Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling of Post-Earthquake Ignition Probabilities Considering Inter-Earthquake Heterogeneity

Post-earthquake fires are high-consequence events with extensive damage potential. They are also low-frequency events, so their nature remains underinvestigated. One difficulty in modeling post-earthquake ignition probabilities is reducing the model uncertainty attributed to the scarce source data. The data scarcity problem has been resolved by pooling the data indiscriminately collected from multiple earthquakes. However, this approach neglects the inter-earthquake heterogeneity in the regional and seasonal characteristics, which is indispensable for risk assessment of future post-earthquake fires. Thus, the present study analyzes the post-earthquake ignition probabilities of five major earthquakes in Japan from 1995 to 2016 (1995 Kobe, 2003 Tokachi-oki, 2004 Niigata–Chuetsu, 2011 Tohoku, and 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes) by a hierarchical Bayesian approach. As the ignition causes of earthquakes share a certain commonality, common prior distributions were assigned to the parameters, and samples were drawn from the target posterior distribution of the parameters by a Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation. The results of the hierarchical model were comparatively analyzed with those of pooled and independent models. Although the pooled and hierarchical models were both robust in comparison with the independent model, the pooled model underestimated the ignition probabilities of earthquakes with few data samples. Among the tested models, the hierarchical model was least affected by the source-to-source variability in the data. The heterogeneity of post-earthquake ignitions with different regional and seasonal characteristics has long been desired in the modeling of post-earthquake ignition probabilities but has not been properly considered in the existing approaches. The presented hierarchical Bayesian approach provides a systematic and rational framework to effectively cope with this problem, which consequently enhances the statistical reliability and stability of estimating post-earthquake ignition probabilities.     

Frontier spaces of vulnerability: Regional change,urbanization, drought and fire hazard in Santarém,Pará, Brazil

Fire hazard is a mounting concern in tropical rainforests of the Brazilian Amazon and has raised awareness within the science community of the links between agricultural fire use, drought and accidental fire. As a result, fire is being addressed as a crisis event with mitigation focused on those who light fires, particularly smallholder agriculturalists. Little attention is paid to the historical and ongoing ways in which Amazon landscapes and peoples have been made more susceptible to fire. Frontier regions of the Brazilian Amazon serve a variety of functions within the larger Brazilian society, including as extractive reserves for economic development, as social safety valves to reduce population pressures, and as areas to support urban regional integration. Each of these functions has impacted frontier environments in ways that create more flammable landscapes and/or shape the vulnerability of people to fire hazard. This paper uses a case study inthe Brazilian Lower Amazon to understand how vulnerability to fire hazard develops. It argues that if fire mitigation remains centered on fire as a crisis event, an understanding of what constitutes frontier spaces of vulnerability, both in landscape and in populations, will be limited.     

林业投资均衡性的理论分析

我国林业投资体制的改革面临着许多新的课题,研究市场经济条件下林业投资状况十分必要。首先,从均衡理论出发,在分析宏观经济政策对林业的影响和林业投资现状基础上,对形成这种状况的主要原因进行了探讨;其次,以林业投资对象为主体,对其微观经济行为的成本与收益问题进行了分析;最后,提出深化林业投资体制改革要促进投资主体多元化,给予林业更多的政策扶持,进一步完善林业法律法规,以促进我国林业持续稳定地发展。     

关于大都市灾害管理之研究——以日本大都市灾害管理为中心

本文以日本政府及东京等大城市灾害管理政策、行政体制及实例为对象,分析研究了大城市在自然灾害管理中所应注意的问题和经验教训,为大城市的灾害管理提供借鉴.     

Improving the contributions of technology assessment to the health care system of the U.S.A.

Summary Based on 14 case studies of highly effective therapies and the reasons they succeeded less frequently than they could, we propose a variety of steps to improve the health care system of the U.S.A. Whatever proposal emerges from current national debates until innovations are shown to be safe and effective, they should not be supported; when slightly better technologies are much more expensive than other good ones we need to consider appropriate choices carefully; simplified billing and bookkeping would reduce our costs; when a technology is rapidly introduced cautionnary measures may be needed; tracking immunization and repairing their omissions requires a new system; educational programs such as seen effective in hypertension should be applied in other areas such as vaccination; in organ transplantation the nation should consider “presumed consent”; our payment system sometimes creates perverse incentives and therefore needs review; and the preferences of the public in allocation of health resources need to be discovered once the public is informed about the issues. Research supported by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.     

The transition to parenthood in Puerto Rico: Occupational status and the timing of first births

This study examines the relationship between occupational status and fertility timing during a period of rapid development in Puerto Rico. Our fundamental hypothesis is that women with higher status occupations face greater opportunity costs than those with less valued jobs and therefore will be more likely to postpone parenthood until later ages than women without such high costs. We test this hypothesis using event history techniques with data from the 1982 Puerto Rico Fertility and Family Planning Assessment, an island-wide survey of women between the ages of 15 and 49. The analysis examines the effects of occupational status on the timing of first births, and finds strong support for the basic hypothesis, especially regarding the post-ponement of teen births. After the teen years, the effects are less pronounced. Overall, it appears that employment opportunities have played an important role in childbearing decisions in Puerto Rico.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, Denver, Colorado, 30 April–2 May 1992.     

试论建筑工程施工现场消防安全管理

在建筑工程施工过程中,由于缺乏相应的消防安全管理和火灾防范措施,施工现场的火灾事故及损失逐年上升.通过对建筑工地日常消防监督检查及原因分析,论述了加强建筑施工现场消防安全管理和火灾预防的对策等问题.     

我国建筑消防现状

近年来 ,中国城市建筑火灾发生率呈上升趋势 ,仅 1999年 ,全国共发生建筑火灾 18万起 ,比前一年增长 4 1% ;死亡 2 70 0多人 ,比前一年增长 15 % ,直接经济损失多达 14亿元。     

具有卖空总量限制的多阶段M—SAD投资组合优化

文章提出具有卖空总量限制、阈值约束和V型交易成本的多阶段均值—半绝对偏差（M-SAD）投资组合优化模型。该模型分别运用均值和半绝对偏衡量资产的收益率和风险。由于交易成本的存在,该模型不满足无后效性的动态优化问题。文章将该模型近似为一般动态规划问题,提出一种新的离散迭代方法,并证明该算法是线性收敛的。最后,文章通过实证研究比较分析卖空总量限制和风险偏好系数取不同值时对投资组合最优策略的影响,验证模型和算法的有效性。     

Effects of fixed costs in two-person sequential bargaining

Rubinstein (1982) considered the problem of dividing a given surplus between two players sequentially, and then proposed a model in which the two players alternately make and respond to each other's offers through time. He further characterized the perfect equilibrium outcomes, which depend on the players time preferences and order of moves. Using both equal and unequal bargaining cost conditions and an unlimited number of rounds, two experiments were designed to compare the perfect equilibrium model to alternative models based on norms of fairness. We report analyses of final agreements, first offers, and number of bargaining rounds, which provide limited support to the perfect equilibrium model, and then conclude by recommending a shift in focus from model testing to specification of the conditions favoring one model over another.