You're sitting in a windowless conference room. Twenty minutes into the meeting the presenter finally makes it to slide four of a thirty two- slide deck. At least you can read this one, unlike the others, which were crammed with numbers, graphs and charts. You look around, wondering if anyone else is following the presentation. Just about everyone these days suffers from information overload the 24/7 explosion from our computers, smartphones, media, colleagues, and customers. Information is essential to making intelligent decisions, but more often than not, it simply overwhelms us. It's like trying to drink from a fire hose. The question isn't how to stop all those e-mails, meetings, conference calls, and fat reports; that's impossible. The question is what to do with them. How do you find the truly essential nuggets of information and use them with confidence? The solution proposed by Christopher Frank and Paul Magnone sounds deceptively simple: Learn how to ask the right questions at the right time. Whatever field you're in, asking smarter questions will expose you to new information, point you to connections between seemingly unrelated facts, and open new avenues of discussion with your colleagues. The authors explain the seven questions that can help you bring a big- picture perspective to problems that often leave others buried in irrelevant details. And they show through real-life case studies- including Trader Joe's, Starbucks, Kodak, Microsoft, iRobot, and IBM-how their method can have a dramatic impact. It really is possible to convert the fire hose of information into useful insights. Consider a nonbusiness example: the 2010 Icelandic volcano eruption that sent a giant ash cloud toward Europe. Tens of thousands of flights were canceled and five million passengers stranded, leading to billions in economic losses. Europe's best scientists generated oceans of data and carefully modeled the cloud's dispersion pattern. But no one could answer the essential question: Was the concentration of volcanic ash in the air enough to damage a jet engine? Without that key answer, all the carefully gathered facts were useless to the decision makers. Once you adopt the seven questions, you'll start having more productive brainstorming sessions. You'll answer critical questions faster and find unexpected solutions to important problems. And you'll get better at communicating to your colleagues with more clarity and focus, turning down the fire hose that other people have to cope with.
Become a confident leader and use data, experience, and intuition to drive your decisions Agile decision making is imperative as you lead in a data-driven world. Amid streams of data and countless meetings, we make hasty decisions, slow decisions, and often no decisions. Uniquely bridging theory and practice, Decisions Over Decimals breaks this pattern by uniting data intelligence with human judgment to get to action — a sharp approach the authors refer to as Quantitative Intuition (QI). QI raises the power of thinking beyond big data without neglecting it and chasing the perfect decision while appreciating that such a thing can never really exist. Successful decision-makers are fierce interrogators. They square critical thinking with open-mindedness by blending information, intuition, and experience. Balancing these elements is at the heart of Decisions Over Decimals. This book is not only designed to be read - but frequently referenced - as you face innumerable decision moments. It is the hands-on manual for confident, accurate decision-making you've been looking for; the rare resource that provides a set of pragmatic leadership tools to accelerate: Effectively framing the problem for stakeholders Synthesizing intelligence from incomplete information Delivering decisions that stick Strike the right balance between information and intuition and lead the smarter way with the real-world guidance found in Decisions Over Decimals.
Incineration: no other form of hazardous waste disposal has matched its efficiency at volume reduction, and the permanent destruction of organic wastes. That convenience may come at a price, as questions and concerns continue to surround the potential human health impacts and ecosystem effects allegedly caused by incineration. Hazardous Waste Incineration: Evaluating the Human Health and Environmental Risks addresses those concerns by summarizing recent research. Commissioned in part by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, this volume compiles reports and observations from specialists throughout the United States. Fourteen chapters respond to the key questions posed by the researchers: What is known about existing hazardous waste incinerators, and their impacts on human health? Can the impacts of a proposed facility be evaluated before it is built, and if so, how? What is the regulatory compliance record of existing commercial hazardous waste incinerators? What methods can be used to monitor a facility's impacts after it is built? Their response: the most complete treatment of the subject-a timely and controversial topic.
In The American South: A History, Fifth Edition, William J. Cooper, Jr. and Thomas E. Terrill demonstrate their belief that it is impossible to divorce the history of the South from the history of the United States. The authors' analysis underscores the complex interaction between the South as a distinct region and the South as an inescapable part of America. Cooper and Terrill show how the resulting tension has often propelled section and nation toward collision. In supporting their thesis, the authors draw on the tremendous amount of profoundly new scholarship in Southern history. Each volume includes a substantial bibliographical essay—completely updated for this edition—which provides the reader with a guide to literature on the history of the South. This volume contains updated chapters, and tables.
The book provides the reader with a thorough understanding of the model of Schema Therapy, methods and techniques used throughout the process of Schema Therapy treatment. Experienced trainers in Schema Therapy, the authors provide a unique understanding of the questions, challenges, and points of issue experienced by practitioners learning the model. Designed for the practitioner with a specific focus on the theory and practice of modern schema therapy, the book discusses the powerful techniques and cutting-edge developments of the Schema Therapy model, with step-by-step guidance and clinical examples. A comprehensive resource for both students and experienced practitioners providing valuable examples of the model in clinical practice and solutions to the challenges and questions practitioners face in applying the model. Part of the Cambridge Guides to the Psychological Therapies series, offering all the latest scientifically rigorous, and practical information on a range of key, evidence-based psychological interventions for clinicians.
Ferdinand Lindheimer was already renowned as the father of Texas botany when, in late 1852, he became the founding editor of the Neu-Braunfelser Zeitung, a German-language weekly newspaper for the German settler community on the Central Texas frontier. His first year of publication was a pivotal time for the settlers and the American Indians whose territories they occupied. Based on an analysis of the paper’s first year—and drawing on methods from documentary and narrative history, ethnohistory, and literary analysis—Daniel J. Gelo and Christopher J. Wickham deliver a new chronicle of the frontier in 1853. In keeping with Lindheimer’s background as a naturalist, the natural resources available are a constant subject for reporting. One special concern is the availability and ownership of wood, so essential for building lumber, fencing, and fuel. Most dramatically, the discovery of trace amounts of gold encouraged prospecting by German and Anglo settlers, which later influenced decisions to remove Indians to reservations. The activities of the area’s Indian peoples emerge in weekly details not found in other sources. Some Lipan Apaches are killed when the army does not learn of their peaceful intentions; restitution is made at Fredericksburg. A settler named Gadt is murdered, and Tonkawas are suspected. A horse raid southeast of San Antonio is blamed on the Lipans but turns out to be the work of non-Indians in disguise. The Delawares are driven temporarily to Indian Territory. Comanche men leave their families at Fort Chadbourne to embark on a raid against the Lipans. The Penateka band of Comanches honors the peace agreement they signed with the Germans six years earlier, but their days in the region are numbered. Lindheimer enhances the reportage with lengthy features on related subjects and exerts a strong editorial voice as he seeks to influence the development of a distinctive Texas German identity. His work, explained in this new study, will appeal not only to students of Texas history and ecology, Indigenous populations, immigration, intercultural encounters, and nineteenth-century Americana, but also to general readers who enjoy the rediscovery of hidden history.
This text is a self-contained introduction to the three main families that we encounter in analysis – metric spaces, normed spaces, and inner product spaces – and to the operators that transform objects in one into objects in another. With an emphasis on the fundamental properties defining the spaces, this book guides readers to a deeper understanding of analysis and an appreciation of the field as the “science of functions.” Many important topics that are rarely presented in an accessible way to undergraduate students are included, such as unconditional convergence of series, Schauder bases for Banach spaces, the dual of lp topological isomorphisms, the Spectral Theorem, the Baire Category Theorem, and the Uniform Boundedness Principle. The text is constructed in such a way that instructors have the option whether to include more advanced topics. Written in an appealing and accessible style, Metrics, Norms, Inner Products, and Operator Theory is suitable for independent study or as the basis for an undergraduate-level course. Instructors have several options for building a course around the text depending on the level and interests of their students. Key features: Aimed at students who have a basic knowledge of undergraduate real analysis. All of the required background material is reviewed in the first chapter. Suitable for undergraduate-level courses; no familiarity with measure theory is required. Extensive exercises complement the text and provide opportunities for learning by doing. A separate solutions manual is available for instructors via the Birkhäuser website (www.springer.com/978-3-319-65321-1). Unique text providing an undergraduate-level introduction to metrics, norms, inner products, and their associated operator theory.
This well-established and acclaimed textbook introducing the rapidly growing field of nerve and muscle function has been completely revised and updated. Written with undergraduate students in mind, it begins with the fundamental principles demonstrated by the pioneering electrophysiological experiments on cell excitability. This leads to more challenging material recounting recent discoveries from applying modern biochemical, genetic, physiological and biophysical, experimental and mathematical analysis. The resulting interdisciplinary approach conveys a unified contemporary understanding of nerve and skeletal, cardiac and smooth muscle function at the molecular, cellular and systems levels. Emphasis on important strategic experiments throughout clarifies the basis for our current scientific views, highlights the excitement and challenge of biomedical discovery, and suggests directions for future advances. These fundamental ideas are then translated into discussions of related disease conditions and their clinical management. Now including colour illustrations, it is an invaluable text for students of physiology, neuroscience, cell biology and biophysics.
The concept of platforms emerges in an increasing number of industries and affects customers' changing expectations, industries themselves, and new technologies' availability. Today, most platforms act as a technical foundation and distribution channel for complementary software products. Organizations can join platforms and use them to develop and distribute software products. They become complementors on the platforms. Platforms influence the motivations as well as the organization and affects software products of the complementors. Among other things, when using platforms, complementors must accept the platforms' specifications (for example, the technologies to be used). These requirements lead to additional work for complementors. The effort for complementors increases if software products are to be offered in parallel on multiple platforms. This publication examines how platforms affect organizations that use multiple platforms. It gives organizations recommendations for action on how to accommodate the platforms' influence.
Adolescent Urology and Long-Term Outcomes provides urologists and pediatric urologists with a comprehensive and expert clinical guide to the main urologic problems that can occur during adolescence. Fully covering disorders related to sex and genital development, the kidney, bladder, ureta and urethra, Professor Woodhouse, a world-leading expert and global pioneer in this field systematically outlines the best clinical practice in the surgical and medical management of these complex and extremely challenging conditions, as well covering the long-term outcome for the patient. Given the sensitive nature of these problems and their effect on adolescent patients, attention is paid to the psychological aspect of such disorders: especially how best to manage patients struggling to come to terms with what are very personal and complex issues at what is often a difficult and turbulent period of their life. Well-illustrated with over 120 figures including step-by-step surgical diagrams throughout, chapters will also include a unique “voice of the experts” feature – a running dialogue between leading experts and Prof Woodhouse on the topic in question. This modern, expert guide to adolescent urologic problems from one of the leading names in the field will be an essential tool for modern-day urologists and urologic surgeons, especially those specialising in pediatric patients, as well as pediatricians and endocrinologists.
The term “cult film” may be difficult to define, but one thing is certain: A cult film is any movie that has developed a rabid following for one reason or another. From highly influential works of pop art like Eraserhead and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! to trash masterpieces such as Miami Connection and Fateful Findings, thousands of movies have earned recognition as cult classics over the years, and new movies rise to cult status every year. So how do viewers searching for the best or most important cult films decide where to start? In 100 Greatest Cult Films, Christopher J. Olson highlights the most provocative, intriguing, entertaining, and controversial films produced over the last century. The movies included here have either earned reputations as bona fide cult classics or have in some way impacted our understanding of cult cinema, often transcending traditional notions of “good” and “bad” while featuring memorable characters, unforgettably shocking scenes, and exceptionally quotable dialogue. With detailed arguments for why these films deserve to be considered among the greatest of all time, Olson provides readers fodder for debate and a jumping-off point for future watching. A thought-provoking and accessible look at dozens of cinematic “treasures,” this resource includes valuable information on the films, creators, and institutions that have shaped cult cinema. Ultimately, The 100 Greatest Cult Films offers readers—from casual cinephiles, film scholars, and avid fans alike—a chance to discover or re-discover some of the most memorable films of all time.
Architect, designer, and theorist Josef Frank (1885-1967) was known throughout Europe in the 1920s as one of the continent's leading modernists. Yet despite his important contributions to the development of modernism, Frank has been largely excluded from histories of the movement. Josef Frank: Life and Work is the first study that comprehensively explores the life, ideas, and designs of this complex and controversial figure. Educated in Vienna just after the turn of the century, Frank became the leader of the younger generation of architects in Austria after the First World War. But Frank fell from grace when he emerged as a forceful critic of the extremes of modern architecture and design during the early 1930s. Dismissing the demands for a unified modern style, Frank insisted that it was pluralism, not uniformity, that most characterized life in the new machine age. He called instead for a more humane modernism, one that responded to people's everyday needs and left room for sentimentality and historical influences. He was able to put these ideas into practice when, in 1933, he was forced to leave Vienna for Sweden. There his work came to define Swedish (or Scandinavian) modern design. For more than thirty years he was the chief designer for the Stockholm furnishings firm Svenskt Tenn, producing colorful, cozy, and eclectic designs that provided a refreshing alternative to the architectural mainstream of the day and presaged the coming revolt against modernism in the 1960s. In this sensitive study of one of the twentieth century's seminal architects and thinkers, Christopher Long offers new insight into Josef Frank's work and ideas and provides an important contribution to the understanding of modernist culture and its history.
A sharp exposé of the roots of the cost-exposure consensus in American health care that shows how the next wave of reform can secure real access and efficiency. The toxic battle over how to reshape American health care has overshadowed the underlying bipartisan agreement that health insurance coverage should be incomplete. Both Democrats and Republicans expect patients to bear a substantial portion of health care costs through deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance. In theory this strategy empowers patients to make cost-benefit tradeoffs, encourages thrift and efficiency in a system rife with waste, and defends against the moral hazard that can arise from insurance. But in fact, as Christopher T. Robertson reveals, this cost-exposure consensus keeps people from valuable care, causes widespread anxiety, and drives many patients and their families into bankruptcy and foreclosure. Marshalling a decade of research, Exposed offers an alternative framework that takes us back to the core purpose of insurance: pooling resources to provide individuals access to care that would otherwise be unaffordable. Robertson shows how the cost-exposure consensus has changed the meaning and experience of health care and exchanged one form of moral hazard for another. He also provides avenues of reform. If cost exposure remains a primary strategy, physicians, hospitals, and other providers must be held legally responsible for communicating those costs to patients, and insurance companies should scale cost exposure to individuals’ ability to pay. New and more promising models are on the horizon, if only we would let go our misguided embrace of incomplete insurance.
Remarkable reinterpretation of Milton and his poetry by one of the most famous historians of the 17th Century In this remarkable book Christopher Hill used the learning gathered in a lifetime's study of seventeenth-century England to carry out a major reassessment of Milton as man, politician, poet, and religious thinker. The result is a Milton very different from most popular imagination: instead of a gloomy, sexless 'Puritan', we have a dashingly original thinker, branded with the contemporary reputation of a libertine. For Hill, Milton is an author who found his real stimulus less in the literature of classical and times and more in the political and religious radicalism of his own day. Hill demonstrates, with originality, learning and insight, how Milton's political and religious predicament is reflected in his classic poetry, particularly 'Paradise Lost' and 'Samson Agonistes'.
In the well-known Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925, famously portrayed in the film and play Inherit the Wind, William Jennings Bryan’s fundamentalist fervor clashed with defense attorney Clarence Darrow’s aggressive agnosticism, illustrating what current scholars call the conflict thesis. It appeared, regardless of the actual legal question of the trial, that Christianity and science were at war with each other. Decades later, a new generation of evangelical scientists struggled to restore peace. After the Monkey Trial is the compelling history of those evangelical scientists in Britain and America who, unlike their fundamentalist cousins, supported mainstream scientific conclusions of the world and resisted the anti-science impulses of the era. This book focuses on two organizations, the American Scientific Affiliation and the Research Scientists’ Christian Fellowship (today Christians in Science), who for more than six decades have worked to reshape the evangelical engagement with science and redefine what it means to be a creationist.
“I can lick any son-of-a-bitch in the world.” So boasted John L. Sullivan, the first modern heavyweight boxing champion of the world, a man who was the gold standard of American sport for more than a decade, and the first athlete to earn more than a million dollars. He had a big ego, big mouth, and bigger appetites. His womanizing, drunken escapades, and chronic police-blotter presence were godsends to a burgeoning newspaper industry. The larger-than-life boxer embodied the American Dream for late nineteenth-century immigrants as he rose from Boston’s Irish working class to become the most recognizable man in the nation. In the process, the “Boston Strong Boy” transformed boxing from outlawed bare-knuckle fighting into the gloved spectacle we know today. Strong Boy tells the story of America’s first sports superstar, a self-made man who personified the power and excesses of the Gilded Age. Everywhere John L. Sullivan went, his fists backed up his bravado. Sullivan’s epic brawls, such as his 75-round bout against Jake Kilrain, and his cross-country barnstorming tour in which he literally challenged all of America to a fight are recounted in vivid detail, as are his battles outside the ring with a troubled marriage, wild weight and fitness fluctuations, and raging alcoholism. Strong Boy gives readers ringside seats to the colorful tale of one of the country’s first Irish-American heroes and the birth of the American sports media and the country’s celebrity obsession with athletes.
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