We analyze the performance of retail firms for the period 1978-97 using public financial data. Our performance measures are long-term stock returns and whether the firm filed for bankruptcy in the period of study. We assume that over a long time period of at least five years, stock returns are a reasonable measure of the overall success of a firm. We have found a very wide disparity in performa...

OBJECTIVES Methods to accurately identify elderly patients with a high likelihood of hospital admission or subsequent return to the emergency department (ED) might facilitate the development of interventions to expedite the admission process, improve patient care, and reduce overcrowding. This study sought to identify variables found among elderly ED patients that could predict either hospital ...

Extreme precipitation events are the major causes of severe floods in China. In this study, four time series of daily, 2-day, 5-day, and 10-day annual maximum precipitation from 1951 to 2000 at 651 weather stations in China were analyzed. The generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution was used, to model the annual extreme precipitation events at each station. The GEV distribution was also mod...

This is a project on modeling time-varying volatility of S&P 500 weely return for the years 1990 to 2012 using Bayesian methods. First, MCMC on the log-stochastic volatility (SV) model is implemented with simulation results analyzed. Second, I generalize the SV model to encompass regime-switching properties with the markov switching log-stochastic volatility (MSSV) model, under which, high-vola...

We investigate tropical cyclone wind and storm surge damage reduction for five areas along the Miami-Dade County coastline either by hardening buildings or by the hypothetical application of wind-wave pumps to modify storms. We calculate surge height and wind speed as functions of return period and sea surface temperature reduction by wind-wave pumps. We then estimate costs and economic losses ...

Extreme all-direction wave conditions and joint probabilities of high waves and high water levels are derived at selected locations in the southern Arabian Gulf. The wave conditions are obtained using the spectral wave model SWAN with wind and offshore wave information procured from ocean weather, supplemented with local water level records. Wave transformations from offshore to nearshore and w...

In this paper we provide empirical findings on the significance of positive feedback trading for the return behavior in the German stock market. Relying on the ShillerSentana-Wadhwani model, we use the link between index return auto-correlation and volatility to obtain a better understanding into the return characteristics generated by traders adhering to positive feedback trading strategies. O...

This paper discusses the shape of the stock return distribution using the all shares index of Helsinki Stock Exchange. Non-parametric kernel density estimation and power exponential family of distributions are used to model the shape of the return distribution. The parameters of power exponential distribution are estimated with Bayesian approach. The findings suggest that the shape of the distr...

This study provides new insights into the relationships between social media sentiments and the stock market in China. Based on machine learning, we classify microblogs posted on Sina Weibo, a Twitter's variant in China into five detailed sentiments of anger, disgust, fear, joy, and sadness. Using wavelet analysis, we find close positive linkages between sentiments and the stock return, which h...