德国在生命科学前沿领域的研发与创新

德国将生命科学界定为“引领性先进学科”,而系统生物学、计算神经科学与医学基因组学是生命科学研究的前沿学科。德国联邦政府通过系列措施大力推进上述三个领域的研发创新。文章对德国生命科学领域项目实施情况、重点领域进展和支持其研究创新政策机制特点进行了分析和归纳。     

USING HAPPINESS DATA FOR ENVIRONMENTAL VALUATION: ISSUES AND APPLICATIONS

Abstract.  In addition to standard methods of environmental valuation, a novel approach has recently emerged which models individuals' self-rated happiness as a function of their incomes and the prevailing environmental conditions. The estimated relationship is used to calculate the trade-off people would be willing to make between income and environmental conditions, i.e. the increase in income necessary to compensate individuals for any given decline in environmental quality. While the basic idea is simple, the theoretical and empirical details may be complex, and they may vary from application to application. This paper discusses the relevant conceptual and methodological issues and reviews applications to air and water pollution, noise nuisance, climate parameters, and natural hazards.     

论儒道释文化对中国城市园艺生命造境的审美观照

中国城市园林造境艺术蕴含着最直接、最生动、最玄妙的宇宙思维模式,而城市山林、壹中天地、法天象地、俯仰乾坤的造园格局正是古典因林造境艺术的精神写照,其创作原理是凭借各种自然构成要素的整合、重构、升华,以达求人化自然、融通宇宙、天人合一的审美境界.它无疑代表了东方城市园林造境文化苑囿的最高旨归,也是世界城市景观设计理念中最丰富的文化遗产,并充分彰显着中国传统儒道释文化生命哲理的审芙观照.     

Journey into Parenthood: Commodification of Reproduction as a New Tourism Niche Market

This article examines the phenomenon of viewing life cycle stages associated with reproduction as commodities, and how this has paved the way for developing and marketing new tourism products and experiences. It traces the genesis of this trend and provides a conceptual review of this development by way of four examples—“babymoons,” hotel baby programs, reproductive tourism, and procreation tourism programs. It argues that parents-to-be and new parents form a new tourism niche market, and that these new products occupy the moral boundary of tourism marketing—packaging up previously sacred and non-commodified events for tourist consumption.     

The Genetics of Breast and Ovarian Cancer III: A new model of family history with insurance applications

Insurers’ access to genetic test results is often restricted and the only genetic information that might be collected during underwriting in some countries is family history. Previous studies have included family history in a simple way but only for diseases which have no cause other than gene mutations, because then the event ‘affected parent’ contributes all possible information short of a genetic test result. We construct a model of breast cancer (BC) and ovarian cancer (OC) — common diseases with rare genetic variants — in which the development of a family history is represented explicitly as a transition between states, hence as part of the applicant's own life history. This allows the impact of a moratorium to be modelled. We then apply this family history model to life insurance in a semi-Markov framework and to critical illness (CI) insurance in a Markov framework to: (a) estimate premium ratings depending on genotype or family history; and (b) model the potential cost of adverse selection.     

Ruin probabilities and optimal capital allocation for heterogeneous life annuity portfolios

A large part of the actuarial literature is devoted to the derivation of ruin probabilities in various non-life insurance risk models. On the contrary, very few papers deal with ruin probabilities for life insurance portfolios. The difficulties arise from the dependence and non-stationarity of the annual payments made by the insurance company. This paper shows that the ruin probability in case of life annuity portfolios can be computed from algorithms derived by De Pril (1989) and Dhaene & Vandebroek (1995). Approximations for ruin probabilities are discussed. The present article complements the works of Frostig et al. (2003) who considered whole life, endowment, and temporary assurances, and of Denuit & Frostig (2008) who considered homogeneous life annuities portfolios. Here, heterogeneous portfolios (with respect to age and/or face amounts) are studied. Particular attention is paid to the capital allocation problem. The total amount of reserve is shared among the risk classes in order to minimize the ruin probability. It is then fair to charge a higher margin to the risk classes requiring more capital.     

我国寿险公司范围经济效应的实证研究

我国自1996年实施产寿分业经营以来,人身保险业务快速增长,寿险公司数量急剧增加,寿险公司业务中新型寿险的比重不断上升,呈现出"一险独大"的市场状况。运用超越对数成本函数,对国内29家具有代表性的寿险公司2005-2010年期间的范围经济状况进行检验的结果显示:不同规模和背景的寿险公司的范围经济系数均比较明显,但是很多寿险公司所表现出来的范围经济性具有"欺骗性"。因此,寿险业务结构调整缺乏内部的市场激励,需要强有力的外部力量推动。     

Estimating worldwide life satisfaction

Whilst studies of life satisfaction are becoming more common-place, their global coverage is far from complete. This paper develops a new database of life satisfaction scores for 178 countries, bringing together subjective well-being data from four surveys and using stepwise regression to estimate scores for nations where no subjective data are available. In doing so, we explore various factors that predict between-nation variation in subjective life satisfaction, building on Vemuri and Costanza's (Vemuri, A.W., & Costanza, R., 2006. The role of human, social, built, and natural capital in explaining life satisfaction at the country level: toward a National Well-Being Index (NWI). Ecological Economics, 58:119-133.) four capitals model. The main regression model explains 76% of variation in existing subjective scores; importantly, this includes poorer nations that had proven problematic in Vemuri and Costanza's (Vemuri, A.W., & Costanza, R., 2006. The role of human, social, built, and natural capital in explaining life satisfaction at the country level: toward a National Well-Being Index (NWI). Ecological Economics, 58:119-133.) study. Natural, human and socio-political capitals are all found to be strong predictors of life satisfaction. Built capital, operationalised as GDP, did not enter our regression model, being overshadowed by the human capital and socio-political capital factors that it inter-correlates with. The final database presents a stop-gap resource that, until robust surveys are carried out worldwide, allows comparisons of subjective life satisfaction between nations to be made with reasonable confidence.     

深圳市各区居民生活质量评价——基于topsis法的测度

本文从经济、基础设施、基本公共服务三个方面入手,利用TOPSIS法对深圳市六区的居民生活质量进行比较分析。结果表明,原特区内四区居民生活质量显著优胜于原特区外二区,且其内部之间也存在一定差距;经济水平差异并非评价居民生活质量优劣的唯一因素,基础设施的建设、基本公共服务的推进也不可或缺;各区应根据目前发展现状,以优势带动不足,最终达到改善居民生活质量、实现市域均衡发展的目标。     

医学院校学生生活事件与主观幸福感的相关研究

目的探讨医学院校大学生生活事件与主观幸福感之间的相关性。方法采用整群随机抽样法,使用青少年自评生活事件量表（ASLEC）总体幸福感量表,对400名新乡医学院学生进行测查。结果人际关系、学习压力、丧失、受惩罚、健康适应等生活事件因子与主观幸福感呈显著负相关,而性别、年级和年龄段与主观幸福感相关不显著。结论生活事件发生的频度影响医学院校学生的主观幸福感,医学院校大学生生活事件与主观幸福感存在明显负相关。