Impact of Seismic Risk on Lifetime Property Values

This report presents a methodology for establishing the uncertain net asset value, NAV, of a real-estate investment opportunity considering both market risk and seismic risk for the property. It also presents a decision-making procedure to assist in making real-estate investment choices under conditions of uncertainty and risk-aversion. It is shown that that market risk, as measured by the coefficient of variation of NAV, is at least 0.2 and may exceed 1.0. In a situation of such high uncertainty, where potential gains and losses are large relative to a decision-maker's risk tolerance, it is appropriate to adopt a decision-analysis approach to real-estate investment decision-making. A simple equation for doing so is presented. The decision-analysis approach uses the certainty equivalent, CE, as opposed to NAV as the basis for investment decision-making. That is, when faced with multiple investment alternatives, one should choose the alternative that maximizes CE. It is shown that CE is less than the expected value of NAV by an amount proportional to the variance of NAV and the inverse of the decision-maker's risk tolerance, [rho]. The procedure for establishing NAV and CE is illustrated in parallel demonstrations by CUREE and Kajima research teams. The CUREE demonstration is performed using a real 1960s-era hotel building in Van Nuys, California. The building, a 7-story non-ductile reinforced-concrete moment-frame building, is analyzed using the assembly-based vulnerability (ABV) method, developed in Phase III of the CUREE-Kajima Joint Research Program. The building is analyzed three ways: in its condition prior to the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, with a hypothetical shearwall upgrade, and with earthquake insurance. This is the first application of ABV to a real building, and the first time ABV has incorporated stochastic structural analyses that consider uncertainties in the mass, damping, and force-deformation behavior of the structure, along with uncertainties in ground motion, component damageability, and repair costs. New fragility functions are developed for the reinforced concrete flexural members using published laboratory test data, and new unit repair costs for these components are developed by a professional construction cost estimator. Four investment alternatives are considered: do not buy; buy; buy and retrofit; and buy and insure. It is found that the best alternative for most reasonable values of discount rate, risk tolerance, and market risk is to buy and leave the building as-is. However, risk tolerance and market risk (variability of income) both materially affect the decision. That is, for certain ranges of each parameter, the best investment alternative changes. This indicates that expected-value decision-making is inappropriate for some decision-makers and investment opportunities. It is also found that the majority of the economic seismic risk results from shaking of S[subscript a] < 0.3g, i.e., shaking with return periods on the order of 50 to 100 yr that cause primarily architectural damage, rather than from the strong, rare events of which common probable maximum loss (PML) measurements are indicative. The Kajima demonstration is performed using three Tokyo buildings. A nine-story, steel-reinforced-concrete building built in 1961 is analyzed as two designs: as-is, and with a steel-braced-frame structural upgrade. The third building is 29-story, 1999 steel-frame structure. The three buildings are intended to meet collapse-prevention, life-safety, and operational performance levels, respectively, in shaking with 10%exceedance probability in 50 years. The buildings are assessed using levels 2 and 3 of Kajima's three-level analysis methodology. These are semi-assembly based approaches, which subdivide a building into categories of components, estimate the loss of these component categories for given ground motions, and combine the losses for the entire building. The two methods are used to estimate annualized losses and to create curves that relate loss to exceedance probability. The results are incorporated in the input to a sophisticated program developed by the Kajima Corporation, called Kajima D, which forecasts cash flows for office, retail, and residential projects for purposes of property screening, due diligence, negotiation, financial structuring, and strategic planning. The result is an estimate of NAV for each building. A parametric study of CE for each building is presented, along with a simplified model for calculating CE as a function of mean NAV and coefficient of variation of NAV. The equation agrees with that developed in parallel by the CUREE team. Both the CUREE and Kajima teams collaborated with a number of real-estate investors to understand their seismic risk-management practices, and to formulate and to assess the viability of the proposed decision-making methodologies. Investors were interviewed to elicit their risk-tolerance, r, using scripts developed and presented here in English and Japanese. Results of 10 such interviews are presented, which show that a strong relationship exists between a decision-maker's annual revenue, R, and his or her risk tolerance, [rho is approximately equal to] 0.0075R[superscript 1.34]. The interviews show that earthquake risk is a marginal consideration in current investment practice. Probable maximum loss (PML) is the only earthquake risk parameter these investors consider, and they typically do not use seismic risk at all in their financial analysis of an investment opportunity. For competitive reasons, a public investor interviewed here would not wish to account for seismic risk in his financial analysis unless rating agencies required him to do so or such consideration otherwise became standard practice. However, in cases where seismic risk is high enough to significantly reduce return, a private investor expressed the desire to account for seismic risk via expected annualized loss (EAL) if it were inexpensive to do so, i.e., if the cost of calculating the EAL were not substantially greater than that of PML alone. The study results point to a number of interesting opportunities for future research, namely: improve the market-risk stochastic model, including comparison of actual long-term income with initial income projections; improve the risk-attitude interview; account for uncertainties in repair method and in the relationship between repair cost and loss; relate the damage state of structural elements with points on the force-deformation relationship; examine simpler dynamic analysis as a means to estimate vulnerability; examine the relationship between simplified engineering demand parameters and performance; enhance category-based vulnerability functions by compiling a library of building-specific ones; and work with lenders and real-estate industry analysts to determine the conditions under which seismic risk should be reflected in investors' financial analyses

Detection of soluble interleukin-2 receptor and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 in the effusion of otitis media with effusion

We measured sIL-2R, TNF-α and sICAM-1 in the sera and middle ear effusions (MEEs) of patients with otitis media with effusion (OME). Although there was no signmcant difference between the sIL-2R levels of the serous and mucoid MEEs, they were significantly higher than serum sIL-2R levels of OME patients and healthy controls. TNF-α levels of the mucoid MEEs were significantly higher than those of the serous type. However, TNF-α was rarely detected in the sera of OME patients or healthy controls. We observed significant differences between the serous and mucoid MEEs with respect to their sICAM-1 levels, which were also higher than serum slCAM-1 levels of OME patients and healthy controls. Our findings suggested that IL-2, TNF-α and ICAM-1 could be significantly involved in the pathogenesis of OME through the cytokine network

Histological Course of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Japanese Patients: Tight glycemic control, rather than weight reduction, ameliorates liver fibrosis

金沢大学医薬保健研究域医学系OBJECTIVE - The goal of this study was to examine whether metabolic abnormalities are responsible for the histological changes observed in Japanese patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) who have undergone serial liver biopsies. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS - In total, 39 patients had undergone consecutive liver biopsies. Changes in their clinical data were analyzed, and biopsy specimens were scored histologically for stage. RESULTS - The median follow-up time was 2.4 years (range 1.0-8.5). Liver fibrosis had improved in 12 patients (30.7%), progressed in 11 patients (28.2%), and remained unchanged in 16 patients (41%). In a Cox proportional hazard model, decrease in A1C and use of insulin were associated with improvement of liver fibrosis independent of age, sex, and BMI. However, ΔA1C was more strongly associated with the improvement of liver fibrosis than use of insulin after adjustment for each other (χ2; 7.97 vs. 4.58, respectively). CONCLUSIONS - Tight glycemic control may prevent histological progression in Japanese patients with NAFLD. © 2010 by the American Diabetes Association

Expansion of anti-AFP Th1 and Tc1 responses in hepatocellular carcinoma occur in different stages of disease

Copyright @ 2010 Cancer Research UK. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/.Background: α-Fetoprotein (AFP) is a tumour-associated antigen in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and is a target for immunotherapy. However, there is little information on the pattern of CD4 (Th1) and CD8 (Tc1) T-cell response to AFP in patients with HCC and their association with the clinical characteristics of patients. Methods: We therefore analysed CD4 and CD8 T-cell responses to a panel of AFP-derived peptides in a total of 31 HCC patients and 14 controls, using an intracellular cytokine assay for IFN-γ. Results: Anti-AFP Tc1 responses were detected in 28.5% of controls, as well as in 25% of HCC patients with Okuda I (early tumour stage) and in 31.6% of HCC patients with stage II or III (late tumour stages). An anti-AFP Th1 response was detected only in HCC patients (58.3% with Okuda stage I tumours and 15.8% with Okuda stage II or III tumours). Anti-AFP Th1 response was mainly detected in HCC patients who had normal or mildly elevated serum AFP concentrations (P=0.00188), whereas there was no significant difference between serum AFP concentrations in these patients and the presence of an anti-AFP Tc1 response. A Th1 response was detected in 44% of HCC patients with a Child–Pugh A score (early stage of cirrhosis), whereas this was detected in only 15% with a B or C score (late-stage cirrhosis). In contrast, a Tc1 response was detected in 17% of HCC patients with a Child–Pugh A score and in 46% with a B or C score. Conclusion: These results suggest that anti-AFP Th1 responses are more likely to be present in patients who are in an early stage of disease (for both tumour stage and liver cirrhosis), whereas anti-AFP Tc1 responses are more likely to be present in patients with late-stage liver cirrhosis. Therefore, these data provide valuable information for the design of vaccination strategies against HCC.Association for International Cancer Research and Polkemmet Fund, London Clinic

Sneutrino Mass Measurements at e+e- Linear Colliders

It is generally accepted that experiments at an e+e- linear colliders will be able to extract the masses of the selectron as well as the associated sneutrinos with a precision of ~ 1% by determining the kinematic end points of the energy spectrum of daughter electrons produced in their two body decays to a lighter neutralino or chargino. Recently, it has been suggested that by studying the energy dependence of the cross section near the production threshold, this precision can be improved by an order of magnitude, assuming an integrated luminosity of 100 fb^-1. It is further suggested that these threshold scans also allow the masses of even the heavier second and third generation sleptons and sneutrinos to be determined to better than 0.5%. We re-examine the prospects for determining sneutrino masses. We find that the cross sections for the second and third generation sneutrinos are too small for a threshold scan to be useful. An additional complication arises because the cross section for sneutrino pair to decay into any visible final state(s) necessarily depends on an unknown branching fraction, so that the overall normalization in unknown. This reduces the precision with which the sneutrino mass can be extracted. We propose a different strategy to optimize the extraction of m(\tilde{\nu}_\mu) and m(\tilde{\nu}_\tau) via the energy dependence of the cross section. We find that even with an integrated luminosity of 500 fb^-1, these can be determined with a precision no better than several percent at the 90% CL. We also examine the measurement of m(\tilde{\nu}_e) and show that it can be extracted with a precision of about 0.5% (0.2%) with an integrated luminosity of 120 fb^-1 (500 fb^-1).Comment: RevTex, 46 pages, 15 eps figure

New interactions in neutrino oscillations with three light flavors

If one assumes solar and LSND neutrino oscillations to explain the corresponding data, then the atmospheric neutrino deficit cannot be accommodated within the Standard Model with three light flavors, unless one ignores the data's zenith-angle dependence. We propose a novel solution to this problem by postulating large anomalous diagonal $\nu_\tau$-quark interactions which affect $\nu_\mu - \nu_\tau$ oscillations traversing the Earth and induce the observed zenith-angle dependence.Comment: Final version, to appear in Phys. Rev. Letters dated May 25, 199

Preparation of Hydrogen Permeable Membrane Using Nanoparticles Electrophoresis Technique

Hydrogen perm-selective membranes composed of Pd nanoparticles were investigated. The nanoparticles were prepared by ultrasonic reduction from PdII ions, and then deposited on a substrate disc with electrophoresis technique. These electrophoretic membranes have shown high performance of perm-selectivity for H2 with separation factor α = 3.85, under room temperature

Higgs-mediated leptonic decays of B_s and B_d mesons as probes of supersymmetry

If tan(beta) is large, down-type quark mass matrices and Yukawa couplings cannot be simultaneously diagonalized, and flavour violating couplings of the neutral Higgs bosons are induced at the 1-loop level. These couplings lead to Higgs-mediated contributions to the decays B_s -> mu+ mu- and B_d -> tau+ tau-, at a level that might be of interest for the current Tevatron run, or possibly, at B-factories. We evaluate the branching ratios for these decays within the framework of minimal gravity-, gauge- and anomaly-mediated SUSY breaking models, and also in SU(5) supergravity models with non-universal gaugino mass parameters at the GUT scale. We find that the contribution from gluino loops, which seems to have been left out in recent phenomenological analyses, is significant. We explore how the branching fraction varies in these models, emphasizing parameter regions consistent with other observations.Comment: Revised to accommodate minor changes in original text and update reference

Lepton polarization correlations in B→K∗τ−τ+B \to K^* \tau^- \tau^+

In this work we will study the polarizations of both leptons ($\tau$) in the decay channel $B\to K^* \tau^- \tau^+$. In the case of the dileptonic inclusive decay $B\to K^* \ell^- \ell^+$, where apart from the polarization asymmetries of single lepton $\ell$, one can also observe the polarization asymmetries of both leptons simultaneously. If this sort of measurement is possible then we can have, apart from decay rate, FB asymmetry and the six single lepton polarization asymmetries (three each for $\ell^-$ and $\ell^+$), nine more double polarization asymmetries. This will give us a very useful tool in more strict testing of SM and the physics beyond. We discuss the double polarization asymmetries of $\tau$ leptons in the decay mode $B\to K^* \tau^- \tau^+$ within the SM and the Minimal Supersymmetric extensions of it.Comment: 21 pages, 21 figures; version to match paper to appear in PR