Integrating Operational and Organizational Aspects in Interdependent Infrastructure Network Recovery

Managing risk in infrastructure systems implies dealing with interdependent physical networks and their relationships with the natural and societal contexts. Computational tools are often used to support operational decisions aimed at improving resilience, whereas economics‐related tools tend to be used to address broader societal and policy issues in infrastructure management. We propose an optimization‐based framework for infrastructure resilience analysis that incorporates organizational and socioeconomic aspects into operational problems, allowing to understand relationships between decisions at the policy level (e.g., regulation) and the technical level (e.g., optimal infrastructure restoration). We focus on three issues that arise when integrating such levels. First, optimal restoration strategies driven by financial and operational factors evolve differently compared to those driven by socioeconomic and humanitarian factors. Second, regulatory aspects have a significant impact on recovery dynamics (e.g., effective recovery is most challenging in societies with weak institutions and regulation, where individual interests may compromise societal well‐being). And third, the decision space (i.e., available actions) in postdisaster phases is strongly determined by predisaster decisions (e.g., resource allocation). The proposed optimization framework addresses these issues by using: (1) parametric analyses to test the influence of operational and socioeconomic factors on optimization outcomes, (2) regulatory constraints to model and assess the cost and benefit (for a variety of actors) of enforcing specific policy‐related conditions for the recovery process, and (3) sensitivity analyses to capture the effect of predisaster decisions on recovery. We illustrate our methodology with an example regarding the recovery of interdependent water, power, and gas networks in Shelby County, TN (USA), with exposure to natural hazards.     

Responsibilisation,social work and inclusive social security in Finland

ABSTRACT

In this article responsibilisation in social work is studied by analysing two Finnish state-level policy documents (called final report and research report) which concern a current activation initiative called inclusive social security (ISS). It is asked how social workers and clients are constructed as responsible subjects in these documents. Responsibilisation refers to the advanced liberal mode of governmentality, which aims to strengthen citizens’ abilities to self-governance through various techniques that include the intertwined elements of surveillance and empowerment. It is demonstrated that the policy documents construct the social workers’ and the clients’ responsibilities partly in different ways. The final report leads activation to be based on shared responsibility and social work to be more community-based, whereas the research report strengthens more individual-based responsibility of clients and social workers. For the clients, the interpretation of ISS based on shared responsibility would probably be less stigmatising and paternalistic than the one based on individual responsibilities, i.e. approaching long-term unemployed citizens as being personally ‘at risk’ and thus a justified target group of individualised techniques for activation. For social workers and clients, future activation appears to be a wide mix of different techniques, moral expectations and possible ways of being a responsible subject.     

Price bias and common practice in option pricing

Generally, the semiclosed-form option pricing formula for complex financial models depends on unobservable factors such as stochastic volatility and jump intensity. A popular practice is to use an estimate of these latent factors to compute the option price. However, in many situations this plug-and-play approximation does not yield the appropriate price. This article examines this bias and quantifies its impacts. We decompose the bias into terms that are related to the bias on the unobservable factors and to the precision of their point estimators. The approximated price is found to be highly biased when only the history of the stock price is used to recover the latent states. This bias is corrected when option prices are added to the sample used to recover the states' best estimate. We also show numerically that such a bias is propagated on calibrated parameters, leading to erroneous values. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 48: 8–35; 2020 © 2019 Statistical Society of Canada     

Understanding Cumulative Risk Perception from Judgments and Choices: An Application to Flood Risks

Catastrophic events, such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis, are rare, yet the cumulative risk of each event occurring at least once over an extended time period can be substantial. In this work, we assess the perception of cumulative flood risks, how those perceptions affect the choice of insurance, and whether perceptions and choices are influenced by cumulative risk information. We find that participants' cumulative risk judgments are well represented by a bimodal distribution, with a group that severely underestimates the risk and a group that moderately overestimates it. Individuals who underestimate cumulative risks make more risk‐seeking choices compared to those who overestimate cumulative risks. Providing explicit cumulative risk information for relevant time periods, as opposed to annual probabilities, is an inexpensive and effective way to improve both the perception of cumulative risk and the choices people make to protect against that risk.     

地区信息化水平的综合评价

本文从信息化的发展入手,阐述了信息化建设及各地区信息化水平评价的重要性,采用多元统计中的主成分分析和主成分回归法,设计一个综合指标用以评估各类地区的信息化水平及其在全国所处的位置,指导各地区的信息化建设。     

数学分析中基本概念的教学

通过导数、数列极限、函数的连续性和函数项级数不一致收敛等概念的教学 ,阐明了数学分析中基本概念教学的重要性     

A simple procedure for the selection of significant effects

Summary.  Given a large number of test statistics, a small proportion of which represent departures from the relevant null hypothesis, a simple rule is given for choosing those statistics that are indicative of departure. It is based on fitting by moments a mixture model to the set of test statistics and then deriving an estimated likelihood ratio. Simulation suggests that the procedure has good properties when the departure from an overall null hypothesis is not too small.     

论刘勰文学批评的“文本”精神

刘勰的文学批评有别于先秦两汉时期的“以德为本”的文学批评。贯穿刘勰文学批评始终的是“以文为本”的精神,“文”是刘勰文学批评理论的核心,也是刘勰文学批评方法论依据。刘勰文学批评中的“文本”精神是我国文学批评走向自觉的重要标志。     

试论完善我国散居少数民族立法

少数民族权益的法律保障始终是我国法治进程中的一件大事,而散居少数民族立法工作又是我国整个民族法治建设的重要组成部分。本文主要通过分析完善我国散居少数民族立法的意义,指出我国散居少数民族立法的基本情况以及存在的问题,探求完善散居少数民族立法的方法。     

The Chinese-speaking Muslims (Dungans) of Central Asia: A Case of Multiple Identities in a Changing Context

Chinese-speaking Muslims, called Dungans in Central Asia and Huizu in China, were forced to migrate to present-day Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan at the end of the nineteenth century. They reconstructed their identity through interrelations with local populations and the soviet categorisation of nationality. But after 1991, their status has being gradually destabilised owing to the changes in economic, social and political rules as well as citizenship regulations in these countries. They have to readapt to the new situation created by the independence of the three former Soviet Republics, which has challenged their unity.