Much of current management literature focuses on a limited set of 'classical' value levers, such as cost reduction, sales optimization or mergers & acquisitions, thus neglecting another core value lever: capital investments. That capital investments receive such limited attention is all the more surprising when one considers how vitally important they are to the economy as a whole as well as individual businesses. There is significant value-creation potential in optimizing capital investments. Investments not only determine the asset structure of a venture. They also enable the introduction of new products structural cost reductions. The book focuses on core questions to be answered in the critical design and realization phase of new investments: Right positioning – does the competitive situation allow the investment to be successful Right technology – how to optimize timing and risks of technology innovations Right timing – how to cope with economic cycles Right size – how to identify the optimum size of an asset Right location – how to find the best location for an asset Right design – how to make investments lean and flexible Right financing – how to structure the investment financing The book features an introductory section that provides an overview of investments across the globe, across industries and across time provides practical advice on how to allocate capital to several projects within a company’s investment portfolio. Optimising Fixed Asset Investment is illustrated with real world examples from a range of industries. This book is essential reading for managers faced with challenges of making individual or portfolio capital investment decisions and who are responsible for managing these capital assets over their entire asset lifecycle. The ideas put forward within the book will help to sharpen the focus of management on the impact capital investments have on the well-being and growth of their companies. Optimizing Fixed Asset Investments is a strategic manual for everyone involved or interested in large fixed-capital investments.
Relying on the extensive study of a multi-national Company, this work proposes a process view of the way firms balance tensions between exploring new knowledge and exploiting old one. First, ideas are generated throughout the organization. These ideas are funneled towards specific project teams that further develop and refine them. Second, projects are assessed by the top management. Agreed projects are then progressively transformed into exploitable products, following a transformative learning process. We then make propositions regarding the role information systems can play in sustaining this process. Regarding the first phase of the cycle, we will focus on systems that help in sustaining idea generation and in balancing explorative and exploitive projects in the technologies portfolio of the firm. Regarding the second phase, we will look at information systems that could be useful in supporting knowledge transfer and knowledge interpretation across a multi-national company.
Based on a conference on Oxidative Stress and Redox Regulation, held at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, this work examines fundamental, chemical, biological and medical studies of free radicals on different targets and the consequences of their reactivity. It covers the chemistry and biochemistry of free radicals, free radicals as second messengers t
This book, edited by one of the most distinguished specialists in the field, provides a comprehensive update on the use of sonography for imaging of the cervical region. All of the new technical modalities are considered in depth, including high-definition gray scale, enhanced color Doppler, and ultrasound contrast agents. Detailed morphological descriptions of numerous pathological processes are provided, followed by thorough discussion of differential diagnostic problems. In addition to presenting the basic information indispensable for physicians dealing with this anatomic region (ENT specialists, endocrinologists, specialists in vascular disease), each chapter reviews the most recent imaging findings with which physicians using sonography should be familiar. The book is original in addressing the examination of a particular anatomic region using a first-line imaging technique. It will have wide appeal and will be of great value to readers.
A major biography of Irène Némirovksy, author of the acclaimed and internationally bestselling Suite Française — with new material never published in English. Irène Némirovksy's own life was as dramatic as any fiction. And few writers enjoy a posthumous resurgence as astonishing as hers after the international triumph of Suite Française. The authors of this fascinating biography have had access to previously unpublished documents and to surviving family members in Russia, researching there her childhood in the Ukraine, and tracing her odyssey first to St Petersburg, where her father was a successful financier, and then, as the family was forced to flee the Russian Revolution, to Finland, Sweden and finally France in 1919. Meticulously researched and passionately felt, this is a remarkable, panoramic biography of an exceptional writer, a moving portrait of a woman and of her extraordinary times, and a sweeping saga of a turbulent period of European history, holding up a mirror to the world of publishing, intellectual thought, society and the darker shadow of prejudice between the wars.
This biography is the first comprehensive volume to delve into the life, scholarship, writing, and hobbies of the famed doctor, for whom Tourette's Syndrome is named. In Part One, we learn Georges' family history, follow his schooling and mentorship under Charcot, travel to the World's Fair of 1900, and evade an attempted assassination, all before succumbing to death by syphilis. Part Two provides an in-depth analysis of his neurological and psychiatric works, notably the eponymous neurological disorder that will forever remain "Tourette's Syndrome." Part Three looks at the lighter side of Georges, inspecting his favorite past-times as poet, historian, and art critic. Part Four brings an extensive bibliography of Georges' complete body of work.
When we imagine the polar regions, we see a largely lifeless world covered in snow and ice where icebergs drift listlessly through frozen waters, like solitary wanderers of the oceans floating aimlessly in total silence. But nothing could be further from the truth. This book takes us into the fascinating world of icebergs and glaciers to discover what they are really like. Through a series of historical vignettes recalling some of the most tragic and most exhilarating encounters between human beings and these gigantic pieces of matter, and through vivid descriptions of their cycles of birth and death, Olivier Remaud shows that these entities are teeming with many forms of life and that there is a deep continuity between iceberg life and human life, a complex web of reciprocal interconnections that can lead from the deadliest to the most vital. And precisely because there is this continuity, icebergs and glaciers tell us something important about life itself – namely, that it thrives in the most unexpected of places, even where there seems to be no life at all. At a time when we are increasingly aware that the melting of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice is one of the many disastrous consequences of global warming, this beautiful meditation is a poignant reminder of the interconnectedness of all life and the fragility of the Earth’s ecosystems.
This book aims to show that fuzzy set theory constitutes a highly expressive framework for modeling preference queries. It presents a study of the algorithmic aspects related to the evaluation of such queries in order to demonstrate that this framework offers a good trade-off between expressivity and efficiency. Numerous examples and proofs are liberally and lucidly demonstrated throughout, and greatly enhance the detailed theoretical aspects explored in the book.
This first-of-its-kind catalog of Elton John’s decades-long career tells the story of one of rock's all-time greatest artists, album-by-album and track-by-track. Organized chronologically and covering every album and song that EGOT-winner Sir Elton Hercules John has ever released, Elton John All the Songs draws upon years of research to tell the behind-the-scenes stories of how each song was written, composed, and recorded, down to the instruments used and the people who played them. Spanning more than fifty-years of work from Elton and his longtime collaborator, Bernie Taupin, this book details the creative processes that resulted in seminal albums like Goodbye Yellowbrick Road, Madman Across the Water, and Tumbleweed Connection, as well as Academy Award wins for 1995's Lion King and 2020's Rocketman. Newer work like The Lockdown Sessions, which released in 2021, is also featured alongside Billboard stats, tour dates, producing and mixing credits, and other insider details that will keep fans turning pages. Starting with the artist's early days working as a studio musician in London, and featuring interviews with actors, musicians, collaborators, and confidantes, Elton John All the Songs offers readers the most detailed portrait of the artist and his creative process that has ever been produced. Featuring hundreds of vivid photographs that celebrate one of music's most visually arresting performers, Elton John All the Songs is the authoritative guide to one of rock'n'roll's greatest stars.
This textbook aims to be a one stop shop for those interested in aerosols and their impact on the climate system. It starts with some fundamentals on atmospheric aerosols, atmospheric radiation and cloud physics, then goes into techniques used for in-situ and remote sensing measurements of aerosols, data assimilation, and discusses aerosol-radiation interactions, aerosol-cloud interactions and the multiple impacts of aerosols on the climate system. The book aims to engage those interested in aerosols and their impacts on the climate system: graduate and PhD students, but also post-doctorate fellows who are new to the field or would like to broaden their knowledge. The book includes exercises at the end of most chapters. Atmospheric aerosols are small (microscopic) particles in suspension in the atmosphere, which play multiple roles in the climate system. They interact with the energy budget through scattering and absorption of solar and terrestrial radiation. They also serve as cloud condensation and ice nuclei with impacts on the formation, evolution and properties of clouds. Finally aerosols also interact with some biogeochemical cycles. Anthropogenic emissions of aerosols are responsible for a cooling effect that has masked part of the warming due to the increased greenhouse effect since pre-industrial time. Natural aerosols also respond to climate changes as shown by observations of past climates and modelling of the future climate.
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the First International Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics, WABI 2001, held in Aarhus, Denmark, in August 2001. The 23 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 50 submissions. Among the issues addressed are exact and approximate algorithms for genomics, sequence analysis, gene and signal recognition, alignment, molecular evolution, structure determination or prediction, gene expression and gene networks, proteomics, functional genomics, and drug design; methodological topics from algorithmics; high-performance approaches to hard computational problems in bioinformatics.
This book addresses artificial materials including photonic crystals (PC) and metamaterials (MM). The first part is devoted to design concepts: negative permeability and permittivity for negative refraction, periodic structures, transformation optics. The second part concerns PC and MM in stop band regime: from cavities, guides to high impedance surfaces. Abnormal refraction, less than one and negative, in PC and MM are studied in a third part, addressing super-focusing and cloaking. Applications for telecommunications, lasers and imaging systems are also explored.
Five historians uncover the ties between people's daily routines and the all-encompassing framework of their lives. They trace the processes of social construction in Western Europe, the United States, Latin America, Africa, and China, discussing both the historical similarities and the ways in which individual history has shaped each area's development. They stress the need for a social history that connects individuals to major ideological, political, and economic transformations.
Dictators, perverts, temperamental or volatile characters, etc. the authors paint the portraits of tyrannical leaders and then formulate proposals about how to reconsider the individual so he can fulfi ll his potential. This work gives managers
An all-in-one reference to the major Home Area Networking, Building Automation and AMI protocols, including 802.15.4 over radio or PLC, 6LowPAN/RPL, ZigBee 1.0 and Smart Energy 2.0, Zwave, LON, BACNet, KNX, ModBus, mBus, C.12 and DLMS/COSEM, and the new ETSI M2M system level standard. In-depth coverage of Smart-grid and EV charging use cases. This book describes the Home Area Networking, Building Automation and AMI protocols and their evolution towards open protocols based on IP such as 6LowPAN and ETSI M2M. The authors discuss the approach taken by service providers to interconnect the protocols and solve the challenge of massive scalability of machine-to-machine communication for mission-critical applications, based on the next generation machine-to-machine ETSI M2M architecture. The authors demonstrate, using the example of the smartgrid use case, how the next generation utilities, by interconnecting and activating our physical environment, will be able to deliver more energy (notably for electric vehicles) with less impact on our natural resources. Key Features: Offers a comprehensive overview of major existing M2M and AMI protocols Covers the system aspects of large scale M2M and smart grid applications Focuses on system level architecture, interworking, and nationwide use cases Explores recent emerging technologies: 6LowPAN, ZigBee SE 2.0 and ETSI M2M, and for existing technologies covers recent developments related to interworking Relates ZigBee to the issue of smartgrid, in the more general context of carrier grade M2M applications Illustrates the benefits of the smartgrid concept based on real examples, including business cases This book will be a valuable guide for project managers working on smartgrid, M2M, telecommunications and utility projects, system engineers and developers, networking companies, and home automation companies. It will also be of use to senior academic researchers, students, and policy makers and regulators.
Praise for previous edition: “...a comprehensive, meticulously-researched study of contemporary international law governing the use of armed force in international relations...' Andrew Garwood-Gowers, Queensland University of Technology Law Review, Volume 12(2) When this first English language edition of The Law Against War published it quickly established itself as a classic. Detailed, analytically rigorous and comprehensive, it provided an indispensable guide to the legal framework regulating the use of force. Now a decade on the much anticipated new edition brings the work up to date. It looks at new precedents arising from the Arab Spring; the struggle against the "Islamic State" in Iraq and Syria; and the conflicts in Ukraine and Yemen. It also reflects the new doctrinal debates surrounding recent state practice. Previous positions are reconsidered and in some cases revised, notably the question of consensual intervention and the very definition of force, particularly, to accommodate targeted extrajudicial executions and cyber-operations. Finally, the new edition provides detailed coverage of the concept of self-defense, reflecting recent interpretations of the International Court of Justice and the ongoing controversies surrounding its definition and interpretation.
Much of current management literature focuses on a limited set of 'classical' value levers, such as cost reduction, sales optimization or mergers & acquisitions, thus neglecting another core value lever: capital investments. That capital investments receive such limited attention is all the more surprising when one considers how vitally important they are to the economy as a whole as well as individual businesses. There is significant value-creation potential in optimizing capital investments. Investments not only determine the asset structure of a venture. They also enable the introduction of new products structural cost reductions. The book focuses on core questions to be answered in the critical design and realization phase of new investments: Right positioning – does the competitive situation allow the investment to be successful Right technology – how to optimize timing and risks of technology innovations Right timing – how to cope with economic cycles Right size – how to identify the optimum size of an asset Right location – how to find the best location for an asset Right design – how to make investments lean and flexible Right financing – how to structure the investment financing The book features an introductory section that provides an overview of investments across the globe, across industries and across time provides practical advice on how to allocate capital to several projects within a company’s investment portfolio. Optimising Fixed Asset Investment is illustrated with real world examples from a range of industries. This book is essential reading for managers faced with challenges of making individual or portfolio capital investment decisions and who are responsible for managing these capital assets over their entire asset lifecycle. The ideas put forward within the book will help to sharpen the focus of management on the impact capital investments have on the well-being and growth of their companies. Optimizing Fixed Asset Investments is a strategic manual for everyone involved or interested in large fixed-capital investments.
The adventures of the Baker Street Irregulars continue in the third volume of the award-winning comics series based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. The Baker Street Four are back in a new adventure full of action and mystery! When Sherlock Holmes tragically disappears into the Reichenbach Falls with Professor Moriarty, his sworn enemy, Billy, Charlie, and Tom—and Watson the cat—must begin a new life without their mentor. But an unexpected encounter brings our young heroes a mysterious kidnapping case. The junior detective team finds itself in a secret war against the former associates of Professor Moriarty, and a series of twists and dangerous pitfalls leads to a terrible tragedy. Nothing will ever be the same for the Baker Street Four! Hailed by critics and audiences, The Baker Street Four has received numerous awards and was featured at Angoulême in 2012. Insight Editions is proud to continue bringing this exciting story to English audiences worldwide.
Relying on the extensive study of a multi-national Company, this work proposes a process view of the way firms balance tensions between exploring new knowledge and exploiting old one. First, ideas are generated throughout the organization. These ideas are funneled towards specific project teams that further develop and refine them. Second, projects are assessed by the top management. Agreed projects are then progressively transformed into exploitable products, following a transformative learning process. We then make propositions regarding the role information systems can play in sustaining this process. Regarding the first phase of the cycle, we will focus on systems that help in sustaining idea generation and in balancing explorative and exploitive projects in the technologies portfolio of the firm. Regarding the second phase, we will look at information systems that could be useful in supporting knowledge transfer and knowledge interpretation across a multi-national company.
The adventures of the Baker Street Irregulars continue in the fourth volume of the award-winning comics series based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. After three years spent waging a secret war against the former associates of Professor Moriarty, it’s time for Sherlock Holmes to emerge from the shadows and once again inhabit Baker Street. But first he must take down the last and most dangerous member of Moriarty’s network: the cold-blooded killer Colonel Moran. While Holmes moves his pawns, Moran releases his dogs, a pack of assassins led by the sinister Deadeye. Will Billy, Charlie, and Tom—and Watson the cat—be able to stop them before it’s too late? Dive into the world of the Baker Street Irregulars and learn about our heroes’ past, including their very first case together! Explore everything from London’s East End to 221B Baker Street, and learn about Sherlock Holmes's most famous cases and Professor Moriarty’s most diabolical secrets. Hailed by critics and audiences, The Baker Street Four has received numerous awards and was featured in Angoulême in 2012. Insight Editions is proud to continue to bring this exciting story to English audiences worldwide.
Based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, The Baker Street Four provides an inside look behind the infamous Baker Street Irregulars. Billy, Charlie, and Tom are inseparable, and for good reason. Filled with con men and scoundrels, London’s East End is not easily survived alone. Fortunately, the three friends—and their faithful feline companion—can count on the protection of Sherlock Holmes, for whom they sometimes act as spies. When Tom’s girlfriend is kidnapped, the Baker Street Irregulars must put their budding sleuthing skills to use. Then, when a Russian immigrant is framed for a Jack the Ripper–inspired crime, our heroes set out to discover the truth and uncover a conspiracy that may go deeper than they ever imagined. Armed with only their quick wit and street smarts, the Baker Street Irregulars must work together to solve mysteries in the nick of time. Make way for the youngest detective team of the Victorian era! Hailed by critics and audiences, The Baker Street Four has received numerous awards and was featured at Angoulême in 2012. Insight Editions is proud to continue to bring this exciting story to English audiences worldwide. Originally published in 2009 by Vents d’Ouest/Glenat Editions.
The stunning graphic novels that inspired the movie Snowpiercer, directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon Ho, starring Chris Evans, and TNT/Netflix TV Series, starring Jennifer Connelly - collected together in a deluxe box-set in English for the very first time! On a future, frozen Earth, a train that never stops circumnavigates the globe. On board: all of humanity that we could save from the great disaster that wrapped the planet in ice. At the front of the train, the survivors live in comfort and luxury - at the rear, their lives are worse than cattle, trapped in the squalid dark. When one of the occupants of the tail breaks through into the main train - all hell follows in his wake! Includes 3 unique, collectable art cards! Collects the 3 original Snowpiercer graphic novels: The Escape, The Explorers, and Terminus.
When we imagine the polar regions, we see a largely lifeless world covered in snow and ice where icebergs drift listlessly through frozen waters, like solitary wanderers of the oceans floating aimlessly in total silence. But nothing could be further from the truth. This book takes us into the fascinating world of icebergs and glaciers to discover what they are really like. Through a series of historical vignettes recalling some of the most tragic and most exhilarating encounters between human beings and these gigantic pieces of matter, and through vivid descriptions of their cycles of birth and death, Olivier Remaud shows that these entities are teeming with many forms of life and that there is a deep continuity between iceberg life and human life, a complex web of reciprocal interconnections that can lead from the deadliest to the most vital. And precisely because there is this continuity, icebergs and glaciers tell us something important about life itself – namely, that it thrives in the most unexpected of places, even where there seems to be no life at all. At a time when we are increasingly aware that the melting of ice sheets, glaciers and sea ice is one of the many disastrous consequences of global warming, this beautiful meditation is a poignant reminder of the interconnectedness of all life and the fragility of the Earth’s ecosystems.
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