2011 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books

The Wavewatcher’s Companion by Gavin Pretor-Pinney was announced as the winner of this year’s £10,000 prize on 17 November 2011. Pretor-Pinney is the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, and took time out to explore and explain waves in an approachable way.

Other shortlisted titles were:

Alex’s adventures in numberland by Alex Bellos

Through the language glass: why the world looks different in other languages by Guy Deutscher

The disappearing spoon and other true tales of madness, love, and the history iof the world from the periodic table of the elements by Sam Kean

Massive: the missing particle that sparked the greatest hunt in science by Ian Sample

The rough guide to the future by Jon Turney

Click on the title to be taken to the Library record for the book and find it on the shelves. If the book is on loan already, click on the Reserve button to place a reservation.

WRDS downtime via UNIX or PC SAS Connect – 22 November 2011, 11am-2pm

Please be advised that if you access WRDS via UNIX or PC SAS Connect there will be a short period of downtime between 11am-2pm on 22nd November 2011 to allow for system maintenance.

The WRDS website will not be affected by this maintenance.

Graduate School Lunchtime Lecture 1-2pm 5 September 2011

Graduate School Lunchtime Lecture
Doing Science in the Open
Monday 5 September 2011
1pm-2pm

Pippard Lecture Theatre, 5^th Floor Sherfield Building

There is no need to register in advance to attend the lecture – please just come along! Seats will be allocated on a first come basis.  The lecture starts at 1pm.

The Graduate Schools are pleased to be able to host this guest lecture by Michael Nielsen.

The net is transforming many aspects of our society, from finance to friendship.  And yet scientists, who helped create the net, are extremely conservative in how they use it. Although the net has great potential to transform science, most scientists remain stuck in a centuries-old system for the construction of knowledge. Michael will describe some leading-edge projects that show how online tools can radically change and improve science (using projects in Mathematics and Citizen Science as examples), and will then go on to discuss why these tools haven’t spread to all corners of science, and how that can be changed.

Michael Nielsen is an author and an advocate of open science.  His book about open science, Reinventing Discovery, will be published by Princeton University Press in October, 2011.  Prior to his book, Michael was an internationally known scientist who helped pioneer the field of quantum computation.  He co-authored the standard text in the field, and wrote more than 50 scientific papers, including invited contributions to Nature and Scientific American.  His work on quantum teleportation was recognized in Science Magazine’s list of the Top Ten Breakthroughs of 1998. Michael was educated at the University of Queensland, and as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of New Mexico. He worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, as the Richard Chace Tolman Prize Fellow at Caltech, was Foundation Professor of Quantum Information Science and a Federation Fellow at the University of Queensland, and a Senior Faculty Member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. In 2008, he gave up his tenured position to work fulltime on open science.  http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/michael-a-nielsen/

Encyclopedia of Quantitative Finance now available online

In addition to the printed copy in the Central Library this multi-volume reference work is now also available online via the Library Catalogue.

The Encyclopedia of Quantitative Finance by Rama Cont covers topics including:

• The historical development of quantitative modeling in finance, including biographies of influential figures

• Self-contained expositions of mathematical and statistical tools used in financial modeling

• Authoritative expositions on the foundations of financial theory and mathematical finance, including arbitrage pricing, asset pricing theory, option pricing and asset allocation

• Comprehensive reviews of various aspects of risk management: credit risk, market risk, operational risk, economic capital and Basel II with a detailed coverage of topics related to credit risk

• Up-to-date surveys of the state of the art in computational finance: Monte Carlo simulation, partial differential equations (PDEs), Fourier transforms methods, model calibration

• Detailed entries on various types of financial derivatives and methods used for pricing and hedging them, including equity derivatives, credit derivatives, interest rate derivatives and foreign exchange derivatives

• Pedagogical surveys of econometric methods and models used in finance, including GARCH models, GMM, realized volatility, factor models, Mixed Data Sampling and high-frequency data

• Empirical and theoretical aspects of market microstructure and trade-level modeling

• Timely entries on new topics such as commodity risk, electricity derivatives, algorithmic trading and multi-fractals

• Quantitative methods in actuarial science, including insurance derivatives, catastrophe bonds , equity-linked life insurance and other topics at the interface of finance and insurance

Regional Workshops on Freedom of Information and HE Researchers

RIN has put together a series of three workshops – to be held in London, Manchester, and Glasgow – on Freedom of Information legislation and its implications for UK HE research and researchers.

Full details can be found at:

http://www.rin.ac.uk/news/events/regional-workshops-freedom-information-and-he-researchers

Study Skills Week- 6th to 10th December

The Student Union is running a Study Skills week from 6th–10th December 2010.

See the Student Union website or their Facebook page for further details.

The Library will be running a study skills workshop on Wednesday 8th December from 1pm–2pm including tips on:

• Exam and academic writing
• Revision
• Citing and referencing
• Presentation skills

The session is open to all and requires no prior booking, so please just come along to Training Room 2 in the Central Library for 1pm.

For more advice on what the Library has to support you in developing your study skills, see our special Study Skills Support page.

Imperial College Business School on Twitter

The Business School now has a presence on Twitter, named ImperialBiz. You can join up to ImperialBiz today with your Twitter account.
ImperialBiz gives short, timely updates about all things to do with Imperial College Business School. You will find updates about mentions of the Business School in the media, events going on at the Business School, and much more.
So why not join up today!

Library Training Workshops

Come and learn how to find information for your projects at the library’s introductory database sessions on the following subjects. Please note that these sessions are aimed at Undergraduate students, but will contain content of use to students at other levels also.

All sessions are in Training room 1 on Level 1 of the Central Library unless otherwise stated

Note – any courses not listed are currently fully booked.

To book

Please complete the booking form at www.imperial.ac.uk/library/lrspbooking to register for any of these sessions.

Using EBSCO Business Source Complete

Ebsco provides access to a wealth of business information including company and country reports and full-text journal articles. This session is for business and non-business students who need to find business information for their projects.

Using Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a service which uses the Google search engine, but searches only scholarly resources. This session will cover search tips, what Google Scholar can do for you, and the advantages and disadvantages of using Google Scholar

Intelligent use of the Internet – learn which sources on the Internet to trust

We all use the internet but we don’t always know how reliable it is. This session will show you how to decide whether the information you find on the internet is valuable research or just plain rubbish!

Cross-search multiple databases using Metalib, the library’s portal

This information portal provides access to databases and electronic journals subscribed to by the Library. Many of the resources can be cross-searched, where a single search is carried out on more than one database.

Presentation Skills – get general advice and tips on preparing a presentation, including how to plan a presentation, and what to do when you are a presenter.

RefWorks – learn how to store your references and create a reference list

Reading & Note Taking – learn techniques for improving your reading and note taking skills

Academic Writing – learn techniques for improving your academic writing skills. You will learn how to understand essay questions, look at different academic writing formats and gain some tips to help in those all important exams.

Timetable

New Library Website Launched

The Library has launched a new website which has been designed to make it easier for you to find the things you need and reflects the feedback we have received from last year’s student survey, a student focus group and library staff.

The homepage has a simpler design with links to most frequently used pages like the library catalogue, electronic journals and book renewals easily available. The menu headings are clearer and the content has been restructured to make it easier to find.

Look out for the following new features:

* Subject pages introducing your Business librarian
* New style campus library pages detailing the specialist collections at each one
* A Central Library tour with 360 degree images
* Scrolling news on the homepage – check back regularly for updates
* Detailed information about how to find electronic and print PhD and Masters theses

And if you would like to send us your comments please use our feedback form

Journal Citation Reports 2009

The Journal Citation Reports information for 2009 is now available.

Journal Citation Reports offers a systematic, objective means to critically evaluate the world’s leading journals, with quantifiable, statistical information based on citation data. By compiling articles’ cited references, JCR helps to measure research influence and impact at the journal and category levels, and shows the relationship between citing and cited journals.