Estimating Quantile Families of Loss Distributions for Non-Life Insurance Modelling via L-moments

This paper discusses different classes of loss models in non-life insurance settings. It then overviews the class Tukey transform loss models that have not yet been widely considered in non-life insurance modelling, but offer opportunities to produce flexible skewness and kurtosis features often required in loss modelling. In addition, these loss models admit explicit quantile specifications which make them directly relevant for quantile based risk measure calculations. We detail various parameterizations and sub-families of the Tukey transform based models, such as the g-and-h, g-and-k and g-and-j models, including their properties of relevance to loss modelling. One of the challenges with such models is to perform robust estimation for the loss model parameters that will be amenable to practitioners when fitting such models. In this paper we develop a novel, efficient and robust estimation procedure for estimation of model parameters in this family Tukey transform models, based on L-moments. It is shown to be more robust and efficient than current state of the art methods of estimation for such families of loss models and is simple to implement for practical purposes.Comment: 42 page

A computational approach to the identification of lineage-specific bacterial genes and a determination of their biological significance

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

From transcendence to general maintenance: Exploring the creativity and wellbeing dynamic in higher education

The issue of wellbeing in higher education has been an increasing area of discourse and action in recent years, driven considerably by in-creasing rates of recorded mental illness and apparent reductions in student resilience. With increasing recognition of the wellbeing challenge faced by the whole academic community, it is now incumbent on universities to move beyond deficit model support frameworks, to balance the necessary and essential challenge of study in higher education with the need for therapeutic effective interventions capable of engaging students and staff. There is a growing body of evidence relating to the health benefits of participation with creative activity, and engagement with creative experiences. This chapter presents a focused review of the creativity-wellbeing-learning dynamic to explore the possible opportunities for a move beyond the mere provision of supplementary student support. Given the increasing significance attached to creativity as a graduate attribute, the answer to the wellbeing challenge may be to question the notion of academic and therapeutic as being mutually ex-clusive ideals. Shouldn’t effective academic challenge improve wellbeing? Might the challenge actually provide the solution?N/

Computational Analysis and Integration of MeDIP-seq Methylome Data

The combinatorial number of possible methylomes in biological time and space is astronomical. Consequently, the computational analysis of methylomes needs to cater for a variety of data, throughput and resolution. Here, we review recent advances in 2nd generation sequencing (2GS) with a focus on the different methods used for the analysis of MeDIP-seq data. The challenges and opportunities presented by the integration of methylation data with other genomic data types are discussed as is the potential impact of emerging 3rd generation sequencing (3GS) based technologies on methylation analysis

Inference Processes in Speech Perception

Cross-modal priming experiments have shown that surface variations in speech are perceptually tolerated as long as they occur in phonologically viable contexts. For example, [klim] {cleam) gains access to the mental representation of clean when in the context of [klimpoks] (cleam parks), since the change is a natural one, reflecting the phonological process of place assimilation. This implies that speech perception involves processes of phonological inference, which recover the underlying form of speech. Here we investigate the locus of these inference processes, using the phoneme monitoring task. A set of stimulus sentences were created containing deviations that were either phonologically viable (as in cleain parks above) or unviable. In Experiment 1, subjects monitored for the segment underlying the surface change (in the above example, /n/) and in Experiment 2 the following segment (/p/) was the taiget. In addition, the lexical status of the carrier word was manipulated (e.g., clean vs threan), contrasting lexical and non-lexical theories of phonological inference. Both experiments showed stiong effects of phonological viability for real words, with weaker effects for the non-word stimuli. These results suggest that phonological inference can occur non-lexically, but that it interacts strongly with the process of lexical access

Human-specific CpG 'beacons' identify human-specific prefrontal cortex H3K4me3 chromatin peaks

Therefore, CpG-focused comparative sequence analysis can precisely pinpoint chromatin structures that contribute to the human-specific phenotype and further supports an integrated approach in genomic and epigenomic studie