Knowledge of future mortality levels and trends is important for actuarial practice but poses a challenge to actuaries and demographers. The Lee-Carter method, currently used for mortality forecasting, is based on the assumption that the historical evolution of mortality at all age groups is driven by one factor only. This approach cannot capture an additive manner of mortality decline observed...

The 40-yr ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-40) data are analyzed to demonstrate that wave forcing at lower latitudes plays a crucial role in driving the tropical upwelling portion of the Brewer–Dobson circulation. It is shown that subtropical wave forcing is correlated with tropical upwelling on both intraseasonal and interannual time scales when transient waves are taken into account, and that tropical ...

[1] The energy input to the upper ocean Ekman layer is assessed for the Southern Ocean by examining the rotary cross spectrum between wind stress and surface velocity for frequencies between 0 and 2 cpd. The wind stress is taken from European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ERA-40 reanalysis, and drifter measurements from 15 m depth are used to represent surface velocities, with an ad...

We are now in the post-PC era, yet our mobile devices are insecure. We consider the different stake-holders in today’s mobile device ecosystem, and analyze why widely-deployed hardware security primitives on mobile device platforms are inaccessible to application developers and end-users. We systematize existing proposals for leveraging such primitives, and show that they can indeed strengthen ...

"The behaviour of the population of the Czech Republic has been changing since 1991. The changes have resulted in a considerable decrease in marriages and births, and a slight fall in mortality rates. The decline in the number of newly-weds and new-born children can be attributed to significant structural changes in society connected with the transformation of the reproductive model establishe...

To compare the neurotic characteristics of two samples of Iraqi medical students previously assessed in BAGHDAD at 1980, 1990, respectively with a similar study carried out at 2001 using the same CCEI instrument, The three decades representing different socioeconomic era revealed decline of total mean scores than that of the previous two studies and that males scored higher than females in all ...

To my family in China and my wife Yun ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank Prof. Robert Dickinson for advising my thesis and providing support for my PhD study for the past five years. This dissertation would be impossible without his continuous encouragement and support. I am grateful to the support and help from and discussions with Prof. Albany). I also like to thank my current and past group me...

A new nonparametric method to correct model data is proposed. At any given point in space and time the correction is determined from “analogs” in a learning dataset. The learning dataset contains model data and simultaneous observations. The method is applied to the significant wave height dataset of the 45-yr European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Re-Analysis (ERA-40). Comparison o...

BACKGROUND A change in allocation algorithm in July 2006 allowed broader regional sharing of donor hearts in the United States (US). We assessed if the allocation change has been associated with a decline in wait list mortality in the US. METHODS AND RESULTS We compared baseline characteristics and outcomes in patients ≥18 years old listed for a primary heart transplant in the US before (July...

background hepatitis a was ranked first among all of the different types of viral hepatitis in china, which occurred an average of 500,000 cases annually during the 1980’s. a live attenuated hepatitis a vaccine was applied in preventing of the disease in 1992, large scale used in vaccination program in 1995, and incorporated in the expanded program of immunization in 2008 in china. objective th...