New development: Regression-to-the-mean explains the otherwise puzzling coefficients in NHS England’s formula for funding CCGs

This paper reviews NHS England’s recent report on the formula that guides the allocation of tens of billions of pounds to clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). It finds deficiencies and errors in the unprincipled construction of the formula and substitutes Sir Francis Galton’s logical concept of ‘regression to the mean’ for the report’s ad hoc conjectures about striking patterns of certain coefficients.     

Structural Changes in China’s Import Market: A Comparison with Korea’s Exports to China

The article examines the structural changes of China’s import market for domestic demand and the corresponding structural changes of Korea’s exports to China for Chinese domestic demand. Using 8-digit HS code data covering the period 2006–2014 and analyzing the processing steps as well as by industry, this study reveals that while the share of ordinary trade in total China’s imports has increased rapidly, the share of processing trade has decreased continuously since the mid-2000s. The article also shows that Korea’s exports to China is still processing trade-oriented. The slowdown of Korea’s exports to China is because of the concentration on processing trade, intermediate goods, electronics and chemistry.     

双线螺纹带轮套的加工对车工高级人才培养的探析

双线螺纹加工方法较多,用数控机床加工相对简单,普通车床加工双线螺纹也比较普遍,这不仅可以锻炼机加工者的水平也是高级车工必备的技能,是一项难度大的加工工艺。以C6140型普通车床为加工设备,对带有双线螺纹带轮套的加工方法做一详细的分析,通过对双线螺纹带轮的加工分析,可以充分发挥此项加工项目在普通车工高级人才培养中的作用,对当今社会极需的高级车工人才培养具有一定的帮助。     

Reserves and cash flows under stochastic retirement

Uncertain time of retirement and uncertain structure of retirement benefits are risk factors for life insurance companies. Nevertheless, classical life insurance models assume these are deterministic. In this paper, we include the risk from stochastic time of retirement and stochastic benefit structure in a classical finite-state Markov model for a life insurance contract. We include discontinuities in the distribution of the retirement time. First, we derive formulas for appropriate scaling of the benefits according to the time of retirement and discuss the link between the scaling and the guarantees provided. Stochastic retirement creates a need to rethink the construction of disability products for high ages and ways to handle this are discussed. We show how to calculate market reserves and how to use modified transition probabilities to calculate expected cash flows without significantly more complexity than in the traditional model. At last, we demonstrate the impact of stochastic retirement on market reserves and expected cash flow in numerical examples.     

普通高校拓展训练的必要性与可行性研究

拓展训练是学习化社会和终身教育潮流中的一项新举措.拓展训练不仅能够丰富和完善体育课程体系,而且符合素质教育的需要,更有利于大学生身心健康发展和增强大学生社会适应能力.     

Consumer Preferences for Fresh Tomatoes in Benin using a Conjoint Analysis

Constraints related to the technical and socioeconomic aspects of adopting tomato varieties are well documented. However, preferences relating to the demand for this fruit are rarely studied. In fact, demand for the different varieties of tomatoes might be related to consumers’ preferences for the extrinsic (color, size) and intrinsic (taste, nutritive value, water content) characteristics specific to each variety. It is therefore indispensable to determine the characteristics of tomatoes preferred by consumers. We examine consumers’ preferences for tomato attributes among a sample of 600 consumers in four representative markets in the main cities in southern Benin. The study also identifies potential segments of consumers and the market shares of each profile for each segment. The study identifies four potential tomato market segments, two of which have a strong preference for local tomatoes, namely, those that can be conserved for long periods and those with a firm consistency.     

普通顶管施工技术在一般工程中的应用

结合工程实例,对照施工规范,对普通顶管施工的各个关键过程分别加以分析和总结,提出了部分改进建议。     

EXPLICIT SOLUTIONS OF CONSUMPTION-INVESTMENT PROBLEMS IN FINANCIAL MARKETS WITH REGIME SWITCHING

We consider a consumption and investment problem where the market presents different regimes. An investor taking decisions continuously in time selects a consumption–investment policy to maximize his expected total discounted utility of consumption. The market coefficients and the investor's utility of consumption are dependent on the regime of the financial market, which is modeled by an observable finite-state continuous-time Markov chain. We obtain explicit optimal consumption and investment policies for specific HARA utility functions. We show that the optimal policy depends on the regime. We also make an economic analysis of the solutions, and show that for every investor the optimal proportion to allocate in the risky asset is greater in a "bull market" than in a "bear market." This behavior is not affected by the investor's risk preferences. On the other hand, the optimal consumption to wealth ratio depends not only on the regime, but also on the investor's risk tolerance: high risk-averse investors will consume relatively more in a "bull market" than in a "bear market," and the opposite is true for low risk-averse investors.     

普通高校体育课的开设与健身效应探讨

体育课是国家落实的一项基本政策,因此各普通院校都重视体育课的健身作用和地位,尤其是高效率快节奏的当今社会,要求学生劳逸结合,有很高的身体素质和心里素质,以便将来适应社会,那么体育课的健身效果有哪些?本文通过每年一次的大学生体质健康测试数据的对比,有力的证明体育课的健身效应,并督促大学生积极投入锻炼,积极上好体育课,达到锻炼身体的效果。     

组合圆柱螺旋弹簧疲劳强度的离散优化设计

本文对组合圆柱螺旋弹簧,在穗定循环交变载荷作用下,进行了疲劳强度的离散优化设计.通过对“新195柴油气门弹簧”的离散优化设计举例,探讨数学模型的建立及离散优化方法。