Mortality effects of temperature changes in the United Kingdom

Temperature changes are known to affect the social and environmental determinants of health in various ways. Consequently, excess deaths as a result of extreme weather conditions may increase over the coming decades because of climate change. In this paper, the relationship between trends in mortality and trends in temperature change (as a proxy) is investigated using annual data and for specified (warm and cold) periods during the year in the UK. A thoughtful statistical analysis is implemented and a new stochastic, central mortality rate model is proposed. The new model encompasses the good features of the Lee and Carter (Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1992, 87: 659–671) model and its recent extensions, and for the very first time includes an exogenous factor which is a temperature‐related factor. The new model is shown to provide a significantly better‐fitting performance and more interpretable forecasts. An illustrative example of pricing a life insurance product is provided and discussed.     

The impact of economic growth in mortality modelling for selected OECD countries

The health of a population is affected by social, environmental, and economic factors. Pension providers and consultants, insurance companies, government agencies and individuals in the developed world have a vested interest in understanding how the economic growth will impact on the life expectancy of their population. Therefore, changes in death rates may occur due to climate and economic changes. In this study, we extend a previous study into excess deaths as a result of climate change to also provide a comprehensive investigation of the impact of economic changes using annual female and male data for 5 developed OECD countries. We find that there is strong negative relationship between mortality index, and climate and economic proxies. This model shows to provide better fitting and forecasting results both for females and males, and for all countries studied.     

Decline of surface temperature and salinity in the western tropical Pacific Ocean in the Holocene epoch

In the present-day climate, surface water salinities are low in the western tropical Pacific Ocean and increase towards the eastern part of the basin. The salinity of surface waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean is thought to be controlled by a combination of atmospheric convection, precipitation, evaporation and ocean dynamics, and on interannual timescales significant variability is associated with the El Ni?o/Southern Oscillation cycles. However, little is known about the variability of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system on timescales of centuries to millennia. Here we combine oxygen isotope and Mg/Ca data from foraminifers retrieved from three sediment cores in the western tropical Pacific Ocean to reconstruct Holocene sea surface temperatures and salinities in the region. We find a decrease in sea surface temperatures of approximately 0.5 degrees C over the past 10,000 yr, whereas sea surface salinities decreased by approximately 1.5 practical salinity units. Our data imply either that the Pacific basin as a whole has become progressively less salty or that the present salinity gradient along the Equator has developed relatively recently.     

BLE Mesh: A Practical Mesh Networking Development Framework for Public Safety Communications

Owing to advanced storage and communication capabilities today, smart devices have become the basic interface between individuals and their surrounding environment. In particular, massive devices connect to one other directly in a proximity area, thereby enabling abundant Proximity Services(Pro Se), which can be classified into two categories: public safety communication and social discovery. However, two challenges impede the quick development and deployment of Pro Se applications. From the viewpoint of networking, no multi-hop connectivity functionality component can be directly operated on commercially off-the-shelf devices, and from the programming viewpoint, an easily reusable development framework is lacking for developers with minimal knowledge of the underlying communication technologies and connectivity. Considering these two issues, this paper makes a twofold contribution. First, a multi-hop mesh networking based on Bluetooth Low Energy(BLE) is implemented,in which a proactive routing mechanism with link-quality(i.e., received signal strength indication) assistance is designed. Second, a Pro Se development framework called BLE Mesh is designed and implemented, which can provide significant benefits for application developers, framework maintenance professionals, and end users. Rich application programming interfaces can help developers to build Pro Se apps easily and quickly. Dependency inversion principle and template method pattern allow modules in BLE Mesh to be loosely coupled and easy to maintain and update. Callback mechanism enables modules to work smoothly together and automation processes such as registration, node discovery, and messaging are employed to offer nearly zero-configuration for end users.Finally, based on the designed Pro Se development kit, a public safety communications app called Quote Send App is built to distribute emergency information in close area without Internet access. The process illustrates the easy usability of BLE Mesh to develop Pro Se apps.     

The impact of parameter uncertainty in insurance pricing and reserve with the temperature‐related mortality model

Changes in mortality rates have an impact on the life insurance industry, the financial sector (as a significant proportion of the financial markets is driven by pension funds), governmental agencies, and decision makers and policymakers. Thus the pricing of financial, pension and insurance products that are contingent upon survival or death and which is related to the accuracy of central mortality rates is of key importance. Recently, a temperature‐related mortality (TRM) model was proposed by Seklecka et al. (Journal of Forecasting, 2017, 36(7), 824–841), and it has shown evidence of outperformance compared with the Lee and Carter (Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1992, 87, 659–671) model and several others of its extensions, when mortality‐experience data from the UK are used. There is a need for awareness, when fitting the TRM model, of model risk when assessing longevity‐related liabilities, especially when pricing long‐term annuities and pensions. In this paper, the impact of uncertainty on the various parameters involved in the model is examined. We demonstrate a number of ways to quantify model risk in the estimation of the temperature‐related parameters, the choice of the forecasting methodology, the structures of actuarial products chosen (e.g., annuity, endowment and life insurance), and the actuarial reserve. Finally, several tables and figures illustrate the main findings of this paper.     

Mortality effects of economic fluctuations in selected eurozone countries

Socioeconomic status is commonly conceptualized as the social standing or well‐being of an individual or society. Higher socioeconomic status has long been identified as a contributing factor for mortality improvement. This paper studies the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations (having gross domestic product (GDP) as a proxy) on mortality for the nine most populous eurozone countries. Based on the statistical analysis between the time‐dependent indicator of the Lee and Carter (Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1992, 87(419), 659–671) model and GDP, and adaptation of the good features of the O'Hare and Li (Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, 2012, 50, 12–25) model, a new mortality model including this additional economic‐related factor is proposed. Results for male and female from ages between 0 and 89, and similar for unisex data, are provided. This new model shows a better fitting and more plausible forecast among a significant number of eurozone countries. An in‐depth analysis of our findings is provided to give a better understanding of the relationship between mortality and GDP fluctuations.     

Caenorhabditis elegans ABL-1 antagonizes p53-mediated germline apoptosis after ionizing irradiation

c-Abl, a conserved nonreceptor tyrosine kinase, integrates genotoxic stress responses, acting as a transducer of both pro- and antiapoptotic effector pathways. Nuclear c-Abl seems to interact with the p53 homolog p73 to elicit apoptosis. Although several observations suggest that cytoplasmic localization of c-Abl is required for antiapoptotic function, the signals that mediate its antiapoptotic effect are largely unknown. Here we show that worms carrying an abl-1 deletion allele, abl-1(ok171), are specifically hypersensitive to radiation-induced apoptosis in the Caenorhabditis elegans germ line. Our findings delineate an apoptotic pathway antagonized by ABL-1, which requires sequentially the cell cycle checkpoint genes clk-2, hus-1 and mrt-2; the C. elegans p53 homolog, cep-1; and the genes encoding the components of the conserved apoptotic machinery, ced-3, ced-9 and egl-1. ABL-1 does not antagonize germline apoptosis induced by the DNA-alkylating agent ethylnitrosourea. Furthermore, worms treated with the c-Abl inhibitor STI-571 (Gleevec; used in human cancer therapy), two newly synthesized STI-571 variants or PD166326 had a phenotype similar to that generated by abl-1(ok171). These studies indicate that ABL-1 distinguishes proapoptotic signals triggered by two different DNA-damaging agents and suggest that C. elegans might provide tissue models for development of anticancer drugs.