

Expatriates' success studies have always focused on the expatriates' home country preparation, cross cultural adjustment ability and host country environment. This study examined the host country nationals' perspective, particularly their willingness to support Japanese expatriates. Malaysians' openness to change, openness to linguistic diversity and perceived reciprocity were found to significantly explain their willingness to support Japanese expatriates. The outcome of this study provided information to companies on strategies they can use in improving host country nationals' willingness to support expatriates

‘Value for Whom, by Whom’: Investigating Value Constructs in Non-Profit Project Portfolios

In most non-profit organisations (NPOs), there are multiple programs, projects or initiatives running simultaneously. The management of multiple projects in organisations can be coined as project portfolio management (PPM) (Archer & Ghasemzadeh 1999; Pennypacker & Dye 2002).  In any project-based organisation, it is critical that selected projects align with and deliver the organisation’s strategy or mission. Decisions about project funding are strategic decisions, particularly when there are resource limitations. In PPM decision making, the allocation of resources to projects requires a clear judgement of value across multiple perspectives. Value has often been expressed in financial terms, however increasingly research indicates that non-financial considerations are equally important in evaluating value.A key task in project portfolio management is to maximise value across the portfolio.  However, value can be a subjective notion, as each person may have different expectations of what is valuable. The involvement of diverse stakeholder interests could create complexities in decision making in non-profit organisations due to value being interpreted in different ways by the stakeholders. Furthermore in order to achieve its purpose, non-profits depend heavily on donors, patrons and sponsors - stakeholders who contribute to the portfolio but are often not the direct recipients of the services provided by the non-profit organisation (Kaplan 2012). Non-profit portfolios often compete with other initiatives for resources and attention from the same donors and sponsors, and may need to constantly justify the value they provide to these stakeholders.Most research about value in PPM has been conducted in the ‘for-profit’ sector. Recent value-based studies in the project portfolio field stress the importance of considering both commercial and non-commercial value in portfolio decision making (Killen, du Plessis & Young 2012; Kopman 2013; Martinsuo & Killen 2014; Thiry 2001, 2002). Non-commercial value includes the ecological, social, and learning dimensions of value (Martinsuo & Killen 2014), whilst commercial value is characterised by financial and economic measures like market value. The research reported in this paper is distinct as it investigates non-commercial value in the non-profit sector. The study extends our knowledge about strategic value and multi-stakeholder management in the non-profit sector. The findings also contribute to the overall understanding of PPM by providing insights about the multi-perspective aspects of value and the management of portfolios in complex environments involving multiple stakeholders.This paper commences with an outline of past and contemporary views about value and discusses how these views might relate to PPM and NPOs. Next, it deliberates the extent to which multi-stakeholder perspectives of value are discussed in the literature.  An empirical qualitative research design is used to explore value in project portfolios from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders in two inter-related case NPOs. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings to highlight several value perspectives drawn from the non-profit sector that have significant theoretical and practical contributions to understanding value typologies that underline stakeholder constructs of value and decision making in project portfolios

Multi-stakeholder perspectives of value in project portfolios

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.This study explores multiple stakeholders’ perspectives on the value delivered by project portfolios and reveals a new way of understanding value. When organisations invest in projects, they expect to create value. From a project portfolio perspective, a key goal of project portfolio management (PPM) is to maximise this value across the project portfolio for the organisation. It is easy to agree that value is an important concept, yet it is hard for scholars and practitioners to agree on what it entails. Value is an especially challenging area due to its subjective, intangible and emotional aspects. The value generated by projects has long been understood to be more than just the direct financial value. Yet, financial and tangible value appears to be the dominant way that a project portfolio value is viewed. Research highlights the complexities of project and portfolio ‘value’ due to the multiple and sometimes contradictory expectations demanded by different stakeholders who participate in and influence the ways that PPM decisions incorporate value. While researchers are extending the understanding of value for project portfolio environments, PPM research into the complex and multi-faceted aspects of value is still quite limited. To better understand value, the involvement of a wide range of stakeholders is important as value is perceived in different ways by different stakeholders. This thesis is a collection of six published papers that bring together the theoretical concepts of value, stakeholder theory and sensemaking in a research investigation about value in multi-stakeholder project portfolio environments. The research sheds light on the overarching question: ‘How is value understood in practice by different stakeholders in different project portfolio contexts?’ By studying how value is expressed, understood and used to influence decisions in multi-stakeholder PPM environments, the research reveals deeper insights into the wide range of value perspectives at play in project portfolios. The study includes a diverse group of organisations from the public, private (profit) and non-profit sectors in its exploration of project portfolio value. The exploratory research follows a pragmatic mindset and incorporates sensemaking concepts in the research design. It comprises two overlapping qualitative methodologies incorporating multiple case studies and a series of expert panels. The findings demonstrate how an understanding of value is built from many micro-constructs of value emanating from a variety of stakeholders. Sensemaking concepts applied to the study reveal how stakeholder perceptions of value are based on time and space, and are dynamic and non-linear in nature. As a result of the investigations, a typology of multi-stakeholder value perspectives that aims to improve PPM decision-making is derived from the findings and presented in this thesis. This study contributes a novel way to draw together deep concepts that are subjective, difficult to categorise and often ignored, by providing qualitative researchers with an alternative approach that is empirical and multi-method. The two-fold approach of case studies and expert panels incorporates a structured and orderly yet flexible research process that includes verification strategies. The research provides a new theoretical contribution by broadening the way value is viewed in multi-project environments, specifically PPM. Through its investigation of value concepts in multi-stakeholder portfolio environments, this research contributes to theory by integrating stakeholder theory and sensemaking concepts and extending the relevance and application of sensemaking to PPM research methods and practice. This thesis contributes a fresh way of thinking about value in project portfolios through the development of a typology of value perspectives and explores the implications of that typology for practice. The typology could prompt organisations to consider a wider range of stakeholder perspectives, and as a result improve the quality of decision-making by encouraging organisations to derive relevant value lenses and language at different organisational levels and in different stakeholder contexts

Vision-based frontal vehicle detection and tracking

This paper presents a vision-based driver assistance system composing of vehicle detection using knowledge-based method and vehicle tracking using Kalman filtering.First, a preceding vehicle is localized by a proposed detection scheme, consisting of shadow detection and brake lights detection.Second, the possible vehicle region is extracted for verification. Symmetry analysis includes contour and brake lights symmetries are performed and followed by an asymmetry contour analysis in order to obtain vehicle’s center.The center of vehicle is tracked continuously using Kalman filtering within a predicted subwindow in consecutive frames.It reduces the scanning process and maximizes the computational speed of vehicle detection. Simulation results demonstrate good performance of the proposed system

Nutritional values of chironomid larvae grown in palm oil mill effluent and algal culture

Chironomid larvae were grown in nine 70-1 tanks containing palm oil mill effluent (POME) and algol culture. The algol culture was obtained by inoculating 200 ml pure culture of Chlorella vulgaris Beijerinck initially in 20-1 tap water containing inorganic fertilizer N:P:K (1:0.2:0.2). Each treatment was done in triplicate. Dissolved oxygen, pH, total nitrogen, total ammonia nitrogen, ortho-phosphate, chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids and total dissolved solids of the media in each tank were analyzed. Protein, lipid ash, amino acids, fatty acids, total carotene and minerals were determined for POME, chironomid larvae, and algae. The culture was terminated after 25 days and chironomid production was determined. The production of chironomid larvae was significantly (P < 0.01) higher in POME tanks (580 g/20 1 POME) than in algal culture (35 g/20 1 algal culture). Raw palm oil mill effluents contained significantly higher (P < 0.05) arginine, methionine, isoleucine and phenylalanine than algae grown in fertilizer. The essential amino acids of chironomid larvae grown in POME such as histidine, arginine, methionine, isoleucine, phenylalanine and lysine were significantly (P < 0.05) higher than in chironomid larvae grown on algal culture. The polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) with the exception of Υ-linolenic acid (18:3n - 6), were higher in chironomid larvae grown in POME than those grown on algal culture. Twenty seven minerals were detected by electron microscope but 23 minerals were analyzed and quantified in POME, algae, and chironomid larvae grown in POME and algol culture. The quantity of sulfur was significantly higher (P < 0.05) in POME than algae, which probably induced the synthesis of methionine, a S-containing essential amino acid in chironomid larvae cultured in POME. Experiments showed that POME did not only induce high production of chironomid larvae, but also produced high quality live food for the aquaculture industry

Mammalian hairy and Enhancer of Split Homolog 1 Regulates Differentiation of Retinal Neurons and Is Essential for Eye Morphogenesis

AbstractMammalian hairy and Enhancer of split homolog 1 (HES1), a basic helix-loop-helix factor gene, is expressed in retinal progenitor cells, and its expression decreases as differentiation proceeds. Retinal progenitor cells infected with HES1-transducing retrovirus did not differentiate into mature retinal cells, suggesting that persistent expression of HES1 blocks retinal development. In contrast, in the retina of HES1-null mutant mice, differentiation was accelerated, and rod and horizontal cells appeared prematurely and formed abnormal rosette-like structures. Lens and cornea development was also severely disturbed. Furthermore, in the mutant retina, bipolar cells extensively died and finally disappeared. These studies provide evidence that HES1 regulates differentiation of retinal neurons and is essential for eye morphogenesis