Thesis (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2002. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains 179 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 178-179).

The Lee-Carter mortality model provides the very first model for modeling the mortality rate with stochastic time and age mortality dynamics. The model is constructed modeling the mortality rate to incorporate both an age effect and a period effect. The Lee-Carter model provides the fundamental set up currently used in most modern mortality modeling. Various extensions of the Lee-Carter model include either adding an extra term for a cohort effect or imposing a stochastic process for mortality dynamics. Although both of these extensions can provide good estimation results for the mortality rate, applying them for the pricing of the mortality/ longevity linked derivatives is not easy. While the current stochastic mortality models are too complicated to be explained and to be implemented, transforming the cohort effect into a stochastic process for the pricing purpose is very difficult. Furthermore, the cohort effect itself sometimes may not be significant. We propose using a new modified Lee-Carter model with a Normal Inverse Gaussian (NIG) Lévy process along with the Esscher transform for the pricing of mortality/ longevity linked derivatives. The modified Lee-Carter model, which applies the Lee-Carter model on the growth rate of mortality rates rather than the level of mortality rates themselves, performs better than the current mortality rate models shown in Mitchell et al (2013). We show that the modified Lee-Carter model also retains a similar stochastic structure to the Lee-Carter model, so it is easy to demonstrate the implication of the model. We proposed the additional NIG Lévy process with Esscher transform assumption that can improve the fit and prediction results by adapting the mortality improvement rate. The resulting mortality rate matches the observed pattern that the mortality rate has been improving due to the advancing development of technology and improvements in the medical care system. The resulting mortality rate is also developed under a martingale measure so it is ready for the direct application of pricing the mortality/longevity linked derivatives, such as q-forward, longevity bond, and mortality catastrophe bond. We also apply our proposed model along with an information theoretic optimization method to construct the pricing procedures for a life settlement. While our proposed model can improve the mortality rate estimation, the application of information theory allows us to incorporate the private health information of a specific policy holder and hence customize the distribution of the death year distribution for the policy holder so as to price the life settlement. The resulting risk premium is close to the practical understanding in the life settlement market.

Maracle responds to the question of how she developed as a public intellectual. She describes how she has reworked English to "suit the Salish sensibility."

Criticism surrounding the children of the Gladney family in Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise remains a contested issue. I argue the children and their social environment reflect Lee Edelman’s analysis of the Child figure and its bolstering of reproductive futurism. The Child figure upholds a heteronormative social order that precludes equal rights and social viability for non-normative family structures and those opposed to an inherently conservative ideology. I find the continually evolving family structure elicits new dynamics among its members, offering greater social independence for all, which institutes a stronger familial bond and ensures a greater chance for its vitality. The Gladney family share such a dynamic; this is observed through the specific roles its members perform and the relations among them. Furthermore, I contend the Gladney family represent a model for maintaining group vitality, which is first required for organized political action against our inequitable social order.

The Victorian obsession with the child is also often, in the world of literary criticism at least, an obsession with death, whether the death of the child itself or simply the inevitable death of childhood as a seemingly Edenic state of being. This study seeks to consider the way in which the child figure, in texts by four authors published at the end of the nineteenth century, is aligned with an inversion of this relationship. For Walter Pater, Vernon Lee, George MacDonald, and Henry James, the child is bound up instead with un-death, with a construction of death which seeks to remove the finitude, even the mortality, of death itself, or else a death which is expected or anticipated, yet always deferred. While in “The Child in the House” (1878) and “Emerald Uthwart” (1892), Pater places the child at the nexus of his construction of a death which is, rather than a finite ending, a return or a re-beginning, Lee's interest in the child figure's unique access to a world of art, explored in “The Child in the Vatican” (1883) and “Christkindchen” (1897) culminates in a dazzling vision of aesthetic transcendence with “Sister Benvenuta and the Christ Child” (1906). MacDonald, for whom death is already never really death, uses the never-dead child figure in At The Back of the North Wind (1871) and Lilith (1895) as an embodiment of his own distinct engagement with aestheticism, as well as a means by which to express the simultaneous anticipation and depression he experienced in contemplation of death. Finally James, in What Maisie Knew (1897), explores the child's inherent monstrosity as he crafts the possibility of a childhood which consciously refuses to die. This study explores a trajectory in which the child’s place within such reconsiderations of death grows increasingly intense, reaching an apex with MacDonald’s fantastic worlds, before considering James’s problematisation of the concept of the un-dead child in What Maisie Knew.

Pastaraisiais metais beveik visose valstybėse stebimos visuomenės senėjimo bei ilgaamžiškumo tendencijos. Ši problema yra aktuali ne tik valstybinei pensijų sistemai, bet ir gyvybės draudimo įmonėms, mokančioms ar ateityje mokėsiančioms anuitetus. Šio darbo tikslas yra modeliuoti bei prognozuoti Latvijos, Lietuvos ir Estijos mirtingumą, įvertinti Baltijos valstybių visuomenės senėjimo tendenciją, atlikti anuitetų jautrumo analizę palūkanų normos bei mirtingumo tikimybių kitimui. Mirtingumo modeliavimui ir prognozavimui buvo naudojamas R. D. Lee ir L. R. Carter modelis. Atlikus duomenų analizę ir reikalingus tarpinius skaičiavimus yra sukonstruojamos prognozuojamos mirtingumo tikimybių lentelės. Sukonstruotos lentelės naudojamos nagrinėjant aukščiau aprašytus tikslus, t.y. skaičiuojant ilgaamžiškumo faktorius: gyvenimo trukmę bei anuitetus. Gaunamos išvados: -Ilgaamžiškumo problema egzistuoja; -Stebimos mažėjančios mirtingumo tikimybės; -Anuitetai yra jautresni mirtingumo tikimybių kitimui nei palūkanų normos svyravimams. Atlikus gautų rezultatų analizę galima daryti išvadą, kad visuomenės senėjimo problema egzistuoja, bet nėra labai grėsminga. Tačiau anuitetinių išmokų mokėtojai turėtų įvertinti ilgaamžiškumo tendenciją ir konstruoti atsargius anuitetus, atsižvelgiant ne tik į mirtingumą, bet ir į palūkanų normą. / In recent years the population ageing and the longevity tendencies are observed in almost all countries. This problem is significant for the state pension system as well as for the private insurance companies, paying life annuities. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the ageing tendencies in Baltic States, perform the sensitivity for mortality and interest rate changes analysis, predict the mortality in Baltic States in the future. The mortality was modeled and forecasted by using R. D. Lee and L. R. Carter model. The mortality table is designed after analyzing data and making necessary calculations. Produced table is applied to solve the prediction problem and to calculate the longevity factors - life expectancy and annuities. Conclusions obtained: -Longevity problem exists; -Decreasing mortality probabilities are observed; -The annuity is more sensitive to mortality fluctuation than to interest rate fluctuations. The overall conclusion is obtained that population ageing problem exists, but it is not very threatening. However, the size of annuity payments should be evaluated paying careful attention to longevity tendencies. Moreover, they should also be prudent in respect of interest rates, not only the mortality.

Minorities have gained more civil rights with the cooperation of both major political parties in the United States, yet the actions of the Republican Party are often conflated with racism. This is partially the result of clashes in ideological visions, which explain the different political positions of partisans. However, during his 1980 run for the White House, a concerted effort was made to tie Ronald Reagan to racism, as he was accused of pandering to white Southerners. Therefore, this thesis also focuses on “Southern strategies” used by both the Republican and Democratic parties to exploit race, which have spilled into the new millennium.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 32). / iv, 32 leaves, bound col. ill. 29 cm

This thesis is an investigation of the emergence of democracy and its localized culture in Taiwan during the Lee Teng-hui era and its legacy, from 1988 to 2004. From a Leninist authoritarian system, Taiwan experienced a peaceful transition to representative democracy. The establishment of the first opposition party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), in 1986, and President Chiang Ching-kuo’s tolerance towards it, had signalled the commencement of Taiwan’s democratization. Various political opposition movements existed prior to 1986, especially between 1983 and 1986, indicating a gradual strengthening in the public’s political consciousness. The pivotal event to mark the democratization-localization movement in Taiwan was the emergence of a local Taiwanese, Lee Teng-hui, as President of the Republic of China and Chairman of the ruling party, the Chungkuo Kuomintang (KMT). This occurred when he succeeded Chiang Ching-kuo upon his death in 1988. Local politics henceforth emerged as a major force and KMT factional struggles had begun in earnest. During the democratic transformation that took place in Taiwan in the last quarter of the 20th century, the ruling power of the Waishengren political elite (that is, the Chinese who took over Taiwan in 1945) gradually transferred to local political leaders, and the suppressed issue of building an independent Taiwanese nation became politicized. Furthermore, the KMT itself was undergoing a far-reaching transformation, moving from liberalization, to democratization, to localization or Taiwanization. As a result, the issues of national recognition and the power redistribution of different national groups (from Chinese “Mainlanders” to local Taiwanese) had combined with democratization from the beginning. Democratization was assisted by institution-building through regular elections, an associated critical voice from opposition groups, a solid middle class, and the Taiwanization phenomenon itself. While the experience of colonial rule and an oppressive (rather than reformist) KMT may be said to be in the past, and hence less an impetus for action in the present, yet with the addition of a persistent military threat from People’s Republic of China seeking Taiwan’s “reunification” with the “motherland”, past, present and an anticipated future, combine contextually in the quest for Taiwan’s integrity – and hence the acquisition of an identity that is consciously Taiwanese rather than Chinese by default.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Rochester, 1972. / Analysis of piano quintets by Anton Webern, Louis Vierne, Edward Elgar, Bohuslav Martinů, Nikolay Medtner, and Ross Lee Finney. Vita. Bibliography: leaves [269-272]. Digitized version available online via the Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music http://hdl.handle.net/1802/4819