A Critical Rewriting of Global Political Economy: Integrating Reproductive, Productive and Virtual Economies (Routledge/Ripe Studies in Global Political Economy)

Book Description

Moving beyond a narrow definition of economics, this pioneering book advances our knowledge of global political economy and how we might critically respond to it.

Two features of the global economy increasingly determine everyday lives worldwide. The first is explosive growth in financial markets that shapes business decision-making and public policy-making, and the second is dramatic growth in informal and flexible work arrangements that shapes income-generation and family well-being. These developments, though widely recognized, are rarely analyzed as inextricable and interacting dimensions of globalization. Using a new theoretical model Peterson demonstrates the interdependence of reproductive, productive, and virtual economies, and analyzes inequalities of race, gender, class, and nation as structural features of neoliberal globalization.

Presenting a methodologically plural, cross-disciplinary and well-documented account of globalization, the author integrates marginalized and disparate features of globalization to provide an accessible narrative from a postcolonial feminist vantage point.

Book Description

Designed for managers, this insightful handbook contains 27 specific guidelines on retaining good employees, maintaining morale in the face of change, and attaining the performance results a manager expects from his or her work group. Business as UnUsual teaches managers how to become a change agent, rebuild morale, pass out "psychological paychecks", re-recruit good people, take care of "me" issues, ride "close herd" on transition and change, and avoid common pitfalls in times of change.

Business as unusual: The handbook for managing and supervising organizational change

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Business as unusual: The handbook for managing and supervising organizational change
Price Pritchett
Manufacturer: Pritchett
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006QHOHU

Book Description

FROM THE PREFACE: Many aspects of range development and improvement have been extensively researched in the United States and Canada since World War II. While this has resulted in a rather voluminous literature on this phase of range science, the data have remained widely scattered in various journals, bulletins, handbooks, and research reports. Although individual chapters in a limited number of textbooks have dealt with range improvements and closely related subjects, no known effort has previously been made to bring this information together under one cover. Range Development and Improvements has as its goal the survey of this scientific field, the selection of principles and results, and the organization of this information into a useful and readily accessible form.
Dr. L. A. Stoddart and Dr. C. Wayne Cook, my former associates in the Department of Range Science, Utah State University, provided the original idea for the textbook on range improvements. My teaching courses in range improvements at Utah State University and Brigham Young University and associated extension and research in the Intermountain Region and in the Great Plains provided the impetus for developing this idea into an active plan. The basis of this book, however, is the written reports of many people in range science and related fields.
The society for Range Management, through its 5500 members, has actively promoted the advancement of grazing land management including improvements. Additional professional organizations associated with weed science, ecology, agronomy, animal science, wildlife science, soil conservation, and farm and ranch management have also promoted certain aspects of range improvements.
A unique interagency organization active in the field of range improvements is the Vegetative Rehabilitation and Equipment Workshop (formerly Range Seeding Equipment Committee). This committee was organized to evaluate and develop better equipment and methods for range seeding, weed and brush control, and related range improvements. In cooperation with private and governmental equipment-development centers, many important contributions have been made on range-improvement equipment. The membership of this committee has come principally from the public land managing agencies but also from various universities, research organizations, and commercial enterprises.
In developing this textbook and reference manual, I have attempted to include both principles and practices. Principles have been emphasized since these are the basis of solving the varied problems found on rangeland and of achieving high levels of productivity. Rigid formulas lack sufficient flexibility for uniform applications. However, stepwise procedures recommended in certain instances have been included to exemplify the adaptation of principles to applied range improvement.
Basic principles provided in this manual should allow its use over broad geographic areas. Regional aspects over the United States and adjacent areas in Canada and Mexico have been emphasized, however. Local aspects of range improvement have frequently been referred to as a means of making geographic association. Helpful comments and suggestions on the content and format of Range Development and Improvements were received from many reviewers. Many of the pictures and drawings used in the book were provided by various agencies, organizations, and individuals; acknowledgement is made in the respective figure captions.
This work should continue to prove useful not only as a textbook but also as a reference manual for ranchers, range technicians, public land administrators, agribusiness personnel, educators, and students. Range improvement is a rapidly advancing phase of range management. Researchers in the state agricultural experiment stations, the Forest and Range Experiment Stations, the USDA-Agricultural Research Service, and various private research foundations are continually adding to information available in this field.

Topics covered include:
* Plant control: biological, mechanical, herbicidal, and physical
* Range seeding and fertilization
* Range animal handling facilities

Book Description

Despite its supreme importance and the threat of its global crash, biodiversity remains poorly understood both empirically and theoretically. This ambitious book presents a new, general neutral theory to explain the origin, maintenance, and loss of biodiversity in a biogeographic context.

Until now biogeography (the study of the geographic distribution of species) and biodiversity (the study of species richness and relative species abundance) have had largely disjunct intellectual histories. In this book, Stephen Hubbell develops a formal mathematical theory that unifies these two fields. When a speciation process is incorporated into Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson's now classical theory of island biogeography, the generalized theory predicts the existence of a universal, dimensionless biodiversity number. In the theory, this fundamental biodiversity number, together with the migration or dispersal rate, completely determines the steady-state distribution of species richness and relative species abundance on local to large geographic spatial scales and short-term to evolutionary time scales.

Although neutral, Hubbell's theory is nevertheless able to generate many nonobvious, testable, and remarkably accurate quantitative predictions about biodiversity and biogeography. In many ways Hubbell's theory is the ecological analog to the neutral theory of genetic drift in genetics. The unified neutral theory of biogeography and biodiversity should stimulate research in new theoretical and empirical directions by ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and biogeographers.

Customer Reviews:

Good theory, poor explication.......2006-10-19

Hubbell's work is interesting and thought-provoking. Unfortunately, his writing ability leaves a lot to be desired. As an applied mathematician working with biologists personally I think you should:
1. Specify your (mathematical) model *without* examples or justifications first.
Hubbell mixes his models with examples and rambling justifications. Poorly constructed ones if you ask me. This makes it hard to pull out what exactly the model is sometimes.
2. Make derivations clear and concise and if complicated put them in appendices. Hubbell does none of these. His mathematical reasoning and writing is far below the standard in science and although impressive for an ecologist, substandard for anyone else. He would have strongly benefitted from having a trained mathematician co-write or at least edit his mathy sections. Many of the results are either well known or would be explained differently by someone trained in the explication of mathematics. The importance of this is huge since the result is sometimes his statements are totally unclear. For example, on page 124 he says "as the sample size increase towards infinity..." This is a sample from a finite sized population. So he should be clear and say either sample with replacement, or also taking the population size to infinity, (which is it!) otherwise it doesn't make sense.

I also find his egoism (common in my experience with ecologists) disappointing. While he may have come up with a new theory of biodiversity, he did not come up with many of the underlying models. Unfortunately, he barely pays any respect to the countless other people who paved the way for his results. For example, his species abundance distribution is just the Ewen's sampling formula from population genetics, derived in 1972. In fact, the model side of the entire theory comes straight out of population genetics. Yes it explains something different, but it would be nice to see something at least some acknowledgement of that (something he is clearly aware of since he cites many of the popgen papers).

Also, the reference list is incomplete and the index is one of the worst I have come across recently. Paying for a good indexer is always worth the money.

In short, the ideas in this book are important, but the book itself is cluttered and not as clear as it could be. So I average 5 stars and 1 star and get 3 stars.

Towards a unified thoery, but not there yet.......2001-09-05

A couple of years ago, Dr. Jim Brown (Univ. New Mexico) wrote an article in the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) website indicating that he had not seen any really significant new ideas in ecology during the last few year. Well, we have one.
In the hierarchy of biological systems, ecology deals with the highest and most complex levels. Explanation for patterns of abundance and distribution of organisms have been either too specific that only applies to a few species or even one, or too general that can not be tested (remember the ghost of competition's past).
Ecologists working at the community level have mostly been guided by the general principle that interactions tend to determine the diversity of communities. On the larger scale of biogeography, researchers considered that local diversity tends to be a function of a regional species pool. This debate became very contested in the early 1980's and continued for almost a decade, without any meaningful progress. Nonetheless, significant achivements in both areas of inquiry were made.
Hubbell takes advantage of the increased large-scale reasearch in community ecology (like the Smithsonian-MAB biodiversity network of plots) coupled with the ever more manipulative and reductionist approach to biogeography. Is important to add here Hubbell's own contribution to biodiversity research is substantial. Furthermore, the originality of the work is what sets this monograph appart from the last few in the series. The application of random walk models (i.e., ecological drift) to the organization of communities is not a truly new approach. What make is unique is that then he incorporates immigration and extinction rates across space (classical MacArthur-Wilson), and can then predict a range of abundances and distributions. He supplies ample data from tropical systems that agree with model's predictions. The more interesting aspect is when the data doesn't agree. Here there is plenty of productive work to be performed.
One point that Hubbell makes concerning the "triviality" of the nuetrality assumption. Can there be cases when the differential survival of individuals lead to deviations from the theory's prediction? I think that the assumption of neutrality is not as trivial as Hubbell makes it.
Overall, is probably one of the most intriguing and original works of the last decade. If you are interested in ecology, biogeography, and even conservation, this book will challenge what you know and how should we look at patterns and process of biodiversity.

Amazon.com

Longtime animal lover Kobie Krüger got a little more than she bargained for when she married a game warden and moved deep into some of South Africa's wildest country.

In The Wilderness Family, Krüger recounts adventures and misadventures with the curious menagerie that shared her turf--and sometimes her roof--in the remote Mahlangeni section of Kruger National Park, which lies in the river-laced country between South Africa and Mozambique. Among the animals she encounters in the pages of her memoir are enterprising hyenas who, for whatever reason, pilfer cookware and blankets; a python that crept into bed with the Krügers on their first night in Mahlangeni; Egyptian goslings raised by a proud but broad-minded bantam hen; and the occasional ill-tempered elephant. Most affecting of all her encounters, however, is her long association with an orphaned lion cub named Leo, whom she and her family raised into adulthood. Leo, whose pastimes included alarming unsuspecting visitors and staring at passing birds in the sky, takes center stage for much of this book, and Krüger's loving portrait is a warm rejoinder to Joy Adamson's Born Free.

Readers who come to this memorable study of life in the African outback will be duly entertained, and those who are planning a trip there will learn a thing or two about how to behave around genets, cobras, rhinos--and, yes, lions. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

Everyone warned Kobie Krüger that being the wife of a game warden at a remote ranger station in South Africa's largest national park would be an arduous move. The heat was unbearable, malaria would be a constant danger, her husband would have to be away for long stretches, there were no schools or nearby doctors for their three daughters, and of course the area teemed with wild animals. Yet for Kobie and her family, the seventeen years at South Africa's Kruger National Park were the most magical of their lives. Now, in The Wilderness Family, Kobie recounts the enchanting adventures and extraordinary encounters they experienced in this vast reserve where wildlife has right of way.

Kobie and her husband Kobus were overwhelmed by the beauty of the Mahlangeni ranger station when they arrived with their little girls in the autumn of 1980. Golden sunshine glowed in the lush garden where fruit bats hung in the sausage trees; hippos basked in the glittering waters of the Letaba River; storks and herons perched along the shore. Kobie felt she had found heaven on earth--until she awoke that first night to find a python slithering silently across her bedroom floor. It was the perfect introduction to the wonders and terrors that awaited her.

As the Krügers settled in, they became accustomed to living in the midst of ravishing splendor and daily surprises. A honey badger they nursed back to health rampaged affectionately through the house. Sneaky hyenas stole blankets and cook pots. Ordinarily placid elephants grew foul-tempered and violent in the summer heat. And one terrible day, the shadow of tragedy fell across the family when a lion attacked Kobus in the bush and nearly killed him.

But nothing prepared the Krügers for the adventure of raising an orphaned lion cub. The cub was only a few days old and on the verge of death when they found him alone. Leo, as the girls promptly named the cub, survived on loads of love and bottles of fat-enriched milk, and soon became an affectionate, rambunctious member of the family. At the heart of the book, Kobie recounts the unique bond that each of the Krügers forged with Leo and their sometimes hilarious endeavor to teach him to become a "real" lion and live with his own kind in the wild.

Writing with deep affection and luminous prose, Kobie Krüger captures here the mystery of untamed Africa--its fathomless skies, soulful landscapes, and most of all, its astonishing array of animals. By turns funny and
heart-breaking, engaging and suspenseful, The Wilderness Family is an unforgettable memoir of a woman, her family, and the amazing game reserve they called home for seventeen incredible years.

Customer Reviews:

Feels like being in Africa.......2007-04-11

Ever since I was a child, I have dreamed of going to visit or to live in Africa. I don't know why. I have this fascination with Africa, its culture, history, and its wildlife. But at my age and with my income the dream may not ever be possible except this one exception.

Wilderness Family is the first book that truly made me feel that I actually living in the bush of Kruger National Park. The stories shared in the book drew you into this family's lives. Rather than looking at them as an outsider peering through the window at their lives, you felt as though you were part of the family.

You could sense Leo the lion, Wolfie their dog and the way those two animals had a real relationship. It was so humorous to see Leo, this growing lion being submissive to the dog and actually thinking it was a dog at times.

It is a book that I will feel a need to pick up and read again and again as my thoughts will surely wonder to Africa and I will use it to slake my desire to be there personally.

I recommend this book to everyone. There is joy, laughter, sadness, all the emotions there is in this book, but it will happen because it dares you to live their lives with them.

Wonderful Book!.......2006-08-06

I agree with all of the earlier reviews of this book - it is a must-read! My family had the privilege of visiting Kruger Park last November. Ms. Kruger does a wonderful job of capturing what it feels like to be there. I highly encourage anyone who can to make the trip - South Africa is a beautiful country that shouldn't be missed.

if there were 10 stars, this book would get them all.......2006-03-18

The question is - where do you go from here? After this book you have to take a break before launching yourself into any other read just because there's so much verve and life to this book, it lingers in you for days. You laugh with it and you cry with it. Extraordinary book!

A Great Escape.......2005-03-06

This is one of my favorite excape reads. I've read it many times and each time get just a bit more out of it as well as the feeling of being there and wishing I was. It's an incredible adventure written with humor and honesty. Life was not easy and it certainly wasn't dull. Ms. Kruger displays the courage and humility it takes to survive, sometimes alone, as part of Africa's protector. The interaction between humans and animals, even the fearful-for-her snakes speaks volumes. It's a book I don't want to end. Imagine raising children to appreciate life in this incredible location! Wonderful.

The biggest problem with non-fiction is no sequels........2004-06-14

Probably one of the most touching and stirring non-fiction books I've ever read, I finished it far too quickly. Kobie Kruger is a very talented author, with a natural talent for engendering empathy to her deepest maternal love for both animals and her children.

Book Description

Carving a huge following from his popular Knife Talk columns in BLADE magazine, Ed Fowler amasses a second volume of columns just as informative and exciting as the first. A veteran knife maker from Wyoming, Fowler presents 65 articles on such topics as function, design, and technique; philosophy; forging and heat-treating; and the outside world. He also discusses industry legends, knife maintenance, the sheep horn style, how to grind blades, hardening vs. tempering, ball bearing steel, and carbon steel.

Customer Reviews:

It IS Knife Talk.......2004-09-26

K. T. II has more information in it that the first. As a collection of articles, it's not a how-to book so much as it is what the title implies. If you want to read about a Master Bladesmith's experiences and opinions mixed in with some good information on functional design and heat cycling methods, this is for you. As for materials, he focuses on bearing steel. He does add signifcant information to his heat treatment methods. I would like more details but totally applaud his attitude of sharing information and real world what works and why. I enjoyed the read and took some notes. You can spend the same money on magazines and not get 1/10th the value.

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Ideas for social purpose

World Volunteers (3rd Edition): The World Guide to Humanitarian and Development Volunteering (World Volunteers: The World Guide to Humanitarian & Development Volu)
Fabio Ausenda , and Erin Mccloskey
Manufacturer: Universe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Volunteer Work | Job Hunting & Careers | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Nonprofit Organizations & Charities | Industries & Professions | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Social Services & Welfare | Poverty | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Philanthropy & Charity | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Directories | Catalogs & Directories | Reference | Subjects | Books
General | Reference | Subjects | Books
General | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
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Volunteer: A Traveler's Guide to Making a Difference Around the World (General Reference) (Lonely Planet General Reference) (Lonely Planet General Reference)

Int'l Directory of Voluntary Work 7/e (International Directory of Voluntary Work, 7th ed)

ASIN: 8889060093
Release Date: 2006-03-07

Book Description

When it comes to humanitarian volunteering, how does one choose the right organization that matches their interest, experience, age and time availability? The World Volunteers guide is a useful tool for people without previous volunteering experience abroad who want to get involved in humanitarian aid projects throughout the world. The projects listed can be either short or long term for professionals who want to take a leave of absence or for retired professionals who want to make their skills and experience available to help others. For young people without volunteering experience abroad, the World Volunteers guide lists many organizations offering work-camps to help familiarize them with development and humanitarian work worldwide. The World Volunteers guide is a one time purchase. Anyone who purchases the guide can receive FREE UPDATES via the internet, plus an extended annotated list of useful websites that allow the reader to find hundreds of additional projects.

Customer Reviews:

Ideas for social purpose.......2007-02-17

What can we do to leave our mark in this world....it isn't anything we can buy, but rather what we have to give. Some good ideas and examples here.

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