Latin American convergence and divergence towards the mortality profiles of developed countries

It is uncertain whether Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) countries are approaching a single mortality regime. Over the last three decades, LAC has experienced major public health interventions and the highest number of homicides in the world. However, these interventions and homicide rates are not evenly shared across countries. This study documents trends in life expectancy and lifespan variability for 20 LAC countries, 2000–14. By extending a previous method, we decompose differences in lifespan variability between LAC and a developed world benchmark into cause-specific effects. For both sexes, dispersion of amenable diseases through the age span makes the largest contribution to the gap between LAC and the benchmark. Additionally, for males, the concentration of homicides, accidents, and suicides in mid-life further impedes mortality convergence. Great disparity exists in the region: while some countries are rapidly approaching the developed regime, others remain far behind and suffer a clear disadvantage in population health.     

Applying kaizen to the schedule in a concurrent environment

Not only ETO (Engineering to Order), but even serial production industry should know how to deal with projects and their schedule: plant commissioning, shutdown, introducing new products and similar circumstances should be managed with adequate planning and resource allocation techniques to create a schedule useful in decision making during the execution. The current complex reality, with evolving technologies and fierce pressure to reach the market as soon as possible, pushes the project managers to use more advanced techniques than waterfall planning, such as agile or lean. It also requires them to take a holistic view and manage concurrent tasks in complex projects. The contributions of this paper are two: the proposal to control specific parallel groups of waterfall activities under uncertain environments, which can lead to iterations and reworks, as a single concurrent Activity Managed by Kanban Methods (AMKM). This activity can be subsequently embedded into traditional scheduling approaches as CPM-PERT. The second contribution is the feasibility of its application in industrial environments due to the affordability of simulation software. Two use cases are shown as evidence. It is not a disruptive proposal, but a kaizen action based on very mature technologies. Finally, it is suggested some improvements to be implemented in Project Management Software due to this ‘kaizen’ proposal.     

Enduring disablism: students with dyslexia and their pathways into UK higher education and beyond

This paper presents some of the findings derived from a UK Aimhigher South Yorkshire research report on disability and higher education. Many of the students who shared their life histories for this project found that there was a lack of information in making choices about their futures, especially information about pursuing higher education. Without information to make informed choices, disabled students not only experience stress and anxiety, but also difficulty in preparing themselves for higher education study. This is, perhaps, reason for the low proportion of disabled learners in further and higher education. There are many reasons to explain this disparity. Many factors are inextricably linked to disablism institutionalized within many sectors of education. The education arena is not being singled out here. However, it does serve as further notice of the pervasiveness of disablism existing in wider society.     

商业银行非财务信用风险分析

传统的信用风险评估方法仅仅从贷款企业角度来评价商业银行所面临的信用风险,而且评价企业信用风险时,也集中在贷款企业的财务风险评价上,忽略了银行本身存、贷款结构和风险状况对信用风险的影响,造成了评估主体缺位。作为对众多文献的补充,从贷款企业非财务风险因素、银行风险因素和宏观经济环境风险因素三个方面进行了信用风险因素分析,完善了商业银行信用风险评估指标体系。     

日本公共年金隐性债务规模与解决方案

日本在改革其传统的公共年金制度过程中,面临着偿还巨额隐性债务的问题。从绝对规模来看,日本的隐性债务负担是发达国家中最为沉重的。为解决隐性债务,日本学界提出了渐进偿还和设计政策组合的两种解决方案。研究表明,两种方案可解决隐性债务,但会对不同世代产生不同的福利效果。     

成岩作用及阶段对碎屑岩储层孔隙演化的控制

碎屑岩储层孔隙演化受有机-无机成岩作用的影响，在埋藏成岩阶段，有机质成熟过程中脱羧作用产生的有机酸对碎屑岩中的方解石、长石等溶蚀所形成的次生扎隙，是深部储层中高孔渗段发育的重要原因，随埋深增加，成岩阶段由早-晚发展，有机质由未成熟-成熟演化，在此期间，储层孔隙经历了消亡与新生的发展过程。在同一盆地中，不同层位储层经历的最大埋深如果相近，所处成岩阶段也相近，其孔隙演化史亦趋于相似;反之，同一层位的储层所处的最大埋深不同，成岩阶段不同，其孔隙特征也就不同。     

论行政证据的规制与保障功能

行政证据不同于行政诉讼证据,它是一种非讼类证据,主要用于行政执法程序中,具有重要的作用和特殊的法律地位。行政证据是规范行政权力行使的有效手段,是维护公共利益、保护相对人合法权益的重要保障。行政证据是能独立存在并起重要作用的重要证据制度。     

氨基酸分析的新方法——积分脉冲安培检测-高效阴离子交换色谱法

介绍一种新型氨基酸分析方法——采用积分脉冲安培检测的高效阴离子交换色谱法(HPIC-IPAD) 对氨基酸的阴离子交换色谱分离和积分脉;中安培检测进行了较详细的讨论 对方法的应用做了简要介绍。该方法与其它方法比较,无须进行柱后或柱前衍生反应,对氨基酸可以直接进行分析,灵敏度较高 大多数氨基酸的检测限小于1pmol,线性范围可以达到3个数量级以上。     

回忆的超验意义--现代西方浪漫哲人论回忆

尼采、海德格尔、马尔库塞等现代西方浪漫哲人的代表对回忆(记忆)在现代浪漫哲学和浪漫美学中的审美超验功能及其价值均有深刻而独到的论述,这些论述无疑道出了回忆(记忆)的审美超验力量在现代西方文化精神困境中所具有的特殊的美学意义.     

Dynamic reliability models with conditional proportional hazards

A dynamic approach to the stochastic modelling of reliability systems is further explored. This modelling approach is particularly appropriate for load-sharing, software reliability, and multivariate failure-time models, where component failure characteristics are affected by their degree of use, amount of load, or extent of stresses experienced. This approach incorporates the intuitive notion that when a set of components in a coherent system fail at a certain time, there is a jump from one structure function to another which governs the residual lifetimes of the remaining functioning components, and since the component lifetimes are intrinsically affected by the structure function which they constitute, then at such a failure time there should also be a jump in the stochastic structure of the lifetimes of the remaining components. For such dynamically-modelled systems, the stochastic characteristics of their jump times are studied. These properties of the jump times allow us to obtain the properties of the lifetime of the system. In particular, for a Markov dynamic model, specific expressions for the exact distribution functions of the jump times are obtained for a general coherent system, a parallel system, and a series-parallel system. We derive a new family of distribution functions which describes the distributions of the jump times for a dynamically-modelled system.