Improved Transferability of Data‐Driven Damage Models Through Sample Selection Bias Correction

Damage models for natural hazards are used for decision making on reducing and transferring risk. The damage estimates from these models depend on many variables and their complex sometimes nonlinear relationships with the damage. In recent years, data‐driven modeling techniques have been used to capture those relationships. The available data to build such models are often limited. Therefore, in practice it is usually necessary to transfer models to a different context. In this article, we show that this implies the samples used to build the model are often not fully representative for the situation where they need to be applied on, which leads to a “sample selection bias.” In this article, we enhance data‐driven damage models by applying methods, not previously applied to damage modeling, to correct for this bias before the machine learning (ML) models are trained. We demonstrate this with case studies on flooding in Europe, and typhoon wind damage in the Philippines. Two sample selection bias correction methods from the ML literature are applied and one of these methods is also adjusted to our problem. These three methods are combined with stochastic generation of synthetic damage data. We demonstrate that for both case studies, the sample selection bias correction techniques reduce model errors, especially for the mean bias error this reduction can be larger than 30%. The novel combination with stochastic data generation seems to enhance these techniques. This shows that sample selection bias correction methods are beneficial for damage model transfer.     

“一带一路”相关文件政策强度与省域经济开放度关系研究——“一带一路”沿线18个省份实证分析

文章的特色和理论意义在于,尝试量化"一带一路"沿线18个省份"一带一路"相关政策文件,以设计政策效力、政策措施与政策保障的评判要点为基础,确定政策措施强度和政策保障强度.细致讨论"一带一路"文件的政策强度与经济开放度提升之间的关系,并讨论该关系在东西部地区的差异以及政策保障强度在政策措施强度与经济开放度关系之中的调节效应.研究发现:政策措施强度能够正向促进省域经济开放度的提升;在经济开放度高于10％的省份中,政策保障强度正向调节政策措施强度与经济开放度提升之间的关系,政策措施强度和政策保障强度之间存在互补关系;政策措施强度中资金融通强度对于沿线省域经济开放度的提升有着最显著的正向影响,政策沟通强度对于沿线省域经济开放度的提升影响不显著;政策措施强度对省域经济开放度的提升存在地区差别,西部地区更注重"一带一路"倡议所带来的机会.建议:"一带一路"沿线省份在政策设计上,不仅要对政策沟通、设施联通、贸易畅通、资金融通和民心相通等内容作出合理规划和布局,还应对保障机制作出可操作性的安排.     

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.     

The Welfare State as Safety Net in Migration Preferences: Empirical Evidence from an Experiment Among Dutch Master Students

Population Research and Policy Review - The welfare state can be perceived as a safety net which helps individuals adjust to situations of risk or transition. Starting from this idea of the welfare...     

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.     

Inequality Assessment by Probabilistic Development Indices

Social Indicators Research - This paper analyses the Human Development Index (HDI) time series from 2010 to 2017. An alternative index is studied, which combines the same components of the HDI by...     

《新列国志》中的“借言作断”之法

冯梦龙在《新列国志》的创制过程中，发挥《左传》“借言作断”之法：一方面，将春秋义理融入人物话语，明白显豁地反映历史真相，寄寓是非论断；一方面，借鉴《左传》中“君子曰”的模式，以髯翁、髯仙、史官、史臣等身份进行讽咏，或出以己意，或引经据典，以有诗或无诗的评论，增加内涵与意趣。他力图经史融合，藉由小说实现儒家道德伦理的大众教化，提升了列国小说的品格，确立了《新列国志》在列国小说演进过程中的典范意义。     

The African Evaluation Guidelines: 2002. A checklist to assist in planning evaluations, negotiating clear contracts, reviewing progress and ensuring adequate completion of an evaluation

A review of the US ‘program evaluation standards’ (PES), undertaken in a series of workshops and meetings of networks of evaluators in Africa, resulted in modifications to those standards. The result was presented to a plenary session of the Inaugural Conference of the African Evaluation Association in September 1999, attended by over 300 evaluators from 35 countries. The AfrEA Conference decided that a systematic effort should be made to produce a list of African evaluation guidelines, similar to the PES, and that this checklist should be reviewed by national evaluation associations and networks in Africa and field tested in several countries. Ten national and regional networks and associations suggested modifications to the text and endorsed the final version of the guidelines.     

Fire and restoration of the largest urban forest of the world in Rio de Janeiro City,Brazil

National Park of Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) is about 3,300 ha and considered the largest urban forest in the world. Its floristic composition is typical of Atlantic Rain Forest. The reserve is being altered because of fire occurrences and urban expansion. This study identified locations and causes of forest fires, and makes management recommendations to restore damaged areas. From 1991 to 2000, forest firefighters recorded an average of 75-fire occurrences/year. Identified causes included hot air balloons (24%), intentional (24%), rubbish burning (21%) and religious practices (17%). Primary fuels included invasive grasses and ferns. Although hot air balloons destroyed larger areas of forest in each occurrence, a greater number of fires started in the invasive vegetation along roads that bisect the forest. In response to recurrent forests, invasive vegetation has spread gradually into the forest increasing forest degradation. To decrease fire damage, sites with high fire frequencies and density of invasive vegetation were planted with less flammable species. Results indicate that fire frequency decreased and density of invasive vegetation declined. This approach appears to prevent fire incidence, reduce the need for fire fighting, and preserve existing biodiversity.