Search

Convergence trades exploit temporary mispricing by simultaneously buying relatively underpriced assets and selling short relatively overpriced assets. This paper studies optimal convergence trades under both recurring and nonrecurring arbitrage opportunities represented by continuing and “stopped” cointegrated price processes and considers both fixed and stochastic (Poisson) horizons. Conventional long-short delta neutral strategies are generally suboptimal and it can be optimal to simultaneously go long (or short) in two mispriced assets. Optimal portfolio holdings critically depend on whether the risky asset position is liquidated when prices converge. Our theoretical results are illustrated on pairs of Chinese bank shares traded on both the Hong Kong and China stock exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents findings from a Department of Health-funded study into the emotional well-being of young people seeking asylum on their own in the UK. It discusses how young people accounted for only partly disclosing information about the circumstances surrounding their quest for asylum and subsequent aspects of their lives since arriving in the UK. Foucault's panoptic mechanism and its focus on the effects of power as dispersed through scrutiny are applied as a theoretical framework to contextualise these experiences. The paper shows that young people's decisions about how much of their current or past lives they share with others are more complex than indicated by earlier research. The paper argues that, for many young people, the predominant impetus for selective disclosure was a desire to retain a degree of agency as they navigated their way through immigration, asylum, social care, health and education systems and simultaneously sought to establish themselves in the social world. These findings have implications for how social care (and other) professionals engage and work with young people seeking asylum alone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the theory and concepts of health promotion, this paper proposes a logic model for HIV/AIDS prevention and control which provides a structure for describing planned actions and predicted impacts/outcomes from comprehensive HIV prevention interventions. The potential usefulness of the model is examined by reviewing the evolution of HIV prevention and management in China, drawing on evidence from interventions reported from a mixture of study designs and formats. It reports that HIV interventions in China can be considered in two distinctive phases, before and after 2003 when China commenced its 'official' response to the HIV epidemic. The logic model was useful in comparing actions taken over these two periods highlighting the importance of political leadership in distinguishing between the two phases, and the continuing importance of systematic and broadly based public education and communication. We conclude that the logic model can not only be used as a planning model, but can also be applied retrospectively to assess successes and failures in national and local responses to HIV in complex social settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, virtue ethics has been increasingly considered as one of the most appropriate alternative ethical frameworks for youth social work internationally and in China. Extant literature has the tendency to emphasise cultural difference and neglect the universality of (virtue) ethics; instead, this article aims to inspire a balanced theoretical conversation on similarities between western (Foucauldian) and Chinese virtue ethics (mainly classical Confucianism and Daoism) supported by examples from case studies. Three areas are addressed: (i) similarities in the interior (personal) dimension and the exterior (relational) dimension of the self; (ii) the situational and universal features of virtue ethics, and the need for a reflective approach to balance both; and (iii) ethical cultivation of the reflective approach. These key themes add to a body of knowledge for the development of a virtue ethics framework for Chinese youth social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an intersectional approach, this study examines Chinese immigrant mothers' negotiation between career and family and the role of social support. Based on eight individual interviews with Chinese immigrant mothers in Toronto, we found that their employment opportunities were highly limited by the intersection of immigration status and gender. A model is proposed to explain the effect of various factors on the mothers' career decisions. Three core factors—employment difficulties, child-care responsibility and financial need—had a major influence on the mothers' cost-and-benefit analyses when they made their career decisions. Furthermore, the adequacy and effectiveness of the mothers' social and community support were affected by their immigration status. Class differences and the association between career decisions and integration are also discussed. The findings suggest that immigrant mothers experience a unique situation because of the intersectionality of their multiple identities. Researchers and community organisations should recognise the distinct circumstances and needs of this group in order to achieve comprehensive understanding and provide appropriate services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To investigate subtypes of successful aging (SA) based on concordance and discordance between self-rated and researcher-defined measures and their associations with demographic, psychosocial, and life satisfaction factors. Method: We used multinomial logistic regression models to analyze 2013 cross-sectional survey data from 1,962 persons aged 65 and older in Shanghai that measured self-rated successful aging (SSA) with a single global assessment and researcher-defined successful aging (RSA) with a cumulative deficit index reflecting physical, physiological, cognitive, psychological, and social engagement domains. We generated four subtypes based on these two dichotomous variables: non-successful aging (non-SA; meeting neither the criterion of RSA nor the criterion of SSA), RSA-only (meeting the criterion of RSA-only but not the criterion of SSA), SSA-only (meeting the criterion of SSA-only but not the criterion of RSA), and both-successful aging (both-SA; meeting both criteria of RSA and SSA). Results: In the sample, 32% were nonsuccessful agers, 7% RSA-only, 34% SSA-only, and 27% successful agers. Female gender and older age were associated with lower likelihood of RSA-only and both-SA relative to non-SA, but with greater likelihood of SSA-only. Good socioeconomic conditions and social networks were associated with greater likelihood of SSA-only and both-SA relative to non-SA or RSA-only. Satisfaction with life domains was robustly and positively associated with good successful aging outcomes. Discussion: Researcher-defined successful aging and self-rated successful aging are different measures with distinct social correlates. Subtypes of concordance and discordance provide a more holistic biopsychosocial conceptualization of successful aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Generic job-exposure matrices (JEMs) are often used in population-based epidemiologic studies to assess occupational risk factors when only the job and industry information of each subject is available. JEM ratings are often based on professional judgment, are usually ordinal or semi-quantitative, and often do not account for changes in exposure over time. We present an empirical Bayesian framework that combines ordinal subjective JEM ratings with benzene measurements. Our aim was to better discriminate between job, industry, and time differences in exposure levels compared to using a JEM alone. Methods: We combined 63 221 short-term area air measurements of benzene exposure (1954–2000) collected during routine health and safety inspections in Shanghai, China, with independently developed JEM intensity ratings for each job and industry using a mixed-effects model. The fixed-effects terms included the JEM intensity ratings for job and industry (both ordinal, 0–3) and a time trend that we incorporated as a b-spline. The random-effects terms included job (n = 33) and industry nested within job (n = 399). We predicted the benzene concentration in two ways: (i) a calibrated JEM estimate was calculated using the fixed-effects model parameters for calendar year and JEM intensity ratings; (ii) a job-/industry-specific estimate was calculated using the fixed-effects model parameters and the best linear unbiased predictors from the random effects for job and industry using an empirical Bayes estimation procedure. Finally, we applied the predicted benzene exposures to a prospective population-based cohort of women in Shanghai, China (n = 74 942). Results: Exposure levels were 13 times higher in 1965 than in 2000 and declined at a rate that varied from 4 to 15% per year from 1965 to 1985, followed by a small peak in the mid-1990s. The job-/industry-specific estimates had greater differences between exposure levels than the calibrated JEM estimates (97.5th percentile/2.5th percentile exposure level, BGR95B: 20.4 versus 3.0, respectively). The calibrated JEM and job-/industry-specific estimates were moderately correlated in any given year (Pearson correlation, rp = 0.58). We classified only those jobs and industries with a job or industry JEM exposure probability rating of 3 (>50% of workers exposed) as exposed. As a result, 14.8% of the subjects and 8.7% of the employed person-years in the study population were classified as benzene exposed. The cumulative exposure metrics based on the calibrated JEM and job-/industry-specific estimates were highly correlated (rp = 0.88). Conclusions: We provide a useful framework for combining quantitative exposure data with expert-based exposure ratings in population-based studies that maximized the information from both sources. Our framework calibrated the ratings to a concentration scale between ratings and across time and provided a mechanism to estimate exposure when a job/industry group reported by a subject was not represented in the exposure database. It also allowed the job/industry groups’ exposure levels to deviate from the pooled average for their respective JEM intensity ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY Following the stress release model (SRM) proposed by , we developed a new multidimensional SRM, which is a space-time-magnitude version based on multidimensional point processes. First, we interpreted the exponential hazard functional of the SRM as the mathematical expression of static fatigue failure caused by stress corrosion. Then, we reconstructed the SRM in multidimensions through incorporating four independent submodels: the magnitude distribution function, the space weighting function, the loading rate function and the coseismic stress transfer model. Finally, we applied the new model to analyse the historical earthquake catalogues in North China. An expanded catalogue, which contains the information of origin time, epicentre, magnitude, strike, dip angle, rupture length, rupture width and average dislocation, is composed for the new model. The estimated model can simulate the variations of seismicity with space, time and magnitude. Compared with the previous SRMs with the same data, the new model yields much smaller values of Akaike information criterion and corrected Akaike information criterion. We compared the predicted rates of earthquakes at the epicentres just before the related earthquakes with the mean spatial seismic rate. Among all 37 earthquakes in the expanded catalogue, the epicentres of 21 earthquakes are located in the regions of higher rates. The map of predicted earthquake rates at the ending time (1997 January 1) suggests that the next destructive earthquake in North China is likely to occur in the regions south of Datong, north of Beijing and east of Hejian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Surveillance of physical activity trends in older adults is limited in developing nations. This study examined 10-year leisure-time physical activity trends of elderly residents of Shanghai, the largest Chinese city with the nation's highest proportion of senior citizens. Methods The study used panel data from the Shanghai Longitudinal Survey of Elderly Life and Opinion (1998, 2003, 2005 and 2008). Leisure-time physical activity questions included (i) 16 major leisure-time habitual activities and (ii) regular exercise in the previous 6 months. Results In comparison to 1998, for Shanghai elders, the trend for engaging in leisure-time habits not related to physical activity increased over time, becoming statistically significant in 2005 and 2008 (e.g. OR for watching TV in 2003, 2005 and 2008 is 1.04 [0.91, 1.19], 1.17 [1.00, 1.38] and 1.78 [1.51, 2.09], respectively). Simultaneously, the trend for engaging in regular exercise declined significantly in each observation year in comparison to 1998 (OR in 2003, 2005 and 2008 is 0.70 [0.61, 0.80], 0.36 [0.30, 0.42] and 0.28 [0.24, 0.33], respectively). Discussion An increasingly sedentary lifestyle has evolved over the past decade in Shanghai. This highlights a need for public health agencies to develop effective active lifestyle interventions and physical activity promotion programs for local elders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In order to investigate the operation performance of ground-coupled heat-pump (GCHP) system, an analytical simulation model of GCHP system on short time-step basis and a computer program based on this model to predict system operating parameters are developed in this study. Besides, detailed on-site experiments on GCHP test rig installed in a temperate region of China are carried out. The temperature distributions of borehole as well as ground around borehole at different depths are evaluated. Operation parameters of GCHP system such as circulating water temperature, heat rejection into ground and system power consumption when the system operated in intermittent and continuous modes are investigated. The accuracy of proposed simulation model is validated by experimental data. The advantage of GCHP technology in energy efficiency over other conventional air-conditioning systems is proved to be obvious and the performance of GCHP system is found to be affected by its operation modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]