Pleistocene History of a Part of the Hocking River Valley, Ohio

Author Institution: Department of Geology, University of Illinois, Urban

Default risk and the effective duration of bonds

Basis risk is the risk attributable to uncertain movements in the spread between yields associated with a particular financial instrument or class of instruments, and a reference interest rate over time. There are seven types of basis risk: Yields on 1) Long-term versus short-term financial instruments, 2) Domestic currency versus foreign currencies, 3) Liquid versus illiquid investments, 4) Bonds with higher or lower sensitivity to changes in interest rate volatility, 5) Taxable versus tax-free instruments, 6) Spot versus futures contracts and 7) Default-free versus non-default-free securities. Basis risk makes it difficult for the fixed-income portfolio manager to measure the portfolio's exposure to interest rate risk, heightens the anxiety of traders and arbitrageurs who are hedging their investments, and compounds the financial institution's problem of matching assets and liabilities. Much attention has been paid to the first type of basis risk. In recent years, attention has turned toward understanding the relation between credit risk and duration. The authors focus on that, emphasizing the importance of taking credit risk into account when computing measures of duration. The consensus of all work in this area is that credit risk shortens the effective duration of corporate bonds. The authors estimate how much durations shorten because of credit risk, basing their estimates on observable data and easily estimated bond pricing parameters.Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Strategic Debt Management,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Insurance&Risk Mitigation

Feeding thyroxine and thyroactive protein to milking cows

The feeding of l-thyroxine, iodinated casein and similar substances to dairy cows to temporarily increase milk production is no longer in the experimental stage. Numerous investigators have amply demonstrated the galactopoietic activity of these thyroactive compounds. Widespread agreement exists among these many research workers that milk production can be increased in most cows through the feeding of these materials.The major portion of this work has involved the feeding of thyroprotein during the declining phase of one lactation. The behavior and response of a cow to this type of treatment is fairly well known. Not so well known, however, are the effects of the feeding of thyroactive materials in successive lactations to the same cows, or the comparative effects of different dose levels. The study herein reported is divided into two parts. Experiment I was designed to study the effects of long-term feeding of thyroxine upon the milk production, milk composition, body weight, skeletal development and general health of those cows so fed. In this experiment five pairs of identical twin dairy cows were used. By feeding thyroxine to one of each pair, her mate then became the most nearly perfect control cow that nature can provide. By the use of identical twins any differences noted between the group fed thyroxine and the group handled normally would more accurately reflect the effect of the different treatments than would using unrelated cows no matter how closely paired as to size, age, milk production level and the other usual criteria for comparison. The dose-level problem was studied in Experiment II by employing five different dosages of 1-thyroxine. These were 60, 80, 100, 120, and 140 mg. per day. It was hoped that an optimum dose level could be determined by varying intake of the drug in each cow. By investigating these two particular phases of thyroxine feeding some helpful information might be secured on whether or not we can safely feed thyroxine year after year to the same cows and possibly how much of the material should be fed daily for optimum milk yield responses

Hotel employment and the community in Hawaii: a case study in development planning

Tourism is the fastest growing industry in many communities and its effects on these communities can be profound. The acceptable level of these effects - limited by the number of visitors to be accommodated and the degree of welcome to be extended - is deter¬ mined by the community's attitudes toward its resources as defined by its aims and objectives. Determination of such policy requires a clear understanding of the industry's true nature.The demands of the tourist and his direct effects on the community are the subject of notable interest and activity. The other side of the coin, i.e., the effect on the community of tourism-generated employment, is still the subject of more conjecture than research although, as has been recognized, it may create a threshold beyond which tourism's costs may outweigh its benefits.It is to a basic element of this structure - hotel employment - that this study is directed for an improved understanding of its precise composition, distribution, departmental structure, community relationships, and also of certain variables influencing these factors with predictable effect.To insure an understanding of this material and an appreciation of its applicability or nonapplicability in other settings, the presentation of the findings is preceded by a brief description of Hawaii, the area from which the data are derived, and of tourism - its costs and benefits, its problems of capacity, and its tourist personnel - as found and observed under these conditions.Previously uncollected data, consisting of all available and apparently significant facts regarding 1,602 employees in seven selected hotels with 2,378 guest rooms are extracted, recorded. and tabulated in various ways for different purposes. These are reduced to comparable ratios, relating to each hotel's capacity, for examination of departmental and hotel characteristics and relationships. Correlations are examined to expose cause-and effect relationships with dependable predictive value for the planner.This collation and analysis while pursued in depth is not done as an end in itself; in this it varies from other manpower and employment studies wherein the interest centres on the employee as a source of supply and demand. The end product of this exercise is an understanding of this employee's effects on the community - as a factor in the assessment of the tourist industry.It is found that the composite hotel employee is unique. To anticipate his effects very specific facts are needed - not only regarding his person, his numbers, and his type of employment, as other studies have found, but also regarding his household and his dependents, i.e., the total direct beneficiaries of this employment who will make demands on the facilities and services of the community.On a basis of the observed data and conditions it is posited that community growth is not a factor of total employment but of the number of householders who are employed and the number of such households' dependents. These previously unavailable data, necessary for a test of this hypothesis, are selected from the findings and applied to known conditions. The results, when these applications can be compared with past forecasts, axe quite different from those produced by the application of previously assumed data, and the results prove nearer the mark. A promise is indicated of a substantially improved statistical and theoretical base for projections of hotel employment and estimates of its effect - both of which are critical factors in assessing tourism's costs and benefits to the community

Production book for: John Masefield's Good Friday

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston Universit