In the traditional method of earthquake loss estimation, all exposed facilities are classified according to their structural type and/or occupancy. Inventory data is collected and the total loss is estimated as the aggregate of all facility losses from each facility class separately. For many...

Chen and Jernigan proposed a non-parametric, conservative method that involved using a penalized mean to estimate the average concentration of contaminants in soils. The method assumes a random sample obtained from a whole site involved in the US Superfund program. However, in some cases, about...

This paper discusses regression analysis of interval-censored failure time data, which occur in many fields including demographical, epidemiological, financial, medical, and sociological studies. For the problem, we focus on the situation where the survival time of interest can be described by...

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends the use of an upper confidence limit in making a decision of whether a possibly polluted environment needs clean-up. This decision rule, however, is frequently too conservative and does not take into account the costs and/or benefits from...

Biogas production is an important aspect of China's energy strategy. After decades’ application and research, China biogas has achieved considerable accomplishments. This study presents the progress and prospect of biogas technologies and industry in China. Two biogas patterns exist in China,...

Unlike markets that were early developers of reactors, which are dominated by single technologies, China's nuclear power sector adopts and imports multiple technologies. Even after the Chinese government introduced a policy to develop a standardized, unified, and technologically advanced nuclear...

Using an analytical framework of the global production network (GPN), the present paper examines the external environment and the internal dynamics of China s integrated circuit (IC) industry. We analyze the transition of China s IC industry from a state-led integrated device manufacturers'...

This study aims to test within a relatively homogeneous group of small states what differentiates the growth performance of Pacific island countries (PICs) from their peers. We find that PICs are disadvantaged by distance and hampered by lower investment and exports compared with other small...