This study investigates the asset-liability management (ALM) of life insurers in the markets with negative interest rates. Using a sample of Japanese life insurers between 1999 and 2018, we provide initial evidence that the negative interest rate environment produces a much more serious...

With the development of technology, single functional antibacterial materials can no longer meet the demands of some particular application areas. Therefore, some multifunctional materials equipped with both “bacteria-killing” and “bacteria-defending” functions have been created in...

Copper and iron play an important role in many biological processes in humans, animals and plant life. Hence, it is critical to observe the cupper and iron ions concentration by a precise, fast, selective and an applied method. Herein, a multifunctional cellulose-based smart fluorescent material...

Macroeconomic policy making is a complex systematic process, which requires in-depth understanding of current economic situation, prediction of future economic trend, and proper policy evaluation measurements. Instruments of early warning, and policy simulation are often employed in...

We investigate collective behaviors of coupled phase oscillators on an extended network model which can develop two fundamentally different topologies, scale-free or exponential. Each component of the network is assumed as an oscillator and that each interacts with the others following the...

In this paper, a hybrid model integrating wavelet decomposition and least squares support machines (LSSVM) is proposed for crude oil price forecasting. In this model, the Haar à trous wavelet transform is first selected to decompose an original time series into several sub-series with different...

We analyze China's sovereign debt by constructing balance sheets for China's government and public sector. We find that China's government debt-to-GDP ratio is lower than that of most large developed economies. We also find the debt-to-asset ratio of China's government and public sector...

We provide an overview of selected recent operational applications of satellite remote sensing and marine Geographic Information Systems (GIS) procedures to the practice of sustainable aquaculture in southern Hokkaido, Japan, focusing mainly on kelp and scallop aquaculture. We also developed a...

This paper proposes a new four-dimensional continuous autonomous hyperchaotic system, which is constructed based on a modified Lü system by introducing a nonlinear state feedback controller. The detailed dynamical behaviors of this hyperchaotic system are further investigated, including...