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NAG Ping electronic newsletters - NAG Ping, Issue 1 (May 2001)

This issue covers:

Questions? Comments? Need more information about an article? Write to us at ping@nag.com.
 

Top story - Create Your Own Derivative Pricing Model with Microsoft Excel®

In a recent article in the February 2001 issue of Financial Engineering News, NAG's George Levy described how to create a pricing model for financial options with one or more underlying assets. He shows a straightforward method for using Visual Basic code with Excel to do these calculations. To learn more about this application and how you can adapt it for your company, click here [pdf].
 

Tips and hints - Getting the most from binary data

Binary data is becoming increasingly important in developing predictive relationships for a range of applications that include both scientific (e.g., the presence or absence of a genetic trait) and business analytics (has a customer visited a particular web page?). The data can be coded as either a 0 or a 1. Further, even when a variable can take on only one of several values the result can be modelled by converting the variable into series of "dummy" variables, one of which is set to 1 (and the others set to 0). A logistic regression model, which is a particular case of the general linear model, can handle binary variables. NAG has routines in both its C and Fortran libraries to perform logistic regression and to create class, or "dummy", variables.
For the rest of the story, including how to do this from an Excel worksheet, click here.
 

News for MATLAB® Users - NAG Foundation Toolbox for MATLAB 6®

Thousands of MATLAB® users have relied for years on the quality, performance and functionality of NAG Foundation Toolbox sold by The MathWorks®. This product, originally created by NAG for The MathWorks, has returned to NAG in 2001. We have taken the immediate steps to create working versions for MATLAB 6 and are now releasing new versions not previously available. If you use MATLAB under Linux, this will be especially good news for you.
For details on available versions and other information click here.
 

Future Thoughts - Some predictions for scientific computing fifty years from now

Most of us would marvel at the changes that have occurred in technical computing in just the last year (assuming we took the time to think about it). What about the future? How might our work in five, ten or even fifty years be influenced by developments in hardware and software today? Nick Trefethen, Professor of Numerical Analysis at Oxford University, has given this topic considerable thought and offers his insight and predictions for scientific computing in the next fifty years. He presents 12 concepts and his thoughts covering such provocative notions as: Will we be here? We will talk to computers in words and they will answer us with picture.
To read this thought-provoking essay, click here.
 

Training - IRIS Explorer® Version 5

If you have IRIS Explorer visualization software from NAG (or are thinking about obtaining it), NAG has planned intensive courses to help you develop powerful visualization applications. We offer both a two day introductory course and a two day advanced course. Instruction is provided by the product developers, is highly personalized and very interactive. Plan to come spend a few days with us in June or August this summer and come away with the skills to build applications that bring insight.
For exact dates and further information contact us at ping@nag.com.
 

Product news - Selected new implementations you might want to know about

NAG is constantly bringing out new implementations of our products. We will point out a few of the most notable here. To get more details and information on all implementations, follow one of the links below.

NAG C Library - Mark 6 (450 mathematical and statistical components)
Silicon Graphics (IRIX 6)
Sun SPARC Ultra (64-bit Solaris)
Windows 95/98/NT/2000 Static Library (32-bit) (Microsoft Visual C++)

IRIS Explorer - Release 5.0 (Just released; bigger, faster, better 3D visualization for complex data)
Digital/Compaq Tru64 UNIX
Hewlett Packard HP-UX
IBM RS/6000 AIX
Linux (Intel)
Red Hat 6
Windows NT/2000
Silicon Graphics (IRIX 6)
Sun SPARC/Solaris

NAG SMP Library - Release 2 (220+ High performance components for shared memory systems)
Digital/Compaq Tru64 UNIX
Silicon Graphics (IRIX 6)
IBM RS/6000 AIX

NAG Fortran Library - Mark 19 (1,200+ mathematical and statistical routines; multiple APIs)
Linux (Intel) Lahey/Fujitsu Fortran 95 compiler

NAG Parallel Library - Release 3 (High performance components for distributed memory clusters)
Sun SPARC Solaris

NAGWare f95 Compiler - Release 4.1 (the first compiler to incorporate Fortran 2000 features)
DEC Alpha Linux
Compaq Alpha Unix
Hewlett Packard 9000 Series 700, HP-UX
Linux (Intel)
Sun SPARC (Solaris), Sun SPARC (Solaris) Gnu C compiler, Sun SPARC (SunOS)
 

Your Privacy - Our Policy

At NAG, we have a simple policy on the use of information you provide to us; it is to treat you how we would like to be treated. We will not sell or give your personal information to anyone and will only use it for the purposes we state and with the permission you grant us. NAG also is one of the first U.S. companies to voluntarily certify compliance with the safe harbor principles for privacy protection developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce in conjunction with the European Union.
To learn more, click here.

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About The NAG Ping

The NAG Ping is an occasional newsletter of technical tips, product information and discussions of technical computing topics. Its principal audience is in North America though it has readers throughout the world. It is the sister publication of the NAGNews, produced by our colleagues at NAG Ltd primarily for those in Europe and elsewhere outside North America.

The NAG Ping is named in memory of Mike Muuss, formerly of the Army Research Laboratory. Among the creative and useful works of his life was the "ping" program to test network connection. It was written by Mike in 1983 to help diagnose problems on his network. The name is tied to Mike's earlier work in sonar modeling and echolocation. To learn more, click here.

Contact us / Copyright information

Contact us at at ping@nag.com or http://nag.co.uk/contact_us.asp#northamerica.

Copyright 2001-2004 Numerical Algorithms Group, Inc.