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Risk assessment : Decisions in banking and finance
New developments in assessing and managing risk are discussed in this volume. Addressing both practitioners in the banking sector and research institutions, the book provides a manifold view on the most-discussed topics in finance. Among the subjects treated are important issues such as: risk measures and allocation of risks, factor modeling, risk premia in the hedge funds industry and credit risk management. The volume provides an overview of recent developments as well as future trends in the area of risk assessment.
Researching Design Learning : Issues and Findings from Two Decades of Research and Development
This book summarises the lessons learned from this and other projects. The book’s messages centre on the designing activity, on learning, teaching and assessment, and, more widely, on what can be learnt about the research process itself. The authors aim to answer questions such as: How does the active, concrete learning tradition enable cognitive and emotional growth? What influences bear upon the process; the teacher, the environment, the task, the learners themselves? Researching such questions, their concerns have integrated the conceptual, the practical and the pedagogic.
Renewing local planning to face climate change in the tropics
This book aims to inspire decision makers and practitioners to change their approach to climate planning in the tropics through the application of modern technologies for characterizing local climate and tracking vulnerability and risk, and using decision-making tools. Drawing on 16 case studies conducted mainly in the Caribbean, Central America, Western and Eastern Africa, and South East Asia it is shown how successful integration of traditional and modern knowledge can enhance disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change in the tropics. The case studies encompass both rural and urban settings and cover different scales: rural communities, cities, and regions. In addition, the book looks to the future of planning by addressing topics of major importance, including residual risk integration in local development plans, damage insurance and the potential role of climate vulnerability reduction credits.
Reading Between the Lines of Corporate Financial Reports : In Search of Financial Misstatements
Provides a digestible step-by-step guide to reading corporate financial reports, drawing upon real-life case studies and examples of corporate collapses and accounting scandals, and applying practical tools to financial statement analysis. Appealing to a range of practitioners within corporate finance including investors, managers, and business analysts, this book is the first to specifically address the challenges facing those who are not professional accountants and auditors when examining corporate financial reports. Corporate financial reports are used widely by managers, investors, creditors, and government agencies to examine company performance and evaluate potential risks. However, although seemingly an invaluable source of information for managerial decision-making, financial reports are often based on rough simplifications of a very complex reality. With no way of avoiding deliberate manipulations and fraudulent activity, these statements cannot be relied on completely when selecting stocks or evaluating credit risk, and therefore poor analysis can lead to potentially disastrous investment decisions.
Radical Solutions and Open Science : An Open Approach to Boost Higher Education
This book presents how Open Science is a powerful tool to boost Higher Education. The book introduces the reader into Open Access, Open Technology, Open Data, Open Research results, Open Licensing, Open Accreditation, Open Certification, Open Policy and, of course, Open Educational Resources. It brings all these key topics from major players in the field; experts that present the current state of the art and the forthcoming steps towards a useful and effective implementation.
Quality Management and Accreditation in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy : The JACIE Guide
Provides a concise yet comprehensive overview on how to build a quality management program for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and cellular therapy. The text reviews all the essential steps and elements necessary for establishing a quality management program and achieving accreditation in HSCT and cellular therapy.
Pricing Portfolio Credit Derivatives by Means of Evolutionary Algorithms
Svenja Hager aims at pricing non-standard illiquid portfolio credit derivatives which are related to standard CDO tranches with the same underlying portfolio of obligors. Instead of assuming a homogeneous dependence structure between the default times of different obligors, as it is assumed in the standard market model, the author focuses on the use of heterogeneous correlation structures. The intention is to find a correlation matrix sufficiently flexible so that all tranche spreads of a CDO structure can be reproduced simultaneously. This allows for consistent pricing. The calibrated model can then be used to determine the price of non-standard contracts. As there is no standard optimization technique to derive the correlation structure from market prices, Evolutionary Algorithms are applied.
Physical Testing of Rubber
This new edition presents an up-to-date introduction to the standard methods used for testing, quality control analysis, product evaluation, and production of design data for rubber and elastomers. Factors to be incorporated in the revision include the effects of newer instrumentation, the cutting back of laboratory staff, increased demands for formal accreditation and calibration, trend to product testing, overlap of thermoplastic elastomers with plastics and increased need for design data.
Perturbation Methods in Credit Derivatives : Strategies for Efficient Risk Management
Perturbation Methods in Credit Derivatives: Strategies for Efficient Risk Management offers an incisive examination of a new approach to pricing credit-contingent financial instruments. Author and experienced financial engineer Dr. Colin Turfus has created an approach that allows model validators to perform rapid benchmarking of risk and pricing models while making the most efficient use possible of computing resources.
Optimal Stopping and Free-Boundary Problems
The present monograph has the following particular aims: To present basic results (with proofs) of optimal stopping theory in both discrete and continuous time using both martingale and Mar- vian approaches; To select a seriesof concrete problems ofgeneral interest from the t- ory of probability, mathematical statistics, and mathematical ?nance that can be reformulated as problems of optimal stopping of stochastic processes and solved by reduction to free-boundary problems of real analysis (Stefan problems). The table of contents found below gives a clearer idea of the material included in the monograph. Credits and historical comments are given at the end of each chapter or section. The bibliography contains a material for further reading.
Optimal Domain and Integral Extension of Operators : Acting in Function Spaces
Operator theory and functional analysis have a long tradition, initially being guided by problems from mathematical physics and applied mathematics. Much of the work in Banach spaces from the 1930s onwards resulted from investigating how much real (and complex) variable function theory might be extended to fu- tions taking values in (function) spaces or operators acting in them. Many of the ?rst ideas in geometry, basis theory and the isomorphic theory of Banach spaces have vector measure-theoretic origins and can be credited (amongst others) to N. Dunford, I.M. Gelfand, B.J. Pettis and R.S. Phillips. Somewhat later came the penetrating contributions of A. Grothendieck, which have pervaded and influenced the shape of functional analysis and the theory of vector measures / integration ever since. Today, each of the areas of functional analysis/operator theory, Banach spaces, and vector measures/integration is a strong discipline in its own right. However, it is not always made clear that these areas grew up together as cousins and that they had, and still have, enormous in?uences on one another. One of the aims of this monograph is to reinforce and make transparent precisely this important point.
Office Andrology
The investigation and management of male infertility can be a formidable diagnostic challenge to family physicians, urologists, and reproductive specialists alike. In Office Andrology, noted clinical physicians and scientists have joined forces to create a comprehensive resource guide to current diagnostic and treatment options for a broad spectrum of clinical issues relevant to male infertility disorders. Topics covered range from basic sperm biology and male reproductive endocrinology, to immunology, specialized sperm testing, and the genetic background to male infertility. Although emphasis is on the investigation, diagnostic testing, and management of the infertile male, controversial medical and surgical treatment options are also fully discussed. For the reproductive specialist, the text thoughtfully reviews such timely issues as gender selection, human immunodeficiency virus-discordance couples, and posthumous reproduction. Other topics of interest include laboratory accreditation, vasectomy reversal, ethical and legal considerations of donor insemination, optimizing success in a donor insemination program, and strategic therapies for ejaculatory disorders and erectile dysfunction in infertile men.
Noninvasive Vascular Diagnosis : A Practical Guide to Therapy
This book is the definitive text on the current techniques used in assessing vascular disorders. It covers all aspects of noninvasive evaluation of the circulatory system in the extremities. They are also guided through the establishment and accreditation of a vascular laboratory and introduced to the theories behind diagnostic testing. There has been expansion of the book by the inclusion of special sections dedicated to the practical clinical management of patients through the vascular laboratory. The book is therefore invaluable to all those working in vascular laboratories as well as cardiologists, general surgeons involved in vascular surgery and the vascular surgery and medicine community in general.
Nine algorithms that changed the future : The ingenious ideas that drive today’s computers
Every day, we use our computers to perform remarkable feats. A simple web search picks out a handful of relevant needles from the world’s biggest haystack. Uploading a photo to Facebook transmits millions of pieces of information over numerous error-prone network links, yet somehow a perfect copy of the photo arrives intact. Without even knowing it, we use public-key cryptography to transmit secret information like credit card numbers, and we use digital signatures to verify the identity of the websites we visit. How do our computers perform these tasks with such ease?
New Perspectives on Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments in Ancient Maya Society
This book dispels those myths by bringing together an international group of both well-established scholars and accredited young experts in the field to provide a fresh, objective look at ritual violence in the Mayan realm from an academic perspective. These experts offer examine new evidence of of human sacrifice in Classic and Postclassic period sites like Calakmul and the Sacred Cenote of Chichen Itz, as well as cave contexts from Belize.
New Frontiers in Enterprise Risk Management
This book provides introductory material about enterprise risk management, and the role of risk in decision making. It presents enterprise risk management from perspectives of finance, accounting, insurance, supply chain operations, and project management. Technology tools are addressed, to include financial models of risk as well as accounting aspects using data envelopment analysis, neural network tools for credit risk evaluation, and real option analysis applied to information technology outsourcing. Three chapters present enterprise risk management experience in China, to include banking, chemical plant operations, and information technology.
New Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence ; JSAI 2007 Conference and Workshops, Miyazaki, Japan, June 18-22, 2007, Revised Selected Papers
The technology of artifcial intelligence is increasing its importance thanks to the rapid growth of the Internet and computer technology. In Japan, the annual conference series of JSAI (The Japanese Society for Arti?cial Intelligence) has been playing a leading role in promoting AI research, and selected papers of the annual conferences have been published in the LNAI series since 2003. This book consists of award papers from the 21st annual conference of JSAI (JSAI 2007) and selected papers from the four co-located workshops.
Money, Banking, and Financial Markets : A Modern Introduction to Macroeconomics
Introduction to money, banking, and financial markets, with a special emphasis on the importance of confidence and trust in the macroeconomic system. It also presents the theory of endogenous money creation, in contrast to the standard money multiplier and fractional reserve explanation found in other textbooks. The U.S. economy and financial institutions are used to explain the theoretical and practical framework, with international examples weaved in throughout the text. It covers key topics including monetary policy, fiscal policy, accounting principles, credit creation, central banks, and government treasuries. Additionally, the book considers the international economy, including exchange rates, the Eurozone, Chinese monetary policy, and reserve currencies. Taking a broad look at the financial system, it also looks at banking regulation, cryptocurrencies, real estate, and the oil and gold commodity markets. Students are supported with chapter objectives, key terms, and problems.
Money and debt : The public role of banks
This book from the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy explains how money creation and banking works, describes the main problems of the current monetary and financial system and discusses several reform options. This book systematically evaluates proposals for fundamental monetary reform, including ideas to separate money and credit by breaking up banks, introducing a central bank digital currency, and introducing public payment banks. By drawing on these plans, the authors suggest several concrete reforms to the current banking system with the aim to ensure that the monetary system remains stable, contributes to the Dutch economy, fairly distributes benefits, costs and risks, and enjoys public legitimacy. This systematic approach, and the accessible way in which the book is written, allows specialized and non-specialised readers to understand the intricacies of money, banking, monetary reform and financial innovation, far beyond the Dutch context.
Microfinance, EU structural funds and capacity building for managing authorities : A comparative analysis of European convergence regions
Presents a study of capacity building and structural funds in public managing authorities for the microcredit sector. It presents two surveys to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the managing authorities' capacity building. The first survey investigates the authorities' need for and interests in capacity building activities, assessing the areas in which capacity building support is needed, and explores the different types of support offered. The second survey analyses the results of the microcredit and microfinance programming activity, investigating its target groups and other operational features. It examines the key monitoring and reporting issues involved in this activity, before analysing the regulatory framework of the microcredit and microfinance sector.
