Learning from World Class Companies

Book Description

Learning from World Class Companies surveys a wide selection of multi-national corporations including Coca-Cola, American Express, Boeing, General Motors, IBM, Novartis AG, Wal-Mart Stores, Walt Disney and Daimler Chrysler. Each multinational company is profiled with an overview of the corporation and its history, its significant contributions to global business, and the challenges and opportunities facing it in the coming decade. Accompanying each profile is an article from journals and popular press highlighting a recent issue or problem. The companies and articles have been chosen to give the reader an overview of all of the issues relevant to international business today.

Book Description

Written in the same nontechnical and succinct approach as the previous editions, this book introduces nonfinancial managers to the fundamental concepts and skills necessary to manage cost effectively. Concise appendices review the key concepts in economics, accounting, and statistics for professionals without prerequisite knowledge. New material on the following topics:
The financial impact of patient safety
The public's concern about accounting integrity and healthcare's response
The financial implications of the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and
Modernization Act
The need for entitlement reform
The most recent projections on the financial status of the healthcare industry
The costs associated with uncompensated care and how those costs are either shifted to payers or absorbed in the facility's budget

Customer Reviews:

Two sides of a hospital coin........2005-10-30

When you're dealing with hospital finances it's true that you're dealing with a real two-headed sword. On the one sword, you have patient satisfaction to deal with. But on the other we all want to make money. It's why they're called "finances." This book explains all that and more, but from a patient's point of view this book is a flat one. Except for oncology departments, which is where this book sometimes has a heart. And not just a heart for money.

Professor review of book.......2000-10-23

Great book for the first course in a graduate health administration program where no prerequites are required. There is a workbook for the textbook to help verify understanding of concepts and principles. I would order it as well.

The book is also appropriate for health professionals who have been promoted into management positions and now need work with financial information.

Book Description

This major reference work for the first time provides a detailed and comprehensive analysis of the legal status of swap agreements and swap-based products under U.S., U.K. and international and EC law, covering such wide-ranging fields as contract law, banking and financial regulation, taxation and accounting. The author thoroughly analyses the economic substance and economic rationale of swap transactions, which increasingly present the most important determining factors in resolving the complex legal issues concerning swaps and engineered swap structures. Swaps are examined in the context of their broader transactional structure, highlighting the need for legal solutions to be economically efficient. The original nature of this work, together with its comprehensive coverage of this highly technical subject, make it an invaluable resource for both academic lawyers and practitioners active in the field of swap finance.

Book Description

The understanding and management of land resources used by grazing animals are of major importance to ecologists and agricultural and environmental scientists. This book fills a major gap in the market by synthesizing a range of perspectives on grazing systems, drawn from plant science, animal science and ecology. It outlines the principles of herbage growth and competition, of animal nutrition and grazing behavior, and of the interactions of plant and animal factors that are central to an understanding of grazing systems. Chapters on the management of grazing systems cover both intensive and extensive systems (including rangelands) from all major agroecological zones of the world. The book is written by leading authorities from the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Israel and France. It represents a major contribution to the literature for advanced students and research workers concerned with plant science (especially grasslands), animal science (especially ruminants) and natural and agricultural ecosystems.

Decision Support Systems for the Management of Grazing Lands: Emerging Issues (Man and the Biosphere Series)

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Decision Support Systems for the Management of Grazing Lands: Emerging Issues (Man and the Biosphere Series)

Manufacturer: Informa Healthcare
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Decision Support Systems for the Management of Grazing Lands demonstrates how decision support systems can be used in helping with the management of complex environments. Drawing on case studies and recent experience, the book aims to inform scientists, academic and research administrators, granting foundations, international development agencies, and international lending organizations of current DSS development and to foster additional research and training in this area.

Ecosym: Range productivity model development (Ecosym : A classification and information system for wildland resource management)

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Ecosym: Range productivity model development (Ecosym : A classification and information system for wildland resource management)
Thomas C. Jr Roberts
Manufacturer: Utah State University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B00072NO4U

Response of a depleted sagebrush steppe riparian system to grazing control and woody plantings (SuDoc A 13.78:INT-RP-492)

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Response of a depleted sagebrush steppe riparian system to grazing control and woody plantings (SuDoc A 13.78:INT-RP-492)
U.S. Dept of Agriculture
Manufacturer: U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00010SYJ8

Book Description

Here is a critical account of the experimental work of German biologist and Nobel laureate Hans Spemann, one of the founders of experimental embryology. The author, a distinguished developmental biologist, spent almost a decade in Spemann's laboratory. He examines Spemann's work and traces the different lines of investigation which emerged from his mentor's seminal research, and laid the foundation for modern cellular and developmental biology.

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Neither Gould Nor Sagan Will Be Replaced In Our Era

Elegant and erudite

Storytelling Dinosaurs

Filling the Gaps

Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History

Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History
Stephen Jay Gould
Manufacturer: Audio Literature
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Binding: Audio Cassette

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Bully for Brontosaurus: Reflections in Natural History

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The Lying Stones of Marrakech: Penultimate Reflections in Natural History

Ever Since Darwin: Reflections on Natural History

Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History (Norton Paperback)

ASIN: 0787109150

Book Description

Gould's seventh collection of essays covers a wide range of subjects in natural history, literature, and popular culture--from the wisdom of Charles Darwin to that of the Old Testament Psalms, from the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park to the dinosaurs of the latest scientific theories, from the thwarted humanity of the Frankenstein monster to the inhuman fallacies of eugenics and other pseudoscience. With black and white illustrations.

"Here is a new collection of Gould's unexpected connections between evolution and all manner of subjects, literature high among them. Gathered from his monthly column in Natural History magazine, these articles should delight, surprise, and inform his vast readership, as have his six prior volumes of essays. Somehow the light bulb pops on every month as his deadline approaches, some glowing fact pulled out of memory--often a line from Shakespeare or Tennyson--that illumines a generality Gould wishes to discuss. "Nature, red in tooth and claw" (Lord Alfred's line) induces dilations on the extent science can inform moral matters (not much, Gould believes); a remembrance of the infamous Wansee protocol prompts Gould's denunciation of the genocidal looting of evolutionary theory and, by extension, its vulnerability to ignoramuses in general. These two examples of the Gouldian essay method, fortunately, don't foreshadow a gloomy parade of topics: Gould can as easily alight at the fun house where mass culture absorbs ideas about evolution through movies of monsters run amok from Frankenstein to Jurassic Park. In other essays, he plunges directly into matters of evolutionary interpretation but customarily employs a literary twist: who else but Gould could link Edgar Allan Poe with his own area of professional eminence, the paleontology of snails? A discovery awaits in every essay--in every haystack--which solidifies Gould as one of the most eloquent science popularizers writing today."
--Booklist

Customer Reviews:

Neither Gould Nor Sagan Will Be Replaced In Our Era.......2005-08-28

Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History, by Stephen Jay Gould, is one of the twentieth-century's great, approachable thinkers presenting what turned out to be among his final projects. Consisting of a collection of his articles as well as additional thoughts written strictly for this book, Dr. Gould herein tackles topics that range from Poe to the environment, dinosaurs to nautical lore, modern museum architecture, to, yes, of course, his favorite subject, one he rightly or wrongly unfailingly championed to the too-soon end of his days, evolution. These easily-readable and quotable essays are invaluable in this time after this great and good man has left us, and I have re-read this book several times since I first got it as a birthday present in 1995. To be able to make people laugh, think and debate, even after your life has physically ended is not a bad legacy for anyone. Don't let Stephen Jay Gould rest in peace, read this book and stir things up a bit in his name.

Elegant and erudite.......2004-06-10

Gould's 1996 collection of essays for "Natural History" magazine ranges over the broad and varied terrain of his intellect and curiosity, educating and satisfying the reader with elegance, wit and powerful reasoning.

Gould delights in juxtaposing literature and science, the familiar and the unexpected. He chooses "Cordelia's dilemma" - her refusal to compete with her sisters in making loud protestations of love for their father, King Lear - as an analogy for "publication bias" - the reluctance of journals to publish boring negative results in favor of more interesting successful experiments. A positive result in a study of AIDS or cancer treatments wins headlines while later failures to duplicate those results are read by few. And most negative results never see publication at all. "Lear cannot conceptualize the proposition that Cordelia's silence might signify her greater love - that nothing can be the biggest something."

In this collection, Gould divides his essays into eight sections. "Heaven and Earth" includes his marvelous experience of the effect of a solar eclipse on the citizens of New York City, and in "Literature and Science," he ruminates on the moral lesson of Frankenstein and Hollywood's subversion of it.

"Origin, Stability, and Extinction" argues that the Cambrian explosion is even more the "key event" in the history of multicellular animals than previously believed, "Stability" includes "Cordelia's Dilemma," "Extinction" includes the title essay on Darwin's view that "all observation must be for or against some view."

"Writing About Snails" delves into women's Victorian writings (I'm reminded of the value of negative results), "The Glory of Museums" explores "Dinomania" and "The Disparate Faces of Eugenics" revisits the hilarious arguments of an eminent scientist who argued that cancer causes smoking.

"Evolutionary Theory, Evolutionary Stories," explores the arguments of Creationism and the origin of evolutionary science's best one liner (in answer to a question on the nature of the Creator) "an inordinate fondness for beetles," and "Linnaeus and Darwin's Grandfather" uses the whimsical observation of the "curious conjunction" of Linnaeus and Gustav III on a Swedish banknote to explore the scientist's classification theories (still used today) and his adherence to a religious Creationism.

Certain themes recur in these essays. Gould is a staunch evolutionist and defends Darwin's theories vigorously, even when pointing out mistakes and misconceptions. He takes Creationism seriously - as a threat to scientific reasoning. His interest in natural history extends to the history of human thinking about nature and science.

His essays are beautifully crafted, full of literary allusions, anecdotes and turns of wit but always to the point. He loves tracking down the precise source and context of oft-used quotes as much as he enjoys tracing the origin of flatworms, and manages to arouse his reader's interest in both. He is not a writer of wasted words. Best of all, Gould's essays are always as thought provoking as they are entertaining.

Storytelling Dinosaurs.......2003-04-16

Evolution is probably the most exciting natural
truth that science has ever discovered.
And Stephen Jay Goulds essays tells about it
with an infectious enthusiasm. On the way everything
from flat earth myths to ancient Greece and
men like Diogenes the Cynic gets their say.
Rigorous and numerous historical details makes it
a serious, but fun read.
All in all, it is all about the nature and essence
of humanity.
How sad that Stephen Jay Gould is no more.
But at least we have his books!

-Simon

Filling the Gaps.......2002-12-08

This is a review by a non-paleontologist and non-biologist, just by someone interested in science since he was a child in the 60's. All my life I have followed the marvels of Space science, the moon shots and Aviation in general, since subscribing to the Eyring e-mail list, I have found I lack basic knowledge in the fields required to discuss Evolution. Now I have finally done something about it, although some of you may have given recommendations as to what to read, my local library limits me, so I am starting with Stephen Jay Gould, whose recent passing was noted on this very list.
Dinosaur in a Haystack, Reflections in Natural History, (Stephen Jay Gould: 1996 Random House and various issues of Nature magazine).
This is a review of a collection of Essays published in Nature Magazine before 1996 I should imagine. I would have liked the editors to include the original publication dates in Nature with each essay. The essays themselves revolve, sometimes loosely, on the topic of evolution; he always relates it back to that somewhere in the essay.
For someone like myself, a complete novice in the fields discussed by Gould, his style of writing is informative without the jargon that sometimes cloud the specialties us humans undertake from the mere mortals in the lower classes. Gould explains:
"I will, of course, clarify language, mainly to remove the jargon that does impede public access... I will not make concepts either more simple or more unambiguous than nature's own complexity dictates."
I am happy he has done just that, in his 7th in this series of essay collections, the first one published in 1977 (Ever Since Darwin).
All the essays revolve around that topic I am trying to understand, "Evolution." I decided to start with Gould, because of his readily available material at my local library and his prominence in his field. The continuing argument between theology and science on "the origin of man" and hence the oxymoronic term "creation science" was coined by the proponents, or at least, the more prominent proponents of the biblical literal view of the world. Being a Christian, I felt I should find out the truth!
Now, back to Gould, two essays gained my interest for clearly pointing out two points of discussion between Old School and New School on the one hand and between Evolution and Creationists (a better word, don't you think?).
The first is "Dinosaur in a Haystack," the second, "Hooking Leviathan by its Past".
Dinosaur in a Haystack
Observation follows theory or is it theory follows observation? Gould explains how at the time of Erasmus Darwin (Grandfather of Charles Darwin), the Geological Society banned theoretical discussion. It was felt that observation was essential, when sufficient data was collected, and then theories could be entertained. When Charles Darwin came to the discussion some 30 years later, he then indicated the necessity for theory before observation. After all, how we look at the world is based on a theory, what we go out in search of is based on theory, etc. The two are dependant on each other and cannot be separated without making each meaningless.
Thus we come to Gould's paleontology field and the theory of The Late Permian Debacle, and how an asteroid hitting the Earth caused it. The great extinction at this time was a matter of how extant it was amongst the fossil species and, of course, what contradicted it.
The evidence pointed to a gradual extinction of the animals over geologic times. The new theory required additional evidence. Gould tells us about the ammonites ( a name which sounded like a Biblical tribe) and how they had appeared, given the current evidence and how a more thorough look, in the field, at the fossil record (needle in the haystack) might bring up ammonites closer to the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (225 million years ago).
The problem is described as this, the rarer animals in the virtual slice of time take at a geological cut, cliff face, or whatever, may be distributed randomly and infrequently through it. Thus, it is conceivable that they did expire at the KT event, indicated by a layer of mud, literally dividing two epochs of time, rather than at the latest recorded disposition in the strata. If the above is true, then a more detailed look, excavation, needs to be made. The end result was the finding of the ammonites near the boundary, and thus dispelling the gradualism of the neo-Darwinists amongst the palaeontological world.
We know the fossil record is incomplete and sparse, so some logical; indeed, rational analysis is needed to flesh out theories. This means, sometimes, hard work, which makes the armchair theorists obsolete in a heartbeat.
Hooking Leviathan by its Past.
Or, another case of filling in the gaps!!!
He starts the essay with a serious error by Darwin himself, who speculated that the North American Black Bear, swimming with its mouth wide open catching insects, could easily, over a serious long time, evolve to something approaching a whale. The origin of the whale thus is introduced.
This is case where the creationists insisted that evolution was inadequate to explaining life; in this case it was the origins of the leviathan of the deep, the mammalian whales that confused these poor people.
"Still, our creationist incubi, who would never let facts spoil a favorite argument, refuse to yield, and continue to assert the absence of all transitional forms by ignoring those that have been found, and continuing to taunt us with admittedly frequent examples of absence."
Are you a "creationist incubi"?
Gould takes us through the discovery of the very intermediate fossils that prove the evolution of whales, where it had been inferred, now it is established beyond a doubt. With Gould's now famous explanatory skills we are taken for a journey of exploration in Pakistan (Science knows no national boundaries) where 1983 produced Pakicetus, a discovery by paleontologists Phil Gingerich (University of Michigan) and N. A. Wells, D. E. Russel, and S. M. Ibrahim Shah, found it buried in ancient river sediments, where one would expect to find it. The find was only the skull, but further field work produced the remaining body 10 years later. An excellent essay, and one that will remain embedded in my cranium for sometime.
I am currently furthering my reading in this field of paleontology with a taxonomic dalliance into Eugenics, lead by the 3 essays under the heading "Disparate Faces of Eugenics" in this same book to Gould's 1981 book "The Mismeasure of Man".
I highly recommend Dinosaur in a Haystack, and if that is any guide to the style of Gould's work, his other writing should be quite enlightening.
Clifford M Dubery

Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History.......2002-03-07

Stephen Jay Gould has a way of bringing out our minds and making us think... Dinosaur in a Haystack is just such a work. These thirty-four essays are what exemplifies Gould's infectiously brilliant and playful intelligence. This book is about evolution and other natural phenomena, but with Gould's trademark twist.

Some of the essays are short stories in their own right with a mystery central to the theme, others are alluring with detail only a professor might want to instill. Thought provoking, unpredictable trajectories, theoretical arguments all fit into the realm of Gould, who can be described as a cunning polemicist, self-indulgent or one of America's Living Legends, but never boring... maybe verbose, but I'll give him that for the detail he brings to his writing.

Dinosaur in a Haystack gives us a book written for the layperson, but a person with a proclivity toward a scientific bent would be of help. There are rigorous and numerous historical details, but Gould has a propensity to contextualize thoroughly, thus imparting the receptive reader, an intrinsic but intuitive knowledge.

If you want to be educated about natural history or phenomena, Gould's musing are right up your alley. Gould is one of todays leading evolutionary thinkers. This book is the product of one of the most fertile minds of our time.

I highly recommend reading this book... not that it is just accessible or stimulating... it is enlightening.

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DINOSAUR IN A HAYSTACK. REFLECTIONS IN NATURAL HISTORY.
S. Gould
Manufacturer: Harmony Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WQ5DW2

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Excellent popular science

Punctuated evolution

Dinosaur In A Haystack: Reflections in Natural History
Stephen Jay Gould
Manufacturer: Harmony Books/Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000J63MVO

Customer Reviews:

Excellent popular science.......2007-08-22

Stephen Jay Gould wrote essays for the Natural History magazine, once a month, for 27 years. The essays have been published in book format: this is number seven in the series of ten books. It's also the only one in the series that has been translated to Finnish.

Gould is an excellent writer of popular science. He doesn't make things too simple, but instead writes like he would write to his peers, just replacing the professional language with something more understandable. Based on this book, it's a good approach. Any intellectually curious person should be able to read and enjoy this book and be challenged.

What's it about? Mostly evolution, Gould's specialty, but also history of science, natural history, statistics, creationists... Gould covers lots of ground and plenty of interesting topics around these central themes. He can draw quite surprising connections between things. I've rarely read popular science this charming. This is highly recommended! (Review based on the Finnish translation.)

Punctuated evolution.......2006-11-11

I had read some of the earlier works and was planning to read disassociated unique ideas. "Oranges" by John A. McPhee ISBN: 0374226881 is just that way (a little history, a little myth, and maybe some economics.) or a continuing string of thought like "The Ascent of Man" by Jacob Bronowski.
What I found was something surprisingly unique. I never realized how coherent reflections could be. Like the columnist, Dave Berry, Stephen Jay Gould would start out with the most innocent of statements and parlay that into an earth shattering reflection. And just as you think he is going way out in left field, he ties it all together. And each chapter is summed up and is tied to one whole reflection on natural history.
You will never look at snails with the same twist again.

Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History.

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Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History.

Manufacturer: 0
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000ICHF5S

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Dinosaur In A Haystack - Reflections In Natural History
Stephen Jay Gould
Manufacturer: Penguin Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KKBSS8

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Dinosaur in a Haystack : Reflections in Natural History
Stephen Jay Gould
Manufacturer: Harmony Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8A7LU

Book Description

This book presents recent advances in the field of nanoscale characterization of ferroelectric materials using scanning probe microscopy (SPM). It addresses various imaging mechanisms of ferroelectric domains in SPM, quantitative analysis of the piezoresponse signals as well as basic physics of ferroelectrics at the nanoscale level, such as nanoscale switching, scaling effects, and transport behavior. This state-of-the-art review of theory and experiments on nanoscale polarization phenomena will be a useful reference for advanced readers as well for newcomers and graduate students interested in the SPM techniques. The non-specialists will obtain valuable information about different approaches to electrical characterization by SPM, while researchers in the ferroelectric field will be provided with details of SPM-based measurements of ferroelectrics.

Customer Reviews:

A welcome anthology of a neglected near-genius........1999-01-26

If John Jay Chapman is remembered at all these days, it is as an eccentric who once thrust his left hand into a coal fire in penance for mistakenly beating up a friend. This is as if Vincent Van Gogh were to be remembered only for cutting off one of his ears.Chapman was, in fact a brilliant and passionate writer in many genres, an unrelenting foe of social injustice,and a penetrating critic of American philstinism and materialism.The last anthology of Chapmans writings appeared in the late nineteen fifties , and was edited by Jacques Barzun, who has supplied a fine ,judicious introduction to the present collection.A welcome feature of the present volume is a selection of Chapmans unpublished letters--some of the finest everwritten. One of them includes one of the most brilliant and succinct analyses of Lincolns life and character that I have ever read. One can only hope that a Chapman revival will take place, and that someone will eventually get around to doiing similar anthologies for Sydney Smith or Albert Jay Nock.

The Unbought Spirit: A John Jay Chapman Reader.(Review): An article from: New Criterion

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The Unbought Spirit: A John Jay Chapman Reader.(Review): An article from: New Criterion
Gerald J. Russello
Manufacturer: Foundation for Cultural Review
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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This digital document is an article from New Criterion, published by Foundation for Cultural Review on January 1, 1999. The length of the article is 1210 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Unbought Spirit: A John Jay Chapman Reader.(Review)
Author: Gerald J. Russello
Publication: New Criterion (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 1999
Publisher: Foundation for Cultural Review
Volume: 17 Issue: 5 Page: 74(1)

Article Type: Book Review

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