Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1), which has been shown to have a critical role in mitosis, is one possible target for cancer therapeutic intervention. PLK1, at least in Xenopus, starts the mitotic cascade by phosphorylating and activating cdc25C phosphatase. Also, loss of PLK1 function has been shown to induce mitotic catastrophe in a HeLa cervical carcinoma cell line but not in normal Hs68 fibroblast...

We compute ruin probabilities, in both infinite-time and finite-time, for a Gambler’s Ruin problem with both catastrophes and windfalls in addition to the customary win/loss probabilities. For constant transition probabilities, the infinite-time ruin probabilities are derived using difference equations. Finite-time ruin probabilities of a system having constant win/loss probabilities and variab...

Widely conserved among eukaryotes, the microtubule-associated protein 215 (MAP215) family enhances microtubule dynamic instability. The family member studied most extensively, Xenopus laevis XMAP215, has been reported to enhance both assembly and disassembly parameters, although the mechanism whereby one protein can exert these apparently contradictory effects has not been clarified. Here, we a...

Much past mathematical modeling of psychological processes has assumed (a) smooth and continuous change in behavior or cognitions or, if not, @) simple step bctions or thresholds. Many psychological phenomena which are not smooth and continuous, or do not meet the assumptions of simple step functions, seem to demonstrate the properties of the cusp or butterfly catastrophes. Catastrophe models h...

The authors propose a general individual catastrophe risk model that allows damage ratios to be random functions of the catastrophe intensity. They derive some distributional properties of the insured risks and of the aggregate catastrophic loss under this model. Through the model and ruin probability calculations, they formally illustrate the well-known fact that the catastrophe risk cannot be...

We consider an optimal control problem of a property insurance company with proportional reinsurance strategy. The insurance business brings in catastrophe risk, such as earthquake and flood. The catastrophe risk could be partly reduced by reinsurance. The management of the company controls the reinsurance rate and dividend payments process to maximize the expected present value of the dividend...

It is hard to set up catastrophe potential function by using conventional methods and choose control variables of catastrophe potential function. So the method of setting up potential function is given to analyze the brittleness of complex system by means of relations among systems. The feasibility of analyzing complex system by using catastrophe theory is also discussed. Based on the data come...

In this article, we investigate the valuation of insurance derivatives which facilitate the trading of insurance risks on capital markets, such as catastrophe derivatives that were traded at the Chicago Board of Trade. These instruments have to be priced relative to observed insurance premiums that are written on the same underlying risks to exclude any arbitrage opportunities. We derive a repr...