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Reference, Assessment, and Evaluation
2006
Tom DiamondLearn effective ways to assess and evaluate reference services in YOUR library
Innovation and the constant evolution of technology continually spur academic librarians to find superior ways to deliver high quality reference service to students, faculty, and researchers. Reference Assessment and Evaluation offers librarians and administrators a plethora of fresh ideas and methods to effectively assess and evaluate reference service in any academic library. Leading experts share their own best practices in delivering digital reference, training staff and student workers, and providing instruction through case studies from academic libraries of all sizes.
Because of fiscal pressures, the need to attract the best and brightest students and faculty to the academy, and increased competition from Internet search engines, the evaluation and assessment of reference service remains one of the most important challenges for academic libraries. Reference Assessment and Evaluation provides practical tips and clear examples on assessing and evaluating several diverse aspects of reference services. This book discusses in detail case studies from various colleges and universities on wide-ranging issues such as virtual reference evaluation, merging reference desks, peer evaluations, library instruction, and staff development. Academic libraries of all types will find opportunities to modify these innovative ideas to remain at the forefront of reference service.
Topics in Reference Assessment and Evaluation include:
a case study of the library at the University of Colorado at Boulder's efforts to implement a drop-in research consultation program for students enrolled in the introductory writing course
coordination of an annual professional development program for specialized instruction targeted at faculty and staff members at Colorado State University
peer observation between the reference staff members of Augustana College Library and St. Ambrose University Library
the merging of San Jose State University's government publication desk with the reference services desk--along with the public library's reference desk
Valparaiso University's main library's training and use of student assistants
analyzing user and librarian satisfaction within virtual reference transactions
evaluation of the University of South Alabama's Baugh Biomedical Library's chat reference service
evaluation of the University of Texas at Arlington's virtual reference service
library technology's impact on reference desk statistics
statistical analysis of reference desk data for staffing needs at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga -
Gerstäcker's Louisiana: Fiction and Travel Sketches from Antebellum Time Through Reconstruction
2006
Irene S. Di MaioA global traveler and adventurer, the German author Friedrich Gerstäcker (1816--1872) first arrived in Louisiana in March 1838, paddling the waterways leading from the wilds of the northwestern part of the state near Shreveport south to cosmopolitan New Orleans. He returned to the state in 1842, living for a year in the areas of Bayou Sara, St. Francisville, and Pointe Coupée -- then considered the most beautiful garden and plantation land along the Mississippi River. In 1867 he briefly visited Louisiana again, observing the devastation wrought by the Civil War and the turmoil of Reconstruction. No mere armchair tourist, Gerstäcker fully engaged himself in exploring Louisiana -- its landscapes, peoples, and Peculiar Institution. He was in the unique position of being both an insider and an outsider, and his sojourns in the state served as the basis for travel books, short stories, and novels. Gerstäcker was a remarkable raconteur and a highly popular author. During his lifetime and beyond, his writings conveyed the tenor of southern life to a German-speaking audience. Now, compiled and translated into English by Irene S. Di Maio, they offer a window on nineteenth-century Louisiana across several decades of growth and upheaval.Gerstäcker's aim as a writer was to inform and entertain, especially through humor, drama, and suspense. His works -- including his fiction -- sustain an almost ethnographic level of detail. The stories, travel sketches, and novel excerpts included here comment on slavery and its aftermath, ethnic and racial diversity, transcultural relations, and immigration and multilingualism. Gerstäcker's impressions of Louisiana remain relevant and deeply engaging.
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Stable Isotope Ecology
2006
Brian FryA solid introduction to stable isotopes that can also be used as an instructive review for more experienced researchers and professionals. The book approaches the use of isotopes from the perspective of ecological and biological research, but its concepts can be applied within other disciplines. A novel, step-by-step spreadsheet modeling approach is also presented for circulating tracers in any ecological system, including any favorite system an ecologist might dream up while sitting at a computer. The author's humorous and lighthearted style painlessly imparts the principles of isotope ecology. The online material contains color illustrations, spreadsheet models, technical appendices, and problems and answers.
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Leading Ladies: Mujeres en la literatura hispana y en las artes
2006
Yvonne FuentesWritten by Hispanic and non-Hispanic scholars, these twelve essays -- six in English and six in Spanish -- disclose how over the past four centuries static and formulaic images of women in Hispanic art and literature have given way to lively and original portrayals. The leading ladies explored in this volume include women who are objects of the male gaze, women who gaze upon the male body, women who are characters, and women who are writers, painters, and filmmakers. The essayists offer a panorama that stimulates the senses and challenges assumptions as they reveal strategies used by both male and female writers and artists to unmask conventions, identify spaces, and remake paradigms.Marina Mayoral's introduction traces the representation of the beloved woman in Spanish lyric poetry from the Middle Ages to the present. The contributors and topics that follow include Amy Robinson on the silencing of female voices such as those of Cecilia Valdés and Carmen; Vilma Navarro-Daniels on the writer and historian Carmen Martín Gaite; Lynn Walford's analysis of Mario Vargas Llosa's leading ladies; Katherine Ford's exploration of Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera; Julia Carroll on Puerto Rican writer Giannina Braschi; George Thomas on the poetry of the seventeenth-century Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; Alison Tatum-Davis on Carmen Laforet's Nada; Mónica Jato's examination of three female characters from Alfonso Sastre's trilogy Los crímenes extraños; Caryn Connelly on the collaborations of Mexican scriptwriter Paz Alicia Garcíadiego and film director Arturo Ripstein; Sharon Keefe Ugalde on cinema gender referents in the work of certain Spanish women poets; Carmen García de la Rasilla's study of female surrealist artists; and Mayte de Lama on three short-story characters of the fiction writer Marina Mayoral.Covering numerous genres, reaching across three continents, and using a variety of critical strategies, Leading Ladies presents a dazzling array of artistic endeavors in which women are of central importance.
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Information Systems Outsourcing: Enduring Themes, New Perspectives, and Global Challenges
2006
Rudy A. HirschheimThe notion of outsourcing making arrangements with an external entity for the provision of goods or services to supplement or replace internal efforts has been around for centuries. The outsourcing of information systems (IS) is, however, a much newer concept, but one which has been growing dramatically. This book attempts to synthesize what is known about IS outsourcing by dividing the subject into six interrelated parts: (1) determinants of outsourcing, (2) relationship issues, (3) user experiences, (4) vendor and individual perspectives, (5) application service providing, and (6) offshoring. The book should be of interest to all academics and students in the field of Information Systems as well as corporate executives and professionals who seek a more profound analysis and understanding of the underlying factors and mechanisms of outsourcing."
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Population Balances in Biomedical Engineering: Segregation Through the Distribution of Cell States
2006
Martin A. HjortsøThe population balance modeling is a statistical approach for achieving accurate counts of any populations. It is an efficient way of counting traffic on roadways as well as to bacteria in lakes. In the biomedical world, it is used to count cell populations for the creation of biomaterials. Despite their undisputed accuracy, they have been underutilized for design and control purposes due to two main reasons: a) they are hard to solve and b) the functions that describe single-cell mechanisms and appear as parameters in these models are typically unknown.
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A Pocketful of Plays: Vintage Drama
2006
David MaddenA POCKETFUL OF PLAYS: VINTAGE DRAMA contains six plays: TRIFLES, by Susan Glaspell; OEDIPUS THE KING, by Sophocles; HAMLET, by William Shakespeare; A DOLL'S HOUSE, by Henrik Ibsen; THE GLASS MENAGERIE, by Tennessee Williams; and A RAISIN IN THE SUN, by Lorraine Hansberry. The plays include source materials to encourage further discussion and analysis. Among these enhancements are author's comments, biographical and critical commentaries, and reviews of actual productions.
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A Pocketful of Poems: Vintage Verse
2006
David MaddenOne of David Madden's Pocketful series (including titles in fiction, poetry, drama, and the essay), this slim volume includes over 100 of the most familiar and most taught poems, arranged alphabetically. Priced to be affordably packaged with two or even three other volumes, each book in the Pocketful series can also be used separately.This text will range from classic, traditional poems mixed with contemporary poets.. This text is intended to be an inexpensive alternative to the more expensive anthologies.
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A Primer of the Novel: For Readers and Writers
2006
David MaddenWhen the first edition of David Madden's A Primer of the Novel: For Readers and Writers was published more than twenty-five years ago, there were no other books of its kind available. Since then, many authors and editors have produced works that attempt the same comprehensive coverage of the genre. However, these works tend to be either written solely for writers or solely for readers. More often than not, those written for readers tend to be aimed at advanced students or critics of the novel.
In this revised edition, David Madden, Charles Bane and Sean Flory have produced an updated work that is intended for a general readership including writers, teachers, and students who are just being introduced to the genre.
This unique handbook provides a definition and history of the novel, a description of early narratives, and a discussion of critical approaches to this literary form. A Primer of the Novel also identifies terms, definitions, commentary, and examples in the form of quotations for almost 50 types of novels and 15 artistic techniques. A chronology of narrative in general and of the novel in particular--from 850 B. C. to the present--is also included, along with indexes to authors, titles, novel types and techniques, as well as a selective bibliography of criticism.
Although all novel types present in the first edition are still represented, many have become more clearly defined. This revised edition also cites several types of novels that did not appear in the first edition, such as the graphic novel and the novel of Magical Realism. As well as keeping all of the original examples from representative texts, the authors have added new examples of more recent works. -
Touching the Web of Southern Novelists
2006
David MaddenDavid Madden is one of the South's most notable contemporary writers. His interests are remarkably vast. He has published award-winning fiction, poetry, plays, critical works, and essays on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from history to popular culture. This collection represents Madden's essays on various other southern writers and his own struggle to come to terms with how the works and lives of these writers have influenced his own life and work.By analyzing the charged image of the spider web, as described in chapter four of Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men, Madden shows that it is a central symbol for his involvement with the interconnected, complex tradition of contemporary southern literature. Touching the Web of Southern Novelists brings together essays on Faulkner, Warren, McCullers, Wolfe, Agee, and a new essay on Evelyn Scott. More than a collection of criticism, the book explores, in overlapping, far-reaching ways, how influence works its way through the southern literary tradition. It also includes an unusually detailed index.Two of the common elements in the essays are the dynamics and consequences of the relationship of an ostensible hero to his or her witnesses and the art of fiction, especially in the technique of using a charged image-a term that Madden invented. Another element is the overwhelming, if sometimes hidden, effect of the Civil War upon southern fiction. Madden provocatively argues that no northerner can write a "true" Civil War novel. All Southern fiction comes out of the Civil War, he argues, and that Absalom, Absalom! is the best Civil War novel because of its complex implications-not because it is overtly about the war.Perhaps most powerful because of its semi-autobiographical nature, Touching the Web of Southern Novelists will appeal to anyone with an interest in literary studies and how art and life in southern novels are entwined with each other-caught in a web.
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Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Critical Analysis
2006
Johnny L. MatsonEarly Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders is the first in a series aimed at addressing the rapidly expanding field of assessment and treatment of children with mental health issues and/or development disabilities. Early Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorders is aimed at the researcher of practitioner who works with those young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In addition to covering major research developments in differential diagnosis and early intervention, the author's provide a critical review and analysis of core concept that define this area.
The first chapter of the book reviews the development of definitions of autism along with early methods for diagnosing this area of developmental disabilities. Chapter two covers some of the most discussed theories of etiology along with a review of prevalence and the author's opinions on why the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder has increased markedly in recent years. A chapter on the most commonly used assessment methods and a critique of the psychometric properties of each is followed by three chapters on treatment. We have broken the treatment chapters down based on type of intervention. The first treatment chapter covers specific target behaviors or small sets of behaviors. A second chapter covers training for the packaged comprehensive treatment models with particular emphasis on the TEACCH, UCLA-YAP and the University of California Santa Barbara Autism Research and Training Program. Each of these programs gives a unique perspective on treatment for these young children. The final treatment chapter covers the recent developments in pharmacotherapy for autism spectrum disorder, with a critical analysis and review of the data.
We hope the overview presented proves to be of interest to researchers and practitioners in the field. We present one perspective on this exciting and innovative area of research and treatment. Hopefully, it will serve as one useful source to those who wish to provide the most up to date evidence based intervention to these young developmentally challenged children.
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Understanding the Medieval Meditative Ascent: Augustine, Anselm, Boethius, & Dante
2006
Robert McMahonThe Confessions, Proslogion, and Consolation of Philosophy, likethe Divine Comedy, all enact Platonist ascents. Each has a pilgrimfigure, guided dialogically on a journey of understanding. Each rises toprogressively higher levels of understanding and culminates in asupreme intellectual vision. The higher levels contain and surpassearlier understandings and thereby reconfigure them, but implicitly, forthe questing pilgrim rarely stops to reflect on the stages of his ascent.Augustine's conclusions about time in book 11, for example, embracememory as time past, but he does not reconsider his account ofmemory in book 10 from this new perspective. He left these for hisreader's meditation, as a spiritual exercise. In this way, a Platonistascent generates implied meditative meanings, which scholars haveexplored only in part.
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Performance Tests for Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) Including Fundamental and Empirical Procedures
2006
Louay Nadhim MohammadASTM Committee D04 on Road and Paving Materials is active in sponsoring symposia and the publication of technical papers related to the standardization work of the Committee. This STP, Performance Tests for Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA), Including Fundamental and Empirical Procedures, resulted from the Committee D04 Symposium held on December 9, 2003, at the ASTM Standards Development Meeting in Tampa, Florida. This critical topic was chosen to provide practitioners with a forum to discuss the development, application, and field experience of both empirically and mechanistically based performance test procedures for use in HMA mixture design and quality control. This volume provides a collection of research and practical papers from international as well as state agency research and technology activities on the use of performance tests for HMA mixture design and field control, and includes 13 papers accepted for presentation at the symposium.
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The Radon Transform, Inverse Problems, and Tomography
2006
Gestur ÓlafssonSince their emergence in 1917, tomography and inverse problems remain active and important fields that combine pure and applied mathematics and provide strong interplay between diverse mathematical problems and applications. The applied side is best known for medical and scientific use, in particular, medical imaging, radiotherapy, and industrial non-destructive testing. Doctors use tomography to see the internal structure of the body or to find functional information, such as metabolic processes, noninvasively. Scientists discover defects in objects, the topography of the ocean floor, and geological information using X-rays, geophysical measurements, sonar, or other data.This volume, based on the lectures in the Short Course The Radon Transform and Applications to Inverse Problems at the American Mathematical Society meeting in Atlanta, GA, January 3-4, 2005, brings together articles on mathematical aspects of tomography and related inverse problems. The articles cover introductory material, theoretical problems, and practical issues in 3-D tomography, impedance imaging, local tomography, wavelet methods, regularization and approximate inverse, sampling, and emission tomography. All contributions are written for a general audience, and the authors have included references for further reading.
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The Portable Edgar Allan Poe
2006
Edgar Allan PoeThe Portable Edgar Allan Poe compiles Poe's greatest writings- tales of fantasy, terror, death, revenge, murder, and mystery, including "The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Masque of the Red Death," and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the world's first detective story. In addition, this volume offers letters, articles, criticism, visionary poetry, and a selection of random "opinions" on fancy and the imagination, music and poetry, intuition and sundry other topics.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. -
A Dictionary of Continental Philosophy
2006
John ProteviA comprehensive reference work of notoriously difficult concepts and themes in continental philosophy
With over 450 definitions and articles by an international team of specialists, this comprehensive dictionary covers the thinkers, topics, and technical terms associated with the many intersecting fields known as continental philosophy. Special care has been taken to explain complex ideas, methods, and figures. Entries strive for clarity and concision, offering helpful definitions and sober, reliable accounts of key concepts. Professionals, students, and general readers alike will find the dictionary an invaluable reference tool and a treasured addition to the library shelf.
Key features include:
· in-depth entries on major figures and topics
· over 190 shorter articles on other figures and topics
· over 250 items on technical terms used by continental thinkers, from "abjection" (Kristeva) to "worldhood" (Heidegger)
· coverage of related subjects that use continental terms and methods
· extensive cross-referencing, allowing readers to relate and pursue ideas in depth -
Read On...Horror Fiction
2006
June Michele PulliamHundreds of popular horror fiction titles are described and categorized according to their underlying appeal features, and under topics and themes you'll never find in the library catalog: the plot thickens (complex plots), fear factors (truly terrifying), big city horror, over-the-top weirdos, and many other themes that appeal to horror readers and fans.
Use these unconventional, sometimes whimsical reading lists to identify read-alikes rooted in shared appeal features or in the specific characteristics on which the lists are based. Post individual lists on your library Web site, put them in your newsletter, or use them for patron handouts to encourage circulation and reading. Horror fiction readers and fans looking for new reading material will enjoy browsing through this book and using it to create checklists or reading plans. Readers' advisors who wish to better acquaint themselves with the genre and its newer publications, particularly in terms of appeal features, will find a treasury of ideas here as well.
Looking for a new way to find suggestions for readers seeking that great new horror read? How about some fresh ideas for that Halloween horror fiction display? You've come to the right place.
Read On...Horror Fiction categorizes hundreds of popular horror fiction titles--not according to standard subgenres and themes, but according to their underlying appeal features, and under topics and themes you'll never find in the library catalog. Choose the plot thickens (complex plots), I'm too sexy for my fangs (erotic horror), graffiti and gore (big city horror), favorite monsters, or any of the many other themes that appeal to horror readers and fans.
The book includes approximately 350 of the best and most current horror fiction titles, and a few popular classics as well, offering bibliographic information and brief, punchy plot summaries designed to spark reader interest and capture the appeal connection. These unconventional, sometimes whimsical reading lists can be used to identify read-alikes rooted in shared appeal features or in the specific characteristics on which the lists are based. Post specific lists on your library Web site, put them in your newsletter, or use them for patron handouts to encourage circulation and reading.
Horror fiction readers and fans looking for new reading material will enjoy browsing through this book, and using it to create checklists or reading plans. Readers' advisors who wish to better acquaint themselves with the genre and its newer publications, particularly in terms of appeal features, will find a treasury of ideas here as well. Libraries may wish to order multiple copies--one for the readers' advisor and reference desk and one to the circulating collection. desk, and one for the circulating collection. -
Methods in Microbiology, Volume 35: Extremophiles
2006
Fred A. RaineyThis latest volume in the Methods in Microbiology series provides an overview of the methods used for the isolation, cultivation and handling of a wide variety of extremophiles, both at the stage of their isolation from natural samples and in pure culture. It contains protocols specific for work with extremophiles, as well as adaptations of “standard microbiology protocols modified to enable the handling of extremophiles. Emphasis will be on detailed time-tested protocols that are specific for work with extremophiles and adaptations of “standard microbiology protocols that have to be modified to be suitable for handling extremophiles.
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Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America
2006
Ellis SandozAs debates rage over the place of faith in our national life, Tocqueville's nineteenth-century crediting of religion for shaping America is largely overlooked today. Now, in Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America, Ellis Sandoz reveals the major role that Protestant Christianity played in the formation and early period of the American republic. Sandoz traces the rise of republican government from key sources in Protestant civilization, paying particular attention to the influence of the Bible on the Founders and the blossoming of the American mind in the eighteenth century. Sandoz analyzes the religious debt of the emergent American community and its elevation of the individual person as unique in the eyes of the Creator. He shows that the true distinction of American republicanism lies in its grounding of human dignity in spiritual individualism and an understanding of man's capacity for self-government under providential guidance. Along the way, he addresses such topics as the neglected question of the education of the Founders for their unique endeavor, common law constitutionalism, the place of Latin and Greek classics in the Founders' thought, and the texture of religious experience from the Great Awakening to the Declaration of Independence To establish a unifying theoretical perspective for his study, Sandoz considers the philosophical underpinnings of religion and the contribution that Eric Voegelin made to our understanding of religious experience. He contributes fresh studies of the character of Voegelin's thought: its relationship to Christianity; his debate with Leo Strauss over reason, revelation, and the meaning of philosophy; and the theory of Gnosticism as basic to radical modernity. He also provides a powerful account of the spirit of Voegelin's later writings, contrasting the political scientist with the meditative spiritualist and offering new insight into volume 5 of Order and History . Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America concludes with timely reflections on the epoch now unfolding in the shadow of Islamic jihadism. Bringing a wide range of materials into a single volume, it confronts current academic concerns with religion while offering new insight into the construction of the American polity--and the heart of Americanism as we know it today.
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Beliefs and Leadership in World Politics: Methods and Applications of Operational Code Analysis
2006
Mark SchaferFocusing on how policy makers make decisions in foreign policy, this book examines how beliefs are causal mechanisms which steer decisions, shape leaders and perceptions of reality, and lead to cognitive and motivated biases that distort, block and recast incoming information from the environment.
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Above the Age of Reason: Miracles and Wonders in the Long Eighteenth Century
2006
Matthew SmithThis final volume in the subseries is a coda to the 1731 campaigns. Paid for by Walpole's administration and postdating Francklin's conviction for seditious libel, the pamphlet is a point-by-point rebuttal of the Craftsman's agenda, blistering and confident.
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Interpreting Nikolai Gogol within Russian Orthodoxy: A Neglected Influence on the First Great Russian Novelist
2006
Leonard J. StantonPresents a tripartite thesis - that the Orthodox religion (though not Russian Orthodox) functions as a sub-text throughout Gogol's work; that Gogol works were of a moralist vein; and that Gogol's torch was passed not to Russian Orthodox writers, but to Jewish writers of Yiddish tales.
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Dante's Pluralism and the Islamic Philosophy of Religion
2006
Gregory B. StoneThis book explores the Islamic roots of the Western values of tolerance and religious pluralism, and considers Dante from the perspective of the Arab-Islamic philosophical tradition. It examines the relations between Islamic and Western thought, the historical origins of Western values, and the tradition of tolerance in classical Islamic thought.
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Dante's Pluralism and the Islamic Philosophy of Religion
2006
Gregory B. StoneThis book explores the Islamic roots of the Western values of tolerance and religious pluralism, and considers Dante from the perspective of the Arab-Islamic philosophical tradition. It examines the relations between Islamic and Western thought, the historical origins of Western values, and the tradition of tolerance in classical Islamic thought.
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Econometric Analysis of Financial and Economic Time Series: Part A
2006
Dek Terrell and R. Carter HillThe editors are pleased to offer the following papers to the reader in recognition and appreciation of the contributions to our literature made by Robert Engle and Sir Clive Granger, winners of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics. The basic themes of this part of "Volume 20 of Advances in Econometrics" are time varying betas of the capital asset pricing model, analysis of predictive densities of nonlinear models of stock returns, modelling multivariate dynamic correlations, flexible seasonal time series models, estimation of long-memory time series models, the application of the technique of boosting in volatility forecasting, the use of different time scales in GARCH modelling, out-of-sample evaluation of the Fed Model in stock price valuation, structural change as an alternative to long memory, the use of smooth transition auto-regressions in stochastic volatility modelling, the analysis of the balanced-ness of regressions analyzing Taylor-Type rules of the Fed Funds rate, a mixture-of-experts approach for the estimation of stochastic volatility, a modern assessment of Clives first published paper on Sunspot activity, and a new class of models of tail-dependence in time series subject to jumps. This series aids in the diffusion of new econometric techniques. Emphasis is placed on expositional clarity and ease of assimilation for readers who are unfamiliar with a given topic of a volume. It illustrates new concepts.
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