Blockchain is transforming business. What's your strategy? Leaders of forward-thinking organizations are exploring how blockchain can transform the way they create and seek value. Whether it's used to streamline multiparty processes, create and trade new assets, or leverage artificial intelligence and the internet of things, blockchain enables entirely new business opportunities. This is just the start. As blockchain becomes more widely adopted, it has the potential to radically change the way companies and societies operate, as transformative a paradigm shift as the launch of the internet. The Real Business of Blockchain is one of the first books on this transformative technology written for business leaders. Authors David Furlonger and Christophe Uzureau--both of Gartner, the world-renowned research and advisory company--will help you: Assess how blockchain will impact your business Explore the value proposition that blockchain offers Make smart near- and midterm investments Position your organization in a new competitive landscape Timely, visionary, and accessible, The Real Business of Blockchain cuts through the hype and helps you unlock the vast capabilities of this powerful and potentially world-changing technology.

No data is completely safe. Cyberattacks on companies and individuals are on the rise and growing not only in number but also in ferocity. And while you may think your company has taken all the precautionary steps to prevent an attack, no individual, company, or country is safe. Cybersecurity can no longer be left exclusively to IT specialists. Improving and increasing data security practices and identifying suspicious activity is everyone's responsibility, from the boardroom to the break room. Cybersecurity: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review brings you today's most essential thinking on cybersecurity, from outlining the challenges to exploring the solutions, and provides you with the critical information you need to prepare your company for the inevitable hack. The lessons in this book will help you get everyone in your organization on the same page when it comes to protecting your most valuable assets. Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind? Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues--blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more--each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas--and prepare you and your company for the future.

Influence action through data! This is not a book. It is a one-of-a-kind immersive learning experience through which you can become--or teach others to be--a powerful data storyteller. Let's practice! helps you build confidence and credibility to create graphs and visualizations that make sense and weave them into action-inspiring stories. Expanding upon best seller storytelling with data's foundational lessons, Let's practice! delivers fresh content, a plethora of new examples, and over 100 hands-on exercises. Author and data storytelling maven Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic guides you along the path to hone core skills and become a well-practiced data communicator. Each chapter includes: ? Practice with Cole: exercises based on real-world examples first posed for you to consider and solve, followed by detailed step-by-step illustration and explanation ? Practice on your own: thought-provoking questions and even more exercises to be assigned or worked through individually, without prescribed solutions ? Practice at work: practical guidance and hands-on exercises for applying storytelling with data lessons on the job, including instruction on when and how to solicit useful feedback and refine for greater impact The lessons and exercises found within this comprehensive guide will empower you to master--or develop in others--data storytelling skills and transition your work from acceptable to exceptional. By investing in these skills for ourselves and our teams, we can all tell inspiring and influential data stories!

A strategic and operational guide to using 3D printing to drive value in the supply chain--featuring case studies and illustrated examples from across industries  After many years as a tool for designers, 3D printing today promises to revolutionize supply chains. Cut through the hype and hyperbole, and it becomes clear that it offers unprecedented potential to redesign supply chain models, simplifying and shrinking them, enabling previously unimaginable designs to be produced where they are most needed. However, adopting it is a strategic endeavor, one that involves the consideration of several wider implications. This book goes beyond touting the latest technological advances or listing the many wonderful things that 3D printing is being used to make. It teaches readers what is important about 3D printing, why they need to prepare for its emergence today, and how they can go about adopting it. Supercharg3d: How 3D Printing Will Drive Your Supply Chain shows readers how to drive value in their supply chain by supercharging it--giving it more power--with 3D printing. Aimed at being a first reference for those in businesses who make strategic decisions on operations and supply chain matters, it takes a pragmatic position, balancing the opportunities that 3D printing presents with the reality of the limitations that it continues to have, so that readers can make the best decisions possible. Strategic guide that covers 3D printing and its implications in the supply chain Operational guidance and best practices for how and when 3D printing can be adopted Identification of 3D printing's impacts on the individual SCOR® supply chain elements Features new, transformative supply chain models that are enabled by 3D printing Includes case studies and illustrated examples from diverse industries including aerospace (Airbus), energy (Shell), consumer goods (Nike), medical (Align Technology) and transportation (Deutsche Bahn) Supercharg3d: How 3D Printing Will Drive Your Supply Chain is the go-to book for operations and supply chain decision makers in manufacturing, engineering and technology companies looking to incorporate the technology into their business operations.

The beautiful Caribbean basin is fertile ground for a study of capitalism past and present. Transnational corporations move money and labor around the region, as national regulations are reworked to promote conditions benefiting private capital. Globalizing the Caribbean offers a probing account of the region's experience of economic globalization while considering gendered and racialized social relations and the frequent exploitation of workers.Jeb Sprague focuses on the social and material nature of this new era in the history of world capitalism. He combines an historical overview of capitalism in the region with theoretical analysis backed by case studies. Sprague elaborates upon the role of class formation and the restructuring of local states. He considers both U.S. hegemony, and how various upsurges from below and crises occur. He examines the globalization of the cruise ship and mining businesses, looks at the growth of migrant labor and reverse flow of remittances, and describes the evolving role of export processing and supranational associations. In doing so, Sprague shows how transnationally oriented elites have come to rule the Caribbean, and how capitalist globalization in the region occurs alongside shifting political, institutional, and organizational dynamics.

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) highlight the potential of this technology to affect productivity, growth, inequality, market power, innovation, and employment. This volume seeks to set the agenda for economic research on the impact of AI. It covers four broad themes: AI as a general purpose technology; the relationships between AI, growth, jobs, and inequality; regulatory responses to changes brought on by AI; and the effects of AI on the way economic research is conducted. It explores the economic influence of machine learning, the branch of computational statistics that has driven much of the recent excitement around AI, as well as the economic impact of robotics and automation and the potential economic consequences of a still-hypothetical artificial general intelligence. The volume provides frameworks for understanding the economic impact of AI and identifies a number of open research questions. Contributors: Daron Acemoglu, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Philippe Aghion, Collège de France Ajay Agrawal, University of Toronto Susan Athey, Stanford University James Bessen, Boston University School of Law Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT Sloan School of Management Colin F. Camerer, California Institute of Technology Judith Chevalier, Yale School of Management Iain M. Cockburn, Boston University Tyler Cowen, George Mason University Jason Furman, Harvard Kennedy School Patrick Francois, University of British Columbia  Alberto Galasso, University of Toronto Joshua Gans, University of Toronto Avi Goldfarb, University of Toronto Austan Goolsbee, University of Chicago Booth School of Business Rebecca Henderson, Harvard Business School Ginger Zhe Jin, University of Maryland Benjamin F. Jones, Northwestern University Charles I. Jones, Stanford University Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University Anton Korinek, Johns Hopkins University Mara Lederman, University of Toronto Hong Luo, Harvard Business School John McHale, National University of Ireland Paul R. Milgrom, Stanford University Matthew Mitchell, University of Toronto Alexander Oettl, Georgia Institute of Technology Andrea Prat, Columbia Business School Manav Raj, New York University Pascual Restrepo, Boston University Daniel Rock, MIT Sloan School of Management Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University Robert Seamans, New York University Scott Stern, MIT Sloan School of Management Betsey Stevenson, University of Michigan Joseph E. Stiglitz. Columbia University Chad Syverson, University of Chicago Booth School of Business Matt Taddy, University of Chicago Booth School of Business Steven Tadelis, University of California, Berkeley Manuel Trajtenberg, Tel Aviv University Daniel Trefler, University of Toronto Catherine Tucker, MIT Sloan School of Management Hal Varian, University of California, Berkeley

This book provides extensive insights and analysis into pricing models for autonomous manufacturing. Taking a cost engineering approach, it shows how businesses facing technological change can provide visibility to pricing sensitivity and maximize price, and profit in every transaction. The book pulls together the many elements of cost engineering; cost estimation, cost control, business planning and management, profitability analysis, cost risk analysis and project management, planning, and scheduling, and considers the many different approaches and methods for estimating or assessing costs. It aims to help companies with decision making, cost management, and budgeting with respect to product development, and highlights the importance of cost estimation during the early stages of product development. A discussion of appropriate pricing models is also included to determine the most effective course for handling operational costs in autonomous manufacturing systems in order to create a more productive and profitable system.  Cost Engineering and Pricing in Autonomous Manufacturing Systems will provide new insights for researchers and students, as well as industrial practitioners interested in applied models which can be employed and implemented in real cases.

Nowhere is the study of workplace ethics more relevant today than in the context of empowering organizations to meet their goals in corporate social responsibility and sustainability (CSR/S). Aimed at helping organizations uphold their commitments to people and the planet as well as profit, these are core goals towards which both PR and HR departments now work.  However one major stumbling block is the fact that while internal departments may regularly work closely when managing and communicating with employees, the communication flow tends to be top down. In order to create more socially responsible, sustainable, and ethical organizations, the communication flow must be more organic and bilateral. The question of how both teams could work together on a more even playing field has escaped scholarly inquiry for years.  Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, & Ethical Public Relations: Strengthening Synergies with Human Resourcesexamines ways to make CSR/S an integrated ingredient and ethical hallmark for an organization's culture. Here authors from around the globe use a variety of research methods to offer practical, empirical findings, exploring opportunities for employees to serve as a conduit for organizations' CSR/S goals. This book shows how HR-PR department cooperation can fulfil the role of organizational conscience, helping for-profits and non-profits to navigate toward greater CSR/S.

Finalist in the Business/Personal Finance category of the 2019 International Book Awards Every day, people around the world make financial decisions. They choose to invest in a stock, sell their holdings in a mutual fund or buy a condominium. These decisions are complex and financially tricky?even for financial professionals. But the literature available on financial research is dated and narrowly focused without any real practical application. Until now there's been a gap in the literature: a book that shows you how to conduct a step by step comprehensive financial investigation that ends in a decision. This book gives you that how. Investing in Financial Research is a guidebook for conducting financial investigations and lays out Cheryl Strauss Einhorn's AREA Method?a research and decision-making system that uniquely controls for bias, focuses on the incentives of others and expands knowledge while improving judgement?and applies it to investigating financial situations. AREA is applicable to all sorts of financial sleuthing, whether for investment analysis or investigative journalism. It allows you to be the expert in your own life. The AREA Method provides you with: *Defined tasks that guide and focus your research on your vision of success; *A structure that isolates your sources, giving you insight into their perspectives, biases and incentives; *Investigative resources, tips and techniques to upgrade your research and analysis beyond document-based sources; *Exercises to foster creativity and originality in your thinking; *A sequence and framework that brings your disparate pieces of research together to build your confidence and conviction about your financial decision.

Everywhere you look, there are signs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. R&D on leading digital technologies is conducted around the world, exploring novel technologies aimed at cyber-physical systems, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain, 3D Printing, Virtual Reality, AI, and many more. With these rapid changes in technology comes social evolution and the potential for future social crises.   Understanding Industry 4.0: AI, the Internet of Things, and the Future of Worklooks to determine the most probable oncoming changes in key areas of the economy, to highlight the most important professions of the future, and to offer recommendations for their correct selection and successful mastering. Including sections on careers in education, medicine, R&D, and agriculture, among others, economics experts Bruno S. Sergi, Elena G. Popkova, Aleksei V. Bogoviz, and Tatiana N. Litvinova explore the vastly changing modern workplace and offer a guide to navigating through and adapting to this evolution.   For researchers and students of management, economics, and business, this is an unmissable exploration of the new frontier of Industry 4.0.

"I wish every Democratic candidate would read this book. It is a highly intelligent, fact-based defense of the virtues of an open, competitive economy and society." --Fareed Zakaria, CNN With the winds of trade war blowing as they have not done in decades, and Left and Right flirting with protectionism, a leading economist forcefully shows how a free and open economy is still the best way to advance the interests of working Americans. Globalization has a bad name. Critics on the Left have long attacked it for exploiting the poor and undermining labor. Today, the Right challenges globalization for tilting the field against advanced economies. Kimberly Clausing faces down the critics from both sides, demonstrating in this vivid and compelling account that open economies are a force for good, not least in helping the most vulnerable. A leading authority on corporate taxation and an advocate of a more equal economy, Clausing agrees that Americans, especially those with middle and lower incomes, face stark economic challenges. But these problems do not require us to retreat from the global economy. On the contrary, she shows, an open economy overwhelmingly helps. International trade makes countries richer, raises living standards, benefits consumers, and brings nations together. Global capital mobility helps both borrowers and lenders. International business improves efficiency and fosters innovation. And immigration remains one of America's greatest strengths, as newcomers play an essential role in economic growth, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Closing the door to the benefits of an open economy would cause untold damage. Instead, Clausing outlines a progressive agenda to manage globalization more effectively, presenting strategies to equip workers for a modern economy, improve tax policy, and establish a better partnership between labor and the business community. Accessible, rigorous, and passionate, Open is the book we need to help us navigate the debates currently convulsing national and international economics and politics.

The world has become increasingly networked and unpredictable. Decision makers at all levels are required to manage the consequences of complexity every day. They must deal with problems that arise unexpectedly, generate uncertainty, are characterised by interconnectivity, and spread across traditional boundaries. Simple solutions to complex problems are usually inadequate and risk exacerbating the original issues. Leaders of international bodies such as the UN, OECD, UNESCO and WHO -- and of major business, public sector, charitable, and professional organizations -- have all declared that systems thinking is an essential leadership skill for managing the complexity of the economic, social and environmental issues that confront decision makers. Systems thinking must be implemented more generally, and on a wider scale, to address these issues. An evaluation of different systems methodologies suggests that they concentrate on different aspects of complexity. To be in the best position to deal with complexity, decision makers must understand the strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches and learn how to employ them in combination. This is called critical systems thinking. Making use of over 25 case studies, the book offers an account of the development of systems thinking and of major efforts to apply the approach in real-world interventions. Further, it encourages the widespread use of critical systems practice as a means of ensuring responsible leadership in a complex world. Comments on a previous version of the book: Russ Ackoff: 'the book is the best overview of the field I have seen' JP van Gigch: 'Jackson does a masterful job. The book is lucid ...well written and eminently readable' Professional Manager (Journal of the Chartered Management Institute): 'Provides an excellent guide and introduction to systems thinking for students of management'

Artificial Intelligence for the Internet of Everything considers the foundations, metrics and applications of IoE systems. It covers whether devices and IoE systems should speak only to each other, to humans or to both. Further, the book explores how IoE systems affect targeted audiences (researchers, machines, robots, users) and society, as well as future ecosystems. It examines the meaning, value and effect that IoT has had and may have on ordinary life, in business, on the battlefield, and with the rise of intelligent and autonomous systems. Based on an artificial intelligence (AI) perspective, this book addresses how IoE affects sensing, perception, cognition and behavior. Each chapter addresses practical, measurement, theoretical and research questions about how these "things" may affect individuals, teams, society or each other. Of particular focus is what may happen when these "things" begin to reason, communicate and act autonomously on their own, whether independently or interdependently with other "things".

At a time when globalization is taking a step backward, what's the best way to organize a global enterprise? The key, explains political economist Steven Weber, is to prepare for a world increasingly made up of competing regions defined by their own rules and standards. Globalization has taken a hit as trade wars and resistance to mass migrations dominate headlines. Are we returning to the old world of stand-alone nations? Political economist Steven Weber argues that we are heading toward something new. Global connectedness will not dissolve but will be defined by "regional" blocs, demarcated more by the rules and standards they follow than by territory. For leaders of firms and NGOs with global ambitions, navigating this transformation is the strategic challenge of the decade. Not long ago, we thought the world was flattening out, offering a level playing field to organizations striving for worldwide reach. As global economic governance expanded, firms shifted operations to wherever was most efficient--designing in one country and buying, manufacturing, and selling in others. Today, the world looks bumpier, with rising protectionism, national struggles over data control, and tensions over who should set worldwide standards. Expect emerging regional blocs to be dominated by the major rule-makers: the US, China, and possibly the EU. Firms and NGOs will need to remake themselves by building complete, semi-independent organizations in each region. Every nation will choose which rule-maker it wants to align with, and it may not be the one next door. This new world has the potential to be more prosperous, Weber argues, but friction between the dynamics of geography and technology will make it more risky. Pioneering research, creative thinking, and colorful storytelling from the frontlines of the global economy combine to make this a must-read for leaders and analysts facing tomorrow's world.

This Handbook responds to the needs and aspirations of current and future generations of development economists by providing critical reference material alongside or in relation to mainstream propositions. Despite the potential of globalisation in accelerating growth and development in low and middle-income countries through the spread of technology, knowledge and information, its current practice in many parts of the world has led to processes that are socially, economically and politically and ecologically unsustainable. It is critical for development economists to engage with the pivotal question of how to change the nature and course of globalisation to make it work for inclusive and sustainable development. Applying a critical and pluralistic approach, the chapters in this Handbook examine economics of development paths under globalisation, focusing on sustainable development in social, environmental, institutional and political economy dimensions. It aims at advancing the frontier of development economics in these key aspects and generating more refined policy perspectives. It is critically reflective in examining effects of globalisation on development paths to date, and in terms of methodological and analytical approaches, as well as forward-thinking in policy perspectives with a view to laying a foundation for sustainable development.

Market process theory illustrates how the market is the most effective institution for overcoming the knowledge problem. Specifically, the institutional characteristics of private property, monetary prices, and the disciplining mechanisms of profit and loss, guide actors to utilize knowledge dispersed among society, to allocate resources effectively, and to adjust their behavior when errors occur to provide valuable goods and services to society. The chapters in this manuscript explore, through applications to issues within the United States and internationally, contemporary issues in public policy through the theoretical framework of knowledge problems and market process economics. Utilizing this approach, as well as other fundamental insights from economics, these chapters aim to illustrate how individuals in society address pressing public issues, the problems faced by policymakers, and the potential for novel solutions to policy challenges. Authored by individuals from a variety of disciplines with interests in public policy, this work includes discussions of education, child welfare, urban planning, and U.S. healthcare policy, as well as topics in e-commerce, the Global War on Terror, international trade, and economic development.

Exploring the relationship between cultural heritage and local economic development, this book introduces the original idea that one possible mediator between the two can be identified as creativity. Using a strong theoretical and empirical framework, Silvia Cerisola explores how cultural heritage, creativity and economic development are inextricably linked. This book is a clear econometric demonstration of how cultural heritage, through its inspirational role on different creative talents, generates an indirect positive effect on local economic development. These positive results justify important new policy recommendations in the field of cultural heritage. Interpreting both creativity and cultural heritage in a novel way, the author offers a new reading of the long lasting debate on the topic, examining different perspectives and impacts on the welfare of the local community. Regional science scholars will greatly appreciate the original conceptual framework and the empirical foundations of the book, as well as the thorough explanation of different approaches to the measurement of creativity. Policy-makers and stakeholders will also benefit from the case studies highlighting the importance of cultural heritage.

Firmly rooted in the International Political Economy (IPE) tradition, this book addresses the negative consequences of globalisation, what is termed here the 'dark side of globalisation'. It explores different definitions of globalisation, whether the globalisation we have seen since the 1970s is substantially new, and to what extent it can be governed. Building on these foundations, the work assesses the prospects for de-globalisation. By focusing on this dark side of globalistion, the authors show how the global economic crisis, and its various local and sectorial manifestations, intensified - rather than generated - existing trends. This scholarship provides an account of the current predicament that is both more complex and more persuasive than the opposition between globalisation and de-globalisation.

This book comprehensively outlines what a holistic and effective Root Cause Analysis (RCA) system looks like. From the designing of the support infrastructure to the measuring of effectiveness on the bottom-line, this book provides the blueprint for making it happen. While traditionally RCA is viewed as a reactive tool, the authors will show how it can be applied proactively to prevent failures from occurring in the first place. RCA is a key element of any successful Reliability Engineering initiative. Such initiatives are comprised of equipment, process and human reliability foundations. Human reliability is critical to the success of a true RCA approach. This book explores the anatomy of a failure (undesirable outcome) as well as a potential failure (high risks). Virtually all failures are triggered by errors of omission or commission by human beings. The methodologies described in this book are applicable to any industry because the focus is on the human being's ability to think through why things go wrong, not on the industry or the nature of the failure. This book correlates reliability to safety as well as human performance improvement efforts. The author has provided a healthy balance between theory and practical application, wrapping up with case studies demonstrating bottom-line results. Features Outlines in detail every aspect of an effective RCA 'system' Displays appreciation for the role of understanding the physics of a failure as well as the human and system's contribution Demonstrates the role of RCA in a comprehensive Asset Performance Management (APM) system Explores the correlation between Reliability Engineering and Safety Integrates the concepts of Human Performance Improvement, Learning Teams, and Human Error Reduction approaches into RCA

The development industry is worth billions. International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) have become an integral component in international development and humanitarian response. Yet as recent scandals at Save the Children and Oxfam have highlighted, such organizations can overstep moral boundaries, raising questions about the scale, power and role of INGOs. Are they dedicated to continuous learning and self-improvement, or are they development dinosaurs driven by their own need for survival and by the political agendas of their paymasters?  Drawing upon his experience as an international development practitioner-one who has worked with NGOs large and small, international and local, in over 40 countries-and drawing also upon his own academic research, Terry Gibson addresses these questions head on. He combines large-scale industry analysis with attention to the lives and worlds of the people the aid industry aims to serve, and he demonstrates how to overcome barriers between the two worlds and free flows of learning, resources, and even political influences that might lead to better outcomes.  Making Aid Agencies Workis essential reading for practitioners and researchers, as well as for anyone concerned about the future of this vital area of human endeavour.

If you're an executive, manager, or anyone interested in leveraging AI within your organization, this is your guide. You'll understand exactly what AI is, learn how to identify AI opportunities, and develop and execute a successful AI vision and strategy. Alex Castrounis, business consultant and former IndyCar engineer and race strategist, examines the value of AI and shows you how to develop an AI vision and strategy that benefits both people and business. AI is exciting, powerful, and game changing--but too many AI initiatives end in failure. With this book, you'll explore the risks, considerations, trade-offs, and constraints for pursuing an AI initiative. You'll learn how to create better human experiences and greater business success through winning AI solutions and human-centered products. Use the book's AIPB Framework to conduct end-to-end, goal-driven innovation and value creation with AI Define a goal-aligned AI vision and strategy for stakeholders, including businesses, customers, and users Leverage AI successfully by focusing on concepts such as scientific innovation and AI readiness and maturity Understand the importance of executive leadership for pursuing AI initiatives "A must read for business executives and managers interested in learning about AI and unlocking its benefits. Alex Castrounis has simplified complex topics so that anyone can begin to leverage AI within their organization." - Dan Park, GM & Director, Uber "Alex Castrounis has been at the forefront of helping organizations understand the promise of AI and leverage its benefits, while avoiding the many pitfalls that can derail success. In this essential book, he shares his expertise with the rest of us." - Dean Wampler, Ph.D., VP, Fast Data Engineering at Lightbend

This book provides a comprehensive review of cloud philosophy, design principals, development trends as well as practical patterns to guide readers to understand, design and implement successful cloud-based solutions. This book provides both "hows" and "whys." It peers behind the buzz words such as machine learning, containers, and blockchains to help readers understand how to put those technologies into practical use. This unique book covers a broad spectrum of technologies of cloud computing.

You can launch a new app or website in days by piecing together frameworks and hosting on AWS. Implementation is no longer the problem. But that speed to market just makes it tougher to confirm that your team is actually building the right product. Ideal for agile teams and lean organizations, this guide includes 11 practical tools to help you collaborate on strategy, user research, and UX. Hundreds of real-world tips help you facilitate productive meetings and create good collaboration habits. Designers, developers, and product owners will learn how to build better products much faster than before. Topics include: Foundations for collaboration and facilitation: Learn how to work better together with your team, stakeholders, and clients Project strategy: Help teams align with shared goals and vision User research and personas: Identify and understand your users and share that vision with the broader organization Journey maps: Build better touchpoints that improve conversion and retention Interfaces and prototypes: Rightsize sketches and wireframes so you can test and iterate quickly

To really learn data science, you should not only master the tools--data science libraries, frameworks, modules, and toolkits--but also understand the ideas and principles underlying them. Updated for Python 3.6, this second edition of Data Science from Scratch shows you how these tools and algorithms work by implementing them from scratch. If you have an aptitude for mathematics and some programming skills, author Joel Grus will help you get comfortable with the math and statistics at the core of data science, and with the hacking skills you need to get started as a data scientist. Packed with new material on deep learning, statistics, and natural language processing, this updated book shows you how to find the gems in today's messy glut of data. Get a crash course in Python Learn the basics of linear algebra, statistics, and probability--and how and when they're used in data science Collect, explore, clean, munge, and manipulate data Dive into the fundamentals of machine learning Implement models such as k-nearest neighbors, Naïve Bayes, linear and logistic regression, decision trees, neural networks, and clustering Explore recommender systems, natural language processing, network analysis, MapReduce, and databases

Today, many businesses and corporations are moving their on premises IT Infrastructure to the Cloud. There are numerous advantages to do doing so, including on-demand service, scalability, and fixed pricing. As a result, the Cloud has become a popular target of cyber-based attacks. Although an ISP is often charged with keeping virtual infrastructure secure, it is not safe to assume this. Back-up measures must be taken. This book explains how to guard against cyber-attacks by adding another layer of protection to the most valuable data in the Cloud: customer information and trade secrets.

In 1998 Gower published the highly successful third edition of Corporate Fraud by Michael Comer. Sadly, the need for such books has not disappeared - if anything it has increased - with cases such as Enron, WorldCom and the Allied Irish Bank and so this volume concentrates on the practicalities of investigating and recovering from fraud. Fraud can be prevented by secure processes and by ensuring that people allowed access to them are honest. This is easier said than done; failures will occur and every company needs contingency plans as a safety net. Contrary to popular belief, corporate fraud happens to good companies and effective managers. What is crucial is your reaction when suspicions are first aroused - fraud changes from a problem to a disaster mainly because people's initial response is ineffective. This book is a comprehensive action plan for organizations that are victims of corporate fraud. The aim is to help make sure that you can react swiftly and effectively, recover your money, your costs with interest and punish the offenders so that a deterrent is established for others. Most importantly the book will help you return to normal working as quickly as possible. It is highly practical, featuring checklists and case examples throughout. Applying his extraordinary experience, keen insight and vast practical knowledge, Mike Comer is able to take a unique position in showing organizations what they can do and what their rights are. His writing style is entertaining and enlightening - this is no dry, laborious and incomprehensible legal reference. You will find Investigating Corporate Fraud a fascinating and invaluable source of practical expert guidance on a subject strewn with potential dangers.

Global capitalism is currently suffering from an unmistakable malaise, epitomized by wide and growing inequality that is eroding popular support for capitalism. Such anti-capitalist sentiment, coupled with a growing anti-globalization mood, delivered Brexit in a UK referendum and swept Donald Trump to the US presidency. In Capitalism in the 21st Century, internationally well-regarded economist Dr Donghyun Park articulately explains why more capitalism is needed to tackle global problems such as climate change and inhumane poverty. While defending capitalism against its unfair demonization, the author makes a positive case for entrepreneurial capitalism, which creates wealth and jobs as well as drives human progress. According to the author, reforming the financial industry, which has become a self-serving leviathan, and more fundamentally, tweaking the economic role of the government, which stifles growth-promoting entrepreneurship, are critical to restoring the vitality of capitalism. The book is explicitly written in such a way that the general reader without any background in economics or finance can easily understand it.

Confronting Prejudice and Discrimination: The Science of Changing Minds and Behaviors focuses on confrontation as a strategy for reducing bias and discrimination. The volume tackles questions that people face when they wish to confront bias: What factors influence people's decisions to confront or ignore bias in its various forms? What are the motives and consequences of confrontation? How can confrontation be approached individually, through education and empowerment, and in specific contexts (e.g., health care) to yield favourable outcomes? These questions are paramount in contemporary society, where confrontation of bias is increasingly evident. Moreover, great strides in the scientific study of confrontation in the past 20 years has yielded valuable insights and answers. This volume is an essential resource for students and researchers with an interest in prejudice and prejudice reduction, and will also be valuable to non-academics who wish to stand up to bias through confrontation.

This volume offers a rare mix of interpretive chapters and primary sources that will be of value to anyone interested in learning about important disability-related issues from the perspective of disabled people themselves. * Collects key primary documents and important analyses, provided by one of the leading scholars in the field of disability studies * Weaves together decades of disability studies and disability history research in a well-rounded manner * Reflects the author's expertise and gives readers access to important voices in perspectives chapters * Arms readers with knowledge about what issues concern people with disabilities in the 21st century

Examines the many issues raised by TIF, the most widely used tool of local economic and community development.

Since Bitcoin appeared in 2009, the digital currency has been hailed as an Internet marvel and decried as the preferred transaction vehicle for all manner of criminals. It has left nearly everyone without a computer science degree confused: Just how do you "mine" money from ones and zeros? The answer lies in a technology called blockchain, which can be used for much more than Bitcoin. A general-purpose tool for creating secure, decentralized, peer-to-peer applications, blockchain technology has been compared to the Internet itself in both form and impact. Some have said this tool may change society as we know it. Blockchains are being used to create autonomous computer programs known as "smart contracts," to expedite payments, to create financial instruments, to organize the exchange of data and information, and to facilitate interactions between humans and machines. The technology could affect governance itself, by supporting new organizational structures that promote more democratic and participatory decision making. Primavera De Filippi and Aaron Wright acknowledge this potential and urge the law to catch up. That is because disintermediation--a blockchain's greatest asset--subverts critical regulation. By cutting out middlemen, such as large online operators and multinational corporations, blockchains run the risk of undermining the capacity of governmental authorities to supervise activities in banking, commerce, law, and other vital areas. De Filippi and Wright welcome the new possibilities inherent in blockchains. But as Blockchain and the Law makes clear, the technology cannot be harnessed productively without new rules and new approaches to legal thinking.

Learn the basics of Data Science through an easy to understand conceptual framework and immediately practice using RapidMiner platform. Whether you are brand new to data science or working on your tenth project, this book will show you how to analyze data, uncover hidden patterns and relationships to aid important decisions and predictions. Data Science has become an essential tool to extract value from data for any organization that collects, stores and processes data as part of its operations. This book is ideal for business users, data analysts, business analysts, engineers, and analytics professionals and for anyone who works with data. You'll be able to: Gain the necessary knowledge of different data science techniques to extract value from data. Master the concepts and inner workings of 30 commonly used powerful data science algorithms. Implement step-by-step data science process using using RapidMiner, an open source GUI based data science platform Data Science techniques covered: Exploratory data analysis, Visualization, Decision trees, Rule induction, k-nearest neighbors, Naïve Bayesian classifiers, Artificial neural networks, Deep learning, Support vector machines, Ensemble models, Random forests, Regression, Recommendation engines, Association analysis, K-Means and Density based clustering, Self organizing maps, Text mining, Time series forecasting, Anomaly detection, Feature selection and more...

The importance of databases and information systems to the functioning of 21st century life is indisputable.This book presents papers from the 13th International Baltic Conference on Databases and Information Systems, held in Trakai, Lithuania, from 1- 4 July 2018. Since the first of these events in 1994, the Baltic DB&IS has proved itself to be an excellent forum for researchers, practitioners and PhD students to deliver and share their research in the field of advanced information systems, databases and related areas. For the 2018 conference, 69 submissions were received from 15 countries. Each paper was assigned for review to at least three referees from different countries. Following review, 24 regular papers were accepted for presentation at the conference, and from these presented papers the 14 best-revised papers have been selected for publication in this volume, together with a preface and three invited papers written by leading experts. The selected revised and extended papers present original research results in a number of subject areas: information systems, requirements and ontology engineering; advanced database systems; internet of things; big data analysis; cognitive computing; and applications and case studies. These results will contribute to the further development of this fast-growing field, and will be of interest to all those working with advanced information systems, databases and related areas.

With a mixture of theory, examples, and well-integrated figures, Embedded Software for the IoT helps the reader understand the details in the technologies behind the devices used in the Internet of Things. It provides an overview of IoT, parameters of designing an embedded system, and good practice concerning code, version control and defect-tracking needed to build and maintain a connected embedded system. After presenting a discussion on the history of the internet and the word wide web the book introduces modern CPUs and operating systems. The author then delves into an in-depth view of core IoT domains including: Wired and wireless networking Digital filters Security in embedded and networked systems Statistical Process Control for Industry 4.0 This book will benefit software developers moving into the embedded realm as well as developers already working with embedded systems.

Embedded Systems: A Contemporary Design Tool, Second Edition Embedded systems are one of the foundational elements of today's evolving and growing computer technology. From operating our cars, managing our smart phones, cleaning our homes, or cooking our meals, the special computers we call embedded systems are quietly and unobtrusively making our lives easier, safer, and more connected. While working in increasingly challenging environments, embedded systems give us the ability to put increasing amounts of capability into ever-smaller and more powerful devices. Embedded Systems: A Contemporary Design Tool, Second Edition introduces you to the theoretical hardware and software foundations of these systems and expands into the areas of signal integrity, system security, low power, and hardware-software co-design. The text builds upon earlier material to show you how to apply reliable, robust solutions to a wide range of applications operating in today's often challenging environments. Taking the user's problem and needs as your starting point, you will explore each of the key theoretical and practical issues to consider when designing an application in today's world. Author James Peckol walks you through the formal hardware and software development process covering: Breaking the problem down into major functional blocks; Planning the digital and software architecture of the system; Utilizing the hardware and software co-design process; Designing the physical world interface to external analog and digital signals; Addressing security issues as an integral part of the design process; Managing signal integrity problems and reducing power demands in contemporary systems; Debugging and testing throughout the design and development cycle; Improving performance. Stressing the importance of security, safety, and reliability in the design and development of embedded systems and providing a balanced treatment of both the hardware and the software aspects, Embedded Systems: A Contemporary Design Tool, Second Edition gives you the tools for creating embedded designs that solve contemporary real-world challenges.

Dr. Alireza Tavakkoli¿s Game Development and Simulation with Unreal Technology covers the latest version of Unreal Technology. Since the 1990s Epic Games, Inc. has been leading the revolution of gaming graphics and Artificial Intelligence. Now, unreal technology is one of the most potent and prominent engines that is currently used in games. Its influence can be spotted in classic triple A titles like, Fortnite, Gears of War 2, Borderlands 2, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Tavakkoli goes into detail concerning the creation of game level designs, blueprint coding, shader programing, as well as artificial intelligence concepts to help readers in creating their own games. Game Development also includes a number of practice friendly extensions and concept modules to help solidify the reader¿s understanding of concepts and techniques. The book is divided into three sections that act as building blocks in order to facilitate the comprehension of the material. Key Features: Provides beginner level through advanced concepts in blueprint programming with the Unreal Engine 4.18 Hundreds of small/mid-scale projects developed as concept examples throughout the book which can be utilized in more comprehensive entertaining interactive computer simulations and games Chapter exercises will take the readers¿ understanding of Unreal Engine to the next level.

Heterogeneous Computing Architectures: Challenges and Vision provides an updated vision of the state-of-the-art of heterogeneous computing systems, covering all the aspects related to their design: from the architecture and programming models to hardware/software integration and orchestration to real-time and security requirements. The transitions from multicore processors, GPU computing, and Cloud computing are not separate trends, but aspects of a single trend-mainstream; computers from desktop to smartphones are being permanently transformed into heterogeneous supercomputer clusters. The reader will get an organic perspective of modern heterogeneous systems and their future evolution.

In the era before IoT, the world wide web, internet, web 2.0 and social media made people's lives comfortable by providing web services and enabling access personal data irrespective of their location. Further, to save time and improve efficiency, there is a need for machine to machine communication, automation, smart computing and ubiquitous access to personal devices. This need gave birth to the phenomenon of Internet of Things (IoT) and further to the concept of Internet of Everything (IoE). This book aims to present different aspects of IoE, challenges faced by IoE and its applications, divided into 8 chapters. This multifaceted coverage of the various verticals and IoT layers is the main attraction of this book.

The exceptional weakness of the American labor movement has often been attributed to the successful resistance of American employers to unionization and collective bargaining. However, the ideology deployed against labor's efforts to organize at the grassroots level has received less attention. In Citizen Employers, Jeffrey Haydu compares the very different employer attitudes and experiences that guided labor-capital relations in two American cities, Cincinnati and San Francisco, in the period between the Civil War and World War I. His account puts these attitudes and experiences into the larger framework of capitalist class formation and businessmen's collective identities. Cincinnati and San Francisco saw dramatically different developments in businessmen's class alignments, civic identities, and approach to unions. In Cincinnati, manufacturing and commercial interests joined together in a variety of civic organizations and business clubs. These organizations helped members overcome their conflicts and identify their interests with the good of the municipal community. That pervasive ideology of "business citizenship" provided much of the rationale for opposing unions. In sharp contrast, San Francisco's businessmen remained divided among themselves, opted to side with white labor against the Chinese, and advocated treating both unions and business organizations as legitimate units of economic and municipal governance. Citizen Employers closely examines the reasons why these two bourgeoisies, located in comparable cities in the same country at the same time, differed so radically in their degree of unity and in their attitudes toward labor unions, and how their views would ultimately converge and harden against labor by the 1920s. With its nuanced depiction of civic ideology and class formation and its application of social movement theory to economic elites, this book offers a new way to look at employer attitudes toward unions and collective bargaining. That new approach, Haydu argues, is equally applicable to understanding challenges facing the American labor movement today.

Most Americans pay little attention to the massive number of elections that occur at the state level every year. Yet cumulatively, a party's success in state-level races across the country can produce major shifts in policymaking and governance. That is precisely what has happened in the USsince 2010. In a wave election that year, the Republican Party began their ascendancy in state-level elections, and by 2016 had solidified their dominance. The party now fully controls 25 state legislatures and governorships-one of the largest advantages either party has had since the New Deal.After the GOP wave, a broad swathe of states began considering and enacting a near-identical set of conservative priorities-often even using the exact same text. Where did this flood of new legislation come from? How did so many states arrive at the same proposals at precisely the same time? AsAlexander Hertel-Fernandez shows in the eye-opening State Capture, the answer can be found in a trio of powerful interest groups: the Koch Brothers-run Americans for Prosperity (AFP), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and the State Policy Network (SPN). Drawing from an impressiveevidence base, Hertel-Fernandez explains how, since the 1970s, conservative activists, wealthy donors, and big businesses constructed a right-wing "troika" of overlapping and influential lobbying groups.But it is about more than this. It also teases out how conservative-corporate mobilization has fostered epochal shifts in the American political economy: the decline of unions, party polarization, and the skyrocketing concentration of wealth.State Capture will be essential reading for anyoneinterested in understanding contemporary American politics.

This book presents an integrated systems approach to manufacturing and business enterprise. Traditionally, these topics are treated as separate and independent subjects, but the practical fact is that the manufacturing and the business enterprises are intertwined. Currently, there is no book on the market that addresses both subjects from an integrated systems engineering approach with a manufacturing engineering foundation. Topics covered include engineering process, systems modeling, business enterprise, forecasting, inventory management, product design, and project management. Features Provides in-depth treatment of modern manufacturing processes, systems, and tools Uses an integrated systems life-cycle approach to manufacturing and business Includes business proposals Discusses prototype manufacturing and/or business development processes Presents concepts, steps, and procedures for achieving an integrated enterprise of manufacturing and business ;/LI> Presents concepts, steps, and procedures for achieving an integrated enterprise of manufacturing and business

Human resource departments are key components in the people management system of nearly every medium-to-large organization in the industrial world. They provide a wide range of essential services relating to employees, including recruitment, compensation, benefits, training, and labor relations. A century ago, however, before the concept of human resource management had been invented, the supervision and care of employees at even the largest companies were conducted without written policies or formal planning, and often in harsh, arbitrary, and counterproductive ways. How did companies such as United States Steel manage a workforce of 160,000 employees at dozens of plants without a specialized personnel or industrial relations department? What led some of these organizations to introduce human resources practices at the end of the nineteenth century? How were the earliest personnel departments structured and what were their responsibilities? And how did the theory and implementation of human resources management evolve, both within industry and as an academic field of research and teaching? In Managing the Human Factor, Bruce E. Kaufman chronicles the origins and early development of human resource management (HRM) in the United States from the 1870s, when the Labor Problem emerged as the nation's primary domestic policy concern, to 1933 and the start of the New Deal. Through new archival research, an extensive review and synthesis of the historical and contemporary literatures, and case studies illustrating best (and worst) practices during this period, Kaufman identifies the fourteen ideas, events, and movements that led to the creation of specialized HRM departments in the late 1910s, as well as their further growth and development into strategic business units in the welfare capitalism period of the 1920s. The research presented in this book not only uncovers many new aspects of the early development of personnel and industrial relations but also challenges central parts of the contemporary interpretation of the concept and evolution of HRM. Rich with insights on both the present and past of human resource management, Managing the Human Factor will be widely regarded as the definitive account of the early history of employee management in American companies and a must-read for all those interested in the indispensable function of managing people in organizations.

The Organizational Learning Cycle was the first book to provide the theory that underpins organizational learning. Its sophisticated approach enabled readers to not only understand how, but more importantly why, organizations are able to learn. This new edition takes the original concepts and theories and shows how they might, and are, being put into action. With five new or completely revised chapters, Nancy Dixon describes the kind of infrastructure organizations need to put in place; there are examples of knowledge databases, whole systems in the room processes and after-action reviews originating from organizations that are making real progress with these ideas. A clearer relationship between organizational learning and more participative forms of organizational governance is drawn, along with responsibilities that employees need to take on to enable, and partake in, collective learning. With new case material from BP, the US Army, Ernst and Young, and the Bank of Montreal, for example, this book shows how you can make use of the collective reasoning, intelligence and knowledge of the organization and channel it into its ongoing and future development.

Quantum computers are poised to kick-start a new computing revolution--and you can join in right away. If you're in software engineering, computer graphics, data science, or just an intrigued computerphile, this book provides a hands-on programmer's guide to understanding quantum computing. Rather than labor through math and theory, you'll work directly with examples that demonstrate this technology's unique capabilities. Quantum computing specialists Eric Johnston, Nic Harrigan, and Mercedes Gimeno-Segovia show you how to build the skills, tools, and intuition required to write quantum programs at the center of applications. You'll understand what quantum computers can do and learn how to identify the types of problems they can solve. This book includes three multichapter sections: Programming for a QPU--Explore core concepts for programming quantum processing units, including how to describe and manipulate qubits and how to perform quantum teleportation. QPU Primitives--Learn algorithmic primitives and techniques, including amplitude amplification, the Quantum Fourier Transform, and phase estimation. QPU Applications--Investigate how QPU primitives are used to build existing applications, including quantum search techniques and Shor's factoring algorithm.