Flood Risk,Flood Mitigation,and Location Choice: Evaluating the National Flood Insurance Program's Community Rating System

Climate change is expected to worsen the negative effects of natural disasters like floods. The negative impacts, however, can be mitigated by individuals’ adjustments through migration and relocation behaviors. Previous literature has identified flood risk as one significant driver in relocation decisions, but no prior study examines the effect of the National Flood Insurance Program's voluntary program—the Community Rating System (CRS)—on residential location choice. This article fills this gap and tests the hypothesis that flood risk and the CRS‐creditable flood control activities affect residential location choices. We employ a two‐stage sorting model to empirically estimate the effects. In the first stage, individuals’ risk perception and preference heterogeneity for the CRS activities are considered, while mean effects of flood risk and the CRS activities are estimated in the second stage. We then estimate heterogeneous marginal willingness to pay (WTP) for the CRS activities by category. Results show that age, ethnicity and race, educational attainment, and prior exposure to risk explain risk perception. We find significant values for the CRS‐creditable mitigation activities, which provides empirical evidence for the benefits associated with the program. The marginal WTP for an additional credit point earned for public information activities, including hazard disclosure, is found to be the highest. Results also suggest that water amenities dominate flood risk. Thus, high amenity values may increase exposure to flood risk, and flood mitigation projects should be strategized in coastal regions accordingly.     

Exploring and Assessing Nonsocial Play in the Preschool: The Development and Validation of the Preschool Play Behavior Scale

Recently, researchers have investigated the different structural forms of young children's nonsocial play behaviors. The primary goal of this research was to develop and validate the Preschool Play Behavior Scale (PPBS) , a teacher rating scale designed to assess the multiple forms of young children's solitary behaviors. In this regard, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, 39 preschool children were observed, and their social and nonsocial behaviors recorded over a three month period. Teachers then completed the PPB S. Results supported the construct validity of the PPBS ; teacher-rated and observed nonsocial and social behaviors were significantly associated in predicted ways. In Study 2, parental (e.g., demographic, child temperament) and teacher (e.g., PPBS , child behavior problems) ratings were collected for 337 preschoolers. Results established the psychometric properties of the PPBS (e.g., inter-rater reliability, factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent validity).     

论普通话水平测试中的评分误差

对普通话水平测试的复审表明，评分中“朗读”与“说话”的误差较大，其原因涉及试卷构成与队伍建设等多个方面。为提高普通话水平测试的信度，以普通话语音知识和方言学、音位学的基本知识作为内容的测试员后期培训应尽快付诸实施。     

Stability and Validity of the Holden Psychological Screening Inventory (HPSI) in Psychiatric Inpatients

Abstract

Forty-seven psychiatric inpatients in a Canadian psychiatric hospital participated in an evaluation of the stability and validity of the Holden Psychological Screening Inventory (HPSI). Stability coefficients over a 1-month period were .85, .79, and .66 for the HPSI Psychiatric, Social, and Depression Symptomatology scales, respectively, and coefficient alpha reliabilities for these scales ranged between .76 and .89 across both time periods. Staff rating composite scales corresponding to the self-report HPSI scales had stability coefficients of .74, .85, and .82, respectively. As well, they had inter-rater reliabilities that ranged between .65 and .84 across both time periods. The 3 staff rating composites at time 1 correlated equivalently with the corresponding 3 primary HPSI scales at times 1 and 2 (p > .05). Similarly, the 3 staff rating composites at time 2 correlated equivalently with the corresponding 3 primary HPSI scales at times 1 and 2 (p > .05). Over a 1-month period, HPSI scale scores were very stable and correlations with criterion ratings were stable. Using a confirmatory factor analysis, with each of the 3 dimensions defined by the time 1 and 2 measures for the 3 HPSI scales and 3 staff rating composites, evidence for discriminant as well as convergent validity was obtained. In summary, the self-report HPSI and the staff rating composite measures evidenced sufficient reliability and validity to meet the requirements for routine clinical assessment work with psychiatric inpatients. Additionally, the stability data provide effects of retesting baseline data for assessing treatment outcome in this population.     

乡镇干部上下级关系研究--以四川省 P 县为例

以执政党党内关系理论和社会主义国家的公共行政理论为依据,对四川省 P 县乡镇干部关系进行调研,分析我国乡镇干部上下级关系的现状,探讨重塑我国乡镇干部上下级关系的路径,以实现我国基层行政单位内部和谐发展。     

层次分析法在评级中的应用——建立商业银行评级模型

在分析信用评级模型的基础上,充分考虑层次分析法在建立信用评级模型中的优势,进而运用系统工程的思想方法——层次分析法搭建模型。本文的主要工作为:(1)对商业银行信用评级指标体系进行分析,并在我国原有影响较大的指标体系基础上采用专家调查和数理统计的方法,构思新的指标体系;(2)鉴于商业银行信用评级无法完全量化,在商业银行评级的模型研究中使用层次分析法建立评级模型,以达到定量与定性分析相结合的目的。     

Reliability of Reviewer Ratings in the Manuscript Peer Review Process: An Opportunity for Improvement

Accountability to authors and readers cannot exist without proper peer review practices. Thus, the information a journal seeks from its peer reviewers and how it makes use of this information is paramount. Disagreement amongst peer reviewers can be considerable, resulting in very diverse comments to authors. Incorporating a clear scoring system for key concrete items and requiring referees to provide justification for scores may ensure that reviewers contribute in a consistently fair and effective manner. This article evaluates information collected from reviewers and proposes an example of a system that aims to improve accountability, while having the potential to make it easier for reviewers to perform a more objective review.     

Discovering associations between players' performance indicators and matches' results in the European Soccer Leagues

The application of data mining techniques and statistical analysis to the sports field has received increasing attention in the last decade. One of the most famous sports in the world is soccer, and the present work deals with it, using data from the 2009/2010 season to the 2015/2016 season from nine European leagues extracted from the Kaggle European Soccer database. Overall performance indicators of the four roles in a soccer team (forward, midfielder, defender and goalkeeper) for home and away teams are used to investigate the relationships between them and the results of matches, and to predict the wins of the home team. The model used to answer both these demands is the Bayesian Network. This study shows that this model can be very useful for mining the relations between players'' performance indicators and for improving knowledge of the game strategies applied by coaches in different leagues. Moreover, it is shown that the ability to predict match results of the proposed Bayesian Network is roughly the same as that of the Naive Bayes model.     

评分不一致性对在线评论有用性的影响——归因理论的视角

哪些因素会影响在线评论的有用性一直是理论界和实践界都十分关心的问题,但现有研究对在线评论的星级评分是如何影响评论有用性这一问题仍未形成统一的结论。基于此,本文以归因理论为分析框架,构建了在线评论的星级评分与产品的平均星级间的不一致性对评论有用性的影响的研究模型,并重点探讨产品的评论总量以及评论的星级评分和平均星级间差异的方向对这一影响的调节作用。本文以携程网上832233条酒店评论为样本,采用零膨胀负二项回归方法对理论模型进行了实证检验,研究结果表明,评分不一致性对评论的有用性有显著的负向影响,而某种产品的评论总量以及星级评分和平均星级间差异的方向对评分不一致性和评论有用性间的关系起到调节作用。当产品的评论总量越高或评论的星级评分与产品的平均星级间的差异为正向差异时,评分不一致性对评论有用性的负向影响越强。本文的研究成果既为理解在线评论有用性提供了理论贡献,也有助于电子商务或第三方评论网站管理和应用在线评论。     

基于幂风险谱和蒙特卡洛模拟的贷款优化配置模型

极端风险对于银行资产配置至关重要,尤其是次贷危机之后尾部风险以惨重的代价引起了金融机构的重视,传统条件风险价值CVaR、风险价值VaR不能有效度量尾部极端风险,因此本文基于幂风险谱和蒙特卡洛模拟构建了贷款组合优化配置模型,同时控制尾部极端风险和信用风险。本文一是通过损失-X_i越大、其风险权重φ_i也就越大的思路,构建幂风险谱PSR （Power Spectral Risk）最小的目标函数对极端风险进行控制,即弥补了CVaR同等看待尾部风险、忽略风险较大的损失应予以更大权重的不足,也同时弥补了VaR仅提供某一置信水平下资产损失的最大值、无法反映一旦超过这一数值的可能损失的弊端。二是通过蒙特卡洛模拟信用等级迁移引起贷款收益的变化情景,并以信用等级迁移后贷款组合损失越大、则风险厌恶权重越大的思路构建幂风险谱PSR最小为目标函数,以贷款组合的收益大于目标收益为约束,构建贷款优化配置模型,改变了现有研究贷款配置时没有同时控制信用风险和尾部风险的不足。对比分析结果表明：本文模型能够实现更高的收益风险比,即在单位幂风险谱PSR下能够实现较高的收益。