Pricing Credit Linked Financial Instruments

Book Description

Credit risk is one of the oldest forms of risk in the financial markets, and still revolutionary changes and developments are taking place in the credit markets today. This work contributes to the efforts of academics and practitioners to explain credit markets, price default related financial instruments such as defaultable fixed and floating rate debt, credit derivatives, and other securities with embedded credit risk. The whole process, from the specification of the underlying stochastic processes to the estimation of the parameters and calibration to market data is shown. The models proposed are validated in a lot of in- and out-of-sample statistical tests. Typical applications such as bond portfolio optimization under the consideration of credit risk are discussed in depth.

Customer Reviews:

Great Overview of Models but a Little Too Academic.......2002-06-07

This book is an excellent read and should be required reading for any credit trader or risk manager - buy- or sell-side.
The model that is proposed is general enough to be practical but academically rigorous enough to garner respect.
The actual application of the model is a little limited and I lokk forward to further research by the author.
All-in-all - a well structured tour of current models and application of an innovative generalisation of a number of frameworks.

Book Description

During the last fifteen years, researchers have shown increasing interest in the exchange relationship between the employee and employer. Until now, the literatures examining the employment relationships have tended to operate either from the employer or the employee perspectives and have typically approached the topic from a single discipline be it psychology, sociology, human resource management, organizational behavior, industrial relations, law or economics. Failure to consider multiple perspectives has created a fragmented understanding of the employment relationship. This volume incorporates social exchange, economics, industrial relations, legal, and justice theory perspectives. In addition, chapters have been written by authors that reflect the full international body of research on the employment relationship and provide information about legislation, governance, and cultural differences across nations. The conceptual and empirical foundations for understanding the employment relationship from these different theoretical perspectives facilitates the establishment of the convergent and discriminant validity of the psychological contract and the investments-contributions models of the employment relationship in relation to related exchange constructs such as perceived organizational support and leader-member exchange. The interdisciplinary and international nature of the employment relationship literature reviewed and integrated in this volume provides a richness that is rarely available in studies of the workplace, and many new and provocative ideas are presented in this volume. Bringing these perspectives together provides greater comprehensiveness, clarity, synthesis and understanding of the employment relationship. This volume is designed to promote the thinking of scholars in the employment relationship area. It will also have relevance to practitioners primarily through the implications of this multi-disciplinary perspective. The volume offers implications of a holistic, multi-disciplinary, international, conceptualization of the employment relationship for theory development, empirical research and measurement, and policy.

The Employment Relationship : Examining Psychological and Contextual Perspectives

Average customer rating:

The Employment Relationship : Examining Psychological and Contextual Perspectives
Lynn M. Shore
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLESUS

Book Description

A concise, full-color paperback version of The Dynamic Universe, 4E. Revised to include the latest discoveries in cosmology, such as results from the Magellan Mission to Venus and the Galileo Mission en route to Jupiter, the Hubble Space Telescope, and ROSAT. A streamlined solar system section emphasizes planetary science. The role of women in astronomy and science is discussed.

Book Description

Magnetic behaviour, once thought to be mature, has gained a new momentum as it is being expanded by contributions from molecular chemistry, materials sciences to solid state physics. The spectrum spans molecule-based - organic, inorganic, and hybrid - compounds, metallic materials as well as their oxides forming, for example, thin films, nanoparticles, nanowires. New phenomena are explored that open promising perspectives for commercially applied "smart" materials.
As a depository of contemporary knowledge on key topics related to magnetism, this open series of volumes provides a much-needed comprehensive overview of this growing interdisciplinary field. The topical reviews are written by the foremost scientists in the area, and the trends and recent advances are explained in a clear and detailed manner with a focus on the correlations between electronic structure and magnetic properties. The balance between theory and experiment within this series will guide advanced students and specialists in evaluating experimental observations and will serve as a basis for the design of new magnetic materials. This is a unique reference work, indispensable for everyone concerned with the phenomena of magnetism!

Book Description

This updated classic provides a superior introduction to applied probability and statistics for engineering or science majors. Author Sheldon Ross shows how probability yields insight into statistical problems, resulting in an intuitive understanding of the statistical procedures most often used by practicing engineers and scientists. Real data sets are incorporated in a wide variety of exercises and examples, and the enclosed CD-ROM includes software that automates the required computations.

The Third Edition includes new exercises, examples, and applications, updated statistical material, and more.

New in this edition:
* New exercises and data examples including:
- The One-sided Chebyshev Inequality for Data
- The Logistics Distribution and Logistic Regression
- Estimation and Testing in proofreader problems
- Product Form Estimates of Life Distributions
- Observational Studies
* Updated statistical material
* New, contemporary applications

Hallmark features:
* Reflects Sheldon Ross's masterfully clear exposition
* Contains numerous examples, exercises, and homework problems
* Unique, easy-to-use software automates required computations
* Applies probability theory to everyday statistical problems and situations
* Careful development of probability, modeling, and statistical procedures leads to intuitive understanding
* Instructor's Solutions Manual is available to adopters

Customer Reviews:

Introduction to Probability and Statisitics for Engineers and Scientists.......2006-11-05

Another Elsevier classic. Good undergraduate textbook or postgraduate reference. I am very happy with this book.

Are you kidding?.......2006-10-23

Naturally. probability and counting are difficult concepts to grasp. So therefore, let's make a book without answers in the back (ehm, what's the point of solving a problem if you don't have anything to check it against?). I'm rather surprised this comes out of an engineer.

What I'm not surprised by is the explanations. They are like bombs. Basically, here's an equation, it works, use it (maybe that's how engineers work?). Why does it work? Derivation? Hello? Wherever there are actually explanations I would not consider them enough for a regular student to understand.

I'm disappointed, this book is making my prob and stats course harder than it should be.

Please benefit from my pain and stay away from this book.......2006-02-08

I have a record of straight As in every undergrad math course there is, and some graduate ones too. I am back in school as a PhD candidate, and find this book among the worst I have seen on the topic. The author's explanation of concepts are poor or nonexistent, and the examples skip steps and do not provide the student the opportunity to learn incrementally. I have reviewed several books on the subject now, and I recommend checking out Prob & Stats for Engineers and Scientists by Walpole and Meyers, 6th Edition. It's crystal clear, consistent and is saving my degree program!

Errors!.......2006-01-30

This book has good organization of subject matter. The examples used are pretty good too.

However, within no more than an hour of flipping through various chapter of my interest, I found 2 errors. What baffled me was that the errors were so easy to catch and yet they existed in the THIRD edition! Unforgivable!

I reckon at this rate there have to many more to be unearthed! The author definitely needs better proof-reading.

Weak on applications and statistics.......2005-05-13

I have used this book for a course on probability and statistics for engineers, and will not use it again. The author is apparently more versed on probability than on statistics, because the latter topics are poorly explained. A section on linearization in the regression chapter is actually a dangerous misapplication and should be replaced by material explaining nonlinear regressions. The section on analysis of variance uses dot notation that's different from the standard used in most other texts and will therefore be confusing to many. The CD that's provided is not useful in a pedagogic sense since it is a "black box" in its actual function. But the most serious shortcoming in this book is the failure to bridge the gap between theory and application: there are no worked examples in most cases, just equations in the chapter, then problems at the end.

Introduction to Statistics for Biology, Third Edition

Average customer rating:

Introduction to Statistics for Biology, Third Edition
Robin H. McCleery , Trudy A. Watt , and Tom Hart
Manufacturer: Chapman & Hall/CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Science | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 1584886528

Book Description

Even though an understanding of experimental design and statistics is central to modern biology, undergraduate and graduate students studying biological subjects often lack confidence in their numerical abilities. Allaying the anxieties of students, Introduction to Statistics for Biology, Third Edition provides a painless introduction to the subject while demonstrating the importance of statistics in contemporary biological studies. New to the Third Edition · More detailed explanation of the ideas of elementary probability to simplify the rationale behind hypothesis testing, before moving on to simple tests · An emphasis on experimental design and data simulation prior to performing an experiment · A general template for carrying out statistical tests from hypothesis to interpretation · Worked examples and updated Minitab analyses and graphics · A CD-ROM that contains a free trial version of Minitab Using Minitab throughout to present practical examples, the authors emphasize the interpretation of computer output. With its nontechnical approach and practical advice, this student-friendly introductory text lays the foundation for the advanced study of statistical analysis.

Average customer rating:

Jump-cuts: riffs & shots edited & experimented

Poetic Prose

Manhattan Transfer?

Literary Subway Ride

"I dunno...pretty far."

Manhattan Transfer: A Novel
John Dos Passos
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Dos Passos, John | ( D ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

1919: Volume Two of the U.S.A. Trilogy

The 42nd Parallel: Volume One of the U.S.A. Trilogy

The Big Money: Volume Three of the U.S.A. Trilogy

Miss Lonelyhearts & the Day of the Locust

Sister Carrie (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics)

ASIN: 0618381864

Book Description

Considered by many to be John Dos Passos's greatest work, Manhattan Transfer is an "expressionistic picture of New York" (New York Times) in the 1920s that reveals the lives of wealthy power brokers and struggling immigrants alike. From Fourteenth Street to the Bowery, Delmonico's to the underbelly of the city waterfront, Dos Passos chronicles the lives of characters struggling to become a part of modernity before they are destroyed by it. More than seventy-five years after its first publication, Manhattan Transfer still stands as "a novel of the very first importance" (Sinclair Lewis). It is a masterpeice of modern fiction and a lasting tribute to the dual-edged nature of the American dream.

Customer Reviews:

Jump-cuts: riffs & shots edited & experimented.......2006-03-04

Yes, a five-star book compared to most of them, but compared to "USA," this novel's a warm-up, between 3 & 4 stars, rounded up for innovation if not poise. In the start of each chapter you get marvelous, miniature modernist riffs, reminding me of saxophones, Carl Sandburg, Whitman, and Joyce (he loves those runoncompounds too); these anticipate the "Camera Eye" vignettes that would enrich "USA"'s own prose concoctions. Jimmy Derf (some surname) and Ellen Oglethorpe emerge at the end as the two main characters; others come and go much like life itself--the central figure is not one human but a cast of millions. As an urban reporter here, Dos Passos excels at capturing the snatches of dialogue, smells of the bums, grit of the air (it's rare that nature itself is shown as less than threatening, when it's evident at all), and shouts and noise that, then as now, relentlessly hums and pounds along Manhattan's streets. It's naturalism combined with realism.

Since "USA" for all its flaws is one of my favorite novels, I wanted to compare "MT." The pace is very quick: I read this in three sittings, one per main section. What still seems innovative eight decades later is Dos Passos' ability to skip forward within a dialogue to show how the minutes pass even as the characters are speaking--you hear enough to understand that moment, but the next line may be a half hour later into the situation or scene or action. This "jump-cut" characteristic becomes a bit maddening at times, as it does in cinema, but technically it's fun to watch! This adds to the filmic parallels that flow through "MT," which keeps the clips coming much as a well-edited docudrama might pull off.

After 9/11, some readers of the opening pages of "Moby Dick" noticed headlines of "war in Afghanistan" and the like that seemed to presage the current turmoil, 150 years before. Towards the end of "MT," my eye lingered as I re-read this paragraph: from a failed con-man talking to a slick lawyer: "I happen to know from a secret and reliable source that there is a subversive plot among undesirable elements in this country...Good God think of the Wall Street bomb outrage...I must say that the attitude of the press has been gratifying in one respect...in fact we're approaching a national unity undreamed of before the war." (part 3. ch. 1)

Dos Passos rarely lets his characters stand still and think things through. They try, but there's always someone bursting through the door, or buttonholing them on the street, or the danger, in one dramatic case, of daydreaming leading to disaster. He captures the frenetic speed demanded by NYC, and 20c city life, in this chronicle of a couple of handfuls of characters drawn to the bright lights, and the indifference of the city towards their ambitions and schemes. It's not uplifting or casual reading, but for an immersion into the sensations that ran through and past those who grew up from about 1900-1925, this novel, while uneven, captures what it must have been like for the latest generation who thought they were the first to invent novelty, encounter licentiousness, or concoct flim-flam and skulk around in deceit and skulduggery. Homosexuality, racism, injustice, bootlegging, protest, complacency, war-fever, and rags-to-riches and back down: all these color and vivify the portrayals of the few who stand for millions more in Manhattan.

The slang may have changed since then, and the buildings have grown higher, but the people, even though they are more types than rounded (with the exception of about half-a-dozen who endure through most of the novel)--they are the kinds of figures you can still encounter today on any crowded street.

Poetic Prose.......2004-12-28

Manhattan Transfer's plot is a series of interwoven stories that span several generations of interconnected lives in early twentieth-century New York City. The most appealing element of the book is Dos Passos's beatifully poetic descriptive prose. The mini-plots are a bit over-contrived and difficult to follow; he assigns them less attention and care than his descriptions of the city itself, but this is his intention. As a reader, I felt no emotional connection to any of the (many) characters I met; I did, however, feel a deep attachment to the city. It is an organic being in Dos Passos's cosmology--it is in fact the book's protagonist, almost as though it's the city's growth we're meant to be charting through the decades and its relationships with its inhabitants, rather than vice versa. His use of verbs is brilliant and rather unique: the city "breathes," it "sweats," it "sighs"; it is alive. As a book lover, you'll appreciate the language, and as a New Yorker, you simply can't not read this novel.

Manhattan Transfer?.......2003-07-25

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, none of the featured reviewers on Amazon's page for this novel mention the seemingly most obvious point about Dos Passos' style, which is that it's heavily influenced by Jazz rhythms and structures in its cutting between different characters and different points in time to flesh out and vary basic themes. The occasional interruptions by random characters echo the way a soloist seizes on elements or variations of a musical phrase to lend depth and context to an entire piece.

I realize this is all pretty pedestrian: after all, it's New York in the mid-20s, duh. However, some of the reviewers make the novel sound almost like proto nouveau-roman, which seems to me to be both little unfair, and also to make the novel sound a lot more confusing and difficult than it actually is.

In fact, I think an ordinary modern reader consciously or subconsciously familiar with musical and cinematic structures and techniques will have no great trouble understanding what Dos Passos is doing.

Literary Subway Ride.......2003-05-20

Manhattan Transfer is a subway ride through New York - both across its geographic landscape - a burgeoning metropolis, the heart of the American economy; but also, slums, dark alleys and industrial wasteland. Likewise it is a ride across the ethnic and social landscape - self-made men, fatcats, bored bourgeois bohemians and anarchists, destitute immigrants, ambitious chorus girls, and washed up stock brokers.

Dos Passsos's book is like a running paragraph that only briefly stops to take us from one sub-scape to another - his voyeuristic way of relating the social current of WWI and 1920's New York to the everyday lives of people, many of whom are caught up in that current. Dos Passos does not quite uncover any new ground or dig deep into any one point - he covers a lot of ground - there is a sense of equilibrium one gets from reading his prose. Just a few just-below the surface issues he tackles are the budding concerns of untested feminism, the moral puritanism of the Prohibition; less oblique are the issues of unfettered capitalism.

Indisputably, Dos Passos's ability to weave in and out of lives while weaving the tapestry of an exciting period in NY and America is admirable. Still, there is an aloofness in a book whose characters are less important to the story than the social forces that encompass them. With no one to anchor the story (despite some possible tenable arguments for the recurring characters), the story just keeps floating along. It doesn't have to end after 400 pages, it can run on ad infinitum.

"I dunno...pretty far.".......2002-06-20

The prose style presented in Manhattan Transfer is fresh and unorthodox, two characteristics that all great literature must contain.

The narrator of the novel is an eavesdropper who chooses his subjects at will. You are able to spend three pages with a subject, then not hear from the subject until scores of pages later, if at all.

Manhattan Transfer serves as a history book, but not the standard type. You actually get to feel, hear, taste and smell what it was like to be in NYC during the early half of the 20th century. Most history books cite landmark events, but Manhattan Transfer records the life of the people living rather than the events the people were involved in.

John Dos Passos is one of the most overlooked, underappreciated American writers of the 20th century. I highly recommend this book to everyone. You must visit NYC to fully appreciate the book, though.

Average customer rating:

WWI: New York to Paris

Best War Novel

Novels, 1920-1925: One Man's Initiation: 1917, Three Soldiers, Manhattan Transfer (The Library of America)
John Dos Passos
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Classics | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Collections & Readers | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Dos Passos, John | ( D ) | Authors, A-Z | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

John Dos Passos: Travel Books and Other Writings 1916-1941 (Library of America)

U.S.A.: The 42nd Parallel / 1919 / The Big Money (Library of America)

Richard Henry Dana Jr.: Two Years Before the Mast and Other Voyages (Library of America)

Philip Roth: Novels and Stories 1959-1962: Goodbye, Columbus & Five Short Stories / Letting Go (Library of America)

Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977, The Great American Novel, My Life as a Man, The Professor of Desire (Library of America)

ASIN: 1931082391
Release Date: 2003-09-11

Book Description

Before he began the U.S.A. trilogy, John Dos Passos prefigured his groundbreaking epic through three novels that provide a fascinating glimpse into his stunning achievement as an avant-garde prose stylist while they incisively chronicle early twentieth century Europe and America. Manhattan Transfer (1925), a kaleidoscopic portrait of New York City, is universally acknowledged as a modernist masterpiece. This lyrical, exuberantly experimental novel orchestrates the rising and falling fortunes of more than a dozen characters: Wall Street speculators, theatrical celebrities, impoverished immigrants, bootleggers, and anarchist rebels move through a maze of tenements and skyscrapers. The impressionistic One Man's Initiation: 1917 (1920) draws upon Dos Passos' experiences driving ambulances in France to portray the fear, uncertainty, and camaraderie of war. This Library of America edition includes passages censored by the book's original publisher. Three Soldiers (1921), here with the author's own introduction, delves deeply into the spiritual toll of war, dramatizing American servicemen fighting in battle, struggling against dehumanizing military regimentation, and experiencing the chaotic pleasures of Paris.

Along with its companion volumes Travel Books and Other Writings (see opposite page) and U.S.A. (Library of America, 1996), Novels 1920-1925 enriches our understanding of Dos Passos as a writer, thinker, and witness to history.

Customer Reviews:

WWI: New York to Paris.......2007-01-27

In this Library of America edition, there are three Dos Passos novels of varying length and subject matter. The first, One Man's Initiation: 1917, is a brief, semi-autobiographical account of the author's tour of duty in the ambulance corps of WWI. One thing holds true for all Dos Passos novels and this is his devotion to linear narrative at the expense of plot development. Dos Passos writes phenomenally well, his imagery exquisite, but one may often wonder to what point it is directed. In longer novels, character formation may be such that the lack of plot is less evident, but One Man's Intiation isn't long enough to create a diversion. Instead, it appears an arbitrary stream of events with little or no objective.

Three Soldiers, the next offering, is an extended example of the first. Again, it takes place during WWI and recounts the US Army experiences of, to no surprise, three soldiers. Here, once more, is a linear narrative devoid of plot, but Dos Passos' character formation and imagery are powerful enough to divert attention. Dos Passos can certainly evoke a time and place and expertly contrasts the desperate, chaotic trenches with the metropolitan flair and relative ease of Paris.

The best of the lot is saved for last in Manhattan Transfer, a novel of early 20th-century New York. The city and it's inhabitants are fertile ground for Dos Passos' talents and he presents here what I consider his finest effort. Still largely plotless, the author nevertheless admirably narrates the pre-war lives of twelve people interconnected in various ways. One readily experiences the sights and sounds of New York and retains a notion of city life as it must have been 90 years ago. Manhattan Transfer alone merits 5 stars, but the inclusion of the first two books lower the rating of this collection to 4. Regardless, I strongly recommend this reading experience to anyone interested in WWI-era American literature. Dos Passos may be different, may be a taste acquired, but he is undoubtedly worthy of our attention.

Best War Novel.......2003-10-10

Final Draft

Three Soldiers: Best War Novel

"How soons it take a feller to git out o'this camp", This quote in John Dos Passos Three Soldiers is typical for the soldiers for the soldiers of that time because, most of the men couldn't wait to charge into battle on the other side of the Atlantic. The authors main goal in the Three Soldiers is to show you what a soldier really goes through. John Dos Passos captures you in this novel how he shows you a soldier's life on the base and off. Also the different characteristics of the three soldiers, each one with a different back ground and each one going through the same struggles the brings to them. Even down to the languages the character uses told us the lifestyles for every day soldier.

Three Soldiers is about 3 men trapped in the world of war, Fuselli, Andrews, and Chrisfield. Each soldier took their own direction into the war. Each Soldier has their own purposes in the war whether it was to become a colonel or to be a war hero. John Dos Passos grabs the readers heart in this epic adventure each character faces.

Three Soldiers gets four stars due to the fact that the story is a bit confusing, as he jumps from the slang talk of the soldiers to the formal language of the colonels. The story takes place at a camp and moves on to the battlegrounds over sea. Each character had their own plot, Which is a great way to keep your attention, because three stories in one is always more interesting.

The setting jumps from the boring base to the treacherous battlefield. The setting is great because it emphasis's on the life of soldiers in that period. The blood and gore that is spread in the battlefield is such good imagery you thing your actually there. The sickness and the smell aboard the boat makes you gag by the use of diction John Dos Passos uses. John Dos Passos is no doubt one of the best with his words.

Also, the way the men speak to each other you could tell they weren't very educated, "you mean do I speak eyetalian, naw sir". The lieutenants speak the opposite with a more formal language, "Italian parentage, I presume? ". The language in this novel is somewhat confusing, because it's hard to read and try to understand what the soldiers are saying and get the story all in one.

The goal in this story for the characters is to get out of the war alive and to get the information back to the people in America about the brutality that goes on overseas. The goal they have to accomplish seems so impossible it grabs the reader's interest so strongly they won't be able to let go. The goals the characters face and defeat, make the novel unforgettable.

All in all, this novel is a great way to show how a soldier lives through a war. John Dos Passos is a great author of imagery and will capture the reader with the fear, love, and hatred these three soldiers go through. This novel could be by far the most realistic fiction novel written.

Average customer rating:
Manhattan Transfer (CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN NOVELS - THE RAFAEL PALACIOS BINDING)

Manufacturer: International Collectors Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000COGYKO

Average customer rating:
The delineation of New York City in the two novels: A hazard of new fortunes, by William Howells; and Manhattan transfer, by John Dos Passos (University of Hawaii)
Evelyn Hamlin Castro
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006S9XLS

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books