This paper considered the problem of hedging a European call (put) option for a diffusion model where the asset price is influenced by n uncertain factors. The market is thus incomplete implying that perfect hedging i...This paper considered the problem of hedging a European call (put) option for a diffusion model where the asset price is influenced by n uncertain factors. The market is thus incomplete implying that perfect hedging is not possible. To derive a hedging strategy, it follows the approach based on the idea of hedging under a mean-variance criterion suggested by Schweizer. A very simple solution of this hedging problem by using the numeraire method was presented and some examples with explicit solutions were given.展开更多
In this paper, a European-type contingent claim pricing problem withtransaction costs is considered by a mean-variance hedging argument. The investor has to paytransaction costs which are proportional to the amount of...In this paper, a European-type contingent claim pricing problem withtransaction costs is considered by a mean-variance hedging argument. The investor has to paytransaction costs which are proportional to the amount of stock transacted. The writer's hedgingobject is to minimize the hedging risk, defined as the variance of hedging error at expiration, witha proper expected excess return level. At first, we consider the mean-variance hedging problem: forinitial hedging wealth f, maximizing the excess expected return under the minimum hedging risklevel V_0. On the other hand, we consider a mean-variance portfolio problem, which is to maximizethe expected return with initial wealth 0 under the same risk level V_0. The minimum initial hedgingwealth f, which can offset the difference of the maximum expected return of these two problems, isthe writer's price.展开更多
Hedging, referring to the use of various lexical and syntactic features modifying and mitigating propositions and claims, is extensively employed in effective academic writing. However, the use of hedges seems to be q...Hedging, referring to the use of various lexical and syntactic features modifying and mitigating propositions and claims, is extensively employed in effective academic writing. However, the use of hedges seems to be quite problematic for lots of Chinese ESL learners. In view of the situation, this study explores the use of hedges in academic abstracts by a group of undergraduate English majors in a university in Hainan Province. After analyzing data from a corpus and interviews, several problems have been found in the use of hedging devices of these students, and relevant implications have been drawn to the teaching of hedging in the context, which can help the students produce more effective academic writing and to achieve greater university success.展开更多
In this paper, we consider an insurance company which has the option of investing in a risky asset and a risk-free asset, whose price parameters are driven by a finite state Markov chain. The risk process of the insur...In this paper, we consider an insurance company which has the option of investing in a risky asset and a risk-free asset, whose price parameters are driven by a finite state Markov chain. The risk process of the insurance company is modeled as a diffusion process whose diffusion and drift parameters switch over time according to the same Markov chain. We study the Markov-modulated mean-variance problem for the insurer and derive explicitly the closed form of the efficient strategy and efficient frontier. In the case of no regime switching, we can see that the efficient frontier in our paper coincides with that of [10] when there is no pure jump.展开更多
Assuming the investor is uncertainty-aversion,the multiprior approach is applied to studying the problem of portfolio choice under the uncertainty about the expected return of risky asset based on the mean-variance mo...Assuming the investor is uncertainty-aversion,the multiprior approach is applied to studying the problem of portfolio choice under the uncertainty about the expected return of risky asset based on the mean-variance model. By introducing a set of constraint constants to measure uncertainty degree of the estimated expected return,it built the max-min model of multi-prior portfolio,and utilized the Lagrange method to obtain the closed-form solution of the model,which was compared with the mean-variance model and the minimum-variance model; then,an empirical study was done based on the monthly returns over the period June 2011 to May 2014 of eight kinds of stocks in Shanghai Exchange 50 Index. Results showed,the weight of multi-prior portfolio was a weighted average of the weight of mean-variance portfolio and that of minimumvariance portfolio; the steady of multi-prior portfolio was strengthened compared with the mean-variance portfolio; the performance of multi-prior portfolio was greater than that of minimum-variance portfolio. The study demonstrates that the investor can improve the steady of multi-prior portfolio as well as its performance for some appropriate constraint constants.展开更多
This study examines the hedging effectiveness of financial innovations against crude oil investment risks,both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.We focus on the non-energy exchange traded funds(ETFs)as proxies f...This study examines the hedging effectiveness of financial innovations against crude oil investment risks,both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.We focus on the non-energy exchange traded funds(ETFs)as proxies for financial innovations given the potential positive correlation between energy variants and crude oil proxies.We employ a multivariate volatility modeling framework that accounts for important statistical features of the non-energy ETFs and oil price series in the computation of optimal weights and optimal hedging ratios.Results show evidence of hedging effectiveness for the financial innovations against oil market risks,with higher hedging performance observed during the pandemic.Overall,we show that sectoral financial innovations provide resilient investment options.Therefore,we propose that including the ETFs in an investment portfolio containing oil could improve risk-adjusted returns,especially in similar financial crisis as witnessed during the pandemic.In essence,our results are useful for investors in the global oil market seeking to maximize risk-adjusted returns when making investment decisions.Moreover,by exploring the role of structural breaks in the multivariate volatility framework,our attempts at establishing robustness for the results reveal that ignoring the same may lead to wrong conclusions about the hedging effectiveness.展开更多
This is a corpus-based contrastive study projected to find out the differences in using hedges in English business corre spondences between Chinese English learners and native speakers.
In this article an attempt to enhance the awareness of hedging use in discourse analysis and academic writing is madeby analyzing hedges employed in two comparable texts.The discourse analysis is conducted from"c...In this article an attempt to enhance the awareness of hedging use in discourse analysis and academic writing is madeby analyzing hedges employed in two comparable texts.The discourse analysis is conducted from"content-oriented"hedges and"reader-oriented"hedges.The article suggests that hedging can dampen utterances and statements,weaken the force of what onesays and show politeness to the listeners or readers,which varies from different discourse styles of various genres.discourse marker;hedging;research article;news展开更多
For a class of manufacturing systems with homogeneous Markov machine failure rates,the stationary probability distribution of the part surplus can be calculated for given tentative values of hedging points. Some prope...For a class of manufacturing systems with homogeneous Markov machine failure rates,the stationary probability distribution of the part surplus can be calculated for given tentative values of hedging points. Some properties on the ordering of optimal hedging points are obtained.展开更多
The hedging problem for insiders is very important in the financial market.The locally risk minimizing hedging was adopted to solve this problem.Since the market was incomplete,the minimal martingale measure was chose...The hedging problem for insiders is very important in the financial market.The locally risk minimizing hedging was adopted to solve this problem.Since the market was incomplete,the minimal martingale measure was chosen as the equivalent martingale measure.By the F-S decomposition,the expression of the locally risk minimizing strategy was presented.Finally,the local risk minimization was applied to index tracking and its relationship with tracking error variance (TEV)-minimizing strategy was obtained.展开更多
In this paper, we consider a Markov switching Lévy process model in which the underlying risky assets are driven by the stochastic exponential of Markov switching Lévy process and then apply the model to opt...In this paper, we consider a Markov switching Lévy process model in which the underlying risky assets are driven by the stochastic exponential of Markov switching Lévy process and then apply the model to option pricing and hedging. In this model, the market interest rate, the volatility of the underlying risky assets and the N-state compensator,depend on unobservable states of the economy which are modeled by a continuous-time Hidden Markov process. We use the MEMM(minimal entropy martingale measure) as the equivalent martingale measure. The option price using this model is obtained by the Fourier transform method. We obtain a closed-form solution for the hedge ratio by applying the local risk minimizing hedging.展开更多
Under the background of energy conservation, the grid companies should give priority to consumptive hydropower, wind power and other clean electricity to fulfill their social responsibility and promote the carbon emis...Under the background of energy conservation, the grid companies should give priority to consumptive hydropower, wind power and other clean electricity to fulfill their social responsibility and promote the carbon emission reduction in power industry. But under the current power purchase mode, grid companies must first perform the contract. This is extremely uneconomical and not environmentally friendly. Based on hedging theory, this paper proposes a power purchase optimization model using the strategy of “compression and compensation”. If outer price is lower than the contract price, the grid can compress contract power appropriately, leaving more space for purchasing electricity;if outer price is not attractive enough, the grid should timely improve contract proportion, compensating the deviations of contract caused by "compression". Based on the strategy of "compression and compensation", it can effectively reduce the abandoned wind and water, enhance the economic and social benefits of provincial power grid.展开更多
Environmental unpredictability can influence strategies of maternal investment among eggs within a clutch. Models predict that breeding females should adopt a diversified bet-hedging strategy in unpredictable environm...Environmental unpredictability can influence strategies of maternal investment among eggs within a clutch. Models predict that breeding females should adopt a diversified bet-hedging strategy in unpredictable environments, but empirical field evidence from Asia is scarce. Here we tested this hypothesis by exploring spatial patterns in egg size along an altitudinal gradient in a frog species (Rana kukunoris) inhabiting the Tibetan Plateau. Within-clutch variability in egg size increased as the environment became variable (e.g., lower mean monthly temperature and mean monthly rainfall at higher altitudes), and populations in environments with more unpredictable rainfall produced eggs that were smaller and more variable in size. We provide support for a diversified bet-hedging strategy in high-altitude environments, which experience dynamic weather patterns and therefore are of unpredictable environmental quality. This strategy may be an adaptive response to lower environmental quality and higher unpredictable environmental variance. Such a strategy should increase the likelihood of breeding success and maximize maternal lifetime fitness by producing offspring that are adapted to current environmental conditions. We speculate that in high-altitude environments prone to physical disturbance, breeding females are unable to consistently produce the optimal egg size due to physiological constraints imposed by environmental conditions (e.g., duration of the active season, food availability). Species and populations whose breeding strategies are adapted to cope with uncertain environmental conditions by adjusting offspring size and therefore quality show a remarkable degree of ability to cope with future climatic changes.展开更多
We establish, through solving semi-infinite programming problems, bounds on the probability of safely reaching a desired level of wealth on a finite horizon, when an investor starts with an optimal mean-variance finan...We establish, through solving semi-infinite programming problems, bounds on the probability of safely reaching a desired level of wealth on a finite horizon, when an investor starts with an optimal mean-variance financial investment strategy under a non-negative wealth restriction.展开更多
In this paper, we focus on a constant elasticity of variance (CEV) modeland want to find its optimal strategies for a mean-variance problem under two constrainedcontrols: reinsurance/new business and investment (n...In this paper, we focus on a constant elasticity of variance (CEV) modeland want to find its optimal strategies for a mean-variance problem under two constrainedcontrols: reinsurance/new business and investment (no-shorting). First, aLagrange multiplier is introduced to simplify the mean-variance problem and thecorresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation is established. Via a powertransformation technique and variable change method, the optimal strategies withthe Lagrange multiplier are obtained. Final, based on the Lagrange duality theorem,the optimal strategies and optimal value for the original problem (i.e., the efficientstrategies and efficient frontier) are derived explicitly.展开更多
Based on two different risk measurement criteria, this article studied the optimal hedging strategies of stock index futures in the case of asymmetric information, and discussed the influence of insider information on...Based on two different risk measurement criteria, this article studied the optimal hedging strategies of stock index futures in the case of asymmetric information, and discussed the influence of insider information on the hedging effect. Through simulation analysis, it can be shown that hedging people with insider information can save hedging costs to a certain extent, which also explains the reason why investors try to obtain corporate information in actual investment activities.展开更多
In this paper, we establish properties for the switch-when-safe mean-variance strategies in the context of a Black-Scholes market model with stochastic volatility processes driven by a continuous-time Markov chain wit...In this paper, we establish properties for the switch-when-safe mean-variance strategies in the context of a Black-Scholes market model with stochastic volatility processes driven by a continuous-time Markov chain with a finite number of states. More precisely, expressions for the goal-achieving probabilities of the terminal wealth are obtained and numerical comparisons of lower bounds for these probabilities are shown for various market parameters. We conclude with asymptotic results when the Markovian changes in the volatility parameters appear with either higher or lower frequencies.展开更多
In this paper we investigate asymptotic behavior of error of a discrete time hedging strategy in a fractional Black-Scholes model in the sense of Wick-ItS-Skorohod integration. The rate of convergence of the hedging e...In this paper we investigate asymptotic behavior of error of a discrete time hedging strategy in a fractional Black-Scholes model in the sense of Wick-ItS-Skorohod integration. The rate of convergence of the hedging error due to discrete-time trading when the true strategy is known for the trader, is investigated. The result provides new statistical tools to study and detect the effect of the long-memory and the Hurst parameter for the error of discrete time hedging.展开更多
The editorials of the opinion column in a newspaper express the view of its editors. The application of hedging devices isemployed, in order to support the writers' writing. In this study, the data were gathered f...The editorials of the opinion column in a newspaper express the view of its editors. The application of hedging devices isemployed, in order to support the writers' writing. In this study, the data were gathered from 15 editorials in the opinion column ofChina Daily: 5 editorials are about world issues, the other 5 editorials about Chinese social life, and the last 5 editorials are the edu-cational issues popularly discussed in China. The categorization of hedging devices draws from salvager-Meyer's paper Hedges and Textual Communicative Function in Medical English Written Discourse(1994, p. 154) and Mojica(2005, p. 3). Results revealed thatmost writers of the editorials opted to use approximators and modals. Furthermore, the hedging devices used in the selected editori-als on China Daily mainly had three functions: Show respects of the people or organization or in order for protection; in order to pub-lish timely; and make the prediction more reliable. In general, the Chinese writers seem to be conscious to use hedges appropriatelyin order to make their writing more reliable and avoid some arguments or disparagement.展开更多
基金National Natural Science Foundation ofChina( 10 1710 66) and Shanghai Key Project( 0 2 DJ14 0 63 )
文摘This paper considered the problem of hedging a European call (put) option for a diffusion model where the asset price is influenced by n uncertain factors. The market is thus incomplete implying that perfect hedging is not possible. To derive a hedging strategy, it follows the approach based on the idea of hedging under a mean-variance criterion suggested by Schweizer. A very simple solution of this hedging problem by using the numeraire method was presented and some examples with explicit solutions were given.
文摘In this paper, a European-type contingent claim pricing problem withtransaction costs is considered by a mean-variance hedging argument. The investor has to paytransaction costs which are proportional to the amount of stock transacted. The writer's hedgingobject is to minimize the hedging risk, defined as the variance of hedging error at expiration, witha proper expected excess return level. At first, we consider the mean-variance hedging problem: forinitial hedging wealth f, maximizing the excess expected return under the minimum hedging risklevel V_0. On the other hand, we consider a mean-variance portfolio problem, which is to maximizethe expected return with initial wealth 0 under the same risk level V_0. The minimum initial hedgingwealth f, which can offset the difference of the maximum expected return of these two problems, isthe writer's price.
文摘Hedging, referring to the use of various lexical and syntactic features modifying and mitigating propositions and claims, is extensively employed in effective academic writing. However, the use of hedges seems to be quite problematic for lots of Chinese ESL learners. In view of the situation, this study explores the use of hedges in academic abstracts by a group of undergraduate English majors in a university in Hainan Province. After analyzing data from a corpus and interviews, several problems have been found in the use of hedging devices of these students, and relevant implications have been drawn to the teaching of hedging in the context, which can help the students produce more effective academic writing and to achieve greater university success.
基金supported by National Basic Research Program of China(973 Program)(2007CB814905)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(10871102)the Research Fund for the Doctorial Program of Higher Education
文摘In this paper, we consider an insurance company which has the option of investing in a risky asset and a risk-free asset, whose price parameters are driven by a finite state Markov chain. The risk process of the insurance company is modeled as a diffusion process whose diffusion and drift parameters switch over time according to the same Markov chain. We study the Markov-modulated mean-variance problem for the insurer and derive explicitly the closed form of the efficient strategy and efficient frontier. In the case of no regime switching, we can see that the efficient frontier in our paper coincides with that of [10] when there is no pure jump.
基金National Natural Science Foundations of China(Nos.71271003,71171003)Programming Fund Project of the Humanities and Social Sciences Research of the Ministry of Education of China(No.12YJA790041)
文摘Assuming the investor is uncertainty-aversion,the multiprior approach is applied to studying the problem of portfolio choice under the uncertainty about the expected return of risky asset based on the mean-variance model. By introducing a set of constraint constants to measure uncertainty degree of the estimated expected return,it built the max-min model of multi-prior portfolio,and utilized the Lagrange method to obtain the closed-form solution of the model,which was compared with the mean-variance model and the minimum-variance model; then,an empirical study was done based on the monthly returns over the period June 2011 to May 2014 of eight kinds of stocks in Shanghai Exchange 50 Index. Results showed,the weight of multi-prior portfolio was a weighted average of the weight of mean-variance portfolio and that of minimumvariance portfolio; the steady of multi-prior portfolio was strengthened compared with the mean-variance portfolio; the performance of multi-prior portfolio was greater than that of minimum-variance portfolio. The study demonstrates that the investor can improve the steady of multi-prior portfolio as well as its performance for some appropriate constraint constants.
文摘This study examines the hedging effectiveness of financial innovations against crude oil investment risks,both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.We focus on the non-energy exchange traded funds(ETFs)as proxies for financial innovations given the potential positive correlation between energy variants and crude oil proxies.We employ a multivariate volatility modeling framework that accounts for important statistical features of the non-energy ETFs and oil price series in the computation of optimal weights and optimal hedging ratios.Results show evidence of hedging effectiveness for the financial innovations against oil market risks,with higher hedging performance observed during the pandemic.Overall,we show that sectoral financial innovations provide resilient investment options.Therefore,we propose that including the ETFs in an investment portfolio containing oil could improve risk-adjusted returns,especially in similar financial crisis as witnessed during the pandemic.In essence,our results are useful for investors in the global oil market seeking to maximize risk-adjusted returns when making investment decisions.Moreover,by exploring the role of structural breaks in the multivariate volatility framework,our attempts at establishing robustness for the results reveal that ignoring the same may lead to wrong conclusions about the hedging effectiveness.
文摘This is a corpus-based contrastive study projected to find out the differences in using hedges in English business corre spondences between Chinese English learners and native speakers.
文摘In this article an attempt to enhance the awareness of hedging use in discourse analysis and academic writing is madeby analyzing hedges employed in two comparable texts.The discourse analysis is conducted from"content-oriented"hedges and"reader-oriented"hedges.The article suggests that hedging can dampen utterances and statements,weaken the force of what onesays and show politeness to the listeners or readers,which varies from different discourse styles of various genres.discourse marker;hedging;research article;news
文摘For a class of manufacturing systems with homogeneous Markov machine failure rates,the stationary probability distribution of the part surplus can be calculated for given tentative values of hedging points. Some properties on the ordering of optimal hedging points are obtained.
基金National Natural Science Foundations of China (No. 11071076,No. 11126124)
文摘The hedging problem for insiders is very important in the financial market.The locally risk minimizing hedging was adopted to solve this problem.Since the market was incomplete,the minimal martingale measure was chosen as the equivalent martingale measure.By the F-S decomposition,the expression of the locally risk minimizing strategy was presented.Finally,the local risk minimization was applied to index tracking and its relationship with tracking error variance (TEV)-minimizing strategy was obtained.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(11201221)Supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province(BK2012468)
文摘In this paper, we consider a Markov switching Lévy process model in which the underlying risky assets are driven by the stochastic exponential of Markov switching Lévy process and then apply the model to option pricing and hedging. In this model, the market interest rate, the volatility of the underlying risky assets and the N-state compensator,depend on unobservable states of the economy which are modeled by a continuous-time Hidden Markov process. We use the MEMM(minimal entropy martingale measure) as the equivalent martingale measure. The option price using this model is obtained by the Fourier transform method. We obtain a closed-form solution for the hedge ratio by applying the local risk minimizing hedging.
文摘Under the background of energy conservation, the grid companies should give priority to consumptive hydropower, wind power and other clean electricity to fulfill their social responsibility and promote the carbon emission reduction in power industry. But under the current power purchase mode, grid companies must first perform the contract. This is extremely uneconomical and not environmentally friendly. Based on hedging theory, this paper proposes a power purchase optimization model using the strategy of “compression and compensation”. If outer price is lower than the contract price, the grid can compress contract power appropriately, leaving more space for purchasing electricity;if outer price is not attractive enough, the grid should timely improve contract proportion, compensating the deviations of contract caused by "compression". Based on the strategy of "compression and compensation", it can effectively reduce the abandoned wind and water, enhance the economic and social benefits of provincial power grid.
基金funded by the Natural Sciences Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholar of Sichuan (grant number 2016JQ0038)Key Foundation of Sichuan Provincial Department of Education (grant number 18ZA0255)the National Sciences Foundation of China (grant number 31670392)
文摘Environmental unpredictability can influence strategies of maternal investment among eggs within a clutch. Models predict that breeding females should adopt a diversified bet-hedging strategy in unpredictable environments, but empirical field evidence from Asia is scarce. Here we tested this hypothesis by exploring spatial patterns in egg size along an altitudinal gradient in a frog species (Rana kukunoris) inhabiting the Tibetan Plateau. Within-clutch variability in egg size increased as the environment became variable (e.g., lower mean monthly temperature and mean monthly rainfall at higher altitudes), and populations in environments with more unpredictable rainfall produced eggs that were smaller and more variable in size. We provide support for a diversified bet-hedging strategy in high-altitude environments, which experience dynamic weather patterns and therefore are of unpredictable environmental quality. This strategy may be an adaptive response to lower environmental quality and higher unpredictable environmental variance. Such a strategy should increase the likelihood of breeding success and maximize maternal lifetime fitness by producing offspring that are adapted to current environmental conditions. We speculate that in high-altitude environments prone to physical disturbance, breeding females are unable to consistently produce the optimal egg size due to physiological constraints imposed by environmental conditions (e.g., duration of the active season, food availability). Species and populations whose breeding strategies are adapted to cope with uncertain environmental conditions by adjusting offspring size and therefore quality show a remarkable degree of ability to cope with future climatic changes.
文摘We establish, through solving semi-infinite programming problems, bounds on the probability of safely reaching a desired level of wealth on a finite horizon, when an investor starts with an optimal mean-variance financial investment strategy under a non-negative wealth restriction.
基金The NSF(11201111) of ChinaHebei Province Colleges and Universities Science,and Technology Research Project(ZD20131017)
文摘In this paper, we focus on a constant elasticity of variance (CEV) modeland want to find its optimal strategies for a mean-variance problem under two constrainedcontrols: reinsurance/new business and investment (no-shorting). First, aLagrange multiplier is introduced to simplify the mean-variance problem and thecorresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation is established. Via a powertransformation technique and variable change method, the optimal strategies withthe Lagrange multiplier are obtained. Final, based on the Lagrange duality theorem,the optimal strategies and optimal value for the original problem (i.e., the efficientstrategies and efficient frontier) are derived explicitly.
文摘Based on two different risk measurement criteria, this article studied the optimal hedging strategies of stock index futures in the case of asymmetric information, and discussed the influence of insider information on the hedging effect. Through simulation analysis, it can be shown that hedging people with insider information can save hedging costs to a certain extent, which also explains the reason why investors try to obtain corporate information in actual investment activities.
文摘In this paper, we establish properties for the switch-when-safe mean-variance strategies in the context of a Black-Scholes market model with stochastic volatility processes driven by a continuous-time Markov chain with a finite number of states. More precisely, expressions for the goal-achieving probabilities of the terminal wealth are obtained and numerical comparisons of lower bounds for these probabilities are shown for various market parameters. We conclude with asymptotic results when the Markovian changes in the volatility parameters appear with either higher or lower frequencies.
基金Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(11671115)the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province(LY14A010025)
文摘In this paper we investigate asymptotic behavior of error of a discrete time hedging strategy in a fractional Black-Scholes model in the sense of Wick-ItS-Skorohod integration. The rate of convergence of the hedging error due to discrete-time trading when the true strategy is known for the trader, is investigated. The result provides new statistical tools to study and detect the effect of the long-memory and the Hurst parameter for the error of discrete time hedging.
文摘The editorials of the opinion column in a newspaper express the view of its editors. The application of hedging devices isemployed, in order to support the writers' writing. In this study, the data were gathered from 15 editorials in the opinion column ofChina Daily: 5 editorials are about world issues, the other 5 editorials about Chinese social life, and the last 5 editorials are the edu-cational issues popularly discussed in China. The categorization of hedging devices draws from salvager-Meyer's paper Hedges and Textual Communicative Function in Medical English Written Discourse(1994, p. 154) and Mojica(2005, p. 3). Results revealed thatmost writers of the editorials opted to use approximators and modals. Furthermore, the hedging devices used in the selected editori-als on China Daily mainly had three functions: Show respects of the people or organization or in order for protection; in order to pub-lish timely; and make the prediction more reliable. In general, the Chinese writers seem to be conscious to use hedges appropriatelyin order to make their writing more reliable and avoid some arguments or disparagement.