Measuring economic downside risk and severity - Growth at Risk

Output collapses, and crises are a fact of life. Severe economic downturns occur periodically, and have grave consequences on the poor. The authors propose a new measurement for economic downside risk, and severity: Growth at risk. Similar to the concept of Value at Risk in finance, Growth at Risk summarizes the expected maximum economic downturn over a target horizon at a given confidence level. After providing a taxonomy of growth risks, the authors construct a panel data, set on Growth at Risk for 84 countries, over the period 1980-98. On average, different regional groups experience very distinct Growth at Risk patterns over time. 1) Non-OECD countries experience a higher downturn risk, while OECD countries'downturn risks for both big, and small recessions are the lowest among all groups. 2) East Asia countries, which had been growing faster, had a high Growth at Risk for big downturns, at around six percent, and it rose dramatically at the end of the 1990s. 3) Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa also maintained high Growth at Risk for both big, and small recessions through 1980-98. But for Latin America, Growth at Risk for big recessions declined in the 1990s. The authors then investigate the relationship between downside risks, and long-term average growth in a cross-country analysis. They find that higher perceived levels of downside growth risk, seem to be negatively associated with long-term growth. When a country's perceived level of downside growth risk is relatively high, both domestic, and foreign investors might be deterred from making long-term investments in the country, and instead invest elsewhere. The results suggest that prudent, and consistent pursuit of socioeconomic, and political stability, contributes to long-term growth, and that risk management in a broader sense, should be a vital part of the pro-growth, and poverty reduction strategy.Public Health Promotion,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Conditions and Volatility,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Labor Policies,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Growth,Economic Theory&Research,Governance Indicators,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

Sources of China's economic growth, 1952-99 : incorporating human capital accumulation

China's performance in economic growth, and poverty reduction has been remarkable. There is an ongoing debate about whether this growth is mainly driven by productivity, or factor accumulation. But few past studies have incorporated information on China's human capital stock, and thus contained an omission bias. The authors construct a measure of China's human capital stock from 1952 to 1999, and, using a simple growth accounting exercise, incorporate it in their analysis of the sources of growth, during the pre-reform (1952-77), and the reform period (1978-99). They find that the accumulation of human capital in China (as measured by the average years of schooling for the population aged 15 to 64) was quite rapid, and contributed significantly to growth, and welfare. After incorporating human capital, they also find that the growth of total factor productivity, still plays a positive, and significant role during the reform period. In contrast, productivity growth was negative in the pre-reform period. The results are robust to changes in labor shares in GDP. The recent declining rate of human capital accumulation is a cause for concern, if China is to sustain its improvements in growth, and welfare in the coming decade. Funding for basic education is unevenly distributed, and insufficient in some poor regions.Labor Policies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Capital Markets and Capital Flows,Economic Theory&Research,Public Health Promotion,Achieving Shared Growth,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Growth,Environmental Economics&Policies

A Model for Achieving Sustainable Commercial Complexes in Shanghai, China

In recent years, political and social concerns have risen in China related to green energy utilization and sustainable architecture. Architectural development in China has increased dramatically since the 2000s, and there is an increasing demand for and focus on energy-saving and sustainable architecture. However, there are few commercial complexes in China that apply sustainability standards. This research explores the future development of sustainable commercial complexes as the next step of architectural development in China, green technology evolution, and appropriate solutions for local conditions to provide a suitable sustainable commercial complex in Shanghai, China. The documentary analysis will be performed based on current local conditions and the needs and social concerns related to sustainable commercial complexes. To achieve the goal, it is necessary to ascertain the benefits for society and the environment when building sustainable commercial complexes. This thesis seeks to demonstrate with an appropriate model that acceptable sustainability standards can be met while satisfying local cultural, environment, and social needs. This analysis is developed based in Shanghai, a well known international city in Eastern China, which will further influence sustainable commercial projects in other cities in China and worldwide

Learning to Auto Weight: Entirely Data-driven and Highly Efficient Weighting Framework

Example weighting algorithm is an effective solution to the training bias problem, however, most previous typical methods are usually limited to human knowledge and require laborious tuning of hyperparameters. In this paper, we propose a novel example weighting framework called Learning to Auto Weight (LAW). The proposed framework finds step-dependent weighting policies adaptively, and can be jointly trained with target networks without any assumptions or prior knowledge about the dataset. It consists of three key components: Stage-based Searching Strategy (3SM) is adopted to shrink the huge searching space in a complete training process; Duplicate Network Reward (DNR) gives more accurate supervision by removing randomness during the searching process; Full Data Update (FDU) further improves the updating efficiency. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of weighting policy explored by LAW over standard training pipeline. Compared with baselines, LAW can find a better weighting schedule which achieves much more superior accuracy on both biased CIFAR and ImageNet.Comment: Accepted by AAAI 202

Surface urban heat island effect and its spatiotemporal dynamics in metropolitan area: a case study in the Zhengzhou metropolitan area, China

The deterioration of the urban surface thermal environment has seriously affected regional environments and human health, becoming a critical ecological problem faced by cities worldwide. This study focused on surface urban heat island effect in metropolitan area and selected the emerging metropolitan area of Zhengzhou, China, as a case study. Based on the MODIS land surface temperature data obtained from the Google Earth Engine the surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) was calculated and its temporal and spatial dynamics were analyzed from 2003 to 2022. The main findings indicated that Zhengzhou, the core city of the metropolitan area, had the strongest urban heat island effect with day surface urban heat island intensity of 1.10°C and night SUHII of 1.39°C). Generally, the average annual SUHII was higher during the day than at night, and the maximum value was detected in summer (2.43°C). SUHII showed an increasing trend at night, especially in summer during the study period. It decreased obviously in urban centers during the day, while it increased obviously in the outer urban areas at night. The results of this study contributed to the understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of the urban heat island effect in the Zhengzhou metropolitan area

Family-clinician shared decision making in intensive care units : cluster randomized trial in China

We thank the China Medical Board, which financially supported our study.Objective To investigate if a Family-Clinician Shared Decision-Making (FCSDM) intervention benefits patients, families and intensive care units (ICUs) clinicians.  Methods Six ICUs in China were allocated to intervention or usual care. 548 patients with critical illness, 548 family members and 387 ICU clinicians were included into the study. Structured FCSDM family meetings were held in the intervention group. Scales of SSDM, HADS, QoL2 and CSACD were used to assess families’ satisfaction and distress, patients’ quality of life, and clinicians’ collaboration respectively.  Results Comparing the intervention group with the control group at post-intervention, there were significant differences in the families’ satisfaction (P =0.0001), depression level (P =0.005), and patients’ quality of life (P =0.0007). The clinicians’ mean CSCAD score was more positive in the intervention group than controls (P < 0.05). There was no significant between-group differences on ICU daily medical cost, but the intervention group demonstrated shorter number of days’ stay in ICU (P=0.0004).  Conclusion The FCSDM intervention improved families’ satisfaction and depression, shortened patients’ duration of ICU stay, and enhanced ICU clinicians’ collaboration.  Practice implications Further improvement and promotion of the FCSDM model are needed to provide more evidence to this field in China.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Pharmacokinetics, Tissue Distribution, Metabolism, and Excretion of Naringin in Aged Rats

Aging is an inevitable biological process characterized by the loss of functional capacity and associated with changes in all phases of pharmacokinetic processes. Naringin, a dietary flavanone glycoside, has been proved to be beneficial for the treatment of multiple age-associated chronic diseases. To date, the pharmacokinetic processes of naringin in aged individuals are still unknown. Thus, a rapid resolution liquid chromatography tandem triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (RRLC-QQQ-MS/MS) method was established for the determination of naringin and its metabolite naringenin in rat plasma, urine, feces, and tissue homogenate. The pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated and a higher exposure of naringin and naringenin were observed in aged rats. Naringin and naringenin were mostly distributed in gastrointestinal tract, liver, kidney, lung, and trachea. Furthermore, a total of 39 flavonoid metabolites (mainly glucuronides and sulfates) and 46 microbial-derived phenolic catabolites were screened with ultra-fast liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometry (UFLC-Q-TOF-MS/MS). Naringenin, hippuric acid, and 3-(4’-hydroxyphenyl)propionic acid were predominated metabolites. This study systemically investigated the pharmacokinetics, tissue distribution, metabolism, and excretion of naringin in aged rats, revealing age- and gender-related changes in the in vivo behavior of naringin. These results would be helpful for the interpretation of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of naringin in aged population