Search results for "Minimum"
showing 10 items of 327 documents
Locally weighted spatio-temporal minimum contrast for Log-Gaussian Cox Processes
2022
We propose a local version of the spatio-temporal log-Gaussian Cox processes (LGCPs) employing the Local Indicators of Spatio-Temporal Association (LISTA) functions into the minimum contrast procedure to obtain space as well as time-varying parameters. We resort to the joint minimum contrast method fitting method to estimate the set of second-order parameters for the class of spatio-temporal LGCPs. This approach has the advantage of being usable in the case of both separable and non-separable parametric specifications of the correlation function of the underlying Gaussian Random Field (GRF).
Understanding the reactivity of transition metal complexes involving multiple spin states
2003
International audience; In coordination chemistry, many reactions involve several electronic states, in particular states of different spin. This phenomenon of ‘Multiple-State Reactivity’ has been recognized for some time, both for gas-phase reactions of ‘bare’ metal ions, and for transition metal complexes in solution. Until recently, however, much of the discussion of these systems has remained qualitative, because standard computational methods do not allow the location of the critical points for these processes, the Minimum Energy Crossing Points (MECPs) between states of different spin. Increased computational resources and new algorithms now enable MECPs to be located for large, reali…
Polyester vascular prostheses coated with a cyclodextrin polymer and activated with antibiotics: Cytotoxicity and microbiological evaluation
2008
Abstract Polyester (PET) vascular grafts are used to replace or bypass damaged arteries. To minimize the risk of infection during and after surgical interventions, a PET vascular prosthesis (Polythese®) was functionalized with cyclodextrin polymers (PolyCDs) in order to obtain the controlled release of antibiotics (ABs: ciprofloxacin, vancomcyin and rifampicin). An epithelial cell line (L132) was used to determine the viability of the antibiotics, and human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (HPMEC) were used for cell proliferation by cell counting and cell vitality with Alamar Blue fluorescent dye. Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Enteroccocus sp. were used to determine t…
Variance Estimation and Asymptotic Confidence Bands for the Mean Estimator of Sampled Functional Data with High Entropy Unequal Probability Sampling …
2013
For fixed size sampling designs with high entropy it is well known that the variance of the Horvitz-Thompson estimator can be approximated by the Hajek formula. The interest of this asymptotic variance approximation is that it only involves the first order inclusion probabilities of the statistical units. We extend this variance formula when the variable under study is functional and we prove, under general conditions on the regularity of the individual trajectories and the sampling design, that it asymptotically provides a uniformly consistent estimator of the variance function of the Horvitz-Thompson estimator of the mean function. Rates of convergence to the true variance function are gi…
Evaluation of Insurance Products with Guarantee in Incomplete Markets
2008
Abstract Life insurance products are usually equipped with minimum guarantee and bonus provision options. The pricing of such claims is of vital importance for the insurance industry. Risk management, strategic asset allocation, and product design depend on the correct evaluation of the written options. Also regulators are interested in such issues since they have to be aware of the possible scenarios that the overall industry will face. Pricing techniques based on the Black & Scholes paradigm are often used, however, the hypotheses underneath this model are rarely met. To overcome Black & Scholes limitations, we develop a stochastic programming model to determine the fair price of the mini…
Bayesian analysis of a disability model for lung cancer survival
2016
Bayesian reasoning, survival analysis and multi-state models are used to assess survival times for Stage IV non-small-cell lung cancer patients and the evolution of the disease over time. Bayesian estimation is done using minimum informative priors for the Weibull regression survival model, leading to an automatic inferential procedure. Markov chain Monte Carlo methods have been used for approximating posterior distributions and the Bayesian information criterion has been considered for covariate selection. In particular, the posterior distribution of the transition probabilities, resulting from the multi-state model, constitutes a very interesting tool which could be useful to help oncolog…
A more efficient second order blind identification method for separation of uncorrelated stationary time series
2016
The classical second order source separation methods use approximate joint diagonalization of autocovariance matrices with several lags to estimate the unmixing matrix. Based on recent asymptotic results, we propose a novel unmixing matrix estimator which selects the best lag set from a finite set of candidate sets specified by the user. The theory is illustrated by a simulation study.
Uniform convergence and asymptotic confidence bands for model-assisted estimators of the mean of sampled functional data
2013
When the study variable is functional and storage capacities are limited or transmission costs are high, selecting with survey sampling techniques a small fraction of the observations is an interesting alternative to signal compression techniques, particularly when the goal is the estimation of simple quantities such as means or totals. We extend, in this functional framework, model-assisted estimators with linear regression models that can take account of auxiliary variables whose totals over the population are known. We first show, under weak hypotheses on the sampling design and the regularity of the trajectories, that the estimator of the mean function as well as its variance estimator …
Designing and pricing guarantee options in defined contribution pension plans
2015
Abstract The shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) is pervasive among pension funds, due to demographic changes and macroeconomic pressures. In DB all risks are borne by the provider, while in plain vanilla DC all risks are borne by the beneficiary. However, for DC to provide income security some kind of guarantee is required. A minimum guarantee clause can be modeled as a put option written on some underlying reference portfolio and we develop a discrete model that selects the reference portfolio to minimize the cost of a guarantee. While the relation DB–DC is typically viewed as a binary one, the model shows how to price a wide range of guarantees creating a continu…
Degree stability of a minimum spanning tree of price return and volatility
2002
We investigate the time series of the degree of minimum spanning trees obtained by using a correlation based clustering procedure which is starting from (i) asset return and (ii) volatility time series. The minimum spanning tree is obtained at different times by computing correlation among time series over a time window of fixed length $T$. We find that the minimum spanning tree of asset return is characterized by stock degree values, which are more stable in time than the ones obtained by analyzing a minimum spanning tree computed starting from volatility time series. Our analysis also shows that the degree of stocks has a very slow dynamics with a time-scale of several years in both cases.