This book explores fundamental questions about grand strategy, as it has evolved across generations and countries. It provides an overview of the ancient era of grand strategy and a detailed discussion of its philosophical, military, and economic foundations in the modern era. This study investigates these aspects through the lens of four approaches – those of historians, social scientists,…
The first edition of this book appeared eight years ago. Since then the banking industry experienced a lot of change and challenges. The most recent financial crisis which started around May 2007 and lasted in its core period until early 2009 gave rise to a lot of scepticism about whether credit risk models are appropriate to capture the true nature of risks inherent in credit portfolios in gen…
This book deals with the notion of “risk” and is devoted to analysis of risks in finance and insurance. We will study risks associated with financial and insurance contracts, by which we understand risks to be uncertainties that may result in financial loss and affect the ability to make payments associ- ated with the corresponding contracts. Our approach to this analysis is based on the …
On July 23, 2009, as the preparations for this collection were nearing completion, Raymond Westbrook, the W. W. Spence Professor of Semitic Languages in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, passed away. We had been contemplating the production of these volumes for some time and began work on them in earnest about one year ago, spurred in part by the progression of…
This series of guidebooks draws on the practical knowledge that the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®) has generated, since its inception in 1970, through its research and educational activity conducted in partnership with hundreds of thousands of managers and executives. Much of this knowledge is shared—in a way that is distinct from the typical university department, professional associ…
Enterprises throughout the ages have always had to deal with processes of change. The invention of printing with movable type almost wholly superseded the medi- eval business model of—usually monastic—scriptoria in the space of just a few decades. Change, therefore, is not a modern phenomenon. Yet what is new is the number and growth of influencing factors that now determine business action…
How can we engage in a market relationship when the quality of the goods we want to acquire is unknown, invisible, or uncertain? This is the question addressed in this book. Each chapter focuses on situations where quality is highly uncertain: such situations provide excellent opportunities to analyze how quality is the outcome of a construction process involving producers, consumers, and marke…
For all types of businesses, there is an increasing trend towards the utilization of data, as well as information that can be gathered from data. Big Data or Data Scientist are the new terms that emerged from recent developments in the field of data and information science, just to mention a couple examples. The assurance of data quality has become an integral part of information management pr…
No other region has been more important than the South in determining the course of U.S. politics and history. This was so in 1776, and 1865, and is still true today, although in vastly different ways. The South’s relationship to the federal government has been intriguing and unique, and it vitally informs the region’s continued import to American politics, society, and culture. No other s…
Econometrics by Example (EBE) is written primarily for undergraduate students in economics, accounting, finance, marketing, and related disciplines. It is also intended for students in MBA programs and for researchers in business, government, and re- search organizations. There are several excellent textbooks in econometrics, written from very elementary to very advanced levels. The writers of…
This book is based on my experiences of working within, and hands-on building of, innovative teams over the past 20 years. It also draws on the knowledge of executives, consultants and scholars, who have helped me develop and lead high performance innovative teams over those years. It gleans from the successes and indeed the deficiencies in real-world innovation programmes in some of the most c…
Unfortunately, people use the term Lean to describe a variety of improvement activities. Process improvement work is often mistakenly called Lean; however, when used correctly, the term Lean refers to a specific set of tools and methods almost exclusively designed to rid the workplace of waste and inefficiency. For those of you who have recognized and been frustrated by the inefficiencies tha…
This dictionary provides the user with a comprehensive vocabulary of terms used in human resource management. It covers all aspects of the subject including recruitment and selection, appraisals, payment systems, dismissals and other aspects of industrial relations. The main words are explained in simple English, and pronunciations are given in the International Phonetic Alphabet. Where approp…
This volume, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, is a Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report is a collaborative effort of Working Group I (WGI) and Working Group II (WGII). The IPCC leadership team for this report also has responsibility for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), scheduled for c…
This volume, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation, is a Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report is a collaborative effort of Working Group I (WGI) and Working Group II (WGII). The IPCC leadership team for this report also has responsibility for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), scheduled for c…
Activiti is a lightweight, open source workflow and a Business Process Management (BPM) platform distributed under the Apache license. It can also be clustered and managed on a Cloud environment. It is the best platform to build BPM for people-to-people communication. It can be used very easily in every Java environment. It supports all aspects of BPM in the full context of software development…
In his novel A Tale of Two Cities, set during the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century, Charles Dickens wrote, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” Dickens may have been premature, since the same might well be said now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century. When we think of large risks, we often think in terms of natural hazards such as hurricanes, ear…
e purpose of this study book is to review all issues of R&D project management with the focus on duality R&D activities and adapt the project management technics to the best needs of R&D management.
Global competition encourages companies to seek for a more innovative way to survive. More and more complex R&D-based activities are introduced and the managerial approach is extremely important, while R&D by its nature requires special managerial attitude. However, as time and money-consuming activities, R&D activities are under high risk and uncertainty. Therefore, public and private par…
By its resolutions 39/79 and 39/88 of 13 December 1984, the General Assembly requested the Secretary-General to prepare, on the basis of the outline elaborated by the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization and in the light of the views expressed in the course of the discussions in the Sixth Committee and in the Special Com…